by Brett Savory
Mr. Dale snapped his head back to meet the orderly’s eyes. The orderly wasn’t quite sure about the old man’s expression. It was somewhere between shock and delight, best he could make of it.
“Ah, right so,” the orderly nodded, “straight from the first day you come ’ere, too. I got it all down in a little black book.” He reached into his white coat and brought out the book. “Right from the first day, Jimmy. Right from the first day.”
Mr. Dale opened his mouth to speak, wonderment on his face, and instead started coughing again. When it subsided, he regarded the orderly with a look that a father might give his only son in a fit of love.
“By the gods, boy . . . ” Mr. Dale started, and couldn’t finish for the tears.
“I copied the first day’s writin’ down ’cause it were the start of a good story,” continued the orderly, “and I hoped ya’d finish it up so’s I could see what happened, y’know? I never told ya ’cause I didn’t want ya t’know I were stealin’ yer words and all.” He looked down at his hands then, and, ashamed, put the book gently back into his coat pocket. “After readin’ it all, Jimmy, I think I know why ya done what ya done t’all those folks. It’s like ya said: some things just are, and ya never meant fer none o’ it t’ happen.”
Mr. Dale hitched in a sob, and something like understanding crossed between himself and the orderly that had been copying down his confessions, his life story for the past three years. Tears gathered in the corners of Mr. Dale’s eyes and began to stream down his face, never making it to his ears for the deep grooves in the wrinkled parchment of his skin.
“I know it’s probably no my place or aught, but for what it’s worth, Jimmy . . . I forgive ya, old boy. I understand, and I forgive ya.”
Eyes so wet from crying, Mr. Dale could only try to blink the tears away. The orderly reached out a hand and gently wiped at them. He smiled down at Mr. Dale in a similar fit of love, like a son forgiving his father for a lifetime’s worth of hurt, realizing that none of it was his intention.
“What’s yer name, Jimmy?” Mr. Dale asked quietly.
“Me name’s Alec, Jimmy,” said the orderly, and smiled at their game.
“Thank ya, then, Alec. T’ fuck wi’ head-bashin’ and all.”
“Right so.”
Jimmy Dale stopped breathing, then, tears still drying on his face.
Alec wiped his eyes on his sleeve, pulled the little black book from his coat pocket, opened it to the first page, and began to read aloud.
JEWELS
Wha—
How did I get here?
Where the hell am I?
Punched in the face. She sees his lip curl into a sneer before he hits her. His ring—his wedding ring—splits her bottom lip. Another shot and her nose crunches, tears spring, blood floods from her nostrils. He yells something at her, but she can’t make it out. The blood is swirling in her ears.
Then his hands are around her throat, squeezing the air . . .
I am numb.
The crayons on the floor are the only things that connect me to reality.
How do I know that? Who am I?
All I need are my reds and blacks to draw him . . .
. . . from her lungs. He backhands her across the face and her head hits the wall behind her. Concrete. Stars explode. He doesn’t know where her crayons are, though, so maybe it’s not so bad . . .
He pushes her back against the wall—her head lolling in semi-consciousness—and drives himself into her again and again, one hand around her throat like a leash, blood dripping from her shattered nose in time with the ticking of the clock on the wall.
Where are my crayons? I hope he hasn’t taken them again.I promise I won’t draw the worms, dear. I wouldn’t do that to you. That would be cruel. You don’t deserve that.
But I still have to draw you, okay?
I still need to draw you . . .
As he climaxes, he squeezes her throat harder, the dim light coming from the corner of the room gobbled up by blackness and worms. They squirm under her eyelids, blotting out the failing light.
Breathing hard and licking his lips, he pulls out and lets her crumple to the floor . . .
How did I get here?
How did I get . . . ?
The woman sat cross-legged in her apartment, drawing a dead body on the wall.
Her husband’s dead body.
Red crayon for the blood, black crayon for the body. They are the only two colors she needs.
A puddle spreads out from her husband’s head like a crown, glistening in the shallow bedside light. It looked black, but she knew it was red. The same color as—
her crayon—
—blood. The woman wondered where it had come from.
She filled in the left leg of the body in her drawing. The black crayon broke in half before she finished.
Can’t use broken crayons. Broken crayons don’t work.
She reached behind her without looking, never taking her eyes off her drawing, and pulled another crayon from the blood-flecked sandwich bag that held her reds and blacks.
As she filled in the rest of the leg she remembered a time when there was white added to the red and black in her life. But she had known that wouldn’t last long. It never did.
She’d drawn and redrawn her lovers’ dead bodies on the white wall until nearly the entire room was covered. Slight of form, she could never reach even close to the ceiling in her room, though she desperately wanted to cover every square inch of white with the bodies. Her long, dark hair, tied back with an elastic, flowed nearly to her waist, and was cut straight across at the bangs, framing a thin face, full lips, the proverbial button nose, high cheekbones, olive skin, and soft, gold-flecked green eyes.
Whenever she drew the bodies, she’d bite gently on her bottom lip with her chipped teeth, and a small facial tick near the left corner of her eye would synchronize with the strokes of her crayon. The people that kept her in that room would come in a few times a day and ask her a million questions about the drawings.
Why only red and black, Julie? What did they do to you, Jules? What does drawing them do? How does that help?
Julie never spoke to any of them, though; she would just draw another body on the wall, curl into a ball, and fall asleep, the worms returning to squirm under her eyelids, like they always had.
But she liked it when people called her Jules.
One day she asked for a bright green crayon. She wrote “JEWELS” in big capital letters over the drawings of the bodies, filling one entire wall from end to end, then gave the green crayon back.
She thought of her drawings as jewels after that. She had never seen them as anything, really, until then. They were just art to her, like any other artist’s drawings. But once she thought of them as jewels, the name seemed perfect. The drawings were little jewels from her mind. It was fun to draw them, and she was very attached to each one.
Looking behind her at her husband’s body, the left leg finished in the drawing and only the head to do, her gaze fell on the steadily congealing puddle. She wondered again where it had come from; didn’t notice the splintered bone and gaping hole at the left temple of her husband’s head. The clock kept time with the blood still dripping from his wound, like it had done with Julie’s nose earlier.
She thought of how much fun it would be to be a clock. Just sitting there all day, ticking and tocking and watching people’s lives unfold before your eyes. Detached, but still a distinct part of everything that went on; keeping pace, keeping time, always keeping an eye out . . .
Julie glanced up at the clock—a German cuckoo with a little birdy that came out every half hour to remind you it was there, watching—and smiled. She stood up and waited for him to come out. It would be half past eight in three minutes.
When the birdie came out of the little brown door, Julie snatched at him and ripped him from his mechanical perch. She sat back down, crossing her legs, and turne
d around to her baggie of crayons, setting Cuckoo gently inside.
He would watch over them for her.
Men liked to take her crayons and hide them from her. They weren’t comfortable with the fact that she wanted to draw them. And once she had drawn someone, she noticed they never came back. She wondered where they went, and why it was such a big deal. She had only drawn them on the wall. What was so bad about that?
She had tried many times to understand this; felt sorry that the men disappeared once she’d drawn them, but decided that no one was worth giving up her art.
The only reason they let her leave the white place all those years ago was because she had stopped drawing for a while; they told her it was wrong to pursue her art. So she tried. For them. Because they seemed like nice enough people.
They were very happy and relieved when she stopped drawing the bodies. Even though she was miserable and wanted her crayons back (the worms under her eyelids were the worst they’d ever been), she let the people take them away. They said it was only until she was completely better, but she knew at that moment that she would need someone to watch over her reds and blacks if she ever got them back. But they were never returned and, when she was finally released, she had to go buy new ones.
She was quite obviously right that her crayons needed protecting, and Cuckoo was perfect for the job.
She smiled again at the thought, and looked at him through the plastic crayon bag.
He was on his side, nestled between two red crayons . . .
. . . two red slivers of bone that shot up into the air, followed by a gout of blood that brimmed up to the surface of the skin and streamed down his cheek. He screamed thin and high-pitched like a woman. She hit him with the claw end of the hammer again. More bone crunched, and he fell silent, slowly tipped over, gurgled, twitched . . .
. . . and, frowning, she realized someone would need to watch over her husband. He was the only one that had stayed after she’d drawn him. She supposed that had something to do with the rings they wore on their fingers. None of the others had shared rings with her. It was very nice of her husband to want to do that. She knew the rings made a difference. This jewel was special.
Besides, she was sure she could take care of her crayons on her own, though it would be nice to have someone watch over both her husband and her reds and blacks. But there was only one Cuckoo, and no other would be up to the job, she was certain.
Removing Cuckoo from the crayon baggie, she cupped him gently in her hands and slid her naked form across the floor through her husband’s blood and over to his side.
For the first time she noticed the jutting bone and bloody hole above his eye. Smiling, she lowered her hands to the wound—absently wondering where it had come from, but knowing that Cuckoo would surely take care of it—and placed him neatly between two splinters of bone. She tucked him in good and tight so he wouldn’t fall out.
Julie looked at her husband’s glazed, staring eyes, the worms squirming just beneath the surface of his skin; heard the clock ticking, keeping time; watched Cuckoo settle into his new home; glanced at the unfinished drawing on the wall, the head still needing to be colored in—
Her breath caught in her chest.
No. Nononono. I still have to finish him! Is that why he’s still here? Will he go away like the rest once I finish his head?
She grabbed at the crayon bag and scuttled on all fours over to the wall again, leaving a trail of blood from the body to the wall.
Hands shaking, heart thumping wildly, eyelids rapidly blinking, and biting her bottom lip hard enough that blood welled to the surface, she got a black crayon out and continued to color the head in, mumbling prayers she had memorized many, many years ago, not knowing what any of them meant, not understanding their importance.
And with every stroke of the crayon, a memory from a different part of her psyche, one that had been relegated to the shadows, to a dull ache, assuaged by the crayons:
. . . (stroke) . . . maybe I should shave my head so they won’t have my hair to grab me by anymore . . . (stroke) . . . don’t smile, honey; your teeth, remember? your teeth . . . (stroke, and tears well in her eyes) . . . i am so numb. i feel nothing. i am nothing . . . (stroke, and half of her husband’s head is colored in) . . .
She looked behind her and, through a film of tears, saw that her husband was still there, and that Cuckoo was holding his post, watching out for him.
She had promised she would not draw the worms, even though she could see them, could feel them wriggling under his skin; under her eyelids. She had promised and she couldn’t break that trust.
Draw him, Cuckoo said. Draw the motherfucker. Just how you see him, Julie. Draw him. Just. How. You see him.
She did not know that Cuckoo could talk.
. . . (STROKE, and she breaks the crayon in half; fumbles for a new one in the baggie) . . . only eleven years old. Eleven. Eleven. But I didn’t draw him and he never went away . . . (STROKE) . . . Never . . . (STROKE) . . . Went . . . (STROKE) . . . AWAY! . . .
. . . (stroke, and his head is three-quarters filled in) . . .
She brought the crayon away from the drawing, shaking, her knuckles white, sweat and tears streaming in rivulets, cutting through the dried blood on her face.
“But I promised, then as now . . . not to draw the worms,” Julie whispered, staring at the drawing, imploring Cuckoo where he sat perched on blood and bone.
Just draw what you see, Julie, Cuckoo said. She turned around again and looked at him, then looked at her husband . . . and saw the worms. Not only under the skin of his face anymore, though. Everywhere. They were bubbling inside him. She could hear them squishing around inside his carcass.
Draw what you see, hon. Draw what you feel.
Cuckoo paused for a moment. The clock stopped ticking.
They aren’t jewels, love. They were never jewels . . .
It was then that Julie realized Cuckoo wasn’t here to protect her husband or her crayons. Cuckoo was hers; was here to protect her.
Cuckoo is mine, she thought, and smiled through her tears . . .
When she’d bought her new crayons (going through the packages and throwing away all but the reds and blacks), she had remembered when she’d needed to use the green crayon that one day. So she decided to keep one from her new batch, just in case.
Reaching behind her, she fumbled around in the plastic baggie until she felt the green one. It had a different energy to it, and she instantly knew when she’d touched it. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she pulled it out of the bag.
Dropping the black crayon to the floor, she switched the green one to her right hand, raised it to the uncolored part of her husband’s drawn head—the part where the hole and the bone splinters and Cuckoo were—and began to fill it in with green, each stroke, again, a memory . . .
“No more jewels,” she muttered.
The clock began ticking again.
“No more Jules, either. I fucking hate that. My name is Julie.”
She heard the squelching of the worms behind her, and her husband’s voice pleading with her not to draw the worms; she had promised.
You fucking bitch, you said you wouldn’t!
Now there were two voices, from two different times in her life. But it didn’t matter anymore because she was drawing them: Bright green worms.
She was drawing what she saw, just like Cuckoo said to do.
With every one she created, something clicked back into place in her mind, and she began to remember everything: being pushed down stairs, punched in the ribs, kicked in the teeth, raped, strangled, spat on, pissed on, yelled at for nothing, violated and humiliated in every conceivable fucking way.
She saw it all in her new drawing, saw it all coming to hideous life in the worms. They squirmed on the wall where she’d drawn them, some flopping to the floor and wriggling around in the blood.
Her husband and . . . the man from many
years ago were both screaming now, but the words, if there were any, were unintelligible, overlapped—just a cacophony of vehemence that dissolved to pitiful pleading with every worm that came to life in her drawing.
She dropped the green crayon, picked up the black one again, and wrote “JULIE” in big capital letters across the drawing of the worms and the blood and the body. When she finished the top stick of the “E,” everything stopped.
Complete silence . . .
She turned around and her husband’s body was gone. The blood was gone. The worms were gone.
Cuckoo was gone, too . . .
. . . then the clock started ticking, and Julie began to breathe again.
She closed her eyes, curled into a ball on her side, and waited for the worms to start squirming beneath her eyelids . . . but they did not return this time. She thought maybe they were gone for good. There was only the clock, the splash of dim light from the lamp, and her slow, measured breathing.
She opened her eyes for a moment and saw the green crayon near the baseboard where she’d dropped it. She reached out, wrapped her fingers around it, brought it close to her chest, closed her eyes again . . .
And dreamed of Pure. White. Walls.
WATER-SONG
It chokes her and she drowns.
Little bubbles float to the surface. She cries as she drifts down. Sifting through. Her long hair a canopy of sadness over her head.
She breathes water, sucks it down into her stomach. A heavy ball of dread, sinking.
On her way down, she sees the spirits of lovers whose small boat had capsized in a storm. Somehow, she smells the woman’s perfume as she floats by, hears the man’s last cries for help before he sank below the waves. The couple smiles at her as she drifts lower. Not menacing smiles, not unkind in any way.
Warm, comforting, welcoming.
The shell of the lovers’ sunken boat slides into view, like slowly scrolling movie credits. It rests on a ledge of coral. She blinks at the two skeletons inside, bits of cold flesh hanging from their frames. They suddenly stand from their slumped positions and dance together. Bones sluggishly shuffling through silt, thick green water, and memories. A soft tango rippling the water.