The Complete Collection. William Wharton

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СКАЧАТЬ it’s a sudden onslaught of senility.

      Then I let out my own feelings about the kind of care he’s been getting. It’s something I haven’t talked about to anybody, not even Joan. I express my doubts about both Dad’s treatment and the diagnosis. I’m feeling strongly it might be something truly physiological, more complex than simple senility. I’m also thinking in terms of some fault with the anesthetic or perhaps a blockage in the artery feeding his brain, perhaps a clot formed as a result of the operation. I’m only fishing; I know it; I don’t have enough knowledge.

      I reveal my doubts, my worries; I need to talk. I hadn’t realized before how, after Vron and Joan, he’s the next closest person to me. It snuck up.

      ‘I tell you, Bill. Dad’s shown less evidence of senility than most men his age. Sure, he isn’t fifty, but senile he isn’t.’

      Finally, I ask what he’s doing down here. He says he’s dropped out of school; it wasn’t meaning anything to him.

      I can live with that. If you don’t know what you want, school’s only another way to put in time. But Billy was always such a good student.

      I ask what his plans are: job or what. That’s when he mentions coming back to France.

      Now, Vron and I’d be happy having him near us, but if he isn’t going to school he’s got to work; he can’t hang around the house. Billy has his own lifestyle; and it doesn’t fit ours; no more than my ways fit here in California. He’s flown out of our nest.

      But we drop it there; neither of us is ready to go into it. We talk about Dad and then he goes out to the back bedroom. I go in the side room and I’m asleep faster than I thought possible; maybe just anything not to think.

      The next day Joan comes; she gives Billy a hug and a tug on his long hair. Billy and I throw his laundry in the car. Joan says she’ll clean house while we’re gone. She’s brought food and will cook supper for us, too.

      After the Laundromat, we drive to the hospital.

      Billy stares at Dad, lying flat out with his eyes open. Dad doesn’t recognize either of us, even when Billy gives him a hard hug and kiss. Billy’s so positive, so violent, he almost pulls off the IV. Dad stares at Billy, his head and neck stiff, his lips moving.

      He’s on catheter again. I peer under the covers and it’s indwelling. He’s becoming a living piece of meat. If he were anything except human, we’d let him die. He’s going fast and it seems there’s nothing to do; I don’t think he could’ve survived another day of my amateur care.

      Billy’s badly shaken. He goes out in the hall while I stay with Dad; I’m stroking his head, talking to him softly. Dad watches me passively, without emotion or interest. Billy comes back; he’s stopped crying but his light blue eyes are rimmed red. We go down in the elevator and out to the parking lot without saying much. The daylight is glaring out there. I take Dad’s sunglasses from the glove compartment and give them to Billy.

      ‘What’s happened, Dad? What could’ve happened to make him like that?’

      I go through it again. I tell him I don’t know and I’m not sure the doctors do either.

      We get the clothes at the Laundromat. Together, we fold Billy’s things, also the sheets and towels. We still aren’t talking.

      At home, I tell Joan it isn’t worth going; Dad won’t even know she’s there. She’s going anyway. I know how she feels. It tears you apart; but you have to.

      Mom wants to know what we all want to know.

      ‘What’s the matter with him, Jacky? Is he crazy?’

      I try convincing her he’s not crazy. Mom gives me what’s meant to be one of her long, penetrating looks.

      ‘He never was exactly right in the head, I know! I’ve lived with him over fifty years! He is not an ordinary man.’

      What floors me the next days is Billy with TV. Maybe all those years without it in our house is catching up with him.

      He spends hours watching. It doesn’t make any difference what’s on. I swear he doesn’t bother changing channels, he keeps staring right on through the commercials. He watches soap operas, talk shows, cowboy movies, the police series; he even watches a baseball game. He watches as if it’s an eyeball marathon.

      Mom’s happy having somebody to watch with her. She brings Billy up on what’s happened so far in the soap operas; who’s been sleeping with whom and who has an illegitimate baby by what and who’s trying to steal whose husband or wife. Billy stares straight on through it all.

      I know where I’ve stashed an old box of paints. I roust it out, clean the brushes in turpentine and go through the tubes. I might keep some sanity if I can paint. I hate to admit this, but there is a therapeutic aspect to my painting. It shouldn’t be that way for me, a professional, but it’s there.

      When I can control my private world, take things from out there and recast them the way I want, it heals me.

      I ask Billy to keep an eye on Mother; I go in back, find a pair of old-time white dungarees, a sweat shirt and cap. I’ll use the canvases I left for Dad.

      I have the box on my back and I’m on the motorcycle before I even think to ask what I’m going to paint. I’d completely forgotten where I was. One possibility would be to paint the insides of garages. But I want to be outside in the sunshine; I’ve had enough looking inside at people’s personal garbage. I want to see long distances.

      I don’t want to paint these rows of suburban houses either. I know it’s a big part of America, but I don’t want to paint it. I know from experience I only paint well things I want to paint. If the push doesn’t come from inside, it’s only work.

      But there’s one thing that has turned me on; it’s those Venice beachfront stores and old houses. I roll down and park where Rose Avenue runs into the beach. I rock the bike up on its stand and stroll along in my dungarees, deep pockets for nails, small pockets in front for a folding rule and flat carpenter’s pencil. I lean forward with the box on my back. My insides are settling slowly like a glass of beer going flat.

      I stop at an old brick motel, a strange-looking building with an up-slanting courtyard. It’s got dark green faience tile roofing with tiles missing. French doors close off the courtyard from the wind. The sun is trapped, held in that courtyard. It’s something to paint. It’s a California version of Mad Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria; not some grotesque imitation like Disneyland but the same kind of mind, a romantic mind, a mind that didn’t want to build another ordinary motel.

      This is a fantasy in brick and tile. There’s even a tower in back with wooden stairs leading up to it. I’d love living in that room back there on top of that tower, and once I’m inside this painting I will.

      It’s amazing how fast painting comes back. It’s as if I’d put down the brushes yesterday. I’m right into it, no loss at all.

      I’m putting the last licks on the underpainting when I look up and the sunset is happening. I can’t believe it. Holy cow, they’ll think I’ve run out on them!

      I pack my box and jump on the bike. It feels like old times, smelling of turpentine, moving on a motorcycle with the box and a wet canvas flapping on my back. СКАЧАТЬ