There I was – twenty two and almost broke. No, it was even worse than that… I was in debt to an institution that was supposed to open minds, but excelled only at opening wallets. So I was a bit disillusioned, too. I was renting a run-down studio in the nicest part of town I could afford and painting my way right into poverty. I knew going in, although I had to constantly remind myself, that I was going to avoid the corporate rat race. Mission accomplished. The fruits of my avoidance were before me: soup for dinner seven days a week.
Sure, I was well-rounded. Hell, if you asked the right people, I was down right brilliant. Problem was, everywhere I looked I saw robbery, destruction, and exploitation. And, since I saw how pervasive those thing were, I was bound and determined not to be a part of any of them. Unfortunately for me, that was all there was. So I was never part of anything. An island, a hermit, whatever I was… I thought that it must be better than what I saw as the alternative. And the soup wasn’t hideous or anything.
Right, so, there I was in that little studio apartment with a soup full of water and week old vegetables. With a canvas before me and a mind full of thoughts. I assured myself those were the only things a man really needs. And I began to paint.
Mind you, I was no artist. I was a trained philosopher, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean or what good it was supposed to do. But I liked to paint, it was cathartic and I didn’t have much else to do anyway. In fact, I didn’t have anything else to do. Not a soul in the world to make happy, not an obligatory chore to complete, not enough money to make life complicated. That very well may be as close to freedom as a man can get.
What happened next was nothing unusual. I put the brush to the canvas and left behind colors. Of course, it was more than a redistribution of paint. I was creating entire economies of meaning. Line after line, stroke after stroke, time sped up and robbed me of my peace.
The canvas was dry when I woke up to hunger pangs the next morning. So was my mouth, but I couldn’t bring myself to get off the floor. Something about the painting was utterly captivating. I couldn’t do anything but gaze at it. Otherworldly, I thought… “beautiful…” I uttered. An hour came and went and by then I was sick of patting myself on the back. So I got up and ate more soup.
I walked back across the apartment… opened the window… and tossed the painting from my tenth floor studio.
Now, that might sound strange. And it probably was, but hear me out… I was absolutely convinced that painting was not mine. It was good, but that wasn’t the only problem. No, something else was odd. Like the strokes themselves, the paint, the shapes… were necessary. Like they couldn’t have been any other way. Once I saw what was on that canvas, I realized that was how it had to be. Almost like it made itself.
Now, then, maybe you can see why I did what I did. I was usually a man of reasoned and deliberate action. My mother called me stubborn, but it was a meditative kind of stubbornness. I analyzed everything, I made tough choices, and I stood by them steadfastly. I knew it from the time I saw it… that painting threatened to take all that away from me. It was capable of reducing me to a puppet on a string. If, even for the the hours I worked on it I was nothing more than a fated artist, my will was bankrupt. Well, at least, that’s what I thought.
So you can imagine my agony, when, only half an hour later, I was startled by a knock on the door – and opened it to find an old man with the painting. He was a sagely looking fellow, on first glance he looked about seventy. Grey hair, grisly beard, clean but casual attire. You know, your typical wise man.
And I slammed the door without ever saying a word as perspiration billowed from brow. And the man… knocked again.
“Well, this painting obviously came from your window,” the muffled voice spoke.
“You’ve got the wrong guy, buddy,” I said in the midst of my mild panic attack.
“Son, that’s impossible… I’m absolutely certain this painting was made in your apartment. I’d really love to talk to you about who made it.”
It was obvious to me now that this entire situation was utterly ridiculous. I was being weirder than normal. Besides that, my curiosity wouldn’t let me alone. How could that man know with such certainty that I had thrown the painting out of my window? I wiped the sweat away, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
The old man walked right on in, painting in hand, and took a seat on one of my foldable chairs. “Great, I knew that you’d eventually let me in… Oh, I’d like a glass of water too, son…” he said.
My stomach dropped, because, well, I was just thinking that I was going to get myself a glass of water. But I hadn’t said that to him. To be honest, I hadn’t even thought of asking him yet. But, sick feeling persisting, I got us both a glass of water and pulled up my other foldable chair. I didn’t say a thing, and, for ten minutes, neither did he.
—
“It’s only natural”, he said, “that you’re wondering how I can be so certain this painting is yours.”
I nodded attentively.
“You see, I am a physicist of sorts and my work suggests that everything is determined before it happens. Life is a string of inevitabilities… an infinite chain of apparent happenstance, but, given the right variables, completely predictable. The initial problem, of course, is the sheer number of variables. I’ve spent the past fifty years of my life trying to figure which can be safely disregarded.
Today, this noon, I believe that I have had my first real success”
“I truly don’t think I can believe an answer like that,” I said, rather frankly, all the while looking the man in his eyes.
“I was hoping you’d say that… another success! Look, let’s wait a while and I think I can convince you, indeed convince us both, that this is much more serious than it might sound at first. In nine minutes the fire alarm on the building next to yours will sound – a false alarm. Sometime shortly thereafter your landlord will knock and inform you that your rent will be raised when you sign your lease next month. Don’t fret the 15% hike, because you won’t be living here next month anyway.”
I sat, a bit annoyed with the old man for well over an hour. No alarms sounded and there were no knocks on my door. We hardly talked, and the old man played his part beautifully. He convincingly feigned astonishment at his faulty predictions. I had determined he was some kind of a scam artist and began mentally rehearsing how I would get him to leave. My rehearsals proved unnecessary, though, because the old man got up in an apparently genuine tizzy, left me his phone number, mumbled nonsense about miscalculations and rushed out the door.
It was nearly dinner time, and I was throughly sick of soup. I retrieved a ten from a hollowed-out book and headed down to a small restaurant, Orly’s, just a block away. I sat there with my meal, almost too contemplative to enjoy it. I took out the man’s phone number and stared at it for a minute. He didn’t leave a name… I twirled the paper between my fingers as my other reached for more fries. Then I noticed writing on the back. “Orly’s 1645”. I looked at my cell phone, it was five o’clock. An odd feeling came over me, and I was suddenly full.
I walked back to my apartment and tucked in for an unusually early night. Thirty minutes after I dozed off I was woken by an alarm. Next door, the fire alarm was sounding. Just minutes into the noxious noise there was a knock on my door. My landlord had come with a new lease, and wanted to inform me of a “slight increase” in the cost of rent. I took the lease, closed the door, and looked in awe out the window as the fire-trucks arrived and departed: it was only a false alarm.
—