Wacky Washington #3

It’s funny what will get a person’s attention.

He was walking alone at night, as was his custom, just enjoying the crisp night air and the starlight. The lights of the city twinkled and sparkled down the still-busy streets, where nightclubs and bars served their customers. Music spilled out of doorways as people entered and left.

He enjoyed the pulse and beat of the streets, seeing people come and go. Groups chattering, couples holding hands, the rhythms of night. He passed the jazz club and saw a woman, standing alone in the doorway, smoking.

The smoke floated up in the air, a diaphanous cloud hovering in the night. He thought to himself “How odd.” In his mind’s eye, jazz clubs were places where bands and solo performers sat on stage, perhaps on stools, playing trumpet and sax and bass amidst in smoky rooms. Now that smoking was banned in public places, he would never see such a scene again.

It made him a little sad, the image was so iconic, a piece of history. In previous years, the woman would never be outside by herself. She would have been inside, enjoying the music with friends. It was almost criminal.

On an impulse, he walked over. He smiled his charming smile, and she smiled back. His manner was warm, and he made her laugh once or twice. She told him that she was a tourist, enjoying the romance of the city and its music. He told her that he was an artist, and wanted her to model. She had captured his attention.

Flattered, she agreed. They walked along the city streets arm in arm, looking like any other couple out for a stroll. There was banter and jokes, an easy feeling of attraction and curiosity.

He took her to his studio, a place of quiet solitude for an introspective artist. He set her up in the position he wanted, moving her head from side to side for the right angle. He took pictures and then posed her a different way.

Her body was simultaneously something pleasurable that he could touch and manipulate, and also a prop in his art. He thought again, “How odd.” People could be so many things, from one moment to the next. He liked his pictures. There, frozen in time, people stayed as what he made them.

As usual, his artistic admiration and attention became something more. Her body wasn’t just a thing of artistically interesting angles. It was elegant and soft, a place of pleasure. He couldn’t’ help himself. He took what he wanted, with the shameless ego of an artist who knows they are a true talent. He used her this way for days, enjoying their time together. But in the end it was fleeting, and, as usual, he dumped her.

She was pretty broken up about it. He told himself this was the cost of artistic expression: the solitude, the need to search for new subjects, the drive to stay experimental and alone. He did not have time for petty human concerns like feelings; he was a genius. He walked away and only thought of her when looking through his pictures. He always kept them afterwards, as reminders.

It’s funny what will get a person’s attention. The homeless woman had been looking for food, and only crawled into the dumpster because of the sparkly shoe sticking out of the edge of a bag. The heel had torn a hole. She thought it was beautiful, and wanted it for her collection.

Her screams brought a shopkeeper, who then got the police. There was only the one leg: it took them six weeks to find and locate all the parts, and longer still to identify her. By then the trail was cold. The detective in charge of the case could not help but admire his evil quarry. Efficient, precise, and untraceable.

A real artist.