Dead Artist

by Ivan Jenson

  “Thank you. I think.”

  Milo knew she was referring to his nervous breakdown, so he added, “Just like your nip and tuck, we don’t talk about that.”

  The taxi pulled into their mother’s driveway. The lights were all on and the nurse and housekeeper Consuelo, could be seen with Windex and paper towels wiping off the paw marks and dog kiss smears that Moon had left on the front living room window.

  As they entered, the house had an eerie chill to it, like in the movie The Exorcist. They were keenly aware that somebody was upstairs in an other-wordly state. The downstairs was designated for the living and those planning to stay that way. Becky set down her luggage and Moon scampered to meet her. Moon jumped up on Becky, muddying her jeans with the country and western rhinestones. Borrowing a stunt from watching The Dog Whisperer on cable, she straightened her posture and turned away from Moon.

  “Now,” she said, “the dog knows that I am the alpha in the pack and that I am dominant, and that I will not be subservient to her. Nor will I give her attention nor tolerate her mischievous behavior.”

  Moon did not watch TV, and being a rebel with claws was oblivious to any form of training. Milo picked Moon up and scratched her belly.

  “You must,” he said, “go with the flow with Moon. You can’t enforce any new trendy form of training technique on her, she is a hippie dog, she has had an alternative form of training, and that is, anything goes.”

  “Okay, that's fine with me, it’s your dog. Listen I would like a glass of water and then I think I will be ready...ready to see Mom.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  As Becky and Milo mounted the steps, they heard a moan and a sigh, silence, and then, “POLICE!” being yelled out by a strange voice. Just as their grandmother had ended her days in paranoia, so too was Sonia Sonas. Usually the paranoia struck in the evenings, and the only person so far that had been able to calm her down was Consuelo who sang Cuban and Costa Rican folk songs to her. Milo and Becky rushed upstairs. Consuelo was singing Guantanamera, in a surprisingly soothing voice.

  Consuelo stood up from the bedside and greeted Becky with a hug. Becky, wrapped her arms around Consuelo, looked cautiously over the nurse’s shoulder and saw for the first time what had become of her mother. Her face was gaunt and her skin looked like wax melting over a skull armature. This ghoulish sight instantly reduced Becky to tears.

  Without Consuelo’s calmative, Sonia Sonas resumed her pleas for police assistance.

  “It’s okay, Mom, I’m here,” Becky said sitting down on the comforter. With her fingers, she brushed the strands of white hair away from her mother’s forehead.

  “Who knows,” Milo said in a whisper, “what sort of horrid visions she sees.” He knew all too well how the virtuosic beauty of the world could appear as horrors and delusions, and where small slices of reality had the uncanny ability to morph into visions similar to those depicted in Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

  “Please stop Mom. It’s me, Becky, and I flew out to see you. It’s okay now. I'm here.” Becky genuinely believed her very presence would bring her mother back to sanity.

  “Becky, oh Becky. You’ve come. I’m so sorry, I’m so very sorry you have to see me like this -- dying is so humiliating.”

  “Don’t say that Mom, we all have to die.”

  “Well as long as we all don’t die at once,” Sonia said, attempting to muster up some semblance of humor. “But Becky, I'm so glad you've come. This is a wonderful time for Milo. We are really going to go through with it. The wedding will be soon.”

  “Don’t you worry yourself about Milo’s wedding, I’m here for you.”

  Then Sonia said sharply, “Just for me...fuck that. I want this to be a good time. I don’t want to be a burden, I don’t want your visit to be such a downer. It’s going to be fun, it’s going to be...Milo when is it going to be? You must hurry, it’s so hard for me to hold on, even if I am holding on just for you.”

  Milo said, “All the arrangements have already been made. It’s going to be tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The best part about a wedding for most men is the fact that it is paid for by the father of the bride.

  Samantha’s father who had first forbidden Samantha from dating Milo, was now changing his tune entirely. He had gotten wind of Milo’s pending art world fortune. Samantha, without any prodding from Milo had told her father all about Nick, the collector who had accumulated over one hundred Milo Sonas paintings over the past fifteen years and who now was hell bent on investing in Milo and turning his vast and varied collection into a gold mine.

  Samantha had called her father from Gold Haven and expressed the urgency with which she wished to marry Milo, and the immediate need for a caterer. Milo's mother had previously worked for a caterer and it happily cut its fee in half because of its high regard for Mrs. Sonas, despite the rising costs of food, wine and liquor. The discount sealed the deal and Samantha’s father expediently wired the money, and sent his blessing. A prior business commitment precluded his attendance. He had always been a father who operated from a distance.

  Consuelo had prepared a room for Becky. As she unpacked, Milo sat slumped in a chair exhausted by his own steady determination to make all of the arrangements, while digesting so much sorrow at a time that should have brought him great joy.

  Becky then gave Milo a mini-lecture: “You Milo, I must say have a most spectacular Oedipal complex, and if it weren’t for the fact that you actually found a girl that likes you, I would say you were treading damn close to Norman Bates territory. You are so lucky I am here, with one divorce behind me, and just coming out of a pretty fucked up fling that I found thanks to the services of match.com, that organization generously offered me another six months free, because I hadn’t found the person of my dreams. But I canceled the service. I have had it with internet hook ups.”

  The man that Becky found on match.com and fell in love with on a Friday night date at Arthur Murray Dance Studio was in fact a professional dance partner on cruise ships. His job was to keep the older ladies entertained. “He was a fucking gigolo,” Becky said. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing in this day and age. But I am came here to forget all that. It’s all about Mom, and I guess you as well. I hope this all works out for everyone involved.”

  It was to be a simple home wedding and Samantha, being a girl not very prone to pretense was content to choose her wedding gown from the Goodwill Store. She was able to find a classic white dress that made her look like she was wearing a tight fitting parachute that had just touched ground, landing in swirls of white and faded lace.

  Samantha:

  It was my inner voice that told me I would find what I was looking for there, at that dusty Goodwill. And sure enough there in the back of that color coordinated store I saw a gray double-breasted suit just right for Milo, I knew it was the one, it had pinstripes and an inside label that said Casablanca. He didn’t believe me at first and he tried on two other suits, one was too tight at the waist and the other had slacks that were for a giant. He would have to wear stilts to walk in those. But oh, that gray pin striped double-breasted suit made by Casablanca turned my Milo into a modern day John Dillinger. All he needed was a machine gun prop and he would be ready for action.

  I am willing to go through this, for him. I really am. But I have to admit that it doesn’t seem real, it seems like everything that transpires between Milo and me, well, it feels pretend, like something that you put on. Our relationship is like a costume, you put it on and you immediately transform into someone new. Like Dillinger and his gal. Bang Bang Bang, let's go through with this lover.

  And of course I can’t get out of my head the feeling that it is all one big put on to appease his mother in her last moments. What a mama's boy. But who cares, I have always loved mama’s boys. They say to watch the way a man treats his mother or a waitress, because sure enough sooner or later that is the way he is going to treat you. I know that Milo will always treat
me right, that is if I can get to the bottom of my condition. Shit how are we even going to consummate our marriage if I am so tight. I wish I knew a way that I could relax and stop seeing sex as an attack. I wonder where this all comes from. Probably some deep rooted situation with my father. The thing is, I don’t understand it myself.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Becky had always had a way with plants, animals, children and now, dying mothers.

  She took on the turkey baster duties, and quickly got her mother hydrated and fed even if the food had to be put through a blender. The next morning she managed to get her mother out of bed and seated in a wheel chair that she rolled out to the second floor balcony where they basked in summer beams of sunlight.

  As for the rushed wedding, the last ingredient missing was the right minister willing to mesh marital vows with last rites.

  Becky took but a few minutes to decide the best man for the job, eccentric uncle Allen who lived in the mountains of New Mexico. He had his own stucco home and art gallery featuring erotic wood sculptures that, through extensive sanding and lacquering emphasized the naturally erotic contours of tree trunks and branches. He never altered these found objects, just simply brought out their natural voluptuousness. The viewer of these wood sculptures couldn't help but read sex into these shapes which resembled cleavage, thighs, buttocks and O’Keefe-like vaginal alcoves. He made a modest living out of his woodwork and willingly caught the red eye from New Mexico when he heard that Nick, Milo’s dealer/patron would be in attendance.

  Milo:

  I am nervous about seeing Uncle Allen. I can feel the mounting pressure. I am particularly dreading seeing Ray.

  Call me as paranoid as my mother, but it seems pretty clear to me that when I was clinically depressed, when I hardly groomed myself because I was afraid to stand alone in the shower, when I thought the police or some otherworldly gang or some kind modern day vigilante would do me in with a hatchet, well, only then did my family and friends snap into damage control and crisis mode. It seemed it was only when I was in my most flipped-out condition that they were the kindest and the sweetest to me.

  And now that I am sponsored by Nick, now that I have this dealer, this owner of a fancy home and a Porsche and a Jaguar, now it seems they have become short with me. Now, I could be wrong about this but I have this theory: they just hate my success, it’s killing them, especially Becky and Ray. I know I may be taking this a little too far, but I secretly think that this success is what has eroded my mother’s condition and ruined her health. She had been so accustomed to being my caretaker, my spirit guide, my rescuer, the one who has watched over me that I just don’t think she can handle the fact that I don’t need her so desperately or as much as I did when my life went bust and hit the skids.

  And by choosing (and I still insist that somehow deep inside her she is choosing this) to let go of life now, to die now, she subconsciously hopes to make me helpless again. She is forcing me to tie up all my loose ends in a few short days, to do the near impossible. And you know something?...her plan may be working.

  On Becky's second night at the house, Milo took a taxi to see her. She was sitting on the sofa in the living room reading a best-seller called Who The Girl Am I? It was the story of a navel-gazing GenX woman trying to find herself in New York City after a nasty break up. Becky sought tirelessly for something to adapt.

  “You know Milo, you don’t see me rushing into marriage so that Mom can see me happy, do you? I spoke to Mom last night and I told her that at this stage of my life, though I may look great, I am frankly quite miserable. Mom was grateful just to hear the truth. You know people can feel the truth, they can sense it, taste it.”

  “Becky, come off it,” Milo said. “I’m sure if you had the opportunity you would want to bring Mom to the premiere of your first feature film, even if you had to wheel her there in her chair.”

  “Yes, of course I wish she would live long enough to see something like that, but I have learned to let go of that thought pattern. One..has..to..learn..to..let..go.”

  Now, when people give you that stuff about letting go, it confuses you. It's like that other passive cliché that goes, It will happen when you least expect it. Usually that one pertains to meeting a special someone. These phrases were somewhat prophetic for you because both Samantha's return and the sudden revival of your art career were truly unexpected, and you have to admit that they happened when you let go, when you gave up and hit rock bottom.

  Becky held Milo's gaze for a short minute, and then returned to her adaptation candidate.

  Milo:

  I remember now during my breakdown, all the frustrations of my life reeled before my eyes like a cinematic montage. How could one person survive that many disappointments and close calls?

  Who knows, maybe I am some sort of a mama’s boy. Maybe she has had too strong a hold on my life and that’s why I am choosing Samantha now, while I have the out. I dream at night about all the women that I should have married. Just last night I had a dream that I was Marcello Mastroianni and I was holding hands with my all my exes, the Danish beauty who in turn held hands with the rebellious Brooklyn blonde, who held hands with the girl from Short Hills, New Jersey who held hands with her round conservative sitcom-type Mom and Dad, and they held hands with my Staten Island girl in her Old Navy painters overalls, an erotica book in her pocket, and on it went, down the line, all the short lived romances I had, holding hands, locked in a dance of destiny, all of them celebrating my twelfth hour wedding. Then we took seats on a daredevil carnival ride that lifted us up hundreds of feet then stopped still. We all waited in fearful anticipation, our air bound steel chairs rocking back and forth as we looked down at all the tiny people below. Just then a cable broke and with a whipping sound wrapped itself around the limbs of all my past girlfriends. I shouted to the man at the controls, but he couldn't discern screams of terror from screams of joy. Then he pressed the lever and we dropped into a free fall, and the cable clipped off the limbs of each of my exes, the only girl that went unscathed, un-severed, unwounded was Samantha. And then the limb of the Danish beauty, the manicured left foot of the Queens accountant, the small pale hand of the right wing Republican girl, all those severed limbs shooting through the air, spouting blood. And all I could think about was that this was supposed to be a fun day, a day at an amusement park, a celebration of my marital bliss, not a horror show with all that screaming blending into harmony and keeping time with the circular monotonous melody of the merry-go-round, and then boom, swack, boom, I woke up.

  “Becky,” Milo said. “I guess there are no two ways about it, I am nervous about getting married. Okay, I have the jitters. And although I have hated every minute of being alone, there is a kind of familiar comfort in my extreme loneliness.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The night that Ray was to arrive at the Gerald Ford airport was a strange one indeed. While Milo and Becky rode in a car service to the airport, there was a spectacular flash storm, a veritable tempest. Raindrops were so thick that they blended together and merged like a 16mm documentary about microscopic cells or atoms. In front of the car was a see-through sheen of water, a moving waterfall. The driver pulled over to the side of the road and the three of them, the driver, Milo and Becky found themselves bursting into nervous, spontaneous laughter as they took in this watery wonderment of nature.

  Becky said between chuckles and in a manner of a horror movie narrator, “Ray...has...arrived.” She then tried to compose herself in keeping with the somber occasion of her visit to Gold Haven. Looking straight forward at the spectacle, she said, “You know, I am kind of scared to see Ray again. He is such an angry soul. He scares me.”

  “Me too, I haven’t seen him in years. I am surprised he is coming.”

  “Well, I for one do not forgive him for not showing up when Dad died, or when Grandma died.”

  “He’s the one who has to live with that.”

  “Sometimes I think he doesn't have a
conscience.”

  “Everybody has a conscience. It comes with the program when we are born.”

  “Then he was born with that software corrupted. Be prepared Milo to have a sit down pow-wow with Ray. Last time I saw him in LA, he sat me down and went on and on about how he was neglected as a boy. He is still angry at Luna for getting all the attention when she did those soap spots as a child. He said everything was all about Luna. Luna this, Luna that. And then it was all about you and the art you made as a boy.”

  “I never thought I would be scared of my own brother.”

  Becky took Milo's hand and held it for a long moment. And then the rain stopped as suddenly as if a fireman had shut down the stream from a hydrant.

  The song, Never Too Much by Luther Vandross came on over the car service radio, uplifting them both with its breezy grooving retro disco guitar, the driver turned the ignition and got back on the highway. The rest of the ride they were silent.

  Milo had a vision of himself standing before his whole family in his Goodwill tuxedo. There was Becky, Ray, Luna, and his half brother Paul and Amelia all circled around the burnt-out big bang that had once been their mother. Then, they were suddenly all children again under the California sun, way back when Father was alive and Grandmother too, back when it seemed “the head of the house” title was shared by Luna and Mother. At the time, Luna and her lucrative TV spots were the bread and butter of the family, and as a young girl she was a force of nature, a perfect child. She ratted on Milo when she caught him getting high. Milo was summoned into his father’s office, where the walls were covered by the poster ads of Luna... bare shouldered in Santa Monica, facing the camera with full cheeks and a wink, and a bar of Love soap in her hands. There she was in the flesh, sitting in Milo’s father’s swivel chair and she said, “Milo, you have a special mind and Mom and Dad and I all agree that you are destroying, as well as distorting, your capabilities with your drug use. What we want you to know most of all is that we know you are stoned.”