CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

X: Yesteryears

The Frey family moved in the subsequent autumn. The desks disappeared, the footpath received a layer of sod and a fence rocked the world of every youngster who had ever taken that short cut through to the park. A new path formed within the forest within the first months of next spring and the kickball pickup games moved to the cul-de-sac two streets over.

But it was before that when Brendon first met Robbie.

Down at the docks, where a cheap restaurant smelled of blue crab and old bay and the brine made the air taste salty, Brendon would take a stub of a pencil and work on adding depth and light to waves with only black and white. Both parents worked now and Casey played recs soccer near all year round so there were days of solitude filled with nothing but the lapping of waves, tinging of the metal flagpoles and the scratching of his pencil.

“What are you doing?”

Brendon looked up into pale brown eyes and a paler face. The expression there he attributed to confidence, though he would later come to realize was merely competence and bravery mixing in a pleasant, but not outstanding, way.

“Drawing.”

The other boy sat down beside him and propped his chin in his hand. “I’ve seen you before. You drew that picture of the school that won the yearbook award last year. The one hanging in the display case.”

“That’s me,” mumbled Brendon, and he bent harder over his sketchbook.

“You’re an artist.”

“I want to be.”

“Nah. You are. Mom says you are what you are, you are what you do. You draw, so you’re an artist.”

Brendon paused and gave the boy a considering look. “My mom says I could be an artist one day.”

The boy smiled. “Do you draw comic book heroes?”

He didn’t. He shrugged.

“I’d love to see them if you do.”

And so Brendon went home, mind ablaze with the word artist, and set to work on using his newfound facial nuance behind masks of spandex.

~~~~~~~~~~

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CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

IX: Yesteryears

The house Robbie moved into had a yard the size of a baseball field. While that yard had stood empty, but for an occasional mowing by the realtors, neighborhood kids played pickup games or used the space as a shortcut to access the playground. A path, trudged out by hundreds of small sneakers with light-up heels and swishes and Velcro, grew harder packed and dirt heavy, grass trampled until blades dared not poke free their heads.

Middle schoolers claimed the bulk of the yard, right where the trees began to dot, but before the forest took over. They used a towering oak as first base, those at the plate using one hand to press against the bark, the other tossing acorns at the pitcher. Second base was an old stump, forcibly used as a table, muffin and gummy snack packages wedged between the splintering wood. Third base sat almost outside the foliage-heavy property line; a pair of old desks, one right-handed, one left. The left-handed one was third base since it sat closer in, where the other had branches that hung low, low enough to scrape the head of anyone who sat inside it.

Brendon thought the desks were only used as third base, up until one summer afternoon sent long shadows across the path. Casey had been left back somewhere at the playground, no curfew for dinner calling him home.

The girl made strange sounds. The boy stranger still. Heavy breathing, slight creaking of the rusted metal, leaves shivering, yet not masking a squelching sound.

Brendon held his breath. Held it tight in his chest, lungs closing around the air, refusing to let it rush free.

He drew what he’d seen later. A girl with her head thrown back, short orange-blonde hair hanging so her ear was visible. Boy with his face hidden, but his hand up grasping her shoulder, his dark head bobbing. Under the back of the desks there were slits where bundles of clothing piled, the boy’s jeaned knee making the right-handed desk rock and creak in unharmonious time.

For some reason, Brendon hid the drawing from his parents and showed it to Casey first, along with the tale of what he’d seen. Casey listened wide-eyed and rapt, his tongue still. Then he traced a finger over where the boy’s knee had pressed, then up to the girl’s unflattering neckline because Brendon had yet to understand shading well enough to make two-dimensions appear as three. That didn’t seem to matter to Casey.

“She’s got a mad face.”

“That’s not a mad face. That’s a…focused face.” Like when girls at school bent over projects.

Casey shook his head. “Mad.”

“I drew it,” snapped Brendon, tugging at the paper. “She’s not mad. She wasn’t mad. I watched.”

Casey grabbed the edge of the paper and jabbed a finger at her face. “She looks mad.”

“You’re a horrible drawer. How would you know?” And Brendon yanked. The paper tore at the side where Casey held it, cutting through the desk and the girl, but leaving the boy whole, though his face remained invisible, turned away, his expression unable to reveal his own secrets.

“That was your fault.” Casey crinkled the paper and threw it at Brendon, but it just fluttered in the other direction.

After Casey left, Brendon quietly threw the paper away and pulled out a stub of a pencil to practice faces. He drew the girl’s face over and over, until she showed up in his dreams, her expression morphing from mad to focused, to sorrowful to giddy, her eyes the catalyst for his learning of nuance.

What he didn’t learn that day, what took him much, much longer to learn, was why Casey had been so insistent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

VIII: Present

Mr. Livesey and Brendon lunched at a quiet outdoor table at La Vie Simple, a café that specialized in nothing, yet did it all quite well. That was how Brendon had described the restaurant and it had been between the café or the pizza diner since the pub wasn’t open yet. They both ordered a beer—a stout for Mr. Livesey and a pale ale for Brendon who then took his time peeling at the condensation-wet label as small talk frittered away into comfortable silence for a gentle while.

“How long have you been working?” asked Mr. Livesey. He sat back in his chair, one hand resting on the wrought iron table.

“In the studio? About six years.”

“And before that? Do any freelance work then?”

Brendon smiled briefly. “That’s the way of it, isn’t it? Yes. Used to sell sketches for a quarter back in middle school. Mostly anime girls, sometimes boys. Then it switched to pets after a friend’s dog died and I gave her a canvas with a little painting of it.” He paused. “Did a lot of cars too.”

“And after school?” prompted Mr. Livesey.

Brendon sat back with a sigh. “A few vendor fairs, here and there. Had a stall up in a quiet downtown street a few towns over three days a week. Had a second evening job that kept me going.”

“But not anymore.” Again, with those not-a-question statements Brendon wasn’t sure how to answer.

They remained quiet for a time, the gentle purring of slow-moving cars on this mellow day mostly drowning out the clinking of plates inside the café. Brendon cleared his throat and left off picking at the label, now a pile of discarded paper threatening to blow away in the light breeze.

“My painting—”

“Yes, your painting. There’s no need for refunds. My client isn’t looking for monetary compensation and she wasn’t close enough to this victim to warrant a need for revenge,” said Mr. Livesey fluidly, becoming even more businesslike and forthcoming. “Rather, Ms. Arpsol is concerned that she has no way of dismantling this threat appropriately.”

Brendon mouthed the words “victim” and “threat,” testing them out, knowing his shock must have been etched into his face as if he’d painted it there. “It’s a painting.”

Mr. Livesey cocked his head. “So it is.”

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