Seven Pints

Jamey Baumgardt

For Made Up Words

Jack fumbles with his keys, muttering under his breath in the dark alley. “How could she do this to me now? How, when I’m so close?” The lock surrenders to his shaky hands, the rickety metal door swinging outward. Inside, fluorescent lights flicker across chipped paint flaking off damp cement steps, stairs that take him to the basement. Halfway down the hallway, another lock demands a different key; he curses, finding the right one.

Inside his studio, the deadbolt slides into place, echoing off the high ceiling, punctuating dead silence. Jack sags against the door, his knapsack falling to his side as he breathes in familiar smells — sawdust, turpentine, pumice soap. Windows — only a foot tall and high up the wall opposite — allow minimal light from the sodium vapor streetlight out front. In the dimness, he can make out the stainless steel cart in the corner, where it’s sat unused for two years. Brushes, palette knives, and large tubes of paint made from heavy metals — cadmium, titanium, copper, zinc — all form a messy pile on top, gathering dust.

Instinctively, he crosses to a small refrigerator beneath his workbench. He opens the door, illuminating a ‘V’-shaped swath of paint-spattered floor. Inside, he scans its contents, counting four plastic bags — four pints of blood, his blood. “Damn it,” he curses. He figures he still needs two pints more, maybe three just to be safe. He slams the door and begins pacing, rubbing the back of his neck. “God damn it, Sarah.” He’s worked so hard, just scraping by for so many years, barely able to cover his rent most of the time. But he’s about to hit it big. He can feel it.

He checks his watch. It’s ten minutes past three. Does he hear a siren in the distance? Calm down. It’ll be morning before Sarah discovers what he’s been up to. Would she call the police? She’d been pretty upset with him the last time he’d seen her, a week ago.

“Put your shirt on, Jack. We’re not doing this any more,” she’d said, arms crossed.

“Sarah, please. Don’t make me beg. Just a few more?”

“No way, Jack. It’s too dangerous. We’ve drawn a pint every month for the last three months.”

“But I’m fine. I feel great! Look at me, babe,” he’d pleaded.

“Don’t call me that, Jack. The answer is no. I could lose my license.”

No amount of groveling had changed her mind. He’d even gone so far as to ask, “Don’t you still love me?”, knowing full well that she still had feelings for him after all these years. Why else would she have agreed to help him in the first place? He’d called things off when she’d moved away for med school, unwilling to deal with the distance. Upon her return, eight years later, she’d wanted to get back together, but how could he, pitiful and poor, possibly date her, a brand new doctor about to start her own practice?

He picks up his pack, flipping on the main overhead lights. On the walls all around he can now see his latest work, a dozen oversized sheets of heavy paper, some up to five feet wide, all stained in varying shades of reddish umber, countless layers of liquid shapes, drips and splotches he’s painstakingly built up over weeks, months, until, one at a time, his methodical hands had at last coaxed a recognizable figure to emerge — a self portrait, painted in blood.

He sets the pack down next to the paint cart, pulling out the supplies he stole from Sarah. He wipes the crook of his arm with the iodine, as she’s done to him countless times in the past two years. He fudges the needle twice before he gets it to slip into his vein, securing the tubing to his arm with packing tape, plugging the other end into an empty bag. As it begins to fill, he sets it down on the smooth glass palette next to the unused tubes of oil paint. Paint, he scoffs. Real artists don’t use oil paints. It reminds him of art school. He laughs. How many still-lifes of fruit had he been forced to paint back then? Bowls and bowls of fucking apples.

Half an hour later, he swaps in a new bag for the first one, bloated and warm. He glances at the duotone faces all round him, silently staring back from the hanging papers, all save one. Directly opposite, an enormous sheet over eight feet square remains stark white — a glorious masterpiece merely awaiting the artist’s execution. Staring at it, he can almost see his hands working the blood into the surface until a finished face stares back at him; it will be the one, the linchpin that will land him the show with a major gallery. He only needs enough blood to finish it.

The second bag is full, bringing his total to six. He looks at the blank paper on the wall. Will six pints be enough? He considers. One more won’t kill him, will it? He’s sure he can get the final painting done with seven pints of blood.

The third bag is nearly half full when the dizziness hits. He considers stopping the flow, reaching for the tube in his arm, but the blank canvas stares him down; it won’t allow it. He closes his eyes, thinking of art school, and Sarah. I’m doing this for you, babe… For us.

When he opens his eyes, birds chirp. Dawn at the windows. His cheek cold, pressed against concrete. Blood leaks, pooling. No, he thinks. He is weak. Fingers in blood. Sirens grow louder. Arms won’t move. Banging on the door. Sarah’s voice?

“Jack!”

More knocking.

“Open the door!! Jack!!”

His fingers. His blood. Fingers, blood, darkness.