“I’m going to rub than d-mn coffin right out of the painting, that’s what I’m going to do, hmm-mm-mm.”
“Paw?”
Andy twirls away from the flawed painting Uncle Herbert gave him as a wedding gift for his first marriage and toward his son from that marriage, trying to block his vision of what he was doing to it with his body as best as possible.
“Opie, what’re you doing out of bed?” Andy says in a harsher tone than normal, which of course Opie, being the sensitive child he is, picks up on. Something’s wrong, he senses.
“I-I just wanted some milk. And maybe cookies (!)” Should have been a laugh track there, Barry De Boy thinks from the couch, also understanding something’s wrong.
“Milk milk milk, okay okay okay,” Andy says while rushing over to corral his son and herd him toward the kitchen. “And then right straight back to bed. Do you realize what time it is?”
—–
After making sure Opie is good and tucked in again, Andy returns to the painting. But his rubbing has made the child’s coffin even *more* visible to his complete exasperation, uncovering additional layers of paint. “What the–” he says while staring at it, and then instinctively glances over his shoulder to make sure Opie didn’t come back down again. “That’s it that’s it, wedding gift or no, this painting’s got to *go*,” and he grabs it with both hands, intending to take it out to the squad car parked in the driveway and dispose of it in the dumpster behind Floyd’s first thing in the morning, before he even goes into the office. He’s just that determined — suddenly — to be done with the thing. Uncle Herbert hadn’t visited in months after all. But Aunt Bee, he thinks. Herbert was her favorite brother. She’ll notice, she’ll be upset; won’t let off until he puts the painting he gave us back up above the mantelpiece, pheh.
There’s another way, he realizes. Who can change a painting but a *painter*. “Barry De Boy,” he says aloud, probably to the camera.
“Barry De Boy??” Barry utters too. He looks down at the red tie, wakes up.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 