Panel 24. On the ocean floor lies a gigantic crab. Behind it, tilted in the sand, a white wing chair stands in the green water. On the chair seat, a teacup sits on a saucer. A red fish swims above the teacup. Dark green seaweed hangs on the back of the chair and over the arms.
Panel 25. Alfred is sitting in his chair, mopping his forehead with a polka-dot handkerchief. The white-haired hostess leans toward him. Her speech balloon reads: ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE ALL RIGHT, ALFRED? His speech balloon reads: OH YES…YES…I’M ALL RIGHT!!
Panel 26. The crowded room. Faces have turned to stare at a red-jacketed butler who strides toward Alfred. The butler’s right leg is swung out and the black cloth of the pant leg clings to the front of the leg and billows behind. On the cupped fingers of one hand the butler holds aloft a silver platter topped by a silver dome.
Panel 27. The butler stands bent over before Alfred. The thumb and finger of the butler’s free hand grip the silver knob at the top of the dome.
Panel 28. Alfred is shown in the act of rising from the white wing chair. The teacup has fallen from his hand and is tipped sideways in the air at the side of the chair. Alfred’s mouth is open, his eyes are wide, his hair stands on end. On the platter his head sits on a bed of lettuce leaves. The head looks at him with melancholy eyes. In the background the raven-haired woman watches, expressionless.
Panel 29. Beside the tea table Alfred, in graveclothes, is standing in an open coffin lined with white satin. He holds out one arm, draped in tattered cerecloth. All faces are turned to him except that of the raven-haired woman, who leans back against the red velvet couch with half-closed eyes. In the speech balloon above his head are the words: I AM LAZARUS, COME FROM THE DEAD.
Panel 30. The room, less crowded. Alfred sits in his chair sipping a cup of tea. The red couch is empty. Here and there on armchairs potbellied men sit with their eyes closed, their arms hanging over the sides, their legs extended. The raven-haired woman is standing by the bay window, looking out at the yellow fog. In a pale blue band at the top of the panel are the words: LATER THAT EVENING…
Panel 31. Alfred is standing at one end of the bay window, looking out at the yellow fog. The raven-haired woman is standing at the other end, looking out at the yellow fog. In the black window we see Alfred’s reflection. He is facing straight ahead but his eyes are turned in the direction of the woman. In the thought balloon beside his head are the words: SHE SEEMS UNHAPPY…
Panel 32. The room in darkness. The dark heads of seated figures are turned toward a brightly lit screen in front of the bay window. Beside the screen stands the white-haired lady, holding a pointer. On the screen is the outline of a man, filled with an intricate network of red and blue lines. In the speech balloon above the head of the white-haired lady are the words: HERE WE HAVE ALFRED’S AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM. PLEASE NOTE THE HIGHLY DEVELOPED INTERLIGULAR GANGLIA. ANY QUESTIONS? NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE.
Panel 33. The same as Panel 31, except that Alfred’s face is turned partway toward the raven-haired woman. Three large waterdrops, representing distress, are arrayed about his head. In his speech balloon are the words: EXCUSE ME, I…I MEAN, I…
Panel 34. The same as the preceding panel. In the speech balloon beside the head of the raven-haired woman are the words: THAT IS NOT IT AT ALL.
Panel 35. Close-up of the raven-haired woman’s face. Blue lines of tension crease her forehead and two black vertical lines separate her arched and blue-black eyebrows. Her pulled-back licorice hair with blue and purple highlights is a mass of tight, glinting coils at the top of her head. In her speech balloon are the words: THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT, AT ALL.
Panel 36. View of Alfred from behind, descending the stairway. He is dressed in doublet, ruff, and skintight hose. His calves are thin. In the thought balloon above his head are the words: NO, I AM NOT PRINCE HAMLET…
Panel 37. Alfred in his blue cutaway is seated at a bar before a row of empty glasses, leaning his cheek on a hand. His eyes are red and his hair is mussed. His necktie is flung over one shoulder. In the speech balloon beside his head are the words: NOR WAS MEANT TO BE!! Beside him sits a fat and double-chinned woman with forearms shaped like bowling pins. She is wearing a tight red dress with a low square neckline and a bunch of violets thrust between big round breasts. She has curly orange hair, rouged cheeks, and thick red lipstick. She is leaning toward Alfred with a gap-toothed smile. In her speech balloon are the words: CHEER UP, DEARIE.
Panel 38. Alfred is walking along a narrow crooked street. Wisps of yellow fog hang in the air. In a black shop window lit by a streetlamp he sees his reflection. The reflection is stooped, leans on a crooked blackthorn, and has a long white beard down to its baggy knees. In the thought balloon beside Alfred’s head are the words: PHEW! GUESS I’M GROWING OLD…
Panel 39. Against a featureless black background, a gigantic orange-and-red fruit takes up nearly the entire panel. The fruit has eyes and two thick black frowning eyebrows. In the lower left-hand corner a tiny Alfred looks up at the fruit in alarm. In the thought balloon beside his head are the words: DO I DARE TO EAT A PEACH?
Panel 40. Alfred is walking near the water on a sunny beach crowded with colorful towels and striped beach umbrellas. He is wearing white flannel trousers, a white jersey with the word HARVARD on it, and a straw boater. He is passing a blanket on which lie a red radio, a bottle with the word SUN at the top and TAN at the bottom, and a girl in green sunglasses and a bright yellow bikini. She is lying on her stomach with her chin in her hands, reading a book. Her bright yellow bikini pants are stretched over a pair of very round buttocks, separated by a curving line shaped like a parenthesis. Her long legs, stretched out behind her, taper to a point. Two black eighth notes hover above her red radio. Before Alfred, in the sand, a smiling redhead in a green bikini stands sideways and holds out her arms toward a smiling brunette in a white bikini who stands facing her, bent over slightly with her knees pressed together and her calves apart. Between the girls a big blue-and-white beachball hangs in the air. The buttocks of the redhead in the green bikini resemble two grapefruit in a green silk bag and the breasts of both girls are bursting the bonds of their slender bikini tops. In the speech balloon beside the redhead is the word: CATCH!! In the speech balloon beside the brunette is the word: TEE-HEE! At the edge of the water a little boy with a red pail squats before a perfect pail-shaped mudpie. In the balloon beside Alfred’s head, attached by small white circles, are the words: I SHALL WEAR WHITE FLANNEL TROUSERS, AND WALK UPON THE BEACH.
Panel 41. Alfred is walking on a deserted stretch of beach. A rock jetty extends far out in the water. On a boulder near the end of the jetty sit two mermaids combing their long blond hair. Above their heads are flagged eighth notes, joined sixteenth notes, and dotted quarter notes. In the speech balloon beside Alfred’s head are the words: HOLY COW, MERMAIDS! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! GUESS THEY’RE NOT SINGING TO ME, THOUGH…
Panel 42. Alfred, dressed in his blue cutaway, stands with his hands in his pockets at the bottom of the ocean. All about him, on rocks, on twists of coral, on a half-sunk treasure chest from which gold coins and a pearl necklace protrude, mermaids are seated. One mermaid, with shiny blue-black hair tumbling to her waist, sits nestled in the curved fluke of a partially sunk anchor. She leans back as she holds the shank of the anchor with one hand. The round breasts of all the mermaids peep out behind long thick hair that is blond, black, or red. All the mermaids have white and pink flowers in their hair and wear bracelets of shells. In the thought balloon beside Alfred’s head are the words: WE HAVE LINGERED IN THE CHAMBERS OF THE SEA…
Panel 43. Alfred is lying in bed with his blanket pulled up to his chin. He is wearing a red nightcap with a white pompom. His fingertips are visible gripping the edge of the blue blanket under his chin. One eye is open. At the foot of the bed the door is open and a gray-haired woman with eyeglasses has thrust her head in. In the speech balloon beside her head are the words: ALFRED! LAZYBONES! TIME TO GET UP! In the thought balloon above Alfred�
�s head are the words: WAS IT ALL A DREAM?
Panel 44. Alfred in his blue cutaway is seated at a dark desk on which are an oil lamp, a bottle bearing the word INK, several quill pens, a globe on a stand, and a white bust with the word DANTE on its pedestal. Before him on the desk lies a long piece of paper curled over at the top. In his right hand he holds a quill. On the paper are the words: LET US GO THEN, YOU AND ME…The “ME” is crossed out and above it appears the word “I.” On the wall behind the desk hangs a large oval mirror in a mahogany frame. Alfred’s head, bent forward over his paper, is reflected in the mirror. Yellow lines of light radiate from the oil lamp. Brown and blue shadows lie on Alfred’s hand.
RAIN
One summer evening at about midnight a man wearing eyeglasses and a light-blue shirt made his way through the crowded lobby of a movie theater and stepped outside with a look of dismay. The marquee was hung with a crackling curtain of rain. Groups of animated women stood in the brightness of the marquee shelter, while now and then a husband or boyfriend hunched his shoulders and marched into the downpour to bring the car around. Two plump girls in tight white shorts and denim jackets stood bent together at the edge of the rain, reaching out their fingers, whispering, giggling into the backs of their hands, as if the storm were a wild and erotic joke—and all at once they pulled their jackets over their heads and ran off into the rain like two upright turtles. A sudden flash of lightning revealed black thunderclouds in a lavender sky.
Mr. Porter jingled the car keys in his pocket and looked down with a frown at his new black shoes. It was just his luck. He was wearing tan cotton pants, and the sleeves of his light-blue shirt were turned back neatly twice. With an irritable glance at his watch he walked to one end of the marquee shelter, where the dry pale sidewalk became dark hissing wet. He reached out a palm, but to his surprise he felt no rain. He placed the tips of his shoes on the line of wetness, and bending forward at the waist, stretched out his arm farther and farther until he rose on his toes. A shot rang out. Mr. Porter began to thrash the air with both arms as if he were teetering on the edge of a cliff.
As the thunder died away Mr. Porter regained his balance. He adjusted his eyeglasses, looked contemptuously at a grinning couple, and walked to a dark corner beside the ticket booth, where he stood with his back to a wall of glass-covered Coming Attractions. One showed a redheaded woman in a transparent green nightgown standing before an open door with her hands pressed to her cheeks and her mouth wide open. Mr. Porter folded his arms across his stomach. He leaned one shoulder against the ticket booth, crossed his legs so that one shoe balanced on its toe, and resolved to wait out the rain.
Soon the crowd had vanished but the rain remained. On the polished tar a traffic light threw rippling green and red reflections that mingled with the blinking lemon swirls of the marquee lights. The precise blue letters of a neon sign over a hardware store appeared in the street as an azure blur. Rain hissed on the street, drummed on car tops, made a sound like flung pebbles against a passing umbrella. It blew along the street in waves of mist. “Nice weather,” said a voice. Mr. Porter started. Beside him stood a large woman who seemed to have sprung from one of the colorful Coming Attractions. Her rain-soaked orange hair was brown at the roots, her black eyebrows dripped down in wavy dark lines, the aquamarine of her eyelids flowed from the corners of her eyes. Rouge-colored drops rolled down her cheeks and dripped from her shining jaw. Mr. Porter nodded and glanced about. The marquee shelter was deserted except for a solitary figure in a tan trench coat who stood with his back to Mr. Porter and clasped in pink hands a tightly furled black umbrella with a silver point. “It’s getting late,” Mr. Porter said in a low voice barely above a whisper, and then he pushed against the ticket booth with his shoulder and straightened up and stepped briskly away, taking a deep breath and lowering his head as he approached the loud, dark cement.
As his foot swung over the line, Mr. Porter saw dark streaks soaking into his light pant leg. By the third step he felt as if he had stepped into a bathroom shower. Only a few pale streaks remained in his shirt, dyed dark blue by the rain. The backs of his hands glistened; his black watchband gleamed. His shoes shone with a perfect finish but he feared the black polish was being washed away by the rubbing rain. Water poured down the back of his neck and dripped from his nose and chin. His lenses rippled. A blurred taxi floated by, flinging at him a sheet of water.
When he reached his Chevy hatchback, Mr. Porter stepped from the curb into an ankle-deep steam of rushing water. He groped along the front of the car until he came to the door on the driver’s side. At the sight of the closed window he exhaled sharply with relief, but as he reached for his keys he was surprised to see that the lock button was raised. He opened the door quickly and slid onto the suddenly illluminated seat, which vanished as he shut the door. In the dark he took off his glasses and rubbed them against his soaked shirt. When he put them on he saw wavy blurs. Drops from his hair streamed down his cheeks onto his lips. Fumbling in his pocket with wet, slippery fingers, Mr. Porter drew out the zippered leather case from which his car keys dangled. He inserted the ignition key. It did not fit. Mr. Porter opened the door and in the amber light examined the blurred silver shape. It appeared to be the correct key. As he turned to insert it again, he noticed on the clean black seat beside him a roll of butter-rum Lifesavers, and suddenly he had the odd sensation that the world was unraveling, rushing out of control, as when, in his childhood, descending a dark stairway, he had reached out his foot for that last, phantom stair even as the floor, one step too soon, leaped up to meet him. Quickly Mr. Porter looked about. On the back seat he saw a lidless blue coffee can containing a screwdriver with a transparent yellow handle. Beside the can lay a little naked pink plastic doll the size of a thumb.
“Stupid cars,” Mr. Porter muttered, stepping out into the rain and slamming the door. A passing car swerved and honked. Under the bright blur of a solitary streetlight, four car-lengths away, stood another Chevy hatchback. Mr. Porter splashed toward it and bent down over the rear bumper. In the dripping chrome he saw his image, a colored ripple, and through his streaming lenses he read his license plate. Mr. Porter made his way to the door on the driver’s side. The window was half open, though the door was locked. When he opened the door a pool of rainwater on the driver’s seat reflected the amber light. On the glistening seat beside it lay a fat wet paperback with blue page-ends. Its shiny, sticky-looking cover stuck up, revealing watery blue stains on the uppermost page. On the back seat lay a slim black umbrella.
Mr. Porter drove slowly, leaning over the wheel and squinting through the rain-sheeted windshield at the rainbowed tar. From time to time he rubbed the misty glass with a quick motion of his left hand; his fingers left faint oily patterns on the glass. Through the dripping arches designed by the wipers he watched the stoplights and shopfronts flowing along the street in iridescent streams. Slowly, wavering silently, the bright signs and windows floated past, dripping into the street, streaming along the gutters, pouring into drains: a luminous green window filled with green-tinted bicycles, a blue-glowing cardboard girl holding up a bottle of beer, a red and green pizzeria. Under a streetlamp a brilliant red stop sign glistened at the end of its stick like an enormous lollipop. Mr. Porter turned onto another street. A stone divider appeared, the stores and bars and rainbows were replaced by large ghostly houses flanked by shadowy trees, beyond the double arch of the wipers the black windshield was dotted with transparent crystal drops. A blinking stoplight flung a handful of rubies across the windshield. In the distance Mr. Porter saw the tall misty pillars of the thruway, and soon he was rising slowly into the air along a sleek entrance ramp.
He could barely see. Blurred rows of aquamarine lights stretched curving into the distance, tinting the mist. Mr. Porter felt as if he were driving at the bottom of a green swimming pool. He stayed to the right, straining through rippling lenses for the broken white line that marked the lane. A passing truck sprayed water against the windshield a
nd for a moment Mr. Porter could see nothing but the lazy wipers, bowing left and right, left and right, like twin actors on a stage. The applause has died down, the audience is making its way to the exits, but still they bow, left and right, left and right, though the audience has left long ago and the lights are out in the deserted theater. A white streak appeared; Mr. Porter was driving in the center of two lanes. Behind him a truck was flashing its lights. Mr. Porter swerved to the right. The truck rushed past, throwing water at the side window like a fistful of sand. In the distance he saw a red glow from the shopping center. The melting exit signs announced his town.
Mr. Porter turned off at his exit and drove slowly down to an orange streetlight that spilled over its glass container into the surrounding air and dripped onto the flowing windshield. The rain was falling harder. It hammered against the car top like sharp fingernails drumming against a metal table. Who will come? No one comes, no one will ever come, though the fingernails drum drum drum against the metal table. All at once Mr. Porter remembered that he was wet, and the memory was like stepping into the rain; the drumming rain seemed to be pouring through the roof and driving his clothes against his skin. Soon he would be home. He would lie warm and dry in his bed like a freshly ironed shirt in a drawer. Looking carefully both ways, Mr. Porter turned left and passed under the dripping highway. In the near distance appeared the familiar railroad trestle. Above it the black sky glowed murky red from the shopping center across Main Street. As Mr. Porter passed under the trestle the car sank into water above its wheels, and stopped.
The Barnum Museum: Stories (American Literature Series) Page 15