The morning sun invaded the prison cell with a harsh, penetrating light, streaming through the window bars and casting a grill-work of shadows upon the white concrete walls. The interplay of light and dark was so stark that I felt exactly as though I had been transported into an Edward Hopper painting. And I might have even convinced myself that I actually was merely an object within a painting, prison life being for me every bit as unreal as any still-life. Instead, I had learned to embrace the many daydreams and fantasies that accosted me with delightful unpredictability throughout each day of my existence in this dreadful place. Truly, life in prison would have been intolerable without an occasional escape from reality.
And so, enveloped in the white glare of the sun, the prison cell became for a short while a subject for the ghost of Edward Hopper, who stood with his easel just outside the cell door and gazed into the room with wonder in his piercing eyes. All at once he started to paint with a fury, trying to capture as quickly as possible the stark quality of light and shadow onto the canvas. But soon the master lost interest. Looking around him, he became distracted and likely decided that the light was better elsewhere. Or else he wanted to paint a nude, and planned to head north a hundred miles to the correctional center, where he could catch some incarcerated women while they showered. The main thing was to capture the subject in a confined space, which was the man’s typical practice. Whatever his motive, he left hurriedly, and, always a man of few words, cast a quick apologetic glance my way before departing. Artists!, I thought to myself with irritation. What impetuous people we are!
Stark reality once again asserted itself, and I looked wearily about the room. Everything was in its proper and immutable place. The straight-backed wooden chair on which I sat was spectacularly uncomfortable, while its companion, the little wooden table, shifted back and forth on its uneven legs, as I considered writing an entry in my diary. The toilet, sitting like a throne within its niche in the corner, gurgled its perpetual overflow noises, because the prison was too cheap to replace the water float. And the bunkbed stood in severe iron stateliness against the wall. Everything in the room, it seemed, was designed to induce maximum discomfort and displeasure. And even after eight full months of occupation, I still could not get used to this prison cell.
At length my attention turned to my cellmate Ronald, sleeping fitfully in the lower bunk, his cherubic face betraying barely a sign of the troubles he knew. If a monetary value could be placed on the human soul, I reflected to myself, Ronald would be priceless. Not that he was a saint, of course. Anyone who has held up three liquor stores at gunpoint – at least those he has admitted to – has to have acquired a certain hardness of character. Still, there was a weird and even charming naivete about Ronald, a childlike good humor in his dealings with other people, even hardened convicts, that made him very hard to dislike.
Ronald once admitted to me that during his robberies, he could not bear to see the fear on the faces of his victims. And so, while carrying out his crime, he always tried to do everything he could to minimize their fear. He would walk swiftly up to the liquor-store counter and ask the attendant for all the money in the cash register. Then he would brandish his weapon for a moment, to indicate that he meant business, and then tuck it back away under his belt. After being handed the money, Ronald would politely thank his host, a gesture which I have no doubt was absolutely sincere.
I admired Ronald’s compassionate bent, which made it easier to be intimate with him. But I didn’t love him. He knew I was bisexual, which for me has always made it hard to commit to anyone. And yet I did find the fortitude within to accept my affair with Ronald as something necessary, and even meaningful. I could only hope that he accepted the fact that love was out of the question. I instinctively knew that I could only truly fall in love with a woman. So although I was attracted to and very much liked certain men, I could not fall in love with one. I was simply not wired that way.
It was now late morning. I could tell, by the position of the shadows in the room, that it was probably close to eleven o’clock. Ronald often slept in, but rarely as late as this. The man could sleep right through, or at least ignore, the eight o’clock breakfast alarm – an amazing feat because of both the raucous blast and the resulting clamor of inmates. But since no one was compelled to eat their breakfast, this meant that Ronald frequently missed out on it entirely, a fact that appalled me but did not bother him in the least. He said that he did not like the sloppy scrambled eggs or the watery oatmeal that were prison staples, and since he had become a vegetarian, he had no problem denying himself the dubious protein provided by greasy bacon and sausage. So I would try to convince Ronald of the nutritional value of even sloppy eggs – reminding him that many vegetarians ate them – and of his need to keep up his strength, but he simply would not listen. He said the peanut butter sandwiches he often ate at lunch, and the beans, corn, and potatoes that were usually available at dinner, were enough. But it really worried me that, though he had a naturally slender physique, the man seemed to be getting thinner with every passing day. And at six feet three, he was too tall to be losing that much weight. I looked over at Ronald as he snored quietly, and whispered a silent prayer for him. I was afraid that he was beginning to lose resistance, which was a necessity for survival in this wretched place.
My own breakfast was now desperately urging release, so I pulled myself out of my chair and walked stiffly over to the toilet. The only good thing about this toilet seat was that, despite being stainless steel and only about a foot off the ground, it was actually more comfortable than the chair. In any case, a bowel movement was not long in coming, and the diarrhea was not a surprise. I had no doubt as to its origin – it was the meat that Ronald always so studiously avoided. For the first time in weeks they had served ham, or what looked like it, for breakfast. The inmates of course called it “mystery meat,” and I was one of the few unfortunates who was foolhardy enough to devour the entire slab, and far too quickly. I now regretted it.
After finishing my ritual, I heaved myself up from the toilet, removed the tank cover, and reached into the tank to try – for the hundredth time – to bend the water float so that the gurgling might stop. Sometimes after a good flush the gurgling would indeed stop, so I plunged the handle extra hard this time, but my hopes were dashed yet again. After replacing the tank cover, I looked over my shoulder and noticed that Ronald had begun to stir. He could sleep through a prison alarm, but not through a toilet flush. He looked up at me bleary-eyed and said in a sleep-slurred voice, “Mornin’ cap’n. Whatcha doin’ up so early? Going fishin’ or somethin’?” Although it was hard to discern at the moment, the man was actually far from illiterate.
“Funny, Ronald,” I countered. “Very funny. It’s late, and you missed breakfast again. What is wrong with you? Don’t you care about yourself at all? You’re in prison, you dolt! If you don’t eat, you don’t survive! So you’d better shape up, mister. That’s all I can say.”
“Yes sir, Warden!” Ronald said, pulling himself swiftly out of his bunk, casting aside his bedsheets, and snapping sharply to attention. “Or should I say, ‘Yes, Mistress?’” His round, boyish face beamed. Another feeble attempt at humor.
It was a not very subtle reference to our sexual relationship. And though I knew he meant no harm, I became instantly unnerved and defensive. I was in no mood for Ronald’s homosexual jokes, not only because I was not gay, but in particular I didn’t appreciate being called a dominatrix. In point of fact, I have always been repulsed by any form of rough sex. So I rebuked Ronald harshly – hopefully not too harshly.
“Ronald,” I hissed, “you know I don’t like your God-damned queer jokes, so why do you insist on keeping up with them? Remember, my friend, you are the raging queen here, not I. So the next time you want to be amusing in that way, think about restraining yourself, all right? You wise-ass bastard!”
Ronald winced, and his gaze shifted from my eyes to the floor. He was hurt, and I felt the weight of his injury. “My, aren’t we irritable today,” he said quietly, and then walked slowly over to the cell window. He had become so thin that, in his baggy orange jumpsuit, he looked like he could have almost fit through the window bars. I apologized hastily.
“Ronald, I’m sorry,” I said. “You know I didn’t mean that.” He glanced at me and shrugged, and I nodded toward the calendar on the wall above the toilet, where I had circled today’s date numerous times with our pencil. “Today’s the day my ex is coming, you know? So I’m kind of on edge. Anyway, I really am sorry. Truly.”
He turned away and gently said, “It’s all right,” as if to someone just outside the cell window. And then, just as softly, “I hate her just as much as you do, you know.”
I could appreciate his sympathy, but wasn’t in the mood for it. “Oh come on, you don’t even know her, you fool!”
After a pause, he turned again to face me. “Hey, cut the crap, okay? The way you rag on her – like once a week at least – there’s hardly anything I don’t know about her.” He walked over to the calendar and smacked the date with his forefinger. “You think I forgot about that? It’s tingle time, my friend. The bitch is finally showing up – after eight months, right? And she’s bringing her damn lawyer with her, for Christ’s sake…” Ronald’s voice trailed off, and mine switched on. Loudly.
“How could you know that, mister? I never said a word about it.”
Ronald looked down at the floor and shrugged. “I just know,” he said passively.
“The letter!” I exclaimed, suddenly enlightened. “You read her letter, didn’t you? You asshole!”
“All right, so I’m an asshole. At least I found out the whole story. You’ve been so distracted lately that I had a feeling there was something else going on. Anyhow, the way you’ve been taking it out on me, I figured I had the right. Did you really want me to suffer through all your crap without knowing why? I mean, the woman is bringing her freaking lawyer, man! So at least I finally understood – you know?”
“I’ve been that bad?”
“Bad enough,” Ronald said. “Bad enough to make me feel like a total chump most of the time.”
After a pause I said, “Ronald, look, I’m sorry I’ve been such a pain in the ass, but I hope you can understand why I didn’t tell you about the lawyer.”
“No, I really can’t,” he said, moving over to the chair and sitting wearily down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d get upset, just like you are now. Let’s face it, you don’t exactly look kindly upon lawyers. You wanted to kill your last one, remember? And don’t tell me you didn’t mean that.” I shuffled over to the bunkbed and plopped myself down on Ronald’s bunk.
“All right, I get your point,” Ronald said after a time. “But what about her? Maybe she’s changed her mind about your divorce. I mean, it hasn’t been finalized, right?”
I nodded.
“So maybe the lawyer is an art lover or something, and knows that your stuff is good, and probably worth a lot more than she thinks it is. So just maybe he’s there to try to talk you into getting back together with her, not just for her sake or your sake, but for his. You know, so he can represent both of you when you get out, and get a good cut for himself after you make it big.”
“That’s nonsense, Ronald,” I said. “How likely is it that this lawyer could also be an art connoisseur? And there is absolutely no reason why my wife would want us to get back together. It could be she just wants to tell me she’s now demanding more from our divorce settlement. Anyay, we’re done. Got it? And good riddance, is all I can say. But I still can’t help thinking the witch has something else up her sleeve.”
“If she’s that bad,” Ronald asked accusingly, “why did you marry her in the first place?”
“She is a beautiful witch, Ronald,” I countered.
“Then it couldn’t have been all bad, could it?”
“No, Ronald,” I said cooly, tired of his questions. “It wasn’t all bad. In fact, at times it was downright fabulous!”
Ronald cringed. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but I simply wanted to drop the subject. So I tried to end the conversation once and for all. “Understand this,” I said firmly. “Beautiful or not, the woman drove me to drink. And unlike W. C. Fields, I don’t thank her for it. She’s every bit as responsible for my being in this hole as I am, it seems to me. So why in hell would I want to go back to her when I get out of here? No, Ronald, it was all over a long time ago. Believe it.”
“But I thought you told me once that it was your painting that made you drink. You weren’t selling as much of your stuff as you wanted, so you started hitting the sauce. Or didn’t I hear you right?”
Ronald had a penchant for getting to the heart of matters. He was right, of course. “All right, sure, that was part of it,” I conceded. “But my painting suffered because of my wife’s complete lack of faith in my ability as an artist. And she doesn’t know a damn thing about painting, believe me. The woman couldn’t tell a Monet from a Manet, for God’s sake!” I pulled myself up from the bed and then, impulsively, began to pace back and forth in front of Ronald, trying to use up some of my nervous energy. “I’m telling you, man, she never once complimented me, or even encouraged me when I needed some support. Sure, I’ll admit that some of my work wasn’t that good, but then again, a lot of it was damn fine. Oh, she might, on that rare occasion, say something nice about certain paintings. And ‘nice’ is the catch word, because that was the best she could manage. Whenever I would bring her into the studio to look at a painting that I was especially satisfied with, she would stand in front of it with a perplexed look on her face, and then mutter, ‘that’s nice.’ Just ‘that’s nice,’ nothing more. Then she would turn around quickly and leave the room, shaking her head as she went. What do you think of that?” I stopped pacing and looked at Ronald defiantly.
“Pretty cold, all right,” he nodded. “But still, you can’t blame it all on her. After all, she wasn’t the one who got roaring drunk and hopped into a car and then ran over some poor little girl. You did that.”
He was looking at me as if I were some kind of monster. “Jesus Christ, Ronald, why do you have to remind me about that? Don’t you think I hate myself every minute of every day because of that? Haven’t I had enough nightmares to satisfy you? And by the way – and I’m not going to say it again – I did not run her over. I knocked her down. There’s a difference, you know. No one lives if you actually run them over.”
“You were still lucky that girl wasn’t killed. You could have gotten twenty-plus instead of just five to ten. And you could be rotting in the North House instead of counting down the time in the South.”
“And I suppose five years isn’t enough for you,” I almost shouted.
Ronald looked at me now sympathetically, almost tenderly. His blue eyes had a familiar calm about them, and a gentleness that I had come to appreciate more than anything else about the man. He had a kind of ingrained maturity that often made me feel younger than him, instead of ten years older. Almost instantly, I felt myself relax. At times like this, Ronald had a power over me that was like a kind of soothing, healing salve.
“You know better than that,” he said softly. “But somehow, I almost wish you did have a longer sentence. I’ve never known anyone like you before. You won’t believe this, but being in here with you has probably been one of the best times of my life. How’s that for crazy?” He had a sly, slightly embarrassed look on his face. “Anyway, with parole and good behavior, you’ll be out of here in three more years, tops, and maybe more like two. And I’ve got at least five years left. So what am I going to do when you leave? And then, when I do get out of here, am I really ever going to see you again? Probably not.” Ronald lapsed into silence. “It’s funny,” he said finally. “While you’re here, I’m hoping you’ll never leave. But when you go, I’ll be wishing I never saw your face.” His voice was composed, but his eyes were clouded with hopelessness.
“Ronald, there’s no point in worrying about these things so far in advance.” I said, hoping somehow to console him. “It’s true that I’ll probably be released before you will, but you can bet that when I get out of here, I’ll be in touch with you as often as you want, and looking forward to continuing our friendship when you get out. I don’t know where I’ll be, but it won’t be anywhere near here, that’s true enough. But it’ll still be some place in the Midwest. I mean, you can’t take the farm out of the farm boy, right? Anyway, wherever I am, you will be welcome. I promise you that. You’ve got carte blanche, buddy – and don’t you forget it.”
“You really mean that?” Ronald asked, his face full of childish wonderment.
“Hey, you’re my friend, Ronald. One of the best friends I’ve ever had, probably, and one of the sweetest souls I’ve ever known. Just look at us! Eight months together in this zoo, and we haven’t had one major fight! While the rest of these animals are beating each other senseless, even killing each other, we somehow get along. It’s an amazing thing, really, when you think about it. We’ve withstood the harshest test possible, and remained the closest of friends. Now that’s something, wouldn’t you say?
“Yes,” Ronald said, his eyes growing moist. “I’d say that was really something.”
We sat together in silence for a while, appreciating the fact that we were true comrades, in this, the worst of all possible circumstances. Then, abruptly, the sound of one of the guards resounded as he lumbered noisily down the hall, opening and closing cell doors. Lunch time. Finally he stopped at our door. No lunch for me, though. I was too wound up. I told Ronald that and waved the guard off. But Ronald had kitchen duty afterward, so he pretty much had to go. “Let’s go, Ballard,” the guard said impatiently.
Ronald arose reluctantly from the chair, came over to the bunk and pulled out his shoes from underneath. Then he sat heavily on the bed next to me and began to put his shoes on.
“You mean, you don’t even have your shoes on yet?” the guard said. “Come on, man. I don’t have all day, you know?”
“Okay, Max, I’m coming,” Ronald said, and hurried himself up a bit. For a guard, Max actually wasn’t such a bad guy, so we usually tried to cooperate with him. When he finished tying his shoes, Ronald eased himself out of the bed. Then he flashed me a smile and walked over to the cell door. Max unlocked the door and opened it swiftly. Before leaving, Ronald turned around and asked me, “What time is she supposed to come? You didn’t mark it down.”
“One o’clock,” I blurted out. I didn’t need to mark the time down – it was etched upon my memory.
Ronald smiled. “Good luck,” he said. “We’ll talk afterward, right?”
“Damn right,” I said.
Ronald waved to me as he departed. I waved back. Then the door slammed hard after him.
*
Seated once again in the little chair, I started visualizing my wife as a reclining nude. I had painted her thus three times. Now she was lying on the lower bunk, assuming various poses, according to my fancy. She became, in turn, Renoir’s “Female Nude,” plump and rosy, lying on a couch, then Ingres’ “Grande Odalisque,” looking demurely over her shoulder at her admirer, and then any one of Modigliani’s nudes, elegant and somehow crude at the same time. Modigliani’s version was by far my favorite. It seemed so appropriate, so true to my wife’s character. I wondered what the artist himself might think of my wife as a subject.
He appeared in a flash, leaning back against the opposite wall, looking frail and sickly – no doubt full of alcohol, drugs, and tuberculosis. Nevertheless, he was enthusiastic. Very enthusiastic. In fact, he cast one glance at my wife and went into ecstasy. Typical Italian, I thought to myself. And watched as he began to size her up.
“Magnificent!” Modigliani exclaimed in a thick Tuscan accent. “I could do great things with you, my beauty. Yes, great things indeed. What wonderful light hair. What lovely fair skin! What a splendid, graceful shape! Oh, I could make you even more beautiful than you already are. I could make you immortal!”
The artist interrupted his raptures to indulge in a coughing fit. He hacked and wheezed like a man approaching death. Upon recovering, he launched again into his superlatives. “What a wondrous creature,” he said breathlessly, his mouth half open and his eyes transfixed. He seemed lost for a moment, transported into another world.
“I have decided that I will paint you,” he said at last. “But first I will need… a necessary accessory. A blanket, you see. A red blanket.” He looked about the room and frowned when he saw that a red blanket was nowhere to be found. “This is all right,” he concluded, reaching for his easel. “I will manage.”
And manage he did, though it did take considerable time. The man was meticulous, but I didn’t mind waiting because I was thoroughly engrossed in his artistry. In due time, Modigliani created a masterpiece of sensuous female form. Mixing his colors with dexterity, he painted an undulating, elongated figure possessing creamy brown skin, delicate pink nipples and lips, and stark, raven-black hair – no matter that my wife was, as he noted, a blonde. The face was a sculptured oval, suggesting an African mask, yet retaining the distinctly enigmatic features of my wife’s own face. As was his wont, he left her eyes entirely free of expression. I found this absolutely appropriate. And thus the painting, as a completed whole, seemed to me something close to perfection.
I sat in reverent silence, rapt in my wondrous daydream. But then, all too suddenly, the painting and its creator dissolved into thin air. My wife, too, frozen in repose, melted away into reality. I came slowly to myself once again, knowing that she, the genuine article, was soon to appear in the flesh.
I had to admit to myself that, while I was very wary of this encounter, I was also somewhat stimulated. Despite our falling out, I desired her. And wished that we could share our bodies. But my suspicions were stronger than my libido. For God’s sake, what was her motive? And why now, after such a long time? More to the point, why in the world was she bringing a lawyer with her? I had already signed the divorce papers, and we had supposedly agreed on the settlement. So what in the hell was going on? Unfortunately, she had not signed. So my intuition told me that, as I suggested to Ronald, my wife wanted a bigger share of the settlement. At any rate, I was to find out much sooner than I thought, as Max now appeared at the cell door and called out my last name.
“Come on, man,” he said flatly. “You’ve got a visitor.”
I got up unsteadily, wondering what was in store for me.
*
“Well, considering everything, I think you look pretty good,” my wife said, squinting at me through the plexiglass panel separating us. “You haven’t lost that much weight, anyway.”
“I look like shit,” I told her plainly, “and you know it. No, I haven’t lost any weight, but if you cared to look into my eyes…” I leaned forward to give her the chance, but she looked away. “If you cared at all, you’d notice that I don’t look good at all. The eyes are bloodshot to hell, and the darkness around them will probably never go away. But then, you were never one for trying to understand much of anything, were you? You always thought just what you wanted to. Everything else could go to hell.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” she said coolly. “I’ve always tried to understand you. And your art, too. I can’t help it if your paintings look strange to me. You always expect me to agree with you about everything, and be interested in everything that interests you. Well, I’m sorry if I’m not smart enough for you, but you’re going to have to accept that fact if we’re going to make our marriage work.”
“Make our marriage work? What marriage, for God’s sake?!” I almost shouted. “Are you trying to tell me that we actually have a marriage going here? Jesus, you could have fooled me!”
“Oh, honey, of course we have a marriage!” she said, none too convincingly. “I know we talked about divorce that one time, but I’ve been thinking about what you must be going through, and well, maybe my eyes have been opened – you know?” She shot me a phony heartfelt look. It was all I could do not to curse at her. “I mean, that’s why I came here, right? All the way from Chicago. I wanted you to know that I do still love you, and that everything is going to be alright. I’m going to wait for you, and when they let you out of here, we’re going to try and make our marriage work.”
She glanced at her lawyer, sitting off to the side. He leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Then his tight lips formed a smile, and his beefy hand patted her shoulder reassuringly. He was a fat, bald little man with a thin mustache and beady eyes, and I moved my chair so I didn’t have to look at him. I couldn’t believe the act my wife was putting on. She was about as sincere as a used car salesman. The only difference was that she was playing with my life, trying to sell me back into slavery.
“What’s really brewing in that conniving brain of yours?” I asked her outright, trying to dispense with all pretense. “Really now, tell me truthfully. What is really going on behind that pretty facade?” It struck me that the only reality about my wife was her beauty. She was, indeed, absolutely gorgeous. Silky blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. Big blue eyes, rosy cheeks, dimpled chin, and a curvy body wrapped in the chic pink dress I got her for our last anniversary.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked defensively, her face flushing. “Don’t you believe me? I just said I love you, man, and you won’t even try to believe me. What am I supposed to do to convince you? If I thought I could help you get out of here, I would. You know I would. Do you think it’s going to be easy waiting for you for two or three more years? Well, it’s not. It’s going to be pretty hard on me, you know?”
“But so far it hasn’t been that hard, is that right? Perhaps you found some way to cope with your loneliness?”
I struck a nerve. A very sensitive nerve, judging from my wife’s face. The look that she wore was so obviously guilt-ridden that it may as well have served as a confession. I had long suspected impropriety on her part, and now needed no more proof than the very expression on her face. “What’s wrong, dearest?” I said sardonically. “Cat got your tongue?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in mock confusion.
“Look, let’s just give it a break, all right?” I said. “I know you’ve had an affair, so why don’t we just bring it right out into the open? It will save us both some grief.”
“How do you know I’ve had an affair?” he asked, digging herself in deeper. “You don’t know any such thing! You couldn’t know!”
At any rate, I knew now. And somehow, I felt a strange sense of relief, realizing that our story had finally come to an end. Considerable turmoil had suddenly been eased within me, and I now became, oddly enough, very calm and objective about the whole matter. I now felt more like some old acquaintance of my wife’s, rather than her husband. It was far from a pleasant sensation, for along with the relief was a very keen sense of loss. But certainly, any desire I might still have for her had now vanished. “Who is it?” I asked unemotionally.
“Who is what?” she asked, her eyes darting about nervously.
“Who is your gigolo? Who is your stud?”
She cast a quick glance at her lawyer, and I leaned forward to see him frowning and shaking his head at her. So she turned quickly back to me. “I’m telling you, I am not having an affair,” my wife said forcefully. “Did I ever think about it? Maybe once or twice, when we were having one of our rough patches. And who could blame me for just thinking about it? And you can’t tell me you never considered it. With one of your models, for instance?” I just shook my head in derision. She knew I never used female models to pose as nudes – she was the only one to pose for me thus since art school. And surely she remembered the times I had assured her that an affair with a model was out of the question. “And if all you still care about is your stupid art, that’s going to really strain our relationship. So once we get back together, if you’re still planning to hole up in your little studio, painting away all day, that’s going to make it that much worse. You’re going to have to try harder to care about me and my needs.” She started to tear up. “You don’t know how I felt, trying to compete with your…obsession. You just don’t know!”
My wife actually started to cry – if the tears were real – which was a new experience for me, since not once had she ever cried right in front of me. If not for our circumstances, I might have thought I was seeing a completely different woman in front of my eyes. I felt a remote stirring within me, but was more inclined than not to regard it as a knee-jerk sympathy for anyone in tears. After all, she had only a minute ago complained about how my confinement had affected her, and not me. Still, as much as I felt generally unmoved by anything my wife had to say or do, I knew it would bode better for me if I took the high road. So I tried somewhat to mollify her.
“Come on, now,” I said. “You know, it would have been better if you told me this before. I mean, I knew that you didn’t much care for my art, but to think of it as your rival…well, I admit that never really occurred to me. So I guess I do regret it if you really felt that alienated.” I shrugged and looked at her pointedly. “But still, you never gave me the remotest clue as to how you really felt. And you have to understand that all artists are wedded to their work. Also…” I paused for dramatic effect. “…although I haven’t became a household name, I did give us a pretty nice household. True?”
My wife calmed down a bit, then looked away somewhat wistfully, perhaps allowing for the truth of this statement. When she looked back at me she smiled ruefully for a moment, before bowing her head. If it was a gesture of surrender, it ended abruptly when she impulsively reached into her handbag for a tissue, and began to wipe away her tears. She then crumpled it up and held it tightly in her hand, which she now rested on her lap. She gripped the tissue so tightly that it looked to serve as some kind of diminutive security blanket. Suddenly she heaved a big sigh, then gazed back at me and shook her head resignedly. I waited in vain for her to say something more.
“Look,” I said, breaking our silence. “Whether or not you’ve had an affair doesn’t really matter much to me. And whether or not you honestly believe we can patch things up is a moot point. We had one sorry excuse of a life together before, and to think we have even a remote chance to rebuild one now is in my view a delusion. Anyway, you go ahead and find yourself a new life. Let’s finalize the divorce, for God’s sake! We will be better off without each other. Believe me.”
“But that’s not what I want!” my wife blurted out, locking eyes with me. There was a hint of desperation in them that gave me a distinct impression that this was a demand and not a request. “We had something pretty great once, you can’t deny that. Right?” I wagged my head non-committedly. “And we can get that back. I know we can.”
I knew better than that. “I have one more thing to tell you,” I resumed in a more controlled voice. “You’re not going to like it, but you’re going to listen anyway.” My wife’s face instantly registered alarm, as if I might be about to thwart her carefully crafted designs. I plunged full steam ahead. “You probably won’t believe this, much less understand it, but I have been unfaithful to you.” Her eyebrows arched, then her eyes narrowed in either suspicion or incomprehension, or both. “That’s right,” I said, “your ears aren’t deceiving you. I have found a lover of my own. Unlike you, though, I care about him and respect him. I haven’t just latched on to some passing body to work off my sexual frustrations. This is a relationship built on mutual trust.” She turned and looked at her lawyer long and hard. I leaned forward again to see him shrug, with both hands upturned, as if at a loss.
“We have built a trust,” I continued, “without which we both might literally die. And if you think that you and I had hard times together, you can’t begin to imagine the kind of hardship that my friend and I have faced in here, in this den of human misery. But we’ll go on, we’ll make it through somehow. So if you are now even remotely worried about me – no need. I’ll be all right. I’ve got someone to live for, as he lives for me. I do hope you can find the same.”
I was just about to really press my demand for a divorce, but was halted by the expression on my wife’s face as she reacted to all this. It was a very potent expression, indeed – her mouth hung agape and her big baby blues, set within furrowed brows, searched mine quizzically, as if in utter disbelief. I hadn’t expected her to understand or accept my situation, but I had hoped that she would at least acknowledge it. It seemed fairly obvious that she couldn’t begin to fathom the things I had just confessed to her.
“Are you telling me that you’re… a homo?” she asked at last, her voice full of revulsion.
I struggled to hold my tongue, as I knew if I didn’t I probably wouldn’t be able to curb it. “I should have known you’d say something like that, you little wretch.” I paused another moment to collect myself. “Not that you deserve an explanation, but I happen to be bisexual, not gay. Your vile reaction is exactly why I never told you.”
Just then my wife broke into a fit of near-convulsive laughter. It was so sudden that it took me by surprise. She had seemed so cold and bitter, and then, from out of the blue, she began to snicker and cackle like a witch possessed. Still, she didn’t appear to be hysterical. On the contrary, she seemed almost to be enjoying herself, as if some very funny practical joke had just been played on her. After settling down finally, she began to dab her teary eyes with the mangled piece of tissue still in hand.
“What a thing to happen!” she said bemusedly, her chest heaving. “I came here hoping to convince you that we should get back together, and then you pull this on me. What a great joke! Don’t you think? I mean, I really got the ultimate shaft didn’t I? Right up the old wazoo!” She resumed snickering, then slowly regained some composure. “Tell me,” she asked incredulously, “what does everyone think of you around here? I mean, you two must be a real item amongst the convict set. I bet you’re the talk of the whole prison! Say, maybe you could even get in good with the warden! Just in case he’s gay, too. You know – a tease here, a tease there. And then, of course, get time off for really good behavior.”
She started cackling again. If there hadn’t been a screen between us, I might have throttled her. And it wouldn’t have been my wife who died – it would have been a complete stranger. Because I no longer recognized this person before me. She had suddenly become a kind of ghost or apparition. An absolute cipher. And she deserved to be treated as such. So I shot daggers at her. “Who are you?” I demanded. “Who are you?”
My wife gave me a faux-innocent look and just shrugged. “I’m my own person,” she said haughtily, “and I say what I think. You lied to me for our whole life. All that time I thought you actually loved me, but you were only interested in…other guys.” She now cast me a sickly look, as if she was about to retch. “To think about who I was sharing my bed with all those years just makes me want to be sick.”
Again, I tried to maintain my composure. I just stared at her. “No more than I,” I said flatly. “You disgust me far more than I disgust you. Believe me.”
She stared back, but I wouldn’t let her outstare me. I would burn holes into her eyes, if necessary. At length my wife averted her eyes and started slowly shaking her head. When she finally looked back at me she was still shaking her head, but she now had a kind of pitying, even condescending, expression on her face.
“You really blew it, you know,” she said quietly, almost in a whisper. “Big time. I gave you every chance to agree to staying together, so we could at least try to work things out, but you refused.” Her eyes turned into slits. “We could have lived like royalty, you fool. We could have been set for life. Don’t you get it?”
Completely vexed, all I could do was throw up my hands and look at her in wide wonder. “Get what, for God’s sake?! What in the bloody hell are you talking about?” She glanced at the lawyer and I craned my neck to see him slowly nod his head. Some kind of dubious affirmation, apparently.
Turning back to me, my wife looked at me resolutely. “I will not give you a divorce,” she pronounced. “Because if I did, I would get next to nothing, understand?” I gave her what must have been the most perplexed look she had ever seen. “If I divorced you, I wouldn’t get anything even close to what I deserve. And I deserve more than that. A hell of a lot more. Especially now that I know you’re nothing but a lying bastard.” She raised her eyebrows. “No, I’m going to take everything I can get. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Not a thing.”
I mimicked her raised eyebrows. “All right, wretch,” I challenged. “Proceed.”
“Remember, you asked for it,” she scowled. “First things first. What we could have had. From your paintings, right? You see, not long after you got sent up the river I got some legal help.” She nodded at the lawyer. “Not him. Turns out that, in this state, the wife of an artist has equal ownership of all the paintings her husband did while they were married. So while they’re together, the wife is supposed to get half of the money from any sales he makes.” She gets a pouty look. “Too bad you didn’t sell hardly anything in the whole five years we were together, because I could have gotten half the dough. But from what I remember you only sold three or four paintings, and only got like twelve thousand bucks for them, total. But don’t worry, I won’t hit you up for six thousand. I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Anyway, it’s just lucky you had that inheritance, because without that we would’ve been living in the poor house.” A tsk-tsk sound emanated from her mouth. “Too bad it’s running out, right? Isn’t that what you said a year or so ago? Too bad I can’t touch it, either, but that’s the breaks…”
I could feel my face flush and my blood start to boil. If anger were water, I’d have had steam coming out of my ears. But she just ignored me.
“…Anyway, if you were just a little smarter, you’d have given some more thought to my offer to stay together. But you weren’t smart – you were dumb. You wouldn’t even consider it. So how much is that going to cost you?” She smiled wickedly. “Eight million bucks,” she said matter of factly, and her smile was replaced by a rueful shake of her head. “Eight million. Some old goat is willing to pay five million for most of your stuff, but you did all that before we were married, so I guess I can’t sell it. Aren’t you relieved?”
I tried to formulate quickly in my mind how to reply to my wife, in a way that wouldn’t get me into trouble. Naturally I was completely at a loss as to how my paintings, either in toto or in part, could possibly be worth that much money. But of course I was also seething in the face of my wife’s cruel way of breaking this news. Still, for the moment I decided to let her proceed without incident. “Continue,” I said with as little emotion as possible.
“So a few months after I saw the lawyer,” she proceeded apace, “I finally found an art dealer – after talking to like a dozen of them – that showed some interest. I showed him some good photos I had a photographer make of what you thought were your best paintings, and he actually liked them. But he didn’t think he could sell them in his gallery, so he gave me the phone number of a collector he knew that might be interested in buying some of the stuff.” She paused a moment then let out what can only be described as a guffaw. “Well, the guy who came over turned out to be old as the hills. I figured he must be at least ninety, so I had to wonder why he would like art that is as weird as yours. He was dressed real conservative in this gray tweed suit and hat, and he even had a cane, so he looked more like a Norman Rockwell kind of guy. But as soon as I let him into your studio his eyes got big, and as he went from painting to painting he started saying stuff like ‘Good lord ’ and ‘Oh my, yes.’ I mean the man was totally gaga about everything he saw. God knows why…”
“Maybe because it’s good,” I immediately countered. “Have you never even considered that?” I shook my head derisively. “No, of course not. Why? Because you know absolutely nothing about art. Zip, zilch, zero. You said you took all of two art-history classes in college, but did you ever pay attention? Or did you just fall asleep in the dark, somewhere in the back row?” I continued to stare at her, completely expressionless. “Just admit it, already. You know nothing about art, and you care nothing about art. Or music, or dance, or the theatre, or literature of any kind. Except maybe romance novels and celebrity tell-alls. In point of fact…” I took a longer-than-usual pause, for added effect. “…your tiny mind is in actuality one vast cultural wasteland. Isn’t it?”
She grimaced, then glanced over at the lawyer. “You see how he treats me?” she said, milking every ounce of sympathy from him. I didn’t even think about looking at the guy, because I could not by now care less about what he thought of me. My wife looked back at me and cracked a sly, evil smile. “You’re making this so easy,” she said, and then laid it all out on the line. “So here’s how it’s going to go. That old geezer is willing to give me three million smackers for those three nudes you did of me. I thought they were all ugly as hell, but he thought they were ‘simply superb,’ and so he’s going to fork over a cool million for each one of them. And the old goat is willing to pay five million for the rest of your stuff…but I can’t sell it! Like I say, aren’t you relieved?”
Evil. The woman was pure evil. Another sly smile animated her despicable face. “I mean, three million is not eight million – is it?…” Another wide-eyed gaze. “…but the main thing is I get all three mill. Since you’re in the pokey, for a DUI and reckless endangerment, you’ve got no right to any of that dough. And I’m telling you, those three mill will tide me over for quite a while. But the truly great thing is I can get it as soon as I want. And when I do, I’m out of here. Someplace nice and big and cozy, on some sun-drenched beach with a cool ocean breeze.” Another pointed shake of her head. “No, you can keep your freezing cold winters and blazing hot summers.” Another mock-concerned look. “Must have been pretty chilly in here back in January, eh? Oh well, at least you had your special friend to keep you warm.” My glare remained cold as ice, but I felt an explosion coming on. “Anyway…” Another shrug. “…I wouldn’t be too sure about collecting that five million when you get out of here. The geezer’s got a major heart condition, I guess. So I’m hitting him up for my share right away. And, again, there’s nothing you can do about it. Not a single thing.”
I gave my wife a withering look that, unfortunately, didn’t have the intended effect. She was momentarily taken aback, but then recovered all too soon. “Is that all you’ve got?” she challenged. “Dirty looks?”
What next came out of my mouth would have been unthinkable in my “previous” life, but now felt perfectly natural. “Cunt,” I said softly. “Miserable, contemptible cunt.”
This did have the intended effect. My wife’s mood was indeed altered. “What?” she asked, her mouth agape. “What…? I mean…what?”
“Vile cunt,” I continued, my voice rising.
“What the…You can’t talk to me that way. You can’t. I won’t let you.” Her mouth trembled. “Take it back,” she demanded, like a petulant child. Then she crossed her arms and snarled at me. “Take…it…back.”
“Stinking cunt,” I almost shouted. Then, realizing that Max probably heard this, I looked over my shoulder and saw him shaking his head at me.
She persisted. “Take it back, take it back, take it back,” she commanded. And then, “If you don’t take it back, I’ll get you.” She nodded toward Max. “He heard what you said, so I’ll tell the warden and insist on some kind of punishment. I swear to God. I’ll have him put you away for even longer than you’ve already got, you crazy creep. Maybe a little stint in solitary, eh? Or maybe get you thrown into a cage with a real animal, instead of your special friend.”
“Fucking cunt!” I screamed. Then it happened. The explosion. I couldn’t help myself. I launched out of my chair and began pounding on the plexiglass. “Get out! Get out! Get out!…” I shouted, intent on stopping only when they left. But though alarmed, my wife remained seated. Further enraged, I yelled out, “Get your fucking cunt out of here!”
Soon enough, Max was right behind me. He grabbed my forearms and pulled me away from the plexiglass. I jerked my head around and looked hard at him, my teeth clenched. I considered struggling with him, and perhaps hurling a few choice words at him as well, but I knew that would be futile. And anyway, I liked Max. “Don’t make me use the cuffs,” he said, with eyebrows raised. So after a moment I calmed myself, then, with a resigned look and an almost pleading voice, said to him: “She’s going to steal my paintings, Max. She’s going to steal my paintings.”
Although I couldn’t imagine Max was much of an art lover, he actually winced, and then flashed a signal glare at my wife. To which she just shrugged. Then Max saved the day. Despite there being half an hour left of visiting time, he told my wife and her shyster, with utmost authority, “Time to leave, folks. Got it? I mean, now.” My wife began to object, but the shyster reached over and touched her arm. Then he nodded toward the door behind them and got up from his chair. She reluctantly arose, but before turning to leave she looked at me with the foulest expression I had ever seen on her face. “Faggot,” she said quietly, then the shyster took hold of her arm and started leading her away. But she glanced over her shoulder and said it again, louder this time. “Faggot!” At that the shyster became more insistent, whispered something into her ear, and she finally capitulated. But when they reached the door, after he opened it for her, she shouted it at me one last time. “Faggot!” Then they left.
Max released me, then stepped back and motioned me toward the prison door behind us. I dutifully proceeded. So we walked in silence – our footsteps echoing throughout the prison, since there was no other activity going on at the moment – all the way back to my cell. But before he opened the door, I asked Max quietly, “More time for bad behavior?” He then opened the door, and after I entered he closed the door as noiselessly as I had ever seen any guard do. Through the bars, I looked at Max expectantly. “What bad behavior?” he said pointedly. Then he turned and walked away.
*
Max’s words offered substantial solace, but the rage against my wife overwhelmed it. The fire continued unabated. And just as pernicious as the anger was the growing, gut wrenching realization that my wife was probably right about my inability to prevent her from selling those nudes. I would of course use every legal recourse available to me to stop her from doing this. The South House had a library and a couple of computers. The library wasn’t rife with law books, but the computers were adequate and the reception reliable enough, so that fruitful research could be done. I had heard that several inmates over the past few years had successfully petitioned to have their sentences reduced, and one very bright and persistent soul, nicknamed “The Equalizer,” impressed his lawyer enough that he eventually convinced a judge to downgrade his conviction for murder to manslaughter. Fortunately, the Equalizer had subsequently been transferred from the North House to the South, and I now resolved to seek him out as soon as possible, in the chow hall or the yard.
I climbed up to my bed and lay on my back with my eyes closed, hoping that some deep breathing would help me relax. But soon enough I gave up, sensing that this was futile. So I quickly rolled over and sat at the edge of the bed with my legs dangling, then balanced for a moment before lurching outward to land nimbly on the floor. Ronald had warned me numerous times about doing this, but it was only a five-foot drop and anyway I was good on the high bar as an athlete in college. You can’t take the gym out of the gymnast. So I began to pace furiously from the cell door to the window and back. I covered the twelve-foot distance in four long staccato strides, pushed hard off the wall next to the window and then hard off the bars of the door. I counted each length, figuring I’d shoot for a hundred or stop when it got tedious. Which it did after about twenty-odd lengths, at which point I stopped abruptly at the window. Standing stock still, I stared out into the distance. There was a mighty river out there that none of us could see, and considering that all of us longed to see it, that seemed almost like a crime committed by the State against humanity. Leave it to bureaucrats to build a prison next to a river, and prohibit the inmates from seeing it. My musing on this injustice was promptly overridden by the image of my wife’s wicked face, with her parting words still assailing me. I never dreamed that such an attractive face could be so ugly. And I knew it would remain thus for the rest of my life. No doubt flashes of the attractive face, with its myriad expressions – especially the ones of puzzlement, owing to her stupidity, ignorance, and dim wit – would arise in my mind. But they would never compare to the face she left me with. That would remain indelible.
My thoughts again turned to the nudes she was preparing to sell. Her face was virtually expressionless in all of them, and her eyes blank, almost vacuous. This was the influence of Modigliani. Surely each of his models had distinct personalities, but he chose to give them all empty eyes, even dead eyes. I now felt a distinct pleasure in having given my wife these eyes. How perceptive of me to have discovered her true nature from the start! Still, the remembrance of how I painted her body gave me pause. Rosy, creamy skin. Lithe, muscular limbs. Undulating, sensuous torso. All true enough in fact, but metaphorically false to me now. Now I would paint her so much differently. I would make her as hideous as humanly possible.
I called to mind some of the most controversial female nudes in modern art history. Owing to their homeliness, their pose, their coloration, or the artist’s style, these were for their time radical departures from the norm. First came Goya’s “Nude Maja,” then later Manet’s “Olympia,” followed closely by Courbet’s “Origin of the World,” and then, a world later, Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon,” followed by Modigliani’s cryptic depictions. But none of them could compare in brazen audacity to de Kooning’s “Women.” All six of these nudes were simply grotesque. With the menacing eyes, the sneering mouth, the huge, sagging breasts, the corpulent torso, the hidden vagina, and then the heavy legs and tiny feet. How could any other artist top that for sheer grossness? I now vowed that I would. In short order, I would acquire some cheap tablet paper from the library, which was allowed in the cells, and set to work with my golf pencil. The dinky thing would prove challenging – anything larger was deemed by the authorities to be a potential weapon – but I would manage. It would take me a while to determine how to proceed. But proceed I would.
My musings were suddenly interrupted by the clattering of keys at the door, as Max let Ronald into the cell. I turned around, and after he entered I waved at Max, in gratitude for the huge favor he had done me in overlooking my bad behavior. He briefly nodded, then departed. Ronald looked at me quizzically, and I told him what I had said to my wife before she left, and what she had said in return. Ronald shook his head, then went and sat heavily down on his bed. “So,” he said cryptically, “I take it the visit didn’t go well.”
I went over to pick up the chair, brought it back beside Ronald’s bed, and prepared to launch into my story. But before I did I decided to first ask him about his kitchen duty. My own tale would likely consume considerable time, and I wanted Ronald to know I was thinking of him before I began my confessional. “So how was kitchen duty?” I asked with genuine interest.
“Oh, the usual,” he sighed. “Do it as fast as possible. Sacrifice cleanliness for speed. Be a robot, not a human who cares about hygiene. Step out of line and you get chewed out.”
“Did you get chewed out?”
“Not too bad. The super was Joe, and his cellmate Willie was loading the dryer rack. I was spraying the rinser, which is the easiest part of the whole deal. You start with the plates – rinse, stack, rinse, stack. You can do it pretty fast, ‘cause the plates are plastic. But Willie wasn’t keeping up, so he was getting most of the flak. I tried to slow down, but the stack was still piling up.” Ronald shook his head and smirked. “So…I guess you could say Willie was catching flak because he was too slow to pack the stack on the rack.”
Ronald winked at me, and I smiled broadly in return. “At one point Joe said, ‘Come on nigger, move your ass.” So Willie said, ‘Hey man, this here is as fast as I go. Get used to it.’ To which Joe replied, ‘You just lazy, man. You ain’t even trying. Try harder, you dig?’ So Willie said, ‘Hey, get off my back, motherfucker.’ They went back and forth like that the whole time. I swear, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the words motherfucker and nigger used that often.” Ronald looked at me with open-eyed wonderment. “Why do black people call each other nigger? I’ve always wondered that.”
I paused a moment, staring at Ronald bemusedly. Then the bemusement turned into a grin, followed quickly by a snort, then a guffaw, then a flurry of giggles. Soon enough I was consumed with laughter – giddy, freewheeling, convulsive laughter. And I ignored Ronald’s now scornful expression. I knew my outburst was inappropriate, but didn’t care. I needed a release from the oppression my wife had imposed upon me, and this was it. Within one hour I had heard what I considered to be the four worst words in the English language – one of which I had spoken myself. So the absurdity of all this set my mind into a spasm of gleeful, witless abandon. Soon Ronald’s look of scorn was replaced by a solemn shake of the head, and then by an expression of utter exasperation. So I slowly calmed myself, the belly laughs subsiding back into giggles and snorts, until I faced Ronald with a big smirk on my face.
“What the hell,” he challenged. Then he pursed his lips in condemnation. “Don’t you dare tell me it was a stupid question. In fact, I’ll bet a lot of white folks have wondered the same thing.” His eyebrows arched. “And I’ll wager you’ve got no good answer for me. Do you?”
My smirk disappeared. I looked at Ronald now soberly and sincerely, with an earnestness borne of shame. “I’m sorry, Ronald,” I said softly, and then owned up. “That outburst was totally uncalled for. Way out of line, I know.” I shrugged at him helplessly. “I don’t know what got into me.” I looked away in embarrassment, then gazed back at him. “It just exploded out of me…like my explosion against my wife, I guess.” I now cast him a remorseful, almost pleading, look. “She’s trying to erase me, man. I’ve only told you about our shouting match. But if I told you about the whole thing it’d be like I was inflicting my loathing of her on you. You don’t deserve to bear the brunt of that anger.” I bowed my head in supplication, then slowly raised it again. “As for your question, you’re right. I don’t know why black people sometimes call each other… that name. Maybe they think if they use it enough then that will diminish its power. And at the same time, if they deny white people the right to use it, they increase their own agency.” I didn’t know how this sounded to him, but it felt right to me.
Ronald considered this. He stared off into the distance for a time, then started nodding his head. He looked back at me wide-eyed. “That’s pretty good. I never thought of that. But it seems pretty close to what’s going on there.” He leaned over and tapped my head lightly. “Pretty sharp. Sometimes you’ve got it going on, you know?” Then, with a smirk, “Other times not so much.”
I grinned ear to ear. It was such a relief to have Ronald forgive me so readily. Just like that we were buddies, again. And I, for the hundredth time, counted myself blessed for having this man as my cellmate. But then, Ronald’s face suddenly hardened. “You’re not off the hook, you know. You think you’re going to get away with not telling me your story? Forget it, buddy. I want to know everything. Spill your guts, man. If you don’t, I’ll never forgive you.”
So I did just that. I spilled my guts, simply regurgitated the whole encounter. From her claim that she always tried to understand me and my art, to her attempt to talk me into agreeing to get back together, to her claim that she cared about what I was going through, to her wearing that pink dress, to her pronouncement that she loved me – here I teared up a bit, because I knew how preposterous her claim was, and that in fact it was never true – to her denial of having an affair, to her accusation that I never cared about her, to her crying, to her doubling down on reconciling with me, to my own confession of having an “affair,” to her accusation that I was a homosexual, to her fit of laughter, to her finally admitting the truth, to the three million for the nudes and five million for the rest, and then, capping it all off, to our shouting match.
Ronald took all this in with rapt attention, not saying a word, but speaking volumes with his potent expressions of alarm, anger, outrage, and disbelief. He noted my emotional exhaustion – the moist eyes verging on overflow, the quavering lips, the slight whimpering that threatened to give way to full-on weeping. Then he nodded his head and said, with utmost kindness: “Go ahead, man. Do it. Let it out!”
It was an attractive proposition and my heart and soul were primed to comply. What a release it would have been! So I vacillated for a moment in uncertainty. But then my mind awakened, and reason prevailed. Alas, no. This I would not do. I locked eyes with Ronald. “Sorry, buddy,” I said resolutely, with a firm shake of my head. Then, after wiping the tears from my eyes, I pronounced, “No, my friend. I will not let it out. Don’t you see? That would mean giving in to her. Oh, how she would love to know she had the power to make me weep. To break me down and crush my spirit. Seeing me tear up and whimper a bit simply wouldn’t satisfy her. She would much rather see me wail like a child.” I stared deeper into Ronald’s eyes. “So no, I will not do that. I know you mean well, but no. I must be strong. Because I’m not through with her yet. Not by a long shot. I’m going to fight her with every last ounce of my being.” I wagged my head. “Maybe it will come to nothing. But I have to try, right? I mean, I’ve got no other choice. Right?”
Now Ronald began to tear up. He then countered my own steady gaze with an even steadier one. “Damn straight,” he said softly. He bent over and kissed me on the forehead. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders. “Beat the bitch up, man. Just beat her up,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eye. Then he released me.
I smiled at Ronald and nodded repeatedly in agreement. The man was, as always, in my corner in this massive hell hole, where everyone was cornered but where only a precious few of us had an ally – in our tiny two-man holes – whom we could trust and rely on for unconditional support. I grabbed Ronald’s shoulder in return and shook it gently. “That’s the plan,” I replied, and winked at him. “I’m already thinking ahead.” My raised eyebrows were met with puzzlement. “The Equalizer,” I pronounced, and Ronald’s eyes lit up in return. “Yes,” he confirmed, “that’s just what I was thinking. I mean, I never asked him for a favor myself because my case was pretty hopeless. I did the deeds and I knew what I was doing. So now I’m paying the price. But you – I mean, that’s something different, isn’t it? A wife trying to steal her husband’s paintings while he’s in prison. It’s ridiculous.” Ronald was fairly aglow at the prospect. “I bet the man will be majorly interested in this one. I mean big time.”
I smiled broadly in gratitude, but couldn’t help but wag my head again reservedly. “We’ll see. I mean, I’m sure I can make some headway on my own, but after all I’m an artist and I don’t have a legal mind. So if ‘The Equalizer’ can at least steer me in the right direction, and maybe translate some of the legalese into standard English, that would be huge.”
“I saw him in the library the other day,” Ronald said. “He knows I had a couple of appeals, and once even told me that he knew the name of that last lawyer I had, and said the guy was notorious for being lazy and incompetent. So I didn’t feel that guilty about wanting to kill him.” He winked at me. “So I’ll try to catch the man at the library next time I see him there.”
“And I’ll look out for him in the yard. We’re both big walkers, you know – well, pacers, really. We just pace all over the place, with our hands clasped behind our backs. So I know he’s aware of me.” I shrugged, got up suddenly, then ordered Ronald to do the same. I gave him a huge bear hug, then grabbed his shoulder again. “Thank you, buddy. You’re the best.” He gave me his bashful little boy smile. Then I nodded up to my bed, and said, “Got some serious thinking to do.”
Ronald nodded sympathetically and I started up the ladder. Then I crawled the length of my bed, plopped down on my back, settled my head into the pillow, and stared out the window. I heard Ronald stretching out on his bed. His pillow was at the opposite end of his bed compared to mine, so that he didn’t have to see the window all the time. After all, he had at least five more years to go, and I, with good behavior, had only two.
*
All I did for the rest of the day was stare out that little cell window, which actually was larger than the cell windows in the North House. And it was square instead of narrow. I watched the light change ever so slowly as the afternoon sun descended. At one point, the golden orb was fully framed within the window, as if posing for a portrait, and the light and heat were such that I was compelled to look away. But in due time the sun dropped from view and I resumed my vigil. But I was not longing for freedom. I was longing for justice, as my thoughts were full of vengeful plots against my wife. What if I did that, and that, and even that to her? But at length these egregious notions subsided, as I realized that none of them would ever come to pass. So all I was left with, besides the dim hope that “The Equalizer” could find a fruitful legal angle, was the vision of the new painting I would create. The seminal nude depicting my wife as the monster she was. First the sketches, then the studies, using the cheap tempera paints in the arts-and-crafts room, and ultimately the finished painting. Whether I finished it here – if the warden permited my use of an easel, canvas, and oil paints – or on the outside, was no matter. The depth of my wife’s moral, physical, and spiritual iniquity would be clear.
At the dinner chow alarm, with Ronald still napping or just lying awake like me, I shouted down to him to go get some food for God’s sake. He surprised me with “Yes sir, captain,” and slowly rose from his bed. He stretched a bit, then eyed me suspiciously, noting my own inaction. “What? I’m going and you’re not?” I shook my head in derision. “You think I have an appetite after what I’ve been through?” Ronald began to object, then caught himself. “Alright, man, it’s your call.” Soon enough Max came to let Ronald out. Max called to me, “Hey, chief, you coming or not?” Ronald answered for me. “After what he’s been through?” He grinned and winked at Max, who just shrugged then led Ronald away.
I continued to muse…and muse. Then Max returned with Ronald much sooner than expected. Ronald apologized to Max after being let in, because as a rule we weren’t supposed to get early or late escorts to or from anywhere. Max just shook his head and took his leave. So I asked Ronald why so soon, and he frowned and said, “Bad beans, bad corn, bad potatoes,” then pulled off his shoes and plopped down on his bed. I expected a bit more chatter from him about the day’s events, but he said not a word. He may have intuited that I didn’t want to talk about my wife anymore today, and if so, he was right. And I was grateful for the silence.
The rest of the day flowed relentlessly by, like the big muddy river so close to us, yet so far. The time passed quickly, like storm water, while my mind was occupied with thoughts of vengeance, then slowly, when the storm abated. But it is surpassingly hard to calm a mind under duress. I tried to concentrate on how I might depict my wife in the raw – and she would be raw. Should she be reclining, seated, or standing? Close up, in perspective, or at an angle? In natural light, artificial light, or in shadow? But I realized these issues might take quite a while to resolve, so I contented myself on taking my own sweet time, of which I had plenty, to weigh all my options.
Day passed slowly into night, the mid-summer sun loath to let go. Gradually, I began to feel better – more comfortable in my own skin, though no less bitter about my fate. The onset of evening had always had this effect on me. As the world prepared for sleep, life’s trials and demands tended to recede into the background, affording me at least some slight respite from the pain of the day. Of course I also knew that sleep would not come easily for me tonight. And in the morning I would likely feel as wretched as ever. But for now I could keep my anger at bay, and think more clearly about the task at hand.
Although I felt that revenge was a perfectly legitimate impetus for creating any work of art, I didn’t want to unleash my anger upon the painting, and fling arrows at the canvas. Willem de Kooning, in his “Woman” series, chose cheap and rough canvases upon which to apply house paints mixed with sharp quartz and charcoal particles. He used thick brushes, scrapers, and sticks. He often slashed at the canvas, as if to punish it. Given that my rage was likely far greater than de Kooning’s, I might well consider mixing my paint with razor-blade shards. But no. In my paintings, the medium was not part of the message. And yet, also like de Kooning, I would not be intent on – and contented with – creating a monster or a caricature. My wife would not be a mere bete noire lurking within a supernatural horror story. This painting would be as real as life could be.
When the moon began to rise in the distance, only partially visible but still a potent presence, the man himself showed up. He hovered behind the cell window, paint brushes brandished like an X across his chest. His hair was white, his bright white t-shirt was spotless, and his bespectacled face bore no expression whatsoever. Behind him was his famous painting called “Woman-Ochre,” the last of the series, and also my favorite. The one that was stolen, and which took forever to restore because of the damage. It was a dusky painting, with a gray and tan foundation, that conjured up moonlight. Its warm yellow, orange, and red tones, contrasted with a bit of cool blue and green, made the picture somehow less “aggressive” than the others. But the woman was still, without doubt, grotesque.
Could I match that? No need to try. I did love de Kooning, but I didn’t want to be him. And soon enough, the bare hint of a smile appeared on his face, and I could only presume that he knew my thinking and approved of it. No artist worth his or her salt wants any other artist to paint like them, any more than he or she wants to paint like any other artist. And so, seemingly satisfied that his work here was already done, de Kooning took his leave. “Woman-Ochre” departed first, swiftly receding into the night and dissolving into thin air. Then the artist followed, slowly fading backward into the moonlight – back, back, back – until his lingering smile, like a slightly tipsy Cheshire cat, simply vanished.
I knew it would be a masterpiece. One that would be endlessly analyzed by critics, peers, and connoisseurs of all stripes. Some would love it, many would hate it. But no one would ignore it. And in the end my meaning would be clear, so that all the world might know just how ugly a beautiful human being could be.
ABOUT
Eric Molock is a 72-year-old prose writer and playwright from the Seattle area. He has published four short stories and two essays over the past year. Find him on Tumblr and Instagram.
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