Broken Man by Sobia Khan
(First Place • Fiction)

An hour ago I was going to force myself to write a story about the man who works at the corner cafe. I was going to write about how I should paint him. I had imagined it perfectly—I stood in front of the easel. I squeezed dark brown paint directly onto my brush. I moved the paint on the canvas in big gestural movements, making strokes that defined his arm. I dipped the same brush in some bright orange on my palette and scrubbed some orange where the flesh on his arm flexed over tight muscles. I picked up a narrower, size ten brush, and dipped it into cadmium yellow. This time I made a gentle stroke, left to right, giving his biceps the width they demanded. I mixed some navy with brown on the mixing plate and shoved the paint onto the canvas, creating the dark creases, and the bends of his elbow and arm pit. I stood in front of the canvas, physically interacting in a moment of passion, while the man who worked at the corner café came alive on the canvas.

Why did I want to paint him? Because he was beautiful. He fit in with the color palette I was most comfortable and most fond of- browns, oranges, yellows, and blues. I painted him on my terms, luxuriously, passionately. I painted as I stood before the canvas, feeling the canvas arch with my every stroke. Half an hour later, exhausted from pushing, shoving, and rubbing paint, I stepped back to view my creation from a distance. The right arm and chest of my man were taking shape, but the rest of him was still white canvas.

I imagined all of this, knowing this was exactly how I wanted to paint him. I didn’t want to create a photographic image. Instead, I wanted to bring out his quiet passion as he made my no-fat iced-mocha. I imagined how his arms must look under the black shirt he had to wear for work. I ignored the coffee stains on his cuff, and replaced them with warm, sensuous, organic color. Every week I learned a bit more about him. He was thirty-something. I forgave him his age, and I forgave him for working behind a counter at his age. He had two children, but I forgave him his fatherhood, also. He had a wife, that was hard to forgive, but as he stood on the other side of the counter getting my free coffee, I forgave him his wife, too. He was a bicycle man, riding his racing bike to work everyday. He wore bikers' Lycra pants and a shirt that fit him snugly defining the arms that I was painting. He wore a neon yellow helmet and wind resistant sunglasses that commanded my attention. When he was on the bike I noticed his calves. A fusion of tattoos covered his entire right calf. The flesh was invisible. I saw only the artistic forms that decorated and marked his body. He fascinated me enough to paint him, to immortalize him.

******************

As I stood in front of the 70” by 64” canvas, the outline of my mysterious man was outlined in pink crayon. I decided to cut off my man’s head, and remove it from the canvas. I decided that my man should have no hands, or a lower torso, just one half of his rib cage, one arm, and one side of his chin. Now my corner cafe man stood broken and in disarray on my canvas. My man on canvas was another being, nothing like the real cafe man. I picked up my dark brown paint and slammed it onto the canvas where his chest was. I scrubbed in some orange pigment in long, thick strokes. This man had skin that was taut over his bones and not enough flesh. I squeezed a little cadmium yellow on the canvas and tried to find some flesh, some meat where the yellow could go. I put a little above his stomach and barely a touch on his arm. A clear dust brown made his collarbone stick out. I mixed navy with dark brown and dumped this cocktail into the cavity between his neck and collar bone, between his ribs, and then on his arm. My man was taking shape. I deliberately pushed the orange across his upper chest in strong, determined strokes. Now he looked emaciated, forlorn. The colors came together crudely on the canvas. They did not blend smoothly into each other. The harsh orange on his chest was interrupted by the navy of his arm socket. The circular brown forming his nipple intruded on the orange chest, too. Horizontal strokes butted heads with vertical strokes. Toothpaste thick paint overtook delicate layers of paint. Nothing was transparent any longer.

My canvas was nothing like I had imagined it would be. I stood before the canvas, poking, shoving, and fighting with the paint to go where I wanted it to go. I bent to my knees, going lower, to cover up the area his legs would have occupied, and then to cover where the hand would have been. I moved higher and then to the side of the canvas, painting my pain as I worked. I stepped back, exhausted. Breathing unevenly and wiping my forehead, I look at the painting from a distance. He looked like a picture of the prisoners I had seen on the internet. My broken man was taking shape, but I still couldn’t decide where to place the cigarette burns on his body. The pictures I had seen on the internet had cigarette burns on the buttocks and around the groin area. My broken man was visible only from the waist up. Maybe I should put one near the nipple. Should the burn be red and raw like in the pictures? Or should it be crusty and dark, or a simple line of dried blood? How many burns should there be? In the picture there were ten, and they were more like cigar burns. Undecided, I let the broken man rest, prepared to attack him anew on the morrow. He was my captive.

This was not a child’s painting. This painting was not going to go on the bathroom door of my parents’ home. It was not going to be bordered in green electric tape. This painting was not a picture of flowers in a blue vase. This painting wasn’t drawn by an eager ten year old. That ten year old had preferred pictures that were happy, deluded, like the crayon drawing of Trafalgar Square.

“Once you have the color filled in as evenly as possible, take a piece of paper and gently rub it over the filled color,” my father had told me. He and I sat on the carpet, completing the picture I had drawn, the picture I had colored and he had evened out. The Trafalgar square picture had won second prize at the art contest sponsored by the British Embassy in Qatar. My father had guided me into choosing the Trafalgar Square picture for the contest. He was a savvy man who knew what would get me accolades from the British judges. He knew exactly what would make them happy. This painting of my broken man wasn’t a picture painted in a bubble of love and protection. This painting was not drawn by a ten–year–old still learning to paint. This painting was not asking for applause or approval. This was a picture of reality.

In the next two weeks I completed my broken man. From a distance, he looked like a severed body, floating in mist and uncertainty. Up close, he was a mass of harsh strokes and rough color. He was mutilated, floating in blood, melting into the background.

“You have wonderful energy in this area,” John Pomara, my art teacher, said, pointing to the chest of the broken man. “I love your organic colors and thick strokes.”

“You shouldn’t put your piece up for critique. They won’t understand it. It’s too good,” a fellow art student said to me.

“You should study the German expressionists. Additional vocabulary will only make your work better,” John said.

“You should’ve been in the advanced class,” the student whispered.

“Why don’t you get more canvases the same size and do more large scale paintings. Obviously you’ve found a subject that works for you,” John said.

My broken man had emerged out of reality and found me. This man wasn’t in a corner café. He did not need my forgiveness or my sympathy. This man was maimed–his body broken, his spirit crushed, and he was everywhere. He demanded recognition. He forced me to acknowledge him, to paint him, to immortalize him.

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