Post-American School

By

J.D. Chandler

Jim played the guitar without thinking about it. His fingers plucked and stroked the strings absent-mindedly, keeping time with his voice as he spoke.

"Yeah, I met this guy, Andy, in Montana, up near Glacier Park. I told him about Butte and said that I wouldn't mind living there."

Jimmy wasn't singing, just talking, in a kind of lazy, low voice. Salvador's tail kept the beat against the bare wood floor. Music just seemed to follow Jim around. It just seemed to like him.

"So what happened?" I asked, knowing the answer, but enjoying his way of telling the story.

"He moved to Butte. He's been living there for about a year. You've seen the postcards about his landlord, Bob, who was kidnapped by aliens who took him to Disneyland for three days and then dropped him off in Reno."

"Oh, yeah." This had been a one of the long-running sagas we had been getting in the mail over the last couple of months.

"He's coming out to visit."

James changed rhythm, suddenly as if he had just noticed that he was playing the guitar. Now he was doing a steady reggae beat. I liked that beat for painting. Jimmy knew it, too. I always tried to paint in that rhythm. I felt it made my canvas more alive.

"He's coming to Seattle for a few weeks before heading back to New Jersey. I guess he's had enough of Butte."

"how much could anybody take?" I stepped back from the canvas for a look.

"I think I could stay there for a long time."

"How come you live in Seattle then?" I stepped back up to the canvas, a little more brushwork on the shadow and it'd be done.

"Good question." Jimmy didn't have anything to say for a while after that. Neither did I. I just painted. Jimmy just played. Pretty soon he began picking at a song he had been working on for a long time. He was stuck on a verse and he kept singing two lines over and over, looking for the next line to fall into place.

"He came from the land of the oil man,

Went to Washington to do what he can "

The line eluded him, but it felt good to be creating in the same space with him. My painting was finally done. I got that feeling in my hands, telling me it was time to put down the brush and see if it could breathe on its own yet.

"What do you think, James?"

He stopped playing and sauntered over to the easel. Guitar still hanging around his neck he slowly rolled a cigarette while he looked at my painting. He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, inhaling the smoke and letting it out with a long sigh. He passed the cigarette to me and I did the same thing.

When I was done I handed the cigarette back. "You know you are the final judge on whether or not this stuff is art. I count on you for that."

He dragged on the cigarette, rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes, adopting the look of a shrewd art critic.

"I like it."

I took the cigarette out of his mouth, took a long hit and then put it back between his lips. He walked back over to his chair and continued playing. I looked at the painting for a little while, trying to reconcile the physical reality with the perfect vision I had while I was painting. If only I could be a great painter, I thought. It's discouraging to see so clearly and paint so badly.

I shook my head and walked over to the couch. Jimmy passed me the cigarette once as I sat down. Jimmy was playing an old Steve Miller song, mangling the lyrics like he always did.

Really love your peaches

And I love your tree.

Lovee Dovee Lovee Dovee

All the time.

One of the these days I'm gonna make you mine.

I blew smoke rings for a while and listened to him sing. Then I handed back the cigarette. It was almost gone now. The cat climbed up my chest and butted his head against my chin and then settled in on my lap as I stroked his fur.

"You know, James, I'm thinking of writing a story." Jimmy had stopped singing and was strumming softly now.

"Oh, yeah?" he said, changing tempo again. This time getting into some funky blues.

"Yeah. It's about a man who loses his hands in an accident. He doesn't really miss them at first, except for the inconvenience, and he learns to use his hooks pretty well for brushing his teeth and cooking and stuff like that."

"Uh huh," Jimmy said, creating background music for my words.

"The he meets this woman. After a while he loves her, but he's afraid to touch her because his hooks are so hard and cold and unfeeling. He becomes obsessed with visual images of his hooks ripping her flesh. He is so scared, he cuts himself off and refuses to see her any more."

Jimmy was playing something sad and low-down. Maybe it was "Mustang Sally."

"So, in the time they've spent together the woman has fallen in love with him too. At first she was scared and a little repulsed by his hooks, but as she got to know him, as he allowed her little peeks into his heart, she came to understand his gentleness and his pain. She even began to have fantasies about his hooks caressing her. The cold steel gradually warming against her skin and exciting real passion in her."

Jimmy was getting into it now, his music becoming a soundtrack for the movie I was producing with my words.

"She's thinking one way about his hooks and he's thinking another way, but of course neither one can talk about it. The subject of their feelings for each other just never comes up between them. They avoid it like some nasty secret they share."

The cat is purring like an engine as I massage him. My hands keeping time with Jimmy's music.

"When he refuses to see her anymore, she's really hurt. She thinks she has done something wrong, or that he just doesn't like her anymore. She feels so bad that she moves to a different neighborhood so she doesn't have to see him every day. Her passion for him smolders under its ashes, leaving her dissatisfied and vaguely unhappy until it finally dies out from lack of fuel.

"Meanwhile the man sits alone in his apartment looking at his hooks under the light at his kitchen table. He realizes that even before he lost his hands he was afraid to touch people. His flesh and blood hands had been as utilitarian as these hooks, used only for brushing teeth and pouring cups of coffee. The realization makes him cry."

Jimmy finished the music and started rolling another cigarette. When he was done he handed it to me and I lit up.

"What do you think? Will it make a good story?" I asked as I exhaled and handed him the cigarette.

He took a deep hit and smiled.

"Why don't you write a story about a man who doesn't paint, because he's afraid to feel what he sees?"

Jimmy handed me back the cigarette and we smoked for a while in silence while I thought it over. I looked at my painting. Maybe the beauty in art is the imperfect realization of a perfect vision. I smiled.

"Good idea," I said.

Jimmy started playing a very happy, fast tune. I got my sketchbook and pencil and started sketching him and Salvador.

"You know, I think I like Butte better from Seattle."

I knew what he meant.