The Oracles of Invention:

Midnight on Fulton Street

My dear subscribers,
This one took way longer to complete than usual—who knows why? Thanks for your patience!

The latest chapter of The Trouble With Apartment One crash-dives into my attempt to resurrect a painting “career” while cowering in the Punk Magazine office, circa 2003–2004. For entertainment purposes only.

—B.F. “Brian” Späth

Three Saints, oil on canvas, B.F. Späth, 2017

Midnight

An inexorable momentum drove me through the downtown streets—some unseen law of grief and gravitation—as if the city itself had conspired to stage my ruin…

My steps were not my own, I said, as I wandered, not resisting, through some half-mad Dream of Exile.

It wasn’t so long ago, it seems—I had a home—and to the undiscerning eye, at least—the appearance of a settled life. But no!—three long and bitter years have passed since I fled Zharkovsky’s poison building.

The tale re-writes itself, I said—Apartment One lives on in every bleak and borrowed room I occupy. And in this Season of My Estrangement, even the wretched East Village arises in memory like some hallowed precinct…

But enough of these laments, I said—this Cathedral District claims me—call it madness, devotion, or some poisoned state of mind:

I walk its streets with reverence, even while despairing, as if to trace the outlines of some faint and long-forgotten city…

And somewhere high above the fractious streets, above that feverish zone, Punk Magazine maintains a desk, and I, a restless vigil…

Apartment One arises in memory, I said, like some dreadful bilious moon:
Condemned to the dark for two decades running, I moldered away on the ground floor—entombed in an East Village grotto…

But now the day breaks into The Bennett, with the furious glare of a promise too long postponed!

The light has returned, and with it, the old delirium:

The Painter’s Dream consumes me once again, I said—

The canvas, the brush, and the pigment, how reverently they arise, these Oracles of Invention…

I strung electric lights along the rafters, like stars reborn above A Barren Hemisphere—

Tarps lay scattered across the floor.

I seized a battered easel from the ruins of someone else’s failure—

Canvas unfurled like Revelation!

What was it then that overtook me?—whether ecstasy or grief, or some silent revelation, who can say for certain?

I anointed the palette with a ceremonial hush, and a raft of vertiginous hues…

I set to work with reverence—as night fell over the Bennett like a blackening…

I conjured a bird’s-eye view of an ornamental landscape that pursued itself in arabesque—as if the very Gardens of Versailles had erupted in a dream…

I labored over the long-dead geometries of Le Nôtre.

I worked deep into The Lost Fultonian Night…

Then, as if the hour itself conspired against me—there fell upon the office door a heavy midnight pounding…

It’s Management! They’ve found me out, I said—I’ll be tossed into the vile and unforgiving streets.

However, it was not the iron hand of Management that set the building trembling—no—it wasn’t wrath that knocked, but ceremony:

The door gave way to a man, half-familiar, it seemed—all smiles and supplication—with welcoming words and an outstretched offering:

A steaming cup of a singular tea, its ingredients unspecified—a restorative infusion, he assured me—

It’s meant to steady your resolve, he said.

Resentment showed itself upon my face—for a fleeting instant only—I thanked him stiffly and motioned him inside…

I want to welcome you to the Bennett Building, he said. The news of your arrival reached me only yesterday:

A painter has taken up residence in 10-03, they told me!

With that, he settled into a plastic chair and fixed his gaze upon the easel—regarding it with a scrutiny that seemed unnerving…

But this is inspiration! he continued—

You’ve coaxed Versailles itself inside the room!

It was the flush of pride that took its place upon my countenance this time around, I said—

This is the warmth of Validation, I thought—at last!

Who’d ever imagine that genius would descend upon this unassuming office, he continued—this anteroom called 10-03?

This is a blessing upon the building! he insisted—the truth arises amid the acrid smell of turpentine—the Bennett’s found its visionary once again!

These benedictions begin to overflow their banks, I thought—what hides behind these words, I wonder?—I’m at the mercy of a mind dissembling…

He may be mad—or he might be in his cups…

Or perhaps he’s ravished not by liquor but by language.

The smell of spirits fills the room!

But wait, I said, I didn’t get your name…

I’m The Painter at the Other End of the Hall, he told me.

And with this, The Bennett itself grew weary.

I seemed to hear a distant metal dirge arise, some mechanical sorrow buried deep in iron gloom…

I thought I heard A Buried Hymn arise, I said—some indistinct complaint—but perhaps it was just The Bennett stirring in its sleep—or a colossal bout of indigestion.