Transgressions

by Ian Rankin (ed)

  "I came to see you,” she said. “Why else?"

  "Oh. I thought you might have wanted to see my art."

  "Same difference, silly."

  Same difference. A Karenism. One of those he had loathed. And calling him silly when he was probably the least silly man in the history of the human race. As far as serious artists went, anyway.

  "No, really. What are you doing here?"

  "I told you, Hank's gone."

  "What does that have to do with me?"

  She picked up a chisel. It was chipped, like his front tooth. She tapped it against a cinder block. Never any respect for tools.

  "It has everything to do with you,” she said.

  A pause filled the studio like mustard gas, then she added, “With us."

  Us. Us had lasted seven months, four days, three hours, and twenty-three minutes, give or take a few seconds. But who was counting?

  "I don't understand,” he said. He had never been able to lie to her.

  "You said if it wasn't for Hank—"

  "Henry. Let's call him Henry."

  Her eyes became slits, then they flicked to the Andy Warhol poster. “Okay. If it wasn't for Henry, I'd probably still be with you."

  Still. Yes, she knew all about still. She could recline practically motionless for hours on end, a rare talent. She could do it in the nude, too. A perfect model. A perfect love, for an artist.

  No.

  Artists didn't need love, and perfection was an ideal to be pursued but never captured.

  The work in progress was all that mattered. Anna under the floorboards. Cynthia beneath the canvas. Sharon in the trunk of his Toyota.

  And Karen here before him.

  His fingers itched, and the reflections of blades gleamed on the work bench.

  "I thought you said you could never be happy with an artist,” he said. “Because artists are so self-absorbed."

  "I never said that, exactly."

  Except for three times. Once after making love, when the sheets were sweaty and the breeze so wonderful against the heat of their slick skin, when the city pulsed like a live thing in time to their racing heartbeats, when cars and shouts and bricks and broken glass all paved a trail that led inside each other.

  "You said that,” he said.

  She moved away, turned her back, and pretended to care the least little bit about the Magritte print. “I was younger then."

  Karen didn't make mistakes, and if she did, she never admitted them. John didn't know what to make of this new Karen. How did she fit with this new John he was building? Where did she belong in the making?

  Art, on a few rare occasions, was born of accident. Or was even accident by design? Karen had entered his life, his studio, his work, right in the midst of his greatest creation. This making of himself.

  She walked past the collection of mirror shards he had cemented to the wall. Suddenly there were a dozen Karens, sharp-edged and silvery. All of them with that same fixed smile, one that welcomed itself back to a place it had never truly belonged. John's jagged world.

  "What are you working on?” she asked. She'd wondered such things in the beginning, when showing interest in his art was the best way into his head. Then she'd slowly sucked him away, drained his attention until all he could think about was her. She became the centerpiece of his gallery, the showcase, the magnum opus. And when at last she'd succeeded in walling him off from his art, when she herself had become the art, along came Henry who called himself Hank.

  "Oh, something in soapstone."

  The piece was on his bench. She hadn't even noticed. Her eyes were blinded ice.

  "Oh, that,” she said. “That's pretty neat."

  Soapstone had a little give, some flexibility. You could miss your hammer stroke and create an interesting side effect instead of complete and utter rubble. Soapstone could be shaped. Unlike Karen, who was already shaped to near perfection.

  The soapstone piece was called ‘Madonna and Grapefruit'. Madonna was a long graceful curve, skin splotched by the grain of the stone. Grapefruit was the part he hadn't figured out yet.

  He hadn't touched it in four months.

  "I'm calling it ‘Untitled',” he said. That statement was a lie for the piece called ‘Madonna and Grapefruit', but was true for the work in progress for which three women had given their lives.

  "Neat. You always were better at sculpting than painting.” She looked again at her unfinished portrait on the wall. She added, “But you're a good painter, too."

  "So, what's new with you?” As if he had to ask. What was new was that Henry was gone, otherwise she was exactly the same as she'd always been.

  "Visiting. My old roommate."

  "The sky was two-dimensional,” he said.

  "What?"

  "That day. That day we were talking about a minute ago."

  "Don't talk about the past."

  "Why not?” he said. “It's all I have."

  Her face did a good job of hiding what she was thinking. Marble, or porcelain maybe.

  "Where are you staying now?” she asked.

  He didn't want to admit that he was sleeping on the couch in the gallery. “I have a walk-up efficiency. Not enough elbow room to get any work done, though. That's why I rent this place."

  "So, have you done any shows lately?"

  He considered lying, then decided to go for it. “I won second place in a community art show. A hundred bucks and a bag of art supplies."

  "Really? Which piece?"

  John pointed toward a gnarled wooden monstrosity that sulked in one corner. It had once been a dignified dead oak, but had been debased with hatchet blows and shellac.

  "What do you call it?” Karen asked.

  "I call it...” John hoped his hesitation played as a dramatic pause while he searched his index of future titles. “I call it ‘Moment of Indecision'."

  "Heavy."

  "I'll say heavy. Weighs over two hundred pounds. I'm surprised it hasn't fallen through the floor."

  "And you made a hundred dollars?"

  "Well, make isn't the right word, if you're calculating profit and loss. I spent forty dollars on materials and put in thirty hours of labor. Comes in at less than half of minimum wage."

  He was surprised how fast he was talking now. And it was all due to Karen walking toward the rumpled canvas in the corner, leaning over it, examining the lumps and folds and probably wondering what great treasure lay underneath.

  The artist formerly known as Cynthia.

  "Say, Karen, how's your old roommate?” The same roommate who wouldn't leave the room so they could make love in Karen's tiny bed. The roommate who thought John was stuck up. The roommate who was so desperately and hideously blonde that John wished for a moment she could become part of the work in progress.

  The distraction worked, because Karen turned from the canvas and stroked a nest of wires that was trying to become a postmodern statement.

  "She's the same as ever,” Karen said.

  "Aren't we all?” John looked at the handles of the steak knives. They almost formed the outline of a letter of the alphabet.

  "I don't know why I'm here. I really shouldn't be here."

  "Don't say that. It's really good to see you."

  John pictured her as a metal dolphin, leaping from the water, drops falling like golden rust against the sunset. Frozen in a moment of decision. A single framed image that he could never paint.

  He looked at the oil of Karen. The endless work in progress. Maybe if he ran a streak of silver along that left breast, the angle of the moonlight would trick the viewer.

  If Karen wasn't here, such a moment of inspiration would have brought a mad rush for brushes and paints. Now, he felt foolish.

  Because Karen was here after all. This was life, not art. This was life, not art. This was life, not art.

  He clenched one fist behind his back.

  Ah.

  Untitled.

  Sharon in the trunk of his Toyota.

&nb
sp; "The sky was two-dimensional,” John said.

  "What?"

  "That day."

  "John.” She picked up his fluter, a wedged piece of metal. Nobody touched his fluter.

  "What?"

  She nodded toward The Painting, the one that showed most of her nude body. “Did you like painting me just because you could get me naked that way?"

  A question that had two possible answers. Yes or no.

  The artist always chose the third possible answer.

  "Both,” he said. “How's Henry?"

  "Hank. At least that's what his boyfriend calls him.” Karen wiggled her hands into the pockets of her blue jeans. Tightening the fabric.

  John's fingers itched.

  "So, how's the job?” he asked.

  As if he had to ask. Accounting. The same as always.

  "The same as always,” she said. “I got another raise last year."

  The ladder and how to climb it. Karen knew the book by heart, learned by rote at the feet of Henry who called himself Hank. Or was it Hank who changed his name to Henry?

  Such confusion.

  So many sharp edges and reflections.

  "Why are you here?” John asked.

  "I already told you."

  "No. I mean, really."

  She picked up a piece of colored glass, a remnant from a miniature church John had built and then smashed. She held the glass to her eye and looked through. Blue behind blue.

  "I got to wondering about you,” she said. “How you were getting along and all that. And I wanted to see how famous artists lived."

  Famous artists didn't live. All the most famous artists were long dead, and the ones who swayed the critics during their own lifetimes made John suspicious.

  "I'm the most famous artist nobody's ever heard of,” he said.

  She rubbed her thumb along the edge of the glass. “That's one thing I don't miss about you. Your insecurity."

  "Artists have to go to dangerous places. You can't get too comfortable if you want to make a statement."

  Karen put the piece of blue glass on the desk beside his mallet. She went to the portrait again. She pointed to the curve of her painted hip. “Maybe if you put a little more red here."

  "Maybe."

  She turned. “This is really sad, John. You promised you were going to throw yourself into your work and make me regret ever breaking up with you."

  He hated her for knowing him so well. Knowing him, but not under-standing. That was something he'd never been able to forgive her for.

  But then, she wasn't perfect. She was a work in progress, too.

  "You can't even finish one lousy painting,” she said.

  "I've been working on my crow collection."

  "Crow collection? What the hell is that?"

  "Shiny stuff. Spiritual stuff."

  "I thought you were going to make that series of twelve that was going to be your ticket to the top."

  He looked out the window. The room smelled of kerosene and decay.

  She waved her hands at the mess on the workbench. “You gave up me for this."

  No. She left him for Hank or Henry. John never made the choice. She wanted him to give up art. That was never an option.

  "I guess I'd better get going,” she said.

  He thought about grabbing her, hugging her, whispering to her the way he had in the old days. He wanted her naked, posing. Then, perhaps, he could finish the portrait.

  "It was really good to see you,” he said.

  "Yeah.” Her face was pale, a mixture of peach and titanium white.

  She paused by the studio door and took a last look at The Painting. “Frozen in time,” she said.

  "No, it's not frozen at all. It's a work in progress."

  "See you around."

  Not likely, since she lived two thousand miles away. The door closed with a soft squeak, a sigh of surrender.

  John looked at the portrait again.

  Karen here before him.

  Not the one who walked and breathed, the one he could never shape. This was the Karen he could possess. The real Karen. The Painting.

  He possessed them all. Anna under the floorboards. Cynthia beneath the canvas. Sharon in the trunk of his Toyota.

  John hurried to the bench and grabbed up his tools.

  The Muse had spoken. He realized he'd never wanted to build himself, or dream himself alive. Art wasn't about sacrificing for the good of the artist. Art was about sacrificing for others.

  For Karen.

  She was the real work in progress, the one that could be improved. The canvas awaited his touch.

  John uncovered Cynthia and went to work. By midnight, The Painting was finished.

  It was perfection.

  Copyright © 2007 Scott Nicholson

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  THE FROZEN LAKE by John Shirley

  * * * *

  * * * *

  John Shirley is the author of numerous books and many, many short stories. His novels include Crawlers, Demons, In Darkness Waiting and seminal cyberpunk works City Come A-Walkin' and the A Song Called Youth trilogy. His collections include the award-winning Black Butterflies and Really Really Really Really Weird Stories. He also writes for screen (The Crow) and television.

  * * * *

  "We only have one computer,” Judith said. “We couldn't have two lines."

  "This is ... 2019 Coolidge? Roy Breedlaw lives here?” The man from the internet cable company, looking closer at his clipboard, was a chunky Hispanic guy with a round, pleasant face and a mustache that made her think of her dad—who'd been dead forty years. His soft voice made her think of dad too, maybe because it was March. Dad had died in the frozen lake, back in Minnesota, one unseasonably cold March.

  "Yes, that's the right address, Roy's my husband—but we don't have a cable line for the attic."

  "Says here you do. Anyway I can see the cable there. You see it, there, ma'am?"

  She covered her eyes against the drizzle and squinted up at the eaves over the driveway. She didn't have her glasses on. She tended to wear them only when she was driving or watching television. “Oh gosh ... You sure that's what that is? Maybe it's the other line, that just passes through there."

  "No ma'am, that one's over there, you see?"

  "Oh.” So Roy had installed an extra line without telling her. This man must think she was clueless. It made her stomach clutch up to think about it. “And you need to go up into the attic?"

  "Yes ma'am. The box's got some kind of short in it. Probably water leaking in. Your husband asked to meet me here, on Monday, but you know how hard it can be for us with the timing. We missed him, so I came back today."

  "Yes, yes I...” Monday, she thought, when she wouldn't be home. She was working three days a week now at Ronald Reagan Elementary. Mrs Ramirez had physical therapy three days a week for the rest of the term. Roy knew she was gone on Mondays. He didn't want her to know about the cable in the attic. He didn't like people up there. “I'll get you a ladder, it's the only way to get up there. You have to climb up from the outside."

  "From outside of the garage? That's unusual."

  "I ... He took the original indoor ladder out, to keep the kids out. He was afraid they'd get into trouble there.” As she said it, she was conscious of how peculiar it sounded. She decided not to tell him about how Roy had rebuilt the attic just to house his model shop. Most men would have simply done the work on a bench in their garage—which was meticulous, uncluttered, with plenty of room to work.

  "Not a problem, ma'am, I have a ladder, but thank you."

  "Oh wait—it's locked. I do have a key...” Should she give it to him? Roy said to unlock it only if there was smoke coming out, a fire of some kind. Otherwise no one was to go in. But there was a short, which could cause a fire. That's what she would tell Roy, anyway, when he asked why she'd given the man the key.

  She took the keyring from the pocket of her housedress, twisted the padlock key off, and gav
e it to him. He took an extending ladder from his truck, climbed it to the little door over the deck, in back, that led into the attic room over the garage.

  Judith waited on the front porch, watching the cat melting in and out of the geraniums, waiting, imagining what it would be like to be married to this internet cable man. He probably liked to barbecue with the family, take little camping trips. It'd be nice.

  She kind of wished the weather would just get on with it and rain. But it didn't rain that much, after February, this side of San Francisco Bay. She started to pull weeds from the garden, almost haphazardly, wondering why it bothered her so much to give someone permission to go in Roy's attic. It was ludicrous, really.

  The cable man was smiling when he came back out front, chuckling about all the models that Roy kept up there. “Someone sure can craft models. Airplanes and every sort of thing.” He handed her back the key.

  "Yep, my husband doesn't care, just as long as it's a good model.” She'd actually only seen a few of them. Sometimes he brought one down when he was finished, to show, for a few seconds. No one was allowed to touch it, though.

  He tilted his ladder and collapsed it down so he could carry it to the truck. “I guess the kids have a good time with that too,” he said, easily taking the ladder under his arm.

  Almost immediately she said, “Oh sure, they have a good time with that."

  She didn't want to tell this stranger that Roy wouldn't let the kids up there, didn't ever put models together with them.

  Brandon would have liked the models, but Roy wouldn't let him near them. Cherie had never seemed interested in doing things with Roy. It was enough if her stepdad came to her high school's talent show, and only because she wanted two parents there. Of course, she'd have preferred Barry. But Judith had divorced Barry, after his affair, and he'd moved to Los Angeles to be with the woman he'd been sleeping with. They didn't see him much. Roy didn't like him coming around.

  Judith waved as the man went to his van. She watched him drive away and then she went to get the ladder Roy used.

  "Mrs Breedlaw?"

  "Hm?"

  "Paper or plastic."

  "Oh—paper ... Um, no—plastic. Plastic's fine.” Judith had noticed a flicker of irritation on the bagger's face when she said paper, because they already had the plastic bag laid out in a little metal frame, and it was easier for them. So she went with plastic, though she preferred paper bags. Maybe I should just up and say ‘paper’ and the heck with him, she thought. Joe Gorris, at the school, said she wasn't assertive enough with her students. She ‘let them run roughshod’ over her in class. She knew she tended to be that way.