Finally, he lets the neck of the bottle go. It drops limply into the mess. His hand is white from the death grip he had on it. I look at him, shocked and not shocked, stunned and not stunned. But something gives way inside of me, and the words come before I know what’s happening.
“You fuck,” I heave, furious. He can see it. For the first time since we’ve entered my studio, he smiles. A vague, deranged smile. A mean smile. Glee at my weakness. My emotion. At his ability to pull this from me like stitches from flesh. He snatches up the bottleneck again and holds the jagged, glinting point about a centimeter from his own jugular.
“I ought to, huh?” he cries. “Give everybody a little relief? Huh?” Everybody? I just look at him, dumbfounded. The scene feels surreal. Hyperreal. The light from the fixture above the table is suddenly too bright. The broken bottle in his hand too green. The wine splashed here and there too red. Bloodred. He has never been quite like this before. “All of this is wrong, Audra,” he says suddenly, a small droplet of red wine clinging to his cheek. Several icy seconds of silence pass between us as I just look at him, his throat, the bottle, barely breathing. He is gently listing to the left, eyes devil red, lips stained.
“You listen here, you self-obsessed piece of shit. Get it together. You’re acting like a child. Throwing a fit over your own insecurity,” I hiss. “You disgust me.” Every ounce of derision that’s been burbling in me inflects the words, makes them blades. His face slackens. He swallows. “Now,” I say in my full voice. “What are you going to do with that thing in your hand?” He looks at it. It takes him a few moments to bring it into focus, I can tell. It’s like he’s realizing it’s sharp for the first time. My heart thuds in my chest.
Is this the moment?
His arm drops. Slowly. I watch every millimeter of motion. Then he tosses the broken bottleneck onto the table. His shoulders relax. I swallow. He isn’t going to do it. Not right now. He brings his hands to his face and rubs up and down again under his glasses, then his hands drop. He looks transformed. What had just been tense, taut, and primed for destruction is now flaccid, exhausted, and drained. The high color fades from his face, neck, chest. Like a light switch. A flash flood. Here and then gone.
“I deem your progress sufficient.” His voice is a little spiteful and cragged but jarring in its normalcy. “I’m going back downstairs.” He turns and makes his way across the creaking floor then heads down the staircase into the garage and out of sight.
I stand there, in the same spot in my studio, for a few minutes, eyes resting in the pooled mash of shredded canvas, burgundy wine, and emerald glass. I realize my adrenaline had been up, up, up in those few, intense minutes—and now it is coming back down. My knees feel like jelly. I want to sit but don’t. Max came the closest he’s ever come to hurting himself in front of me. I’ve heard through the grapevine that he’s teetered on such an edge with clandestine lovers behind the door of his Beacon Hill apartment. I’ve heard of the seeming thrill it gives him to manipulate someone with the threat of hurting himself, what a release it is for him to see them jump as high as he asks to get him to keep from following through. You can’t tell the institute about us, you can’t tell Switzer. Do you understand what that would do to me? To us? But this crescendo had ultimately crashed. Like all the other ones apparently had. But the way he looked just now…it felt close.
I finally lift my eyes from the mess on the table. I take out my phone and snap pictures of the destruction. Then I take a video, slowly circling around the room, quietly narrating what has just transpired, my voice sincerely trembling from time to time. I had always meant to have evidence of his explosive behavior. I hadn’t expected it to look like this. So terrible, so perfect.
Then I pick up every shard of glass Max shattered all over my tables, my rugs. I sop up all the red wine. I look down at my destroyed canvas. Max’s sudden moods are some of the reasons why I made multiples. An apple series. A wing series. A rope series. There was more than enough intermedia ephemera to work with. There was no way he could destroy it all in one go, no matter how out-of-control he became. No matter how much he understood by the time we got here.
The worktable has a few faint, red splotches soaked into the wood. Worse are the scrapes and gashes from Max’s hatchet job, but I’ve cleaned it up as best I can.
I stand there for several long minutes. I know I have to go downstairs, but I’m afraid of what I’ll walk into. I always knew it would get intense. That I would have to press on his weaknesses, his faults, his pressure points. That doing so might have consequences before I could finally remove him from my life. But being inside of it, inside of his unpredictable reactions, his jealousy, his fury, his aggression—dark memories pushing to the surface—it’s different than just imagining it, anticipating it. I’ve set something in motion, and I must keep a handle on it. I must see it through.
Max Durant must die.
Thesis
Her Dark Things by Audra Colfax
Piece #5: Anything for the Baby
Oil and mixed media on canvas. 48″ x 24″.
[Close-up of a rippled swath of copper-honey fabric, draped like warm butterscotch in countless folds, with fine, black tassels spilling off the left edge of the canvas. Found objects incorporated throughout by layering.]
Note on graph paper found folded in a Ladies’ Home Journal at the Dunn residence.
I kind of miss my parents.
the apartment me and Brady have is a little dingy and small and
it doesn’t get the best light in the daytime and I’m finding that the lack
of light is not helping my moods.
I’m trying the meds again
to be better for
the baby
not drown for the baby.
I want to be good for the baby but feel like
wilting fern
dying grass
a sunflower stalk with a broken neck, halved on itself that’s us in here
or me, anyway.
Brady seems alright
the baby, I don’t know
I wonder if it can feel
the lack of light too, somehow.
But I’m trying
healthy meals, long walks, therapy
shoulder rubs from Brady, gentle music.
I hope
the baby can feel that.
That I’m trying.
—July88. CD.
Note on yellow legal paper found folded under a drawer liner in Cindy Dunn’s dresser at the Dunn residence.
I just cry ALL the time now
even with
(M) even
when I take them to my
FAVORITE place to my boulder and birch
through the WOODS
to my clearing
even then it’s not enough
our secret treks our
clandestine expeditions
even then I cannot be
an artist without my mind
free I cannot be an artist
but I am not one of them M says
so he sketches me like that
he loves it
crying
again and again and again
because what else can we
do
—July88. CD.
Note in tiny handwriting on food-stained scratch paper found tucked behind a photo of Cindy Dunn and her mother in a picture frame at the Dunn residence.
My body is changing and feels
odd and ALIEN to me alien to me outside of me BEYOND ME and gets
odder and more alien with each passing day
there’s a DENSITY inside of me I feel like I don’t have
access
to anymore this pocket of space where
the baby the baby the baby the baby the baby the ba
by
is like a black hole HEAVY inescapable
a place inside of me that doesn’t even belong to me anymore
and instead of feeling GRACIOUS about it viewing it as an
expansion of my temple for a new sacred room
it feels like I’m being SIPHONED
reappropriated
CUT away
leaving me with less
the FOX and her KIT
gnawing glistening little TEETH
to get myself back I’m pausing the meds
I need myself back I NEED NEED NEED
to feel a different better kind of way
I’ll try ANYTHING for the baby for me
for us
M thinks it’s a good idea
M thinks I’ve got it just right
—Aug88. CD.
Entry in a journal found hidden inside Cindy Dunn’s suitcase in the Dunn residence.
Brady says I can draw my
DOODLES right here he sometimes calls them
doodles
and I fucking HATE that
he tells me to use that energy to draw
YOU things, baby
to draw you little pictures and frame them for your nursery
or do a MURAL on your bedroom wall and then I sit down and
TRY to do that while he’s out, while he’s
away from me, and they start off as sweet, rounded, cartoonish
and THEN
—Aug88. CD.
Drawing on sketchbook paper found in a plastic pencil box under the steps of a cabin at Lupine Valley.
[A parade of animals. Hippopotamuses and giraffes, squeaky and shiny and bright and in pairs. These are mommy and baby animals. A rough sketch in charcoal pencil.]
Title: For Baby.
—Aug88. CD.
Drawing on water-stained sketchbook paper found in a plastic pencil box under the porch at the Dunn residence.
[A parade of animals. Hippopotamuses and giraffes, alligators, kangaroos, bears, snakes, rhinos. Shaded toward black and in pairs. Each pair grows more and more gruesome and evil and dark as you look down the page. Any visible teeth are emphasized, sharp. Any visible nails or claws are emphasized, sharp. These are mommy and baby animals. The baby animals look meaner than the mommy animals. A croc biting through its mother’s neck. A joey kicking its mommy the wrong way, right in her organs. A bear cub opening up its mother’s stomach and eating from it like a pot of honey. A polished drawing in charcoal and colored pencil.]
Title: For Baby.
—Aug88. CD.
Six
The Forest Swallowed Her
Juniper
July 11, 1988
“Shit,” Zephyr coughs, laughing. The sound of her laugh is somehow like wind chimes ringing inside a rainbow. I smile and squeeze her thigh, just once, then twice, now rhythmically. I shut my eyes and breathe in the night air. I smell pine. Woodsmoke. Pot smoke. Zephyr’s citrusy perfume. The bonfire crackles and spits. I hear Mantis laughing now, across the clearing, beyond the bonfire. A deeper wind chime inside a silver fog. The laugh-chatter chases itself ’round and ’round, creating a dulcet harmony, a swirling, prismatic fog. I open my eyes. Zephyr and I are sitting on a log near the fire. Directly across from us sit Mantis and Coral on another log. To my right sit Ash, Barley, Trillium, and Moss on a wool blanket spread out on the ground. Barley is eating a charred, red-snapper hot dog off a stick, and Ash is watching him with disgust. Moss and Trill talk, close. I watch Moss pass a glowing blunt over to her. He watches her breathe, hold, puff. He smiles.
We’re back in Coral’s Clearing, with its birches that go silver in the moonlight. It’s become the official unofficial hang spot for us. Away from the rest of Lupine Valley and the artists with eyes trained on us as we pack together at picnic tables and laugh over black coffees. Eyes trained on Moss as he draws us nearer. Mantis and his broad shoulders. Coral and her electric eyes. The Painters. It feels like a little room, this clearing. Hemmed in by living walls. A bonfire spot tattooed in the earth.
We’ve been out here for a few hours and have spoken of many things, but I can’t remember them all just now. New York City. Past lovers. How the fading light over the lake at sunset is like a strawberry-and-orange marmalade smear.
“Bitch, you’re fucked,” Zephyr says, her voice full of joy. I look over at her, realizing I’ve been looking through the licking flames at Coral. I think about her a lot, when we’re together, when we’re not.
It was a blow to her to learn of the baby. The first several days after the announcement, she was in one of her bad ways. She told me she was terrified of what it might mean for school that same day, after the lake, as she was heading home. And then a few days later, she came to me crying, saying that school would not be happening. Not right now. So I held her and let her cry it out. And then I drove us both into town for a good meal at Thelma’s Landing. But since those first rocky days, I’ve seen her smile. And laugh. And sing to her tummy. She’s come to me with some of her sketches, eyes earnest, asking for notes. She’s sat in with Zeph as she works on her tiles, sipping green tea and asking thoughtful questions. She’s asked Trillium to meditate with her when she starts to feel down. She has her tools, and she’s using them. I’m proud of her.
And she and Brady have moved in together. She and Brady are building a family, and I think that could be good for her. She sometimes ditches shifts, which she never did before, and Gus warns and scolds, but mostly she’s okay, and mostly she’s here. In fact, sometimes she comes to Lupine Valley when she’s not scheduled to work. In Focus, with Moss. To work on her art. Moss is helping her grow. In Mantis’s old pickup truck as they carpool back and forth from town, blasting AC/DC and singing loudly as they rumble up the road. She’s settling into something, a new rhythm, a new normal. Good for her.
My face must do something funny. Zephyr cackles. I feel her soft fingers pull through my curly, tangled bob like a harp. I close my eyes again.
“I’m out. My joint is gone,” Moss croaks.
“Our joint is gone,” Trillium corrects him, her voice a flirtatious pink ribbon curling in the wind, brushing against a cheek.
“Me, too, kiddos,” Mantis says, tipping the last of his beer into his mouth, eyes glassier than I’ve seen before. I lift my can of Genesee from the dirt and take a big gulp. Coral has been supremely good tonight, despite our bad behaviors. She’s had nothing to drink but tea from her thermos. Hasn’t smoked even a little.
Moss stands up, spears a hot dog on a stick, and stands near the fire to roast it. He looks over at Coral, who is drawing in her sketchbook, which is tucked up on her lap. Her arm is around it protectively.
“Does Old Gus eat anything other than beans and red snappers, by the way?” Trillium laughs as she watches Moss roast his hot dog. “Red snappers and beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it seems like sometimes. Makes me sick to think about.” I smile, knowing she’s basically right. He eats them all the time.
A peaceful quiet settles on us like a blanket. My eyes go blurry looking into the fire.
“You all know the story of Old Gus’s brother, right?” Mantis is picking his teeth with the nail of his pinky finger. I blink my eyes back into focus.
“Gus has a brother?” Ash asks.
“Had,” Mantis says, wiping his hand off on his jeans. Orange-yellow light leaps and jitters on our faces and the surrounding trees.
“I didn’t know that,” I say, somehow feeling hurt that I didn’t know this about him after all these years.
“Randall McCue.” Mantis braces his hands on the log and slides on his butt off into the dirt so he can use the log as a back rest. He grunts like a sore old man as he does it, the beer making him move slower. Coral has paused in her drawing. She looks down at Mantis, face warm and interested, sketchbook open. “Abo
ut ten years older than Gus. Went off to Stanford for college, got into investing, became really successful. Rich.” Crickets purr sweetly around us. “Got married to this woman named Autumn Francis, a Californian. A sculptor. Beautiful woman.” Mantis scratches his jaw, eyes in the fire. “Randall did so well, he was able to basically retire in his fifties. He and Autumn visited Maine several times in the meantime, and Autumn fell in love with it here. So they moved to Maine when he ‘retired.’ Randall bought this land we’re sitting on.”
“Lupine Valley?” Moss asks.
Mantis nods. “Bought it for his wife. She had this vision, you see. An arts retreat in the woods of Maine.” He holds up his hand and squints one eye as if framing the scene. “They got going on it, Gus helping them square it all away, being the jack-of-all-trades that he is. They graded the driveway, cleared the brush, built the cabins. It took a couple of years, mostly just Gus and Autumn working on it, figuring out who to hire, all this. Gus has all the local connections, of course, and Randall is more hands-off. He knows this makes his wife happy, so that’s good enough for him. Plus, he gets to be the good guy by throwing a financial lifeline to his brother, who’d been this lost journeyman all his days. Everyone was happy. So Gus and Autumn started spending all this time together out here, working, getting to know each other. They both believed in Lupine Valley so much, in what it could mean to people, what an amazing place it could be.” Moss is sitting back on the blanket with Ash, Trillium, and Barley, red snapper going cold on his stick as he listens, rapt. “They fell in love. Started having an affair.”
“What? Old Gus?” Trillium gasps, her face delighted and scandalized. “No way.”
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