The Gloaming

My wife bought a painting. A 5 x 5 oil on canvas monstrosity mounted in an ebony frame. Very bold. She hung it in the hallway in a space previously occupied by some black and white photos my father’d taken out west; the Red Desert, the Grand Canyon, Devil’s Tower, Arches. A stark and lonely, yet beautiful, series of images.

I came home while she was hanging it.

—Surprise! she said.

—Quite a change.

—It just came in today. New artist. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

—It certainly has a quality.

The unseated photos lay on the ground, a pile of torn brown wrapping paper scraps beside them like abandoned scat on the rug.

—I knew you’d love it, she said.

The picture was of grayness, layers and layers of it, different textures juxtaposed against different hues. Thin on detail, and yet the impression of a forest glade shrouded in thick fog was clearly conveyed. Mossy undergrowth, claw-like branches extruding from stony trees, a suffusing mist; a bit morbid to be sure, but not particularly disconcerting. But amidst the fug figures could be discerned: the body of a fawn lying prone on the ground, bleeding and cradled by a naked woman; and hanging above them a pair of eyes, lidless and pale, and emanating it seemed a chill light all their own, like the moon. They belonged to a revenant, a tall, willowy something lurking in the mid-ground gloom, vaguely masculine, disturbingly sexual, unquestionably threatening.  A thin silver plate affixed directly to the canvas was etched with the title, “the gloaming.”  

For the next several weeks, the painting hung between us like a curse in church. 

Sharon was enraptured. The artist, inspired by the quick purchase of the piece and Sharon’s encouragement, was flooding her gallery with one depraved grotesque after another.

—People can’t get enough of it, she said. I can’t get enough of it.

—That much has been clear.

—This is the kind of thing that can make careers, you know. Not just his. Discovering a new talent, a visionary. I play things right and I’ll never have to search for work again. It’ll just walk into the gallery.

—Wonderful.

Her employment at Gallerie la Lune had always been a bone of contention. Though it afforded us the life we had, it had also come close to ending our marriage more than once. 

We met in college; she an art history major, I Literature. We fell in love and married before graduating. Our first trial came when she matriculated a full year and a half before me and had to remain behind while her friends all flocked to New York, LA, Paris. She began to take long trips looking for pieces she could market to large houses and galleries, fishing for a position. Gallerie la Lune was the first to make an offer, still several months away from the conclusion of my studies. She took the job immediately and informed me over a “celebratory” dinner.

—When you finish here, she said, I’ll have a place ready and waiting. You won’t have to worry about a thing.

And when I argued, she reasoned away my objections; and when I protested, she shouted me down; and when I issued at last an ultimatum, she scowled and crossed her arms and called my bluff. She left the next week with a suitcase and a stiff peck on the cheek.

° ° °

It wasn’t just the annoyance of yet another decision made without even the illusion of consideration for my own desires about our home, our marriage, our lives.  The thing itself I found offensive.  

Ultimately, it was the eyes. I was familiar with the illusion of a painting’s eyes following one around the room. In “the gloaming” the effect created not just a mimicry of life but of sentience. The Gloamer, as I took to calling the figure lurking in the gloom, not only followed but stared, leered, and glowered. And every so often, not when one was looking for it but at the edges of vision, it seemed to blink.

I asked Sharon if she had noticed.

—Amazing, isn't it? she said. All of his paintings are like that. As if the figures will actually crawl off of the canvas.

—Exactly.

She raised onto her tip toes and kissed me.

—See, that's why I love you so much. Do you know, there was a woman in today who hated his work? She really got insulting. Can you believe it: she actually called him obscene! She said it made her feel as if she were having an invasive vaginal procedure.

—And what did you say?

She smiled.

—That maybe that was the point.

° ° °

I began to spend long tracts of time away from the house. For months I'd been caught in a dry spell and hadn't produced so much as a line. My blog was beginning to lose visitors, and it had been nearly a year since I'd published anything elsewhere. Ordinarily, I worked from home, putting in at least five solid hours a day, pen in hand. But the intrusion of "the gloaming" had poisoned the atmosphere, so I fled to more public venues and tried to shut out the ambient noise.

Sharon was spending more and more time away herself—at the gallery, at evening exhibitions, at fundraisers and mixers. We were becoming strangers in the same house, roommates unevenly sharing the expenses. She hardly seemed to noticed my absence.

It had been the same before her promotion, when she was still an assistant curator. There would be stretches of days when we never so much as saw each other. She’d rise early and head out to set up exhibitions, romance the talent, cater to their whims, often not returning home until near midnight. I would spend the day shut in the apartment, trying to sell freelanced articles and attract attention from publishers. And when we did get a rare moment together, it was more often than not hurried and tense, with a waiting book or portfolio hanging between us, and conversation a pro forma obligation we quickly fulfilled and moved past. A far cry from her dreams and promises of the perfect routine which would satisfy all of our individual and collective desires.

° ° °

One night I came home to find dinner laid out on our table. The accoutrements suggested home preparation, but the empty containers on the kitchen counter were visible through the door.

—Surprise! she said.

—Full of those lately, huh.

—I thought it would be nice to sit down and eat. It seems like it's been forever. I hope you're hungry. I brought Franco’s.

I set down my bag and poured a glass of wine.

—Been writing? I thought you hated to do that in public. Didn't you always say it made you feel on display, like begging people to ask what you're working on?

—Things change.

—Anything good?

I shrugged.

—Let me read some.

She pulled out my journals and began to flip through the pages. I ate. Franco's was a favorite, particularly the duck. It was served with roasted apples, squash, and a rich sauce, and they nearly always managed to get a nice crisp to the skin. But tonight it turned out limp and mealy, textures all bleeding together like grayness in the mouth.

Sharon put down the notebook.

—You don't have to tell me they're terrible, I said.

—Not at all, she said. In fact, I was going to say how impressed I with the new style. It's a real departure.

—Stop.

—No really. It's very compelling. In fact. Do you know what it sort of reminds me of? It sort of reminds me of the painting. You know, dark, forboding. Maybe a little angry?

—Let’s change the subject.

We finished our meal, and Sharon kissed me on the head before heading upstairs to her sleeping pills and the bed. I waited until the sounds of her footsteps quieted, then tore out the pages and burned them in the sink. 

° ° °

I had to steel myself against the painting before returning home and tiptoe through the house in fear of waking the thing up. On the nights Sharon was home, we’d sit and watch television, eat solitary dinners, surf the internet, all in silence. Every so often she’d comment upon the magazine or book she read, or ramble about the gallery, and I would nod and grunt, and in the most dire of circumstances offer monosyllabic responses, fearing that should I attempt a fuller response I would launch into a tirade against the painting and be unable to stem the flow.

One night I woke and the bed was empty. I went to look for a Sharon and a glass of water--not necessarily in that order. She was sitting in the hall, wine glass in hand and staring at “the gloaming.”

—How long have you been sitting here? I asked.

—She looks lonely, doesn’t she?

Even in the dark, I could see she’d been crying.

—She’s alone. What else should she be.

—Not alone. There’s the fawn. And there’s her man. Only he’s never close. He never touches her. He won’t.

—You don’t have to be alone to be alone.

She looked at me. Set her glass down and lifted her hands. I took one and pulled her to her feet.

—You should sleep, I said. You’ve got to work in the morning.

I left her in the hall, went to the kitchen, and poured myself a whiskey. Then another. When I finally went back to bed, her back was turned and she pretended to be asleep.

° ° °

I made up my mind to burn it. 

I came home drunk one night. It was nearly five, dawn just a gray hint along the edge of the sky.  I stumbled through the house and into the hall.

I stood in front of “the gloaming” a long time, eyeing the revenant. I wanted to question it, shout and curse at it, demand an explanation, force some confrontation and catharsis, but the thing simply stared back, mute. I pulled it off the wall and carried it outside. The trash cans were already sitting at the roadside, waiting to be emptied by municipal waste. I turned one over--the metallic crash of it like a gunshot in the still morning--emptied the garbage out onto the drive, then pulled the painting from the frame and stuffed it inside, breaking wood and tearing canvas. I poured lighter fluid onto it, struck a match, and tossed it into the can.

The thing quickly caught fire, canvas curling and wood charring and crackling as the flames licked at it. I added the ebony frame to the conflagration. It was too large and dense to be reduced to ashes, but I wouldn’t let it go untouched.

I watched the flames eat for a while before going inside to bed. Sharon was awake.

—Just getting home, she said.

—Mmm.

—I have to leave for work soon.

—Okay.

—What was that noise I heard outside?

—Trash can.

—Oh.

She flipped off her covers and rose as I lay down, and went about her morning routine. A little while later I heard the door open and close, then the sound of her car engine and a metallic crash as she struck the trash can.

I looked out the window and watched her drive away. The can was lying at the edge of the yard, its contents spilled out onto the lawn. The grass began to catch fire. I watched as it spread its way across the green, charring the dewy blades and raising a deep gray column of smoke. I thought about doing something--calling the fire department, or going out and turning the hose on the small blaze, or even running around in a panic calling for help--and then lay back down and closed my eyes.

Image by Holiday Feartree, Twitter/Instagram: @holidayfeartree