Chapter 4. Anna's Studio

I can admit my sub-Kraszhinski head was swimming with lurid, erotic, fantasies of a night with Anna and those were juxtaposed with a more ideal romance that fed my loneliness. I was already marrying her and introducing her to a family I've never had but this fantasy was interrupted by Mom whispering in the background, “But she’s a whore!” even though Mom's been dead a decade.

It’s an ego thing. I don’t know if it is true of all men, but this man relished the dream of entering the Casino Royal like James Bond, with a sexy, young, and sophisticated woman in arm, and drawing the envy of every high roller, asking, “What’s he got goin’ for him to have scored a girl like that?”

Anna’s features were French/Asian and she could go either way depending on her make-up. Her body, in a short skirt, had the legs of a cheetah. She could be a blonde, a redhead, or have straight sheeny black hair. Wigs? Yeah, good ones too. But, off-duty she usually wore sweats, no make-up and, when she flipped back her hoodie, she exposed a crew-cut cropped to no more than an inch at the widow’s peak.

I shook my head… no way, she’s far too young for me. It was only a creepy thought.

“C’mon,” If Anna had an accent at all it would be a Southern Californian one but she coaxed me off the stool, kidding in fake oriental, “We got places to go and things to do and they ain’t gonna get done sittin’ here ah day.”

We left the bar and hopped on a trolley towards the beach and walked a couple blocks to her new digs. Her old place had the style of a cluttered college dorm… clothes scattered everywhere complete with Iggy pop and Ramones posters decorating the walls. Anna’s new place was a whole different picture. I followed her up a flight of stairs to the door and stood behind as she opened it to what I could see was a grown-up’s art studio.

Thinking she must be hooked up with an artist, a successful artist at that, I asked, “Is someone else living here?”

“No. Why?”

“It’s so much nicer than your old place,” I looked past the living section. It was furnished sparsely chic with an aboriginal looking teak dining table separating the kitchen from the rest of the front room. Then elevated two steps up was an art studio with a higher, fifteen-foot ceiling, facing north, hosting a wall of glass panes. An eight by six-foot canvas was in progress on an industrial size easel next to a work table of neatly arranged brushes and paint tubes … several finished canvasses leaned against the opposite wall. It was a large studio and must have cost someone a tidy sum.

I was dumbfounded. If I was ever going to paint and, if I was ever to dream again, this was the kind of place I would dream of having.

With a backhand flip of the wrist in the direction of the steps, she said, “There used to be a wall here but I had it taken out. I wanted to be able to see my work from here.”

“What? You own this?” I was relieved that there was no one else in the space to contend with and confounded that she’d been able to come up with such a place on her own.

“I own it for sure. I’ve had it six months now,” she grinned.

I wasn’t going to ask, but “how?” was the big question.

“I leveraged a client to get this place. I’ll tell you someday, if you want to know,” she thrusted her hips and pouted.

“Maybe I don’t want to know after what you said about Doc and Bob.” I try not to pry into other people’s business, even if it marginally concerns me. However, I knew something was going on with Bob and Doc that she wanted to tell me.  Knowing Anna, it was best to not push. If it was as important as she implied, it would come out on her own terms and in her own time.

My attention returned to what was in front of me. I heard her say the painting was her work too but it took a minute for it to sink in past my astonishment, “So, this is what you’ve been up to since we last saw each other? And I take it, you’re the one doing the artwork?”

“I am. They’re my City College projects,” she spoke with pride and, in turn, I was proud of her.

“I had no idea,” I gave the canvass on the easel a good looking over. This wasn’t the work of your average City College art student.

The painting was an odalisque… a very good knock-off of Goya’s nude Maja within a violent scumbling of angry paint that worked to evoke raw emotion. Demons and owls, ala Goya, filled the space in the background behind broad brush strokes, splashes of yellows, reds, Prussian blues and black outlined over and around the subject. The come hither looking nude emerged from the chaos of paint that threatened. I had to comment, “Come hither if you dare? Ah, I see, that’s you.”

Standing behind me she said, “Don’t touch! The paint’s still wet.”

“Oops. It’s hard to resist. How did you…?”

“You know. A year ago I came home from a client’s joint. His was a nice place with some smarmy pictures on all the walls. He bragged about how much he’d paid for them and I thought, I can do better than that.”

“Just like that?” I said, nearly as jealous as I was proud, “People study a lifetime to paint like you’ve done here.”

“It wasn’t as easy as it looks. I had to put away the meth first and then I weaned off the coke. I still drink a little too much, like today, but I’m seeing a therapist for that.”

“Good, hon. I was afraid for a minute that you’d gotten religion. When do you have the time to do all this?”

“I make time between studies, court ordered NA meetings, and so on. Ha … NA’s a good place to score, you know. So many talk the talk in meetings but never mind the walk… most of the others are Jesus freaks. I like the Higher Power bit but it gets trite sometimes.”

“Court ordered? Do you still step out at night?”

“No, I was sentenced to NA a year ago. I only take on some old clients when I need paints or canvass. I have to be careful, if that’s what you mean.”

I sat at the teak table. She’d already opened the fridge, “You want coffee? I can nuke it… A bite to eat?”

She tossed me a convenience store ham sandwich that was still in the plastic wrap. I hadn’t anything to eat since the day before and didn’t realized I was hungry until I chomped into the dry white bread hiding limp lettuce, processed ham, and cheese. It was so dry it sucked out whatever moisture I had in my mouth, “You got anything to drink?”

She took the all too familiar square bottle of Jack out of the cupboard and passed it to me. I slugged down a couple gulps straight from it. She took the bottle back and dumped half the coffee out of a mug and mixed it the rest of the way with Jack. She smiled, “Here. Try this. Painting… It’s like learning magic or alchemy, you know?”

“Yes, I do know.” And I did know from a distant past. I could see that she had the ego of the artist having the chutzpa to think she was as good as or better than the masters that came before… at least enough ego to strive for it, even if she failed. I said, “It’s the alchemy of pride and humility that’s refined into gold. Otherwise, why bother?”

“Once you get it, it’s easier than it looks, huh? But hey, like, you know,” she laughed, “you inspired me to do all this.”

“Like, you know?” I laughed with her. “How did I do that?”

“It was one of those nights in your cab a while back. I was crying, remember?”

“You were just a kid then… you threw your sketch book at me.” I remembered I’d picked her up at a place on West Canon Perdido. She’d tossed a notebook at the dash and began convulsing in sobs. It was one of those grilled composition notebooks. It dropped to the floorboards… pages opened to raw pen sketches…confident and remarkable… reminded of Picasso’s Minotaur etchings.

“Never mind that. You looked at my notebook and said; let me get this right… you said, like you know, Picasso was born Picasso and he stayed Picasso because he believed in Picasso. He never forgot that he was Picasso his whole life. I’ll always remember that.”

“Damn, you’re making me out to be some kind of a guru.” I remembered that night. The address used to be a store that had been converted into an apartment.

“You are some kind of guru to a few of us.”

Anna brought the subject back to the one at the bar. She asked, “Crash, why are you wasting time driving cab?”

“I need the cash. I can’t stay on your couch forever.”

“I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about… oh shit. Say, if you want, I can pay you a few bucks to stretch canvasses and run errands.” She reached across the table, eyes drooping, and held both of my hands, “Crash, I gotta tell you. There’s a reason Doc let you hang,” her face turned sour, “Think of it, that same night I was shook-up…Remember?”

Ah, at last she was going to tell me the big secret. I remembered some of it but memory is selective… especially mine, “What am I supposed to remember?”

She spoke more emphatically, “I came out of that place after something bad happened… real bad, and it had to do with the Doc.”

I could recall seeing a silhouette at the end of the driveway in back she’d come out of. It was holding something in its hand the size of a gun. I couldn’t make-out who it was.

It must have been getting close to noon because it was getting warm. All of this talk about the past was getting to me. I wanted to shut it off, change stations. I got up and opened a few of the windows on that wall of glass. I was feeling light headed. Beads of sweat formed above my brows. Her voice became distant. I wasn’t paying attention. I drifted off to outside with a view of a garden and pond.

“But I’d been goin’ to client’s places since I was twelve, way before I met you.”

I plopped on the couch, “I remember thinking you were a typical teen sneaking out at night. Was Doc a John?”

“You don’t look so good, we’ll talk later.” She crossed the room, opened a cabinet, and took out some sheets and blankets and dropped the bundle next to me on the couch.

“Here, Crash. Sleep here when you want to crash,” she tittered a girlish giggle, “Tee-hee, crash, Crash. Get some rest, you don’t look so good. Do what you want with the rest of the day, I have an afternoon class and I gotta sleep-off this buzz. I’m going to bed.”