Matador

It was hot in the studio-too hot for October.

The canvas stared at him from across the room.
Big painted-over eye both threatening…and voracious.
Half-finished work hung slap-dash on the walls of his studio-these paintings all seemed to be starving-with a hunger focusing on him and him alone. Like orphans whose parents were unknown, forgotten: all too needy, all missing vital bits and pieces.
“It’s great to throw color on, work your brush and feel that high, but totally another thing to actually finish.” The words rang in his head-metal scraping on skin.
The works-in-progress of Jimmy Neff were out for blood right now.

Compromise? Hell, just so he could gain some progress, he’d sell out-Monty Hall, door number two-style.

Get outta here. A break would help. Manny’s opening...the gallery where he met that girl.

He made it to the opening about five minutes before Walter, the gallery owner, started flashing the lights. He’d seen enough promise and potential for the night, the young darlings of the creative world. The dream palace was closing. Go forward on your dark missions and be gone.

Scanning the room, Jimmy picked out a few faces. Nodding to one or two, avoiding more than that, he joined a trio of friends, busy yapping away.

“Good stuff, if you like this kinda thing. I didn’t think that Manny it in him.” said Nelson.
“Yeah, alright,” Scotty added,” but haven’t we seen this shit so many times before? I mean, this sort of stuff is all over the place. You know, like give me a fucking break-it’s relentless.”

Jimmy, not wanting to join the assault, coolly offered a hello and asked when the Whitney show opened.

Information rendered, the group got back to panning the show. Boring. You’d think that it’d kill them to be constructive-and maybe stop waging war against the obvious.
But didn’t he fall into the same rut? Tired conversation, tired thought-don’t we all fall into lock step so easily? Much easier to use the well worn grooves than to break new, hard ground.

He sauntered away from the trio and snagged some grapes from the picked-over food table. What’s good? White wine, cheese, crackers, grapes. World without end, amen.

After bumping into Willy and making yet another promise to see the work of his brilliant young painter friend (His old studio partner seemed to have an eye for this youngster-Jeezus, was Willy turning gay? Hadn't seen that coming!), Jimmy took off, trailing the cigarette smoke of the hip behind him.

Getting these appearances down-musta been there all of eight minutes-eight minutes too long, if you ask me..

Christ, what did Manny’s new work look like? He hadn’t even glanced at it. No matter. If he ran into him, he’d fake it.

He turned down that dim alley off Varick-you know, the one that had a dance club for a whole three weeks. Dark and narrow-a mugger’s happy meal. Halfway down the street he saw a blur in the cab of a parked truck-one of those big box vans that provide the perfect palette for aspiring grafitti artists-then he saw it again. Driver and ho? No. Jeezus. What the hell’s a bird doing in there?
It was one of those little jobs-a sparrow or wren-the ones you barely notice-you know, they kinda blend into the scenery…stupid thing, how’d it manage to get stuck in there?
Well, that thing’s gonna be stuck till Monday morning. Whoever’s drivin’ it is sure gonna have himself a mess a bird shit to clean up..
Try the door-maybe I can get it out. Probably set off some stupid alarm and spend the night under fluorescents in the local precinct-yeah, good one. Passenger side locked. Driver’s side locked. Whatd’ya expect. No alarm, thank God. Damn bird is flyin’ scared now, knocking the glass tryin to escape me. Shit, I’ll open it later. Got that pry bar after I locked myself out that time. Come back when the party people are in bed.

He let himself into the studio, put on the coffee and eased himself back into his work. A brush, some paint, a half-drawn thought, images more knee-jerk than formulated. Who needs reason?
Many times, he asked how just how it was that he was a painter-or, more to the point, how he was chosen. Like he had anything to say about it. Blessing and curse rolled into one. Like a coupla cats tied up in a bag, chucked into the nearest river-clawing their way through only to encounter water. And more water.
It was hard work. “Only bad painters enjoy painting.” Collins somebody said that. Losing the thread was so easy-having a language of your own meant that there were no maps, no signs. My language, my world-out here, no one can hear you scream. Even if they could, would they care?
Paint something nice, not this useless crap.

Must have dozed off when he sat down on his old bumspring couch. He just needed a little distance to try and figure out the painting. Bad move. Didn’t even know what hit him. Out like a light.
It’s 7:30 and already light outside.. Cripes. Wasted the brush for sure-I’ll never get this dried paint off it. Take a leak. The dog already did.

Hit the Korean fruit stand for some breakfast. Coffee, hard roll. Where’s my wallet?

Shit. The bird.

He made a detour off his usual -it was only three blocks to the Koreans’ anyway, but Jimmy veered off to check the bird. It was warm already-this sure was gonna be another hot day-too hot for October. Wait, the truck is gone… hold on, no, that was the other one-it’s still there.
He came around to the front of the truck. After he checked for cops, he boosted himself up on the running board.

There, bracketed by white splotches on the seat, was the dead wren, feet curled up in surrender.


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I started this a while ago-it has been through many revisions and probably could go through many more, but I decided to make a committment of sorts and "print" it.