The Painting In The Back

The gallery showing seemed to be a great success. The small crowd in attendance vibrated a chipper, cheerful energy as they consumed complimentary wine and cheese, as well as each other’s witty banter with equal enthusiasm. The oppressive Miami humidity saw fit to relent for the evening and even went so far as to bless the occasion with a soft refreshing breeze. A nice, smooth jazz piece played over quiet murmurs between patrons and the gallery owner, all taking a moment to chum up to the old man.

The gallery owner, with his wispy grey hair and wise, pragmatic features, stood back casually in his Habanera shirt and linen slacks. He kept careful measure of his facial expressions, masking a certain smug self-satisfaction with his trademark portrayal of endearing warmth.

The critics and magazine writers went about with their typical aloofness but in passing they’d let slip a wink, a smile, a nod. A few even went so far as to stop and point out the lone painting along the back wall with a quick shake of the head. He grinned and nodded in return, but really, the gallery owner loathed the art critics and the writers, lecherous creatures that they were. They were slanders and liars; pretentious airheads whose poorly formed opinions only caused harm and damage. Even in their praise, they attempted to exact such an overly heavy toll of gratitude. No, long ago he’d decided he would never cater to nor care about those people, their opinions or their articles. In the strange paradox of it, they all responded to him with a respectful deference as if he alone knew the secret of their inherent worthlessness.

As far as the buyers, the gallery owner loved them. Not because buyers possessed particularly better taste or character than critics, but because buyers at least could be trusted. When a man commits to spend five or six figures on a single piece of artwork, he isn’t simply investing finances. In the transaction, he is also investing his vanity and his ego, not only into the piece but also into the good name of the artist and of the gallery. Men can be trusted not to betray their ego or vanity, and so the gallery owner felt a great deal more comfort in his dealings with buyers.

Tonight of all nights, the buyers had come with checkbooks ready and hopes high. They all shook his hand eagerly and promised to buy this painting or that one. Each one made a passing inquiry about the largest painting, the one of the back wall, and how much it might go for. The gallery owner remained stoic on that question, driving the curiosity and the bidding both to a feverish pitch.

Indeed, the gallery showing had all the appearances of a runaway success and yet a problem existed. All the talk continuously centered on the large painting in the back, to the exclusion of all the other pieces. True, the paintings along the walls were great. Each one exuded all the tell-tale signs of perfect composition, striking use of colors and imagery and a fresh spirited originality. All the other paintings reflected flawless craftsmanship on the part of the artists. Nobody could argue anything less than that, yet nobody could focus on anything except the painting in the back.
Out of all the paintings in the collection, the painting in the back stood out as the darkest. It didn’t really have anything over any other painting in the collection from a composition standpoint. In fact, it had something of a frantic, less composed nature to it by comparison. However, something about that painting, and that painting alone, called to every single person who viewed it. It possessed some power, some feeling, some sort of gift bestowed upon it that gave it a voice which seemed entirely unrivaled. Nobody could look away, nor resist the stirring ache it impressed upon each of their spirits. No matter how beautifully rendered every other painting on the other walls were, nobody in the room really paid any genuine attention. All any of them, the critics and the buyers, seemed to care about was that one painting, the magnificent morbid selection on the back wall.

Amidst the mingling crowd, at a deliberate distance from everyone else in the room, the artists sat. On his young, sun-splashed face, he carried a deep, forlorn expression. As a rule, artists get license to be discontent and disagreeable people, but the look on his face struck everybody who glanced at him as something beyond any artistic angst. He sat, pensive, in a leather chair, taking painstaking efforts not to mingle with anybody and cast out an unapproachable appearance. He sat, in a self-imposed shell, observing all the buyers and critics closely, as they made their rounds, giving obligatory inspections and appreciative nods to his paintings along either wall and then hurry along for their chance to stand in wide-eyed awe at the one in the back.

On the arm of the leather chair sat a woman, his woman, the only human being it seemed that was permitted close to the artist. Looking uncomfortable, yet elegant herself in an evening gown, she gently stroked the nape of his neck and whispered to him occasionally in soothing tones. She smiled a soft, proud smile and glanced encouragingly down at him every so often as he squirmed and struggled to close off the world.

Across the room, a curious buyer, acting on a whim and somewhat oblivious to the obvious social cues, turned and made a bee-line to the painter. He stood in front of the painter, half awkward and half carrying an expectant air. When the painter didn’t immediately look up and made not attempt to acknowledge his presence, he coughed.

“Baby…” She tapped him lightly on the shoulder and the slight push from her brought him back into reality.

“Yes,” The painter looked up at the man and struggled to feign the appropriate demeanor. “Can I help you?”

“My apologies,” The man conceded. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, especially any artistic, ah, rumination.”

“No…um, stay. You weren’t interrupting anything.”

“Okay, well then!” The man used the opening as a full invitation to reveal his enthusiasm. “Well, I guess, I just wanted to come over and make your acquaintance. You see, I’m quite impressed with the showing and I’m just simply going to have to declare myself a tremendous fan!”

“Thank you.” The painter eked-out an uncomfortable smile and extended his hand. “I appreciate your support.”

“Oh, you most definitely deserve it. You deserve it, indeed!” The man returned the hand with a heavy eager handshake. “A question for you, if you don’t mind?”

“Sure.”
“I was just curious. I’m really amazed with the entire collection but I’m just absolutely dying to know, if you care to let me in, as to what inspired, or perhaps back story if you will, to the painting over there on the back wall?”

“No.” The painter’s face soured.

“I’m sorry?” The man cocked his head sideways; as if to illicit a more expected response.

“I said ‘no’. I don’t care to discuss the painting in the back, on any level really and least of all with some pompous stranger.” The painter’s face turned very serious as he glared up at the buyer, who immediately flushed to a bright red.

“Excuse me,” The buyer, a man of means, who had come to drop a considerable sum of money in support of the arts and who felt he should be gently stroked in the process for his great benevolence, simply could not stand to be spoken to in such a way. “Pompous is it? Pompous! I’ll let you know now; I’ve never been so insulted in all of my life! I refuse to stand for such disrespect! Especially not coming from….from….some sniveling dead-beat bohemian….a second rate, flash-in-the-pan artist!”

The man’s outburst caused quite a stir and all the hob-knobbing stopped instantly to make way for a piercing silence amongst the gallery’s guests. The painter’s woman went pale and mute in the face of such a dramatic spotlight. The painter stayed completely still, eyes shifted downward, a vast torrent of emotion showing only through the intense furrow in his brow. The gallery owner, ever the diplomat, rushed over immediately.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen.” He placed his hands gingerly on the buyer’s shoulder. “What seems to be the problem?”

“The problem is,” The man spoke through clenched teeth. “This painter, the very same painter who I paid a large compliment, the very same painter whose work I intended to purchase for a hefty sum from your gallery tonight, is a very rude, arrogant man. Not only would he not entertain my conversation, but he also found it to be necessary to refer to me as pompous and brush me off as if I were some kind of child!”

“Sir, on behalf of the gallery, I do apologize.” The gallery owner braced the man more closely, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and gently leading him away. He made sure to throw a chiding look back in the painter’s direction. “You do understand sir, these artistic types, they’re….how do you say…temperamental. The same qualities that make them artists make them rather bullheaded as people. I know because I make a living dealing with such….”

With that, the gallery owner coolly swept the man away and continued speaking to him in a soft reassuring voice and all the tension pervading the room gradually subsided. The silence began to lift and the hob-knobbing started anew. The painter and his woman remained in their positions on the chair, overlooked once again. After all, to this crowd, having the paintings left little need for the actual painter.

“Baby, c’mon now, what was that?” She spoke in a harsh whisper.

He remained silent.

“Don’t ignore me, baby.”

He stayed silent for another minute. Finally, he stood, turned to face her.

“I’m going to smoke. You can come, if you want.” With that, he walked off.

She followed him, as he paced through the room, ignoring the questioning looks of the guests, to burst out of the front door. He continued for nearly a block, stopping in front of a closed, unlit Cantina. He took a deep sigh and fished a cigarette out of his pocket. He lit it and pulled a hard drag before turning back towards her.

“Look, I know I’m acting like….” She pulled him close before he could complete his sentence and kissed him with all the passion of a total and absolutely understanding. After, he stepped back slightly and looked confused.

“So you were saying?” She asked.

“I know I’m acting like….”

“Baby, how bout what you’re acting unlike?”

“Huh?”

“Baby,” She grabbed his hands and pulled him close to her, speaking softly. “I seem to remember a man, who the first time I met him, pulled me up to his room to show me all his paintings. He said they were the contents of his soul. I remember this man with a dream, to become a great famous painter one day. All he ever talked about was painting this and painting that and he even showed up on dates with paint all over his clothes and his hands because he just couldn’t help himself. I remember even getting jealous of that dream because you talked about it with so much passion that I didn’t think you’d have any left over for me. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah, actually, I do.” He cracked a reminiscent smile.

“You believed that dream with your whole heart and I believed in you the same way. Here we are, through all of it and you did it. You’ve achieved that. And now, I’ve never seen you look so completely miserable and bitter. What happened?”

“You. You happened.” He looked at her intently, while she pulled her head back and twisted her facial features in hurt confusion.

“What? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Don’t even try to blame me because you’re unhappy!”

“Ssshhh, come here.” He pulled her close to him, wrapping her tight in his embrace as he spoke gently into her ear. “Did you see everybody back there? All those money people looking at my work, conniving for an investment while all the critics and writers eyed that painting in the back? You saw all that, right?”

“Yes, but I don’t understand what you’re trying to say….”

“That particular painting, do you remember seeing me paint that?”

“No, why?”

“That painting, it was painted by a different painter.”

“That’s not your work?!” She looked up in alarm.

“It is my work. These hands painted it, but it came from a different person. A person that didn’t know you yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“The person that painted that, the person that I once was, lived an empty, lonely, hopeless life. I’d been through hell, those places, and those things I’d done. And that’s what they love in that painting, that’s what they’re admiring – my own personal hell. That’s what they want to buy, what they want to write about. The person living in misery, that’s the painter who they really want.”

He paused for a moment, giving her a chance to digest it.

“But you, you changed all that. All that painting out of emptiness and all that need for fame, that’s all changed slowly. You came into my life and you healed me. You loved me in a way that makes the fame, the artistic recognition, the money, all that bullshit; it’s become irrelevant to me now. You changed everything for me. You changed me. The painter that they want, the hell that they are interested in, I can’t give them that anymore. Not now that I know someone like you exists. Not without losing you. I’ll never be willing to do that.”

“But what about all your dreams?”

“They came true. Both of them. The one in the gallery and the one here, in my arms. If I have to pick between love and fame, I pick love.”

They pulled each other close, as close as two people can be. They shuddered at the waves of affection generated between their two hearts. Tears began to well in each of their eyes and they just held each other even tighter. They stayed like that, for hours or for seconds. Neither could tell the difference.

Finally, she broke the silence.

“So, what are you going to do about the gallery and the paintings?”

“Everything stays the same. They’re all still for sale. Except that painting in the back. They can’t buy my hell and I can’t sell them what no longer belongs to me.”

“So what are you doing to do?”

“Destroy it.”


When he walked back into the gallery, with her by his side, everyone stopped and looked. Whispers ran through the crowd. All eyes stayed glued on the painter. The gallery owner hurried up and pulled him to the side.

“We have to talk. There’s big news.” The gallery owner spoke in a hushed but excited way, entirely unlike himself.

“What about?” The painter continued walking towards the back.

“That painting, the one in the back. They’ve all been talking about it. A little more open, since you walked out. The critics say it’s a masterpiece, on a level with the greats. The Dali’s! The Picasso’s! They say it’s the masterpiece of our generation. And then, the final bid came in….”

“It’s no longer for sale, I do apologize.” The painter, now standing in front of the painting, continued to brush off the old man.

“What? But we’ve got contracts! We have a bid!” The old man tugged desperately at the painter’s sleeve.
“It’s not for goddamn sale!” With that, the painter reached up and dug his fingers, like claws, into the canvas, puncturing large holes. He pulled down and tore the painting into several ragged shreds. Everyone in the room, except his woman, gasped in utter shock.

“But the bids!” The normally shrewd gallery owner cried out in agony, as he doubled over and threw his hands up in exasperation. From the crowd, the buyer the painter had been previously arguing with stepped forward. He looked down at the gallery owner, then over at the painter, finally returning his glare back to the owner.

“I’ll have my check back please.” He extended his hand and spoke very matter-of-factly. The gallery owner reached into his shirt pocket and handed a folded check back to the buyer. The man turned to face the painter. He held the check up in the air, so that the painter could see it clearly, before ripping it in half and walking away. “Either you’re a fool or this has no power over you. Whatever the case, I want nothing to do with a man like you.”

Shrugging non-chalant, the painter went back over to his woman. He lifted her off the ground and gave her a good spin through the air before setting her back down and placing a delicate peck upon her forehead.

“Let’s go baby.” He said, grabbing her hand and walking towards the door.



Later that night, as they lay, tangled amongst each other in their bed, in their quaint studio apartment, rent two months overdue, he looked down on her as she slept on his chest. She lay, sound asleep and with a smile. He shook and began to sob in joy, as he realized she had never asked never even so much hint at wanting to know.

He would’ve never told her, but when all the articles and reviews came out, it was quite the talk of the art world - the painter who destroyed his own painting and walked away from a multi-million dollar check, in a love-fueled whim. It made a great story. In the strange twist of it all, every other painting in the collection, previously ignored and mostly unbid on, sold in great demand within minutes of his exiting the gallery, lest he return to destroy those too. In each and every article, they wrote that the gallery showing was most definitely a great success.