My name is Thomas. I work in a print shop at the edge of town, next to the bridal store. I make copies and fix the machine if it gets jammed. The customers are nice for the most part, though occasionally I run into someone who's grumpy or late, and it puts me in a sour mood. Work's not very eventful, but I do feel quite safe there. I don't really have friends there except for Scott and Julie, but I like it alright anyway. Still, I don't want to be stuck in Kinko's forever, working long hours for a little more than minimum wage, trying to turn out to be something important, something I'm not and will never be. That's why I don't like it; it's boring and I'll never get anywhere from it except maybe to an apartment or something when I have enough cash saved up. I still live at home with my parents, but that's okay, too. They give me food and I only have to pay my share of the rent every other month. I think they're a little worried that I haven't asked to leave yet. I'm content at home, though, and I don't see the point of leaving to have to stress about payments and where my next meal will come from. A little dramatic, I know, but I've never lived alone, so I'm not sure exactly how it works.
What I really want is to be an artist. I love to draw. I have this little room, just for me. It was the playroom when I was younger, but now I've turned it into a sort of studio. There's a big window that looks out onto the mountain and I set up an easel near it, so I can see the sunlight. I sketch the mountain sometimes, or the street or the people, but mostly I look out the window and imagine. I imagine a gas station, broken glass and old soda cans littering the ground. I've done sketches of food, the classic fruit and wine, or bread and butter. I've tried to recreate some of the famous masterpieces like Starry Night or the Last Supper, but none of them turn out how I want them to. I think I like the originals too much anyway. My mom has some of my work hung up on the walls in the hallway upstairs, and I used to be okay with it, but I'm not anymore. They all feel like lies, because some of them are old and I can do better. Okay. It only bothers me because I know I can do better. It doesn't matter how old they are. The artwork on the canvases in the hall is censored for the sake of everyone else. It masks what I really can do, what I know I'm really capable of. The art is a lie.
The most beautiful drawings are nudes. A woman with round breasts that remind me of apples and wide, healthy hips and legs, like a tree trunk. Hair like wild leaves and branches that could never be tame. A man in his early twenties, standing in his kitchen clad only in skin, slightly visible muscles and blemishes. The nudes are my favorites because they hold so much maturity, yet so much innocence. They're so raw, so… intricate. Every muscle, every facial feature. Tension, emotion, feeling. All in a painting that began only as a figment of my imagination. I've drawn children, even, when I become jealous of their naivety, how they walk around carrying such innocence. They are the hardest to draw, because it's difficult to remember what it was like to be so thin and bony from all that running around. I can't imagine being so free. I wonder when it all changed. When I changed. I don't remember deciding that I was going to have a lot of problems and get worried and have everything happen all at once. Then again, maybe it didn't happen quite the way I imagine it did. So I light a cigarette and hope I can forget.
I can't tell you how many sketchbooks I've filled with first attempts, second attempts, third attempts, scratched out and erased and destroyed. But I also have books full of drawings I'm proud of, things I'm exploding to show my family, show the world, but I know that I can't. And so I continue to sit alone in my makeshift art room and draw these things late into the night, working only by the light of a lamp and a smoke, breathing in sweet nicotine and praying to a god that may or may not exist for a few more minutes awake, another burst of inspiration, please god don't let me fall asleep here with this lighted cigarette and burn all the art that I've worked so hard on. If there is a god, he must love art museums. He wouldn't let my work be destroyed. You know, if I was god, I think I'd spend all my time in art studios and museums and shows. I'd set up camp in the Louvre and then go over to the Montmartre. Then I'd fly to Italy (Does god fly? Or is he just there? It's all a mystery to me) to see all the sculptures there, and spend forever looking at myself with Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Even the architecture counts. I'd go to Thailand or India or China, take my time wandering outside in the midst of all the cherry blossom trees, admiring creation.
Creation. Dreams. Imagination. Does any of that mean anything? Politicians don't care. I feel like the only people who might are the ones spending their lives in the art department at private schools, pretending (or not) to want the children there to do their best and believe that they actually can achieve it. Teachers amaze me. Their patience, the fact that they have to teach the same lesson, over and over, to every class they teach every year in the same classroom with the same books. I guess the only thing that changes are the people, and the teacher would have to get older, making more and more of a gap between them and their students. Would a chemistry teacher care about your dreams? I know mine would, but I went to a very different school than most. It was a school where people liked each other and grades were important but not the most important. People care about you, what you're doing, how you're feeling. They don't just want to know so they can be in on the latest gossip. It was a beautiful school. I was far from ready to graduate. But still, graduate I did, and while everyone went to Ivy League schools, I stayed here. I only go to school part time now because I'm working so much, but I like it that way. At least I have some sort of a transition period. Oh, who am I kidding? This isn't a transition. Work and art are the only things keeping me from completely falling apart.
I guess I should tell you now, before I go any further: I'm a self-harmer. I use my art knives sometimes, other times I'll use a razor or sharp scissors or a knife straight out of the kitchen drawer, and sometimes I burn my side with a smoke. I also dabble in drugs a little more than occasionally. I rarely drink, but I do, and as I mentioned before, I smoke a lot. Things have been tough, and I wasn't the smartest teenager out there. I made bad choices just like anybody else. I know I shouldn't defend what I did, but I was curious. It's become part of who I am. If I could go back in time to change it, I'd leave everything the way it was. It all had this sort of glorification to it; I wanted to feel like Lewis Carrol must have when he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, wanted to feel like I could fly without my feet leaving the ground. I love that feeling, so I don't mind these things that I do. I know none of it's healthy, but I don't think I'd be me without it. My parents, I think, are aware that I do things like this, but they've never talked to me about it, so I can't be sure. They're not exactly the type to say something. And to be honest, I think my dad was involved with drugs even though he's never mentioned it, but I think he'd be uncomfortable saying anything. He doesn't like feeling like a hypocrite.
Things are darker in my brain now, remembering the trip to drop Louise at the emergency room. And I mean that literally – we brought her because we loved her, but we were all high as fuck, so first of all we couldn't think straight, but second, none of us were willing to get in trouble to save our friend. So we drove up to the ER and left her on the sidewalk before jumping back into the van and speeding away. I don't even remember who I was with, just that Louise died that night from ODing and I should have done something to stop her. I know I was in the clouds myself, but what the hell. I still feel guilty. I miss Louise. She died so young… I drew her once, just to release some of the pain. I'd seen her naked before, and the image was burned into my mind. She was beautiful. I won't describe her because she's gone now and it doesn't matter, but you would have thought she was beautiful, too.
Enough, I think. I've thought myself into that place again. I sigh and shake my sleeve down to cover the marks on my arm, even though I'm here alone. Some of the cuts are fresh enough that I can still feel them burning, can understand my pulse and blood and body with every beat of my heart. All of a sudden, I want to masturbate, but I tell myself to shake it off and I get in bed instead, stubbing out my cigarette on my bedside table and stripping off my boxers. Did I mention that I draw best when I'm naked or have very little clothing on? Now bare, I pull the covers up over my shoulder and turn on my side, leaning up to turn off the light. Good night, I think, even though I'm in the room alone and no one can read my mind anyway (I hope). God, my quirks are kind of killing me today. I need to go to sleep. I don't bother to say a prayer before closing my eyes and waiting for a new dream, new inspiration, to overtake me.
Goddammit.
Never in my life have I felt so worthless. Hopeless. Alone. My mom found my notebook full of nudes this morning while I was at school. She told me to get out of the house, and she wouldn't let me take anything with me. I'm on my own now. I can't even comprehend what happened, let alone start to figure out what I'm going to do next. I'm going to the subway, that's all I know. I'm going to get into one of the cars and sit down in a corner where I can be alone and think and think and think until I figure out what to do. Honestly, I plan to ride until it gets to the end of the line, and then I'll get off and find another subway and ride that until maybe I've at least started to make some progress. Everything seems so impossible right now. People around me are moving so slowly, like I'm in a dream. All of a sudden, things start moving faster, but then they slow down. I walk down the street, not bothering to find crosswalks, just going, not caring at all if I get hit or run over. I wouldn't mind it, actually. I wouldn't mind that at all.
The art was my pride and joy. I worked so hard on it, spent so much time on it, and now I'm not allowed to go home because of it. It was the only thing that made me feel sane, made me feel at all normal. I mean, I know it isn't normal at all, but I felt better about myself because I felt like I'd finally done something good. Everyone else does community service or gets good grades or plays on the football team or something, but I smoke and do drugs and drink a little bit, and everyone thinks I'm just some burnout kid that doesn't care about anything. But that's not true. I care about art.
I'm snapped out of my thoughts by a honking car that stops two or three feet away from me. I stepped off the curb into traffic without thinking. I used to be frightened of death, but not anymore, not after a day like today. All my dreams have been destroyed. I knew I couldn't hide my passion forever, especially when it was lying around on paper where anyone could find it, and find it they did. What if they throw it away, and it lies, decomposing, in a pile of rotting garbage for the rest of eternity? What if it's burned to ashes, cremated, and I never see it again? That art was the only thing that gave me worth, it was my only real accomplishment. High school had been a waste, and now I'm stuck working a dollar over minimum wage and going to school part-time in order to do what? Nothing.
Nothing matters at all, don't you see? Once you lose the thing that's important, everything is worthless. No family, no passion, no friends… I need to shatter something.
No.
I just need pain. Physical, to shut down the source of the emotional. It's too hard to stay here. I can't believe she was so upset. I can't believe she cared that much. She knows I love art, why can't I experiment? God, I was even having a pretty good day too, wasn't I? Dverything's ruined now. I have nowhere to go, nothing important left. No chance at anything positive in life.
You know what? I'm ending this now. Right fucking now. And there's one quick, easy way to do it. I hurry down the subway steps. The next train will be here any second.
It's freezing in the station, even with all the people and the noise. People in gloves and trench coats and scarves are coming home from work. Scott and Julie are there, but I barely notice. I have my mind set on one thing and one thing only – the tracks.
And then I hear it; the next train is on its way, and it's coming around the corner. Fast. I have mere seconds, but I can make it work.
Every step is desperate, a scream for anything but the reality I'm living. My pace quickens as the train comes. The train comes into view and I hear my name. Scott has noticed me, but I'm too wound up to comprehend what's going on. Julie screams as she figures out what I'm about to do, but the problem is, I've already done it. Taken a deep breath and jumped. Forward but not too far, just enough so that I land across the tracks with a jolt of electricity and the wheels shred my body to pieces just as my unknowing mother has done to my art.