Dimwit
By Susan Taylor Chehak
It’s the desk itself that’s of value, and value’s what I’m after here. As in, cash. Because what else am I supposed to do with this junk? Time flies all right, but not because I’ve been having any fun. It flies no matter what you do and faster and faster it seems, so now I can hardly tell one day from the next. Burl feels the same, I know. We go through our days and our days go through us, and here we are, two old goats with a garage full of crap collected by an old woman five years in the ground, an old woman who was a young woman once upon a time, and a beautiful one at that.
Burl pulled this desk out of the shadows and into the sunshine and declared it worth something, though how he’d know that I have no idea. Only now it’s been left up to me to get it cleaned out so he can put it in his truck and take it to wherever it is he’s thinking he’s going to be able to sell it. How he’s going to manage that will be one more problem for us to solve, but he better not be planning to leave it out here in the grass to weather in the sun and rain, then snow and sleet, then sun and rain again for year after year like he’s done with all the rest of his rotting hoard of cars and tires and metal that he also declared to be of value, to whom I do not know.
He’s brought me a plastic bin to fill with whatever I find in here, and then we can sit down in the shade and drink some beers together while we decide what to keep and what to let go.
This desk was always right there in her office with her books and her papers and whatnot. My mother, the scholar. She taught philosophy at the university once upon a time. She was a beautiful woman. Strong. Sexy. That’s what my friends said, and it’s what they admired about her too. It’s also what I shrank away from. Let her be the star of the show, I thought, and if I had to stand in her shadow, well, that was always just fine with me. It’s a lot more comfortable there anyway.
Burl says he can feel it in his bones that I’m going to find something of value inside this desk, and that’s supposed to be an incentive for me to get busy on it. A kick in the pants, he said, because he knew I needed that to get me up out of my chair and away from my shows and onto the porch and down the steps and into the yard where he’s brought the desk out to shimmer in the sun. He’s got a cooler of beer filled up for us to share too, and isn’t that thoughtful of him?
It’s a big, heavy thing, this desk. Some dark wood. Mahogany or some such, I wouldn’t know. With three big drawers on the side and a shelf that pulls down in front to reveal its innards, all secret and mysterious, like a woman under her skirts.
Burl’s up there on the porch, keeping an eye on me. Starting in on the beer already, all on his own, and fooling around with that old, broke banjo he got from a garage sale last week. He can play it all right. Who knew? Twanging like that, it’s almost pleasant.
So here’s what I’m finding. Blank papers in a pile. Stationery with her name on it. The bin is filling up. Pens and pencils. Paper clips. Staples. “There’s nothing here,” I call to him. A couple of doorstop tomes in a drawer, but I want nothing to do with that, so I just drop those in the grass to rot. I never was smart enough to know what my mother was talking about most of the time. Dimwit is what I called myself, and nobody tried to stop me, not even Burl. Her philosophies were as dry as dirt.
A paperweight. I’ll keep that, I guess. A fountain pen that might be real gold in the nib. Somebody gave that one to her. My dad maybe. Or the school. Or a student, one of her rabid fans. I don’t know. She had admirers, all right. They wrote her letters. They called her on the phone. They wanted to talk about what she thought about this or that or the other thing, and she could go on and on forever, though none of it ever made any kind of sense to me.
A dictionary. A thesaurus. A pencil sharpener.
And here, tucked way in the back, three of those throwaway cameras. The cardboard-and-plastic kind you used to see set out on the tables at wedding receptions. Meant to get candid shots of the drunks. Two are yellow. One is green. Looks like they’ve been used but never developed. She must have kept them for some reason. I don’t know why or what might be on them. I turn them over in my hands and wonder if I recognize them. But I don’t.
I’m about to set them aside, but now Burl has popped open a beer for me too, so I go ahead and bring the cameras up to the porch with me, and when he sees what I’ve found, he laughs and says, “Hell no, those aren’t worth a damned thing.” Adding, “They’ve been used already.” And of course I know that, but he’s right and I’m tired, and so I take a seat and I tell him, “Just empty it out yourself then, I don’t care.” Because I don’t want any of it. Whatever it is. I’m done with all that. With her. Five years, I’m done. Let that sleeping dog lie right back down where it was. Set the damned thing on fire and burn it down to ashes and let that be the end of it then.
#
It’s the middle of the night, and Burl is passed out in his chair downstairs while I’m here lying in our bed, my bed, the bed I made, the bed I lie in now. That’s how it is with me and him. Here we are and here we’ll be. We had our fun, all right, but now it’s all over and done with, and all we can do is carry on, one day and then the next day and then the next one after that.
I figure I might as well creep on downstairs to the kitchen, where I can sneak a sip of his sweet whiskey, just a sip is all because I don’t do with that poison in my body anymore. Not since we had the accident out there on the highway when he hit that man’s dog and there was hell to pay and not in cash or coin but bone and flesh, like that. But the two of us are going nowhere tonight, so it seems safe enough for me to treat myself to a nip and no harm done.
Which train of thought has me sitting here at the kitchen table with these three old cameras, and I’m supposing what’s on them will be pictures she took of birds or flowers or squirrels or clouds above the trees because in those last days she was confined to her room with only that one window, so there wouldn’t have been much else for her to see out there. But here I get this inkling—maybe I recognize them after all—and I take another swallow so the whiskey in my glass is all gone, and nothing for it then but to go back to where Burl lies snoring and make it quiet and quick to pour a second serving.
Tiptoe back and take a seat and go back to turning them three cameras over and over like I might be able to glean the content, which roils in my mind, my own images there and what if somehow…
Because see, these cameras are old. Older than when she was just shut up there in that room upstairs, old enough to have something else on them that maybe has to do with me. And maybe it’s the whiskey that makes me dream, or maybe I know more than I knew I did and what I’m holding here is some remnant of the past, caught and captured on film for me to see again, to be transported back to a time when I was just a girl and Burl was a boy in another world, and it was just me and Lou, who died after I left him, before I understood what it was we had, when I got all haughty and too big for my bottoms and threw it all away.
What if I could see Lou’s face again now. What if I could see myself again like I was then. What if that might bring him back in a way and then go on and bring my own self back too. Because didn’t we play around with cameras like this? Didn’t we stand together side by side, all dressed up for some party or something, and didn’t my mother hold this green one up to her eye and snap and wind and snap and wind us into being who we were on film, forever after and never changed and never grown and never dead and never gone for good?
#
It’s all on Burl, this mess we’ve been making of our house. Tearing the place apart so we can get out of here with at least ourselves intact. The Realtor said we’d have to clean it up if we want to get a fair price for it, the house and the land around it, all falling apart the way things do if you give them enough time. The way we do our own selves too. The way Burl himself is doing and has been for some time now. Like he’s sick and tired of the whole business of carrying on and wants it to be over and done with now. But he’s not brave enough to do it right or to do it himself, so instead he’s leaving it up to chance, putting himself into a stupor, and then we can wait and see what happens next. An accident of some kind. Causes coming together from all sides until everything meshes into one single significant catastrophe, where he falls down the stairs or chokes on a piece of meat or crashes the truck again or falls into the creek or I don’t know what-all, because if I did, well, then I’d be something other than a human being with a limited perspective and the simple mind of the dimwit that I am. All I can do is keep it simple and that’s enough, I guess.
So we’re getting out of here. We have an apartment all picked out in a new location, closer into town, where you can walk or stagger or stumble or shuffle down to the corner store or ride the bus to wherever else you think you might need to get. We’ll sell the truck. We’ll sell this place. We’ll pare ourselves down to small enough for one bedroom and one bathroom and a kitchen and a living room on the ground floor with just the right amount of yard out back to keep us feeling we can breathe a little bit longer, at least.
#
I’ve left Burl alone and on his own for a few hours this morning. I think of him and push the worry away. He will stay put, I think. He has everything he needs, including the bottle that will collect his wee, should he feel the need. Plus the TV remote. His pile of old magazines. His jar of sweet tea. His box of crackers. His bag of cookies. His bottle of whiskey. It’s all right there within his reach, no need to get up, no need to do anything but stay put where I left him until I can get back.
Like always, though, and in spite of my good intentions to keep on looking on the bright side, I’m expecting to come back and find him on the floor. Maybe there’s blood. Maybe his leg looks like it’s been hooked on backward at the knee. So far so good, though, and I’m sure the same will be the case today. He’ll be fine. A wisp of worry slips in for a second, but I say it again, out loud this time: “He’ll be fine.” Like that’s enough to make it true.
I have his truck, which means I can park in the handicap space near the door of the drugstore. Make it quick, is what I think. The cameras are here in the bag I brought along with me like I was being climate-conscious. I didn’t tell him my true intent. Said I had to pick up some meds, is all. Didn’t give him time to question or argue before I was out the door and out of hearing range. I don’t want him asking questions I don’t have an answer for. Don’t want him to start talking about money again or wherefores or whys. This is my own business here. I think I’m on the right track. There will be something in there on that film that’s going to change everything for me.
I’m doing the right thing, I know. My dead mom. My dead dad. My dead boyfriend whose name was not Burl, whose face was long, his chin square, his eyes blue, his hair curly and the color of the sun. Or no, the color of a crayon that colored the pictures of the sun in the corner of the watercolor sky.
It’s none of your business, Burl. I don’t need to explain anything to anybody anymore. Just because, that’s why. Just in case. I need to see it for myself. I need to know.
“Two weeks,” the girl says as I hand her the envelopes, my name and phone number right there plain as day for anybody to see. She tears off the receipts and presses shut the flaps, one and then the other and then another one after that. Two weeks, she says. I fold the receipts and put them in my wallet, then buy some chips and candy bars and two Lotto tickets to keep Burl from asking any questions when I get back.
#
I got Burl out of the house tonight. Maybe it was his idea in the first place. He gets stir-crazy like anybody else. Pulling himself up out of his chair and tottering around so I’m holding my breath waiting for him to fall or break something else besides or in addition to himself. He made it into the kitchen and slammed himself down into a poor old chair that looked like it was doing all it could to not fall apart into pieces underneath his weight, a feeling I know all too well myself, but never mind.
He was smiling like a kid because he had an idea that he was going to take me out on a date tonight if he could only make it out to the truck and up into the passenger seat, and then I’d drive us into town, and we’d take a handicap spot like we’re VIPs or something, and if I couldn’t help him down again, then surely someone else would come along and help us inside for some dinner and some drinks. An evening out, he said, like we used to do. So pleased with himself. “Put on a dress,” he said. “Do something with that hair.” Lipstick and so on. Shoes with some style. “The works,” he said.
He himself was still in his shorts and robe, but never mind. I could help him with that too.
By the time I got him properly dressed, I was in pieces myself. So I did as I was told and had bath and powder, and primped and curled and all that, so by the time I was done and we were ready to go, it was past dinnertime already. I would have called it off, but he pushed on with the plan anyway.
It was just down to the Owl is all, and I couldn’t argue with that.
So a basket of ribs and beers all around, and now he’s come alive again, and he’s telling the story about the drunken goat, the one where he’s got us out on a road somewhere, and there’s this sorry old goat that’s lost or it’s abandoned or whatever. And “This dimwit with her soft heart,” he says, winking at me like all is forgiven, “she wanted to take it home or into town to a vet.”
The truth is I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, just I didn’t want to leave the poor thing there where it was. I thought we ought to find a place for it or someone to take care of it. So it didn’t suffer. Or die.
Well, Burl had other things on his mind, so he said sure, fine, and we got down to business on a blanket in the grass, and we took our time with all that as usual. Meanwhile that goat got into our beer, and by the time we were done with what we were doing, it was drunk and acting like somebody’s old uncle, pissing all over. So by then we knew we’d have to leave it behind where it was and drive away, and me, the dimwit, I kept looking back out the back window to see that sad, drunk goat standing all by itself, lost and lonesome in the middle of the road, where somebody else before us had abandoned it too because it was a nuisance and couldn’t behave itself long enough to get rescued and taken someplace where it could have a decent home.
Burl had an audience for this story he was telling, and everybody was laughing and slapping the table because of course he tells it better than what I’m doing here, but I was just patting my hair and looking at the gleam of stockings on my legs and thinking to myself, It’s still me who’s the dimwit girl in that story, but it’s Burl himself who’s the beer-drunk goat, so in my version I’m in our truck and I’m driving off and I’m leaving him to stand there all by himself in the middle of the road. But I’m not crying this time. I’m not even looking back.
#
I’ve waited two weeks for those pictures to come back to me. She said two weeks and here it is, so I’ve left Burl there on the front porch in the sunshine with the birds and lemonade and whiskey to keep him occupied. He seemed all right with that. There was a ballgame on the radio too, as a bonus, like.
“I’ll only be a minute,” I told him. I’d concocted some story about what my mission was and added that I’d bring us back a carton of ice cream while I was at it. No reason not to tell the truth, really, except his curiosity, and I just didn’t care to say or hear him tell me what a waste of time and money, though I also didn’t tell him it was going to cost me ten dollars and fifty cents apiece for those three packets of photographs that might not even turn out to be anything at all. That’s what credit cards are for, right? He waved me off anyway, like I was a bothersome gnat or bee or fly. Listening to his game, a finger up to hush me. Sipping at his lemonade. Ogling the deep-blue sky and not a cloud in it.
“You’ll be all right, Burl,” I told him, and he waved me off again.
#
It’s not far to drive into town. It’s easy to park in the handicap space. A young woman stares at me; I don’t know why and check to see I’ve got my clothes on and my blouse is buttoned up properly, my pants are zipped, shoes tied, but then I realize she thinks I’m faking and cheating on the handicap parking. Well, hell, you can’t tell just by looking at a person what might be wrong with them inside. I say nothing, though. Pretend not to even notice her noticing me.
#
There’s another woman here ahead of me at the photo counter. She’s getting a passport photo taken, and she’s not allowed to smile, which seems a pity to me. When she’s done she has to wait, so now we’re both waiting here together while the guy fills out the forms and I don’t know what-all he’s doing back there behind the counter. But I’m friendly. People like me, I think.
“So where are you going with that?” I ask the woman. Meaning the passport. And she hooks a lock of her hair behind an ear and tells me she’s going to Spain to walk to the End of the World, and I blink and think, well now, there’s something I’d like to do myself. But of course I couldn’t leave Burl alone, and he couldn’t ever go on such a thing as that with me. Plus I don’t have a passport, and I don’t know how to go about getting one either, so there you are.
Anyway, she’s isn’t paying any attention to me anymore, she’s poking a finger at her phone and making a sound, a gasp I guess you could call it, then she’s looking at me like I’m a rock in her road and she says, “Oh gosh.” And then, “My uncle died.” And I’m like, “What?”
So now she sees me again. In fact, she’s focusing on my face so hard that again I’m wondering what’s wrong with me, why are people always staring at me, and then Burl’s voice chimes in my head: “They’re not. You’re crazy. No one wants to look at a dimwit like you.”
The woman hears none of this, of course. She just blinks and says, “Uncle Gib. He’s dead.”
So what am I supposed to say then? Except, “I’m sorry.”
I take a step closer to her, meaning to touch her, put a hand on her shoulder maybe, like I’m letting her know, “We’re all in this together, hon,” but she pulls back away from me.
“It’s okay,” she says. And then: “I hardly knew him anyway.” And with that she’s looking around like she’s seeing this place for the first time. She brightens up a bit, then smiles and nods and says, “At least I’m in the right place to go and buy a card right now.”
For his wife, I guess? Seeing the bright side, like?
#
I’m afraid to look at the photos, in the envelopes, that cost me forty-two dollars and thirty-seven cents. I’ve left them on the kitchen counter, out of the light, out of the way. In the midst of all our mess, so maybe I’ll forget them. Maybe it’s better not to know. Maybe it’s best to keep my head full of my own images, not go looking at something that was captured years and years ago and might change everything if I go looking at it now. And am I remembering some story about that? Something about, don’t look at what you don’t want to see, lest your own dogs chase you down and ravage you to bits?
But by the time it’s dark outside and quiet inside, by the time I’ve had my nap and shaken off a dream about walking to the end of the world with a woman who has kissed me on the cheek and then the mouth and then the eyes, after I’ve washed my face and combed my hair, after all that I can call myself strong again. I’m all right and I want to see what’s what because I think that what’s in my head is also going to be there on those prints like I put it there myself.
I square my shoulders and lift my chin and go downstairs and right on into the kitchen to look at them now.
#
But they’re gone. Nowhere to be seen. Lost as if they’d never existed before, and I’m actually in doubt about that until I check my purse and find my store receipt to prove to myself I’m not so crazy after all.
#
Burl is passed out and snoring in his chair. The TV blares a boxing match. The crowd is shouting. Bells are ringing. And the envelopes, there they are, torn open and lying like a splay of dead doves right there on the floor beside his feet. The photos are in his lap there with his hands, and he’s got them clutched between his fingers like he’s never going to let them go.
#
I leave him be. I come and go. And when, at last, his hands go slack and fall away, I lean in close and gently slip the photos from the folds of his lap. I carry them into the kitchen like they might be something fragile that might break. I clear the table by swiping everything off onto the floor, with a crash that Burl can’t hear because the boxing crowd is cheering so loud.
I’ll clean it all up later. Broken dishes, leftover food, spilled milk, and I don’t care.
I spread the photos out upon the table like a fortune-teller’s cards. There are thirty-six of them in all.
I try to look. I do my best. I try to see.
But through these tears, it’s mostly just a complicated technicolor blur.
THE END