The Painter

The painter was dead in the back yard. Angie came in from taking out the garbage and told me about it as I was cracking eggs into the pan.

“He’s dead,” she said. “Must have been a heart attack or something...”

“Are you sure?” I said, “I mean, did you take his pulse or anything?”

“His pulse? Are you kidding me? I ain’t goin’ near a dead guy...”

“Well, what if he’s still alive?” I said.

“Well, go find out for yourself if you’re so interested...”

“All right, I will... Watch the eggs,” I said. I went outside. It was a nice summer day. I went over to where the old painter was keeled onto his side in his white jumpsuit, a can of paint beside him and a brush, still wet with white paint, in his hand. He looked dead all right. I put a couple fingers under his chin and didn’t feel anything.

“Sir? Sir?” I said, shaking him. He didn’t move. I looked around to see if any of the neighbors were out. I didn’t see them. I didn’t know what to do so I took a smoke from my bathrobe and lit it.

“Is he dead?” Angie called from the window of the kitchen.

I nodded. I stood there. I stood there and smoked. He was hired for the job a couple days ago by my landlord, this guy, to paint the back garage, and now he was dead. I felt I should do something, but didn’t know what. I went back inside. The eggs were ready. Angie and I sat down and ate them with toast and coffee.

“What do you want to do?” Angie said.

“I don’t know.”

“He’s dead, you’re sure?”

“Yeah, there’s no blood moving around inside him.”

“That guy, he said hello to me when he arrived,” Angie said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m the last person he talked to on this Earth.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s sorta weird. I didn’t even know him...”

“Yeah.”

“He seemed like a nice guy...”

“Uh huh.”

“I got a camera,” Angie said.

“You got film?”

“Half a roll.”

“O.K.”

Angie got the camera out and I put our plates in the sink. We went outside. I looked for my neighbors again but didn’t see any.

“All right, prop him up,” Angie said.

“Oh shit...” I lugged the guy up and maneuvered him into sitting position against the garage.

“Can you get it so his head is up?”

“Jesus...”

I worked the guy as best I could. He kept wanting to fall over.

“All right, now make a pose,” Angie said.

“Like how?”

“I don’t know... Put your arm around him or something...”

I crouched down and smiled. Angie snapped one.

“O.K., now me...”

Angie handed the camera to me and pranced over to the body. She pulled her nightgown up to show some leg. She smiled. I snapped one.

“We could probably get arrested for this,” I said.

“Why? We didn’t kill him...”

“Yeah, I know, but there might be a law we don’t know about...”

“Since when do you care about laws?”

“Yeah, well, let’s get back inside. I’ve got to call someone...”

Angie followed me back in. We poured out some more coffee and had a smoke at the kitchen table and looked out at the guy. He was still sitting there and it looked like he was staring at us.

“We should take a picture of just him,” Angie said. “It’d make a good album cover.”

“Let the dead rest in peace,” I said.

“Isn’t it a little late for that?”

Just then the phone rang. It was Duvall from upstairs.

“What’s with the guy in the backyard? Is he sick or something?” he asked.

“How should I know?” I said.

“Well he’s scaring my wife,” Duvall said.

“What do you want me to do about it?” I said.

“O.K.,” Duvall said. He hung up.

“That was Duvall,” I told Angie. “He’s worried about the painter...” Angie started laughing. She slapped her knee.

“Should we call Salvador?” I asked. Salvador was our landlord.

“I guess we should,” Angie said.

I went to the desk and got Salvador’s number. I got his machine.

“Salvador, this is Zero...” I said, “Y’know that painter you hired to paint the garage? I guess he died. Call me when you get in.” I hung up.

“Not home,” I told Angie.

“Call the cops,” Angie said.

“That’d be a switch,” I said. “Usually someone calls them on me...”

“That’s ‘cause you take off your clothes on stage and start fights,” Angie said.

“Well, I ain’t calling them,” I said.

“You better call them... What if one of the Mexican kids next door sees him?”

“They gotta learn about death sometime,” I said. But I was picking up the phone. I called 411 by accident. I told them to connect me to 911.

As I waited for the cops to come on, Angie started tickling me.

“911...” a woman said.

“Hi, uh yeah...” I said. “A-ha ha ha... Cut it out! A-ha ha ha ha!”

“Sir, what’s the problem? Can I have your name please?”

“This is Zero,” I said.

“Sir, are you in danger? Is there a situation?”

“Um... No, ha ha ha... Will you stop it? Ah! Ha ha ha!!!” I dropped the phone. Angie hung it up.

“What the hell?” I demanded.

“I was trying to relax you... I know how you get nervous around the cops...”

“Shit! What are they going to think?”

The phone rang then. I picked up.

“Hello, this is 911. Did you just phone us?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there a problem? We’re sending a car over... What’s the situation?”

“There’s a painter in my back yard,” I said.

“That’s not a situation.”

“I believe he’s dead,” I said.

“Did someone kill him?” the person said.

“His heart did,” I said.

“O.K., a car will be over... What is your name?”

“Zero,” I said.

“Full name Sir...”

“Just Zero, that’s it...” I said.

“O.K. Mr. Zero, please wait outside for the squad...”

“All right.”

I hung up.

“Well, what’s happening?” Angie said.

“They’re sending a car over...”

I grabbed some jeans and put on a ratty Misfits T-shirt and pulled on my cowboy boots. I went outside to wait. I found Duvall out there by the dead guy, looking at him.

“This guy’s dead looks like,” Duvall said.

“Yeah, I just called the cops when I found out,” I said.

Duvall looked at me funny. I lit a smoke and looked around. The Mexican kids from next door were hanging on the fence watching us. I saw the cop pull into the gravel alley behind the garage.

Duvall stood up. His wife was shouting something from the window.

“Shut up ya crazy woman!” he yelled.

A fat cop appeared.

“Who’s Zero?” he said.

“I am.”

“What’s with the hair? You in a circus?” the cop asked me.

“I’m in a band... Same difference...”

“You the guy who called?”

“Yup.”

“This the dead guy?”

“Yup.”

“Thought so.” The cop knelt down and tried for a pulse. He stood up then and got out a notebook. I heard the back door slam. Angie came across the lawn with a couple Schlitz beers. She handed one to me.

“Want one?” she asked Duvall.

“Uh, no thanks,” Duvall said. He was trying to follow what was going on.

“When did you find him?” the cop asked me.

“About twenty minutes ago.”

“Uh huh... And do you know the deceased?”

“Just that our landlord hired him to paint the garage and he was doing a pretty poor job of it. Look at all the paint on the plants...”

The cop looked at the paint splatters and then turned back to me. “I’m afraid he’s not going to be finishing the garage,” he said.

I guffawed. Angie cracked up. Duvall just looked perplexed.

“All right, where’s the landlord?” the cop asked.

“I don’t know. I left a message on his machine,” I said.

“Give me his name and number. I’m gonna have an ice cream truck take this guy away.”

“Ice cream?” Duvall said.

“I’ll get it,” Angie said. She ran back inside. I saw the cop watch her go.

“Who’r you?” the cop asked Duvall.

“A concerned neighbor.”

“Did you see anything? Any suspicious activity?”

“Nope.”

“Good enough...” the cop said. He just then noticed the kids. “Hey you kids!” he shouted, “get your butts inside!”

The kids just smiled and looked at each other and didn’t move.

“Christ on fire,” the cop said.

Duvall went to his porch and returned with a potato sack. He covered the body with it. Angie gave the cop Salvador’s number.

The cop went to the squad to call for an ambulance. Mrs. Duvall shouted something from the window again.

“I’m coming you crazy woman!” Duvall shouted back. He walked over to the kids and gave them a couple dollars.

“Get otta here,” he said. “Go rot your teeth out someplace...”

The kids scattered.

Angie and I sipped our beers. Duvall went inside. Pretty soon the ambulance showed up. They hauled the painter away and that was that. The cop took off and we were all back to our lives. Angie picked up the paintbrush and laid on a couple strokes to the wood. It wasn’t even half done.

“What a sad way to die,” Angie said.

“Yeah.”

We went back to the apartment then. We got high and turned on the Saturday morning cartoons which were still going.

We watched Wile E. Coyote fall off a cliff and come back to life.