FicWad

Chapter 1

There was too much starch in my shirt collar: it stood flush against my neck, stiff as if with rigor mortis. The sharp crease in the fold was burrowing grooves into my flesh. “Damn shirt,” I muttered for perhaps the thousandth time that hour, “I hate this shirt. Didn’t want to wear it anyway.”

This was true, because that afternoon when I stepped from the shower there the offender sat, reclining in my desk chair, mocking me with its cardboard stillness. Never before in my life had I wanted to see a wrinkle more. Deciding to ignore it and its evil glower, I instead went to the drawer and fished out another shirt, but my actions were soon halted as Mother’s voice then drifted up the stairwell: “Ami, dear,” the quiet command was palpable in her voice, “I bought you a new shirt for tonight. It’ll look so cute on you, you should wear it.” And by “should”, I knew that Mother meant “wear the freaking thing- you don’t know how much it cost me.”

So there I was, crunching the material of the shirt between my forefinger and thumb, glaring bitterly at anything near to me as if they were the source of my misery. I was convinced that Satan had possessed my shirt then, for, when I let go of the fabric, it sprung back into its sadistically pristine position. Pain sparked where the fold situated itself back into my neck grooves.

The worst part was that my pain wasn’t even worth it. The shirt was butt-ugly: it was basically a midget’s muumuu in a symphony of murky lavender with flower buttons and no sense of body proportion. With too long sleeves, too tight shoulders, and a mermaid tail-esque at the midriff, I knew that tonight I just screamed pheromones and sexy.
Sighing, I turned my attention to the gallery around me, trying to forget my misery in the beautiful art latched onto the wall like ivy. Actually, scratch that, the piece in front of me-a still life of daisies by a window-was both boring and cliché. But I suppose it was executed nicely, so unscratch “beautiful” and just add “boring and cliché.”
“Man, Aims, check out this yard sale junk,” my friend, Lynn, whispered in my ear. Due to her silver stud tongue ring, each word clicked like Morse Code.

“Yeah, I know,” I quipped back, shirt issues temporarily forgotten (thank God). “It looks like a Paint-by-Number. Couldn’t she at least tried to be more original?”
“Oh, you mean like in the picture of the old dude masturbating out by the entrance?” Both of us shivered in repulsion.

“That was sick, and wrong, and inhumane.” I shook my head as if to banish the memory. This of course only succeeded in releasing my fuzzy side bangs into my eyes, so I tucked them back behind my ears. Why humans were even given hair was beyond me.

“I just want to know the thought process behind setting up the gallery with Senor Touch-Myself in the same vicinity as this-“Lynn threw her head back in an elaborate yawn, “-pretty little ditty.”

I smiled. “Thought process? What thought process?”

“Yeah, well, I know why I’m bitching and complaining, but it’s still a mystery as to why you are.” She stuffed her hands into her jean pockets; some of her rings caught on the material. “You’re gonna be the most famous artist ever in no time if galleries show shit that even I could do.” At this, Lynn broke into a huge grin, the type that folds the cheeks into a fleshy fan beneath the cheekbones. Struck by her beauty, I only offered an awkward, grimacing grin in return.

“You know, Evelynn Diana Wilson, I never want to hear you say that ever again.” Both of us gave a start as a set of hands gripped our shoulders. “Because, whether or not you can measure up to the artist’s caliber, the fact remains that they made it and you didn’t. Any idiot can copy something to the T, but it takes true genius to take the first step forward.”

“Hector!” We chirped in unison. There was an understood “Uncle” before Lynn’s “Hector!”

“Ladies!” Hector parroted our tone. He was an odd man-perfect for the art scene that he was so deeply rooted in- with long hair whisked back into a ponytail, sharp eyes framed with black glasses, and an outfit made of mostly leathers. With shameless amusement, I noted that his every movement squeaked.

“Uh, Hector,” Lynn stumbled, “This gallery thing’s-uh- great. Really something.” Click, click, click went my metallic African tribesman of a friend.

“Fantabulous?” Hector offered in deadpan. Looking between Hector and Lynn, I could see a family resemblance: both were built long and lanky, with thin noses and hard eyes. If Lynn’s hair wasn’t a shocking pink color, they would probably have matching blond locks.

“Fantabulous? Not so much,” Lynn slid a bony arm across my shoulders. The two shared a meaningless look. I squirmed under her arm, finally able to sympathize with anachronisms in that my plain Jane style and existence was years apart from their modern, edgy auras.

“Um,” I began in a small, waning voice, feeling sullied by trying to force my words into their silent conversation. “So, it said on the flyers that some of your work is up?”
“Flyers? Yes, I think Jade did plaster a few of those up around the city.” At the puzzled look on my face, Lynn grinned and pointed at her ring finger.

“Wife?” I muttered, hoping to only transmit the oafish message to her; unfortunately, Hector picked up on it as well.

“Yes, yes,” he said with a wave of his hand, “of course she’s my wife. But, more about her later. Back to the matter at hand- art!” There was a puerile gleam to his eyes. I could almost see his childish arrogance drawing about him like a jacket. “Come, come. My little slice of this exhibition is in the farthest room, between the abstract landscaper and the Neo-Dadaist.” As he led them through the tight crowd of people, Hector chirped out all the fineries of his “vision.”

Glancing towards Lynn, I could tell that most of his words were being trampled beneath her feet.

“-And so I decided to meld my impressionism with the politically charged icons of today in order to assuage the full impact. I know: ‘Hector’s a pussy too meek to fully relay his message and take the hits.’ Nonesense! I plan on sneaking into the human mind like one of those alien brainsuckers from those old movies. Once inside their heads, my notions, even if they don’t understand them, will fester in their minds until one day they’re like ‘Woah, shit, this nation’s screwed up! Thank you, Hector Wilson, for showing me the light!’”

“Hey, Unkie Heckie?” Lynn was clacking her tongue stud on her front teeth.

“Yes?”

“Are you showing us a painting or some new, deadly plague? I mean, we’re blood and all, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to let your ‘ideas’ fester in my mind and give me leprosy or syphilis or some other weird disease.” I bit my knuckles to stifle the laugh.

Hector didn’t miss a beat. “Culture is not a virus, Lynn. It is gift of celestial ambrosia granted to only the most worthy, and you, my dear, are like a starving man in comparison.”

Unsure whether to rise to the bait, Lynn peered at me. Releasing my knuckles, I poked her shoulder and whispered: “Burn!” She stuck out her tongue, but allowed Hector to be victorious in that argument.

We had entered the last room. It was, if possible, even more stuffed than the first two. Due to the close proximity with maybe thirty others, the air grew denser and thicker by the moment. I clawed at my collar heatedly, my loath towards it once more blossoming in the pit of my stomach. Above the horizon line of heads, I could see the tips of paintings and the golden frames securing them against the wall. The white walls climbed upward into a domed ceiling, and a dozen of blue glass lamps swung slowly over the mob.

Hector wove deeper and deeper into the unyielding crowd, this mass of humanity rushing with a feverish passion towards colorful squares on the wall. As I elbowed a giggling girl off of my foot, I was reminded uncomfortably of a concert pit. There were even alcohol fumes laced in the air. Lynn latched onto the cuff of my shirt as the crowd moved clockwise to drink in the next piece of art.

Good to know this progeny of the Devil’s entrails known so affectionately as a shirt could also double as an unbreakable lifeline. I kept that in mind in case one of us was to fall off a cliff on our quest to Hector’s art.

“Voila!” The sudden boom of Hector’s voice startled a transparent old woman, who then shuffled away from us with many an evil glare. Jostling our way through the last stretch, Lynn and I finally surfaced, only to be an inch from the wall. “Well,” Hector started, his words wringing together like a pair of sweaty hands, “What do you think?”

I craned my neck. From where we were, it was almost impossible to discern any part of his painting.
“I think I can’t see shit,” Lynn grumbled darkly. She had a slight case of claustrophobia that only seemed to end in violence and shattered feelings.

“Give it a minute,” Hector said. Her caustic mood seemed to calm his nerves. Odd family….

The more I stared, the easier the shapes seemed to fit together. At first it was just dots: a sea of endless, freaking dots. Then they started to swim and reattach themselves into a figure. I squinted my eyes- it looked so familiar. The mutterings of the people around us became a constant hum, a kind of white noise. I blocked most of it out in my attempt to figure out the painting.

“Hector,” I began, blinking my eyes rapidly, trying anything to get the image to settle, “I don’t know if I can—“

“Oh, sweet mother in Heaven,” hissed Lynn.

“What?”

“Hector, honestly?”

“What? What is it?” I turned from my friend to her uncle, who was beaming at us.

Lynn heaved a belabored sigh. “It’s God. Only, he’s holding those little puppet string-controller things, and the strings are attached to an Arab soldier and an American soldier.” My eyes widened; the buzz of voices around us sharpened then, revealing heated discussions. Some were whispering scathing remarks about Hell and Damnation, others, who were all of those with dyed hair or shark fin Mohawks, chuckled in amusement and proclaimed how inspired it was. I just stared at Hector. More and more eyes began to accumulate as people understood Lynn’s words and recognized Hector to be the creator of this controversy.

Apparently Hector’s On Switch was attached to public attention. Winking at us, he detached himself completely from the crowd and leaned his back against the wall, one corner of his painting’s frame lingering by his lead like a tangible thought bubble. “Ladies and Gentleman,” began Hector the Impromptu King, “I can see that an explanation, or a translation, rather, is in order so that my piece’s message can be understood to its fullest!”

“Well,” Lynn said softly in my ear, “there goes his ‘silent but deadly’ plague plan.” I nodded. The patrons around us were pitching their commentary below Hector’s volume.

“If you were to ever flip through a book detailing the history of warfare and religion, you will find the two horribly connected. They are twin concepts: violence and faith, both important and dramatic. When man began to ponder the origin of our race, i.e. where we came from, the line of thinking branched off into a multitude of reasons. These explanations for the existence of man then became religions.

“Unfortunately, man is an obnoxiously domineering race, and so no one could just let the differences be; one had to be right, and all others would be wrong. So, naturally, man threw down all sense of logic and launched into a series of campaigns and bloody wars to prove who was the right one: who had it all figured out. There is no such thing as peaceful coexistence. Religion is founded on the face of a gored child.” He paused then, momentarily at a loss for words as he scanned over the crowd. I shifted my eyes about as well, and found some heads to be jerking up and down in approving nods, while others, older patrons, worked his affront through their papery jowls.

There was a cough. I rolled my eyes, it was so cliché, but the noise jostled Hector’s stack of thoughts back into place. With a sheepish smile, he shrunk away from his painting. Instantly the chatter began again, like the whole room had just unclogged its ears.

Lynn’s probing hand knifed through bodies and seized her uncle. As she dragged him and I through the crowd, searching in vain for a pocket of fresh air, she hurled her thoughts over her shoulder. “Excellent. They’ll never know what hit them. I particularly enjoyed the subtlety of ending it with the image of a slaughtered kid.”

I glanced over to Hector, who, although twenty years Lynn’s senior, was taking her words silently, like a scolded child. There was still a faint stripe of a flush clinging to his cheek bones.

“It felt like the right way to end it.” He was straightening himself out then, lengthening his strides and drawing his chin up. An artist will defend his choices to the death.
“It was a shitty way to end it, but at least you scared the Jesus out of those old blue hairs.” At times, I found it immensely trying to sort Lynn’s pissed-off voice from her cynically-amused voice. This time her voice rang with the clarity of the latter. “Did you see them?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying once more to breach the conversation, if only to remind her of her nails digging divots into my wrist, “They looked like they were going to bitch slap you with their Bibles.” Hector slipped me a gloating smile before wrenching his hands from Lynn’s grip.

“Back room,” he said to the both of us before carving a tunnel through the mass of bodies surrounding us. Following suit, Lynn and I kept closely to his leather-clad back, the flick of his ponytail, until we found ourselves facing a metal door nestled uncomfortably between a portrait of an old woman with green skin laughing hysterically and a surrealistic piece showing an orgy of moose-looking creatures. The door was tall and slim, green painted, and bore a hand-made plaque reading “Employees Only. Trespassers Will Be Mauled By Attack Yhettee.”

"You're such a dork," said Lynn, though her grin belied her annoyance.

After rifling a minute through his pockets, Hector produced a key the same color as the door, unlocked it, and slid in through to the other side. Lynn and I swapped uncertain looks, but ventured inside after Hector’s finger manifested once more and curled in a beckoning motion.
I hadn’t fully understood how oppressive and humid it was in the gallery until I entered the air-conditioned office. It’s amazing that the paintings weren’t melting off of the gallery walls.

The space wasn’t impressive, and it was cluttered with files of papers and Hardees bags strewn about, but it had a computer, a phone, and the aforementioned cool breeze.

Actually, it was almost like a furnished broom closet. With much bravado, Lynn plopped down into the computer chair, and Hector lifted himself onto the desk (after shoving a stack of books to the floor, of course.) Seatless, I shifted from foot to foot, and pressed my back against the wall. It was so cold that I shrilled, earning a few chuckles from Hector.

“Aw, pookie,” Lynn cooed and, much to my embarrassment, pulled me over to sit on her lap. “Come sit with Sissie Lynn-Lynn.”

Her legs were so bony. It felt like I was trying to balance on a saw blade; but I didn’t shift around for fear of crushing her leg. While I fidgeted in discomfort, Lynn took it upon herself to braid my horrible frizzy hair into what she hoped would be one, uniform plait. Fat chance.

“So, Ami,” Hector began as he fiddled with a turquoise and orange hacky-sack, “how goes the art?”

“D’jou say ‘fart?’” Lynn snapped her head up, a hair tie clenched in her teeth. Rolling his eyes, Hector attempted to hit Lynn in the face with the hacky-sack, but ended up whapping me in the eye. I yelped.

“Bitch!” Lynn growled at Hector. “Don’t you dare harm my little Ami-pumpkin-pie-doll-face or I’ll chlorophorm your ass and throw you in a river.” If not for the whole eyes watering and sniffling shtick I was working on, I would have been quick to mimic her threat.

Shrugging as a way of apologizing, Hector asked his question once more. Still nursing my stinging eye, I put as much gruffness in my words as I could, but was ashamed at the whine lilting the end of every sentence. “You know, still painting. Lynn models for me a lot, and I do a whole bunch of paintings of Markston from the roof of my house….” I truthfully felt my words trail off; I didn’t just let them meander into nothingness like one of those angst-ridden people who always leaving that unspoken part of their sentence to be a mystery.

“What about your emo?” Lynn piped up from behind me. Deterring her attention from my hair made her hands sloppy, and I hissed as she snapped a few hairs.

“Emo?” Hector was toying with the hacky-sack again.

“Yeah. It’s stupid, but I’ve developed this character that I just like to incorporate in every one of my paintings, like a signature or something.” When given light, it sounded stupid and cheesy. I rushed through the short explanation, hating how unsure my voice sounded.

I wish I had Lynn’s strength.

“Really?” If Hector was a dog, I could imagine his ears swiveling forward in interest at this point. “What does he look like?”

“Uh,” a blush crept up into my face, “well, he’s basically an emo posterboy: tall and lanky, pale, with dark, curly hair….” I groped around for the right description, but drew a marvelous blank. It must have shown in my eyes.

“And?”

“And....” I sputtered for a moment, then sighed. “I can’t really describe him. He just is, you know? He’s completely uninteresting and can easily be glanced over in a crowd. He’s just my little way of personalizing every painting.”

The look I was receiving from Hector then resounded with disappointment. I felt like the student that is so close to breaking new ground in a discussion but just fell short of the mark. Lynn’s silence and stillness behind me connoted two things: my hair was successfully braided, and she could also taste Hector’s disdain.

‘I could tell him more. Make stuff up. It shouldn’t be hard.’ I have issues with people being upset with me.

Before I could flesh out the rest of my emo, another person scrambled through the door. We turned our heads in one motion in order to watch the lady brush her self off and relax into the spaciousness. She held the same, arty air as Hector: a shock of red hair sat in crisp edges down her pale neck, her body was a jumble of bones and points, and her eyes were ablaze with a intensity. Without even being told, I just knew that this was Jade, Hector’s wife.

“Hector,” she called to her husband, “my shift’s done with the front door. It’s your turn while I revel in the air conditioner. And Lynn,” my friend nudged me off of her lap so that she could look Jade in the eye, “Margaret called from Chuckles. She said for you and Ami to get your ‘pale white asses down there.’” It was amazing that she was able to relay the message without a shred of emotion in her voice. Maybe I was wrong about the fire in her eyes. Or maybe there was so much of it that it was clogged and never could make it to the rest of her.

Emotional constipation….

I shook off the image as Lynn shook me off her lap completely.

“Well, Uncle, it’s been entertaining,” Lynn said to her uncle, who was still watching me inquisitively, “but we should get to Chuckles before Margi eats our babies straight from our wombs.”

Jade quirked her eyebrow at this, and I mouthed “figurative babies” to her.

“Apparently her favorite comedian’s in town or something. Ready to ditch this hell hole, Aims?”

“Cultural hell hole,” both Hector and Jade corrected in unison. I did a double take, and silently swore to myself that I would be forever wary about marriage: it seemed like a freakshow.

“Er, yeah. Well, adios Heckle and Jyde!” Fitting her hand into the usual grip on my forearm, Lynn pried open the door and dove into the sea of. Craning my head around, I opened my mouth to shout back a thanks and a “good luck with your art,” but I couldn’t fit all those words into the time allotted, so I just shrilled “bye!” and then was swallowed once more by the crowd.

Through elbows and past shoulders, I saw Hector mutter something to his wife. A dark look full of meaning passed between the two of them, and then the door closed on the scene.