Chapter 42: Alien

I cut my Protein class Friday morning and went straight to the store. I had four large pre-orders for Easter to prepare and then I needed to get smaller dishes ready for the people who would wait until today and tomorrow to start planning Easter dinner. I don’t know who figures out what food is appropriate for what holiday. Some of it I understand—like butterflying thick rib steaks to put in special heart-shaped grilling tins for Valentine’s Day. We’d sold a lot of those. But who decided that Easter should be a ham day? Although it seemed that lamb was a big seller for the weekend, too.

Of course, not everyone can either afford or use a full ham. If you go down to Walmart, you can buy about three cuts of ham. A ham steak is a center cut of a whole ham. It’s the best, tenderest, and meatiest piece of the ham and has just one center bone. It’s usually half an inch to an inch thick, but commercial processors try to maximize the sale by cutting it into quarter-inch slices. That means that the butt and shank halves of the ham that are sold are labeled ‘butt portion’ and ‘shank portion.’ Neither one has the best slice included. The butt is meatier and fattier and is difficult to carve because it includes not only the leg bone, but also part of the pelvic bone and joint. The shank portion is a bit more popular just because it is easier to slice. It’s also not as fatty and tastes a little sweeter.

We didn’t deal with smoked hams behind the butcher case. Mostly, they come from one of the big processors completely tied and shrink wrapped. Some things you just can’t compete with locally. But all day Friday, I deboned, sliced, tied, and stuffed hams and pork legs.

The bones that we didn’t package for sale in the freezer case for soup, I took home with me—with Grandpa’s blessing. I set our largest soup kettle on the stove and dumped all the bones in to simmer overnight. Saturday, I would pick the meat, strain the stock, cool it so I could skim the fat. I also put a big pan of navy beans to soak. By Saturday evening, I had ham and bean soup slow cooking for Sunday dinner. A little cornbread and some greens and we’d be all set.

In the meantime, I still had to cook dinner Friday night, after which Jas and Sarah Lynn decided to make a Jett sandwich between them.

Ah woe is me. I have such a hard life.

The respite was brief. After work on Saturday, I had to head to the airport. Mary joined me and we filled the wall with clouds, birds, and airplanes. The big weekend paint performance was just three weeks away.

That also meant that finals were just two weeks away. I went to classes Monday morning filled with dread. Proteins just kept chugging along like normal, though we were told that our final would include both a written and a practical exam. The written would include recipes, seasonal questions, and marketing terms. The practical would include identifying cuts, listing practical uses, and being given a recipe to prepare for sale.

My 3D class was as unpleasant as usual and the exam promised to be a narrow escape for me. We’d studied sculpture all term and had been given different assignments with modeling clay, foam board, wood, and found objects. Only one or two people in the class were actually studio artists in sculpture. The rest of us limped along with lame projects like making a face out of found objects.

Current Directions in Art was a jack-off class as far as I was concerned. We were supposed to learn to look at and analyze various artworks. What was the artist’s motivation, intention, and process? What was their relationship to the development of contemporary art? To me, it was a lot like the discussions of Liberty and Death in my Lit class. Everybody had their own passionately argued position about what the piece meant. ‘The exposed breasts were a classic invitation to suckle at the nurturing mother after the birth of her nation.’ Get real. Rania had awesome breasts. I wanted to show them off.

Blankenship was out on Monday. That was so unusual that we just stood around in the classroom waiting for twenty minutes. I hoped he would be in for my review of The Garden of Earthly Delights on Tuesday. I’d reached a point with it that I doubted everything. I kept trying to think of what he would criticize next. Every time I passed the piece, I found something else to touch up a bit. Frankly, I’d had no idea that drawing could be so complicated. All my drawings up to this time had been pretty much as a basis for paint. This was the first time I was considering the drawing to be the end product instead of a step in the process.

Merck gave us the info for our last project. It was the first one I’d need to worry about because his three-hour exam slot was on Monday. That’s when I’d get to present Andi. She’d agreed to do a few test passes, but didn’t want me to use the acrylic paints on her. She wanted to be able to take a shower afterward and have it gone. That meant that I’d have to paint her in the morning before our exam. Unlike Beatitude that was presented only as a painting on canvas, Princess would be presented only as body art. The early 1900s were really when Modernism took hold. Part of that was the cubist movement in art and the rise of science fiction in literature. Picasso and Edgar Rice Burroughs. A painting on the Princess of Mars as if she were rendered by Picasso.

I entered Blankenship’s office at exactly five-thirty Tuesday afternoon. I’d been coming for these private reviews all term now. I couldn’t remember having ever spoken since the first one. I didn’t need to knock. Blankenship ran by a clock in his head. If my appointment was at five-thirty, I was simply expected to enter at exactly that time and listen until he dismissed me.

I set my drawing on his review easel and sat across from him to listen to his scathing critique again.

He sat at his desk with his arms folded and looked at the drawing. He pursed his lips as his attention was caught by one thing or another. He squinted one eye then the other. He stood and walked toward the drawing, going so far as to pull out a magnifying glass at one point and examine a cluster of flowers growing from Ariel’s pussy. He scanned the whole picture from up close again and then paced back to the other side of his desk and looked at it again.

I was getting frustrated. Usually by this time he would be ranting about one thing or another. He’d jump up and draw a section on the whiteboard in a better rendition than I had on the paper and then tell me why mine was inadequate. He was driving me crazy with his silence.

He nodded once and sat at his desk. He started going through papers and picked up a stack to start reading. That was an accepted sign that our session was over. I packed the drawing in my portfolio and turned to leave, still expecting him to snarl some derogatory comment at me. Nothing.

I left his office.

I guess his version of the Thumperian principle was ‘If you can’t say something nasty, don’t say nothing at all.’

Ariel had dinner ready and we all sat when I got home. We ate and there was the usual chitchat about our day. It was a little strained because Rania had joined us and no one was exactly sure how to treat her. She just didn’t seem like someone trying to take our girlfriend away from us. Until after dinner. Once dishes were cleared up, Ariel left with her.

I went into my studio. Sarah Lynn and Jas were studying in the living room. Kelly had her Tuesday night chatroom show at eight o’clock. I was still in shock a little, I think. I put the drawing of The Garden of Earthly Delights on my easel and lifted the tissue covering that kept it from getting smudged. I picked up a pencil to correct something and then laid it back down. If something still needed work, Blankety would have screamed it out at me. I pulled out a can of permanent spray fixative and carefully treated the drawing. What was it Jesus said on the cross?

It is finished.

“That stuff stinks,” Char said from behind me. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me from behind as she looked past my shoulder at the drawing. “I loved the painting, but it wasn’t as ... I don’t know ... special? ... without Ariel all painted up in front of it. The drawing is complete. I love it.” She squeezed me tightly and I could hear her breath shudder as she drew it in. “Are we losing her, Jett?”

I turned and pulled Char to me. She was just wearing a T-shirt and I stroked her soft back as I hugged her. “I don’t know, honey. Do you think ... Was it really good for her to be our sex doll? I think we’ve been seeing a little of the manic side of Ariel’s emo persona the past few weeks. Since Christmas. Maybe Rania will help bring some balance to her.”

“I know it’s almost impossible to keep a group like we have together,” Char said. “I really love all our lovers. I’ll be so sad if she is never with us.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Kelly’s show has started. Let’s go watch it in bed and make love.”

That’s an idea I could get with.

“Two weeks. Your final project is due here on the eighth. Your task is to create a composition and draw it. Subject matter is open, but I strongly suggest you not do a figure drawing. We have not studied the unique aspects of figure drawing and you would just be guessing. Still life is yet beyond the reach of most of you. Your drawing is to be a finished work of art. It is not a drafting nor a sketch for a painting or future work. It is to be thirty by twenty, portrait or landscape and should be ready to mount for exhibition. You will show in this work of art that you have learned the principles and application of composition, illusional space, perspective, proportion, and form.”

We were just a minute from the end of class and no one would have time for a question before he walked out the door. At least I understood the assignment, but I was exhausted just thinking about it. Blankety stopped in front of me on his way to the door.

“You have passed your final,” he said, pointing at me. “You needn’t return.”

And then he was gone.

Fuck!

“I have to see your final,” Andi said urgently as we walked out of class with Mary. Everyone was looking at me suspiciously. “If you’ve already passed, seeing what you did will show me what I have to do. I’ll strip and you can smear paint on my body. With your hands if you want to. Just let me see what you have drawn.”

“I’d like to see it, too, Jett,” Mary said. “I’m not sure it will tell me anything about what I have to do, but I’d like to celebrate with you. You are the only one in our class who knows he passed.”