The Weight of Nothing Read online

  “Of course you don’t. It’s easy to feign austerity when you assume you’ll be rich soon enough either way.”

  “That’s unfair.”

  “Maybe so. What say we find out, shall we?”

  Ten minutes later, Niles was walking home. The afternoon was warm and bright as he made his way to the metro and then across campus. He was eager to see Jeana, to be with her and confirm physically and forever the nonsense of his father’s commination. He planned to say nothing, was prepared to let the entire incident pass, but the moment he walked in the door Jeana knew something was wrong, and when she asked he couldn’t help but tell her.

  His father’s terms were cruel, and in listening to the conditions set forth, it occurred to him that only a person truly absent love could come up with such a caveat. “You are to sever your relationship with that girl, move out of the apartment, and have nothing more to do with her,” P. Kelly said. “Upon finishing your undergraduate degree, you are to come work for me. Failure to do so will result in a complete disinheritance,” the old man leaned back in his chair, his hands placed palms down in front of him. “You’ll thank me one day. You’ve had your fling, now let it go. All this crazy indulgence.”

  At first Niles wanted to snap and tell his father exactly how depraved his threat was, to jump and shout “No!” and “Love!” but in the end he failed to do anything more than shake his head slightly once from side to side and back out of the office.

  That night in bed, exhausted from the hours already spent going over the day’s events, unable to sleep or give their minds any kind of rest, Jeana was first to wonder aloud how serious a hit their relationship had taken. Her concern did not involve asking why P. Kelly resented her so—the answer was irrelevant—but focused instead on the more pertinent issue, the potential problems which lay ahead in light of the sacrifice Niles was being asked to make. What sort of pressure would this put on the natural arc of their affair, and irrespective of their best intentions, was it love now or defiance that kept them together?

  “Love.” she said.

  “Mmm?”

  “Are you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  Despite her desire not to give P. Kelly the satisfaction of taking his threat seriously, she couldn’t help but ask, “What if your father’s right? Suppose we’re being selfish? Suppose you’ll never be able to do as much with your life without the advantages he has to offer?”

  Niles rolled onto his side. He regretted telling Jeana about his father’s threat, realized he’d fallen prey to P. Kelly’s plan of playing two sides against the middle, and still such was not the sort of news he could possibly keep secret, and in response to her concern, he said, “In order to do anything with my life I need to be happy, and I could never be happy without you.” The words had to them a perfect pitch, a soft whisper delivered with certitude and even more convincing as he didn’t try to touch her then or offer any further reassurance but allowed his declaration to gain momentum completely on its own. Such sentiment gave Jeana hope, and while it was easy to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of P. Kelly’s menace, Niles’ tone assured her there was greater risk in being made to part. The contentment she felt caused her to reach, secure enough to offer her own conviction against the unknown, and sliding over, she inspired a sweet and fluent unity, a merger wanting and silent in a warm and otherwise darkened landscape.

  Early the next morning she showered as Niles lay in bed, and without telling him where she was going, caught the metro west to the Reedum & Wepe Building, where she hoped to speak with P. Kelly. She wasn’t so much interested in getting him to change his mind, but wished to convey, as best she could, that in refusing to understand love, the father had only pushed himself further away from the son. She repeated Niles’ name in her head, said as much out loud, ignoring the suitcase left unattended behind her, sliding up through the silver shaft until suddenly all words fell away, replaced by a virulent sound, thunderous and savage, a flash of light so bright its radiance extinguished everything in the whir which followed; walls of brick and grey, grey steel crumbling down, so strange and cold and unremitting as everything that was exploded into the belly of the storm.

  The foot traffic along State Street was moderate in the late afternoon. Niles reached the Hungry Heart just after five and slid into a rear table where he ordered a tuna sandwich. His hip hurt from the fresh wound cut deep the other night, and adjusting his pants so they wouldn’t rub against the gauze, he pulled the envelope Massinissa Alilouche had given him from his bag and sat for a time in review of the material.

  He tugged at his right shirtsleeve, sliding the fabric over the heel of his hand, then surreptitiously raised his cuff in order to view the first sign of scar. Two weeks after the explosion at the Reedum & Wepe, with both Jeana and his father gone and his sense of reality effectively shattered, exhausted and falling into bed, he woke the next morning with a bloody welt just beneath his elbow. The contusion appeared out of nowhere, a freak occurrence Niles assumed, for somehow he must have banged his arm while sleeping and had no immediate explanation for the marble bookend in the center of the floor. He iced his arm and tried to give the matter no further thought. What a shock to discover another lesion four days later, a large blister on his stomach and a box of kitchen matches discarded in the hall.

  Twice again in the next three weeks: a cut between his ribs made by the point of a corkscrew and a raw scrape on his shoulder where a metal file had rubbed in search of bone. Unwilling yet to confide his condition, he conducted his own research, found less than a handful of similar cases reported in the United States each year; young adults victimized by physical or psychological abuse who reenacted their trauma as a confused sort of catharsis. Articles by physicians, behavioral scientists, and psychologists offered no cure beyond intense analysis and prophylactic intervention. Niles accepted the findings for what they were worth, but otherwise believed the cause of his affliction was something altogether different from anyone else.

  But what? He glanced again at his hands, the meek measure of his fingers confusing him, the incongruity of their capability between sleepfulness and waking. Back from Chicago, Bailey insisted Niles move into his building on Jefferson, so they could monitor his nights together. The flat below was vacant, the previous tenants relocating after spring exams, and following a period of trial and error—placing bells around the bed, locking away all potentially dangerous objects—Bailey thought to drill a hole in the floor and sleep with a rope tied between them. “This way, if you get up, I’ll feel the tug and be able to stop you.”

  Their plan met with some initial success. Three and four and five times in those first weeks Bailey was summoned and rushed to Niles’ apartment where he got him back to bed before any harm was done. Just as they reached a point where it seemed Niles’ troubles were well managed however, the world saw fit to remind them there were forces at play not to be fucked with and all the more resourceful symptoms of Niles’ condition returned. He began untying the rope in his sleep and woke the next morning with fresh carnage. Even as they learned to fasten a better knot and took to using handcuffs and attached a lock and chain, Niles was still able to slip through by greasing the closed metal with spit, his determination never ending.

  He finished his sandwich, reached for his wallet, and paid for his meal. For most of the last three years he had lived off his earnings from Ebertine Books and a minor account he established after receiving his inheritance; the codicil regarding Jeana rendered moot by the circumstance of P. Kelly’s premature death. Once his father’s will cleared probate, Niles chose to divest the bulk of his bequest and distributed cashier’s checks to domestic violence shelters, inner-city clinics, libraries, and halfway houses for recovering addicts. He gave to the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Affirmative Action, Amnesty International, and other organizations favoring gun control, solar energy, and free choice. Money orders were mailed to scientists and writers, philosophers and independent filmmakers, musicians and dancers, es
sayists, social theorists and teachers, along with funds distributed to families who lost loved ones in the devastation of the Reedum & Wepe. He established a permanent trust and had money mailed out year-round, sold off or otherwise donated the majority of his father’s real estate holdings, and to those who asked said simply, “It’s easier this way,” which most everyone did not understand.

  The café wasn’t crowded, and sitting with the contents from Massinissa Alilouche’s envelope spread out before him, Niles studied the information provided: a small map and a single name and address in Algiers, a second sheet of paper with a more detailed compilation of notes concerning the recent whereabouts and activities of the man Massinissa Alilouche believed Niles should locate. (“Forgiveness, my friend? Perhaps, yes. And yet, who is to say until one manages to confront his demons?”) Niles considered tossing the pages in the trash, but instead sat for several more minutes, tracing the whole of the name with the tip of his right index finger, following each letter as they spelled out Osmah Said Almend, friend and roommate of Tyler Finne here before the blast.

  CHAPTER 5

  MEETINGS AND DEPARTURES

  Emmitt shifts his pad around in order to resume writing, while I wait and watch, wondering how exactly the things I said are being interpreted. After a minute, I can’t help but grow uncomfortable being so altogether exposed to Emmitt’s analysis, and seeing the pen move across the page and darken the surface line by line with its own sense of permanence, I call out only half in jest, “Hold on, hold on. Don’t get carried away. Hell, Emmitt, even I don’t know that much.”

  I remained sitting on the bench outside the School of Art, the bookmark Niles gave me slipped back inside my pack, and checking the time I thought again about blowing off my committee and looking for Liz. Her leaving caused me to struggle more than I ever had at the end of a relationship, the glorious confusion we shared, the sweet din and clamor I could never quite turn into music replaced now by an irrepressible sort of alarm. Given what I saw happen to my father, I should have been more cautious when it came to falling in love, and for the longest time I was; my avoidance simplified by living in a university town such as Renton where meeting women came easy. Our streets were like the shelves of a handsome shop forever replenished by the constant coming and going of graduate students, associate and full professors, guest lecturers, musicians, painters and writers, researchers and retail workers, secretaries and girls at loose ends just looking for some fun. Events on campus were scheduled day and night: readings and concerts, rallies and parties, football games, carnivals and plays. My last affair before Elizabeth was with a woman named Shannon Kaye, a student in Eastern Religions who taught Hindu meditation at the community center where I enrolled on a whim.

  Shannon had a lithe, athletic build, a sort of sinewy Danae by Klimt, with sweet round breasts and thick, dark hair worn loose and long. Her teaching included theories of Eastern philosophy combined with a series of introductory exercises in Iyengar yoga. In class students were educated on the proper techniques for breathing, how to sit and stand and hold their hands in order to “suppress the activities of the body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation.” Shannon lifted the definition from Merriam-Webster and used it frequently in her instruction.

  I enjoyed these Tuesday and Thursday sessions, and while I failed to take Shannon’s tutelage to heart and never once practiced the meditative exercises she assigned, I was aroused nonetheless when she stood in front of the class and demonstrated the half-dozen drills which involved closing her eyes and placing her fingers together beneath her chin, her body moving like the flicker of a flame as she shimmied up and down. Two weeks into the semester, I invited Shannon for a drink. She was easy to talk with, the sort of person who enjoyed asking questions, was intrigued to learn I was pursuing a doctorate in Art History, and mentioned her own favorite painters as Richard Diebenkorn and Milton Avery. I described the poster of Avery’s Seated Blonde which hung in my room and told her about my unfinished dissertation. At some point I got her phone number and called the next afternoon. We had dinner that night and saw one another frequently throughout the next several weeks.

  At our twelfth class, every student received their mantra. Shannon explained how the mantra was our personal password into nirvana, that it was mystical and hypnotic and we should never share our word with anyone else. There were fourteen other students in the class and we all sat on the tiled floor, in a circle, our shoes off and legs crossed. Shannon had everyone close their eyes as she walked from one person to the next. I cheated and watched as she passed among us, her hair thrown back over her right shoulder, her legs stretched out smoothly, long and supple as she glided barefoot around the room, leaning down at each student in order to supply their selected word. When it came time to receive my mantra, Shannon bent even closer so that her lips brushed against my cheek. “Doomee,” she said.

  The heat from her mouth entered my head and rushed directly up to my brain, the combination of her proximity, the erotic smell of her skin and warmth of her breath overwhelming me as she repeated, “Doomee. Doomeedoomeedoomeedoome.”

  Startled, I nearly toppled over, then turned my head in order to follow Shannon around the circle. I peeked at the others who’d already received their mantra, saw them with their eyes closed, softly chanting, working their way toward some exalted plane of inner enlightenment, self-harmony, and meditated bliss while it was all I could do to remain where I was on the floor. (“Doomee!”) At the end of class, I couldn’t hurry Shannon along fast enough to my apartment where we undressed by the light of a candle and had a glass of wine sitting naked on the side of the bed. I played piano for her, Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” and “Creole Love Call.” Our sex was exuberant, and afterward she fell asleep beside me and I pretended not to mind.

  That December Shannon brought her books and prints, pillows and plants, lamp and clothes and two yellow blankets up the front steps of my building. (The surface was covered with ice and we had to be careful not to fall.) Despite Shannon’s presumption, I did not so much invite her to live with me as I never openly objected, and her presence changed little in my life. I still spent my time sitting about reading, teaching a few classes, playing piano, practicing card tricks and sleight of hand. January passed without incident, though in February as members of my committee began leaving messages on my machine wanting to know why I was late again with my chapters and had failed to appear for prearranged meetings, Shannon grew concerned and began challenging my sloth.

  She brought home books by Robert Goldwater and Franz Boas, had me discuss the theories of Primitivism and Dadaism, copied articles by Walter Friedlaender, Nikolaus Pevsner, and Francis Klingender, all names gleaned from my yellowing pile of notes. At night, hoping to provide sufficient inspiration, she crawled in bed as I lay smoking, having done nothing worth mentioning since dawn, and rubbing my shoulders, asked about Motherwell’s Elegy to the Spanish Republic, de Kooning’s Woman and Bicycle, and Pollocks Number 2. I answered all her questions with great enthusiasm while otherwise circumventing any specific discussion of my dissertation.

  February became March and then it was April and still Shannon stayed on. She bought curtains for the window, colored soaps for the bathroom, and a doormat for the hall, organized my books and closet, proofread an old draft of my dissertation, and input changes onto my computer. Her endurance set new records, her determination to deal with the unproductiveness of my routine an increasing annoyance, how she insisted my torpor was just a phase and refused to understand. Unsure what I should do, I returned to my apartment one afternoon and sat in my chair reading the day’s Renton Bugle. A feature article on the painter Richard Diebenkorn was printed across two pages, the artist having recently died in Healdsburg, California, at the age of seventy-one. I finished the article, then glanced for a time at Shannon’s print of Diebenkorn’s Large Woman hanging on the wall. The painting was of a tall female in a sleeveless black
dress seated in a nondescript room, her left leg folded over her right knee, her left arm bent and angled out from her shoulder, her hand tucked in at the side of the chair with her right arm raised so that her head rested lazily inside her palm. The pose was provocative, while Diebenkorn’s decision to leave his subject’s face completely blank—everything ghost-white and featureless with but the faintest markings indicating the briefest thought of a nose and eyes—a unique inspiration.

  Accompanying the article was a photograph of Diebenkorn seated in his studio, taken two years before his death, wearing an old long-sleeved shirt and jeans, his features weathered and gaunt. A tall man, his hair was brown and falling over one side of his forehead, his eyes shy, his smile warm beneath a white moustache. He had incredibly large hands, like my father, enormous grapples extending far out of the sleeves of his shirt. I pictured him in his younger days with brushes of varying dimension, wielding them mightily then delicately across the canvas. In the final eighteen months of his life, Diebenkorn suffered through two open-heart surgeries, pneumonia, and a bout of radiation therapy that left him bedridden; his ability to paint was reduced to small-scale sketches and canvases he created while sprawled out on a mattress laid flat on the floor. Looking at his photograph again, I imagined him connected to tubes, breathing through hoses, holding his brush in exhausted hands as he continued to paint daily, propped up and relying on his wife to arrange his supplies as he worked on, using what the article referred to as “soft, bleached colors nonetheless suggestive of a vast scale.”

  I studied the picture, puzzled by Diebenkorn’s effort, wondering why he put himself to so much trouble this close to death. What was the point? As life remained ephemeral, with all things coming and going—love and ambition, achievement and joy, power and glory and the rest—how much better to want for nothing, to relax and not go clinging and grasping into that good night. I thought of Shannon then, and for the first time grew angry and went to the wall where I examined the Diebenkorn print more closely, exploring its consistency and subtext, its marriage of body and form. I ran my hands up and down the sides of Large Woman’s remarkable blank white face, touching her surface, my fingers passing over her shoulders, tracing across her hips and onto her legs, and turning then, I glanced back across the room at a snapshot of Shannon framed and placed on the bookshelf. I said her name, waited for her to dissolve into an equally infinite abstraction, to vanish as all women did, leaving behind no more than a ghost, and in an effort to encourage the process, removed Large Woman from the wall, and retrieving Shannon’s photograph from the shelf, set both on the floor beside the bed.