Seeking Transcendence at the Silverlake Reservoir

A short story about dating artists in order to become them

(some pieces of this story may be factual & some may be fiction)

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Seeking Transcendence at the Silverlake Reservoir

I wanted to do anything, I wanted to scream, but my pit of inaction had become so unending that I was incapable of exerting the energy necessary to get myself out of it. All I could do was scroll scroll scroll scroll. Mindlessly scroll.

Until I saw the image.

In seconds what had made it so hard to move, released and whipped me like wind onto a path. I needed to see it in person. The gallery would be closing in 30 minutes.

*

An outpouring of glowing, furious red, seizing into a frightening hot, hot pink filled the space from ceiling to floor. It was shocking. To my surprise, the medium was crochet. Which made the battle all the more physical. It was as if the artist had replicated the phenomena that lived and tormented the inside of me.

I stared into the nucleus.

A voice circled my ears.

The gallery would be closing in 8 minutes.

I wavered back into reality as my body whipped towards the attendant.

“Who made this?”

*

c-o-r-k-s-c-r-e-w

I typed into Instagram. A verified profile emerged. No posts. 65k followers. Only one tagged photo of him sitting on a burgundy velvet couch in a teal paisley suit. Huge oversized sunglasses covering his face.

I followed him, posted a photo of the piece on my story, and clicked off my phone.

Today, I had to write.

Or, maybe not today. I was tired after all. From doing what? Nearly nothing, but having nothing to do was exhausting, too. Thinking of ideas was exhausting. Trying to survive was exhausting.

I thought about the piece. It was so brave. Abstract, emotional, and overflowing. That was the art I wanted to make but through writing. But whenever I tried to write from that place, my writing scared me. It was like looking out from a ledge. I was afraid things about myself, things I was not ready to witness, would drop and appear on the page.

I wondered what his process was like.

I debated opening my journal but reflexed towards another social media break.

To my surprise, I had a collection of notifications. Along with a follow back and two unread direct messages.

Suddenly I was getting dressed and calling an Uber.

*

On the ride there a question fell and cracked over my head — what exactly was I doing? Why did I so suddenly agree to a dinner date?

Well, self — I responded to my mind— it’s for the art. The art brought me here. I trusted that what I saw in his piece, I would witness before me.

*

My Uber pulled over at L&E Oyster bar and as I hopped out, a figure approached me.

He was attractive in an entirely appalling way.

He had big brown jeweled eyes, a buzzcut, and a face that was confusingly svelte yet plump. He was tall, yet not too tall. Slim, but not quite. He wore a bright blue t-shirt with a yellow tulip on it and lime green dress pants.

We wrapped in an awkward embrace and grabbed a table outside.

I immediately regretted my fashion choices. I was wearing a white mesh dress that exposed my bralette and underwear. Its length touched my ankles.

He smiled and it scared me. He was so happy. I think I was happy too.

*

Conversation was a nervous blur.

“Is your real name Corkscrew?, I asked him while fiddling with the menu.

“No, I don’t like to tell people my real name.”

He had the kind of face where even if you were looking straight at him, you still couldn’t get a good look. There was something elusive in his appearance that made my eyes cross. He was unable to be taken in. I could only accept his image through puzzle-like clunks.

Maybe part of me didn’t want to see him.

He ordered us calamari, truffle fries, oysters, and a bottle of red wine.

*

“So, why crochet?”

He explained it was the art supply he had in excess in his home growing up, due to his mother’s devout obsession. He looked at crochet as a technology, as a science, and as a means of displaying emotion. How different thresholds of color and texture could activate varying responses in people.

I thought about the piece. And I wondered if my response was what he had planned.

“Do you ever just create to express how you feel?”, I blurted.

“I’m more interested in seeing how to trigger reactions in people”

I noticed his slender fingers drumming on the table. Blue veins. Tattoos warped around their edges.

I couldn’t tell if he liked women or not. He radiated no sexuality whatsoever. But, he did ask me on a date here. So, I tried to sexualize him. His art was attractive enough for me to glaze over the things I didn’t like.

In my mind, I made him like women. Or at least, I made him like me.

“Enough about me, what do you do?”, he asked, while dropping fried calamari into his mouth.

“Oh, well I’m an artist, too…I’m a writer”

“Oh, you’re a writer. Do you have any books out?”

I was a little stunned by the question. I thought he had stalked my page. I thought he knew that I had a mini-book out but not a real book. And how a real book was coming but for now I had a Substack. But then I realized, all the photos he had engaged with were selfies. He must not have scrolled through the carousels to see the writing behind them.

“No, I don’t have a real book out yet, but I have been working on a story that I’m eventually going to develop into a movie, an art installation, and possibly an immersive theatrical play!”

I sought to charm him with all the things I was going to do but hadn’t done quite yet. I took a long sip of wine and waited for his eyes to glow — like mine did.

But he simmered over what I said and gave me a slight “hmm” — like vegetables rotating on a skewer. My ideas were not ready to be eaten by him yet. Still raw.

“So what’s it about?”

I was unable to give him an answer.

*

From there, dinner diverted to conversations solely about his work and his projects. His successes. His celebrity clientele. Usually, I would have loved something like this. Usually, I would have drank up the so-called inspiration.

He finally asked me a question.

“So how did you become a writer?”

I responded, tipsily, “Well I didn’t really decide. It kind of just happened to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, one day I started noticing the world to a degree in which I couldn’t not say anything about it.”

I rammed an oyster into my mouth and relished in the brine.

*

As the night increased, I noticed whatever of his sexual energy was missing, was simply hiding, and was now making its way out through each finished glass of wine. He seemed less and less interested in discussing art.

I then tried to position myself more as an intriguing romantic prospect as opposed to an artistic peer, because I believed somehow I was not good enough of an artist to keep his attention.

And I still wanted his attention, because if an artist like him — an artist who made money, and who made work that I believe mattered — wanted to be with me, that would mean I was close to becoming something like him right?

So, if I had to erase myself a bit — if I had to give him longer, slower stares, and shrug my dress a bit lower so he could better see my chest, and if I had to ask him more questions, questions I may not have been interested in hearing the answers to, but wanted him to feel important by asking them. If I had to do all those things, to make it seem like I was open, wide open, and ready, then that’s what I would have to do. That’s what I would have to do for my art, right?

I couldn’t help but feel that in these moments what I was doing was not helping my art and was actually doing quite the opposite.

I realized I still hadn’t asked him about the piece.

“So, what response did you want from your artwork in the gallery?”

“Well, what did it make you feel?”, he poised back at me.

I thought for a few seconds.

“….It made me feel like I was looking at two of the most beautiful colors in the world fight each other to the death, and how both of them were winning, and yet both of them were losing.”

He looked at me and simply stared.

It felt as if, for the first time that night, he really looked at me.

After a few moments, he responded.

“I just wanted people to feel love.”

The simplicity and outright basic-ness of that statement abhorred me. LOVE? That was it? I was speechless.

“But I believe what you said might mean the same thing.”

And if I had been speechless before, I had descended into an even more pronounced version of it. Tears began to form in my eyes before I could recognize they were there.

*

The check came and he placed his heavy black card on the table.

And I didn’t even do my dance of pretending to try to pay, because something about his previous statement seemed to pull the plug on me.

So when he asked me if I wanted a ride home I obliged. And when we got into his white Tesla and he didn’t start driving but instead turned his head towards me, and pressed his lips onto mine, it was like I still wasn’t there. Whoever I was at the beginning of dinner wasn’t there. And suddenly I felt naked in my see-through dress and when he touched me it felt more like a violation than it did passion, and before I knew it I was running out of his car and onto the street, and all I could think of in my mind was to get to the reservoir.

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