Revlon ColorSilk Black #10

a novelette by Anderson Council

Obi-Wan rides up to the farm homestead, dismounts, and takes the infant Skywalker out of a papoose on his back. He walks over to Aunt Beru who takes the baby from him.

Obi-Wan leaves, while Luke and his new parents watch the sunsets of the twin suns of Tatooine.

The screen fades to black and the credits begin rolling.

“I have to piss like a racehorse!”

Jack sprung up and headed towards the exit. He stopped mid-stride, doubled back, and said “I love you”. He leaned over and kissed Lexi on the highest part of her neck, just below her right ear.

Lexi looked up and smiled. The reflections of the credits quickly rolled up her irises. Her long, bright red hair was slowly combed by the very same photons that shuttered her eyes.

Jack turned and made a dash for the restroom. Lexi uncapped her pen.

She sat and waited as the credits rolled. Finally, she saw what she needed.

She wrote in her journal:

August 12th, 2005

Star Wars III: Regenge of the SithBest Boy: Maxime Imbeau

Lexi capped her pen and gave the page a wry smirk.

As a young girl, Lexi’s parents would take her to the movies as a special treat. Lexi adored films, and would insist on sitting until the credits were over and the projector turned off. She would read every line in the credits. She giggled every time the “Best Boy” credit ran by. She thought it was such a silly thing to name a

member of the crew. When she began keeping a journal when she was nine years old, she included the films she would see, always noting the Best Boy in her entry. Lexi has no idea what exactly it is that a Best Boy does.

Finally, the projector shut off. Lexi got up and made her way to the restrooms to meet Jack.

It was noisy when she left the theater. People were running and screaming. There was a group crowded around the men’s room.

Lexi looked around for Jack. She didn’t see him. She started to franticly call his name, louder each time. She was in a panic.

She charged towards the men’s room, barreling through the small crowd. A theater employee stood in front of the door. He crumpled against the wall as Lexi threw the door open.

She entered the men’s room and saw Jack flat on his back, a pool of blood spreading from underneath him across the bathroom floor. The sink was running.

A single drop of soap fell from the dispenser above the sink. Half of the drop landed on the tile, and five perfect pink eyelashes curled up and out from the epicenter. The other half hit the grout with a silent splat.

A rush of current surged through ten million neurons. Everything went black.

* * *

Lexi opened her eyes. She was standing in the bathroom. She ran to Jack and tried to bring him back, beating on his chest, attempting mouth-to mouth. After a few tries, she gasped and spit out a quarter cup of blood.

Lexi turned to the door to try to get help, but there was no door. It was gone. She beat on the walls and screamed for help. There was no reply. She frantically searched every inch of the bathroom for a way out. There was none.

Lexi sat and cried for dozens of hours. She eventually looked at her watch. The time was 8:42 PM, the date, August 15th.

For the next three days, Lexi talked to Jack. She told him everything she ever felt for him. At first, it was all the things she loved about him. As time went on, she divulged all the things that bothered her about Jack. Sometimes she would hit him. Blood would sputter up through the knife wound in his chest.

After a week Lexi wasn’t talking anymore, neither to Jack nor to herself. Instead, a dialogue began in her head. At first it was akin to having a conversation with

yourself. After another day that conversation had deteriorated to just simple thoughts, memories, and emotions.

After another three days, anything resembling a thought or memory was gone. Only emotions remained, running wild through her head. As the days went on, the emotions ceased to elicit the typical response they once had. They remained in form, but did not alter her mood as emotions are meant to do.

Lexi began to play with the pool of blood that surrounded Jack. She would move the blood around, pushing it in and out. There was an empty soda cup on the shelf above the sink. She washed it out and skimmed it along the floor to get some blood in the cup. She dipped her fingers in the blood and covered her face and arms with crimson markings that made no sense whatsoever. She took a half-eaten box of popcorn out of the garbage can. She pumped Jack’s chest so that more blood would spill out onto the floor. She would line up the pieces of popcorn at the edge of the pool and gently pushed them so that they would glide across the blood.

Lexi took off all of her clothes. She would press one hand on Jack’s chest, the other hand made a cup to catch the blood that came up out of the knife wound. She covered her hair, her face, her body, every inch of it, with Jack’s blood. She then took her clothing and put it next to Jack. She rolled him over so that he was face down on the pile of clothes. She pumped his back repeatedly as if she was giving CPR on the wrong side. Jack’s blood saturated her clothing. Once the clothes were completely soaked, Lexi rolled Jack over and got dressed, now completely caked in blood. As it dried, her clothes would creak and crackle when she moved. Sometimes she would close her eyes – when she would open them, her eyelashes would stick together. She did this over and over for hours on end until most of her eyelashes had plucked themselves free.

After 12 days, Lexi did not move much at all. The last time she moved was when she went into the handicapped stall, and curled up in a ball in the corner, just under the bottom of the stall. She remained there for another six days.

Lexi stared at the point of the room where the floor met the two walls. There was no activity whatsoever. There was no thought. The only thing that existed was the corner on the floor and the periodic drip of the faucet. Her mind no longer existed beyond rudimentary sensation and perception – the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the drip of the faucet, and her hairless eyelids clapping every six or seven seconds.

After a few more days, a flake of dried blood fell from her cheek onto the floor.

* * *

Lexi’s eyelids quickly opened. Two pupils moved in unison, violently drawing back from two dark saucers into two pinpoint black specks.

“Lexi? Oh my God, Lexi are you ok?”

Lexi turned and looked at the man. She did not recognize him. He was holding her hand. She snapped her arm back against her body.

“Who are you?”

“Lexi, it’s me…it’s Dad. Lexi are you ok?”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital. Lexi, you’ve been in a coma for the past three weeks. Lexi please tell me that you’re ok!”

Lexi knew one thing – she wanted this man to get away from her. She had no memory of him at all but there was something about him that elicited a singular sensation: pain.

She screamed at him to leave. A nurse came in and pulled Lexi’s father off to the side. She had a conversation with him and ultimately asked him to leave. She explained to him that strange things can happen when a patient wakes up from a coma, and that sometimes some distance is necessary for proper recovery. He was not happy about leaving his daughter but was certainly happy that Lexi was awake and at least somewhat coherent. The nurse made assurances that she would call him at home once Lexi had adjusted and was ready for visitors.

The nurse left the room with Lexi’s father. She told Lexi that she would come back later with some food.

After Lexi had calmed down, she got up out of bed. She was weak, but able to walk. She disconnected her IV and went over to a mirror.

When Lexi saw her face, a shot of pain ripped through her core as she stumbled away from the mirror and fell onto the bed. She looked around the room. There were flower arrangements and balloons wishing well to Lexi. Looking at all of the cards and balloons with her name on them shot pings of pain through her. She destroyed anything with her name on it. She looked out the window. She recognized nothing, and felt as much.

The nurse returned with a plate of food. Fifteen minutes later, the neurologist visited Lexi.

After going through some tests, the Doctor quickly realized what was going on. Lexi had no memory of her life. She was able to complete procedural tasks that required muscle memory, but she could not identify people or places – though some things that the Doctor asked about that had some relevance to Lexi’s life yielded a violent

reaction from her. Satisfied that Lexi was of no danger to herself, he left her for the evening and left to make plans to discuss her psychiatric rehabilitation program with her family.

Lexi was making other plans. At 3:30 that morning, Lexi quietly left her room and walked towards the elevators. She saw the front desk which was staffed by middle aged woman who appeared to be doing a crossword puzzle.

Lexi went back to her room. Her parents had left her a partial wardrobe in the closet of her hospital room. All of the clothing disgusted Lexi, but she picked a pair of pants, sneakers, and a dark long sleeved t-shirt that she turned inside out and put on.

Lexi creeped out of her room and hid in the Janitor’s closet in between the men’s and women’s room. She waited there for almost an hour. The stench from the mop and bucket was vile, but she didn’t really mind.

Finally, she heard the woman walk down the hallway towards the bathrooms. Once she went in to the ladies room, Lexi quietly slipped out of the janitor’s closet. She went to the front desk and opened the purse on the desk, took out $80 from a bulging change purse, put it back, and buttoned the purse. She walked to the elevators, and pushed the down button. The doors opened. She walked in and pushed “L”.

The doors opened. Lexi walked out of the elevator, past the sleeping security guard, out the front door. She walked quickly and noticed the sign at the entrance, Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Lexi was operating mostly on instinct. She knew that she had to get away from here. Wherever it was, this place called New Haven, she meant to leave it - permanently. She walked, seemingly without knowing where she was going and ended up at the Yale Library. She entered and walked about until she found the computer lab. She found a station that was logged in. There was a knapsack in the pod. She quickly went onto Google Maps to get directions to the nearest train station. She went into the bag and took out a pen and tore off a page from one of the books from inside the bag. She quickly scribbled down the directions, closed the web browser and left. She arrived at Union Station fifteen minutes later.

Lexi went to a ticket machine, took out one of her four $20 bills, and bought a one-way fare for a 6:11 train to Grand Central Station.

Lexi was gone.

* * *

Zana stood in front of her bathroom mirror, naked save for a towel draped around her neck. She picked up the box that was sitting on the sink and ripped the package open. A tear ran across the front of the package as she ripped off the top of the box. She threw the top of the package into the garbage. The top of the box no longer said “Revlon” but now simply “10”. Below the number was the word “black” in three different languages.

Zana took out the plastic gloves from the box, put them on, and mixed the ingredients into the applicator bottle. She shook it up and down for 45 seconds. Zana tilted back her head, and began to squeeze the dye across the front of her hairline from left to right. She put down the bottle and picked up a comb, dragging the dye from the front of her hair down through the middle of her head several times. Another line of dye was drawn from the top of one ear to the other, and was combed down to the top of her neck where her hairline abruptly ended.

Zana’s hair was short – very short – but she still used the recommended procedure intended for a shoulder length head of hair. She had not seen so much as a hint of red hair in the last two and a half years, and she intended to keep it that way.

She put a dab of dye on her gloved fingertip and pressed it across each of her eyebrows, mashing it in by quickly running her finger back and forth.

Zana left the bathroom and sat at the solitary chair that she had at her kitchen table. After she finished smoking six cigarettes, she returned to the bathroom and got in the shower. She rinsed the dye out, shaved her legs underarms and vagina, and got out of the shower.

She opened up a contact lens case. There waded two dark lenses in a clear saline solution. She quickly glanced at her face in the mirror – two bright blue eyes shot daggers back at her. She scowled at herself. She dabbed the lenses into her eyes and blinked. As the excess saline ran out of the corners of her eyes, she saw two jet black eyes. There was no sign of a pupil. There was the white of her eyes, and then immediately two circles of complete darkness. The right corner of her mouth turned upwards ever so slightly.

Of course, the main reason why Zana hid her eyes and hair was to block the pain that that would shoot through her when she saw them. However, her appearance had another effect – it made her look frightening to most people. Very few strangers would dare even approach her with conversation. The eye is drawn to beauty, which Zana certainly had an abundance of in her face. However, the short black hair sitting atop a pale white face punctuated by two huge black holes was shocking. Zana looked possessed, which was ironically the exact opposite of what she was.

Things had greatly improved since Zana first came to Bedford-Stuyvesant. At first, she struggled to survive. She lived on the streets for almost two months, panhandling and eating out of garbage cans.

Zana eventually found a squat inhabited by a half a dozen heroin addicts. It had a working bathtub and toilet. It was relatively safe. She would clean the place a couple of times a week, and her squatmates would occasionally steal from her. She didn’t mind, she considered it as sporadic rent. As long as they stayed concentrated on scoring junk, they didn’t concentrate on her. It worked.

Zana had moved past panhandling to being hired as a barback, and was quickly promoted to bartender, at a bar called 10 AWG Steel. Steve, the owner of 10 AWG Steel, also owned the tattoo/piercing parlor connected to it that bore the same name. It was the only bar in New York City where you could get wasted and get a tattoo without even going outside – or opening a door for that matter. There was a corridor that connected the two, and it was quite common for customers to medicate themselves before they got inked.

Steve hired Zana because of the way that she looked. While she didn’t exactly fit in with the typically rough crowd at 10 AWG, the clientele seemed to like her. She was not afraid of them – and for that they respected her. She was very cold for sure, but not completely unfriendly. Zana did her job well, and she was interesting to look at. She showed up for her shifts on time – Steve was happy.

Steve also noticed that he picked up a few new customers since Zana started working for him, mostly street art nerds and skaters. This was not a problem in and of itself, but occasionally an art geek would get a bit too uppity and be asked to leave. They were asked once – after that the door was opened with their head. The parking spot outside 10 AWG Steel was famously vacant. There was no hydrant – locals found that their passenger side door would occasionally be dented with the skull of someone very stupid. The same fate was dealt to anyone who dared get frisky with Zana.

This is not to say that Zana never sat with men. She was in her mid 20’s and she certainly had healthy urges. She satisfied them in a very mechanical fashion. When the mood stuck her, she would simply ask one of the regulars to help her close up the bar. After the bar was closed and her chores were done, she would have him take off his pants and lie face up on the floor. Zana would mount and fuck until she had an orgasm. When she was done – it was done. There was no emotion, no affection, no thank you. She said the same thing to her partner every time after it was over: “Mop the floor”.

Sex was a way for Zana to remove an urge, nothing more. Sometimes there would be a month where this would happen twice – and then again after six months or more. The regulars knew what was going on, and they were all content to be patient and participate in the lottery. Customer loyalty at 10 AWG was…strong.

Zana never had any interest in tattoos or piercings, but was occasionally drawn to the artwork itself. One day she was gazing at a beautiful tattoo that Jimmy, one of

the regulars, had on his forearm. It was a classic – a heart with a dagger through the center, underneath it, “MOM”. Jimmy said to Zana, “my God, that’s beautiful…”. Zana replied “I know”.

“No Zana, THAT is beautiful.”

Zana looked down and was shocked to see that she had sketched a facsimile of Jimmy’s tattoo on a cocktail napkin. The only difference was that it had more depth, more life. It was simply better. Zana threw the napkin away.

The next day, Jimmy went to the tattoo parlor and told Steve what he saw. Steve was skeptical, but intrigued. He decided to approach Zana and see if there was really anything to this.

Zana was not interested. She noticed that there was a ping of pain when she looked at what she drew. She was not interested in replicating the sensation. Steve explained to her that the money for a good tattoo artist was considerably better than the wage paid to a good bartender – and that the unique layout of 10 AWG would make it very easy for her to do both. Zana was not overly enthused, but living at the squat was wearing thin. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. Jimmy eagerly volunteered the inside of his right bicep as a canvas.

Steve showed Zana how to operate the equipment and let her practice on an orange. She picked it up very quickly, and she was ready for Steve.

Jimmy sat in the chair and started to tell Zana what he wanted. She quickly interrupted him.

“No. I draw what I want”.

This concerned Jimmy at first, but he remembered her ability based on what he saw her do on the napkin. Steve said, “relax Jimmy, have faith”. Jimmy responded, “I don’t need faith, I have conviction”.

Jimmy was ready. Zana wasn’t. She didn’t know what to do. She put down the needle and sat and thought…she thought of Jimmy for a while.

Zana didn’t have any actual friends per se but she knew that Jimmy was ok. He worked hard, and lived hard. It seemed to her that he was a guy who tried to do the right thing, though sometimes he failed. She decided that Jimmy was a good man – albeit with some major flaws.

With that, Zana closed her eyes and dug the needle into Jimmy’s arm. Her eyes stayed closed as she drew.

After about an hour Zana put the needle down and shut off the machine. She turned away, and opened her eyes. She did not look at the tattoo. She sat in a chair at the other side of the room and lit a cigarette.

Steve and Jimmy were still looking at the tattoo when Zana put out her cigarette. Jimmy spoke first.

“Thank you.”

Zana looked away.

The tattoo was nothing like anything either Steve or Jimmy had ever seen before. They both knew what it was – it was Jimmy. It did not take a human form, nor did it have any lettering or discernable shapes. But it was unmistakable, it was Jimmy. It was rough, it had a certain purity that was tainted, it was dark, it was sad. It had hope – not much, but it was there.

Word of Zana’s talent spread like wildfire. Within a day, there were two dozen people on the waiting list. Zana moved out of the squat a week later with an advance from Steve. The waiting list reached triple digits in ten days.

Her process was totally unique, both in the way that she created the art, as well as the way one had to pay for it.

The pricing structure was simple enough: Zana’s time was billed at $500/hour (she kept $375, Steve kept $125). Cash only.

The process began with the customer talking with Zana. She would ask questions. No two customers were asked the same things.

“Do you like olives?...Air or water?...Can you juggle?...Even or odd?”

Sometimes this would go on for 20 minutes, sometimes 90 or 100. It took as long as it took. This was, of course, all on the clock.

When Zana was satisfied that she had derived the customer’s character, she began to draw. This too was highly variable, it took between 45 minutes to four hours. Tick tock.

Regulars at 10 AWG got a discount of sorts. Zana did not have to go through the interview process with most of them, which lowered the price of their tattoos significantly.

There was one customer whose tattoo led to a policy change at 10 AWG. After the interview, Zana absolutely, and properly, recognized this customer for what she

was: a vapid cunt. The tattoo reflected that fact exquisitely. It was exactly as foul and putrid as her mind, her values, her life. Not a happy customer to say the least.

From there, 10 AWG Steel had a policy of releasing the customer before the artwork was made if it Zana thought poorly of the person. Of course, the time for the interview was paid for whether or not it resulted in an actual tattoo being made. While this happened from time to time, it was far less often than Steve had anticipated.

Zana worked whatever hours she liked. When she wanted to work, she would come into the shop. When she would arrive, Steve would call the next person on the waiting list. No answer? Next. “Hi, Zana is ready for you. Can you be here in 20 minutes? No? Sorry.” Next. Sometimes Zana would do one or two tattoos. Sometimes she would work for 20 or 30 hours straight. She never saw a single tattoo that she created.

Zana still worked her shifts at the bar. Alcohol sales at 10 AWG also flourished thanks to her newfound fame. If the mood struck her, she would tattoo a bar customer in the parlor pro bono after her shift was over. It was another lottery of sorts, though the odds of winning this one were worse than the other drawing.

Zana stayed in the same studio apartment that Steve fronted her the rent and security deposit for a month ago. It was all she needed. The rent was $750 per month, well below her means. Her refrigerator was filled with cans of iced expresso, jars of pickles, and hard boiled eggs. Her freezer was filled with cartons of cigarettes. She hung her bicycle, a second-hand three-speed Schwinn, upside down from two ceiling hooks.

There was a bed, a table, a chair, and the bathroom. She had ten pairs of black jeans, ten black t-shirts, ten black long sleeved t-shirts, three pairs of shoes, a light black jacket and a heavy black leather jacket. She kept some cash in the apartment but kept the rest of it in the safe at 10 AWG. When Steve ran out of room in the safe, he implored Zana to get a bank account. She was not only uninterested but also unable – Zana had no ID, no Social Security number…she did not pay taxes, and she only worked for, and paid for things, with cash. Steve made an account for her in his name and made deposits every couple of weeks. He set her rent and electricity payments on autopay from the account. On the rare occasion where Zana needed to replenish her speding money, she would just go to the shop. Steve would take out $3,000 and give it to her. Typically it was so that she could go out and buy another 20 cartons of Marlboro Reds to restock the freezer. The iced coffee cans were heavy, she would call from the shop and have them delivered.

Such was life for another year. It was easy. Zana was neither happy nor sad about her life. She could survive easily. There was no pain. She was…content.

* * *

The cracks started in February of 2009.

Every now and then there was a crack, a certain familiarity that would trigger a shot of pain. The cracks started sporadically; sometimes they happened two months apart. By summertime, there were two cracks a month.

Zana was now well aware that her past life, whatever it was, was not erased from her brain, but rather that her memory was scrambled and sectioned off. While the cracks were extremely unpleasant, she was not overly concerned.

By July there was a crack ever other day. The cracks no longer seemed to have any correlation to familiarity. They began to be more severe. After three crashes, Zana realized that she could no longer ride her bicycle safely. What was worse, the cracks no longer simply manifested themselves as pain. They began to be accompanied by sensations that resembled what could best be described as emotional imagery. She could not make out the form, rather she tried to push them back. She knew it was only a matter of time until she would no longer be able to do so.

It was then that Zana bought the necessary attachments for her La Santa Maria rotary tattoo machine to deliver the appropriate sedatives and poisons to her bloodstream for a quick and painless death.

She never considered the irony that the first time a tattoo needle would break her skin would be the last.

* * *

Grayson Tannor was excited. He took Friday off to spend a long weekend in New York City. Tomorrow morning he would be on a train to New York to spend the weekend with his college roommate at his flat in Park Slope. They were going to see a band called Black Lips perform at The Music Hall in Williamsburg. He had never been to Brooklyn, so he decided to read some music blogs about the band and the area.

As he jumped from one blog to the next, his phone rang. He saw on the caller ID that is was his ex and soon to be future (temporary) roommate Dale.

“Hey Dale, what’s up?”

“Nothing, just wanted to make sure that you were all set for your trip.”

“Oh yeah, I’m all set. I’m already packed and I bought my train ticket online.”

They continued to chat about plans for the visit while Grayson continued to bounce from blog to blog.

With yet another click, a page from freewilliamsburg.com loaded with various stories about current goings-on. He scrolled down the page and froze.

Dale continued to talk for a while about their possible plans for Saturday.

“..so if you like French food, I could make a reservation at Moutarde. What do you think? Hello? Helllloooo? Gray, are you still there? Gray!”

Gray still had his ear to the phone, but his mind was elsewhere. His eyes fixated on a single image on his screen, a picture of a tattoo.

“GRAY!”

“Oh, sorry! Yeah, I’m here. Hey, listen, can I call you back?”

Gray didn’t wait for Dale to respond. He hung up, closed all of his other browser windows, and started reading.

The article was about a tattoo artist named Zana. It wasn’t so much about her, but rather interviews with customers who had gotten a tattoo done by her. After a few quick searches, he was able to find six other blogs with stories and photos. Zana never appeared in any of the articles – there were no quotes from her nor were there any pictures of her, just the tattoos and interviews with those that got one...and pages of comments from people still waiting for their chance.

Gray knew that he had seen this art before. Not in this shape or format, but the essence of the work was unmistakable. Lexi drew these tattoos.

Gray took out a piece of paper, wrote down the address for 10 AWG, and put it in his wallet.

* * *

It was the summer of 1997. Jack found himself living in a new house, with no friends, and a bad case of the chicken pox. He hoped that he wouldn’t be to scarred from all the scratching before he would start in a new school this coming September.

Gray’s mother went over to the Paige residence to greet her new neighbors with a fruit basket a few days after they moved in. Mrs. Paige and Mrs. Tannor talked about the neighborhood, and of course their sons. When Mrs. Tannor found out that Jack had the chicken pox, she was thrilled. She was eager to have Gray get the chicken pox this summer to avoid him missing school time during the year. Mrs. Tannor left and returned with Gray a few minutes later.

The boys were sent down to the basement. Jack was shy, but he immediately found something to talk about when he saw the posters of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Jake “The Snake” Roberts. They instantly bonded as they watched WWF Superstars. They would imitate the moves that they saw on TV quietly so that their mothers would not hear them. In fact, Mrs. Paige would peek down the stairs and saw them wrestling. Typically she would have been furious, she hated wrestling and thought it stupid and vulgar. For once, she was thrilled.

After a few more play dates, Jack had a sprained thumb and plenty of red spots. Jack and Gray were inseparable for the rest of the summer. By the first day of school, they were mostly healed save for a few scabs.

Jack and Gray were best friends all through middle and high school. Jack bloomed early in eighth grade, shooting up three inches in a year. His shoulders broadened nearly as much as his vertical growth spurt.

Jack was a natural athlete – he excelled at any sport he played. Gray lacked the physical attributes that Jack had, but made up for it with ambition. They were tennis partners and they refused to play on opposing teams for any other sport. As time went on, Jack and Gray went on to be one of the top tennis doubles teams in the county. Jack knew that there were a few players that would have made for a better partner than Gray, but there was never a question about changing partners. They would occasionally miss winning a tournament because Gray was weak at the net. Jack never thought twice about it. He won all of his singles matches, usually without dropping more than two games per match. Jack liked to win, but due to the fact that it happened so regularly it wasn’t a particularly salient sensation.

Jack had a strong memory which helped him with history, math, and science. Jack was hopeless with English and art.

On the first day of eighth grade, Jack took his seat behind a canvas in the back of the room in Mrs. Ungar’s classroom. Painting. He knew this would be the worst 44 minutes of his day.

Indeed, Jack was dreadful at painting. He found it difficult to even try. After being in the class for a week, he pretty much gave up and was ready to mail in the F, perhaps a D if Mrs. Ungar was feeling generous.

As he was walking out of the room for one of his many bathroom breaks, he noticed a painting in the second row. The scene was two old men playing chess in a park. Jack was struck at how real they seemed. He was able to feel an intensity between the two men in the painting. The rest of the painting was disassociated from the two men, but there was nothing visual to suggest that be the case. It was intense and serene all at once.

“Jack? Did you get lost on your way to the bathroom? I would think you knew the way by now?”

The class laughed at Mrs. Ungar’s quip as Jack turned beet red. He didn’t realize it, but he was staring at that canvas for over two minutes.

Lexi was looking at him. When his eyes met hers, they burned. Her eyes had a blue-green iridescent quality. Jack shuffled out of the room.

Immediately after class that day, Jack asked Lexi to help him with his painting. Of course Jack had little hope that he would improve at painting, but he very much wanted to see more of Lexi’s painting, and of course more of Lexi.

Jack did improve at painting. He was still horrible, but he was clearly trying and even sought extra help…of course Mrs. Ungar was aware that Jack probably had alternative intentions, but he improved regardless. She gave him a generous C+.

Jack and Lexi became great friends. Lexi had not matured as quickly as Jack, and he understood that they were not the same age, despite the fact that they were.

Lexi always wore flats with a double strap that loosely traversed her instep. She had the same shoes in four colors. On Gym days and weekends, she would wear Converse All-Stars.

One day, about halfway through ninth grade, Jack noticed that Lexi switched to a strapless pump. That day Jack asked Lexi if she would hold hands with him as they walked home from school.

Jack and Lexi had a wonderful relationship. They were very different, and thus very complimentary. It was kismet.

Life changed for Gray as well. Jack wasn’t around as much anymore. It was confusing to Gray – he had no interest in girls and could not understand how Jack would want to spend time with Lexi instead of sports or TV. The confusion faded as Gray got older and began to notice girls in a different way. The acceptance that finally came was accompanied by a certain splash of jealousy. He wasn’t alone – every boy in high school fawned over Lexi.

Though Gray saw less of Jack, they still remained close friends, best friends. Gray would opt out of third wheel get-togethers. Jack understood why, and there was a silent understanding between him and Gray.

Lexi began to be very serious about her art. Her teachers were in unison with praise for her work in Realism; they were unanimous with their criticism for her lack of depth. Lexi simply refused to partake in what she viewed to be meaningless exercises. She rarely got an A in any art class because she simply refused to

complete, or even start, several assignments. One assignment was to mimic Seurat’s technique for a Pointillism project. “If I wanted to create art like that, I’d buy a Lite-Brite.” During another lesson she flatly proclaimed “the Golden Rule is for architecture and financial models, not for painting humans”. Her teacher was both offended and thrilled by Lexi’s passion for her convictions regarding art.

Lexi’s art was featured in a few local galleries in Norwalk. She won a competition that allowed her work to be showcased at The Frick Collection in Manhattan. Though her painting was not for sale, it did eventually sell as a buyer contacted Lexi through the school. Tesla, Oil on Canvas was her first of many sales. Though she never knew, the painting was acquired by David Bowie.

Getting into the art scene in Norwalk was not easy or pleasant for Lexi. There was a hierarchy in the top art studios, and it was based on tenure, not skill. Despite the fact that Lexi was the best painter in Norwalk, she was throttled by the studios. They would only allow her to hang one painting at a time. It was partly a prejudice against Romantic Realism, partly jealousy of talent.

Lexi decided to open up her own gallery. She learned how to make a simple website to display and sell her paintings. Two weeks after she launched LexiPaints.com and pulled her paintings out of three galleries. The owners begged her to reconsider, offering her more spaces for her art – one director even offered her a say in the creative direction of the studio. Lexi politely declined.

That was life – painting, Jack, Mom and Dad, and films. Lexi had no intention of going to college for art. She had received scholarships and her parents urged her to pursue a degree – but she figured there would be time for that later in life if she felt like it.

For now, she just wanted to be in love, and to paint.

* * *

“Dude. Are you kidding me? Let’s get the fuck out of here before we get our asses kicked.”

Dale did not find the atmosphere at 10 AWG Steel to be welcoming. He felt a bit out of place with his bright plaid collared buttondown amidst a sea of denim and leather. He didn’t like Slayer either. Angel of Death was ripping through the speakers at about 237 bpm – quite a stark contrast to the Black Lips show he just saw with Gray.

Gray convinced him to stay, telling him about the unusual history of 10 AWG that he read about online. He did not mention Zana, but he didn’t need to.

“Do you have the hots for that bartender or something?”

“No! What, you mean the girl with the black hair?”

“No I mean the 300 pound bald guy with the septum barbell and neck tattoos. Yes, the freaky chick.”

“Yeah, I mean she is a little freaky I guess. She’s ok.”

“A little? She looks possessed. And you totally have her locked in on your radar. That’s cool, I just didn’t know you were into that whole look. You should talk to her!”

Of course, that was why Gray was here. He wanted to find out what happened to Lexi – and there she was, barely recognizable, but it was her.

Gray decided that he needed a nip of courage. Or two. He asked the other bartender for two shots of Jim Beam and two PBRs.

Gray chatted with Dale for a while, but he was only partly there. He struggled to make small talk, all the while wondering what he was going to say to Lexi.

After another shot and a can, Dale was ready to leave. Gray explained to him that he was going to stay and talk to the bartender. Dale was not enthused about leaving his good friend at a place like this at this hour, but he could tell that Gray wasn’t going to budge. Dale gave Gray the number for a car company he could call and made sure that he had money for the ride back to his place in Park Slope.

As 3:15 rolled around, the bar started to thin out a bit. Gray went around to the other side of the bar and sat near Lexi. Eventually she came over to check on his drink.

“Do you need something?”

Lexi was not there. The sweet girl he knew in high school was gone. There was a wall with a stranger standing behind it.

“Yes, I’m looking for my friend, perhaps you have seen her? Her name is Lexi.”

Her central nervous system all but self-destructed. There was no sound. Zana could barely see through a thick fog of red. Her arms and legs locked in place. An unhealthy dollop of adrenaline was rushing through her veins.

After 30 seconds or so, Zana was finally able to move. She slowly crept over to her soda gun and poured herself a pint glass of club soda on ice. She drank about half of it and walked back over to Gray.

“This is what’s going to happen now. You are going to leave. You will never come back here. You will never say that name again. Go.”

“Ok, and then what? Do you really expect for me to not tell your parents where you are? And what about the other ten dozen people whose lives were devastated when you disappeared? Sure, I’ll leave – is that what you really want?”

She realized that this wasn’t something that she could ignore. She told Gray to just sit there and not talk to anyone. She would talk to him after the bar was closed up.

Just after 4:30 the remaining locals were asked to leave. The other bartender asked, “are we all set here Zana? What’s the deal with the guy at the end of the bar, do you know him”?

“No Tiny, I don’t, but he’s going to help me close up the bar tonight.”

Tiny had heard that before and he knew what it meant. He said, “ok, no problem see you next Friday” – while he thought to himself “lucky motherfucker”.

After everyone else left, Zana and Gray talked.

Zana decided that it was pointless to lie. She told him everything – escaping the hospital, living on the street, her life at 10 AWG, and of course the total lack of memory of her prior life. She also talked about the cracks, and her plans for suicide.

Gray had the idea that he was going to confront Lexi and convince her to come back home, or at least talk to her parents – and if that didn’t work just tell them that she is ok. Of course that wasn’t going to happen now. Gray knew that the suicide rap wasn’t a bluff, and he had no intention of putting her parents through losing their daughter twice.

Instead, Gray told Zana about her prior life – and how much she loved it. He was careful not to be too specific to avoid another crack from flaring up, but he got the point across. Lexi died and was replaced by a shell. Zana was a life without joy or pain – a butterfly that turned into a caterpillar.

Zana agreed to try to remember. She didn’t care about the people she left behind. Rather, she was interested in what it would be like to feel something good.

They talked for hours. Gray finally convinced Zana to not kill herself for at least a month. They shook on it. At around 10AM Gray finally left the bar.

As Gray got up to leave, Zana touched his shoulder.

“Hey Gray.”

“What’s up?”

“Mop the floor.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.”

That was the first joke Zana ever told.

* * *

The last eight months were exhausting. Gray was having difficulty keeping track of two humans in one body. Zana was making progress for sure – and she was still alive! He was happy about that, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take of the daily sessions that amounted to intense therapy – the breakdowns, the mood swings – living your life for a person who only showed up once or twice a week. And of course there was the fact that he left a comfortable life with a good career in New Haven for two jobs waiting tables and a shitty apartment in Bed-Stuy.

He was reminded every so often why he was doing this. Lexi would come out every so often. Eventually he convinced Zana to buy an easel and canvas, palette and paint. One time Lexi came out, and Gray asked her to do a self portrait.

It was as true and as beautiful as anything that either Lexi or Zana had done before. It was a gorgeous tribute to life and one’s love of it.

When Zana returned, she was not fond of the painting. Gray convinced her to keep it. She refused multiple times but finally acquiesced when Gray threatened to leave if she did not keep it. Zana certainly despised the painting, but she didn’t want to die anymore – and she knew that her only link to her old life, to life at all, was through Gray – to get to herself.

Another six months passed. Zana was making spectacular progress. She no longer despised the painting – in fact she bought a frame for it. She still did tattoo work with her eyes closed, but she would look at the ink when she was done. There was happiness in her life – and it was getting to the point where she was Lexi almost as often as she was Zana. Lexi had a sexual relationship with Gray – Zana did not.

One day Zana woke up and looked at herself in the mirror. She saw a fraction of an inch of red hair creeping out of the base of her hairline. She grabbed the Revlon box and ripped the top off. As she was putting on the gloves, she looked at the box, looked at herself, and threw it away.

Over the weeks and months that followed, her hair grew out past her neck and onto her shoulders. A red coat crept across her head, the black dyed hair remaining only at the longest parts of her hair.

Gray was staying with Lexi more often than not at this point. He kept a toiletry bag in Zana’s bathroom. One Sunday morning he awoke to an empty bed, odd because Zana loved to sleep late.

As Gray entered the bathroom, he found Zana staring in the mirror, holding her hair in her hands, her contact lens case was open, the right lens was in her eye, the left still in a pool of saline.

Gray went into his bag and took out a pair of scissors. Without saying a word, he began to cut the last two inches of black hair off an otherwise crimson mane.

The last lock of black hair fell to the bathroom floor. Zana looked at it, and then looked at herself in the mirror. She pinched the black lens from her eye and flicked it into the trash.

She turned around and looked at Gray.

“My name is Lexi.”