sources

Merridawn Duckler

Fresh paint on every wall of the gallery, except the one where my big piece is going. Why? Biggest wall takes the longest to dry. Makes no sense.

Ward arrived and stood out on the sidewalk. Smokes this candy-flavored stuff now. I said that does a number on my sinuses. He said Peter, be happy something on you is enflamed. We laid out a couple of paintings, all torsos. Kind of an odd orange patch in one corner.

He said how are you, you ancient motherfucker. I said I’m fine. No complaints. No complaining means you’re dead, he said. I had the #47 against a wall. He said what’s the ratio this time? I said 1:3. He nodded. Nice.

L’anne came to my studio. She was wearing some kind of tent. She said fashion, Pete, ever heard of it. Can you imagine when they feature you in one of those magazine spreads. Have Dinah at least buy you a pair of jeans. I said nice to see you too. She said the Foundation is buying stuff again. You’ll show with Ward. He has these torsos. You’ll love them. He has a new boyfriend. Let me in. I’m freezing.

I like them. I do not love things. I reserve that emotion for people. The long titles are ridiculous. I’m not crazy about my frames. They need to be half inch thinner. Dinah agrees.

Ward was up on a ladder. He said how much of the cadmium can you detect from down there. I held the ladder as he came down. We sat together. He said Jesus, these couches are uncomfortable. I said L’anne doesn’t believe furniture should comfort people. Buyers from the Foundation are hunkered down? That’s the scuttle. He said, we’re moving to Barcelona right after. He’s crazy about Spain. We looked at the big wall. He said, it’s vaguely massive but not as big as the old ones. I said I can’t always get up what I used to. What do you think of the frame? Tactful silence.

L’anne said Ward isn’t painting in there is he? He’ll fall off that ladder and break his neck, I am not paying his hospital bill. I am not made of money. You do it once and you’re beholden forever.

The minute the stuff from Ward’s flask hit my throat I coughed all over my white shirt. I said, I thought wine. Ward said who on bloody earth puts wine in a flask? Here, use this. I said, you carry a handkerchief? I wasn’t raised by wolves. Wipe.

From when I was sick, and it wasn’t nice to be spitting up everywhere. The least you can do is not use paper. Like some walking dispenser.

10.

Ward dabbed at my shirt. Did L’anne ask if I was painting on the ladder. Tactical silence. That girl is a piece of work. Still, the best dealer I’ve had so far. Takes a commission of maybe thirty percent less bullshit. He said what did you think of the article? I said such a stupid story by that moronic critic. Clout hound. I don’t work by accident. Don’t shake a brush and get wherever. It was based on the triptych.

11.

The direction of the splatter. Three discrete areas. It’s a triptych.

12.

Ward said, the Merode.

13.

Yes, the Merode! You know they’d paint a middle one. To entice a buyer. Something popular. An Annunciation. Good subject for a painting because you spend half your time sitting around, waiting for someone to come and tell you you’re anointed.

14.

Ward said for me, Mantegna’s Dead Christ. Dead, but not dead. The way it starts at the feet and goes upward. In the clinic I’d sketch and look at the different lamentations. Obsessed, I suppose. I asked him was this our first time or maybe we’d shown together in the seventies in Berlin. I had a sudden memory. He was extremely handsome, then. It was ridiculous to look like that.

15.

I said, where are those titles going to fit. Ward said I can’t read. I mean, I can but I’m dyslectic. In school I’d focus on the spaces between. I’d read those.

16.

I said the things about Dutch medieval is that the details in those paintings is just phenomenal. It’s not a picture, it’s a library. Whole world in a lot of little worlds. Just anything after Brunelleschi makes me nauseous. He said, sorry that my hyperrealism offends you. If it helps, they aren’t done from life. Or not my life, anyway.

17.

L’anne hid the ladder. Ward lay on the floor. He said you look like shit. I said thanks, nice to see you too. He said you ever online? I said, for my students, sure. But you have no platform. I said what’s a platform. Ward said are you shitting me, maestro? Such a smart career move, that recluse thing. I should have done that. I should have stopped going to those stupid parties a thousand years ago.

18.

We went outside. We looked in the window. Ward said, it’s like your splatters are shooting my torsos. Couldn’t believe how good it looked. Some people stopped and stared. I said, L’anne knows what’s what. Ward said what am I going to do about that orange patch. Jesus, I said. The light behind the building bounced. Those triptychs were made for cities. They were essentially urban. A form made for travel. Prescient. Part of their genius.

19.

From the outside the gallery sounded like an aviary. Dinah wore the necklace I bought her. A small fortune. A small apology for what had happened to me. I said go on ahead. I imagined everyone naked. It was horrible. There’s an alley between the buildings. Ward was there in some outfit. I took out a real cigarette and the air was pungent with the past. I said the thing about those triptychs is that the middle is for a buyer and the one before seals the deal, but the last one is strictly for us. He said a lamentation is meant to stop the gaze. You can’t get past the cock but you have to. I said indecision is where the painting gets made. He said who are you quoting. I said me. I thought about the two of us, moving the squares around and around. Days where we just looked. I wanted to say something about love but instead I said the Foundation bought the show. He said I know that. He said, we’re having a big success in there, darling. I said yeah, it’s the pinnacle of success.

Merridawn Duckler is a writer from Oregon. Winner of the Jewish in Seattle fiction contest in first and third place and the Elizabeth Sloan Tyler Memorial Award, Woven Tale Press, judged by Anne Beattie. Recent work in New Flash Fiction, Cheat River Review, Janus Press, Gone Lawn. Residencies/fellowships: Yaddo, Vermont Post Graduate Conference, Horned Dorset Writers Colony. She’s an editor at Narrative and the philosophy journal Evental Aesthetics.