by Marty Coleman | Apr 20, 2015 | Illustrated Short Stories |
Plain Jane and Wild Willy
Jane was eating lunch in the little bookshop bistro on Main Street. She sat reserved and composed, her hair pulled back with a nondescript band into a well mannered ponytail. She ate her soup silently, not moving her body much and never looking up. She didn’t look sad, just self-contained. Her clothing was baggy, not revealing too much of her figure and the colors were muted.
As she finished her meal a big, loud, wildly dressed man came in the bistro. He had on leather pants, fur vest, denim shirt, silver bolo tie, gold earrings, bright orange and purple cowboy boots and a big black cowboy hat. He had a big beard, his hair, part black part purple, was in a braid and he had 3 big rings on his left hand. He walked over to the woman eating her soup leaned over her and gave her a big kiss on the mouth.
She smiled and said, “Are you done shopping now?”
He said, “Yep, and you’ll be proud, I only got 3 shirts, 2 pairs of pants and one hat. Oh, and I got a new pan and some dishtowels and a plant and a new trashcan for the kitchen. But that’s all I got!”
She laughed and said, “Ok, I’m done. Let’s go.”
He scowled, “what a second, I want to find that cookbook I read about online.” He walked towards the back of the store.
She turned her head and saw me watching their interaction. She smile, rolled her eyes and said to me, “Whatchya gonna do, right? He wants what he wants and if he’s happy then our house is happy.”
He came back quickly with two books and exclaimed, “Look, I found the recipe book but also that book, ‘How to Organize Your Life and Closet’ I’ve been wanting.”
Jane got up, went up to the register and paid for the lunch and books. She said, “Ok, Willy, now we have to go home. The playoffs are on in 2 hours and I need a nap before that.” She went out the door, holding it for Willy.
She smiled and waved to me as the door closed.
The End
Drawing and story © 2015 Marty Coleman
Here’s the drawing after it was colored but before I shaded it.
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 30, 2015 | Illustrated Short Stories |
What She Did – Chapter One
Yes, she had to stay at her brother’s apartment Ruth told their mom. Yes, she knew that meant mom would have to find someone else to let the dog out to go pee during the day, but she still needed to stay over there.
Ruth made a list of things she needed to do before she got there and another list of things to do after she arrived. The final thing on the first list was to pick her brother up at the rehab place. The first thing on the second list was to recheck his apartment one more time for any alcohol. She found none.
She cooked dinner for her brother, who was uncommunicative and surly. They watched TV until late then he went to bed. She wasn’t comfortable going to sleep until she was pretty sure he was out for the night. She finally faded off around 4am, sleeping on a fold-out couch in her underwear.
What the Fire Did – Chapter Two
She was aroused from a dead sleep by the smell of smoke. She immediately started coughing and her eyes started burning. She couldn’t see. She yelled for her brother but got no response. She crawled to his door with her t-shirt over her mouth, trying to breathe. She touched the doorknob and it burnt the palm of her hand. She called for him again but got no response. She crawled back towards the front door and opened it. She got up and ran down the stairs out onto the lawn.
Ruth was in pain, her legs felt hot and she smelled burning flesh. She saw a TV news truck, an ambulance, a cop car and a bunch of people hanging around, many pointing at her. She collapsed in front of the ambulance just as a paramedic was coming towards her. They were able to get her on one of those rolling beds they use and started to investigate what her injuries were. She was able to look back at the apartment for a brief moment and saw 3 buildings burning, including the middle one she had run out of.
She was whisked off to the hospital where she found out her legs had been pretty badly burned. She was exhausted and pretty much passed out once she got out of the ER and into the ICU. She was awakened again and again for various reasons but it was all a blur.
What The Nurse and Doctor Did – Chapter Three
When she awoke the next morning she was jolted by seeing the massive bandages on her legs. She felt like the world started spinning as she realized where she was and what had happened to her. She dropped her head back on the pillow and let the world spin.
When she raised her head back up a nurse was walking in. He introduced herself as Samha, asked how she was doing and explained what was happening. She had her burn wounds cleaned out a bit last night, they were covered in a cream to help loosen the remaining dead skin, then they were wrapped with gauze to protect them. This dressing was going to be taken off this morning and her wounds examined by the doctor. Then they would be cleaned again and dressed again. This would be repeated twice a day until she was ready for a skin graft, if it was needed. She told her the rest of the medical treatments would be explained by the doctor when she came in.
Ruth was about to ask about her brother when the doctor came in. She was perhaps 50 years old, had wiry salt and pepper hair pulled back in a pony tail and wore black rimmed glasses. Her full lips were covered in a deep but bright red lipstick. As much pain as she was in, she wanted that lipstick. She thought it very weird that she thought that. The Dr. smiled and started talking as she looked down at the chart. She introduced herself as Dr. Fernandez. Ruth asked her straight out, “What happened to my brother?”
Dr. Fernandez looked at her with kind eyes and said, “Your brother wasn’t able to make it out. I am very sorry.” The world started spinning and she dropped her head back once again.
What Her Dad Did – Chapter Four
She pretty much slept through the first 2 days. When she awoke her father was there. He had brought Ruth her phone, her tablet, her latest Vogue magazine and a book that had been on her nightstand. He had also brought a small rolling suitcase with her makeup and other toiletries as well as a underwear, various tops and a sweatshirt for if it got cold.
Her mother would be at the hospital later, her father said. She had an appointment at the funeral home and had to take the dog for a walk. Ruth didn’t mind. She would rather see her father anyway, less stress, less guilt, less feeling inadequate. She knew her mother loved her, but she also knew she loved her brother more. She would figure out a passive aggressive way to indirectly blame Ruth for his death, she had no doubt.
There was a food tray on the rolling thing, she didn’t know what those things were called. Her father asked her if she wanted to eat and she realized she was very hungry. She wolfed down the salisbury steak and mashed potatoes, not caring in the least that it tasted institutional. She actually smiled when she got to the Jello cup. It was her favorite flavor, grape.
What the Fire Did, Part 2 – Chapter Five
Ruth and her father talked for a long time about what happened and he filled her in on some details. The fire had started in the apartment next door. A burner had been left on under a frying pan and the leftover grease in the pan had caught on fire. They think it had caught a dishrag that was next to the stove on fire and that it had fallen to the kitchen floor and caught the a little kitchen rug and part of the cabinet door on fire. That led to the entire kitchen going up.
When the people in the apartment realized what was happening it was way too late. They ran out the door and the air coming in fed the fire even more. The kitchen wall was the shared wall with her brother’s bedroom and the fire took out that wall almost immediately. It’s very likely he was dead from smoke inhalation before she had even woken up her father said.
What the Nurse Said – Chapter Six
When her father left she had her dressings changed. She was completely grossed out to see her legs so violently stripped of skin, glistening with bubbly disgusting wet…she didn’t know what it was. What is under your skin but before the muscle called anyway? It didn’t matter, it was terrible and that’s all she knew.
If that wasn’t enough, it hurt like hell to take of the bandages, clean the wound and put new bandages on. She decided this recovery process would be a good ‘enhanced interrogation’ technique for spy masters. She knows she would tell anyone anything they wanted to know to stop this pain, that much was for damn sure. She was glad Samha the nurse wasn’t asking questions though because he would have blushed at her confession. As bizarre as it sounded, even to her, having this incredibly handsome but gentle man tend to her wounds was just about the most loving thing that had ever happened to her in her life. She thought it extremely unlikely these two things would ever be combined, but right then they certainly were.
She thanked him, telling him she could never do what he did, it was just so hard and so gross. He then said something that changed Ruth’s life forever. He said, “But it’s actually very easy to do because I love you.”
“You love me? What do you mean, you don’t even know me.” She responded.
He said, “Is what I am doing a loving thing to do for someone?”
“Yes, of course.” she said.
“And that means I love you.” he said with a light smile.
He was just about to the door when he turned and said, “I know you are the same you know. Your mother told me of how you cared for your brother. I think you are a lover, not a fighter.”
Ruth sat stunned. Love, loving, lover. All of a sudden she understood the connection.
What Ruth Did – Chapter Seven
When Ruth got out of the hospital 5 weeks later her father picked her up and drove her to her apartment. As soon as he left she went down to her car under the car port. She tried to start it, fully expecting the battery to be dead but it wasn’t. She was nervous about driving, her legs were so weak and she had a stick shift that demanded a pretty strong left leg for the clutch. She gingerly drove around the apartment complex parking lot, realized it wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be and drove straight to her brother’s grave.
She sat on the wet ground and talked to him for a long time. She told him she had tried to get to him and apologized for not being able to save him. She asked him to say hi to Grandma and Grandpa, told him she would take care of his record collection. She told him about Samha and what he said about love. She said that that one comment had clarified exactly what it was she was to do with her life. She hated that it took such a tragedy she told her brother, but she wanted to let him know that his death had at least one good thing come out of it, his sister now knew her purpose in life.
After she left the cemetery she drove back to her apartment. She sat down at her computer and wrote an email to her friend Mandy from college. She knew Mandy was off in Thailand helping at a orphanage, having seen a few Social Media posts of hers over the past 6 months. Ruth wrote asking if she needed any help.
Epilogue
Ruth joined Mandy at the orphanage a month later. Mandy actually ended up coming back home to the US 3 months after that. Ruth however stayed at the orphanage. She met the love of her life, a co-worker at the orphanage who was raised in the local village. They were married 3 years after she arrived. They adopted one child from the orphanage and named him Samha.
Ruth lived with no regrets, loving deeply and completely the rest of her life.
The End
Drawing and story © 2015 Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 19, 2015 | Curiosity - 2015, Illustrated Short Stories |
Chapter 1
Betsy heard it first as she was running her usual Saturday morning run. She had a long training run that morning and had decided to run through some lightly used trails that criss crossed open fields in the State Park behind her college. Most of the students who ran stayed much closer to home, usually running around the campus perimeter on the sidewalk. But Betsy liked the freedom and open space of getting off the beaten path. It allowed her time to let her mind wander creatively, something she sorely needed on a regular basis at her school.
As the sound got louder she looked up and saw something streak across the sky. It hit the ground within 50 feet of her, creating a big indentation in the grass. Once it hit it stayed put, not rolling, not tipping over. She ran over to it, stopping a short distance away, expecting it might be hot. She held her hands out as she walked slowing towards it. She felt no heat so she continued until she was arms distance away.
It appeared to be made of rough, porous stone. There were inscribed lines radiating out from its center and bright jewel-like lights in between the inscribed lines. She touched the stone, then one of the lights. When she touched the light a quiet tone played. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once. She touched another stone and a different tone, equally as quiet, played. She continued touching the lights, trying to hear how many different tones the object could play. She figured out that it played what seemed to be eight tones in one octave and the another eight tones exactly one octave higher.
She tried touching two lights at one time. When she did that the object played a chord. The two tones of the two lights and a third complementary tone. All the tones and the chords were incredibly beautiful to listen to. Like the clearest bell she had ever heard.
Betsy spent the next 3 hours playing the object. She found out she could make a tone repeat regularly if she held her finger on the light for 3 seconds. She found if she quickly tapped a light twice it would play the light’s normal tone and a harmonic tone at the same time. After about an hour she felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. She brought it out and found that her music player was notifying her that a new song had been downloaded. She went to the player and found the song. It was untitled with no cover art, no information about it at all. She played the song and heard the object’s tones. It was the sounds she had been playing.
She put the phone away and went back to playing the object. She learned more tricks and methods and came up with what she thought was a pretty cool composition. After another hour her phone vibrated again and another song from the object had been downloaded. It was the composition she had just come up with. She did this one more time, increasing the complexity and rhythm of the composition and one more time the object sent the music to her phone.
She realized it was getting late and that she had to get back to her Sorority for a big event that night. She tried pushing the object, thinking she might be able to roll it to an out of the way place. That way maybe no one else would find it and she could continue to play it. However, there was no moving the object. She would just have to hope it was still there when she came back.
Chapter Two
The event that night was a mixer with a fraternity from a neighboring school. The girls all went over to the frat in a bus. Some of the girls had already started drinking at the sorority house and were tipsy by the time the party started. The guys were all vying for attention by doing stupid party tricks or dangerous stunts out the windows and on the roof of the frat house while the girls oowed and awed.
Betsy was bored with it all and decided to find a quiet room where she could listen to the songs she made with the object. She walked into a 3rd story bedroom. Her head was down looking at her phone and she was just about to push play as she entered when she heard a grunting sound and looked up. A young woman was on the bed being held down by a large burly young man. He had on the frats sweatshirt but his pants were down around his ankle. The woman was topless, her bra in the man’s hand, which was also pinning her arm down on the bed. Her skirt was up around her waist. The woman screamed, ‘Betsy, help me!”
Betsy dropped her phone and leaped towards the man. She tackled him and the two of them fell off the bed and onto the wood floor. Just as the man started to raise his fist to strike her Betsy heard the object’s music starting to play. The man’s arm fell and his twisted, angry face lost all expression. He went limp and blank.
Betsy jumped off him and turned to look at her Sorority sister. It turned out to be Selena, one of the new girls, one she hadn’t really met except for at the rush party a few weeks earlier. Betsy asked if she was ok, if he had raped her. Selena said no, he hadn’t actually penetrated her yet but he was just about to. Betsy quickly turned back toward the man, double checking to see if he had gotten up, but he hadn’t. She picked up her phone, shut off the music and called 911. The ambulance was there within 3 minutes, as were the police. They all dealt with it as they should have; having a counselor available, taking her to the hospital, testing her, taking photos and arresting the man.
Chapter Three
The would-be rapist, a student named Bradford, eventually woke up from his stupor. He contritely confessed to the police that he had attempted to rape Selena and that he would have if Betsy hadn’t stopped him. He said he didn’t remember anything after she tackled him except some weird music as he went down. He said he had no idea where the music came from and the police chalked it up to him being knocked out cold. He was tried and convicted of attempted rape and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He would get off in 7 if he behaved himself.
Betsy was hailed a hero by Selena, her sorority and the entire school. She got a call from Good Morning America to be interviewed about the incident and it became a national story. Time magazine did an article on the everyday heros of America and she was #12 on the list. A guy who saved puppies was right above her at #11. She tried to explain that she had no idea why he went out like a light the way he did, but most people credited it on the blow to his head as he hit the floor. It went well with the story of her being strong and fearless and there wasn’t much she could do about it. She wanted to tell someone about the music playing a part in it but she knew it would make no sense. But even if it had made sense it wouldn’t have mattered. The next time she tried to play the music it had all disappeared from her phone.
Because of all the attention and activities surrounding her saving Selena from being raped she didn’t get back to the field with the object in it for almost a week. When she did go back the object was gone. There was an indentation in the ground, but that was it.
Chapter Four
Fourteen years later she had her second and final run in with violence. She was driving on the freeway, her two kids in car seats in the back when a truck cut her off in traffic and slammed on his breaks. She just barely avoided smashing into him. The man, red-faced and angry, got out of his car and stomped back to hers.
She was scared to death but was able to roll up all the windows and lock the doors before he arrived. He started yelling obscenities at her, telling her she was a danger to society, that she should learn how to drive and that he was going to teach her a lesson. She turned to the front media console and pressed the emergency call button she had programmed. As she did this she took a quick look in her rear view mirror. She saw her 5 year old panic stricken, about to cry. But her 7 year old was calm, looking down and playing with the old cell phone her mother had given her as a play toy.
As she got 911 on the line and told them what was happening the man violently busted in her side window with his elbow. She screamed as he reached in to grab her neck. She grabbed his arm instead and pushed it towards the steering wheel. She pressed his hand against the wheel and Hit his elbow as hard as she could. She heard a sickening crack. He screamed in pain while at the same time bringing up his left hand. In his hand was a gun. He was in the act of aiming it at her face when she heard the music. It was the music of the object from so long ago. The man went blank just as the rapist had. He dropped the gun and dropped to the ground.
She turned quickly around to see how her kids were. Her 7 year old looked up, smiled and said, “That’s my favorite song. I made it up myself.”
The End
Drawing and story by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 16, 2015 | Illustrated Short Stories, Travel |
Chapter One
She was sitting across from the man, staring out at the planes landing and taking off. He observed her in between checking his email, an intriguing diversion from the drudgery of catching up with a week’s worth of business.
She was sunburnt head to toe, glowing a deep orange/red. Her hair swept back from her forehead in cornrows to an arc as if she had a headband on, but she didn’t. From there her hair fell in tight, sharp waves to her shoulders. Her top plunged low, revealing a long expanse of skin, mottled and pealing. It had that rich deep tone that said she’d spent many a day in the sun. There was the faintest view of a tanline at the edge of the blouse, but even that area was dark, as if she had taken her straps down every time she had laid out to sun.
She had on a colorful print top, bright blue jeans rolled up halfway up her calves. Her calves were well defined and she had on a new pair of running shoes. She sat upright but not stiff, holding her purse as it nestled on top of a woven basket bag that she had obviously bought while in Mexico.
(more…)
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 17, 2015 | 'In The Gallery' |
Inspired by a true event.
Chapter One
Heather played her horn for 3 hours, the entire length of the gallery opening. Her legs were cold the entire time.
Chapter Two
When she got home and undressed she realized she had forgotten to put on her pants that morning. Heather was relieved because she had been worried she might be getting bad circulation issues in her legs like her father had.
The End
Drawing and story by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 3, 2015 | 'In The Gallery', Series |
The original painting or a print are available for purchase. A matte and frame is also available.
Chapter One
The artist had 3 friends. The 3 friends were with the artist at a bar one night when they all saw a very attractive man at the same time. They decided to play Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who would get the first chance of going up and saying hello. Paper won.
Chapter Two
The artist took a picture of them playing the game. He decided to make 3 sculptures of his friends and used the photo of their game playing as a basis for the artwork. The 3 friends didn’t know he was doing this.
Chapter Three
The 3 friends went to the artist’s gallery opening and immediately knew the pieces were of them by the hair and eye shadow color. The crowd loved the 3 sculptures and they sold quickly to a famous collector from Washington D.C.. He was very excited to meet the 3 models and had his assistant take a photo of himself with the models and artist in front of the pieces.
Epilogue
Paper ended up pregnant with the very attractive man she met that night at the bar. The baby was born 9 months later. and by that time the very attractive man at the bar had enlisted in the army and was off in Afghanistan. He was killed by an IED the day after the baby was born. Paper moved back to Minneapolis to live with her parents. They helped raise the baby while she worked and got her GED then bachelors degree. She worked as a bookkeeper for 40 years and never married. Her daughter became an art dealer.
The artist went on to have a great career, in large part because the collector had bought those pieces. He ended up marrying Scissors who went on to get her Ph.D in Anthropology and taught at Columbia until she retired.
The collector sold the 3 pieces 15 years later for 17.5 million dollars at Sotheby’s to an anonymous telephone bidder. He reinvested the money in land and retired to the Virginia countryside to raise horses.
Rock turned out to be the anonymous buyer of the sculptures. She had made her fortune in Pharmaceuticals, working her way up from salesperson to CEO of a very large company. She displayed the sculptures in the lobby of her company, feeling they reinforced her philosophy that hard work, game playing and chance were the driving force behind all success.
The paintings the artist did of nude men with big penises didn’t sell at all and he stopped painting them. They eventually ended up in storage in the barn at the family farm in Texas. They were stored in a loft, covered with sheets and stuck behind a wall of barrels, undiscovered until 28 years later, after the artist died unexpectedly. His children put the paintings up for auction where they fetched 225 million dollars, a record for a recently deceased artist at the time. Paper’s daughter was the dealer who sold the paintings. Her commission was 11 million dollars.
The End
© 2015 Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 28, 2015 | 'In The Gallery' |
Drawing at Crystal Bridges
The origin of the drawing was a quick sketch at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. There was an area of the temporary exhibition where people were handing out paper and clipboards and encouraging people to draw. I took one and told them I would use my own pen but they said pens weren’t allowed. So I used their pastels instead. I only took the black one, which they thought was odd. I did the quick sketch of my wife Linda gesturing like a spokesmodel on ‘The Price is Right’ to two paintings behind her and brought it home with me. I drew and painted it to completion this morning.
The Nickname – A Short Short Story
Prologue
Penelope hated her nickname.
Chapter One
She was excited to go to the opening because she really liked the artist. She wore a strapless dress and clunky heels. She spent a fair amount of time at the opening explaining to her friend, Benita, different things about the paintings. Benita listened but didn’t really care. She just kept thinking how glad she was she didn’t have that nickname, especially in this particular situation.
Epilogue
Penelope eventually moved away from New York. She landed in St. Paul, Minnesota and made sure no one there ever knew her nickname.
The End
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 23, 2015 | 'In The Gallery' |
Chapter One
The artist, Bethany, was having her first solo art exhibition in 3 years. She had done a series of paintings of nude biblical figures. The painting she was giving her gallery talk about was titled ‘Mary and Elizabeth’. It depicted the New Testament story when Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth after she found out she was pregnant and Elizabeth’s baby jumped in her womb when the two of them greeted on the road in front of Elizabeth’s house.
Chapter Two
Bethany was explaining why in particular she painted Mary, the mother of Jesus and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, nude. The paintings had caused a lot of controversy, even having been mentioned on cable new shows. Fox News had condemned the exhibition, saying it was disgusting and disrespectful. Others had been not so opinionated but still said they didn’t think the exhibition was worth seeing. “Unbiblical” was what one mainstream news outlet had said. A satirical website had called the piece ‘umbilical’, which Bethany thought was pretty funny.
Chapter Three
The artist told the story of her own life, having been raised by nudist parents in California. She said she loved being raised that way and that it taught her so much about not judging people based on outer beauty or style. When she went away to college to major in art she was drawn to figure drawing classes. She hit upon the idea of painting biblical figures nude when she went to Europe and saw many allegorical, historical, and mythological paintings that included nudes. She noticed however that paintings illustrating the Old and New Testament almost never had complete nudes in them. She decided to do a series on New Testament stories as a result.
Chapter Four
She had two of her friends pose for the piece. One was KimLee who was raised in an evangelical family who would not approve. They had met in college when KimLee had come into the Student Union gallery and looked at Bethany’s paintings. They became friends. KimLee had already posed secretly for her a number of times. She had always been shown without her face or Bethany had changed her face so she wasn’t recognizable, which Bethany promised she would do this time as well. The other was the Gallery’s assistant curator, Suzy, who had been pregnant with twins when Bethany came up with the idea. Not many people knew it but Suzy had been an ‘adult entertainer’ in college. She loved the idea of being in the painting. She wanted to be Mary in the the painting because she thought it would be cool if a stripper was Jesus’ mom.
Chapter Five
KimLee and Suzy met for the first time at the gallery talk. It turns out their babies were born just two months apart a little more than a year earlier. They hit it off while contemplating the painting after the gallery talk, comparing notes about what it was like to pose and to have their naked bodies out in public for all to see. KimLee explained how no one knew it was her and Suzy explained how everyone knew it was her, including some former ‘clients’ who had come to the exhibition not realizing Suzy was no longer a stripper but a respected gallery worker. They both laughed at how they had come from such different directions to arrive at the exact same spot.
Epilogue
KimLee and Suzy became great friends. They had playdates for their kids together, went to lunch once a month and eventually started a company together that had sales topping one million dollars last year. Their sons became best friends and both became elementary school teachers.
Bethany’s next show was of self-portrait nudes. It led to her being kicked off the PTA.
The End
___________________
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 20, 2015 | Illustrated Short Stories, Sketchbook History Tour |
Brandi contemplating on a rainy day at Foolish Things with churches in the distance in Tulsa, Oklahoma on 05/12/14.
___________________
Drawing by Marty Coleman
___________________
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 18, 2015 | 'In The Gallery', Marty Coleman |
Chapter One
Penelope was a Tour Guide of impeccable reputation. She knew everything there was to know about the art in the museum, including the current exhibition. She would explain in great detail why the artist made the choices she made and how one painting led to another and when she did what she did and who she was influenced by and where her art had been shown and what it all meant. People loved her and always gave great compliments about her to the staff of the museum as they left.
Chapter Two
She was also a thief. She only took when no one was looking, on those rainy, cold days when she would have just one person in her tour, or she was walking through the galleries and saw an easy mark. The museum was an old place without a lot of money so it hadn’t yet installed security cameras. She was happy about that. She had learned to pickpocket when on a vacation to Barcelona. She actually watched others doing it on La Rambla and simply imitated them again and again until she had it down. She mostly stole wallets. It was a fun challenge for her and she was quite prideful about her abilities.
Chapter Three
What she didn’t know however was that the current exhibition’s artwork held a secret. It was more modern than the museum. The artist, unbeknownst to anyone, had installed a camera into one of her sculptures in the exhibition. Her father had worked as a camera repairman and often told her he thought it would be fun to secretly put cameras in art to see how people reacted to the work. He got the idea when she was a child and he had brought her to Disneyland. They went into the haunted house and he kept wondering if the animatronic figures had cameras in their heads to catch the reactions from people. When she did a large sculpture of a head for the first time he asked if there was any way the head could contain a camera. She figured out a way to make room while he adapted a little spy video camera he had got into the repair shop that had never been picked up after being dropped off for repair.
Chapter Four
The artist, a woman named, Britt Smithson, was getting a kick out of watching the video of people looking at her artwork. In particular the reactions to her paintings of sloped-shouldered slackers with big penises. The men usually wouldn’t say much but the women would usually crack up or whisper to each other. The camera didn’t have audio and she really wished it did when she saw this. Some people hurried past without taking barely a glance. Some seemed to really like the work, spending time looking and reading the little handout.
When she saw the Tour Guide pickpocket the woman in front of the painting she was dumbstruck. Not because she knew Penelope, she didn’t. But just because it was so unexpected. She showed the tape to her father who was very excited. He and his daughter had caught a thief with their little collaboration!
Chapter Five
They spent a lot of time talking about what they should do. Should they simply show the tape to the director of the museum? Maybe to the police? Maybe go and talk to the Tour Guide and let her know what they saw? But if they did any of those things it would be found out that there was a camera in the sculpture and she didn’t want that to be known. In the end they decided to set up a ‘gotcha’ operation. They would have Britt’s sister, Goldy, be a solo museum visitor. She was an easily distracted, spacey person to begin with, so asking her to play that role wasn’t a big deal. Goldy was up for it. It would allow her to put some of her long ago acting lessons into action.
Goldy was to get Penelope as a Tour Guide, make sure her purse was wide open, slung behind her with her bright pink wallet easily accessible. The wallet would have a little tracking device in it that her father had bought at Radio Shack and had installed. Once it was stolen, Goldy would go to the front desk and complain, explain about the tracking device and bring out her iPhone with the tracking app on it. It would be easy enough to track it back to Penelope that way and she would be caught. It was a simple. easy plan that would still allow the camera in the sculpture to be kept secret.
Chapter Six
The plan seemed to go perfectly. Goldy played her role to perfection. Penelope stole the pink wallet just as they expected she would and Goldy went to the front desk when she ‘discovered’ the theft after she had finished the tour. The wallet’s signal could be seen on the iPhone and a security guard, a beefy, bearded guy named Gus, went with Goldy and her phone to find it. They had to go through almost the entire museum to where the signal was coming from and the security guard turned out to be quite a flirtatious character. In the five minutes it took to walk to the signal he had tried to finagled a date out of Goldy. This happened to her much more often than she cared to admit and she held off saying yes for the time being.
When they arrived at the back of the museum, they were led to a trashcan just inside the entrance to a restroom. The security guard took the plastic swinging part off the top and looked in. There, on top of a pile of wet paper towels was her pink wallet. The security guard reached in brought it out and asked her to check to see if anything was missing.
Chapter 7
Goldy suddenly realized she had done a very stupid thing. Her sister and father had told her to take anything really valuable out of her wallet but in the nervousness of doing this secret mission she had completely forgotten to do that. She had left all her credit cards, all her ID and all her money in the wallet. She was feeling like a complete idiot as she looked through the wallet. Relief came over her though when she discovered the only thing missing was her money. It had been more than she usually carries, probably around $120.00. But that wasn’t going to throw her into poverty or make her miss her rent payment. It was just going to mean not buying anything at the flea market later that day. She was pissed off at herself and relieved at the same time.
Gus said he would report the theft but chances are they would not be recovering any money. Goldy asked about fingerprints on the wallet. Gus said if they reported it to the police they would do that but if she just wanted to be done with it and not report it, then no, he wouldn’t be taking fingerprints. Goldy asked if he thought he could find out who did it. He said it wasn’t likely but he would look as people left, keep an eye out in general and who knows, something might turn up.
Chapter 8
Goldy decided to just cut her losses and not call the police. She knew that is what her dad and Britt would want. And she had no intention of telling them she had stupidly forgotten to take her money and credit cards out of the wallet. Gus gave her the number of the security office at the museum as well as his cell phone number. He also asked for hers in case he found something out. She had a feeling he wanted the number to continue to try to get a date. She wasn’t wholly against the idea and gave him her number.
Chapter 9
Goldy called Britt as soon as she was out of the museum and explained everything that happened, not including the loss of the money. Britt and their father were disappointed. They did have the tape showing Penelope stealing the wallet if they did want to go to the museum or the police, but it really didn’t seem to be worth it since as far as they knew nothing had been lost. They still did worry about Penelope and her continued thievery. They just weren’t sure what to do about it.
Chapter 10
Gus had been wondering for a while about the loss of wallets and other items in the museum. He had seen all the reports come in, most via telephone after someone would get home from the museum and realize something was missing. At first he thought it was a ring of pickpockets that had been around the city over the past few years. It had been reported on again and again but there hadn’t been any progress in catching anyone. But after a while Gus came to the realization that something else was going on. First, it was only women’s wallets that were reported stolen, never a man’s. The city-wide issue had mostly men being targeted. Second, it only happened on slow day, never busy ones. The city-wide pickpocketing was almost always at busy tourist destinations. Gus was starting to have an idea that this might be someone from inside the museum. He instructed the other security guards to watch everyone, including staff. And when possible, discreetly use their cell phones to take pictures of videos of suspicious situations.
Chapter 11
It was a little over a week later, during a spring downpour in the city, that one of the security guards, a young women named Jolene, decided to follow Penelope from a distance. It really was a reflection of Jolene being bored more than anything else, but she also had never liked Penelope nearly as much as everyone else. Penelope had treated her rudely a few times in the back offices, basically ignoring her when she said hello and turning her back on her while she was saying something once.
Jolene had her cell phone recording video from the very far side of an empty gallery when it happened. She was looking the other way, out into another room, as if she was paying no attention to Penelope and the lone women she was with. Penelope was explaining one of the paintings, pointing to the volcano in the background when she brought her hand up to the lady’s purse and quickly snatched her wallet out of it and put it in the museum bag she always carried with her so she could hand out information sheets.
Chapter 12
Jolene brought the video back to Gus who immediately went back with Jolene to the gallery and confronted Penelope. Later that day she was both fired and arrested. They found 5 sets of credit cards and 10 wallets in her apartment. She confessed and told the authorities she had thrown away all but the nicest wallets. She had sold most of the credit cards on the black market except for the ones she had stolen recently.
Gus called Goldy and told her Penelope had been caught. Penelope in turn called her sister and father and told them. They all took a deep sigh of relief over a resolution happening without the hidden camera being found out.
Epilogue
Gus also took one last chance to ask Goldy out. Goldy said yes. Gus and Goldy ended up dating for 2 years and getting married 3 years later. Penelope was sentenced to jail time, spending three months incarcerated. She was ordered to repay close to $10,000.00 but never did, since she was basically broke the rest of her life. Her life didn’t last long. She was hit by a taxi in a rainstorm two years later.
Britt never did another piece with a camera in it. Her father stuck to listening in on his Ham Radio to conversations in distant lands.
The End
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