Big Picture: Stories (3 page)

He went into the house to cool off and have a yogurt for lunch. He put the load of clothes into the dryer.

Back in his studio, Michael slowly pushed the cerulean into the canvas, scratching it in since there was so little paint on his brush. He’d always prided himself on the fact that, although he painted abstracts, he never began a canvas without a vision. That vision was subject to change, sometimes great change, but he usually knew what he wanted, what he was trying to express. This time was different. He pushed in more blue. Hours passed and the whole field was covered at last, blue and flat. He wanted to get far away from the canvas, far, far away, and try to see it like a piece of fallen sky. He recalled a Chinese thinker named Chhiao who claimed that from a certain distance a mirror could see a person, but that person would be unable to see the mirror. So, in fact, one could be someplace and not know it.

Back in the house, he decided on another run before Gail returned home from school. He grabbed the blue T-shirt and sprinted down the street toward the avenue, slowing as he neared the traffic. He crossed over to the next street and turned toward the hardware store where he had seen the silent man’s mower. The mower wasn’t there and Michael had to admit to himself that he was disappointed, although he was at a loss to say why. He continued his run, cutting it short and arriving home to find Gail’s car in the driveway and the mower man at work on Michael’s close-cropped yard.

“Did you tell him he could mow again?” Gail asked Michael as he came through the kitchen door.

Michael went to the sink for a glass of water, looked at her as he drank it all.

“Did you?”

Michael walked into the laundry room pulling off his shirt. He opened the lid of the washer.

“Michael?”

He dropped the shirt into the machine. “No, I didn’t tell him he could do it.”

“This is too weird. I’m calling the police.”

“Let’s ask him not to come back first,” Michael said. “We haven’t actually tried that yet.”

“He’s crazy.” Gail leaned against the doorjamb. “He scares me, Michael.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to him.”

Michael walked outside without a shirt and approached the man from behind as he was pushing and pulling the mower around a shrub. Michael tapped the wool-covered shoulder. The man turned without a start. Michael pointed to the machine, motioning for him to turn it off. The sound spiraled into silence as the two men just looked at each other.

“You’re going to have to leave,” Michael said.

The man stared at him.

“You do fine work, but you’re going to have to leave. I’m not going to pay you for this.”

He turned and reached for the pull start of the lawn mower.

Michael stopped him, grabbing the long-sleeved woolen arm. “No. You’re scaring my wife.”

The man looked at the house.

“You have to leave.”

The man looked at his mower, at the house, and then at Michael.

“Please,” said Michael.

The man dragged the machine to the sidewalk and walked toward the avenue, not looking back.

Michael went back into the house and said to Gail, “I think he got the message.”

“Did you have to threaten him?”

“No.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I simply told him that he wasn’t going to be paid for the work and that we didn’t want him coming back.” Michael looked out the door window.

“My hero.”

“Right.”

Michael looked at the lawn, which had been cut day after day, and saw that nothing made it look any different. But something was better about it. He tried to see where the man had left off in the middle of the job, but there was nothing there, just grass the same height and green-turning-to-brown color everywhere.

Michael’s run was slow. His knee ached slightly, but he pushed on, taking a different route. He came finally to the alley and there was the mower. It was later in the morning and the hardware store was open; rakes and spades and brooms had been pushed out onto the sidewalk as if they were things people bought on impulse. Michael walked inside.

“Do you know who owns that lawn mower in the alley?” he asked at the checkout counter.

“Lawn mower?” the man asked.

“It’s parked right beside your store.”

A teenager who was making keys said, “He’s talking about Teddy’s machine.”

“Oh. That’s Teddy’s machine,” the man said. “He works yards around here. Want to buy it?” He laughed.

“Where is Teddy?” Michael asked.

“He’s around if his machine is out there.”

“What do you know about him?”

The man gave Michael a long look. “There’s not much to know. He mows people’s yards.”

“Can he talk?”

The man frowned. “I never heard him talk.” He turned to the kid. “You ever heard Teddy talk?”

“Nope.”

“Then how do you know his name?”

The man considered the question. “I don’t know.”

That night Michael held Gail’s head against his shoulder in bed. He stroked her hair. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you.”

“No, I really love you.”

“Well, I really love you,” Gail offered, pretending to fight.

Michael fell into an awkward silence.

“What’s wrong?” Gail asked.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Something’s wrong.”

“I just love you. Is that all right?”

Gail didn’t say anything.

Michael lay awake for a while, feeling his wife’s breathing, counting her breaths, her heartbeats.

Michael sat in front of the blue canvas. He didn’t work. He just looked at the blue and waited for the sound of the mower out in his yard. He reached forward, touched the still wet oil color, and rubbed the pigment into his fingers. He often had the urge common to painters to eat the paint, and the urge had never been greater than it was now. He took a brush and put more cerulean onto the canvas. The added paint didn’t change the blue on the canvas, didn’t make it darker or more blue, but he continued to apply it: the same color over the same color. He licked the paint from the fingers of his left hand, felt the oil slide down his throat, and imagined it coloring the walls of his esophagus and stomach. With the blue that would not mark the blue on which he painted, he wrote that he loved his wife.

Michael had a vague, smudged recollection of Gail’s face upside down, framed by her swinging hair. Her mouth was saying, “I love you, Michael.” He left the memory and his eyes opened only to be bothered by bright sunlight. He knew from the quality of the light that his window faced west. The first thing on which he focused was the yellow plastic bracelet on his left wrist that read,
LAWSON, MICHAEL,
and he felt relieved to find that he was still himself. He looked toward the light and saw that the window was covered with a panel of wire mesh. Michael knew where he was and the rawness of his throat reminded him of what he had done. He was slightly surprised to find that he was free of constraints and that he was dressed in pajamas rather than a gown. There was a plastic pitcher and two plastic cups, one yellow and one red, stacked on the bedside table. Michael sat up and filled the yellow cup with water, although it was still stuck inside the red. He swung his legs around and let his feet touch the floor; his limbs felt unmanageable, heavy. His fingernails had been trimmed brutally short and the tips of his fingers ached. There was a square window in the door of the room with wire mesh in the glass, about nine-by-nine inches. No one was looking in from the other side: an absence Michael noticed with both fascination and despair. He looked at the portable toilet by his bed. He pushed himself to his feet and found his equilibrium, then negotiated the several steps to the door. He tried the knob to find it locked, then went back to his bed where he waited quietly, sitting with his knees pulled to his chest.

The tumblers of the lock fell, the knob turned, the door opened, and in walked a tall orderly, dressed in baby blue with a crease in his trousers. One hand held a tray and the other pointed a finger. “I knew you was up. How you feeling, brother man?”

“All right,” Michael said.

“All right, then.” The orderly put the tray down on the rolling table at the foot of the bed. “How’s that throat?”

“Scratchy.”

“Well, we got you some yogurt and some tapioca for dessert.” The young man laughed, a snorting laugh. “Kind of a color-theme-thing going on, wouldn’t you say?”

“I like yogurt,” Michael said.

“Good.” He looked at Michael for a long second. “Well, anything you want, you just ask Randy.”

“Randy.”

“Yeah, you just ask me. I got the joint wired.”

“Can you get me a mirror?” Michael asked.

“Why you want a mirror?”

“I want to look at my throat. I want to see if it’s blue.”

Randy sighed and his manner changed. “Sorry, can’t get you that. Your throat ain’t blue, man.”

“Thanks.”

Michael watched the door close and listened to it lock, surprised by how little he felt, surprised by how uncrazy he seemed. He lay down on his side, put his head on the pillow, and faced the window, feeling the light through his shut eyes. He fell into sleep and started to dream. He was sitting under an oleander with a black dog that was not his, watching a parade of purple and house finches, jays, and finally, one rufous-sided towhee. He looked at the black dog and the animal looked at him. He stroked the dog’s head while he turned his gaze up through the branches and leaves of the oleander. He found the blue of the sky.

When Michael awoke he was staring at an expanse of blue, but there was no wire mesh protecting it, no window holding it away from him. He sat up in bed and realized he was staring at his canvas set on an easel. There were two people in the room with him, a woman and a man, on each side of the painting.

“I’m Dr. Unseld,” the woman said. Her hair was tied back and she wore a brown skirt and a tight white sweater.

“And I’m Dr. Overton,” said the man, his bald head catching light from the ceiling fixture. His tie was loosened and his collar button undone.

Michael nodded, sitting up, rubbing his eyes, and making the sheet neat about his middle. “How is my wife?”

“She’s fine,” Dr. Overton said. “A bit concerned.”

“I can imagine,” Michael said.

Dr. Unseld smiled. “Do you remember this painting?” she asked, but didn’t pause for an answer. “This is what you did before you ate the oil color.”

Michael nodded.

“Do you recall eating the paint?” Dr. Overton asked.

“I think so.”

“How do you feel about it now?” Overton asked.

“I feel fine. I’m sorry, I’m not really sure why I did it. Somehow work got the better of me.” Michael looked at the canvas.

“Is that how you think of your work?” Unseld said, stepping away from the easel and closer to the bed. “As an adversary? As an enemy?”

“Sometimes.”

“What were you thinking while you were eating the paint?” Overton asked.

“I don’t know,” Michael said, looking at the man’s eyes. “This seems a lot like an ambush. I mean, to just wake up and find you in here with that thing.”

“An ambush,” Overton said. “So we’re the enemy?”

“I didn’t say that,” Michael said, frowning a bit. “Listen, I did something that I shouldn’t have done, something that doesn’t make a lot of sense, doesn’t make any sense. I realize that. But I love my wife. I like my life most of the time. I don’t like being in here.”

“Do you remember the man who mowed your lawn?” Overton asked.

“Yes.”

“What do you remember exactly?” Unseld asked, sitting in the only chair in the room.

“What do you want to know? I can tell you what he looked like. Gail and I didn’t really want him coming back like he did. Why are you asking me about him?”

“Just asking.”

“Listen, am I allowed to go home?” Michael asked with a long sigh.

Dr. Unseld crossed her legs and leaned forward, resting her elbow on her knee and pinching the bridge of her nose. “That really depends on you,” she said.

“You mean there’s some sanity question that I can answer and then you’ll unlock the gates?”

“You can see our situation, can’t you?” This from Overton who was studying the canvas with his arms folded across his chest. “How do we know you’re not still dangerous to yourself?”

“I guess you don’t,” Michael said. “But I’m not dangerous to anyone else. To tell the truth, it’s none of your business if I want to kill myself. I may as well tell you that I wasn’t trying to do that when I was eating the paint.”

“What were you trying to do?” Unseld asked.

“I was trying to eat the paint,” Michael said. “Stupid, I know, but I wanted to taste it. I looked at it and I wanted to eat it. Like I said, stupid.”

Unseld and Overton looked at each other and seemed to communicate with their eyes. Unseld stood up from the chair and went over to Michael’s side. “Don’t worry,” she said.

“What is your relationship with the color blue?” Overton asked.

“It’s a primary color,” Michael said. “Of course, that canvas is cerulean.”

“Does that make a difference?” one of the doctors asked.

“In so far as it’s not indigo or pthalo blue, I guess.”

“I see,” Overton said. “It’s a kind of sky blue, isn’t it? Does it make you think of freedom?”

“Not really. Do you think you might be overworking the loose associative stuff?”

Unseld smiled.

“So, can I go home?”

“We’ll see.” Overton said.

Michael nodded, deciding that to show anything less than calm forbearance and muted patience would certainly work against him. He was already sorry that he had slipped and referred to his work that way. But he also did not want them believing that he was acting out the role of the “compliant, good patient” in an attempt to deceive them. He found, however, as he laid his head back down, that he didn’t care. His head was hurting rather severely, but it was a headache he recognized, had cataloged, and knew well, so it comforted him to have it. He took comfort in the very knowledge that so greatly concerned him previously, that as diagnosticians these people were Neanderthal.

Michael was awake and sitting up in the chair when the door was unlocked later that day for Gail. He stood and they embraced, lovingly, with mutual concern, but with a distance, not so much a coldness as an absence of heat.