The cat ran into the kitchen and hid when they arrived stumbling, laughing at something neither of them would remember in the morning.
Gizzo kissed Tanya on the neck, said “your cat already hates me,” and found his way to the bathroom without asking.
They had known each other for two hours.
He was charming, in an obnoxious way, and Tanya knew it would be a carnival, maybe a three day circus, who knew, maybe an amusement park.
Gizzo pointed at the empty gold leaf frame hanging on the wall, a garage sale find from three apartments ago.
“It’s to remind me to paint my masterpiece,” Tanya said, “and I haven’t yet.”
Gizzo looked around, saw a can with some paint brushes, grabbed one, tossed it to Tanya.
“Go,” he said. “Do it. Don’t overthink.”
He smiled, but his eyes seemed serious.
“Why don’t you come over here,” Tanya said, “and finish the neck kiss you started before you start bossing me around.”
Gizzo didn’t hesitate.
Tanya woke up thinking it was a fantastic night if you weren’t the neighbors directly below.
Gizzo wasn’t in the bed.
Or the bathroom.
But Tanya smelled paint.
Gizzo had painted her a picture, on the wall, pre-framed by the gold leaf frame.
It was bleak–very creative,a skeleton draped over a headstone, trying to pick a tiny human from a group fleeing the toppling headstone–but bleak, devoid of color, black and gray.
“What’s that called,” Tanya asked “Fuck Your Security Deposit?”
“It’s a gift,” he said and lit up a bowl she didn’t know he had, hitting it and not offering it to her.
“You can name it whatever you want.”
“I think I’ll call it: “Death of Presumptuous Man Who Is Not Very Polite With His Weed.”
Gizzo shrugged and passed the bowl.
The painting looked liked an album cover of a band she wouldn’t listen to. Still, it was one helluva gesture.
When Gizzo sort of low key moved in within the next week, she bought him canvases.
They had great sex, laughed.
Gizzo made decent money designing t-shirts for the Kruggerwrongs. They were getting national attention after one of their songs was used on the show The Chromeland Chronicles, and they gave Gizzo a merchandise cut.
He gave Tanya an advance version of the latest t-shirt and she pulled it on.
“It looks exactly like the MotoBurgers logo,” she said.
“Not exact,” Gizzo said. “ if you alter it by 20 percent they can’t sue. The art becomes yours.”
Gizzo pointed out the differences on the shirt, eventually using the pointing as an excuse to touch, then fondle, then they wound up back in bed, where Tanya was already noticing they were the happiest.
Gizzo filled the canvases with more bleak artwork, and hung some of them without permission.
Tanya got home from work and studied her walls.
“You’re great in bed, but my apartment is starting to feel like the office of a death metal record label.”
“They’re gifts to you. You inspire me.”
She ran the statement back in her mind. She couldn’t remember any single statement that made her so happy.
Inspired.
She began to paint again, and even take days off work to do so, and Gizzo found new ways to please her and ostensibly bum out the neighbors, and he painted more bleak work for her.
The Kruggerwrongs took Gizzo on the road, so he could screen-print the shirts and make new designs based on some of the songs.
He called Tanya a few times, then stopped, then she called him, then two days elapsed without him calling. She called and he said he didn’t have much time.
She let three days elapse the next time, and left a voicemail.
Three more days elapsed, and she knew that whatever had been was deceased, like so many of the homo sapiens in Gizzo’s paintings.
Gifts.
Fuck your gifts.
She called in to work, telling herself she would paint, but knowing she would just mope.
She didn’t get out of bed, started to try to pleasure herself but when Gizzo’s face and chest showed up she stopped, got up, made herself a Bloody Mary that was half vodka, half Tabasco sauce, and threw in a pretzel rod because she didn’t have any celery.
The phone rang, and she hoped it was Gizzo, and she hated herself for hoping it was Gizzo.
It was Irene Nguyen from the Plato Gallery.
“You said you were painting again T-Bird, wondered if you wanted to be part of a group show in December.”
She looked at her half finished, unloved painting, and the words No thanks, Irene were stampeding out of her chest when she caught herself.
“ I have some new work. It’s…um…not my usual style.”
“You’re always good, T. I believe in you. Send me some pics of the work when you get a chance but consider yourself officially in. Opening on the 9th.”
Irene said goodbye and hung up.
Tanya rifled through her tubes of paints. She found a Robin’s Egg blue and an obnoxious Barbie pink.
She knew what she wanted to do, she just wasn’t sure how to calculate 20 percent.
***
Recognizable as your style - which is pretty distinct AND really, really good. City story that had that a twist I suspected would turn and it did and I liked it.
That was interesting - and very vivid.
Sounds like you had a good time writing it.
Probably more than 20% of normal.