Beneath The Skin(96)

When I turn, I realize every tree in the courtyard has a project of some kind resting beneath it. People from the art gallery have poured out into the night, curious and excited to visit all these new exhibits they weren’t planning to see.

Is this part of the showcase? Or is this something else entirely?

“Dude, what is happening?”

It’s Dmitri who’s caught up, bewildered by the sights. I shake my head. “I have no idea,” I admit. “But I think I like it.”

“Are these …?”

“The pieces that didn’t get into the showcase,” I say with a nod. “I’m figuring the same thing. Do you think all the students who …?”

“They had to have!” he answers before I’ve finished the question. “It must be some mass collaboration. Fuck, this is brilliant. And they’re showing the world their critiques. It’s like …”

“It’s like holding the judges accountable,” I finish for him.

Laughter rings out to our left. I pursue it, then find myself standing in front of a bed in the middle of the road. There are offputting stains all over the sheets, each with a photograph of a happy kid with a name written over his face and an occupation. A porn magazine and a bottle of lube are left out on the bed. Upon the headboard sits a placard that reads: “REJECT: My Family. CRITIQUE: Highly inappropriate, to glorify masturbation in such a grotesque way that neither sends us on a journey nor satisfies any semblance of artistic intent.”

“The judge missed the point,” Dmitri mutters.

I nod agreement. “I get it immediately. It’s like, the kids he could have had. All that wasted baby juice.”

“This is so gross.”

“But kinda deep.”

“And gross.”

I smirk at Dmitri, then throw an arm over his back. “Is this piece hittin’ a little too close to home, buddy?”

He swats my arm away, then finds his attention arrested by another piece nearby. I laugh, turning around and feeling overwhelmed with a strange, bubbling joy at what I’m experiencing. This whole thing is simply brilliant. I can’t stop chuckling inside, watching as all of the students get this opportunity to pay witness to the projects that never were and, in fact, get to enjoy them and judge for themselves.

To my surprise, I even see Renée Brigand strolling slowly along the path. At first, she appears very concerned, clutching a hand to her chest reservedly as she walks. Then, much like dipping a toe in the pool to check the water’s temperature, she leans toward a work of art under a tree—it appears to be a painting of a frowning skull—and I watch as a curious smile crosses her face. She looks up and reads the plaque nailed to the bark above it, then shakes her head, seemingly in pity, her fingers drawn to her mouth, covering it.

The unmistakable flashing lights of campus security start to invade this spontaneous showcase outside the building, likely called by the stuffy people who run the “official” showcase inside the building.

It’s near the tunnel that my eyes fall on a strikingly different piece of work. The brazier at its side seems to illuminate it a lot less than the other pieces in the courtyard, perhaps because of the brazier’s squatty shape or its distance from the work of art. Regardless, it seems to draw the least amount of attention, and yet I’m pulled to it with more fascination than any of the others.

I plant my feet before it. My skin runs cold, even standing by the fire as I am.

It’s a sculpture of a dog. A very, very big dog. Its head was removed at one point, but now it’s been carefully, meticulously, tediously sewn back on. No effort was made to hide the thread. Its face has suffered considerable, disturbing damage—maybe by a club, or a baseball bat, I can’t tell—but little zebra-print and rainbow-adorned children’s Band-Aids cover all of the head’s gaping holes, slashes, and disfigurements.

Hanging by a nail on the wall of the tunnel, somewhat apart from the sculpture, is a plaque that reads: “REJECT: Daddy Loves You.”

I swallow hard. My mouth runs dry.

The rest of it reads: “CRITIQUE: I will never understand your obsession with removing the heads of your work. Perhaps if your work came from a place that was real—instead of some forced, artificial desire to be strange and dark and upsetting—your art would make us feel something.”

I stand there, frozen in place by the words. I feel a dreadful coldness wash over my body, running from that aching chasm in my chest to every finger and toe on my body.

She’s here, and I have to find her.





NELL



Well, this isn’t exactly how I planned for it all to go down.