With that, he strolls off down the road, disappearing around the corner of the building.
I turn my face into a breeze that races by, then glance up into the night sky, which is obstructed by the greedy trees in the courtyard that want to keep the view all to themselves. I glance back at the wide glass windows, maybe searching for the minute possibility of Dmitri coming out and telling me he’s ready to leave, maybe searching for Clayton to magically emerge from the crowd, maybe just staring back at them with no purpose at all.
I straighten my posture and decide against waiting on any one of my friends—whether Dmitri or Clayton or even Eric at this point—and I push into the darkness down the road that edges around the campus toward the side of town I always avoid.
You can do this, I coach myself.
The campus is full of a lot of nobody at this time of night on a Wednesday. With the exception of a computer lab near the psychology building dumping a modest group of loudly bantering students who walk in the opposite direction as me, there isn’t a soul in sight. I don’t even hear crickets, as if even the insects have more sense than to be out on this side of campus at night.
It’s at the crosswalk that officially takes me off school grounds and into the sparsely-lit streets that I question my manhood. Like, really, I could easily piss my pants if even a cat leaps out from an alley and catches me by surprise. Big Bad Brant has been reduced to a quivering-in-his-shoes sort of guy at the moment, especially since I have no one with me to witness my complete and utter lack of bravery right now.
I don’t need Clayton with me, laughing at my jokes. I don’t need Dmitri chatting to me about his latest story. I don’t need Eric at my side, complaining about his latest date-gone-totally-awry. I just need my own feet and a purpose in my brain.
I cross the street and it doesn’t feel unlike floating over a cloud.
Shadows pass me on both sides, shadows that turn out to be gently rustling bushes in the yard of a rundown house with just one window lit, shadows that are trashcans, shadows that loom over me from a power line or a tree or a narrow building across the street that seems to watch me from all of its darkened windows, which seem more like suspicious eyes.
The second I turn the corner and the brightly-lit face of the gallery hits me like a lighthouse after being lost at sea, the shoulders I didn’t realize I was tensing relax at last. I cross the street and reach the front glass doors, my hand resting on its handle, waiting.
I tell myself a bunch of reassuring things, like how Nell may not even be here, like how I’m here for my own curiosities regarding art and what a career in it can possibly lead to, like how I could learn from the work of an established alumni. Maybe beyond these doors, I can find an answer to a few questions that have haunted my mind ever since I foolishly signed up for the photography program.
And, fuck it, if I’m lucky maybe I’ll find Nell in there too.
NELL
Coffee.
It’s a sculpture of a giant hypodermic needle labeled “Ego” with a weird, lava-lamp-like fluid slowly squirming within it.
And the piece is called Coffee.
If my eyes roll any more than they already have, they’ll be halfway home by now.
I keep slowly walking around, killing time until Renée Brigand makes her entrance and starts to interact with us. That is, if she even bothers to grace us with her delicate, celebrity, too-important-for-us-basic-and-boring-student-artists demeanor she has since adopted. I couldn’t hide the way I feel about her work if I was wearing a stone mask with a happy face carved into the front of it.
I approach one of the smaller rooms that showcase one of Brigand’s “experiences”. On the wall next to the entrance is a little tired-looking keypad with a bullet hole in its face, and as I walk past it, the thing beeps feebly, the word “INTRUDER” flashing dimly on its screen. Inside the room, there is an array of differently-sized walls like a labyrinth, each containing a door that’s been busted open in some manner or another. Some of them have locks that hang off their doorknobs, bent or broken. Some have a hole busted through the door as if they were assaulted by a cannon. Some walls don’t have doors, but rather windows that have been wedged open, shattered, or don’t have glass at all—just square holes in the wall with nothing but the frame to show for itself.
From a white, simple plaque on the wall, I get the name of this exhibit: Security.
The faux walls and broken doors divide the room into little vignettes, sort of like the staged showrooms you’d find in a furniture store, except they’re odd and off-putting. In one of them, there’s a desk with no drawers under which rests a big safe. Upon watching someone else play with it, it’s discovered that literally any combination will unlock the safe. Okay, I get your point Brigand, I’d say if I had anyone to share my opinion with. Please, keep knocking me over the head with your message. Nothing is secure. Nothing is safe. Blah, blah, fucking blah.