He was a firm believer in the maxim that you can always add but never take away, and so when he was almost done he set the clothes aside and got to work on his face and arms. After a while he hit on a combination of paint, water and dust from the garage floor that seemed to hit the mark. He ran his hands through his hair occasionally, ensuring some of all this got lodged there too.
He finally went back to the clothes and layered in over the creases, then bent and rubbed them against the wall for ten minutes, perfecting the shiny look that comes from dirt and filth that’s been lived in for so long it becomes ingrained, part of the garment itself.
He put the clothes on and lurched into the house. He checked the overall impression in the mirror in the bathroom, and went back to the studio for a couple of final touches, but by this point the wine was done and so was he. In a last-minute inspiration—aided by the fact he simply couldn’t be bothered to lurch back to the bedroom—he lay down on the garage floor.
Pretty quickly he got to sleep, via the intermediary of passing out.
* * *
There was a polite coughing sound, and he looked up to see someone standing over him. Not just someone, in fact, but a policeman—the young cop from yesterday.
“Hey,” David said.
“Like you to come with me, sir.”
“Why?”
The cop reached his hand out toward David’s arm. He didn’t actually touch it, but the implication was clear.
David looked around the little courtyard. Only one of the other tables was taken, a couple who were now studiously looking elsewhere. He raised his voice and directed it toward them. “You got a problem with me?”
Somehow, it turned out, it was possible for two people to look even less like they were there, while still remaining physically present.
David drained the last of his coffee and stood. By accident, his thigh banged against the edge of the little metal table, causing his stirring spoon to fall noisily to the flagstones. “Pah,” he muttered, with vague enmity, before starting to follow the cop up the alley.
As a final touch, he turned back to the couple. “Assholes,” he snarled.
The cop was waiting out on the sidewalk. David realised that rather than feeling nervous, or scared, he felt excited.
“What?” he said. “I wasn’t doing nothing wrong.”
The cop looked at him steadily. “Kind of a departure from photographing houses, isn’t it?”
David realised the policeman wasn’t dumb. He kept silent.
“So how come the drifter disguise? Which is pretty good, by the way.”
“Didn’t fool you.”
“It’s my job to keep my eyes open, keep track. It’s how I know who lives in which house, too. So—what’s up?”
“I’m just trying something.”
“You got a problem with the people who live here?”
“No. Just… I thought it would be interesting. To see how they would react.”
The cop nodded. He looked along the street. Most people were going about their business in the usual serene way. A few, mainly on the other side of the street, were watching. It was doubtless a while since they’d seen a cop talking to someone other than to cheerfully pass the time of day.
“I understand the joke, sir,” he said. “Some people won’t.”
“Don’t you think it would do them good? To be reminded?”
“I’m not talking about them, sir,” he said. “And anyway… no, I don’t think it would. If you’ve got some big thing about social equality, why not go back to the city and do something about it?”
David looked at him. Along the upper California coast, “the city” isn’t a catch-all term—it specifically means San Francisco. “How do you know I’m from there?”
“Happened to run into Ron Bleist, guy who owns the cottage you’re renting. Said you were a painter.”
“Happened to run into him?”
“My point is, nobody portrays Carmel as an equal-opportunity environment. It is what it is. If you can put up with that, you’re welcome here.”
“And if not?”
The man shrugged.
David found he was becoming genuinely angry. “You know the really crappy thing?”
“Tell me the really crappy thing.”
“Nobody here even knows the difference. You’ve got good eyes, presumably some experience of the real world. Everyone else I’ve encountered today… they can’t even tell I’m not a real drifter. I’m actually kind of well known for what I do. I’ve got a million-dollar condo up in the city. This crap all over me is paint and dust, not real dirt. And yet nobody here can even tell.”
“Maybe you’re a better artist than you realise.”
“Or maybe everyone here is dumber than they know.”
The cop shrugged once more.
“That’s it?”
“You want to string a sign round your neck, sir, declaring yourself a piece of performance art, be my guest. Otherwise, do yourself a big favour and go get cleaned up.”
“Is that some kind of warning?”
“Yes, it is.”
* * *
David did not go home, however. After fuming on the street for a few minutes, he stomped down to the beach. By the time he got there he was feeling hot and even more dreadful than before, so he continued down to the sea and walked straight into it. The water was very cold.
He trudged back up the beach, found some shade and sat down. When he awoke, several hours later, the hangover had abated a little. His irritation hadn’t, however.
A small group of people in their early twenties were now sitting some distance away. They wore shorts and T-shirts in various shades of pale. One of the guys glanced over at David, then turned back to the group.
David pushed himself laboriously to his feet. He went over. The dried sea-salt on his clothes had made them stiff, and caused interesting tidal patterns in the paint. Another unconscious finesse. He stood outside their circle. The same guy as before looked up at him. He was blandly good-looking, not overtly supercilious.
David croaked at him. “You got a problem with me?”
He’d noticed when talking to the cop that last night’s over-indulgences had coarsened his voice. Crashing out on the beach had turned the huskiness up another big notch.
“Nothing that needs resolving right now,” the boy said, mildly. He turned back to his friends, none of whom had appeared to pay David any attention at all, as if he wasn’t even visible.
Turning imperiously from them, David accidentally got his feet caught on a piece of driftwood, and fell over, full-length in the sand.
Nobody laughed, or jeered.
He got up and lurched away.
* * *
By now, if the truth be told, David was starting to tire of the game. He’d established that the residents and visitors of Carmel didn’t much care for down-and-outs. Big deal. He could have predicted that without the rigmarole. He wandered back into the centre, deciding to milk the effect one last time before going back to the cottage. A few people stared. Others crossed the street to avoid him. Nobody shouted, nobody called the cops.
Time to go home, have a bath. Reboot. Probably not work—with a hangover like this—but get an early night instead. Tomorrow’s always another day, potentially the start of a new chain. He still liked the idea of a drifter’s shadow in his painting. It worked. He could be up and at it bright and early. Have it blocked out by the afternoon, put the canvas to one side and start another. Have a civilised dinner at a restaurant in the evening, get back on course.
It might even have panned out like that, too, if his route hadn’t happened to take him past the grocery market, and if he hadn’t found a forgotten twenty in the back pocket of his jeans.
They may not like down-and-outs in nice stores, but they’ll always take their money for a big bottle of wine.
* * *