Death Art
Approx. reading time: 2 beers
Reader advisory: This is a dark story set in the mid-nineteen seventies. It reflects the prevailing attitudes of the time toward homosexuality and mental illness. It contains violence, graphic scenes, foul language, and slurs that would be unspeakable today. I’ve said too much but you get the picture. You have been warned. More about this story at the end.
Death Art
The art therapist is young. And pretty. Her name is Samantha and she has chaos-rainbows of paint on her apron.
“No, Jimmy,” she says. “The unnatural tilt of the head, eyes like two x’s and look at the way he’s sitting. Is he being propped-up by something we don’t see? Does he look natural? Does this look lifelike?”
I don’t argue because it’s clear that Samantha doesn’t understand my work. No, it’s not lifelike—It’s exactly the opposite.
The other mental case at my table goof-smiles at me like he’s the one who caught the touchdown pass with six seconds left to take his team to the state finals. I dip my brush in the water bowl and flick it at the grinning lunatic. Samantha is ridiculously sexy as she nervously shifts from one Birkenstock to the other, as if she needs to pee.
She leans over my shoulder, takes the brush from my hand and begins to daub blue eyes over the dead x’s. Her hair smells like funeral home flowers and I can’t resist licking her velvet neck.
She runs to the locked door and bangs on it until an orderly comes and she trip-falls into the hallway.
I should have told them I couldn’t come back here. I’m already half mental.
Three cops, two in uniform and one fat detective in a sport coat, poke around the campsite for a while, then have themselves a little huddle. The detective points a wagging finger at one of them and says something, then wags it at the other one but it’s all yell-whispers that I can hear but can’t hear, hear. I’m leaning against a tree and I look over at Scrib but he’s not about to say anything. I think I’m going mental and I decide it’s just better to not look at Scrib anymore.
After a while, they seem to have figured out what to ask me. The fat detective waddles over. His clothes smell like the Old Town Diner but his wagging finger means business. He asks me the big question that they all came up with:
“So. is this where you boys come to smoke your pot?”
Scrib and I both have our mouths a little bit open, like the way you would if you were just asked the dumbest question you ever heard. Scrib has his eyes half-closed, his head tilted back, arms at his sides like, you can’t be fucking serious.
I’m getting more and more mental.
I didn’t have to come back here with them. I could have just told them where it was. All the way up Fox Run Lane, past the houses where the road turns to dirt, over the stone wall at the end and just keep walking straight, like you were still on the road, in the same direction. There’s sort of a path. It takes about fifteen minutes once you leave the road until you come to this clearing with the old car seats and a big fire pit.
I’m going mental with scaredness and I don’t want to look at Scrib anymore but I can’t help it. There’s a tiny blood dribble from the corner of his mouth, like he just got sacked and we’re back in the huddle and I point to it and he wipes it with the back of his hand. Nothing to get upset about.
One of them picks up the revolver by the barrel and the wagging finger detective tells him they probably should have fucking dusted it first and how about fucking waiting for the fucking photographer to fucking document the fucking scene before he fucking touches another fucking thing. The cops puts the gun back but not the way it was. It doesn’t point the way it fell.
The three of them make themselves at home on the car seats, two uniforms on the one we got from Ciullo’s brother when he re-did his Fairlane and the fat detective on the one we got when my dad junked the Nova. I don’t remember where the third one came from but Scrib is on that one and no one wants to sit with him.
The detective wants to know how we got all these car seats out here. “It’s at least a half a mile,” he says. I tell him there were six of us—we put them down and sat on them when we got tired.
“Six of you huh? Well, I’m going to need all their names,” he says but then he seems to forget about that as he looks around the campsite. “You bring the girls out here and get them high? You take turns with them, Jimmy?”
One of the uniformed cops stands up and pulls a white sheet out of a duffel bag and spreads it out over Scrib, like Scrib is killing the mood by sitting there with his eyes half open and dried blood on the corner of his mouth.
I have a new sound in my head that is the loudest quiet and it blares my brain with the noise of nothing and it’s making me mental and scared of Scrib and death and nothingness.
The finger is wagging at me. “ I need to ask you a few questions son.”
Ok.
His name is Matt. Matt Scribner.
Sorry, right, Matthew.
Me? I already told you, Jimmy Cole.
Right, James.
Birchwood High. Seniors.
Right, he’s the quarterback.
Me? Tight end.
No, I’m not aware of any problems at home.
Sure, lots of girls.
No, no particular girl.
Because his mom called my house, told my mom he hadn’t come in two nights.
Because we used to be best friends. Why wouldn’t she call?
Yes, this is the first place I thought to look. Actually, the only place.
Yeah, we had a disagreement a couple of months ago.
My whereabouts? School and home. And Bob’s Charcoal Grill. I don’t think I went anywhere else.
No, I’m having trouble, I need some time to think. Do we have to do this here?
The detective closes his notebook, clicks the ballpoint pen and puts it in his shirt pocket. He squints at me for a moment. “No son, we can talk downtown if that’s what you’d prefer.”
I should have kept my mouth shut. I don’t want to go downtown. I don’t want to be anywhere. The shrieking squeal of nothingness is blaring in my head and I’m falling fast into full mental. I turn and start walking but the two blues grab me and hold my arms behind my back and sit me on the bench seat opposite Scrib.
Two more blues carrying a folded stretcher, followed by a guy with a big camera come in huffing and stumbling. The finger-wagging detective tells them to hurry the fuck up because he’s already been waiting an hour. He whips the sheet off of Scrib like a bad magician who failed to disappear the assistant.
Click, click, Click. “I don’t see the wound.”
“It’s in the mouth.”
“I’ll need a shot of the exit wound. Can we tip him forward please?”
Scrib is as stiff as a statue and two blues have to horse him up until he’s almost standing with his knees bent like an old man. They tilt him forward so they can see where the back of his head used to be.
Oh shit, Oh fuck.
I should have shut my eyes.
I should have known that it would be even worse downtown. The fluorescent light in the little room strobes maniacally and it seems like I’m the only one who can see it. The detective still smells like the Old Town Diner and he and the officer in blue are sucking up all the greasy air.
“And Donny? What’s his full name?”
“Donny Healy.”
“Donald?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Is he on the team too?”
I’m scared as shit but not because of this douchebag. I’m mentally horrified that Scrib had the balls to do this, the absolute crazy in him that would make him pull the trigger. Scrib is fucking dead. Scrib killed himself. None of us are supposed to be dead yet. It’s fucking insane.
Fuck you Scrib.
Mrs. Scribner likes to watch us in the pool. She likes to see us in our bathing suits. Well, not Scrib of course and I don’t think Donny and certainly not Stuffy for fucks sake. Mrs. Scribner likes to see me in my bathing suit (and out of it.) I see her watching from the bedroom window while I change behind the utility shed.
“Jimmy, I need you to concentrate, son. I asked you a question, Is Donald on the team too?”
“Baseball, not football. Do Matt’s parents know yet?”
“They have been notified. Now, the one you call Stuffy?”
The blaring noise of nothing is rattling my deranged brain and I can’t escape the strobing light, even when I look down at the table.
“Jimmy, pay attention please. Tell me Stuffy’s real name.”
“Sean. Sean Stevenson.”
“Why do you call him Stuffy?”
“He’s got allergies.”
The uniformed cop chuckles. “Stuffy Stevenson.”
The detective leans-in and tells me to look at him. “What was the nature of your disagreement with Matt Scribner?”
Mrs. Scribner tells me to call her Bev. She gives me beers and Marlboros. She asks me if I’ve ever tasted anisette. It tastes like licorice, she says and it does. It’s thick and sweet and it’s like warm syrup running down my throat and I want to taste it again and again.
“Are you getting tired, Jimmy? Do you want something to drink?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want some water, Jimmy?”
“No.”
“Can you tell me the circumstances surrounding your falling-out with Matt Scribner?”
No fucking way am I ever going to tell this fat bastard.
“What happened to cause a rift between you and Matt?”
The uniformed cop hands me a cone cup from the water cooler and sits back down at the table. He leans forward on his forearms like he thinks we’re getting to the interesting part. I’m not thirsty but there’s no way to put a cone cup down so I drink it and crumple the cup and toss it at the trash can across the room. It clanks the far side and goes in.
“Oh, Jimmy,” the detective says. “No need to get aggressive.”
Stuffy called early on that Sunday morning at the beginning of November. My dad was pissed because he was trying to sleep-in until he had to get up for 10:45 Mass.
I called Stuffy back from the phone in the kitchen.
“What the fuck, Stuffy? It’s seven o’clock.”
“Scrib flipped the car last night. He’s in the hospital with a broken pelvis.
“Broken what? When last night? We didn’t leave his house until at least midnight.”
“I guess he went out after. And I’ve got something else to tell you, Jimmy.”
“What?”
“He was with Frank Fairstein. He’s banged-up too.”
“Frank Fairstein? Frankie the floof? No way Stuffy.”
“I’m just telling you, Jimmy. Lara’s boyfriend was on the scene. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Fuck you, Stuffy.”
There is loud knocking on the door that doesn’t stop until the cop gets up and opens it. He sticks his head out for a few seconds, then turns to the detective. “Captain wants to see you.”
I cross my arms on the table and rest my forehead on them. I’m scared and tired. I’m tired from being mental. I’m mental from being scared. I close my eyes. The noise is still in my head but the maniacal strobe light is blocked for the moment.
Bev tells me she’s worried about Matt. “He could have any girl he wants. He just doesn’t put himself out there.” Her lips taste like licorice.
I hear a heated conversation in the hallway and I raise my head for a moment to look through the rectangular window in the door. I see a finger wagging at the detective who is hanging his head, like a greedy little boy being chastised for eating all the doughnuts. I’m too mental to even think of laughing. I put my head down again.
“Jimmy. Jimmy, wake up.”
I don’t remember where I am. I look up and see a tall, skinny, balding guy standing in front of me. He reaches out for a handshake but I’m too numb to realize it. “I’m attorney Mark Fairstein,” he says. “Your parents have retained me to represent you.”
Holy shit. Frankie the floof’s father is my lawyer. I’ve reached maximum mental overload now.
Scrib had the usual smirk on his face when he asked me to guess what song was playing on the radio while they were trying to get him out of the upside-down car. He had tubes in his arm and a bandage over his left eyebrow.
“I don’t know,” I said. “What?”
“Wild horses,” he sang in a nasal imitation of Jagger, “couldn’t drag me away.”
“How long are you gonna be in here?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “The pain meds are good.”
“Where were you going? You were half-wasted when I left.”
“There was a party at Donna Esposito’s. I forgot all about it until you guys left.”
“Hey Scrib, I got another question.”
He shrugged again, the smirk fading.
“Why was Frankie Fairstein in the car?”
“He was hitchhiking. I didn’t know who it was until he got in the car.”
“Yeah? Well, how was the party?”
“Never got there,” he said.
“The accident was at three in the morning, Matt. What the fuck were you doing all that time?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. “I have a concussion.”
I went down the hall to see Frankie.
Mr. Fairstein thinks it would be good for me to “lay all my cards on the table.”
“I just don’t want to be surprised in a deposition,” he says.
I don’t think I can ever lay these cards on the table.
Bev lays the slice of cherry pie on the table and asks me if I want to drizzle some anisette on it.
“Jimmy, I need you to pay attention. This is important.”
What can I tell this guy? I can’t tell him what I know about his own son and how the accident happened. Can’t tell him that Frankie told me in the hospital what he and Scrib did for three hours that night until the car went all upside-down. I can’t tell him that I went back to Scrib’s room and called him a queer, just like Frankie and how Scrib tried to get up to punch me and ended up on the floor because his Elvis pelvis was fucked-up.
I’m never going to tell this guy how much I regret calling Scrib a rump wrangler, butt pirate, gay blade, nancy boy, faggot. And blaming him for our loss in the state finals because we had to go with our backup quarterback. And telling him that I didn’t consider him a friend anymore.
“Jimmy, there seems to be some concern among the police that there was some sort of incident between you and Matt where you broke-off your friendship. Can you tell me about that?”
I ask Mr. Fairstein if this is still the same day. He seems confused by the question.
I’m totally mental and disconnected. I see Scrib opening his eyes and wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth and smirking like, yeah, this is fucked-up. Let’s have a do-over.
“I know you’re tired Jimmy. Just a few more minutes and then your parents can take you home. Tell me this, when did you last see Matt Scribner?”
If we get a do-over, I won’t have to tell Mr. Fairstein shit. I won’t have to tell him that Scrib tracked me down at Bob’s Charcoal a few days ago and told me that he wanted to talk. Or that I started to walk away and he spun me around by the shoulders and told me that nobody is perfect and that we could still be friends, still do our freshman year at UConn together. Or that I told him to wait outside and I’d be out in a minute. Or how he had tears in his eyes when he told me he knew about me and his mother.
If we get a do-over, I won’t have to tell Mr. Fairstein that Donny, Stuffy and I had a good laugh watching Scrib limp back and forth on his achy Elvis pelvis out there for twenty minutes before he finally got in his car and drove away. I won’t have to tell him that I’m a cold-hearted, nasty son of a bitch and an actual motherfucker who might as well have been the one to blow Scrib’s brains out.
“So Jimmy,” Mr Fairstein says. “Tell me everything, no secrets. I know you’re no angel.”
I grab his throat and squeeze with the strength of a mental monster.
Bev looks old. She’s lost weight and her shoulders are rounded. There are fine wrinkles around her eyes and on her upper lip.
Time flies. Time is a thief. Time heals. Two of these are true.
Scrib and I would have graduated from UConn two years ago if either of us had ever gotten there.
Bev gives me a formal hug as two orderlies watch from the wall behind me. I smell cigarettes but not licorice. She asks me if I wouldn’t mind calling her Mrs. Scribner. She wants me to tell her what went wrong with Matt, if there was anything she could have done to prevent what happened.
She wants me to tell her it wasn’t her fault.
I consider telling her the whole truth but decide against it.
“It wasn’t all your fault,” I tell her. “Matt had some issues. I could have tried harder to help him.”
Mrs. Scribner leaves without saying goodbye. I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m seeing someone for the last time.
The new art therapist is a portly older woman with a clean white apron. Her name is Maggie. She has gray hair and smells of soap and coffee as she leans over my shoulder to admire my latest painting, a seated boy holding a revolver to his mouth, leaning back with tears in his eyes and a finger on the trigger.
“Oh, Jimmy, this is very disturbing,” she says. She holds a hand over her mouth and I can tell she’s in awe. She shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other as she backs toward the door. “I’ll be right back,” she says. “Everything will be fine,” she says.
It’s a comfort to know that everything will be fine. Maggie will tell the girls in reception about my painting and they’ll come in to have a look and hold their hands over their mouths. I’ll give Maggie a hug and ask her to bring me a book on Vincent van Gogh next week. And some licorice.
It’s a comfort to know that Maggie understands death art.
Author’s Note: “Death Art” is a work of fiction inspired by an event that occurred many years ago. Yes, we did have a campsite in the woods and yes, one of our group did commit suicide there and it was a dark and troubling time for all of us, his closest friends, struggling to understand what went wrong and why we didn’t or couldn’t recognize the underlying troubles. Everything else in the story is pure fiction, including the character’s motivation, the actions of the police, and the predatory nature of the character’s mother. It’s all made up. Never happened.
Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your comments.
Jim, that was very good, and disturbing! I'll have that second beer now. And reread.
I like this a lot. Yes, I understand that says something about me that I should probably keep to myself. I really like your writing too, mainly because I didn't notice it much while I was reading. I just fell through the page and saw what was happening, which is how I like it best.