Negative Space by Mike Robinson (classic literature list .txt) 📗

very special show. And as an extra treat for those of you who could join us tonight, I’d like to personally introduce the featured artists of this show, Roger Krauford, Bennett Wilson and, of course, Clifford Feldman, who will be addressing you tonight with a few words about his work.”

The crowd began filing toward the small stage in the corner of the show floor. Max breathed fast and heavy. He noticed rapid breathing on Karen’s part, too.

People congregated before the little stage, the little elevation where a silk-suited Feldman and two others—presumably the artists Krauford and Wilson—stood with smug eyes and smiles in their foot-high sophistication above everyone else in the room. It was startling, the contrast between Feldman’s attire and that of the other two artists, like beach-goers backdropping a presidential address.

Feldman was shorter than Max had envisioned, and even looked different from the photograph Dwayne had showed him. Max thought with bewildered amusement how the man always seemed to change with each new version he saw. There was the Moon Watch painting, which differed from Dwayne’s article photo, which differed now from the flesh and blood visage. Max crawled a sharp and focused eye over Feldman’s features, the skin kneaded by age, the neat-slicked, silvery hair, the sunken eyes. Where was he in there? In Feldman, Max perceived nothing of himself.

Do you want to?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Feldman said. His voice held booming command. “I’d like to thank you for coming tonight, for supporting the Peters Museum and its good people, as well as the good people of Twilight Falls. Surely if we are to have another Renaissance, the Michelangelos and the Donatellos would find themselves here.”

Murmurs slithered through the crowd. Karen constantly shifted her weight from leg to leg. Max saw she was biting her lip.

“Art is a shadow cast by our dreams and desires,” said Feldman, “and, in any form it takes, art has long been the platform for discussion of larger questions. Artists can’t avoid it. Even if they intend no message or meaning, their engaging in creation, following their nature, is the meaning.

“Art has survived much madness and many mutations, not because of the artists, but because of the art, the thing itself. It is the God-act. Nature, an orphan, seeks a parent in us. But what have we done with our potential? We have drifted off-course toward a garish-colored Dark Age, where the art is smeared to dulling ubiquity, packaged and meaningless. Art is an embryonic glimpse of higher realms, a baby-step toward the Creation becoming the Creator. In distorted form we knew this long ago, ages when art was a tool of the divine, its practitioners worshipped, patronized by ultimate powers of the land.

“Except we continued to use art to touch God, to reach out to Him, rather than finding Him pulsing in our very own veins. So we reached out and found no one, and thus fell disillusioned, and ravaged our minds with questions, drove our souls into the despairing frenzy of movement after movement, meaning after meaning.

“Where are we now? We’ve reached a precipice. Art has been stuffed and mounted. Life-like but not real. We will go on repeating this despair without direction. I propose not. I propose we not lose ourselves in trivial repetition. For long enough, we have staggered blind. Fueled by questions, we have reached the cul-de-sac. But imagine the track we might’ve followed had we been given an Answer at the outset. Some say this would’ve destroyed the asking, which is the momentum of all art and science. The beauty is the treasure hunt, they say. But what good is a treasure hunt without a treasure? Would you scour ad nauseum lands and fields and streams without some assurance of value, without at least a tip?

“To me, art has always had a clear spiritual purpose, one we knew but muddied, one we allowed slip from our most base understanding. That purpose is to put us on the path to Godhood, one creative work at a time. With such endeavors, we master a meta-reality, apprenticed for greater realms.”

Karen reached into her pants and sweatshirt pockets, producing several sheets of folded-up papers. Max saw glimpses of fanciful colors and identified them instantly.

“You brought those?” he whispered.

“Yeah, just shh.” Karen unfolded the papers and clutched them all in one hand as she fished through her back pants pocket, bringing out a pack of Nicorette gum.

“I knew this stuff was gonna come in handy,” she said. She popped a gum in her mouth, chewed for a minute, then spit it into her hand and stuck it on the back of one of Max’s old Lone Ranger drawings, which she proceeded to stick to the wall just behind her, making sure to slap it on tight and noisy.

At the thudding sound, Feldman quieted.

“What are you doing?” a woman asked.

“Just adding to the show,” Karen said.

Max kept his distance.

“Young lady, what are you doing?” called a voice. McGrath.

Feldman’s speech halted entirely. The room lost momentum.

Heads swiveled toward Max and Karen. Facial spotlights glaring.

“Recognize the new addition, Mr. Feldman?” Karen called, staring directly at the artist as if he were now the only one in the room. She remained unfazed by the many stares.

Unlike Krauford and Wilson and everyone else Max could see, Clifford Feldman seemed intrigued by the antics.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Karen stood close by the drawings stuck to the wall. Her breath seemed labored, her face taut. Museum security pushed past the crowds toward her, like bloodhounds pursuing prey through a cornfield.

Feldman stopped them.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

“You recognize these?” she said.

The man’s grin never wavered, as if he anticipated a punch line.

“Ever live in Arondale, Mr. Feldman? Raise a family there? Ever leave your family there? Or how about Baltimore?”

“What a nice treat,” Feldman said. “Karen Eisenlord, everybody!”

Feldman scanned the audience, registering every head, every pair of eyes, and found Max.

Max’s stomach sank.

“And... Max Higgins.” Feldman seemed more wistful at recognizing him.

Goddammit Karen why did you do this to