Close to Hugh (8 page)

Slow night-silence parts for his footsteps. As his steps change, mounting the old bridge, he begins to hear a second, syncopated set. He lifts his head to glance behind him. Newell, following.

Hugh stands still.

Such a pretty night, now the rain has let up. The mist, the shining pavements, shining leaves. A moon has risen
—a
moon?
The
moon.

Newell reaches the bridge.

“It’s always the same moon,” Hugh tells him. “Are you looking for me?”

“For Burton,” Newell says. “Della’s out here somewhere too. He tore off into the night to catch you, shouting about Hemingway and Wallace Stevens in Florida, about Rimbaud, Gore Vidal—you name it. Hard to say which literary figure he imagines himself to be. Tennessee Williams, maybe. He’s roaming around shouting Blanche’s lines through the blood, and he doesn’t know the town like you do.”

Hugh walks on.

Newell waits for a minute, then runs with long strides to catch Hugh’s hand, his arm.

“Don’t be angry with Burton. He’s such a mess. Can you let it go, for my sake?” His eyes so tired in that noble face.

Impossible or needless to ask why Newell couldn’t report Burton, charge him, even after all these years. All the intimacy of friendship adds up to nothing, except that there are questions you know not to ask, even though you do not ask exactly why you must not ask.

“Can’t live with him, can’t shoot him,” Newell says, and Hugh can’t help but nod and promise, even if it’s not out loud. Newell nods too, and sets off back toward the school.

Hugh carries on across the bridge, to the gallery, home.

Up the porch stairs, key in the lock; up the back stairs, the landing; down the hall to the bathroom.

He vomits for a long time, feeling strangely happy to get rid of everything, everything. If only he could throw up everything that ails him. He washes his mouth, his face. In the mirror, his eyes are bloodshot. He turns off the light and sits on the side of the tub for a moment, happier in the dark.

Happier in his house, his treehouse, than out in the world.

Cleaned her clocks. He ought to have gone over to Mimi’s room. Or go now. But she’ll be drugged out for the night now. He gets up and walks through to the living room, turning off lights as he goes. The afghan Ruth knitted for him when he was twelve. He wraps that around him. The chaise longue is mostly under the half-roof of the deck; he kicks it sideways and climbs into it. Only the footpad is really wet.

Rain falls on the small remaining leaves and on the asphalt surface of the roof. The yard light behind the coffee shop, the one that bothers his eyes, has burned out. That small happiness means a lot.

(ORION)

In bed at the midnight hour, Orion rethinks.

“You look like a young prince out of the
Arabian Nights … 
I want to kiss you just once, softly and sweetly on your mouth.”

Old Burton doing Blanche, mouth smelling like the end of everything. Lying in bed beside Newell by now. Or on the pullout couch in the guest room, if Newell was as mad as he looked. Poor old guy, thinking over what he’s done with his life and the end of it coming, thinking that he will always be able to depend on the kindness of strangers but in fact no, we can’t. All us strangers, strange as anything in individual beds, all thinking like crazy. Newell in the huge bed under the blue silk duvet, thinking how to stop his old pal from coming on to boys in the master class, master of his domain. Or maybe lying spooned behind Burton, comforting the old guy, soft dick pressed against him kindly because he can’t help being kind all the fucking time.

We have to be
less kind
.

Orion thinks about what he can make out of all this mess: a good part in
Sweeney
now, a leg up later. That’s it.

He needs more to think about, to find a way into sleep.

He thinks of L, lying in a square of pale light from her attic window, knowing that her father has split, and like Savaya, calculating does she or doesn’t she, re: Nevaeh. And of Jason wondering, wondering if there will ever be one for him, and if he will be ready. Jason’s mother, hands folded on her chest, a raging, corpse-like Sleeping Beauty; his own skeletal mother lying like sticks under her pink blanket, crying, tears sliding down her nose and her yellow cheek. Farther out in the city, rooms full of fathers who have done something awful, something unforgiveable, and have not yet told anyone; men who have a minor operation in the morning and believe they won’t live through it, all the ordinary shallow pains.

Each one of us lies sleeping not sleeping thinking thinking a thousand things and the frets form a net of fears, a net that lies knotted under our continuo humming as we go about the day, and at last the spread wings of dreams release us from the net and take us unto the forbidden country.

the origin of
dukkha
is craving
,

which leads to renewed existence
,

accompanied by delight and lust
,

seeking delight here and there

entry on Buddhism
,

WIKIPEDIA

1. IF IT MAKES HUGH HAPPY

Hugh can’t sleep. You never can, after you punch somebody. Forced inside by real rain at one, he takes a hot shower to settle down, to drowse into something like unconsciousness. At two, pillow crammed beneath his neck, still lying there. Head hurting.

Greyish light murking the room—oh, you left the blind half-open.

Awake. At least he’s not dreaming other people in the room this time. No Mimi.

He can’t go over there. When she is wandering, not herself, she begs. More pills, morphine, do something, do something. You ought to. But she wants to live, when she is herself. Dutifully sipping a mango smoothie, a spoon of yogurt. Obedient, hopeful, droll. Sores inside her poor mouth: take a swab to wipe them clear, to give her some relief. Everything in the world narrows to her mouth.

He closes the blind and goes to the fridge. Sometimes food helps. Cheese smokies—not all that old, although one side is leathery. He cuts that part off, turns on the frying pan. But then the house will stink, and so will the gallery. On the deck, the barbecue shines in the rain. Eggs? Or toast, toast is not a bad smell. Hugh’s four-slice toaster is very old, left over from—wow, from the apartment he shared with Ann before they bought the house. Plastic breadbag melted onto one side of it, but the crumb tray slides in and out smoothly. Best toaster he’s ever had. Age does not ruin everything. It’s so old the plug has two equal prongs. Honey or jam? Both jars dry, empty. He pulls out a black garbage bag, cleans the kitchen and then, awake anyway, makes the tiny meatloaves for Saturday’s dinner party. The toast waits on the bar, limp by the time he’s done. He eats it with a tester meatloaf, then vacuums the whole apartment. Then gets into bed, virtuous, old, alone.

He plays
Call of Duty 4
until the unkillable twelve-year-old online gamers drive him crazy; after that he switches to solitaire on his
phone. He lies in bed, thinking stopped as long as the cards flip soundlessly into place.

The alarm goes off at six.

Dark autumn morning, waiting for light. Not going to be light. This sadness is no joke. Burton is no joke. Have to do better, find some way to get along with—

No.

Downstairs. No need to lie there thinking of Newell or Burton, of his mother, of Ruth (who often leads off from his mother, as a more fixable bucket o’ woe to mull over), of Jasper, any of these sadsack disasters he’s saddled with. And some he refuses to be saddled with: Della and Ken in unspoken flux—not talking. Has Ken told her yet that he has to quit? Nothing Hugh can do about all that.

More, more of them: Orion being ogled. People you can’t bear to think about: Gerald, wifeless and sonless. Ann—she’s well rid of that stilted jackass; but Jason, skinny to start with, must have lost twenty pounds. Hard to be ditched by your dad. Caught, framed, in the mirror by the framing room door, Hugh sees his own sloping shoulders, his defeated stance as he waits, blinking, for the green light to blink on the espresso machine.

In the silence he whistles a soft non-tune. A moth clings to the wall in the first damp morning light:
Is the moth dreaming or is Chuang TzHugh dreaming?

Ah—the grinding noise of beginning. Just in time, Hugh remembers to pop a paper cup under the spout for the self-cleaning water to flow out. Here’s a question for you, for Hugh: in spite of everything, why such a good mood this morning?

It comes back to him. Ivy. Right after punching old Burton in the piehole. Hugh said dinner, she said yes. At least, she nodded. How is that even possible? Along with a pretty big headache, Hugh is surprised to discover that somewhere underneath, his heart is singing.

The morning is cool, misted. Girls will wear sweaters. Is he still a man? Still capable of desire, still subject to it? He asked Ivy out and she nodded. Her eyes clear as water, river water, grey-green. Rain is good for us. Wine is not. Sorrow is not. He changes that to
sadness
. Sorrow is like
solemn
—too fat and self-satisfied a word.

You must be climbing out of it, Hugh thinks. Or you would not care what word it was. If you could paint, that would be good.

He takes his coffee to the front window, whistling … 
the trouble with poet is how do you know it’s deceased? Try the priest
. Newell, singing Sweeney’s song last night. Before the (his heart stops singing) punch. Don’t think about Burton, how he will sue you.

There’s Ruth in her new corduroy coat, out on the sidewalk talking to Dave, her cousin’s son. Not at all a bad guy, gets a ton of quick-fix work from realtors and does longer projects too, but he’s taken his sweet time figuring out what to do about the basement. Old Dave. Works with his sons, four of them, heights descending like steps on a stepladder; Dave’s not getting any younger, in fact. He’s got a new worker with him, a black guy carrying a big old toolbox, looks familiar. Oh, it’s one of the porters from the hospice.

At that, bolt-from-the-blue like it sometimes comes, a wave of gasping nausea pours over him. Mimi in the bed, her velvet eyes, begging to go, to go, as she—now that he comes to think of it—as she always went.

That thought cools his head. He stares down at plaid pyjama bottoms, remembers that he’s not dressed. He heads back through the shop and up the stairs.

It’s so unfair.

It’s not a question of fair. You’ll miss your mother, fine. Everybody does.

Ivy. What the hell was he thinking? He is incapable of anything, any relationship beyond the surly bond with Newell, the snarled strands of obligation to Della, the loose truth of Ruth. Ivy must have been drunk, to nod. Even his name is hard to say: Hugh Argylle, no turning-post in the middle. He called himself Hugo Argylle for a while, in university, but then it started to sound like Hugh Gargoyle. He’s pathetic! He always has been!

But still, quietly, his heart is singing.

(ORION)

Too early in the morning/too late at night. Sixth boss, a troll,
the most dangerous ogre in all of Outland
. White, fat thing bumbling out from behind mud-splashed mirrors in the Hall of Gruul: single-target damage 7,000 crushing with Improved Demoralizing Shout-up; Arcing Smash, 5,000-6,000 damage on plate; when debuffed, cleaves.

The pickup raid is a clusterfuck, too many of them cratered already, this probably won’t work, but still, this boss is not a serious threat and—
O my beautiful blood elf, take him down!
Because Burton doesn’t have enough money or enough power to be a serious threat. To what? To my integrity? (Alone in the basement, Orion laughs.)

People have to look out for themselves. What’s the problem with having a champion?

People need real love too, that’s the problem.

Kill kill kill kill kill
, Lanjasa Elfkine grappling, moving, jerky slip-sliding and whacking, fingers flashing in the apex the acme the epitome of deathdealing killkilling …

Dead enough? Oh, back for more. Die, feisty-ferocious mallrat Maulgar.

Look at my mom, at how she is: a detached retina, dangling, and she’s roaming semi-blank/semi-hysterical through the landscape, hands fluttering at the end of her long, long arms. Eye mask and earplugs as she sleeps.

Here’s the real problem with Burton: he’s not good enough. Neither is Newell, because he has Burton hanging around his psychic neck. I want to be better.

Maulgar dies. Orion throws the controller against the basement wall.

He reaches for his phone and texts:

> one kiss

A pause.

< ?

> I want to kiss you just once, softly and sweetly on your mouth.

A pause.

< … x

2. HUGH CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN

Here’s Gerald Felker, the bereaved, climbing the steps of FairGrounds, his usual stop before heading to the Saab dealership. Hugh knows that office coffee: bitter and prolonged, like death. Opening the gallery door he hears Gerald ask for “an extra shot in the morning jolt!” Sounding manic.