The Edge

“From Homeland Security keeping us all safe and the American Dream possible? I think you all need to step up your game.”

On that she turned back to her work.

He came to stand behind her and took it in.

While some of the works displayed in the studio were portraits of people, landscapes, and animals, this one was clearly more impressionistic. A yellow ball erupting out of an orange flame that, in turn, devolved into a blue wave that was about to descend, seemingly violently, on what he took to be roofs and a jagged church steeple reaching disproportionately far into the sky.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“What I see in my head every morning when I wake up,” she replied as she added some shadowing to the flame.

“And what does it represent to you?”

She glanced at him. “More importantly, what does it represent to you?”

He was taken aback by her swift counterattack. “I... I’m not sure. It looks sort of like Armageddon.”

“And here I thought I was being subtle.”

Devine looked around, and something occurred to him. “You knew I was coming back. You knew I would see you coming in here. And that’s why you began working on this painting.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

But her cheeks flushed and she wouldn’t look at him.

“This work looks finished, while you have lots of others in far earlier stages. So what’s so important about this piece that you wanted me to see you working on it? I take it you believe Armageddon is coming to Putnam?”

“What a vivid imagination you have. You might want to consider a career in fiction.”

“Okay, what does it mean to you, the painting? And why do you see that scene in your head every morning?”

“That is my business and no concern of yours. And didn’t you come here to ask me questions about my sister?”

Her phone buzzed. She put her brush down, slipped it from her pocket, and glanced at the screen. “Give me a minute,” she said and started thumbing a response.

Devine took the time to look around some more. That was when he saw the large framed, finished painting. It looked to be a white dress with a large red spot dead on the center. The way it had been painted, it seemed like the red spot was perpetually growing; a neat optical illusion, he thought. Then he saw a brass plate tacked onto the frame that read, HER FIRST PERIOD.

Okay, didn’t see that one coming.

In another corner he spotted something that also gave him considerable pause.

He bent down to peer closer.

Damn.

It was a bronze sculpture that looked like a heavily veined, erect penis that was looped with a chain. And down below, around the testicles, were... handcuffs.

“Want to buy it? I’ll give you a good price. I bet it would look great in your living room.”

He turned to see her staring at him as she slipped her phone back into her pocket.

“I can guess at the symbolism,” he said.

“Can you now?” She perched on the edge of a worktable and crossed one long leg over the other. “Please share?”

“Without being too graphic, I suppose it’s to shackle, or at least push back against a man’s... baser impulses.”

“In that regard life does not imitate art, because there is no way to really do that.”

“Some things are changing, hopefully for the better.”

“Some would say the change is happening far too slowly. It can be depressing.” She looked around her space. “But some of the greatest artists were depressed all the time. They used that to power their creativity.”

“I can understand that.”

“You can? Really?”

“I served with a guy who drew these big designs in the sand when we were in the Middle East during some pretty heavy fighting. We were losing guys every day, and we were having to kill people every day, and not just soldiers on the other side, because lots of different sorts of people were fighting against us. After every mission, he’d come back, hang up his gear, pull out this wooden paddle he’d whittled, and mark out, well, what I guess you’d call artwork in the sand. They never lasted because a wind storm would come through and they’d be gone. But he kept at it. I could never figure out what his designs meant and he never said, but they were pretty intricate.”

“Did you ask him why he did it?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“What’d he say?” she asked, with what seemed genuine interest.

“He said it was either do that or blow his brains out.”

“I’ve never killed anyone, but I think I can understand what your friend meant.” She slowly returned to her painting and started adding brushstrokes to it.

“I was told that you turned down some great art schools.”

She glanced at him in annoyance. “The timing was not right.”

“And now?”

“And now I don’t need them, do I? I educated myself. We have a wonderful library here in Putnam filled with books about everything I would want to know about from writers all around the world.”

“And I guess you didn’t need any formal art instruction.”

“I actually had an excellent teacher and mentor right here.”

“Who was that?” said a surprised Devine.

“You have no reason to know.”