Justine Read Free Page B

him, now he’s reached the door, he collides with it, uses a hip to push it open and enters the workshop balancing two cups, “coffee,” he says. His voice is so wry and he’s asked for it now.
    â€œDo you live out here?” he asks.
    The coffee makes a thin stripe down his hand and there’s a nimbus around him. Youth, I think, and inhale, a distinctive odor, sharp and dry.
    â€œI do, too.”
    He takes a chair, places his arms on the rests, brown and hairy, and asks if he can smoke. Apparently, it doesn’t faze him when I say no; the hair surges from his armpits like crimped fur.
    â€œWasn’t it you in that video? But you don’t want to talk about it, right?”
    Now he stands up. Is he leaving already? No. He begins to flip the paintings.
    â€œStop that,” I say.
    Now he’s leaving. No. He’s giving me a wry look. Like he thinks he’s got me figured out. Let him think that. I can tell he assumes things with me are off-kilter.
    Now he’s leaving. He draws a current of air behind, sharp and dry.

Y ou’d almost think nothing had happened. Kluden is right where it’s always been and Kelly is behind the bar. She’s working the night shift, just like the night before.
    She opens a beer as soon as I walk in, sets it down in front of me, and pronounces a name that could be mine, I recognize it in any case.
    â€œWell now,” Per Olsvig says, “you again?”
    He’s sitting at the end of the bar.
    â€œHe hasn’t gone home,” Kelly says.
    â€œSure I have,” Olsvig says. “I went to my fucking job.”
    It’s the same conversation about paid work, which is a necessity, even if you’re an artist. In a moment he’ll tell us everything he can’t recall saying before. That’s memory-slinging for you. They land on Kluden’s linoleum floor, back in the corners and beneath the bar stools, where they stick.
    â€œI was doing my thing at the grocery store,” Olsvig says. “See, that’s honest work with honest people. None of that pretentious piss you all go around and do.”
    Olsvig drains a shot and orders another on tab. He’s so gray. No. Now he shifts slightly and the light from the lamp over the bar falls red onto his face. In a moment I’ll buy him a beer. I feel like I’ve missed him, even though he’s so crass. There’s an open place right beside him.
    â€œDo I know you?” he asks. “Nah, I’m just ribbing you, Justine, come here and sit next to me.”
    We know each other as well as the song pumping through the room: “Stairway to Heaven.” The sound is like the smoke was massive. Searing. His hooded jersey is thick with grime and old paint, but I can’t detect an odor, and my head rests comfortably on his shoulder. He sucks heavily on his cigarette, then stubs the rest into the ashtray, taps the rhythm with his finger on the counter. The door opens, we don’t see who comes in, if they know us, it’ll happen. Olsvig lights a new cigarette.
    â€œAhh,” he says, “what a day.”
    The beer is cold and curative. Right now I need Kelly, Olsvig, and “a Tuborg Gold,” I say, “no, two!”
    He kisses my forehead. Now I want his short arms around me.
    â€œForty-two,” Kelly says.
    â€œPut in on my tab,” Olsvig says.
    His cheeks are lightly swollen with scattered stubble. I couldn’t care less, I want to be inside his body, behind the bluster and gestures, back behind it all, away.

S omehow Per Olsvig just couldn’t help it. He graduated from the academy of arts about a year ago, and before that he was already selling his paintings. I was actually there the night it began. Olsvig owed a gallery owner some money, and instead of taking his money, the gallery owner told him he could display a couple of paintings and see whether or not they sold. Before half a day was gone, the gallery sold