For the next three years, I painted during the week and worked weekends at the restaurant with Cady. Ostensibly these paintings would be my next show, but I was dissatisfied, not for any particular reason other than The work was not worth my satisfaction, and so I painted over them, again, and again, and again. The canvases grew heavier—a lot heavier—and I had to support the canvas substrate with plywood to stop it from sagging. The thicker and nastier they became, the more I loved them—yet they were still not done. During that time, Cady and Atticus both moved out; Cady got a Hunter studio (back when you could enroll and keep your studio for a decade), and Atticus moved to the Catskills with his boyfriend. I took over the lease and knocked down all the drywall and started to feel like a real artist—one who could afford all the rent for a space that I actually needed.

I became an adult. For the first time in my life, I wanted to socialize. I went to more shows; I saw more work. I applied for a passport and traveled, to Venice and Miami and Switzerland and Berlin and London and even Paris, where my very own left hand was displayed inside a vitrine at the Palais de Tokyo—the skin loose and shifting—in Carey Logan’s 72 HOURS installation. She’d used at least one of the same molds from THE BURIAL PROJECT; I could tell it was mine from the fingernails, from their hard, geometric ridges. I was in a museum, I told myself, even if nobody knew about it. Spurred to action, I went on three residencies, where I made a dozen one-off paintings on commission purely to make money, mostly landscapes, though they were still abstract. I dated, albeit lightly and without consequence. And at last, I was invited to parties that the members of Pine City attended—sure, either they were leaving at the moment I was arriving or vice versa—but I was getting closer. I was working toward stature.

As I changed, so did Carey. She stopped making sculptures and turned to an earnest revival of ’70s performance art, using her own body as her primary medium. She slept in a cage, she ate speed until she was passing blood, she choked down hot dogs and smelled the breaths of strangers, all on public display at Eliot&Sprain. Yet, aggressive as they were, the performances completely lacked the magic and power of her sculpture. I could not figure out what she was doing, or why she was doing it, and neither could anybody else. When asked by the Times why she changed, she only said, “Because I want to express myself.” That was it. It was a meaningless explanation. I promised myself that the next time I saw her at a party, I would introduce myself. I finally had enough of an identity to hold a conversation.