Saxon: Part One – Rich

He could smell the money coming off them – it was pungent; you could tell with people when they were rolling in the moolah. You could just easily tell when someone was broke, a pauper, a cunt’s hair away from being some useless bum on skid row. At least Saxon could – he had trained himself to be that way; he was middle class to nth degree. Lower middle class. He was acutely aware of his position within the pecking order and he always had been. He was a classic case of middle child syndrome. Everything about him was located in the middle of something else – his talent had even been described as fair to middling. The mediocrity of his work was strangely one of the reasons that it was mildly successful – it posed no threat to anyone. It was nice.

He moved in for the kill, aiming to seduce his quarry. It wasn’t going to happen. Why? He had chanced upon two people who actually knew what they were looking at and they didn’t want any of it – they didn’t want to speak to the person responsible for creating it either.

‘Darling,’ said his agent, coming over to him. ‘How are you? You look absolutely divine. The show is going really well, no?’

‘Is it? I really hadn’t noticed.’

‘Come now, Saxon, don’t be such a down-in-the-mouth. We’ve sold three pieces at pretty good prices and there has been lots of interest in further shows. If you walk around with a trout pout on all the customers are going to dry up.’

‘I want, no, I need to be rich Wanda, and it just isn’t happening fast enough.’

‘It will all come in its own sweet time, my boy – you just have to be patient.’

‘Fuck patience. I really can’t be doing with patience. I have much more talent than half the bloody hacks out there who seem to get paid for turning out any old shit.’

‘Saxon, please calm yourself, people are looking – it is quite unseemly to behave in this manner.’

‘Fuck them – if they want to buy something they’ll buy it regardless of me. If they don’t want to buy something then fuck them, I don’t give a flying fuck about people that have come to mooch. This isn’t about getting a free glass of wine – this is about art! Do you hear me? This is about art!’

What few people there were, some of them admittedly milling around, others actually considering purchasing something – all of them turned on their heels and walked in the opposite direction of the outburst, straight out of the gallery. One of the disgusted visitors was someone who had been, up until that point, considering writing a fairly positive review of the show; he was also the gentleman that had spoken to Wanda about the possibility that Saxon might be perfect to paint the mysterious important personage. That evaporated on the spot – a whole future timeline squashed.