A Brief Lunacy by Cynthia Thayer

Author:Cynthia Thayer
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2005-09-10T07:00:00+00:00

14

JESSIE

I KNOW I TOOK a chance. A stupid chance.

“Ralph?” he says.

There’s no such person. Ralph? Ralph? Jonah spits as he yells “Ralph” and shoots a hole in the couch, which splits the already fraying cover, and one in my beautiful yellow pine table. I think there are six bullets in a cylinder but I don’t mention it because perhaps Jonah has lost track. One in the floor, one in the couch, and then the table. That means there are three left. Then I remember the window. Two left. One for each of us. None left for Sylvie. I think there are more bullets on the shelf. Are there? Carl? Are there?

“I like this shooting,” Jonah says. “I like the noise. I like the fluffy white stuffing spread all over that cover. Don’t you like the fluff, Carl?”

Carl looks up but says nothing. He has shrunk today. Like a diminishment of stature. I take this moment, the moment when Jonah is concentrating on Carl, to shift my position, cover myself.

“What about the Bible, Jonah?” I ask. “Do you mind if I read something in it? We could talk about you. About your mother. I’m sure she loved you. All mothers love their children.”

“How would you know? And you don’t know my mother. She’s dead. I want to hear about Carl, here. I think he has a story to tell, don’t you, Mr. Man?”

It’s as if Carl has vanished. His bulk sags into the chair, ankles still taped to the chair legs, but Dr. Carl, miracle mender of corroded joints, has gone. He avoids my eyes. He looks at nothing. Was it last night that we made love? I can’t imagine. It’s dead. His sack. His manhood. The part of him that slides into me while he breathes on my mouth. Gone.

“Well, Carl? Tell us a story.”

“No,” he says. His lips barely move when he whispers the word.

“How about that last drawing. Hold it up for us. That’s right. What do you think, Mrs. Model? You like it?”

I’m spread open in black and white, like Eliot’s “patient etherised upon a table.” There’s no detail, just limbs and in the center a great gaping hole. I don’t like it. My clothes are nearby and I consider trying to put them back on. I’m cold and the towel is only a small bath towel. It’s October and the kitchen window is open. An osprey drops his fish on the beach. The gulls leave their boulder to fight over it. Am I in the same house? The house we live in? It would be easy to slip away to that place where crazy people go. I’m almost there. And there is Harry in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, howling for his long-dead mother. Why do I think of Harry?

“So, Mr. Carl, you’re not a Jew. What were you doing in the camp? Your mama really get shot behind you? Running away?”

Carl searches my face. I must have told Sylvie. I must have. I’m not sure Carl even remembers telling me.

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