Paintings from the Cave (13 page)

“I’m going with you the first day. You know that, right?” His voice isn’t so sleepy and soft anymore now. He wants to make sure it’s safe for me to be there.

“That’s good,” I say. “You’ll like Greg; he’s going to be my boss.”

“How’d you meet him?”

“At the dog run.”

“That’s a good place.”

“Yeah.”

We must have fallen asleep because the next thing we know, it’s morning and we can hear Trudy’s alarm clock. We’re always up and dressed and out the door before she’s done hitting the snooze button for the sixth time.

I go to school, pay attention and keep to myself. All the while, I’m thinking about the shelter that afternoon and what I’ll draw. It’s hard to notice what’s going on around me with so many ideas running through my mind.

Erik is waiting for me outside when I leave and I feel bad because I know he took off work to make sure I’m okay. He’ll like Greg, though. I feel bad fibbing to Erik about the reason I’ll be spending time at the shelter. He doesn’t say anything on the drive over, but that’s normal—Erik is almost as stingy about words as about money.

“Jamie. I’m glad you decided to take me up on my offer.” Greg looks happy to see me as we walk through the front door. He’s pinning descriptions of adoptable dogs to the bulletin board in the lobby.

“Uh, yeah, thanks, volunteering here will help with school. This is my brother, Erik.” I’m speaking so fast it sounds like one really long word.

Greg is quick, though, or he has an older brother himself, because he doesn’t miss a beat. “Good to meet you, Erik.” He reaches out to shake hands. My brother is less friendly than I am, but even he reacts to Greg’s
basic good-guyness and says hello. He started looking around like he was trying to find something he might not like, but when he shakes Greg’s hand, I notice that that squinty hard look he gets when he’s sizing people up has disappeared.

“I’ve got to get to work,” Erik says to me. “I’ll see you later.” Then he turns to Greg and nods. “Thanks for letting him work here.”

“He’s doing us the favor,” Greg says. I try to think if anyone’s ever said that about me, but I’m pretty sure this is a first.

Greg leads me through the door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
, and we go down a hallway and turn into a room filled with dogs. There’s a concrete slab, like a mini-sidewalk, down the middle of the room, leading to a door. I can see an enclosed patio through the window. On either side of the little path are chain-link pens with doors.

The dogs all stand up when we come into the kennel, like they’re really polite and want to show off their good manners. A few whine or bark at Greg, trying to get his attention, but they all wag their tails and push their noses through the holes in the fences, trying to reach us.

My throat tightens a little when I think that they’re all hoping for someone to come save them from this place. Dogs weren’t made to live in little concrete-floored chain-link pens. And it’s wrong. Wrong in a way
that I know is huge. I don’t pray, but I find myself thinking, Please, please, please, hoping that people are on their way right now to take all these dogs out of here.

I think back to the running, barking, leaping, bounding, playing dogs in the dog park and how they all seem to react when their owner stands up from the bench he or she was sitting on. A few of the dogs make a game out of being caught and leashed so they can leave, but I’ve noticed that most of the dogs drop their game the very second their people start to move, and the dogs run to them, ready to leave their dog friends and dog games in an instant for their people lives.

Greg walks me down the aisle, pointing to each dog and introducing them all.

“This is Mac, he’s an Irish setter. That’s Gretchen, the pug you know from the park—you’ll be happy to know she learned her lesson and hasn’t snapped at anyone lately. Maya, the black Lab, is in this cage, and the dogs of indeterminate lineage are Topher, Buzz, Gib and Corky.”

I let them all smell my hand through the fence and they seem to approve of me, because they all go back to lying down. A few curl up and sleep, the rest watch Greg and me talk.

“Don’t go in the cages by yourself. You’re not even supposed to be back here, so I can’t imagine the trouble I’d get in if you got bitten or let one of the dogs escape.”

“I’m just going to sit there and draw them.” I’m already
getting my sketchbook and pencils out of my backpack and deciding that I’m most interested in drawing the setter. I’ve never seen one in person before and I like the ripples in the fur on his flank.

I’m going to draw another four or five dogs today; that’ll be twenty or twenty-five dollars, and I can’t wait to put the money Greg will give me in my pocket with the first twenty bucks. I wonder how long this gig will last and how much money I can save up to give to Erik. I don’t dare hope, but a tiny part of me wants to get going on the portfolio pieces I’m going to submit for the contest. The idea of the cash prize makes me dizzy.

Once I’ve drawn something, it’s like it’s burned in my mind, so even though I’ll have to give Greg the original sketches of the dogs, I know I can draw them again for my portfolio.

I’ve never thought about what I was going to draw or had plans for what I would do next. I’m excited about the ideas I have and I can’t wait to get to work.

But first I’m going to draw Greg. Mostly because I want a picture of him, but also because I need to see if I can capture the way his eyes seem to smile when he looks at the dogs. When he looks at me.

I don’t spend much time looking in mirrors, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same look on my face when I sit at the dog run and watch the dogs.

I
t’s Saturday morning.

Erik works as many weekends as he can. He says days off weren’t invented for people like us. Greg only volunteers at the shelter Monday through Friday so I can’t go there. I’m not ready to find out if Grandpa still needs restraints. And now that I’ve been drawing at the shelter, up close and personal with the dogs and really getting to know them as individuals, I don’t think I’d have as much fun at the dog park anymore.

So I head to the library. I’m going to sit in the comfy chair in the back corner near the restroom, put my feet up on the low windowsill and start working on the non-dog pictures for my portfolio.

I’d rather just submit twenty-five dog pictures, but
something tells me I need to show variety, and besides, I’ve got some other ideas I need to work on. Ever since the last time Erik had bad dreams, I’ve known what I have to draw.

The first sketch I start once I get settled in my chair comes from the place I never think about, and I’m surprised my pencil can take my hand where my mind would never go.

The memories make me run for the toilet, gagging. I knew that letting myself think about this would make me sick so I made sure I wasn’t more than ten feet from the men’s room. I vomit until there’s nothing left inside me. Then I rinse my mouth out at the sink and head back to the chair, where I dropped my sketchbook.

I slash at the paper with my pencil, dark jagged lines, trying to figure out what screaming looks like—I know what it sounds like and I remember what it feels like, but I’m trying to put it on paper. I borrowed a box of pastels from the art room because I know this needs color. I slash some lines in acid green and bile yellow, smudging dirty gray shadows with the side of my pencil.

I remember the slaps and punches, the burns and the belts. Those I make fluorescent orange and bloodred, broken lines that dig into and across the page.

I can’t do the rest.

Not yet.

Because my hands are shaking too much to keep going into that dark place in my head.

I will, though. Now that I’ve started, I know that I’ll go back. That I’ll find the colors and the shapes that will help me understand. Once I understand, then I’ll be able to forget. Forget for real, not just pretend I can’t remember.

Erik has never talked about that time or let me talk about it. But this picture I’ve drawn, well, I’ve said almost everything without saying a word.

It’s only lines and colors, no clear people or objects, but it’s just right and I know that anyone who looks at it will understand why Erik and I still wake up screaming sometimes.

The next one is Erik. Of course.

I draw him standing, looking off into the distance, with his shoulders back, and his profile looks like it belongs to a king or a god. I use golds, coppers, and bronzes so that he glows, warm and strong. I could never show this to him, it would make him embarrassed. But I know there’s something real about it, something right. It’s the exact opposite of the first picture and I know I’ll put them back to back in my portfolio.

I draw another picture of Greg next, closing my eyes first to picture his little round glasses and his dark shaggy hair and the loose way he ambles, jeans riding low on his butt—he needs a good belt—and his T-shirt covered in dog hair. He’s laughing as he watches the dogs and I can almost hear him, just from how I draw his face in warm greens and happy blues.

I’ve never used color before, I’ve always just sketched with soft pencils, and I’m surprised at how easily working with pastels comes to me and how much more I can see on the page.

I sketch the librarian. He’s sitting at his desk across the room from me, answering someone’s question, so I don’t have to close my eyes like when I’m trying to get Erik and Greg. The librarian’s face is serious, but content, like he’s doing something terribly important, something he was meant to do, and like there’s no place on earth he’d rather be than sitting here with piles of books around him. I go back to using my pencil and sketch him in black and white, like the print on a page, and I smile because it’s the perfect, and only, way to catch who and what he is.

I can’t help myself—I’m an artist who needs to know the names of his models. I pass by his desk like I’m on my way to the men’s room and sneak a look at his name tag.
ED S
. I hurry back to my chair and sketch an ID pin.

I draw Grandpa, but not skinny and sick and tied to his bed like he is now. I remember the Grandpa from when I was little, leaning forward in his chair to watch a baseball game on TV, holding his breath to hear the call at first. I draw him wearing that plaid shirt that I didn’t remember until I started drawing it. His wedding ring glints on his finger and there’s a hint of shine on his bald head. I know it’s not possible, but as I draw I swear I can smell the Ivory soap he used.

I sketch all day and I’m startled when the announcement comes over the intercom that the library will be closing soon. I page through the sketchbook, surprised at how much work I’ve done today.

Erik’s Rule #7: Hard work is the only thing we can count on so we better get used to it.

I never thought I was any good.

I never wanted to show anybody my drawings.

But now I do.

G
reg offers me a ride as we leave the shelter on Monday because it’s raining. Even though showing him where I live is the last thing I want to do, he insists that he won’t let me walk in the rain since we’re leaving at the same time anyway.

My heart sinks when we get to Trudy’s apartment building. Because I got a ride instead of walking, I’m early and Erik isn’t home from work yet. That means I have to stand outside the building until he gets here—I’m not allowed to go into the places we stay if he’s not with me. I don’t mind hanging around, I do it every day, but something tells me that Greg isn’t going to drive off and leave me standing in the rain.

“I, uh, forgot my key,” I say, “so I’ll just hang out at
the Laundromat across the street until my brother gets here.”

“I’ve got nowhere to go, I don’t work until later tonight, so I’ll wait with you,” he says.

“Oh, well, that’s really nice,” I say as I cross my fingers that Trudy will come home before Erik because I don’t think Greg will buy it that we both forgot our keys. I look up and see that her apartment windows are dark and I feel a knot begin in my stomach.

This is why Erik and I try not to get too close to people—because you can’t always keep them from knowing your business.