High Art: A Short Story Read online

High Art

  By Andre Farant

  Copyright 2012 Andre Farant

  www.andrefarant.com

  Also by Andre Farant

  Frozen Dinner

  Deepest Quiet

  Deer Lake: A Novel

  Table of Contents

  High Art

  Contact Andre

  Deer Lake Preview

  High Art

  Though Cedric Brayford never appreciated my work, I had always found it possible to ignore his criticisms. As an art critic, it was his job to make his opinion known and, though I did not share or agree with his opinion, I did respect his right to voice it. It was when he stepped beyond simply criticising my work and dared to question my creativity that I found it impossible to wave his hateful words aside. This went far above and beyond opinion and into the dark realm of insult. I could not let such slander stand. And I would not.

  I ran into Cedric at a party. It was one of those ghastly events attended by the so-called elite of the art scene. Painters, sculptors, even a few film-makers, mingled, laughed and flirted with critics, agents and gallery-owners for three solid hours, powered solely by wine and ego. Cedric was already drunk and he laughed as he draped an arm over my shoulders. He was wearing a horrendous lime green four-button suit with a white tie that was much too long. His breath smelled of gin, vermouth and olives. He waved an empty martini glass about as he spoke.

  “Heeeeeeyyyy,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  I nodded and smiled. “Yes, yes I am glad to see you here as well.”

  He laughed inanely.

  I allowed my smile to widen. “You know, Cedric, I’ve just finished a new piece and I would love to get your professional opinion before I unveil it. Of course, if you’re too busy, I can always ask Gina Taylor to take a look at it.”

  Gina Taylor was second only to Cedric himself among the city’s art critics and cognoscenti.

  He squinted at me, confused by the booze in which his thoughts now swam as much as by the words I spoke. “Gina? Screw Gina. Actually, don’t; she’s a lousy lay. Ha! Naw, forget her. Where’s this piece of yours? I’ll tell ya what’s what.”

  With that, he grabbed me by a sleeve and pulled me toward the exit.

  I smiled and followed.

  *

  In the elevator, Cedric leaned against the wall, drinking from the bottle of wine I’d filched from the party. I watched him, smiling.

  “You know,” I said, “creativity is a truly precious thing.”

  He nodded at the elevator’s low ceiling. “’Specially in this town, my friend. Creativity’s in short supply in this town.”

  “Mm, I agree.”

  The elevator rumbled up and up. I had pressed the button for the top floor of the edifice. I didn’t know whether it was an office tower or apartment complex. I had chosen the building simply because it was eighteen stories tall and held no ties with me in the least.

  “So where’s this piece of yours, anyway?” Cedric asked and followed his query with a gulp of cabernet.

  “This is a monumental piece, my dear Cedric. I will show it to you from the very top of this building. It is a work of unmatched genius and unparalleled creativity.”

  He nodded slowly, peering into the mouth of his nearly empty bottle. “So another installation. Christ, and we gotta go all th’way up this building to see the thing? God, can’t ya just paint somethin’ and show me that?”

  I fought to keep the smile upon my face. “Yes, an installation . . . of sorts. Truly, Cedric, I think you will appreciate this one, I really do.”

  He shrugged and emptied the bottle down his gullet. Just as the last drop of crimson hit his outstretched tongue, the elevator doors slid open with a soft ding. Cedric tossed the empty bottle out the door before stumbling out himself. I followed him, careful not to step on the shards of glass he’d left in his wake, and directed him to the stairs leading to the building’s rooftop.

  *

  At these heights the night air was cooler, fresher, the wind more energetic. I stared out over the city. The building upon which we stood was not one of the metropolis’ tallest. It didn’t need to be.

  “Okay, where’s this piece of yours?” Cedric asked again. “I’m gettin’ bored here. Bored and sober.”

  “Well we can’t have that,” I said, turning from the vista to face him.

  Cedric appeared to be having difficulty keeping his head up, as though his neck had gone to rubber. I watched, smiling, as he struggled to keep his eyelids high, his eyes open.

  “What the hell . . . ?” he mumbled and sat down hard on the pebbled surface of the tower’s roof.

  I waited a few moments until I was sure he was unconscious. The drug I had slipped into the wine was fast acting but would only keep him under for a few minutes. I walked over and knelt by his side. He was snoring gently. Satisfied that he was asleep, I walked to the vent pipe behind which I had earlier dissimulated the roll of piano wire. I knew this building to be exactly one-hundred and fifty-two feet in height. The piano wire measured exactly one-hundred and forty-four feet in length. One end of the wire was tied securely to the vent pipe. The other end I had tied into a rather handsome hangman’s noose.

  Carrying the knotted end, I walked back to Cedric’s side and slipped the wire noose over his carefully coiffed head and around his neck. I then pulled a tube of quick-drying liquid cement from the inner pocket of my suit jacket. I squeezed a dollop of the adhesive into each of Cedric’s limp palms. Finally, I placed his hands, palms in, over each temple. I held his hands there, allowing the liquid cement to dry, to fuse the skin of his hands to that of his head. After a moment, I stood back and admired my work. Cedric looked as though he was suffering from a terrible migraine, as though he was holding his head to keep it from exploding. The wire winked in the moonlight like a cheap necklace.

  I kicked him in the ribs.

  He stirred but did not wake.

  I bent near him and slapped him on the right cheek, just below the spot where I’d glued his hand to his head. He finally awoke, mumbling.

  “Ready for the unveiling, Cedric?” I said.

  He blinked a million times, clearing the drug-induced sleep from his eyes. He peered up at me. “What’s going on?” he said.

  “I’m about to show you my newest piece. Remember?”

  “What?”

  He suddenly realized that he could not move his hands. Comically, he tried to look at his palms, straining his eyes till only the whites showed. “What did you do?” he cried.

  I laughed and hauled him to his feet. He was wobbly, his knees still weak, but he could stand.

  “Come with me,” I said and grabbed one of his cocked elbows.

  Still confused by the mixture of drugs and alcohol, Cedric followed me as I lead him to the roof’s edge.

  “What the hell is going on?” he whined.

  Peering over the edge at the street far below, I said, “What is going on is this, Cedric: You will fall eighteen floors to your death. I will cause this. In itself, this is in no way creative. It is murder, which is unusual and, even in today’s supposedly violent world, it is quite rare. However, the method, as described, is not creative. The creative aspect of my latest work lies in the glue that holds the palms of your hands to the temples of your head, and the noose that encircles your neck.”

  I grinned at him. Cedric frowned at me, still spectacularly confused. He then tried to get a look at his throat.

  “Once I throw you off the top of this building, Cedric, you will fall through the air. Though the fall itself would be sufficient to kill you, as I’ve explained, this isn’t solely about killing you, it is about creativity. You will fall for exactly one-hundred and forty-four feet. At
that point, the piano wire will grow taught and tear through your throat and spine, severing your head from your body. The glue, however, will ensure that your head follows you for the remaining eight feet of your fall. Upon striking the ground, you will be left holding your own head between your hands.”

  He stared at me, mouth agape, eyes wide, disbelieving.

  “How’s that for creative, Cedric?” I said, and shoved him off the roof.

  The outcome was spectacular. It was everything I’d hoped it would be. It was beautiful, magnificent. It was a work of unmatched genius, a work of unparalleled creativity . . . It was, in short, a work of art.

  Contact Andre

  Thank you, first off, for reading High Art. I’d love to know what you thought of it or any of my stories.

  Reach me at [email protected]

  Find me on my website www.andrefarant.com

  Friend me on Facebook

  Follow me on Twitter

  Thanks again and hope to hear from you.

  Now, please check out the first three chapters of my novel, Deer Lake, available as of February, 2012.

  Deer Lake Preview

  Deer Lake is a hilarious crime thriller—basically Jaws if it had been written by Carl Hiaasen or Janet Evanovich and set in Quebec cottage country.

  Here’re the first three chapters of Deer Lake. Enjoy.

  Deer Lake is copyright 2012 Andre Farant

  Deer Lake

  PROLOGUE

  Mary and Alan Demers were happy. They had been married for all of thirty-eight hours and were basking in their shared marital bliss.

  They stood at a lookout built by the Deer Lake Cottager’s Co-op at the top of a cliff, overlooking the jewel-like lake. Alan breathed deeply, noting the absence of the exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke that permeated every cubic inch of Detroit’s atmosphere. “It’s absolutely gorgeous here.”

  Mary nodded. “Mmm, beautiful.”

  They stood behind the wooden safety railing, Mary’s arm around Alan’s waist, his arm encircling her shoulders. They could count the islands dotting the lake (six). Sailboats, tiny from such heights, glided silently upon the still surface. Without saying a word, the happy couple scanned the waters, looking for a tell-tale ripple, a hint of the lake’s claim-to-fame.

  “Ouch,” Alan slapped at his neck. “Damned mosquitoes.”

  “Oh, babe, poor thing,” Mary said.

  “The mosquito?”

  “No, silly, you.”

  “Mm, I guess maybe I’ll need a warm bath to help keep the swelling down. Maybe you’d like to join me, hm?”

  Mary wasn’t listening.

  “Alan, what is that?”

  “What, did you see it?” Alan said, scanning the lake.

  “No, no, there.” Mary pointed straight down to the base of the cliff where the water lapped at a narrow beach. Alan leaned over the railing, squinting. It was pale and lumpy, its size difficult to gauge from their current vantage point. It was caught on a tangle of branches overhanging the shallows. The thing was half in and half out of the water, rocked back and forth by the lake’s lazy waves.

  “I’m not sure what it is,” Alan said.

  “Here,” Mary pulled her digital camera from its carrying case, “I’ll use the zoom.”

  She brought the device to her eye and zoomed in on the thing. It took her a few moments to find it.

  “Oh, god,” she breathed, nearly dropping the camera. “It’s a person.”

  “What?”

  “Alan, it looks like a person.” Mary handed her husband the camera.

  He focused on the pale form. “I think you’re right, hun. That looks like a shirt, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s what’s got him caught on the branch. His shirt. I think I saw his arm, too.”

  “Yeah.” Alan nodded. “I see it.”

  “Oh, god, Alan . . . What do we do?”

  Alan stared at her, his mind a blank. Alan was quality-control manager for one of Michigan’s largest discount toy manufacturers. The company’s biggest client built and rented out claw vending machines. The toys housed in claw vending machines were not known for their quality. Consequently, Alan was rarely pressed to find solutions to difficult problems.

  “Um,” he said, eyes wide. “We could blow our whistles.”

  As a kindergarten teacher, Mary was inordinately patient and completely immune to stupid answers. “No, Alan. We have to go see if he’s okay.”

  “Um,” Alan said. “I’m pretty sure he isn’t.”

  “Well, we have to check. It took us hours to get up here. By the time we got back to the cottage, or the village, he could be dead.”

  “Um,” Alan repeated. The word seemed to best express his feelings. He peered down at the pale lump floating in the water. “What if he’s already dead?”

  “It couldn’t hurt to check,” Mary said.

  Uh, yeah it could, Alan thought. It could hurt a lot.

  He realized she had given him his way out: “But, like you said, it took us hours to get up here. How could I possibly get down to him in time to help? I can’t teleport down there.”

  Mary sighed. While they were dating, as a way to get to know each other better, Alan had asked Mary which super power she would want if she could have any power at all. She had chosen the ability to speak and read all and any languages throughout history and the world. He had informed her that this particular ability, though impressive, did not constitute a super power. He had chosen teleportation, which was, in his esteem, a proper super power. They did not talk about it again.

  Now Mary examined the cliff side. Her eyes settled on a densely wooded section of the cliff some fifty yards to the left.

  “Right there, go down there,” she said.

  Alan stared. Um. It was not as steep as the sheer drop that lay directly beneath them, but it was still pretty damned steep.

  “Mary, if I go down that way I’m gonna end up like that guy. Heck, for all I know it’s how he ended up down there in the first place.”

  “Don’t be silly, Alan.”

  He looked from her to the trees. There were a lot of trees. He could hang on to them as he climbed down those boulders.

  “Okay. Fine, I’ll try,” he said with all the enthusiasm of one announcing that he had won a free kick to the back of the head.

  Mary pulled his face to hers and kissed him, long and hard. “I am so proud of you,” she said. “And kinda turned on.”

  “Really?” Alan said, standing straighter.

  “Mm-hm. It’s very brave. Heroic.”

  Alan grinned like the proverbial idiot, pulled off his backpack, and set out for the wooded area.

  He stumbled over a few stones, tripped over a branch and found himself hugging the trunk of a poplar. He no longer felt heroic.

  Alan Demers pushed off the poplar and began his descent, moving slowly, from tree to tree.

  He gripped a sturdy-looking branch to steady himself as he baby-stepped over a moss-smothered boulder. He could feel the stuff slipping under his feet. Then the branch snapped, the boulder disappeared, moss and all, and he was suddenly running down the cliff face, his body nearly horizontal. Gravity carried him further, faster. He watched as trees flashed by him, branches raked his face and tore at his clothes. His fanny-pack, bouncing against his butt, came open, producing a rooster’s tail of allergy medication, breath mints, dried apricots and condoms (just in case).

  A giant pine loomed ahead, its trunk like the canon on a Navy destroyer aimed at taking out the sun. That will stop me. He directed his run at the tree. He would plow straight into it and hang on to its trunk for dear life. It would work. It would hurt like a hell, but it would work and he would live to tell Mary that this whole thing was a stupid idea and that teleportation was a much better power than being able to speak and read everything which wasn’t even a power anyway.

  He hit the tree.

  And he was right: It hurt like a hell.

  And he was wron
g: The tree did not stop him. In fact, the tree simply hitched a ride. As he hit the conifer, so strong and solid looking, Alan, now an Alan-shaped projectile, uprooted the tree and sent it tumbling ahead of him in a spray of dirt and pine needles. It came down with an ear-splitting crash, pulling smaller trees with it, sending still smaller trees flying into the air and tumbling in every direction. And in the midst of this arboreal maelstrom, Alan screamed.

  Beyond the crash of trees, behind his own screams, Alan could hear a high-pitched keening. Mary had apparently seen Alan’s meeting with the big conifer, had judged that said meeting had gone poorly, and was now blowing her emergency whistle.

  And so Alan Demers descended the cliff side, followed and preceded by an avalanche of forestry while, above him, standing safely behind the look-out’s wooden railing, Mary blew on her whistle and pressed the shutter on her Nikon as fast as her finger would allow, documenting her husband’s death by accidental deforestation.

  After what seemed like hours but was only about forty-seven seconds, the crashing came to a halt and Alan Demers found himself lying on his back in a rather soft bed of pine needles, while dirt, leaves and twigs rained down upon him. Water sloshed just inches from his head. He sat up, cradled in the palm of one of the giant pine’s branches. The branch hung out over the water and, when he looked down through the branch’s quill-laden fingers, he saw his stunned reflection staring back at him. His face was scratched, his shirt torn to shreds and his fanny-pack was empty. But he was alive.

  Someone was calling his name. He looked around, down at the tree, out at the lake, until he remembered his wife and looked up and behind him at the top of the cliff. There was a large swath of churned earth, fallen trees, and shredded ferns where there had once been dense forestry. It looked as though God had tried to scratch-and-sniff the forest. Far above and to the left, Mary waved at him from atop the lookout.