Read Online Blazed by Jason Myers - Free Book Online Page B

verge of brilliant. She’s only twenty-one years old, too. How goddamn phenomenal. The quality of her work at that age, it’s just incredible. And she’s just arrived in the city, too.”
    â€œFrom where?”
    â€œCharleston, South Carolina.”
    â€œWhy is she here?” I ask. “What does she have to do with you?”
    â€œI flew her here. One of my galleries is hosting the opening of her new exhibit next Friday night. She’ll be staying in the apartment above my gallery in the Lower Haight to work on the final piece of the collection.”
    â€œWow,” I say. “Sounds important.”
    The car takes an exit and we move into the actual city.
    My palms begin to sweat. My heart beats faster. This is it. This is fucking San Francisco, and I’m here and I’m excited and I’m scared and I’m nervous and I’m enamored.
    My father lowers his shades back over his eyes and goes, “It is important, son. I believe she’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Potentially the most important painter of her generation. The fact that she’s debuting her new pieces at my gallery, it’s a very big deal. It’s one of the most important things I’ve ever done.”
    I turn away from my father. So much makes sense to me right now. My mother always said my father was a wannabe artist. She told me he painted all the time but wasn’t any good and nobody liked his work.
    â€œBut he knew a lot about art. He was a fixture at gallery openings. He was at all the after parties. It’s how we met. But he couldn’t cut it as an artist. I don’t think he ever sold a piece. That must be really hard on someone. To love something so much, yet not to be very good at it. It’s cruel,” my mother would always say. “He wanted to be an artist sobad. He probably wanted it more than most artists do. He just had no talent.”
    Now he owns the places that show artists’ work to the rest of the world.
    It makes perfect sense to me.
    If you can’t join them, own them.

23.
    ME AND HER, WE SAT on the roof of her garage one afternoon when her parents were at the grocery store.
    She asked me what was wrong.
    â€œNothing,” I told her.
    â€œYou look out of it,” she said. “You’ve been really quiet since we got here.”
    I told her I was fine. That I was thinking about this dream I’d had the night before. I couldn’t shake it or ignore it.
    â€œWhat was the dream?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t wanna say,” I told her.
    â€œWas it about me?”
    I nodded.
    â€œCome on,” she went. “Tell me.”
    â€œIt’s fucked up. It was so fucked up and gross.”
    â€œThat just makes me wanna hear it even more.”
    She was wearing these dark-blue jeans that buttoned right under her belly button. She had a loose black tank top on and a black bandanna tied backward around her forehead.
    She was smoking a joint.
    I didn’t smoke any weed that afternoon.
    â€œPlease tell me,” she said. “You have to now. It’ll be good for you. It will.”
    This made me cringe. I went, “How the fuck do you know what’s good for me? How? ”
    She looked away, and I admired the way the sun looked on the pale skin of her shoulder, highlighting her tiny freckles.
    A few seconds later, she stood up. “Fuck you,” she said.
    â€œThat’s fair,” I said back.
    â€œWhat was your dream about?”
    I ran a hand down my face and told her.
    By the time I was finished, she was standing on the other side of the roof from me.
    And she looked sick.
    Later, when it was time for me to leave, she grabbed me and she threw her arms around me and told me that someday, she’d let me do anything I wanted to her.
    â€œThat’s not what I’m expecting,” I told her.
    â€œWell, I wasn’t expecting to hear about your dream.”
    We never talked about dreams