#43 - Square - Angels Short
#43 - Square
There were few things that Cheshire Finnegan respected in this world, and a man's wholesome good night's sleep after a brutal workday was obviously not one of them. Fucking up his life had to be one of her glorious natural endowments. She somehow always knew just which nerve to touch and which support to shatter to drive him to near self mutilation or homicide. He found her in the floor of the front room, sitting cross-legged with a sheetcake pan on the floor in front of her. She was beating the sheetcake pan with what he recognized as one of his work hammers -- dusty red over the head -- like she was John Henry on the railroad. The first thing he thought of is one knock to the base of her skull will solve all my Finnegan dilemmas. The second thing he thought was that's what she wants, so he didn't brain her out of the goodness of his heart, and also spite.
He listed behind her because he hadn't entirely gotten past the euphoric idea of snuffing her when she took a nail out of her mouth and drove it through the tin (and probably into the floor underneath) with one sharp strike.
The light from the narrow slotted window burned his head, so he covered his eyes and whimpered, "The fuck you think you're doing, Chess?"
She arched her back and stretched her paper-white anemic arms over her head, "Morning, sunshine of my life. I have decided today to become a fine artist. Seems it pays better than poetry and autobiography. Who would have guessed?"
He ground the back of his hand over his eyes and sat down forlornly in his ripped armchair. She had the decency not to start pounding on her anvil while he was prostrate.
"You gonna tell me how beating on a tin pie plate's gonna make your fortune, or do I have to guess?"
She rapped on the pan sharply and then waved the hammer at him instructively. "Don't call it a pie plate. Call it 'Inhumanity.' It's a work that I think wholly explores my incoherent rage involving destiny, gender roles, poverty, and my goddamned dumbass fallen husband."
He found a half empty beer from the night before and thoughtfully tossed back some hair-of-the-dog before summarizing his thoughts on her artistic masterwork.
"That's a fucking cake pan."
Her spidery little hand was up in the air, finger under his nose before he could even put the can down, "It's high art, you bastard. It was a cake pan. But then I beat on it with a hammer and drove some rusty nails through it. Now it is found art. Assemblage. Shit like this sells for a mint at a gallery uptown. Some fucking wallstreet joker wants this shit to put in his office to prove to other shits that he has culture." She stopped to consider him for a moment, and then turned her attention back to the cake pan, "Man, for somebody with your classy education you sometimes sure as hell seem like you're from the Kitchen." Her voice grated suddenly nasal in a fine New York drawl, "I'm a New England blueblood born and raised in the Bowry." She snorted and started to pound again.
"When I learned art, I learned real art. Art from Europe," he grunted, defensively his eyes shut against the dented metal of the can, "Da Vinci and Van Eyck and all those other people. People with history."
She laughed, shrill and climbing into octaves rarely traversed by the sane and then her lip curled into the snarly little smile that got stuck on her face sometimes and seemed damn near impossible to wash off.
"Well, if anybody's got fucking history, then it's me. I tell you what. Tomorrow, I'll bring home part of a toilet seat and you can beat the hell out of that and that can be your high art."
He was still unconvinced.
"A mangled toilet seat ain't art, Chess, and the Met ain't gonna buy that shit."
"You know, Raphael," she observed philosophically, pushing herself back so she could stand on long, stemmy legs and collect her statement, "Sometimes I doubt your commitment to the revolution."
He laughed this time, tired and bitter.
"Join the club."
*
Notes: For Katie. I hope you like it despite its lack of DRAMA <3.
There were few things that Cheshire Finnegan respected in this world, and a man's wholesome good night's sleep after a brutal workday was obviously not one of them. Fucking up his life had to be one of her glorious natural endowments. She somehow always knew just which nerve to touch and which support to shatter to drive him to near self mutilation or homicide. He found her in the floor of the front room, sitting cross-legged with a sheetcake pan on the floor in front of her. She was beating the sheetcake pan with what he recognized as one of his work hammers -- dusty red over the head -- like she was John Henry on the railroad. The first thing he thought of is one knock to the base of her skull will solve all my Finnegan dilemmas. The second thing he thought was that's what she wants, so he didn't brain her out of the goodness of his heart, and also spite.
He listed behind her because he hadn't entirely gotten past the euphoric idea of snuffing her when she took a nail out of her mouth and drove it through the tin (and probably into the floor underneath) with one sharp strike.
The light from the narrow slotted window burned his head, so he covered his eyes and whimpered, "The fuck you think you're doing, Chess?"
She arched her back and stretched her paper-white anemic arms over her head, "Morning, sunshine of my life. I have decided today to become a fine artist. Seems it pays better than poetry and autobiography. Who would have guessed?"
He ground the back of his hand over his eyes and sat down forlornly in his ripped armchair. She had the decency not to start pounding on her anvil while he was prostrate.
"You gonna tell me how beating on a tin pie plate's gonna make your fortune, or do I have to guess?"
She rapped on the pan sharply and then waved the hammer at him instructively. "Don't call it a pie plate. Call it 'Inhumanity.' It's a work that I think wholly explores my incoherent rage involving destiny, gender roles, poverty, and my goddamned dumbass fallen husband."
He found a half empty beer from the night before and thoughtfully tossed back some hair-of-the-dog before summarizing his thoughts on her artistic masterwork.
"That's a fucking cake pan."
Her spidery little hand was up in the air, finger under his nose before he could even put the can down, "It's high art, you bastard. It was a cake pan. But then I beat on it with a hammer and drove some rusty nails through it. Now it is found art. Assemblage. Shit like this sells for a mint at a gallery uptown. Some fucking wallstreet joker wants this shit to put in his office to prove to other shits that he has culture." She stopped to consider him for a moment, and then turned her attention back to the cake pan, "Man, for somebody with your classy education you sometimes sure as hell seem like you're from the Kitchen." Her voice grated suddenly nasal in a fine New York drawl, "I'm a New England blueblood born and raised in the Bowry." She snorted and started to pound again.
"When I learned art, I learned real art. Art from Europe," he grunted, defensively his eyes shut against the dented metal of the can, "Da Vinci and Van Eyck and all those other people. People with history."
She laughed, shrill and climbing into octaves rarely traversed by the sane and then her lip curled into the snarly little smile that got stuck on her face sometimes and seemed damn near impossible to wash off.
"Well, if anybody's got fucking history, then it's me. I tell you what. Tomorrow, I'll bring home part of a toilet seat and you can beat the hell out of that and that can be your high art."
He was still unconvinced.
"A mangled toilet seat ain't art, Chess, and the Met ain't gonna buy that shit."
"You know, Raphael," she observed philosophically, pushing herself back so she could stand on long, stemmy legs and collect her statement, "Sometimes I doubt your commitment to the revolution."
He laughed this time, tired and bitter.
"Join the club."
*
Notes: For Katie. I hope you like it despite its lack of DRAMA <3.