Death Or Eurydice by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 15- Acts Abominable
Orpheus and Eurydice got up together and she made breakfast for the both of them. Orpheus was quiet for a change, sensing that this was precisely the time not to risk saying something stupid.
After a minute of egg cracking, she said; “You really should know this. I know I promised I’d try to keep this jackass job for six months and I meant it, but now that I’ve had the experience, I feel very differently about it.”
Orpheus still wanted to say nothing, particularly about this subject, as it was at the center of things. He thought he was helped by the fact that he didn’t have any bright answer and tried; “I understand.”
Eurydice angrily said; “No, you can’t possibly understand.”
His initial instinct was woefully wrong. He didn’t think anything bad could come of “I understand.” It’s a nice sentiment. So he again got quiet a while.
She said; “Well, do you have anything at all to say?”
“It’s probably better if I don’t say this, but let me try.
I can’t fully understand, but I understand enough to trust your judgment. If you can’t handle it, you just can’t handle it.
We’ll figure something out. If everything goes wrong, I think we can probably move in with my parents.”
“They just told us that it was out of the question, right?”
“Yeah. But if it comes right down to it are they going to allow their only son to become homeless? There is no poverty shelter in Sudbury.”
She laughed and said; “You’re a devil.”
“No, I’m not, at least not that way. I’ll tell them that we can lay low and nobody else will know about it.”
The eggs were quite warm and they soon sat down to breakfast.
After a while, she said; “I’m sorry. I’m just nervous about some things. You’re not causing me any problem. I don’t hate the world. I just wish it would stop hating me.” She changed tone to a chirpier one and continued; “Hey, I gotta tell you about the dream I had last night.”
“Good or bad?”
“I’m not sure. Shut up and listen. It’s almost a dream within a dream. I’m a white china bird. Yeah, white of all things. Anyway, I’m sitting in this cabinet with my wings extended like I’m flying. My two black china bird friends are sitting with their wings at their sides. They sometimes tease me saying things like ‘Where you going, girl? The cabinet is locked and you can’t fly with those china wings anyway.’ We’re in a pleasant room, sparsely decorated with items mostly of the delicate Heppelwhite style. The door opens and the little
flying faker, otherwise known as me, says; ‘Oh, no. Not again.’
My companions chuckled at the predicament. And as usual the properly dressed gentleman comes in and puts me through some kind of inspection. A key opens the case and he rudely grabs me and holds me up to the faces of his two friends. I yell out;
‘At least be careful. I’ve already had a few chips, you know.’
They act as if they just didn’t hear me and continue handling me, passing me from one to the other. One of my two friends back in the safety of the, to date, unmolested cabinet with a glass front says; ‘You know they always take the ones that think they are flyers.’ Their china faces show no change or emotion.”
Eurydice paused a few seconds and then said; “Well, what do you think of it?”
“I could say a lot of things, but the important one is what you said first. You ain’t no white china bird. So, who you dreaming about?”
“I don't know.” She paused. “Maybe you.” She laughed and kissed Orpheus, saying; “Oh, look, I got to get going.”
Aazaziel was so excited he toiled furiously, forgetting food and sleep. But, he still had half of the enormous canvas to finish and he was beginning to get footprints all over it.
It wasn’t what he intended, but the prints added a sense of movement to the big picture. He found it easy to depict anti-
shelters and anti-clothes, basically using a collapsed roof or a flood coming out of a window scenario and naked body segments.
He considered putting at least a few in flames, but had trouble making the fire look anything like what it did in real life.
The anti-food, however, presented a difficulty all its own. As far as he could understand, the opposite of food was nothing to eat, so go try and paint nothing. He had to find something people would consider less than zero. Perhaps that concept had a physical counterpart. He gouged out parts of the canvas with a large heavy iron fork. He continued through the night, the loss of sunlight replaced by the flames of hurricane lamps.
As this was his initial foray into the world of compulsion, he was disappointed to see that flies were attracted to the lamps in the absence of moonlight. As a consequence, they inevitably flew close to the heat of the flame and died, some falling into the still wet painting and using it for an open grave. Removing them would result in the addition of footsteps to an already busy scene. He decided that the best option available was to leave the flies. At first he tried to launch small missiles of paint from his brush, hoping he’d be accurate enough to appropriately cover the dead. He had some success at the edge but was making a real mess toward the center. He thought about it a bit and decided to leave the carcasses alone, as eventually they would dry up and disintegrate anyway.
D made her usual morning call. Today she tried to push up her provocation level a bit and chose to wear a tight light blue pair of denim shorts that appeared to be sprayed on the very upper thighs. Her off-white loose blouse imitated that of eastern European peasants. Her long black hair had its complete freedom, only touched by a pink scarf tied around her temple, the remainder of which hung in two strands down her back, giving a softening effect to her black covering.
“Hey,” she said when she saw Orpheus again on the floor with his tins and paints.
He turned slightly in her direction and said; “Hey, yourself.”
She tried to sit on the floor next to him, but had difficulty getting her shorts to co-operate. After a few unsuccessful tries she forgot about sitting and just lay down on the floor, her head supported by her crooked left arm.
He looked at an unbalanced face which had heavy black mascara around the eyes, set off with pale orange lipstick. He said; “I like it. You look like a confused teenager.”
She squirmed around trying to sit up, only able to get halfway there. She said; “I think you have to be a teenager to wear these things.”
“I was looking at the paintings we did yesterday. I think the flowers are the best idea. It’s going on a flower pot and all that. I noticed that when I paint a flower I generally use bright colors for the petals and you usually use dark.”
“So, what are you saying?” she said as she revolved around like a turtle on its back.
“I’m saying I like the balance and it gave me an idea.
Without having to duplicate anything we can paint every flower known to mankind in every color known to mankind. I can do the lights and you can do the darks. We can churn these things out like crazy without any thought necessary.”
She was listening as she continued to go through contortions, in an attempt to get comfortable. So far the only position that afforded some solace was lying on the floor supported by a crooked hand, but that quickly made her elbows hurt. She said; “I like the idea a lot. But, I’d like to point out that the possibilities are huge, but definitely not infinite.”
He didn’t really want to think about so arcane a technicality when he was so excited and said; “When and if we run out of possibilities, we can make pairs, trios, or gatherings.”
She was really half listening, paying primary attention to the constrictions of her poor pants choice, but heard enough to
reply; “The pieces of tin aren’t huge. I doubt if we can get more than a trio on one and that would be a push.”
He wondered why she was trying to infest him with her own perceived limitations, but acquiesced and said; “Okay, three is the maximum number, but we can do other things to create the variety. Some of the flowers can be alive, some may be cut, some may be blooming and some may be crushed. We can do like pairs, unlike pairs, like and unlike trios and everywhere in between. And maybe the most fun of all, if and when we run out of possibilities, will be inventing new flowers, colors, arrangements and groupings.”
She was still fidgeting and said; “I’ve had it with these pants,” and took them off, with difficulty, laughing and grunting. Artwork flowed and they lost track of time and limitations. A potpourri of pot possibilities produced.
Eurydice was spending another morning under the watchful gaze of Cornelius Jefferson, known mercifully as June Boy. She tolerated the constant surveillance well, but started to see negative red when the clumsy large employer needed the use of some part of her body to regain his balance time and again.
When she didn’t say anything, Corny picked a more interesting spot, with each stumble. With the fourth fall Mr.
Jefferson somehow managed to need the support of the long black tightropes near her epicenter. He worked his way up, put his
arm strongly behind her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her on the mouth, using his lips to lubricate what she thought was about half of her face.
She slipped down out of the vice grip and yelled; “That’s it.” He again moved toward her. She grabbed an empty metal pot and said; “You touch me again and this is going to be upside your fat head.”
She went to the door, threw the pot at him and started to run home crying. She slowed down to a trot when she got near Lettie’s house and was walking and sobbing when she got there.
She didn’t see anyone outside and was glad that she wasn’t compelled to answer a lot of “What’s wrong’s?” She walked slowly home, trying to focus on Orpheus’s kindhearted understanding of what she was going through. She got an even better feeling for it when she got to the again open window and saw Orpheus’s paintbrush dipped in the pink can. She went to the door and screamed “Orpheus!”
D disappeared at the noise and Orpheus thought that he had at least two big problems. He decided to get the mask first and called back softly; “Mask on.”
She burst in the door and said; “This time I saw her plain as day.”
“Saw who?”
“The white bitch who is showing her true colors. Don’t play with me.” She walked into the bedroom and looked around a bit and continued; “She must be getting out of here through some underground tunnel and I’m not looking for it. I know what I know. She left her damn shorts, or are you going through changes?”
Orpheus went to her and said; “Oh, baby.” He tried to put his arms around her.
She said; “Don’t you dare touch me with hands that have been all over that white devil.”
Aazaziel said; “At your service.”
Eurydice answered; “I guess you think you got a promotion.”
“When you see what I have, you’ll no doubt agree that I deserve one.”
Eurydice said; “The first thing you’re going to show me is how to exit this house. You’ve got paint all over your sneakers.” She pushed him to the front door by the shoulders, careful not to touch his baggy black denim pants which had paint smears, but not nearly as bad as his sneakers.
Aazaziel said; “Okay, okay. I’m going and what I have to show you is outside anyway.” She got a bit ahead of him and opened the door, not wanting to touch anything with hands that might have been anywhere. She pushed him out, making note of the relatively clean heavy denim shirt he wore. It had two
pockets, closable with buttoning flaps, but was now open. She was pleased with the improvement in his head. He covered it up with a pink and yellow scarf knotted in the back, the ties hanging to mid-back.
She was amazed at the enormity of it. Aazaziel walked to the painting and stood by it, ready to entertain questions about the finer points. It was about forty feet wide and fifteen feet high, comprised of two distinctly different halves. The right side was completely filled with splashes of paints, some in streaks like paths and some circular like a puddle. Every color of the rainbow was utilized, many overlapping each other.
Further scrutiny evinced an overweighting of blues, pinks and whites. Footprints indicated a visitor who stayed only long enough to make the paths and puddles less clear. Their red and black color seemed to mar the painting in an irregular pattern, looking as if someone who knew no boundaries made a hasty escape.
The left side also had splashes of paint, but it was done more sparsely and heavily concentrated on browns, greens and blues. Houses of white, yellow and brown with collapsed roofs or blue water pouring out of the lower windows were arranged in rows over half the area. There were five gouges taken out of the canvas, inadequately covered over in bright red. Little
stick people of all colors were standing around all over the place, perhaps waiting for something.
Aazaziel said; “Great, huh?”
Eurydice said; “There are dead flies all over it.”
Aazaziel said; “Yeah, I know. It’s a long story. Ignore the flies. They’ll fade in time. What does it say to you?”
She said; “I only know one other thing that flies congregate in as much as this.” She shook her head and had her first laugh of the short day.
Aazaziel said; “You have a fantastic grasp of the obvious.
Let me get Orpheus out here.”
He led the blindfolded one out, saying that he wanted his learned opinion, on his new creation. Orpheus was hesitant, as under no circumstances did he want to risk seeing Eurydice.
They made arrangements whereby the still blindfolded underground traveler stood in front of the canvas with Eurydice right behind him. He used his left hand to touch her, making sure of where she stood and his right to briefly lift his black mask. He was nervous about something going wrong, so he looked for a second and quickly put the mask back in place.
Aazaziel was disappointed, feeling that his masterpiece deserved a better study. He said; “What did you see?”
Orpheus said somewhat questioningly; “A big flytrap?”
Eurydice lost it and started bending at the waist and knees, laughing uncontrollably, saying; “What it is, is what it is.”
Aazaziel could not have been more insulted. He would have preferred being spat on. He said; “This I the best anyone can do. Come now, be serious.”
Remembering the fly trap, hearing Aazaziel’s pleading tone and enjoying the spasms of his wife, Orpheus just kept hold of her with his left hand and started laughing as she continued to.
Aazaziel looked coldly at the two and said; “You think you’re so smart, but I’m the one who is in charge here. Try laughing at this. You two are the only humans who know of Eurydice’s death and resurrection. I’m going to remove that memory from her mind.”
The couple stopped laughing and stood still, Eurydice looking at the irate little one. Aazaziel focused his yellow eyes on her brown ones and said; “Eurydice, you’re young and alive.”
The two stood quietly, somewhat bewildered for ten seconds, Aazaziel now the laughing one. Eurydice broke the silence when she said; “Orpheus, take off that stupid mask.”