Freckles, needles, and other artistic choices

Sam stood with Catherine in her studio surveying the work she was preparing for her exhibition, How I’m Going to Murder my Mother. She brushed his arm with her finger and drew his attention to a third worktable crowded with other Orphan Annie rag dolls some 10 feet away. He lumbered after her, a paunchy moonfaced man in his 40s, nearly knocking over a mannequin on wheels she’d made into a black widow spider with eight limp, hairy legs. A mop (literally) of dirty orange hair covered its bulbous head. For the show as well?

She picked up a rag doll, and hoisted the dress. A hypodermic needle poked out of the vagina—not into it. “I’m still not sure about this one,” she said, turning the doll over this way and that, staring at it vacant as a child. She picked up a marker and added freckles to the face like tiny flecks of cinnamon. Freckles? Really? Huck Finn meets Sid and Nancy. Then she adjusted the needle to poke straight out. “How we cope with our demons is important to people like us,” she said, snugging the dress back down all ladylike and proper, returning the doll to sweet innocence.

Did Catherine picture him overdosing? He wasn’t the druggy type. Exhaustion and despair were more likely to do him in. Nothing dramatic, maybe sprawled out on the couch at home watching TV, a string of cold pizza dangling from his mouth. Being an art dealer wasn’t as glamorous as people imagined. Nor as he imagined. Even as he kept trying to imagine it. Staying home was a favorite pastime. “You said ‘people like us,’” he repeated, pointing vaguely at her chest.

“Sure,” she replied, poking her own finger into his shoulder. “You and me, baby.” She smiled all sugary with mischief in mind.

Perhaps she saw them flaming out together, sailing out of the world into God knows what abyss. He wouldn’t mind the company. His gallery teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. Her show would likely drive it over the edge. “I don’t suppose you’ve written an artist statement,” he said, hopeful. He hated artist statements, but by the late 1980s they were a necessary evil. People expected to be spoon-fed. In the case of her exhibition, the statement might prove a salvation.

“Sometimes, I just need to cut loose. Know what I mean,” she replied, grinning, as if that was statement enough.

To view a previous post from the same book go to Rag doll death row

To view a synopsis of the book from which this page is taken go to the Books tab at leokamenauthor.com