“What the fuck are you so chipper about?” I ask him.
“I had an idea and took it upon myself to make some calls.” He pushes past me, making a beeline for the couch.
“Please, make yourself at home. What did you make calls about?”
“Your kitchen.”
“I hope you’re joking.”
“Not at all. I realize we have very little time before that shit starts to spoil on the wall if it hasn’t already. So, I called the Greenville Pilot and talked to the guy who heads up the community arts crap for the paper. I gave him a rundown on what you created, and asked him how we could showcase it.”
“You did what? What the hell were you thinking, Nate? That isn’t serious art in there. It’s fucking food on a goddamn wall. It’s like adult finger painting. Are you fucking insane? Please tell me you didn’t give him my name.” The look on his face answers all my questions. He’s serious. He did call, and he absolutely gave him my fucking name.
“Bastian, calm down. He was interested. Really interested.”
“Of course he was, but not for quality art. He wants the headline story on a painter who lost his ever-loving mind.”
“Not at all. We spent an hour talking about your work, how you’d created it, the stuff you used, blah blah blah. He was fascinated. You don’t get it, Bastian. The art community misses you. They want to know what you’ve been doing and where you are.”
“Dream on, Nate. They want total desecration. The public feeds on seeing people fail.”
“They also feed on comeback stories, and you have the chance to make yourself into one. Stop being an ass and let me tell you what’s going to take place while I still have time.”
I throw myself down on the chair next to the couch, admitting defeat—at least, temporarily. I try to convince myself to be open-minded about whatever bullshit Nate is about to feed me.
“So I talked to this guy, Wilt. I don’t remember his last name.”
“Carter.”
“What?”
“Carter. Wilt Carter. That’s the guy at the Greenville Pilot who heads up community arts,” I say, exasperated. Nate talked to the guy for an hour and doesn’t remember his name. What the hell? For such a bright guy, he can be such an idiot.
“Yeah. Anyway. Wilt wanted to bring a photographer over here to take some shots of the wall. I emailed him the shit I had on my phone but told him it wasn’t done at the point I took them. He had planned to bring someone from the paper, but after seeing the email, he called me back and said he had contacted some guy named Ferry Koops.”
Hearing that name sends chills up my spine. “Ferry Koops, as in the photographer? That Ferry Koops?” He’s the biggest name to cross photography in the last thirty years. His work is edgy and positively brilliant. I’ve never seen anyone capture their subject the way he does, whether he’s working with stills, people, or landscape, and he doesn’t have an eye for one over the other. The long and short of it is that he’s a prodigy, an artistic genius.
“Yeah, do you know who that is?” Poor Nate. He’s trying to help but just has no clue. He’s so out of his league, but if he can pull off working with Ferry Koops, I might have to kiss the ugly fucker.
“Yes, jackass. Finish your story.”
“I guess Wilt called Ferry and sent Ferry the email I had sent him. Anyway, Ferry wants to do the photography of your work. Today.”
“Today? When today? Are you kidding? It’s almost six now.”
“I’m well aware. They will be here with a crew at seven, so you might want to consider getting out of that chair, shower, and shave. You look like ass. Do you ever get dressed anymore?”
“Fuck you. Christ. The place looks like shit. I don’t have time to clean up and get dressed.”
“Go shower. I’ll clean up…or at least hide things so it’s not quite so apparent you’ve become a hermit wallowing in self-pity.” He smirks his cocky grin at me. Part of me wants to punch that look off his fucking face, but I don’t have time.
I race off to shower and shave.
When I return from my hygiene overhaul in jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt, sans shoes, Nate flabbergasts me with what he’s able to do in a mere thirty minutes. It stuns me even more to see Wilt and several other people sitting around my living room, but no sign of Ferry yet.
As I approach the group, Wilt stands with his hand extended, inviting me to reciprocate. To my amazement the formality comes back easily, and a smile crosses my face. Plastic people, plastic faces. It’s all a façade, but I’ll play the game today.
“Hey, Bastian. It’s great to see you again. I can’t wait to see this in person.”
“Nice to see you, Wilt. How’s the newspaper world been treating you?”
“It’s good. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was to hear from Nate. I had no idea you were working again. I’m thrilled to be the one to see it first and get to spend some time with you. This is going to be huge for the community. If I make the deadline tomorrow, the story will run in the Sunday paper.”
I look at Nate, slightly bewildered. I should’ve assumed there would be a story if the paper was coming to my house, but it all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to ask for details. I try to shake off the anxiety and remember I’ve known Wilt for years. Talking to him is no different than running into an acquaintance on the street…idle chitchat for the mundane people. Taking a seat myself, I motion for Wilt to sit back down. He tells me Ferry will be here in about an hour.
“Isn’t he worried about lighting this late in the day?”
“I don’t ask questions like that. He knew the circumstances and the environment. He wanted to come. I figure he can make it work and do it well. I’m sure he’s bringing lighting with him.”
I nod in agreement. He’s right. Ferry can create a masterpiece from mud, which is a good thing because that pretty closely resembles what he’ll be doing in my kitchen. Wilt eases into the interview like a pro, making me feel as though we’re just chatting over coffee.
The real whirlwind starts when Ferry knocks on my door with his entourage. As a painter, I’ve always worked alone. Even when I have models, they’re silent participants who don’t move unless told to, so seeing this flurry of people stampeding through my door is overwhelming. It doesn’t take much for me to feel immense anxiety and panic. I’ve lived alone for five years, isolating myself from anyone and everyone that used to know Sylvie and the man I once was with her. That normalcy, that solitude, turns into fear after a while. I don’t do well in crowds and prefer the shadows of loneliness to the bustle of people.
“Bastian!” Ferry bounds in the door, making his way straight to me and grappling me in an awkward man hug. It’s so tight I could suffocate if he doesn’t let go. Praise God he does—right before the stars in my eyes became blackness. Shit. I’m a little unsteady as he sets me back down to the floor. Ferry is enormous and built like a brick shithouse. I’m tall, but he dwarfs me. He has to be at least five inches taller than I am and a hundred plus pounds heavier, but it’s solid muscle. I can admit when another man is good looking, I’m secure in my masculinity. This man is easy on the eyes. Women flock to him for his looks and his notoriety. I won’t mention the other things I’ve heard women come to him for. He has quite the reputation around town for satisfying the opposite sex, and lots of them.
“Hey, Ferry. It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah, man, it has. Enough of the pleasantries. Let’s see it.”
Ferry was never one for mincing words. He says what’s on his mind regardless of how inappropriate it is or whom he offends. Running my hand through my hair, I resign myself to this fate. I feel as though I could throw up right here in the living room on the floor. Jesus. I’ve never had any apprehension about my art, but this is almost more than I can bear.
“Damn, Bastian. Calm down. We’re all friends here. You’re sweating like a nun in a brothel.” Ferry shakes his head at me. I get that he doesn’t understand my fear. From the moment he hit the
top he hasn’t faltered. His career’s been strong, he beat the odds, becoming world-renowned and respected while still living. Most artists never achieve that kind of fame. In this profession, you have to die for anyone to think your work is valuable. Not Ferry, though. People pay tens of thousands of dollars for him to capture moments of their lives on film.
Ignoring his comment, I suck in a sharp breath. As I begin to release it, I take one step at a time toward the kitchen, trying to convince myself these people are here because they believe in me. Ferry follows me into the kitchen. I don’t turn on the lights. I allow the natural light that still remains to showcase the piece on the wall. He comes completely into the room before turning to face my work, as if he needed to see it at one time, not in pieces.
I watch in silence as he takes in my temporary canvas. When he starts to move, I step to the side. I can see him working, even though he says nothing. He moves, tilting his head, getting different angles, watching the way the remaining sun plays on the textures. Kneeling, standing, leaning, he contorts into some of the most uncomfortable-looking postures, but I remain quiet. I see the intrigue twinkling in his eyes. He sees something he likes, and his mind is processing how to capture it.
We stand there for an unseemly amount of time, Ferry working the shots through in his mind while I critique my work, wondering if I should kill Nate now or wait until the witnesses have vacated the premises. This nerve-wracking inspection is about to send me into a full-blown anxiety attack.
“I gotta tell you, Bastian. When I found out you were working again, I expected some caliginous pieces. I never thought you would recover the vibrancy you captured when you were with Sylvie. You’re the only man I’ve ever seen that could depict love, admiration, and sheer devotion with a paintbrush, and do it with elegance. I assumed anything you ever did going forward would be dark and somehow demonstrate your torment. I wasn’t expecting this. The way the shadows undulate across the piece creates a different work of art at every angle, and all of them are bright, illuminated in some strange way, refulgent. Seriously, Bastian, this is your best work yet. The textures, the colors you achieved—what the hell is it?”
I clear my throat, hoping to extract the nerves that have my muscles coiled tight. “Umm, that’s cream cheese and mixtures of berries and vegetables.”
“What the hell made you use food to paint, man?” He turns to me with bewilderment in his piercing gaze.
“I didn’t have any supplies. No brushes, no paint, no canvas.” I look to the floor as though it will save me. “I haven’t had the desire to work in years. I lost my spirit when I lost her.” I shrug my shoulders, kicking my feet at an imaginary object on the tiled floor. “I recently had the itch. It’s a tingle in my hand. I can’t really explain it, but it was my urge. I laughed it off at first, but the next thing I knew, I was in the kitchen pulling shit from the fridge and pantry trying to come up with any medium that would work. Moved the furniture out of the way and just fell into focus on the wall. A couple days later, this is what emerged.” My fingers find the back of my neck, in an effort to rub the tension away and try to relax.
“Sometimes brilliance is born from necessity, man. Glad you went with it. The question becomes…how do we immortalize it? Since it’s perishable, we have limited time before the food will start to turn and the colors will change and be lost. I don’t know how any of this will work, but my thought is to capture it in multiple days in a life to death sort of motif. Brilliance to murky. It could be showcased as one piece with several prints. I don’t know how long it will take to completely decompose, but I want it from inception to decomposition. What do you think?”
“So you want to photograph it over several days, knowing it will lose what it is today and turn into something ugly and unrecognizable?”
He turns to me with a huge grin adorning his face. “That’s exactly what I want. Life is macabre, man. It turns to shit quickly without warning; it’s an elusive bitch. One day it’s a plethora of illumination, the next its putrid pestilence. People try to hide that, so I’m thinking the middle days, when the colors start to lose their crispness, we use obvious filters in an attempt to cover the loss. Symbolic of the way people cover up the mess in their own lives. Bastian, I think it makes sense for you.”
Ferry’s right. It does make sense for me. I’m at the decay phase. I’ve put as many filters on my life as possible to hide it or cover it up, but the fact is, daily I think of my own demise, how I would take my own life to escape the pain. The agony has been all-encompassing. The only reason I haven’t done it is fear—plain and simple. Fear of the unknown. If there is something beyond this, why the fuck would I want to leave here to go there? To endure more of this? At least this pain is familiar. If I knew there was nothing but darkness, a definitive end on the other side, I would pull the trigger today, end it all. I know, I’m a selfish bastard and a coward at that, but it’s the truth. Nate, my only real friend, knows it. That’s why he checks on me daily. That’s why he’s trying so hard to find an outlet for me.
“Yeah, it does.”
“These are the colors of your soul, Bastian. What people don’t understand is that those colors are continuously changing in life. Through the ups and downs, they go from pinks and purples to deep shades of amber and crimson, to grays and almost unrecognizable blacks, and hopefully, back to greens and hues of orange, anything signifying life. They become your aura—like a kaleidoscope, ever changing. You’ve turned your wheel for the first time in years. Find the colors of your life again.” He grips my bicep with his hand, giving it a slight squeeze of encouragement and bit of a smile.
I give him a nod, acknowledging I heard him, but I’m unable to express any thoughts on the subject. I’m in unrecognizable blacks, but there’s color in the peripherals of my world for the first time in half a decade.
He walks out of the room, leaving me staring at my soul on the wall. I hear him talking to people in the living room, and one by one, they start to bring equipment into the kitchen: soft boxes, cameras, lenses, reflectors, and all kinds of other shit I can’t identify. I step back, giving them room to set up. It’s obvious they’ve worked with Ferry for years. They all dance around in choreographed movements. I note the intricate scarlet F adorning each black case. All his workers wear solid black, his signature monogrammed on their shoulder. It’s interesting to note Fs waltzing as they work. The color creates trails in a sea of black. It’s oddly beautiful.
As they clear the room, Ferry comes in, picks up one of the several cameras, and then tips his head in my direction. I motion toward the door, indicating I’m going to leave the room, but he shakes his head. “Stay.”
I vaguely hear his staff in the other room, gasping at his allowance of my presence. “Ignore them. I normally work alone. This,” he says motioning to the wall, “isn’t normal.”
I watch from the corner in awe. Most artists create alone. I think. It’s really the only way I’ve ever worked, even in college when I was in classes, it seemed each student managed to fabricate their own little nook to work in isolation and the other students left each other alone. I’ve never watched someone else’s creative process. Sylvie worked in studios—although they were sound—while I worked in mine. These were our careers. Some people go to offices; we went to studios.
He really is a genius behind the lens. I can’t see what he’s after until he moves and I occasionally catch a glimpse of what he sees through the window of the camera. At times, I hear rapid clicks capturing his vision, and at others, it seems like ten or fifteen minutes go by without any noise. Once or twice he moves the light, but mostly, he uses his body to manipulate it instead.
When he finishes, he looks exhausted as though he hasn’t slept for days. He claps twice and his gang starts to file in, pulling out equipment, but none of them touch the cameras again, the red Fs move uniformly as they collect things.
Walking over to me, he holds out the camera in his hand. “Wanna see?”
I straig
hten my posture and move away from the wall I had been leaning against. “Really? You don’t want to edit them first?” It surprises me he would allow anyone to see a raw photo.
He laughs and says, “I don’t edit. Either the photo’s right or it’s not. I don’t manipulate it to get the lighting I want or distort an image. The only editing I will do is ensure that there is nothing in the image other than your work, so I might crop out a piece of wall that snuck in.” His smile is genuine, and it finally dawns on me, he seriously believes in what he’s doing here. This isn’t a pity shoot or a ploy to humiliate me publicly. He sees something.
When I look at the display on the camera, I see it too. I’m speechless. I’m not sure how this will all unfold, but even if he’s unable to do anything more, this is beyond any expectation I had.
I raise my eyes from the camera and he smiles. “Told you.” He picks up his other cameras by the straps and walks out, calling behind him, “See you tomorrow night around seven, Bastian. Hope you can stand the smell as this thing starts to spoil.”
I follow him to the front door, escorting his staff and Wilt out while Nate sits his ass in the same place he was in hours ago. Closing the door, I turn to him. “What the fuck just happened?”
He stands, his presence dominating the room. “Your comeback.” With that, he strolls out my front door.
5
I find myself lingering in a bewildered high when my thoughts instantly turn to Sera, the reason for the twitch in my hand, and the piece on my wall. Wandering to my room, I turn off the lights as I go. I reach my bed and throw myself on top of the down comforter that instantly envelops me like a puffy cloud, and then roll onto my side to grab my laptop off the nightstand.
As soon as the computer illuminates, Facebook takes over the screen, bringing a smile to my face. I’m in awe; those colors and the familiarity of the site bring me comfort. What an illusion. My eyes focus on the side of the screen as I look for her name. I find myself elated to see the green dot.
Me: Hey! You around?
Chimera Page 3