by Joe Derkacht
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What does an evil person really look like? She looked quite attractive, if not exactly beautiful. Light brown, sun-bleached hair cut in a soft wedge. Basically triangular face, nice eyes and cheekbones. Lips held in a thin, straight line, attempting a smile? I saw insecurity, if anything. Maybe she didn’t like having her picture taken. Maybe she found it difficult to smile for the camera in general? I couldn’t really condemn her for that.
A wallet-sized photo was tucked into the framed portrait’s lower left corner. In it a man stood at her side, both of them wearing swimsuits, hers a lime-green bikini. The scene was from a beach, Driftwood Bay’s, I supposed, though if I remembered anything about its waters, the combination of riptides and cold temperatures didn’t make for pleasant swimming. Behind them was a wall of driftwood. It took me a moment to realize the man was myself.
My arm was around her waist, my photographic self smiling down at her, while she stared into the camera. I wondered if she ever smiled, or if she had never found anything to smile about being married to me? Had I been her problem?
Zell said I would sleep better not thinking about her, and certainly I had slept well. The bigger truth was that I couldn’t even remember her name. If I’d ever felt anything for this woman, it was totally forgotten. Vaguely, I wondered if that was a good thing, if perhaps the things they’d done to me in the hospital had been of some benefit. What if I’d been suffering from a broken heart? Obsession? Or a thirst for revenge? What did I really know about myself?
I laid the framed portrait down as Zell had left it, and picked up the Copenhagen can from my nightstand. Popping the metal lid released a sudden welter of memories even as the fragrance filled my nostrils, of my father hand-planing a board at his workbench; of my father coming home from the woods, toting a chainsaw; of him gluing and clamping one of his custom-made chairs. In each of them, the familiar round impression of a Copenhagen can showed through the breast pocket of his work shirt.
Removing a pinch and lodging it between my cheek and gum line was as natural as breathing and seemed to immediately satisfy some inner longing.