The Underside of Joy
But actually’ – he pulled down a box of tea bags – ‘because of what happened to Joe Jr . . .’ He looked at me, nodding. ‘Yes, I think you might like this story.’
So Clem Silver told me about the flood of ’37, back when he was a toddler. His family had lived on the river, three houses down from where Marcella and Joe Sr lived, where the Palomarinos lived now. Clem wandered off and no one could find him. Everyone evacuated except for his mother and father, who were frantically looking for him. The river rose, and just as his mother picked him up from his study of a spiderweb behind the woodpile, a surge of water broke through and tore him from her arms, passed him downriver, out of her reach, then out of her sight.
‘I remember hearing my mother’s screams and being afraid, and then my ears and eyes and mouth filled with churning, followed by a beautiful quiet, like I’d never heard before. And up above me, this beautiful beam of light.
‘Now, you hear people talk about their near-death experiences, about going towards “the light” and all that. But in my case, being down in that dark river water, the light was all I saw, all I needed to see, and it led me to the surface, to air, to more years of life – not some heavenly encounter – which suits me just fine.
‘But, Ella Beene? I’ve gotta tell you this: I almost drowned that day, and it was the most peaceful feeling I’ve ever had. I’ve been looking for that feeling ever since. And I think that in some peculiar way – and let’s face it, I’m peculiar in every way – that’s why I settled in this forest. It’s the closest thing I can come to being at the bottom of that river.’
‘You felt peaceful down there?’
‘Yes.’ He crossed his arms. ‘I know it seems strange, but yes, I did.’
I stared at his grey whiskered chin, his pale moist eyes. ‘Thank you for telling me that story,’ I said, looking away, glancing around the room, trying to keep from blubbering. ‘And this definitely feels peaceful here.’
He said his ex-wife couldn’t take the darkness. ‘“You’re an artist,” she kept after me. “Don’t you need a light-filled studio?” I guess I was just as stubborn about staying put, a barnacle on a rock. But I appreciate the light that has to push its way through. The contrasts are what interest me the most. I notice the light more here, how it pours down like an elixir. Darkness forces our focus on the relevant, while the irrelevant fades away. How’s that for artsy-fartsy talk? Here, Ella Beene, let me show you your map. I imagine this is what you came all this way for.’
I followed him, Petunia and Jerry out to his studio, which was more of the dishevelled shack I’d pictured him living in. There, on his table scattered with paints, old Orange Crush cans, and stuffed ashtrays, was the map.
I held it out before me: a fairy-tale-style treasure map to magical places, in colours and textures that were both natural and luxuriant. ‘This is it. This is going to make the whole concept of Life’s a Picnic work. ’
‘So you like it, then?’ He chuckled. ‘I can go ahead and make the copies?’
‘I love it.’ I hugged him, this old wizard who smelled of stale cigarettes and turpentine and knew enough alchemy to get inside my head and put on paper what I had blindly been working towards, who’d told me a story that had somehow made me feel better.
I left the golden warmth of Clem’s house, and my mind slowed to absorb the cool, still quiet, to feel and see it fully, as I hadn’t on the hasty walk up. Rusty pine needles carpeted the narrow road, muting my steps. The sloped land was a tangle of thick ivy, sword ferns, elk clover, redwood sorrel, blackberries, and poison oak. Bay trees and Douglas fir and tanbark oak looked more like bushes than trees next to the redwoods, which grew so high, I had to crane my neck back just to see the blue patch of sky floating at the top of this shadow world. Some of the houses were hobbit-like, clinging to the hill, glowing light from tiny windows in the noon darkness. Two shacks had slid with part of the hill, probably years ago; they had ivy growing through the siding, staking its claim. One house was recently burned hollow, charred black inside like the burned-out stumps of redwoods that still stood from fires long ago. Some of the places were lovely – older summer homes built at the turn of the century that had been kept up, while others were more
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