"so you're some kind of walking bar, then?" "no. well...i guess...today. anyway." i looked around self-consciously. elizabeth was sitting cross-legged on a bare mattress in the corner, her pretty face bearing an expression of stern concentration as she carefully bored two holes in the nostrils of a plastic doll head. my eyes scanned over the edge of the mattress, over the filthy concrete floor, over dried paint and pornography, discarded articles of clothing, bottles, butts, spoons and puddles of mysterious liquids, thick and oily under the harsh track lighting. moving up the wall...massive canvasses, partially-covered, crumbling bricks and blueprints, squares of greasy gold paper tacked to the wall with electrical tape. i stopped on a series of photographs. an emaciated boy. hollow cheeks, bony arms, dark-rimmed eyes and ashy lips. to look at the photos, you might think it was the lighting. but i've seen the boy around, and he looks that way in the sun. "what the fuck is this?" the shout came from the boy who'd spoken to me earlier. a pair of wide blue eyes snapped away from a heated poker game. the lips under the eyes moved slightly and muttered "enya." the shouter sputtered. smashed his derby with his palm, flipped his cigarette onto the floor...ignoring the four ashtrays within comfortable reaching distance. easy, mickey. take it easy. it's okay...a skinny boy with a glistening forehead hopped over the back of the sofa to change the music, then vaulted back onto the stained cushion and excitedly drummed along on the slab of plywood pretending to be a coffee table. lust for life. hah. nearly everything i could see was half- dead. at least half. "so, my dear, how about a beverage?" elizabeth squeezed the doll head and two narrow streams of smoke shot out of its nostrils and slowly dissipated over our heads. one side of the head was crushed. i stared, fascinated, at the grotesque, pink baby doll face until elizabeth tilted it back and its long eyelashes blinked at me. "here, i'll go with you." she pushed herself to her feet and lit a cigarette, which had been helplessly hanging from my lips for several minutes. we cautiously walked across the room, stepping over greyish whites and tubes of paint. batted our way through a tattered flag dangling vertically from a leaking pipe. over a pile of blankets...a slab of concrete...someone's bed...a sooty pillow. out into the cold. i ran/skidded/skated across the alley to my car. we returned bearing two small bottles of tonic water and the remnant of my bombay sapphire. a boy on the floor looked up from his book. "where have you been all my life?" "....um...around...." the strangers laughed. somebody wiped out a few glasses. a telephone rang. "doorbell!" someone screeched and rolled over the sofa, gangly limbs dancing over everyone's laps to embrace the model who was framed in the doorway, slouching under the weight of two jugs of wine and a wooden crate of beer. more introductions...it was pointless. i nodded. we thought we should get going. back into the cold, into a coffee house that was far too full. off to another, just in time to catch the reverend. "awww we-hell looky here, we got us some purty lil dancin girls, lettin it awlllll hang out. hey there, sweetiepies." i wasn't dancing, for once. well, i held onto elizabeth's hand and she twirled under my arm. but my feet didn't move. elizabeth had never met the reverend before. "he looks like a winker," she whispered. i whispered back that he was, and also a drinker. and fond of pall malls. the cigarettes. we couldn't find a table. elizabeth found enough floor space to sprawl out on her back. i sat on a two-by-four balanced on top of a radiator. we talked for a bit. i wondered....maybe. with the art thing. i realized been going about it all wrong. the clean white gesso, the dropcloths, the eco-friendly turpenoid, the easy- clean tile floors and that damn dog stepping in everything all the time. having a job...being thusly required, each afternoon, to scrub the paint out of my hair and my nails and my pores and look presentable enough to serve bread to the good people of whitefish bay, wisconsin. now i have this...overwhelming...you know, i'm long out of canvas. but there are wood floors. lots of empty wall space, too. and newspapers and old t-shirts and cardboard boxes, ceilings and a large concrete driveway. sidewalks. storefronts. bell towers. (i'm probably joking.) no worries. but...classes start on tuesday, and my art school days are over. i'm going to study english. god knows my grammar needs some serious work. ENOUGH. or more. love. love and sunny sunny sunny weather. kirsten Care2 make the world greener! http://www.care2.com - Get your Free e-mail account that helps save Wildlife! +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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