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Back At Dawn Save as PDF
Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
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  39. Copyright

I read for an hour and a half and finished A Moveable Feast. When I lay beside Carolyn, I found I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about Gene and what he had told me of his past. Part of me wished I had told him about the dark side of my own. I suppose I should have been content with having made it through another painful holiday, but I still wish I had opened up to him.

My mind was racing and I gave up on sleep and went back up to Gene’s. It was only nine o’clock.

“You have any more of the white paint you used on my walls?” I asked, wanting some thoughtless activity to occupy my mind.

“Yeah, it’s in the basement. Why?”

“I want to paint over that plastered hole. It’s turning a creamy color and small cracks are showing on the surface.”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that. Probably from the vibrations of the trains.” The basement was small, a fifteen-by-ten foot rectangle. Stacked boxes with black marker across the sides, landscaping tools, cans of paint and cleaning supplies, an old rusted bike with flattened tires, twenty or so bottles of wine in a wooden rack. It smelled of mold and was dimly lit so that I had to squint to read the paint labels. I grabbed the one that looked the most like a match to what was on my walls and went back upstairs.

I pulled the desk away from the wall, forced the can open with a butter knife, poured the paint into a pan. I added a thick coat to the plastered hole, stepped away, and could see the cracks still showing. I let it dry for a half hour and then added a second coat. When I finished, it didn’t look any better than it had before. I stared at the hole for a long time. The paint was drying unevenly and the spot looked dreadful, maybe even worse. I vowed to buy something that’d cover it. Then I cleaned the brushes in the kitchen sink, took the paint back down to the basement, and returned Gene’s keys.

sixteen

1

THE ALARM RANG AT five thirty on Monday morning, the day after New Year’s, which I had off because of the holiday. I hit the snooze button. Carolyn lay undisturbed. I whispered into her ear that it was time to get up. She grunted, snuggled into me, fell back asleep. In reality she didn’t have to be up for another hour, but in the few weeks of living together I’d quickly discovered it takes nearly that long for her to finally crawl from bed. I had learned to adjust the alarm accordingly.