Ryan Reynolds

All my life I felt like I never really had a father; as if I was standing all alone in the middle of the meadow
of the dead.
I mean, I suppose I had a father but he was never really there. The best thing that can be said about him
was that he was a drunken, sexist, racist lout; a sad, tragic waste of skin.
My mother died when I was little and I was an only child, and perhaps something of an odd boy. I
remember for a spell I used to pretend as if the elements of nature were my father, as if I had a sort of
wind dad, that would blow about from here to there, churn up the seas, rattle the ears of wheat in all
the fields. I entertained other fantasies and dreams too; I dreamed often of somehow making Germany
strong once again; I wasn’t even from Germany, nor had I ever been there. It didn’t make any sense. Yet,
I was still transfixed on, obsessed with this idea.
I remember on my seventeenth birthday, I decided to join ISIS, thinking that this might somehow be
some sort of answer to things, to both my own and Germany’s problems.
I did some fishing about online, and a few days later I arrived at their secret hall. Inside I found myself
surrounded by gorgeous, often shirtless Arabic men, all with chiseled washboard abs. They had all of
their guns in one corner and were all just standing around flexing and rubbing each other with scented
oils. I couldn’t believe my eyes…
I noticed a rather handsome fellow behind a desk. He had a full head of dark black hair, some short black
stubble on his face and a mischeivous smile in the corner of his mouth. And his black sleeveless shirt was
open to reveal his tanned ripped chest.
Figuring that he most likely was the one running the place I tentatively approached the fellow and began
to him, ‘Hi, uh, I’m here to sign up’
‘Great’ the fellow replied with a warm, winning smile, ‘my name is Salidan Sukmiov, come right this way
and we’ll get you all signed up’ Salidan then got up from the table.
‘Oh my god…’ I muttered to myself, biting my bottom lip a little. And Salidan seemed to have caught
this, and chuckled a little at it.
I began to follow him thru the hall and glanced more at the other fellows rubbing each other with the
oils and flexing.
‘Ok, so, I hope you’ll forgive my asking but are you guys fags or what?’ I asked Salidan.
‘Ho, no’ Salidan replied with a slight laugh, ‘this is just part of our initiation rite. Now please, strip to
your abs and join us in the rubbing of the oils’
‘Ok…’ I replied slowly, biting my bottom lip again.
‘…But remember…’
‘Yes…?’
‘…If you get a hard-on that means you’re a fag’
‘It does?’
‘Yes. And we will shoot you in the head if you are a fag’
I gulped loudly.
Salidan lead me up to this rather gorgeous ripped shirtless Arabian fellow.
‘This is Donatello’ Salidan then told me, ‘now whenever you are ready you can begin’
‘Um, ok, sure…’
There was a small ceramic oil burner on the ground before me, with a little candle in the inner chamber
of it, and some warm scented oil was resting in a little dish at the top of burner.
And I bent down and doused my hands in the oil, and I then began to massage the oil into Donatello
sculpted chest, who smiled roguishly at me as I worked.

‘…Christ’ I thought to myself as I continued with my work, ‘I’m sweating bullets over here trying not to
get hard—I mean just look at this gorgeous Arabian hunk…’
As I worked it seemed like all the other ISIS members were deliberately trying to make me arroused;
they made kissy little mouths at me, flexed their arms and some even wiggled their behinds suggestively
at me.
‘I, I can’t do this’ I thought to myself, ‘Oh god…
Just, just think of grandmas and cold showers, just, think of grandmas and cold showers… Ok, Max?’
Perhaps some five odd minutes later Salidan came back and gently put one of his hands over mine
‘that’s quite enough thank you’ he said to me in a gentle voice, with a smile.
‘Oh, thank god’
And Salidan laughed a little at this.
‘…I never caught your name…?’ Salidan then asked me.
‘Williams’ I replied, ‘Maxwell, Williams.
…You, mean to say, I’ve passed the initiation?’
‘Yes son’
‘Great’ I replied with a smile.
‘Now it’s time for a little fun’
‘Oh…?’
‘Yes, now we will have our three legged race!’
‘Oh… Not, quite what I was expecting but… Great’
Salidan then called out something in Arabic to the others fellows, and not long after, two ISIS members
came out from a large pair of double doors, leading a gorgeous brown stallion out into the hall.
There after I watched as Salidan went up to the pile of weapons in the corner of the hall, picked a
shotgun up from the pile, then walked back to the horse and blasted one of its rear legs off with it. The
horse neighed out terribly in pain and tried to run, but fell to the ground and started kicking and
neighing out more in pain.
‘Salidan! What the hell?!’ I called out to him.
I then watched in disbelief as the horse’s gored, missing leg rather swiftly grew back to its previous
state.
‘What…?’ I said to myself and then I noticed this miniature hot air balloon drift by thru the middle of the
hall. Inside were some minute people, waving at all of the fellows in the hall.
I started to laugh a little then turning to Salidan I called out to him, ‘Hey, you ISIS guys are alright!’
Around then my stomach rumbled, rather horribly. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a proper
meal, tho it felt like it’d definitely been quite awhile. ‘Hey, guys, I’m starving’ I called out to the fellows
in the hall, ‘what do you ISIS fellas got to eat around here?’
The whole room fell deathly silent at this and I felt like I could feel everyone’s eyes on me at once.
‘Shit…’ I thought to myself, ‘I’ve made some terrible faux-pas haven’t I? Shit…’
Just around then I noticed a whole bunch of little lizards come scurrying out from all around me, and
they seemed to all be heading towards the centre of the room. Once there, using their mouths as tools,
they began to construct this sort of tiny litttle podium. Once built I watched as the little hot air balloon
made its way over to the podium and landed there. And there after a little fellow in a tuxedo, over
which he was wearing a purple sash with had the word MAYOR printed on it, got out from the hot air
balloon and then started to make a speech, but I couldn’t hear a single thing he was saying.
I stuck around for a little while, then thought to myself, ‘Ugh, fuck this, man, I’m done’ then I started to
make my way out of the hall.
No one seemed to much care or gave a damn about my leaving and I left the hall pretty much as easily
as I’d came in.

A few days later, one evening, my girlfriend at the time, Mary, and I went out to get a drink somewhere
in our native Bushwick, Brooklyn together.
We ordered some drinks and sat together at a table with them.
‘I don’t know man’ I said to her as we sat there, ‘I just, felt for so long, like I was standing all alone in the
middle of a meadow of the dead…’
‘Yeah, it’s not the first time I’ve heard you say this’ she replied.
‘Yeah, I don’t know, I just, I felt like everyone I knew of had left me; my father, my family, my friends. I
just felt like I was all alone. I just felt like, ‘Ouch! This really hurts…’
‘Yeah… Poor you’
‘And then I found art. And painting and came to see that painting—that paint is not something that a
chap fights against but rather something that he dances with… If that makes any sense? I don’t know’ I
took another sip from my can of PBR, ‘Just, it was just like—Bang! Y’know? Just like that, I felt excited
about things again. Can you imagine me, thinking of myself as a young man, criticizing various aspects of
my own life? …And the bald patch in the centre of my head—it’s spreading…’
‘Oh no’
‘But you are lovely, my dear. The terrific face of death’
‘Thank you’
‘My blood pours out into the soft sands as I kneel before you. When there is nothing to fill the hole in
my burst heart, there will still be you in your divine grace and gestures, my guardian to the distant stars’
‘Darling…’
‘Of course, there are some spaces between the stars occasionally. When my father was ill, as weak as a
kitten, there were rare moments when our lives seemed to burn up again—twist up into red shapes of
rare fire and tenderness; our passions flourished in tears and self-reproaches—but the contact was
ultimately tenuous; a precarious crossing from island to island between immense gulfs. Super-imposed
always across our world was this notion of disease, of decay, with its movements up and down his chest,
the unpredictable, you see— yes, his world was dying and so was mine— I can see that now in
retrospect; it was all falling away into wanness and death; without any sort of emotion we were waiting
for the last convulsion of matter, the last shaky dredging out of the lungs, the last bright spurt of blood
or untying of the fingers or knees… But I still couldn’t just, in my head, bring myself to picture it all,
quite, you understand?’
‘Yes. It was a terrible time for you’
‘It really was, my dear. For so long I believe that there was nothing in any of them, that they were all
just selfish, cold and cruel, and whatever they said was of no worth or value whatsoever, and that the
only way to escape them and their, immortal shadows was ultimately to die myself.
But now I would just give anything to go back and…
Just, in spite of my defects the potential for emotion was always there, as it always should have been…
Yet now, with him gone, I just feel like crying out—ah, god dear, I, cannot lose everything in this.
But yes, my love, I can not tell you the boon art has been to me over the years. How it has helped me to
deal with all of this…’
‘Mm’
‘I’ve come to see that, she is not a scary thing. Not a thing that one must fret and panic about doing well
or getting right. She comes out of herself somehow in your work’
‘Yeah. That’s a nice outlook’
‘Thank you dear’
I continued to drink my beer and I looked at Mary occassionally as I drank.

I noticed an African American fellow and his rather beautiful white lady friend come into the bar and
they settled at the table next to ours. And I looked over at the girl hungrily.
Later that evening I laid in bed in bed with Mary. The room was dark.
And sometime midway thru the evening I noticed Mary get up.
A shortwhile later, she came back into the room and turned our light on. She was wearing nothing but a
purple mayor’s sash. She winked at me from the door, with a suggestive expression, then said
something entirely inaudible. It occurred to me that my head was much smaller, and on the end of a
snake’s body, in place of its own head. I watched as Mary got dressed, then we headed out into town to
get something to eat, me slithering down the sidewalk beside her as she walked.
‘So how’s the painting coming along?’ she asked me as we made our way down the road.
‘Yeah good. Hiss.
A lot of people ask me, Max, how do you paint like that? Max how do you paint so well? Hiss’
‘Yeah’
‘They say, Max, you’re an award winning professional artist and teacher. You’ve studied in Italy, hiss, run
your own art gallery, taught in Museums and schools, how do you do it?
A lot of students, practice portrait drawing for years, yet when they make the jump to oil portrait
painting, their works seem to have an underwhelming finish. And professional-portraiture is no easy
feat, one wrong brushstroke can cause a subject to suddenly look wrong. Hiss. Hiss. Panic sets in, you
leave your work and don’t come back to it for awhile.
…The key to perfect portraiture is to make sure you have the right tools for the job. I never use anything
less than artist quality oil paints and thinners. Most artist quality paints are mixed with cold pressed
linseed oil. Whites tho are often mixed with a different oil, walnut or poppy oil, as they are less
yellowing than linseed oil.
The artist quality paints which I use have a higher pigment quality than student grade. Hiss. I use a
mixture of brands including Michael Harding, Old Holland and Winsor and Newton. And I always prepare
my surface with acrylic gesso, sanding in-between coats, before I embark on my works.
I prefer to work on linen, rather than cotton as this allows for a finer weave. The principal canvases I use
are Belle Arti cotton canvases, tho I also sometimes use Rosemary and co Ivry Filbert series and
Rosemary and co Kolinsky sable series, 33 round and Rosemark and Co sable series 66 Filbert.
For tonal studies, a coloured ground is a must. It helps one establish the extremes of painting, the
darkest darks—and the lightest lights. It also makes it easier for you to judge tones and is a lot more,
generally forgiving than a white canvas.
And one of course should always make sure their under painting does not have too much oil in it, as if it
does you will be breaking the number one rule of oil painting – fat over lean.
…What is fat over lean? A new Paleo diet plan?’ I laughed a little to myself here, ‘Not quite. No, fat over
lean is the expression painters use to make sure you prevent your oil paintings from cracking.
Turpentine, or odourless mineral spirit, as I always prefer, dries by evaporation, whereas oil, dries by
oxidization. Hiss. When we get to later stages of oil painting, where rollers of sound and crushed
perfume-like odours are spead across the poor shabby things we have stretched out before us, creeping
like rats to snap and choke on their poisoned bait, and we know the communion bowl itself is awash
with red seas of bacteria sloping dismally like gelatin over the rooves of our mouth from beam to bolt to
nut to wing to spectrum to wish to dream, and we hear the roar of the choir, the fluttering seraphic
great wings, and see the catacombs tilting struggling, swarming above our inclement souls, so sick of it
all, we know it is time to put down the brush’
‘Yes, quite’
A few weeks went by. It wasn’t easy but I slowly regained my human body.

As I recuperated Mary sat by my bed for hours on end, urging me to fight it all, to not let myself fall into
the darkness, the pain, the confusion of it all. She was a saint.
I started keeping all of my perishables in the draws of my desk and all my documents and passports in
the refrigerator. I would go outside in just my boxer shorts and go to bed in a three piece suit with the
brogues still on. I would go to Second Ave with a trombone I found in a thrift store that I had no idea
how to play, and busk at the station with it.
One evening, Morgan Freeman got off of an uptown train and began masturbating me as I poorly played
the instrument, still just in my boxer shorts. Mr. Freeman muttered obscenities beneath his breath as he
worked, and I felt too awkward about the thing to do anything but to just let him carry on with what he
was doing.
Soon a train came by and it was antropmorphic and wearing a pair of sunglasses and a pork pie hat, and
just sadly shook its head at the pitiful display. I slowly realized that I was staring at a living embodiment
of the MTA, which had the ghosts of all the people who’d jumped in front of subway cars, drifting thru it.
Eventually I came to my senses. Still holding the trombone in one hand I pushed Mr Freeman off of me
then said to him, ‘Got off of me. This is ridiculous. I have a girlfriend. Have you no shame? You’re meant
to be an accomplished actor. You’re embarassing yourself’
And he soon made himself scarce, and I then headed back over to the other platform and caught the
next M train back to Delancy, then from there changed to a J train back into Bushwick.
When I got back to the apartment, later that evening, I found the actor Ryan Reynolds sitting with Mary,
and Daniel my other flatmate, at the kitchen table and they were all playing poker together and drinking
some beers. And I joined the guys, and Mr Reynolds proved himself to be a fairly pleasant, humble and
polite chap, tho his humor was a trifle lewd for my taste. I stuck around for a couple of hands of poker,
then excused myself and returned to my room. I hung out on my own in there working on my journal in
my laptop at my desk, for awhile before I heard a knock on my door.
‘Who is it?’ I called out as I turned around on my swivel chair to face the door.
‘It’s me, Ryan Reynolds’ Ryan replied.
‘Cool’
‘Could I see your room?’
‘Yeah, sure man, come in’ I replied and he did so.
‘So I hear you’re some sort of artist, that you sell some of your paintings in Washington Square
sometimes’
‘Mm’
‘What’s that like?’
‘Yeah, not bad man’
Reynolds then sat down on my double bed, that I share with Mary.
‘Did you catch either of the Dead Pool movies man?’ he then asked me.
‘Mmhm’
‘So what’d you think? Pretty funny right?’
‘I guess’
‘Mm, yeah, I often get that’
‘Mmhm.
…Well, best get back to my journal man’ I added with a wan smile at Reynolds, then turned back around
on my chair and returned to my work.
Some 20 odd minutes went by and Reynolds still hadn’t left.
I didn’t quite get what his deal was—if he was a fag, or just lonely or what. And I started to take pity on
him. I stopped writing, turned around on my swivel chair and said to him, ‘So you got any new movies
lined up man?’
Reynolds then started to weep, ‘No, I don’t even think I’m a very good actor anyhow, so fuck it, right?’

‘Nah man, don’t say that’
‘What’s the point? It’s true’
‘C’mon Ryan, you were fucking Scarlett Johansson for a spell, that’s gotta be worth something right?’
‘You don’t care, no one cares, Scarlett doesn’t care. She stopped writing me years ago. That’s beyond
dead now. I’ve got no girl, no talent, no films lined up. Miramax dropped me man’
‘Mm’
‘Why don’t you just say it? It’s true. I’m a bad actor. You didn’t like the second Dead Pool. Cause I’m a
shitty actor. It’s true. It’s so true and everybody fucking knows it.
I read the Dead Pool 2 reviews man. I read them. All of them. And The Green Lantern reviews. It hurts
man, it fucking hurts. I have a heart too you know. Just because I’m a celebrity do you think that means I
don’t feel things too?
Oh, who gives a shit if I offend him? A hot shot celebrity like him. I can just say whatever I want.
Paparazzi everywhere, no true, no real friends. Why do you think Robin Williams hung himself? Being
famous blows. It sucks man. I didn’t ask for this. I can’t act, I can’t do shit’
‘Aw. No, c’mon Ryan, man, don’t say that’
‘Why? Why not? Why?’
‘…I mean, well, actually, to be honest with you man, now kind of, isn’t quite the best time for me.
…I mean, perhaps—Daniel’s a great guy, he’s the friendliest guy you’ll ever meet, why not go outside
and chew some of this over with him? He’ll be able to help you out…
And just leave me to my journal for a bit for now—I was actually right in the middle of writing when you
came in’
‘You know what? Fine. See if I care. You’re just like the rest of ‘em. You’re just like the rest of ‘em!’
Reynolds then marched out of my room, slamming the door shut behind him. I sighed rather heavily at
this, then returned to my writing. I forgot about the incident for a spell, tho Mary reminded me of it a
week or so later while we were getting lunch at a Mexican place somewhere in Bushwick.
‘Oh yeah’ I replied with a slight laugh, ‘that was weird’ I finished rolling myself a cigarette and began
patting down my pockets for my lighter. ‘Hey, do you have a light?’ I then asked Mary.
Instead of answering however Mary just slowly started to pull her skin off like one would peel an orange
digging out big chunks that dropped to the ground. Underneath her skin was Ryan Reynolds. And he had
a rather helpless expression on his face.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ he said with a nervous laugh, ‘But listen, Max, don’t worry about all that—I’ve got a
buddy who works at DARPA and he lets me try out some of their latest tech sometimes’
‘Uh huh…’
‘The perks of being famous y’know…?’ Reynolds laughed a little more here.
‘Ok, great, good for you. What do you want?’
‘Anyway, man I just wanted to say I still feel like a dick about last week’
‘Ok’
‘I was in a really bad place… I didn’t mean to off load on you’
‘That’s fine’
‘Anyway, I wanted to do something special to make it up to you…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Well, as you know I’m a fairly rich and famous guy and I’ve got some clout in the industry and—so I got
you a brand new guitar man’
‘I don’t play guitar, I paint’
‘Oh, I thought you…’
‘No…’
‘I, I, it’s signed by Enrique Iglesias’
‘Why would I give a shit about that? I don’t even like Enrique Iglesias. He’s terrible’

‘…I. I got it for you Max. I got it for you. It’s at the shop now. C’mon, let’s go pick it up. It’s waiting at the
shop right now. It’s, it’s not too late to learn. I’m sorry about the mix-up. It’s, it’s the thought that counts
tho, right?’
‘Pass. And don’t come round the flat no more, ok?
Oh, and by the way, the Dead Pool movies were shit man. And no one’s gonna give a shit about them at
all in like 5 years. Casablanca, that’s a timeless film. Dead Pool, Dead Pool 2, who gives a shit? That’s
nothing man. Now are we done?’
I stubbed out my cigarette, got up and left the terrace.
The following day there was a delivery of flowers to the flat. And attached to them was a note; ‘Sorry
about the kerfuffle the other day. The signed guitar is still waiting for you at the store whenever you
want to come pick it up’ there was an address here, ‘all you have to do is just say your name and bring a
form of identification. Yours, most sincerfully Ryan J Reynolds’
‘Ah fucks sake, why doesn’t he just give up?’ I thought to myself, then went and crammed the flowers
and notes in the trash can in the kitchen. I then went back into my room where I’d left my phone inside
charging. And there were dozens of missed-calls, voice-mails and apology messages from Reynolds in it.
‘Ah my god…’ I thought to myself.
A few days went by. I kept having these bizarre recurring dreams about Reynolds. I also kept thinking
that I’d noticed him, following me or staring at me about town, or in the metro as I went about my daily
business. I tried to make a painting about my feelings towards him to process it all but it didn’t much
help.
I woke up one morning on my sofa. The flat was empty. The word Reynolds had been cut into my
forearm and either myself or someone else appeared to have rubbed biro ink into the wound. Later that
afternoon I talked to Daniel and Mary about my concerns and they both agreed that the best way for me
to settle my troubles with Reynlods was with a duel. Daniel ordered two antique 18 th century flintlock
pistols off of an online collector for me. And a few days later they arrived at the flat.
And the following afternoon we got Reynolds over for the duel. He was so grateful for a chance to
explain himself that he accepted without any hesitation. As he walked into the apartment, he said to
me, ‘I’m not going to shoot you tho Max. I couldn’t raise a gun at you’
‘Yeah, whatever man…’ I replied, shaking my head a little at him.
We met in the middle of our living room, and Daniel opened the wooden box, with poth of the old
cocked and loaded flintlock pistols in it. I picked one up and Reynolds picked up the other.
We took twelve paces from each other and then both turned and I shot. My gun however didn’t go off.
‘Oh fuck’s sake’ I muttered to myself.
‘Max!’ Reynolds called out to me from the otherside of the room, ‘It means this wasn’t meant to be! Let
me explain my side of things! Let’s call this silly thing off! Look, I’m not going to shoot you ok!’
I cocked the gun again and the second time it fired, striking Reynolds thru the chest. By the time I’d
walked back over to him he was dead.
Mary decided to have me arrested and went out looking for a cop.
‘You’re disgusting man’ Daniel then said to me and left the apartment too.
I looked down at Reynold’s corpse. ‘Hmm, do I want to eat this thing now or what?’ I thought to myself,
‘I suppose if I’m gonna eat it I’d better get moving fast’
I got a sharp knife from the kitchen and started to sever all the good cuts off of Reynolds.
And midway thru this grizzly task I heard a sudden knock on the front door to the apartment. ‘NYPD
open up!’ a fellow’s stern voice called from outside.
‘Shit’ I thought to myself.
Some cops barged in thru the door. By then I was covered in blood. And still sitting before the brutalized

corpse, clutching the bloody knife in my hand. ‘Wait! I can explain’ I called out to the officers, ‘It’s Ryan
Reynolds- the actor. I shot him, and now was planning to cut up his corpse and eat it’
‘Ok, fair enough!’ the officer replied with a smile, ‘Mind if we get a bite?’
‘Fine…’ I sighed.
And so I cooked up Reynolds and a few hours later as the cops, Mary, and Daniel, who’d come back by
then, and myself were all sitting down to eat him with a nice bottle of wine for a moment everything
just felt really right—like we were all in it together and it meant something. I raised my glass of wine
then said to the others, ‘You know, guys, I’ve done a lot of thinking of late and I really just want to say
that shooting Ryan Reynolds was the single best thing that ever happened to me.
…Cause you want to know why?
Because, it bought me closer, it bought me closer to all of you’ I looked over at Mary and she was
smiling warmly at me. Hell everyone at the table was for that matter even, and somewhere up there, I
suppose my Wind Dad must’ve been too…