The Prodigal
Forty-one
“THANK YOU, TONY,” Kate said as she slipped her hand into mine. We walked toward the wall Kate had helped me paint.
“You’re welcome. For what?”
“For making me talk to Clarice. I feel like a stupid kid.”
“That’s how I feel all the time,” I chuckled. “I mean, really, have you ever met such a spoiled brat as Tony Ames?”
“Tony…”
“Look,” I said. “Look at that wall. A twenty-year old kid was handed a commission to paint a fucking wall! If it hadn’t been for you standing next to me, I wouldn’t have finished. I’d have thrown a tantrum and walked away. I’d have gone back to Nebraska to make a living painting billboards. It was the trust of other people that made this wall.”
“It was your talent, Tony.”
“Talent and maturity aren’t the same thing. Did you know I was ejected from the World Games? Security escorted me out of the arena.”
“You were vindicated.”
“Not really. The ref was censored. I still acted in a completely unsportsmanlike manner. I acted with less maturity than Drew would have. I made a threatening gesture at the ref. That’s why I’m not playing this year. They reinstated me—even gave me fourth place in the tournament—but I am too immature to play in world competition. I don’t want the reputation of the kid who throws a tantrum on the courts.”
“You weren’t that way at World’s a year ago.”
“No. I was so awed by just being there that it didn’t make a difference. Just playing was enough. But just playing wasn’t enough at the World Games. I went looking for blood. I played Nationals with the same attitude, so don’t think it was just because you left. It was something that was building in me—in my immaturity.”
“But we all make mistakes when we’re young, Tony. It’s part of growing and learning.” I stopped and looked at her. We were standing in the middle of the sports field about fifty feet in front of the wall, but it was forgotten now, a backdrop to this moment.
“That’s the point, Kate. We all make mistakes when we’re young. It’s having friends—and lovers—who believe in us that assures our survival. We just say thank you and try again.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. We started walking again and I asked her more about how her creative vision had changed over the summer. She was anxious to get back into the studio and show me. She asked what I’d thought about as a final project. I described the litany of ideas I’d discarded. We walked aimlessly through campus. “What’s that?” she asked as we came on the construction site. It didn’t look like any work was being done today. I wondered why. It was only two o’clock. Maybe they were trying to reduce the chaos of the first week of school.
“That’s the new chapel. The old one was damaged so badly in the Nisqually earthquake about twelve years ago that they couldn’t use it. It took ten years to get it off the National Register of Historic Places so they could tear it down and rebuild. They’re doing a nice job keeping the spirit of the campus and consistent architecture. You don’t see too many buildings these days that have such nice masonry work.”
“It’s pretty. Can we go in?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see if the door is unlocked.”
There were four doors across the front of the chapel. The first two were locked tight. I almost fell on my ass when the third door opened.
“Wow! I guess visitors are welcome.” It was early afternoon and there was plenty of light coming through the clerestory windows. We walked through the little narthex. The screens that would eventually separate the lobby from the sanctuary would be added later. I’d read a bit about the new building—they sent students email updates at least once a month—but I’d never been inside.
“It’s smaller than I thought it would be,” Kate whispered. For some reason, people always whisper in church. You’d think it was a library.
“It’s supposed to seat about one-fifty or two hundred. It’s not for the students, but for the religious body. They’re all Jesuits.”
“The light is so soft with the frosted glass.”
“It will probably get stained glass some day when some rich benefactor wants to memorialize himself.”
We walked through the building as I rattled off names of parts that I’d learned in my online classic architecture course. Nave. Transept. Clerestory. Apse. “What’s that?” Kate asked.
“It’s called the entablature. Usually it is a series of friezes that support the roof gables or side. I think that since this stretches from pillar to pillar around the edge of the chapel, that’s what it would be called.” It was a stone beam about two feet tall divided into about fifty panels.
“You should paint a scene in each of those stone frames. Be like Michelangelo and paint a chapel,” Kate laughed. I looked around and could suddenly see it all taking shape. Scenes of parables—little stories, like the one I wrote of The Prodigal for my latest painting. Maybe not Biblical, but just stories that taught a lesson.
I shook my head and looked at Kate. She was looking at the architecture, unaware of the impact she’d just had on me. I turned her toward me and kissed her. It was a long and passionate kiss, but without our mouths open to each other. It still left us both breathless.
“You are indeed my muse,” I breathed. Kate looked at me for a long moment, then mashed her lips to mine and kissed me as passionately.
I ran to Doc’s lab on Saturday morning. I needed fresh plaster. Since our class this summer, Doc kept plaster ready for work and teaching. I prepped a surface on a two foot by three-foot sheet of half inch plywood by stapling drywall tape to it and putting a smooth coat of plaster on it. Morgan, Adolfo, and I had mixed pigments and sealed them in containers this summer. I only needed to add a little distilled water to have good paintable pigments. I went to work on my new ‘wall’—a tiny fresco. I patterned it after the thick oil that I’d painted the day after Kate came home. My image of The Prodigal, much more carefully rendered in pigment on wet plaster. When I reached the golden stage of the plaster—about seven hours later—I blended the colors to make sure each would read the way I wanted.
The fresco weighed close to forty pounds—more while it was still wet, but I hadn’t bothered with the sublayers required for a real fresco. I didn’t have time for them to cure. It would take heavy-duty hangers to hang this in someone’s home. But I could create a suite of plaster paintings that mimicked the frieze around the entablature.
My editorial committee—four women who lived with me—listened as I read my proposal, following along on their own copies and marking things up as they went. We gathered around the table to make corrections. The Jesuits would never allow me to paint the scenes in their chapel, but it was fun to create a list of sometimes whimsical and sometimes serious fables to paint. I would tell a story of tablets supposedly rescued from some remote ruins. It would be a kind of visual Carmina Burana. I would make prints of each one. Melody suggested making a book that had pictures of the panels plus a ‘history’ of the mythical cathedral. Before I could propose the project, Clarice had to take a look since it would occupy most of my painting time for the next nine months. I had to know that she would be satisfied with the exhibition and sales plan.
When the presentation was written, I had to estimate costs, timing, and specifications. That was a shock. Since it was a studio project, I didn’t need to wait for weather like I had on The Wall. I could probably turn out a painting a week, not including Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other interruptions. If I took October and November to create stories and sketch, I could probably have about fifteen paintings done by April and have the book and prints ready by SCU graduation in June.
It would cost close to $20,000 for materials and supplies. For that I needed the family’s approval. They were enthusiastic, of course, and Melody reminded me that they routinely had to invest thousands in fabric and dyes for Ice Queen. Every panel, based on the one I completed Saturday would weigh in the vicinity of forty pounds. That meant that setting up the exhibition would require moving a ton of artwork—literally! Wendy revised my cost estimates. We needed Jade to do photography and book layout and then order a print run of two hundred for autographing. That part of the project would cost as much as the paintings. Kate reminded us that the prints themselves could cost close to $50,000 but maybe Clarice could get our investor to front the money. It was time to call in my agent.
What the hell. I called Clarice, Doc, and Bob Bowers, my commercial advisors, and asked them to meet me at the studio Thursday afternoon. Kate had begun filling canvases in the studio. She was going to move them away, but I asked her to please leave them. I loved the fact that she’d be showing some of her newest work to our advisors.
When they’d gathered, I gave them the presentation the way I planned to submit it for my final project. Then I waited. The three of them discussed it in their aggravating way of having their heads together so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I sat back on the dais and asked Kate what she thought.
“I think you have a way of making big projects. But even if you cut this to just ten panels instead of fifteen, it would be impressive and you’d still be able to paint some other things on the side.”
“That’s good thinking. It would weigh less, too,” I laughed. “Maybe I could do a Kickstarter campaign to fund it. I don’t think Melody and Lissa were buying into the hundred grand price tag.”
“I could back it,” Kate said quietly. I looked at her. There were moments over the past week when I was still mad at her, but they were fewer as we spent time together at home and in the studio. I wanted to win her back and forget about the past, but this offer puzzled me.
“Why would you do that, Kate? You might need every penny you’ve got to get rid of Neil. You can’t just back a fly-by-night operation like me.” I was trying to make light of it, but I wanted to know.
“Then you’d know I won’t run away again. And I’d know it, too.”
“I want to believe that without having money as part of the issue,” I said. “I believe in you, Kate. Neil tried to make you dependent on him for money. I don’t want that in our lives. I want you with me, Kate—really with me—for no other reason than that we love each other.”
“Tony,” Clarice called me, interrupting our intimate conversation. “We have some suggestions for your proposal.” Kate and I turned our attention to the three advisors.
“As far as fulfilling your final project requirements, I can’t see that anyone on the committee would have a problem with this. I like it. It pushes you to a new medium, integrates your story-telling with your art, and provides a way to see a return on your investment. So, from a strictly academic viewpoint, I think it’s a shoo-in,” Doc said.
“But…?”
“But I don’t see how I can sell fifty-pound slabs of plaster that are supposed to have come from a non-existent cathedral. I’m not sure people would buy into the mythology,” Clarice said. “The prints, perhaps, but I’m afraid you would have to rent another studio to store the unsold art. As a career move, this would just delay getting you into the market with real paintings.”
“So, you’re saying it’s a no-go for my project?” The conversation had strayed from my final project. I knew that other stuff would distract people from everything else I could do.
“Not quite,” Bob said. “We think you should propose actually painting the entablature. You are a proven quantity in terms of your talent. For an investment in materials and prints, SCU could have a valuable addition to their new chapel. The Church has long been a principal investor in art. A new church is like a blank canvas.”
“But they aren’t religious paintings,” I said. I sure didn’t want to get caught up in having to do literal scenes from the Bible.
“But they are all teaching stories. I can’t imagine you doing anything that is outright offensive, and they could be stories that still reach out and touch people. The Jesuits would be all over that,” Bob said. “Present it to your committee. They will have to present it to the Board of Regents who will in turn have to present to the Jesuit chapter. And Jesuits can be unpredictable. They might surprise us all.”
It was date night. What fun to have the family gathered at the table again on a Friday evening. Kate began to loosen up some and I was about to suggest a hot tub. I hadn’t seen her naked except that brief shower the night she came home ten days ago. That was strictly for medicinal purposes. Before I made my suggestion, Wendy jumped up.
“Kate, you need to come with me now.”
“Now? It’s still early and we’re having fun.”
“Grrr rawr rawr,” Wendy growled. Kate’s head snapped up to look Wendy in the eye. We’d all seen that look before. My Tiger was coming out to play. It was hard to resist her. Kate didn’t even try.
“Tiger…” Kate started, even as she was standing. Wendy crooked her finger and Kate followed her out of the room and downstairs.
“Maybe I should go, too,” I said standing up.
“Nope,” Melody said. “Hot tub.”
“But…”
“This is my night with my wife and my husband,” Lissa said firmly. They took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom. A little part of my mind stayed with Wendy and Kate and I wondered if everything would be okay, but that little part got smaller as other parts got bigger. Lissa and Melody wasted no time undressing each other and turning their combined efforts on me. We settled into the tub and played.
“It’s time, Tony,” Lissa said as she kissed me and stroked my erection. “It’s finally time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time you made love to me.” I thought back. I couldn’t remember making love to Lissa for weeks. We’d fooled around, but I always ended up in Melody or Wendy or in Lissa’s mouth. Even our morning spooning seemed to have been missing. And the past two weeks since Kate got back, I wasn’t sure anyone had made love.
“I’m so sorry, Liss. It must have been my anger and depression. We were in Colombia and then there was the class and going to Nebraska. I can’t believe I could just go through a period of not making love with you. I’m sorry, love.”
“Shh, Tony. It was a conspiracy. You can’t do much about it if I don’t make myself available to you.”
“But why would you…?” This wasn’t making any sense.
“I wanted to be sure my birth control was fully out of my system.”
“Birth control?”
“I’m fertile, Tony. It’s time for us to make a baby.”
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