Graphite
Something kept her fixed in place, her eyes swallowing the light. The sun was making long shadows that walked across the earth like giant footprints...
There was something embarrassing about being named for a character in one of Bob Dylan’s songs. Although it was virtually impossible that anybody would make the connection, including the bard himself. Her parents had moved on and now considered themselves country music fans. But thanks to a brief foray into the Basement Tapes, they had named their first child Valerie. Which she had emphatically shortened to Val on her twelfth birthday.
She walked into the Jet Stream and took a seat by the windows. It was too early to read the paper due to yesterday’s headlines still rolling around in her head. Instead, she decided to watch the sun paint the sky over the mountains. It hadn’t rained in over a month and wasn’t about to start now, but a thin ribbon of clouds stretched over the peaks, a pink vein in the limitless realm of space.
When a coffee cup appeared on the table, she turned and saw Matrice heading back to the kitchen. “Be back in a minute, hon. I got eggs to fry.”
Val had seen an article concerning the American diet and was beginning to think twice about how many waffles she’d eaten over the past twenty years. According to her scales, she could stand to lose five pounds. She wasn’t that worried about carrying a little extra padding, but she’d seen what diabetes had done to her grandfather and didn’t want to go down that road, no matter how much her taste buds complained.
Matrice returned with a coffee pot and an empty cup and sat in the chair facing the café’s narrow interior. “I need to take a load off; had an early rush that pissed off my bursitis.”
“Matrice, you own the place. You can take a break whenever you want.”
“No, hon - the bank owns this place. I just work here.” Matrice had been the sole proprietor of the Jet Stream since Val was a little girl and was probably the reason the bank was still in business. “How you doing, Picasso?”
Val smiled. As far as she could tell, the only other MFA in the valley was a reclusive writer who hadn’t published anything since the Ice Age. The fact that she painted large format abstracts seemed to confuse most of her acquaintances. The default response was to mention Picasso.
“I have a show coming up in El Paso next month, so I’m pushing the brush 24/7.” El Paso was a world away, but the town had been good to her over the years.
Matrice nodded. “Probably more exciting than slinging hash browns. Hell, I haven’t been to El Paso since Pancho Villa roughed the place up. One day you’re thirty years old and the next you’re an old woman with bursitis.”
Val hid a smile behind her coffee cup. She hadn’t spent much time contemplating the future and wondered what sort of changes her body had in store for her. Too many people she knew had failed to age gracefully and Val had decided to absorb herself in work until something ordered her to do otherwise.
“You want the usual, hon?”
“I think an omelet sounds good,” Val said. “Maybe a couple of corn tortillas.” “You want cheese or ham?”
“Cheese works for me.”
Matrice stood, refilled Val’s cup. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re branching out. Waffles are like men - after a while they all go limp on you.”
Val stepped back and let her eyes wander over the canvas. Something about the colors were throwing the piece out of balance. She went to the big window and watched the afternoon tease its way across the landscape. She’d been observing the same scene for years and still couldn’t figure out how to get it on canvas.
Regardless of the many hours she’d devoted to her craft, Val had come to the tiring conclusion that no painter can persuade photons to do what they don’t want to do. The damned things had a mind of their own and all an artist could hope for was a simulacrum, an approximation that leaned towards the truth. She doubted that any painter was ever totally satisfied with their work; the prey was always one step ahead of the hunt.
She spotted a plume of dust and focused on a pickup truck moving across the basin. Her brother might be the most successful contractor in the county, but he was hell on pickup trucks. The beast swung up the drive and slid to a stop in front of her small porch.
“Hey, sis.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve taken a sudden interest in art.” Her brother’s idea of art went by the name of Remington and came in several lethal calibers.
“Uncle Theo had some kinda stroke. I don’t think he’s doing too good.”
Uncle Theo had been ill for so long, maybe leaving would be a quiet blessing. “I’ve been dreading this for a while,” she said, almost to herself. “Is he at Saint Paul’s?”
Bobby shook his head. “Hell no, the old buzzard won’t have any of it. He’s laid up at the farm under a buffalo robe. It’s fucking gothic.”
Val thought her brother might’ve been swinging hammers too long. Every year he sounded a little deeper into hillbilly vernacular. The fact that he’d taken up with a girl who used to be a pole dancer in Albuquerque accentuated the persona.
“Does mom know?”
“She’s driving down from Denver. Maybe tomorrow.”
Losing their father nine years ago had been a blow, but seeing their mother turn widowhood into a rodeo act had strained Val’s tenuous toehold on solid ground. These days she appeared and disappeared like a passing cold front.
“You want to come in? I have some tea in the fridge.” The last time Bobby had stepped in the studio, he’d tried unsuccessfully to stifle the wisecracks about her work in progress. By some happenstance, he’d developed the sensitivity of a stop sign.
“I gotta get back to my crew. The damn bank has us on a tight leash. Kinda takes the fun out of working.” He walked back to the truck, his boots kicking up little puffs of dust.
“Thanks for coming out,” she said, shielding her eyes against the sun.
“Tried to call, but your cell kept going to voicemail. Didn’t know when you’d get the message.” Her brother tended towards the right side of things, but he resented the passage of time, especially if he thought it was being wasted.
“I left my phone in the car,” she shrugged. She’d found that painting and cell phones didn’t work together.
“Figures; see you later, sis,” Bobby said and backed the truck around. When he had the thing aimed towards town, the battered GMC lurched forward and headed toward the rest of the world.
Val watched the plume of dust until it was just a thin line dividing the basin below.
Something about the picture kept her fixed in place, her eyes swallowing the light. The sun was making long shadows that walked across the earth like giant footprints.
She went inside and felt the breath in her chest, her lungs expanding to their own rhythm. There were things moving in the studio, angles realigning, shades of color in flux. The afternoon was making a slow transition, deteriorating into a fuzzy jigsaw puzzle. She thought about her uncle and what it was going to be like without him. He had been there for her and Bobby when the road ahead was too fuzzy to see. An old-timer with more heart than humor, more grit than grace.
Val let her gaze drift across the canvas and suddenly saw what had been bothering her about it. She had over-thought the thing, relying on precision when it needed visceral attention.
She walked back onto the porch and settled in a lawn chair with her sketch book. The valley was its own canvas, painted by the constant flow of shadow and light, a tapestry of unintended consequences. She let her hand move on its own, expressing impulses from neurons she only sensed were part of her anatomy. A camera might capture multiplicity in a series of reductions, but she allowed it all in, change being the impetus for some unnamable totality. It felt good having nothing to lose.
Val didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when she realized the sun had slipped away behind the mountains, leaving a soft settling in its wake. For a long moment nothing was moving, as if the sun had pulled everything with it to the other side of the planet.
She walked inside and turned on a kerosene lamp, watched it sputter, shadows flickering across the surface of her canvas. The oversized painting would sell in El Paso. Somebody would hang it on their wall and try to make sense of its incomprehensible surface.
She held her sketch book up to the light and saw the valley like she remembered it. For the first time in memory she didn’t see any abstraction, just a simple line drawing with a hint of graphite shading. It spoke for itself; was more than enough. A silent revelation.
Val packed up her things and doused the lamp. It was a good half hour drive to her uncle’s place. The idea crossed her mind to pick up a bottle of mescal on the way. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little fortification if things went sideways during the night.
She didn’t know what had moved her, but it was there in the sketchbook. Nothing extra, no overdubs. She hoped her uncle was still capable of seeing what she’d done. He liked things to be in black and white.
Ned Mudd resides in Alabama where he engages in interspecies communication, rock collecting, and frequent cloud watching. He is the author of The Adventures of Dink and DVD (a space age comedy). Some of Ned’s best friends are raccoons.
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what a great piece of writing, Ned. right now I am wanting to lean more into abstraction with my work. not easy. you captured all that. "She didn’t know what had moved her, but it was there in the sketchbook. Nothing extra, no overdubs." that is how the magic happens!
Interesting story. Good characterizations and a good slice of life energy. I got a little confused with the lack of transition between her at the Jet Stream having breakfast, and her looking at her painting back at the studio. Otherwise, good flow and continuity.