Varhaus No. 4
Somebody told me this series was breaking their brain. If you’re new, you may want to start from the beginning. A broken brain is one thing, a fractured story is another…
Varhaus No. 4
June 1, 2026
7:00 am
“The power is on. The internet is coming tomorrow. The roof gets patched next week. The furnaces will be serviced soon. Here’s two keys. I know they work in the front door, but I don’t know if they work anywhere else.”
They had walked the space two days ago. Methodically, from the graffiti-tagged windows to the garage in back where the huge overhead door was screwed in place to prevent it from falling off the track again. Jason saw the inside for the first time. Camron, the first time in two years.
They looked at the storage spaces and counted the leaks in the roof. They found no cockroaches. After an hour, Jason faced the landlord and held out his hands as if to say: “well?”
“Yes.”
Reaching into his back pocket, Jason produced a quarter-folded copy of his insurance policy. They shook hands. Camron left. Jason stayed in the building until it was too dark to overpower real objects with his imagination.
“Are you nervous?”
“Not nerves. I fear two things. I fear that this will affect my closeness with my wife. I fear the consequences of making my idea successful.”
“You fear being successful? That sounds stupid to me. Plus, this is low risk for you.”
“From your point of view, it’s completely stupid. I agree with your thinking. But what sort of person writes a 12 chapter novel to an audience of one person too busy to read anything but business documents? We think differently. You’re risking money and time. I’m risking...”
He did not finish.
“Mind holding the door open for me for five minutes?”
Camron creaked the glass door open and watched the items come in.
Brand new shopvac. Two ladders. Light bulbs. Push broom and deck scrubber. Hose. Ryobi screwgun and other amateur tools. Pine-Sol. Camera, laptop. Butcher paper.
He set up a sawhorse pair 12 feet from the door. He grabbed a loose sheet of plywood leaning against a column. The office was ready.
“You’re either genius or crazy, dude.”
Jason smiled and waved.
“Neither. Thanks a million. Have a great day.”
Jason spent three hours swallowing dust on a ladder while changing lightbulbs. He was planning on soaking all 12,000 feet of concrete floor until he realized that the debris from the ceiling would make it futile.
He rolled out the butcher paper and stapled it to cover the plywood. He found an old folding chair and began to make notes with a black Sharpie. He put his principles down. First: Nobody is coming to save us. He crossed out and replaced ‘us’ with ‘me’. He laid down his three life goals. He wrote down R 12:2. In red Sharpie he circled two dates that he’d written. MDG by June 20. Paint June 21. There were other short reminders. Publish. Free write. Market. Finish Fired.
He did not need to remember these reminders. He needed to remember them together. He often fell into one task while neglecting the others.
He reverse-engineered the work plan based on the dates. A cleaning timeline. Dust the ceiling. Clean the floors. Office function. Easels and studio. Organize the debris. Garbage. Garage door. Events.
This timeline was completed by noon. The first step. He rummaged the building. He took inventory of utilizable construction items. He found cool old stuff, stimulus for his creativity, but dangerous distractions. He stuck blue tape near the outlets that needed service. He wrote it all down, took photographs. He made a video walking from the front entrance to the back garage as a reference.
He sat back down, looking at the space. He had written the Varhaus story in a vacuum. Now the building was telling him what it actually wanted to be. He listened.
After an hour of productive daydreaming, he was overcome by the scale of the project.
“There’s no fucking way...too big...too much...too long.” He looked at his 4x8’ butcher paper playbook. Eat an elephant...
He found an empty space on the paper. Simplify. One area at a time. Tent. Festival rig. Build Million Dollar Garage. Office function. Woodworking shop. Paint studio.
He texted his wife a photo of the front of the building with no text.
“What’s that?”
“Varhaus”
Now it was real.
The next morning he brought a huge barn fan and a 10x20’ pop-up tent. In his pocket, a folded page of graph paper with the dimensions of his current studio: Million Dollar Garage.
This was not his first art studio build. It was his fourth. He had also built and remodeled several restaurants as a chef. MDG was the worst situation. Due to covid, no place to sell art, he moved home, outfitted their broken concrete garage into an art studio and office. Called it a pompous name for a joke.
It was a blessing and a curse. He was isolated more than ever, but he was also home. The pros and cons of the situation caused pros and cons regarding his work and happiness.
A new studio must be lived into. It must fit the artist. This scale was overwhelming.
He determined to rebuild the studio he already had. A spatial replica. He found a natural break toward the front of the building to frame the space. From that spot, he measured 12 feet from the exterior wall. He rubbed his shoe into the dirty floor to mark the spot. Thegarage measures 24x32’. Varhaus studio and office will be the same. He marked all four corners with orange Home Depot buckets and hooked up the hose. He poured 2 gallons of Pine-Sol on the floor directly from the jug. So much that it burned his eyes. He then flooded the zone with hot water. He spread the soap and water for coverage of an area twice as large as needed.
With the floor soaking, he grabbed his ladders and began to sweep the dust from the ceiling, moving cautiously to avoid slipping on the aluminum. In two hours the ceiling was clean enough. The water on the floor was room temperature.
The water ran and pooled twenty feet from the area he was cleaning. Good to know. He built a dam using some old linens he found. He resprayed the area.
He came back with a floor squeegee and the cheapest carpet remnant he could find. He moved the dirty water toward the dam and the waiting shop vac. He wetted the floor once more and wet-vacuumed the entire space. He rolled out the remnant where the office would live. He erected the tent upon it. When the floor dried, he remeasured and duct-taped the border of the studio and office. He figured the size of the woodworking area. The studio was on one side of the office, the woodshop on the other.
Tomorrow he would have a working office. The next day, a place to make frames and size substrates. The day after, a working art studio.
He was ahead of schedule, but the work was yet to be started.
June 21, 2026
3:00 pm
“Hey. Long time. I need a couch, a coffee table, and a media center. Maybe a nice chair. Are you still collecting?”
“Hi Jason. Nice to talk to you. Yes. What style?”
“pimp-ass cigar lounge.”
“typical. Yeah I know what you need. Where?”
“333 Michigan Ave. I’ll trade you a painting to stage it here for a few months.”
“Deal. Next week?”
“Great. Thanks a million, Ruth.”
July 1, 2026
9:45 am
Camron Galt was alone inside Varhaus. He walked the building. All the concrete was clean. He laughed at the white circus tent inside. He wondered why Jason had hung a purple curtain along the front of the building ten feet away from the windows. He would have just papered the windows. Construction 101.
He looked into the tent. Desk, drafting table. Three monitors. Apple. Mini-fridge. Notes and loose papers. Floor safe.
“Where you at? I thought we were supposed to meet? Espresso and everything bagel would be awesome. Are you in line? Ok. I just wanted to ask you why you sent me 250 bucks on Venmo. You did? Nice. First sale here? That’s awesome. See you in a sec.”
He sat down on the tufted leather couch, put his feet on the coffee table, and checked his email.
“This furniture is going to get ruined.”
He heard a door slam in the back of the building ten minutes later.
Jason appeared with four coffees, a bag of pastries, and a beer cooler.
“Yooo...you read my mind. You having company?”
“One for you, two for me, one for Jesus.”
Jason set the breakfast down and headed to the tent. He pulled the side curtain down, dropped his bag on the desk and returned.
“You’ve done a shit-ton of work in here man. It looks awesome. I love the curtains. I would have papered the windows, but that only attracts nosey neighbors and building inspectors.”
“Yup. I don’t want to ask permission from any of those sorts of people. That’s why I asked you to come by. I’m ready to start painting. I’m ready to start making the story.”
He looked around the space for a second.
“I think I am asking you to give me permission to beg for forgiveness.”
“It’s a good time to fly under the radar. I say go for it until September 1. Everybody is on vacation until then anyway. Keep me informed, though. I don’t need any surprises.”
“That’s perfect. Thank you. Did you see the link I sent you?”
“No.”
Jason pointed to a camera mounted in the corner above the entry door, angled to cover the length of the building.
“You can check on the place anytime you want. By the way...I’m moving in for a month.”
A knock at the front door interrupted Cam’s obvious questions.
“That’s Mark.”
Jason wrenched the front door open to a middle-aged priest holding a missal and a square plastic bottle.
“You ready?”
“I sure am, Father.”
Jason nodded to Camron. “You want to hang around while he cleans this place up real quick?”
“Hell yes.”
Mark walked in. He bowed his head. Jason and Camron did the same.
“Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. We ask that you bless the work done here. We ask for your grace in serving others with our skills to glorify you. In Jesus’ name, bless this building and all who enter her. Amen.”
The priest blessed the building’s exterior doors and defined areas with silent prayers. He threw his holy water at each, making the sign of the cross. When it was finished, he turned to Jason.
“You promised coffee?”
August 1, 2026
7:50 am
She popped the trunk and unlocked the car doors. They got out and began to unload. His suitcase and toiletries. Grocery bags full of ham, protein drinks, her fresh sourdough, bottled water. He grabbed the coffee maker and ten pounds of dark roast.
They dropped the items inside the door. She came in with the car still running. Her shift began in 10 minutes.
“I don’t understand why you do things so extremely, but I understand you have to. Now I have to get up early to make sure the dog eats and poops and the cats are fed. The house is so quiet when you leave.”
He gave her a hug and squeezed extra. He hated making more work for her.
“You know you work just 3 blocks away, right? You can come here anytime. Maybe bring the dog and we can have a sleepover?”
She laughed. “You’re gonna have to shower sometime, right?” That was the only thing he couldn’t do here.
He pulled out his wallet and handed it to her. No car. No money. No way out.
“Thank you, BB. There’s nobody like you. Thank you. Someday, it’s gonna pay off for us.”
He walked her to the car. She opened the back door and produced a small box. “Good luck. I’m proud of you.” She sat in the driver’s seat and waved as she sped away.
He waited until she turned left at the intersection to back in. As soon as her car left his sight, he realized he didn’t have his keys.
He found them still hanging in the door. He walked inside.
Everything was in place to accomplish what he needed.
12 Statement paintings. (”fuck you paintings”)
50 couch paintings. (”Furniture”)
Launch the website.
Edit the book for publishing.
Plan the events.
If it took a month...so be it.
If he did it faster, and the work was great, he could go home.
He sat down in the folding chair and opened the box. A white coffee mug.
Go to Heaven
Do simple commerce
Show people they’re not trapped
The only cosign he needed.
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