UNCLE PAUL

“YELLOW MATTER CUSTARD… DRIPPING FROM A DEAD DOG’S EYE”

I love that.

It’s the most vivid and disgusting musical lyric.

I love the Beatles. My Uncle Paul bought me my first Beatles’ album. He’s my mother’s only brother, her baby brother. She and her sisters doted on him. They believed he was going to be someone special. I was six years old and I believed so too.

Uncle Paul lived with my grandmother in a small apartment in Berkeley. My mother took my sister and me to visit every weekend. Their apartment was always warm. If it was warm outside, it was warmer inside because the heater was on. My grandmother liked it that way and if you didn’t like it you could leave.

The whole place smelled, but not in a bad way. It was a combination of last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast. It smelled homey, and told me that there’d always be food.

The rooms were dark and full of stacks of clutter; newspapers, clothes, boxes. All too important to throw away and not important enough to keep dusted.

In the front of the apartment was a sun porch; all windows with white lace curtains. It was the only bright room and where my sister and I played. It was also Uncle Paul’s studio. He was going to be a famous artist and sell his paintings for thousands of dollars.

The sun porch smelled like oil paint. In the corner was a large easel with his latest masterpiece-in-progress. I thought it was beautiful. It was an ocean scene. He had painted yellow sand and bluish-gray waves breaking on the beach. He hadn’t painted the sky yet and the white canvas was a shocking contrast to the serenity of the rest of the picture.

My grandmother yelled out from the kitchen; warned us not to touch our uncle’s painting. We yelled back that we wouldn’t. Immediately I reached up and touched a wave. It was wet and left a blue spot on my finger. I rubbed some of it off with my thumb and smeared the rest on a pile of nearby Berkeley Gazettes. I put on my innocent face and walked away, as far as possible from the scene of my crime.

Next time we visited the painting sat on its easel just where it had before. The sky was still undone and the white canvas was starting to yellow. Dust had settled on the sand and ocean. My grandmother left the room and I put my finger on the wave again. This time it was hard and sharp and left no trace of paint.

Uncle Paul came home and I asked him when he was going to finish the painting. He smiled at me and said, “Soon… soon.” We both stared at the blank sky.

A few weeks later the paints, the easel and the painting were gone. I snooped around and found the painting stuffed behind a pile of old clothes. I pulled it out. The sky was still empty yellow canvas. I took it to the kitchen where my grandmother stood at the stove stirring something in a pot. I asked her why Uncle Paul hadn’t finished the picture. She grabbed the painting from me and yelled, “You shouldn’t be snooping through other people’s things.” I followed her into the other room and she put it back behind the pile of clothes. I told her I would finish painting it. But she didn’t answer. She just went back to her stirring.

When Uncle Paul came home, he was carrying a black leather bag. He told us he decided he was going to be a doctor and make thousands of dollars. He was excited about his new career so I forgot about the painting and got excited too. He opened the black bag, pulled out a stethoscope and listened to our hearts. I was sure he was going to make a great doctor because as he listened, he looked at his watch then told us how many times per minute our hearts were beating. It was going to be fun to have a doctor in the family.

A month later, Uncle Paul decided he was going into the construction business. He bought himself a beige leather tool belt and a whole box of tools. He was going to build apartments and get rich from all the rent. I thought that was a good idea but wondered why he had decided not to become a doctor. Later, I found his black bag hidden under the most recent mountain of clutter. My grandmother wouldn’t let me have that either.

Shortly after the dust began to settle on the beige leather tool belt, Uncle Paul disappeared. No one knew where he was. My mother and her sisters would talk about him in disappointed whispers. When he finally showed up he said he had found religion. He was attending a church in San Francisco with a charismatic minister who was speaking God’s word in a new and special way. He seemed happy, like he’d finally found peace. But then he dropped out of the church a month before the Reverend Jim Jones moved them all to Guyana.

The last time I saw Uncle Paul, he was devising a system that was going to help him win the lottery. It was a chart full of numbers in vertical columns, intersecting numbers in horizontal rows. There were arrows and dates and stars, red ink and black ink. He began explaining the chart to me. I didn’t understand but pretended to anyway. I got swept up in his enthusiasm, how his eyes twinkled as he grinned with pride. He was certain his calculations were going to pick the winning numbers. I wished him luck and hugged him goodbye.

Five years later my Uncle Paul won $80,000 in the California State Lottery.

Six months earlier he had thrown away his chart.

He won on a Quick Pick.