with envy at the sight.
Conversely, the trauma of their father’s death had affected every inch of Typhus-or lack thereof. Quite literally: he had not grown an inch since that night-now standing no more than four and a half feet tall at age twenty-four.
With the coming of his own manhood, Typhus’ interests had become decidedly adult in nature, and, having the body-size of a child, such inclinations proved problematic. In his twenty-four years, Typhus had only known one woman in the biblical sense-that being an act of charity, a gift from Diphtheria on his sixteenth birthday. Diphtheria had paid an undisclosed sum to a pretty crib colleague called Hattie to take young Typhus on a night-long tour of her worldly skills. Although the experience had proved educational, there had been neither love nor convincing tenderness involved, and so the encounter served mainly to underline the profound sense of longing in his heart. With this dull, bitter longing came a dull ache, and with the dull ache came a dull anger, and with the dull anger came dull fear-and that fear was of being alone. Typhus began to wonder if a man in the shape of a boy could ever realistically hope to attain the tender touch of woman neither sister, nor whore, nor whore-hired-by- sister.
Doctor Jack’s keen spiritual radar picked up on the boy’s blue condition shortly after its manifestation, and he wasted no time addressing the problem in his own unique way:
“The love of a face you’ll never know is the purest love of all, Typhus,” he had proclaimed with soft eyes as he handed Typhus a paper present intended as cure. “That’s because the love you feel for an unknowing stranger has no conditions or demands. So, Typhus, give your love to Lily-and know that she will neither return your love nor break your heart. There is safety in a smile like hers.” Doctor Jack’s gaze shifted from Typhus’ eyes before concluding, just under breath, “If safety is a thing that you require.”
The gift was a picture of Lily-and it just happened that Lily was the prettiest lady Typhus had ever laid eyes on. So pretty, in fact, that Doctor Jack’s final mumbled sentence failed to register its intended warning in Typhus’ dizzy heart.
The photograph was printed on heavy, smooth paper measuring five by seven inches, with the following words imprinted in loopy French type along the bottom margin:
“
The paper itself was light brown in color, dressed in sundry shades of chocolate ink with light burgundy highlights. A ham-handed studio artist had filled in Lily’s dress with pure white, giving the garment a detached and artificial quality. Its stark paleness provided an illusion of weightlessness, the dress appearing to drift a millimeter or so above the photo’s surface just beyond the two-dimensional logic of Lily’s chocolate-burgundy world. Anomaly of white aside, the dress infused Lily with an oddly virginal quality, complimenting her child’s smile and sparkling eyes; a miracle of irony within her rectangle of existence.
Lily sat in her chair; knees tight together, right hand in a loose fist on her lap. Her hair was thick and piled high, wisps of it escaping their frilly ties, tickling pretty at the edges of her eyes. Exaggerated and round, her deep black pupils and gently drooping eyelids suggested the effect of opium as they gazed at an odd angle, apparently seeing something of casual interest just left of the man behind the camera. Beside her was a small round table holding two shot glasses (one half-full, the other half-empty), a bottle of Raleigh Rye, a small round clock, a circular metallic pillbox, and a few other small objects (cosmetic items?) which Typhus couldn’t name. On the wall behind her hung several oddly shaped hand-carved frames tenanting images ranging from the vaguely religious to the vaguely obscene.
Diminishing to a thin edge of lace, the material of Lily’s nightgown encircled her throat elegantly, its hem riding less than an inch above her knees. Her left hand cupped her right breast; a crude gesture filtering itself through an improvised taxonomy of grace, defending its existence in terms of dim-witted innocence. Lily’s face was a tender juncture of perfect lines; slight curves converging and intersecting, swooping and gliding, her full lips barely meeting in an uneven smile, coaxing the slightest dimple from her right cheek, betraying the presence of any African blood that potentially swam beneath fair skin. In Storyville, they called girls with Lily’s complexion “high yella.” High yella also meant high-priced.
Typhus didn’t know how old the photograph might be; there was no date assigned it by the
Could be that Lily was an old woman by now. Maybe dead. Her name probably wasn’t even Lily; just a pretty name for a pretty picture made up by Doctor Jack. Maybe this photo had passed through many hands before it found its way to his own; Typhus only one in a long line of Lily’s smitten admirers. Maybe Doctor Jack had been smitten himself at one time. No matter.
Typhus, of course, knew what pictures like this were for. They were meant as useful mementos for sailors preparing for long trips on high seas-for inspiration in moments of lonely, self-inflicted passion. No doubt this photo had seen its fair share of such inspiration-Typhus even noted a water stain near the lower left corner with a suspicious yellow quality about it. But he reckoned Lily to be passed around no more. She was his to keep, and he made a promise to always keep her safe:
“I’ll take care of you, Miss Lily,” he bargained sincerely in the direction of her perfect dimple, “I’ll keep you from harm caused by fire, water, insect or other. And all you have to do in return is be what you are. Nothing else required at your end, Miss Lily. I promise you that and cross my heart so-help-me-Jesus- amen.”
Which doesn’t mean to say that Typhus never indulged a little self-inflicted passion of his own on her behalf-but he knew his paper Lily would bear him no grudge for such. When he felt good on her account, it was from the love in his heart-the feeling from down below being mere punctuation. Hattie Covington, a lady in the flesh with all attendant sweating and moaning and huffing and touching, had inspired nowhere near this kind of good feeling in Typhus on his sixteenth birthday. With his paper Lily it felt better, it was different.
Love was the difference.
Thoughts of Lily evaporated with the sound of sliding naked feet in the kitchen doorway. Typhus looked up to find an expression of sleepy concern animating his brother’s squinting eyes.
“What’s the matter, Dropsy?” Typhus said with his back to his brother, brushing bits of blackish dirt from the surreal white of Lily’s dress.
Dropsy paused, wiping sleep from two eyes with one hand. “Heard a sound. Someone outside.”
“No one’s outside. Get back to bed.” Typhus turned to face Dropsy with Lily held behind him.
Apparently startled by the sound of the two brothers, the owner of the footfalls outside broke into a run, crackling and thumping through grass towards a general fade.
Dropsy: “What that, then?”
“Whattaya think?”
A pause. “Think it’s Daddy.” A yawn.
“Mebbe so, Dropsy, mebbe so.”
Dropsy’s yawn introduced air into Typhus’ nostrils, stale and awful smelling; a reminder of his brother’s taste for chaw. Typhus crinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes.
“Shouldn’t we go see what he brought this time, Typhus?”
“It’ll keep till morning. Too dark now. Might go and step on whatever it is when it’s so dark. Plus, might not be Daddy. Might be a bear.”
