Punktown

by Jeffrey Thomas

  They had first met in the Café Steam. She had been a performance artist of one kind or another since dropping out of both high and dance school. At the time of her weekly weekend engagement at the Steam, Nimbus had been living on the street for almost six months.

  There had been four of them in the troupe at first, three by the time Teal came across them. Nimbus and another young woman wore leotards the departed male member of the troupe had covered with thousands of intricately cut fragments from military model kits and bits of machines and circuitry, enough to layer the surface of the body without building it up, without losing a sense of sinuous form. They had worn headgear—painted the same gray/blue as the rest—fashioned by the same artist, part plastic and part lightweight metal, horned and jagged and delicate and baroque like the headdresses of some ancient race whose pyramids would house clanging, clashing factories. The third remaining member was a nonhuman, an Udotu’ut, whose frenzied limbs wove around the women as they went through manic dances, contrasted by periods of strange couplings as the two women and the flower-like being tightly interlaced themselves into living sculptures that remained motionless for an hour at a time. These stationary periods would be broken only by the occasional croak of, “Oil can...oil can,” a bit of dialogue from a very old film of The Wizard of Oz.

  Teal confessed later he found the visuals of their show, Oil Can, arresting, but lacking any meaning; flash without thought.

  But as exotic as Nimbus was in costume, her living conditions were working a darker transformation. She became increasingly ill, lost weight, her lips split with crusted sores. Her human dance partner had a boyfriend now, couldn’t let Nimbus use the couch. Sleeping in the subway was dangerous. Cardboard shelters in alleys were not much safer, and winter had arrived. During the weekdays, between the performance gigs, Nimbus took up another line of work, just to be able to eat, and go to a street clinic for medication for a stomach infection she found hard to best. This new work also entailed the use of her body...

  She had spoken with Teal once before—by then she knew his face from the crowd—and sat in her fluid mosaic of plastic chitin (minus headdress) at his table for a glass of wine he offered. He had offered a film, some night, as well, but she had declined. She had felt too smudged to be going on a date like a high school girl.

  But the next occasion she joined him, for coffee this time, and she in her street clothes, they had talked more. He had told her more about his own creative endeavors. Enthused, she had opened up. Confessed the severity of her situation, without telling him of her second—actually, primary—income. Teal offered her a sleeping bag on the floor of his apartment in the building his uncle owned. For some reason she didn’t understand, breaking from his unnerving but fascinating chrome gaze, Nimbus had again declined him.

  Two nights later, Teal had returned through blowing snow from a trip to a corner market to find Nimbus curled unconscious on his doorstep.

  She awoke in his bed. He had removed her clothing, she realized...but to bathe her. He had dressed her in his own clean pajamas. At first, she assumed, with a kind of weary resignation, that he had had sex with her unconscious form...but he had not. He had only sat in a chair beside the bed, and sketched her. In the days that followed he sketched her nude, but also clothed, and he never touched her throughout. Her favorite sketch from this early time was an image he had stolen of her sleeping face. This portrait was now framed on the wall. Even with split lips, it had a soft loveliness.

  Teal took her to a better clinic. The medications they prescribed at first did little, but with rest and adequate food, Nimbus slowly began to recover. Grow strong. And all throughout, Teal made her his model. Made small smartmetal sculptures of her, and videos of her. She was only too happy to pay him back in this manner. At last, she paid him back for his kindness in another manner. At that point, it was as much for herself as for him.

  By then, she had confessed to him how she had been living. He had been concerned, but not repulsed. And in fact, after their first time, he admitted he had wanted this intimacy all along, but had been shy, felt unworthy of her beauty. Nimbus had laughed, but also, she had been impressed. In her prior experience, with both other artists and with her johns, interchangeable in her mind, the rhapsodizing came before or during sex, not after.

  And now here they lay in bed together, their juices wrung from them and gleaming on their skin, hot and breathing heavily. It was a bubble of safety and timelessness, this warm bed in a warm corner of a huge cold city in a huge cold space and time.

  * * *

  The door pounded. “Teal?” called his uncle through it. They had no com-set. Teal and Nimbus sprang from the bed to wriggle back into their sleep clothes, then Teal went to the door.

  With his uncle in the hall stood a man in an expensive five-piece suit like those worn by popular VT personality N. Ron Hubherd of the inspirational network for corporate types, The Evil Men Channel...this man glancing down at Teal’s dress with a sneer of disapproval which he either didn’t realize he was showing or didn’t care. Teal glanced down at himself and realized he still had enough of an erection left to make a bulge, not to mention the small damp spot at its end.

  “Chase Power, Mr. Teal,” said the man.

  “Sorry, Teal,” his uncle began helplessly. “I...”

  “Mr. Teal, our field agents have tracked down an illegal power hookup to this apartment. You’ve tapped into the resources of the ceramics manufacturers next door, and they aren’t happy that they’ve been paying for your power these past two years...”

  Teal found himself staring at the two-jeweled tie clip that indicated the man’s rank in his department. “Hey, sir, the hookup was already like this when I moved in...”

  “Don’t lie to me, please, Mr. Teal. You’ve had this apartment for three years. Our records show that you had a legitimate account with us for the first year but it was terminated for lack of payment.”

  Teal lifted his eyes, which when he was angry could be quite unsettling. “Well I paid that up, finally!”

  “Finally, yes. But you still owe us for the past two years, Mr. Teal. And that is a sum of twelve hundred munits, with interest...which we will have to collect by the end of this month if you wish to avoid legal proceedings.”

  “Look...”

  “No, you look, Mr. Teal. If you want to enjoy free power you can do it in prison. But we have a business to run.”

  “Can’t I arrange an installment plan?”

  “Not with your record of violation of such agreements. Borrow the money from a friend, Mr. Teal. Maybe your uncle here who professed not to know anything about two years of criminal activity in the building he owns and lives in will lend you the money. But have it to our office by the end of the month, or you’ll be a very sorry individual.”

  “I’m already a sorry individual, to live in a world with gut-eating sharks like you.”

  “I may very well be a shark, Mr. Teal, but you shouldn’t be out in deep waters in somone else’s boat, should you? Good day. Miss.” The man sent a half-mocking, half-lustful smile past Teal at Nimbus, and gave her a nod. She made green knives of her eyes in return.

  When the man had left, Teal’s uncle returned alone. “I’m sorry, kids...I tried to blow up some smoke, but they’ve got you. Look...I can lend you a couple hundred, but Christmas wiped me out, and I...”

  Teal sighed, raised a palm to silence the man. “Don’t worry. Something will...I’ll work something out.”

  Nimbus folded her arms across her chest, gave an involuntary shiver. She had a mental picture of last winter; of building shelters in the alleys, cardboard tents and lean-tos of shipping pallets. But more frightening to her than the thought of returning to that life was a picture of Teal, a sensitive creative soul, being sent to live in a prison filled with murderers and rapists. Her chances of survival in the street seemed better...

  When his uncle had gone, Nimbus told Teal, “I’m going to go down to the Steam right now and see if they�
��ll take me as a waitress.”

  “No you aren’t! We have work to do. We’re artists...that’s what we’re meant to be! You spend your energy pouring coffee like somebody without a microbe of talent can do, and you’ll have nothing left for your art.”

  “We need money, Teal! In a perfect world no artist would have to serve coffee except at their reception, but...”

  “Wait for this show, at least...wait and see what interest I can get in my work. Waitressing. You might as well go back to trawling the streets...”

  Nimbus turned her eyes away and murmured darkly, “Maybe I should do that.”

  Teal took an involuntary step toward her, jabbed a finger into the space between them. “Don’t even say that!”

  “I just want to help you...”

  “Don’t hurt me to help me! I mean it, Nim...don’t ever even think of doing that again, especially for me!”

  “Well, Jesus—you’re the one equating honest work like waitressing with prostitution. We can’t be dreaming now...we can be all wistful and idealistic after we pay our fucking bills! We have to confront some reality, here.”

  “And it’s unrealistic to think I can’t sell my work? Is that what you mean? You don’t believe that if you only got better notice, you could be a respected performance artist? Jesus to you, Nimbus. I don’t know which I’m angrier at...your lack of faith in me, or in yourself.”

  He was always so passionate, so persuasive. If only Teal could have used his clever tongue, clever mind and hands to prevent this from happening, Nimbus thought. But then...she had her own mind and hands. They had both of them slept too long in their too-cozy bed. And today, the knock on their door...and that hovercleaner, flushing out the dreamers.

  * * *

  The “Street Art” special exhibition at the Hill Way Galleries two weeks later distracted Teal from the fact that he had only raised a hundred and eighty munits thus far toward his debt. He had slaved months preparing a project in anticipation of this show despite its condescending title, the last two weeks with a noticeable lack of inspired force, but Nimbus was relieved to see his old enthusiasm and drive restored. He was nervous, he was irritable, but that was because he was excited. And she was excited too, because she would not only be a performance artist today, but an actual part of the work of art itself.

  Teal was tinkering with his hidden control system right up to the very end, removing panels to reveal a complex nest of cables and hoses, valves and circuit boards. In a bathrobe, Nimbus teased him, “Hey, what’s this do?” She closed her hand on a valve and cocked her arm as if to twist.

  “Don’t touch anything! Everything’s under high pressure, you know that! If these hoses let go they’ll turn the museum into one big ugly Jackson Pollock painting!”

  “Who?”

  * * *

  Their ambitious contribution to the week long exhibition was titled Stations of the Cross; or Every Man’s a Martyr. Basically it was a huge aquarium made of sheets of lightweight transparent ceramic Teal had found leaning against the trash zapper of the plant next door, rejected for some small blurry marred spots. The aquarium or terrarium was sub-divided into a number of smaller rooms or cells. And Nimbus was inside this tiny clear-walled house, going through her rehearsed motions. A nude painting or sculpture come to life.

  Because of the work’s size, strangeness and delectable contents, it easily became the focus of the exhibition, and Teal was grinning unabashedly at the amount of people who flocked around the bizarre cage to peer in at its exotic inmate. He felt a bit guilty, yes, for dominating the show but hey, they’d all go check out the other work when they’d had their fill of his. And he wasn’t going to let his guilt stop him from enjoying his greatest triumph as an artist. Real critics were here. Owners of small galleries. Art brokers. And collectors...

  Nimbus wore only a realistic hard mask Teal had cast of her own face, looking like a death mask, with clear lenses to protect her eyes and a filter pack for painting concealed inside. It was very apparent why, this protection. In the first compartment, Nimbus floated as a fetus in red water like a womb filled with her mother’s blood. A umbilical cord of sorts pumped air right into the mouth of the mask. She floated as a ball, but then began to kick out at the sides. At last, she moved to the panel leading into the next compartment, and opened it. The blood from the womb exploded into this cell, and concealed hoses blasted Nimbus with mock gore from above and all sides. People stepped back involuntarily. She’d disconnected her umbilical hose. The door had closed behind her to cut off the flood, and now the hoses quit jetting. Soaked in blood, Nimbus was “born”.

  Now cleansing water sprayed from the hoses, and men smiled to watch Nimbus shower herself clean, a fresh soul ready for the world. The dripping blood was washed from her pubic hair. The water was a bit too cold and her nipples grew hard like erasers. Now warm air blew in, and Nimbus shook out her long hair close to one jet. She positioned herself to let the air reach her pubic hair. Even Teal, who had seen this before, felt an erection growing.

  He frowned a bit then. There were no doubt many erections in this room with him now...as if he sat in the dark of a porno theater. He saw the slick gills of a nonhuman spectator flutter more quickly. It wasn’t so much jealousy he felt; it had been his idea for her to be naked, she who had been uneasy, reluctant, at first. He had wanted the display to be an erotic one as well as thought-provoking. It was guilt he felt. Was he exploiting Nimbus? No more than Renoir had exploited the lush red-haired beauties he had softly painted, he countered himself. But then again, when Teal viewed Renoir’s nudes, he felt as inclined to masturbate as to admire their creator’s handiwork. Was he selling Nimbus’s body...as she had once done? Did this make him her pimp? Was this the shelter he had offered her from those days? Was this cell her escape?

  Look at her in there, doing this for him, and proudly. But did she secretly feel exploited, humiliated; was she doing this more out of love for him than her own artistic expression? He was so proud of her at this moment, and also felt oddly sick for her. Was this art he had created, or had he subconsciously meant to excite himself by exciting others in his lover? Was this his greatest achievement as an artist, or his nadir as a human being?

  He had never been one to verbalize it, but he must tell her it was different with him than it had been with her earlier lovers, as soon as he could. He felt a desperation to let her know that he loved her...

  The fresh human infant moved into the next compartment. This was the outside world, and it bombarded her with color and stimuli. Winds whipped her. Paint of every color blasted her, mixing into new colors on the palette of her body, her flesh an ever-changing canvas. She swirled, spun, danced in this cell. She tossed a wet mane of blue and yellow. Her pubic hair was green. Now orange. She bent over to let a jet of purple paint explode against her proffered buttocks. Men and even women were grinning; was it appreciation, or carnal hunger?

  The ceramic sheets had been meant as windows for an apartment building and had been specially treated so as not to let the graffiti of vandals take hold, thus the hurricane of spraying and splashing paint did not obscure the view of the cell’s contents. This sheet had been the most marred with blurs, but that was okay; Teal had cut out those areas and affixed long, black rubber gloves which dangled like flaccid penises into the cell. Now people were crowding in, elbowing each other, for a chance to fill those gloves erect, to reach in and touch Nimbus...stroke her, caress her. One man in a tailored suit squeezed one of her breasts as if to hold her from fleeing away from him, but she was slick with paint and slid from his grasp, danced to the opposite wall to give the people there a feel. A woman slipped her hand between Nimbus’s legs and kneaded her a few moments. Nimbus allowed it, then slid to the floor to roll in the paint, back and forth. The world was exploiting the innocent soul, using it. Dirtying it. The frown in Teal’s heart was growing as much as his erection. They had choreographed all this in the loft...but it had only been the two of them, then...


  Look at all the paint in there. Sure, it would be recycled, each color filtered from the other by the computer and restored in its respective tank, but the paint had still been expensive. Rigging up his computer had been very expensive, for his standards. But he hadn’t paid for power, and now look at their troubles. He hadn’t bought coffee, proper food. He hadn’t bought Nimbus much for Christmas. And she hadn’t complained. Early on, she had even briefly worked at the ceramic plant before being laid off, but hadn’t objected to his use of her money. All this sacrifice for his vision...and now he doubted his vision.

  Look at these respectable citizens groping at Nimbus, who would tease them by drawing near and pulling away, then come back to let them touch her. Didn’t they realize that in interacting this way, becoming part of the art also, they were fulfilling a negative role? Portaying, becoming, those who defile? No, they didn’t understand the art, or didn’t care to. It was a carnival, a side-show. Strip show. But what had he expected, putting those gloves there? That they would fondle her and simultaneously remark on the significance of the symbolism?

  Yes, he had. But he realized he had overestimated his audience.

  Was his successfully received artwork, then, a failure?

  In the next compartment, a tornado of powder the color of dirt blew out of hoses and stuck to the paint which made carnival glass of Nimbus’s body. She was quickly coated. Life dirtying the soul, using it up, withering it, suffocating it. Nimbus danced around in the storm, beat on the walls for release, finally fell and huddled to the floor. She was covered so thickly that at last she resembled a figure from Pompeii.