It is 1:06 a.m.
I gather my keys before I open the car door and step out with a grunt. “I’m getting too old for this,” I mutter as my leather shoes touch the sidewalk, and I am engulfed with the warm LA air. As I walk along the long stretch of pavement lined with tall, thick shrubbery, thoughts of my wife Samantha cloud my tired brain. She is most likely fast asleep, undisturbed by my absence. She too has grown used to the late night calls that whisk me away just as swiftly as they arrive. It wasn’t always like this. When we were first married, the shrill chirp of the telephone would cause her eyelids to flutter open revealing her emerald eyes, masked with worry. She would regularly sit up all night waiting for me to return even if I was gone for hours. “I can’t sleep without you next to me,” she had told me once when I asked why she continually forced herself to stay awake while awaiting my return. But as the years passed, my absence failed to disrupt her slumber. Even the phone’s high-pitched ringing had become merely white noise to her.
My mind is still lingering on Samantha when one of my colleagues greets me on the sidewalk. Kyle is dressed, as usual, remarkably well for being woken up 1 a.m. His slacks are pressed, his tie is straight, and his hair is perfectly styled. He’s young and eager. “Double homicide. Victims are male and female. A neighbor found the bodies while she was walking her dog,” Kyle states in a rush. I look down at my crumpled pants, wrinkled shirt, and crooked tie. I give a weak attempt to make myself look more presentable as I try to make sense of Kyle’s dizzying words. “The female victim was found on the walkway at the bottom of the steps that leads up to the residence. The male victim was found in the bushes about five feet away from the female,” Kyle continues. I crane my neck searching for a glimpse of the crime scene, but the dense bushes block my view. We reach a condominium that is awash with police and detectives. No doubt a murder took place here. As I walk closer to the gated entrance of the condo, I listen to my shoes hitting the concrete as if they are counting down the seconds to my arrival. Five, four, three, two, one; get ready folks for the main attraction. When I turn to face the condo, I am greeted by a long carpet of crimson.
As I’m turning the corner onto the tiled walkway of the lavish condo, I immediately am hit with the sight in front of me. Down this long stretch of pathway is a river of blood. The precisely cut stones are so caked in blood that I can’t even make out the color of the tiles. I stand motionless as I follow the blood to its point of origin. My tired eyes land on a woman almost delicately lying at the bottom of the condo’s front steps. Before I can even comprehend what had happened to this woman, my vision blurs with a visual memory of a specific painting. A painting that I had learned about so many years ago in a community college art history course. I see this painting so clearly in my head it’s startling. The painting has the face of Mae West, but she is also made to look like a surreal room. I see it as clearly as the day I viewed it on the projector as a student.
In my mind, I see a tomato red wall. Affixed to that wall are two framed pictures of eyes. Together, they make a pair. Below those pictures is a cabinet shaped like a nose. Atop that cabinet sits a golden clock that elegantly tells the time in this fictitious apartment. Traveling down below the cabinet is a red sofa that resembles a puckered pair of lips positioned ever so delicately on the wood floor. Curved stairs act like a chin, and the voluptuous white curtains that are delicately draped from the entryway to the apartment is the hair that frames the surreal face.
It’s almost astounding how I can recall this painting. Never after that class have I given it the slightest thought and, only a minute ago, its existence eluded me. I only took that art history course to appease my advisor and yet the voice of my art history professor drones in my head. “The iconic painting titled Mae West’s Face was painted by Salvador Dali in the years 1934 to 1935.” That voice that rattled off those words in my head sounded as if each syllable was coated with dust.
I shake my head desperately trying to clear it. For God’s sake, I’m at a crime scene. A dead woman lays 10 feet away from me, and I’m reminiscing on 1930s art. I mentally push the image of the painting to the very back of my skull and continue down the walkway. The blood is sticky under foot; it makes the rubber of my soles peel up, leaving behind the sound of kisses. Those red cushion lips dance across my vision. I blink.
When I approach this unnamed woman, I can’t shake this uneasy feeling that the scene in front of me looks wrong. This woman is beautiful, and her slender body is positioned perfectly in front of the house in plain view of anyone who cared to pass by. The memory of the painting strokes the lobes of my brain. She wears a short and strapless black dress that perfectly showcases her blood smeared legs. Her golden blonde hair covers her face and, even though several strands are matted with dried blood, it is still shiny and glossy as if she just washed it. Her legs delicately lay one on top of the other, and her arms are tucked close to her chest. She could be sleeping.
Kyle joins me and briefs me again. “The female victim has several knife wounds to the throat, no doubt cause of the death. Whoever did this practically decapitated her.” I want to interject. An act this violent will call for a much more chaotic crime scene. Nothing like this perfectly crafted painting. I can start to feel tiny beads of sweat forming on my forehead. “The male victim suffered multiple stab wounds as well,” Kyle continues as he jots information into his pretentious, leather-bound notebook. I look to my right and see a young man who was carelessly tossed aside. His back pushed up to the white metal fence under a bed of dirt, crumpled leaves and worms.
I turn back to the butchered women but, instead of seeing her, I just see Mae West’s glaring framed eyes. I feel my heart start to pound in my chest like a frightened bird trying desperately to flee its cage. I blink several times trying in vain to unsee the painting. The painting has become my reality. I want to yell at those framed eyes, let the spit fly from my mouth and bark, “What about this insignificant painting is so damn important?” My hands are shaking now as I raise them to cover my eyes. Have I gone insane? Have years of scavenging over mad men’s leftovers finally poisoned my brain? I can hear Samantha’s worried tone in my head, “When you looked at that poor murdered women, you saw artwork?” I can feel her fear. I can feel the distance she will put between us.
I can no longer bear it. Blindly, I turn around and stumble down the sticky, scarlet carpet. I need to get away from this hell, as far away as I can get. With each lunging step, my vision clears. I can see the street now along with the worried faces of the men and women I know by name. I push past, getting farther away. I fumble in my pocket for the familiar shapes of my car keys. When I reach my car, I am overcome with relief. I open the car door and hurriedly get behind the wheel. In another moment, I am flying down the street not caring that I am pressing the gas pedal to the floor.
* * *
I open the door to our bedroom. Samantha is sleeping, her body half-covered with the thin, white sheet. I gravitate to her; she is the glowing light that I’m drawn to. I reach out my hands to her sleeping figure. She will calm me, I tell myself. She’ll make this all go away. My hand hovers over her. I can almost feel a magnetic push; something small within me is telling me not to touch her. The blaring noises inside my head dull as I look at her. Those familiar eyes flutter open, those emerald-green irises that I have stared at for so many years. There is something different in those eyes, something I’m not used to seeing. She’s looking at me with fear; she is frightened by me. Out of all that has happened tonight, this is what is starting to terrify me.
She lets out a hushed whisper, “What happened to you?” In the chaos that is my fractured brain, I find the only response that I can muster.
“I don’t know.”
Zarah Light is a junior majoring in American Studies at Penn State Harrisburg.
