"THE KAYAK"

by Fran Holt.

..

Mostly true

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James William Thornton County Park was the scene of the crime, my first crime. I waded into the freezing cold water that gave you hypothermia and death in less than five minutes, and climbed into my kayak. My kayak—how sweet a sound!—my dear sweet bucket list item from Craigslist. It rocked violently back and forth. As it turned out, getting into a kayak was the hardest part. I knew nothing about kayaks, had never even been in one, but was going to match myself to the picture in my head; a serene Pacific Northwest tribal seer paddling along as dolphins crested, all communal, guiding the kayak while eagles soared overhead, calling out their encouragement, echoing off the pine trees. I was an old, white, entitled, educated female, without a drop of Native American anything; and I would kayak and paddle all day. I would never get cold, no goosebumps on my skin. I had dark brown hair all long, thick and flowing, casually tossed to look sexy. My mental image of myself was a bucket list image, fifty years in the making. I would make reality conform, even if my hair was short and skunk-striped gray.

The following account of art in the fast lane may feel like a pinball wizard. I don’t think linearly and never did; why should I try to be straight in telling it?

The weight of mom was heavy. The weight of me, heavier. My own brain was crushing me, thoughts followed by doubts. I had never in my entire seventy years been free of everything, and I didn’t know what to do. Nothingness was eerie, and addictive.

First things first, I cut my hair. No need to hold on to the hippie chick nor free-spirited artist ideal; long covid had made most of my hair fall out anyway, and with so little hair it wasn’t much of a statement, but still. My back slowly healed from lifting mom in and out of bed. Left hip was taking longer. Right leg shin tendon from that old motorcycle accident didn’t deserve the attention it was getting. Someday I wouldn’t dread Buy-Mart’s parking lot but right this minute it was all I could do to walk with a swishy-butt, tits pointed straight ahead, not bending over or dragging my leg, its default position for the last three years.

I thought he was joking when he nervously looked into the field and said be quiet. It was pitch black and late at night. We had flopped onto the side of the dirt road to rest, exhausted from bicycling in the heat all day, still hours from the next town and food and water. How could there be anyone here, in the middle of nowhere? I was flat on my back, me and the ants, and breathed slowly. Armando stiffened. We got on the bikes and rode, glad the moon had sunk. Much later I learned that Medellin, Colombia was in the middle of a cartel war and, at that time, according to Time magazine, the most dangerous city in the world. That dirt road we were travelling led to FARC,  paramilitaries, kidnapping, cabals and assassination. Youth has no experience and no fear. I loved the velvet black night and the thousand stars overhead, and didn’t think about AK-47s or what a prize a white, American female would make.

     * * *

I loved punctuation, commas, capitalizations, the beauty of correct spelling. Everything. What a shame the art form didn’t survive the twenty-first century and computers. Now I hardly punctuate at all, delighted to small-case everything, a small-but-mighty rebel yell. I cut my hair some more, unevenly, so it would spike up in places like Billy Idol's. Every time I washed my hands I dried them in my hair, the minerals slowly contributing to that stiff straight-up look. My look peaked at four days pretty regularly and I took a selfie.

I had become a stalker of my own work, and a triangle of MiaCiaos, set like a compass around Seattle and connected by fast, smooth highways—what could be better. Sometimes the loneliness was suffocating and driving around seeing my work in public spaces took the pain away. The paintings were lit up and hung gallery-style and even from a distance through the big windows you knew they were unusual. If I wasn’t me I would think MiaCiao had deluxe, first-rate art. Sometimes it was hard to remember I had painted them, especially when my throat became constricted, so fine and museum-like were they. Once, I even went in, and just stood there, to the consternation of the wait staff.

Girl with Bird was sold to a quiet man, an accountant, small and fragile-looking. He would be the bird in that bird-and-girl painting. His top-floor condo was neat and orderly, and in desperate need of some flagrant color. The view from the expansive windows was stunning, all of Seattle and Puget Sound spread out below. I got dizzy looking down at the skyscrapers. Mt. Rainier with its high altitude clouds blowing sideways hovered to the south, a space ship in the sky. The art patron probably never held a hammer in his life so I offered to hang the painting. We moved his cool-gray sofa forward to get to the wall, and he helped hold the painting up. He wasn’t as frail as he seemed. The large 48" x 60" oil on panel depicted a girl sitting on a beach, red towel over one leg, with a brightly colored parrot on her shoulder. It was ideal in size and color, vibrant yet somehow contained. It was just right for his space. We slid the sofa back. The viewing distance was perfect. The wall with its shades of gray dramatized the reds and yellows and made me ridiculously giddy with glee. He moved to his cubbyhole office and wrote a payment check in small, cramped handwriting, his bony shoulders scrunched in concentration. Then he stood, me a full head taller, as I thanked him and started for the door. A little lightheaded from the beauty of it all, I laughingly said the girl in the painting would have a wonderful time looking out his big windows. He looked at her, over the sofa, her green eyes gazing across Puget Sound, then at me in fear-tinged astonishment. That turned into fright. His mouth dropped open, formed an Edvard Munch scream. It was so unexpected I gasped, my mouth imitating his, a mirror image of horror. Maybe he never played make-believe. I hope he doesn’t have nightmares about the suntanned, pretty girl in his living room. She was bigger than he was, and already full of life.

* * *

I could swim. I was a certified scuba diver. I got married underwater. It was the sixties and we were collectively out of our minds. Before pollution, before climate change. Mary and Louis Leakey were discovering humankind’s australopithecine ancestors at Olduvai Gorge. There is a photo of me at age five, sitting in a chicken pen, sketchpad in lap, drawing the chickens with a look of intense concentration. I was going to be a great artist.

The marriage was shot-gun and didn’t last. Divorced one year later, ignominiously, in the breakroom of the restaurant where I worked as the handy-dandy, all-purpose dishwasher/kitchen cleaner. The French maître d’ of the exclusive, private golf club in Boca Raton, Florida had taken a chance on an eighteen year old runaway with no prior job history. I was earnest and convincing, convinced him of my worth, that I was the "man" for the job. The health inspector said it was clean as a hospital, the cleanest restaurant he’d ever seen. They hired me as a groundskeeper on the golf course during the summer, when it was too hot to play golf and the club shut down. I pulled weeds in the heat so I would be there to resume washing dishes in the fall, a good dishwasher apparently hard to find. It was my first and last job. The divorce papers-serving guy looked like he might cry so I cried for him; then laughed, hoping to cheer him up. He ran for the nearest exit.

* * *

The problem with kayaking was planning. You couldn’t just jump in the boat and sail away. As long as your gas tank was full or electric engine fully charged, you could sail away and not have to think, provided you had one of those types of craft. If your craft was powered by something other than—what the advertisements called human power—you were good to act on your wildest, most hair-brained impulse. Jump in that boat and let’s go to Cuba. Kayaking, on the other hand, required premeditated calculation, particularly regarding tides, sunset times, hydration, carbs, and how much sleep one got the night before. There was no one to bail you out if you miscalculated. You had to turn around at the half-way point, too, not easy when there were so many variables that could constitute half. Half your miles traveled; half your energy; half daylight remaining; half your cheerful good will. It was dismal. If one more person cruised by and asked, Need any help? I would throw my paddle at them. I was just resting, enjoying the silence and the smell of cedar, both heightened when one’s eyes were closed. Maybe I should wear a sign, Don’t call 911. I’m meditating.

I was beginning to realize I did not have a planner’s personality. It was still an hour until the tide turned and carried me back to my car. My sunburned face was bright red in spite of the sunscreen; my chin-strapped hat, probably still on the floor of my car. I tossed the anchor and took a nap in the shade of the cedar and pines, fell asleep listening to the burbling marine life and rustle of branches. There were minnows playing under the kayak in a foot of water, and tiny crabs shed sand from their backs as they shuffled away. I would check the label of the sunscreen as soon as I got home. What kind of sunscreen wasn’t waterproof?

Mom’s ashes, in an urn in a box in a brown paper bag, were still on the front passenger’s floor of her car, mine now through inheritance. I hadn’t been able to cope with anything so instead kept throwing fast food wrappers, grocery receipts and junk mail on top of  the brown paper bag. One day I tried to put the new car insurance papers in the glove box and couldn’t open it. My brain was finally ready to deal with the perplexing problem of death, but as I hated religion and rituals even scattering ashes seemed sanctimonious. I had asked the cremation company to dispose of the ashes but they said it would cost one hundred forty-five dollars, state regulations, so that was that. I dug out the urn from under the junk mail and dumped the ash on the kitty litter pile of dirt in the yard. I made it clear to myself that it’s over, stared at the kitty litter, ridiculous to talk to gray dust. Skittish Kitty appeared—she never appeared, always hid in the bushes, shy and afraid, only working up courage for dinner if it was put outside near her hidey-bush. She ran to the mound of ashes atop the kitty shit and gleefully rolled in it until she was gray. It was a perfect ending for my mother, who didn’t get to see her body donated to science because of covid restrictions, gave a feral cat a spa treatment instead.

The thing growing in my closet—in a beat-up old suitcase, one dollar ninety-nine cents at Goodwill—was becoming uncomfortably real. I wanted my innocence back, did not want to worry about fires or earthquakes or how much I had toiled to earn all those neatly banded one hundred dollar bills. I had cashed every painting's payment check, had requested one hundred dollar bills until the bank tellers probably thought I was a drug dealer. It had taken years to accrue so much money, by now most likely flagged by the DEA. So I gave six thousand dollars to my friend, who had lost his job and was about to lose his house; creatively, I thought, over a period of time, telling him I’d be his Seattle art dealer and to send artwork. I would pay five hundred dollars per painting and all shipping costs. The fact that nothing ever sold, and all twelve works, lovely paintings, every one, had been on exhibit at Lux-Spa for over a year seemed irrelevant. Seattle wasn't ready for small paintings of colorful flowers unless it was a Matisse; the rich had wrapped themselves in serious art. It was a dismal lesson, but my closet was restored and he remained in his house, three thousand miles away.

Shortly after that, he got a job as a prison guard, a state job with benefits and pension. My talented friend, who at seventeen had won a Maryland Distinguished Scholar scholarship, had joined the high IQs of MENSA, who had won a full MFA scholarship to American University, now stood with rifle in hand in the middle of a cold field at midnight, watching for escape attempts by ruthless murderers. This was same the person who had made drawings of classical Roman cast statues side by side with me at midnight, when The Maryland Institute College of Art was silent and empty. We were convinced of our glorious futures, had practiced drawing as the true path to greatness. He was fired from his senior graphic design job at Whitehaven State University—after twelve years and many accolades—new boss, creative differences, always opinionated and never could keep his mouth shut. He didn’t even pretend to make art after that. The prison guard job drove him further from creativity, but he wanted a job with a pension so gave up his life to get it.

He drank a six-pack a day, and things went downhill from there. Both his parents had been alcoholics but I thought he would rise above it since he had risen above everything else. He had applied for, and put himself through college in the big city of Baltimore against his parents’ wishes. They had no use for education, were high school dropouts, pregnant with Tommy at fourteen years old, and wanted him to be an auto mechanic like his dad. He had bootstrapped every single thing in his life, including coming out as gay two decades before it was socially acceptable.

After a year of emailing resumes to every conceivable art-related job opportunity with a pension, he gave up. He is now an end-of-life medical billing accountant for the state of Maryland, working out of a hospice; the constant smell of death offset by the smell of stale coffee. He papered over his office window so he wouldn’t see the dead bodies being wheeled away, turns up the radio so he won't hear the patients moaning in pain. I thought of all the art he hadn't created, and couldn't imagine what had led him to this.

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CHAPTER 2

My good intentions were no match for my beloved kayak, its pull toward the water too strong. My vow to only buy new things when absolutely necessary went south. I hated the culture of consumerism or supporting any oligarchy, even with a single dollar bill, but found myself spending real money on a new anchor and bilge pump. My vintage face mask and snorkel were from EBay; convinced that the oval shape of the mask was sexier than the two-eyed triangle face masks currently in fashion. The day the mask was delivered I wore it around the trailer, dancing, and scared the cats shitless. Goodwill came through for my U.S. Divers flippers, cost less than two dollars on one fine, blue tag Monday.

The accessories associated with kayaking, and free diving, were thrilling visuals besides being functional. When not in the water they decorated my trailer, bling for the faraway places I was headed. I installed hooks on the walls and ceiling for the buoy, flotation device, ropes, paddles and all the other water accessories, their decorative nature a perfect accompaniment to my large oil paintings. My large abstracts could have been water and surf, greens and blues full of motion and moments, and, combined with the kayak equipment, all bright orange and white, made the whole place feel like a beach hut in Florida. We were crowded and happy. The cats eventually got used to my dangling wetsuit. No longer mincing around it in fear, slinking, crouching, dilated eyes looking upward, they played with the wetsuit’s ankle zippers, batting the legs back and forth with a tinkling sound. The wetsuit swayed on its overhead hook and the cats went wild. I let them shred the rubber, better that they be fearless than afraid. Neoprene made a great scratching post. They climbed up, claw over sharp kitty claw, then jumped down, over and over. I got used to the thud in the night, knowing it was kitty glee and not an opossum trying to climb in the window.

I tried to get air into the girl’s hijab. After a while it was the only thing that mattered, getting the right weight, light and air so it could be lifted in the hot breeze. She was translucent, her headdress defined all. I spent weeks in that hot desert with her, chasing those undulating folds of cloth. It was summer, imagining heat and sunshine was easy in my hot studio. The art patron wanted a painting that was large, so she sent employees to the castle—the only castle in Kirkland, WA. right there on billionaires' row—to measure the wall where it would hang. I was allowed to go to the castle with the employees after signing a non-disclosure agreement. We were in and out in five minutes, sock-footed with tape measures and reverent silence. It was probably a real Italian castle, imported and reassembled. The painting would hang near the stained glass nave, between ancient timbers worn shiny. Hypnotized by the castle's authenticity, I slid on my shoes and slid out the door, a creeping chilling sensation followed.  It took them ten minutes to reset all the alarms.

The painting became 72” x 48”, as big as me. The photographs were excellent; the company even provided close-ups of the folded cloth so I could see exactly how it was folded. I painted the heavy bucket of water she carried back to her family, up and over sand dunes scattered with scrub. I gave her arm enough muscles so it wasn’t too much of a burden. My paintbrush slipped while adjusting her nose; it made her ever-so-slightly smile. We became friends. Pakistani Woman was one of the best paintings I ever made. The colors sang, the drawing was solid, the brushmarks wickedly intelligent. I made a grand frame, thick and dark-stained to match the overhead heavy wooden beams of the castle and its royal sensation of kingdom. The company sent a courier, I watched as they drove away, stood in the street, suddenly lonely. Much later, I drove by the castle but it seemed deserted, only gardeners tending palm trees as marble fountains spouted. I knew Pakistani Woman was safe but missed her terribly.

It wasn’t much money but it was exquisite and by email he raved about it. I had been in perfect harmony with myself while painting Frozen Pond #4, brushmarks and colors were liquid, delicate, fine and silky, each in turn. I told him I’d be happy to deliver it and he gave me his address. It was one block off Seattle’s Pike Place Market, the place to be if you were from somewhere else. There was no place to park, of course. I circled First Avenue twice, obeying the no left turn and one way only signs until I had driven ten blocks before being able to turn around. The crosswalks were packed with tourists, making turning nearly impossible anyway, as they poked along and took selfies mid-stride. The cross streets blew a stiff wind east off the water and up the hill, screaming seagulls along for the ride. Mounted police ambled along with the crowds, the horses’ hips broad and powerful, their hooves made clopping sounds. A sightseeing pedicab whizzed past downhill, the occupants laughing, their hair flying out. My car windows were down and it was noisy.

I considered parking in the one single loading-only spot as it was in the same block as the address then thought better of it. The parking ticket people in this part of town were vociferous; sometimes I think each had a single block to drive around and around, so quickly did they arrive. I called the art patron and parked in loading-only anyway, and checked my watch. If he didn’t appear within two minutes I was leaving. I always delivered "to your door" but his door was surrounded by a moat of concrete and automobiles. Making him come to my car was unprofessional, even though it was parked close by and I could see the entrance to his building, but there was nothing else I could do, short of spending a small fortune at a parking garage. Besides, it was now three p.m.straight up, our agreed upon delivery time.

He appeared. He was friendly, gracious and grateful; an obvious CEO of some sort, middle-aged, dressed in business attire, smoothly ironed and crisp. He practically skipped away, as much as a dignified CEO could skip, gazing happily at the small canvas painting, holding it up and smiling to himself as he traversed the promenade. It was a sunny day, early in summer, and his balding head glistened in the sun and sparkled with his pace as he wove around tourists taking photos and buskers shaking tambourines. He had said by email he needed something to decorate his office, and the painting he saw at MiaCiao was perfect. His office had a great view of Puget Sound but needed a painting. I did an online search; he was an art history enthusiast, had studied art history in college while obtaining an MBA in finance. Regardless how beautiful one’s view—even if it’s Puget Sound and ferries and sailboats and the snow-capped Olympic Mountains in the westward distance—everyone needs art, and this person recognized good art when he saw it, even in a pizza place and not a fancy art gallery.

I put the RX7 in gear and pulled out, the parking enforcer clearly visible half a block back. I could have driven the Ford Focus because the painting was small, but for some reason I was trying to impress the art patron. Maybe it was because he oversaw Seattle’s fanciest real estate transactions, transferring giant skyscrapers to new conglomerates, and developed corporate advisory services. The people who came to his office were probably conglomerate types, and would need art for their new purchases. I was available, and I drove a great car.

I go down to the sea and what I see is scaring me, dead starfish. The news said it was a starfish-specific disease, but we all knew it was climate change. The brightly colored, pin-wheeled creatures disappeared from rocks and sand and pilings seemingly overnight; blank nothingness left behind as dead bodies went out with the tide.

I sold a painting, and the man knew it was art, real art, not just something to go over the sofa to match his rug. His email gushed superlatives, about how he and his wife couldn’t stop looking at Springtime at the restaurant, how their food got cold as they discussed it. He mentioned his wife several times, maybe he was going to surprise her with it.

Making sure it was after the lunch rush—four o’clock was usually best—I went inside Coastal Seas with the replacement painting, nodded and smiled at the cook, the bartender and the host. I never said anything, but we were friends, we must be, they liked my art. I always gave a deep discount to anybody who worked there and expressed interest. Even thinking about purchasing art on a hospitality worker’s pay was daring, more imagination than reality. I wanted them to expand themselves in this direction, as everyone should have real art in front of their eyes, all the time. I also wanted the servers to speak well of me to their customers.

My face, happy and pleasantly arranged, said it all. I understood MiaCiao, as its customers were all wealthy and well-educated, including educated about art. Coastal Seas was a few notches down the chi-chi scale but their less-wealthy customers still bought lots of art, even at MiaCiao prices. Seattle was an artist’s paradise, so thoroughly was art a part of the culture.

His house was older, solid and well-maintained. Trees lined the street and the view of Lake Washington was spectacular. When it wasn’t raining you could see Bill Gates's home across the water. As I approached my hair started to stand up. There were small brass stars embedded in the walkway, sort of a mini-Hollywood walk of fame; a tumbling water sculpture dipped and repeated as wrought iron oddities sprouted across the lawn. The porch was filled with sculptures. A life-sized running man was carved to look like it was in extreme motion, with welded metal in certain places, burnt wood in others. It was fascinating and vaguely repellent. Others sculptures similar to Mr. Running Man, and some creatures not so easily identified, filled the space and spilled over the edge of the deck railing. It felt like a sinking ship; dense-packed, off-kilter and chaotic.

As it turned out, the art patron was an artist himself; an old guy, retired now, but had taught sculpture at a nearby university for most of his life. He was prolific, too. He helped me haul the large, heavy painting up the porch stairs and into his airy living room, filled with windows and light. It was a great place to hang Springtime, and was shockingly clean and aesthetic after traversing the ratty porch. He said his wife had to run to the store and would be right back. By now I wasn’t even sure he had a wife.

After clucking in delight over the glowing painting, he said come with me, I’ll show you where I work, and went back outside, past the creatures that I swore had changed positions, and around the side of the house. A wooden door led down to a small basement, I could see inside from where I stood on the lawn. He led the way and turned on the light switch at the far end of the room. It was still dark. I stayed on the grass, peering down into what seemed to be a small workshop of strange and exotic carving tools, welding tools, art tools. He glanced up and said, “Are ya comin’?”, all friendly. Ted Bundy flashed through my brain. He’d tricked hundreds of girls with his friendly face, and they’re all dead now. I said I had to go. He laughed as he turned away and picked up a chisel.

My fingers were too big for text-messaging. I had to wear reading glasses to see the abominably small letters. Email was a wonderful improvement, but text-messaging, ridiculous. I got with the program anyway; you can’t wear a miniskirt and fishnet stockings forever. I owned up to my texting ineptitude, like a beggar gave them my email address with please. People were surprisingly sympathetic, probably glad to put their own reading glasses away.

I delivered one of the Shilshole paintings, Reflection Overlook, last night in a torrential downpour. The address said Lake Washington Boulevard, a winding tree-lined street next to the lake, beautiful by day but pitch black at night. That was another thing about rich people, they didn’t have to cope with street lights. The black night was usually tender but now dangerous in the deluge. I wound around this way and that, and overshot the turn twice. The car’s windows steamed up, worse where my hands gripped the steering wheel.

The painting was tightly wrapped in a puffy white blanket and lots of plastic. I pulled into their driveway and hurried to free it from the roof rack. The rain was fierce, hurled down like gravel. I cursed myself for tying the rope with so many knots. By the time the large painting was free I was drenched, hands trembled in the cold. The wife answered the door, and inspected me up and down, a wary look on her face. I stood there in the porch light like a drowned rat, under the swaddled-in-plastic 48"x 60" oil on panel painting slung on my shoulder. She turned in disbelief and asked her husband if he had ordered a mattress. We unwrapped the painting on their expansive, covered deck, and while I put the soaking wet wrappings in my car they took it inside and admired it. Upside-down. I was horrified but didn't blame them, it was fairly abstract and a reflection of a tree on glass-like still water, something I had seen at Shilshole Beach.

Shilshole was one of Seattle's best beaches, had been my favorite for a long time. Beyond the luxury of soft white sand that stretched forever it was dangerous. Railroad tracks went right by, unfenced, on what seemed to be a boulder-strewn sand dune. One time I almost got hit by a passing train. I painted the tree shortly after that. A beaming Oskar and I talked, his German accent thick and difficult to understand. His command of English had been excellent from his emails, polite and mellifluous. The wife put the painting in the kitchen where she was making lebkuchen cookies—she made me pronounce lebkuchen twice—so she could admire it, and leaned it face-first into the stove. Oskar had seen the piece as he jogged past MiaCiao; had emailed, had jogged by twice, had gone away for the weekend, then declared his love for it. He was German and the painting looked vaguely like an eighteenth century Germanic landscape. They were newly-weds and clearly nesting, and it was an ideal match except for the upside down and stove parts. I thanked them, and with payment check in hand dashed out into the awful, pouring rain. The smells of cinnamon and ginger ran with me. I drove home with the windows down, my allergy to cinnamon in full bloom.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had come to the end of my rope, figuratively speaking, and if I didn’t haul myself back to some tangible land soon I might drift away, across an ocean where no mirrors could tell me how bad I felt. Freed for the first time in my life, I had let myself go, and now I wanted to go further. It was no longer a great game to see how many days I could go without combing my hair; now it just didn’t matter. Days became weeks, or maybe it had been months; even my respirator couldn’t hide the tangle at the back of my head. I couldn’t ask myself what was wrong anymore because self was no longer home. February became March and the cold, dark rain continued.

The stillness of my present life became a rippling pond, damn pebbles from the past flying toward me like cannonballs. I dressed like a bag lady, slept in the same clothes for weeks, in torn clothes that mysteriously didn’t smell bad. I was the luckiest person in the world, listed all I was grateful for each night as I fell asleep. I was a psychopath and no one had found out. I knew I was lucky but stopped feeling lucky right around the time I stopped brushing my hair. Show no weakness, stare down any adversary— I knew the drill but it no longer worked because I could no longer identify the enemy. Maybe it was the largest, prettiest rainforest in North America, at least in the contiguous forty-eight states, but the Olympic Mountain range messed up a lot more than weather patterns. I desperately needed to get out of its way.

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CHAPTER 3

Aquatic Trillium, pretty but didn't push any personal art boundaries, was sold to an older rich couple. I did an online search, their house was worth eleven and a half million dollars. It was an architect’s dream, all soaring walls and expansive, sky-lighted ceilings. A real and true architectural artist must have been given carte blanche to create such a cohesive, elegant design, achingly exquisite in every detail. This glorious pinnacle of someone’s creativity had been featured front and center on 21st Century Design, a fancy architecture-to-die-for website. On the shores of Lake Washington, it had two docks and a dedicated boat house for jet skis. The boat house was actually incorporated into the living space of the main house; with the push of a button a wall slid back and you could literally walk from the dining table, down a few steps, get on your jet ski and speed off into the watery sunset. That James Bond idea must have delighted the architect when the owners signed off on it. The owners probably came from California, probably hadn't been here long enough to get soggy and depressed from the rain. It was reassuring to have my paintings go to imaginative people with big walls and lots of light.

I put the RX7 in neutral and glided down the long, sloping drive, past old growth trees and manicured lawn, careful to avoid the miscreant geese. The wife answered the door, clutching a small dog under one arm. She looked me up and down in a friendly way, standing there holding her large painting on my shoulder and decided I was harmless. She said let me show you where Aquatic Trillium will hang, and swung open the twelve foot, carved wood, laced copper-clad door. The door opened into a cathedral of light and towering walls. We crossed the marble floor along an intricately scrolled, gun-metal-silver metal wall and went up a sweeping staircase. I tried not to breathe hard as the large painting got heavier, tried not to sweat. Luckily, she went first. At the top of the stairs we turned right.

I don’t know what happened after that. I seemed to go into a dream, ceased to exist in this reality. Amazement had short-circuited my brain. We had entered what looked like a Roman bath house. This bathroom—their seventh—had not been in the magazine's photo spread. Maybe it was the owners' special secret. It was bigger than my apartment, sprawled across the entire upper floor. Vertical windows looked out onto Lake Washington. Tiled ceiling archways curved high overhead while white tile marched the floor away in a Renaissance perspective. Built-in shelving created a sleek architectural line against two dozen, tightly rolled Caribbean-blue towels, each nestled in its own diamond-shaped space. Massive silver arching faucet fixtures echoed the overhead patterns. Four glass showers and three freestanding bathtubs with lion’s paw silver feet—how many people lived here?

Far away, barely visible, past the sparkling Renaissance tile was a huge bedroom. Its east-facing windows looked out onto Lake Washington, watery reflections rippled patterns across the ceiling and walls, warbled the sun's gold onto bedspread and furniture. I forgot I was holding a forty pound painting. Bowing her head, she kissed the still-clutched, furry, small dog, its tiny eyes black as a shark's. It squirmed, all happy, and showed its pink gums over tiny, sharp teeth. We both ignored the tinkling sound as its pee hit the tile. She turned back to where we had been, gestured to the entrance wall at the top of the stairs—the foyer of the bathroom—and said won’t Aquatic Trillium look wonderful here. All those huge white walls below us, those spectacular heights of marbled conspicuous consumption, and this was where my painting would hang. I couldn't believe it. It was a fine wall, although constrained, and it had directional lighting. But it led to toilets. You wouldn't see my painting unless you were heading for bed or had excrement on your mind. An entryway to a bathroom, and exactly the same color as her towels. When her interior designer decided sapphire azure was better, what would become of my painting? I drove home, feeling beat up.

 * * *

Strewn with papers, the classroom smelled of pencils and vague unease. Heads were bowed in concentration, earnestness commingled with anxiety. It was the sixties and there was a lot of testing going on during that era of experimentation, trying new ways to teach more effectively and new ways to judge its success. The teacher handed out our scores from taking tests the week before, saying each individual’s results were his or hers alone and weren’t to be revealed. Then she handed out lookalike graph paper to chart the numbers. Across the top were the words math, English, spatial recognition, and a dozen other esoteric quantifiers, while down the side were percentage numbers. We were to transcribe what was on our individual results page onto the graph, blacken the bubbles with a graphite pencil, then draw a line left to right, connecting the dots. The line should zigzag like a sawblade or like a slumbering giant who snored with a crayon in his mouth.

Take your time, as long as necessary, it was important. Finally, all my numbers were charted, neat dots across the page. I connected them as instructed and felt a rising sense of fear. My graph didn’t zigzag, it was a straight line across the top. Something was wrong. What did I do wrong? I surreptitiously looked left and right. Everybody’s graphs were erratic, a sleeping crayon-drooling giant’s, everybody’s except mine. My straight line was the ninety-ninth percentile, of everything. I asked the teacher why there wasn't a one hundredth percentile, surely I’d zigzag then; but she was speechless, so I left, late for band practice and embarrassed by my uninteresting, monolithic line.

* * *

An art patron named Everly brought her husband and three well-groomed, expressive children to my studio. I wore good clothes and played the part, described paintings, process, and showed them all four floors of the Iliad. They gasped with pleasure and bought Night Hills because it matched their Persian rugs. I took the painting off the wall and placed it under a skylight so they could better see its color nuances and lively textures. They leaned her cell phone with photos of the Persian rugs against the painting to make sure the colors were the same, didn’t see me wince at such terrible behavior. Did they lean their cell phones against paintings in art museums, too? For some reason they made me uncomfortable in spite of the easy husband-and-wife banter. I swore intermittently, a nervous tic; then, unnerved by my own wild mouth, I swore some more, until eventually we all stared at the ground in silence. They were both psychiatrists and too well-trained to reel me in, children or no children. I was horrified but could not stop; the urge to flip the apple cart kept getting stronger. I watched myself continue to swear. The words piled on top of one another, more and more, gleefully intensified as they stared at the floor. Of all my paintings, they had chosen the single one that I had displayed upside down, thinking anything was better than the way it was actually painted. They had walked past my best works, had ignored some truly fine pieces. Their silence deepened as their alarm increased. I cursed a blue streak, tried to smile. They thanked me and rushed to the elevator, eyes averted,  painting in tow. I calmed down. The stream of expletives stopped. This strange behavior hasn't happened since.

Michelle Knowles’ teeth got on my nerves. They were small and perfectly even, but when she smiled her pink gums and everything above that took over until there was so much shiny pink I couldn't think. It was lucky she didn’t smile a lot, didn’t talk that much, either. Her minimalist interior design aesthetic extended to her personality and we got along fine, for a long time. She mostly emailed; photos, examples, inspirations, "inspo" she called them, color wheel names like Sherwood Green HC-118.  None of that polite rubbish, she got right to the point with size, deadline and price. It was an alternate universe, one I used to know, and loved.

Fazli Girah was the strangest person. He was tall, not as tall as a basketball player, or someone who always had to duck through doors, but just-right tall so when my face angled upward to meet his eyes my neck didn’t crick with the strain. What was strange was how kind, self-possessed, gentle-yet-strong he was; you could feel his moral fiber guiding him through the world. He was probably good with animals, although coming from New York City may have limited his options. I imagined him as a horse trainer, near a race track. He would whisper in some equine's ear and that stunning animal would win just to please him. It felt as though he had never had a bad encounter nor spoken a harsh word to anyone, yet he oozed strength of a ferocious kind. It was not a surprise when he chose Heat, a fiery, passionate, red-orange abstract painting, 58” x 48”, oil on panel, framed in gold leaf. His SUV was huge and the painting easily fit. Normally I would fear for the gold leaf, wouldn’t let an art patron handle it, would insist I deliver it, but in his case he was so sensitive, so tender with all things, that it was fine and I let it go. I was a wild horse, being tamed.

                                                                    ......................... * * *

”The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss were my mother’s favorites. She’d read them aloud to us when we were little; with great merriment alter her voice to match the characters, turning the pages as we followed along. I was glad she was happy and snuggled close, but I never liked those stories, was repulsed by pointless nursery rhymes and glaring primary colors. It was Odysseus I craved. She read aloud the grown-ups’ version of The Iliad and Odyssey, with no silly pictures, and it was glorious. Trying to return home and encountering all kinds of strange, mythical creatures along the way, Odysseus was heroic, wild, tied to the mast of his ship so he could hear the Sirens; stabbing Cyclops’s eye and escaping by holding onto the underbelly of his giant sheep, as Cyclops called out Nobody! had attacked him. Odysseus was brilliant, brave and resourceful; and I wanted to be like him.

Unexpectedly, The Silver Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum made me burst into tears. My mother read all the Wizard of Oz books to us, and they were wonderful, full of adventure and pluck, full of interesting places and creatures. The illustrations were excellent as she had first editions of everything, and the art of that time was superb. The colors sang across the pages, the linework intricate and imaginative. But the poor princess, having accidentally arrived in Oz from a place far, far away, from a world with no color at all, at first saw nothing but her home world color of silver. She couldn’t see color! I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe anyone could be that sad.

* * *

Her interior was a continuation of the condo complex’s ritzy lobby and spacious halls, everything airy and opulent, gold crusted, gilt-warmed. The parking garage below the building was similarly lavish. My eyes couldn't believe the first Grecian column, imperious even in the dim light, so incongruous I laughed. Beyond, there were rows and rows of columns, each individually, lovingly, lit. The underground began to form its own reality. The scene was enchanting, an artist of lights had arranged the stunning sweep through the otherwise dark concrete, had transformed the dull parking spaces into an underground empire of glowing ionic columns. It was a mining shaft gone wild, a Broadway play of extravagant excess.

Maybe she owned the building. She was Greek, spoke with a thick accent, oozing, dripping money and ostentatious, conspicuous consumption. Her hair was dyed black and her lipstick, bright red, and she had a body too curvy for American tastes, clothes clinging to show it off. She moved like a rich person, around which all else revolved, but with the slightest melancholy. Her voice was low and husky, with a slight English-as-second-language hesitation. She had seen a painting at MiaCiao and had actually used the phone to inquire, which no one did these days. I took three large paintings to her condo in Bellevue and held each up over her sofa so she could see. She did not offer to help and did not ask which painting I thought best, made it clear from the beginning that she was the queen, and I, merely hired help. She liked Tan and White Monochrome, lingered over it, commanded to see it against the wall again. It was a sleek, 46"x 80", oil on panel, chi-chi; abstract, laced with glittering composition gold leaf and framed with same. It sparkled with self-assurance, swaggered against the wall, exactly matched her black onyx décor, black marble counters, gold-brushed Ionic columns and panoramic waterfront view.

I found out later she was newly divorced and setting up her own pad. Tan and White Monochrome was regal in the all-encompassing light, ideal in scale and feeling. She wanted to try it out, to keep it for a few days just to be sure. I don’t loan out paintings, especially to women who smell heavily of perfume and are bossy and brittle and have real zebra-hide chairs. I was firm. She stood her ground. I admired her tenacity, and gave in to reward her for it. We finally agreed to twenty-four hours, and she called me back in three, saying cash the check, she loved it. Clearly, she had gotten a second opinion as she was purring and cozy-friendly on the phone, said she wanted to commission another piece as soon as her condo redesign was complete.

I responded to the call for art because it matched my criteria—no entry fee and within driving distance—and it would look good on my resume, especially since my permanent collections section was pretty thin. I pictured the courthouse as something you’d see in the movies, all polished cherry wood walls, somber and serious. The paintings would have individual warm lights positioned just so over the work, reflecting against the gleaming walls.

I loaded the RX7, careful with the painting's composition gold leaf frame, wrapped it tenderly in puffy blankets. My destination was over an hour and a half away and all that car vibration was risky. There were sure to be potholes and most likely road wash-outs. The drive was spectacular, jagged snow-topped mountains and dark forests on either side of the winding road. The arts liaison was young and enthusiastic, had once worked in Seattle for another arts organization, and recognized me. I didn’t recognize her due to my face blindness, but she was likeable so it was easy to pretend. She accompanied the jurors - elected city officials, mostly older white men - on selection day, she confided later, to make sure there would be greater variation in the city’s expanding collection than just landscapes and lighthouses. That’s how I was chosen, the jurors nudged by a hardly-known acquaintance.

Much later, after "in the collection of" had been plumped up on my résumé, I travelled to Tipps Point again to see where my painting had been hung. According to the county seat’s website—a most excellent website with big, beautiful photos of the new art—I was on the third floor of the courthouse. The third floor of the courthouse turned out to be all crappy drywall and fluorescent lights, where citizens paid their bills and parking tickets, where they stood in line to pay, roped off by what looked like theater stanchions. My beautiful, imaginative painting was at the end of the hall, and every person contemplating the unfairness of fiscal life could contemplate her instead, and feel better. That would be true, except you couldn’t see Rearing Horses because most of the fluorescent lights were out, and the few that weren’t, flickered.

The one good thing to come of this was I got to put it on my résumé. Otherwise, I was mad that my painting was in the dark, that favoritism got me in the door, that it wasn’t a Perry Mason courthouse, that reality was never as good as the gloriousness in my head. But the drive home was breath-taking, and the late afternoon sun raked everything in gold. Tipps Point was way in my rear view mirror by the time I got to the ferry.

.

CHAPTER 4

I’m good, I’m always good until I’m so tired of being cheerful I could cry. Some days my paintings are awful and I wonder why anyone would take up such a difficult, non-rewarding profession that has no gold stars and no fixed standards by which to measure oneself. This time last year I wanted to put the model’s eye outside her head— like Picasso—but have this year, especially lately, cracked open so wide I can’t find the model’s head anywhere; and am flying through the galaxy with an errant eye, trying to pin it on god knows what.

I was tired of being good, could tell by the way I sliced the red pepper. As expensive as peppers were, they were good for three meals each if I was careful and here I was wantonly cutting one in half, lusting after its crunch and the way it stood out bright red on the green leaf lettuce. As soon as I made a rule I broke it, how does one live with anything as dull as rules, they made me want to eat the whole thing.

At last, a commission. The nice interior designer emailed with a client who wanted a 48” x 48” landscape, based on photos of their ranch in Montana. The husband and wife visited my studio; two wispy, white-haired aged individuals who seemed dreamy and unfocused. As they left, the wife said she felt bad that I had to paint in such cold weather. I told her I was used to it and liked cold weather, trying unsuccessfully to hide my shock and surprise at such gentle compassion. I needed the money and couldn’t wait til spring, and now was no time to go soft, not her nor me. The husband wanted the painting’s horizon line shifted upward, so the rolling mountains of his youth would show more prominently. The interior designer had instructed that the terrain be painted lower than in the photo, below the lower third of the painting, to make the sky its defining feature. I had just gotten started, had just blocked in the areas. It was the couple’s painting, they had paid for it, and they would be the ones to look at it. I obliged them and raised the horizon line. They watched for a while, then, too cold to stand there any longer, left. The husband was happy. The hills he used to play in had come to life in the painting. The completed piece was wonderful, dreamy and soft like they were, full of air and light pouring across trees and mountains. The interior designer was furious. The painting was supposed to be mostly sky. She didn’t care about the mountains; where was the sky? And what did sentimentality have to do with it? I learned about the hierarchy of interior design that day—the client, low on the pecking order.

The voice put my hair on end, that disembodied voice at the other end of the line. She had seen a painting at MiaCiao and wanted to buy it. Our first phone call was a disaster and the subsequent calls no better. I couldn’t hear her, and didn’t care, her voice turned into mumbled white noise, the tone swirling around my brain until I went numb. Then clarity, then every few moments I would go blank again, like an alligator whose belly had been rubbed. What was she saying? It wasn’t a bad connection; it was something else. I had the same problem when we finally met, a woman who wasn’t actually there, those black dots for eyes sucking in all around them, her clothes disappearing into the blackness, too. She was petite and beautiful, with long, dark hair, but there was no heat, no presence, no sound—a spectre and a terrible, malevolent creature. I couldn’t get far enough away from her. It was petrifying and I hope she never calls again, but I sold her one of my best paintings and delivered it to the coldest, most sterile, wealthiest house imaginable. She post-dated a check then called a few days later and said wait another week to cash it. A wealthy woman whose check I couldn’t cash? I couldn’t take my painting back because whatever was wrong with her had probably infected it. I didn't want to be near her in case she infected me, too. The wait was dreadful, filled with nightmares and a persistent uneasiness. My best painting was now in the hands of, what? She wasn't from any known configuration of life. I couldn’t paint, couldn’t sleep, and when I did sleep had terrible nightmares. Each day was a fearful blur, a repeat of the day before, filled with a strange anxiousness. When the date finally arrived I went directly to her financial institution, where the only person behind the counter frowned at his computer screen and typed way too much for way too long. What money was being transferred, and from where, Transylvania? It was a long time before my mind was free of her. Death hung in the shadows, hurled away when I turned to look.

I was to deliver Racing Horses at 2 p.m. The temperature had climbed into the nineties, brutal by Seattle standards. I was suffocating, the interior of the RX7 roasting, my hair stuck to my sweaty neck. I began to worry about the painting strapped to the roof rack. It was wrapped in padding but the sun was fiendish and heat would eventually crack the wood. Parking was impossible, made worse because I couldn’t find the address. I drove around and around, the heat scorched the steering wheel, melted the leather seats, melted my brain. The likely building looked like a condo complex, it was that big. It slowly occurred to me that the whole building was the single address. I called the number he had given me, and the art patron opened the biggest door. I double-parked, then stepped inside with the large painting, exclaiming how nice to have air conditioning, as most of Seattle didn’t. I shut the door behind me to conserve the coolness. He said he didn’t have air conditioning and opened the door again. Then why is it so cold in here, I snapped at him, still frayed from driving around in the heat. I resisted the urge to slam the door shut.

Coos Bay, Oregon, right on the ocean. According to Google Maps it would be a long day, eight hours and forty-nine minutes in each direction if you drove U.S. Route 101 down the coast, called the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway in Oregon. The call for artists didn’t include a size limit. I stared at the prospectus in disbelief then submitted several 48” x 84” paintings—too big for the dainty, conservative types at MiaCiao but I couldn’t seem to stop painting large. Someone had to see my glorious giants. The jurors chose three paintings to include in their show, “Pacific NW: New Directions”. An online search of the arts organization yielded a beautiful building, described as an art-deco-style former post office building. The Works Progress Administration had been brilliant here, too. Vanity overcame my better judgement. Besides, I hadn’t been on a road trip in ages. I signed the emailed contract and sent it back.

The women behind the front desk were friendly and appreciative as they filled out forms and gave me receipts. Other submissions lined up along the wall, looked professional and impressive. I could relax, my art duty discharged. I would put this big-deal show on my resume. I went straight to the beach, the warm sand soothed my swollen feet.

I hate motels. I hate hotels. I hate the way they smell. I’m allergic to carpet mites, the only person in the world from the smell of it. The ocean was sensational, the sunset spectacular, the fish and chips beyond my taste buds’ wildest fantasies. I slept at a rest stop twenty minutes down the coast, safe from carpet mites, in my car. The RX7 car seats were Olympic-gold-medal bendable, almost to a flat position, and with all those down-filled padding blankets who wouldn’t be comfortable? It had been a great day. I breathed in the salt air, hugged myself with joy and passed out. I’d deal with my swollen ankles in the morning.

We were both delighted, she, at the painting, and me, at the painting’s new home. I left, out into the now-pouring rain and back to my car. It only took a few miles for the glow to wear off. Her house was gorgeous but conventional, conspicuous consumption with no originality. She was maybe forty years old and a carbon copy of all the other rich women I’ve met; well-mannered, friendly and praising, with the life sucked out of her. She was no longer the master of her own fate, if she ever had been. Her well-kept body said I play tennis! but behind that façade of upkeep and good manners her eyes shielded defeat and sadness. She had married wealth and was now relegated non-existent, consoling herself with fabric swatches and matching carpet, and jogging with her friend who had a wonderful painting of hydrangeas. I wanted to throw her on the ground and tickle her, maybe she'd come back to life.

How hard could it be to create a life of one’s own making? I painted paintings, and that was what mattered. Who knew that art patrons would come in such a wide array of personalities? Who would ever guess that my entire life would be a tango with a stranger? Who could possibly have known that they’d all want a story? I wasn’t selling myself, and this wasn’t a dog and pony show. I was a determined recluse. But my paintings needed homes. The pieces moved across the chessboard until it was checkmate. Guess who lost?

The room was high, like a cathedral, and airy like I might sprout wings, bright from sunlight cannonballing down, exploding on the floor. I'd need sunglasses to go with the wings. Every room was different, this one braggadocio in scale and light. Sometimes you luck out in a crapshoot world.

Just the facts, ma'am. No metaphors here.

My paintings needed good homes. I had no purchase in it, the art patron paid and shut the door.

Middle class suburban housing tracts with their rows of lookalike houses were bad enough. I hated rich people's homes even more. Wealth had money and means to be original but conspicuous consumption apparently didn't extend to imagination - gardener-tended greenery confined and leashed, stinking of bark mulch and pesticide, upscale gold faucets and hanging chandeliers - a ring around the rosie of ashes falling down.

That's where I came in, the serious charismatic artist, understated, composed, ready to offer advice on placement or even hang the painting, if asked. My all black clothes said trust me. It was an act, entirely practiced, as alien as a Broadway play.

Being normal in richy-rich land meant being the same as one's equally rich neighbor. My large composition gold leaf-framed paintings got a toe-hold purely by accident, and I, like wildfire, spread across the manses. I was vouched for, by whom exactly, no one could say. Excellent paintings weren't enough, twenty square feet of wickedly scintillating originality not enough, art patrons wanted a story they could tell their friends. My dog and pony show went into overdrive, anecdotes invented on the spot. If they wanted the south of France painted blue, then blue it would be, Van Gogh's yellow sunflowers a figment of his imagination.