The Brilliant Waste of Time

By Jesse McDonald

A whole Sunday at the Chinese markets had Leonard sweaty and tired, and falling onto his black leather couch. This was the couch that guests were forbidden to sit on. When his friends were at his house they were allocated kitchen stools so he could relax and spread out on the couch. As he lay on it, he started thinking about this precious couch, and whether his sweat was soaking into it. He thought of some of his friends – the ones who had tried to sit on it, the Japanese man who preferred to stand, and then he thought of Paul.  Paul was the one friend who he would allow to sit on it because Paul didn’t visit.

Leonard went to the phone, called Paul, and arranged to meet him at a special location.

The beach was paved with black bitumen. Leonard sat in an armchair beside a vacant foldaway picnic stool waiting for Paul. It was nighttime and with the warm blanket of rigidness beneath him, Leo didn’t need the woolen rug he brought but with his left knee bouncing he put the rug over his legs anyway. He had not seen Paul in over two years but now he had a plan that would affect both of them. It would be far more sentimental for Leonard, as were most things.

Paul had this spontaneity to him. An object would only appeal to him if his mood yielded to it. For him nothing was inherently amusing, and no thing could upset him twice. His whole life was a coincidence. Leo on the other hand was the greatest promoter he himself had ever met. If he didn’t like what he was doing, he would create something that was either ethically, socially, or historically unattainable and convince himself that he would have it in the near future, along with the effecting happiness.

Given their childhood background, Paul was not distracted by the time and place of this meeting. He and Leo had been friends for life; in fact Paul had known Leo longer than he had known his own brother. As kids, when the beach was sandy, they would come down and play, and sometimes try to meet girls. After unsuccessful pursuits of the girls during the day, the two boys would come down at night and pretend to be philosophers. Usually they tried to explain why the girls had not been interested in them, or what, if they couldn’t get girls, was the point to life.

Part of the reason Leonard arranged the meeting – it was more like a business meeting than a friendly reunion – was because Paul had just emerged as a prominent sculptor. Although he told the media that he had been an artist for more than twenty years on his farm, Leo knew the truth. Paul had no interest in art, never had. Sometimes when they came to this beach to write sonnets and drink regulated absinthe like true hack bohemians, Paul would offer a line, something that didn’t really make sense grammatically but that would snap and grind and be immediately understandable. But this unintentional brilliance, however much it annoyed Leonard, was nothing compared to the meticulous intensity of his recent sculptures. 

All his exhibited works depicted what Leo called ‘the general public’ or ‘layman’ which he pronounced ‘lame men.’ One time in the middle of a city arcade he professed that the “general public are morons.” Morons or not, as art they were acquiring a reputation. Even celebrities who had had their wax portraits done, now wanted the more classical and permanent statue for which Paul had become known.

Leo had been waiting twenty minutes and felt like a fool. He hated waiting because he couldn’t expect it and couldn’t affect it. He had known a girl who never waited for anyone even when she was early, and had hoped to acquire the skill from her when he once tried to ruin her pattern by missing a bus. The plan, which was always going to fail, failed because by that time she was avoiding him.

Anyway, just as Leo thought of leaving – as if scripted – Paul sat down. Leo did not move and did not formally greet him. They sat in silence for several minutes looking out at the silhouetted island.

“How are you going? Haven’t seen you in a while,” said Paul.

“Drugs are to artists what steroids are to athletes,” said Leonard.

“Still a philosopher I see.”

“How do you turn the people into statues?”

Paul looked down and smiled, “I wish I could.”

Leonard knew Paul could – and did. There was no way that a man, especially Paul, could sculpt those statues with natural talent. Every proportion and detail was correct, even the eyelashes.

“You know some old man paved this beach. He did it on his own,” said Leonard.

“Yeah I read about that. Apparently he’s a renowned contemporary artist.”

“More like contempt-orary artist.”

There was a slight pause in conversation as if neither of them could reply to Leo’s last quip.

“It’s a shame about the beach,” said Leonard.

“Yeah.”

“Damn it, I know you can turn people into statues.”

“Come on, Len, how can that happen?”

Leonard looked at Paul with the facial expression he had perfected in his youth. A half smirk with tightened eyes and raised brows. Paul slouched back into the chair, as if defeated, but not embarrassed. After all it was Leo, they had been friends for life and it felt good knowing that someone almost approved of what he did.

“How do you know?”

“The same way you found out. I saw something turn straight into sandstone.”

“Where?”

“Right here, over by those rocks. I was chasing some crabs and then one just froze into this little rock figurine.”

Leonard went on to tell Paul that he wanted to market the mystery substance, but because the beach was covered with bitumen, he couldn’t. “Now that you’ve found a way to reproduce it though, we can turn the beach back into sand,” he said.

Paul didn’t agree. Leonard was forced to argue everything. He tried every trick he knew; the environmental angle, the money and fame angle, he even tried the ‘we can revisit our childhood’ routine.

“You didn’t call me here to turn this beach into sand Leo.”

“No. I asked you here because art is going downhill, and you don’t meet many

beautiful people these days.”

“You should have been an academic.”

“I should have been an artist.”

Then, peripheral to his vision, Paul saw something move near the shore.  It was a woman, alone, walking late at night. Paul pointed her out to Leo, but there was no need. Leo who had been expecting her. Every night for the past week she had walked along this beach, and he had watched her. He didn’t know who she was, if she was anyone at all, whether she had family or a job, or any life goals. It didn’t matter, these were unimportant to Leonard. He had devoted his life to a search for beauty: a byway to demonstrate his high-brow taste, and thereby somehow be superior to others. For the past three nights he had been observing her through his binoculars. He knew that if anyone found out about this he would no doubt have a lawsuit on his hands but he couldn’t care, he liked to pretend that the girl actually knew he was there and was knowingly performing ‘art’ for him (albeit autonomous walking). He admired beautiful things for their beauty alone. He thought nothing could inspire his mind, or anybody else’s mind, better than visual beauty.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” said Leonard.

“I can’t really see her.”

Leo pulled out the binoculars from his bag and handed them to Paul. Paul looked at the binoculars, then at Leo, shaking his head. But he had an extended peek through the lens nonetheless.

“Yeah she’s not bad. She’d be better if she had more of an hourglass shape,” as he put them down.

“Don’t give me that rap crap.”

“Nah, she just looks young.”

Leonard paused for a minute, “I want her as an ornament.”

The girl was not more than seventeen years old and since most girls thought Paul was gay, Leo sent him over to talk to her. As Leo watched from a distance he saw that Paul was smiling and the girl was laughing. It looked like Paul had forgotten the plan. Leo could not risk it and went over as if he too just happened to be walking along the beach.

“Pauly, haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Yeah it’s been a while.”

The two men hugged and Leo asked, “Who’s this? You’re girlfriend?”

“No, actually, we just met.”

“Hi, I’m Leo.”

“Hi,” replied the girl.

“So what brings you out here Len?” asked Paul.

“I just came out to take some photos, what about you?”

“Ah, I just like to stroll.”

“How about you?” Leonard asked the girl.

“I don’t know, I like the beach at night,” she replied.

“Don’t like getting sand in your shoes, huh? And do you have an accent of some kind?”

The girl smiled as if to answer yes. It turned out she was an exchange student from Germany. Leo then suggested that they take some pictures of her on this beach; some memories for her to take back home. Because Paul had mentioned that he was an artist, and the girl thought she recognised him they managed to convince her to have them taken. It was surprising to him to see that the girl felt so safe. Most women Leo knew would run, or scream, or be highly suspicious of the situation.

Leo took Paul aside, “Give me the stuff.”

“Come on, we can’t do it now, it’s like we know her. She’s a sweet girl. Let’s talk to her.”

“Hardly. I can admire her accent but that is it. Now give me the stuff.”

“No! I love her!”

“Pauly! Don’t be stupid.”

“No. I have to talk to her.”

“No. If you talk to her then you’ll tell me all about her and ruin my obsession.”

“But her voice...”

“She is there to be looked at, that is all. If you want to hear her voice, get her to read something.”

Paul would not turn the girl to stone, but he did agree to take some photos for her album. As he was setting up his camera Leonard noticed a little sack hanging from Paul’s belt. Leonard went behind Paul pretending to examine the shot and as he did he stole the dust. Paul didn’t realise and leant into the camera to take the first photo. He was about twenty feet away from the girl so to include the panoramic background. Paul had just raised his finger to press down the button when Leo ruffled some dust over him and turned him to stone. The dim moonlit haze meant that the girl could not see that her artistic admirer had just become his own greatest work.

Leo walked over to the girl.

“He thinks you’re coming up quite nicely. He said that with the white moonlight, some glitter around your eyes and hair would give the picture a really nice romantic feel.”

She smiled, “Ok.”

“Brilliant.”

And he turned her to stone.

Leonard took the girl back to his house and set her down in his living room. He sat for hours looking at her, searching for imperfections but finding only lashes of beauty. He pulled out one of his mother’s antique lights, the one with the Venus stand. He used it not only as a light for the young girl, but also as a comparative, as if he owned the classical representation of a perfected woman and now also a modern version. The modern version was dressed in tight jeans and a short top that exposed part of her tight stomach, while the classic was draped with cloth. After looking at his eternally seventeen year old darling for two more hours he noticed that something was not right. At first he struggled to see it but then he realised that the zipper of her jeans was not at the front but at the back. Disaster! He thought. This would look silly or, (worse) maybe even arousing to viewers who noticed it. She was not a sexual object. She was there for pure and clean admiration. For those who could admire her symmetry and pose; the people who could admire the perfected form of both sexes equally. What a waste of time she had become, “I would be better off watching you slowly fall to sand,” he thought.

After draping one of his bed sheets over her, he tore it off because it looked like a handkerchief wrapped around a Barbie doll. He thought about removing the head; her only feature unaffected by fashion, but rationalised that it would be barbaric and in the end he covered her with a white bed sheet and put her in the corner of his garage.

Leonard needed to get out of his house so decided to finally post a letter he had written several months ago for Paul. On his way to the post office he stopped in at a book store to look at the covers of ‘the classics.’ A young girl who worked in the store reminded him that, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” and he said, “Then no books are worth reading, and no covers are worth looking at,” and left the store. He thought about the girl’s ignorance all the way back to his house until he saw his wretched cloth-covered statue. The next Sunday when he marched down to Chinese market place, he bought a four dollar chicken roll, and swapped the young German statue for a set of five bronze egg-timers.