Bridge of Sighs

his utter hypocrisy, his need to impose moral order on others, even while granting himself the latitude necessary to maximize his own comfort and pleasure. Now—why not admit it?—Robert Noonan had come to see it differently. His father, at some point, had simply grown weary of his life as a bully, grown weary of himself. When poor, sweet Willie insisted he was not only a good guy but “the best guy,” his father must almost have believed him. Had it not been for Bobby, who knew better and gave him to understand in a thousand unsubtle ways that he wasn’t fooled by his pretense of having changed, who knew? Maybe he’d have pulled it off. Maybe, with no angry son to contradict him, he actually might have become that “best guy.”
    This much was certain, Noonan thought, as he revised his portrait. Bobby Marconi had always treated his loathing of his father like a precious commodity, something to be hoarded, something you could run out of, or that could be stolen if you weren’t vigilant. Bobby had been a miser. Not really wanting to understand the man he hated, and fearing what sympathy might cost, he’d concentrated on protecting and growing his bitter stash, worrying, just as every miser does that there might not be enough to last, that the day would come when the coffers would be empty. Bobby had never recognized the real danger, that he’d die filthy rich. It was amazing, when you thought about it, how effortlessly hate slipped into the space reserved for love and vice versa, as if these two things, identical in size and shape, had been made compatible by design. How satisfying a substitute each was for the other. All art had its origins in passion, and Noonan knew he wasn’t the first artist to be motivated by rage. And it had worked. For a long time it really had, until one day it didn’t. Until it became, as Hugh said, “all worm.” His night terrors, Noonan now suspected, had been born of the unwelcome intuition that as an artist he’d reached the end, that if he was to continue he’d have to find something new and cross over into unknown territory.
    “Okay, enough about paintings,” Hugh said, giving in to the bar peanuts. “Let’s talk about yesterday.”
    “We won’t know for sure until the tests come back,” Noonan said, “but cancer’s unlikely, given my symptoms. My former symptoms.” If it hadn’t been for Hugh, who’d insisted, he’d probably have canceled the tests. After all, the majority of his troubles—shit, was it legions or battalions?—had disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as they’d arrived. Since the night Lichtner had punched him in the heart and he’d begun the Sarah painting, he’d experienced neither a night terror nor an episode of public grief. Even better, his appetite had returned, and food was again tasting like it was supposed to, or at least the way he remembered it. He was beginning to put back on some of the weight he’d lost, not entirely a good thing. “Curious, though. When I mentioned losing my sense of taste, one of the doctors asked if I was a painter.”
    “You probably had paint in your beard.”
    Noonan ignored this. “So cadmium poisoning is one working hypothesis.”
    “From the oils?”
    “Not all of them. Reds and yellows. They seem to think that might explain the night terrors.”
    “Okay, then. No more reds and yellows.”
    “Ah, fuck it. We die of what we love.”
    “Don’t we, though,” Hugh said, and Noonan couldn’t remember if he’d ever heard his friend say anything so seriously.
    If cadmium explained the tingling at extremities, the loss of taste and the night terrors, that still left the random bouts of grief. In order to avoid an I-told-you-so, he decided not to tell Hugh about yesterday’s other working hypothesis, that over the last nine months he’d been chronically depressed. He still had his doubts about this diagnosis. “Wouldn’t I know if I was depressed?” he’d asked. (
Not necessarily.
) “Wouldn’t I have to have something to be depressed about?” (
Again, not necessarily.
) Would it just appear, for no reason? (
Not knowing the reason isn’t the same as not having one.
) Would it just disappear for no reason? (
Again
…) Then, their turn to ask questions.
Did it feel as if a weight had suddenly lifted?
(Yes.)
As if a dark cloud had passed, letting in the sun?
(Yes, that too.)
Was there anything unresolved in his life? Or something he’d recently put to rest? Was he aware that