The Atrocity Artist

6.

The curt knock at the door starts off hesitantly, but when no answer comes, it becomes a woodpecker's drumming.

Skad reads to the end of the next paragraph before putting the book down and taking off his reading glasses. His moves are precise as if for an audience, a panel of judges scoring him on how unhurriedly he answers the summons.

When he opens the door, the serviceman from the phone company is standing on the stoop with the screen door propped on his hip. "There's nothing wrong with the line," he says.

The statement has a finality to it. It's void of any nuance and allows for no new avenues of exploration. The sweaty face seems to expect Skad to accept this, thank him, and send him on his way.

"Well, something sure as hell is wrong. Take a look at the phone."

"It's very unlikely to be a problem with the equipment. If it wasn't ringing at all, then..."

"Then, I wouldn't have a problem and you wouldn't be here. But since you are, why don't you have a look?"

All the man's muscles seem to tighten. He constricts, shrinking in on himself, but he comes in as directed.

Halfway to the kitchen, the serviceman stops and stares at Daedalus No. 5. His slack jaw pivots while he ponders the painting. His eyes examine the corpse in the center of the canvas. It kneels at the edge of the grave it has crawled out of. A hand reaches out to the viewer, the cracked and filthy fingernails almost pressed against the canvass. The necrotic flesh around the wrist is torn with veins hanging down. As they twist away from the wound, they morph into wires. Electricity gives them a life of their own, and they snap and writhe like serpents until they join up with the creature's chest, where they plug into round sockets. Below these, the ribcage is exposed, and a soft glow of vacuum tubes emanates from between the bones. The effect is created with thick dabs of Hansa Yellow and Transparent Orange amid Mars Black.

"Huh! It looks just like one of those things in that movie. What was it called?" He slaps his hand against his thigh when the memory drops into place. "Automation."

"Wrong." Skad sidles up beside the man. "The things in that movie look like my paintings. They ripped me off."

The man examines it closer. "I loved Automation. Shame that guy, Sykes, never made more. Whatever happened to him, anyway?"

The subject of whether Skad's work had been plagiarized was settled by the courts, with only two individuals ever knowing the truth of it.

No one else had been privy to the conversation between him and the film's director. The two of them had tied-one-on together in a Los Angeles bar until three in the morning on a hot July night. They'd drank Patrón. Tony Sykes paid. Earlier in the day, he'd also paid for six paintings from the Necro-automata collection at Skad's exhibition. Sykes was a gutless twerp and as fruity as all those Hollywood types, but after the cash he dropped, he'd earned a little of the Skad charm.

So, they drank fine tequila and he regaled the director with stories of his life and the underbelly of the art world. At some point, the sallow little man said, "I love those painting. I really do. They're so... so... provocative. Yes, provocative. Looking at them I can imagine a whole other world. You now, it would be amazing to make a film about this world you've created." To which Skad said, "Go right ahead."

A movie about himself, he could understand, but one about his paintings had seemed ridiculous. But Skad had been in enough drunken conversations to know how foolish things got said and were soon forgotten about.

Instead of accepting the magnanimity of the offer and moving on to another subject, Sykes stammered out a protest. "I can't do it without your input. You'll be a consultant. No, a producer. We'll bring your vision to life. Together."

"What do I care. I don't have time to get involved in movies," he had said. "Have at. You have my blessing."

Son-of-a-bitch, if Sykes didn't go ahead and make it. And to top it all off, the damn thing was a blockbuster.

Luck had once more favored Skad. Without any signed contract and no witnesses, the copyright infringement lawsuit sailed straight through. He still received checks from the studio.

To the repairman, Skad says, "The movie was an infantile waste of time." He's never watched it, but could it be anything but the basest form of entertainment? "The art you see before you is meant to represent the way technology subverts life and creates a rot in the human soul."

The repairman looks at him with wonder, "You painted this? You're one sick dude."

"Well, thank you for favoring me with your puerile opinion, but I didn't ask you inside for your skill as an art critic but to fix the goddamn phone."

"Like I was saying. Nothing is wrong with the line. You sure you don't have a prank caller."

"The phone company— your company said there'd been no calls to this number in over two years."

"Two years." He gives a low whistle of amazement. "Guess you've been using your cell phone, huh?"

"Absolutely not. I will not be turned into a mindless drone." Most of his zombie paintings were done long before the popularity of those dehumanizing devices, but he could not have asked for a more potent symbol of technological evil.

Skad points to the wall phone next to the pine cabinets, as though it's an unruly pet to be euthanized. "It's there."

"Good God. How old is that thing? Do you want me to replace it with something from this century?"

"Hell, no. I don't want any of that new shit. This works just fine."

"Except for it ringing all the time, right?"

"I see we can add comedian to the list of professions you dabble in. But I'm still waiting for you to dazzle me with your skill in phone repair."

"I'm a technician not an antique dealer." He picks up the receiver and places it to his ear. "It has a dial tone. That's as much as I can do."

"You have done nothing."

"Could be the problem's not the phone. You know, sometimes older folk imagine things. Might be—"

"Get the hell out of here, or I'll kick you in the ass so hard your mother will feel it." The words are out of his mouth before he has even thought of them. It is a phrase he'd heard his father say dozens of times to salesmen, census takers, religious nuts, and anyone else who showed up unwanted at the door. An acrid taste of battery acid forms on his tongue.