A Starving Artist
Short Fiction (with audio)
Audio (narrated by Vince Donato):
Some years ago, there was a lot of talk about “the starving artist” as a viable career path. I never met any, but was sure they existed, waiting for the big break they had coming. It appealed to me, the idea of toiling away for years, a lifetime even. And on the other side: glory.
Now I sleep in the hills, most often laying out a folded tarp on top of a relatively comfortable carpet of foliage behind an unmaintained wooden bungalow. In the right hands, an extensive renovation job on the house and grounds could raise the property’s value to something north of 5 million, I’d guess. Even in its rundown state, current estimates on Zillow place it around 2.5 mil, and those figures are hardly reflective of up-to-date market fluctuation.
I’ve been kicked out of a few prime spots in these hills. You can imagine it isn’t pleasant to be shaken awake at 2 am by an officer of the law or yelled at by a righteous homeowner claiming to have a gun. But it’s a small price to pay for a comfortable place to lay my weary head.
There is not a strong fence culture out here. So, technically speaking, I always have the excuse that I didn’t know just how private the property was. But that’s mostly a cop out, if I’m being honest. You can usually tell when you’re in someone’s backyard.
To my credit, I do not leave a sprawling set-up in my wake as you might see in certain other non-traditional dwelling spaces. Every morning, I pack up around 7 am and move on. It is as if I was never there. No harm, no foul.
Usually, I spend my days at the park. A lot of benefits can be had at the park: clean-enough bathrooms, open space, community, charitable outreach, programs such as gardening. Not saying those types of things are the be all end all, but I certainly don’t begrudge their presence (as others do). Most of all, there’s no danger of being kicked out at night and, overall, the cops don’t really bother you at the park. Unless you’re selling drugs, which, it is well known, I don’t do.
But at night in the park, things get a bit western. Too much noise and danger. I don’t have the stomach for it. I think most people who stay at the park overnight actually look forward to the nocturnal action. Some folks genuinely haven’t slept a wink in years. Some sleep on the field through most of the day, to save up energy for what goes on after dark. I’m more of a traditionalist, when it comes to my sleep schedule.
So I’m not a full-time resident, which affords me a healthy distance from park culture. But I do spend time there and am well known in the community.
I’ll arrive, on a typical day, around 9 and post myself up on the edge of the stage, smoking a cigarette and waiting to see if any food will arrive. When that doesn’t come to pass, I settle for good conversation instead of breakfast.
Wolfdog could be called the park’s unofficial mascot, for better and worse. It’s difficult to traverse the park without catching a whiff of his blabber. He’s a wealth of tales from the old days. Sometimes he repeats his greatest hits, some of which I must’ve heard 15 times. Some folks say his proclivity for monologuing makes him unpleasant to be around. If he doesn’t get interrupted, he can go on pretty much indefinitely without so much as stopping to take a breath. But if you walk away from one of his stories, he doesn’t take it too hard. Sometimes he won’t even notice.
Recently, Wolfdog took to assembling a mini shanty-mansion for himself using plywood and cardboard he gathered from various sources. His build flew in the face of years of convention at the park. Before that, shelters were always tent-based, built of cloth, canvas, or tarp material. I warned him that the wooden structure would not be long for this world, but he had architect’s blinders on. Build, build, build was his attitude at the time. He even commissioned me to paint a mural on the exterior. I accepted the job graciously, but didn’t put my whole soul into it, knowing it was essentially a drawing in the sand at low tide.
Sure enough, one afternoon, something was launched into the center of his home. It was a flaming roll of toilet paper doused in naphtha, essentially a poor man’s molotov cocktail. Luckily, Wolfdog was out at the time. Unluckily, the culprit made away without being seen. Or, rather: luckily for him.
I heard a bit of commotion and hustled over to check it out. The South “living room” wall was aflame and other panels were due to catch momentarily.
At first, most everyone else around either didn’t realize or didn’t care what was happening, so I took it upon myself to begin fighting the fire and sounding the alarm. I deputized a young hippie couple to fill the three buckets we keep in the garden with water. As they filled, I sent Howard Yu to rally the troops. He is a man of the people and helpful. I broke glass in case of emergency and grabbed the small fire extinguishers in the men’s and women’s restrooms. By the time I returned, the fire was raging too strong to be put out by the extinguishers, but they sure made it more manageable. The bathroom hose was not long enough to reach, so, under Howard’s direction, whoever was available and willing assembled a bucket brigade and ran pale after pale of water to the flames until we were able to bend the thing to our will.
Rodney arrived on the scene only a couple days after the arson episode. Unfortunate timing; tensions were high in the aftermath and few were spared from the finger pointing. Deep in the throes of mourning, Wolfdog deluded himself into pinning the atrocity on the new kid. In his fragile state, he convinced himself no one he knew would have the motive nor nerve to launch such an egregious affront. It must’ve been an outsider or newcomer, who wasn’t familiar with the resolve and ferocity of Wolfdog. And this young interloper seemed to fit the bill.
It is true, Rodney was a smug little joker when he came to the park. He appeared no older than 25 and seemed to think living at the park with all of us was something of a grand adventure he’d milk for the benefits and then grow out of in a few years. He sported a desert-tan tactical backpack and decaying steel-toed work-boots, although his wiry frame suggested little-to-no military or manual-labor experience. He was one of those shabby young dudes who grows a patchy beard mostly up on the highest extremities of his cheekbones and down well beneath the chin, but hardly at all in the normal spots. He talked a big game and had a command over the language that suggested he’d been an indoor cat up until very recently; maybe even college educated and employable by any number of straight jobs.
But when Wolfdog really came at him, I mean spittle in his beard, hurling accusations, brandishing bony old bare-knuckles, Rodney showed a hot head. Comments were made both ways and I believe lasting damage was done to what could have been a fruitful friendship. It might have been a sight to behold, letting these escalated dachshunds at each other, not 250 pounds between the two. But in the end, we had to sick Jarvis on them because we didn’t know what Rodney was capable of. And we did know what Wolfdog was capable of.
For a while, Wolfdog held to his conviction that Rodney did not belong at the park. Eventually, though, I talked him off the cliff. I resolved to show the kid the ropes and promised Wolf I’d have him either willing to live in peace with others or out of the park within the year.
The reality is, Wolfdog is a man with enemies. I stay neutral in park politics and nonetheless receive many a dirty glare and insincere death threat simply due to my association with the old man. For all I know, he probably deserved to have his house burnt. Rodney was the least of his worries.
Besides the park, I also spend time at the library, sketching and people watching. The library is as fertile a place for citizen anthropology as any. I’ve discussed this with Jesse, who works on the second floor and specializes in biographies and memoirs, I believe. According to Jesse, no place else in modern society offers so much, to so many, for so little. He says, in the old days (talking pre- agricultural revolution, pre- fertile crescent), every institution used to function as a library. And, if it was up to him, we’d go back to that model, and the sooner the better. Jesse is young and idealistic, but I tend to agree with him in this case.
I don’t really need much from the library. I don’t even have a card. And still, it’s a place to get in out of the rain or cold, should they ever exist.
On Sundays at 8 am, I attend Tai Chi and breakfast on the library grounds, which is put on by a group called LeanIn. LeanIn is largely made up of young Christ-lovers from an evangelical mega-church called Bedrock as well as a few people in their 40s sprinkled in to add some legitimacy.
I usually drag Rodney along with me, if I can convince him to wake up. A little movement and a proper meal are good for him; he hasn’t learned how to take care of his body out here. Whenever he sees the Christians, he sings “I-I-I I can make your bedrooocck” and asks them if they’ve seen his mind anywhere, he’s seemed to have misplaced it. They always laugh way too hard and say “Rod! You get us every time!”
Week after week, I dread bearing witness to their fake rapport and find it disgusting. The young Christians from Bedrock are clearly desperate for approval, even from Rodney, scrounge-lord of his generation. And Rodney, shame on him. He plays the idiot around them for the meager payoff of their pity belly-laugh. Pathetic. Nothing is genuine about their dynamic; both parties are out for something artificial in the other’s “friendship.” Each craves the clout the other offers; the kids, some paltry sainthood and, my apprentice, acceptance in a put-together crowd. Bedrock Church, friends to the poor and Rodney, the palatable wino. What a pairing. I call this no friendship at all.
But, under my advisement, he will grow out of this phase. And as for the bible-thumpers, what can one expect? Why else would they host these events if not to help themselves sleep at night knowing they are agents of the Lord, spreaders of the Good News?
I admit, I could be more compassionate.
We are led by Claudia, an actual Tai Chi practitioner. Lean In used to offer yoga instead until they realized no one in their organization was qualified to lead that particular discipline. It was a lot of up-dog, down-dog, deep stretch, now breathe. Amateur stuff, even we could tell. Now that Claudia is involved, the event has gained credibility.
To begin, someone presses play on a small, portable stereo; a soothing martial arts soundtrack helps us keep tempo. We have a few routines down pat. They precede without much direction. We simply turn to Claudia if we need help remembering the flow, like 6 year old ballerinas.
When Claudia tries to introduce new moves, the learning curve is steep. Some folks who attend don’t have the capacity to follow her lead. Often the whole production is derailed by participants with their own agenda. It morphs into a sloppy dancefloor, or whole sections among our ranks break out into group palates and disjointed calisthenics, replete with grunts or even whoops and hollers.
Yes, this behavior is frustrating, as someone who takes the art of Tai Chi seriously. I’d rather they play their silly reindeer games on their own time. I used to be more bothered by it; actually tried to convince Claudia to ban certain members of the group from participating. But Claudia has a great attitude when it comes to that sort of thing. She reminds me that part of the practice is maintaining balance through chaos.
After Tai Chi, breakfast is served. They bring significant quantities of hot coffee, and we put away carafe after carafe of the stuff while mingling. As dubious as I am about their authenticity, it’s hard to deny that the members of LeanIn make good conversation partners.
In particular, there’s Tessa. I’m almost reluctant to mention Tessa, for all the embarrassment and teasing our friendship has given rise to from the likes of Howard and others who find it funny to draw the thinnest conclusions from the first iota of genuine human connection.
Sure, we talk every week. I confess I look forward to our conversations and have found much to recommend about the way she sees the world. Tessa is in her late-30’s; on paper she’s among the group of 40-somethings who comprise the leadership of LeanIn, but she consorts more regularly with the younger crowd and shares their contagious vitality. She’s no one’s idea of a beauty queen. In fact, physically, she’s plain, if not a bit hard to look at. She’s got thin, pronounced, windowsill lips that purse at the slightest provocation, though not quite in a snobby way. A strange constellation of 4 or 5 raised, brown moles dominate one’s first perception of her face. But I’m in no position to judge.
Plus she’s charming, and I’ve learned to appreciate the manner she has about her. When we first started getting to know one another, I’d see little Tessa-isms in the way bikers crossed the street, the hatchings of a slanted roof, common birds on a sagging branch.
And I’m sure she finds at least something attractive in me. Since the time of the first rumblings that our dynamic was anything less than copacetic, I’ve made it my habit to not seek her out during post-Tai Chi coffee hour, so as not to appear over-interested, to her or anyone else. And still, week after week, we gravitate towards each other. She speaks to me in a way multiple witnesses have insisted is implicative. Often she’ll grab my arm when she has something important to say, and her face lights up. As we speak, she edges me slowly away from the pack, until, most Sundays, I look up after who knows how long and we’re off in our own world, lost in conversation.
But, still, I harbor no illusions. I know that, really, Tessa is interested in me only as a friend. Or, if I’m being cynical, just another faceless soul for her to save.
Rodney and I walk on Adeline pretty much all the way back to the park from the library. At the point where it passes under I-80, one comes across the Adeline Enclave, a sizable encampment under the bridge that is home to a seedier, more wonked-out population than that of the park.
“What do you know about Mr. Bilbo Baggins?” One of them asks us as we pass. Sometimes I’m convinced these schizo-types are trying to make a joke.
But Rodney is friendly with the Bilbo Baggins guy. He offers him a cigarette and we carry on.
I caught Rodney busking on University Ave with a 6 pack of expensive pale ales on the pavement beside him. He had a guitar, which I’d never seen him with before, and a harsh, whining voice that was decoupled from his strumming. He had an empty kombucha bottle for a tip jar, which tapered off at the top and could only receive coins if placed just-so from point-blank range. I told him, “This is no way to make a buck on the street.”
“What do you know about art?” he said. Now, this was rich. I might not have told him about my past, but he’d seen my work.
“What? Are you saying this is art?” I asked, nodding all around dismissively at his whole pathetic set up.
“At least I’m not a plagiarizer.”
This was a targeted attack. It took a lot to get under my skin, but he had done it.
Cursing him, I took his guitar out of his untalented hands and held it aloft as if to smash it. He started jumping like a kid for candy, and I pump-faked a couple times, to make him think I’d actually do it.
Eventually we were broken up by a pig on a bike, who almost believed Rodney’s far-fetched tale of wholesome folk songs and an unprovoked assailant (me).
After the cop left us, Randy and I stood outside the dog park on 78th, cracked open a couple of those pale ales, and had the first of our Little Chats.
“You consider yourself an artist?” I asked.
“I am an artist.”
“So, yes?”
“It’s not that I consider myself one.”
“Ok.. Well I fail to appreciate the difference. You consider yourself one, I do not.”
“What do you know about me?”
“I know you have no guts.”
“Huh?”
It was too easy to throw him off.
“Just kidding. Where’d you get that guitar?”
“My parents' house.”
“Your parents’ house. Where do they live?”
“It doesn’t matter, I don’t see them.”
“Well, you should. Or you should stop taking things from their house.”
“It’s my guitar.”
“Who bought it?”
I didn’t press him too hard about it. I was not about to give him a lecture about privilege, authenticity, or any other nonsense I might have if I thought he’d be receptive. If he wanted to stay at the park, abandon his parents, and come crawling back to them for a few creature comforts every now and then, why shouldn’t he? If I could pull off an arrangement like that, I would.
“You aren’t a bad kid,” I said.
“Yes I am.”
“No, you aren’t.”
It only took two times for him to believe me.
For the rest of the afternoon, we talked about art. I guess he had heard about me, though he got the story all wrong. I told him about New York, the Penumbramen, the community back then, how it felt for everything to be new. I hadn’t told anybody about that stuff in years. Those who had heard, surely didn’t remember the full details. I had given up talking about how things used to be when I realized they wouldn’t be like that again.
I told him something I’d never mentioned to anyone since leaving New York: that the great Lynne Lippsky once said I was Richard Hambleton with worse PR.
He told me he had about 65 songs floating around in that head of his just waiting to be shared with the world. I might have been skeptical, but I kept it to myself. Sharing ideas with another artist is a sacred exchange. One artist must never mock another. We necessarily have delicate egos, in order to do what we do. Rodney was no different. If I had told him I thought he’d never make it, his proclivity for creativity would have been squashed just like that. Or he would have put me down as someone who doesn’t Get It and written 65 more songs about how people like me knew nothing.
Unfortunately, he got a little carried away and sang 5 songs for me. They all sounded exactly the same, which is to say, like a rat stuck at the bottom of a well screeching for help as a soulless piper strums a ukulele nearby.
I’ll just say: it was Rodney who conceived of the softball game between the Enclave and the Park. It was never my idea. I never even played softball before Rodney set the thing in motion, or had much of a competitive spirit.
I do confess, it was I who got LeanIn involved, I who drew up the poster, I who spent weeks hanging around in that dank and dungy underpass, at no small danger to my person, recruiting some questionable characters to join their disjointed team. I’m no mastermind. I’m just the guy who gets the ball rolling.
And then, really, the whole thing would have been avoided if not for Pat Schoonmaker, a pastor at Bedrock and some sort of former baseball guy who just loved the idea.
I mentioned the idea to a group of LeanInners one Sunday at Tai Chi. Among them, Tessa and Marshall.
What to say about Marshall? A dope, first off. Stupid and overeager; does this thing where he looks deep into your face as you speak and makes comments to the effect that you’re the most compelling orator he’s ever come in contact with. But really all he’s thinking is, “Good job, Marshall, you’re such a saint for listening to this poor freak.”
Marshall is almost certainly Tessa’s young slampiece. Or whatever the Christian equivalent would be. We’ve never had confirmation of this suspicion but it’s pretty unanimously accepted. She doesn’t think much of him though, and goes out of her way to reassure me. Everytime he speaks, she grabs my attention with her eyes and makes faces, suggesting she shares my low opinion of him.
Anyway. The Tuesday after I raised the softball idea, Pat the preacher and Marshall the moron rolled up to the park in a shiny shit-brown F-250, King Ranch edition. Howard Yu and I were trapped at the whim of local sociologist/monologuist Hugh-man B. Hayvier, who we’d given up trying to shut up years ago.
They got stopped by about 7 enterprising salesmen on their way towards my station on the Southeast corner of the stage. I decided not to intervene. Hopefully, by the time they got to me, they’d lose interest in whatever they were there for.
But they held fast.
“Hey, man!” Marshall squealed at me, excitedly.
“Hey.”
“This is my mentor, Pat. You might’ve met before, he comes to Tai Chi every once in a while.”
“Yeah, sure. Nice to see you Pat.”
Pat only nodded. I found his aspect far less grating than that of his brother-in-Christ. He, too, wore a smile and a corny plaid golf t-shirt with a pocket, but beyond appearances, there was something refreshingly aloof about him.
“Now, Tessa and I have been telling everybody at church about you and your softball game. Pat used to pitch for Santa Clara, back in college.”
“Guilty, as charged.”
“And he says he’d just love to serve as home plate ump.”
“Ok,” said I, wondering why this buttoned-up minister would want to spend any time at all with the likes of us.
“And from there we got to brainstorming.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Here’s what we’re thinking,” Pat chimed in, because Marshall was clearly butchering whatever he was trying to communicate. “Love the idea, by the way. We’re thinking we take it one step further than just a game: make it an official LeanIn event. Invite locals, sell concessions, raise money. I think it could be a pretty nice little charity drive for you guys.”
Charity. I imagined we weren’t talking cold hard cash in a briefcase, no questions asked. Pat, in an impressive display of mind reading, clarified, “The money we raise will allow LeanIn to start hosting a lot more outreach programs like the one you guys do on Sundays at the library.”
And add a wing onto the church, I’d imagine.
I said, “Fair enough. How bout the winning team gets 50 percent?” Looking out for my comrades, more so than myself.
Marshall laughed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here!” An impressive display of deep condescension.
“We’re thinking if the first game goes well, we make it into a regular league,” said Pat, “with a few more teams from local groups and, potentially(!), a cash prize for the team that finishes the season in first place.”
“All we need from you, for now,” added Marshall, “is to round up a team of your buddies from the park and get those Adeline folks to get their team together, too. We’ll handle the rest.”
And, with handshakes all around, the two prissies got out of there in one piece.
The game took place on a Saturday evening, under the lights at Cottonwood Regional Park. Six hundred strong showed up and bought tickets. 30 foot bleachers were rented and assembled to accommodate the turnout.
It promised to be a must-watch spectacle: your favorite street urchins, pitted against one another! For your entertainment and $8 to a good cause! While the rest of my team was warming up, I worked the ticket booth with Tessa; LeanIn decided it’d be nice to have a customer-facing member of “the community”. If I had to guess, I’d say the audience comprised a quarter Bedrock Church adjacent do-gooders, 10% locals and appreciators of sport, and the remaining majority: rowdy college kids, drunk and heckle-ready.
We had a handful of blue-chippers on our team. Rodney was our shortstop; Jarvis, the power-hitting, bowling-ball-shaped catcher; Howard, starting pitcher; I, first base; Wolfdog, something of a cheerleader and last-resort pinch runner. The back half of our lineup featured a couple bonafide duds, to be sure. But compared to the crowd Adeline Enclave was fielding, at least we had our gloves on the right hand. Or gloves, at all.
To their credit, they had Stinky Pete, who looked like he could hold a bat. And I think Bilbo Baggins, for all the non-sequiturs he uttered, was able to grasp the concept of fielding, at least enough to produce a couple routine outs.
But their most valuable asset, it turned out, was their innate desire to win at any cost. And if they couldn’t do that (which, they certainly couldn’t), they sure as hell weren’t about to lose.
So, when someone alerted them in the 4th inning that they were down 18-1 (Stinky Pete had picked up an RBI for them early when known fentanyl-peddler, JP Scoob, on base off balls, trotted home while Hugh-man, in shallow right, chased the ball along a path it wasn’t following), they promptly packed it up and walked off, in protest. Fine by us.
But not fine by the audience, who hadn’t paid good money and pregamed the shit out of this just to get walked out on while the night was still young. They started tossing (then throwing, and, eventually, hurling) items I doubt we sold as concessions: tupperwares, metal spoons, empty beer bottles, heirloom tomatoes, and whole slices of lasagna.
As we were rained down upon, attitudes began to sour. Wolfdog started tossing slurs and items back up from whence they came. Rodney, who considered this douchebag population only one or two steps removed from his own lot in life, welcomed the shower, and began waving his arms and curtseying as if having laurels thrown upon his feet. Hugh-man struck up a thoughtful conversation with a young woman about the Hegelian dialectic. I sort of slumped away from the whole scene, hoping not to be drawn back into my role as envoy between straight-folk and squatters.
Wolfdog was the first to break the invisible barrier between field and bleachers. He scampered over the visitor’s dugout like a tree squirrel on meth and went full Ron Artest on the fans. From then, all manner of mayhem was released. A gentleman in a Karl Malone jersey with a body like a white Malone in his prime, came sprinting onto the field ahead of the rest of the pack like William Wallace leading his men into battle and decked unsuspecting Rodney with a textbook form-tackle. His bros circled round and cheered him on. Some of the enclave folks came back onto the field, not wishing to let a good brawl go to waste. A handful of spectators remained in their seats. To them, this was an exciting but not unexpected pivot in the sporting event they’d paid to see.
As for the religious contingency, they weren’t much happier than the rowdy frat boys that we’d run up the score and caused a forfeiture. Who did we think we were, deflating the hopes of these innocent vagrants, riling up local youth, demeaning the entire spirit of this purportedly wholesome celebration of charity and bridging of the great wealth divide?
Marshall and Pat made a b-line for none other than me. They were pointing and hollering. I couldn’t hear what they said.
“Me?” I mouthed, gesturing incredulously at my own chest and looking over my shoulder as if it could have been anyone else.
“You!”
I didn’t know what they were planning to do, but I hardly cared to find out. I turned and ran. But they caught me.
“Hey, jackass. This is not what we had in mind. You told us all your people were non-violent. This seems pretty violent!”
“Listen, it’s not usually like this. Just let it play out, I'm sure no one will get hurt.”
“Give us one good reason not to call the cops on you guys.”
“The radical compassion of Christ?”
But Marshall already had the 911 operator on the line.
For Pat, though, locking us up was not the goal. He wanted me to hear it straight from him. With the holy spirit inside him, he started working himself up, really laying it on. You could tell why they let this guy do the preaching. He had a knack for it. And, though I honestly didn’t care what he thought about my character and that of my friends, it’s not exactly fun to have such a gifted and passionate orator go full fire and brimstone on you from less than 6 inches away. So, as I backed up to get some personal space and breathing room, it must have looked as if I was cowering in fear for my own safety. In light of everything else happening nearby, it didn’t seem out of the question that it would come to blows between 60 year-old Godly Pat and I, too.
This must have been what Tessa perceived, from afar. All of a sudden she was with us, between us, standing in front of me, shielding me. Her behavior was flattering, and I felt this wretched day had taken a promising turn. Of all the ways this conversation with Pat could end up, having Tessa pressed up to me, prepared to take hell from her minister in the interest of my well-being wasn’t the worst I could think of. Calculated behavior had no place among the mayhem on the field; in the danger, people began acting on instinct. It was clear that Tessa’s first priority was me. Forget Marshall, forget the church, forget this event she’d labored over for weeks. She cared for me. She was my knight in Jesus Sandals.
But just then, Rodney, who had somehow survived his WWE matchup with the Karl Malone guy, came in with a flying punch, presumably in the interest of saving me from Pat’s sermon or Marshall’s phone call. As honest as his intentions might have been, he was indiscriminate with where he allowed his fist to land. I doubt he knew there was a woman in our midst. Also, in his defense, he was pretty riled up from being attacked by a rabid, entitled university student minutes earlier. His punch made contact with Tessa’s upper right cheek and knocked her out, cold.
When the cops and ambulances arrived, most of the players from both teams were long gone. Some of the younger officers were deployed on a rather fascist mission to round-up anyone within a five mile radius who looked like they’d ever slept on the street.
From the moment of the punch to the last we saw of him, being driven away in the back of a cop car, Rodney didn’t speak. I’m not sure if he even blinked. He knelt beside Tessa for the two seconds she was unconscious, didn’t try to resist when Marshall pushed him away, and only shrugged and frowned when I, then Pat, then the cops questioned him.
Ignoring her cries of protest, Marshall made sure they carted Tessa into the ambulance and off to the emergency room. Scowling all the while at Rodney and me, he scored a ride in the ambulance by claiming he was her “partner.” The two of them rode off into the sunset to get professional treatment on a black eye, mild concussion, and wounded ego.
Wolfdog remained on the scene, heckling everyone. The cops weren’t interested in him coming out of the melee, but based on his behavior during the crime scene sort-out, his status was quickly elevated to Hinderance #1 and they ended up arresting him too.
A couple other people from the park and the enclave were booked, but no witnesses picked out any individuals who had done particular harm. They all got out after a night or two. The frat boys immediately went home, put on collared shirts and ties, and regained their legal status of unblameable menaces.
After everyone else had scattered or entered the care or custody of first responders, Pat and I remained. We sat on the top row of the bleachers, looking out at the mess, humbled by the action of the day.
“Is this how you thought things would turn out?” he asked.
“I knew there was a chance,” I responded
“Not the game. In general.”
“In general?”
“In your life.”
“Oh. I don’t think so.”
“How did you think things would turn out?”
“Different. I thought I’d be an artist.”
“An artist?”
“A painter. I was a painter, for a while. Still am, kind of. It never really stuck, though.”
“What’d you think it would have been like, if it stuck?”
“I’m not sure. I always thought, if I kept painting, something would happen. But I did keep painting, and nothing happened.”
“Maybe you aren’t meant to be a painter.”
He sighed deep and long. The subject of our conversation was me, but to him, we were talking about something else.
“How bout you?” I said. “How did you think things would turn out?”
“Different. I thought things would be different, too.”
Wolfdog got out after 3 months. They can’t keep him in there for too long, they know he doesn’t really deserve to be locked away. But they also know he can’t be trusted to be out in the open for more than a couple years at a time, so they take him every now and then, when things like this happen. It’s all the same to him.
LeanIn has shifted their focus to other parts of town. And I’m sure they’ve learned not to get too close to the subjects of their charity, not to give people like us any agency in our own “outreach.” They learned we can reach back.
As for Rodney, they aren’t sure what to do with him. They let him free after holding him for a couple days, but he still has charges hanging over his head. If you ask me, he isn’t sure what to do with himself, either. He’s a good kid; I will always believe that. He still hangs out at the park and tries to seem charmingly crazy to passersby. When he sees me looking at him, though, his face turns straight for an instant and he avoids my glance. He knows what I would say if he asked for my opinion: Stop trying to be a circus act. This isn’t you. You aren’t impressing anyone. You don’t fit in with us. Apply yourself.
I still sketch at the library most every day, and, when feeling inspired, add a touch of water-color. I finished a decent piece recently. Tessa and I sit, turned towards each other, chatting and smiling, in the ticket booth at Cottonwood Regional Park. In front of us, a long line of eager customers, waving dollar bills and secretly hiding pieces of lasagna in their pockets. On the horizon behind us, symbolic thunderclouds.
I left it in the mailbox of Bedrock Church, addressed to Tessa, with a short note expressing my deep regret about everything that happened and sharing, in so many words, that she was my muse and the woman of my dreams. I explained that, although I was sure my circumstances at the moment weren’t exactly those of a man she’d want to be with, I hadn’t always been this down and out. Actually, I wasn’t even really that down and out. I was simply pursuing my dreams. If she believed in me as an artist (of which the painting attached might serve as a helpful data point in her decision), I would continue on that path and hopefully, with a little help, make it. But, if she thought I was doomed to fail, I knew I was capable of cleaning myself up, leaving my community at the park, giving up on art once and for all, and finding real work, if it meant having a chance to be with her.
“It might be hard for you to believe,” I said in my letter, “but I am not some bum in need of help. I just haven’t ever truly applied myself, is all.”
Fantastic characterization, visual details, energy and story. Loved it!
Man that's great bro.