Teresa appeared in the doorway about two in the morning. “Deets, you’re driving yourself crazy. You’d better sleep.”
I snapped at her, “No, damn it. I have to finish this.”
“What are you getting all hacked off at me for?”
“I’m not.” I felt my teeth grind.
“You’re nasty.” She went back into the bedroom. I grabbed the book and had her night shirt and panties off before she reached the bed.
“Chapter four, diagram A.”
“What, I... Is it gentle? I haven’t read that far, and I’m still sore from last night.”
“We can let it be whatever you want it to be.”
The evening before I had to deliver all my work to the HooDoo, I started a new unplanned drawing. I popped two more zippity-doo-dahs while talking to the face in the bathroom mirror. My eyes were black discs, and my hair was standing straight out from the top and sides of my head.
Teresa said I looked like a demented Bozo the Clown.
“What, what, what? I need to go for twenty-one pieces. Oh yeah, Bozo and I can get it done and frame it by tomorrow morning.”
About midnight, I was twisting wire through eye screws when Teresa came into the room attired in a see-through dress that had been hanging in the store window for about a month.
“I looked at diagram B.” She waved the fabric suggestively. It billowed slightly, then softly resettled, caressing her nipples and clinging to her thighs.
“Let me get my turban.”
About five hours later, a gray dawn devoured me as I crawled across the living room. My arms were shaking, my lungs felt incapable of pulling in air, and my dong had turned a color I’d never seen before. I plucked a piece of cloth from my lips. Examining it, I recognized the sheer fabric, smelled Teresa on it, and stuck it in my mouth, chewing it for her flavor.
I managed to find my workroom and the little vial that clinked when I shook it. “Ahh, my little helpers.”
Teresa slept until noon, came out to my drawing table, picked up a pair of scissors, and cut off knotted loops of the lightweight dress from her wrists. She spoke, smiling lazily, “Quite a night, quite a revelation. That book should be a best seller.” She shifted around a loose pile of sketches, humming while she browsed through them.
“Are you going to finish in time? Chang’s coming over to help load the drawings so you can keep working.”
Streaks of light formed a tunnel around my vision. Teresa appeared to be swaying in a hazy wave of distorted air. “Of course I’m going to finish—if you’d just shut up and let me.”
“Don’t speak to me like that. It’d be better if you just crashed right now. You can’t keep going, all strung out and a mess. How are you even going to stand up at the opening?” She grabbed the almost empty vial of pills and stomped out of the room. “No more of this stuff. It’s wicked.”
“Just load the bus. You’ll only have about five hours to hang everything. I want the large one with the hidden faces in the brick to be the first thing anyone sees when they enter the gallery.”
“Quit yelling.”
My face smacked into the glass of the HooDoo’s front door. Stepping back, I tried to push it open by fumbling with the doorknob. Thinking I had been locked out of my own art show, I rattled and twisted the knob vigorously. Then the door swung outwards, and a young man wearing thin wire glasses smiled nervously at me.
“I do that all the time.”
I tried to figure out what he was talking about.
“Push, instead of pull.” He stepped aside and gestured for me to enter. “You’re the artist, aren’t you? Great show.”
Finally inside, I didn’t know what to do. I stood for a moment, watching a large crowd of people milling around, glasses of wine in their hands, all chatting while standing in front of my artwork.
Daisy saw me. A brief shock disfigured her features, then she moved in close to me, looking worried.
“Deets, oh my, Deets, oh my precious boy. Here, come with me.” She slipped her arm through mine and guided me past her clients. Catching Julie’s eye, she jutted her chin in the direction of the administration rooms at the back of the gallery.
I sat down in a chair in her office. Daisy shut the door. Julie looked disgusted.
“Oh god, he’s so fucked up. He can barely see where he’s going.” Julie sat across from me, crossed her legs, smirked in disdain.
“I can see you. I can walk, I can talk, I can huff, and can puff until your panties come tumbling down.”
Julie cocked her head, shifted her legs, set a smile of mock amusement to her face.
“It looks like a million people showed up. Man, anybody got a banana? I haven’t eaten all day, except for this.” I pulled the torn section of Teresa’s dress out of my mouth.
Julie wrinkled her nose.
“Don’t just sit there. Get a wet cloth. If it doesn’t sober him, at least it’ll clean him up.” Daisy stroked one hand across my shoulder.
“He’s not drunk.”
“I know.” Daisy tossed back her hair and squatted in front of me, rested her hands on my knees. “Deets, what are you on?”
“I can’t remember what it’s called. Zippy little pills. Hey, I have one more drawing to hang.” I held out a piece of cardboard with a pen and ink portrait of myself taped to it. The skin of my face was tattooed in sepia with hundreds of little creatures and objects wrestling each other. A rat was strangling a pillow and a turtle had a skeleton in a head lock while other crazed battles raged all around them. The war surrounded a pair of green luminescent eyes that searched helplessly, trying to see the terror taking place on their own face, never able to see what the world saw.
Julie handed Daisy a damp cloth, took the board from my hand. “Oh my god, it’s incredible.”
Daisy glanced at the illustration. “Go find Teresa, get her back here, then mingle and talk up his talent.” She squeezed my legs with both hands. “What are we going to do about you?”
“We have to frame this.” Julie gripped the cardboard, her eyes poring over the drawing. “It’s terrifying, Deets.”
“Leave it until later,” Daisy commanded sharply.
Julie left the room, placing the drawing on the office desk.
Teresa and Ham came bustling in, looking alarmed.
“Amphetamines. That’s what he’s on. Man, Deets, you’re really buzzed out. You gotta slow down.” Ham looked to Teresa.
“He’s not overdosed, I took them away from him, but he hasn’t eaten or slept well for days.”
“Stop worrying, I’m not dying. I’m just really wired and worn to a frazzle. Man, it’s like my jaws are clacking and teeth jangling, but y’know, my heart’s still pumping blood, and my lungs are doing their thing. Oxygen, man. I need a cigarette.”
Daisy stood up, cupping my face firmly with her hands along my jaw. By her expression, I thought she was going to bawl me out, but then her eyes softened, and I could see the concern in them.
“Oh, damn.” She gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “Okay, Ham you stick with him for awhile. Help him navigate. Teresa, you come with me and talk this man of yours up. It’s an absolutely brilliant show. The place is packed and everybody’s asking me where he is. Important people want to meet him.”
Daisy went out to schmooze her clientele, make sales, and hope for the best while Teresa fretted about my sanity and health for a few minutes before mixing into the crowd.
Ham and I retreated to a storage room utility closet and smoked a joint.
“Man, you gotta play it cool,” Ham said as we entered the gallery showroom. “I told you not to gulp down all those pills. You’ll be lucky if you fall asleep before next week.”
“What’s the matter with everyone? I’m overworked, man.”
I paced around the gallery, studying each drawing, the people, the
frames, where each piece was hung, imprecisions. I could hear every conversation in the three gallery rooms at the same time despite a high pitched ringing in my ears.
Bumper cars. This is like Asbury Park’s bumper cars. Watch out, lady in a pink dress, get out of my way. Uh-oh, skinny professor slipping through, about to ram me. I’ll smack him if I pull right, yes, there’s an opening to my left. Whoa, I’m twirling, somebody rear-ended me.
“I’m so glad to meet you, Deets. Daisy told me it would be a magnificent show.” An attractive woman with wisps of gray in her perfectly coifed hair raised her wineglass. A beam of blue light shot at me from a gigantic diamond on her ring finger. “What a fruitful imagination. I adore the nude. Who is that? I didn’t know you did portraits, but it’s wonderful. I would love for you to come to my apartment and do a drawing like that of me. When would you be free? I suppose I could pose for you tonight if you wished.” She smiled over the rim of her glass with lips that shone wet with wine as she swallowed me with her eyes.
I caromed away from her and got jammed from both sides between two men, one tall, the other stubby, jabbering about the meaning of the dog-faced Indian charging across the Poconos meadow.
“Obviously, it’s a manifestation of the primitive subconscious that the artist has represented as two direct symbols of savagery—a snarling dog and a wild Indian.” The taller man, resenting my presence, looked me over as if he had smelled garbage.
“Masterfully done. Quite detailed. In my opinion, I rather think he’s consciously trying to portray his inability to attain some elusive desire. The background speaks of solitude, the stars represent the remoteness of not only his own connections to others, but of all humanity’s emotional isolationism.” The short, curly-haired man sniffled his thick bulb of a nose, nodded at me in an ill-disguised attempt to hide his irritation of my physical proximity to him.
“Interesting. Did you notice the scar across the Indian’s neck right below the dog’s jawline?” said the taller of the two art analysts.
“The separation of man and animal in one simple—”
“Separation? No, more like fusing.”
They both stepped closer to the drawing, and I was jettisoned backwards by the vacuum.
I overheard the tall man say to Bulbo, “My, what a rancid looking character. How did he ever wrangle an invitation?”
The other man chuckled. “Remember Doctor, you’re in the Village. He’s probably a friend of the artist.”
The tall man shivered exaggeratedly before both men stepped over to view another one of my drawings. “The price on that Night Charge is very tempting. I believe it would be an appropriate piece for my front lobby. At home, of course, not at the office.”
Across the room I could hear Julie laughing. I sensed an intruding energy amid the general gay chirps, excited exclamations, and beleaguering pontifications of the crowd. Zeroing in on Julie’s ringing exultations, I discerned the air near the nude of Teresa to be shredding apart. I moved determinedly towards it, thinking it odd that no one else noticed the disturbance.
Doctor Steel stood in front of Teresa’s portrait, glass of wine in one hand. He nestled close to Julie. Whatever he was saying, Julie was charmed. He raised his other hand and slid his fingernail along the picture’s glass, following the delicate pencil line curve of Teresa’s back and ass.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I yelled from about five feet behind him.
Oh, he was smooth, turning slowly, a snake tasting the air—measuring up the distance, taking in my movements, instilling fear. His finger still lingered above Teresa’s right hip.
The people near me fell silent. Little pops of nervous questioning gradually rippled down to an expectant hush that filled the main gallery.
“Ahh, the artist introduces himself.” Steel smiled and bowed his head slightly at me.
Julie looked embarrassed for me.
The large drawing of a brick wall, with its hidden symbols and faces, loomed beside me. I was surrounded by my creations. Monkeys sulked, tight-lipped and perplexed, winged fish soared, creatures crawled, Jenny skipped, dogs maneuvered within shadows.
And Teresa hung on the wall behind Steel.
“Get your slimy hand off of her.”
He arched his eyebrows at my demand, the curl of his thin smile letting me know I had stepped into dangerous territory.
“Your exhibition’s theme of a mind barely able to hold on to a sane interpretation of the world is well-conceived and remarkably executed.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the two art analysts and the diamond-ringed woman craning their necks for a better view of the scene unfolding. I heard someone whisper, “Is this part of his show?”
“No, it’s not.” I turned my head slightly to see a concerned Maureen. Ham stood nearby, way too stoned, indecisive, not knowing whether to stop my advance or not. A woman in a red, polka-dotted dress looked on, terrified. The man next to her, wearing a crumpled, orange jacket, took a step forward. The civilian version of Officer Al frowned at me quizzically.
I screamed at Steel, “I want you out of here. What’re you doing, looking for somebody else to kill and rape?”
It materialized for only an instant, but there—the quick flicker of a reptilian tongue licking across Steel’s lips.
“You evil creep, get the hell out of my life,” I snarled, readying myself for a physical altercation.
Daisy came bursting through the spectators near me. Julie stepped back, jittering in fear, losing her grip on her wine glass. She tried to retrieve it but instead smacked the stem, causing it to flip through the air, its contents flooding in an arc towards me. The first splashes of wine hit my T-shirt, flecks of red appearing.
“You goddamn bloodthirsty demon.”
I lunged at Steel, the burgundy still spraying on me, the glass bouncing off my arm, then shattering on the floor.
Steel stepped forward to meet me. I sensed a barrier, an impenetrability around him, declaring itself and challenging me.
Four hands gripped my arms and pulled me back before I was able to strike. I tripped and fell to my knees. Daisy and Officer Al knelt beside me, holding me tightly.
I growled, tried to shrug them away.
“Deets, calm down. Just calm down.” Daisy searched my face, concerned, trying to find reason behind the rage.
I yelled past her, “Be careful, everyone. He turns monsters loose.”
Teresa frantically called out my name as she worked her way through the crowd.
I thrashed against arms, hands, and bodies closing in on me.
Al said, “Let’s get him out of here.”
As I was lifted to my feet and steered to the door, the smell of Al’s cologne was overpowering, the wine sticky on my face and hair. The world spun at an awkward angle, and my heart pounded in overdrive. Teresa had somehow wrapped one arm around my waist while the lady in polka dots held the door open tremulously. Al told her he’d be back. I looked wildly at her. “Janie?”
Her eyes widened, but she nodded.
I managed a half-turn in the doorway, scrambling and pushing against my captors, shouting back into the HooDoo Gallery, “Keep away from that murderous thing. He’s not human. You saw his tongue. He’s a killer snake-devil from another dimension.”
On the sidewalk outside, I strained against hands pulling at me while vaguely familiar voices cracked my eardrums, spitting out terrible words about me. “Restrained... Bellevue or Saint Luke’s... knock him out... has to sleep...”
Chapter 51
I woke up in a dark room, and though I felt sluggish, sensed its unfamiliarity, and knew I had never been in it before. Laying there, wondering whose prisoner I was, I could hear a motor humming and, once in a while, footsteps walking past the doorway. Then a distant bellowing followed by random indistinct calls would penetrate into my cell. I listened f
or what seemed to be an hour to a woman’s voice cackling, rising in pitch, alternating between a yowl and a laugh. Somebody shrieked curses. They sounded abhorrent and threatening, even after I figured out they were composed mostly of a confused mix of biblical quotations, references to body liquids, and baseball scores.
A metal clacking sound was followed by a shaft of sickly, pale light reluctantly sliding into my room. I pushed myself up and said, “Hello.”
Two eyes appeared in an open slot in the door. Then an overhead lamp flicked on in the room, which was a small space, maybe eight by ten feet. The walls were painted a light gray to a height of three feet off the floor then white up to the ceiling. Dirty white. The bed was the only furniture. I hadn’t realized until then I was wearing pajamas.
I yawned and stretched before speaking again. “Hey, what’s happening?”
The light shut off and the slot rammed shut.
Pieces of my memory started to arrange themselves in my head—the days of work and popping meth, the nights of marathon sex and more pills, little food, and rare sleep. I had promised myself during the past winter to never overload myself with my work to the point of not sleeping, but I had done it again—let myself be possessed by a need to express an idea I couldn’t let go of even as it destroyed me.
I was in a hospital. That much was evident. By the random screeching, crying, and yelling I heard, I figured I was in its psych ward and wondered how I had ended up there. I remembered Officer Al and Teresa and signing some papers, but then came a flash of Doctor Steel. There he was at my show, flirting with Julie, fouling Teresa’s beauty by touching my drawing. An almost paralyzing fear ran through me as I recalled feeling the solidness of Steel’s power when I had moved to attack him. I had often wondered if he could physically affect me directly, now I knew he could.
That he had appeared in public suggested his moves were getting bolder. This time there were witnesses. Who had ever seen him before? Pigeon, Jenny, probably Amelia.
The light snapped on again, and the door opened. A large black man in a white orderly uniform stepped in.
Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 1) Page 25
