Dark Rock
“Hey where did you get this painting?”
“Which painting?”
“The one with the rock.”
“Oh, yeah. Someone gave that to me. It was left in a vacant apartment after the tenant skipped out on the rent. I got some furniture off that too. Was pretty nice.”
“Was it?” I was less interested in his free furniture than this strange painting. “So Uncle Frank, you attached to this painting or what?”
The man turned around and looked at the drab second hand painting. “Nah… If you want it you can have it.” He turned back around and resumed rummaging through the boxes he’d received today.
Frank Boxer paid managers of storage units and apartment complexes flat rates for the boxes of stuff left behind by bill delinquent tenants. He was always unearthing some treasure or another, what was one painting. He’d barely even noticed the painting til his nephew mentioned it. In fact he didn’t recall hanging it on the wall. He did remember getting two hundred bucks for the sofa at a resale shop, sold on commission.
I took the painting off the wall and looked at it. I couldn’t take my eyes off it for some reason.
“Stark, put that down and take it with you when you go. I’ve got lots more stuff to go through before Friday night.” Frank chastised his nephew’s work ethic.
I put the painting on the side and went through box after box of old photographs and postcards. There was nothing notable in any of the boxes. Just someone’s old memories that they didn’t care about anymore or had forgotten where they were stored. I picked up a picture of a woman in tightly fitted dress. She was beautiful and dark skinned, the picture looked like it was from the forties. Her smile was so inviting, I was sure she was nice. I daydreamed about what it would have been like to have known her. Maybe even asked her out on a date for a walk on the beach.
I put the old photograph with the rest of the pictures and closed the box. “I’m all done, there’s nothing in there but photos and postcards from the forties.”
I couldn’t wait to pick up my painting and look at it more. The whole ride home on the bus I stared at the painting, as if it would somehow come to life in my hands.
I got home to my studio apartment and hung it to the right of my bed, so I could gaze at it before I fell to sleep. Maybe it could take me to that beauty I had seen in the picture, or another girl just as beautiful.
I microwaved my tv dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. It was one of the cheaper meals from the grocery store. But what else am I supposed to eat while I pay off student loans and try to survive on a junk mans salary? Times are hard. Not just for me, for everyone out there. I’m no more special than the guy that lives next door, or the couple that lives next door him. Both working three jobs just to make it through to the end of the month with any sort of comfort.
So my meals cost three dollars and fifty cents a piece, and I’m lucky to have them. I’m not ungrateful for what I do have, I have a lot more than most people my age. I have a steady job lugging junk to and from my uncle’s house to resale shops. I’m not likely to get fired, I feel kind of lucky about it all. I don’t have a girlfriend, and I also don’t have the money for one either. I can’t complain about any aspect of my life at all.
Though if I could change one thing about it, it would be companionship.
I’ve always been lanky and awkward around females. I never know what to say or do. I get nervous a lot and then I start to feel anxious. I want to do the right thing, I want to look cool in front of them. It just never seems to work out that way. I become disjointed, if I’m holding anything I will eventually drop it. The basic rule is, if there’s anything I can do to make myself look a fool than that’s what’s going to happen. So women basically just giggle and dismiss me as some sort of sweet oaf, who deserves their sympathy more than their affection.
After watching the evening news I retired to my corner of the room and tucked myself in bed. I left the light on the stand near my bed turned on, and tilted the shade so the light from it landed on the painting. I watched the painting through my sleepy eyes, everything was getting a soft blur as I started to drift off.
I let my imagination run in the vast meadow behind the rock, where scattered wild flowers swayed in a gentle breeze. Then I thought I saw with my actual eyes and not my imagination, a woman in a white sun dress far off in the field. She wore one of those giant floppy straw hats, and she held it on with her right hand as she walked through the breeze. I could see her smile from time to time when the brim of her hat bounced up from the force of her walking. Sometimes the wind would blow up the brim enough to see the tip of her nose to go along with the brilliant smile.
Her dark brown hair occasionally drifted on the wind as if it were on a carnival ride. Then suddenly the woman seemed to take a bad step and stumbled to the grass. I tried to see her come up from under the tall grass but sleep was pulling me in. The beauty would have to wait for another day.