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The Shirt
by
Gwyn Henry
I died in that shirt. It was on a Monday afternoon--or maybe a Tuesday.
Point is, that shirt-- and in it, I died.
It always hangs in her closet, right next to her silver fox The thing is worn quite threadbare now. All those washings. Starchings. Ironings.
Amazing. After so many years, a wealthy woman who still irons. It's because of her beginnings--Chin's Chinese Laundry, Excellence and Service Above All.
If I'd been superstitious, I'd have taken the rain for an omen. Drops the color of stale tea. But I'm not like that.. I had Neal drive me in the Bentley. Told him to wait in front.. I remember how warm they were, those January rain drops that found the back of my hand when I stepped from car. She was inside, all seventeen years of her. Painting her fingernails. Cigarette resting in ashtray.
I tossed the shirt on the counter, "I must have this by seven tonight, I've a very important engagement."
"Whatsa big deal, Jack? You got no other shirt, big man like you?" she looked at me with an insolent grin
I decided to take her into my confidence-- I didn't want the shirt ruined for punitive reasons. "Well you see . . . I had this shirt made in Paris last year, and it's awfully comfortable and . . ." I leaned toward her and whispered, "I consider it my lucky shirt. You understand . . . "
She kept painting her nails, but one sloe-eye drifted toward me. She blew on her nails, "Sure, Jack."
Smart aleck! I thought, and said "My name is certainly not Jack. I'm Theodore Renoir Brantson." I removed my hat. Surely she'd heard of me. I owned half the movie houses in San Francisco.
She snatched the shirt from the counter top. Shook it out. Spread it on the counter. Noticed the monogram. Her index finger traced the flowery "TRB." Smooth, delicate little finger. Young. "Pretty..." she said.
She shoved a yellow pad and pencil toward me, "Write address...we deliver at 6:30."
I scribbled, handed pad back to her. Our fingertips touched. She looked directly into my eyes. Smiled. Foreign. Exotic. Beautiful. Cherry blossoms.That's when my last days began to tick.
*
In March, on a windy morning, Mai became my wife.
The following August, just before cocktails on a sunny afternoon, she shot me through the heart. Used the pearl-handled. derringer I gave her for her birthday. *Accident*, she told the police. Already tired of me, old coot twice her age.
By the time she brought my shirt home from the morgue, I was nothing more than an invisible fog, moping in the corridor. I followed her to the laundry room. She rinsed the blood out in the sink. Then to the bedroom. She sat on our bed mending the hole. I watched her from the corner. For the next thirty-five years.
She starts every morning at the laundry room sink. Then to the ironing board. My shirt is spread on the board like an altar cloth. She guides the iron over the linen territory and smooths it to a pristine plane.
Day after day. Her knuckles are swollen now with arthritis. The backs of her hands crepey. Hair. Silver.She chants as she irons, in a little sing-song voice. It never varies.:
"There now. Blood all gone,
good as new. OK. Blood gone.
Uh huh. Uh huh. Good as new.
There now..."And every night while she sleeps, the stain comes back, circles the little patched hole, and waits patiently for her until morning.
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© Henry, 2006
Gwyn Henry lives in Escondido, California with one husband, one daughter, and one cat, where at various times, she has taught writing classes on the Pala Indian Reservation, at a metaphysical bookstore, and in her own monthly prose critique group; and edited/published a poetry broadside, /The Horse Might Talk./ She also directs and teaches an interpretive/improvisational dance class which is sponsored by the California Center for the Arts.