My Stepbrother, the Artist

by Sybil Ling

  Tempered conversation fills the air as people admire the art installations that cover the walls and space. No one piece is the same, nor is any one of them the use of a single piece of media. Against one corner is a cotton canvas be-speckled with a torn-apart car engine; there’s a rubbish bin imported from London and filled three-quarters full with the rotting refuse of embalmed roadkill; a single vinyl record covered with a 5-foot high tower of real whipped cream lies in the middle of the floor.

  But behind Zach Daniels himself is the real reason that everybody is here: his latest piece, currently covered with a sewn-together makeshift quilt of old burlap coffee bags, is hanging on the wall. He stands in front of it, himself wearing an old surfer’s t-shirt and rugged blue jeans, holding a double Jack Daniels on ice, the very drink he claims to be part and parcel of himself.

  Zach isn’t talking to anyone; indeed, he has refused to open his mouth except to sip his drink, despite his friends and colleagues coming up to congratulate him on his latest piece of work. Whenever approached, Zach merely smiles and sips his drink, staring at whoever is speaking to him until they go away, unsurprisingly quite a bit ruffled.

  The gala has been going on for almost two hours now, and with the main attraction still not unveiled the crowd is starting to become impatient. Their annoyance flows out of them like an electricity, filling the air, and Zach smiles to himself as he takes another calm sip of his drink. He’s on his third one already, and it’s almost time for the show to begin.

  Just then, an armada of alarm clocks goes off and the conversations immediately drop. Tinny-sounding cuckoo clocks, buzzing morning alarms, and the sounds of roosters crowing fill the air and force people to cover their ears as they whip their heads around, trying to locate the source of the cacophony.

  But the shrill alarms are coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, as Zach has hidden them in the walls, in the rafters, even inside of his other installation pieces. He simply smiles more broadly as the people look nervous, the din of noise becoming practically unbearable. Zach raises his arms and shouts out to the crowd:

  “My people!” and they all turn to look at him, the sounds still filling their brains and eardrums alike. “Behold, for you are to witness The Slaughtering of your own mind! The Slaughtering of your souls, of your inhibitions and your own ambitions! Behold, my latest piece: The Slaughtering!”

  Two assistants, each dressed all in black, pull down the burlap quilt to reveal the work hung up on the wall behind a smiling Zach: it’s a large, off-white canvas covered in fresh, and rotting, pigs’ intestines. The animal parts have been rudely stapled, sewn, and glued to the canvas, and as the crowd stares they can see the glistening of the innards, can smell the undigested food from the dead animals’ digestive tracts.

  Some people gasp. Others moan and make retching noises. All of it is music to Zach’s ears as he smiles widely to his people, to the people who come here gala after gala to see whatever it is he’s cooked up next.

  He looks around, gazing into the faces of his adoring audience, most of whom look as though they’re going to be sick. The clocks have all stopped. A clenched, uncomfortable silence fills the air. And then, somebody begins to applaud. The sharp report of hands slapping together is joined with another’s, and another’s still. Soon the room fills with the sound of applause, growing louder as the pig intestines shimmer and look blindly out at its spectators.

  Zach raises his free hand and gives a whirling and dramatic stage bow, sweeping himself back up as he peers around at the audience again. That smile is still on his face, but his eyes are a bit more dull than they were before; his facial muscles are frozen in place.

  The applause slowly dies down and people begin talking once again, more animatedly than before, as colleagues of Zach’s approach him, going on about his latest piece, asking him where he got his inspiration, and where he hides all of his genius whenever he’s not working. Zach keeps the smile on his lips as he answers each of the questions in turn.

  Hours later, when the gala space is emptied out and Zach is downing his seventh drink, one of his assistants, one who helped to unveil The Slaughtering, comes to take his empty glass.

  “Thanks, Mike,” Zach says, handing the glass over, his eyes a little more bloodshot now, his cheeks a little more flushed.

  “No problem, Zach,” Mike replies. “Good turnout today. People seemed to really like the latest.”

  “Pah, people,” Zach says, swinging his slightly unfocused gaze up to meet Mike’s, who is sober. “Sheep. They wouldn’t know art if it bit them in the fucking ass.”

  Mike only nods as Zach steps forward, approaching one of his paintings, currently hanging on the wall. Mike follows him.

  “Look at this,” Zach says, throwing a hand up at the large mural of abstract images. “I did this when I was twenty and on mushrooms. It says what I was going through, what I felt as I floated in the ionosphere. It’s the drug trip out of a fucking child.” He looks back at Mike who is watching him, expressionless. “But the people? They all think it’s full of … symbolism, and fucking allegory. Ugh, those fucking … fucks.”

  He turns again and now they’re facing out into the large, open gallery. The Slaughtering is staring back at them, the intestines slightly dried out now, flies now buzzing around it.

  “Do you know what those people really like?” Zach asks, but Mike doesn’t answer. “They like to be shocked. They like to feel like they’re scared, like they’re seeing something that they always thought they would see but still can’t seem to wrap their minds around it.

  “Like, you saw how they reacted to The Slaughtering. Each and every one of those idiots knows what’s inside a pig, inside a horse, inside each of us. But you want to see it laid out in front of you? You want to see the real and dirty truth that inside of every living thing is this ugly fucking rope, digesting your food, churning out your shit so that you can keep going and function day in and day out? Well, then you’re gonna be disgusted, and you know what? People eat that fucking shit up.”

  Zach is staring at Mike now, but Mike is only looking back at him, a rock to Zach’s drunken self. Finally, after a few seconds, Zach drops his gaze.

  “I’m sorry, Mike,” he says, and a quiver in heard in his voice. “I’m sorry … I know I’ve said this to you before. All this. All of this,” he sweeps his arm out across the room. “But the people,” and here he looks back into Mike’s unwavering eyes. “The people, Mike, they just … they don’t get it. They don’t get that I’m not here to impress them. I’m not here to show them the meaning of life or wow them in their seats. I’m an artist, Mike. I’m an artist, and I feel something inside of me.” He grabs at his chest. “Something that I can’t describe and I can’t create, but I know that it’s there. I know it because I can feel it. I can feel it moving around in of me and trying to get out. I just …” he drops his gaze, “I just can’t seem to … make it come alive.”

  Zach breathes deeply and a silence hangs between them. He puts a hand on Mike’s upper arm and brings his head up to face him again.

  “I’m sorry, Mike. You know, you’re the only one who sticks around with me when I get like this.”

  “I know, Zach,” Mike responds.

  Zach lets out a sigh.

  “Come on, Mike,” he says. “Let’s go find us someplace to drink.”

  But just then, a tinny ringing sound appears and Zach jumps, startled at the noise. He reaches into his pocket and fishes out his cell phone. Squinting at the number on-screen, he swipes to answer it and holds the device to his ear.

  “Hello? This better be damned good, I was about to go get a drink with my friend here.”

  But even though he winks to Mike as he says this, a second later the smirk is wiped off of Zach’s face and is slowly replaced with wide eyes, and a dawning expression of terror.

  Chapter 3

  Diana looks out of the tinted limousine windows as the suburban houses of San Francisco roll by. She’s wearing her
dark sunglasses, despite the cloudy sky. Familiar sights with familiar memories flood back into her mind as she stares at the sidewalks she’s walked down before, parks she’s played in, all of it coming back into her life once again.

  “I never thought I’d be back here,” she says, feeling her heart tighten and clench around itself as the limousine pulls onto her old street. A growing sense of anxiety and nervousness fills her as she approaches her family mansion, and then they turn into the driveway and the tall, wrought-iron gates open up slowly to make way for the long black vehicle.

  As Diana rolls up the driveway she sees the sprawling front lawn, currently being tended to by gardeners, none of whom she recognizes. The hedges are formed into animals different to how she remembers, and the pond that she used to splash around in has been filled in. She looks forward and sees her house looming up ahead, coming towards her, bringing to surface years of avoided phone calls, missed Christmases, and “forgotten” birthday parties. Diana’s heart threatens to squeeze itself into nothingness, but before it can the limo lurches to a stop and she waits as the driver comes around to open the door for her.

  Bright, Californian sunlight shines down on her she steps out, wearing a tight red dress and high heels, her hair set into curls today.

  She begins the walk up to the front door, her chin held high, as her luggage is taken out of the trunk of the limousine. But something to the side of the house catches her eye and makes her turn her head: a large moving truck stands just beside the studio, a separate building to the house itself, but one outfitted as a bachelor apartment with working bathroom and kitchen. Large, burly men are carting even larger flat wooden boxes out of the van and through the front door.

  Diana takes a deep sigh and turns away from the sight to continue on toward the house. As she approaches the door it’s opened for her by a servant, a young man who bows as she enters.

  “Miss Simms,” the boy says, shutting the door behind her. “We’ve been expecting you. Your parents are through into the living room. I’ll take you to them.”

  Keeping his eyes down, the boy leads the way into the living room as Diana follows, trying not to crane her neck too much, stopping herself from looking around at the house she grew up in, the place where she spent the first nineteen years of her life. Regardless, she can’t help but immediately spot differences in furniture arrangement and, more to the point, ways that the house has stayed the same.

  They pass through an archway and the space opens out into the large living room where couches and chaise-lounges have been pushed aside to make room for a pair of twin beds, each surrounded by beeping machines, doctors, and nurses. Each bed is occupied by a feeble-looking person: Diana’s parents.

  “Mom!” Diana yells, her haughty demeanour forgotten as she rushes forward as fast as her high heels will allow. Her mother’s head doesn’t turn as Diana reaches the side of the bed, dropping down to her knees so that she’s level with the older woman’s face. Even though Diana’s mom isn’t very old she looks like time has taken a liking to her: her skin is wrinkled and her eyes are bloodshot and unfocused.

  Diana finds her mother’s hands and takes them in her own, the lifeless fingers merely sitting there. She can feel tears starting to form between her eyelids, but just as they’re beginning to come a drawling voice takes her attention away:

  “God, don’t be such a drama queen.”

  Diana looks up and sees Zach Daniels the artist, Zach Daniels her stepbrother, standing beside his own father’s bed. He’s looking down at her with a mix of impatience and amusement on his face. Diana sniffs somewhat wetly and stands up, letting go of her mother’s hands and taking her sunglasses off.

  “I’m not being a drama queen,” Diana retorts. “I’m just sad to see my mother like this. Why, don’t you feel sad to see your dad like this too?”

  “Of course I’m sad,” Zach says in a lazy voice. “I just have the good sense to keep my emotions checked instead of parading them around, hoping to get attention.”

  Diana feels herself fuming already at her stepbrother’s accusation. With so many familiar emotions and feelings of nostalgia flowing through her, she never thought she’d have to deal with hating her stepbrother all over again.

  “Listen, you cocky ass. I’m not parading myself around, okay? At least I’m not moving my entire life back into the studio house like some sort of-”

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” one of the doctors cuts in. Diana and Zach, who were staring daggers at one another a moment before, turn to see a woman with a stethoscope around her neck looking at them both. “If you two are going to fight, would you mind taking it elsewhere? Your parents are trying to get some rest.”

  Diana’s face burns as she realizes how childish she and Zach were being. She glances over at him and, though he’s not blushing like she is, she can see that he at least feels sheepish.

  “Sorry,” Diana mutters. “So, um … what exactly happened to them? The phone call I got didn’t go into any detail.”

  “Well, as I was telling your brother before you arrived,” the doctor says, “Hank and Deborah were on a camping trip in Arizona when they both suddenly came down with lethargy, muscle weakness, and generally symptoms that make them want to sleep all day. We’re not entirely sure what they caught, or if they were bitten by anything poisonous — we’re running some blood tests right now — but it doesn’t seem to be contagious. However, I’m sure you can see the ravages that this is taking on their bodies. Underneath the covers they look even worse.”

  Indeed, as Diana glances down at the forms below her parents’ heads she can see that they look much more frail than she remembers them ever being.

  “We had to airlift them to a hospital in Arizona, and then fly them back here,” the doctor says. “This happened three days ago, and we’re hoping to get something figured out within a week or two.”

  “Is there anything we can do for them?” Zach asks.

  “Nothing, just being here is good,” she says. “We called you both in in case … well … we’ll just have to play it one day at a time.”

  “Right,” Zach says, and Diana glances over at him, unable to read his expression. “Well, if there’s nothing we can do then I’ll be in my studio. And sorry, Doctor …?”

  “Thames,” the doctor completed. “And that’s fine. If there are any developments you two will be the first to know.”

  “Thanks,” and Zach sweeps away from the two beds, heading out of the room.

  Diana watches him for a second before leaving herself, following Zach out and into the hallway. He’s already almost at the double glass doors that lead outside when Diana calls his name.

  “Zach!”

  He stops with his hand on the brass handle and turns to face her just as she reaches him. The high heels are killing her feet, walking this much this quickly, but she doesn’t show the pain that she’s feeling.

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  “I … I didn’t know you were going to be here,” Diana says. “I only just got a call telling me about mom and Hank. They didn’t say anything about you getting the call too.”

  “Well, he’s my dad,” Zach retorts. “Did you think they weren’t going to let me know?”

  “I … no, I guess not,” Diana says. She’s silent as they look at each other, Zach standing almost six inches taller than her. “Um … so how’re you doing?” she finally asks. “How did your last gala go?”

  Zach rolls his eyes.

  “What, did you read about that somewhere? I didn’t know you could read.”

  Diana feels herself flaring up again but she pushes it back down. She doesn’t want to start their time together like this — like how it was when they both left home.

  “Zach, come on,” she says. “It’s been four years. We don’t have to be like this.”

  “Be like what?” Zach asks, but Diana can hear the doubt of his obstinacy in his own voice.

  “Be like …” she lowers her voice, “like wha
t happened can still affect us. We’re grown up now. And besides … we were drunk, Zach. I don’t think either of us meant for what happened to-”

  “I have to go,” Zach interrupts, and he opens up the door behind him, walking out briskly into the bright sunshine. Diana steps out after him, holding back at the doorway as she watches him march towards the studio, the studio where he spent most of his last years at home while she was finishing up high school and just starting to get into modelling, the studio where he would hide away for days at a time only to come out afterwards covered in paint and with several days’ worth of stubble on his face. The studio where she lost her virginity.

  Diana pulls herself back into the house and closes the door, walking back through the hallway and into the living room. Doctor Thames is still there, and she glances up as Diana approaches her mother’s bed, taking the frail woman’s hands in her own again. The only sounds in the room as Diana sits there are the scratchings of pen on paper and the unceasing beeping of the machines.

  Chapter 4

  Over the next few days Diana finds herself in a strange state of limbo, unsure of what to do with her time and yet unable to leave for fear of something happening with her parents.

  She goes to the living room to visit her mom and Hank several times the first full day that she’s there, but as she quickly discovers, spending time with them is really just an exercise in meditation. Her mom and Hank are pretty well catatonic, and except for the times when the nurses turn them to stop bedsores from forming they don’t move at all, let alone speak or even acknowledge that Diana is there with them.

  So Diana soon finds herself only visiting them whenever she’s passing the living room, and spending the rest of her time elsewhere in the house. The large mansion is filled with myriad rooms that, while she’d never forgotten about them completely, the details of most of them had certainly faded from her mind.