The Struggling Artist

My forehead started to numb as it pressed against the cool, laminate bar top. I looked down at my weathered jeans, staring into the spots where my tears had soaked into the fabric. They created dark blue circles beside the colorful blots of oil paint my work clothes had collected, creating an unintentional abstract design. The tears finally completed the struggling artist's look I was going for. 

I was alone in the bar, aside from an older gentleman who sat at the end of the cane-shaped bar and paid me no attention. He was nursing a scotch and reading the paper, occasionally looking up to check the score of the football game on TV. He had a kind face that reminded me of my grandfather's. He probably had some good stories, but I wanted to be left alone. Even asking the bartender for a bottle of Jager was challenging as I choked back the ball in my throat. My body felt like a paperweight, designed never to be moved by itself. Weighed down by the realization that I had wasted the last four years of my life.

A few hours prior, my professor had called me to attend office hours. He was a well-respected educator at our university, and I took his class quite seriously. When I arrived, he had that look on his face that people get when they have bad news but don't want to be the ones delivering it. We talked briefly about the weather as he beat around the bush, but he became silent when I brought up the class. He broke the silence like he shattered a plate at a Greek funeral.

"Michael, are you sure this is the career for you?"

The question caught me off guard, but I had a simple, reflexive, one-word reply.

"Yes."

"Then I believe it is my duty to tell you…" he paused for a second, looking into my eyes, which must have been like those of a rabbit staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

"...you should reconsider."

I let the words sink into my chest and felt my heart thump rapidly against my rib cage. His demeanor was solemn and respectful, which made it worse. Who was I to disagree with such an esteemed professional? Someone whose work hung in museums and created pieces billionaires chose to decorate their walls with. I could barely sell paintings to cover the cost of the supplies I used. I wanted to prove him wrong so badly, but I had nothing to show for it. 

Wholly understanding the depth of the gorge between us when it came to experience and talent, all I could muster was a word. It was a pathetic little word that had no semblance of the blazing passion that burned in my soul behind it. It came out of me like a whimper.

"Okay."

It was my first time drinking at this bar. It was a quaint little hole-in-the-wall place frequented by the artsy types in the East Village. I had always passed on it because I preferred a busier crowd when going out with my friends, but this place was my home now. It was a relic of the past, an old Irish pub that did little to keep up with the times. What initially drew me in was how dark it was inside; hidden from the light of the warm late-may sun, it was like walking into a cave. I thought of my dog Jett choosing to go under the deck before he died, and I, too, had found a cool, dark place where I would be laying my dreams to rest. Thinking of Jett made me even sadder, and I let a few more tears decorate my jeans.

"What's his problem?" A girl's voice asked the bartender.

I raised my head from its resting place. I could feel the blood rushing to where it had been displaced. I must have looked pathetic with the red indent of the counter imprinted on my face as my swollen eyes met hers.

The girl's face was disgusted. She had sat next to me with a seat in between us and looked about my age. She was pretty but not my type, so I didn't care what she thought of me.

"My life is over," I whined and put my head back down. 

I'd accepted how pathetic I was. I was pathetic to my professor as well. A real artist would have laughed in his face and taken his comments as a challenge. I guess I wasn't a real artist if I didn't have faith in myself.

"Cool," she said, sounding sorry she had asked the question. Give me what he's drinking."

We sat beside one another, not saying another word. I felt a sense of uneasiness being observed by her in my current state. Whether I was interested in her or not, it wasn't a very manly thing to be crying, and I had an inch of self-respect left. 

"I just realized I'm a failure," I said with my voice muffled in my arms.

"At what?"

"Art."

"That sucks." She said bluntly.

"Are you sad too?" I asked, with a toddler's stuttering innocence. I raised my head, curious to see if my misery would have company.

She looked at me from the corners of her eyes, rolled them, and took a slug of her drink. It reminded me of my bottle, so I did the same. I thought my attempt to preserve what little dignity I had left failed, and I succumbed to the darkness of the pit in my stomach I was trying to fill with liquor once again.

"My mom just died." She said softly, staring intensely into her bottle as if it held the answers she sought. It was a change of tone that I thought must have been conjured by the Jager. She sniffed quickly, tilted her head back to keep her tears away, and regained her composure.

"I'm sorry," I said in a sobered voice, forgetting my despair.

"Now I have nowhere to live, I can't find a job, and my life is actually over." 

Then, with a snap, she looked at me with her eyebrows furrowed and a fake smile. "So maybe that makes you feel a bit better."  She said, now completely annoyed with me, as she swung for her bottle and jumped up from her seat. She shoved the barstool in with a scrape to accentuate her departure and sat at a table out of my sight. I took another sip from the bottle and took a deep, laborious breath that made me surrender to self-pity at my inability to comfort her.

The bar felt colder now. If I were a more confident person, I would have found it within myself to ignore my own feelings and at least attempt to remedy the situation. Then again, if I were a more confident person, I wouldn't be in this bar, crying in my lap and drinking a bottle of Jager.

In what seemed like the universe rubbing salt in my wounds, a rowdy group of college guys walked into the bar,  announcing their arrival with slurred expletives and drunken laughter. My heart skipped a beat as I imagined one of my friends being amongst them and witnessing me in my current state. 

Before they could approach me, I grabbed my glasses off the counter, reached for my bag as casually as possible, and went to the bathroom. I passed the girl's table as I walked by; I was not going to look at her, but I could feel her eyes on me. When I turned to meet them, her eyes were wide and swollen, presumably from crying. The cold demeanor I'd come to know her by had changed; she looked scared. I could hear them teasing the old man with a kind face from behind.

"Hey, gramps, how's the funny papers?" One of them asked in an old-timey accent. His comment exudes the overconfidence a large group can give you. A roar of drunken cackles followed it. I hesitated, opening the door for a second, the girl's expression at the forefront of my mind. Then I remembered my misery, and the group's laughter faded as I closed the door behind me.

I stared at myself in the mirror as I listened to the muffled sounds from the bar. I could only make out a few words at a time, but given the fact they were teasing an old man who was drinking alone, I was certain none of my friends were among them. I was disgusted with myself and what I saw staring back at me. The light I once had in my eyes was gone, and I had never known it existed until I realized its absence. More tears began to well up in my eyes, and my eyelids felt like dams about to give way.

The muffled voices grew louder, and I heard a chair pull out from the table closest to the bathroom. The girl's table. I froze, searching for any sound I could with the hum of the fluorescent lights in the background. I could only make out a few words.

"Hey, beautiful…"

I was sure the comedian's voice was trying to hit on the girl. 

I looked back in the mirror, finding my eyes. Should I do something? My eyes were unlike any expression I had seen from myself before. A scowl had appeared, my nostrils flared, and the sides of my mouth raised to a snarl. Why was I so mad? The longer I stared, the more it seemed like a different person was staring at me in the mirror. I flexed my fists so hard I could feel the tendons of my forearm burning. This person would have told the professor he was an idiot.

The next few moments were a blur. I remember the door flying off its hinges and slamming into the wall behind it. I whipped around to the table where the girl and her harassers should have been- but they weren't. It was just the girl who looked up at me, her eyes red and stains of mascara on her cheeks from the realization her world had ended and she was truly alone for the first time. 

My hands went numb as I unclenched my fist, and my forehead softened, erasing the scowl. My face felt like a rubber band as its sides came together. The girl looked back into the bottle, and I saw more tears beginning to fall. 

"May I?" I asked, indicating with my hand that I wanted to sit.

"Please," she said softly, embarrassed to look away from her bottle.

I held her as she cried. Her tears decorated my clothes far better than mine did. Maybe I wasn't such a great artist after all.