Shades

My brother once lived in a huge Victorian home. It stood across the street from another towering once grand house. The homes were glorious in their day; fine estates of the well to do.

Much of the architectural detail could still be seen on the outsides. The insides were sliced and diced into tiny apartments and studios, betraying every hint of their youthful beauty. The two aging Victorians stood in fading vigil of a sketchy neighborhood comprised of smaller deteriorating dwellings and unkempt lawns.

But my brother was feeling his way back from having spent two years in a war. “They” said he’d have no trouble getting a job when he returned. He did. “They” said he could go to college on the G.I. bill. He didn’t.

The years spent in the army must have seemed a lifetime to him. He didn’t recognize the world he returned to. The music was strange, the style of dress almost clown-like, and the air in that town often reeked of marijuana.

He was out of place. He missed out on being part of the culture that had so drastically changed in such a short time. His experience had been part of a different culture – a scary, heartbreaking, unexplainable world. One that couldn’t be understood by those at home. One that he and others like him were wrongly blamed for.

At one point, he bought a black light. Black lights were almost passe by that time, but I thought it must have been one of those things he thought he missed out on.  He didn’t have curtains on his windows. He had white shades that lit up in the ultraviolet glow. A few nights later, he bought some day-glo paints. I was there, and Soupy, and most likely, Little Eddie.  But I don’t remember who else was at his apartment that night. He always had visitors. We all painted pictures on the shades. I remember I painted a tree. Someone else painted a shooting star. Night scenes, mostly.  We all liked the effect and sat back to admire our creation. We talked and laughed for hours and fell asleep there.

The next morning, the painted shades looked ill. Day-glo, in contrast to its name, does not glow in the daytime. But then, my brother just rolled them up. The sun shone through the windows. And in those early morning rays I saw in his face a definite glimmer of his fractured world merging.