Walking the Dog by Elizabeth Swados

Royals, but I’m not leaving, so there’s no reason to behave. You have something I want. That’s how we work here. Barter.”
    The idea of having sex with Fits nauseated me despite how many times I had been raped. I decided to take apart my bed and find a sharp edge and dig away at my wrists until I bled to death. I was beyond pain.
    â€œI like art,” Fits was saying. “I’m crazy about it. Loved those paintings of the kids with huge eyes. I had a picture of Elvis painted on black velvet in my room at home. Whenever I could lift a book of paintings from a street fair or whatnot I did that too. Lifted myself a book of Picasso. Weighed a ton. Thought for sure I’d get busted.”
    Picasso is a misogynist pig crook, but I wasn’t about to say it.
    â€œHe’s a little bent in the head,” said Fits, “but it was okay, like cartoons.”
    I was beginning to think the Royals had drugged my lunch. Then I thought, No, that’s condescending. The con in me was curious about Frankenstein’s monster as a cultural connoisseur.
    â€œI can teach you about art,” I said meekly. Fits’s knuckles went white. I winced.
    â€œI don’t want to know nothing from an art school,” Fits said. She pulled out a thick, sweaty, eight-by-ten-inch sketchbook she’d been sitting on. The pages were empty.
    â€œOnce a week you make me a book of pictures and I become your man. You don’t have to fuck me. Just make me books.”
    I felt the urge to scream with laughter. Like the orangutans in a cheap circus or chimps I’d seen on PBS. My fingers were barely healed. I didn’t know if I could hold a brush. This hell called Powell had made me numb. I had no pictures, textures,or sounds of color speaking in my brain. I was deaf. I was blind. I’d been murdered over and over again. How could I make books for this woman? She didn’t understand that my artwork had been the only source of what had been good in my life, and I no longer had life. How could I do one page, much less a book a week? I began sweating as if the room were radiating bright red. Fits didn’t notice.
    â€œNo one will touch you if I’m your man. I have the supreme juju here. Even if I’m in solitary no one acts against me. They think I’m only half human.” She grinned like a cartoon wolf.
    I took the sketchbook. It was thick. A month’s worth of sketches. It would take six to fill it with watercolors or pastels.
    â€œOne a week?” I asked.
    â€œBoth sides,” Fits answered. “I got connections. I can get colored pencils, charcoal, watercolors, acrylic oils, scissors, glue, oil paints, brushes—any shit you want. I’ve got connections for every kind of speed too. Otherwise I need you straight. I hate those phony hallucinogenic-type, rock-and-roll pictures.”
    â€œWhat if you don’t like the pictures?” I could barely ask.
    â€œAll I care is if it’s real art. You make me all kinds. All styles. You got to really do it though. You can’t fake me. You doodle or make fun of my bargain, I’ll leave you cold. I’ll set the Royals on you with a nod of the head.”
    I clutched the pad.
    â€œWhat if the Royals fuck with my stuff?”
    â€œNo one will. Everyone thinks I’m possessed. I carry the souls of demons people haven’t even heard of.”
    Fits stood up. She was so tall. She made me think of a giant in a Yiddish folktale. The Golem.
    â€œOkay,” I gasped.
    She had condemned me to death, second degree.

A LIFE OF LISTS
    One hundred pages of a book to fill. My paintings were more primitive than in the years before because of the stiffness in my fingers, but they were real and displayed technical skill and a knowledge of styles. So maybe she won’t set the wolves on me, I thought. I wasn’t filling up white squares anymore. I was washing off splotches of blood with color, pictures, and