If you missed the first chapters here is where it begins... CHAPTER 01
Without further ado here’s...
Standing in his eight-foot studio share, Dorian defocused his eyes at the blackened tenement painted on his canvas. The building began to lose shape, fogging out in a pixelated haze.
He could almost stand the giant canvas when it was this blurry, the image beyond recognition.
Almost.
In truth, he felt like pissing on it. Would have been a superior expression than the work. Instead, he drove his fist through it, piercing clear through canvas into the drywall behind.
"OWWWWWWWWWFUCK!"
Pulling his hand out from inside the plasterboard, Dorian grabbed at the hunk of screaming nerve endings. Had he really just punched through a wall?
He ripped the painting down. That felt better. Dorian moved along, yanking down every other piece, shoving canvases into dragon fruit packaging. He was even more disgusted than he’d been at the Chinese grocery that morning begging for the discarded boxes.
Shoving the art out the door, he kicked an open can of orange paint. The wall was a garish stripe of liquid latex. It was the best work he'd done in months.
In the hall he passed a studio-mate. The one who handcrafted porcelain dolls with reproduced Mattel molds to make his fucked up Barbie and Ken rip offs, then posed them in queer positive positions, fusing their privates with a glue gun. Was that what they taught the kids at Pratt these days?
Eyes met as paths crossed, but they were well beyond pleasantries by now. Dorian was tempted to smash into the little corporate plagiarizer with the corner of his box art, but why add insult to injury.
"Godspeed pal," was all Dorian could muster.
Spotting the latex carnage inside the room, his studio-mate pivoted.
"DUDE?" the little twerp managed to squeak out.
Dorian ignored this, prompting his studio mate's balls to drop an octave.
"HEY ASSHOLE! It's not my fault you can't afford the goddamn rent!"
A self-satisfied grin crept onto Dorian's face as the gate clicked.
Dorian jammed his boxes into the back seat of a cab and climbed in. As the yellow Prius sped towards the Williamsburg Bridge, Dorian felt the full throb of his knuckles and yearned for an ice-filled bodega freezer. He knew in a few minutes he'd be back at the tenement, hustling boxes 6 floors up. The foreknowledge of each successive trip was enough for Dorian to start looking at every curb flying past as a possible dumpsite for his entire year's work.
Dorian stood at his tiny stove, upending vodka and cream into a sizzle of overdone onions with his bruised hand.
A southern belle, the latest in a lengthy string of Dorian's on-again, off-agains, held a glass of merlot inches from her face. Althea Pittman surveyed Dorian's artistic wreckage. Half-unpacked supplies, canvases, and giant stereo speakers were now strewn about the space--just past the warped floor fissure, which demarcated the living room area.
Dorian poured pasta into a strainer. He could smell it oozing off her. The disgust. His wretched failures complicating her carefree existence. Another looser in her life scheduled for the scrapyard.
"I think my friend Gregor still wants to come take a look at your work," Althea said.
"Where am I gonna show him my work?
Dorian plated sticky linguini strands.
"Bring a couple over to my loft," she said. "I'm sure he'll buy something."
"Sure if it gets him closer to slipping it in, probably take the whole lot."
"Not interested," she said. "How many paintings a month do you have to sell to cover a four hundred dollar studio share anyways? One?"
Dorian closed his eyes.
The plate slipped from his fingers. Plummeting, it jammed the floor sideways with more splatter than smash.
Five feet down, Morris sat slumped in his threadbare easy chair. Ice Road Truckers glared his old cathode ray, a half-eaten microwave dinner on a side folding table. Dorian's dinnerware thundered above. Morris squinted in the direction of follow up footsteps. They were just getting started. Another surefire ruined evening.
He jammed the volume till eighteen-wheelers drowned out the steps. He'd wait till his show ended before trudging upstairs to give Dorian a piece of mind. If Morris was lucky, whatever whore that loser had up there’d get restless and start demanding a night on the town. Although that would likely just delay the inevitable. A drunken four am return was always a hell of a lot worse. Best case, a preemptive roar through the artist’s door might send her packing.
Still Morris was at least a couple commercial breaks from the show's tail credits, and now that he'd set himself a goal, he was damn sure gonna prove his staying power.
Eleven feet up, Dorian knelt, sopping vodka sauce off the floor.
"I just want to help you figure some options out, so you don't have to live like this, sugar"
I can’t stand the sight of you, how can you live like this, fucking loser.
Dorian flopped into a chair, dowsing his glass and the table in merlot. Squeezed out of his own life.
Althea took an exploratory first bite. Chewing slowly, she tried to swallow.
"That bad, huh?"
He wasn't sure why he was even asking. The look on her face dispelled what little had remained of his own appetite. Dorian pulled an American Spirit from Althea's pack and lit up. He leaned away from the table, kicking off with his feet until the back of his chair hit the bathtub, a prominent kitchen fixture in the two-room tenement. Three if you counted the tiny ensuite bathroom just past the loft bed, he’d had built in the early Octies.
He inhaled the Spirit slowly. Why on earth had he ever tried to quit these wonderful things?
Thanks so much for reading & Steem on!
Yours In The Chain,
Doug
SPECIAL THANKS to my wife @zenmommas for years of support during the writing process, @ericvancewalton for his trailblazing, inspired collaboration and incredible guidance, @andrarchy for his mind blowing insight and friendship, @bakerchristopher for being an inspiration as a human artist and bro, @complexring for his brilliance and enthusiasm, Masie Cochran, Taylor Rankin and @elenamoore for their skillful help in editing the manuscript, and to @opheliafu for the fantastic illustrations she created exclusively for the novel's launch on Steemit and to Elena Megalos for her wonderful character illustrations. I’d also like to thank Eddie Boyce, Jamie Proctor, Katie Mustard, Alan Cumming, Danai Gurira, Stephan Nowecki, Ron Simons, Dave Scott, Alden Karr, Missy Chimovitz, my dad Andy Karr and late mother Wendy , and everyone else who helped lead me to this moment.
I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347
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