The Atrocity Artist

13.

The sound caused by the impact on water isn't as violent as it should be. Each hit is more of a drop in a rain barrel than a concussive boom.

Skad draws back his arm and hurls another tube of paint into the lake and instead of a noise signaling the end of the world, all that comes back is a plink. One by one, the contents of his art case disappear into the black depths. He has painted his last picture.

Concentration is a concept he no longer remembers. His hands, once deft tools, are only dumb meat. The white of the canvas is a storm that leaves him snowblind. Each time he sits to work he's lost in the white, empty and vast with a glimmer of Angeline in its depths. She beckons him from somewhere in its depths, promising salvation if he can reach her. He stares for hours searching for signs of her, hoping to find his way back. Back to the past. To a chance at another life. To her.

In his flying saucer, the bastard is watching the show taking place by the shore. He's a silhouette in the wide curved window, standing like a ship's captain and drinking from a tumbler gripped in his fist.

"Get a load of this," Skad yells to him before flinging a handful of brushes. They're too light to gain any momentum. Two reach the water. The rest land on the muddy bank.

In a fit of anger, Skad takes hold of the almost empty metal case with both hands and swings it out into the abyss. He screams after it with an animal wail and is rewarded with the first satisfying splash of the night.

He doesn't see it sink. The world is lost behind tears of frustration. When he wipes them away, Angeline is there.

She's no more than a soft candle-flicker among the fog. It might be nothing but a trick of his failing vision. His decrepit rods and cones flaring and dimming in random spots and splotches. Except he's been waiting for this. He has trained himself for this moment, to see her in the nothingness.

As he expends all his energy focusing on the faint glow, she grows and gains definition, striding across the glassy surface toward him. Or nearly so.

Angie angles to his left and stops by the old elm, forcing him to sidestep around it so he might face her.

"You've come back," he says.

"How long do you expect me to wait for you?"

"I've been out here all night. Every night"

"After you didn't show up. My parents said it was for the best. You were no good, like your father. But they were only saying it to make me feel better."

"I..." Now she's in front of him, he's not sure what to say despite the hours of pondering and preparing for the moment.

"They didn't really know. I never told them about the bad things you did. I never told anyone. I suppose it's better I'm pitied because you deserted me and not for any of that other stuff. I couldn't face the looks if people knew."

He bristles. Her words scour at a scab, a lifetime old but still frail and tender underneath. "I told you. I didn't mean to hurt you. It was an accident. I was drunk. And hell, Angie, you were being all uppity. I'm a man, and a man has his needs."

She moves in a swift kinetic burst. One second she's looking at him, the next her head is bowed almost to her waist. Her shoulders hitch with a suppressed sob. Skad worries she's preparing to go, depart back into the fog.

"I'm sorry. Look, it was all a long time ago. What's important is you're here and I'm here now. We get more time together. Don't get all upset."

Angeline wipes her face with both her palms smearing away the tears and looks up again. "I'm okay. I can go on."

"That's great."

"But here's the crazy thing, Bob. I still want us to be together." Her eyes glance away from him at a spot over his shoulder. "I guess you think I'm a big fool."

"Not at all. I want us to be together too."

Her gaze directly on him again, she says, "Why, why did you leave?" The tears are back. She squeezes her eyelids against them.

"I know it was a rotten thing to do, but I had to pursue my destiny. And I wanted a clean break with this place."

"You left me all alone with your child in me. What am I supposed to do?"

She collapses in on herself for another sob and then is gone as though she'd never been there.

"No. Come back." He races to the shore and splashes into the lake. The muck steals one of his slippers and his house-robe pools around his knees. Her parting words finally break through his fear of not seeing her again. "No," he whispers.