Rose Madder

Rose Madder

1.0

In society today, every one person has his own personal vendetta against someone or something. A sick moral society with a cumulative intelligence of a child blinds itself with meaningless vendettas and bigotry. For Hayden, it’s big corporations. He steals everything from the paint, to the brush, to the pencil, to the canvas he works on.

I’m not saying that Hayden is an impulsive shoplifter – Heavens! no! (Hayden buys some of his supplies.) I’m just saying that maybe – no. No. No. No.

He leaves us standing outside alongside one of those Wal-Marts that every city just has got to have. Leaves drift past us in silent harmony as smoke follows dutifully behind. The smell of tobacco is intoxicating. Anne lets her cigarette drop from her mouth to the ground, her boot following closely behind. Twisting her ankle, she rubs the cigarette into the pavement.

Standing outside wouldn’t be so bad if Hayden wasn’t taking so long. It’s autumn now. Days are getting shorter. Nights are getting colder. I shiver a little in this cold autumn air as Anne lights up again. She breathes in in short quick puffs, trying to get the cigarette to light. The cigarette goes out. Anne curses. She attempts to light it again. It catches this time when she breathes in. A long trail of smoke drifts up from the cigarette.

Anne holds the pack in her left hand towards me in an offering. “No thanks,” I say. “I don’t feel like it.”

“Gus says you might quit.”

“Eh, I dunno. I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Did he show you?”

“Who?”

“Did he show you?” she asks again.

“Who? Gus?”

“No, Hayden. Did he show you?”

“Show me what?”

“Never mind.”

“Show me what?”

She doesn’t answer me back.

Disgruntled, I fall back onto the side of the building, breathing in the overwhelming smell of the burning cigarette.

“Gus tells me you got a dog.”

“Yeah.”

“What kind?”

“She’s a yellow lab.”

“Hayden see it?”

“Yeah, he did. Few weeks ago.”

“You’ve had it that long?”

“Yeah. It’s a girl.”

“Oh.”

There’s a shuffle of feet as Hayden slinks towards us. He’s hunched over, large jacket aiding in hiding any evidence of his actual height. Hayden always walks like this, slouched over. It’s just something that he does.

“Did you get what you were looking for?”

“Not really.”

The cigarette hits the ground.

“Hayden!”

“It’s all right. It’s all right. I won’t make you wait for me some place else.”

“You’d better not.”

I speak up. “Hey, Hayden?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you actually pay this time?”

“Nope. Low on money. Need to eat, don’t I?”

“Maybe you should get a day job,” Anne interjects.

“I don’t think so.”

“Tell him, Nick.”

“I don’t think I can,” I say.

Anne sneers at me.

“Nick, are you still gonna model for me?”

Shocked, I respond, “You were serious?”

“Of course. Maybe I’ll even do some realistic colours. I really like your red hair.”

Red, red, red. It’s red all right.

“Nicki, please model for me,” Hayden asks me. He looks at me and smiles a smile that is so rare in our society today. It is one that is not bound by duty or manners, but one that is unkempt and untouched by all things unbound and unlaced. It is one that is so very true and honest that it strikes you to be memorable for the sheer innocence of it. The way Hayden looks at me right now is one of those rare moments of purity. It is one of those rare looks that makes a person feel that he is only one important, the only one that is in the room with former and the only one that truly matters.

A little reluctant, I agree.

Anne lights another cigarette. She offers one to Hayden. He takes one and lights it as well.

Sitting in the passenger seat of Hayden’s car with Anne in the back still smoking, I try to focus on what’s out the window. There’s really nothing to look at for it is already pitch black outside in the October air. Earlier in the day, clouds had rolled so softly and lazily across the blue October sky. It was serene and relaxing, a true meditative state of the day. The clouds have continued this course of action and now block the moon from shedding its light down and illuminating the cityscape.

Now I’m not saying that it needed it or anything, for it’s hard to even see the tiniest speck of light from a star in the city. In the city, there is always something going on. There is always something to do. Something to see. The city is always alive. Day or night. The stars are quite irrelevant to city life. Even the moon is a hard sight to see. The monstrous skyscrapers tower above us all, blocking the moon as it looms precariously above us.

Sitting in the passenger seat of Hayden’s car with Anne in the back still smoking, I lean back in the seat and focus on the little red Toyota in front of us.

I lose track of time, for suddenly, the little red Toyota is gone and Anne is climbing out of the backseat. She slams the door shut and leans into the car through my window.

“Tired?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Are you working tomorrow?”

“No. I don’t work again until Tuesday.”

Today is Saturday.

“Really? Well, I’ll give you a call sometime, all right Nick?”

“Sounds good.”

“And Hayden, get a job.”

Hayden just waves her off as she backs away from the car. My window slides up as Hayden pulls back out into the street, Anne waving us off from the sidewalk.

“Do you want to go back to my apartment and model for me now?”

“Now?”

“Come on, Nick, it’s still early.”

“You call nine-thirty ‘early’?”

“Well, you know how I don’t go to bed until about three… four in the morning.”

“And you don’t get up until at least noon.”

Hayden laughs.

“Maybe Anne’s right. Get a job; it’ll sort out your sleep schedule.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Some people wake up when you go to sleep.”

“Lies!”

I snicker and turn away.

Hayden’s voice dominates the silence once more. “Sooo… My place?”

“Fine, whatever,” I say.

Hayden’s apartment is also his studio space. Every inch of the concrete apartment is filled with colour. The flat lies about ten stories up from the street, and on a corner of all places. Windows line half of the apartment, and one side looks out onto North Side, and in the distance on the other side, I can see Skokie.

Hayden draws back the massive curtains to completely unveil the view. He saunters over to a corner opposite of the kitchen, and begins to pull out several stretched canvases, all varying in size and all already primed. He looks each over before picking one and setting the rest back. He shoves tables and chairs out of the way on the Skokie side before grabbing a stool and pushing it over to the area. Grabbing a sheet and some clothes from the table he’d just moved, Hayden stands up on the stool and reaches for the wire that hangs across the ceiling. He pins part of the black sheet up and lets the rest of it flow down and onto the floor.

Hayden hops down from the stool and walks over to me, saying, “Okay, I want you to go over by that sheet.”

“Is it all right for me to stand on it?”

“Sure, just make sure not to pull it down,” he says as he drags an easel over. He places it having the back face directly at me and the Skokie window behind.

As he digs into the cabinet for some paints and a palette, I ask him, “Are you painting the city too?”

“I might. I actually might not even paint that sheet, but…” He trails off. He selects some brushes and places them on a cart with the paints and pulls it toward the easel. “All right, can you do something?”

Crossed, I ask, “What do want me to do?”

“I dunno. Something.”

“Hayden.”

“Hm?” His attention is lacking as he places the canvas onto the easel and pulls the cart a little closer.

“That’s not very specific.”

“Well… okay,” he says as he appears from behind the canvas and easel. He stands there across the room, and even though it’s for a moment, it is a moment of thought that is so palpable I can feel his thoughts and try to move my body into a position.

“This?”

“Nah.” His response is immediate and automatic. “Too awkward. Face the window to your right.” I turn from Hayden to the North Side window. “Now, go back into that position you had before,” he says directing me. “Okay, now move your left leg forward and your right leg back… Yeah that’s fine. Can you lean back more…? All right that’s good.”

“What about my arms and hands?” I ask.

“Just let them hang down.”

“My head?”

“You can move it wherever right now, but when I get to your head can you look over straight at me?” I do so now. “Tilt your head back more…Yeah. Why don’t you move your shoulders a bit more to your left so I can see more of your neck?” I follow his directions. “Yeah that’s good. Can you remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, you can look wherever.” I look out the North Side window as Hayden turns on the stereo on the counter behind him next to the cabinets. There are no lyrics. Hayden hates it when there are lyrics. He finds them distracting. I close my eyes and try to relax the best I can in my strange stance and allow myself to be engulfed in the music.

Cascades of arpeggios flow up and down in a complex, perfectly timed manner. The dissonance of the harmony contrasts the pleasing sound of the melody. The drummer plays as if he were a jazz musician, keeping the beat and time. I feel myself getting lost in the beat when I suddenly hear Hayden say,

“Look over at me now.”

I follow his request and move my head in his direction, just as I had done before. Hayden’s head disappears from the canvas’ left side as goes back to paint in the lines of my figure.

“Okay, so I finished the gesture of your figure and the background, and I’m just going to quickly paint in some shadows and highlights. So don’t move, ‘kay?”

He opens the cabinet behind him and fishes out a yogurt cup and walks into the kitchen. I hear the faucet burst to life, filling the cup with water. Hayden slinks back over to his easel, side-stepping his cart, placing the yogurt cup down as he goes. I see his right arm dip the paintbrush into the cup and he swishes it around to wash it before drying it out on his pants. He grabs a couple of tubes of paint and squirts out a little of both before disappearing behind the canvas and easel.

His head pops over the side of the easel once more to look at me. When he returns his focus to canvas again he asks me, “Nicki… What do you want to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… I don’t know. You know how when we were in high school and the guidance counsellors would ask us what we want to do as a career and our plans for college and crap?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“What’d you say?”

“I didn’t really know. I mean, I didn’t think playing the piano was going to get me anywhere, you know?”

“That’s what my folks said about art.”

I laugh a little.

“My grandparents especially. They were so dead set against it. They all thought me crazy to go to art school.”

“Did it suck?”

“What? Art school?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes. I mean, some of the critiques we had… Fucking ridiculous. Some of the stuff just looked like total shit, and people loved it. It’s weird. There was this one kid that absolutely sucked, and I could point out a million things wrong with his pieces and he’d just say, ‘It’s surrealism.’ How the hell does surrealism justify your lack of talent or skill? It doesn’t. You have to start somewhere, do things right first, get the basics before you can do anything else.”

“What was the point of telling me that?”

“I dunno. Just felt like getting that I out I guess. Some kids in art school were just real fucking retards.”

“Wait. Was this the kid that sat there, looked at your drawing of a girl smoking and then said-”

“ ‘I think the black dots represent the tar in cigarettes.’ ”

I hear Hayden snort behind the canvas before he bursts out laughing. I can’t help but join him.

“That was a shitty drawing.”

“I liked it.”

“So did I.”

“Then why are you saying it sucks?”

“Because it does. I only like it because-”

“The black dots represent cigarette tar?”

“Oh yeah. I’m so deep.”

“Hayden.”

“Yes?”

“What’s your story?”

“Oh, Jesus.” I hear him laugh again, but he says nothing else. We stand in his apartment on opposite sides of the main room. Model and artist. Me, the model, frozen in time. He, the artist, constantly moving in creation. It’s a sickening thing to look at notice. I vacantly wonder if models secretly have vendettas against the artists as my knees and back begin to ache and my thighs start to burn.

“All right. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Thank Jesus!” I cry, my voice bouncing off the concrete walls and ceiling of the apartment. I shake out my body before grabbing one of Hayden’s lounge chairs and pushing it towards the easel. “That’s the last time I model for you,” I say to him flatly as he grabs a hairdryer from the top of a counter next to the cabinets.

“No it isn’t. I’ll get you again sometime.”

“Yeah right,” I say. I can’t help but think that deep down, he’s probably right as we fall into a silence and the hairdryer bursts to life in a whirl. I massage my knees as I sit there watching Hayden run the hairdryer over the canvas to dry the wet paint. He shuts it off and throws it back onto the counter. Hayden shifts over to the left and opens the cabinet to pull out a set of paints, a new palette, a piece of discarded cloth and a jar. He sets them on his cart and begins to mess with them, his back turned to me. There’s a slight pop, and I then see him fiddle with some tubes of paint. As he turns to his canvas, I remark,

“Your apartment smells kind of funny.”

A smile creeps onto his face, but he doesn’t tear his eyes away from his work to look at me as he streaks colour into the background. Calmly, he tells me, “It’s nothing to worry about. I was mixing up some terpenoid earlier. It’s this stuff in this jar.”

“Terpenoid?” I give him a questioning look as he produces an open salsa jar containing the rancid smelling liquid. The golden-yellow substance swishes around in the jar as Hayden moves, still focused on his work.

“It’s what I use to thin out oil paints,” he says and places the jar onto his cart. He dips his brush just slightly into the terpenoid before dabbing it into his oil paint once more. He adds more of the colour to the canvas.

It is a lovely colour of a reddish hue. It’s not bright, bright red, and there’s hardly a hint of orange in it. Instead it’s more of a slightly purplish red, but it is bright in its thin layer.

“What colour is that?”

“ ‘Rose Madder.’ The oil’s been thinned out by the terpenoid, so it’ll get darker when I add more layers to it.”

“It’s pretty,” I say, mesmerised by Rose Madder.

Hayden steps back from the canvas, still never taking his eyes off of it. “It is, isn’t it?”

He cocks his head to one side, then the other and steps forward again to continue working.

He says, “You know, there’s a lot of things you could do with music.”

His face is still turned towards the canvas, his eyes watching his every movement, and I ask, “Like what?”

“Well, you don’t have to be a famous piano player, you know. You could become a teacher, but that might kind of suck, since you’re not too into kids. But have you ever thought of where musicians come to play?”

“You mean for me to run a venue?”

“It’s a thought.”

I don’t say anything in response for a moment.

“You know what I like?” I finally ask.

“What?”

“I like that old stuff. Those old, old records – the 78’s. I like the way they crackle… the way they sound so distant, but those phonographs… they’re so loud. I like those old His Master’s Voice horn phonographs. The music, it’s always feels so soothing that way… I mean, you can have a song playing like ‘Szomorú Vasárnap’,” I ramble, “and it’s still calming, even though it’s so sad…”

“ ‘Szomorú Vasárnap’… Isn’t that the original version of ‘Gloomy Sunday’?”

“Yeah.”

Hayden chuckles a little, and I hear him sing the melody of the song over the stereo. Suddenly, he stops his singing, and says,

“You ever hear the Paul Whiteman version of it?”

“That’s my favourite English version.”

“Jazzy,” he says.

The silence that fills the room overtakes the noise of the stereo. I don’t know what it is about people. The incesstant need to fill the silence.

“A venue,” I mumble in musement. “A venue…”

I look across the apartment and out the Skokie window. In this little concrete apartment with the fabulous view, things flourish. Things happen inside this little concrete apartment. In this little concrete apartment with the lovely view, things change. Things appear inside this little concrete apartment. I’m not saying that they’re all wonderful, not in the least, but things happen nonetheless. Things are always moving at a breakneck speed, but inside this little apartment with the concrete walls and ceiling and wooden floor splattered with paint, things take time. No matter how fast you move, things will always happen when they’re meant to happen. Unfortunately, this leaves us to mess with what happens in the meantime, so for now, I’d prefer to be in this little concrete apartment.

I’m not saying that this little concrete apartment is dull or lifeless, not in the least. My God! an artist of all people lives here. Things are always changing, revolving, moving. Things happen with an artist. Hayden has a certain colour to him that makes things move just so. Don’t think that this little concrete apartment is lifeless at all. It is so full of life and ambition that it drives me up the walls.

I remember days when I’d sit alone in my own little apartment. I’d sit alone, curtains drawn, maybe sometimes the lights would all be turned off, surrounding me in the darkness of the place and I’d be just stuck there, sitting on my little bench in my little apartment. So my bench wasn’t quite so little in the least, and neither was my instrument of choice, but all the same, I sat there. I’d sit there and wait for it all to come and when the music flowed from my brain to my fingertips to the keys to the hammers to the strings, things happened. Things came to life for me in my dinky little apartment as I sat sitting at an eight foot grand piano. Things moved for me in my little apartment as I sat sitting at a grand piano, playing songs that I knew deep down, no one would ever hear – or rather, songs that I knew no one would ever want to hear.

So I failed at being a pianist, as I sit here in Hayden’s concrete apartment looking out the Skokie window into a vast nothingness, I resent Hayden. Hayden lives on the tenth floor of an apartment complex. Hayden lives in a corner apartment on the tenth floor of an apartment complex. I resent Hayden. I resent him for the simple fact that his life is constantly moving in colour while I sat alone in my apartment, engulfed in the blues and grays of darkness.

“…Makes me think that I might not die alone…”

Hayden stands there at his canvas, instrumental music blaring from the stereo behind him as I sit here at the North Side window, staring out the Skokie window. I vaguely wonder about what’s on the other side of that window. I know, deep down, that there is nothing. Not a thing for me on the other side of that window. I stare out that window and knowing that there is nothing, that’s just the way it is, and I say,

“Have you ever thought about doing just nothing?”

“Nothing? Like what you told your counsellor?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“I don’t know. What would it be like doing nothing?” he asks, still never even giving me a glance.

I don’t answer him.

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to run away somewhere. Maybe I’d go Maine and live on the beach in a lighthouse and watch the boats come and go. Or maybe I could go live on another beach in sunny California and watch the waves engulf the surfers. Or maybe I could go live on a lonely street in the middle of nowhere in a cornfield in Iowa. Or maybe I could go south and into the Arizona desert where humidity practically doesn’t exist and it’s like you’re walking in an oven. Or maybe I could south somewhere on the east coast and let the mosquitoes bite me up and be killed by the hot summers. Or maybe I’m just fantising so that I won’t have face the fact that doing nothing is all that it is. Running away somewhere far away, and knowing that while I’m in my little fantasy world, real life is passing me by.

Sometimes, I’d like to do that. Sometimes, I’d like to run away.

Looking out that window, I can’t help but think of how breakable that window is. How tangible it is. It is so close to me compared to the rest of the world, yet so far away that it is not within reach of me and whatever I thought of it being tangible is just shattered, in the same way I would have thrown my fist through it. It’s just so breakable.

Breakable; breakable; breakable.

Hayden won’t look at me.

He steps back from the canvas suddenly. He cocks his head to one side, then the other, and back again. He cocks his head back to the other side and says,

“I think that’s all I can do for now. Otherwise the oil paints’ll get all muddy and won’t look good.”

I can’t look at Hayden. I stare out the Skokie window.

“Hey Hayden?”

“Yes?”

“Anne was saying something earlier about you showing me something.”

“Oh!” he gasps. He still doesn’t look at me as he hurriedly turns away, pushing the cart out of his way as he goes. He shuffles back over to me carrying a canvas and shows it proudly to me, his face hidden behind it.

Staring out at me from the canvas is a little dog. A little yellow lab that I’ve come to call my own. A little yellow lab that, on the canvas, is a beautiful hue of Rose Madder. Her eyes stare out at me in a begging, saddened manner that tugs at my heartstrings as Hayden’s voice come from behind my sweet little dog, “I’m not quite done, but when I do, you can have it if you’d like.” Hayden turns away and puts away the canvas, never even glancing in my direction.

I say, “Take me home.”

And he does so.

Sitting alone in my apartment, there is nothing. I sit here at my grand piano, all covered in dust and out of tune. I can play nothing even though it is dark, silent - save for the quiet snores of my little yellow lab - and the curtains are drawn. I can play nothing.

The glow from the city life which I am currently missing out on breaks into the room just slightly so through a crack in the curtains and spills out onto the floor from underneath the curtains. It is a strange colour, so I rise from the piano and cross the room to the window. I pull back the curtains and look out.

Across the way, I see a billboard glowing in the wonderous colour of Rose Madder.

Makes me think that maybe, I won’t die all alone.