TheMaiden&Death ~ Installation 3

[bleodswean]

“To the world’s freakiest profession – artists with balls of steel,” Frank addressed the small group, punctuating the sentiment by raising his glass of single malt. Mark and Evangeline leaned across the coffee table to clink their own glasses to his toast.

Emma was drinking water from a wine goblet, Jack beside her had a beer but had missed the impromptu toast and Emma was signing it slowly to him. He got the gist of her faltering signs, quickly nodded, and raised his bottle to the others who toasted the profession again.

“What exactly makes it so freaky though, Frank?” Evangeline asked, settling back against the couch, beside Mark.

It was early evening and the five of them had gone to dinner at the new sushi restaurant around the corner and were finishing the evening in her loft. Whiskey-chasing-beer nightcaps, and a game of modified Liar’s Dice. Emma was keeping score.

Frank looked at her with a boggled expression. She raised a quick hand in mock apology. “I’m not questioning you, just asking why.”

“There’s no other line of work like it. Not really. You get to put your personal artwork on people, put the hurt on them, and they pay you to do it. You’re an artist but not one of them emo types. We’re like those cats who parachute off bridges and buildings and into the Grand Canyon except we, uh, you know, draw.” He snickered and finished his drink, holding the glass out to Evangeline.

“Why does that make sense?” Emma asked, laughing.

Mark was nodding. “It’s a heavy responsibility in some ways. Other ways not so much. It depends on the client, the work.”

“Not all tattoo artists feel that way though, do they?” Evangeline asked, tipping more whisky into Frank’s glass. “And it’s your turn, Frank.”

“I wouldn’t let them carve on me if they didn’t. But yeah, there are scratchers out there.” Frank answered, picking up the handful of dice and rolling them into an open space on the coffee table.

“Not in my place,” Mark said.

“Not in Mark’s place.”

Jack leaned over the table and helped Frank count his dice. They all knew a rudimentary American Sign Language and counted their numbers in ASL. Frank rolled again and Jack stayed leaning forward, elbows on his knees to watch. Evangeline smiled to herself, Frank cheating at the game was always a possibility and each player had one or several crumpled dollar bills in the growing kitty. Another roll and Frank indicated he wanted the total tallied, Jack and Emma conferred on their fingers before Jack scooped up the dice for his turn.

Frank and Mark began disparaging a new tattoo shop that had opened in the shopping mall. Evangeline settled against the back of the sofa, watching her guests. Jack began to roll the dice, Emma ready with paper and pen, one hand lightly resting on his thigh. Evangeline noticed that she had fresh ink on the outside of her forearm, the colors vividly bright, her skin peeling as though sunburnt. Evangeline wondered for a moment about Jack and his new girlfriend, about Emma’s willingness to showcase Jack’s amazing work on her body. The pain of it, the permanence of it. The commitment and the dedication.

She wondered why she was not mentioning the appointment she had arranged with Jakob for the following day.

Jack scooped up the dice and poured them into Emma’s hand, then turned and signed the familiar “shut up and play” to the other two men. Mark laughed out loud, nodding his assent.

+++

The skeleton and his unannounced female companion were standing dumbfounded in Evangeline’s living space.

She watched him take it all in from the corners of his eyes.

The young woman was staring openly. Not envious, she was completely and utterly out of her depth. Evangeline grew defensive watching the younger woman assess her home. She knew what her guests were seeing.

The massive portrait canvasses leaning against the walls gave the impression of indiscriminate afterthought, but she remembered every moment invested in them, from the photo session, to the digital darkroom work, to the decision to print and stretch them. This conscious display, the exhibitionist who undresses in front of the back-lit window, waiting for the accidental voyeur. The girl’s small eyes examined each image then her gaze slid across to the coffee table littered with a ridiculous amount of burnt candles in various size and vintage sterling sticks, a half a six pack worth of empty bottles of imported beer, dirty glasses, and a bottle of single malt whiskey standing guard beside three amber-stained crystal tumblers. The haphazard six die and the piece of scratch paper score card with a dirty cartoon Jack had sketched for Emma’s blushing benefit. She looked past the two low-slung sofas, fantastically long and promising all manner of human comfort and company and into the small but incredibly expensive stainless steel kitchen.

Evangeline felt deeply irritated at the sudden urge to owe them some form of explanation or apology. She had been waiting anxiously for the arrival of this day, this hour, this moment. When the knock came at the door she surprised herself with disappointment when she opened the door to not just him but this overbearing, unkempt companion. Not quite a woman and no longer really a girl, but definitely younger than Jakob, probably not yet drinking age. Eyeing the two of them out of a squinted gaze, Evangeline wondered how old Jakob was. It was something she hadn’t considered before. The tattoo aged him years, moreover just the legal requirements for being tattooed, the amount of ink he was wearing, the hours and months of time invested. It lent him a strange timelessness. The borrowed air of masquerade. But the girl-woman was quite fleshy, of the world, with her artificially blackened hair streaked blue, the over-made up eyes, the too-tight jeans and the too-loose tank top. The red bra, the purple nails. The thick lip-gloss. All contrasting to Evangeline’s natural demeanor, the meticulously applied foundation, the smoky eyeliner and mascara, matte lips. Her highlighted hair and her jeans and black turtleneck. Her casual attire a conscious costume.

“Over here,” Evangeline said. She began walking quickly through the open floor plan into the studio area that made up half the loft space. The camera was on a tripod, there were lights on stands, black and yellow electrical cords snaking across the cement floor, overhead tracks of lighting, umbrellas and soft boxes, and the brick and ironwork wall that rose up to the height of the second floor of the warehouse building. A bank of glass window panes looked out over the train tracks and into the seedier part of town. The space was heady, the smell of old metal and the sweat of long-dead men. The walls were permeated with the history of the building, it had seen day-to-day toil now faded into fanciful imaginings.

She turned to see their reaction and the girl’s face was brooding with confusion and discomfort. She was definitely out of her element.

The boy was harder to read under the slouchy hoodie, but she could see him still flicking his gaze from side to side. He was casing her and the studio. What new thievery would this bring, she wondered. He did not know that she was the master thief. She would steal his soul with her camera, primitive belief proven fact in this 21st century live-work space. She had already begun a kind of photographic pickpocketing of his person, a small larceny. Now she wanted to steal handsomely from him.

“How do you afford all this?” the girl asked. “You an artist?”

Evangeline nodded, hesitant to speak it aloud. “I like to think so.” She laughed, trying to take the edge off the uncomfortably sharp moment. Both of them looked at her unsmiling.

“You can make this kind of money being an artist? That's not what they told me in school.”

She lowered her head, turning her face away from the accusation in the girl's voice.

“What the fuck is it to you?” Jakob broke his silence, whipping his words at the girl-woman.

Evangeline stilled with surprise at his vehemence. He had turned a deadly voice on his companion. She watched the other woman’s face close, crumple quickly in pain, then open again with anger.

Evangeline intervened verbally. “No, she's right. You're right. I mean, screw what they tell you in high school. But I do work as a regular photographer. I shoot two weddings a month, and take maternity portraits, pictures of pregnant moms. I also contract as an independent photo-journalist for the paper. Grunt work.” She stalled. She wasn’t sure the girl was listening, although she had her small eyes trained on her. Finally, she nodded, a small gesture of acknowledgement. Both women were surprised by her vehement defense.

Evangeline offered refreshment. The girl wanted soda which she did not have. He said he wanted a stiff drink if he was supposed to undress. She brought them both tall iced orange juices and splashed his with vodka. The girl had been whispering to him and silenced immediately when she returned. No one had introduced them, names felt like an intrusive afterthought at this point and Evangeline decided she didn’t care. She knew his name and wondered if he remembered hers. The girl sat herself heavily on an armchair at the edge of the set. Jakob sipped his drink. Evangeline watched him catch taste of the vodka and drink deeply.

She began readying equipment, ignoring the spectator. Deciding that she had no choice but to act as though she was alone with her model, to create a false illusion of that privacy. The relationship between the boy and the girl was hard to categorize. For the girl’s part, definitely possessive, definitely more than friends, but less than a couple. She mentally shook herself at how ridiculous it was for her to consider the girl, or him, or their relationship at all.

“Have you done any portrait work?” she asked him quietly.

The girl leaned forward. He was quiet and she answered for him. “No, not like this. Everyone who sees him wants to take his picture. For money, you know.”

“You haven’t worked with a professional photographer?” Evangeline asked again, moving towards him with a light meter. Any excuse to be in his space, block the other woman out. He watched her approach and finished the drink quickly. She took the proffered glass.

He shook his head. “That was good. Thanks.” He shrugged. “No. I haven’t. No one’s ever asked.”

“You’re welcome.” She nodded, in his presence now, holding the meter next to his face, moving it down the length of his neck, out the span of his shoulder. “It will be fun. I promise.”

“Don’t matter.”

“It does, though.” She lowered the meter, looking at him. She felt a strange familiarity with his face; she had been studying the shots she had taken at the studio for a week, working with them, refining them. She knew the shape of the skull’s eyeholes arching up to his brow bone, skittering down his temples and back across the tops of his cheekbones. But she hadn’t known the intensity of the blue-eyed gaze. She realized with a start that he was beautiful, beneath the tattoo.

“Yeah?” he asked. He looked dubious, doubtful.

“If it’s not fun, it’ll show up in the pictures. Really.”

“Maybe I need another one of them drinks.”

She laughed and for a flashing moment his gaze lightened, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly beneath the black tattooed ink and the filler black eyeliner that looked several days old.
“We’ll see. Inebriation will show up in the pictures, too.”

From behind them the girl spoke. “He ain’t going to get drunk off two drinks.”

“You want me to take this off?” He shrugged one shoulder beneath the hoodie.

“Not yet.”

He smirked. “Later, huh?”

Evangeline smiled and turned away. She set the empty glass down on the floor and hung the light meter on the camera tripod.

The girl was watching her. “You could make pornos in here.”

“That’s a thought,” Evangeline said, her voice as though swatting at a bothersome insect. She bent over, gazing into the eyepiece. Inside the view finder the skeleton was looking back.

She began working. Small directions, a continued stepping back and away from the camera, re-evaluating, a fine line between her brows as she studied him. He responded quickly with movements equal to her requests.

And the girl kept up an irritating commentary. Evangeline felt herself constricted by the ownership the other was projecting towards him. It was irksome and impinging upon her and the work she wanted desperately to do. He was oblivious to it.

Finally, he began shucking some of his clothes when asked. The hoodie and then pulled a t-shirt emblazoned with the cryptic message – Fate Loves the Fearless – over his head. The girl stood, with her hand out, and he tossed her the ragged clothing. She sat back down. Evangeline watched her smooth the garments into her lap, her hand stroking the fabric.

Evangeline felt a frisson of possibility shudder through her as she became spectator. Jakob was hovered on the edge of transformation, and he became amazing, partially undressed, thin, brandishing the skeleton the way a male ballet dancer would wear elaborate costuming. He moved naturally under direction, his body assuming pose after pose, his face mirroring her requests for expression, the rare laugh a reward, the smile a tantalizing promise. She stared at him through the lens, devouring him.

His face and head were fully covered by the skull tattoo. The blackened eye-holes, the nose artfully inked at the bridge indicating the paper-thin bone there, the illusion of a nasal gapping nearly flawless. Shaded concaves and lined striations in the tattooed bones gave the skull shape, seam lines bolting across his shaved head. The mouth was impressive, the dentition beautifully outlined, each tooth in its tattooed socket, shading accentuating the bones of the upper and lower jaw, solid black hollows in front of each mandibular joint. For a fleeting moment she could not help but think of Mark, the decisions he had made, the unusual choices he had faced and how right they had been for this work. But Jakob’s face, his demeanor, was so immediate that thoughts of the tattoo artist were secondary, fading away from her.

She had seen him shirtless at the studio but at the time he had been lying on a table, in pain, sweating and grimacing. Now he was in control of his body, the tilt of the fearful head, the bones outlined down his arms, the fragile breastbone bracketed with ribs, the muted colors of the roses, the green of the twining stems, the leaves were all his to display, his skin. The effect of him slouched, staring at her with his hands deep in his jeans pockets, the waistband of his briefs riding high on his hip bones and his shoulders hunched forward in a masculine approximation of modesty, was overwhelming.

She had to step away from the ravenous camera. She went to bring him another drink.

“Your ribs are healed?” she asked when she returned.

He nodded, smiling, looking down to where his tattooed finger bones spread and pressed at the new ink.

“Good. That’s good.”

Behind them the girl-woman stood and announced it was time to leave.



“Next time?” Evangeline’s voice was hard and the question was meant as the beginning of an order.

The two of them were standing inside, at the open front door. The girl was outside, on the sidewalk smoking, affecting a look of boredom, waiting.

“There’s going to be a next time?” he muttered but she could hear the sound of hope in the surly voice.

She looked at him and nodded slowly. “Maybe. I’ll see what we’ve got here and then I’ll know more.” She suddenly and desperately wanted there to be a next time. He had become a cavernous vein rich to be mined.

“Okay.” He turned away, shrugging into the ratty hoodie.

“But next time, don’t bring your girlfriend.”

His back was to her. He pulled the hood over his head, zipped the jacket. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

He glanced quickly over his shoulder and she recognized the way her heart stood up towards him. Interested. The man inside the skeleton had cast her heart a gaze and her blood answered.
“Whatever,” she said.

And he was gone.

+++

The next morning, Evangeline woke from strange dreams. She set to work with the session, in her pyjamas, fueled with strong coffee. She developed the medium format film; long curling strips of negatives hanging, drying in her bathroom, transparent flypaper catching miniature human figures. She resisted the urge to stretch them out to the light, peer at their reversed images. She had a sharp longing biting at her thoughts, a desire for the perfect photograph. It was an emotion she hadn’t experienced in years. The years she had spent desperately learning the art of photography, the terrible frustration with inadequate skills, the missed shots, the blurry portraits, the wrong settings for the attempted covert picture. She had struggled with the apposition between the images which her mind captured perfectly and the imperfect images her cameras were spitting out.

Her desire for a single frame of Jakob that would indicate a kind of artistic perfection for her was a hungry gnawing. And when she scanned the film negatives and uploaded them to her computer, she hesitated before opening the files. She downloaded the digital negatives from her dSLR and prepped them to be opened. Then she sat down, slowly, carefully, lowering herself into the chair, biting at the inside of her cheek. With curled fingertips she massaged her forehead, her closed eyelids, tapping gently at her temples, trying to sort her feelings, name the reason for her hammering heartbeat. Explain the starving sensation in her mind.

She began clicking open the files.

+++

Three nights later, she lay on her back beside Mark. He was drifting across the border of sleep. They had come to a new place in their relationship, a fragile bond between them. Evangeline felt an overwhelming need to hold on, hold fast to him, but she could feel herself also wanting to let go.

“How old is Jakob?” she asked into the dark of her bedroom.

He went still beside her, roused from stepping over into unconsciousness. “Younger than you.”

“Not by much. He seems young though, doesn’t he?”

“I guess. I don’t know how old he is exactly.”

“C’mon.”

“Well, let’s see. He first showed up when he was eighteen. He had some crappy home-made memorial tattoo, a skull, on his back. It was not good. But he knew what he wanted even then.”
She interrupted him. “Memorial tattoo? What’s that?”

He sighed. “A memoriam tattoo. His brother committed suicide. It was for him.”

“What? Really?”

“Wouldn’t joke about that, Evie.”

“You remember this?”

“I guess so. I guess I do.”

“And he wanted a full body skeleton? He wanted his face tattooed like that?”

Mark’s breathing changed slightly.

“Mark?”

“He had these drawings and a wad of cash. He wanted the scratcher piece covered, but that was on his back and he wanted, you know, to see the work. So we began with his arm, skeletonized it, Jack inked the flowers, filling in the negative spaces. It was pretty complicated, trying to figure out how to make it look like this idea he had in his head, to give it depth so it didn’t look drawn on. About two years after that we started on his neck and head.”

“His face?”

“His face.” He was quiet for a long moment. Then he began counting out loud deliberately. “He must be twenty-three.”

“Okay,” she said softly.

In the silence that separated them he turned away from her and she listened to him fall into sleep. She felt the thin cord between them begin to tear in the slightest and most devastating of ways.

+++

Memory is attention paid in the past tense. Pay attention.

The illusion of consciousness. The finest of transparent cloth. The ignis fatuus flickering on the edges of sight. You are all unbaptized infant souls seeking the way back, the way forward.
There is an illusion and I cannot speak of how it works. Never ever, not even when I’m dead said the most famous of illusionists. Why the secret? I cannot say and I am the Dead.

Is there love? There is loyalty. There is fidelity. But love - a romantic love? Not for me. I love unconditionally. Now and until we lie together under a blanket of dust. And memory has faded because you will no longer be attending to it. Tending.

We can dance. I will call to you to be my partner. Ash and dust beneath our feet.

There is innocence which is always uncertain; there is guilt that can never be proven.

The guilty and the innocent. The holy and the damned. The saved and the sentenced. These mean nothing to me.

I love the thing you have forgotten. The gloaming behind the female gate into this garden.

The omnipresent possibility of leaving. The exultant penitent dances while weeping. And moaning. And, finally, with finality, quietly rejoicing.

+++

A deeply buried memory of a television station’s static sign-off surfaced in his brain and slowly he opened his eyes. The front room was illuminated only by the flickering of a long-dead sitcom playing out on the TV set in the corner. They had fallen asleep on the sofa and he was wedged into the corner, one foot up on the coffee table, one on the floor, and his arm prickling pins and needles. Tami was sleeping heavily beside him, pressing him deeper into the ratted upholstery, her head on his shoulder, his protesting limb awkwardly bent between them. His shirt was wet through to the skin where she was drooling.

With a practiced stealth he moved out from beneath her and she made a noise that sounded an angry moan in the darkened room. He stood and rolled his shoulders and shook the blood back into his hand. He refused to look down to where she had curled sideways into the space he had created. She was asleep again, a snoring homage to the copious amounts of alcohol they had drunk into the late evening.

He knew where the pack of cigarettes were by touch on the coffee table, he scooped the packet and a lighter up, bouncing the lighter off his palm, and pushed his way out the slightly open front door. He breathed in the scent of the night air before lighting a cigarette, obliterating everything but the pungent smell of burning tobacco. Lowering himself to the cement stoop, sitting forward, elbows on his knees, he smoked and thought of the photographer. The elegant shape of her. How serious she seemed to be. He thought of the long hair that shone and swung free until she gathered it all up between her two hands, quickly and expertly braiding it and then tossing it back over her shoulder. Tending the glorious hair was a commonplace task for her.

He recognized that he had been studied but there was no offense in her gaze. Something else was there, something he had never seen before when being looked at. She wanted something from him. That intent had been clear in her words but more so in the attention she had paid him. He went over the memories from the morning in her studio, playing model to her direction. He ground out the cigarette between thumb and finger scattering the paper and burnt leaves, and wondered if he had ever seen a television station sign off in real time or if he had just seen it on the Internet.