Chapter 3: Molly Unwrapped

The newest member of the FITZ brought forth fond memories for Molly of her entrance into the group of crazy genius revolutionaries: the real beginning of her life.

If it hadn't been for Sam, Molly might have completely disappeared into walls or fallen between cracks she stared at when she walked. Painfully shy, she couldn't meet anyone's eyes. And when they looked at her, she thought they looked at a funny looking dumpy girl.

She clung to her art as the only thing in which she could find some pride. Except even that started to fail her. She could copy things in exact detail but created nothing new. She wanted to find a style, become a true artist, but when she attempted to alter the copying, ugliness resulted. Art could be ugly and beautiful like the distorted images of the twentieth century artist Francis Bacon, but she had enough ugliness looking in a mirror, and she found such images too self-referential, too bourgeois anyway.

Searching for a style in art galleries and book stores and poster galleries brought her to Sam.

The exhibition, housed in an old car repair garage between owners but with two hydraulic lifts still functioning, focused on mechanized art. Sam's pieces, particularly the one Molly gazed at, delighted her. She loved the transparency of the mechanics juxtaposed with an evocative, meaningful effect.

"Sam Jackson. And you are?" the tall, skinny mulatto man asked Molly. She'd been studying and sketching his sculpture for several minutes, transfixed. An evenly perforated tube from the interior of an old muffler slightly bent and on an eccentric track, a wider eccentric track moved a blue light that seemed to make the rusty metal look new again as it moved unevenly across it.

"Uhm, Molly. Molly Kelly," she responded, still bent facing the artwork and avoiding his eyes. His introduction distracted her enough for her to cease sketching.

"Could I see?" he asked.

His mocha hands, long and graceful and roughened by hard work, startled Molly. She hadn't expected mocha colored hands coming from the low, studied voice. She looked up at him.

"Sure," she said, smiling shyly. Her heart skipped a beat. "So handsome, such deep gentle eyes," she thought.

Sam examined her sketch. "Interesting."

"Really?" she said. "Thanks."

"Very detailed and yet you convey motion. It becomes animate, a creature or part of one becoming alive. It's phallic, an old man's cock with a young man's mind dwelling within it."

"Oh," she murmured, embarrassed.

He smiled at her shyness. "It's exactly what I wanted to convey."

"Really?" His words excited her. She told him why. "I'm so good at detail, but it's just copying. I never thought to get beyond that by sketching motion. Let me show you."

She took the large sketch pad gently from his hands and violently paged back to a sketch she worked on earlier in the day, a drawing of a bum sitting on a park bench. She wanted to convey his mumbling insanity, but all she got was a very detailed view of him.

"I see. Sort of a still life, but with a man instead of some fruit."

"Exactly. Just a second." She closed her eyes and remembered the man and his motion, a steady slight rocking while he mumbled to himself. She drew it, his face and body extended like a shadow, but not made of interrupted light but of time, a fractional moment before, a ghost from seconds in the past.

"Oh I see. A schizophrenic perhaps?"

"Yes. A life within countering the menace of reality."

"He wears his inner life like a shroud or a warm coat protecting him from the cold."

"Or one of those scary ski masks that can be seen through but contain the warmth of breath."

"You're a remarkable woman," Sam flattered.

Molly looked at her feet, a familiar sight. "I'm not. I'm plain and ... fleshy."

His fingers beneath her chin urged her to look at him with the gentlest of pressure. "Such pretty flesh, soft and pale like down, so sensuous."

For the first time in her life she stared into a man's eyes. The connection warmed her. She could feel the heat of her blush, but it came not from shyness, but from libido. Her sexual center warmed and dampened as did her eyes. "I think you're really handsome," she finally murmured.

"Thank you Molly. I find you quite attractive as well." He broke the stare, noticing his patroness and mistress looking at him with a disapproving frown and gesturing with her eyes to join her. Beautiful, elegant, built like a model and proud of it and of her undeniable intelligence, rich from inheritance and in her early twenties, she made him feel more like one of her possessions than he ever felt before, like her exquisite glass objets d'arte or her huge avant garde tapestries that adorned her opulent and cold apartment, though the pleasure she got from him had a more visceral than aesthetic quality. Perhaps a most effective and energetic love toy would be more fitting. He sighed. "Molly, I must do business. Promise me you'll stay."

"Okay. I have nothing better..."

"Good. If you must leave, give me your number so I can call."

"I'll stay."

"Good." He strolled off a few feet, stopping beside the tall, sleek brunette beauty who, Molly realized, stared at her, making Molly uncomfortable.

Finally the stare broke, and Molly watched the woman introduce Sam to a tall and too handsome blond man. "Great," Molly thought, "I'm a worm in a lush garden. That luscious bloom of a man won't..." But then Sam glanced at her, pleading with his eyes. Molly nodded her head and smiled. He smiled back and seemed to relax.

Other pieces in the show seemed too facile, too cute or too obvious. Their kinetics provoked no real surprises, nor did they generate any resonance. Sam's objects lured her back. She watched the eccentric gears and tracks contained in the sculptures reveal the mechanics, but the outer shells, like the threadbare cymbal clapping monkey wound by a fragmented female manikin hand with a glowing jewel on its ring and the faux cigarette glowing between fingers and the fragmented lower face emitting smoke through the pretty little nose, she saw something beyond the magic of movement. She saw the beautiful brunette manipulating the monkey.

"Yes, that's me," whispered Sam as he passed by, hurried along by his patroness.

Throughout the evening they exchanged glances. They always knew the place of the other in the garage. When Molly returned to the muffler piece, starting a new drawing of it, the woman approached her. "You're kidding, right? He has me. What good are you?"

"Don't know," cringed Molly.

"Ah, you're talented. I can help. Just leave Sam alone." The patroness handed Molly a card. "In fact, just leave. You can call me tomorrow."

"Yes ma'am," murmured Molly. She slouched, seeking invisibility as she stumbled to the door and outside to the chill of an early spring evening.

Not invisible enough, Sam called her name. She wanted to stop. She did slow down. He caught up.

"Molly Kelly, I asked you to leave me your number."

"You're not really..."

"Interested? Attracted? Moved? I am. What did the bitch say?"

"She ... gave me her card," said Molly, stopping and looking up at the handsome man and showing him the card. "I'm supposed to call her tomorrow, but I'm not ready."

"If nothing else, she has taste," grumbled Sam.

"Nothing else? She's stunning. She's bright. She's proud."

"She's a stone edifice, attractive on the outside, magnificent even, but inside she's cold and barren. Her pride is the pride of ownership. Only others of her ilk, other owners of the malleable masses would she consider as equally human. The rest of us, with her it's artists, we're her kennel, dogs she keeps leashed or caged. Perhaps I'm the big dog now, the mastiff..."

"You're more greyhound. You're ... sleek."

"I'm more of a mutt than you, my Irish crème delight. Taxi!" he yelled. "Come on. Damn." The taxi failed to stop. "Despite my sleekness, I'm still a nigger here. Perhaps you could hail a cab and I'll sneak in behind you."

"Don't you have to attend... ?"

"Business is done. I sold the lot. Here comes another one. Could you... ?"

"Taxi!" she yelled demonstratively, surprising herself. The taxi stopped. The driver, an Eastern European with an unpronounceable name looked sourly at the black man accompanying the chubby pale skinned girl.

"Hey my man," Sam jived. "What say you head north. Got me a cool ass joint do me some dancing with this fine ass woman where they don't expect my rent for a cold glass of Colt 45. 81^st and Kentucky. A couple Jeffersons ought to do it."

He handed the grumpy thick man two twenties through the glass.

Molly giggled. "You sold all the pieces?" she asked, excited for him.

"Yes I did. Managed to lighten the load from some heavy purses. Didi fronted me some cash. The bitch gets 40%."

"Didi?"

"Her name's Deirdre."

"She looks like a Deirdre."

"She thinks so too. She hates it when I call her Didi."

Molly giggled again. Sam smiled.

He asked her, "Could I see?"

She handed him the incomplete sketch, embarrassed.

"Looks more like a penis, doesn't it."

"Not that I've seen many, especially ... uhm ... erect. Occasionally at Life Study..."

"I bet he was more embarrassed than you."

"I doubt it. He wasn't looking at me though."

"You sure?"

"Why would he..."

"I suppose not the way you hide it."

"Hide what?"

"You're charm."

"You mean my body?"

"That too. Speaking of which, why don't you take off the coat." She wore a puffy winter coat. Underneath she wore a shapeless tan sweater. "Jesus woman, are you living outdoors? You must be sweating a storm."

"Do I smell?"

"I like your smell."

"Really?"

"Yes really. Off with the sweater. Jesus, where do you shop?" Under the sweater she wore an ugly patchwork shirt. "Anything under that?" Molly nodded and unbuttoned the shirt. The t-shirt, small and pale green, advertised a Koons exhibit: Michael Jackson and his monkey. Her large breasts distorted the image interestingly. "Much better," approved Sam. "Sit up straight. Why the fuck are you hiding?"

"I'm..." She bent her head down to look at herself.

"Sit straight. Can I touch?" The shirt left her midriff bare, revealing a soft pale belly, pleasantly rounded.

Molly nodded.

"God, you're all woman," pronounced Sam. The delicacy of his caress counteracted his roughened fingers.

"I'm chubby."

"You're not. There's nothing hanging loose. It's a woman's shape, a natural shape. It's sexy."

"Really?"

"You do sit ups."

"Unh-hunh, and leg lifts, you know like pedaling in air."

"Nice." He leaned towards her slowly. Their lips touched. Gently at first, passion brought more force. His tongue negotiated its way between her lips. When it met her tongue at the tip, she moaned into his mouth. His fingers slid her t-shirt up until his hand cupped her bra encased breast. Surprisingly, she wore a lacy bra, not a thick, binding thing. He felt her plump nipple. The palm of his hand circled it. She moaned again. Their lips separated. His hand remained.

"I expected underwire."

"I like comfort. Besides, they're pretty sturdy and well hidden."

"Yes they are," he chuckled, gripping her breast flesh and discovering the firmness. "Delightful."

When they kissed again and he gently twisted her nipple, her pleasure scented the cab. She broke off the kiss. "Uhm, Sam?"

His eyes held inches from hers. He smiled, "Yes Molly?"

"Could you tell me about yourself?"

"You want us not to be strangers."

"I don't really have any friends."

"You will," he said enigmatically. "Okay." He leaned back. Her hand found his and intertwined fingers. "First let me ask you a couple questions."

"Okay."

"What's wrong with the world?"

"What's right with it?" she replied seriously. "Okay, I guess we have a certain amount of freedom to express ourselves unless of course we get too loud. And there's a lot less starving than there used to be, at least in the United States. But fundamentally we're still divided between the haves and have-nots: the landed gentry and the rest of humanity slaving over the land to keep the gentry wealthy. Money shackles us, at least those without keys. Our freedom to live a full life continues to be restricted by our need to scrape enough money together in relentless and exhausting and mind numbing endeavors to simply survive.

"And finding happiness more and more is a funnel created by the haves. For instance, look at me. I feel inadequate, a loser, because I don't resemble the manufactured images of beauty and desirability. I flunked the advertised standard and am less than acceptable. Deidre though holds the keys: the keys to wealth and the keys to desirability, which go hand in hand. I'm poor because I can't afford the trappings and shapings of the rich. We're kept subjugated by the myths constructed and broadcasted by the wealthy few whether religious bullshit about the wealthy unable to attain heaven or Nirvana or the cover girls with impossible bodies decorating magazines or starring in films. The longer this continues, the fewer the wealthy and the greater separation between them and us."

"And what can we do about it?" asked Sam.

"Like I said, it's an age old system that seems to tighten as it becomes less visible. I guess the dream of the workers owning the means of production, but see how well that panned out. I guess we need to steal the keys from the key holders and set ourselves free. I don't know how."

"Maybe I do," said Sam. "Interested?"

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Are you curious why?"

"Maybe."

The cab neared the destination. "Where you want let out?" the driver asked.

"Stop anywhere," Sam told the cabbie.

In the disco on the corner, a small, narrow bar really with space beyond the bar counter where they could dance, the tequila Sam bought for her burned away the last vestiges of nervousness. On the tiny stage in the back, a statuesque blonde woman, thick and curvy and with a classically beautiful face murmured cabaret songs to the music created on a synthesizer sounding like a full jazz orchestra with horns and piano. The flowing rhythm of the bass and drums sounded more synthetic, the mechanical noise of techno. The keyboardist in black leather suit jacket and black pork pie hat retained an intense look on his thin, bony face.