Where the River Ends by Charles Martin Read Free Book Online

again, great art rose out of a cauldron of torment, fueled by eccentrics who lived on the fringe of society, who seemed to care little for that which society cares greatly about and vice versa. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are just that—exceptions.
    Most operated on the periphery. One foot in their world, one foot in ours. Wealthy nobles sought their talent, bringing them out of their world and into this one.
    Fortunately, my wealthy noble had been the good people at the College of Charleston, which meant my classes were half paid for. The other half I scrounged together from tips or loans.
    My apartment in Charleston was basically a one-room studio with a loft where I slept. Showers were cold more often than not, wharf rats were common attic perusers and I kept a list on the bathroom wall naming the biggest roaches I’d captured in a clear plastic Solo cup. I named them much like hurricanes, one for each letter, and I’d been through the alphabet twice. The biggest to date was Merlin. Once I trapped him, it took twenty-seven days to go belly-up. But other than that, it was cozy, clean and the perfect place to work when I wasn’t working.
    It was a two-story storefront on King Street wedged in between Beaufain and Market. My display window was ten feet wide, as was my entire studio. Fifty years ago, someone had bricked in the grassy space between two buildings and sold the space to a dentist. He used to park his chair right up front where everybody could see him working. Problem was, his patients didn’t like being on parade for all of King Street, so he sold out to a printer who spent thirty years printing and when he lost his business market to the Internet, he rented it to me. I had hoped that location would give me a chance at selling something. Anything. So I leaned what I thought were my three best pieces up against the window. Not real sexy but I’d been eating Ramen noodles for three weeks and couldn’t quite afford easels. I seriously considered stealing a few from the art lab, but deep down, I had a feeling that presentation was not my problem. Even the Christmas rush didn’t bring a sale.
    There was an exception to this. About once a month, sometimes more, and usually at night, a woman would stand at my window and stare. She was tall, wore a scarf or baseball cap, jeans and something long-sleeved, and big round sunglasses that covered half her face. Once she stood there for an hour, leaning against the glass, studying the three pieces in the display and then trying to see past them at my other work leaning against the wall. Several times I motioned her in, even opened the door once and invited her, but she turned and disappeared without a word. From then on when she appeared, I just waved. Once, she waved back. I figured she liked looking so I let her look.

    L IKE AN IDIOT, I had enrolled in early-morning classes thinking it would give me all day and night to work or paint. Mostly paint. When I wasn’t tending bar, chances were good I was covered in paint, charcoal, or slipping along the Battery in my running shoes.
    Having pitched my asthma medication years ago, I did something the doctors told me I couldn’t. I grew my lungs. Maybe
stretched
is a better word. It had become my escape, helping me stay on a relatively even keel. Gone were the hacking, sputtering, passing-out days. Somewhere in the past fifteen years, it had morphed. What I have is called EIB. Exercise-induced bronchospasm. Put my lungs under duress, without adequate warm-up, and they actually clamp down, causing more duress, causing more clamping, and so on. A downward spiral. Add to that dry, cold air and I’m a basket case. But let me warm up, ease into the idea that I might need to eat mass amounts of oxygen and my lungs loosen up nicely. Further, warm damp air acts like a lubricant. I love running in a summer rain. I’ve even known moments of relative speed when I can run a long time. Hours. I’m not setting any