The Atrocity Artist

9.

The paint hardens on the brush ruining the sable bristles. It lays on the table next to the abandoned pallet.

The new painting is of the stupid house on the hill, but it looks like a gray stone on top of a green turd. The edges are ragged and bleed out on the expanse of white canvas. The base layer is always rough. No need to be neat. That came later. If carving a sculpture is the process of removing everything not needed, painting is about piling the oils on thicker and thicker until a window opened revealing a vibrant, palpable world.

It's a vomitous act involving heaving one's soul up onto the board in successive waves. Each new one refines the details building on the one before.

But even at the base layer stage, it required a steady hand. No matter how rough it was, if the artist's skill isn't present right from the start, it would never amount to more than shit.

For the first time in his life, Skad's hands shake so much he can't hold the brush straight.

The undefined blobs on the canvas gaze at him, accusing him of inducing their malformed existence. They scold him for his fear and pusillanimity. He wants to look away but behind the canvas lies the lake, and it's a reminder of her.

She's come twice more, drifting in with the fog. She hovers offshore and delivers the incriminations she never had the chance to tell him in life. And like a pathetic husk, he stands before her and gratefully soaks it in.

Seeing her erases the years and makes him feel like the boy he once was. Bobby, the earnest youth with dreams of being an artist and dangerously deep in love. But when she drifts off across the water beckoning him to follow, it all goes away. The boy. The dreams. The love. And he's Skad again. An old man with his best years behind him, a dead son, and tremulous hands.

It occurs to him with sudden clarity the subject of his painting shouldn't be the ghastly house with its modern architecture. It's far too trivial. As insignificant for art as it is for life. His subject needs to be something that matters. The true enemy: age.

This would be a great theme to tackle. It would be heroic to expose the way Age wages war with all of us. Erodes everyone down to dust.

He should paint this monster. Except the villain has robbed him of almost everything, even the faculty required to paint it.

Although, perhaps it is the sleepless nights wearing him down. A good rest might clear his mind and restore the sureness of his brush.

But he needs to stay up, waiting on the dock for Angeline. The night belongs to her now, and he couldn't stay away if he tied himself to the bed. Her presence is a sweet drug. He has no choice but to keep watch for her appearance, even if most of his vigils end with no hint of her and the dawn rising over the lake.

The barest glimpse of her is worth a dozen sleepless nights.

Besides, when he tries to sleep, the phone calls come.