Art for the Sake of Art Read online

  Art raced to the door. He plastered a grin on his face and gripped the doorknob with his right hand. He swung the door open and posed, thrusting out his pelvis and stretching his left arm up to the top of the doorframe.

  “Heeeey. Glad you could swing by, big boy. Think maybe if you’ve got a moment, I could come between you and Jehovah?”

  “Hmmmm,” said the man on Art’s doorstep. “I think maybe I’ve made a jump to the wrong place. I was looking for the reality where I am a total wanker, not the one where I totally love wankers.”

  Art stared at a carbon copy of himself, only dressed in a white button-up shirt with a skinny black neck tie. Art’s jaw dropped, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not force it back up into a closed position. It remained stuck open like a garage door with a broken electronic opener: open, threatening to shut, and then clicking back open.

  “Mind if I step inside, mate?” asked the man in the tie.

  Art pushed his jaw closed with his hand. Despite his best efforts, it fell agape again.

  “Okay, I’m just going to walk around you,” said the identical stranger. “If you could please close your mouth so I can fit through the door.”

  Art did not comply, but the man standing on the filthy welcome-mat walked inside anyway.

  “Wh-Wh-Who are you?” Art finally stammered.

  The man extended his hand. Art gripped it with one of those limp, clammy-fish handshakes. “I’m Art,” said the stranger in a squeaky English accent. If the stranger hadn’t also been Art, the handshake would have made him assume Art to be the most spineless sort of wet noodle imaginable.

  “Ummm, what the hell is going on?” asked Art.

  “I’m you from Earth 49,652,” said the Art in the tie.

  “I’m very confused,” said the normal Art.

  Normal-Art became even more confused when he spotted movement beneath Tie-Art’s shirt. A giant brown cockroach, about a foot-and-a-half long, crawled out of Tie-Art’s sleeve, circled his torso three times, and then rested on his left shoulder. Its antennae wiggled in Normal-Art’s direction, and then it tilted its head to the side like an insectoid puppy.

  Normal-Art squealed, “You have a-a-a-a friggin’ giant cockroach on your sh-shoulder!”

  Normal Art could not be sure, but he could have sworn that he saw the giant cockroach frown at him. A tiny, blue bolt of lightning flashed between its antennae, and Normal-Art cringed.

  “D-D-Did it just flash lightning at me?”

  “No, Art, she flashed me. She was telling me that she’s twenty-five percent charged. It’s going to take about six more hours for her to charge enough for another jump.”

  “Another jump?”

  “Yeah. We’ve just come from a version of Earth populated by humans with one eye. They coincidentally never developed any vowels except for the O. On that Earth, we’re named Ort. Meeting ourselves there is at least slightly less confusing.”

  “What?”

  The Art in the tie pursed his lips, like he had explained this concept a thousand times before. The bug began circling around him again, and this time did not stop until it squatted atop his head. It spread its antennae out wide, crowning him with exoskeleton devil horns.

  Ginny walked out of the bedroom, took one look at the two Arts and the buggish crown, and walked right back the way she had come.

  “I’m you, but from another dimension. It’s not that hard to understand. As a matter of fact, I hear it’s a pretty prevalent trope in your earth’s version of comic books— which, from what I have been led to believe, are commonly viewed here as children’s literature. If children can understand it, I’m sure you can manage to wrap your mind around it.”

  “No way.”

  “Beverly, my jump bug, told me I’d find the key to my quest here on Earth 6,076.”

  “What’s your quest?”

  “Well, that’s my predicament. I don’t really know. Figured I’d treat it like a maze by starting at the end and working my way out. I plan to resolve the questions along the way.”

  Normal-Art shrugged. “OK. Makes sense to me. That’s how I solve mazes, too. How’d you know to find me here?”

  “I’ve been going door to door looking for you,” said the Art from another dimension. “Ol’ Bev here can always pinpoint my life-signature to a general area, no matter what version of me I’m looking for.”

  “Well, why were you trying to find me…errr, my version of us?” asked Normal-Art.

  “It’s complicated.”

  Normal-Art shrugged. “After meeting you, I think I can handle complication.”

  Before Normal-Art had the chance to prove how well he could handle complication, the situation became even more complicated. Once again, Ginny walked out of the bedroom. This time, however, she clung tightly to a giant red spray can with the label Bugs-B-Gone printed front-and-center in loud yellow block letters. She squeezed upon the trigger with a mighty squeeze and directed a haze of poisonous fog at the giant cockroach.

  The bug dove into Tie-Art’s shirt, popping apart the top two buttons to get inside and then poking its terrified head back out of his right armhole. It rubbed its two front legs together, and the appendages created a sound similar to a hyperactive kid knocking wooden blocks together at supersonic speed. The roach wiggled its long antennae and furrowed its brow.

  Beverly’s antennae locked straight out in front of her head. A growl that sounded like a pit bull’s snarl spewed from the bug’s throat. Normal-Art’s stomach dropped down to about the level of his mid-thighs.

  Beverly poked out of the armhole a little more and spread her wings, revealing an abdomen covered in turquoise tattoos depicting swirls and fluid lines and runes and waves. The light danced off them. Normal-Art had never seen a more beautiful cockroach. The bug’s thorax flexed, it grunted, and then discharged a thin blue lightning bolt from its antennae into the poisonous haze that had filled the room.

  The yelp from within the gagging fog told Normal-Art that Ginny had been hit. The loud CLONK on the floor told him that she had clonked to the floor.

  “What the hell?” Normal-Art yelled as the fumes caused his eyes to tear up.

  “Your lady attacked my Jump Bug, and according to the Interdimensional Travel Guidelines set by the Godavari Delta Convention of Earth 31,324, Beverly had every right to remove the life force from your lady. She could have stranded me here on your backwater Earth, and the results of that would have been disastrous.”

  “What? Your roach killed Ginny?”

  “Well, no, but you are one lucky me that she’s a classy bug,” said Tie-Art. “Bev merely stunned your lady.”

  “Thank God!”

  “’Thank God’? My sources assured me that we aren’t religious on this version of earth.”

  “What?” asked Normal-Art.

  “You thanked ‘God’! I distinctly requested to the Bureau of Interdimensional Travel that I wanted to jump to an Earth where I’ve got absolutely no conscience, one where I’m dead inside. I can’t use you if you’re religious. Too much risk of a change in heart at a critical moment.

  “Sorry to be rude,” continued Tie-Art, “but I must leave at once. I’ve wasted too much time with you, and now I’ve got to waste more at the Bureau, waiting for a refund. And surely you understand how government workers can be. I’m looking at a long night. Bye.”

  Tie-Art turned to leave, but Normal-Art grabbed his arm.

  “Oh, no. Wait! Thank God is just an expression here. Most of us just say it, but that doesn’t mean we believe any of that superstitious bunk. We’d actually be quite offended if somebody called us religious.”

  “So, you truly aren’t religious?”

  “No,” answered Normal-Art.

  “And you are dead inside?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far. I’m not happy, but then again, who is?”

  “What about numb? A little rotten? I’ll settle for either, we’ve just got to get moving, mate.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t know about rotten. But I think numb about sums it up.”

  Tie-Art grabbed Normal-Art by the hand and began to drag him out the front door and into the muggy city air. Normal-Art stopped and looked back inside his apartment.

  “What about Ginny?” asked Normal-Art. “Is she going to be okay? I mean, is that zappy blue lightning from your bug going to scar or anything?”

  “No, no, no. Beverly merely whisked seven pints of her blood to a parallel Earth for a fraction of a second and then returned it. She’ll wake up in an hour or so, feeling a mite hung over. I’d be more worried about her suffocating on the poisonous fumes with which she bombarded your home.”

  “Well, I guess we could open a few windows, let it air out a little. I could even leave the door open,” suggested Normal-Art.

  “Sounds fine to me, mate,” said Tie-Art. “But then it’s off to the nearest, seediest pub you got ‘round these parts.”

  “Sure,” said Normal-Art. “But you’re buying.”

  Chapter 2

  Two Arts Walk into a Bar…

  Normal-Art led Tie-Art three blocks south from his apartment to his favorite bar, McGreedy’s Pub. A hairy, dirt-streaked bum sitting on the curb outside the bar asked Normal-Art if he could spare some change.

  As he did nearly every day, Normal-Art pushed his way through the thick doors of the bar only after crudely telling the bum to pleasure himself and then to go get a job. Tie-Art, however, tossed the hairy hobo a small wad of hundred-dollar bills, and then followed Normal-Art into the bar. The hobo glanced down at the cash in his hand, grinned, stuffed the wad into his pocket, and called out his thanks to Tie-Art, without further inspecting the money at all.1

  As the Arts walked through the threshold and into the bar, the humidity and gray haze within caused them to feel a bit like they had dived into a swimming pool filled with smoke-flavored Jell-O. The pub was an Irish establishment, with lights dim enough that no matter what hour of the day Normal-Art entered, he always appeared at least somewhat less ugly to the opposite sex than he had been before he walked inside.

  The Arts sauntered over to the end of the long oaken bar and sat upon a pair of rickety iron stools. Normal-Art leaned forward onto his elbows. He stared at the beer taps, the ceiling, the bartender, anywhere but himself-from-another-dimension. After what seemed an eternity of awkwardness, the bartender limped over to them and took their orders. He returned a few moments later and slammed their glasses down in front of them. Booze sloshed over the sides and splashed onto the bar.

  Normal-Art gulped his Guinness like a champ, while Tie-Art sipped on his Chimay like a rich old geezer gumming at a shot of espresso, a squirrelly look on his face and one pinky poked up into the air. Normal-Art squinted in the dim light, signaling to the bartender for another drink. Tie-Art tossed a crisp, American ten-dollar bill onto the bar top. Both the Arts stared down at the bill instead of at each other. Alexander Hamilton stared right back, inanimate and silent.

  Normal-Art cleared his throat in an attempt to evict the awkward silence from the pub. It did not work, and the awkwardness moved right back in. It even brought a few bastard children along.

  “You twins or something?” asked the bartender, plopping the new Guinness down in front of Normal-Art. The liquid settled within the glass, shifting in color from light brown to opaque. Tiny carbonation bubbles swirled to the top of the glass like little ballerinas engaged in a dance of alcoholic ecstasy.

  “Something, mate,” replied Tie-Art.

  The bartender grunted, limped away, and began cleaning glasses with a dirty rag. Normal-Art grabbed a peanut from a bowl that sat atop the bar and decided against eating it after he had already put it into his mouth. He tasted every year that the legume had lain there, just waiting to sow a bitter flavor across some hapless bastard’s tongue. With each second the rotten peanut remained in his mouth, the horrid taste ripened and grew, until Normal-Art feared he might vomit. He spit the peanut into a cocktail napkin, wadded it up, and then tossed it onto the bar next to his glass.

  Tie-Art set his Chimay down and looked Normal-Art directly in the eyes. “I’ve got a proposition for you,” he explained.

  Normal-Art looked at the soiled napkin. “You journeyed across time and space just to find me,” he said. “I assumed this wasn’t a social call. What did you have in mind?”

  “I didn’t journey across time. Just space.”

  “What?”

  “You said I journeyed across time and space to find you,” said Tie-Art. “Time did not alter on my journey here, merely my location.”

  “Okay, fine. I get it. It was a figure of speech. Must we really go through this tiresome routine where you overanalyze every word that comes out of my mouth every time I turn a phrase?”

  “I don’t mind you turning a phrase,” replied Tie-Art with a seedy grin, “it just depends which direction you aim it.”

  Normal-Art sighed, finished his Guinness, and ordered another. He could already tell it was going to be a long day. If something better had come along than conversing with himself from an alternate reality, he would have been at it long ago.

  Normal-Art noticed a twitch beneath Tie-Art’s white shirt. Tie-Art shrugged as Beverly poked the tip of her head out from between two of his middle buttons. The giant bug stared at Normal-Art and tilted its head to one side. The bug reminded Art of a puppy his mom used to own, a little Chihuahua that would spin around in circles and yelp and stare holes through him any time it smelled food. Beverly continued gazing at him just like that old begging puppy, and Normal-Art tried his best to ignore it. Finally, when his Guinness arrived, he could stand her gaze no longer, so he sighed and passed the drink over to Tie-Art’s stomach. He had never been able to say no to his mom’s damned dog, either. Beverly’s forelegs snatched the glass from his hand, and the bug gulped and slurped the dark liquid. Murky brown stains sloshed and spread across Tie’s crisp, white shirt.

  Normal-Art turned away and caught the bartender gawking at Tie-Art’s midsection. The bartender’s lips fluttered back and forth as he exhaled heavily out of his mouth. He tried to stammer something, but then gave up.

  Tie-Art shrugged at the bartender. “Dames, huh? Even when they’ve got terrible manners, you say anything about ‘em and you’re in the doghouse for weeks.”

  The bartender pulled a glass from beneath the bar and grabbed a bottle of dusty Scotch from the top shelf. The bottle made a satisfying WHUMP as the bartender popped the cork from the bottle’s heavy glass lip. The weak light fixture on the ceiling above sputtered, and the meager light it created disappeared into the deep green glass of the bottle. The peaty smell of the amber liquid within the bottle crept across the bar. Normal-Art’s nose twinged at the earthy musk. The bartender poured himself a glass. He gulped, poured again, gulped.

  “The roaches in this town are huge,” he said, never removing his eyes from Beverly. He knocked the glass out of his way with the back of his hand and brought the bottle to his lips. He chugged until racking coughs prevented him from chugging any longer. When he got the coughing under control, he removed his apron, folded it neatly, placed it on the countertop, and walked quickly out of the pub, never re-corking the Scotch. In a few days, Normal-Art would wish he had done the same thing.

  “I’ve already gotten you the necessary permit for interdimensional travel,” Tie-Art explained to Normal-Art, ignoring the bartender’s absurd exit. “You’re going to need it on you at all times. If the Bureau catches you out ‘n’ about without it, you’re looking at hard time in one of their penal dimensions.”

  Tie-Art pulled a card from his pocket and tossed it in front of Normal-Art. It clacked onto the wooden bar top. Normal-Art picked it up and inspected it. Staring back at him from the top right of the card was a headshot of himself grinning like an idiot.

  Below the unflattering image was his name, address— city, state, country, earth number— and a large barcode. Emblazoned on the bottom left of the card was a circular seal with the
words Bureau of Interdimensional Travel— A B.I.T. better than any other mode of travel written around its border. Inside the seal, an eagle was positioned with its wings outstretched and a pair of antennae standing erect from its head. Every few seconds, a blue bolt of lightning flashed between the antennae.

  “Touch the back of the card to your chest, and it’ll stay there ‘til you order it to come off,” said Tie-Art.

  Normal-Art smirked, then unbuttoned his shirt and touched the thick plastic to his right pectoral. He felt a tingling sensation, which soon grew into an intense burning below his skin. His epidermis melted like candle wax and engulfed the card. He tried to scream, but no sound left his mouth. It felt as though his larynx had decided to go on strike, and his breath had elected to join it. The card tested the tensile strength of his skin as it popped out of his chest like a cartoon-heart.

  Then it slapped back down in place. The card finally lay calmly embedded in his chest— somehow shiny in the dim light of the pub, despite resting beneath his skin— and when he looked down at it, he smiled back at himself with an idiotic upside-down grin.

  “You look like a pro,” said Tie-Art. “Like you’ve been jumping your whole life.”

  “You could’ve told me it was gonna hurt like hell,” muttered Normal-Art when the pain finally subsided enough to allow him to speak. His throat felt raw from his attempts to scream, as though he had just smoked an entire pack of Marlboros, all at once and unfiltered. He rubbed his tender chest where the card smarted.

  Normal-Art snatched Tie-Art’s Chimay from atop the bar and pounded it. Beverly still had a few swallows of Guinness left in her glass, so Normal-Art snatched it from her forelegs and gulped that beer down, too. “That’s a little better,” he remarked.