Rikki Ducornet - Brightfellow

Once, the beautiful Dr. Ash, mathematician, stepped outside and stood on the grass alone in her bathrobe, fresh from a shower, her hair tumbling to her shoulders in grapes, and he kept still, on his back in the shadows, beneath a tree deep in leaf, so still she did not see that he was there. He heard her sigh and say aloud: Why am I so sad? It was a thing he had never thought to ask himself. He marveled at this. And ever after he would ask of himself: Why am I so sad?

It is impossible for him to imagine what it must be to live in a house as Dr. Ash does, full of quiet rooms, closets full of clothes, light summer linens and heavy woven wool; clothes for every season. Everything in the house warm and thick and heavy — as if each night it were basted in gravy. These people, he thinks, live like the gods. Forever. Safe from the swift wheels of failure — and destitution.

He watches the stars. He imagines renaming them. Offering them to Asthma freshly minted, freshly imagined. The lost umbrella. The tin spoon. The little molecules. The peacock’s tail. The cherry basket. The falling tears. The wandering souls. The sandman. The lost soul. The turtle’s dilemma. The volcanic eruption. The kiss. Those who lament. The battling dogs. God’s beard. The snail. The tree of life. The outer garment. The boiling pot. The fishhook and the leviathan. The burning rushes. The victim. And those at the heart of the universe: a big black house on fire, the flames dancing in every window, smoke spilling from the cracks. The stolen chicken!

He had once stolen a freshly roasted chicken that had been left to cool on the kitchen counter. The family’s Labrador retriever was scolded and made to spend the night in an ignominious little doghouse he had outgrown years before. No one noticed the missing kitchen towel Stub had used to carry the chicken off, which became his plate, tablecloth, and napkin.

The memory of that chicken makes him aware of just how hungry he is, and he considers breaking his one rule and checking out Blackie’s larder. Asthma, after all, is busy at play, and Blackie and her Rod busy at drink. The little party is in full swing. He can hear Blackie telling Blondie about the book she is writing: The Boy Beamed to Mars. “ A Boy Beamed to Mars is better,” Goldie offers; it’s more mysterious. Blackie puzzles this over. “I don’t see what a damned difference it makes,” she snaps, her blood pressure rising. “You have a tin ear,” Goldie says. “That’s why.” “If I had a tin ear,” Blackie hisses, “Brunelleschi would have told me. The Boy Beamed to Mars is exactly. . it means he’s chosen, goddamnit. He’s the boy, not just any boy. Jesus.” “ A boy is more mysterious,” Goldie insists, popping a maraschino cherry between her teeth. “He’s already floating in space. He’s anybody’s boy, not chosen by some dickhead divinity. . but why do I give a shit?”

“Yeah,” Blackie agrees. “Why?” She stands, barely able to sustain herself. “WHY DON’T YOU JUST. . JUST NOT GIVE A SHIT?” And she stomps off; the two men watch her leave without much interest.

When Blackie walks in the front door, Stub is standing at the foot of the stairs. “Who the hell?” she barks.

“I’m, uh, a student of Dr. Ash’s,” Stub mutters. “She told me to drop by and pick up some books. She said they’d be here, in the front hall, on a table, but—”

“Wrong house.” Blackie says it vaguely as she weaves her way to the living room, shedding her heels as she goes. “Wrong house,” she mutters and falls, not onto the sofa as she intends, but onto the floor. Stub runs to her, asks her what he can do.

“Go fuck yourself,” says Blackie.

“The boy carries a burden of strangeness.” Goldie’s Rod says dreamily, prodding the ice in his glass with his tongue.

“Poor Timmy,” Goldie agrees. She wonders how Timmy, the son of the Distempers across the street, can possibly grow into a man. And yet he is fifteen, almost a man — such a worrisome thought. “Poor Timmy,” Goldie says again. “Fifteen and yet he moves along the ground like a crab.”

“Like a crab with an ancient woe and an oversized barnacle stuck to his claw,” her Rod agrees.

“When he walks about,” Blackie’s Rod wonders aloud, “I wonder where he goes?”

“Where does such a boy go to find a little comfort?” Goldie ponders.

“Sauerbraten,” Goldie’s Rod says decisively, his nose probing the air around him. “The boy won’t starve.”

“Genius,” says Blackie’s Rod, “needs to be squeezed. In that way it is like toothpaste. It needs. . what was I getting at?” He sips his rye and frowns.

“I admit I don’t quite follow,” sighs Goldie. “Genius thrives on being cramped. Souls need, souls need. . what do they need? Oh! I know! Souls need a tight squeeze !” She laughs merrily. “Perhaps Timmy is the one who will save us all.”

“Someone said, someone. .,” yawns Blackie’s Rod, “that each and every one of us is meant to save the world. Timmy has been squeezed enough to become a cosmologist or one of those rare birds who invents bombs. You know, Little Boys!”

“And Fat Men!” trills Goldie. Faraway sobs can be heard. “That will be Timmy.”

“A galaxy away,” the Rods say together.

“Is it Pea Pod?” Goldie wonders.

“I believe it is Timothy,” her Rod sighs. “Do we have nuts? I am desirous of nuts.”

“In the pantry,” Goldie directs him. “An entire can of cashews with its key. You’ll have to get them yourself. I am unwilling, perhaps unable, to move.”

“As am I,” Goldie’s Rod says, leaning back in his chair. “I’m in an immobilizing mood. Somewhere between contentment and anxiety.”

“Remember when I said if we had a. . a (what in the devil are they called?) a child, we were not to strike it?” Goldie startles her husband into chewing his ice.

“Better to strike them than paint them in honey and set them down hog-tied beside a hill of fire ants.”

“Oh you bad boy,” Goldie approves quietly into her glass, her tongue cold and pink. “In a little while I’ll fry the three of us some eggs, I mean four, . but not just yet.” she decides.

“Sunny-side down?” her Rod wonders. “With a spot of curry, love?”

“You can curry your own goddamned egg,” says Goldie.

Teaching is not Blackie’s Rod’s greatest strength, yet this is what he does — although perhaps not for long, as his tenure is in question. His insufficiencies in that domain plague him. As he nurses his ice and rye he soothes his mind with thoughts of a domain that over the years has grown in holdings and complexities. Somewhere in Jamaica. This Jamaica of his is suspended somehow in a parenthetical time both before and after slavery. His own holdings include a big white colonial house studding a green hill, a lawn extending to the sea, plantations, serviceable natives.

Somewhere in Jamaica. . those three words are all it takes to evoke a reverie that fits him like a diver’s suit. He grows sugarcane. He makes molasses, sugar, rum. Perched in a town near the clouds, he can see this sugarcane spill like a broad river to the horizon. And his fields of plantain, banana, coconut, lime. He raises sheep for mutton and spring lamb. From where he sits, he can see these sheep munching. Out at sea, fishermen are returning, raising their voices in song. The sun is setting, the sky flushed pink; there will be roast lamb for supper, following the spiny-lobster bisque and, let’s see. . a pudding set on fire with his very own rum! From time to time he fetches a bottle from his cellar; already he can hear the starched white cotton of the black help crackling behind their knees. How pretty they are, Jamaican women, the color of gingerbread, of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, café au lait, toast, as they move about in the cool shadows of the downstairs rooms, setting out candles, flowers, a freshly pressed linen tablecloth, a Venetian carafe (the only thing he actually owns, inherited from a rich aunt on his mother’s side). He allows himself the leisure to think about what it would be like to tumble into bed with all of them. He thinks it would be like taking a dip in chocolate mousse rich with eggs and cream. How many are there? He has, over the years, named them all after gems: Jade, Ruby, Pearl, Sapphire, Opal. . and the new one, Heart of Mary, ugly, straight from Jehovah God Bible School — she keeps things running smoothly and sometimes rides his knees. Her little churchy clitoris as hot as a toasted raisin on his bare knee. Shameless, droll little Mary, so full of tricks. Speaking of which — has Pea Pod, sent to a corner, had her supper? Dear little Pea Pod. “Goldie!” He calls out as if she was elsewhere, picking orchids at the lawn’s far end, “Goldie?”