Art for the Sake of Art Read online

  Copyright

  ART FOR THE SAKE OF ART

  Copyright © 2013, 2018 by Christopher Brimmage

  ISBN-13: 978-0-692-18650-3 (Karaoke Octopus Press)

  ISBN-10: 0-692-18650-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, alternate universes, squirrels, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously (well, unless you’re reading this on another reality in the Multiverse where everything that happens is true, in which case, it’s not a work of fiction. But that’s unlikely. Unless you live on a reality where it is likely, in which case, I retract my assertion of unlikelihood).

  Cover design by Damonza.com

  For Geraldine.

  No, shlove, I’m not dead inside. I love shoes.

  For Kyle and Moose.

  Thanks for all the help and the Golden Girls trivia (one of you in particular for the latter; you know who you are).

  And for Dorothy.

  I miss you.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1: Ars Gratia Artis

  Chapter 2: Two Arts Walk into a Bar…

  Chapter 3: A Tale of Two Ginnys

  Chapter 4: Weapons Make the Men. And the Bug.

  Chapter 5: Ride the Lightning

  Chapter 6: A New, Pink God

  Chapter 7: Abgray the Irrelsquay

  Chapter 8: Chirp-Chirp-Chiroo

  Chapter 9: Rock You Like a Squirrel-cane!

  Chapter 10: Gathering Tiny Recruits

  Chapter 11: Art ex machina

  Chapter 12: Journey to the South

  Chapter 13: The Tunnel beneath the Tiny World

  Chapter 14: Of Landings and Plannings

  Chapter 15: A Few Kinks to Work Out

  Chapter 16: Comet-Boy

  Chapter 17: An Epically Odd Showdown

  Chapter 18: Unless My Necklace of Severed Ears Deceives Me…

  Chapter 19: Lady Luck Can Be a Bit Bashful

  Chapter 20: Even the Longest Journey Begins with One Step…Followed by a Shitload of Mayhem

  Chapter 21: Contrary to Popular Belief, Terra Cotta Warriors Do Not, in Fact, Make the Best Guards…

  Chapter 22: Sweet, Sweet Squirrelly Release

  Chapter 23: Mortal (and Immortal) Combat

  Chapter 24: A Pixie Feast

  Chapter 25: A Celestial Junkie

  Chapter 26: Sandstorms and Glasstorms and Gods

  Chapter 27: Swimming for Eternity

  Chapter 28: Deus ex machina

  Chapter 29: Cosmic Choices

  Chapter 30: The Right Hand of Destruction

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Foreword

  Put this book down.

  Go outside, go for a walk, go do anything else! It’s full of uninspiring gibberish. You won’t gain anything from reading this garbage other than an irrational disdain for me.

  Now don’t get me wrong, Chris Brimmage is a decent enough writer. He at least knows how to use periods and commas and quotation marks and parallelism and polysyndeton. But that doesn’t mean he knows how to tell any sort of truth about the human condition (which, I’m sure you would agree, is a writer’s core task). As a matter of fact, he tells no truths at all. None!

  Take his portrayal of me, for instance. He makes me seem like nothing more than a hack demigod whose sole purpose is to con the unexpecting mortals around me. I’m much more than that, but because he lacks the vocabulary and the wherewithal to depict me as such, the reader never sees a single endearing side of me.

  Where I come from, I had a much different reputation than how this drivel depicts me. I was as kind and generous as could be. I helped children fall asleep at bedtime and blessed the parents who wished to copulate in the ensuing peace. I blessed the tongues of lawyers, turning them silver, and I brought fire to the hearth of many a lonely maid. I blessed the wayward and the ignored and the downtrodden, answering their prayers with gifts of chemicals and cash and contraband.

  How does a god who was so magnanimous to his people fit the mold into which this book shoves him? He doesn’t, that’s how!

  Wait! Before you get bored and turn the page and skip the rest of my foreword, let me interrupt myself to tell you that I’m getting to a point here, so just bear with me. I needed to take a bit of time in the previous paragraphs to establish my ethos and to knock Chris’ down a few pegs. But I can see that you were too dense to understand my intentions without me spelling them out for you, oh you of the itchy page-turning-finger, so maybe you and the idiot author would get along fantastically.

  As a matter of fact, if a version of him from any other reality were to write such a stupid book as this one, I’d wager everything I own that he’d be shunned by society and forced to live in the wilderness by himself. But, alas, your reality is not like the others, so you might indeed suckle a grain of entertainment from this trash.

  But you shouldn’t, because even if you find a shred of it funny or entertaining, you should know that the plot and characters are stupid, and if nothing else, that should put you off from reading these lies about me.

  You don’t believe me? Well, I’ve heard the author refer to this book as an anti-bildungsroman. By Me, do people just make up genres for literature these days? Who wants to read anything from someone so pretentious? Hopefully not you. (And on the plus side for me, I’m pretty sure the people of your reality hate big words, so the mere presence of bildungsroman in a foreword might scare off many of you potential readers. Oh, Me, that would be wonderful!).

  If you haven’t put this stupid thing down yet, then maybe this will motivate you: there will be no surprises in this book.

  It’s a sci-fi/fantasy story, and these things always end the same way. It’s not even spoiling anything to tell you that the good guys win in the end. The stupid treasure gets saved. Everything ends peacefully.

  Boring, right? So skip it. Go do something fun.

  …

  So, you’re still here, huh? Well, if you’ve made it this far without turning around, let me give you one final warning: I’m a god who controls certain strains of pestilence, so if you don’t back off now, you shall be scratching your itchy nether-regions for years.

  Oh! That gives me a delightful idea! Let’s take this a step further: if you don’t copy this foreword and send it to ten people within the next hour, warning them to stay away from this stupid book, I will sic such a bad case of crabs on you that your friends will refer to you as “Mister/Miss Maryland” for the short amount of time you have left on this earth before you put yourself out of your misery.

  There it is. You’ve been warned. Art for the Sake of Art is stupid, the author’s a liar, and now you’re caught up in a chain letter because you were curious enough to read the first couple pages of this trash.

  Enjoy the remainder of your measly existence. And don’t you dare waste any of it on this stupid pack of lies about me.

  Sincerely,

  Artheoskatergariabetrugereiinganno (But you can call me Art),

  Deity of Earth 49,652,

  Patron god of mischief, trickery, chaos, rebirth, phoenixes, mimes, mummers, taxi drivers, chauffeurs, pixies, butterflies, grottoes, crevasses, spring, storytelling, sleep, dreams, bears, tortoises, fish, prime numbers, clowns, coulrophobia, triskaidekaphobia, taphophobia, NicholasCageophobia, uranophobia, all other phobias (both real and fictional), pestilence of reproductive organs, non sequiturs, musicians, painters, sculptors, modern art, ancient art, every art in betw
een, lawyers, politicians, writers, fat guys in tropically themed shirts, fire, gelatin desserts, et cetera, etc, abbreviations for “and the rest” in ancient languages, and the rest

  Chapter 1

  Ars Gratia Artis

  Art watched the wiry mustache in front of him waggle up and down as the mouth below it flapped open and shut. He had not been able to concentrate on any of the words flopping from the mouth since a bubbly glob of spittle had catapulted from it and landed squarely in the center of his forehead. After wiping away the spittle, he had begun gripping the armrests of his chair, crippled with anxiety by the looming possibility that another glob would launch at him. Judging from the vitriol inundating the words, he was quite sure that any fluid originating from behind those lips would be acidic enough to put out an eye if it caught him in one.

  Art’s fingernails dug into the hard, plastic armrests. He bit the inside of his cheek. His knuckles turned white. The sharp ache of cramps twisted down the length of his fingers. This was it. He could not stand another second of this mind-numbing lecture. He felt a frustrated scream form deep in his bowels. It rocketed up through his body, and just when it was on the verge of launching from his mouth, it crashed to a halt against the back of his teeth.

  He realized that the frothing mouth in front of him had shut and was no longer lecturing. It had curled into a scowl, and Art realized that it was waiting for his response. Art’s mind snapped into gear, firing synapses that had, by now, become habit. He wiped his glazed eyes with his shirt sleeve and then muttered the same thing he did nearly every day when he found himself in this exact same scenario: “Yes, sir, Mr. Reynolds.”

  “I mean it this time. This is your last chance,” said Mr. Reynolds, Art’s boss at this regional branch of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Reynolds,” repeated Art, pretending to both know and care about what his boss was furious this time. “I can go now?”

  Mr. Reynolds frowned. “You really need to work on your attitude. Lots of people out there are out of work, and they’d love your job.”

  Art stood up and shrugged. “Oh, yeah, people are just dying to work at the DMV. When they’re standing in line all afternoon waiting for their driver’s licenses, I overhear, like, every one of them say to each other, Hey, I love this experience so much, I wish I could come back every day.”

  Mr. Reynolds began yelling as Art walked out of the room, and then continued yelling as Art walked back out to the front counter, but Art ignored him.

  Art had mouthed off to Mr. Reynolds much worse in the past than he had today, but somehow still possessed his job. He was quite sure his “last chance” tally surpassed a thousand by now. Maybe today Mr. Reynolds had actually meant it. Art crossed his fingers for luck.

  Whenever the inevitable firing finally happened, Art would be able to at long last begin fulfilling his ultimate ambition in life: collecting unemployment and sitting on the couch all day every day, watching television. On days like today, he suspected that Mr. Reynolds knew of this lofty objective, and Mr. Reynolds’ spite for him was why he had not yet been canned.

  Art meandered back over to his position at station number four. He glanced up at the long line of frustrated potential commuters. The line stretched back and forth through every free inch of the building until it disappeared out the door. There was no end in sight, and Art could hear dozens of people sighing, and dozens of others complaining about late appointments that had been scheduled for hours ago.

  Art was in no mood to help any of these people, so when one walked up to his station before being signaled, Art decided to ignore him. Out of spite, he called the following customer in line, but grew bored halfway through helping this one, and informed this one that his application needed to be filled out in triplicate. Art did not really know what triplicate meant, but that did not stop him from sending this customer over to the side of the room to search vainly through the rack of paperwork for a nonexistent triplicate form.

  When the first customer— the one who had been so handily ignored— demanded to speak to Art’s manager, Art disregarded the request and announced that he was going on break for the remainder of the day. And with that, Art walked out from behind the counter, smirked at the annoyed customer, and exited the door.

  On his way home, his cell phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that it was Mr. Reynolds calling. He ignored it, allowing it to go to voicemail. Three minutes later, Mr. Reynolds called him again. This time, he answered the phone. And then he immediately hung up.

  *

  When Art arrived home, he retrieved a glass from his cabinet and filled it with milk. The date on the carton said the milk had expired three days ago. Art smelled it. It did not smell too sour, so he shrugged and took a gulp. He licked the white mustache from his upper lip and plopped down on the couch. He set his milk on the coffee table and lay back. He turned on the television and promptly fell asleep.

  He awoke to darkness, so he turned on the lamp on the side table. He stared across the room and out the window. He could not quite put his finger on why, but the dark night outside seemed somehow small and pedestrian, like some bully who tries to act intimidating but is, in fact, a whimpering shell on the inside. He remembered having a dream, but he could not recall what it was about other than that there had been a bright blue light involved somehow. He sighed. He tried to feel regret about the fact that he had probably at long last lost his job, but he could not bring himself to care.

  His thoughts were interrupted when a female voice called his name from the bedroom.

  “How long you been home?” he called back.

  “Got home ‘bout an hour ago. You were too cute to wake,” replied Ginny, his live-in girlfriend.

  Art shrugged. “Didn’t expect you to be home so early.”

  “I traded shifts to get off work early, so I could spend time with you. Did you forget what day it is?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “It’s your birthday, silly. Sometimes I wonder what would happen to your head if it wasn’t attached to your body.”

  “Oh,” replied Art.

  “Now come in here and ravage me, birthday boy.”

  Art sighed. Ravaging sounded like a lot of work, and he did not feel like doing any work just now—or ever again, really, for that matter. But if he did not, Ginny would nag him all night long and would possibly want to enter a deep discussion about the nature of their relationship, and she would probably start crying and accusing him of no longer finding her attractive, and then he would never get the chance to relax. So he gave in to the inevitable, calling out, “Be right there.”

  But before trudging into the bedroom, he walked over to the bathroom and dug through the medicine cabinet, removing a bottle of pills. He retrieved one of the little blue pills contained within. He swallowed it without any water, imagining as it entered his esophagus how it would travel the entire length of his body like a roving medieval cathedral builder to labor at the unenviable task of molding his flaccid landscape into a monstrous symbol of love. Then, as he dragged his feet into the bedroom, he stared longingly at his lonely milk on the coffee table and dreaded how long this deed would probably take.

  *

  Art woke early the next morning and could not get back to sleep. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. It was one of those old-timey ceilings, the kind with the circles and swirls that look like the builders must have glued vinyl records up there and painted over them. Art squinted, hoping to find Abbey Road. He stared for so long that he could swear he saw it up there, somewhere beneath the cracking paint.

  But then the woman next to him stirred, and the thought fled from his mind, wedging itself down in that corner of the brain where all bumbling thoughts await execution by the twin demons Distraction and Forgetfulness.

  “You awake?” Ginny asked.

  Art grunted. “Guess so,” he muttered.

  “Go make some coffee. I ain’t up yet.”

  Art m
et Ginny seven months ago at some pretentious little uptown bar, and they had not been apart since. This was not because Art particularly liked her, but because he was simply too lazy to go search for anyone or anything better, and she was too dense to notice. And no matter how hard he tried— which he did as often as he could work up the energy— he could not bring himself to genuinely care about her, and he did not think he ever would.

  This lack of emotion manifested itself in the form of a shrug. He climbed out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen. He opened the Folgers can and dumped two scoops into the filter. He poured some water into the coffeemaker, and then banged around with his finger until he found the button to start the water drip. The black liquid began pooling in the bottom of the pot, burying leftover grounds from yesterday morning in a watery grave. He sighed. The doorbell rang.

  Art walked to the front door and peeked through the peephole. A man in a white shirt and black tie stood on the stoop, staring down at his watch with an air of impatience. Art smiled to himself and scrambled back into the bedroom, sprinting to the dresser on the near wall and diving headfirst into the bottom drawer.

  “Who is it?” Ginny demanded.

  “Looks like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Figured I should put some clothes on ‘fore I answer it.”

  “Well, hurry up. The doorbell’s obnoxious. I don’t wanna hear it ring again.”

  Art rushed into a pair of plaid boxers and Ginny’s frilly pink robe. He did not want to keep the Jehovah’s Witness waiting, for acting flamboyantly gay around them to make them squirm when they appeared on his doorstep was one of the few delights he experienced on a semi-weekly basis.

  The Jehovah’s Witness tapped the doorbell again, and the deep, sad thrum of a foghorn blared through the apartment. Ginny glared at Art. Art shrugged at her. He had installed the new doorbell himself. He was exceedingly proud of it, because it was one of the only projects around the place that he had started and actually completed. At the time of the installation, he thought it the most brilliant idea on earth, but the novelty wore off long before a week had passed. If he could just manage to work up the energy, he would have deactivated the stupid thing by now.