Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

“Hi.”

“No, not exactly.”

“Sounds like the Happy Face sticker on your phone has come unglued.”

“The forest deepens and darkens.”

“You’re not goofing on that wall poster again?”

“Thoughtfully provided by the state in lieu of a window. Every thirty minutes another client shuffles off into the woods and out again, looking for bread crumbs.”

“Have you had a break yet today?”

“We don’t get breaks here, we sob quietly between interviews.”

“How’s the soulograph business?”

“You know how it is when you suddenly remember something you didn’t even want to know and memory locks into a pattern you never saw and can’t quite understand as long as you stay you?”

“Is it something like being a lost dwarf?”

“I’m painting that.”

“Wonderful.”

“Yes. It’s one of those surfaces that won’t stay fixed to the canvas. It hovers.”

“Hovers?”

“When it’s ready you can see.”

“You’re working hard.”

“Yes.”

“So that’s where you’ve been.”

“What do you mean, that’s where I’ve been. Where have you been?”

“Same old stand. Puttering about, mumbling, peering between the curtains.”

“I was there.”

“Really? I must’ve been out.”

“You were out all right, laid out under the table, staring up through the glass. Me staring at you staring up. Get the picture?”

“I think that’s what I was trying to do.”

“Is there any left?”

“You can’t eat just one.”

“Please don’t ask me to bring you more. I don’t think I can.”

“Not even a hint.”

“Rafer was in here yesterday, breaking pencils with his knuckles, reciting the rosary on a chain, thoroughly terrorizing the front desk.”

“I’ll bet he didn’t have any trouble getting his food stamps.”

“He doesn’t look well.”

“Nobody looks well down there. All that tile and fluorescent light. The waiting room’s like one big toilet.”

“I think you’re starting to look the same way.”

“No, no, you haven’t been around. I’ve turned over a new leaf. Arden’s straightened out my program. I’m all vigor and glow and capillary action. Come see.”

“Do you hear that noise?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Armstrong is screaming at Dolores in the next cubicle. This is what I listen to every month.”

“Maybe Rafer could start regular deliveries of DOUBLEUOGLOBE. Get all the corners in that office rounded off.”

“I don’t know. Some of the clients are so rounded off they’re barely whole numbers anymore.”

“Guess who’s back?”

“Who?”

“Trips.”

“Oh no, they let him out again?”

“He’s cured.”

“Yes, like a Virginia ham. Is he raving about that ridiculous sergeant person?”

“Anstin? Not yet.”

“He will.”

“No, not this time.”

“Yes, he will. You encourage him.”

“We’re friends.”

“Together the two of you are an entirely separate creature.”

“Well, you’ll be pleased to hear he’s gone again. He only stayed a couple of days.”

“Good. Where’d he go?”

“How should I know? I don’t know where everybody goes.”

“You’re starting to sound funny.”

“I’m standing up here behind my dirty window, looking down, and you know what I see? I see little colored rectangles shuttling around a concrete board. Too many pieces, too many rules, not enough turns.”

“How long have you been alone?”

“I think I see a wino in a gas mask trying to shinny up a street lamp.”

“I’ll be over.”

“Now I hear a noise.”

“Yes, sounds like Mrs. Armstrong is finally having her breakdown. I better go. Listen, I will be over.”

“Soon?”

“Soon.”

Out in the waiting room the clients paused, frozen in place, dark brittle bodies gleaming in the light, antennae threshing the air—time to bolt for shadows or can clinging resume?—the hard-won purchase on furniture and walls slowly giving way to a long backward slide, legs locked, down a sleek molded curve and then off the bright plastic chair into pure space, free fall, no chute.

It might have been a wall, a green garden wall opening to display rare scarlet blossoms within—the uniforms parted and for an instant Claypool was presented with a glimpse of brilliant gum and lip tissue. A pornographic sight. Then Captain Raleigh screamed, the green wall shook with violence, grunt, snap, and everyone stepped back into a moment of silence.

Sergeant Mars pushed his glasses back up on his sweaty nose. “I think you broke his arm, sir.” He wiped his fingers on his pants.

There were eight of them gathered inside the cramped interrogation shed: three Americans, two prisoners, and the three representatives of the National Police. Lieutenant Phan was seated in the captain’s chair with a copy of Playboy spread across his lap. His two subordinates squatted in a corner playing some sort of dice game with a handful of weathered bones. Neither man had expressed the slightest interest in the scuffle that had just taken place. Perhaps there were large stakes involved.

One prisoner now lay on his back in the dirt, arms extended, white-rimmed eyes examining the tin roof with intense abstraction. The dark bony chest rose, then fell. There was an audible sigh and the prisoner began to moan. It was a peculiar sound, formed with an economy of breath and movement Claypool later came to characterize as distinctly Oriental. Each exhalation, from beginning to end, was accompanied by a constant high-pitched noise, which was then answered by a sudden gasp of inhalation. It was the most disturbing sound Claypool had ever heard a human body make. A buzz saw was more melodic.

The other prisoner, hands and arms bound behind his back with commo wire, leaned sideways against a wall, his eyes closed.

Claypool sat in a corner on top of an empty ten-gallon drum rescued from the trash piled behind the photo lab. Large block letters on the side read DEVELOPING FLUID.

The falling bones clattered on a floor of smooth bare earth.

Captain Raleigh stood in the open doorway rubbing his right hand, then studying the skin in the sunlight. “The hell with his arm,” he muttered. “I think my goddamn finger is busted.”

Lieutenant Phan looked up from his magazine. When he grinned he revealed teeth identical in color to his staff’s dice. “You number one John Wayne cowboy Western man,” he said.

“Yeah, well it still hurts like hell, pardner.” Raleigh held up his hand. The index and middle fingers were bruised and slightly swollen. Then he noticed the expression on Claypool’s face. “Fucking gook,” he said. “You see what he did?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Claypool. He didn’t know what he had seen.

Raleigh turned away. “Fucking gook.”

Lieutenant Phan chattered in Vietnamese to his men. They looked at the Americans and laughed.

“You should go down to the Ninety-second, have ’em check out your hand,” suggested Sergeant Mars. “You can get all kinds of ugly shit from a human bite.”

“That poor gook don’t know yet all the shit he can get from me.”

The prisoner had stopped moaning. Now he too closed his eyes.

“Look at this,” said Raleigh. “They’re waiting for Buddha to come take them away.”

“Buddha not fairy godmother,” said Phan.

The air inside was warm and stale, heavy with the scent of fear and unwashed flesh, a scent Claypool was attempting to ignore.

Hands on hips, Raleigh stood over the prostrate prisoner. “There’s nothing wrong with him,” he declared. “These gooks are made out of bamboo.” Suddenly he slapped his palms together. The prisoners’ eyes flickered. Even the gamblers looked up. “Sergeant Mars,” he proclaimed. “Once again if you please.”