David Gates: The Wonders of the Invisible World

I was smart to leave the bottle in the car: Steven stood there in the kitchen, the orange juice carton (no glass) in his hand. “Where the hell have you been?” he said, putting the carton back in the refrigerator. “Alice Porter called and I got stuck on the phone for an hour.” An hour meant five minutes.

“So you shouldn’t have picked it up,” I said. “Why the good Lord made answering machines.”

“I was expecting it to be Martin,” he said. “Our auteur has made still more changes in her text, and he had to be sure they didn’t affect the pictures. This woman thinks she’s Flaubert. I mean, this has been going on and on and on. I told Martin, this is the end of it. Fini. ”

“Are they going to make you change anything?” I said.

“No, it’s just stuff like where she had the wolf with his tail ‘held high,’ it’s now ‘at a jaunty angle.’ Jaunty, for Christ’s sake. I mean, this is what my life has come down to, ‘a jaunty angle.’ I told him, I said, ‘Look, the picture’s done, he’s got his tail in the fucking air, and if the goddamn angle isn’t jaunty enough, they can shove it.’ ”

“Good for you,” I said.

“So where’ve you been?” he said. “You didn’t go all the way back there, did you?”

“No, you were right, they had it at Webster’s. I went up to Randolph Pond and tried to do some sketching.” I held up my sketch pad as evidence.

“Good for you, ” he said. “You haven’t sketched for a long time. Let’s see.”

I shook my head. “They suck,” I said. I got a book of matches out of the drawer. “I’m going to use the Steven Sturdivant method. Burn it before it gets out of hand.”

“You’re kidding, I hope. You know, you were absolutely on the money with what you said the other day. How does that thing go? ‘The man of genius makes no errors’?”

“I’m not a man,” I said, “and I’m not of genius. Be back in a second.”

“Come on, now,” he said, grabbing for the pad. “Let the old doctor have a gander.”

“No, Steven.” I twisted away. “I’m serious.” If he’d gotten the pad away from me, he would’ve seen that the last sketch in the book was of a little girl at Jones Beach, with pail and shovel. But the word serious seemed to back him off. I slammed the door behind me, to lend myself still more power.

Standing over the rusty oil drum, I ripped out two blank pages and set fire to them. Then I ripped out the little girl and burned her up, too. When I came back into the kitchen, I heard the toilet flush upstairs. I listened to Steven’s footsteps going back to his workroom, then went out and brought the new bottle in. I brought the level in the old bottle up to something like what I guessed it had been — apparently I’d hit it much harder last night than I remembered — took a slug of what was left for old times’ sake and poured the rest into the sink, running hot water to chase it down. I put the empty bottle back in the paper bag, stuffed it into a milk carton and tucked it away in the bottom of the garbage. Okay: crisis averted. I lit the oven, unwrapped the chicken, sawed the top off the bread loaf with the good knife from Broadway Panhandler, and began clawing out the soft inside.

“I have a confession to make,” he said as I lit the candles. “I smoked most of a pack of cigarettes last night.”

“Steven,” I said. “You didn’t. ”

“I decided I’m not going to do it anymore,” he said.

“How come you did it at all?”

“Well, we had that — and believe me, I’m not blaming you — but we had that unpleasantness yesterday that never really got resolved, and I felt like I was under the gun with those pictures, which it turns out I’m not, I mean I’m actually in very good shape with them. I think all it really was, I was just looking for an excuse to do it. So I did it.”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry if I contributed.” I began cutting the stuffed bread loaf into inch-thick slices.

He shook his head. “Not your responsibility. It was my choice.”

“And you had them around,” I said.

“Yeah. I had them around.” He did his snorting laugh. “But I think this has taught me something. I mean, if you weren’t reason enough, there’s Trigger Junior to think of.” Trigger Junior was his provisional name for the baby.

“What about you?” I said. “Aren’t you reason enough?”

“Well, I never have been,” he said. “Maybe that’s changing. Did I tell you? I think these pills might be starting to do something. This morning I woke up and I felt just sort of — I don’t know. Not heavy of heart for a change. I can’t really describe it. But I definitely didn’t want a cigarette, despite putting all that nicotine into my system last night. Which I find almost scary.”

“But that’s wonderful,” I said. I laid a slice on his plate and a slice on mine.

“God, that looks splendid,” he said. “At any rate. Full disclosure.” He cut off a corner and speared it with his fork. “I’m assuming we still care about that.”

“I think we do.” What else was I to say?

“Good.” He put the corner in his mouth. “Mmm. Surpassed yourself.”

“I’m glad you like it,” I said, not meaning it to sound that dismal.

“In the interest of even fuller disclosure,” he said, “I must further confess to you that I nipped a bit at the cognac while you were out this afternoon. I don’t actually know why. Except that it was like, I really wasn’t craving a cigarette and that freaked me out. It was like nothing was wrong, you know? And that made me suspicious that something was really wrong that I didn’t even dare bring to consciousness, so I thought I’d better drink to sort of preempt it. Does that make any sense at all?”

“Absolutely,” I said. I wasn’t paying attention. How could he not have noticed that so much was gone out of that goddamn bottle? And now what? Try to keep him out of the kitchen and pour out some of what you just poured in?

We ate.

He took a second slice.

Half of a third.

Now he was talking about names for the baby. Lately he’d been liking Margaret. Did I know that was the same as Pearl?

“The same in what sense?” I said, getting up to clear the table.

“You know, etymologically,” he said. He stood up too, and reached for the platter with the remains of the stuffed bread loaf.

“Sit,” I said. “I’ll take care of it. I think you’ve had a hard day.”

“Only in my head.” He carried the platter and the salad bowl out to the kitchen; I set the plates and glasses on the counter next to the sink. “Tinfoil be the best thing?” he said, pulling open the drawer.

“Why don’t you just let me take care of it?” I said. I snatched the foil out of his hands. “Just go and sit and relax. Actually, you know what would be lovely? If you would put on some music, I’ll take care of this stuff and then bring our desserts out to the living room. How would that be?”

“Now you’re talkin’,” he said. He took down a brandy snifter.

“What are you doing?” I said. “I’ll get that for you. Go and sit down. ”

“I can get it.” He opened the cupboard door, took out the bottle of Rémy, looked at it and said, “What the hell ?”

He looked at me. Then I saw his eyes go down to my hands and get big. I looked down, too. I was sawing the saw thing on the aluminum-foil box across the thumbprint part of my thumb. There was blood on the front of me.

“You’ve been drinking,” he said.

“Obviously,” I said. I couldn’t feel the pain yet. I had a picture in my head of a bad person in shame.