“This is the first time a TV has ever been here, I assume?” Zephyr asks, her eyes trained on the two guys up front getting everything hooked up. They’re having some trouble with the AV.
“Yeah. People have been asking for a TV and VCR for a few years,” I reply, trying to talk over the riot of voices that bounce and bang off the concrete floor and high ceiling of the mess hall. “Gus always said too expensive, too distracting, beside the point of Lupine Valley. But he got a deal on these and caved. I doubt this will be more than a once-a-week indulgence, though. And after this we’ll have to buy our own tapes, too, I bet.” I snicker.
“Where are they? I can’t believe they’re going to miss this,” Trillium says, almost anxiously, craning her neck around to look for them. Coral, Moss, and Mantis. ”Gus gets us a TV and VCR—“
“And a copy of Fatal Attraction—“ Barley adds.
“And these clowns are nowhere to be found?” Trillium can’t believe it. She’s been starved for TV since she’s been here, I know. She mentions at least twice a week that she has to call her girlfriends back home to find out what happened on Days of Our Lives each week. And then she tells us, in exhaustive detail, what happened on Days of Our Lives each week. She seems personally offended that our friends are not here to enjoy this.
I look around, too, in case she’s somehow missed them, but I don’t see them. Not tucked in a far-off corner, not scattered throughout the crowd. Not that they would be scattered. They never seem to be apart these days.
“I’m sure the Holy Trinity has better things to do,” Zephyr says sarcastically. “They always seem to, lately. Don’t you think?” Zephyr has a point. Moss and Mantis are pretty chummy these days, and I can’t tell what it is exactly that binds them. If it’s an attraction or repulsion at work. Sometimes they seem like buddies, dicking around under the hood of Mantis’s truck or sharing ciggies. Sometimes they seem like two tomcats squaring off in an alley, not trusting the other enough to turn their backs. Coral hasn’t come to a painters hang in at least a week or two. Since the night we all sat around the bonfire and Mantis told us about Autumn Francis. Something has been…off since then.
“When was the last time the whole gang was together?” I ask Zephyr suddenly. The room erupts in cheers as the TV and VCR start getting along and the VHS goes in.
“Like, us plus the Holy Trinity?” Zephyr slides down in her folding chair into a more comfortable position. She crosses her legs. “The last time we were in Coral’s Clearing, I guess. Right? Has it been that long?”
I bite my thumbnail. ”I think it has.”
Mantis has been keeping his distance, I realize. He has popped in to a painters hang once, maybe twice since then. But he didn’t bring his usual six-pack either of those times. And he didn’t bring anything from the Townie Chronicles. That spigot has been shut off. In fact, he listens more than he talks lately. Circumspect, almost. And when he does talk, he’s always asking about Coral. Where’s Coral? Is Coral with Moss? Did Coral go home already? How has Coral seemed today? What did she say?
And lately, the answers to those questions have been:
In Moss’s cabin.
Yes, of course she is.
No, she’s still here.
Not great.
Nothing.
The mess hall plunges into darkness. Someone yelps in surprise and a few others laugh in response. Zephyr reaches over and holds my hand.
The glow of the TV melts over our bodies.
Her Dark Things by Audra Colfax Piece
#7: Spread Wide Open
Oil and mixed media on canvas. 24″ x 36″.
[Close-up of the head and breast of a raven upside down. The found objects are incorporated into the black feathers strategically to create a kind of sheen with the notes’ relative whiteness against the black.]
Note on torn graph paper found at the bottom of a produce crate in the Dunn family pantry.
M says stay close now
Do not stray
Keep quiet C, hush C
Who can I trust C, so
M encourages me
he is the only one who understands (M)
I do very small things to EASE the pressure so
so very small
just little things, but they help so much and M thinks it’s GOOD
it’s good he says
KEEP GOING
You crazy fuck
a sewing NEEDLE—I prick my big toe with it
painful and RED and angry
in the open air but just one finger, so it looks like it could have been
an ACCIDENT
M tells me to put on some white gloves
to cover them
and he laughs at me
cocks his finger
and shoots
a BURN with my curling iron
it’s like it’s nothing
it’s nothing C, don’t speak C, quiet quiet quiet C
M likes me for all of this he says I am making a CANVAS of
myself
he draws and paints ME a lot now when I take breaks from
cleaning
he says I’m more
interesting
these days
then SENDS me on my way
tying my butterscotch scarf
around my NECK
to hide
the hurts
we put there
—Sep88. CD.
Note on coffee-stained yellow legal paper found behind the baseboard in Cindy Dunn’s room at the Dunn residence.
I’ve been DRAWING with M drawing with M I’ve been drawing
with
M I’ve been drawing
and drawing drawing drawing and drawing BIRDS with M
with (M)
with (M)
in his cabin I’ve been drawing birds and birds and birds and birds
with M
in with M in with M in
drawing and drawing with M M
Brady always wonders
where I am I disappear so that
I can breathe so I can feel a little better
it doesn’t last
PROLIFIC M said
Good job good job good job not taking your meds that POISON
look how
you are without them
look at these BIRDS and BIRDS and BIRDS look
they are so good
too good
look what your clean brain can do
I am doing good, I am alone I am not alone
There is M there is baby there is ME
I’ve been drawing
I’ve been drawing with M it’s like I can’t STOP drawing with M
and he can’t stop drawing won’t stop drawing
ME
—Sep88. CD.
Drawing on sketchbook paper found in an old metal tea tin in an armoire in the attic of the Dunn residence.
[Paper is creased with fold lines. The bottom right corner is torn. At the far upper left corner is a disembodied bird’s beak. The beak is cracked. The detail and shading are obsessively fine.]
Untitled.
—Sep88. CD.
Drawing on sketchbook paper found in an old metal tea tin in an armoire in the attic of the Dunn residence.
[Paper is creased with fold lines. Inadvertent brown stains—maybe coffee, maybe food—mark and blotch the page. A disembodied bird’s wing, snapped in the middle and angled grotesquely, fills the page. The detail and shading are obsessively fine.]
Untitled.
—Sep88. CD.
Drawing on sketchbook paper found in an old metal tea tin in an armoire in the attic of the Dunn residence.
[Paper is creased with fold lines. The page is filled with hundreds of disembodied bird eyes and the fine, tiny feathers just surrounding them. Some are as large as quarters. Others are as small as the head of a nail. Some overlap others. There are clusters in some areas of the page, like tumors, masses. The detail and shading are obsessively fine.]
Title: M Sees.
—Sep88. CD.
Note on loose-leaf paper found inside the wall of the living room after accidental damage had been done in the Dunn residence during renovation.
so many birds feathers beaks beady little eyes CLAWS TALONS sometimes all together on one bird a full picture sometimes apart and a part sometimes the birds are HURT or MANGLED like they’ve flown into the windshield of a SPEEDING car sometimes an EYE has been scratched out or large swaths of feathers are MISSING sometimes the eyes are so BLACK that I think I might fall into the pinprick of them and drown in their TAR and never get back out there are all of these BIRDS I have drawn so many of them they are MEAN or BROKEN and it’s like I can’t stop drawing them there’s this one bird some kind of made up bird from my imagination black and terrible who I keep drawing hanging upside down from a branch by its talons WINGS SPREAD WIDE OPEN I keep drawing him over and over again his expression looks different each time but he’s some sort of angel of DEATH I think how I angle his head and eyes makes him different the way his wings sprawl and dangle there are ten of him fifteen of him FIFTY of him I don’t know M loves him M thinks he’s good he thinks I’m good he draws ME even when I tell him NO when I just want to cry and melt into the floor he says you look your BEST in these moments look what you have wrought through me through me through me
I spent three hours just working on a feather or two I need to get more paper I NEED so much more paper my hand is cramped all of this is RUINING me
—Oct88. CD.