Chapters:

Chapter 1

AMERICAN ART KILLERS

CON ARTISTS, CALL GIRLS + JAZZ JUNKIES

A Novel By Andrew Oyé

A literary classic with suspense, horror and psychological-thriller elements, AMERICAN ART KILLERS is a generation-defining novel about a crew of artists on a journey to self-discovery and a mysterious tale about the power of art, music and madness.


Sunday Morning


“God! Yes!”

Her scream was blood curdling— the sound of death dying but not yet dead. She rode him on the worn mattress like a rodeo champion, bucking up and down, and screaming prayers and obscenities in the same breath. Her shiny, charcoal hair flapped wildly as if it, too, suffered from the savage action. The dark bedroom where they mated was barely lit by the break of dawn spying through the curtain-less window, and the space stirred with air that was smothering, ripe with adult sweat. While her glistening brown back writhed in a mid-climax seizure, the act seemed to pain and please her twitching body.

Under his wailing banshee, his wet tan chest was pulsing with red marks courtesy of her uncontrolled slaps. Entranced by the heat and her violent vigor, he pumped his mid-section between her legs as if stopping would have killed him. Continuing what the tangled pair had been doing to each other was apparently butchering him as well, because he howled, “Oh, God! Help me!!”

Still attached to her stallion at the loins, the female half of the spry couple curled her spine backward to touch her head to the unclean sheets. She finally saw the red light on my video camera and my silhouette in the half-open door. She screamed, “Oh my God! What the hell are you doing, you pervert?!” She clumsily covered her nakedness with the sheets, scrambled to the bathroom and slammed the door.

Abandoned, his bubbling lust unfulfilled, the male half of the twosome sighed with frustration, “Amico, that’s not cool.”

In the lens, I saw a pillow fly toward me from the double-stacked mattresses on the floor and hit my handheld camera. I took the hint, left the bedroom’s entrance and wandered through the living space of our apartment to the kitchen. Moments later, my bare-chested roommate strolled out to join me at the counter.

I offered him my glass of juice. “Whew! That was an exhausting performance. Refreshing beverage?”

“Amico, that wasn’t cool. Fiona doesn’t think too highly of you to begin with, and you’re not helping the situation by sneaking up on us and playing the skin-flick maker.”

“Marco, you know I just like to poke her buttons because she thinks she’s God’s untouchable gift.”

“Silence, you filthy freak!” Fiona blasted, appearing at the breakfast bar in a fuzzy robe with Artistique Theatre scrawled across the back. “I swear, one day I will destroy that damn camera!”

“Touch it and you die,” I promised.

“Are you going to let him talk to me that way, honey?!”

“No, Brown Sugar. Calm down. Both of you.” Marco ran his fingers through the mop of wavy black hair dangling across his face to his chin. “It’s too early for your bickering. Why can’t you two get along?”

“Because she refuses to do to me what she just did to you.” I kept a straight face, suppressing my laughter. “Fiona, it’s too bad that your sleepovers are dwindling, since you’ve finally moved into your own place. When you stop using my apartment as a halfway house, I shall miss your nightly nookie noises and morning sex sounds.”

“You are so nasty!” She flew into a rage that involved her flitting arms and bulging brown eyes. “How long were you standing there? Why are you videotaping us anyway? Get a love life of your own, you cretin!”

Marco approached his girlfriend and tried to console her or, rather, to keep her from awakening the entire complex of Village Street Apartments on a mellow Sunday morning.

“You two bore me. I’m in desperate need of interesting footage.”

“No, you’re just desperate…for cheap voyeuristic thrills!”

“Fiona, don’t flatter yourself.” I smiled acerbically, smoothing my khakis and cream cotton polo. “Marco, I’m meeting Bronson today, and I’m sure he’s going to inform me of another opportunity for amateur filmmakers. Listen, why don’t you two go back in there and let me tape you while I ask you questions? It’ll be a very raw, post-passion inside peek. I’ll call it Seven Raucous Minutes: Sex and Fringe Artists.”

Fiona huffed, “Eww. You are beyond disgusting!”

“You know what blows my mind?” I looked intently at the brat and the weakling. “I’m fascinated how during sex— our most kinky moments— we call out God’s name. Isn’t that weird? Did you notice how both of you invoked the Holy Spirit while jamming your private parts together?”

“Delete that video!” Fiona smacked the breakfast bar with her hand.

I scoffed childishly from the other side. “No.”

“Marco, honey, make him delete it and prove it now!” Fiona pulled her robe tighter over her bust with an air of shame. She turned to me with a blast of pure hate. “I swear, if that video ends up anywhere on the Internet or something like that, I will kill you!

I chuckled sardonically at Fiona. Each of us had often pledged to bring about the demise of the other several times, and, once again, I refused to take the malicious coquette seriously. I thanked God that, after two months of torture, she had recently packed up her designer bags and left my apartment for her own place, taking her designer attitude with her. She was a coddled prima donna and my love-subservient friend, Marco, encouraged it— he was the enabler that continued to spoil the poisoned apple that was his recent crush.

Marco rested his head on Fiona’s comfy bust as he embraced her. He whispered, “Shhh, be still, amorosa.”

Fiona kissed his forehead and sneered at me, “I am an up-and-coming theater actress one step away from getting my name attached to a Broadway production. If you do anything with your dirty little sex tape to hurt my career, I swear…”

“I know, you swear you’ll slay me, right?”

“Damn right!”

Marco promised Fiona that he would personally see to it that I never did anything to ever hurt his precious Brown Sugar. Meanwhile, I downed my juice and smirked at the irksome sloppy smooch they shared.

They were an odd couple: she, a tall, obnoxiously pretty, Southern black girl; he, a short, oblivious, Sicilian white boy. She, a megalomaniac with personality shifts that morphed ad nauseam; he, a lackadaisical people-pleaser with a dreadful record for responsibility. I sighed, realizing that my living situation and their romance was uninspiring and tiresome to me. Even with the world’s most dramatic couple a foot away from me, I often felt numb and alone.

I used to be deathly afraid of being alone with the thoughts inside of my head. I forced myself into social situations just to avoid dealing with the truth that seemed to lurk in the darkness of my mind and lunged forward like the boogeyman just when the world got too quiet. Being alone, thinking, enduring my quietest moments…forced me to face myself, and I did not always like what I saw. No one does really. One either confronts the self they fear or hides behind something else. I had a tendency to hide behind my camera. My name is Seven and I am a filmmaker.

My given birth name is Steven Waters, but Steven has the potential to be a boring name. If there is one thing I hate, it’s boredom. Besides, the film world boasts enough Stevens. Hence, when I decided to pursue the filmmaker’s life, I dropped the T to become Seven Waters, and no one could deny that my new moniker had a hell of a ring to it. With my cool screen name in tow, I had set out to change the world of film with my buddy, Marco DeMarco. When he initially introduced himself to me I, like many, assumed he was joking. He was not; so, unlike myself, my friend did not require a new name because his mother is an off-the-wall troubadour who finds joy in rhyming and sound-alike words. His baby sister’s name is Margo.

Marco and I met at Biltmore State University two years before I gave birth to the project that would change my life. Neither of us had matriculated at BSU for Bachelor’s degrees. The idea of sitting in dull liberal arts college classes never appealed to me, for I would rather learn about the world by seeing it. So, after high school, I skipped the university for the universe for a few years. Then I attended a yearlong filmmaking program at BSU taught by one of the region’s most noted documentary filmmakers, Dr. Bronson Maddox. The certificate of completion was enough formal education for me.

At BSU, I was forced to partner on a class project with a strange guy who had a habit of tossing out overly grand assessments of his talent that seemed substance-induced, but who swore he was never a drug addict of any kind. He did not finish the program. I did. We eventually roomed together in a small apartment in southeast New Orleans; a decision that I was long convinced was a bad idea. I had never met anyone with more horrendous living habits or a more annoying significant other.

Whenever the three of us were together, which, thankfully, was not often, most people assumed Fiona Keys and I were the happy duet— the oh-so-obvious long-legged couple on a chocolate wedding cake in their imaginations. And, because I am constructed like an NBA power forward, strangers also always assumed that I could dunk on the best the pro basketball league had to offer. However, much to their dismay, my athletic ability was limited to lifting my beloved third eye to my human eyes and filming what I saw. So, I despised the practice of people attempting to fold all six-feet-four-inches of me into a box with assumptions, prejudgments and stereotypes.

Yet, such was the story of my life. I always ended up in circumstances I did not intend for myself, struggled with the resulting situation, and had to claw my way out of some mess that had a very innocent beginning. My twenty-six-year journey has seen numerous misunderstandings— lots of mistaken identity, typos, wrong-place-wrong-time type of stuff. I guess my strong distaste for prejudicial thinking is what prompted me to pick up a video camera and vow to get beyond the surface of things, dig to the bottom of the dirt and show people what treasure— or trash— I found.

A small-town boy with large-winged vision, I always knew the world was bigger than where I stood, what I did or how I thought; and I was hell-bent on seeing and documenting what else was out there.

Today, I reflect back on last summer with a wiser mind. It was then that I discovered something happens when worlds collide— there is a crash, stuff breaks, and the paradoxical vestiges form a more beautiful, or ugly, combination than the original individual components. I witnessed it happen both ways.


***


I eventually left Fiona and Marco to suffer with each other. I fired up my trusty, rusty, American-made blue hatchback with the sinister growl and pushed through the invisible brick wall erected by a muggy New Orleans summer. Five years of scaling that wall had made me accustomed to the dog’s breath, that brick-oven heat of the bayou, but it never failed to make me thirsty— in every sense of the word.

I was headed to meet Bronson Maddox at Magique Bistro, nestled in the northwest nook of Magnolia Square on the corner of Rouge Boulevard and Bijou Street. I was looking forward to the meeting with my former BSU film program professor; yet, I was also dreading it. I was simultaneously in awe of and put off by Bronson, for he forever flaunted the very arrogance to which I aspired. I liked him because we had the same penchant for self-importance. We were only the same height when we stood side by side. Otherwise, as Dr. Maddox would gladly inform anyone who asked, he was bigger than most people in the state of Louisiana.

I entered the bistro where the likable devil waited at a table near the arched window. Magique was an elegant cubbyhole with tiny mahogany tables, bad French wall art and overpriced sandwiches. Cautiously, I approached Bronson, a rangy white gentleman a foot into his forties, with the rudest tongue I had ever heard, but the sharpest eye for film I had ever known.

“You’re late, Steven.” Bronson spat the olive in his mouth back into his martini glass without looking at me. “I was going to treat you to brunch, but I have to rush off to another meeting.”

“Sorry,” I replied sheepishly, taking my seat across from him. “And it’s Seven now, remember?”

“Oh yeah, Seven Waters.” He snickered, shaking his head. “I thought you were bullshitting when you did that name-change thing.”

“I explained this before. Seven has a lot of meaning for me. It’s the number of days in a week and the number of days a week I plan on working to impact filmmaking. I’m including the word seven in the title of every film I make.”

“How clever. For a kid who claims to be a true unaffected auteur, you’re really buying into that ‘Director-as-God’ crap.”

“Unlike our favorite slacker Marco DeMarco, I haven’t gone ‘Hollywood.’ I’m still about the art. I’m not one of those kids with stars in his eyes, who dreams of going into the movie-making business to lens the next big summer blockbuster, getting famous, and pocketing a big box office of money. I really want to do something important with my art.”

“So I did teach you something in my crash course.” Bronson pulled a packet of papers from his briefcase and threw the folder across the table at me. He leaned his long body back in his chair. “Well, you know I sit on the AIM Board. This year, Arts in Motion is trying a new approach to cultivating submissions for its film festival. The committee has assigned the board members to mentor young filmmakers working on entries for the festival. Two other professors and I will oversee the documentary division, so I’ll be helping you and another young documentary filmmaker prepare entries to put before a panel of independent judges.”

I skimmed the contents of the folder with kiddy-like excitement. “Damn, this is righteous! An overall prize of twenty grand, a new state-of-the-art Helix S-90 Digital Video Camera, a residency at the Reflection Institute, and a screening with executives from the Docu-Film Channel!” I salivated, staring at my former professor through the spectacles over his sharp blue eyes. “Do you realize that this is my dream in my hands?”

“The AIM Award is very prestigious, and this is the first year the committee has offered a grand prize of this magnitude. The festival and the deadline are right around the corner. Are you working on anything that’ll be ready by the submission date?”

“Didn’t you tell us that a serious filmmaker always has a project in the works, because he never knows…”

’When an audience with eager eyes will call for his artistic supplies.’ Yeah, yeah. Yadda-yadda-yadda. So, you are currently working on something?”

“Well…no, but I’ll find something.” Despite my guilt for my idle spell behind the camera, there was excruciating resolve in my voice.

“Seven, you don’t have to travel to the Australian outback and record three years of footage on Pygmy rituals. All I need from you is a short-span, profile documentary on someone or something compelling. Can you do it?”

“Bronson, I must win this prize.“

“Then you must make it happen,” Bronson said, fetching his bundle of mail from his briefcase and sifting through it. Suddenly, he exploded with vicious laughter.

“What’s that, another royalty check?”

“No, it’s a letter from my witch of an ex-wife.” He ripped into the envelope. “Millicent likes to send me these insidious notes, updating me on her personal success after our nasty divorce ten years ago.”

“How heartwarming,” I said, more concerned with my new film-festival fantasy in a folder.

“Oh, she included a picture in this one. Wow, get a look at the geezer she’s cuddled up to.” Bronson handed me the photo. With sheer malice, he read the letter:


Dear Bronson,

How was your last Christmas and Valentine’s Day, darling?

It’s been a while since I’ve written you with more good news. I was busy getting remarried to a ‘real’ man and I just wanted to share him with you. I enclosed the honeymoon photo of Douglas and me on our fifty-foot yacht. Please frame it and find a space for it in your office where you spend so much of your precious time.

Douglas Greenberg is a retired businessman who focuses all of his attention on loving me and supporting my son’s collegiate baseball career. Since I’ve found happiness in a mature man who makes me a priority, I do hope that you’ve found more time for your numerous committees and documentary outings.

By the way, after all of these years, have you finally found yourself one of those sweet twenty-year-olds you seem to like so much? Scour the BSU campus for a cute co-ed and maybe you can help her with her homework, Professor Pathetic.

Love Always,

Millicent Greenberg


Bronson snatched the photo from me and ripped the image of a beaming Millicent and Douglas in half.

I looked at the front door of the bistro, hoping to escape soon. My elder was experiencing a moment of which I felt that I should not be a part.

“See, that’s all she cared about. Millicent always wanted me to drop everything I was doing with my career to fawn over her and her son— that dumb jock who always reminded me that I’m not his real father. Thank God I didn’t have kids with that woman.”

I had grown more than uncomfortable. I grabbed my bag. “Bronson, I’d better go.”

“Not to worry, silly Millie,” he whispered a warning to his former spouse, wherever she was. “I’m working on something that is sure to make you shrivel and keel over with envy, you selfish shrew.”



Sunday Afternoon


She walked into my coffee shop with that look on her face. In actuality, the venue was not just my coffee shop. It belonged to all of us. Café Bohémien was curled up in the southeast cranny of Magnolia Square on the corner of Parisella Boulevard and Port Antoine Street. The café was the only place for us to hang out. Us, being the collective of broke artists that gathered at the cheap java cove to exchange ideas and get free refills. Us, being Phoenyx, Tahj, Katarina, Marco, me and her. Her name is Whitney and she is a filmmaker.

Phoenyx Diaz is the erotic poetess; Tahj Asanté, the philosophy-trained essayist and occasional drummer; Katarina Neferton, the impressionist painter; and the rest of us are the so-called future of film.

We are deuces, proud members of the Deuce Generation— the generation of artists with millions of modern abstract inspirations that will make our marks in the 2000 millennium. Between the years 2000 and 2999, we will shape the canon of America’s new humanities. Like the defiant abolitionists, thrill-chasing swingers, zigzagging hippies, deviant beatniks and brave BAM agitators, we are spawning a revolution. Music, media, literature, film, performing and visual arts will be changed because of neo-prodeucers like us…or, so we hope.

Our summit hall was Café Bohémien, a cavernous space arrayed with psychedelically upholstered benches, candy-colored beanbag chairs and secondhand loveseats draped with East Indian tapestries. The mellow haunt housed pine shelves lined with bonsai trees and lava lamps, and its stone walls were hung with Georgia O’Keeffe renderings, Jacob Lawrence paintings and black-and-white glossies of jazz and blues greats. Acid jazz music and the fog from clove cigarettes were constant fixtures in the air. My friends, the deuce crew, owned a large table next to the picture window facing the Square. It was there that we broke bread, guzzled coffee and pondered life’s questions.

Disrupting the peace, at least mine, Whitney Gaines strolled in with the look she always wore on her heart-shaped face. It was a look that said: “Whatever’s going on behind these eyes and between these ears is deeper than you’ll ever comprehend. So just get over it.” Even though it had been more than a year since we were considered a romantic item, somewhere deep down inside, beyond normal comprehension, I was not truly over her…or her eyes…or her ears…

Even Whitney’s drink was snobby to me. But, then again, our regular drinks represented each crewmember. The subdued Katarina was her soft lemon tea with strings of golden lemon peel like the flaxen hair that bespoke her Swedish heritage. Phoenyx was the spiced tea swirled with aphrodisiacs like drops of strawberry extract and ginseng. The rich, dark espresso with strong chocolate chunks was Tahj. Marco matched his Italian coffee with the splash of Kahlua that kept him complacently drowsy. And I related to my mochaccino in a tall, exaggerated mug— a simple thing trying to be bigger than it was.

And there we sat, my crew and me, drowning in liquid stimulants, testing philosophies and each other, and hoping the individual art we were creating would someday ripple the world’s oceans.


***


Somewhere in the rural outskirts of the city, a large bird was in flight, floating through the sky on the strength of its wingspan. Suddenly, the air traveler made a graceful turn and coasted toward the earth, landing perfectly on a massive rock in a field. It perched, chest proudly puffed upward. Swiveling its head left and right, the bird surveyed the area as if it now owned the land after simply swooping down onto it.

Unbeknownst to the majestic creature, the barrel of a rifle slowly emerged from bushes about ten feet away from its jagged throne. A male voice and a female voice proceeded to have a philosophical discussion in whispers fried with a country twang.

“Don’t you dare shoot that bird,” she commanded.

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do and not do,” he clapped back.

“Ya came out here to shoot squirrels.”

“Want me to shoot you instead?”

“Why ya gotta shoot anything?”

“’Cuz God made it that way— animals versus humans. He made us smarter than them. That’s why we got guns and they don’t. It’s the food-chain thing.”

“What, like the circle-of-life thing?”

“Ain’t sure ‘bout all that," he snorted. "But, put it this way, somethin’ bigger than me might try to eat me, but I’d shoot it first. And I’ll be damned if anything smaller than me kills me before I kill it.”

“Quit tryin’ to sound smart, Artie. Always stuck on killin’. He ain’t tryin’ to kill you, and we got chicken to eat at the house. Look how pretty that thang is.”

“Shut up, ‘fore ya scare him away, Sarah.”

“I hope you git in trouble with the government or whatever. That’s like the ‘bird of America,’ ain’t it? It’s against the law to shoot those kinda birds.”

“Screw the government. And you’re the dumb one. The bald eagle is the American mascot. That one ain’t big enough. Looks like a random cousin or some sorta hawk or somethin’”

“Well, he’s just as pretty.”

“And now, he’s just as dead.”

Whether the regal, feathered creation had heard the man’s words of impending doom…or had simply decided to flutter away and claim land elsewhere in this vast beautiful country…it raised its gorgeous wings in a stunningly angelic display…but, in the same instant, it felt the explosion of the bullet that had already been fired from the rifle…ripping its chest, piercing its heart, splattering its blood, stealing its freedom…the woman screamed…as the animal, never seeing the face of its killer who had used a weapon to exercise the dominion of man over beast, fell to the dust…


***