Blair had never kissed anyone, ever. And, of course, no one had ever kissed him. That seems obvious, but when people kiss, it’s never really clear who is doing the kissing and who is being kissed once their lips meet.
I met him at a craft fair in Camden. He watched me weld the edges of a copper sculpture together. That wasn’t odd in itself – lots of men like to watch girls weld. Something about the goggles and the gloves and stuff. They stand there and fantasize about what’s beneath it. Or maybe it’s the torch. Kind of like girls with guns. Fantasy crap. Sometimes I get guys who want to talk shop, discuss the relative merits of different rods, but that stuff doesn’t interest me. I only taught myself to weld because I wanted to make the sculptures. I’m not fetishistic about it. It’s just a means to an end.
But Blair wasn’t one of those guys either. I could tell he didn’t really care about the process. He was antsy and impatient for me to finish, shifting his weight from foot to foot, crossing and recrossing his arms over his bleach-stained black t-shirt. The first thing I noticed, when I took my goggles off and looked up was that he was sporting a lot of ink, everywhere.
“Hi,” he said. “Is this your art?”
If I couldn’t tell that he wasn’t in the market for an art piece by the tone of his voice, one look at his face clinched it for me. It sounds awful to say he was hideously ugly, and it wouldn’t be strictly true. Underneath all the ink and the piercings and shit, he had once been a handsome man. I could have overlooked the christmas tree worth of stuff hanging from his ears and jammed through his lips and eyebrows, but it was the swastika on his cheek that did it for me. It was impossible to ignore and impossible to look at it for long. My very first thought was ‘asshole’.
“Yup,” I said tightly, turning back to the work.
“I like what you do,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Can I buy you a coffee, or a pint?”
I kept my eyes down. “Nope.”
“Why not?”
I found the next piece of copper to join to the structure and shook my head. Blunt is always best, I figured. “I don’t like your face.”
“I don’t like yours much either.”
“Good, then we’re done.” I said, pulling my goggles back on and reigniting the propane torch.
I started on the next join. The goggles cut peripheral vision, and I figured that if I just ignored him long enough, he’d move on. But when I’d finished and pulled off my goggles again to inspect the weld, he was still there. Still shifting from foot to foot.
“Don’t you take commissions?”
I sighed and looked up at him. “You’re kidding.”
“No. I’m not.”
“You can’t afford me.”
“Yes, I can.”
It really was hard to look him in the face. All that mess was just so hateful. Symbols, signs, icons. People don’t think they matter, but they do. They speak just as loud as any voice, with all the weight of history and the meanings we’ve piled onto them. Blair had a face that screamed at me, even with his mouth shut. “Look, I’m really not interested.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to make anything you’d find offensive.”
I sat on my haunches and put the torch down. I was broke. It wasn’t like I was overburdened with commissions from rich collectors. The last one I’d had was for a primary school south of the river, six months before. I’d only sold two pieces since then. My money was running out and I didn’t want to suffer the humiliation of signing on for the dole again.
“What exactly do you want?”
“I’d rather not discuss it here.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want anything offensive? I’m not bloody making you an eight-foot Nazi sculpture for your living room. I’ve got ethics, you know.”
He looked dismayed. At least I thought it was dismayed. It was hard to tell with all that junk on his face. “It’s nothing like that. I just…” he glanced around; people jostled him as they brushed past. “I just don’t want to talk about it in a public place.”
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