Chapter 2 - The Man in the Vest #Waiting

Chapter 2

Now, the elegance off the photographs had reminded me of my own parents back home. I never thought a small translucent film strip could suck the air out off the room so easily. I wondered how the…suddenly a small silver something caught my eye. Distracted by their conversation, Nemo, Rocket and I were having, which suddenly turned directions and ended up about our hometowns and our families, I knelt down to inspect the token of my immediate appraisal by cleverly tying my shoe. Unsure of what even I was hiding, I further inspected it. To the left of my foot sat a stately silver earring, small, ornate and without so much as pondering it - I snatched it up and sneakily pocketing the thing in a silent triumph. Upon entering my person, I experienced what can only be described as a welcoming of distant memories. I began a speedy rifling of the quainter ones - memories of my relatives playing piano in a well-lit piano bar; my first t-ball games. I hadn’t seen the mental image since when I had been much younger. I would have pressed deeper into the memories the earring gave me but was interrupted again.

“We’re going to Hemingway Hall for a picture showing - do you want to join?” rang from down the hall.

It was Luke. He had arrived, and judging by his plans - had already made friends.

Luke was a stocky, shallow-eyed, but good looking kid. Brilliant, and quippy.

“Smalls to talks,” he would exclaim walking passed a group of women on his way to class, his galavanting vanity worn like a patch on his sleeve.

“On my way,” I relished, pulled from a stonewall of things on my mind. I was out the door in no time, and the earring and the memory of the piano bar swept swiftly from my mind.

The walk to the art gallery helped us prepare for the welcoming party we were expecting to greet us. It was often, as things go, that these small gallery showings, these small get togethers, stand out to one as more “free from” than “formal,” welcoming students and townspeople from the local community alike. We were welcomed more as curators of culture than artsy critics. We equipped our minds with well-to-do puns and common language term for the “bewildering essence,” and “focally driven” art we were about to peruse but what stood out more were the interesting artists themselves: beatniks who taught and learned from behind lecterns of painted-on acrylics and in front of sculpted shapes made out of clay.

We approached the tall, old soul brick building at the heart of the campus from our fifteen minute walk away from the apartment. It was adored by many on the campus and housed the English departments, made possible because the other floors houses multiple departments, the shared responsibility of history and math’s occupied the left over space.

We arrived at the school in no time flat - our apartment was a mile walk away from the campus grounds which houses the academic buildings, a dining hall, and the student dorms - for those unfortunate underclassman who didn’t mind being cramped during their semesters - practically living atop one another in bunked, extra-long, twin size beds.

We arrived at the tall, brick building - its arches reminded me of Notre Dame but its simple tile floor spelled out a different story of the building altogether.

Up the winding staircase we climbed, step by step, we were lead partially by the busy-minded patrons rushing up the stairs, yearning to catch a glimpse of what the busy art students had been creating all summer while the rest of the students were on holiday.

Bobbing around through the crowds we plunged toward the head of the excited, well-mannered mob. With a person passing out programs at the door I whispered a quiet ,”excuse me,” and proceeded into the crowded room which housed the art gallery.

Around the room, which featured natural light, however waxing, still streaming in from its many skylights, contained art work hanging on the walls about the room, each frame dangling in place on the wall a few feet off the ground. The patrons were quietly chatting about the art while circulating around the room, making sure not to miss an inch of canvas.

Besides the art, and the commotion of the people, the room itself was alarmingly bleak. The paintings, framed like extra windows of which there were already several in the ceiling, did work to make the setting feel more open, as if you were looking into a million landscapes all forged by a different artist’s hand.

I remembered that when this was not a gallery, the room was a class room, and through the sky lights, brilliant natural light by which the student artists could often use to draw, paint or sculpt, and imagine things. Things which their imaginations might be able to colorize, materialize - bring to life.

I knew a girl, a great art student who here once showed works from her portfolio - sketches made in this very room. Like i said it was a classroom then, and not a gallery. Andrea was her name and her true beauty was easily reflected in her art. She showed me portraits of people: children, babies and several self-portraits sketched in charcoal which I liked particularly much.

She was young at heart and engrossingly talented.

She was also here now, and as noticed her she gave me a smile and gestured to a large sculpture in the center of the room.

Every time she spoke to me, sometimes on her bicycle parked outside the center of the school campus, specifically at the Eisenhower Center, where I first met her - she would joke around with me, astutely, with her impressive spells of humor.

“Yikes, Bikes!” she would exclaim at passing traffic.

She was too funny.

Now she was in a party of gallery-goers, welcoming patrons to survey her artwork, around which she stood nobly, easily, patiently.

We entered the room, all three room mates and I, and moved from the first painting to the next and the next, where in the nature of the large sculpture at the center of the room became known. Or at least, it became known who created it.

To be fair, the sculpture was a mysterious and forlorn gray and sone in color, like a welk that had been cast from the sea on a cold day in February. It was of a knelt man - stoic, and solid like a tomb stone.

Out from the side, just off of where Andrea had been gesturing, was a man admiring some pop art - a picture of a balloon with yellow paint dripping down it.

The man emerged - his appearance was striking.

He was wearing a green top hat, a green dinner jacket, not neon green, but a soft, darker shade of green that one might imagine a dinner guest might wear on Easter. It appeared, from where I was standing to be of that velvety, material which often seemingly constitutes the attire of the velveteen rabbity, Mr. Toad or even The Mad Hatter.

The man appeared affluent, poised and was mildly boisterous if there is such a thing. He was polished, and smoothed out his jacket with his hands, as he moved in to position near the great, grey, statue of a kneeling man.

By comparison this man, was far from stoic, though in many ways, its easy to wonder how lonely, the boisterous people are, well, in their hearts. lonely, like the statue.

The mysterious man moved straight to the statue and began whispering out of the side of his mouth something to the affect of, “This is my piece. Won’t you act accordingly to me. This is ART, and I’d be surprised if it doesn’t simply spring into life in front of us all.”

The group of us four roommates peered around at each other, agog for words peering only suddenly back to the man who was now shuffling note cards produced from somewhere on his person. Back and forth he shuffled. It was obvious now that a speech was imminent.

I glanced over at Andrea who stood their quietly, awaiting the man’s oncoming excitation.

The four of us refrained from speaking if only to punctuate the poignancy this man was creating. Still it seems like few of the throng of patrons had even noticed. Quietly we watched in stunted surveillance of what was building up to be a truly gifted speech.

Suddenly a booming, eloquent voice cut the silence and addressed us all.

“Here he is! The man you see before you. Brothers! Sisters! Awaited by so many, for so long and in town for so little, precious moments. Heed my words! This is more than just art! Lovers of life quaff my words! This is living circus! Quaff my words and wheep! For this…art, is some that few will ever see. For those brave enough to seek the shimmering truth…I await your presence. Though it is not for the faint of spirit. It is for merely the curious, who are strong of heart.”

I looked over to Andrea who was gushing, her smile a half-moon on her freckled countenance.

“I dare not introduce myself to all of you, but we will be introduced…when the time is right. And for tonight, may you feast your eyes on the work before you. But be warned…let’s not end up like this man…”

The man in the hat rested his elbow on the statue’s “shoulder” and in a softened tone, underpinning his previously booming, jovial speech said, “…and wait forever.”