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Daniel A. Hoyt Vincent |
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On the 23rd of December, Vincent
was lost to himself, and he had a letter to send, and that’s what makes me
part of the story. The address bore a name I knew quite well: Monsieur Theo
van Gogh. You can
learn so much from what’s on the outside of a letter. I knew
Vincent sent these letters, and he would get ones back that were heavy with francs.
I knew these things, and I knew that handwriting with its clumsy grace and
the big curl of its G. You could get caught in that
loop and never get yourself out. “Roulin,”
Vincent said, “Joseph. Joseph Roulin. How do you
do? Tell me, my friend. How do you do?” Before I could answer, Vincent
started to shuffle away from the post-station. He worked his way parallel to
the tracks, back to the house painted the yellow of rancid butter. He became
smaller and smaller, and as he lost size he became the stick of a match, his
hair a red that burns. Above us, the sun seemed lost,
and the sky was the pale dirty gray of his canvases. Everything was blank,
but someone was going to make something happen. I figured I had better keep
my eyelids raised. I knew for a while that he got
francs in those letters. I knew Gauguin, that tin of broken
biscuits, was coming, too. But, Gauguin, he doesn’t matter
anymore. He’s a bad joke. Gauguin, he’s too many whiskers under the nose.
Gauguin, he’s the whiskey you choke on. Gauguin, he’s a ticket to As Vincent disappeared to me, he
would appear to Gauguin in the opposite way, first the matchstick, then
something more human, then something much like Vincent when he was touched
with the head sickness. I was mired down at the depot. I knew where the letters went
and where they came from. The documents told me. Trains and documents, both
run on steam. I first met Vincent down here, at the station, where the burnt
sugar-cigar smell of coal made him sneeze and frown and ask for letters. He
wanted the ones rich with francs but mailed the ones that were broke. He
always traded things in this uneven way. His canvases came clean from When the last post came from I didn’t have time for some lost
bag of trouble. Someone was going to make something happen. Maybe I knew this
because of the night before when I saw them through the crack of the brothel
window. Their legs anyway, Vincent’s and the ones belonging to Gauguin, that
kettle of cold piss. I counted legs: five, six, seven.
Seven distinct legs, and my only question was, where
did they get a one-legged whore? It reminded me of the time little
Armand came into the room as his mother and I were folding ourselves into a
unity of flesh. Augustine was on top of me, and the quilt was on top of her,
but I could see him over her shoulder. “This is how I made you,” I said
to Armand, and then I said to Augustine, “No, don’t stop. Keep going. That’s
it.” The process, almost aborted,
continued in the usual manner, and I was able to look back at Armand, whose
face was neither kind nor puzzled, and I said, “One day you’ll do this too.” “But not with her,” I added. He still didn’t look kind, but I
like to think a smile onto his baby-toothed face as he toddled away. I had no
such teeth for Vincent or for soggy-assed Gauguin or for their bare kicking
legs. I gave them frowns as Armand and I followed them from the brothel to
the Night Cafe. They sat tucked off in the far corner. We watched as they
didn’t say hello. Armand, he’s a good boy of 17
now, no longer a little gimlet peeking through the door. “Armand,” I said, “do you
remember that time — you were about three — when you came into the room while
your mother and I were fucking?” “No.” “What were you thinking about
then?” “I don’t remember,” he said. “What were you thinking about?”
I asked. “Socks,” he said. That’s not what I was thinking,
not at all. I wasn’t even thinking. I was watching. I was up in my seat.
Vincent had thrown a glass at Gauguin. Gauguin, that bundle of bones left out
for the dog. Gauguin, he made those legs churn toward the door. The slick
green of absinthe puddled, and Vincent shot up, headed
out after him. The liquor would outrun them both. It had caught me before,
too. That was the night, December 22,
that led to the day that makes me forget when is when. It seems like now. I
can’t help it. “Who are you going to see?”
Augustine asks. “Just Vincent.” “Vincent. He’s a Belgian waffle,
that one,” she says. “He’s Dutch,” I say. The door closes fiercely behind
me. He has painted her, too. He should have been gentle with that brush, but
he stabbed with it. He spattered and yelped. He would slash away at the
canvas for an hour, and then you had to look at yourself, the kind of self
you would be if you were all covered with paint. He has painted me a handful of
times, maybe more, a handful and another finger’s worth. Once I wore my full
postman’s uniform. He pressed my lips into a silent triangle, and shaded my
face with pink, white, yellow. In my moustache, he made an odd swipe of
green, the color of a dying bruise. I don’t see this in the mirror. Only the
uniform looks the way it really is. He painted I could look at the pictures.
The house is full of them, but Vincent’s mirror sees me differently than
Vincent’s pictures. There’s no green in my beard. He painted that in. He
thinks I’m pinkened and whiskery. He doesn’t like
it. It makes me look like a Russian. We all look like Russians: Armand,
Augustine, me. He wrote that to one of his friends. Of course I read his letters. I
read the ones from his brother, too, but I never took the money. The money
passed safely through my hands; it was really me who gave it to him. I didn’t
want those francs. I wanted Vincent’s words. I wanted to see what happened in
Vincent’s head, and when I read those things, it seemed like he was creating
some kind of me that never really existed. It was worse than those paintings. To some other painter, someone
named Emile Bernard, he wrote this, and I wrote it down, too, so that I could
remember it later and figure it out: “I have done a portrait of a postmaster,
actually two, in fact. A Socratic type, and none the
less Socratic for being fond of alcohol and consequently high in color. A
real subject to paint a la Daumier, eh?” I still know nothing of this Daumier. Socrates, though, he was the bold one with the
questions. I don’t know if he asked them or if he answered them. But I have
some questions, Vincent: Why did you abandon me? Are you happy now? If so,
why did you write this today and ask me to send it along to My dear Theo, Thank you very much for your letter,
for the 100 fr. note enclosed and also for the 50 fr. order. I think myself that Gauguin was
a little out of sorts with the good town of As a matter of fact there are
bound to be for him as for me further grave difficulties to overcome here. But these difficulties are
rather within ourselves than outside. Altogether I think that either
he will definitely go, or else definitely stay. Before doing anything I told him
to think it over and reckon things up again. Gauguin is very powerful,
strongly creative, but just because of that he must have peace. Will he find it anywhere if he
does not find it here? I am waiting for him to make a
decision with absolute serenity. A good handshake, Vincent I study this letter as I peer
into Vincent’s mirror, then I fold it carefully, put it out of my hands and
out of my mind. It offers nothing about me. I am sick of being his forgotten
Russian, but I can change how he looks at me. A close shave takes careful
work, steady thoughts, concentrated hands. Vincent’s
straight razor has a cruel edge. Vincent’s stale cold morning water will have
to do. I am in a lather. It soaks my beard and drips
from me. My tool is sharp when he walks through the door. Vincent, before me, all prickly
red and violent brushes. Vincent, a man trying to scrape the unhappiness off
his boot with a broken twig. He shakes until the pinpricks of black dissolve
in the muddy blue of his eyes. I want the burlap grip of his dying handshake.
I want his liver-and-onions whisper. My skin nubbles, and I want to
yell the eggs into a boil. “Where’s Gauguin?” I ask. Vincent says nothing. “Is he gone?” Vincent says nothing. “We won’t let him come back.
We’ll blot him out.” Vincent says nothing, and his
flesh molds itself to my fingers. I hold an ear to scream into. The razor
slips, and a small part of him rests like a coin in my hand. There’s not much
blood, then too much blood. “You did this,” I say. “You did
this. Don’t you see? Don’t you see? Don’t you see what I do for you?” Nothing seeps from his absinthe
lips. Outside the moon is a golden
apple in the black bowl of night, and I pull it down, take a bite out of it.
I just decide I can do it. Easy as that. It tastes of lemony woman flesh and
ripened warmth. I eat the whole thing, and then it is dark. No. Then all is
dark. No. Then everything darkens. Yes. That’s it. That’s how it happened. But not
for everyone. This appeared in the paper the other day: Last Sunday night at It didn’t happen like that.
Everybody thinks they know what happened, but it didn’t happen like that.
Rachel’s just some dream inside his head. I see him every day at the
hospital. Augustine and I go. She talks, and he talks. I don’t talk. I am too
busy. I see him and watch his mouth move. I hear this story. This is my
story. I tell it to myself. Author’s note: I am indebted to
the following sources for primary material: Vincent Van Gogh by Dieter
Beaujean (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000)
for the quote from the letter to Emile Bernard; The Letters of Vincent van
Gogh edited by Mark Roskill (New York,
Touchstone, 1997) for the letter to Theo van Gogh; The World of Van Gogh
1853-1890 by Robert Wallace (New York: Time-Life Books, 1969) for the newspaper
account. Also, the portrait of Joseph Roulin in
full postman’s uniform belongs to the collection of the |
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Arts & Letters is supported by |
Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture Campus Box 89 Georgia College & State University Milledgeville, GA
31061 Phone: (478) 445-1289 E-mail: al@gcsu.edu
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GC&SU is a member of |
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