by Irvine Welsh
FEW ARTISTS HAVE been denounced so virulently by the critical art establishment as Lena Sorenson, yet very few have enjoyed such commercial success. It’s strange that this mannered, almost old-fashioned, waiflike young woman from the Midwest can arouse such vitriol. For her part, Sorenson’s long-term reluctance to talk about herself and her work remains an endearing feature of this enigmatic artist.
Yet the attraction of Sorenson’s art, in the face of much critical disdain, is not difficult to understand. Lena Sorenson gets her evolved/devolved characters to do the very things that make us human. They are not just scavenging on garbage heaps and tearing each other apart, but sharing, celebrating, and, in particular, nurturing children. The Post-Nuclear Family, purchased by the McCormick Foundation for the Art Institute, is one of modern art’s most tender and emotional compositions. Sorenson’s art resonates with Western youth as it appeals to a generation devoid of hope for anything other than a dystopian future, which, for most, will be inferior to the life enjoyed by past generations.
It therefore seems highly disingenuous to deride Lena Sorenson as a “glorified comic-book illustrator.” Her work speaks to youth, and their concerns for the future (or lack of) in a consumer capitalist epoch now unable to extend credit for its citizens to continue their relentless shopping and breeding program, and which, now basically exposed as a scam for the megarich, has run out of rabbits to pull from the hat.
Andy Warhol once memorably remarked that he didn’t read his reviews, he weighed them. As long as art critics keep devoting column inches to telling us how poor an artist Lena Sorenson is, it seems certain that she will continue to laugh all the way to the bank. However, many more open-minded critics, when they see what Sorenson is representing, invariably, though often unwittingly, fall upon the discovery of her particular genius.
24
CONTACT 9
* * *
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Success!
Magical Michelle,
The annoying thing about this client: bitch got talent. Big talent. So I’m stopping at NOTHING to make her get control of her goddamned weight. You are right: sometimes you just have to show a fat bitch who’s boss.
Luce x
PS Morning Pages WILL be done!
25
HEAT
LOOKING OUT AT the world through green-tinted Ray-Bans: they make Miami less vivid, oppressive, and hallucinogenic. Throat dry and rough due to some tropical spore shit floating around that has been laying low the Rust Belt transplants. Breakfast at Taste, a concoction called “only for the fittest,” then dragging the cart round Whole Paycheck. Two model chicks argue passionately about supplements. One guy scrutinizes another’s denim-clad ass. A beachball cop grabs some bakery goods, big smile on his face. Don’t the police department have fucking rules about obesity?
Sorenson: wonder what sort of night that fat liar had? Shopping for two is a fucking drag. I load up on: protein powder, berries, oatmeal, low-fat yogurt, tofu, salmon, nuts, seeds, avocados, spinach, romaine, tomatoes, bananas, mango, apples, broccoli, cabbage, fat-free feta cheese. At the checkout, as I’m being fucking fleeced, I eyeball a copy of Heat on the rack and I’m flabbergasted to see that Miles is at the bottom left-hand corner! I pick it up and oh my God, there I am!
INSATIABLE HEROINE LUCY’S LESBIAN LOVE TRIANGLES SADDEN EX-LOVER MILES
Hunky firefighter Miles Aborgast, 28, is heartbroken about his recent split from beleaguered Lucy Brennan, the “Miami Causeway Heroine,” who disarmed a crazed gunman with her bare hands. And he cites not only her newfound fame, but her fondness for same-sex encounters for coming between them. “She’s a pretty insatiable lady—not that I was complaining at first. I knew she was dominating and liked to swing both ways, so I can’t say I was sad when she introduced other women into the equation, especially as we both dug hot girls. Afterward, though, I felt like just another toy in one of her games. Lucy’s problem is that she’s incapable of love.”
That was what the bastard meant by Heat—the fucking magazine, not the basketball team! I turn the poisonous rag around and put it back in the rack. The checkout girl shoots me a nauseating vacant but predatory “don’t I know you?” glare, and I’m trying not to react. I look across to the parking lot outside. She rings up my stuff and bags it and I pay the fucker and get out and into the Cadillac, my heartbeat pounding like I’ve just stepped off the treadmill.
My hands are clammy on the wheel, all the way over the MacArthur. I’m both anxious and excited to see how Sorenson’s coped. I park up and remove her provisions. I also have the kiddie pool, ready to be inflated. The building is still eerily deserted. Surely somebody (other than the Potters Prairie Penthouse Princess) must be staying here? I take the elevator up and quietly open the apartment door and creep down the hallway. No sounds from the living room. I resist the temptation to immediately check on her, instead going to the kitchen and picking up her phone, where I left it on the countertop. Zero calls, and the six emails are either spam or from the loser websites she subscribes to.
I switch on the kettle, then I start to blow up the pool. As it expands, a cartoon bear with a gross sex-offender smile, which reminds me of Winter, starts to take shape. He’s standing on a beach with a spade in one paw and a bucket in the other. I hear a sudden shuffling and rattling coming from the living room. — Hello! Lucy! Is that you! You have to let me go! I’ve barely slept! This has gone too far, Lucy! You’ve made your point! YOU HAVE TO LET ME GO!
— Good morning, I smile, stepping into the room to greet her, laying the kiddie pool out on the hardwood floor alongside the mattress, where she sits cross-legged, the comforter draped around her shoulders. I note that she hasn’t changed into a new set of panties and sports bra. — Morning Pages done? I look down at the blank notebook. — Obviously not. Not a great start, is it?
— LET ME GO! she suddenly screams at me, then looks to the floor and starts ludicrously pounding it with one blobby fist. — HELP! HELP!
I leave her to it, watching her contorted face throb redder. Then she breaks down, convulsing in heavy sobs as tears run down her burning cheeks.
— Scream all you like. The entire building’s unoccupied, I inform her, cupping my hands to my mouth and shouting in mimicry, — MY NAME IS LENA! I EAT TOO MUCH SHIT!
Sorenson lifts her half-bowed head up, her face soaked with tears. — Why is this happening to me? she whispers to nobody. — I’ve done nothing wrong!
— Can the self-pity, it doesn’t do a fucking thing for me.
— But what have I done? What have I done to you-hoo—
— I don’t speak pig. I don’t speak victim. You, too, should stop using such languages, I tell her and she looks up at me like a molested child. I feel myself take a deep breath. — See this as an opportunity. Here. I hand her the new diet sheet and meal plan.
She takes it in her fat greasy paw and sets it on the floor in front of her.
— I’m making you an oatmeal and blueberry breakfast, with flaxseed and a touch of honey. Three hundred cal, and full of complex carbs and antioxidants. All washed down with some green tea.
I take her piss bucket—there’s no shit in the other one—and empty the contents down the toilet and refill it. Then I prepare the oatmeal. I’m serving it in a plastic bowl with a plastic spoon. I bring it in with some tepid tea, served in a polystyrene cup, so Sorenson can’t use it as a weapon, if she ever got the balls to try and do so.
— This is twisted . . . it’s humiliating . . .
— You’re talking yourself out of breakfast, I tell her, holding the bowl away from her.
— Okay! Okay! I step into her range and she eagerly grasps it, greedily attacking her food with the spoon.
— Slowly. This has to last you. Savor each mouthful. Chew. Don’t just stuff it down.
But Sorenson doesn’t listen, and cleans the bowl out quickly. — I’m still hungry, she
moans.
— Fill up on water, I tell her, thrusting a liter bottle of Volvic in her face. — Right, let’s get you on that treadmill. Two hundred and fifty cal are getting shipped.
— I’m not getting on that! I barely slept! You are fucking crazy!
— And you are fucking heading for type 2 diabetes! Do you know what happens when you get type 2 diabetes?
A spark of fear in her eyes.
— If you think I’m gonna back down on this plan, you dunno shit about how I roll. The quicker you lose the weight, the quicker you get the fuck outta here. C’mon!
She heaves herself up, dragging her chain, pouting at me, before slowly hauling her chubby ass onto the machine. The chain dangles by her side. — It’s awkward, this chain, she lifts her wrist, — it’s so heavy . . .
— What am I gonna tell ya? Find a way. Work around it! You’ll just have to work the Total Gym a little more on the left side, in order to compensate.
Sorenson looks at me like a hormonal teenager told to tidy her room. But she’s starting the treadmill up at 3 mph then ramping it gradually to a steady 6 mph. — Take your hands off the machine! I do not want you holding it! Move your arms strongly as you run!
She complies, showing me that the bitch can fucking do it without me shouting at her, so why the need for the drama? I leave her and go to the kitchen to fix her tofu and spinach salad lunch. When I return, I get her on the Total Gym for a demonstration session. I prefer free weights for balance and core strength, but, as unlikely as it seems, Sorenson might get the balls to use them as a weapon against me or try to hurl one through a window to attract help. We start a routine, which I break up by getting her to step off the machine to do sets of jumping jacks, starbursts, lunges, burpees, and abdominal exercises. I get more moans about the chain, but she struggles through them.
When we’ve finished, she settles down quietly on the mat, holding her knees, staring off into space, and breathing heavily. I fill the kiddie pool with tepid water, disquieted by the image of the mincing, predatory bear looking up at me. I’d think twice before getting in that pool. Crazy that it’s designed for kids. Still, it’s Sorenson’s problem, and I leave her the light meal for her lunch. — This is all you’ll get till five-thirty when I come back at dinnertime. Eat it now if you want, but be prepared for a long wait.
She looks up at me with those haunted eyes. — You can’t—
— Not acceptable, I shake my head. — I don’t hear that word, I glare at her, cupping my ear. — Don’t ever use that loser word in connection with me. I can. I will. I have. And now, I’m fucking off, I tell her, shouting back as I head for the door, — WORK!
— WAAAIITTT!!!
— And wash! I point to the pool, before I split, getting out of that joint, driving back over the MacArthur Causeway, away from mundane Miami and back to the real world of SoBe.
South Beach is a marvel, as impressive and unique in its own way as the French Quarter in New Orleans. I’m delighted that, bar a few notable casualities, the art deco district escaped the bulldozers. Sometimes, though, as I park in the multistory lot, I have to concede that Lincoln is somewhat short of its Rodeo Drive aspiration, and Ocean is often more like Cancún at Spring Break than the French Riviera.
It’s the time of the year when the place loads up with beery frat boys slumming it. Two of them sit in the sun, an upturned hat laid out, displaying a sign: ROAD TRIP—NEED MONEY FOR BEER AND STRIPPERS, but they look too well scrubbed, with those sharp, entitled Vince Vaughn eyes, to succeed as panhandlers.
I swing onto Washington Avenue, the real main street in MB, with its clubs, sports bars, and fast-food joints. In the winter months, it fills up with wandering bums, who roll into town on Greyhounds and Trailways, fleeing the northern chills. Next to every ATM and every branch of Walgreens and CVS, you’ll find some drifter has set up in the mooching business.
I’m outside the Starbucks on Washington at 12th, thinking about a green tea, when my blood runs cold as a bleary-eyed, rubber-mouthed jerk, sweating in a Hawaiian shirt, lurches out a doorway, standing square in front of me. Winter. — Gotta cigarette?
I instinctively look away.
— Hey! I’m talkin t’ya. I said, gotta cigarette?
I should deck the asshole, but instead I turn and walk into the Starbucks. Once again that prick doesn’t even recognize me as the person who saved his fucking life! Why couldn’t I have stood back and let that fag altar boy McCandless put a bullet into his sick brain?
I can feel myself shaking with rage. Yet I’m aware of being not quite present in the moment, as if gripped by a fever. I order a green tea, barely noticing the customary look of betrayal on the barista’s face for declining their poisonous coffee. Then I move over to the window and sit watching the unspeakably abhorrent creep, Winter, through the glass, hassling people. A couple of tourists stop, an earnest college kid handing over what looks like a five-dollar bill. Winter pockets it with a cold grin and heads off. A sudden scalding pain in my hand: I’ve been crushing the cup and the tea has burned me. I leave it pooling on the window-ledge table, and follow the pedophile bastard, my mitt tingling painfully in the heat.
Winter crosses the street and heads down 12th, in the direction of the bay. His shorts are stained at the back, like he’s sat in something, but otherwise he doesn’t look like he’s been living on the streets. He moves purposefully, walking with a slightly twisted gait. I’m tracking him as he heads right to Alton, stopping only to make an unwelcome comment at a passing young girl, who heads on without breaking her stride. Winter then turns north on Alton, and stops outside the liquor store. He comes out with a fifth of some horrible shit, a terse smile on his face, and carries on toward Lincoln. I check the time. I need to be at Bodysculpt.
I’m only about five minutes late, but Marge Falconetti is already there, waiting helplessly to be told what to do. Like warm the fuck up, bitch! I get her into her routine and she’s actually doing reasonably well, and she’s lost a few pounds. — We’re going in the right direction again, I tell her.
This scrap of affirmation is like meat to a starving dog. — Yes, I think so, I feel good . . .
— But all that means is that we have to work harder.
Her face falls cause she knows what’s coming next. I glance at her short frame. Bitch was bred to squat. — Gimme ten squats, then ten burpees, I sing.
Of course, she hates them. — Why do I always have to do those?
I crisply slap her blubbery thigh, encased like sausage meat in the ludicrously stretched black spandex. — These are your quads. They are the biggest muscles in your body. We build these up, they burn fat like nobody’s business. We use these, I grope her thigh, — to burn off this, I take a handful of her blubbery gut. She looks sadly at me, then I watch that pampered lummox suffer for a solid hour.
As Marge staggers off breathlessly to hose down her sweating bulk, I hit the juice bar and join Mona in an acai berry protein shake. She has a distracted air, and a flinty glare lights the eyes in her frosted face.
— You look a little rough, honey, I delight in telling her. — Late one last night?
— Oh my God, Mona’s facial muscles try to twitch into some animation, but you can’t inject that much toxin and expect a wide range of expressions.
— The things we do for love, I smile, as my next client, Sophia, my sweet old widow with the bad knees, comes in. I gently put her through her paces, using the low-impact elliptical for cardio. I like listening to her talk about her late husband; I dunno if men were genuinely better back then, or if I just meet the assholes. — You obviously loved him very much, I observe, as she spills another anecdote while slowly grinding out the cals.
— I still do. I always will. I know he’s gone, but the love I have for him will never die.
— You’re lucky, I mean, to have known that kind of love . . . I look to the machine, — . . . and five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.
— Oh, I know that, she says,
getting her breath and taking my hand, and stepping off the elliptical.
— Don’t try and replace him with sugary snacks and junk food. He’d want you to be the best you that you can be.
— I know . . . She breaks down in tears. — I just miss him so much . . .
I put my arm around her. She smells of talc and perfume from another age. — We’re going to get the weight off you. Take the pressure off those bad knees. Make it easier for you to get out more. Eli would want that, wouldn’t he?
— Yes, he would. She looks up at me, her eyes strong under the lens of fear. — You really are such a wonderful, kind girl.
— We’ve got to be here for each other, I whisper gently, letting her go and stroking her arm, — it’s all there is.
Then I’m back along to the Lincoln lot to pick up the car, and inching down the causeway in heavy traffic into downtown Miami.
At the not-so-ivory tower, I bring Sorenson a grilled chicken salad dinner from Whole Paycheck. Factoring in vegetables and the sweet potato, it comes to a roughish 425 cal on Lifemap, not that I get much in the way of fucking gratitude for my efforts. — I’m sick, Lucy, you really have to let me go!
— If you do thirty minutes, Lena, three-zero, that’ll be 1,500 cal burned off today.
— No! I can’t! I said I was sick!
— It’s only your body recalibrating. It’s like cold turkey. Fight through that shit! Speaking of shit . . . well done. I pick up the bucket.
Gross bitch has practically shat her weight in dirty chestnuts. I’ve been putting flaxseed in her food and with all the water I’m making her drink, it’s already starting to pay off. I take the foul, toxic mess to the toilet and flush it away. Soon those stools will be long, smooth, and unbroken, not like she’s shat out the Thing from the Fantastic Four. And she’s used the pool and changed her clothes. I pick up the discarded items to take to the wash.
When I return, Sorenson is still pleading. — I need a Coke, or a Sprite! Just one! My head . . .