DRAFT: The Art Collective; Knoxville, KY

“Tell Sara she needs to find our missing chicken.” Greg said in passing to Demetrius.

            “You guys lead a pretty busy day-to-day for millionaire artists.”

            Greg heard how she put italics on the word in her speech.

            “That was the goal.”

            “Of what exactly?”
            “Of our art project we started 15 years ago.”

            “Who had the foresight for it?”

            “We all did, that’s why it’s a collective.”

            “Most people say it was you.”

            “Most people still believe in Jesus or Muhammed or Buddha or the Talmud, most people think the government has their best interest in mind when they promote shadow wars for Billions of dollars while poor Americans starve. Shit, my Aunt still thinks guns are dangerous just because her dumbass son, my dumbass cousin, got drunk and blew his head off.”

            “So you don’t deny it, you just use education to muddy it up.”

            “I deny it.”

            “Ok, but would you say the collective looks to you as a de facto figurehead?”

            “No.”

            “Who leads here then?”

            “We all do in our own way. Are you married?”

            “No.”

            “Boyfriend?”

            “Yes.”

            “Does he lead you?”

            “No.”

            “Do you lead him?”

            “No.”

            “And yet you still go somewhere. Relationships are complex. They are a dance with no breaks between songs. Demetrius is our hunter, he guides us in hunting, Sara and Maddie lead in animal husbandry, Doug and Sam our builders, we all allow each other to lead and respect when our knowledge is deficit another’s.”

            “And you lead in smarts?” She said sarcastically, with a smirking smile.

            Regardless of Marcie’s impressions prior to coming, about how she thought this would go, she could not help but feel draw to this man, see the cup he filled, saw how empty her cup was. It was a raw attraction.

            Greg smiled, a calm patient smile.

            “I help spiritually, de facto shaman if nothing else. All peoples historically have such a role, humans crave a spirit guide.”

            “So why after all this time of stonewalling are you allowing a camera and a journo in the collective?”

            “We weren’t ready, not at first, and the world had to digest the art we produced and judge it. We were young too, we needed to be sure, of ourselves and what we built.”

            “And you’re familiar with what our channel does?”

            “Why, Ms. Monroe, I’m your biggest fan, I chose you didn’t I?”

            “Very flattering.”

            “You’ll get the truth, and learn how to share it, that’s why I asked you here before the cameras came.”

            “Oh yes, somehow you think two weeks is enough time to shed light on the first privateers of child pyrography that get to live on a farm in Kentucky hills instead of jail, with millions in the bank.”

            Greg smiled.

            “My wife and I wondered how you would bring it up.”

            She was silent.

            “She has your number, I thought you be more subtle.”

            “Sorry to disappoint,”

            “Not at all, our art was controversial.”

            “Some refuse to call it art.”

            “Well, those some aren’t on the Supreme Court.”

            “And what about all the ones that followed you?”

            “The Copycats?”

            “Yes, those.”

            “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? The perennial question of all mothers to stupid sons, I cannot be responsible for other’s actions Ms. Monroe.”

            No emotion was in his voice, no reaction, Marcie was enthralled and trying desperately not to show it.

            “Were you and your friends jealous that you did not think of the same thing? We get that a lot.”

            “No.”

            They were though, it was a topic discussed by most people who had straddled their teenage years in the early information age. Why had no one took photos of themselves and their friends nude in their early teens and held onto them like Bitcoin, releasing them as art once they were legal adults.

            It was brilliant, the press alone made the Knoxville Art Collective members millionaires, maybe billionaires, no one really knew because of their self imposed isolation to a 300 acre tract of Kentucky farmland.

            This group of 12 teenagers had dominated the worldwide media and American courts for years despite their anonymity.

            “You don’t feel guilty?”

            “For what?”

            “Glorifying naked children.”

            “Our bodies, our choice. So the court said. You won’t understand, I can already see it, but we will try to teach you either way. Maybe someone will with whatever garbage you produce out of this.”

            Marcie saw fire in his eyes finally, but instead of feeling glorified, she felt shame and fear.

            “Just hold your questions for a week Ms. Monroe, with the others, just live with us. Understand what we are by action, and at the end of it, when your precious cameras come, ask all the questions you want. It won’t work until we wash you clean from the society that birthed you.”

            “That birthed you too?”

            “I’ve been clean for quite some time now.”

            And so they were both silent, and they both could not look away, and the beginning of their love was born.