Negative Space

if I’m jealous, really, but....”
“What?”
“It’s just...you got him for seven years. I had him for only three. I’m wondering why he stayed the four extra years with you.”
“Don’t ask me, honestly. We really weren’t that close. Only time he would really pay attention to me was when Mom said something or...” He gestured toward the first red-crayon sketch of the Lone Ranger. “Or when I would draw.”
“Oh....”
“Yeah, that’s one thing he did. He encouraged me to draw, to be creative. I suppose, when you consider what I ended up doing, he’s had a pretty big influence, but it wasn’t really him that made me want to draw. The crayons and pencils and markers were all little escape pods for me. I guess Dad helped me with that.”
“We didn’t have a dad, Max, not really,” Karen said. “We had a father.”
For a few seconds, the only noises were Vivian and her catch-of-the-week reaching new orgasmic heights just beyond the wall.
“Why would my mother send my drawings to you?”
“Wasn’t to me. It was to him. As you just said—he was most interested in your drawings. Maybe he wanted to see how you were growing, progressing. Don’t fucking know.”
Not wanting to add to Karen’s fire, Max just said, “What was your father’s name?”
“Robert Eisenlord. That’s what he said, anyway.” Karen studied Max. “Did you ever paint him?”
He reached into his back pocket and got out his wallet. Opening it up, he let dangle an accordion string of business card-sized prints of his artwork.
“You keep tiny copies of all your pieces in your wallet? That’s amusing.”
“Why?”
“Most people keep pictures of boyfriends or family in there.”
“Well, what family is there to put in here?” Max said. “And I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Heh, sure. So...what’s your favorite?”
“I don’t know. Am I supposed to have a favorite?”
Karen was silent.
Max scanned the column of pictures. Pointed to one. “There’s him. The one with the sort of alien landscape and the moons. Called it Moon Watch. It’s one of the few paintings I’ve just left in my closet.”
“Never sold it?”
“No, never tried.”
“Why him in this piece? Any reason?”
“Honestly don’t know. I’d lost his picture and couldn’t find it for years. I almost forgot about it, actually. But when I started this piece I didn’t have any faces that inspired me, none that just, you know, punched me.” Max stared at the thumbnail. “Then...I’m sifting through this pile of stuff...I don’t even remember what...probably a bunch of magazines and newspapers ...anyway, it’s just there, this photo I haven’t seen in God-knows-how-many years, staring at me. It was like a mathematician finding that one key answer.”
“You like to do fantasy, huh?”
“That’s the real art to me. Bringing out the things in the cracks. The weird glue holding us and the world together.”
Karen snorted. “Makes sense. He looks younger than my photo, by the way.”
Max shrugged, then collected the accordion string of photos and squished them back into his wallet. “I’m paranoid about something happening to them. That’s why I keep a record in my pocket. I always think someone’s going to break into my place or set it on fire or something. So if that happens I’ll at least have some proof that all my stuff existed.”
Karen asked, “What if someone mugs you?”
“I got back-ups.” Even though he didn’t.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Karen said. “Same here. We got Gray Goose, Crème de menthe, I think Viv’s guy might’ve brought over some beer—”
“I’ve got work in like an hour,” Max said, checking his watch. “And I don’t drink.”
“Well I do. Follow me.”
***
III
James Cannon pulled into the driveway, shut off the engine, and sat in darkness. The kitchen light was on. Dammit. Teresa was always here. She was in there for sure, milling about, washing things. Cooking. Being a girlfriend. Warm-up to the wife. No.
Penelope, what would it be like to fuck you?
The ticking of the cooling engine beat in rhythm with his pulse. He didn’t want to get out of the car. He didn’t want to have to put on a smile and hug and kiss Teresa and relate to her all the shit from the firm, the client with thinly-veiled ties to the Family that he was arguing should not go to jail. Teresa made the food and would expect him—some pathetic pot-luck fashion—to bring conversation to the table.
Minutes rushed into oblivion. James was still. The engine had stopped, leaving behind the lonely dull throb of his pulse. Outside, crickets and their tinny chants. He thought about his exes. How good had they been? Had he even really chosen them? Like Teresa, they seemed more to happen to him, stumble into his lap as dubious natural phenomena.
He picked up the car phone, keeping watch on the window, and dialed his home number. He could hear the phone ring inside and saw Teresa’s shadowy form move from the sink to pick it up.
“Hello?” she said.
“I thought we weren’t going to pick up the phone at my house.”
“Oh! Hi, James. I’m sorry, I just thought it might be you. I was going to call you anyway to make sure about dinner. You’re coming home now, right?”
“Check the driveway, babes.”
The shadowy form came back into view over the kitchen sink and waved at him.
James grinned.
“Come on in already. Dinner’s waiting.”
“Oh.”
“You got my message this morning, didn’t you?” she said. “You didn’t already eat somewhere, did you?”
“No, no, don’t worry. My stomach’s growling. I’m coming in.”
“Great!”
“Oh, and Teresa babe?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t pick up the phone when I’m not around.”
He hung up.
***
An exquisite feast awaited him: pot roast, mashed potatoes macaroni salad, asparagus. All filling his stomach through his eyes.
“Wow,” James said. “This is certainly nice. Thank you.”
“Of course! It’s a bit of a celebration. You were able to come home at a decent hour.”
We’re celebrating that now. Jesus. Everything’s a celebration. Why not make every day a holiday, stop kidding ourselves with our fucking excuses and fill up and ride the days away detached and intoxicated? World can’t touch us then. No. Can’t