Memories of the inciting event deject Giles, mostly because of its pedestrian predictability; clichés are anathema to any artist. That certain bar in Mount Vernon, the police storming in with raised badges. During the night he spent in jail, he’d thought of one thing: how the police blotter had always been his father’s favorite section of the paper. Giles hoped the old man’s eyesight, like his own, had worsened to the point that he couldn’t read the blotter’s small type, and then, when Giles never heard from his father again, knew that it hadn’t. Within a week of being fired, Giles adopted his first cat.
Finagling meetings with Bernie has become a large part of Giles’s job. But how can he complain? No one else at the firm, Mr. Klein and Mr. Saunders included, approves of Giles’s freelance involvement. Giles applies a big, red grin, just like the father in his newest painting. More advertising, he thinks, this time for himself.
“What in heavens happened to Hazel? I never knew her to miss a day.”
Bernie tugs loose his tie. “You wouldn’t believe it, Gilesy. The old broad made doe eyes at a beverage bottler and whoosh. They make off to Los Angeles. Took the account with them, too.”
“No! Good for her, I suppose.”
“Bad for us. That’s why everything’s haywire, so apologies for the room, we’re backed up. You know a good girl, you let me know, all right?”
Giles does, in fact, know a good girl, one whose job at a totalitarian research facility has been going nowhere for years. If only answering phone calls was Elisa’s forte. The few seconds Giles spends musing in silence make Bernie fidget and what’s left of Giles’s spirit sinks. Bernie is alone inside a closed room with a confirmed fruit. As eager as Giles is to jabber about the good old ad biz, he can’t let himself be the cause of this man’s distress.
“Well, here, let me show you the work—”
“I’ve really only got a few—”
Both are grateful for the distracting clank of the case’s buckle and slap of opening leather. Giles sets the canvas upon the table and gestures proudly. But what he feels is panic. Is there something screwy with the overhead lights? The bone structure of the family he painted is too pronounced, like their skin has worn down to an Andrzej polish. And did he really draw four bodiless heads? Did he not see how ghoulish that was? Even the colors look off, except for the gelatin, which, due to his all-night mixing, is the magmatic apotheosis of red.
“The red,” Bernie sighs.
“Too red,” Giles says. “I concur wholeheartedly.”
“It’s not that. Although the father’s lips do look a little… bloody. It’s the color in general. Red’s out. We’re not doing red centerpieces for anything anymore. Didn’t I tell you that? Maybe I didn’t. Like I said, things are haywire. Red’s being axed across the board. The new thing—are you ready? The new thing is green.”
“Green?”
“Bicycles. Electric guitars. Breakfast cereal. Eye shadow. Green’s the future all of a sudden. Even the new flavors coming in, wall-to-wall green. Apple, melon, green grape, pesto, pistachio, mint.”
Giles tries to ignore the quartet of mocking skulls and scrutinizes the gelatin of their desire. He feels so stupid, so blind. It doesn’t matter if Bernie mentioned the color before or not. If Giles had any judgment at all, he would have known better. What kind of ogre’s appetite would be roused by gelatin so red it looked as if sliced from a beating heart?
“It’s not me, Gilesy,” Bernie says. “It’s photographs. Every client who walks through that door today, they want photo shoots, pretty girls holding hamburgers or encyclopedia sets or what have you. They want to be invited to the casting calls to check out the goods. I’m the last guy at this firm selling the bosses on actual art. Great art is great art, that’s what I tell them. And you, Gilesy, are a great artist. Hey, you making any time for your own stuff these days?”
The painting is like key-lime-pie leftovers seen apart from the brilliant lights of Dixie Doug’s: untantalizing. Giles slips it back into his portfolio case. The weight of the case on the way home will bring him none of the comfort it gave on the trip here. His own stuff? No, Bernie. Not for years. Not when he’s busy painting and repainting gelatin that nobody wants, no matter the color of the future.
14
STRICKLAND FEELS THE hot creep of shame. The urine crawling across the slanted floor, it’s too much. He’d meant to spook the janitors. He plans on spooking everyone who laid eyes on the asset tonight. It’s a trick he took from General Hoyt when they were stationed in Tokyo. First time you meet a lesser, show him how little he means to you. As soon as he saw the black janitor, the bent back of the white janitor, the urinal, it all snapped together. But it’s disgusting. Peeing on the ground, it’s what he did in the Amazon. Cleanliness is what he craves now, and here he is, literally pissing on it.
He checks over his shoulder and gets a good look at the little one. She’s got an open face. Clear of all that glop Lainie layers on. This makes him feel worse. He urges his bladder to empty. He looks around for something else to say. Finds the cattle prod. No doubt both women are staring at it. He haggled it from a farmer before departing Brazil. Some peasant who barely spoke English and yet called it “the Alabama Howdy-do.” Really helped him move the asset in or out of the pool when the asset needed encouragement. There’s a fat, dark red drop of blood clinging to one of the two brass prongs. It elongates toward the white porcelain. Another mess about to be made.
He brightens his voice to distract himself from his self-disgust. “That right there is a heavy-duty 1954 Farm-Master 30 model. None of that newfangled fiberglass crap. Steel shaft, oak handle. Variable five-hundred to ten-thousand volts. Go ahead and look, ladies, but do not touch.”
His face heats up. It sounds like he could be talking about his cock. Disgusting, disgusting. What if Timmy heard him talk like this? What if Tammy did? He loves the kids, even though he’s afraid to touch them, afraid he’ll hurt them. All they have to judge him by is what comes out of his mouth. He feels a bloom of anger toward these women for bearing witness to his ugliness. Not their fault for being in this room, of course. But it’s their fault being in this job, isn’t it? For putting themselves in this position? The last drop of urine falls. He thinks of the pregnant bulb of blood hanging from the Alabama Howdy-do.
Strickland hitches his pelvis, tucks, zips his pants with a startling yowl. The women look away. Are there urine spatters on his pants? He’s not in the jungle anymore. He has to think of such things all the time now. He wants to run from this overbright room and the mess he’s made. Wrap this up, he tells himself.
“You both heard what the man said in the lab. I hope I don’t need to repeat it.”
“We’re cleared,” the Negro says.
“I know you’re cleared. I checked.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s my job to check.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Why is this woman making this difficult? Why can’t the other woman, so much prettier, so much gentler looking, why won’t she say something? The air in the room feels swampy. His imagination, it’s got to be. His heart pounds. He reaches for a machete that isn’t there. The Howdy-do, though. It’ll make a fine replacement. He longs to wrap his fingers around it. He pushes a laugh through clamped jaws.