The Artists - 2. The First Day, Afternoon, Part 1

Casey nervously sat on the edge of his bed and looked around the bedroom of his suite at Charles House. This wasn’t your average dorm room. His mother hadn’t believed he was supposed to bring two sets of full-size sheets as she’d never heard of a college where students slept in anything bigger than a twin-sized bed. His pale blue sheets were more than a tad too narrow, but Ben, the sophomore whose suite was on the other side of their shared bathroom, said he’d take Casey to Wal-Mart so he could get the right size.

In the corner beside the door to the bathroom there was a small green sofa, a dark blue side chair, and a low wood table. They looked like something you’d get at an Ikea sale. Supposedly they were intended to be used when entertaining friends. Casey wondered if, in the next four years of college, he’d find two people who’d want to come to his room, not counting Ben who was at that moment sprawled on the sofa with Casey’s Shuffle plugged into his ears.

Ben was athletic. He played soccer, rugby, and anything else that required running and physical contact, but he wasn’t a jock, which surprised Casey. Ben had a lot of muscles, too; muscles that Casey only dreamed about having in some unspecified future. Since he didn’t like any of the sports Ben played or any other form of extreme physical activity, he couldn’t imagine why he’d go to the effort to gain them.

It was Ben who made Casey nervous because he was wearing some red North Park gym shorts. That was all he wore and Ben had his legs spread apart so wide Casey could easily see a soft, uncut dick nestled in a nest of dark pubic hair. He wasn’t certain what Ben was up to by exposing himself. It had to be on purpose, but Ben’s supposed intent was beyond Casey’s level of comfort.

Casey decided he had to do something other than try not looking at that dick so he stood up and went into his study room, which most of the other student residents, the real art majors, used as their studios. In his case, there was a new workstation, a new custom-made PC, a high-end color printer, and a docking station for his laptop. He knew they were going to kick him out of Charles House if he even suggested he didn’t like computer graphics; and, he wondered how long he could put off the inevitable.

He went out onto the balcony and looked down at the atrium two floors below. Above, the ceiling was frosted glass that allowed the center of the building to be filled with a warm summer glow. There were tables in the atrium where they’d had an informal lunch, but dinner was supposed to be a barbeque out on the back porch. As far as Casey was concerned, lunch had been a fiasco. Everyone, except for Ben and Six, the other new guy, called him Peach because he was short, fat, and had the peach fuzz mustache. He’d made it through most of the meal before finally leaving for his room where he stayed until Ben came up to hang out, which turned out to be a bit more of a hang out than Casey wanted.

With nothing else to do for a couple hours when he was expected to help Euphorbia in the kitchen, Casey walked toward the stairs with the intention of going down to the second floor to see if the other freshman was busy. Six was intriguing, especially with his insistence at being called by the number at the end of his name. Casey knew Six was the nephew of Kevin and the grand-nephew of the artist Robert Charles who was the benefactor of Charles House Foundation, which awarded him the scholarship he was certain they were going to take away from him as soon as he told them he didn’t want to be a computer artist or any other kind of artist.

As he walked along the balcony, Casey caught a movement in the corner of his eye. He turned and saw someone’s feet just visible from under the second floor balcony. The shoes were well worn, dirty, white high-tops, but Casey couldn’t see who was at the other end of the legs. All he could see from his angle were two legs that stopped somewhere below the knees. He leaned over the balcony, but only gained the person’s lower thighs, maybe a couple inches above the knees.

He tried to lean a little more over the edge and saw another pair of feet next to the other person. The shoes were shiny black wingtips with green and gold argyle socks. The first person obviously was slouched down on the chair or sofa. Casey didn’t know what the piece of furniture was and still couldn’t see enough to guess who it might be.

He stood up for a moment and looked at the balcony. The top was varnished oak and quite slick. His small pudgy hands wouldn’t get much of a purchase on the ledge and, although the molding had a rather thick edge, it was too far below the top surface for enough of his fingers to get a firm grip. Above, a foot away, there was an ornate wrought iron post extending from the first floor clear to the ceiling above him that supported the second and third floor balconies.

When Casey stood on the far side of the post he figured he could lock his foot into the right angle between the balcony and the post. That way he could hang down along the post just far enough to see the faces that belonged to those feet.

Unfortunately, Casey was still thinking like someone who weighed sixty or eighty pounds less than his current weight. He might have the bones and muscles to keep 190 pounds in a vertical, standing position, but he didn’t have enough muscles to perform the acrobatic, fly-on-the-wall stunt that had his full attention. Plus, his little common sense voice was too distracted by the prospect of spying on those two individuals to be fully aware what was going to be attempted.

Casey struggled a bit overcoming the pull of gravity on his bulk as he climbed up onto the railing. It was a lot more slippery than he thought, but he was so focused on the two pair of feet two floors below him to reprimand himself for this minor oversight. Using the post to steady himself, he slowly rose up to a kneeling position and then turned to face the atrium. It was a simple matter of simply walking his hands down the post’s wrought iron filigree and then, at the correct moment, slip his leg forward and catch the corner of the post and balcony with his ankle and then his toes.

It was so clear in his mind. He was fairly certain he’d seen monkeys and chimpanzees perform similar feats on television. Yet, there came a point in time where the full effect of gravity’s fatal attraction quietly slipped into his consciousness and common sense suddenly figured out something was seriously wrong. Humans are not monkeys and chimpanzees. Obese humans are not nimble or athletic.

Fortunately, at the very moment when gravity’s downward pull was about to overcome the meager resistance of arm muscles more used to moving chips from bag to mouth than preventing the deadly plunge of a rather stupid teen, Euphorbia walked into the atrium.

“Oh, shit!” Euphorbia shrieked.

“What the hell!” Kevin exclaimed as he came out into the atrium wearing his old high-tops.

“Oh, god! We’ve got a dummy,” Jim said as he followed Kevin to where Casey was now practically hanging by his toenails.

Casey wanted to smile, but his mind was too occupied with a quadrant of terra cotta tiles directly below him that seemed intent on cracking his fat slathered head. His eyes seemed to focus on the intersection of their grout lines where his forehead was certain to cave in and force slivers of skull deep into his deficient brain.

“Ben! Where the hell are you?” Jim called out.

“Six! Get you ass out here,” Kevin yelled.

In all the commotion, Karl and Tiffani ran out of her suite, not paying attention to oddly placed lipstick and fresh hickeys. Seeing what was happening, Karl ran up to the third floor.

“Don’t you dare fall because I will not attempt to catch you,” Six said as he climbed up onto the second floor railing directly below Casey.

“Then why are you here?” Casey asked.

“Moral support,” Six said. “I just want you to know how much I appreciate you doing whatever it is you’re doing because I don’t think anyone can top this stupid stunt, not even me and I have definite history of stupid stunts.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Casey said. “Whoa! I think I’m being rescued.”

Casey felt himself being pulled up by hands grabbing his pants and t-shirt. His suspenders were digging into his shoulders and a hand grabbed one of his ankles. In no time he was sitting on the balcony floor with his back forced up against the wall so hard his eyes went blurry for a moment from his head banging into the textured drywall.

Six stood at the door in the basement of Charles House, his finger tentatively poised approximately one-half inch from lighted doorbell switch. He knew he had to press it, but years of mental conditioning were holding him back. He could almost remember all of the story his father wrote out for him: “You’re named Kevin David Charles, VI, because your great-great-great-granduncle’s name was Kevin David Charles and his first born son, your great-great-granduncle, was Kevin David Charles, Jr.; and his first born son, your great-granduncle, was Kevin David Charles, III, his first born son died from diphtheria as a baby; so his brother, Kenneth Daniel Charles, named his second born son, because the first born was already walking and you can’t change a child’s name, Kevin David Charles, IV, who is your grandfather. He named his first born son Kevin David Charles, V, but he killed our mother and was sent to a state hospital where he died. So, to carry on the family tradition, I had to name one of my sons Kevin David Charles, VI, and since we had to name your brother after your mother’s brothers you got tagged with a many generational family tradition.”

“He killed our mother and was sent to a state hospital where he died,” rang in Six’s memory. That person was on the other side of the door, more than likely totally unaware of Six’s fear. Swallowing hard, he pressed the button.

As each second passed, Six’s fear knotted his stomach a little tighter, a bead of sweat trickled down his back, a droplet of sweat stung his right eye and, startled, he brushed it away with the third knuckled of the left forefinger. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as his body readied itself to flee the madman who killed his own mother.

“Yes?” Eric asked after he’d opened the door and stared at the teen in front of him.

“I, uh, well, is, uh, Kevin, my uncle, uh,” Six stammered, shocked and a bit relieved Kevin didn’t answer the door.

“Kevin! Your reckoning has arrived,” Eric called out behind him. “Come in, Six, and have a seat. The green recliner is mine and the tan one is Kevin’s. You’re welcome to sit anywhere else.”

“Thank you,” Six whispered. The only other piece of furniture was a green and tan striped loveseat. By the time he got to it, Kevin walked into the room. Six turned and suddenly did not know what to do.

“Sit,” Eric said as he sat in his recliner. Kevin and Six followed suit as if being told what to do by the older man wasn’t out of the ordinary. “I don’t want to stay too long as I’m certain the two of you have tons of notes to compare. So let’s get the preliminaries out of the way and then I’ll leave you two to the nitty-gritty.”

“Eric, is this necessary?” Kevin asked.

“Yes, as I’m quite certain you’ll find out momentarily,” Eric said. “Six, what do you know about your uncle?”

“Well, he’s Five,” Six said. He grimaced and swallowed at he looked from Kevin to Eric. Then he looked at the floor as he quietly said, “My dad said Kevin went insane when my dad was seven-years-old and killed their mother. He didn’t say how or why. Just that he killed her. He was sent to a state hospital where he died before I was born. That’s all he said about Kevin.”

“I’ll be damned!” Kevin exclaimed. He shook his head as he felt for his cane. Six watched this movement, expecting to have to flee at any moment from the mad man. “No wonder you gave me that astonished look at lunch when we did the introductions. You didn’t happen to ask my dear father about me, did you?”

“Gramps? Yeah, well, I did, but I don’t think he ever liked me,” Six said. He felt nervous about the questions. What he wanted to know more than anything was what happened to his grandmother, which seemed to be why Gramps and his dad never had anything nice to say about Kevin. There was only one way to find out. “Did you kill your mother?”

“Bravo!” Eric exclaimed. “That’s what I like about today’s youth, no beating around the bushes. It’s always right to the quick. Do either of you want anything to drink before we get to the bloodletting?”

“You know what I want,” Kevin said with a smile. “Six, I think we may have some diet something or other, plus fancy water. You’ll have to excuse Eric. He’s always getting worked up over the silliest stuff.”

“Water from the tap is okay with me,” Six said. His uncle didn’t look well. The cane was an obvious giveaway, but Kevin seemed worn-out as if he’d run a marathon or biked from Portland to North Park in one day.

“He’ll have what I’m having,” Kevin called out to Eric who was in the kitchenette.

“I’ve already started the concoction,” Eric called back. “An extra dose is no problem.”

“He’s been very nice to me,” Kevin said. “And, no, I didn’t kill my mother, but Dad always said I had. For a college professor, he could be so dumb and obstinate sometimes.”

“Here you go,” Eric said as he walked into the sitting room. “Soda water with lime for both of you and the book for Six. Kevin is on a diet so I didn’t bring cookies.”

“That’s alright, I don’t need the extra carbs either,” Six said as he set the tall green tumbler in a coaster on the end table. The book wasn’t more than three hundred pages and as he glanced through it he saw the type wasn’t too small. About halfway through there were photographs of people and paintings, which he recognized. A quick look at the title page confirmed his suspicion. This was the memoirs of his great-uncle Robert Charles, whose estate funded the Robert Charles Art Scholarships at North Park College, Charles House, and a number of arts related charities around Puget Sound.

“It’s all in there,” Eric said, “all the lies, allegations, and deceptions. It explains Kevin’s disability better than any of us. I suggest you read it.”

“I almost read this once,” Six said. “I checked it out of the library and brought it home. I must have been nine or ten and Dad went through the roof. He told me in no uncertain terms I was never to read it or talk about Robert Charles. By the time Dad finally left a few years later, I’d completely forgotten I was related to such a famous artist.”

“We were on vacation in Florida and Mom and I were bitten by mosquitoes,” Kevin said. “Have you ever heard of encephalitis?”

“Isn’t that sleeping sickness?” Six asked.

“Yes, sometimes,” Kevin said. “Mom died and I didn’t, ergo, I killed my mother by living. You could say Dad killed her by taking us on vacation to Florida, but that wasn’t the case, either.”

“Okay, I’m going now,” Eric said. “If either of you need anything, I’ll be out in the lounge.”

“Then go already,” Kevin said. “Sheesh! You could’ve stayed, but go.”

“Well, if you want me,” Eric said.

“Go, I want to ask Six some personal questions,” Kevin said.

“By the way, what color is he?” Eric asked at the door.

“Pink,” Kevin said.

“Oh, god, anything but pink,” Eric said as he walked back into the room. “Do you want me to stay?”

“No! It’s not like I’m going to take him into the bedroom and rape him,” Kevin said. “He’s family for god’s sake. Now get out of here.”

“Maybe I should go,” Six said as he stood up.

“No, you stay, he goes,” Kevin said.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Six said to no one in particular.

“Eric! Stop him!” Kevin exclaimed. “Please don’t let him go. Not now.”

“Six, please wait for me outside,” Eric said.

Six walked out the door and stood in the hallway wondering if he should just bag this shit and go back to Portland. He’d have a ton of explaining to do to his mother, but that might be better than living around someone who was crazy. Hell, they were all a little crazy and he’d only met a few of them. What was wrong with the others?

Tiffani tried to look like a guy. There was something about Euphorbia that made Six think she wasn’t as much of a woman as she appeared to be. Jim seemed to be lost in the woods. Casey tried to be Spiderman. Ben was an airhead jock. Eric seemed okay, as okay as a one armed college professor. Six had read a couple of his books, including the mystery novel, but he seemed to dote on Kevin; and the arm ending with a rubber hand.

“Good, you’re still here,” Eric said as he came out the door. “Kevin would like to apologize to you.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Six asked. “And, why would he want to have sex with me?”

“It’s all in the book,” Eric said as he handed Six the book he’d left on the end table. “You left it and it will help you understand your uncle. He’s okay. Really, he is okay. Just read the book. If you have any questions, you can ask me.”

“Well, I guess,” Six said. He took the book from the rubber hand.

As Euphorbia went about gathering the ingredients for the salads, she watched Casey peel peaches for the cobblers. She kind of felt sorry for the little lump of boy flesh they’d all ridiculed at lunch. It was great fun to put down someone as insignificant as Casey, but they’d paid for it later when the boy decided, for whatever strange reason, to do a Spiderman act.

She and Jim drove the boy over to the campus urgent care facility for the bump on the back of his head, but the little tyke had a fairly thick skull for one with such a pudgy face. The doctor did mention that Casey seemed a bit physically immature for an eighteen-year-old and suggested taking him down to University Hospital to see an endocrinologist. Afterwards, they went over to K-Mart so Casey could sleep with Martha Stewart tonight.

“Is that water getting warm?” Euphorbia asked as the cleaver began to shred a head of cabbage.

“A little, ma’am,” Casey said. “Should I add some more cold water to it?”

“You’d better add ice, Casey, we don’t want them going soft too soon and ice will cool it quicker,” Euphorbia said. He still hadn’t caught on. He still thought she was a grandmotherly type woman, sort of a skinny Mrs. Doubtfire. She knew it was a bit dishonest not to tell him, but what’s the point of dressing up if you have to explain to everyone that “no, you don’t know why you wear women’s clothes” and “you don’t have a problem with wearing women’s clothes and if they do maybe they should see a psychiatrist.”

He’d seen a psychiatrist. His mother took him all the way to Seattle once a month for nearly a year. The man was nice, but had no experience with little boys who liked to play dress up. The question, the ultimate question, “Do you want to be a girl?” was followed by the obvious answer, obvious as far as Euphorbia was concerned, “No, I want to wear dresses, lipstick, mascara, eyeliner, rouge, so I can look like Veronica Lake.” He’d always been a fan of Veronica Lake, more so than even Judy Garland who all the boys seemed to go ga-ga over, but Judy was much too masculine for him.

“How do I get the pits out?” Casey asked.

He was close to Euphorbia, close enough for her to touch him. She had no idea why she would want to do that. He was a little boy, probably won’t see nineteen for months yet and she was sixty; yet the urge to touch him was almost palpable. His aroma so was enticing, very much like Kevin’s at that age.

She had touched Kevin. She very much touched Kevin and he touched her. She helped the boy through a lot of adjustments to living outside institutional care, but they touched each other and that led to complications they were still dealing with. Now, she was too close to Casey and she wanted to touch him, too.

“Here, let me show you,” Euphorbia said as her bare arm brushed against the boy’s sending a tingling sensation through her gut. “Are you certain you got all the peel off all the peaches?”

“Look, they’re clean,” Casey said. He held up one and a little trickle of water ran down his arm, dripped off his bare elbow, innocently splashed onto her arm before dribbling down to the floor.

“Get a paring knife,” Euphorbia said as a familiar tingling sensation in her groin made her grit her teeth.

“Which one is that?” Casey asked.

“I thought you said you knew your way around a kitchen,” Euphorbia said.

“I do, but I don’t know what a paring knife is,” Casey said.

“They’re the short ones,” Euphorbia said. “Oh, bother! We don’t have any out. They’re in the top drawer beside the refrigerator.”

Casey silently walked over to the drawer where he rummaged around much too long.

“If you’re looking for mother’s gold wedding band, it’s not in there,” Euphorbia said. “And, don’t slice open a finger; you’ve already had your doctor visit today.”

“Is this a paring knife?” Casey asked as he turned around and held up a short knife.

“Actually, that’s a well used steak knife, but it’ll do,” Euphorbia said. She hadn’t felt like this since college when she met that boy from San Mateo who, also, thought she was a real girl until he went down on her and found something unexpected. It hadn’t scared him away, but he was a frat boy and didn’t need the complication of dating a boy who might turn up at his door looking like a girl. “Bring two and I’ll help, then you can help me with the salads.”

“Now, you need to slice down the seam and around the other side,” Euphorbia said as she ran the knife blade around the peach. Casey was close again, their shoulders almost touching. “Then you simply give it a little twist and ta-da! You have a peach pit. You try one.”

“Like this?” Casey said as he ran his knife around the peach.

“Yes, like that,” Euphorbia said. She could smell his scent mixing with the peach juice. She’d never felt like this with any of the other boys, or girls, who’d come through the house on their way to promising careers as artists or art teachers; yet, for some unexplained reason, Casey was pushing all the right buttons and she wanted very much to take him downstairs, take all his clothes of, and make mad, passionate love to him. Fortunately, Casey was too young and for the most part still had the mentality of a child.

“What’re you two kids up to now?” Jim asked as he sauntered into the kitchen. “Ooh, you’ve got peaches. Where were you hiding these, Peter?”

Heavy silence filled the kitchen as Euphorbia stared at Casey for any sign of a reaction, but he kept at the task of pitting the peaches. She stared at Jim, which the old man returned with a wry smile.

“There’s a couple more in the cooler,” Euphorbia said. “I was saving them for breakfast, but if you can’t wait until supper or tomorrow morning, you can have one right now.”

“I like them peeled and sliced with warmed milk and a little drizzle of molasses,” Jim said. He came up beside Casey and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “How’s Spiderman?”

“Okay,” Casey whispered as his skin flushed. “And I thought Peach was degrading.”

“Well, I think you’ll have to be extra nice to Casey to get him to fix your peaches like that,” Euphorbia said

“So, I have to call him Casey, huh?” Jim asked.

“I’d appreciate it,” Casey said. “Write down how to do your peaches and I’ll fix some for you later.”

“You know how to cook?” Jim asked as he sat down on one of the stools beside the island. “What else are you good at, besides computer graphics?”

“I’ve read all your books,” Casey said as he continued to pit the peaches. “Yeah, even the ones with all the gay sex in them. I read most of Burroughs’ stuff, too. The ones you said were important for your work. And, I read all of Mr. Charles’ books when I was little. I can speak Spanish fairly well. Even though my uncle tried to rape me when I was thirteen, I consider myself to be very tolerant of nonheterosexuals, but he wasn’t really gay, he just liked doing it to young teen boys. And, let’s see, I’m also fairly tolerant of people who call me names because I’m fat, even the ones who feel they have to say I’m obese so they won’t hurt my feelings. But, you see, I don’t have any feelings. When I got home from where my uncle lived my mother’s church said I led him on. They said I was the guilty party. I was Satan’s tempter who led the man astray and my mother believed it too. I can’t live with my dad because his new wife doesn’t like anyone who might come between her and my dad.”

Casey was flushed and sweat trickled down his face. His body trembled with the anger that had built up during his tirade, but he continued to pit the peaches until the last one was done. Jim had come to his side and the old man had an arm around the boy.

“We get all kinds of kids here,” Jim said as his hand firmly caressed the boy’s upper back. “Some we can joke with and others we can’t. I apologize if I made you feel bad. I’m not such a bad guy, all the time. Right, Peter?”

“Yeah,” Euphorbia said.

“Do you want these sliced thinly, medium, thick, cubed, or diced?” Casey asked.

“A medium slice should do it,” Euphorbia said.