Inky Black

He had never noticed the painting on the wall of the bar before. This was only his third time here, but still, it seemed liked something he would notice. It was framed in one of the those cheap poster frames from Wal-mart. He knew because he had several in his own home, protecting movie posters that weren’t valuable to most people, but were valuable to him. It felt strange that something that was clearly a painting would be in a poster frame.

The paiting was odd, in that it didn’t seem to be much of a painting. It was just black. But it wasn’t just an empty frame either. There was something there. The inky darkness had a feeling to it, like being in a museum and staring at some grandiose modern art on a scale you couldn’t comprehend and thinking both, “Wow, what does this mean?” and also “I could do that.”

His own attempts at abstract art had never conjured up that feeling in himself, and so he had never showed them to anybody else to see if they might feel that way. They lived in the back of his closet, gathering quiet dust in the dark.

His posters though, were proudly displayed in his living room, marking him a bachelor of the first order. He didn’t think most girls liked posters of 80s slasher films, and he was staunchly waiting to settle down with one that didn’t wrinkle her nose slightly upon entering his apartment and seeing his taste in decor.

He looked away from the poster-that-wasn’t-a-poster and down into his drink. The cup was half empty, white bubbles clinging to the side as if they could journey back to the endless possibility at the top of the cup. This was his Friday ritual. Bar, Beer, Bed. The only variance was the bar. He figured if he lived in New York he might as well explore it, so he picked a bar to spend a month of Friday nights in, no repeats.

He’d been at it for four years so far. Forty-eight bars, and he still wasn’t outside the radius of his office that would mean he needed to take a cab or the subway. No, each new haunt was well within walking distance of his job as a camera operator on a live late night talk show. Unfortunately, by the time he had finished with work, anywhere he went was full of people who had already paired off. But this was his routine, and he stuck to it. He had promised his mother that he’d try and put himself out there, and as long as he went to the bar on Friday he could assure her that, yes he was trying. That yes, ma, he was lonely, and yes, he would love to give her grandchildren before she died, she just needed to have some patience. He was only 34. 

“What are you drinking?” A voice said near his ear.

He nearly jumped off his barstool. Hand on his heart, he turned toward the voice. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

The woman was far closer to him that she should have been. She was wearing overalls and a sleeveless turtleneck and a beanie over her long straight hair. There was glitter dusted all over her, concentrated on her eyelids and cheeks. Unusual clothing choices for a semi-swanky bar on a Friday night, but he supposed he was also not quite dressed appropriately.

“Sorry!” She responded, sliding onto the barstool next to him and tugging on her right pointer finger. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to know if what you’re drinking is good?” her sentence went up in pitch at the end like a question, though he wasn’t sure if it was.

“Um, yeah, it’s beer?” He matched her pitch. He was pretty sure he hadn’t meant to.

“So it’s good? I should try it?” Was her odd response, still up-speaking the end of every sentence. He began to wonder how old she was if she had never had a beer before. She looked about 30, but dim lights did strange things to people’s faces.

“You’ve never had a beer before?” He asked, fully intending the question this time.

She chuckled at that. “Of course I have! I was asking if your drink is good.”

That set him at ease until a moment later when he realized what she meant. “Wait, you want to drink my beer?”

She smiled at him, and it struck him that this was the Smile. That there may never be another Smile that so perfectly embodied what the expression was, and that he may never experience again the thrilling rush of happiness that accompanied making that expression possible. 

They both rushed into their next sentences at the same time.

“What’s your name?”

“What do you do?”

He laughed nervously, so did she. They tried again, swapping questions this time, but still rushing over one another.

“What do you do?”

“What’s your name?”

She half smiled and took a sip of his beer. Despite her odd question, he had really not been expecting her to actually want to drink his drink. He watched her, and it didn’t occur to him that maybe he should have answered their jumbled up questions instead of sitting there like a silent staring creep. She didn’t seem to mind though, and when the cold cup had been replaced on its wet coaster, he finally remembered to answer. 

“I’m Seth, I’m a camera guy and editor for a late night show.” He didn’t say which one. When he did, women moved on from being interested in him to being interested in potential tickets or his various movie star connections.

“Nice!” She smiled again, but it was a mere echo of the first one. His chest ached at that, though it shouldn’t have. He had only known her for two minutes.

“I’m Amelia, and I study kindness.”

“Kindness? Are you a grad student?” He hoped not. That wasn’t too young, but it was bordering on it.

“No! Nothing so formal as that. You just asked me what I did, and that’s what I’m doing.”

He was confused, and he could tell it showed on his face. He had never been good at concealing emotions. His brows knit together, his nostrils flared, and his lips tensed.

She studied his face, eyes roving from forehead to chin, and then to his ears, which were now red because he noticed her scrutiny. When her eyes returned to his face, he was full-on blushing.

And she smiled again. The Smile.

He knew he probably shouldn’t. This wasn’t the place. He never did anything like this. But she gave an almost imperceptible nod, like she knew what he was thinking, and like an electromagnet that’s had its switch flipped, he leaned into her.

Their lips met. No fireworks went off. No orchestra started playing in the background. Her breath smelled like beer. But it didn’t matter, because it was still a beautiful kiss. A kiss like the movies, but better because it was real, and better because when he pulled away, the Smile was still there. If anything, it was bigger, and oh, that made his chest ache worse than before. 

“I…I don’t normally do that when I’ve just met someone.” He stammered.

She put a hand on his shoulder, “Don’t worry. It all works out in the end.”

He cocked his head like a puppy confronted with a noise it’s never heard, and her hand moved from his shoulder down to his hand.

“Come on. I’ve got other places I have to go, but you can come with me?”

He nodded at her question that should have been a statement. He didn’t think it would have been possible to say no.

She took him to another bar to hear a punk band play. She danced in the pit while he watched from the side. She started to fall, and a was picked up by a mohawk that maybe had a person underneath it somewhere. She gave Mohawk the Smile, and Seth’s heart ached again. It wasn’t jealousy. He knew what that felt like. This was happiness so pure it was more like grief.

She took him to a warehouse party in Brooklyn, hundreds of bodies pushing against each other as they danced. Her arms lifted in reckless abandon, eyes shut and glitter sparkling in the colored lights. People would stop to look at her. She was ethereal. She sent a Smile towards the ceiling and he could have sworn she was glowing—a faint neon-lavender haze around her body.

She dragged him into a diner. An old man in a brown coat paid for their pancakes with tears in his eyes, saying they reminded him of when he first met his wife years and years ago. 

Seth invited her up to his apartment. She agreed. 

He unlocked the door, all three locks. He pushed it open and the hinges creaked. There, across the room from the door, were his posters. She walked slowly into the apartment. She ran her finger over the kitchen counter, stuck her head into the fridge. She got to the living room and stood in front of the posters. She nodded her head and turned toward him.

“This is your art?” She asked.

“Well, it, um…is art. I didn’t make it though.”

“Show me your art.” He followed her command without thinking. He got to his bedroom door before he turned—“How did you?”—but let it trail off. He had followed her all over the city, he wasn’t going to start asking questions now.

He brought out three paintings. His three favorites, though he wasn’t sure why.

Her eyes went wide, and her hands stretched toward the canvases, reverently brushing the paint. He didn’t tell her she shouldn’t do that. Small flecks of glitter transferred from her hands to the rough ridges of dried pigment, but Seth thought that they completed the work perfectly.

She turned her face toward him. If he thought the Smile was earth shattering, the Wonder that shone on her face now was enough to break galaxies.

“They are beautiful.” She exclaimed, and then, utter Awe in her voice: “What do they mean?”

He kissed her again then. There was nothing else he could have done. He kept on kissing her until he noticed the light changing slightly. The sun was coming up. They had been out almost the whole night.

He broke the kiss and went to his bedroom window. It faced the sunrise, and was close enough to the river to manage a half decent view. It was one of the main reasons he had chosen this apartment. Before his job as a late-night camera operator, he had loved to paint at first light.

He opened the curtains onto a sky that was just starting to turn purple around the edges (almost the same color as Amelia dancing) and then pulled her onto his bed after him and tucked her under his arm. They leaned against the headboard to watch as the sun started to peak over the horizon, her beanie just tickling the underside of his chin, his hand firmly around her waist.

He was asleep in minutes. He couldn’t help it.

When he woke up, he was alone. He couldn’t believe that he had drank so much, he never did that, to have a whole night he couldn’t remember? A night where he apparently pulled out his paintings? It must have been one for the books, because he just couldn’t shake this ache deep, deep in his chest, like a happiness so pure it was more like grief.

He wouldn’t discover it that night, or the one after. But eventually he went to put away his art and found, tucked behind the biggest canvas, a black painting.

The painting was odd, in that it didn’t seem to be much of a painting. It didn’t have color, it wasn’t a study in texture or tone. It was just black. But it wasn’t just an empty canvas either. There was something there. The inky darkness had a feeling to it, like being in a museum and staring at some grandiose modern art on a scale you couldn’t comprehend and thinking both, “Wow, what does this mean?” and also “I could do that.”

He hung it above his bed. It reminded him of Awe and Wonder and Smiles. It made him think that maybe he could actually do that.