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Show 212 the removal of his belongings made on the appearance of the rooms. He pulled the madras spread off the bed because it was his, and that helped. He dismantled the still-life he had set up what seemed a long time ago, which by now had reduced to the sum of its parts, and carried each part to its respective shelf or drawer or cabinet or nook, except the wicker chair itself, which was his, and which he carried to the back yard and turned upside down on the grass to be rained on and mold to death. He folded up his easel and laid it on the floor behind the driver's seat, and laid the painting face up on top of everything, gumming the upholstery and the headliner with wet paint. He had to admit the picture was starting to come together. He had succeeded in blocking out and subduing much of the orange background, and what he had left of it now seemed to inhabit the interior of some of the objects on the chair, giving them a fierce, harsh brilliance that pierced through the swimming atmosphere of clashing mauves, indigos, and bilious greens. He was pleased with the nervous pucker of one of the leather book covers and the way it was taken up in the nursing mother's face and reechoed in the writhing pattern of orange highlights in the paisley. The chair floated away from its background now, and somehow, through a series of overlays he had not kept track of, had begun to tip. A circular composition that he hadn't foreseen had begun to evolve, that continued in a slow, controlled arc from the cane in the center left, around to the lower right, where the composition balanced on the diagonal of the extended lute neck. He had placed the lute in the foreground finally, where he had least expected it, with its neck beamed down and to the right. It was a pity to stop now. He used the bathroom one last time and took the mouthwash with him, not because it was his but because he didn't want her to have it. As a final gesture he removed the front-door key from his chain and dropped it where |