Complementary Colors (38 page)

There was a click. “Roy?”

“Paris?”

“Listen, I don’t have much time.”

“Dr. Carmichael said he had you on lockdown.”

“He does. Did. Just listen. I need you to come get me. He won’t let me out.”

“You hurt three people.”

“He’s the one who wouldn’t let me paint. Please, Roy. I gotta get out of here.”

“He’s trying to help you.”

I clenched the receiver. “Whatever he’s told you isn’t true.”

“So you didn’t hurt anyone?”

“Yes. No. I mean… It was an accident. Please, Roy, I need you to come get me.”

“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I can’t do that.”

“What?”

“I can’t come get you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t.”

“You said you cared about me.” My throat tightened.

“I do.”

“Then help me.”

“I am helping you.”

“Helping me means getting me out of this shit hole.”

“Dr. Carmichael wants you to get better.”

“He doesn’t want me better.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Then why won’t he let me paint? Huh? Tell me. Why won’t the son of a bitch let me paint?”

“It’s for the best.”

Fists pounded on the Plexiglas. Carmichael stared down at me with a hard expression.

I gave him my back and curled over the receiver. “Roy, if you really care about me, if you love me even the smallest amount, please, please help me. I have to paint. I have to get this out of me. You’ve seen it. You know how ugly it is.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it. That’s why I know you need this. And because I love you, I’m not going to come get you out.”

I hissed through gritted teeth. “You bastard.”

“Paris…”

“You fucking bastard.”

“Please, I don’t want you to be angry.”

“Angry? They don’t even make a word for what I am. You set me up. All of you set me up. Are you trying to kill me? Is that what you want?”

“You know it isn’t.”

Dr. Carmichael knocked on the window. “Paris, don’t make me have to cut the lock.”

“What’s going on?” Roy said.

“Nothing.”

“Where is Dr. Carmichael? I’d like to talk to him.”

“He’s busy.”

“Paris…”

“Go fuck yourself, Roy.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You’re upset. I can understand—”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I do mean it. Every word.”

His breath shuddered.

“Are you crying, Roy? I hope you are. I hope you choke on your tears.”

“I…”

“Fuck you. Fuck. You. Don’t call. Don’t come see me. Stay the hell out of my life. I don’t need you. I don’t want you.” I slammed the receiver down. The plastic was so cold against my hand. The hate I wanted to feel toward Roy didn’t happen. What filled me instead was fear. Roy had betrayed me. He’d left me here to rot. He never loved me. It was a lie. Everything was a lie.

Especially me.

Dr. Carmichael kept knocking on the glass. Saying something. I don’t know what. I couldn’t have heard him even if I wanted to. My world had become void. I existed nowhere. I was no one.

I stared at the pockmarked ceiling with no strength to move, no strength to eat or drink, no strength to breathe.

Yet I continued to live. My body as much of a Judas as Julia, Dr. Carmichael, and now Roy.

The rabbit sat on my chest and regarded me with soulful eyes.

“This is all your fault.”

The rabbit washed its face.

“Everything. All of it. It’s your fault.”

It hunkered down, and its whiskers tickled my chin.

“I hate you.” I rolled over, and it waited for me on my pillow. “You’re a waste of air.”

It stretched out beside me. It smelled of alfalfa, dust, and of years past.

I scratched the side of the rabbit’s face with a finger. Its eyelids slid lower.

“I’m all alone. Really alone.”

It shook its head, and its ears slapped against the back of my hand. The rabbit licked his paws.

”He wants me to tell him.”

It stopped.

“But if I do, it will wake up the monster.”

The rabbit hopped away, disappearing from sight. I rolled over to my other side, and it sat by the door.

“I can’t leave, stupid.”

It hopped a few steps.

“Just go away. I don’t want you here either.”

It cleaned its face.

I rolled to my back and shut my eyes. Patterns of color danced in the darkness, moving, forming shapes, and fluttering away.

A weight pressed down on my chest.

“I told you to leave.”

The rabbit hunkered down until it resembled a loaf of bread.

“I don’t know how to tell him without making any noise.”

It leaned over me and cocked its head. My face reflected in its liquid eyes.

“I need to paint. If I don’t…” I fondled its ears. “It’s all I know.” It nuzzled my palm. “No paint, remember?”

The rabbit sank its teeth into my thumb.

I shot upright, and it tumbled away. “Fucking bastard.” I stuck my thumb into my mouth, but it wouldn’t stop throbbing. When I took it out, the gash across the middle filled up and dripped from my nail. The bright red droplets made carnations on the hospital gown. Red. A beautiful color. It was one of my favorites and often dominated my works. Even the Blue Crucifixion was spiced with the hue.

The rabbit sat up on its hind legs over by the window. Light from the narrow window cut a swath across the wall. They kept the lights off at night, but there was enough from the street lamp outside for me to see.

“Yeah, okay.”

I staggered to my feet.

I smeared a line of crimson across the field of white. In the shadows, it turned black. With no other colors, the secret would be forced to the surface for everyone to see.

“You’re sure you want me to tell him what we saw?” Julia would be pissed. She’d lock me away. But Julia couldn’t hurt me anymore, and I was already as locked away as a person could get.

The flow of blood trickled to nothing. The rabbit put its paw on my foot. It was right, we had nothing to lose.

“Fine.”

Under the setting sun, everything bled orange and gold. He had to go home soon, and I didn’t want him to leave. He held my hand, and we slipped into the darkness of the shed.

I turned on the light, and we stood there in the open space surrounded by tools and kept company by the rabbit in its hutch.

As a man, I wondered if a boy could fall in love. As a boy, I already knew the answer.

The boy kissed me. Or maybe I kissed him. Either way, our lips met, and his hand tightened in mine. It was only a few seconds, barely a moment. And then the door flew open.

I didn’t recognize Harrison at first because his face had contorted into a mass of rage and his eyes belonged to an animal. No. Not an animal. Something else. Something evil and stinking of hell.

He came at me, and the boy pushed me to the side. I crawled on hands and knees behind the crate leaning against the workbench. I expected the boy to run, but he got in Harrison’s way.

It only took one punch to send the boy to the ground. A dust cloud puffed up around him thick enough to coat my nostrils when I inhaled. The flurry of movement spooked the rabbit. Around and around, it fled what it could not escape.

Blood coated the boy’s face, and black lines of dirt distorted his features. His gaze was dulled, but I know he saw me. A kick to his side sent him over. I didn’t think Harrison came in with the intention of raping anyone. I think it just happened. Like some involuntary muscle movement. He just did it without really realizing it.

When it was over, he stared down at the boy with a look of horror on his face.

But it was done, and it could not be undone.

Tears cut clean streaks through the dirt on the boy’s face. Pain made his skin pale, and there was nothing but fear in his eyes. He reached out to me. He was so close. I could have touched his hand. Instead, I withdrew deeper into the shadows.

Harrison grabbed a hammer off the workbench, but the claw caught the edge of the rabbit hutch and it toppled over.

I think the boy knew he was going to die. I think I knew too. I could have run to find help. I could have screamed for Harrison to stop. I could have at least comforted the boy.

Instead, I watched it happen in the very same way the rabbit watched me tell the secret that had boiled inside me for almost two decades.

I used layers of my blood for contrast and spit to thin and lighten. The sling on my arm became the palette where I tested the results. With every new droplet I lost, I brought to life the dirty secret I’d been made to carry.

With each stroke I left on the wall, the monster stirred. When my finger quit bleeding, the rabbit bit me again.

Like the colors had hidden the terrors, I created the lie to hide the truth. Both were too ugly to face, and at the same time, they couldn’t be stopped. But I no longer had colors to conceal the nightmares.

My fingers bled for me, and my flesh tore. My heartbeat filled each digit, and more aching points covered one arm. The monster saw freedom, and it ran for it, clawing, biting, fighting its way out of the prison I’d built.

Walls crumbled, and doors gave way. I could only hope it would forgive me, and if it didn’t, it’d kill me quickly and not let me suffer. Even though I deserved it.

The outside light stripped away the layers of mottled flesh, the hate filled eyes, the sharp teeth, and the claws. Left in place of the creature I feared was the boy who kissed me.

Just one soft kiss.

The barest touch of lips.

Because he loved me.

“¿Cómo te llamas?”

“I don’t understand.”

He smiled. “Name. You name.”

“Paris. What’s yours?”

“Me llamo…”

I only had to dig it out of the festering wound within the remnants of my mind.

“Me llamo…”

I saw his face. His eyes. The color of his skin. The mole close to his ear. How his lips quirked to the side just before he laughed. He smelled of cheap laundry soap, lavender, and the chocolate candy we’d shared.

Sweat burned my eyes, mixing with tears. The muscles in my arms begged for mercy. The colors in my mind screamed.

I fell.

I got up.

I fell.

I got up again.

I laid down the last mark, just as my door opened and the lights came on. When my knees folded, I didn’t fight my way back up. It was done. I was done. There was nothing left to hide.

A nurse, an orderly, and Carmichael stood in the doorway. They stared with slack mouths and horror-filled eyes at the truth.

It wasn’t over. I had to look. I had to name it.

I lifted my head.

A kiss. A dead rabbit. The father who’d sinned and the sister who helped protect him.

The boy.

He lay in the dirt pleading with his eyes. He was so scared. He was in so much pain. He was so alone.

Punched into the negative space and heavy shadows, forever connected by his heart, his mind, and his body, was the madman.

The Liar.

“Who is the boy in the picture you drew?” Carmichael sat across the table from me in a small break room. There were a couple of vending machines, a coffeemaker and a box of doughnuts.

I had no idea where he’d gotten the glass of orange juice he gave me. The kitchen was probably open, but I couldn’t be sure.

The bandages on my fingers made it difficult to hold the glass.

“Paris?”

What was the question? I looked around for the rabbit. It wasn’t there. That didn’t bother me as much as the lack of colors. Without them, everything seemed pale and washed out.

“What did you give me?”

“Risperdal.”

“What is that?”

“An antipsychotic.”

I rubbed my fingers against the tabletop. Nothing. I pushed the table. Even the harsh metal scrape made no vivid bursts inside my mind.

“How am I going to paint without the color?”

“I’m sorry, but it was necessary.”

“But I need it.”

“Paris, you were hurting yourself.”

“It was the rabbit’s idea.”

“There is no rabbit.”

Not now. Had it gone to the same place as the colors?

“I need you to tell me the name of the boy in the painting.”

I pressed my thumb against my first finger. A dull throb traveled up the digit and into the palm of my hands. Still nothing. I pressed harder.

Carmichael held my wrist. “Stop.”

There was nothing but an empty void in my skull where my thoughts echoed. “I can’t do this. I can’t live without the color. Please, please I have to have it.”

“When I know you’re not going to hurt yourself, I’ll take you off the drugs.”

I tried to chew my thumbnail, but the gauze was in the way. I nodded. “Promise me.”

“I promise.” He scooted closer. “Tell me who the boy is in the painting.”

“My lie. The rabbit’s secret.”

“What’s his name?”

“I can’t remember.”

“How old were you?”

“Nine, ten.” I rubbed my head. The edges of my words tasted funny. Like I was drunk but not drunk. There was no buzz with whatever Carmichael gave me, only numbness. I drank some of the juice but couldn’t taste it. “I’m not sure.”

“Where did this happen?”

“In the shed behind the house. It was at the bottom of the hill. The lake was just on the other side.”

“So you lived there.”

I nodded.

“Was he a classmate? Or a neighbor?”

The static in my mind spiked. “I think his mother was our neighbor’s housekeeper. He was Hispanic. Everyone in the neighborhood was white. They were two dimensions, he was three. They were vanilla, and he was a colored sprinkle.” I laughed.

“How did you meet him?”

“He came out of the woods between the houses.”

“And where is that house located?”

“South Carolina.”

“Do you still own it?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you can’t remember his name?”

I shook my head. “I want to. I want to, but I can’t.” My throat tightened. “I should. After what Harrison did to him, I should. After what I did to him…”

“You were a child.”

“I didn’t tell Julia no.”