The Prodigal
Forty-five
THE FIRST BATCH OF PLASTER was stabilizing for application on Monday after Thanksgiving. I’d have four weeks of painting before we left for Nebraska for Christmas.
With Doc’s help, I got Morgan and Adolfo to assist me on the project. They got class credit and a stipend for their work and would be recognized at the dedication and in my book. We were using traditional techniques and they did all the plaster work, preparing my cartoons, and transferring them to the wet plaster before I got to paint. We spent three days before Thanksgiving doing the arriccio layer on the first few panels. We’d worked together in Doc’s class over the summer, but this involved a trust that the plaster and pigments would be mixed correctly and applied smoothly.
The arriccio—first layer—is applied directly to the substrate several days before the painting so it has time to cure. The final coat—intonaco—is a fine wet plaster coat that takes pigment. Morgan and Adolfo would transfer my sketch to the intonaco as soon as they had applied and smoothed it, then I’d climb up and paint on the wet plaster. I brought them coffee and donuts and thanked them frequently. They had to get to the chapel at six to have the panel ready for me to paint at seven-thirty. They hung around a while, sometimes mixing more pigments so I didn’t run short or if I needed a special color. I needed the whole day to do one panel. It was a giornata—a day’s work.
When you think about Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—believe me, my friends had all made jokes about me and Mike—he was only able to paint an area about two by four feet each day. It’s no wonder it took him years. That ceiling and surrounding sibyls and prophets covers an area about half the size of a football field. the wall that took me months to paint with a huge crew two years ago was a tenth that size. The first day after the Thanksgiving weekend would be a long one. Monday and Wednesday I had Doctor Bychkova’s class and papers to grade. Tuesday and Thursday, we were scheduled in the chapel. Friday and Saturday, I would be in the studio sketching and writing, often with models as I tried to stay ahead of where I was painting. We’d have three weeks of hell before we broke for Christmas.
“So, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus is being tested by the lawyers who are trying to trap him into saying something that is against their scripture and tradition. But Jesus turns the question back on the lawyer. He tells him the story and then asks the lawyer to answer the question of who the neighbor was. The lawyer was trapped and had to say that it wasn’t the priest or the holy man, but the scum of the earth. It’s one of the great parables that Jesus used to include everyone in the Kingdom of God,” Andy said. We met twice a week in his office, usually on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. He indoctrinated me with parables and I twisted them into stories. We were collaborating on the work, mostly by challenging each other’s perceptions. It was some of the most stimulating intellectual conversation I’d ever had.
“So, what’s the lesson?” I asked.
“For all their holiness, it isn’t the holy who do the work of God.”
“Really? Look at that guy by the side of the road.” I talked and storyboarded at the same time on a big sheet of newsprint. Doc used to have us make multiple small drawings on a big sheet of paper so we could find our focal points. “Mugged—means he’s rich, probably going home from the opera where he’s got hundred-dollar box seats and can be seen by important people. He’s currying favor. Thinking that if he’s a big supporter of the arts, it will help him in his upcoming campaign for city council. After the opera he heads for his Lexus with his very expensive date thinking he should have paid for valet parking, and he gets mugged. She takes one look at what’s going down, hikes her skirts up around her waist, and takes off running and yelling “Fire!” so someone will come and save her from potential rapists. That pisses the muggers off, so they go extra hard on the guy and he’s pretty badly crippled up and lying there naked on the floor of the parking garage. The muggers take the thousand dollars from his wallet, all his credit cards, and his Rolex.” Andy was scribbling notes as fast as I was talking, so I just kept going.
“A cop who’s out on the night beat hears the yelling. The girl comes running past him and he turns his back on the parking garage to go to her aid. He calls for back-up because he isn’t going into that parking garage alone. Besides which, there’s a beautiful girl running naked down the street. That’s got his attention. Meanwhile, the muggers have what they want—except for the girl, but you can’t have it all—so they take off and our rich dude who wants to be on the council watches his Lexus drive off while he’s lying there naked and bleeding. This homeless drunk comes along and sees him, plops down beside him and offers him a drink from his bottle, which the dude gladly accepts because he’s in frickin’ pain. When the EMTs get there, so does a reporter who snaps a picture of the would-be councilman lying naked in the arms of a homeless drunk. That hits the front page of the morning paper.” I was having a blast with this story. And Andy was still writing.
“So now our society man has to explain why he was out drinking and carousing with a homeless drunk who might even be gay. He’s embarrassed. He’s embarrassed more by being helped by a drunk than he is by having been beaten, forsaken by his girlfriend, and ignored by the police. But he can’t get it out of his head that the drink of sour wine he got from that guy was the best thing he’d ever tasted. The dude’s condition is temporary. OnStar locates his car. Homeowners’ insurance replaces the thou he lost and reported as fifteen hundred. Once he gets stitched up and cancels his credit cards, he’s back in business with a girlfriend even more expensive than the one who deserted him and a seat on the city council. The question is, what happens to the drunk? Who is a neighbor to the Samaritan?”
Kate was painting the Stations of the Cross and by Thanksgiving, her first one had gone to the ceramics lab to have tiles fired. Leave it to Kate to have specific ideas on how she wanted the mosaic done. She’d been having long conversations almost daily with Erika out in Georgia and I wondered just where that relationship had gone while she was there. Neil. Erika. Were there others?
I could drive myself crazy thinking like this. I found myself reaching for her whenever she was near, and several times we held hands without either of us having made a conscious move. When it happened, we got suddenly shy, looking away, but unwilling to break contact. Kate was no longer confident and controlling like when we first got together. She was shy and waiting—I don’t know—maybe for a sign.
Thanksgiving was chaotic. That’s one holiday that always seems to spin out of control as soon as someone says, “Let’s eat.” This year, our table included Whitney, Rio, Allison, and Bree along with our family and the boys. Accompanying Rio was her boyfriend, Matt. She’d brought him back from Idaho with her after the summer break and it was obvious they were crazy about each other. Matt got his computer science degree at Idaho State in Pocatello. It turns out he’s some kind of quiet, brilliant computer guru and when Rio dragged him to Seattle, he’d landed a job at Google.
“What is it you do, Matt?” I asked. “I mean Google’s like a search engine. What do they need a computer scientist for?” Everybody laughed. Apparently, I was the most backward user in our family.
“I’m a hacker,” Matt laughed.
“I’ll bite. What do you do?”
“Google’s especially concerned about security. It’s no longer just a search engine. It has email, blogs, social sites, and books. It’s vulnerable to attack. Everyone from weekend spammers to the Chinese government wants into Google’s databanks. And China isn’t the only country that tracks people’s Internet use.” He let that information hang there.
“So, you do computer security?”
“In a way. I’m on a team that does counter offensives. In other words, if a hacker makes an attempt on our site, we take him down. Completely. Make it so he’s never safe going on the Internet again.”
“You can do that?”
“You’d be surprised what we can do.”
I was floored by that. All I knew about Google was that if you wanted to find a reference for a term paper, you entered it in the search box and pressed a button. Hackers? Counter offensives? Geez!
Jack had made another trip out to visit Lexi for the holiday. Amy and her sister Trudy, who was a freshman at the U, went back to Leavenworth to have the holiday with their parents. Sandra and Walt were in Yakima with her family. I was aware more than ever of the shifting composition of our gang.
“At least if there’s an orgy, I’ve brought my own toy,” Rio laughed.
“Oh? And were you planning to share?” Whitney drawled. “Allie, let’s see how two tall girls look with that boy as a sandwich filling.”
Matt was shocked and maybe even a little overwhelmed. He was taller than Rio, but shorter than me. He was a little overweight, but other than acute shyness, we couldn’t find a fault with him.
“No orgies, ladies,” I said firmly. “Not unless you are taking the party to their house.”
“Aw, Tony,” Allie said. “Not even a little one?”
Jonathan had scheduled a seven-city tour for Allie’s show after the first of the year. We’d already teased her about getting naked in front of anyone after the posing session in front of Father Andrew.
“How about if someone says what they are thankful for,” I suggested. That got the conversation turned slightly to a different tack.
“I’m thankful Rio wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Matt chuckled.
“I’m thankful you were still there when I came home,” she responded. I nodded. That was what was on my mind, too.
“I’m thankful for little blessings,” Lissa said. “Especially my children. All of them.”
“I’m thankful I have the most wonderful wife in the world,” Melody said and punctuated the declaration with a kiss that drew applause from the rest of us. And so it went. Kate was thankful to be home. Bree was thankful for having a new apartment and for having Allie as a roommate. Allie was thankful for her career taking off. Whitney was thankful for another chance to race this spring. Wendy was thankful for a week off work and away from class. And me?
“I’m thankful for my family. I know I say something like that every year, but I look at each of you and think how poor my life would be without you. Melody and Lissa, life wouldn’t be worth living without you. Wendy, you are my secret treasure. Allie, I’m so proud of you and glad you came into my life. Bree, you are truly my friend with magic fingers. Damon and Drew, I’m thankful you’ve taught me how to be a parent. Whitney, I’m thankful every time I see you come out of the shower. And I’m truly thankful I don’t have to run away from you. Rio and Matt, I’m thankful that you found each other and that you’ve become and stayed our friends. And Kate, I’m just so thankful that you are you and that you’ve come back to us. I’m thankful that I have each of you to love.”
It didn’t help to have Father Andrew—Andy—hanging around the chapel watching all day Tuesday. He never said a word. He didn’t stay in one place like he was watching over my shoulder. He just was busy with things in the chapel. He talked to a couple of workmen. He measured the space where chairs or pews would go. He met with the fire inspector. He even had a phone conversation with Kate, who showed up about an hour later to go over the size and placement of the Stations. I kept trying to block everything out and focus on my work.
Adolfo and Morgan did a great job with the intonaco and with transferring the cartoon to the wet plaster. The charcoal blended in with my pigments as I began laying in the basic colors and then blended one into the next. The plaster stayed workable for several hours before it reached ‘the golden stage’ when you knew everything had to be finished before it was too hardened to accept pigment. Then you entered a stage when you were painting mezzo-fresco on almost dry plaster. The paint tends to flake at this point because it isn’t being fully integrated into the plaster and you aren’t using a binding agent like you would with secco or dry plaster. I knew I was pushing it when I added a last bit of highlight to the red hair. I got down off my ladder and walked across the sanctuary to look back at it. It was the first time I looked around the room.
It was the first story painted on the entablature—Tony’s Fables. I wasn’t sure which Bible parable it would relate to. I’d let Andy figure that one out. Adolfo and Morgan had come back to see how it turned out. Kate was still there and Doc had come over. Andy finally came up to me. It was the first time he approached me other than to let me know there were sandwiches for lunch.
“Tell me,” he said.
“You’ve read the story.” Kate, Doc, Adolfo, and Morgan edged over closer so they could hear and share our view of the painting. It wasn’t perfect. I might have to scrape it off and start over.
“Just tell me,” Andy repeated. “Like I was hearing for the first time.”
“Okay.” I just wanted to go home and have some dinner, but I sensed this was important, not just to Andy, but to the others as well. “The guy there was insulted by the woman. Let’s say they had a love-hate relationship. It seemed like each of them wanted something different from the other and when he failed to provide what she wanted—needed—she blew up at him. You know people get wound up when they feel slighted and maybe they say things they don’t mean. Well, he took offense and ripped her a new one. He made her feel like shit. In fact, he crippled her, because when you respond to a person in anger, you can’t control how much you hurt them.” I figured that was the moral of the story. Andy wasn’t satisfied.
“But who are these?” he asked, pointing to two figures in the background. “And why hasn’t he just turned away and left her?”
“Well, these are Reason and Compassion. Reason and Compassion make the guy realize that maybe he overreacted. He was angry, but he didn’t mean to destroy her. Reason and Compassion convince him to say he’s sorry—even though he felt righteously justified.”
“But he loves her,” Andy said, pushing me further.
“Yes. I think that’s why Reason and Compassion won. He realized that when he hurt her, he hurt himself. That striking out at her in anger made him less, even when he thought it was justified.”
“I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.” Well, that’s what Andy was there for.
We all stood there looking at the fresh plaster. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. I’d wait until it was fully cured before I passed judgment.
“Beautiful,” Morgan breathed.
“We’ll take a look at all the stories after you are finished to be sure they are what you want,” Andy said. He flicked off a pocket recorder.
“Are you trying to see if I say the same thing when I’m writing as when I’m telling the story?”
“No,” Andy said. “I’m looking for the connection between the story, the art, and the artist. A nugget—a jewel.” He walked away.
“So, are we back here tomorrow morning?” Adolfo asked.
“No. I have to be in Doctor Bychkova’s class in the morning,” I answered. “I’ll have everything ready to do the next panel on Thursday. Let’s seal everything up for today.” Did they think I was going to paint a panel a day? I’d be lucky if we averaged three a week.
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