Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me Read online

  The house as he remembered it, alive with fauna, grafted species of creepers and vines, wild tulips, potted umbrella trees, banked Irish moss. Set close along the orange and saffron pillows, which formed a pallet on one side of the room, a group of carnivorous plants looped out of the belly of an inverted brass centipede, little clawed pods pointed in the air, waiting to be sprung by whatever settling creature. Each wall entirely covered by a painting, from floor to ceiling. Countless images, liquid metaphors dipping away into neutral depths and planes, looming forward again, threatening the surface of the canvas. That one with the tapestry look, a beheading. Must have it sometime.

  “Some sake with it?” The steaming drink on a ceramic tray from Beth, her long gray hair belying the youth in her dancer’s body. Gauzes and silks billowing as she strides.

  “Hey, there’s no real hurry, man. Let’s talk awhile.”

  “There’s time, Gnossos, you’ll be here. Civilities are such a nuisance, anyway. Like showing slides after a trip.” She produced a toad carved from cypress and pressed a catch, which lifted the lid of its skull. “It’s just here.” The capsule was in the tiny compartment. Hello there, little fellow.

  “Well, if you insist. Just trying to be polite is all.”

  “I’d rather get the story in pieces. Like a jigsaw, you know?”

  “Put them together yourself?”

  “Precisely.” Pausing. “Especially in your case. Here, you’d best get this down.”

  “I’d rather mix it.”

  “Is your stomach empty?”

  “Ummm.” Gnossos separating the sections of the capsule carefully and squeezing the white powder into the sake, where it lumped and fell, then dissolved. He poked at it with his pinky and threw it all down like bourbon. “How’ve you been, anyway?”

  Beth looking to see where Kim and Calvin were, picking up the toad and ceramic tray, “A trifle confused, since you ask. But that can wait too. Why don’t you lie down, I’ve got to see after the curry. Kim will be here, if you feel badly.” Smiling, fondling one of the cats with her free hand, looking into his eyes for a moment as if they were a photograph, then going to the kitchen. Where to lie? Those pillows. Kim coming in, talk to her.

  “Getting much these days, kiddo?”

  “I don’t know. Getting what?”

  “Oh, anything. Snowmen, late Christmas presents?”

  “You’re still silly.”

  “Silly Willy, you see me.”

  “An’ your name is all funny.”

  “So’s yours.”

  “Kim’s a pretty name.”

  “How come you’re so skinny, then?”

  “I’m not skinny, either.”

  “Lumpy knees and funny pigtails.”

  “Mommy!”

  He he. Beth calling from the kitchen, “Yes, Kim?”

  “Mommy, Gnossos is making fun of me.”

  “Let him, then.”

  “If it’s fun,” he asked, touching her knee through the sari, “why worry?”

  “Are you only teasin’?”

  “Just look at your knees.”

  “I don’t like you any more. Even if you went away.”

  “Look at them.”

  “What for?”

  “They’re lumpy is why.”

  “Momm—”

  “Shhhh,” he interrupted, “Now stop that. Everybody’s are lumpy, secretly.”

  “Are yours?”

  “Look,” pulling up his corduroy cuffs.

  “They’re hairy.”

  “Maybe when you grow up, yours will be hairy.”

  “No they won’t, only men’s are hairy, so there.”

  “Maybe you’ll have a mustache, how about that? Ha!” Quite suddenly, the first numbness stunned his extremities. Fingertips. Necessary to touch them one against the other. Nose, and the temples. The temples.

  “Girls don’t have mustaches at all, they’re not supposed to, and everybody knows that.”

  A vague nausea hinting, maybe put my head down. “I know one who did, in Chicago.”

  “That’s a fib.”

  “Maybe it was St. Louis.”

  “How’s it going?” called Beth. “Are you all right?”

  “Woozy, man.”

  “Why?” from Kim, looking down at him.

  “Woozy, that’s the snowman. Didn’t you make any this winter?”

  “I don’t like the winter.”

  Staring at me like a lamp. Kids turned on all the time. Kids and pussycats. “Why don’t you?”

  “’s cold. I can’t talk to the mushrooms.”

  Wooooooo. She can’t talk to the mushrooms. “What else?”

  “There’s that turtle in Harpy Creek I once told you about. I think. Big snapping one.”

  “What do you say to him?”

  “I don’t talk to the turtle, silly.”

  Of course not.

  “I want to kill him.”

  Wooo-hooo. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ziiing. The colors of these cushions. Even through peripheral vision. Why so cold? Nasty nausea. Hold it down, though, no puking. What talking about? Turtles. “You don’t know why?”

  “Nope. Gonna kill him with a spear. After the snow’s melted.”

  Pliers and acid. Fishhooks. How much in the pill? Big one is five hundred, this a third or so, say half is two-fifty, subtract a little, say one-eighty milligrams. Two hours, maybe three. “Three hours.”

  “Hunh?”

  “No, no, I was talking to your father.”

  “Silly, Daddy’s thinking now. In his painting room.”

  Meditation. Worthless alone, he says. In conjunction with some discipline, perhaps. In conjunction. Conjure. Conjuration. Conjugate. Conjugal.

  What damp? My forehead, yes, Beth. “Beth?”

  “It’s all right.” Calvin behind her, looking down. Jesus, the height of him. I’m on the floor again. Ohh-ho-hooo, be careful, sonny boy, you’re flyyyyyyyyying . . .

  Calvin’s voice: “Kim said you were pale and shivering. How is it?”

  Beth wiping forehead with a cloth. Soooothe me. “Unh, how long—you know what I mean, she’s not here now, right? He he. How long has, uh, Kim been gone?”

  “What do you mean, Gnossos?”

  “Kim, man, you know. She was just here, you dig, talking about turtles and all.”

  “An hour ago, maybe more.”

  “Oh yeah? You’re not serious?”

  “Try sitting up,” from Beth.

  All right. That’s easy, no challenge there. Careful of the backbone, though. Could snap very easily. Easy, up. There. What’s that? Over there, you idiot. WHAT’S THAT? “ANHHHH!” Dark.

  “It’s just the painting. You looked at it before, you can open your eyes.”

  “No. I saw him. He cut his head off. All by himself.”

  “It’s just the painting.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “You saw it when you came in. On the wall.”

  The tapestry one. But it didn’t move then. The blade it used. Careful of blades. Razors. Watch them, watch them all, they may want to kill themselves while you’re here. Razor blades. “The bathroom.”

  “You want to go to the bathroom?” Calvin holding me up. Mustn’t let him know. Nod. Right, old sport, right you are, got to wee-wee, la la. Beth gone. Never saw her leave. Careful about that. Must really be careful about that. They’ll get you sometime, if you don’t keep track. Step out of the room and make a phonecall. Tap tap tap at the door. A gaunt woman in a robe, no features on her face, paralyzes you with a touch. Always be careful. Lock all doors. A.B.C.

  “Here’s the bathroom, Gnossos. Are you all right by yourself?”

  “Sure thing. Right.” Inside, shut it tight, slide the old bolt. Now then. What? Oh, razor blades. There, a loose one on the sink. Gather them all up, medicine cabinet? Yes oh yes, nice, a whole package. And in the shaver, a used one. Hairs on it. Ugh. Any more? Got to be more, use reason. Tub, c
abinet, sink, towel rack, scale, window ledge, ha—one there. Commode, no, what for? Circumcision. Castration. Zip, slip it out. White, I read somewhere. What color’s a spade’s? Castration complex. That Mississippi cabbage, taking my five bucks. Vendetta. Oh, another one on the ledge. Any more? Looks good, got them all, now where to hide them. Not in here, too obvious. Feed them to that plant, one at a time. Ecch no, tear up its insides. Under the tub. There. Now. Oh wait, flush the toilet, make them think. Slossssssh. Slossssssh. Careful now, open . . . They’ll thank me someday, all safe from suicide—

  What’s that? He he, an orange cat. Looking at me, remember her name. Apricot. Apricot the cat. “What do you want, Apricot?”

  “Rrrrnneow.”

  “You know something, right?”

  “Rrneow.”

  Maniac beast, following me. Some kind of scent we humans leave, invisible glands in our hoofs, eluding animals out of the question.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to eat?” asked Calvin. “Say, in ten minutes?” Jesus, sitting next to me. Don’t remember sitting. Food—of course, man. “Yes, I’m, you know, hungry.” All staring my way. Quiiiet. Shhhhh.

  “When Kim left the room that first time—”

  “That’s right.”

  “—did you see anything?”

  “See?” The woman without any features on her face. No, that was later, not really seeing. Wait. The feathers on—no, some other thing, primate creature, gnarled, tell him: “Some kind of gnarled thing, short—”

  “The pachu—”

  “Nononono.” Wait now, behind me the cat is going to “Jump.”

  Gnossos swung around, pointing at the place where Apricot had just gathered strength in her legs and lifted herself off the floor, into the air, down on a saffron cushion, front paws trapping the scuttling spider, which had been making for the wall.

  “You see. You see him. I knew he was going to jump. I felt him wanting to—”

  “What kind of gnarled thing, Gnossos?”

  “No. Nothing. Nothing there.” Get the spider from the cat. Easy now. Still alive, see the legs going. Black widow to sting me? Wrong shape. Kills her mate. Preying mantis, female eats his head while he screws her. There, the plant. Pod waiting. Better to feed it with something. “Tweezers.”

  “Just a minute,” from Beth, rising beside him. How did she know? That music. “I hear sounds, Calvin.”

  “I just put it on, Gnossos.”

  “Raga?” Sitar hunting a scale. Me on the tamboura, droning, wire in the wind, easy undulation. Soft.

  “Here.”

  “What?”

  “The tweezers.” Beth holding them in front of him. For what? The spider. Right. Okay. By one of its legs. Gently now. Wonder, can the plant smell? Oh, the drone talking. Concentrate now. Conjugate. There. There. It’s closing. Apricot watching too. Afraid? Feed it the cat? Too big, ugly mess. Other cats seek revenge, come after me in the night, smell the gland in my antic hoof. You killed our brother. Die, infidel.

  “C’mon,” said Kim. “Dinner’s all ready.”

  Kim. Her father’s brooding. But her body, whose? Mustn’t think that. Oh look. The foods, the glorious foods. Blue pears.

  “Blue pears?”

  “Daddy stains them.”

  “Hey, I want a blue pear.”

  The meal was divided all about the table, stacked in anthropomorphic serving dishes, cupped in the hollow backs of sloe-eyed ceramic creatures, ready to pour through contorted clay mouths: mounds of steaming brown rice, unpolished, starchy to the smell; bowls of yellow curry, chunks of lamb falling tenderly apart; roasted almonds sprinkled with sesame; organic okra; glazed pineapple sticks; cruets of rosewater; cups of melted butter and oil; mango chutney; scented dal; carafes of dark wine; sweet and sour peppers; blue pears in minted syrup; Gnossos wanting it all, anticipating each exotic taste, every foreign flavor.

  “Here,” Beth told him, “at the head of the table.”

  “For me, man? The place of honor?”

  “The returning warrior,” said Calvin.

  “Wow,” sitting down, playing with his napkin, sniffing the goodies, watching his plate being heaped with magnificence. “Dancing girls, man, that’s all we need. Bangled sprites, wriggling sylphs.”

  “You can have them,” said Beth, pausing with a ladle like a wand in her hand. “Close your eyes and look.”

  Try it.

  Sure enough, they were there, blinking at him above their silent veils. Oh la.

  After dinner Gnossos sat stuffed in the full lotus beneath one of the shedding Australian umbrella trees, munching on a carob-covered cashew nut. “I’m coming down, Calvin.”

  Blacknesse sketching him roughly with a broad-nibbed pen, delineating features, unable to prevent the emergence of satyrs and nymphs from the tangle of hair. His own brow curled and wrinkled, dark eyes searching, hinting vaguely, as always, at the uncertain, the nearly defined. “You only think that. It was over a hundred and sixty milligrams, there’s still time left, even if you don’t hallucinate.”

  “Yeah, well other cats get all the heat, man. Me, I’m beginning to think it won’t happen.” Swallowing the cashew nut with a mealy effort, realizing he’d been hung up, chewing its pulverized meat for perhaps fifteen minutes.

  “You want it all without the discipline, Gnossos, you can’t exactly expect the revelations of Saint John.”

  “That’s cool, man, no visions, no sun gods, no anything, right? What do you think, I’m a junky or something, what’s it all about?”

  Calvin’s pen tracing the simple Greek nose, a line dropping vertically from the forehead. “Whatever it’s all about, it would be senseless, in the real meaning of the word, to try and tell you.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, I’m supposed to tease out the old synthesis on my own. But I’m just not about to go squatting on a nail carpet or something, man, you know what I mean.” Shifting out of the lotus, the implication of which distracted him, and finding a cramp in his calf, which he rubbed vigorously while going on, “Look, I talk to you, at least. I confide in you?”

  “Probably because you think I know something.”

  Swinging a forefinger up to the painting of the man cutting off his own head. “That little mother, for instance. Now what’s that all about, if you don’t know something, man?”

  “I gave you the mescaline, yes?”

  “You did. So you did. Point well taken. But no vision things happening. What alternative? Ratiocination like Oeuf? I mean, any old vision would do it. That one of yours from fasting and whole grains last year, that woman with the flaming pubes, striding over a cloud; man, I’ll take seconds on that one.”

  “Ah, you’ll forgive an intuition, then?”

  “’Swhat I’m here for man, I’m up-tight.”

  “The immortality worm has been chewing.”

  “What if it has?”

  “Try chewing back.”

  Beth saw them off at the door, her bearing full of question, something not concluded. Kim by her side, hands again locked behind her, failing to wave goodbye as the car backed out on the slushy driveway. The rain had stopped.

  They drove into Lairville without conversation, no sound but the tires and the occasional clicking swish of the wipers when they cleared splashed snow. A blue-gray tint to the night, bizarre purple lips and gums as they passed through distorting pools of mercury-vapor light. They slowed down on Dryad Road, Calvin asking finally, “Where to?”

  “Guido’s’ll do. Just on the right there,” Gnossos zipping up his parka against the cold, fondling his rucksack. “You want a drink?”

  “I think not. You don’t mind?”

  “No, man, that’s cool, I just thought you might have wanted some time, you know, away.”

  They eased over against the curb and Calvin left the motor running. Gnossos opened the door to get out but hesitated. A mammoth red neon bear blinked on their faces. No tension scenes, what the hell, say thank you. “Thanks, Calvin.

  �
��That’s all right. Come out again soon, for whatever reason.”

  “I’ll wait awhile, I think. I’m a little down just now.”

  “It doesn’t really show.”

  “Euphoria. Adrenalin. Upbeat metabolism, and all.”

  Putting the car into gear. “That beheading picture; I’ll have it for you at the studio tomorrow.”

  “Hey no, you don’t have to—”

  “It’ll be there anyway. It’s my decision, yes? And be careful, Gnossos.”

  “Right,” his hand reaching nonetheless into the side pocket of the Saab and removing a small hammer, which as soon as he touched it took part in a plan of earlier revenge. “Later.”

  And bang, he was through the swinging doors, inhaling the familiar fumes of Guido’s Grill. Odors always able to hang you up, lay bare the honeycombed cells of nasal memory. French-fried onion rings, pizzaburgers, bubbly cooking fat, Breath-O-Pine disinfectant.

  Students were meanwhile packed together in polyethylene booths, most of them independents, an odd minority of slumming fraternity types, ending their collective day over plates of late-night swill, mistaking the knots of academic anxiety for hunger. Coeds in mohair sat nibbling, watching the clock for curfew. Through the cacophonic murmur of extracurricular chitchat, plots to collapse the administration, talk of Caribbean gunrunning, and kneesie games among the graduate queens, Gnossos heard the Saab out in the street turning around and puttering off. Oh well.

  “Hey, Paps!”

  Heff in a blue-striped French seaman’s jersey, calling from a mobbed booth. Voices suspended above the din of talk for a brief moment, heads bobbing up from ale and strawberry shakes. Here and there an occasional expression of shocked recognition, then embarrassed shifting away. Only one of them with enough hair to call my name. Go over, why don’t you. Man, seven of them. Break the ice, choose your words. “Pax.”

  “Sit down, Paps,” Heff’s arm slung limply around Jack’s shoulders, a knuckle toying with her cheek. “Little celebration thing going on. You know these people, these undergraduates, these old university cats?”

  Jesus. Four empty martini glasses in front of him, fifth half-dead. “You’re smashed, Horralump.”

  “Old-timey celebration happening, Paps, they threw me out.”