You Have to Think of Something

Well, that's over.  I guess it was more madness than some people could handle.  Those of us with better sensibilities, however--and cooler heads--may have enjoyed the three-headed monster more than others.

My own day was very pleasant.  It began as it always does, of course, with coffee and a bit of writing, but I got out early enough for an exercise run in a park that always makes me feel like I'm out west in the mountains.  This is probably because I ran it for years with my friend and climbing buddy who lives in Yosemite now, the fellow whose marriage I officiated and whom I  stay with every year when I go out.  So I eased my way around the course over and over stopping for push-ups and pull-ups and sit-ups and dips as I went.

After working out, I stopped at Country Club College and lay out on the dock to get some sun.  The sky was a perfect blue and it wasn't yet noon, so the sun was still soft like a hand upon my skin.  A kayaker, a paddle boarder, and a girl just over there in a lounging chair kept me company.

After that, I went to JRs Diner for a late breakfast--three eggs over medium, three pieces of bacon, crisp, grits (it is the south), toast, and orange juice.  It is the traditional heart-clogging breakfast that my great-grandfather ate every morning.  He lived into his nineties.

After that, I stopped at the record store next door--O.K., music store, but they still sell records there--and listened to a few CDs I'd not heard without making up my mind to buy them.  But it is nice that the store still exists, and perhaps it thrives.  I hope so.

Then I went to the art store to pick up some materials for making some new encaustic pieces.  And there, and I swear my heart hurt, I saw the girl who would be my next wife if. . . if everything wasn't the way it is.  She was just shy of being petite.  She wore a beautiful black dress which hung like a dream.  I saw her from behind as she was picking out some canvases with her hipster boyfriend.

"I just got another commission," I heard her say to stupid.  They were both in their early twenties, but she was much older than he, of course.  He stood there trying to look cool with his Green Day haircut and starter tattoos, but she didn't have to try anything at all.  And she had another commission!  Another!?!  Who was she?  I would take the magic elixir.  I would be transformed for her.  I would be young again.  And then I heard her say:

"This time I'm going to put more sky in and less water, you know?"

I pictured one of the beach paintings at the Kennedy Gallery in some mall.  But that was blasphemous, and I immediately set about changing my thinking, for by now. . . I loved her.

She turned to me and smiled.

I didn't want to know what she was looking at while she smiled.  I'd fooled myself long enough for now and headed to the check-out counter.  There a woman who had recently had a baby checked me out with less enthusiasm than once she did.  I walked out with my bags without looking back.

Home, I worked up the images on the computer that I would need for transferring.  I copied the text from the old hygiene books and did everything I could to make them smooth, then printed them out on the laser printer I'd bought just for this purpose.  And when I thought I was done, I realized that I had not reversed them for printing.  Redo.

The beautiful morning had passed into a beautiful afternoon.  I headed to the studio.  When I got there, the encaustic artist from the studio behind me walked up to my car.  He had left a cone marking my parking spot.

"It's Cinquo de Mayo," he said and jerked his thumb to the Mexican restaurant just up the hill.  We shared a parking lot with them, sort of, and it was going to be a madhouse.

"Thanks," I said.  We kibitzed for awhile and talked about what I was getting ready to do.  He has a key to my studio and had called me earlier to borrow some paint sticks for his own work, so I guess he was feeling friendly and helpful which worked out well for me, for later, when I had everything prepared, he came over and watched me work, giving me good advice all along.

"Do you think I can just burn this paper off with the torch," I asked him about an image I'd transferred onto wax a few days before which was ripping every time I worked it.

"Come to the studio and I'll show you some pieces that I did that on.  You can see the texture."

It looked O.K. to me, and so I said I was ready to burn.

"Remember," he said, "don't melt the wax."

After I'd done it, he said, "That looks good."  The wax was still warm, and he said, "You can wax it now if you want."

I need to know that.  So I put on another coat and got the torch ready when it had dried.

"Remember to start off the frame and move over it consistently, then up and back again all the way up the frame."  He was making a sweeping motion that he had shown me earlier in the week.  And so I made a few passes, and when I had finished, he gave me some corrective advice.  I did it again and the wax came out just the way his does, smooth and clear and beautiful.  This was the advice I'd been needing, and now I was excited to work.  I could do this now.  I was full of ideas.

I took out my phone to look at the time.

"Hey, the Kentucky Derby runs at 6:30.  You want to go up and have a Margarita and watch the race?  Kills two birds with one stone--Cinqo de Mayo and the Run for the Roses."

He did.  So I started putting things back inside and locked up.

Neither of us ever eat at the Mexican place though it is hugely popular and always busy.  I sometimes go up to get a beer and sneak it back down the hill if I don't have anything in the studio, and sometimes if models are hungry, I'll get something for them there.  And twice now, I've gone up to buy a couple cigarettes from the barmaid for girls who wanted a smoke.

When we got to the door, there was a line.

"This is for food, right?" I asked a woman looking hard at me as I walked by her.  "I just want to go to the bar."

"The Fire Marshall was here and did a count.  People have to leave before others can go in."

I turned to my friend.  "Let's go next door and see if they are full," but as we crossed the parking lot, I saw the Fire Marshall getting out of his car.  He was headed for the Mexican place.

"Hey," I said loudly pointing to the Marshal, "he can get us in."  He looked over and I smiled.

He was a big African-American man with a serious look, and he didn't smile.  At first.  Then he cracked a grin and said, "Are they full?"

"Yea," I replied, "they said you'd been in there and done a count, so now they have people waiting in a line.  I just want to see the Kentucky Derby."

"Come with me,"he said, "I'm going to let you in."

When we got to the restaurant, the same people were standing in the same places.  The Marshal cut through them with me following.  My buddy saw a couple walking away and gave out a great hoot.  Apparently he was glad to see them.  Fuck that, I thought, I want to see the Derby.  The Marshal came up and said to the hostess, "O.K.  Let 'em in."

"That don't mean you, cowboy," the woman I'd cut in front of said.

"Fuck that," I said, "You're only getting in 'cause I'm pals with the Fire Marshal.  You need to be buying my drinks."

There was a small cheer from the crowd.

The bar was packed, but there were big screen t.v.s everywhere, so I stood behind two fellows and caught the barmaid's eye.  I had a margarita in nothing flat.  And just then, they were putting the horses into the gate.  A fellow standing next to me asked, "Do you have any money on this?"

"Nope," I said, "but I always watch it."

And I do.  Somehow, I always do.  I've watched it at that fantastic bar that faces the Atlantic at the Breakers in Palm Beach, at Vivian's in Gainesville, at the Chart Room and other bars at the Pier House in Key West, and many, many more.

And they were off.  Two horses stayed out front, the pack bunching up behind.  I watched the two leaders and it was obvious that the one leading was running with much less effort, plus he had the inside making the other horse run two for one.  And as they came into the last turn, I was pretty sure that this horse was going to have won the race having never been behind.  But I watched the pack looking for any heroics at all.  And sure enough, something big was making a move.  It looked like a Clydesdale rather than a racehorse.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  But it looked like it would be a heartbreaker.  There just wasn't enough track left for him to catch the leader.  Then maybe.  Then there was.  And then this big horse that I was sure must be named The Terminator passed the leader with a few yards left.  The bar erupted.  You would have thought that everyone there had bet on that horse.  But it wasn't that at all.  It was the shear spectacle of the thing.  It had been tremendous.  You could see how that big guy just broke the will of the other as he came past.  He had just broken the leader's heart.

I finished my drink and looked around for my friend, but he was nowhere to be seen, so I headed the short distance down the hill to the studio.  And there he was.

"Sorry.  I ran into a guy I haven't seen for ten years.  I used to live with him a long time ago and I lost touch."

Etc.

We sat down on the loading dock and listened to the band that had set up behind the restaurant.  They were an 80s cover group, but they were not bad at all for what they did.  The light was good and the air beginning to cool, and then some other fellows came out and joined us, real nerds that I won't write about now, but fellows who have high I.Q.s and are borderline autistic, fellows who get together on Saturdays to watch anime.  But that is for another time.

And later just before the sun began to set, we drifted to our separate destinies, mine predictably to the liquor store and home.  And just as I turned the corner onto my street, I saw it--The Super Moon--big and orangish-yellow as it just began to climb above the treetops.  There wasn't a cloud anywhere and the air was like crystal.  I parked and put my packages inside, then ran down to the lake to see it over the water.  I stood for awhile and we had our usual conversation, me remembering many of the places we had talked in the past, some near, many far away, usually just the two of us chatting it up for awhile.

And when that was done, I decided to go to a little fish shack close by.  I hadn't been for a long time, but it sounded good tonight.  When I got there, the waitresses acted glad to see me and still remembered my name.  So there was that as I planted myself at a table outside alone waiting for my grouper watching the moon now much higher in the sky.  He looked a little cockeyed, but it could have been me.  As I drank my draft Blue Moon, I thought about the girl in the black dress from earlier in the afternoon.  The day had gone well, and who knew what the evening might hold.  And besides, you have to think about something, right?

You have to think of something.