CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LX: Yesteryears

“The plans” Casey’s father had spoken of became apparent on Casey’s fifteenth birthday, for a ragged Mustang—pastel yellow—sat parked over the dandelions peeking up through the cracks in the driveway when Brendon stopped by.

“Not quite running,” was how Casey described it when Brendon asked, “but Dad’s got a new engine block to go in it and we’re going to piece that bitch back together…together.”

A light sparkled in Casey’s eyes. And he leaned forward, his breath smelling of barbeque sauce from the chicken they munched on, leftovers from the weekend with all the crunch gone to mush around the grilled edges.

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“Less than one of your paintings, I assure you, but art, Bren, in its own way.”

“When do you think you’ll get it running?”

“Sixteenth or bust, baby. Going to have my own wheels sophmore year.” A wolfish grin flashed across Casey’s face, like all the trouble they could get into churned the wheels already.

“Your dad just bailed you out of jail because of you being at a drag race and now he’s given you a car…”

Casey laughed out loud. “Irony! All my English teachers would be proud.” Then he sobered. “But it’s not running. It’s dead in the drive right now. Needs a lot of TLC, which means I’m to be hanging around here most of the year as we get it ready. More time I spend with Dad, sooner the car’s ready.”

“Ah. That’s manipulative.” Continue reading →

CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LIX: Present

With a sudden lack of care, Brendon gathered his things, using baywater to give his palette a cursory scrub before throwing his canvas face-up on the pier and lugging his easel and paints toward the car. Orion followed at a slower pace, holding both canvases outward from his body, and though he never said a word but “Here,” Brendon felt that telescoping gaze boring into him.

Only when they were in the air conditioning, blowers drowning out the cicadas and the distant rumble of a motorboat, did Brendon turn on Orion.

“You think I’m some murderer. Since you walked into my studio you’ve thought it. Throwing words like victim and threat, profiling me in a way even the police don’t. Seeing nothing but what you want to see.”

“I’m not—”

“I’m taking you back to your car and then I don’t want you to bother me—or my clients—again. Take Erikson’s paid-for painting and do what you please with it. Sell it, junk it, burn it. I don’t care. Just take your assumptions away from me.”

Then Brendon angrily threw the car into gear and, gravel churning, jerked them out of the lot. They rode in silence, Brendon steaming silently and Orion—probably calculating whether he could bring a lawsuit to bear. The air conditioning turned their sweat cold, Brendon’s shirt clinging in the worst places like ice packs and still it did nothing to cool his temper, his fury building with each new additional thought that piled up.

He wants me to admit it. Wants me to confess.

My God, is he wearing a wire? How would I know?

Wait, it doesn’t matter whether he is or not because it’s all impossible anyway.

Isn’t it? Continue reading →

CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LVIII: Yesteryears

A bust went down that September. Late. Humidity giving a last hurrah as it burned across the growing corn fields and shivered burgeoning pumpkin patches. Cops swarmed Ol’ North Main like ants on a sugar spoon, wrapping cuffs about old and young alike with little regard to uncles and grand-daddy’s.

Casey got picked up. Fourteen years old, drunk off canned beer with a stolen fifty in his pocket. Taylor L. got picked up too. Taylor Lee Barry got pushed through processing, then yanked at the very last because grand-daddy came in roaring like a fury, spouting about bad choices and last chances.

No one came to yank Casey out at the last second.

Brendon had the audacity to think it all unfair. He’d been more worried about Casey getting out and dodging his father’s belt rather than being mindful of a future more dreary and far more difficult for his friend.

“Glad you’d skipped that night,” Casey muttered a few weeks later, bitter over his arrest and the subsequent crack-down his father had instated via police requirement. “Was messy and ugly. Didn’t think I’d ever see so many cop cars in my life.”

“…and your dad?” asked Brendon tentatively.

Casey shrugged. They lay across his bed, the comforter a worn blue and the pillowcases mismatched, yet both with a soccer emblem on their surface. “He’s still an asshole, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“How long is he enforcing house arrest?” Continue reading →

CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LVI: Present

An audience made work difficult. Brendon’s attention wavered, his hands lost steadiness, his mental vision turning muddied rather than crisp and clear. The fact that Orion looked incredibly content to sweep inexpert strokes across the small, cheap canvas Brendon had given him and did not bother casting glances sideways didn’t seem to matter.

They painted under a hot summer breeze and clouds the size and breadth of fingernails. A crescent frowned at them as it lowered in the west and found its way onto Brendon’s painting in multiples, the moon mirrored throughout the sky as if taunting the sun. He added impossible reflections to the water, a broken-edged crisscross of sunlight and moonlight. The wharf under his feet morphed into a mazed set of gnarled roots, like mangroves inching into the bay.

None of it made sense, yet he was careful to keep a place where human feet could stand stably. Conscious to thwart reality by picking a navy—so close to Orion’s shirt—to add shade. He found himself rippling the water more than normal that it might not be mistaken for glass, and then banking them so the wind would not be typhoon-strong.

Through Orion kept his promise, his questions about paint rather than stranger things, Brendon could feel eyes looking over his shoulder, judging the safety of his art. Asking, silently, whether he might claim a victim from this creation.

It was midday and sweat soaked his shirt when Orion finally spoke. “You work through lunch?” Continue reading →

CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LV: Present

Because of the larger student body, high school had two art teachers—Mr. Reading and Mrs. Yue—neither of whom seemed interested in the least in their students. Mr. Reading spoke with a slow, nasally voice and forced Art I students through the most mundane projects recycled ad nauseam over the eight years he’d been teaching. His boredom rubbed off on every student, including Brendon, and even when Brendon sought extra advice or critique, Mr. Reading’s response was generally low-effort and dismissive.

“He can’t be bothered, Mom,” explained Brendon over dinner. “Like he’s got a script and doesn’t know how to do anything but follow it.”

“You complained about Mr. Wexlar too and he ended up not being too bad,” his mother countered.

“That was different. Entirely.”

The differences became more and more pronounced, for where Mr. Wexlar had been critical, with eyes that missed absolutely nothing, Mr. Reading couldn’t have been more ambivalent. When Brendon mentioned The Bayscape and his new piece going up in October, Mr. Reading snorted and made a comment that aimed to be derogatory against Mrs. Pierceman in the most subtlest of ways.

Brendon didn’t repeat the comment to Mrs. Pierceman, but he did ask if she knew Mr. Reading. She shook her head with a sad tut-tut of her tongue against her teeth. “Man’s about as bitter as a lemon. Don’t you listen to a word he says. Except when he’s teaching portraits. He’s a fair hand at them. Tried to make a living and failed, but that’s because he doesn’t know how to market, not because he’s a poor artist.”

“Have you showcased any of his work here?” Continue reading →