Freezer Burn

Twenty-eight

The fresh morning was bright and a little warm when Bill charged out of the Ice Man’s trailer after having jerked on his pants and shoes. Glancing up at the whirligig, he saw the bucket had dipped down and it swung back and forth like a steam shovel scoop and little pops of fresh green paint were falling down from it like a slow radioactive rain.

Bill had never heard of Icarus, but the way Conrad lay, his neck bent, his back twisted in an even deeper U, his hind legs up in the air and drooping, balancing as if he were trying to do a trick by standing on his neck with his feet in the air, he had crashed in a way Icarus might have crashed after his wings melted from the heat of the sun.

Two gallons of bright green paint had exploded like a giant avocado all over the ground and Conrad. It had splattered onto the Ice Man’s trailer, splotching the side of it as if someone had chewed and spat out great wads of spinach. Some of the paint had spattered across the image of the Ice Man and had beaded up into fast-drying balls that looked like uncut emeralds.

A paintbrush, wet with paint, had flown onto the window of the Ice Man’s trailer and had stuck there as if it were an exotic bird that had smashed into it. One of Conrad’s shoes was lying upright in a puddle of paint.

Already there were others gathering. Pete, who Bill thought may have waited there all night for a blow job, and now, screaming, U.S. Grant, and a midget named Spike, spinning about on one leg uttering obscenities. Others were appearing: Double Buckwheat, pumpkin heads, some greasers, and finally Frost.

Frost and Bill moved toward Conrad at the same time. They arrived at his side at the same time. Conrad’s head was turned and he lay with one side of his face in the dirt and the eye they could see was popped out of place on the tendons. It lay on his cheek as if trying to crawl off. There was green paint running down his long nose and over his top lip, gathering in the crease where his mouth was open, bathing a handful of teeth scattered inside his mouth. Another two or three teeth lay in a puddle of paint around his head. There was more green paint than blood, but there was blood too. Conrad was breathing in a rattling sort of way, like something fragile had been crunched inside of cellophane and was continually being unwrapped or danced upon.

Bill got down on his hands and knees and looked at the eyeball that was out of the socket so Conrad could see him. Above, the eyelash winked as if it still housed its charge.

“Fugged ub,” Conrad said, spitting out teeth and paint.

“Oh shit, Conrad,” Bill said.

“It’ll be all right, Conrad,” Frost said.

“Nuwont,” Conrad said.

“God, Conrad,” Bill said. “Jesus Christ.”

“Uhtradta grubuhrailn. Dudnt mageid.”

“Sure,” Bill said.

“Uhtradto thunk rubba.”

I bet, thought Bill.

Frost gently picked up the eyeball by the tendon and turned the eye so it could see him. “I’m sorry, Conrad.”

“Yeg, bud dun’elp nun.”

Frost lay the eyeball gently on Conrad’s cheek. He turned and yelled at the spinning midget. “Call someone. Get my cell phone. Tell Gidget. Call someone. 911!”

“Uh feeg lig shid.”

Conrad coughed a little, passed some gas in a hissing manner, and quit breathing.

“I was going to climb up there,” Frost said. “I was going up there this morning. It was supposed to be me.”

U.S. Grant, who had not spoken, but had stopped screaming, eased up slowly, fell to her knees next to Conrad. She took hold of him and lowered him so that he could lie on his side without his feet sticking up in the air. His extended eyeball became bathed in green paint, and now blood ran out from him in gluts and blended with it.

“He was going to surprise you two,” U.S. Grant said. “He heard Bill say there was painting to do yet. A bucket left. He got the paint out of the car. He couldn’t sleep because he wanted to surprise you.”

“Jesus,” Bill said.

“He climbed up there when daylight came. I was fixing him breakfast. He was going to finish and eat breakfast. I heard the bucket shift, and… He was going to finish up and eat breakfast.”

“It’s my fault,” Bill said.

“No,” Frost said, tears running down his cheeks. “It’s my fault.”

“That’s right,” U.S. Grant said. “Your fault. You had to have that rattletrap. No one but Phil knew how to really fasten it together. You had to have it though. And you had to have it painted right away. You always have to have things right away. He always wanted to please you, Frost. Always. We always want to please you, but you’re not so smart. You fucked up. You and your goddamn idea.”

“I know,” Frost said. He reached out his hand and ran it through Conrad’s paint-caked smattering of hair.

A blackness went over Bill. He got up and stumbled, fell down, got up, stumbled again.

As he groped his way toward his trailer, Gidget came out of the motor home. She had stopped to comb her hair and put on lipstick. She was wearing a pair of simple blue pajamas and a pajama top with a bright bird of paradise embroidered on the left side above her heart. She wore little blue house shoes with round blue cotton balls on the toes. She looked out at Frost and Conrad and U.S. Grant, then she looked at Bill, but she looked his way for only a moment, then she sighed deep, swallowed, took a deep breath, and went running out to Frost, screaming, screaming, as if it was she who had fallen.