Simon Says (6 page)

"Your composition is sound," he allows. "For the advanced classes, I'd suggest Portraiture, and Landscape. How does that sound?"

I resist the shrug that's itching to burst out, and nod. "Fine." If the landscapes hanging on his paneled walls are any example of what the advanced class teaches, I'll learn what
not
to do.

"You'll also be taking Junior English, Government, French—I don't see any math or science on your preference sheet—"

"I've done calculus and chemistry," I tell him. "That's more math and science than I'll probably ever need. It's on my transcript."

"Oh." He flips the page, and his eyes light up. "I see you wanted some computer programming?"

This time I do shrug.
Thanks for coming up with that idea, Dad. Learn to paint on a computer and see the world...
"I was thinking about doing some sort of computer graphics," I explain reluctantly. "Sort of a way to make a living, maybe."

"Good thinking," he says, pushing up the loose sleeves on his sweater. "But you can't really fly before
you can swim." He chuckles, I guess at his hopelessly mixed metaphors. "I'll put you down for Introductory Programming. Then you'll be ready to program graphics next year."

I take the schedule he hands me and note that Gym is a bare thirty minutes twice a week. The computer class is an hour three days, which seems like a lot of wasted time. Maybe I can learn to write a program that will give me a passing grade in the course without having to actually attend it The mornings are full of academic courses, but the afternoons are all art classes and studio time.

"Now," Mr. Brooks says in a portentous tone, "for your studio."

I slide the schedule into my jeans pocket and wait He opens a soundless drawer in his desk and pulls out a brass key and a sheet of paper. "Usually upperclassmen get to choose their studios in the spring, but as you're a transfer we selected one for you from what was left."

The sheet of paper is a floor plan of the studio building, and I watch as his finger hovers over it "This one is all the way at the for end, I'm afraid, but it does have the advantage of being near the elevators, which made it easier to get your materials inside."

I ignore his disapproving tone. I crated my paintings myself so no one could see them, but it all weighed a ton in the end. I had to send them by slow truck, and it still ate up most of my savings account.

The studio he's pointing to looks perfect Squashed in a corner between a stairwell and the bank of elevators, it's odd-shaped—narrower at the door, with a dog-
leg corner jutting into the floor space. That's probably why no one else wanted it. But it's isolated, which suits me fine.

"Even though it's a little smaller than the others, you've got a good north light," Mr. Brooks is saying. "And you'll have the opportunity to choose a different studio for your senior year, of course."

"This one's okay." I just want to get out of his office and into my studio.

He hands me the key. "This will get you into the building and into your studio itself. But Fm afraid these keys aren't impossible to copy. To keep your materials safe, you should probably get an additional lock."

Already done. The weight of the hasp lock dragged awkwardly in my pack on the way here. I take the floor plan and key and start to stand up.

"We're very pleased to have you as part of the Whitman family, Charles," Mr. Brooks intones, and I sink back into my chair. Family? Who's he kidding? One reason most kids are here is wanting to get away from family—parents who start out proud because Junior plays the violin and then think he's weird when he finds out he's really good and starts to get obsessed.
Simon says ... get out and play, be like the other kids—what's wrong with you?
Here, there's nothing wrong with us.

I think of my father looking flushed and hurt when I didn't care who was winning the stupid football game—all I wanted to do was paint the receiver, hanging in midair, his fingertips brushing the rough, pebbly texture of the ball. He knows that three guys, each one twice his size, are about to crash into him, but he makes himself
tune them out, straining to clasp that ball to his chest and bring it to earth with him. Except for the colors of the uniforms on canvas, the teams' identities don't matter. I intended to paint red and gold for the receiver, to echo the autumn crispness, but I wanted to give Dad the painting.
Stupid idea—but part of me liked being with him in the stadium that afternoon. I don't even know why.
He was cheering for the team in blue and gray, so I used their colors to reflect a stormy sky. Dad actually hung the painting in his office. I couldn't believe it I felt ashamed at not using the colors I wanted but proud that he hung it at the same time. When I actually go into his office (not very often), I try not to look at it But I'm glad it's there.

"The mentorship program here is unique, but it's a special feature that I believe, enhances the success of our graduates," Mr. Brooks continues, not having a due what I'm thinking. That's like family, for sure. His words have the feel of a memorized speech. Does every student have to listen to this? I have an image of kids in air-conditioned offices all over the campus, listening to pompous mentors reciting in unison.

"Your roommate will be able to help you find your way around the campus, but I know questions and concerns will arise. Feel free to come to me with anything you need to discuss. My office is always open to you, and if you have a problem you should have no hesitation about calling me at home. I know you'll be an asset to our student body, Charles, and my job is to help you in any way I can."

At least it's short I thank him, grab my pack, and get
out of the freezer. Kids are sweating in the Houston humidity outside the building, but I don't mind the weather. The sky is hazy, with a feel of rain hanging in the air, but it could be a blazing blue sky dotted with fluffy cloud shapes for all I care. I'm on the way to my studio, and grassy lawns, hedge-lined walks, and humidity are just obstacles to get past as quickly as possible.

The studio building is brick, long and narrow, so that every artist has a window on one wall—much nicer than my basement hideout at home. My parents call it a den. I know it's something of a sanctuary from eyes that slide away in discomfort (
even Steve's
), from names that hurt, from anonymous hands that tear up pictures they don't like and can't match. I'm hoping to find sanctuary in this studio, too. I crane my neck to look at the roof—seven stories up, with an intricately carved parapet at the top. I'm on the fourth floor, not too far to climb if the elevators are busy. The key turns smoothly in the outer lock, and I swing the heavy door open, dreading a rush of frigid air. But the air-conditioning here isn't so bad. If it were the same temperature as Mr. Brooks's office, the paints would harden on the palette.

Kids stumble down sleek, tiled hallways that already smell of fresh oils and turpentine, and pound up and down the polished stone stairs, trying to find their studios and get set up. Some of them look at me, wide-eyed. I'm obviously too old to be a freshman, so they wonder who I could be. I'll have to find another way into the building, where I won't have to run this gauntlet every time I come in. Maybe there's an entrance by the far stairwell.

I find my studio. There are loops for my hasp lock, above the knob. I slide the brass key into the door and swing it open, then ease inside and flip on the light. I see my crates of supplies and canvases, and I push the door shut behind me, punching the lock button. There's even a place to clasp my lock when I'm inside—the ultimate "Do Not Disturb" barrier. I slide my pack off my shoulder and pull out the heavy lock. It slips through the metal hoops and dicks solidly, locking out the world. The pack slides to the tile floor, and I lean back against the smooth wood of the door. For the first time since arriving at Whitman (
in how long really?
), I let my guard relax.

The gray light from the cloudy day washes over the plywood crates. I left some paintings locked up at home, but the ones that matter came with me. After a moment I get up and fumble with the locked clasps to open the first crate. It contains finished canvases that the audition committee most certainly did not see—canvases that might reveal too much, even to committee members who probably just want to be sure the applicant is somewhere beyond stick figures. I pull out a cityscape, a swirl of neon sunset crushed under the night, with a single bell tower glaring back at the darkness, refusing to go out What had Mr. Brooks said about lack of discipline and perspective? He'd probably think this canvas proved his point But it proves a different point to me.

Almost no one has seen these paintings since I showed some of them to Steve. My father might accept it if I'd stick to painting football scenes as a hobby, but pictures of phoenixes torn by lions would probably
freak him out. "How are you ever going to make a living painting pictures?" he demanded before I left for Whitman. He owns a real estate business, and his idea of a good picture is a photograph that sells a house. He keeps trying to reconcile my painting with his world. "If you like to draw so much, you could be an architect," he told me once. "Or an engineer." Those are jobs he can understand.

My mother's a lawyer, and a good picture to her is one of the pretty pictures in the calendars she mails out to clients every Christmas. When I was little, she liked the pictures I made. She'd hang them on the bulletin board in her office.
Charlie's so talented...
Then she hung them on the refrigerator at home but didn't take them to her office anymore. She acted like they troubled her.
Can't you paint nice houses, and happy children playing, and pretty trees?
She wanted stick figures with big smiles on fake faces, and green lollipop trees under a blue stripe of sky. That's what other kids were painting in preschool—the kids who looked at me like I was alien because my trees actually looked like trees, and because I couldn't be bothered to waste time admiring their paint-splattered lollipops during sharing time. I was too busy trying to figure out how to do trees properly, so that the bark was textured and individual leaves rustled in the breeze. I was still trying to stripe the tree trunks and branches with black and gray and brown to give then some depth and texture, and the result wasn't as convincing as I knew I should be able to make it What was the point, anyway, of telling some kid who'd rather be playing dodgeball that his picture was really
neat, straining to sound like I meant it? I could have told him his game was great, I suppose—if I'd cared about dodgeball, beyond trying to work out how to avoid it But what I cared about was making my painting as good, and as true, as it could possibly be.

Mother didn't care whether my trees (
or wolves
) were convincing or not She didn't like them because they weren't like the trees other kids made.
Why don't you draw a doggy, Charlie? A dog playing with some children?
She didn't mention the pretty tree, but I knew she wanted that too, so I made her a picture like that—a silly picture—even the stupid doggy under the lollipop tree was smiling a big fake smile. She put that one up on her bulletin board at work.
That's what people want to see, Charlie. (That's what you want to see, Mother.) You don't want to make them nervous, do you? You should make pictures like the other children do, and not make them fed sad because they can't paint the same sort of pictures.
I tried to tell her that I didn't really want to make anyone nervous—that I painted trees and wolves because I saw those pictures inside of me (
but not that I was the outcast being chased by wolf children who had banded together into a vicious pack, not because they were "sad" but because they were "ordinary" and I was different
), and I had to let them out But she'd caught me crying from the way the other kids had hounded me. She knew the truth, even if she didn't want to think about it
Maybe you should keep those pictures to yourself, Charlie. Simon says ... keep your art separate, keep it safe from the people who laugh at you or sneer at you, who resent your drawings.

So I kept the real pictures to myself and gave her the fake happy pictures that I was apparently supposed to be drawing—nobody sneered at those. As I got older, though, she didn't even like that sort of picture anymore.
You're too old for that foolishness, Charlie. Boys your age don't paint ail the time. You should get out and play with the other boys—take up a sport, be part of a team. And you should start thinking about what you want to do with your life. I don't understand.
.. So I showed her the real pictures I'd been painting, with the mythological symbols. I thought she'd understand if she actually saw them. After all, it wasn't wolves in stormy forests. But she only glanced at them, and then looked away.
They're very ... nice, Charlie, but you can't spend your whole life making ... pictures.
She sort of gestured at them, as if she couldn't even stand to look at them. At that time I still wondered why they made her so uncomfortable. Didn't she understand? Or wasn't it her? Was it me? Had I Med to get my message across? Were my pictures so bad?

If they were, the thing was to get better at them, not stop. But that wasn't what she wanted.
You're not a little boy anymore, Charlie. Painting pictures is fine for a hobby
—A hobby? Like her rosebushes, when she remembers to prune them? Or the old Mustang Dad has out in the garage, the one he's fixing up when he has an hour or two in the evening, every other week, or month, or never? A hobby? I didn't have the words then to tell her I couldn't paint just in my spare time any more than I could breathe in my spare time. But she wouldn't have listened, even if I'd had the words.
You have to make
some serious choices about your career, Charlie. What about computers? You could write game programs, with beautiful graphics. Or medicine—you could be a doctor. Or finances—you could be a stockbroker. Or, if you don't want to work at a desk, you could do something outdoors—you could be an archaeologist. Or...
Anything from astrophysicist to zoologist, as long as I didn't choose painter.
Paint as a hobby, Charlie, but you need to do something more with your life—something (conventional) to make us proud of you (something to justify all the effort we went through to raise you when we could have been doing other useful things like making money and being more successful like our friends. Now you owe us so we can brag about you to the other parents we know. Pay up).