The Art Farm
The End
The installations, every one of them, burned all night. No sign of Sam. Sharye pictured him driving his beat up Honda, down route 92, windows cracked to dilute the smell of gasoline, the cold air flowing through his long hair, a crack of a smile lingering around his lips.
Before
Sam appeared out of nowhere, tapping on Sharye’s window, causing her to jump as she stood at her sink.
“Morning, Mam,” he called through the glass.
Sharye opened the door to face the stranger. He was about her age, maybe a little older, she couldn’t tell.
Herb growled, unusual for the dog.
“I’m Sam. Looking for work,” he said.
She laughed. There was lots of work, just no pay. “We’re on a really tight budget.”
He scratched his beard, crouched, held his hand out for Herb.
The dog approached, changing his attitude and licking the welcoming fingers.
“Do you need anything fixed?” Sam smiled, crinkles forming around bright blue eyes.
Sharye wanted to get back to her coffee and watercolor of the robin’s nest she’d been painting.
“Ok, I get it. I was just in the area. I always liked this place,” he said, responding to the pause, Sharye’s hesitation.
Sharye forced a smile.
The draft from the cooling weather blew in around her legs, something shifted.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” She pulled at her sweater.
“I’d appreciate it, ” Sam said, stepping forward, looking around as if to assess the space, sitting down at the table.
Sharye found a mug in the cupboard and pulled out a plate for the Pepperidge Farm cookies she always had on hand.
Sam took one mint Milano, sipped his black coffee.
“So where do you live?” Sharye asked.
“Oh, in town.” His eyes scanned past her shoulder, something her ex always did when she was in the middle of a story. Sam stood up, moved to her easel, squinted at the half-finished nest. He put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and smiled.
“This is good. Yours?”
“Yes. It is.”
“I’m an artist, too.”
“What do you make?”
He smiled, “Whatever you need.”
***
Sam’s offer would not be acceptable by the board of the Art Farm, the struggling outdoor art park she received free housing to oversee. Sharye had no idea who he was or what his art was like. She could not Google him because she did not know his last name. He offered no photos, had not brought the sample he promised. She waited. She forgot about him, it.
One morning, on the verge of securing local artist Jose Ramirez (who made somewhat sickening giant insects and had offered one on loan), something caught Sharye’s eye. A disjointed, impossible pile of books stacked up, rising high. She wondered how could they stand there, a breath of air would topple them, or how they would fair in the rain, the wind, the snow. The next morning the books had risen even more. They bent into an arch—a mysterious, seemingly unsupported arch of books.
Sam.
Days later, she hailed him down as he bumped along the gravel road.
“Hey!” she shouted, waving arms.
“Hey, Sharye.” His slight southern twang audible in the ‘a’ of her name.
“That’s really something with the books,” she said, putting her hands on her lower back. She peered into the backseat of the car. No books, tools. Nothing.
“You like it?” he said.
“Uh yeah, but how’d you do it?”
“Magic,” he said, eyes twinkling.
***
Like Field of Dreams. Cars lined up, hands reached into pockets, stuffing the donation box with cash.
The next time Sharye spied Sam’s beat-up white Honda, she asked him to dinner. He came with a bottle of whiskey and wore what Sharye considered his version of dressy: a threadbare tweed sport jacket with a black tee underneath, jeans, and dirty white Converse. He smelled of ashes and charcoal, like a fire, like the outside.
She made him pork chops, applesauce, apple pie. This was central New York in September after all, apple season. He held up the whiskey bottle and she consented, offering a glass with some ice.
“So how’d you do it?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “I told you.”
“Magic?” She smiled, questioning him with her eyes.
“Yup.”
She felt warm and woozy. When it was time to get dinner she reached out for his knee and let her hand linger there before wobbling up from the couch.
At dinner, she pulled out a dusty bottle of red wine.
“It must be wine o’clock,” said Sam.
“You sound like my ninety-year-old father,” she replied.
They were back on the couch for the pie and Sharye felt drunk enough to lean into him and bury her face in his neck. He turned toward her, moving her hair away from her face, strand by strand, observing her, like he was going to eat, or paint, her. Then he kissed her, the taste of wine and apples suspended between them.
“Magic?” she asked.
“Yup.”
In the cold silence of the next morning, she made him coffee. He drank it too quickly and left.
***
The only thing Sharye could count on Sam for was an occasional, unpredictable show-up, holding his bottle of whiskey, engaging his deft lips, and shedding his nice embery smell.
In between the loving, book installations continued to appear. A stack of books shaped like a Sphinx. Rows of books assembled like bar graphs, reflecting some unknown data. Books arranged to create a bouquet of flowers. Always books.
Where did he get them all? What did it mean? He would never tell her.
Meanwhile, the cars kept coming, the donations started piling up, and the board had questions.
“These installations have not been approved, Sharye,” the Board Director said.
“I know. I know. He didn’t tell me he was going to do them. But people love it. And now we can afford real artists. We can have all the things we want.”
“We don’t even know who this man is.”
Sharye thought of the lovely things she knew about him. That mole under his left arm.
“The board has met. These...these, book things need to go. ASAP.”
Sharye sighed. “I think it’s a big mistake.”
“You are not in a position to think anything.”
Sharye could not disagree, but her face burned with anger, shame.
She resolved to tell Sam the next time she saw him, but since he had no phone, no address, no email, she really didn’t know when that would be. She would just have to wait.
***
The last installation, his crowning achievement, the one that brought the newspapers, the requests for school visits, and more widespread questions, an outdoor library which seemed to have grown out of dirt overnight. The whole thing, built on uneven ground with aged wood shelves, leaned and lurched though remained upright. Already-tattered books packed the swaying structure forming a kind of altar overlooking small seats made from the same greying, withering wood. Covers of books flapped in the breeze, each volume shedding its pages, molting in real time. Sharye imagined it as a library for ghosts, woodland spites, fairies. A library that, even at conception, she realized, made of paper and wood, was vanishing, melting into nature before her eyes. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and perfect.
Sharye pressed her lips, shook her head. When did he do this? Why didn’t he stop by? Why did she never see him coming and going? Maybe it was magic? She looked down and saw the book Travels with Charlie on one of the benches. She picked it up and held it close. Smelled it. Placed it in her coat pocket. Winter was coming.
***
He slipped into her bed one night, without knocking, without speaking.
Unsurprised, she turned toward him, whispered in his ear, “The library is beautiful. The best one yet.” She could see his smile by the faint light of the dying fire. “The board wants to meet you,” she said.
“Naaa.” His stubbled cheek scratched hers. Sharye left his few words hanging in space, without a response.
***
She awoke thinking he was beside her, but the smell in the air was something different. Outside the window, wafts of smoke. She stretched her arms into her robe, stuck her feet into her rubber boots and ran out the door, Herb close at her heels.
She couldn’t help but be breathless, from the frosty air pouring into her lungs, the light snow falling, all six of Sam’s installations ablaze, tongues licking the December air. She stopped and took it in - the sacred purity of flame, the fragility of life and art, smoke wafting like incense, going nowhere, or everywhere, perhaps back from wherever it came. She would never know.
Note: Sam’s final installation is inspired by “Stacks” by artist David Harper, located at the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York.
