“I love me a nice tattoo,” she said.
“I do, too. I love the idea of tattoos as art. I’ve seen online where some people take infamous paintings and have brilliant tattoo artists do renditions of it on their skin. Someone online posted a picture of Van Gogh’s Starry Night that has been tattooed on their back. The entire thing! Can you believe it?”
“I’m a simple gal,” the agent said. “Give me a nice black-outlined skull-and-crossbones. Maybe a tribal tattoo right in the dip of the bicep. Oh baby, come to mama.”
I giggled at her as we continued down the road. I envied people who could settle on a tattoo to get. Over the years, I’d had over twenty different colors of hair, all ranging between different styles and lengths. I couldn’t keep a specific hair color for more than a couple of months. How in the world would I settle on one tattoo I’d keep the same for the rest of my life?
So, I stuck to admiring the tattoos of others.
We stopped at a few more places the agent tried to sell me on, and I’d finally given up. I told her to take me back, and we’d try this again some other time. She was secretly irate, angry that I’d kept her out all afternoon without so much as going into a building so she could try to secure a sale. But I wasn’t joking about this purchase. I’d dreamed about this for too long to settle because someone was upset with me for being too much of an inconvenience.
I was used to being an inconvenience, so the joke was on them.
But, as we drove through a silent part of town that barely skirted the ocean, I spotted something that drew my eye. It was an old run-down shop. It had massive windows in the front, peering into an expansive area that was covered with dust and cobwebs. I reached over and squeezed my agent’s arm, telling her to pull over so I could take a look at it.
The look she gave me was nothing short of horror, but all I did was take the wheel myself and pull the car over.
The place didn’t even look like it was for sale but more like it was abandoned. It had an awning jutting out from the side like a gas station might have, except it didn’t have any gas pumps. There were two garage doors that closed off one side of the building, a front door that swung open and dumped into what looked to be a nineteen-hundred-square-foot open building, and there was even a small door off to the side that housed a toilet and a sink.
It didn’t have any running water, but I fell in love with it the moment I made it to the center of the room.
“All right, thanks,” my agent murmured.
“I want it,” I said.
“Well, I’m glad you asked all the pertinent questions,” she said sarcastically. “The place is for sale and for a very cheap price, mostly because the owner wants it off his plate. The taxes are eating him alive. But I need to warn you, most businesses in this area, minus that diner across the way, have gone out of business within the first year.”
“I love the retro diner across the road,” I said, smiling.
“The owner’s only asking for nineteen thousand, but it’ll take triple that to get it up and running, especially with the city building codes being updated so recently,” she said.
“Well, my budget was seventy thousand if I was buying, so I’m still in budget,” I said.
“The area’s run-down. You’re not going to get a lot of foot traffic here.”
“And that’s where we disagree,” I said.
“No. Really. No one comes to this end of town to do anything recreational. They all just drive by.”
“But people do drive by, and that’s the point. I could get them to stop,” I said, grinning. “This is the beauty within the darkness.”
“You are an odd one, aren’t you?”
I was no longer paying attention to my agent. I was slowly walking around and envisioning what the place would look like once I was done. I’d set up the checkout station in the back. I didn’t want people coming in and thinking they had to automatically purchase something. I wanted them to come in and enjoy the beauty of the place and then buy something if they felt compelled to.
The space was large enough to host parties. Painting parties for people who simply needed to release their inner artist. Kids could rent the space for birthdays and adults rehabilitating themselves and seeking something different could come in and paint. I could sell canvases and brushes and colors for cheap. I could make art accessible to the masses again.
I could open my heart to rehabilitating people who needed it, people who craved an outlet other than the demons they were struggling with.
I saw the onyx floor and the cream-colored walls. I saw the paintings hanging with their names alongside them. I saw the little shop in
the corner, easily blocked off when a gallery was going on. I saw the folding tables and chairs I could stash away that I’d use for the classes and parties.
I saw everything I’d ever worked for come alive underneath all the dust and cobwebs that floated around my head. I saw a way to pay back those I owed, those whose souls were poured out into their art.
I had finally found a way to keep their spirits alive, a place for them to rest and bring beauty to a world they tried so hard to love.
“I’ll take it,” I said, whispering.