Thirteen Crucifixions, 102

They had all gone out for dessert.  Glen, Marlene, Randall, his mother, Doris, Stephen and Pierre.  Maria had left early with her child, followed by Margery, then Dwight who seemed concerned about Margery.  Carol and Derek had also left.  There had been evident discomfort between Alice and Derek, and Carol had confided to him that she felt caught in the middle, having made several lame attempts to facilitate a reconciliation.

            Their collective mood became again buoyant—Maria hadn’t had a lasting impact on them by defecting.  He was particularly impressed with how comfortable everyone seemed with one another, particularly Stephen and Pierre.  The gathering had been for all, or almost all, a success.  But eventually they had to disperse.  It was getting late. Glen was tired.  He still had to clean up. He forced himself to do it now, having no intention of waking up to a messy apartment.  He had got everyone out in time, for when Glen returned the couple who lived downstairs were shrieking in coital ecstasy.  He reckoned that they wouldn’t be in much condition to feel disturbed by whatever noise he would be making while cleaning.

            He was finished, yet one thing seemed still to require doing.  He looked, and looked throughout his place.  It would have to go, that huge loose canvas of the naked Christ crucified, his first of the Thirteen Crucifixions.  It had always hung there, for all of the five years of his tenancy.  He didn’t know why, but now it must go.  It was no longer needed.  He rolled it up then fit it into a closet.  Now remained a naked white wall.   Perhaps he might hang there a small crucifix, but why anything?  The bare wall had its own beauty, with its blank, brilliant whiteness.  It was the only unblemished surface in the apartment.  He looked around at the ceiling, the other walls, with their stains, cracks and weird looking disfigurements.  Why had he covered for so long the only flawless surface?  And now he could recognize and admit that it hadn’t been Timothy transformed into Christ that had captured his attention in this painting, but Christ transformed into Timothy.  He could no longer have it this way.  The painting would have to go.  But where?  It couldn’t always remain in the closet.  He could perhaps sell it.  Maybe the Vancouver Art Gallery would want it, for their sumptuous new quarters.

            But from now on, for whatever remained of his tenancy here, must this wall remain naked, and more naked than the naked body of Christ posing as Timothy, from whom Glen had not heard in all of the seven years that had passed since his return to Vancouver.  He was still painting flowers.  He didn’t think that he’d return to human anatomy. He didn’t know why.  But flowers were right for him to paint, for now, anyway.

            He wasn’t aware of having set on the table the journal of Richard Bertholdt.  He picked up the battered envelope, and pulled out all the pages: