Gospel turned over another page of newsprint. The last
picture sucked. The one before that sucked. She slouched lower on the sofa,
knee hooked over the end. Her mother was at work. It was eleven in the morning.
It was raining. She was wearing short-legged overalls and she hadn’t showered for
two days and she’d drawn this guy’s arm backward for the third time. Two left
hands. Or one arm shorter than the other. She figured she should try one of
those “how to draw” books again, but she’d made two tries already and almost
died of boredom.
She was bored now.
Bored, but ploughing through the work.
She sharpened her charcoal pencil with her pocketknife and
started again.
But all the time she was thinking about what she would do if
the shed stopped leaking. If she had more spray paint. If it wasn’t raining. Big
colors, everywhere. Splashes on brick. Streaks on galvanized steel. Roses on
the gates to the slaughterhouse —
Knock knock knock
went the door.
Gospel threw her sketchpad on the floor and walked warily to
the front door. It gave onto a carpeted, damp, cat-smelling flight of stairs
that ran past the downstairs neighbor’s door to the front porch. Problem with
carpeted stairs, she thought, you couldn’t always hear someone coming up. She
didn’t exactly grab the baseball bat she and her mother kept beside the door,
but she kept its position firmly in mind.
The guest had gone, silently as he or she had come, but a
pile of letters lay on the top step.
Maybe the downstairs neighbor
brought them up? wondered Gospel. Though usually, Steve had a heavy tread
and only came up to share a complaint about the landlord.
There was the usual electric bill, the usual Angel Magic magazine for Serena. And something
for Gospel: a four-paged brochure, just one sheet of velvety feeling cardstock,
folded and taped together with a little scrolled seal.
She ripped it open and read:
Call for submissions
Desmond Whittaker, Artist,
will be creating a work called Urban Metamorphosis on the portion of the
Tennessee River wall recently damaged by the explosion under the Hunter Museum.
The repaired section of wall will be covered with a work exploring the history
of the city through the lens of the myth of Metamorphosis.
The Artist is
accepting internship applications now through June 15. Required skills include:
Artistic aptitude
Organizational or
clerical ability
Physical strength and
agility, including the willingness to work on scaffolding above a 50-foot drop
(climbing, parkour, spelunking, construction or other similar experience preferred)
In addition to
artistic assistance, the intern will coordinate scheduling of painter/laborers,
made up of community volunteers and Broken Bars Ministry members.
Please submit a resume
and portfolio to the address below.
Urban Metamorphosis is
funded exclusively by the generosity of private donors, including the Ourse
Pettigrew Trust and the Ellsworth Fund for Urban Renewal and Magick.
Gospel left the front door open behind her. She dropped her
mother’s mail on the floor. She walked in a daze to the balcony, turned the
handles to the French doors, and stepped out into the rain. Under the little
overhang of gable, still getting splattered, she read the brochure again. Looked
at the glossy reproductions of Whittaker’s work, including the WHLHSE mural.
At last, she
breathed, at last!
Her hands went icy. The soles of her feet prickled.
At last!
She stepped back inside, both doors open now, and let the
wet sweet wind fill the apartment. She flopped down on the sofa.
“Oh shit,” she said.
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