April 21, 2008
WHEREIN A GAELIC AMNESIAC BECOMES A BY-WORD UNTO HIMSELF
| BERRIEN C. HENDERSON |
It is always twilight in my dreams. Light haunts and mocks itself. Razors cut the night—meteors from out of Perseus strake ghost-ice passages through the void. And sometimes, despite the twilight, I believe I am an amnesiac near-god. I need to get back my gun soon. Soon. Soon.
He had dozed again, thankfully again, in the recliner. Then his head wanted to implode.
Art had been drunk last night and had been reading Joyce’s Ulysses and, for a time, forgotten himself. Not quite like forgetting himself just drinking—again, somewhere in the gray that was last night—but close. He had to get over the hangover first, which was why he’d been nursing it for a couple hours since sunrise over a potent concoction of 32 oz. of Gatorade along with three ibuprofen, two naproxen sodium tabs, and a double-shot of Goody’s headache powders. And coffee. Lots of it. So long as his liver didn’t turn toxic, it might be a decent day.
He had much to consider going into the end of the week.
To wit: He reached over and found the button on the answering machine and hit PLAY.
Click. Buzz-whine.
”Hey, Art. It’s Earl Martin. Other than some technicalities, we’re set for your getting the land. All a frivolous, last-ditch litigious effort on your half-brother’s part as I’d said before. You’re looking at the usual paperwork—copies and such. Just come by the office, say, Friday of this week so that we can go over final costs, which we’d discussed previously. See you soon.”
Kla-tunk. Reee-beep.
So, all Art needed was several hundred dollars to settle up with Mr. Martin.
Then there was the matter of settling up with Mr. Stone at the pawn shop—the real trick, now, wasn’t it? Getting the family gun back out of hock. He could care less about the inheritance, after two years, finally going through, just glad it was all over. Or he could keep lying to himself.
He picked up Ulysses off the end table and pulled out the thin bookmark. A worn piece of paper. One of two, actually, because all Mr. Martin had needed was one copy—good enough.
He read a note that was actually almost three years old:
”Art, This is my artifact to you—a spot of land, a parcel of apology. What would grow here rests within you. My gift, then: 300 acres for 1 (one) dollar and love and affection.”
He folded the note and stuck it back in the book. His vision blurred, and some invisible vise-grip found his skull.
It would be a long day.
And he still had painting to do over at Mrs. Brown’s, just some touch-up painting under the eaves of the roof, then caulking sometime tomorrow.
He took a long draw on the Gatorade jug and thought about the work to do. And hoped the galley proofs of his chapbook would be in the mail; that would be nice. Some simple concession of the USPS shipping schedule. As much a concession as lucking into the presence of one C.V. Deal, sometime friend, ofttime borrower of every other tool Art owned, which wasn’t saying much.
Art kept hydrating. The day was yet young.