Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

-Andy Warhol

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It feels like I'd been sleeping in a pile of mud.

I wake up the next morning around nine and evaluate the condition of my face in the foggy steel of the pan that I'd retrieved.

The arm of my glasses had pressed into the left side of my face, making a crimson indentation the length of my cheekbone. Once I'd drifted off, my head collapsed onto my arms, so the folds of my sleeves were mapped out in craters on my skin. I'd been fortunate enough to evade acne since the eleventh grade, but my pores were screaming bloody murder and had clogged in self-defense. And a thorough shave was in order.

…This is what I get for falling asleep on the kitchen table…

There is a note from Collins slipped under my elbow:

"Mark,

Left for an interview this morning. Benny called and says he wants you to help him move the last of his shit to Allison's today. Call him.

Coll"

"Aw." I groan out loud, a little heartbroken. Helping move 'the last of' Benny's shit is like helping pass an era. I don't want to help Benny move into a new family. And I really don't want to help Benny move into a new family while feeling like I've waded through a swamp all night.

I pound my forehead on the table.

When I regain my posture, Roger and April scurry past the doorway, hand-in-hand.

He is whispering and she is clinging to his every word. Eyes closed, he positions her in the doorway between my room and the bathroom, putting his palms on the wall above her shoulders, boxing her in.

He leans in close and she leans in closer.

They basically breathe at each other for an eternity and I find it both unsettling and heartrendingly romantic.

When I finally get bored of their intimacy and begin feel like a voyeur, I spin my chair around and notice that I've left the camera on.

Again.

Although it is not dead yet, I theorize that it would be highly amusing to toss the thing in the pan with a dash of paprika and boil it into the next century. I am weighing the consequences when Maureen enters.

"Mark- you look sad. What's up? Do you need a blowjob or something?"

----Every now and then it's necessary for me to say something like, "I'm happy to have you Maureen."

To which she will mechanically respond, "I'm happy to have you too, Mark." 'Have' being the operative term.

She has me on a nightly basis. And when she's not having me, she's busying herself with other pursuits. When looked at through a wider scope, she just owns me. I don't appreciate being owned, so I play up our friendship as a thing in itself. I am not owned, nonsense! I'm just horny and friendly...

Because of this, Maureen and I have never made love. Unfortunately for me, this issue is just as tactless to talk about with her as it is bothersome to contemplate with myself. Maureen's kinkiness is a league of its own, and I am drawn to it. But a lot of the time I am almost certain that she sees me as her boy toy and nothing else. It's fun to drag little Mark around to public places and sit on his lap and act boisterous. It's fun because she can get as drunk or animated or revved up as she damn well pleases, and I will do nothing but make sure she arrives home in one piece. It is one of my many personality flaws that we both see, but she takes advantage of. And I tuck my tail between my legs and wait until I get what I deserve. And a lot of the time that's sex, so I stick around. But sex and lovemaking are two different activities…or so I've heard. Our only real basis of comparison is Roger and April, and the only conflicting variable between the two relationships is the amount of heroin Maureen and I consume beforehand. Which for us is none, if I am not mistaken. I try very hard not to be a jealous person. Maureen and I were both raised in privileged households with levelheaded parents, and I have learned to appreciate what I have. Roger and April do not have much- save for a damn meaningful time between the sheets.

I want that.

Are we doing something wrong?

…So, I keep my mouth shut and turn a blind eye to the mutual devotion between Roger and April. It must be a rockstar-groupie thing: He generates magnitude and she soaks it in. Whereas whatever Maureen and I are trying to do is an actress-filmmaker thing: She does all the work and I just watch.

"No, that's okay. But thanks for asking."

I could pin her against the wall and stare at her, but that's just not our thing…

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"How are you Mark?" Allison asks me tiredly as she swings open the portico doors of her Park Avenue apartment.

"I don't want to give Benny up." I tell her. It comes out a little snappy- probably because I've latched onto the guy and because I think Allison is a callous bitch with a stick up her ass.

"I wouldn't want to either." She coos. But that's the money talking.

I hoist a basket of Benny's laundry from the trunk of my cab, and Allison turns on her heel and sashays down the carpeted lobby foyer, letting the set of big, glass, Victorian doors slam before I can get up the stairs.

So much for good intentions.

I shift the basket onto my hip and try to pry the doors open with my fingers. I lose my grip on the basket, and it falls and dumps onto the sidewalk and down the stairs. I throw my hands up and disgustedly kick the basket after the stray garments. The cabbie peeks out at me from behind the newspaper he is reading and snorts. "All right there, guy?"

"…No!" I growl, scooping a t-shirt hastily back into the basket. The cab driver sighs, shoving his paper against the dashboard and rolling himself from the car like it is the most laborious thing in the world. He doesn't get two feet behind the bumper when Benny comes running down the stairs with a hand up.

"No, no don't help him, I got it." He shoves a handful of bills at the indolent driver and waves him off.

Then he puts his hands on his hips and evaluates the waterfall of his clothing down his porch. "What the hell did you do?" He asks, trying his best to sound gruff and impatient. Instead he just doubles over and plucks a pair of jeans from the sidewalk.

"Your wife-"

"Knows not what she does."

"Whatever you say."

He shakes his jeans at me and steers me into the house. He gathers the rest of his clothes over his arm and follows me inside.

In the lobby there's a clunky, ceramic Greco-Roman vase sitting alone on a little wooden table that seems to have no other purpose in this world than to hold clunky, ceramic Greco-Roman vases in the hallways of Park Avenue lobbies. Some wispy, artificially colored cattail-looking things curve from the belly of the vase, and above that, on the gold-and-white wallpapered wall, hangs a gigantic nineteenth century baroque portrait of a woman whose dress is too big to fit through most doors. The whole setup is very 'generic hotel lobby chic' and I bet the Coffins could stay at a Holiday Inn every night for less than they are paying for the privilege of the keys to this lobby. I wrinkle my nose.

"Do you like it here?"

Benny slides the gold-plated elevator screen open for me and says, "I like the view…" Which pretty much suggests that besides the neighborhood, the view is the only other perk.

Unlike our 11th Street apartment, this apartment actually has an elevator. I don't mind the stairs at the loft, seeing as I only have to walk up five flights and not twenty-three. But by the fifteenth story I am growing impatient at the sluggishness of the elevator.

"Don't you have a doorman or a bellhop or whatever the fuck those people are called that operate elevators?"

"Bellhops don't make elevators go faster Mark, they just push the buttons for you."

"That's so stupid. Is that a sanitary thing? Get the button germs on the bellhop's finger rather than your own? Why do people need a bellhop? Can't they push buttons themselves? It's not hard. I've tried it. I mean…wouldn't you go insane having to stand in an elevator alllll day, riding up and down and up…How boring!"

"We do have a bellhop. Somewhere. Maybe he's on break."

At long last we reach Benny's floor. Their entrance door is propped open with a cardboard box, and I walk in sideways and set the empty laundry basket on the floor near a coat rack.

"Shoes, boys." Allison calls from the kitchen, and I frown and ponder how in hell she got up here so fast. I am about to ask her if she used a bellhop when a rather intimidating man rounds the corner and grins hungrily at Benny. He looks like the hybrid of Santa Claus and William Shatner, and if I didn't nearly tumble into the laundry basket as he was lumbering through, I think he would've disregarded me completely and plowed me flat. Confounded, I watch this broad-shouldered monstrosity attack Benny. What should've been a fatherly hug is made into a hostile series of slaps on the back.

"How are you my boy?" The sasquatch roars, echoing through the unfurnished apartment. Benny returns the embrace, but folds his face into the most defiant and comical expression I have ever seen.

"Mister Grey." Is all he says.

Realizing the importance of the sasquatch's presence, I fall to my butt and yank off my shoes.

"This is Mark." Benny introduces, and Mr. Grey twirls around to scrutinize me while my foot is pulled up to my head and I am tugging at the heel of my shoe, shaking my leg like a maniac.

"Hello." I say from beneath my knee.

Mr. Grey seems to see right through me and nods only to acknowledge that Benny had spoken.

"Come on into the kitchen." He signals, and Benny pulls me to my feet and we obey.

The second we enter I desire to throw myself onto the floor in hysterics.

Allison, is baking.

Her hair is tied neatly away from her face with a rose-patterned ribbon, and her waist is accented with a crisp white apron that looks more like a fashion staple than a protective covering. A perfect little smudge of flour is swept across Allison's cheek like blush, and she waves at us with an oven mitt that matches the tile. The oven is glowing next to the only window in the kitchen overlooking Central Park. I feel like I've wandered onto the set of Martha Stewart.

Benny looks a little mortified and spurts a smile that tells me that this doesn't happen often, and it's not fortuitous. Allison switches her hip and peeks into the oven, bending neatly at the waist like a Barbie doll and pressing the tips of her fingers to her lips. "Ooh!" She squeaks. "Look, the cookies are done."

…This is her idea of entertaining houseguests…

Her father looks as if she's just won the Nobel Prize and claps his meaty hands together so enthusiastically I'm pretty sure he triggered an earthquake somewhere. I look at Benny and roll my eyes, but he's too busy delighting in his fiancé's ability to place pre-cut slices of dough on a cookie sheet. I want to puke.

There are three chairs at the kitchen table and four people. I am evenly torn between shoving Mr. Grey into the parlor and claiming a seat, or just continuing to stand awkwardly in the doorway.

Allison beckons and I take a step into the kitchen- immediately jolting backwards and grabbing at the sole of my foot, yelping shrilly "Ow whatthefuck!?" and slamming into the wall. I scan the floor for whatever caused the jab of pain and identify the culprit- a Hershey's Kiss. It felt like a goddamned nail, and I dramatically inspect the bottom of my sock, like someone looking to sue. I expect my foot to be bleeding profusely, but instead there is nothing but a pinprick of melted chocolate. Stepping on the point of a chocolate dollop is a revolting inconvenience- like getting a paper cut or finding a hair in your food- but when in the presence of your best friend's wealthy father-in-law it is the most offensive occurrence known to man. I feel as stupid as Mr. Grey is looking at me- accusing me of demolishing Allison's Nobel Prize and altogether tarnishing what could've been a nice chat over warm cookies and milk.

Benny sits rigidly in his chair and stares at me with an eyebrow up, trying not breathe and internally contemplating why on earth I'd choose to be a klutz at a time like this. Then, because he is Benny, bursts out laughing and adds, "Yep. This is Mark…"

I lower my foot to the floor and wave.

"Mm. Mark." Mr. Grey grunts.

I wonder… if I lit the end of a stick on fire how amazed he would be…? "Did you bring it?"

"…It, sir?"

"The film…did you bring the film you're working on."

"Oh! Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, I didn't. I didn't know we'd be…needing it."

"Perfectly understandable." Mr. Grey heaves, indicating that he doesn't understand why I didn't bring the film, or the concept of film in itself.

Benny is watching Allison unwrap and press Hershey's Kisses into the tops of the warm batter and quietly adds, "…for CyberArts…" and coughs.

"Oh! Yes, yes CyberArts!" Mr. Grey realizes hesitantly. "The film for CyberArts."

"…For what." I stutter, my voice three keys lower than normal. My tongue slides to the front of my mouth and I narrow my eyes at Benny- who suddenly looks ten times more beautiful than he has ever looked to me before.

Although both of them continue to speak with each other I am unable to hear either of them, and have accordingly been reduced to silence. I am very dizzy and try to tell Benny "I think…I just shit myself." But my esophagus has gone into shock and soiling myself is hardly gratifying. "For what?" I manage again, and every drop of adrenaline I am capable of producing slams into the wall of my stomach. "Say it again Benny- for what?"

Benny simply nods.

"You're shitting me." The word 'shit' still finds its way into my vocabulary, but I don't care about impressing anyone anymore.

"I'm not shitting you." Benny promises. He doesn't seem to care about profanity in this house anymore either, but he should, he really should, because the man who is paying for- my brain resists to comprehension- paying for ….CyberArts…….. is seated three feet away. "Benny, don't say 'shit'." I scold him. And then out of nowhere I wheeze, "CyberArts?!"

"Yes!"

"You're not kidding?"

"No Mark. Ask this guy!"

I whirl around. "-CyberArts?"

Mr. Grey cracks his knuckles. "Well, you see Matt-"

"Mark." Benny corrects.

"…Mark, it was a brilliant deal on Benjamin's part… He worked head-to-head with our creditors and got a premium for an…arts…grant." Mr. Grey still does not seem to grasp the foundation of this project. "And I'll be covering the rest. But I don't expect it to be anything but successful, and I'm darn proud to have Benny join the family." He nods at his son-in-law. Benny looks on top of the world.

"You're not kidding?" Now I think I am just annoying Mr. Grey, but he puts it aside as reverence.

"No. We expect to find a location around Christmas and get it up and running."

"Up and running." I repeat, and melt internally. "Wow."

Allison looks indifferent and chomps on a cookie. I beam at her and then look at my lap and frown and ask, "And I get to-"

"…Use the studio."

"Use the studio? Use the studio oh my God!"

"And maybe," Benny chuckles, "Just maybe, we can scrounge up enough to get a tape recorder and a microphone for The Hungarians."

I want to faint.

"…Hungarians?" Mr. Grey squints. "Like Europe?"

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Benny offers to take everyone out to celebrate, but to our dismay no one is home. We can only guess where Roger and April are, Collins is still out, and Maureen is nowhere to be found.

"Whooo party!" I yell, and leap onto the coffee table. "Benny is fucking amazing! I am in your debt Benjamin Coffin. You want something, I will bring it with fucking bells on."

"Bells, really? …How 'bout you buy me drink somewhere?"

"Sounds great! Except- I don't have any money."

Benny laughs and wanders into his empty bedroom. "Oh… I'm gonna miss you guys…"

"You'll live a few blocks away, don't make it sound so hopeless!"

"Yeah, but I love this place."

I scan the living room from the coffee table and then euphorically fall back onto the couch.

"Me too Benny, me too. I don't think I could ever leave."

Benny nods solemnly and sighs. "…Well! Can I buy you a drink then?"

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Benny drives us to the Life and salvages two barstools, scooting them inconspicuously to an empty corner near the bar. He hails the bartender and keeps his promise.

"You know," He says after a few minutes. "I tried telling Roger about all this."

Somehow this feels like a stab at the artistic connection between Benny and I. "…You told him before me?"

"I said I tried to tell him. I wanted to test the reaction." He grins.

"Hm. What happened?"

"Well, I'm not sure he understood the magnitude. Or the possibility, for that matter."

"Oh get real. This is Roger we're talking about. He was probably just stupefied. You're basically shoving a recording studio at him and saying, 'Here, knock yourself out."

Benny laughs. "Yes, but… this is, uh, Roger we're talking about…"

I pick up on the entendre. "Whether he was high or not he would've been damn overjoyed that you're…doing this for us."

"Well, there's the problem. He doesn't trust me."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but he was never all that fond of you."

"Well I know that…" Benny brushes it off. "He doesn't even have to tolerate me if he agrees to this. It's not a matter of his devotion. It's a matter of trust."

"You're saying he doesn't believe you?"

"Oh he believes me; he believes I'm going to use CyberArts as some kind of economic machine or some shit…Can you believe that? It's too lucrative, I guess. Too…'commercial', by Roger's standards. He thinks I'm going to exploit you guys by promoting it."

"Well Benny…I can't say that didn't cross my mind."

"I'll use its powers for good, Mark, I promise!"

"No, not that. CyberArts. It says it right in the name. Technology and art aren't usually…associated… I mean, they are…but not-"

"Notice how this is coming from someone who'd rather film with a camera obscura instead of the Kodak his mother bought him. Do you even know how to work your TV?"

"Excuse me, but I am the most tech-savvy person I know. It's called stage-managing."

"Oh please. You couldn't work a computer to save your life."

"I wouldn't trust a computer to save my life. Besides, who are you trying to target with this place- Me and Roger or Silicon Valley?"

"Well…tourists, actually."

"Oh Benny you son of a bitch. That's so avant-garde…"

"Oh all right then Mister Contemporary, what would you do differently?"

"I wouldn't! I was discontented enough with the art world before you decided to siphon it into a tourist trap!"

"I'm not trapping anyone! I expect this to be the most liberating thing to happen to New York City since Warhol and the Factory!"

"So you're trying to create the new underground? Good luck, buddy. It seems to me you're plopping a big-ass cyber studio somewhere in the city and waiting for the minions to flock."

"Minions?"

"Oh, sorry- In Westport language that would translate to sell-outs. Roger might actually be right! This is turning into a display of propaganda, not a gallery."

"I'm just trying to do my part."

"For the tourists?"

"…And myself."

"Well now we're getting somewhere! You know, I've had my Schnapps' at the ready here- waiting on pins and needles for something to drink to. And your paycheck really isn't worthy of this alcohol. Come on. Just titillate me, would ya?"

"Have you forgotten, my dear filmmaker, that I have specifically designated- in the grant- that you are to be allowed full use of the studio?"

I tilt my glass a little. "…And?"

"As well as Maureen and Roger."

I bring the glass to my lips. "And?"

"Whaddaya mean 'and'?! This is my idea, greedy! You are guaranteed an artisan's position. What more do you want from me? You don't have to sit through an interview, you don't have to go through the tedious application process, no portfolios to show, no recommendations to suck up for, no hidden fees. Just Mr. Grey's cold, hard cash and your camera making sweet, sweet love."

I swiftly set my glass back on its coaster. "That is too easy. I am having major trust issues right about now. I think the shock from this morning wore off and the reality is setting in. This sucks."

"This doesn't suck, Mark, hell-ooo! Our dreams are coming true!" He snatches my drink from the bar and shoves it at my mouth. "Drink your beer, boy! I'm paying for it! Celebrate! Be merry! Jesus…"

I skeptically take a sip with my pinky up.

"Really Mark. This is one of those chance-of-a-lifetime things that usually only happens to people in the movies. Except…you're making the movies. So…maybe that's all the more reason for rejoicing."

I stare at him over the rim of my glass and snort.

"Half the stuff you say just goes right over my head."

"I'm getting married in a month?"

"Eehh..."

"Oh come on, what can I possibly do to make you proud of me?"

"You could keep living with us."

"Honestly? No thanks."

"Aw, Benny…"

"Sorry dude. There's just no future in starving for art."

"Well, then, could you at least keep pitching in for the rent?"

Benny reaches over to pat me on the shoulder. "Mark, if we make this happen I will pay your rent for the rest of your life."

I laugh and take a huge gulp. "Oh, really now? Can I get that in writing?"

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The kitchen table looks pretty darn comfortable by the time I get home and so I take off my glasses and roll my forehead on the cool wood of the tabletop.

"Maur?!" I call, but no one seems to have arrived yet. "Maureen if you're home you should come out here so I can tell you something amazing…"

Suddenly the floor is vibrating and I look up to see Roger at my side, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"Mark-" He bleats.

I strain to focus on him and mutter, "You're not Maureen." and put my arms over my head and ignore him.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see him sproinging up and down. He grabs the back of my chair and persists.

"Mark." He whines quietly. "Mark, you have to help me."

He lets go of the chair and bounces to the refrigerator and pushes off of it and boings back. Then he twirls in a tight little circle and whimpers.

"Can you go withdraw somewhere else? Thanks."

"Mark-" He makes a breathy gag. "It'znot funny."

"Oh, silly Roger! I know it's not! Notice how I'm not laughing."

I pull my throbbing head from the table and waltz into my room, slamming the door so powerfully behind me that I laugh in spite of myself.