Artist’s Colony
By Michael T. Huyck, Jr.
Throughout the ages, creative geniuses have always suffered for their craft. And sometimes both patrons of the arts and the artists themselves reach a point where the creative act becomes a nearly religious experience. To sacrifice a little bit of one’s self in pursuit of epiphany is absolutely required.
Previously published in Space & Time #96. Reprinted here with the author’s permission.
Clemson cleared the desk and straddled it, pulling one long, black sleeve up well above the elbow. He fiddled with the razor blade, moving it from finger pinch to finger pinch on his free hand.
I nodded, my arms crossed.
Positioning the crystal bowl, he dug into his wrist with the brushed metal. It engaged and sunk, the dark blood pushing out around the razor’s gleam.
Clemson smiled at me and pushed the razor deeper into his wrist.
“I cut from left to right, you see. It’s not as dangerous that way.”
I nodded and watched the stream of his life drip into the irregular vessel. A banana shaped thing, its glass edges buffed smoothed. The top lay beside it.
The blood lolled at first, then changed its mind. It flowed down, spreading across three fingertips with teenage exuberance. Clemson frowned, but held his hand above the bowl, anyway. It filled and darkened.
“So, what else? I’ve seen blood before.”
“Other fluids,” he said. “I’ll have saliva in one glass, urine in another. Maybe sperm, maybe feces. Each of the glasses will fit together, like a puzzle. The puzzle will be in a shape of a heart, and I’ll call it, ‘Life.’”
I searched his eyes, then dropped my view to the rivulets on his arms.
“Very Serrano. It’s been done.”
“That’s bullshit,” he whispered.
“My point exactly. Good luck.” I turned and walked towards the door. Clemson would do okay, but he needed to know he wasn’t the shit. Not the real shit. Not yet. The real shit hadn’t walked these halls in years.
We had poseurs, sure.
The six monks with their fishnet and needle, sewing themselves into living graphics of biblical philosophy. Their representation of the burning bush from the book of Acts left them a shorter troupe.
One gentleman became an effigy representing man’s hunger. He brought a long and quiet show and died alone. I didn’t want to watch anymore.
And the implants. Good Christ, how many implants tread these halls? In the name of art, no less? Fruits and vegetables, stones and tree limbs. Falsifications of man’s scientific curiosity. Even lovers that symbolically swapped limbs in ritualistic amputation and reattachment.
The fires of the Colony morgue always burn dark and greasy.
Nope, we hadn’t seen the shit in a while. In six years of auditions, I met only one, and that one secured my position. Hell, she secured my tenure. As well as her fortune.
Clarabelle, she came as. Clarabelle the Clown. A dinky stage name, I know. I knew it then. She stood by it, though. Stood by it because it could be identified with. No argument there.
Clarabelle did magic, passable magic. Rabbits in hats, milk in paper cones, that kind of thing. No floating beauties with hoops passed around them. Not for Clarabelle. She did schtick only to play the audience.
Rabbits came out as she wandered and whispered in the ears of her patrons. Whispered dark words. Never, ever did Clarabelle wait for the reaction. She just whispered and walked.
They watched, clapping perfunctorily, as her oversized, brown shoes thumped the chairs of the chosen. The spotlight spun over, lazing over those worthy of her pause. Nervous couples and innocent couples. Overweight couples and healthy couples. Forthright couples and sinister couples.
Most felt the might of her club, even if the club only carried the weight of a stuffed rabbit. A simple stuffed rabbit with floppy ears and gray fur.
God, I loved that effect-the rabbit. How magic is that?
She whispered and the crowd grew quiet, then mean.
Clarabelle’s show never lasted over an hour. It didn’t on the testing, and it didn’t on the final. It hasn’t yet in ten shows on the road (sponsored by the Colony, thank you).
In an hour or less, every show has ended in the brightest spots of disagreement, pain, and bloodshed. I can personally credit three deaths to Clarabelle. Perhaps a fourth, if you count a head found wearing a red clown nose and no body.
Every show made Clarabelle smile in private, watching the angry faces and scattered confusion. She didn’t care for police involvement, just the personal involvement.
Clemson cleared the test hall door and ran down the hall towards me. I could hear his yelling, but the echoes drowned the words. I kept walking.
“Whuuuttt?”
I took several strides, impossibly long and impossibly fast. I wanted to make it look hard.
“Whatdidyoumean?” he gasped. The voice drew closer.
I took two more strides before the hand fell on my shoulder. I stopped, not turning until the hand fell away. Clemson wasn’t the shit and he wouldn’t be demanding audience from me anytime soon.
Yet, the hand fell away and I did turn. I turned in hopes of promise.
“Bullshit, you said. I agreed.”
Spirals of crimson mingled on his forearm, and the white handkerchief pressed against his wrist bloated. Dark rivulets threaded out from between the fingers of his grasping, unwounded hand.
“I simply agreed,” I repeated, then turned. The hand searched my shoulder again.
“But Mr. Malistere! The essence of life, of beauty, is that not what’s inside us? I only. . . .”
Again I faced him.
“You choose shock and schlock. So you give a few liters of bodily fluids and solids . . . so what? Huh? Ask yourself-who cares? Who cares?”
Shaking his head, Clemson dropped his eyes to his bared toes. Drops of blood reticently dribbled from his elbow in a subtle ring outside his foot.
“Get the wrist sewn, Clemson, then take to your room. Think about what I said. Think about ‘who cares.’ Then turn it around and fit a canvas around it. If this,” I pointed at his arm, “still works-then use it. If it doesn’t, fuck it.”
I stepped away without the shouldered plea, listening to my feet slap the stone floor and his thoughts echo the stone walls.
Clemson didn’t come back. Not in days and not in weeks. No. He abandoned his bunk and disappeared. I found him during a Starvelings drag.
Big discoveries don’t wander in and kowtow at your bedside. They don’t drop a line or surf your homepage. Often as not, they just land on your face. Often as not, considering that most art gene pools are in dire need of drought, they bring pain with their prophecy.
The Starvelings drag. Right. It’s when we wander the mole holes of the city in search of feeling and commitment. It’s not an accident, you know. True artists don’t suffer pain because they’re true; they’re true because they suffer pain. Ask Van Gogh. Ask Charles Manson.
A thin girl, her eyes rheumy with heroine chic, stopped me outside The Grottoesque. I peered at the bar door as her fingertips feathered my arm and her words implored my attention. Knock her on her ass and go in? Or just walk away? Choices.
Only five feet away, I noticed another waif pawing at another potential Grottoesque customer. Across the street, another. I locked eyes with my Starveling, then ran my vision up and down her body.
Skimp and filth. Ragged black slacks, a black tank top, and bare feet. Greasy hair-long and raven-but clumped and snagged unceremoniously. Trash and a true Starveling. The definition of a Starveling.
“What?” I asked, finally turning my ears on.
“It’s a show, sir. A show like you’ve never seen before. And I’m telling you . . . Cinnamon is telling you.”
“A show,” I asked. “I’ve seen shows. Go.” I swatted her thin hands off, but they flashed back, persistent as gnats.
“Not this show, sir. Not this. Here, tonight. Midnight. It’s quite the show, sir. And Cinnamon told you. Remember that.”
I glared, but her eyes didn’t drop. Mine softened.
“Are you in the show, Cinnamon?”
“I can be. Yes, I can. Remember my name. They,” she opened a palm towards the other Starvelings, “they don’t know how much this means. I do. Cinnamon.”
Taking one of those dirty, annoying hands, I patted her into calm. “I’ll be here, Cinnamon,” I said, and I swear I saw the star of hope in her eyes. My interest grew.
A midnight show with acolytes. Could be something new and different, and considering The Grottoesque crowd something I’d be interested in. Sure, they were mostly poseurs, but then, the cream still comes from the milk can, doesn’t it?
I found a wall-bound table with a single chair just before show time. The audience, a collage of Goths, artisans, and the curious, sat beneath a sound blanket of mumbles and microphone tests. Glasses tinkled and the stage hovered in shadows. Cinnamon didn’t show her face.
The microphone popped, followed by a sapphire blue spotlight on the left edge of the stage. The edge just before me.
“Autumn,” a voice whispered through the amplifier.
A shadow, flat-footed and poised, spread the curtain behind the light and walked out.
The light faded to white.
He stood, his stance trim but his arms wide and his chin raised. From his skin hung various red and tan leaves: oak, maple, willow.
I watched his steps towards the center of the stage. Careful and measured. His bald skull and trim goatee floated level with every move. The leaves remained motionless.
“Dressed in rust,” the voice said.
The man stopped and faced the audience. For the first time, I noticed the pinheads glowing from the center of each leaf.
A shadow skulked in from the opposite end of the stage, staying low. The glow spoke of white dress. Of linen.
“Winter.”
Stooping beside the leaf-bearing man, the white figure reached to his head and pulled one needle. The leaf dropped. Then another needle. The another. Each leaf fluttered down his nude body in succession.
“Revealing and. . . .”
More leaves fell, and dark rivulets ran down the bald man’s chest. He remained still, a collapsed crucifix, and bled for the audience. More needles and his genitalia formed new shadows on his left thigh. Still, no motion.
“Percipient,” the voice finished. The last leaf dropped, as did the leaf-holder. The figure in white lay down at his side and the light faded.
I chose the bar and a cabernet over joining in with the polite golf patter. As if on request, the house lights sparked.
I scanned as I walked, searching for Cinnamon. She’d show if she were able. I’d heard that much in her voice.
Yet, she hadn’t.
The cabernet came in a water glass marked with hard water stains, but it wet my lips. I found my seat before the lights dimmed again.
Clemson came out, his figure identifiable only by the walk. A black robe hung in shadows from his shoulders and a deep hood surrounded his face. He moved slowly to center stage, then backed up against the backdrop curtain.
Raising each arm, palms up and elbows slightly bent, Clemson silently beckoned. Two robed figures entered from stage left, small reflections of Clemson. Two more entered from the right, pushing a sloshing contraption of glass, water, and light bulbs. One fed an orange extension cord.
Clemson stood frozen until the figures rolled the rectangular tub front and center and backed off. Six inches of clear water moved from wall to wall in waves. Everyone waited.
With his fingertips, Clemson motioned the four smaller robes forward. Each stepped to the front, two to the right, two to the left. I couldn’t see into the dark pool of their hoods, but an inkling of recognition crept up on me.
“Select,” a deep voice commanded over the loudspeaker. The audience sat still, the robes stood still, even the water calmed.
“Select one,” the voice echoed. I paused a second, then spoke from my corner.
“Cinnamon.”
Immediately three of the four small robes stepped back beside Clemson while the fourth robe moved next to the water-filled tub. I smiled. No wonder she wanted me to remember her name.
She dropped her robe, revealing her gaunt, pre-pubescent frame. Breasts hardly more than nipples, thighs so thin that they bowed shyly away from each other.
A stagehand, out of place in blue sweatpants and a white T-shirt, pushed a crude wooden stepladder up to the edge of the tub. Cinnamon stepped to the top of the tub and spread her arms, fingers spread wide and thumbs pointing straight up.
Clemson moved up, took one hand, and assisted her in to the tub. The water level rose, but it hardly covered her. Clemson pulled a towel from the floor behind him, rolled it tightly, then tucked it beneath her head. Each of the robed figures stepped from the stage, then returned with clear pitchers of water. They poured the water into the tub until only Cinnamon’s face protruded over the bluish shadow hovering at water level.
“It takes a village to raise a child,” Clemson bellowed. “It may very well take a child to save the village. Blood cleanses.” In a motion I’d seen before, Clemson draped one arm over the tub, then slashed at his wrist with his free hand. He pulled that arm, dripping crimson splashes, across the front of the tub.
The row of light bulbs behind and beneath the tub came on, spotlighting Clemson’s blood as it filtered through the water and across the nude body of the street urchin.
“It cleanses,” he repeated, and another of the robed urchins stepped forward. Clemson grabbed a wrist and slashed at it. More blood mixed with his. More blood stained the water.
Rather than obscure Cinnamon, the light and redness served to outline her. She grew ethereal.
The stagehand with the light blue sweats came out, arm extended. Before Clemson could cut him, a member of the audience walked from the shadows and stepped up the stairs to the stage. Then another.
The house lights came on, but the crowd only grew. A gaunt boy at a front table didn’t bother with the stairs. He crawled over the stage’s lip and took position directly in front of the tub. Clemson pressed on the boy’s shoulder, tried to move him to the side, but the boy didn’t move. Clemson cut him, anyway.
Then another, and another. I stood, wrapped myself in my coat, and stepped for the front door. The bartender rushed past me, heading directly for the stage.
After the taxi dropped me off, I waited in my chambers. The coat hung from the door, and my boots sat beside the fire, but other than that I didn’t prepare myself to finish the night. I just waited. He would come.
On my third glass of single malt, a rapid stream of taps erupted from my door. Clemson didn’t wait for an answer, but instead chose to break in and take the center stage of my room. His coat hung open, his shirt not tucked, one shoe untied.
“Well?” he demanded.
I raised my glass, twirled the amber contents, then nodded once.
“Well?” he asked louder. “I need to know! Is it enough?”
“Enough for who?” I asked. “Enough for the public? Hmm, probably too much. Enough for you? Maybe. I don’t know, because if it were enough, you wouldn’t ask. You’d demand.”
“Enough for you. I want to know if it’s enough for you.” His teeth clenched when he finished, and his fists drew to his hips.
I waved, then finished the glass in a single gulp.
“Judeo-Christian. You gave a child for their sins. Popular, but a bit too ‘Christ meets Warhol.’ Once again you’ve not been your own artist. You’re some other artist. Shit, you even did the blood thing. You know, ‘Christ gave his blood for you.’ What’s with that?”
His face screwed up tight, twirling his lips into a puckered, red tornado. Then it relaxed. He rubbed one eyebrow viciously, pinched it, then pulled his arms out into a flapping display of extreme exasperation.
“What do you want? Huh? What do you want?”
“I want you,” I said, maintaining my composure. “I want you. You want blood in your art? Fine. Have blood. Have all the blood you want. Just make sure that the blood is doing what you want, and not what someone else already did. Otherwise, you won’t be the shit.” I picked up the decanter and poured a fourth Scotch. Way too much, but it didn’t matter. For this, for another potential find, I could give up on a bit of responsibility.
“Drink?” I asked, filling the crystal.
He grabbed my glass, spilling fully half of it on the leather, knee-length coat he’d draped himself in. In one swallow, the sweet liquor disappeared, and in one twirl and a slam, my student disappeared.
He’d learn. I poured myself a replacement.
I didn’t hear from Clemson in over a year. Nothing new came to the Colony in that time. Just act after act of exasperation. I carefully sifted every piece of mail.
The first communication came just as a scribbled note. A paragraph. He thanked me for the drink and complimented my taste in Scotch. He spoke of peace, friendship, and mystery. Of the power of menses and cleansing of blood through a wound. Of the taste. I couldn’t get it all and there wasn’t a return address for questions, but since he’d written once, I knew he’d write again. He did, three months later. Three long months.
It came as an invitation, not a letter. A folded card with gilded letters and evenly chewed edges. I would be met at the mouth of The Grottoesque, his old haunt. He’d send his driver to pick me up.
His driver. Things change.
An aged Cadillac sporting a well-waxed wrap of black paint double-parked right in front of The Grottoesque. I kept my seat.
A kid, maybe eighteen, exited. Too much eyeliner and perfectly smudged black lipstick. His dyed-jet hair pulled back to the severest of tails. He searched, then started to dip back into his seat. I stood.
His eyes caught me immediately, and he nodded. I walked to the rear passenger door, let myself in, and waited for him to pull away.
“Blindfold, Mr. Malistere.” He tossed back a swathe of black cloth. The car didn’t pull from the curb until I’d pulled the last knot tight.
Words naturally escaped the driver for the entire trip, leaving me in silence for over an hour. I caught the drone of freeway traffic, then the repetitive taut right-angle maneuvers indicating deep city streets. Deep city, but no traffic. No quick braking, no rumbling exhaust, no swerves. Nothing. Only the hiss of the air conditioning and the rub of leather gloves on leather steering wheel.
The trip died with a double horn honk and the metallic rattle of an overhead door. We lurched up and in, and I pulled my blindfold away.
Clemson swept open my door bearing the same searching eyes on his face and the same coat on his back. At least he’d tucked in his shirt.
I looked into the shadows all around. Vast expanse, concrete pillars, concrete walls, and a concrete floor stained with dark amoebas. A warehouse.
“Are you the shit, now?” I asked. Clemson waved my question off and turned. I followed, leaving the driver with the Cadillac.
An open-cage elevator sat in faded light against a broad wall. We stepped in and he selected a blank button on the control panel. We rose.
“Only a month after the show I received a letter from a Mister . . . uh, no names. Never mind. A philanthropist. He’d been at The Grottoesque for the show. You know, the show I invited you to.”
“He’s a secret? Like this place?” I asked.
“Exactly like this place. He liked secrets. I don’t know why, but I really don’t care. You’ll see.”
“Go on.”
“He taught me healing. Healing in blood. When he saw my show he knew that I could find healing in blood as well. Healing for others as well as myself.”
“Like bloodletting?”
“Like bloodletting.”
“It’s been done.”
For the first time, Clemson smiled at my derision. “Yes, it has. It certainly has.” The elevator lurched. “We’re here.” He jerked at the wrought iron accordion gate.
A clean, white hallway with burnt-orange carpet greeted me. The hallway from a dentist’s office. The hallway from any of a million generic business offices. Certainly not the carpet of an abandoned warehouse. We turned right and Clemson continued to explain.
“It’s not about art now, Mr. Malistere. It’s about healing. Millions of surgeries have been performed, but that doesn’t prevent the surgeon from another cut, does it? No. I’m not an artist; I’m just a surgeon of sorts. I heal, and I cut. In here.”
He pushed at a handless, nondescript door and it swung open. The dark room on the other side whispered in electronic voices.
“You can see and hear it all from here.”
First, I stared out through the tint and across the broad expanse of space. Four rectangular, dark windows stared back. Considering the opacity of the glass I searched through, I figured there to be four similar on our side. Eight windows, eight rooms. Secluded from. . . .
I looked down. Figures in white, hooded robes kneeled in two columns four wide. A path passed between them. At the head of the room, a simple wood stage carried the weight of a slight figure wrapped in crimson. Her hood lay carelessly across her shoulders.
I recognized Cinnamon.
“I see you remember her. She’s my right hand now. We’re preparing a temple on the West Coast, and it’ll be Cinnamon’s. She’s a natural.”
At the girl’s feet ran a chute of red liquid. Eighteen inches wide maybe, and sloped down from her left hand to her right. It ran between her and the eighty or so kneeling figures.
“Let me guess,” I asked. “Blood?”
“I prefer healing now. Not blood and not art. Healing. A stream of healing. Watch.”
I did watch, and for the first time I focused on the sound of the speaker over my head. A scratchy voice commiserated with the masses.
“Your pain is our pain, your sin is our sin, and your healing is our healing.” I knew it immediately. Cinnamon hadn’t lost her ability to plead. Her hands flowed, palms open, towards the red, running liquid.
“The blood of all our brethren flows through this purified past, this River of Life. Join it, become it, and be one with all the enlightened.”
“They’re going to. . . .”
“Shush,” Clemson interrupted. “Just watch.”
A figure broke from the third row, took to the center aisle, and approached Cinnamon. She motioned to the left, and another crimson figure entered the room. In its hands, it carried a silver serving tray. The white robe pulled something from the tray and knelt at the river.
“It’s not what most expect. No exultant scream, no vigorous slashing motions. Just a pinch and a slice and their blood mixes with all who’ve come before. No dramatics. See if you can see, Mr. Malistere.”
“The blood of all who’ve come before?” I asked doubtfully.
“Filtered, chilled, and thinned. Perhaps mixed with a little corn syrup and dye for consistency. But yes, the blood of all who’ve come before. A central tank, all in a slurry together. You tell me whose blood is active in there and whose is not.”
“And the River of Life?”
“A tank, a pump, some filters, and a chemical treatment system. Nothing too complex. It looks the same and smells the same. Kind of like a fruit drink that’s ten percent real fruit juice.”
Three more white robes came to the river. I noticed that for each, a crimson figure came from the edge and stood behind those that chose to bleed.
“Who are they?”
“Guards. We don’t want anyone getting carried away and passing out in the River of Life. They time each other.”
“Each other?”
“Those that partake of the worship one week are required to guard the next. It’s a symbiotic relationship. No one really gets hurt when they choose to bleed.”
Down below, Cinnamon walked the central aisle, exhorting those still down on their knees to consider the evil in their veins. Tempting them to rid themselves of pain and suffering. In a shot, six more pushed to their feet and moved forward. The River of Life crowded and even more potential worshippers waited beside the tray-carrier for room at its shore.
“Enough?” Clemson asked.
“No,” I replied. “I need more. How do you. . . ?”
Clemson raised a hand, then motioned me to follow.
We entered the hall and turned to pass the elevator. At the end of the hallway, a stairwell led even higher. I took each step slowly, feeling with my toes.
“You run out of light bulbs?” I asked, but Clemson didn’t answer. The only reason I knew he still led was his soft breathing.
The rise ended abruptly, and I nearly sprawled when I found the next step not there.
“This way,” Clemson whispered.
The floor disappeared suddenly, and I jumped. A thud reverberated through the room.
“Glass floor,” he whispered again, his voice hardly masquerading his humor. “Go ahead, look down. The best view in the joint.”
I dropped to my belly and found the same view beneath me. Crouching white figures, milling crowds of red and white. The running, crimson stream.
“He came up here every day, watching for hours. His play of life, his healing. His dream.”
I waited for an explanation, but nothing came. Finally I asked.
“He?”
“My philanthropist. My sponsor. One church open, one set to open. We have teams working in Detroit and Miami, as well. And he’s gone.”
“Didn’t do time in his own white robe, huh?”
“No. I warned him. He bled in private. There’s no healing in one’s own blood. He needed a guard.”
“So what if they die anyway, die at some time other than their bleeding? And what if they leave?”
“No problem. We’ve had members pass away, and most have left their estates to us. Just not enough. We’ve also had members leave. They gather their things and we drive them away. There’s no need for escape. They’re all here of their own free will.”
“All?”
“All.”
I stared down, smiling, and watched the line of white figures leaning over the River of Life. I counted twenty-two. Others lined up behind them.
“How many in this church?
“Over four hundred. One hundred are ready to organize in L.A. I project membership of over a thousand by the end of the year. The average annual income of our membership is over one hundred thousand dollars.”
“Sounds like you’ve got quite the investment going here.”
“I think so,” Clemson paused. “Not that it’s relevant, but am I an artist? Is this art?”
I watched three guards pull white robes up from the River of Life and lead them off to the left or the right.
“Is this art?”
“Yes,” I said. “This is art.” The robe carrying the tray left, and two more robes with two more trays came onto the floor.
“Am I the shit?” he whispered.
“Yeah. You’re the shit.”
“I’m the shit?”
“Yes. Welcome back.”
