Paper Zoo

Pain echoes. It becomes a part of everyone it touches, sometimes even things. I hold my daughter, her face craning up to me with a baby’s curiosity of strangers. Her world is so small, such a tight registry of memory that I am not a part of. Babies don’t remember moments, but they do remember—not words or actions, but everything underneath. She won’t remember my unshaven face, but maybe the things it veils. Will she remember bright orange? The particular hue that only appears here, in this cold room?

We look at each other, deeply. I thought that I would cry, break down, but tears fail to come. The pain has washed out of me. It ripples to this tiny creation, something she couldn’t deserve. And it goes beyond her, to my mother. It goes four miles down the county road to my wife, who won’t see me.

It rushes over them, but it will come back to me soon.

Everything happens in intervals here. Time is sectioned like an ugly jigsaw puzzle, the pieces too neat and too similar. A tone punctuates this particular interval, and I surrender my daughter to my mother. For another week, they won’t exist. The only things that will are white walls, cement walls, old books, and steel.

I’ve lived many lives, been many things, but this is the worst of them. I can recognize that now. There’s constant noise, constant threat, no respite but sleep which is fleeting.

Sleep, and painting. One of those many things I have been is an artist. And I find it’s the best thing to distract myself with. It’s easy to disappear into a box that’s 8.5” x 11”.

I try my best to be invisible, which means that I’m afforded distractions. Watercolors, printing paper, cheap brushes, paper plates to use for palettes, books, an hour of television. Things given only so that they can be taken away. That’s the only thing that everyone understands.

I know that I’ve retreated, but it’s a form of self-preservation. To survive for 21 years, my sentence, I need to maintain some kind of beauty in my life. Even with six colors, I can do that. I love that watercolor is often the absence of painting. Landscapes are painted, but clouds are made of empty space.

I can see everything in those six colors. Florescent shadows are Burnt Sienna with Hansa Yellow, a whisper of Phthalo Green. The wood grain on the common area chairs are a combination of Burnt Sienna and Quinacridone Gold, diluted in places to create a living gradient.

A man comes my way and sits in front of me. He’s Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine tones. He’s watching me. For the first time, I’m failing at being invisible.

He studies my painting. I sit back, and he takes it from the table in front of me. I don’t want this, whatever it is.

The green of my painting bleeds through the paper to the side facing me as he holds it up. Finally, he says, “I haven’t touched the grass in six years." It’s my turn to let someone else’s pain wash over me.

He says he needs me to do something. I don’t like the way he says it, but then he says, “I need you to paint something for me.”

“Like what?”

He wrings his hands together. “For my daughter. For next week. She likes owls.”

Quiet draws out between us. Reasons not to escape me, so I say, “I have a daughter, too.”

“Yeah?” He asks. “What kind of animals does she like?”

I look down at my Carmine and Quinacridone Gold jumpsuit. “I don’t know yet.” And I think he understands.

“I’ve been in here for a while. Being in here doesn’t mean there isn’t anybody out there. And they feel everything that happens to you in here. So make sure that you don’t get lost, because there’s an after, too. I’ve gotten out before, but I don’t make good decisions. Don’t be like me. No matter how little she is, she’ll remember this in her way. Make sure at least a little bit of it is a good memory.”

The Ultramarine man’s words stuck with me. I spent the rest of the day looking through old magazines and any books with pictures to find an owl I could copy—I stuck a few sheets of paper together with water and let them dry in the sun to make a hardier leaf, to try and make something impermanent as watercolor last a little longer in someone else’s hands.

The jigsaw of time passed, buzzes and beeps indicating the precession continued on, until it was Sunday again.

They lined us up at 8:00 AM, and squeezed us into that tiny room before security. I saw the Ultramarine man with his owl. He was smiling at it until he caught me looking. He walked over to me and said, “I’m going to tell her I made this,” and I laughed for the first time wearing orange.

“I’m sure she’ll love that,” I said, and I meant it.

“What do you have?” He asked, pointing at the stack of papers in my hand.

“Good memories, I hope.” Another buzz, and guards let us through, patting us down one by one.

The Ultramarine man made it through before me, and I could see his daughter running toward him with a smile on her face.

My mother was at the same table as last time, her face somber, my little girl’s face the same way. I smiled, and she smiled back reflexively, only sort of confused once it was on her face. I hugged her deeply, squeezing my baby between us. She cooed.

“You’re in a good mood,” my mother said. “What do you have there?”

I flipped the stack over and revealed a painting of an alligator, Phthalo Green and Burnt Sienna. My daughter gasped, which made my mother and I laugh.

I pulled out the next painting like a game of peek-a-boo. It was a Quinacridone Gold barn owl, and she liked that one even more. We flipped through the entire alphabet of paintings I’d made for her. She didn’t even lose interest until we got to the river otters, but I didn’t care. I let her inspect the paintings closely, paper rippling between her tiny hands, and I watched something new echo from me to her. For the first time, my daughter knew I loved her.