Fearless

by Annie Jocoby

  Montauk? Of course, my dad would choose to live in the Hamptons. God forbid he would live among the unwashed. “Montauk. And what about Dalilah’s Friends? What about your foundation?”

  “Dalilah’s Friends is in excellent hands. I’m going to do something similar here. I’m going to start a new sanctuary just outside of town. Which is why I am choosing to live in Montauk. That will be closer to where my new sanctuary will be. As for the foundation, I’m much closer to power brokers in New York City than in Kansas City.”

  In my drunken state, my feelings were a bit dulled, but the horror was there, all the same. Suddenly, I had to deal with my parents being a little over two hours away. “Okay, so you’re virtually moving into this city. And this will change my life how?”

  Finally, my mother spoke. “Dalilah. We would like for you to have dinner with us at least once a month. I feel like we’ve been shut out of your life. You never answer the phone when we call. God forbid you would ever call us back. You don’t even answer the phone when Nick calls. I don’t approve of you doing what you’re doing. You’re wasting – “

  “My potential. I know. God, don’t I know. Trust me, as disappointed as you are in me, I’m about 1000 times more disappointed in myself. You think that I like myself this way? Do you think that I want to stare at an empty canvas night after night? You have no idea what it’s like to be an artist. To want to eat, drink and breathe creativity and art. But realizing that there really is no air. There’s no air because you’re suffocating. I can’t breathe art, because I can’t get past my mental blocks.”

  My father shook his head. “What happened to you, Dalilah? What happened to the fearless little girl who created some of the leading urban expressionistic paintings and sculptures in the world?”

  I just stared at him, and then simply said “I guess I’m not fearless anymore. I can’t silence my inner critic, so I’m…paralyzed.”

  I looked down at the floor. My dad understood. I knew that he did. He, too, was an artist, and an amazing one at that. But he never went anywhere with it, even though he had some early success, for basically the same reason I quit. And that is the haters. The haters who exist to tear people down. They might be jealous or they might have mental issues. They might merely be trolls. But for somebody with an artistic temperament, they can be devastating to creativity. So, my dad mainly painted for himself and my mother. And he ended up working for The Man. With all of his absolute genius and artistic prodigiousness, he still ended up working as a soulless bank president for many years, before he finally found his passion in working with animals.

  Again, my father had zero authority to talk to me about anything. He gave up his own dreams of being an artist. He had a serious drug addiction when he was my age. Everything that he would be saying to me would ring hollow. It would be a case of “do as I say, not as I do.” And if there was one thing that I couldn’t stand, it was a fucking hypocrite.

  As for my mother. Well, I guess she had a little bit more authority to advise me than my father. She had managed to avoid serious substance abuse, except for those two weeks after she was raped all those years ago. But her hands weren’t clean, either. She was a goddamned cutter at my age. As for her career, she pretty much rode the coattails of my father. If it weren’t for him, she would be some kind of two-bit lawyer just scraping by, because that was what she was when she met my dad.

  I looked at them, well aware of my defensive posture. If I could read their minds, I would imagine that they were either regretting the fact that they both were such fuck-ups when they were my age, or they were regretting telling me exactly how much they were fuck-ups. They sat me down when I was very young and told me all about their idiot mistakes, mainly because it was all chronicled in a People magazine, and they figured that I would come across it sooner or later. My mom’s drug addiction wasn’t in that magazine, though, as it happened later. So her telling me about that was a bonus, I guess.

  “Dalilah,” my father said. “You have to get over it. You have to set aside your fear of failure and realize that you have a gift. You have an amazing gift, no matter what that goddamned Henry Jacobs might have said.”

  Henry Jacobs. Just hearing that name made my blood pressure shoot. He was the one who destroyed me. And, what’s more, I still believe that it was intention to do so. He didn’t do an honest review of my work. There is no way that what he wrote could have ever been considered to be honest. It was motivated by his daughter, who was pedestrian at best and couldn’t stand the fact that I was only 11 and was already attaining international acclaim. My Parisian showing at the Magda Danysz, which is one of the most renowned galleries in the world, was the final straw for the little witch.

  But Henry Jacobs was like a Pied Piper. He was one of the most renowned critics on the New York Times, and when he wrote something, the sycophants usually followed. Suddenly, they started writing stories about how the Emperor really had no clothes. Me being the Emperor in this analogy. Before that goddamned New York Times review of my showing at Luhring, I was widely becoming known as the “Mozart of the art world.” Just as Mozart was composing music at the age of five, I began painting seriously at that same age. Early critics also stated that my work would be influential on the art world, much as Mozart’s music had been profoundly influential on the music world. I was hailed as a fearless pioneer, who was blazing a trail with my subject matter and my technique. Of course, any comparison to Mozart would have been overblown at best. Nobody would ever be able to compare to him, in any kind of artistic endeavor. The comparison was mainly drawn because I was such a prodigy.

  After Henry Jacobs, though, it all went to hell. Suddenly, the critics decided that my work was stale and lifeless. Prosaic and derivative. It was as if these other critics really took their cues from Jacobs the big dog, and if Jacobs decided that I was a fraud, then that became the conventional wisdom.

  It was the first time that I had started having doubts about myself. I really was fearless before that Jacobs article. I took chances that other artists didn’t. I decided that I would turn the genre of urban expressionism on its head. That was what I was aiming for, and I felt unstoppable. But the cascades of poor reviews that happened after the Jacobs article made me want to crawl into a hole and die. And the word “fearless” was no longer a part of my vocabulary, and it was never again used to describe my work.

  I still tried to paint, but I started to look at my own work as being stale and derivative. Prosaic and lifeless. And I would rip up every painting I attempted during this time. I hated every one of them. I believed the critics completely, and decided that I really didn’t have anything meaningful to say. I was still an artist, through and through. It was still the only thing that I had ever wanted. But I couldn’t do it anymore.

  I finally just sighed, as my father continued to stare at me, his eyes sympathetic. My mother still looked pissed, I guess because she really couldn’t relate to me on the artistic level, unlike my dad. As far as she was concerned, I was an impetuous little brat who had won the genetic lottery and still became a waste. That was pretty unforgivable to her, I would imagine. My dad could also relate to my being an intellectual prodigy, because he was, too. He knew that it wasn’t easy for me to truly fit into a world that was clearly stupid in so many ways. He understood how frustrating it was to be able to outthink 99.99% of the population on just about every issue.

  So, I decided to give in a little. If only to try to please my father. My mother would never understand me, as much as she had always tried. But my father was a different story, so I wanted to try to please him.

  “Okay, I’ll have dinner with you every month,” I said, conveniently ignoring my father’s earlier plea for me to once again realize my gift and try to get over Henry Jacobs.

  My mom looked happy. “That would be wonderful, Dalilah. That’s all that we ask. We can keep up on your life so much better if we can have regular contact with you face to face.”

  My dad put his hand on m
y shoulder, and brought me to him in a big hug. To my surprise, I found myself crying as I listened to his heart beating. He stroked my hair and said “shhhhhh, Dalilah, you’re okay. You’re going to find your way, baby girl. Your mom and I love you very much. And we always believe in you. Always.”

  I nodded my head and said nothing.

  But the tears kept coming, and it felt like they would never stop.

  Chapter Six

  I woke to my phone buzzing incessantly. It was then that I realized that I had turned off my phone after my Seth brush-off, not wanting to deal with the reality that he would be blowing up the phone, as he always did when I blew him off. I had turned the phone back on after I went to bed at 4 AM. I had stayed up with my parents, talking late into the night about everything under the sun. My father was still trying to reach me in his way. My mom, too, but she tended to go about it in a manner that pushed me further away as opposed to bringing me closer.

  They had already left, as they had a hotel room, because they knew that there was no way that they could stay with me in my studio apartment.

  Now, here it was 7 AM, and my phone was ringing. I was in no mood to talk to anyone, as I was once again hung-over and talking with my parents had emotionally drained me. But I picked up anyhow.

  “Dalilah Gallagher,” said a familiar voice on the other end. “I have been trying to get ahold of you. Why haven’t you been picking up your phone and returning your messages?”

  I was incredulous. Whoever was speaking was a pushy little bastard, and I didn’t like it one bit. “Who is this?” I asked.

  “This is Blake Nottingham. You met me a few days ago. I need you to pose, and I need this in one hour.”

  Blake Nottingham. The creeper from the sidewalk bench. Fuck that, I wasn’t going to pose for him or anybody else in an hour. “Mr. Nottingham, I’m very sorry, but this is short notice. I’ll have to take a rain check.”

  “You will not take a rain check. I have already arranged for the artist to meet you at 12667 Roosevelt Avenue in Queens.”

  I recognized that address, and I suddenly knew that there was no fucking way I would ever go down there. It was in the industrial area of Queens, known as Willets Point, and it was a cesspool. There was little there but junkyards and waste processing plants. And abandoned warehouses. Somehow, I got the feeling that 12667 Roosevelt Avenue would probably fall into that category.

  I laughed. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Nottingham, but posing there is out of the question. I generally don’t leave Manhattan for a job, and I certainly am not going to go to an armpit like Willets Point for anybody.”

  “I’ll pay you $1,000,” he said.

  My eyebrows raised. Suddenly, I was interested. I could use that money, because I realized that Seth probably was going to cut me off, and there was just no way that I was going to go to my parents, hat in hand. That would be the nail in my coffin, having to beg for their financial support.

  “I’ll be there at 8,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said, and hung up.

  I didn’t have time to think about how this man got my personal phone number. I mean, a lot of established artists had my phone number, because I had been making the rounds and I had become somewhat in demand. But how this Nottingham person managed to get my phone number was beyond me.

  I didn’t have time to think about that one, though. I had to rush to get the bus and the right subway, and then more bus transfers to this little hell-hole in Queens.

  Chapter Seven

  Luke

  I actually did end up at my “studio” a little bit early, as I didn’t want a repeat performance of the other morning. So, I didn’t get baked the night before and actually got some sleep for once in my life. I knew that getting to the studio would be tricky on the bus, because I was going to have to carry my tools and my canvas on there. I really should have outfitted the studio with what I needed, but I used the place so little that there was never in point in doing that.

  So, I packed up my stuff and took off on the bus to the Willets Point district of Queens. This was a depressing area that resembled a war zone, really, and I felt a little bad that a classy woman, as this Dalilah Gallagher seemed to be, would have to be subjected to such an indignity as coming to an abandoned warehouse in the middle of a post-apocalyptic landscape like Willets Point. But, it couldn’t be helped. It was either here in this studio or in my studio apartment. And I had finally resorted to having bars installed on my windows, and the guys were coming today to install them, so painting this Dalilah in my apartment was out of the question. I never thought that I would have to resort to having bars on my windows, but being constantly robbed was getting old indeed.

  My heart was pounding as I got to my warehouse and set up shop. I started the generator, which powered the lights and a space heater, which was necessitated by the fact that it was always cold in this place, for some odd reason. I set up my canvas and carefully inventoried my tools. I had gotten the contract that was sent over by courier, and it specified that I was to paint a nude portrait of her that was to be delivered in three month. The payment would be contingent upon the buyer being satisfied with the work, which would mean that I wouldn’t be paid until the end of the project. Until then, I guess, I would live on Spaghetti-O’s and Ramen Noodles, as usual.

  There was even an addendum that specified that, if the buyer was satisfied with the work, I could exercise an extra $10,000 option to sculpt her. He would supply the marble. That was more than exciting to me. I was an excellent painter, but an even better sculptor. I just never really got the chance to sculpt, as I couldn’t afford the materials. If I chose to exercise that addendum, I could take up to six months to deliver it.

  I set up the pedestal for her to pose on. I was given rather detailed instructions on the pose that she was supposed to assume in this first session. I was also sent a fainting couch for her to lay on. The couch was royal red, and very traditional. I would assume that he wanted the final product to be in keeping with the look of the couch, which would mean that I would paint her in more of a classical style, as opposed to attempting something more avant-garde.

  This guy seemed to be a micro-manager and a control freak, but, no matter, I was going to do what he said. Far be it for me to breach the contract in any way, which would mean that I wouldn’t be paid the amount that we agreed to. I had a working knowledge of contract 101, and realized that the terms were not absolute. It depended upon my following the instructions that I had agreed to, to the letter.

  I finally got everything set up and ready to go. I looked at my watch. It read 7:55. Dalilah was supposed to arrive around 8. I tapped my toe nervously, hoping that she would show. I needed the income, for sure, but, truth be told, I also was looking forward to seeing her. From the short time that I saw her on the bus, I could tell that she was radiant. Incandescent. She just exuded a certain kind of sensuality that emitted from her very presence. It was difficult to describe. All that I knew was that I was drawn to her, as if I was being pulled in by a tractor beam.

  It occurred to me that my benefactor had obviously felt the same way about her, which would be why he was so eager for me to take this project. In which case, I probably shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me, which is what I would be doing if I started a love affair with her. But, then, I immediately put that thought out of my head, because a girl like that was out of my league anyhow. I was obviously going to have to make do with fantasizing about being with her. And there wasn’t any way that I was going to not fantasize about being with her.

  At the same time, I had to be professional. That was going to be exceedingly difficult, considering the circumstances, but I was going to have to look at her as just another model. I had painted many nudes over the course of my career, both when I was a student and a few times as a professional, whenever I had been able to score commissioned work before. I typically couldn’t afford to hire them on my own, but there had been a few commissioned projects that featured nude models, a
nd I never had an issue being a consummate professional with them.

  The minutes ticked by slowly. I kept checking my watch, and started to feel the anxiety build. What if she couldn’t make it? Wouldn’t Nottingham call me and let me know about that? I started to feel just a bit foolish, coming down here and setting everything up. If she didn’t show, I would just be the chump.

  The anxiety built, as the time got to be 8:30, and then 8:45. I kept checking my phone, too, to see if Nottingham had contacted me, but there was never a message or a voice-mail from him. I tapped my foot impatiently, and started to feel let down by the whole thing. I probably shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

  Finally, around 9, there was a knock on my door. I took a quick peek in the mirror before I went to let her in. My hair was behaving, and I was dressed as professionally as I could be, as I had chosen a yellow sweater with a white button-down, jeans and oxford shoes. I had even bothered to spray some cologne and used after-shave. All in all, I felt at least a bit presentable.

  My heart pounding, I opened the door. She was standing on the other side of the door, wearing jeans, a longish cashmere sweater and boots. Her gorgeous red hair was tied up behind her head, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. But even in her casual attire, with her unadorned face, she still glowed from within. The same heat that I felt from her as I admired her on the bus was still burning, white hot. It was something that I could feel, especially since she was so close, and she actually was going to interact with me.

  She smiled, her teeth perfect. I had a hard time taking my eyes off of her lips. Her perfect, full, sensuous lips. I self-consciously licked my own lips as I fixated on hers. She held out her slender hand, her nails perfectly lacquered in a dark blue color that was almost black. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Dalilah. And you must be Luke.”

  I took a deep breath, determined that I was going to be cool. “Yeah, Luke,” I simply said, shaking her hand. I willed my hand not to tremble, which would belie my outer attempts to be casual. To my delight, my handshake with her was steadfast and unwavering.