The Color of a Broken Heart

For those guys who hold back tears from a broken heart.

The Color of a Broken Heart

“Last call,” the bartender said. The clean brass bell rang for a couple moments, but I tried to drown it out. For that last half hour I just laid my head down on the table of the Parkside bar, staring at my work: 9 empty translucent shot glasses, 3 almost empty plastic cups of beer all in a stack, one inside the other, and one final half empty bottle of Bud. I sat there for what felt like only a minute, though, in reality, what must have been an eternity, drowning out all the familiar sights and sounds: the drunken muffles, from the other patrons, the flickering neon beer lights near the window, the rattle of the jukebox as it shifted from one track to the other. There, I tried to pull my focus away from her, and how she easily she walked away from me.

It must have been about nine o’clock when Amanda walked in. She sounded serious on the phone, but usually it was something that I could help her with: a pet dying, a friend moving away, but nothing like this. I had a beer in my hand and I ordered her a vodka cranberry, her usual. Last time I checked, she never even took a sip from it.

I barely heard anything of what she had said. The only thing I heard was “I’m breaking up with you,” and then silence.  All I did, all I could do, was watch her. She would lick her lips, constantly looking away from me, me and my blank stare, my unshaved face, my worn and reworn clothes. She tried to seem sincere, I know, but everything she did felt cold, distant. And all the time I saw her, I stared at her and wondered if at any point she would smile, offer me some look that would indicate, that somehow, everything between the two of us would be alright. She never did.

And now here I was, two hours afterwards, sitting out a buzz at two in the morning at my worn out hole-in-the-wall bar of choice, thinking about her and her smile. I remembered every bend, the exact shade and curve of her dimples, how she used to bite her lower lip to try and be sexy, the color of warm, full blooming pinkish-red would stay the same constant, glowing color. I used to draw that smile. I was even going to paint it just for the sake of saying I could. But now . . .

The walk home was just simple enough: a short stumble across the darkened park where we met: she was reading Jane Austen, catching me in the act of drawing a dead bird on the side walk. Next, I unlock the door with the key identical to the one I gave her, the one that she still has, still probably attached to the makeshift keychain I made her for Valentine’s Day, a picture of the two of us smiling, almost kissing. Then, I take a shower where she would bathe, where she shaved her perfect Barbie doll legs, her dark red hair sopping wet, all the while aware that I could see her, knowing that I was drawing her, enjoying the attention in one slow delicious moment. After that, I simply lay in the bed where we used to f**k, have sex, and make love all at once, where she would lay in that beautiful angelic stillness that I would so often be enamored with. Sure, that’s easy.

I couldn’t sleep in my bed that night. It felt so unclean to me, the half faded stains evidence of sex some twenty four hours ago so emotionally painful that even a heavy alcohol buzz couldn’t silence. So I walked into the kitchen, hoping I could at least quiet my thoguhts before I fall asleep. There, I stared at the whole porcelain walls and matte white linoleum floor, the generic cabinetry, and still she was on my mind. Even though she barely came into this kitchen, this place had still reminded me of her.

It was here where I would often make her breakfast. She’d usually wake up half an hour before she needed to get to work at her software company, and I had nothing to do during the early morning when I woke up, so I would wander into the kitchen during that time and start cooking.

I often made simple meal of eggs and coffee, and almost like clockwork, she would crawl in, half naked in the doorway, the fullest smile on her face that she could muster. Every once in a while she would just skip breakfast and just watch me as I wore what would usually be my dark, paint-spattered jeans and nothing else. I often thought that in those moments that she was proud of who I was at least in those moments, that I was someone she could depend upon to simply be there, not doing anything in particular, and make her happy. She once joked in a tongue in cheek way that if she wanted breakfast, she would date Jack in the Box. I would then joke back that he couldn’t make her orgasm like I could. Those memories, those thoughts of her, only made me feel worse. It felt like my guts wrenched inside of me, as if they fell into a black hole.

In the morning, my sales manager, Jodie, came by to pick up some of my paintings.  I mostly painted particulars, things that corporate offices or cheap hotels might have, though nothing with any depth in terms of subject matter or talent: the Golden Gate Bridge, cityscapes, sunsets, those kinds of things. It paid the bills and got me by though, considering the paintings that I liked never sold very often anyway.

We had originally met at the Hyde Street Gallery. I knew her name then, but she didn’t know mine. I was in town looking for a dealer and she had a free place in her schedule and on her walls. After seeing most of the stuff I did, from my anime caricature sketches in a lonely lost notebook, to my formal paintings of jazz-like free form abstracts, paintings that make less sense than David Lynch films, we definitely hit it off. She was most certainly interesting to see work on her own in the gallery. My work was definitely out there and abstract for most people, but she convinced people to see something in it, often selling them to two-bit, snide, self-important snobs who couldn’t tell a Van Gough painting from a Van Damme movie. Compared to what I did, she was a real artist.

When I buzzed her up, she came cleanly dressed in a black pinstripe pants suit that seemed to make her believable, honest, and approachable. Of course, when you sell bullshit paintings like mine, I guess it comes naturally. Her hair was in a loose bun and her blue blouse buttoned up almost all the way. She always looked surprisingly clean for a person up past the hour of 10A.M. She caught me staring at an untouched, semi-complete canvas.

“She dumped me,” I said. She knew about Amanda; I mean, she never asked about her, but she certainly knew of her.

“What?” she said, sealing my paintings in plastic. Her mind was in another place, trying as best she could to take care of my paintings while avoiding putting her white hells in what she could only presume were fresh droplets of paint on a floor that, for the most part, was covered in plastic drop cloth with more pain than plastic.

“Amanda. She dumped me.” There was an odd silence. It seemed like she was searching for the words to say, trying her best to make me feel better.

“Oh, bummer dude.” She paused for a moment. Although there was little sympathy in her words, there seemed to be some sympathy in her eyes. She started packing up the last of my paintings and started for the door, stopping. “Hey. Ryan,” she said. “Maybe you should take the day off.”

“Yeah, I was kind of thinking of that,” I said. She left with not another word.

For another twenty minutes I just stared at my unfinished painting, a series of delicate strokes of some sort of skin tone on a surface viewing. I took a few steps back doing my best to remember what my goal was with this painting, where it was going. In a split second I realized what it was. Without thinking it, without knowing it, I was painting her. I was painting Amanda. I saw the curve of her hips, the rounding of her beautiful breasts, her hair flowing over the edge of the bed. I was floored literally floored, I leaned back, staring at the ceiling and the words: “Now is the winter of our discontent,” a phrase I had painted some time ago. I was obsessed by then. I needed to get out of the apartment.

Between my apartment door and the street, I thought about us as a couple. And frankly, I couldn’t figure it out. I tried to think back to all those moments in my head, every little argument every tiny tiff that we might have had: what could have possibly been it? What could have been the worst that could have caused all this?

I decided to clear my head. With a day off, I decided to go down to the Haight and buy breakfast. At least it could be an excuse to get out of my apartment. I took the bus out there to a place called the Pork Store Café. When I didn’t have a steady income, I used to live out here and sell smaller pieces for chump change. Whenever I could, I would try to eat there, because it was the only place besides McDonalds where you could get so much for so little.

I went in, and ordered coffee and a burger with a side of sausage (it was 10 o’clock, and I thought “might as well not bullshit myself.”) I sat at the bar, and just as I was to receive my meal, this young couple from out of the neighborhood, possibly from out of town, came in.

This couple took a table near the door at one of the tables in the nook of a display window, and try as I might, my eyes could not navigate away from the two of them and how they interacted between each other. Their body language was subtle, but it was in no way subdued.

 Every move they made was brash, flirtatious, like high school sweethearts grew up but still had no other way of showing how they love one another than by their teasing passes. Seeing them was aggravating, vexing even: to believe that anyone could find a love like that. It took a little bit of force to keep my eyes off them, to keep my eyes on my food, but it was unavoidable. They were a couple that radiated love, and as much as I tired to avoid that hippie bullshit feeling, it seemed to hold true to more than just me.

“Sucks don’t it?” the waitress behind the counter said. My mind was blank. I politely showed her a look of confusion, like I got lost in thought (a thing which honestly did happen.) “I saw you staring at that couple. Kinda makes you jealous.” She refreshed my coffee with her half tattooed arm. “So what’s with you?” she asked.

“I broke up with my girlfriend,” I said.

“Oh, damn.” She said. She remained polite in her tone, she seemed genuinely concerned, but just enough to the point where there was no need getting involved. I almost wanted to keep talking, but I thought that she’d probably find me immediately creepy; and then I thought that if I really followed the white rabbit on this, I might find her eventually crazy. I’ve seen friends date girls from around here, girls that looked like her, and, for the most part, I’ve seen only far and few between that didn’t end with some daddy issues.

I left about forty-five minutes later, I left leaving exact change and tip on the counter. By that time the couple had left the restaurant, but not my thoughts. I had walked out and turned towards the park only to find that the couple from the restaurant had only walked few steps ahead of me. As much as I wished to avoid them, my eyes and my body were wholly drawn to them. Every step I made forward, they moved as well, haunting me inch by inch.

Watching them, I had begun to notice a playfulness between them that despite, its indescribable familiarity, had made me wholly uncomfortable. About two whole blocks I had seen them touch as much of each other as they could while still being able to walk forward. I’d see his hand move slowly along the edge of her waist, gently moving under her sweatshirt caressing her lower back as she would walk with him, lightly whispering in his ear, her lips a full blooming pinkish red. And all the while their mischief seemed only mildly sexual; no, this seemed more wholesome, more tender. It seemed like something that a couple would do after sex.

By the beginning of the third block I had heard my name being called by a familiar voice in a surprised perky tone. It was Jodie, a wholly different attitude than when she was in my apartment. “Damn, it’s nice to catch you. I was almost about to call. Dude, you still look like s**t. Come on inside, I’ve got a client who’s just dying to meet you.”

She pulled me by one arm into this open boutique, where lined along the walls were racks of Diesel jeans, and hung paintings of Warhol-esque portraits of famous people. “So this is Jason,” she said, presenting this twenty something hipster to me standing behind the counter. “He is the owner of this store and he wants to buy at least five paintings from your old movie exhibit! Isn’t that exciting?!”

It was great news, actually. It so astounding, in fact, that it took a while for it to even set in. She told me that he wanted to buy my entire movie series, a group of paintings that I did mostly out of sarcasm: I had replaced a bunch of characters from famous movie posters and replaced them with another set of people (like replacing the Breakfast Club with the 90210 cast.) This series had long since been abandoned left to collect dust in a storage area near the highway. I tried my best to compose myself but it was too exciting: a dream of mine that was long since been dead is now come back to life and more money was in my pocket along with it. We all walked, talked, showing the wall size of the place, it’s other location across the street, and the promise of things going right was a glowing light in this world.

When we were done I had crashed in a leather chair near the exit. Jodie and Derek, the hipster manager of the fine establishment, now a new gallery of mine, discussed formalities and prices, and I closed my eyes, but kept my ears open. I could hear it then over the white noise of customers, the music in the background:

“No. (No.)

It’s not what we meant to say. (It’s not what we meant to say.)

We don’t, really, love.

Each other.”

The song was by Against Me!, and the song echoed between the male singer and the female one, each line of theirs letting more to the heart of what I had so wanted to ignore, what I needed to forget

“Ryan,” I heard Jodie say, “Are you okay?” Her hand gently rested on my shoulder, her delicate concern only making me feel worse. I opened my eyes, them meeting hers upon first glance. “What’s wrong?” her tone was tender, motherly.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just need some space.” My voice was cracking on frail notes, like I had a sore throat, or like I was breaking down. I rolled out of the chair as smooth as I could. “Call me tomorrow, and I’ll get those paintings to you.”

I wandered far from there and ended up in Golden Gate Park. With nothing to do all day, I decided to light up a joint on a hill near the baseball fields. It was now Monday afternoon, meaning everyone was away, staying pretty much away from the fields, this large, deep valley in an otherwise beautifully part of Golden Gate Park. For about an hour and a half I looked out to the grass and watched it change color, between its darkest and lightest shade of green. I certainly didn’t feel anything much, but I could never truly feel better.

I came off the high, and still I felt like lashing out, like crying, like breaking down, but I could only contain it, suppress it. Nothing did me any good, so I decided to walk over to the deYoung museum. Sometimes I would browse among the collection, but today they had a special set of select Salvador Dali paintings, so I thought what the hell. It seemed sure enough like the usual set of paintings brought in: one morbid dripping delusion after another. Even that bullshit clock piece that had a meaning of its own until every college d********g decided to post it in his dorm room. I was getting bored and about to leave. Now in a calmer state, I hoped to call Jodie and get some more business out of the way. Then I saw it.

It was one semi-large painting, titled “The Landscape of Port Llgat,” and with the exception of a few landmarks and outcroppings, it was an expanse of deep endless ocean that went into the horizon, into nothing. I looked to the painting and its setting for some feeling of a soul, but no. Nothing. My eyes moved back and forth along this canvas, searching for an ounce of hope, one single being, something other than the soullessness of the image of that bay, that sea. There were what seemed to be angels, preoccupied with a matter of their own, but that wasn’t enough for me. And then there it was: a man near the bottom right corner, staring as I was into the void, so especially alone.

I crashed to my knees, fighting back the tears. Then and I sobbed. I couldn’t control myself, but then again, why should I have? What that one man made me realize was my utter loneliness in this world and even if I’m not really alone, I was on my own in this. I honestly didn’t think then I could have done anything beyond that single moment. It took this painting to make me realize my place in this world, on the edge of oblivion, absolutely in the Heart of Darkness. The rest of what I was and what I was doing seemed only like a footnote, a forethought. There was no one I could ever talk to with these problems. And in all it was only for one reason: because I couldn’t forget her face. I surely can’t blame her for anything; it just wouldn’t be me. But I needed a way to forget her. I needed to stop seeing her: in my mind, in my memories, at all. I needed to take a trip, a cheap one.

I had tried acid once at art school. Some friends of mine from Humboldt were coming to the city and I decided to surprise them with something just a little bit different than weed. I bought some hits of a friend of mine and all I really remember five minutes before the trip was being in my room, and from what I saw when I woke up, I had merely convinced a chair that I was not a godless communist who can’t at all paint. If I knew of any solution, It would be this.

Buying acid, then quickly realized, was not as easy as it might have been in Golden Gate Park maybe 40 years ago. I could buy anything else: PCP, coke, heroine even, but not a drop of the stuff to be seen. Pissed off and saddened even more, I then decided to just buy some hits of ecstasy (close enough right?). 

Two hits of this granularly textured pink pill fell into my mouth. I could feel the hits take hold, a tingle fell along the tips of my fingers, my toes, though my melancholy remained, faint nonetheless, but still there. I laid down on the grass of the baseball field, feeling the wind against my skin, imagining my own colors changing in shade along with the wind. I stared upwards and came face to face with fear itself: the sun.

I then remembered something from when I was in high school. During Woodstock, the worst cases brought to the medics, aside from broken glass injuries, were people burning their retinas when they stared into the sun too long while on an acid trip. I fought long and hard to not keep my eyes open. Please keep them closed. Don’t look, oh God please don’t look. There is more I need to see. I need to get those paintings, I need to see my art, I need my happiness. Dear god I want my life back!

A loud banging rip then roared from the east, something like the sound of bass drums in the distance.  Didn’t think much of it; all things considered, I was high. Then I opened my eyes, and the sky began to darken with eternally layered clouds. A single raindrop hit my forehead, and the feeling crashed on through me, like a drop of ink in a glass of water. Then another drop, and another. It was continuous. I felt warm tears streak down my face with the cold rain. It was orgasmic.

I couldn’t really tell you when it happened. But somewhere between then and the end of the rainstorm, I was cleansed. Granted, I still hurt a little. Mention her name, and it does hurt, I also couldn’t finish that painting, but now, I was warm, whole. After that I walked home, slept for about four hours. And moved on.