Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang: Volume 1, Chapter 2
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It had been a sinking dread with which Desiree opened the backdoor, intestines knotting as she turned the knob as if the handle were tied to her organs. It wasn’t the breaking and entering or the sight of open drawers, tossed clothes, and empty jewelry boxes that made her heart race but the feverish feeling that opening this door may lead to a sight unutterable, ineffable, born of an otherworldly fantasia, like a pale blue icy child in a snowflake dress who opens her mouth and sucks away Desiree’s soul, a spinning cyclone into disappearance where Desiree’s irises would leave the last of their green streaks in the air like a fiery sparkler circling before one’s eyes.
Instead she found a wet man relaxing in a dining chair, his long white beard parted down the cleft of his chin and dripping melted snow onto Desiree’s fake wood floors like two icicles. He wore dark blue pants, held up by brown suspenders which divided his billowing buttoned shirt into thirds. The shirt showed the rugged wear of constant use and little wash, almost rusted orange at the seams while the white linen had turned cream like an old man’s tobacco-stained mustache. His pants were tucked into worn brown boots and he twirled a stout toe as he sat legs crossed, at ease, with the air of giving a consultation despite so much dripping. Across from him, equally relaxed, sat Desiree’s mother, her short dyed brown hair undone, unmade, pixie cut rumpled by her favorite pillow, with the coffee-sipping nonchalance of a Christmas morning chat with a visiting relative.
The wet man gestured toward Desiree with a three-fingered hand, missing its middle and pinky digits.
“Take off your boots!” he said.
“He wants to do a—what did you call it?”
“An interior portrait.”
“That’s it,” said her mother, Leighann. “He wants to do an interior portrait of our living room. Isn’t that fun? He’s a traveling artist. Are you sure you don’t want coffee? Something hot to drink?”
The wet man patted himself with a towel and declined.
Desiree closed the door but remained in her boots.
“That’s what landed you here? You heard about our living room?”
“I wasn’t expecting a snowstorm so close to June,” said the wet man.
“He’s finishing a three-piece set of the area,” said Leighann. “It’s so old fashioned, I love it. It’s like seeing a milkman. Isn’t it quaint, Desiree?”
“Weird place for a wandering artist to end up,” said Desiree.
“I’m in search of portraits and landscapes.” The wet man stroked the right part of his white beard with his three-fingered hand. “Going wherever the inspiration leads me. Today, it needed me to quench my thirst. You must know the Shell station on the highway, a few miles from here. I found not only refrigerators full of drinks but spontaneous ambition.”
“It’s the only gas station I use,” said Leighann.
“I could tell by her eyes, the first worker I met had spent most of the night crying. I never asked why, but began painting her from the candy aisle. Customers kept bumping my elbow, leading my subject into accidental abstraction, and when the manager arrived, he accused me, the nomad, of loitering. Of all things. I packed up and left and then while walking along the highway I saw an undulating meadow. I set up my easel and the whoosh of vehicles added a certain authenticity to my brushwork: despite my intense colorization, the landscape appeared smoked around the edges. A spitting rock even punctured the canvas. I packed up a second time, wandered through the field, and on the other side saw this lovely community of homes. I have a portrait, a landscape, and now I need a domestic interior to complete the collection.”
Snow on the bottom of Desiree’s boot crunched as she placed her hands on her pink hips in a stance full of skepticism.
Meanwhile, Leighann’s chest puffed with pride; the whole experience had her feeling like an old-world aristocrat.
“You lucked out. Desiree and I have spent a lot of time and money decorating this place exactly the way we wanted it.”
That included picking out the blue fabric of the upholstered dining chair she sat in, at the gray, industrial dining table opposite the wet man. Slanted in their seats, both had a portrait view of the living room under discussion. A vision fulfilled and enclosed within mustard-colored walls. Through the drawn gray curtains under the cerulean valance, light reflected off the snow to brighten the parallel turquoise and butterscotch loveseats. It was already made for a painting in Leighann’s mind, full of primary yellows and blues, filled by accents of gray, white, and black, with hints of peach in the pillows and artificial flowers. Beneath much of it, on top of the dark faux wood floors, was a gray and gold rug that shifted colors by the brush of the shag.
It was a room made for a cover page. Or a wandering artist’s interior portrait. A composition of undeniably splendid décor. The snowfall out the window only heightened the picturesque appeal.
“What about that design I found in the snow?” said Desiree, the nurse in her—both blunt and sharp like a special pair of medical scissors—cutting through the wet man’s fatty tongue. “Is that part of the set?”
“No. Something new. I did all of that with a plain old stick.”
“I’ll have to go back with my phone and take a picture of it.”
“Please, if it isn’t already buried.”
“The design was very precise for a plain old stick.”
“These three fingers are steadier than you’d guess.”
“Were you wearing different shoes?”
“I prefer to walk barefoot until there’s a reason not to. Speaking of which, come, join us, I’d be ashamed after being so charmed by your home if you weren’t comfortable enough to remove your boots.”
“He needed shelter from the storm, Desiree. How often does something like this happen around here? I can’t wait to tell Barb. Our living room may wind up hanging in someone else’s living room! And not as an accent piece but a feature. Someone might base their whole color scheme around ours.”
Desiree was starting to succumb to her mother’s enthusiasm, and the charm of the unexpected.
“I hope my footprints didn’t startle you,” said the wet man, opening his pack to remove oils. “This room truly is the perfect complement to the set.”
A touch pacified by the art supplies—and beginning to sweat—Desiree crossed over to the laundry room and shed her boots, coat, and one layer of heavy clothing, but left that healthy layer of skepticism regarding the wet man and his tale, grabbing a towel before returning to the kitchen where she tossed it at his three-fingered hand.
“Before you get even more comfortable, put that under you and show me the rest of this set.”
Next week on Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang, Desiree and Leighann watch their living room become a painted masterpiece. Will they be happy with the artist’s depiction? Or will he bungle the décor they spent so much effort designing? Find out August 17th.
Author: Zachary Ryan
Zachary Ryan is just a guy who is excited to entertain you for a few short minutes.