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by Kristen Tsetsi

  Normal, but I’m not sure what I expected.

  “Just a few minutes,” I say, “and then I should get home.”

  “Yeah, I know. You got to feed the cat.” He steps aside for me. “Take your shoes off. It ain’t me—I think carpet’s there to be walked on—but the wife…”

  I take off my shoes and tuck them under a heating register by the door, but, of course, it’s not on. My socks squish on the floor.

  “Drink?”

  “Oh—no. No, thanks.”

  “I wanted to say—listen, now—that I’m sorry for before. In the car. I want to say what I should’ve at the time. Now, there’s reason to worry, don’t get me wrong. No one ought to tell you not to. But, he’ll make it back, is what I should’ve said to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “All right. Good. Well. Well! Have a drink with me. You came all the way out.”

  “It’s on my way.”

  “One drink. One! You’re in my house. Let Donny be hospitable.”

  “A small one.”

  He finishes what’s in his glass on his way to the kitchen and tells me to make myself comfortable.

  I notice, now that I’m inside, that there is no dining room table in what would be the dining room, but instead a tripod easel standing on a paint-stained drop cloth and propping a stretched, bare canvas.

  “Does your wife paint?” The bare walls bounce my voice.

  “Nope. Me.” He comes out of the kitchen and hands me something gold-brown with a single, rounded ice cube. “I’m an artist. Ar-teest.” He laughs. Deep crow’s feet branch to his temples. “Surprised? Didn’t think I had a creative thought in me, huh? How do you think I knew you had somethin’ troublin’ you? I knew before you said a word. What you got here is a lethal combination. Doctor? Artist? I got it covered! Both sides of the brain, and most people can’t make ‘em work together. I see the world—naw, I look inside, is what. I look inside you, and I can’t even help it. It’s a gift. Now, don’t get all scared. All I’m sayin’ is, I read things, read people. Because I watch, and I sense. Sense things.”

  “Mm. Do you have Coke, or something, to mix with this?”

  “Sure, I got Coke.” He takes my glass. “This is bourbon, though. Good bourbon.”

  “Yeah, it’s—it’s good, but I’d like Coke in there, too, if you don’t mind.”

  He takes it away.

  The only thing in the hutch, aside from circles in dust hinting at the recent presence—and removal—of dishes, probably china, is a picture lying flat on the top shelf, its brass frame spotted green. An adolescent Donny, seventeen or maybe eighteen, sits cross-legged in tall grass, elbows resting on his knees and hair hanging past bare, bony shoulders. A new cigarette burns between his fingers. Twisted into the ground in the shadow of his knee is a beer bottle, and his mouth is half-open in a laugh or a smile.

  “You want more ice, or was it good?” he says from the kitchen.

  “Yes, please. More.”

  I move in deeper, past the hutch and into the living space where he and his wife—maybe—watched television or fought or drank. A magazine lies open on the coffee table, warped and puckered, the pages a coaster. The old chair is canvas and wood, a hand-crafted piece of a different time I’ve only read about, when flowers were symbols painted on Volkswagen Beetles. The canvas-back is rubbed and faded from wear, the arms scuffed to pulp at the edges.

  Throw pillows with perfect center dents sit at straight diagonals in couch corners, and the end-table lamp shade, nicotine-beige, drops a dim circle of light on a half-full coffee mug. Ghosts of pictures, maybe his paintings, hang on the walls, smoke and time marking their edges.

  “For you, my angel.”

  I take the glass. Close up, he looks older. And shorter. I can see over his head, but just barely. Coarse hairs grow from deep pores in his cheeks and chin and his skin is oily and loose. That this is what came to be of the boy in the picture, that hiding under the hanging skin and somewhat conventional hair and age-inspired glasses is the life-squelched and smothered spirit of the boy in the grass… Maybe it was the war, maybe the drinking, maybe the wife. Maybe all of it, everything. I wonder what he was like back then, when his hair was long and he smiled, and I have a feeling I might have found Donny-the-boy irresistible, would have chased him and played with his hair, sipped from his beer bottle and rolled with him in the grass. The missing shirt would be missing because I’d taken it, wrestled it from him until our knees and elbows were grass-stained, and pulled it on over my own.

  “Drink,” he says, then disappears into a back room. I sit in the old chair, set the glass on the wide, wood arm and wait.

  All the lights are on: living room overhead, end table lamp, kitchen light, dining room chandelier. Light falling on everything, getting in my eyes, and I’m so very visible, awkward in the room like streaks on just-cleaned glass. I look around for signs of the wife, something stronger than the dust evidence in the hutch, but there’s not a plastic or dried flower, a collectible cow, a doily, a doll. No left-behind high-heeled shoes on the vent under the window, no frilled umbrella drying upside-down on batwing arms. No blanket for her cocoon. That was probably the first thing she packed.

  Donny returns in a sweater and jeans and socks stained gray at the edges. “Like it?” He points at my glass on his way to the couch and sits down, sets his drink on the magazine.

  “It’s good,” I say.

  “You ain’t even…Aw, c’mon.”

  “I had a little.”

  “You said you’d have a drink with me.”

  I take a short sip, tasting it in my throat before it even touches my lips. “Mm,” I say, and hold back a cough.

  He nods and drinks from his own glass, makes half of it disappear, pauses for a breath, then finishes the rest and stands. “Another?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Didn’t know you was goin’ to be such a little girl,” he says on his way to the kitchen, and from around the corner, “You afraid of me? Think I’m tryin’ to get you drunk and take advantage, or somethin’?”

  “Of course not. No.”

  “Well, drink up, then.”

  He comes out refreshed and turns off all the lights but the end table lamp. “All that light—gives me a damn headache.” He falls into his spot on the couch and smiles. “You’re really here!”

  “I am.” I make a show of swallowing a heavy sip and then ask for a cigarette. I’d like to take off my socks.

  He pulls one from his pocket and tosses it to me, then a lighter. “You can have as many as you want, can have anythin’ you ask for. My cigarettes, your cigarettes; my liquor, your liquor. You can even stay over. Now, don’t look at me like that. You know I don’t mean nothin’ by it. I mean on the couch, if you can’t drive. It pulls out and it’s comfortable. Slept a lot of nights out here, let me tell you.” He laughs. “Naw, I’m just kiddin’. But it is comfortable. Em and me, we got it for a weddin’ present. Her daddy’s rich. Owns the car dealership on the corner, down there by Kelly’s Burger. Know the place?”

  I do. I nod. “Em? You call her Em?”

  “Em, Emily, Emmy. Depends on her mood. When she’s bein’ a bitch I don’t call her nothin’.” He shakes his hair out of his eyes, says, “Naw. I’m lyin’. That’s when I kiss her ass, call her my darlin’ Emiline,” smiles. “You know. Like Clementine?”

  “You have a painting at the—downtown, in the coffee shop?”

  He holds up his glass. “Good girl.”

  “Emily’s at Dawn. Yours?”

  “Course it’s mine.”

  “I only ask because of the initials on the—on that thing, the tag. The label.”

  “For ‘God damn, I love that woman.’” He looks at me. “That’s right. God damn. That’s what it stands for.” He leans back into the couch, puts his feet on the table and stares at the wall. “Yep. That was one of my better ones.”

  For minutes, I don’t know how many, we both sit and stare, saying nothing, unt
il he says, “It’s Gary. First name’s Gary. Donald’s the middle.”

  His phone rings, then, and he gets up fast and jog-walks to the kitchen with his drink held steady. I fantasize that Jake has somehow found out I’m here and is calling because he simply has to talk to me. I fantasize—for the twentieth, hundredth, millionth time—that two days ago didn’t happen, that he did not call his mother before calling me.

  The receiver slams down hard enough to ring the base. Donny comes back out with a refilled glass and sits on the couch and lights a cigarette.

  “Are you—”

  “None of your goddamn business.”

  I pull my feet under me, used to the dampness, now, and hold my drink and wait for him to finish his cigarette before asking about the painting. “To sell it after such a long time is…I don’t know. Why are you?”

  “It ain’t old. Painted it…I think it was about two years ago. You talkin’ about the date? That’s part of the title, not the year I painted it. That’s her house back in eighty-one. She sold it, I don’t know, ten years ago, maybe more. It was her first, her fixer-upper, you know. Did a good job on it. Made some money. But, she didn’t like it. Didn’t want to mess with the contractors and didn’t like dust and paint, so the next house she bought, she kept. This one.”

  “It’s nice,” I say, but it’s a standard ranch.

  “Yeah, it’s all right. I’m goin’ to miss it while I’m gone, but I’ll be back.”

  “You aren’t getting a divorce?”

  “Divorce? Hell, no. She ain’t goin’ to leave me. Not for good. She needs me. Can’t get through a month without the doctor. That’s me.” He points his thumb at his chest. “She could die. She’s sick. Understan’? I help her make it through the days, medicate. She don’t know how to self-medicate like I do. Always goes too far, won’t practice moderation.” He finishes another glass. “More?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You ain’t had more than three sips. What’s the matter? You don’t want to drink with me? Donny ain’t good enough for you? I thought…y’know, friends.”

  “I drink slow.”

  “No one drinks that slow. Come on. Drink up. Do it for me. For Donny. My wife left me.”

  “I’ll have to be able to drive home, and everything, and there are police all over the place.”

  “One little drink ain’t goin’ to get you drunk. You think I want you drunk? What would I want that for? You’re havin’ tough times and I just want you to relax, that’s all. Nothin’ more. What, you think—? What could be in your head? Ain’t you learned nothin’ about me, yet?”

  When he’s angry, his lips spread thin and his cheeks tighten to narrow his eyes. When he is angry, I’ve finally learned, there is nothing good to say; there is only waiting for it to pass.

  “You think I’d take advantage of you when your man is off at war? There ain’t nothin’—nothin’—worse than that. I have respect! Respect, that’s what, and you want to know how I can respect a man I don’t know, but you wouldn’t—he’s my brother.” He punches his chest. “You hear? Brothers. Donny Donaldson. Sergeant Donaldson. Airborne Infantry. Eighty-second. Airborne!” He slams his drink on the magazine and it splashes out onto the table, his hand. He wipes the back of his hand on his jeans and says, “What’s his name?”

  “Jake.”

  “Jake. Jake what.”

  “Just Jake.”

  “Tell me his last name.”

  “Why?”

  He shakes his head. “All right. Whatever. What’s he do?”

  “I told you already.”

  “When?”

  “In the car.”

  “Well, I don’t remember. Tell me again.”

  “He flies Apaches.”

  “That’s right. I remember. I remember, now.” He tosses his hands in the air. “Y’see!” he says. “Airborne. Brothers! But, I know, I know. You don’t see because you can’t. Never will. You’re a woman—Naw, now, I know there’s women in the war, so don’t get all…What I meant to say is you’re a civilian, don’t know shit. It’s in here.” He holds his hand over his heart. “I’d be the worst kind of man to come after the girl of a brother at war. You—You’re like my sister. If I ever—now, you listen—if I ever come after you, you kill me. You hear? I have a gun. You use it on me. Hell, I’ll kill myself.”

  “I’m not going to kill you,” I say. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t really think that, but you never know.”

  “Naw. Don’t be sorry. Just don’t think it. Can you do that? Could you trust me and not think I’d do that?”

  “I—sure. Yeah.”

  “You’re lyin’.”

  “I’m not. I am not lying.”

  “Full of shit.”

  “I just told you. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”

  “You can drink what’s in that glass, for starters.”

  “Getting drunk will—”

  “Did I ask you to get drunk? No. What’d I say? I said drink what’s in the glass. It’s one little glass and it’s mostly cola, anyway.”

  I take a few swallows and try not to gag.

  The buzz comes abruptly.

  “That ain’t all of it.—Now, there you go. Mia, you’re a beautiful angel. You know that? What d’you think your boyfriend would say ‘bout you bein’ here?”

  I hold up my glass. “I don’t really care. If he doesn’t, why should I?”

  “Have I told you I love you?”

  “Do you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ but a kid.” He narrows his eyes at me. “If I was younger, though…Boy, if I was younger. Don’t mean I don’t love you, though. Love ain’t got to be about that.”

  I don’t want to talk about it anymore. My head is spinny.

  Love.

  Me.

  What he loves, and who—not me me, of course, because he doesn’t even know me—and…but…why does he? Love. Love. Sounds like ‘lub’ in my head so I think the word over and over, and whatever it means, I shouldn’t like it, not from him. He loves me. I love you. I rub my finger on the glass and go, “Mm.”

  “It don’t mean nothin’. Don’t—look, I love people. People get me here, in my heart. It’s the spirit I love. Artistic love, it’s different. Deep. Like it—it transcends, y'see, what most people think love is. Superficial. Not mine. Theirs.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “You’re goin’ to argue with me ‘bout this? I damn well—I know what I know, and I love what I know. You can’t tell me who I love and you can't tell me who I don’t. Listen, no man anywhere—or woman, all right? or woman—can say what’s right to feel. If I say I love you, you just sit there and take it. All right?”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you.”

  “Okay, Donny.”

  “You hear me?”

  “Both times.”

  “Well, all right.”

  It’s not bad, the drink, even if it burns my throat a little. Bourbon spreads delightfully warmer than vodka. Yes. Delightful, like I’ve just swallowed a vial of Anbesol and have been numbed stomach to chest. And he loves me, he says, which may or may not be true, and I am beautiful, he says, and safe, he says, and love is love, real or imagined.

  “Ready for another?”

  “I am.”

  While I wait alone, the rain returns and pats the windows, then pelts harder with heavy winds. He comes out of the kitchen and something’s changed. His head bows and I know the expression, now, know the face, the mood. Quiet time, but I’m bourbon-filled and brazen, and when he passes by I slap his leg and say, “What’s the matter with you, all of a sudden?” I am him: “What a goddamn baby,” and laugh and look up at him. He hands me my drink and sits down.

  “What d’you mean, ‘What’s wrong?’ Nothin’s wrong. What’s the matter with you? Why you sittin’ like that, all curled up? What, I scare you?”

  I tell him no, of course not, that I�
��m just a little cold. “Lighten the hell up, will you?”

  “Now, what the hell’s gotten into you?” He watches me.

  But no, not me, and when it goes on for too long I say, “What?”

  He slides along the couch toward me and reaches for the lamp and nudges it to one side, to the other, and then tilts the shade to shift the light. “Sit there just like that. Don’t you move.”

  No more wind, no more rain, no more storm. The tornado missed, touched down somewhere else about three miles south, they say on the radio. Donny turns it off, then, and says, “Damn weathermen. I like a storm. You like a storm?” I say yes, I like a storm, and maybe next time.

  My chair has been turned to face the dining room and my hair is loose from the ponytail, pulled forward—by him—to hang down the sides of my face. I haven’t been able to look at my watch—“Quit movin’!”—but the last time I checked, it was midnight. Soon after, he started filling my glass with plain soda.

  “Quit it, now. You was sittin’ straighter before.”

  Painting has sobered him—impossible, it would seem, since he’s gone through at least six rim-full drinks—and what I think is number seven sits on the floor against the baseboard where he won’t kick it over. He moves around the canvas like a hummingbird, stepping aside to add some shading, aside to fix the curve of my left nostril, and I wait, fingers tight around my glass, for him to fall, to trip over the easel or a toe-trap in the drop cloth, but he never does. Wrinkles are anticipated and he smoothes them with his feet without looking, and when he is so close to the easel that the legs might get in his way, he steps around them, dances with them, dips for his drink while staring at his work and then swiftly replaces it, his charcoal pencil fast returning to the face staring out from the corner. A hair gets in my eye and I blink. It won’t go. I shake my head, but just a little because it’s so heavy.

  “Naw, naw,” he says, and he kneels in front of me and touches my cheeks with warm hands, turns my head to the left, brushes down my bangs so they hang in my eyes. His fingertips are gentle and his breath is pleasantly strong and I am taking it, making it mine, noticing his long, curled lashes and falling forward just a little bit. I start to put out my hands—a hug, just a hug, a touch, a body—and he stands again and steps back to the easel, to the face that looks nothing like my own.