———Published August 5th, 2024———
The white of the canvas stuck out like a gash. The edges bled a mishmash of colors and shapeless abstractions. I held the brush like a surgeon—the tip gleaming red paint. But unlike a surgeon I didn’t understand the anatomy. If only it was as easy as cut here. Remove tumor there. Sew it up. Take two and call me in the morning.
But art didn’t work like that. My agent kept telling me I had to paint for buyers and this was the style that was in. So I found myself chasing a trend. Something I swore I’d never do in my innocent years as an art student.
The phone rang. I almost gratefully put down my brush and walked over to the wall where the phone was hanging.
“Hello?”
“Hello Mr. Doppel, I’m with Chicago First Capital Recovery, I’m calling about—”
I hung up the phone. It was the third time that week they had called. The third time I had hung up abruptly
I stood inches from the wall in front of me. It looked like a canvas dying. A dirty, off-white that peeled in parts where I could see the old wallpaper underneath. The phone rang.
I pulled the plug from the wall.
I turned back to the small room that had been my home and studio for 2 years. Almost nothing was inside but my easel and a cot in the corner.
I’ll paint tomorrow, I told myself. I’ll feel better then. I grabbed the small amount of spare change I had saved in a jar on the counter and headed for the door.
Outside I saw my neighbor sitting on a lawn chair in the sun. It was warm that day, but I wrapped my coat around me and tried to cross the street without her seeing.
“Oh hello, Carl, taking a break from your paintings?”
“Hi Mirriam, just getting coffee.”
Mirriam reached out her hand and grabbed mine.
“Sweetie, you look too thin, come over this afternoon and let me make you some soup to fatten those bones.”
“Oh thank you,” I said, taking back my hand, “but I’ll be busy later, uhh, painting.”
Mirriam spoke to my back as I walked away but her voice was overpowered by the sound of a garbage truck. The reek of waste hit my nose like when the doctor pricks your finger for blood. A capillary puncture of the olfactory nerve. But in its pungence, there was a sweetness to the reek. Somehow it was almost comforting.
It made me think of my art. How if I could only paint such a strong feeling. If only I could transcribe something so primal.
I crossed the street and walked into The Magic Bean. It wasn’t my favorite coffee shop. But it was the closest to my house. That and my ex worked there and she’d ignore the fact I was 88 cents short for a cappuccino.
“Hi Rebecca.”
“Carl. Good to see you out and about,” she said, tamping down espresso, “you look… thin.”
She stared at me with soft brown eyes. The same eyes that opened wide when we found a puppy in the streets and she brought it home and bathed it and fed it milk and rubbed its belly as it snored. The same eyes that glistened when her dad had gotten sick and almost didn’t make it out of the hospital. The eyes that cried when she sat me on the bed and told me she just couldn’t do this anymore.
“Thanks, I’ve been walking a lot I guess.”
I couldn’t tell her the truth. I was running out of money and barely made it out of the house these days to get groceries or a meal. And if I didn’t sell a painting soon, I’d be 2 months past rent. I would’ve been honest with her, but I just couldn’t stand her looking at me like the stray puppy.
She took my change and told me it’d be ready in 5.
I sat down at an empty table in the corner and took out my small sketch notebook from my coat pocket. I flipped through the pages trying to find something that would inspire me. Everything I saw was formless and abstract. It looked almost like someone else had drawn it. I didn’t recognize myself on the page. I hardly remembered drawing any of it.
“But that’s what’s selling,” I heard my agent—if you could even call him an agent—say in my head. But I’d been grinding at this style for months now without so much as selling a 5”x10”.
I flipped the page again and the sketch on the next page was nothing like the others. This wasn’t formless and abstract. It was me.
It was a self-portrait that I couldn’t remember drawing. I must’ve done it while in one of my fits of daydreaming.
The portrait stared back at me like a ghost on the page. Blisters dotted my face, each one a puss-filled bulge. Underneath, a smile split across. Almost seeming to revel in the wall of drawn-on fluid.
“Here you are.” I slammed the book shut as Rebecca descended with my cappuccino. She had drawn a leaf on top in the foam.
“Thanks.”
“You sure you’re ok.”
“Of course.”
On the way home I bummed a cigarrette from a stranger. Grasping the filter in my mouth as the stranger held a flame to the tobacco tip. It was a strangely intimate moment. Their fingers inches from my face.
I thanked the stranger and turned down the street.
Marlboros. I preferred American Spirits when I could afford them. Although I reminded myself that I had quit smoking last month.
I took a drag.
I was hoping to avoid Mirriam when I got home because she had a habit of scolding me for smoking.
Oh honey, smoking is so bad for you. Plus it smells, you’re not going to find a nice girl with a habit like that. What about that Rebecca? She was so nice.
She wasn’t in sight. But my relief at her absence was replaced by anxiety when I saw someone else was waiting for me at the base of the stairs.
“Carl.”
“Hi Mr. Nolte,” I said, squeezing by and taking my keys out of my pocket.
“Carl, I’m here to discuss the payment you owe me.”
Mr. Nolte was a local art dealer. One who’d sold a number of my paintings over the years. But during my recent dry spell, I had begged him for a small loan. A loan I had assured him I’d have paid back by now.
“Oh yes, of course, how about I bring that over next week. Just waiting on a check in the mail, it should be here any day.” I turned the key and opened the door.
“But Carl you’ve said that 3 times alrea—” I closed the door behind me.
I slunk up the stairs taking care to be quiet around Mirriam’s door. You never know when she might be listening. She always seemed ready to pop out and offer you a schnitzel or a bagel with lox.
I entered my apartment and looked around. The easel sat like a sore tooth mocking me.
That night I got drunk on a cheap bottle of wine I’d stored for just such an occasion. I told myself the wine would help me get inspired to paint. But it only inspired me to open my window and yell taunts at anyone who shuffled by on the sidewalk.
They looked like characters in a cartoon from here. One called me a rat bastard and I hurled the empty bottle of wine at his feet. I shut the window.
I opened my medicine cabinet and checked to see if I had any of the anti-anxiety medicine I pilfered from my aunt from New Jersey. I knew there was none left. But for some reason I checked anyway.
I would’ve gone to State Street and scored something harder from the pushers who fed the dope fiends there. I told myself I needed it, it would help me paint just like back in college. But I was all out of change. I guess it was a lucky break in some ways.
The next day I awoke with a pounding headache. I looked up from my dirty cot and the canvas stared back at me. Not a single brush stroke was different from the day before. Goddamit, I said to myself, getting a glass of chlorinated city water from the tap and chugging it down before finding my pants.
I made my way gingerly to The Magic Bean hoping Rebecca would cover a cappuccino as I was completely out of money. She wasn’t working when I arrived.
“Something about taking a trip with her fiance,” the young girl at the register said.
“Fiance? I didn’t know she was engaged.”
“Oh yeah, she’s been engaged for a few months now. Great guy, tall, works for the zoo.”
“Could you—” I began, wanting to beg for a cup to help my headache go away. “Nevermind, have a good day.” I began to turn away figuring I embarrassed myself enough already.
“Wait, you’re an artist right?” I turned back to face her. “I only ask because Rebecca said something about it. I’m actually going to art school. I was wondering if you could give me some tips sometime?”
It was then that I noticed the rose tattoo she had on her arm. The golden charm bracelet that hung loosely around her wrist.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m an artist.”
I spent the morning out of my apartment. I couldn’t face that damn easel staring at me. It had almost become a clown in my head. A jester taunting me. It reminded me of that time in college when I had taken a girl home from a party where I had horned a little too much cocaine. And when I couldn’t get it up, the girl laughed, patted me on the arm, and said “It’s okay honey, it happens.”
At least back then I could paint. Now I had nothing.
I returned home in the afternoon after walking 16 blocks to visit a cousin who ran a bagel shop.
“Carl, good to see you. You look so thin,” he had said to me.
“I know, I’ve just been working so hard, sometimes I forget to eat.”
“Sit, sit. I’ll fix you something nice, a good sandwich to put some muscles on that frame.”
I sat and talked with him until I was finished then I split.
By the time I got back to my apartment building, the walk had made me hungry again. It was like the sandwich I ate had disappeared. The hunger made my mind wander and once inside I made the mistake of stepping on the squeaky stair near Mirriam’s door.
Mirriam almost immediately popped out.
“Oh hi Carl, sweetie it’s so nice to see you, come in and have some soup.” She grabbed my arm and began to tug me inside. I felt weak and hungover. That plus the smell of chicken broth wafting out of her house weakened my will and I followed her tugs inside.
Mirriam’s apartment was actually nice. I’d never been in it before, but everything was much newer than mine. No peeling paint or moldy sink.
She brought me past the hall that led to her bedroom and into the room that functioned as her kitchen and dining area. There was a TV against the wall playing a reality show where a son was trying to find his long lost birth mother.
“Here, sit down while I fix you something.”
I sat as Mirriam poured a bowl of soup and cut a slice of hearty bread with yellow gold butter piled on top. She brought me the platter. My mouth glistened.
I ate as Mirriam watched. First quietly. Then adding in an occasion “that’s a good boy, just like my Henry, such a good appetite.”
After I finished my first bowl and she got up to refill it, I asked her about Henry.
“Oh my son, Henry. He’s around your age. Such a good boy, but always so busy now. He works on Wall Street, can you believe that? My son, a big wig suit calling the shots from a skyscraper. He’s such a good boy but he never has time to visit anymore.”
I looked around Mirriam’s apartment and noticed how clean it was. She probably didn’t have much else to do. I had never thought about it before, but she must be lonely. Her husband, Frank, was gone. A lot of her friends had moved or died. And her son didn’t visit. It was then that I realized I’d never bothered to think about whether or not she was lonely. I had been too wrapped up in my shapeless abstractions to think of her as anything other than a nuisance.
I left Mirriam’s apartment full for the first time in a long time. It wasn’t just the soup. It was something else. It was something in the way that Mirriam patted my arm when I was finished. The way she hugged me and said “goodbye, don’t be a stranger now.” Something in the way I began to miss the warm, chicken broth-scented kitchen.
I went outside and bummed a cigarette from a passerby. An American Spirit. Guess my luck is looking up, I said to myself.
The sun was setting just then and I sat on the stoop taking it in. The way the reds and oranges blended with the blue of the sky. The way the light fell on the buildings across the street. The way rays fell long on the asphalt and the human’s hurrying home.
It struck me with wonder and inspiration. It gave me an idea.
I snuffed out the half-smoked cigarette and ran upstairs yelling hello to my canvas as I stepped inside.
I started visiting Mirriam regularly over the next few weeks. At first it was just randomly when I’d see her and she’d invite me inside for soup or smoked herring or a fresh batch of cookies she was just about to take out of the oven.
Then slowly, it became a routine.
We’d have lunch together every day. She’d show me pictures of her Henry when he was young. She’d tell me stories of her husband and a tear would flow from her eyes as she said how much she missed him.
She’d hug me when I left and I’d run inside and paint.
I kept the phone unplugged from the wall and ignored the debt collection letters I received. I kept telling Mr. Nolte I’d come in next week. None of that mattered to me now.
All I thought about was Mirriam and the white of the canvas.
After a few weeks the painting was finished. It was the best I’d done in months. Maybe in years. I packed the painting and walked the 7 blocks to Mr. Nolte’s art house. He wasn’t expecting me. But I could tell he was happy to see me with a painting in my hands.
“Carl.”
“Mr. Nolte.”
“What do you have there?”
I showed him.
“Very nice,” he said. “This style is very in right now. I think I know a buyer who’d be interested. How about I hold onto it and if it sells we’ll call our debt even. In fact, I’d like to put a small deposit on a few more, how does that sound”
We shook hands.
That night Mirriam and I celebrated. She didn’t drink alcohol, so instead we cheersed our cups of tea and ate a chocolate cake she’d made just for the occasion.
A week later I visited Rebecca and paid in full for my cappuccino.
“Hi Carl, you’re looking really good.”
“Thanks,” I said, “you are too. You and your fiance must be happy.”
Rebecca looked up.
“About that, I didn’t want to tell you because I still wanted us to be friends. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.”
“I couldn’t be happier for you Rebecca. I mean it.”
I sat down and she brought me my cappuccino. A heart with a cupid’s arrow drawn in the foam on top.
On my way home I thought to bum a cigarrette but decided against it. Mirriam always hated when I smelled like smoke. And I wanted to see how the old broad was doing. But when I got back to the apartment building, everything was in chaos.
There were firemen and paramedics swarming the stoop. Red and blue flashed and danced in my eyes and in the building’s windows. I ran up to a group of paramedics who were carrying a stretcher down the stairs and into the ambulance.
In the stretcher Miriam lied peacefully. Her eyes shut so gently. A single tear streaming down her cheek.
“Mirriam” I yelled as the paramedics shoved me away. Her eyes opened and she said “Carl, such a good boy. I’m going to see my Frank after all this time. Maybe you’ll visit us for a cup of tea.” I felt my cheek go wet.
“Mirriam you’re going to be ok,” I said as the paramedics lifted her into the ambulance. The wheels groaned and it pulled away.
“What hospital are they taking her to?”
The paramedic told me and I knew the place. It was only a short subway ride away.
I walked into my apartment and realized my eyes were swollen with tears. I wiped them and sat down.
I stared at the new canvas I had gotten and began to paint. It had puffy diffuse shapes. A gentle blending of colors. It looked just like the one I had sold. It looked just like what Mr. Nolte wanted for his collector.
But inside me, something else was stirring.
So I put the canvas away and put a blank one in its place. I sketched first the outline of a face. Then I began with the values. And the shading. And the colors. And before I knew it, Mirriam’s face stared back at me. Eyes gently closed. A single tear streaming down her cheek.
When I was done it was dark out and I called the hospital where Mirriam was staying. The nurse told me she was stable and was accepting visitors now.
I packed the canvas and took the short subway ride there.
When I got there, Mirriam’s hair was flat on her head. She had tubes in her nose and attached to her wrists. But when saw me, she had a smile on her face.
“Oh Carl, such a good boy to come visit me. I guess I won’t be seeing Frank quite so soon.”
My eyes glistened.
“Here, I brought something to show you, I’ve been busy painting.”
I showed her the canvas and a tear streamed down her face. “Oh my, that’s me. You made me look so beautiful.”
“I just paint what I see.”
I sat down and grabbed Mirriam’s hand.
I’ll bring this to Mr. Nolte tomorrow, I thought to myself. For now, this is where I need to be. I’ll bring it to Mr. Nolte tomorrow and see if it sells. And if it doesn’t, I’ll give him back his deposit and I’ll try again.
I held Miriam’s wrinkled hand as the hospital machines beeped and the smell of iodine and disinfectant filled the air.