Acre Under a Green Sky

Luka hated leaving the Royal Grill that night, but Billy Kiernan had killed all the magic by turning up the lights, and now he was holding the door open for Luka to get out. Everyone else had gone.

"I'm stuck to this stool," Luka said.

"Well, unstick yourself and get the hell outta here so I can close up."

The feel and smell of the summer night's air reached Luka from the open door and he rose from the stool to embrace it.

"I never had so much fun in my life," he said.

"Yeah, it was a good night."

Luka threw his arms around Billy and kissed him on the cheek.

"Okay," Billy said, "Very good. Now off you go."

"Where's my flower?" Luka said, feeling tentatively behind his ear as if there was a wound there instead of a delicate white orchid.

"Very pretty. Yeah, I think you got everything."

"Yeah, I think I got everything," Luka said, as Billy gently pushed him out the door. Before Luka could turn back to say more, the door was closed and bolted against him.

Luka found himself outside in the dark facing the big red door of the Royal Grill, and he had no idea how he got there or how long he had been standing there on the deserted street. He was about to knock on the door when the night caught his attention. The cool early morning air against his face. He saw the sky with its stars all in silence and the clouds haloed by the moon. He was the only man on Earth just then. And his car was the only car parked on the street. It stood there against the curb –– dark and muted and cold. Then he had no idea how he got into the car or where it was going. He knew only that the lights were off and he couldn't see the road. Then, somehow the lights went on and everything was okay. It had been a perfect day. It was a perfect drunk.

Luka's head hit the roof of the car, and then his ass bounced on the seat. The car had gone up over the curb, and Luka laughed as he bounced up and down on the seat like a child. And there was his house; and he had no idea how he got there, but "wasn't it lucky to go up over the curb right in front of your house!" Why not drive up into the house, he thought.

"Up! Up we go," he said, as he stepped on the gas, but the car was skidding on grass –– wheels spinning on dewy grass. And he fell out of the car where it stood and rolled a short distance down the lawn. He landed on his back facing the stars. He began floating among the stars. The grass felt cold and wet like a urine-soaked bed. Had he wet the bed again? A jolt of terror shook his whole body, but he laughed it away when he realized that he had not wet the bed and that he was lying on cold, wet grass.

He opened the front door of the house slowly all the while hushing himself. He didn't want to wake them. Once inside the darkened house, he was caressing the door closed with both hands. He saw the car up on the lawn and wondered how it got there. He figured he must have put it there and laughed. He hushed himself again, and the door latch clicked shut. He hushed that, too, and undid his pants. They fell down around his ankles. He tried to pull his pant leg over his shoe and fell to the floor. He held his mouth with both hands to stifle his laughter. Then he sat up on the floor and removed his shoes. He pulled his pants off, and a hundred coins fell out of his pockets onto the floor like a hundred muted bells. He got on his hands and knees to collect the coins, and his hand lit on the flower that had dropped from behind his ear. Very methodically, he put it back in place snugly behind his ear and returned to sweeping the floor with his hands for coins. When he was satisfied that he had found enough of them, he rose to his feet and dropped the coins into his 'Daddy' coffee mug on the bookcase by the stairs. The coins splashed coffee out of the mug. It wasn't an empty mug, and that made him laugh again.

His shirt came off as if it had no buttons at all, and he draped it over the stair railing along with his pants. He held both shoes in one hand and started up the stairs. About halfway up the stairs, he wondered why he was carrying shoes up the stairs. He carefully set them down on the step in front of him and continued on up the stairs.

Even before he reached the top of the stairs, the bedroom light went on casting light through the open doorway and down the hall. Luka felt like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Gwen was sitting up in bed pointing directly at him with her outstretch arm.

"Downstairs, mister," she whispered loudly.

She was wearing her white frilly nightgown, and Luka marveled at her unharnessed breasts so full and rich and soft beneath the gossamer. He was always in awe of her voluptuous breasts; her velvet, vanilla breasts. He forgot her command to go downstairs.

He crossed to his side of the bed and fell onto it as if totally passed out. One second more and he would have been.

"Come on, I'm serious," Gwen said, pushing him away, "We've been through all this. Now, get downstairs. Come on!"

Luka rolled over toward her flinging his arm around her at the same time.

"No, you come on," he said.

"First thing tomorrow, we're gonna have another talk. Now, I'm serious. Come on!"

Gwen pulled herself free from him and slid out of the bed. She walked around to his side of the bed and poked him.

"Don't fall asleep in my bed," she said, "Do you hear me? Luka! Come on, Luka, get up. I'm serious."

She grabbed both Luka's wrists and pulled him half out of the bed.

"I can't take anymore of this, Luka. Now, come on!"

"Don't spoil everything," Luka groaned, "Come on back to bed."

Then Luka heard Estelle's voice say, "Haven't you told him yet?"

Luka looked over to see Estelle standing in the doorway with her blue housecoat wrapped so tightly around her scrawny frame that the patch pocket on one side now covered her groin. He imagined a blue kangaroo with a stitched-on blue pouch, and he burst out laughing.

"Tell him," Estelle shrieked in a whisper, "Tell him now!"

"I've told him a hundred times," Gwen said, "What am I supposed to do? Come on, help me with him."

Estelle took one arm while Gwen took the other and together they got Luka out of bed. He was still laughing, and Gwen laughed a little, too, in spite of herself. They were trying to push him out of the room when Luka reared up like a horse, and said, "Whoa! Where's my flower? I don't go nowhere without my flower."

Estelle found the flower between the pillow and the headboard. She threw it at Luka, but it didn't fly. It nose-dived down at her feet. Luka doubled over with laughter while Estelle seethed with her mouth set almost as tightly as her waist cinch.

Gwen picked up the flower and handed it to Luka with a push toward the door. Luka cuddled the orchid against his cheek before securing it behind his ear.

"Gots to have my flower!" he said.

Gwen was consoling Estelle with pats and caresses.

"I'm sorry, Mom," she said, "He doesn't remember from one moment to the next. You know he won't remember any of this tomorrow."

"You're always making excuses for him," Estelle said, "Do you want anything from the kitchen?"

"I'll have a beer," Luka piped up.

"I think you've had enough," Gwen said, "Come on, now. Off you go. Sofa time."

Luka began singing "Sofa Time" as he moved down the hall to the stairs.

"Do you want anything?" Estelle asked Gwen again.

"Yeah, some sleep!" Gwen said, falling back into bed.

Luka found himself standing in front of the open refrigerator with his arm resting on top of the door. The light from the refrigerator was the only light in the room, and it seemed to warm Luka. He had lapsed into a drunken torpor mesmerized by the colors and shapes inside the refrigerator. He had no purpose; none whatsoever. Neither did he have any appreciation –– either sensual or practical. To all intents and purposes he was unconscious, except that he was already well into his second wind.

The open refrigerator door blocked the entrance to the kitchen so Estelle pushed it up against Luka to enter. Luka was only vaguely startled back to wakefulness. His eyes were rolling and he was seeing double. Estelle turned on the overhead light and appeared to be waiting her turn at the refrigerator, but Luka had no idea why he was standing there. Estelle lost patience and reached in front of him to get him his beer. Luka took the beer with a generous 'thank you' and spun around to find the opener.

The sink was stacked high with dirty dishes from the picnic earlier that day, and the countertops were covered with dirty pots and pans and serving dishes of various sizes and shapes. Everything was debris. Estelle nudged him aside with her whole body and took a container of potato salad out of the refrigerator.

"Where's the opener?" Luka said.

"Look in the sink."

Estelle opened the silverware drawer for a fork, but everything had been used for the picnic. Once again, she nudged Luka aside –– this time from the sink.

"I'll find it," she said.

She turned the water on and began clattering about the sink for the opener and a fork. She pulled a large black-handled carving knife from the sink and handed it to Luka. Luka looked at the knife as if it were a totally alien thing and put it down on the countertop. Then Estelle found the bottle opener in the sink and handed it to Luka. Luka let out a cheer, and Estelle hushed him.

Luka opened the beer, and the cap flew up in an arc and down to the floor. Luka watched it roll all the way across the floor and disappear behind the trash can like a mouse.

"Do you see what you're doing here?!" Estelle said as she rinsed her fork, "Do you have eyes in your head?! Now, who's going to pick that up? One of us. It's always one of us picking up after you."

Estelle found the bottle cap and handed it to Luka.

"Now, where does it go? Can you figure that one out?"

Luka could just barely figure it out. He looked about the room until his eyes lit on the trash can again, and in spite of his double vision, he dunked the cap into the trash can from where he stood.

"Two points!" he cheered.

Estelle was not impressed.

"Here. I have something for you," he said.

Luka put his beer bottle down on the countertop. Then he took the flower from behind his ear. He found the top buttonhole of her housecoat and fumbled and squinted with one eye to get the flower stem through the hole.

"There!" he said, "It's pretty."

Estelle was looking into Luka's eyes the whole time, but Luka couldn't read what was there. He bent forward and kissed her on the cheek. Then he looked into those eyes again. What he saw astounded him. He saw hate there; hate and disgust, and he knew that he had seen it a million times before, but he had never put a name to it until then.

"You hate me," he said with genuine horror and grief.

Estelle's eyes never strayed from his, and her voice was cold and sure.

"We don't want you here anymore," she said.

Luka imploded with a paralyzing pain and rage. It seemed to him that Estelle's face was changing before his eyes into something grotesque like a gargoyle.

He reached over for his beer, but his hand landed on the knife. He thought, "This isn't what I want." Then he thought, "Yes it is." And he drove the knife into her stomach and up, and she shrieked like a dog yelping.

"We don't want you here anymore." That word 'we' put him on the outside. He was now forever excluded –– outside the family, outside the human race. He was so far outside; beyond the conventions, beyond shame or the fear of shame that he killed her again. He was beyond the fear of judgment or punishment so he killed her once more. He was beyond fear of any kind and it was exhilarating. He killed her again and again and again. He was free at last –– free to kill her as many times as he wanted. All those years that he lived in fear of humiliation slipped away. And all the guilt he endured because he was a humiliation to himself and his family slipped away, too. She had made him an exile by usurping that word 'we'. Can you get any further outside than total damnation! It was so liberating that he killed her again. The things he had feared most had been realized and instead of annihilation he was enjoying liberation. Why had he always been so afraid of being the outsider or that his feelings might kill someone or that he would be exposed as a failure at life? His whole life had been an accommodation to fear. And what made him think that damnation was a punishing thing like guilt and shame? Guilt and shame are only the fear of damnation. Once you've crossed over, they are nothing. What the hell! Kill her again.

Estelle's eyes were dead –– staring out at Luka.

"Murder," Luka heard himself say.

This was almost zero. He was almost as close as you can get to being dead without dying. Nearly devoid of all feeling, but he was not finished in the way a work of art is not finished. Luka had only to cut those final ties to reach zero. This was enlightenment ––to feel nothing –– to be zero.

He knew that the last feeling he would ever feel would be the pain of loving his wife and children, and already that feeling was becoming more and more unbearable. Best to get it over with quickly!

He turned off the overhead light in the kitchen, and walked through the darkened house and up the stairs to Gwen's bed. She was asleep. He could barely see her by the moon glow from the window. He reached for her throat with his free hand and raised the knife to strike. Just then, she opened her eyes and said the word 'no'. It was not a cry. It seemed to Luka that it was more like the answer to a polite question. He brought the knife down and she made a startled 'ouch' as if he had hit her. In a panic, she scrambled for the other side of the bed. Luka had the neck of her nightgown in his fist and tried to pull her back, but the nightgown ripped like tissue. He stabbed her again, and still she fought to free herself. If she made a sound, he was deaf to it. He grabbed for her again, and again the nightgown simply fell away. In that instant, he forgot he was murdering her. Now it was a rape, and he could feel the wonderful sensation of getting hard. He was trying to pull her nightgown off, but she was all balled up in the sheets and the fragments of nightgown, and he was killing her again. In her panic, she didn't know which end of the bed was which. She was trying to find the floor, but was butting her head against the headboard of the bed. He stabbed and stabbed. Then she was still. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her across the bed. He arranged her properly on her side of the bed. With his hands, he felt for her heart and stabbed her once more. He disentangled the sheet and spread it over her as if he were tucking her in. He didn't know that many blows had missed their mark, but he knew she was dead. It had all happened in a frenetic flash –– in seconds.

The children were not in the bed they shared. Luka turned on the overhead light and found Marilyn in the closet. He pulled her out into the room and stabbed her. She fell to the floor and tried to drag herself to the door. He grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her back. He got down on the floor with her and stabbed her in the back. She was dead.

Luka found Jeff hiding in the bathtub. He was lying on his back with his legs up to defend himself. He kicked at Luka and lashed out with fists all the while grunting like a boxer. Luka tried to grab him with his free hand, but the boy was too strong and fast. Luka didn't want to stab Jeff's legs or arms. He didn't want to hurt Jeff. Finally, he maneuvered a wound to Jeff's side. He could hear Jeff's breath leave his body, but he couldn't say from where it came. He was stabbing Donald Duck –– Donald Duck –– Donald Duck –– on Jeff's pajamas –– a hundred little Donald Ducks.

Then the house was divinely still, and Luka knew true peace for the first time in his life –– peace and a wondrous feeling of self-realization. At last, he was whole. He was perfectly himself –– all he was meant to be –– all he could ever be. He was forever damned, and it was like being born again. He was zero. But already the revelations of that night were disintegrating in his mind like bleeding watercolors in the rain.

Then Luka went to bed having no idea what he had done.