The Chalk Artist

by Allegra Goodman

  Each day, Collin discovered something new, a funhouse mirror, a hall wallpapered in a skull print. Ping-Pong, foosball, mini basketball. He found a cache of real skeletons, an art book on Michelangelo, a war room with a map of the world projected on the wall. In this map’s glow, a handful of troubleshooters manned workstations, watching for power outages and natural disasters that could short-circuit Arkadia’s network and interrupt players’ negotiations and alliances, their qwests and feuds.

  The place was scientific and theatrical. Meetings addressed the physics of an avalanche, the look and feel of UnderWorld’s caverns, the speed of flaming arrows, the way a castle might explode. Testers reported back on lags. For example, when you were mowing down your enemies in battle, you wanted them to fall before you instantly. Death throes were fun to watch when you were fighting one-on-one, but in the aggregate they dragged. Speed, fluidity, efficiency: These weren’t just computational problems, they were artistic problems too. You could accelerate a war with visual shortcuts. “Know your history,” Peter said, and he showed classic sequences from World of Warcraft and Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.

  A long-haired archivist named Robbie presided over a cache of antique Game Boys, X-Boxes, and arcade consoles. He told Collin, “I played Pong before you were born.”

  Tempted, Collin studied the library of boxed classics, everything from American McGee’s Alice to the Bitmap Brothers’ Z. Myst, with its subtle island veiled in cloud. Reluctantly, he turned away. He saw how people worked, watched Peter deliver schedules and agendas. UnderWorld was a vast construction project, a virtual cathedral. Animators, modelers, and programmers all scrummed together in small pods, and together the pods built up the game.

  He had signed and initialed a thirty-page contract filled with references to company ownership, licensing, and intellectual property. He had taught his final class at Broadway Bicycle, and waited his last tables at Grendel’s. Samantha presented him with her bartender’s business card. “Hey, think of me for parties.”

  Parties! He wasn’t thinking about parties. He was living, breathing, dreaming horses. He drew them in silhouette, in small black thumbnails, racing, turning, leaping on his slate. Peter judged each variant—one small and muscular like a mustang, one massive, one slender, built to run. He chose elements he liked and Collin worked up a detailed study, a horse noble but also wild, with dark, rolling eyes, broad shoulders, nervous ears, rough mane and tail.

  If Peter approved an image you were golden. More often, he dismissed his artists’ work. These were not quiet critiques, nor were they cushioned with encouragement. Peter used group meetings to tear into artists, ripping them apart. Hellions called it getting drawn and quartered.

  “I didn’t think this could get worse,” Peter told an artist named Akosh. “Somehow you found a way.”

  Collin watched with twenty others as Peter stood at the whiteboard and destroyed an entire winter landscape, gorgeous trees knee-deep in snow. He slashed the forest through with one black stroke.

  “It’s pale, it’s soft, it’s pretty,” Peter said, and Collin saw that “pretty” was a felony.

  “As for you…” Peter cleared the board and brought up a sketch by an artist named Obi. “You call this a knight? I asked for rust. I told you his sword is filthy. What is this shit?” With his stylus Peter roughened armor, bloodied the knight’s gleaming weapon.

  “I’ll change it,” Obi said.

  “Don’t change it. Start over.”

  “Okay.”

  Obi’s conciliatory tone only irritated Peter further. “Okay. Okay, I’ll change it. No. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Do it right the first time.”

  Obi ventured, “I thought you wanted the knight first and then we’d modify it.”

  Peter didn’t answer this. He stood there staring at Obi until the hapless artist had to look away. “I’m not interested in what you thought,” Peter said at last. He seemed at that moment a monarch, denying all history and memory. Nothing mattered but his current inclination.

  “He’s harsh,” Collin told Nina.

  Her reply surprised him. “That’s good. You know where you stand.”

  “Have you ever heard him?” Collin asked in disbelief.

  She nodded. “Praise is worse.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s where he messes with your mind.”

  In fact Peter had singled Collin out for commendation. “Okay,” he said when Collin showed him his new horses. Collin could scarcely believe it. Compared to what he’d heard, “okay” seemed a precious gem. He treasured that single word for days. “Could be interesting,” Peter added on another occasion, and Collin wanted to leap with joy. He remembered Nina’s words, but Peter didn’t lavish praise on Collin. Instead, he lavished time.

  Peter began watching Collin work, and even guiding Collin as he drew. “More sinew. Ears back. Neck outstretched,” he directed, as Collin made mid-course corrections.

  Other hellions watched Peter work with Collin. True, Collin stood out as a draftsman. Some artists could talk about procedural shaders and facial animation systems. Some could sculpt a gorgeous scene with aeroflakes. But nobody could draw like Collin. As Peter’s favorite, he didn’t win friends, but gradually he earned respect. Arkadians would crowd around at lunch to see his horses, and he began posting sketches on his cubicle walls.

  In those early days he took his slate and stylus everywhere. He worked at home and at lunch, and even on the company shuttle bus. In the seat next to him, Collin’s Brazilian scrum master, Tomas, watched a horse emerge white against the black surface of the slate. Behind them, Akosh leaned over the back of Collin’s seat, as did Obi, whose chestnut hair flowed almost to his waist, in the style of the Elvish kings. Only one person on the shuttle held herself apart. It seemed a matter of pride. She wouldn’t let Collin catch her watching.

  Her name was Daphne. She had just graduated from Full Sail University, and she worked in marketing. Her face was impudent, her dark hair cropped short. Her eyes were pure blue, her expression mocking. She wore black jeans and a CU sweatshirt, so she was all covered up, whether at her desk, or gaming late at night. Only her hands showed, and Collin found himself gazing at the flowers tattooed on her wrists. The petals were finely drawn, as if they’d been scribed in India ink. He wondered who had done the work, and if the design continued up her arms.

  Daphne wasn’t a programmer, and she wasn’t an artist, and she wasn’t really a tester, but she was a brilliant gamer. Like a chess master, she could play multiple games at once. She would stand in a pool of light with her avatars lit up around her as she showed off unreleased UnderWorld to the select few—those beta gamers she found most extreme, all kids, all boys.

  Fluid as a dancer, she darted in and out of worlds. No hellion could beat her in a duel. Nobody even came close, and Collin loved to watch her take her colleagues down. She took such pleasure in it; you couldn’t begrudge her gloating. Sometimes she would take a bow. Peter liked to watch as well, and this was the other thing that fascinated Collin. Peter was the only one who rattled Daphne. In his presence her whole body tensed. She shot her virtual arrows and she missed. No one was immune to Nina’s uncle. No one except Nina herself—but then she didn’t work for him.

  Hellions feared Peter, but they also worshipped him, waiting for him as he strode the halls, following him with questions. They competed for answers and decisions, but most of all for Peter’s sketches. His vision was dark and strange and always new. He never developed drawings; he left his sketches bare and suggestive, a landscape ever so subtly wrong, an imminent nightmare. These were the challenges he set his artists, and then he wondered why they couldn’t read his mind.

  Collin began to see what Peter was about. Nina’s uncle detested all things shiny, perfect, new. He was building a world of darkness, decay, infection, and Collin adapted quickly to this vision. He drew Peter to him with his facility and speed, and soon Peter was thinking out loud while Collin took down
ideas on his slate. “A white dragon,” Peter said. As Collin sketched, Peter ordered, “Keep the wings and lose the scales. No. Scales on the body. Open wings. Keep opening.” Collin drew wings opening big enough to fill a room. “Bigger,” Peter said. “Wings big enough to block the sun.” An hour passed, but it felt like just a minute. Collin’s drawing evolved that fast.

  Then Peter lost interest and demanded something new. “Two horses,” he said, as though he were ordering at a restaurant. When Collin drew the horses, Peter rejected them instantly. “What are they, twins? Nobody can tell them apart. Again.”

  Collin looked up, startled.

  “I said draw them again.”

  Peter never let up, but Collin realized this was a sign of favor. He had won Peter’s attention.

  All the others noticed. Jealous, they watched Collin draw for Peter. Even Daphne gave up acting cool and hovered, challenging Collin for Peter’s time. She caught Peter’s attention when she reported news of her campaign. “We’ve got CU trending now.” She held up a tablet, offering him fresh numbers.

  Whenever Peter worked with Collin, she waited on the periphery. Eventually she began looking at Collin’s work. She started glancing and then she began watching him at night when she thought he wasn’t looking. At last she scooted her swivel chair to his workstation to gaze at the horses on his monitor.

  “Seriously?” she said under her breath.

  “What?”

  He watched her struggle with herself. She wouldn’t compliment him. No, she would not give him the satisfaction. “Is that all you can do?”

  “Jealous?” Collin teased.

  “You wish!”

  He didn’t know Daphne, but her trash talk amused him. He felt chosen by them both—Peter the master, and Daphne the marketer. But they were different. Peter demanded while Daphne teased. Peter pushed while Daphne bantered. There was something hard about Daphne, and also sweet. He felt at ease with her, and confused by her as well. He couldn’t tell what she really thought of him.

  Almost unconsciously he began sketching Daphne on his electronic slate, covering the surface with her clever face, her cropped hair and wide blue eyes. He drew Daphne working at her terminal with her legs tucked under her. He drew her in Elvish guise, delicate in thin draperies, and then he sketched her gaming like a boy, brandishing an imaginary sword.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Nothing. Drawing you.”

  She drew close and closer. He could feel her quick breath. Then she brushed his slate clean with the cuff of her sleeve. “I never said you could.”

  “I didn’t know I had to ask!”

  “Yeah, I’m copyright.”

  “You can’t copyright yourself.”

  “Well, you have to ask permission.”

  “Why? I don’t need permission to look at you,” Collin pointed out.

  “Yes, you do.” For just a moment, she covered his eyes with her small hand.

  He laughed.

  “What?” she demanded, mock seriously.

  “You really want me to stop drawing you?”

  She had a smile too quick to capture. Her eyes shone with fun. “I want to play with you.”

  The first time they fought in EverWhen, she was a Fire Elf and Collin was a Forest Elf. They fought with spears, and in two blows Daphne cut Collin down, dismembered him, and left him for dead.

  “Once more,” Collin said.

  They fought with cudgels and he landed only one glancing blow before she knocked Collin to the ground and brained him.

  The third time they clashed swords. They stood on the banks of a crystal stream, and Collin forced Daphne into the water, but once again she was too fast for him. In one swift move, she slashed his arm and then drove her blade through his Elf’s chest. The purling water turned blood red.

  “Just one more time,” he said.

  “Go practice.”

  He felt a flash of anger, but it lasted only for an instant. Luminous in the Arkadian darkness, she disarmed him.

  Daphne was like girls he had once known. A little selfish, a little dangerous. She liked to play; she liked to drink. After long days, Obi and Akosh and Collin and Daphne would go out drinking after work. “The bars of Waltham,” Daphne intoned. They would sit together at O’Riley’s, joking, and it was like the old days, when he could leave his work behind, and no one wondered where he was at night. Not that he wanted his old life. He knew the difference between odd jobs and full employment. He understood the difference between lust and love, and he wanted what lasted. Of course he did. But the “of course” part rankled. How strict and narrow real life turned out to be. Of course you wanted a career. Of course you wanted to be with the girl so much better than you it wasn’t even funny. But he missed being funny and stupid and irresponsible.

  He was Collin, even in Arkadia. Especially in Arkadia. He got drunk enough to flirt with Daphne. He drank enough to be himself, pushing her sleeves up off her wrists, catching a glimpse of ink. Most people flaunted their tattoos. Strangely modest, or perversely teasing, Daphne kept hers covered up.

  “What kind of leaves are these?” He studied her forearms.

  “Laurels,” she said. “Duh.”

  “Show me.”

  She slipped off her barstool and said, “You’d have to beat me first.”

  Then Obi and Akosh were laughing as though she’d said something witty, but she meant it, and handed Collin a pool cue. He wasn’t bad, but she was lethal with her angles, maddening, and also cute, undeniably funny when she triumphed over him. “Ha!” She raised her cue like a Whennish spear. “I’m so much better than you!”

  —

  Over days and weeks, Collin drew a hundred horses. Hoofbeats thundered in his ears. Even when he closed his eyes for a few minutes, he dreamed of horses. He slept on the hellions’ black leather couch and saw his horses racing on the beach, kicking sand in the salt air. Then he dreamed of Daphne—a strange Arkadian dream. Leaves unfolded on her slender arms, stems and tendrils crept over her neck. Shocked, he watched her disappear. Her ears changed to budding twigs, her nipples hardened into berries. Her limbs were smooth and silvery, her toes rooted to the ground. Those were not her eyes anymore, but birds sheltering in her branches. That was not her mouth, but a dark nest with fledglings where her tongue had been.

  —

  Gradually Nina saw a haze come over Collin. That spring he was exhausted. Not just a little sleepy, spent. Often when they met for dinner he was too tired to talk, certainly too tired to draw on kraft paper. Sometimes he was too tired to eat. They met at Grafton Street and ordered a Margherita pizza, but his slices grew cold.

  “How’s your hand?” Nina said.

  “It’s fine. It hurts.”

  “Is it hurting now?”

  “No. It’s not too bad.”

  She said, “We’ve got spring fever at school.” She had been teaching William Carlos Williams to her eleventh graders. “This Is Just to Say” and “Burning the Christmas Greens” and “Spring and All.” “My student had a baby,” she told Collin. “Brynna had a baby girl.”

  Collin smiled. Nina was so beautiful and he was so relieved to see her. She was like home; she took him back.

  “Collin?”

  He’d drifted off only for a moment.

  Nina said, “You can’t work all day and all night too.”

  “I don’t.”

  She leaned across the table. “Don’t let them wear you down.”

  “Don’t lecture me.”

  That offended her, not just his words, but his cold tone.

  In silence, he paid for dinner. In silence, Nina handed him the leftover pizza in a box. When they walked outside the night was misty, fogging the windows of Harvard Book Store. The spring air woke him, but Nina was angry. He knew it, even though she didn’t say it. He knew because she didn’t speak.

  “I wasn’t lecturing,” Nina said at last.

  “Yes, you were. That’s what you do.” He had to get
away; he had to rest. He would have canceled dinner, except that he’d have disappointed her.

  She looked at him and sensed something was wrong. “You never draw anymore.”

  He said, “I draw all day.”

  “And you’re tired of it now.”

  “No, I’m just tired.”

  “You should have said you were too tired to meet me.”

  “You’d be upset.”

  “Like I am now?”

  “Yeah, because I never see you anymore, or I’m working so much that I ignore you.”

  “I never said that.”

  “That’s what you were thinking.”

  “Don’t tell me what I’ve been thinking.”

  “Don’t make such a big deal out of everything.”

  Tears started in her eyes.

  What am I doing? Collin thought. Why did he want to hurt her? “No,” he said softly.

  “No what?” Nina asked.

  “Just don’t cry.”

  She took a long breath.

  “I don’t forget you. I could close my eyes and draw your face.” With his finger he traced her profile on the frosty bookstore window. With one curving line he captured her forehead, her straight nose, her decided chin, her long neck. In one more stroke he drew her hair flowing down over her shoulders. “You’re the one who can’t remember.”

  She gazed at her image, a portrait in two lines, the work of a moment, subtle, ephemeral. Collin had caught her likeness, but she found him in the glass as well. She saw his easy grace, his quicksilver imagination. “I do remember,” she said. “That’s why I miss you.”