the studio

The sunlight tickled my eyelids as I lay on the hard-wood floor. I sat up quickly, scattering the pile of matt boards that I had been up cutting the night before. I had a show coming up, and I was at the point where the best sleep I got was on top of my work. And I must have been out cold because there was a note taped to my forehead.

Morning, Sunshine!

I’m in the studio, so bring me some breakfast.

XOXO

-Your Mark

His reckless handwriting ran across the old receipt while lopsided, ball-point hearts whirled around his name. I smiled. This was his type of joke. He wasn’t my Mark, and he hardly ever XOed me. But he got a kick out of the whole platonic roommate thing we had going on. In the evening he would swing the door open with a robust “Honey! I’m home!” scaring the bejesus out of me every time. But the breakfast he was serious about, so I grabbed some fruit, and a bagel, and fixed a thermos full of Earl Grey, and I headed out to meet him.

“The studio,” as Mark called it, was more or less a shack where he could work without neighbors complaining about his tribal drum and battle cry records. He had lived with the volume turned down for too long, and it was beginning to get to him. His shack in the woods was a godsend. He could cut loose. He could turn it up and move to it. His own personal rhythm.

It was faster than mine.

As I walked along Barnaby I wondered what time it was. The sunlight was so diffused by the overcast sky that it was hard to tell how long the sun had been up. I passed the run-down parking lot and turned right. As I headed into the woods, I began to hear Mark’s unruly tempos rising. “Right at the rotting stump, left through the briar patch, clockwise around the big oak,” another one of Mark’s jokes was the quality of his directions. But this time it wasn’t funny because I ended up in the back lot of an old, worn-in house. I realized my mistake and started to turn back when I was captivated by the dozens of sporting balls that decorated the patchy lawn. I leaned down to grab the abandoned baseball at my right foot when I heard the screen door creek and snap. My heart jumped and my fingers came loose of the red stitched seams. The baseball rolled until it hit the porch as I raised my eyes to apologize for trespassing. He wore small brown shoes, tied with tired fingers, and loose brown slacks. His hands hung at his hips holding an empty mug, and his shoulders curled heavily over his timid chest. Thin, gray hair was combed flat against his head, and long, untamed eyebrows wisped around his deep, wet eyes. I rambled off apologies and I even offered him some tea, but while he was staring straight at me, he hardly seemed to recognize me. I finally shut up.

He bent down and reached out and grabbed the baseball I had held earlier. Then he straightened up and pitched it right to me. My reflexes clicked, and to my surprise, I caught the speeding, weathered ball. It clapped hard against my palm, and my fingers wrapped around it. I dug into my bag and pulled out an apple. I tossed it underhand to the old man on the porch. He caught it with his right hand while his left hand held the mug. He nodded to me as he rubbed the apple on his chest, and we both turned around and went our separate ways.

I clutched the baseball in my red hand as I walked back through the woods. I turned it over and flicked off years worth of dirt until a row of tiny black letters was revealed. Barnaby Baseballs. Trusted and Durable.

I dropped the ball into my bag and quickened my pace as the deep drums and high cries grew louder.

so close...

“Of course it’s me, Mr. Wilson.”

I rolled my neck back over my shoulder as I said it. I heard my key chain clink as I brushed the stray hairs off of my face and summoned a sociable smile from beneath them.

“I’ve been living down the hall from you for the past six months,” I reminded him.

“Oh, good. So yours came with the new deadbolts.”

“Well, actual—“

“You know, the locking mechanisms really are much stronger…But you can’t ever really be sure…In fact, I tend to…”

Comforting. He continued to mumble absently about deadbolts and chain-locks, and I even caught myself thinking that he could have examined my door once I was behind it. I pushed my oncoming headache back into my temple and tried to focus.

The highlights on his pupils flickered as his eyes searched for something to latch onto. Eventually they settled into a stare towards his door—421. He slowed down. The corners of his thin mouth dropped slightly, darkening his frown lines, as he rolled his lower lip between his teeth. His cheekbones sank. And there it was, in delicate graphite. I wanted to capture him in that moment. Sit him down and freeze time for a portrait. Henry Wilson—The Quintessence of Loss.

Then it vanished.

The door to apartment 421 swung open, and Jacob stood awkwardly in the frame. “I need a hand getting the trunk, Dad,” said Jacob. Mr. Wilson’s mouth lifted, and his eyes began to flicker again. He nodded to me. I finally blinked. And the color came back.

sketches

Just a few final touches remained.

I darkened the shadow across his brow and redefined the deepest crevices of his loose, twisted clothing. I blew the excess charcoal away and carefully folded all of my previous drawings back over the spiral binding. I placed the shortened piece of charcoal into my mother’s old cigarette case and snapped it shut. I slid my sketchpad into my bag, and slung it over my shoulder.

“Thanks, Red,” I said, waking my model. Red’s heavy boot pulled his sleepy leg off of the park bench where he spent most of his mid-mornings. He yawned with a wide mouth, and I smelled whiskey on his breath as I leaned in to push a modest sitting fee into his palm. “No problem, Artie,” he chuckled, accepting the sum without worrying if the portrait was a suitable likeness.

“I’ll see you later this week, Red,” I called back to him, “Stay out of trouble!” and he chuckled at that too.

I headed back home to wash my hands and put the kettle on. I looked forward to plopping myself down on the couch and closing my eyes. I was sure that when I opened them again I would be able to see in true color. But for now every thing I saw remained in shades of gray with quick charcoal contours defining each plane and deep shadow, the way letters run across one’s mind long after putting down a book.

Drawing up the numerous stairs to my apartment, my body became heavy without its second, third, or fourth cup of tea. I was glad to reach my door, and I fumbled around for my keys, when suddenly, just moments away from relaxation, and perhaps a nap, I heard that voice!

“Aretha Watson! Is that you?!”

And, unfortunately, it was me, and I was trapped.

Testing, testing...one...two

I think that I am really going to like waking up to this class. It is nice to feel intellectually stimulated...unlike last semester. bwah bwaaah (i.e. that depressing sound effect that people use in cartoons when a character gets hit with a frying pan or one of those 100 ton weights)...