Real Art takes Guts

I saw the love of my life spilling his blood, sweat and tears—-trying to impress that fucking collections art curator.

“No, no, Samuel, it doesn’t take mere tears. Nor blood. It takes guts. You need to spill them on the moon of your canvas,” Sam relays to me of what the curator, Ann, had told him.

I huff and feel my eyes squint in anger.

“That’s what she told you?” I said. “Guts? Give me a fucking break!”

“This might be my in to a real museum!” Sam says. His expression falls. He looks tired, anxiety-ridden.

“Sammy... don’t give into that sappy, liberal BS! It’s not worth giving up your soul,” I say.

“It’s not BS—it’s art!” He yells. “Ann knows what she’s talking about.”

“You don’t think I care about your art? I do.” I laughed nervously. “And that Ann! Her name is even pretentious sounding! She sounds like there’s a lump of coal up her ass that never turned into a diamond!”

Sam sighs deeply. “Jacob... I know you care. I just.. I have to show her my... I have to prove I’m good enough.”

I take his hand. “You are good enough. You’re my Sammy.” Sam smiles, a blush growing on his pale features.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” Sam says softly. “I am under so much pressure. I never thought I’d have this chance before. You know?” He looks at me with wide, imploring eyes, and I feel my heart flutter in a familiar spot. The spot that made me inevitably fall so deeply in love with him.

“Sammy... I know. I know this is big. I’m just afraid you’ll lose yourself trying to impress these fake assholes. I don’t want that.”

“I appreciate you looking out for me,” Sam says.

I nod. “Someone has to!” I gently play with his hair and he laughs.

Sam nods, biting his lip. “I wanna paint you. You are... I love you, J.”

I grin. “Oh, I love you, Sammy.” I move in to kiss him on the cheek, “Wanna go mix colors in bed?”

Sam looks up and grins mischievously, laughing with a salacious lick of his lips. “Not now, right now... I gotta focus.”

I kiss his ear, and whisper, “Later... I will mix you good and steady.... Until your colors make a rainbow...”

Sam’s bright blue eyes went wide. “Fuck off, J!” But, he was smiling anyway.

I see Sam gets a notification on his phone.

“Damn, babe, I gotta go,” Sam says suddenly. “She’s going to meet me for lunch. The Art Director of that museum will be there!!!”

“Is she after you?” I ask.

I know she isn’t. I am just stalling for time.

“No! No way!” He is hurrying to put on his coat and socks. “I only have eyes for you, dear!”

“I have years on her. By my age and by how long we have been together...But... she is very cute...”

“Oh, shut up, Jacob!!”

I laugh. “Good luck, honey,” I say, feeling my heart twitch.

He stops and gives me the most heartbreakingly gorgeous smile I had ever fucking seen. And then, he hugs me tight and we kiss.

We kiss so passionately I want to faint.

“Remember to kiss the marigolds I got you for luck too on your way out!” I tease.

He shakes his head. “I loved the flowers! But, I might kill them with my breath!”

I laugh. “No, you smell like a summer day! Beautiful!”

“Ya mean... sweaty and too hot? My breath will kill a whole garden!”

I laugh louder. “Bye, babe! Call me after lunch.”

“Will do! Go ahead and order yourself something for lunch! My treat!” He says.

As I hear our front door close, my heart sinks.

I had hoped it would all work out for him. I really prayed. But I wasn’t prepared for him when he came back.

He had been crying. I could tell. His eyes were red, and as I tried to get his attention, it seemed that no matter how hard he tried to look into my eyes, there was this glazed over expression that felt more terrifying than how I pictured how a zombie might look right as it is coming into it’s undead state. Unreal, pained, an immortal sort of loop that felt worse than death. And it scared me like a deep pulling in my heart, a ripping that tore my insides to shreds.

“Baby... baby... baby....” I hold him, trying to bring him into my very chest, for our hearts to somehow collide and become one—-but he doesn’t respond. “What happened? What did those fucking pricks do to you?”

“What is art, really... listen, I’m going to make us so much money... soo much... such an obscene fuckin’ amount of money, Sammy... that I’ll open up a museum for you. Your own. O-Okay?” I say, my voice barely keeping a straight tone. I am starting to cry.

He doesn’t say anything. I kiss him on his cheek and gently lift him up.

I carry him and place him on our bed.

“Don’t worry, Sammy, I’ll take care of this. I’ll take care of you.”

So I call up the fake-ass art bitch that messed my husband up so bad. That’s the problem with me. I ain’t got no learning. Sammy used to say that to tease me. But I really don’t. I quit high school because I was so stupid and I just wanted to earn dough. Sammy was the smart one who graduated and went to college and earned a Masters degree in the arts. I’m a stupid, emotional person. When someone I love gets hurt, I see red.

“Hello, Mr. Goldstein? Did you get it?” She asks. My face contorts at the question.

I scowl. “Excuse me?” I ask.

“Uh... who is this?” She asks clearly confused.

“This is Jacob, Ann. I’m Mr. Goldstein’s husband.”

“Oh. Please have him call us when he’s got it. Thank you.”

“Got it? What are you talking about?”

“Sir, this is about him, not you. Thank you for your call, though. Have a good day.”

“Listen to me, you shit, I don’t know what you said to him—-I don’t know how you sleep at night—-but, Sammy is acting catatonic over here. What did you all say to him?”

She sighs. “We did an EDMR therapy session with him. It’s what we do to all potential artists. It’s how they get their best stuff. He agreed to it. His art... was always a bit too fluffy for our taste. So... this will... spice it up.”

“I will spice you up, you cunt! You just left him like this?! What kind of fucking bullshit therapy makes someone more nervous than before?!” I growled, “I am calling the authorities on you all—-this is some ritualistic crap you are doing! Weird ass voodoo shit!”

“He knew the risks when he agreed to it.”

“This is something... this was more than therapy! This was.... Sick!”

“How do you think the best artists created their Magum Opus? By reliving their happiest memories? By laughter and a childhood full of joy?” She scoffs loudly. “How did Caravaggio create the masterpiece of Judith Beheading Holofernes?”

The close up I remembered of the damned painting somehow jolted back to my vision, mainly of Judith’s face. Stuck frozen in between the mortal, gripping fear of what she was actually doing with her bare, bloody hands---commiting a gruesome decapitation, and in the middle of said act, her face frozen in disgust, agony, a quiet sort of fear that screamed yet sang a strange sort of sickness. And, now I felt it. Sammy had that look.

Thank God, Sammy taught me about art, I think glumly.

I could picture the whole damn painting, too. Sammy showed me Caravaggio before.

Then, I pictured Sammy. My Sammy.

His shaking, delicate hands. His lovely eyes looking ahead but not looking at anything at all. Not looking at me.

“I don’t give a flying frog’s ass why Kandinsky painted more blue shit than yellow!”

The woman laughed. “Officially, we did nothing but help your husband succeed in a highly competitive world of art and finance. Once he has it, please, let us know.”

Then, she hung up on me.

I slammed my phone on the ground.

“And fuck you, too!” I yell at my broken phone. See? I told you I was dumb.

I decide to go and put on some music to get Sammy back to regular spirits. I put it on our loud speakers. It’s our song. Sammy introduced me to Nina. We danced to this on our second date. His love of jazz was something so refreshing to me—we were roughly the same age, I was only a few years older, but he was an old soul who loved Nina and Billie Holiday and I was the one who liked modern hip-hop and rap. As they say, opposites do attract.

I lay down next to him on our bed.

I memorize his face—-his beautiful eyes are closed.

I picture them open. He is smiling that gorgeous smile.

I tell him out loud how I love how long he takes to drink his hot tea on Sunday mornings.

I say, “I know, I know, I tease you all the time about it usually... but... I think it’s really cute.”

I wonder what exactly happened during that supposed EDMR session. I replay our song as it ends. I wonder what exactly got brought up in Sam’s mind. In his memory.

I can’t use my stupid, broken phone to look it up, so I go on his phone(only to Google it) and look up EDMR.

It says that it helps someone process trauma and get rid of the emotions associated with it, to help with trauma. To process the memory, have the picture go away and the feelings associated with it.

Bullshit.

Feelings can’t just.... Disappear.

I do remember one time Sammy told me his dad almost killed him, because he had found texts between him and another guy(Sammy and a guy friend from his High school class, before we met) that was definitely flirtatious and even romantic.

He never told me exactly what had happened.

Maybe it doesn’t need to be said.

All I know is... some bitches are about to get fucked up.

I fall asleep and realize he isn’t there when I wake up.

I go to the living room, bathroom, check our room again. He isn’t there.

But—-I jump about two feet high in the air when I finally see him.

In the kitchen.

I used to feel nothing when I watched horror movies. When all those insipid and dumb teenagers or people finally got what was coming to them—I didn’t care. I even egged those killers on—-being so bombastic and over the top as it was. Freddy, Jason... all of them. I saw a film the other day that wasn’t scary. It wasn’t a typical horror film.

It was The Babadook. A woman who lost her husband in a highly traumatic car accident and because of that—-she didn’t even celebrate her son’s birthday anymore. Slowly, her memories are uncovered and reach her consciousness. She turns into the monster she has always feared.

She imitates a monster. She roars and claws and screeches. She is a mother who has had enough.

She is a person who has let the fear in. I look at Sammy.

Where has the real fear been coming and going? Have all the years of ambition and stress finally sent you into something deeper than I can sink into? That I can dive down into and save you from??

What have you bastards done to my sweet, creative, beautiful Sammy?

I look at Sam in the kitchen.

And everywhere, it looks like there’s chucks of red guts and blood—-swirling with...

The marigold petals on our floor mixing with the horrible redness. The flowers I gave to him just because.

I literally can’t breathe. I can’t move. Tears fall from my face. I’m dead. I feel dead inside. An internal bleeding that will never stop and never kill me either.

Sammy and I look at each other, his eyes so drained of it’s color and life. And then he says to me as if there was an epiphany:

“I got it.”

———

Author note: I hope you enjoyed my story on art and trauma.

Here’s an update to my release on my novel I am Bexley, found just today:

Please stand by. Wait for further instructions in your bunkers as new updates are released. Do not adjust your screens, this is not a test. Your favorite katana wielding zombie Bexley will be returning every weekday Monday thru Friday throughout the month of June! Check out the chapters just released today! Please follow this link to download the app to read I am Bexley today:

Bexley