As has been witnessed in the notes of the previous four paintings, I was, at this time, involved in a draining situation. It had started as a conflict with a girlfriend and had expanded to include every coward that she knew, and she knew several. At last I realized that I was attempting to cooperate with liars who had no interest in anything but deception and the further convolution of the matter, and I became defiant.

The statement that I finally made to them was “You owe me an apology and I owe you nothing.” This sentiment, reflected in this painting, was not directed at my girlfriend so much as at her friends. Of course, it goes without saying that I never got an apology. Honest exchange was nothing that ever interested them, and nothing that I ever saw any evidence of them being at all capable of rising to anyway.

 

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