i.
Intermission
A feeble man walks into the artist’s studio. He stumbles a bit. Sad, he looks blankly around the room. Jaques is there. Drawing. Today he is drawing from memory: whatever life dictates. “Henry,” he says. “come in, sit down.”
Henry moves from the doorway uneasily. He takes a few steps in and strays, stopping in place when he kicks a drawing horse. His face becomes apologetic.
“Of course,” Jacques says. “How could I forget.” He sets his work aside, helps Henry find a chair, and picks up where he left off. Henry relaxes in his chair and unbuttons his jacket almost routinely. The studio is mostly silent and strange. Henry is breathing, Jacques lets out sighs as his pencil moves across paper.
“How’s your work coming?” Henry asks. Another sigh from Jacques.
“These fucking Americans,” Jacques replies politely. He stops drawing and opens his notebook, switching modes: writing, quickly. “A thought.”
“I want to be certain,” Henry says, “are you talented?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Me neither.” Henry laughs, a little sad.
“You’ve seen my work.”
“Have I?”
“You liked your portrait I drew up for you. You wanted to keep it.”
“That.” Henry hesitates. “I saw a play last night. At the Orpheum. During intermission, I told people about you in the lobby. ‘My friend Jacques,’ I told them. ‘My good friend Jacques is a great artist. He curses Americans, but he is great. Really great. He drew a picture of me. Jacques did. My friend.’
“I showed them your picture, Jacques. They laughed at me.”
Henry looks frustrated, Jacques is silent. “You’re wicked, Jacques.”
“it seemed appropriate.”
“It was embarrassing.”
“A blind man shouldn’t be showing things to strangers. As if he can lead the way. He can’t,” Jacques says.
Henry reaches into his jacket. Jacques watches him from the corner of his eye: he pulls out a rolled up sheet of paper and fumbles with it in his hands.
“Christ,” Henry curses, unrolling the sheet and showing it to Jacques. The paper was blank. No portrait. Nothing. “You call this art?”
“What do you see?” Jacques smiles back, no use. Henry doesn’t respond. “you liked what I did, now leave it.”
“You deceived me.”
“I couldn’t have made it without you,” Jacques confesses. He meant it. “Here,” Jacques takes the blank paper from Henry’s hand and tapes it to a drawing board. He gives it back to Henry and hands him a pencil. “You try it. Draw what you see.”
Henry thinks about it and puts his hand to the paper.
“Wait,” Jacques says, “it’s upside down.”
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
Henry turns the drawing board around and begins to cast stray lines.
“excuse me,” Jacques says, grabbing his coat. “I’ve been scared my whole life.”
Henry hears several doors open and close. Jacques is gone.
A blind man in an art studio,
drawing without guidance.
He breathes and goes.
Alone.
ii.
It’s Jacques.
A gallery night.
At Jacques’ studio, in an industrial park.
I drink wine most of the night and mingle with snooty people. Jacques has a new exhibit: paintings of people he did. None of them have legs.
“legs will only carry you so far,” Jacques says. “The mind is infinite,” he tells me.
“these paintings are hasty and awful. Nightmarish, even.” I was drinking too fast.
I wake up in the morning with a headache. My mouth is dry. I need to vomit, but I cannot get up. My legs aren’t working.
Panic, I think to yell. For help, for working legs.
I live alone: no one will hear me, I don’t yell.
I try to fall back asleep, thinking maybe my legs might move again when I wake up. Hours pass and I am still awake. Sunlight has come into my bedroom and it’s getting hotter, I’m sweating. What can I do?
I start crying. I can’t even move my toes. Not an inch.
Mid-afternoon, my doorbell rings. Several times. Then, pounding. From my bedroom, I hear the front door open, I hear someone enter. It’s Jacques. He comes into my bedroom and looks at me without saying a word. He moves to my bedside and our eyes meet, he feels my forehead and sits at the end of my bed.
We continue to stare at each other. Jacques and me. He pulls out his drawing pad and begins to draw me on my deathbed. Is this a joke? I can’t stop him. My legs don’t work, his do. I watch his hands move furiously, his face looks intent. I can’t see what he’s drawing, but I know.
Time passes in that quiet room, and he finishes his work.
“Can I see it?” I ask. Jacques smiles and closes the book. “Please?” He stands up and smoothes a wrinkle in his coat. I begin crying again as he leaves.
“Don’t leave me here. Like this. I can’t stand it. Don’t leave!” I hear the front door shut behind him, and I begin yelling mad things, cursing.
It’s no use.
I wait in my bed to fall asleep. Dusk takes me over.
