The Sum of All Things
The sun beat down hard on the construction crew that worked on Neo-Modern Tudor Home Number 14 of the new housing complex. Larry removed his yellow, plastic workman’s helmet just long enough to wipe away the thick beads of sweat that ran down his face.
“Hey, Larry! Mike!” the foreman hollered to the pair working on the framing. “Bring that stack of two-by-fours over to Charlie.”
The two scarcely heard the foreman call over the sound of the pneumatic nail gun Mike was using. Mike hung the gun over a slat and hopped down to the concrete slab to help Larry with the two-by-fours.
When Larry straightened up, his foot slipped on a piece of scrap wood, and the top of his helmet bumped into the nail gun. The gun went off with a loud snap. Larry fell to his buttocks. Mike dropped the two-by-fours and grabbed his buddy.
“Hey, you all right?”
“I think so,” Larry said. “I feel a little dizzy all of a sudden. I think your nail gun went off.”
“Yeah, I heard it,” Mike said, staring warily at the gun. “That piece of crap is so worn out. They ought to replace it.”
The dizziness passed quickly. Larry felt the top of his helmet and found that it was cracked. “Hey, where’s the nail?”
Mike scanned the slab covered with bent and rusty nails and other construction detritus. “Don’t know. It’s hard to say where it went.”
“Hey girls!” the foreman yelled at the two of them. “Stop the chatter and get that wood over here!”
Mike helped Larry up. They both grabbed an armful of the two-by-fours and began carrying them to the other side of the yard.
“Man, it’s hot out here,” Mike said as they maneuvered the wood around some stacks of sheet rock.
“Yeah. What I wouldn’t give for a cold brew right now.”
“I thought Angie made you quit drinking.”
“She don’t tell me nothing. I drink whenever I want.”
Charlie waited for them with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He pointed to the clearing in the construction materials. “Just drop them right there, boys.”
Larry felt a strange tingling on his scalp and face. He removed his helmet, wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and found it covered with bright red blood.
“Hey, Larry, you’re bleeding,” Mike said.
“Yeah, I think I beaned myself in the head with that nail gun.”
Larry ran his hand through his black hair, which was hot and sticky with blood. Near the top of his head, he found a hole. He pressed his finger around the opening of the painless wound. The hole was about the diameter of his little finger. A wave of terror washed over him.
“Hey, I’ve got a hole in my head,” he said to Mike. “What am I gonna do?”
“I guess we better tell the foreman.”
Larry sat quiescently on the paper-covered examination table while the emergency room doctor studied the x-ray and CAT scan images that showed a four-inch nail embedded deep in Larry’s brain.
“It’s very deep,” the doctor said, pointing to a spot on the CAT image. “See how close the nail is to this artery? I’m afraid that if we remove it, bleeding will start, and we won’t be able to stop it.”
“So what are you gonna do?” Larry asked.
“Well, how do you feel?”
“I’ve never felt better.”
The doctor checked Larry’s reflexes and pupil reaction. “Everything appears normal. I say for now we just stitch you up and send you on your way. I’ll refer you to a neurologist here in town. You can go there and let him check you out.”
The doctor sutured the small hole in Larry’s scalp and sent him on his way. Angie, his wife of four years, was waiting for him in the hospital lobby. The smarter of the two by a narrow margin, she was a hearty, buxom woman of German-Danish decent, with a thick mane of blond hair and a round, pleasant face. Her soft appearance complemented perfectly her husband’s chiseled, Italian looks. Angie got to her feet when he approached.
“I’m done. We can go,” he said jocularly.
“Did they take out the nail already?”
“Nope. They left it in.”
“Why didn’t they take it out?”
“Might cause bleeding.”
“Well—are you going to be okay?”
“I’ve got to see a specialist. For the mean time, they told me to avoid aspirin for a few weeks and not do strenuous activity. By the way, I’m starving. Let’s go home and make love.”
Per the doctor’s orders, Larry took the next few weeks off from work. He received multiple visits from curious friends and family. None of them could tell he had a nail buried in his head. Once they got over the shock of seeing him, he became the butt of nail-in-the-head jokes. Angie was especially nice to him for the next few days, not only because of the delicate nature of his injury, but also because their sex life had improved enormously. Disregarding the doctor’s instructions not to exert himself, he began making vigorous love to her at least three or four times a day. Sore and exhausted from lack of sleep after the fifth day, she had to start resisting his advances. He seemed to have no other effects from his injury except that the stitches itched like crazy.
Larry made an appointment with the neurologist. Initially, after looking at the CAT scan sent over from the hospital, the specialist was concerned. But after an exhaustive exam, he proclaimed Larry neurologically as healthy as a horse, so to speak. Incredibly, the nail did not seem to have affected Larry’s cognitive or motor faculties.
“You’re a very lucky man,” the neurologist said.
If anything, Larry’s overall state of mind had changed for the better. He became gentler, kinder. His outlook on life had changed, too. Football no longer interested him, as the sport now struck him as too violent. He became pensive, philosophical, and he took a liking for wearing vests and light blue sweaters. Beer and other alcoholic beverages now turned his stomach. He preferred nothing stronger than Ceylon black tea with two spoons of sugar and a twist of lemon. Notably, he no longer picked petty quarrels with Angie, which puzzled but pleased her nonetheless.
Larry felt that his mental capacity had improved since the accident. As the days passed, he began to feel that he was on the verge of some great discovery, although he could not fathom what the discovery might be, or why he felt the way he did. He shrugged it off as a transient feeling, nothing more. Then one night he woke up suddenly with an epiphany of sorts—he felt he’d found the answer to a question that had plagued mankind since the beginning of rational thought.
His shook his wife. “Angie! Wake up!”
“No more,” she said groggily. “I’m still sore.”
“I think I’m on to it.”
“On to what?”
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“The meaning of life.”
“What are you talking about?” She opened her eyes and raised her head enough to see the alarm clock on the nightstand. “It’s two o’clock in the morning!”
Larry turned on the light and got out of bed.
“What are you doing?” Angie said, squinting.
“It’s incredible,” he said, pacing the room, rubbing his unshaven chin.
“What is?”
“The meaning of life.”
She sighed. “Okay, what is the meaning of life?”
“I—I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“The idea—it’s too big for words.”
“Can you try?”
Larry gestured with his hands in a way that made him look as though he were grasping the air. “It’s—I just can’t say. There are no words to describe it. It’s just too big.”
“Then maybe you don’t really know.”
“I do know. I see it before me so clearly—it’s just that the answer is—three-dimensional. That’s it. The answer is three-dimensional, so it can’t be expressed in words.”
“That’s nonsense,” Angie said, turning away from the light.
“No, Angie. It’s real.”
“Yeah, Larry the construction worker finally chanced across the meaning of life after he was hit in the head with a nail.”
“Maybe that’s what’s letting me see it.”
“You were stupid before the nail. You think the nail’s made you smarter?”
“Ha!” Larry threw on his bathrobe.
“Where you going?”
“To the kitchen.”
“Gonna get us a snack?”
“No, I’m going to show you the meaning of life.”
“Oh, brother!”
The next morning, Angie found Larry sitting at his workbench, snoring away, his head on a pad of notebook paper. Carefully, without waking him, she pulled the pad out from beneath his head and had a look. The paper was blank.
“Just as I figured.”
That afternoon, when Larry finally awoke, he sat at the kitchen table, staring despondently out the window.
“The shower drain is plugged again,” Angie said, entering the kitchen with a towel wrapped around her head.
Larry didn’t respond.
“Aren’t you going to do anything about it? And what are you doing anyway?”
“The answer is bigger than I thought.”
“What answer?”
“The answer I’ve found isn’t to the meaning of life,” Larry replied in a sagacious tone. “It’s the meaning for all of our existence.”
“Are you still on that?”
“You asked me, didn’t you?”
“If there really was an answer, seems to me someone would have already written it down.”
“Nobody can write it, because it’s so complex that it can’t be expressed in words. It’s just too big.”
“Maybe that’s the case,” she said, looking at the blank pad on the table.
“I just can’t put it into words. No matter how I try to write it down, I just come up blank. I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Well, didn’t you say the other night that the answer was three-dimensional?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why don’t you draw it?”
Larry knotted his brow. “Draw it?”
“Sure. Haven’t you heard that a picture is worth a thousand words?”
Larry scratched the place where his stitches had been removed the night before. “I think you’re onto something, Angie,” he said. He stood up and fetched his coat from the hallway closet.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
Larry returned an hour later with a painting easel, a stack of canvases, brushes, and tubes of oil paint.
“Larry, don’t you think this is going a little too far?” Angie said to him as he carried the painting supplies down into the basement.
“Just wait till you see.”
Larry spent the rest of the evening in the basement. Angie spent the evening watching television. During some commercial breaks, she would listen at the basement door. All would be quiet except for an occasional shuffling sound. Before she went to bed, she tried the door and found it locked. She rapped on it.
“Larry?”
“What?” came his muffled voice.
“I’m going to bed, now.”
“Good night.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
She heard a volley of curses.
“Larry?”
“I’ll be up in a minute.”
“All right. I’ll wait up for you.”
Angie sat in bed and began reading. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep. When she awoke the next morning, she found his side of the bed undisturbed. Down in the kitchen, the basement door was still locked.
She rapped on the door. “Larry?”
“What!” he shouted back.
“Good morning. Do you want some breakfast?”
Instead of a reply, she heard him curse at someone or something. Then there came a loud crash as though something heavy had been thrown.
“Are you okay down there?”
“I’m fine. Leave me alone.”
Around noon, while Angie was working on her needlepoint quilt, half-watching her soap operas, she heard the basement door open and shut. She dropped her needle when she saw Larry standing there, disheveled, unshaven, with tousled hair, and deep rings beneath his eyes.
“You look horrible,” she said to him.
Without a word, he went to the closet and removed his coat.
“Where are you going?”
“To the art store. I need more paints and canvases.”
“Do you want something to eat? I’ll make you a sandwich.”
He exited the house. As soon as the car had left the driveway, she went to the basement door and tried the handle. It was locked, and the spare key was missing from its hook by the stove. Consumed with curiosity, she pulled out a butter knife and tried prying the latch open. Finally, after a great deal of time and effort, she managed to open the door. The light was off, and the stairs descended into darkness. She felt for the light switch. Just then, she heard the car pull into the driveway.
Quickly, she shut the door, ran back to the living room, and took her place in front of the television, needlepoint project in her lap, just as Larry entered the front door. He then proceeded to move canvases from the car into the basement.
“You need some help?” she asked after his third trip.
“No.”
Once he’d emptied the car, he returned to the basement and locked the door.
Larry stayed in the basement for the rest of the day and into the next day. No sounds would issue from the basement most of the time, then suddenly there would be a ruckus of ripping canvas and shattering glass. Whenever Angie knocked on the door to check on him or offer to make him something to eat, he would rebuff her with foul language. Soon, she stopped knocking.
After Larry had not left the basement for three days, Angie called their friends and families to explain what he was doing and to solicit their advice. They all said to give him a few days. She called the hospital; they told her to call 911 if he became violent.
At Angie’s request, Larry’s friend Mike came to the house. Mike tried unsuccessfully to coax Larry out of the basement. When he suggested to Larry that his head injury was causing him to act bizarrely, Larry shouted through the door that he had not sustained an injury—he had instead sustained a blessing.
On the fifth day, no sounds at all came from the basement. Angie wondered what had become of her husband, whom she was beginning to miss badly, especially after the abundance of sex the week before. After lunch, she knocked on the door a few times. When he didn’t reply, she retrieved a butter knife from the drawer. She was just about to pry the door open again when she heard footsteps walking up the stairs. She backed away.
Larry opened the door and closed it behind him. He looked more dead than alive, but his expression was that of satisfaction and content. His face lit up with a broad smile.
“I’ve done it.”
“You’ve done what?”
“You were right. I had to paint it. I want you to call the family. Call my friends from work. Invite them all here. I want to unveil it.”
“What do you want to unveil?”
“The meaning of life. The meaning of existence.”
“You mean you’ve actually painted it?”
“Yep. Call everyone. Tell them to be here tonight.” He locked the basement door and trotted upstairs.
Angie called everyone, as her husband had asked. Those who could make it said they could be there at 8:00. Showered, shaved, and wearing his best suit, Larry delicately moved the easel, covered by a paint-splattered sheet, from the basement into the living room in front of the fake brick fireplace. Angie, taking the hint that this was going to be a big event, made preparations. She fixed her hair, put on makeup, and slipped into the fancy gown she wore only to fundraiser dances at the Elks lodge. For snacks, she prepared a large plate of sliced cheddar cheese on Ritz crackers and the new sugar-free red punch she’d bought at Costco. Occasionally, during her preparations, she would eye the easel, hoping to sneak a peek at what it held, but Larry sat near it on the couch as though guarding it.
Guests began arriving at 7:30. Larry’s foreman and his wife showed up. So did Angie’s sister Claire and her no good husband, Ernest. Mike and his wife Marie were the last to arrive at five minutes to eight. Everyone took a seat in the living room, where Angie served the snacks. Larry was positively radiant and beaming with confidence.
“I didn’t know you could paint, Larry,” Mike said.
“I taught myself how.”
“This isn’t just a joke, is it?” Marie, his wife, asked.
“Yeah, you’re not going to show us a blank canvas, are you?” Mike chimed in.
“Nope. And it’s no joke,” Larry said.
Someone asked Larry if he had painted an airy tunnel of light filled with angels. Larry replied that he had done better—he had painted the source of the light. He fielded all of their questions without giving away what lay beneath the cloth. His enigmatic answers raised the level of curiosity in the room to a fevered pitch. Angie, flush with admiration, whispered to Marie that her husband would be famous once the newspapers got word of his achievement.
The guests sat on couches arranged in a semicircle around the covered easel. At 8:00 sharp, Larry stood up in front of his friends and family.
“You all might want to know why I called you here tonight,” he said, stroking the breast of his light blue sweater. “Well, I have a special treat for you all. What lies beneath this cloth is a graphical illustration of all the positive and negative energies of the universe. I have distilled and interpreted these energies into a tangible form that our human minds can comprehend.”
“Hey, Larry! You’re talking like a real philosopher.” Mike laughed.
Marie shushed Mike.
Larry continued. “I have found the summit to all understanding, the nexus of man’s quest for understanding of his own existence in the universe. I have been able to capture the image of the wellspring that gives power to all life in the universe. It is the actual animating force of matter.”
A low muttering came from the guests.
“Let’s see it already!” Mike said.
“Shuddup!” the foreman snapped.
Larry’s voice cracked with emotion. “I think you will all agree that it’s unspeakably beautiful.” He clutched the edge of the cloth. “Behold the key to understanding the universe—the face of God—the Sum of All Things!”
Larry whipped away the cloth and stood back. He smiled proudly, his eyes brimming with tears. Gasps rose from the crowd. The foreman’s jaw dropped. Marie winced. Mike looked away. Angie broke out in sobs and ran from the room, for all her husband had painted was a large, singularly lovely silver nail.