Art’s Theory 6

chapter six

Goddess of Love

          We are back at the gallery watching Max Neo politely escort the few remaining Elvis Jesus worshipers to the stairway exit.  Zia is helping the intern clean up the mess, bagging up the empty champagne bottles and used plastic cups.  The greasy food trays get piled in the storage room sink and numerous light switches are flipped to the off position.  In the darkened void, Elvis is smoking a joint to unwind.  One can’t help but notice the distinctive pungent smell and there goes Max into the back of the gallery to join Jesus.  Zia thanks the intern for the free help and sees her to the street level door and then locks it.  We stick close to our assigned duty as she makes one last lap around the gallery, interrupting an embrace between Max and his boy toy.  We all head into Max’s office so Zia can join them for a bump from the wooden ball Max keeps his cocaine in.  With their renewed chemical energy, the three of them decide tonight’s celebration must continue at a trendy nearby hotel bar.

          Outside on the wet sidewalk, a small clique of Elvis Jesus groupies is waiting to join us and journey over to a stunning art deco building.  Stumbling across the marble lobby, our entire pack crams into the antique cage of an Otis elevator and ascends to the elegant rooftop bar.  We notice Zia’s mind fixate on the old creaky elevator motor.  Her focus is meant to assure that the mechanical device continues to function properly.  You humans are so amusing, pretending to be rational until your stuff stops working.  Then your primitive mind takes over to wonder what you have done to deserve such a fate.  Every morning Zia prays for her car to start, earnestly trying to control the machine with her mind.

          The hostess greets and seats our group at a large table near the dance floor and promises to send a waitress right over.  Max buys the first round of drinks and monopolizes the conversation with minute details of his daily life.  We can’t help but notice Zia roll her eyes and tune out Max’s monotonous drone.  Looking up into the dim starlight, her mind begins to wander through the details of her own pitiful life.

          Where the hell is Sam?  He promised to join her after the opening.  She was often disappointed by her boyfriend’s choices.  Tired of being taken for granted, she had been contemplating what her future might be like without him.  Zia imagined a roommate that actually paid rent on time, or maybe a lover with a job and his own car would be nice for a change.  In fact, she would settle for a small gesture of respect and some appreciation for her generosity.  She loved Sam with all her heart, but increasingly found herself not liking him.  His discouraged cynicism had gotten thicker with each passing year.  What happened to that quick-witted graduate student who could always make her laugh?

          Then Zia remembered that she was still pissed about the trip to the coast for Sam’s birthday.  She had wanted to treat him to a romantic night near the ocean.  But the two-hour drive was stormy with nearly zero visibility during the downpours.  Sam had been in a foul mood, so sure the whole trip would be a waste of time and money.  Zia, being a glass half-full person, was sure it would get better.  Sam liked to say he was a glass half-empty person, but in his case the glass contained someone’s urine.  She was exhausted by her boyfriend’s ability to imagine everything that could go wrong.  Zia saw him as extremely pessimistic, while Sam thought he was just paying attention to reality.

          As they got within a mile of the ocean, blue patches of sky began to break through the gray storm clouds.  By the time they had finished checking in to the motel, the sun was warming up the sand for their walk on the beach.  It was just perfect.  Beautiful roaring surf with breaking waves created the soundtrack for the moment that Sam seemed to be enjoying while Zia was still pissed about what a downer he had been on the drive over.  And it certainly didn’t help when he tried to explain the genius of his approach to life.  By always expecting the worst possible outcome, one can go through life constantly relieved that it wasn’t that bad; whereas an optimist, like Zia, was doomed to be disappointed.  She hated listening to his professorial arguments and watching him enjoy the beach.  Damn him for screwing up his birthday for her!

          Zia was so glad she didn’t say that last thought out loud.  Sam would have cruelly pointed out the selfishness of her twisted logic.  Goddamn him – it was impossible to win against that mind.  Whenever she forced him into an uncomfortable position to defend, Sam would somehow do a feat of mental Jujitsu.  It was a thing to behold, not unlike his chess playing; Sam had a knack for magically winning a seemingly lost position.

          Zia looked up from the torus shaped ice cubes in her glass and noticed the conversation swirling around the table had turned serious.  A single tear was slowly dripping down Max’s reddened cheek.  As the groupies recoiled with compassionate shock, Elvis Jesus sprang out of his chair and nervously bounced around the despondent gallery owner. The whole scene felt like something from a community theater production, with Jesus acting the part of bombastic thespian twit.

          “H.I.V. positive!  You fucking asshole!” he screamed, seemingly oblivious to the pun.

          “Please sit down,” Max begged in a whisper, now embarrassed by all the staring eyes.

          Elvis shoved his face right up to Max’s left eyeball and continued to rant.  “How could you do this to me?”

          “You?  I’m the one who tested positive.”

          “Gloveless Love was your gay bar nickname long before we first met.  Remember how you promised to stop fucking strangers when I agreed to live with you.”

          “I thought you probably gave it to me,” Max lied.

          “Bullshit!  I should have never trusted an old slut like you.”

          “I rescued you from the streets and invented your whole artistic career.”

          “You used me!”

          “I gave you a lifestyle of expensive clothes, salon treatments and gourmet      restaurants.”

          “Pug puppies look like tadpoles, all head and eyes,” Zia bizarrely interjects.

          Both Max and Elvis turn to look at her in disbelief.  Max asks, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

          With his nose nearly touching Max’s, Elvis Jesus screams, “Listen mother fucker, you are literally killing me!  You have crucified me.  I am your sin.”  Drawing out that last word like a fire and brimstone preacher might speak it.

          We quickly got tired of this distraction from our assigned mission and thoughtlessly stepped beyond our positional authority.  We helped Elvis Jesus envision himself covered with scabs and oozing sores, slowly dying from the incurable virus.  Repulsed by the vision of his future, he sprang out of his chair insane with anger.  He backed away from Max and bumped into the wall that encircled the hotel roof.  Stepping onto a chair, he turned and grabbed the edge of a limestone planter that tops off the wall.  And before anyone could stop him, Elvis did a pull up and swung his foot up to catch the edge.  In one athletic motion, he was on top of the wall and standing inside the dirt filled planter.

          Everyone at the table stood up and begged him to come down.  The bartender raced over and authoritatively commanded him to get off the fucking wall.  The entire rooftop was focused on Max’s irrational lover who could think of nothing more original than to stand there and flip everyone off with both his middle fingers.  Without saying another word, Elvis turned toward the street and did his last, and probably best, performance.  His stiff body slowly tilted towards earth’s gravity, with his perpendicular arms creating a perfect swan dive form.  Unfortunately, his surrealistic graceful plunge was rudely interrupted by the impenetrable concrete below.

          The entire entourage rushed down the emergency staircase and erupted out of the hotel’s side exit.  Horrific screams pulled them around to the front entrance where a traumatized Japanese tourist stood splattered with blood.  The urban boulevard was awash with flashing lights as several emergency vehicles sped into the scene.  A puddle of blood oozed out from under a twisted and broken Jesus.  Soon local news reporters will squeeze past barricades while police attempt to disperse the morbidly curious crowd.

          Zia is in shock, totally dumbstruck.   We will help her aimlessly wander off in a daze.  Actually, it was easy once We had her mind frozen in time.  She had spent her whole life avoiding death - never watched violent films and opposed war for any reason.   Zia had refused to eat animals or even walk past the butcher shop.  Her whole life had been dedicated to Truth and Beauty, and now a grotesque image of violent death had just destroyed her reality, leaving behind a world of horrible chaos.

          It might seem like an extreme interference now, but We had that girl walking like a zombie from that movie she never watched.  Zia wandered into a narrow alley and mindlessly walked forward.  Materializing from behind a dumpster shadow, We hunched over in the form of a homeless woman and shuffled into Zia’s path.  Zia stopped and tried to focus on the cloaked creature blocking her way.  What’s that smell?  The acrid stench from our materialization had knocked her backward and We chose that moment to speak.

          “Don’t be afraid.  We are here to help you.”

          Zia struggled to see the stranger’s face and slowly asked, “Who are you?”

          “We are your fairy godmother.”

          “Sure you are.  And I’m Alice in Wonderland.”

          “Well, not quite.  But, you’re close.”

          “What?”

          “We are your guardian angel, sent to earth to save humankind.”

          “You’re fucking nuts!  And I’m not far behind.”

          “Don’t be angry, Zia”

          “You know my name?!”

          “We have always known everything about you.  Things you don’t really understand, yet.”

          “Is this some sort of sick joke?”

          “Actually, the situation will soon get very serious.  The planet, or should We say humanity is going to need your help.  We have a task for you.”

          “We, who the hell is We?” Zia asks the wrinkled old lady.

          “Actually, it is spelled o-u-i, like the French word for yes.  Please trust that the things Oui tell you will be true in a metaphorical way.  But there are many aspects to reality that your species will never directly experience.  There are worlds around you that go unnoticed.”

          “Are you from one of those worlds?”

          “Oui live in all ten of them.  You live in four.”

          “I don’t understand.” Zia can now see that the woman’s facial creases are actually crevices where the skin is folding up into itself creating an Ivan Albright chiaroscuro.

          “Imagine your world as a chessboard.  If you curl that flat plane so the edges touch to create a tube – you have added a new dimension.  Now if you could pull and bend that tube so that the end holes touch you would have a checkered donut shape - a torus.  Now visualize how a pawn traveling around the torus shaped reality would appear to your limited flat world view.  The pawn would disappear off one side of the grid and then magically appear on the opposite side.”

          “What?”

          “Actually, the dimensions you can’t experience are folded-up into the four you know.”

          “Four?”

          “Time – you must include time, Einstein!”

          “I still don’t know what you are talking about,” Zia confessed.

          “Exactly!  But it’s not really important to the task at hand.”  The old lady jammed a hand into her ragged coat.  She pulled out a clenched fist and punched it at Zia’s chest.  Rotating that fist, she opened her weathered hand to reveal a small glass vial and said, “Take it.”

          “Why?”  Zia stared at the hag’s crusty paw and marveled at the complexity of the cracks branching out from under the translucent tube.

          “You’ll need it,” the crone replied.  “The future of mankind will depend on Sam’s sperm.”

          Zia dropped the vial at the mention of Sam’s name.  “How do you know my boyfriend’s name?”

          “You call that a boyfriend?”  The smelly homeless woman couldn’t suppress an eerie detached laugh.

          “What?”

          “Sorry, that was out of line.  But seriously, the fate of your species depends on Sam impregnating a stripper named Viper.”

          “That bitch! Sam swears they’re just friends, but I have never trusted her.”

          “Well, your instincts are quite correct - she would fuck Sam to death if he would just cooperate.  Oui never expected him to hold out this long.  Time is ticking away, so Oui are going with our back up plan.  That’s where you come in, please be a dear and pick up the vial.”

          Zia bent over and gently retrieved the small glass bottle.  She examined it for damage.  Upon closer inspection, the translucent cylinder was etched with symbolic characters much like a talisman – an object that when worn by the rightful owner has the power to avert evil and bring good fortune.

          “Save your time, Sweetie - it can’t be broken.  Take it home with you and get the sample tonight.  You know – milk the snake, polish the horn.”

          “Explain to me again why I would bottle up my boyfriend’s sperm and give it to a total stranger.”

          “At the center of all spiral galaxies there is a black hole around which all the stars revolve.  Your Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are on a collision course that will create a violent storm in the fabric of space/time.  The anomalies have already begun.  That’s why Oui…” 

          The woman’s voice began to break up and her physical form dissolved like a television losing the transmission signal.  But instead of vanishing, the particles of electronic static energy coalesced into a tiny spinning torus of plasma that exploded in a blinding flash of light.  Zia shut her eyes in self defense.  Afraid to open them at first, her eyes now peeked through tiny slits at the dark and spooky alleyway.  The old lady was gone, replaced by some vapor suspended in the night air.  Zia made the mistake of walking through the ghost-like fog. 

          “What is that stink?”  As she plods forward, Zia can’t help replaying the bizarre interaction with the old woman.  

          The wrinkled-up creature seemed to know everything about Zia’s private life with Sam.  It all felt too unreal.  “You call that a boyfriend?”  That zinger still bugged her.  It was one thing for Zia to complain about Sam, but some stranger criticizing him just seemed wrong.  She began to think about all his good qualities.

          If not for Sam, the plants would have died long ago.  Zia liked to buy the greenery for the apartment only to ignore their need for food and water.  Sam never wanted another potted plant but has dutifully kept all the living things alive.  Zia has always trusted he would be just as attentive to any future children they might have together.