Two

I PACKED MY WHOLE DORM ROOM up with neatly labeled boxes to ship home. I hadn’t told my folks yet that I wasn’t coming back to PCAD. I hated it.

If anything, Christmas break was even more depressing than my first semester had been. My best friend didn’t come home. Apparently, her parents had arranged to have Christmas in Hawaii and she flew straight back to the East Coast. I hung out with a couple of guys from high school, but all I could see was how much we had become different. I guess that’s one thing about high school; no matter how individual you are, you all share twelve years of common experiences. Suddenly, you’ve all gone to college or to jobs and your paths diverge. I was a little envious of them because they all talked like they loved what they were doing.

Dad and I played racquetball at the YMCA a couple times. That had always been something we did as father and son. I really enjoyed it and Dad told me he thought I was really improving. I guess I did mention that Lissa kept me sharp so I wouldn’t embarrass myself.

The UPS truck brought my boxes the day after Christmas. Great. I was having a Boxing Day. Mom asked me about them, but I just said that I didn’t need this stuff at school. I don’t know why I kept avoiding telling them I wasn’t going back. I spent my time in my room writing personal essays for my transfer application to UNeb. It sucked that they don’t let anyone know until June or July. By that time, I could be in the Navy. Navy sounded like a safe bet since there wasn’t any water around Omaha.

I wandered, too. It was cold and there was a foot of snow on the fields. I trudged out to some of my favorite places to draw and did my best to capture the cold, desolate feeling while keeping my gloves on and mopping my constantly running nose on my sleeve. I realized my eyes were running a lot, too, but I blamed that on the cold wind.

I was supposed to be at PCAD to become an artist. I unpacked my drawings from first semester to show my appreciative parents, but as I looked at them I saw what was happening to me. The technique was good. I was learning a lot about how to control shading and contour. In fact, compared to my earlier drawings and paintings, they were far superior. But they lacked any sense of emotion. When I looked at them I thought a computer could have drawn it just as well.

Winter break was showing me something else. I didn’t want to live at home. I’d missed my parents so much while I was in Seattle, but now that we were together all day every day, I was going stir crazy. I’d never make it till spring if I stayed here. Two days before my flight was scheduled to return me to Seattle, I packed up my boxes and took them to the UPS office. I didn’t ship as many back as I’d brought in the fall. I needed clothes, art supplies, and my racquetball equipment. Two boxes, plus the suitcase I’d carry on with me. Yeah. I’d decided that even another semester at Hell U would be better than staying holed up in Nebraska for the rest of the winter.

Grades came out and I hadn’t done badly, even in the class I thought I was failing. After the break, I thought I was ready for another term. “Never make a life-changing decision before you go on vacation,” my dad had said when I was trying to choose a college in the first place. It seemed like good advice and I was almost looking forward to the challenges of the next semester.

It took almost two weeks before I was thinking about quitting and heading back to Nebraska again. I didn’t fit in this city. It was constantly gray and drizzling rain. I couldn’t imagine ever being warm and dry again. Even though Nebraska was colder, it was bright and sunny and there would be a fire in the fireplace at night.

I had no friends to speak of. I didn’t want to spend my time hanging out with the stoners in the dorm, so I was spending most of my time alone. Or in the gym. I saw a lot of my classmates with their noses up against their iPhones or playing on some game machine. I wanted to beat on something and a racquetball was pretty safe. Most of the time it didn’t beat back.

Sure, there were people I saw every day. There were even a few that I had lunch with regularly. Melody, Sandra, and Amy seemed to catch up with me in the cafeteria more frequently than just our Friday class together. I didn’t really hang out with anyone, though. Back in high school, at least there were a few people I considered close friends. Here at art school, we were all outcaste. Even from each other. I never saw anyone smile.

The second semester studio class was Figure Painting. The old guy, Mr. Johnson, came in twice to model. Maybe it gave the girls a thrill to stare at a real live cock dangling in front of a guy. God, he was hung. I fervently hoped the girls didn’t think that was how guys were supposed to look. They’d be really disappointed someday. I played racquetball at least three times a week now and just battered the hell out of the ball in the one session I where I practiced alone.

We were told the last half of our Figure Painting class would be spent primarily working on a final project. When we got the assignment, our lunch table was buzzing with brainstorms.

“I know what you’re doing,” Melody taunted me. “Something with drapes. Probably watercolor.”

“Don’t forget the nude and the dog,” I said. “It is Figure Painting. But, yeah. There will be drapes.”

“I’m going to develop that sketch I did of the hippy chick model in highlights against a dark background,” Sandra said.

“She was cool,” said Amy. “I might do one of her. In fact, I’d love to do her.” She got a dreamy look on her face and we all stared at her. Yeah, lesbians get lovesick, too. She realized we were all staring. “I just don’t know what positi ... which pose to do. What about you, Melody?”

“Uh ... I was thinking something classical. Like maybe an oil of The Discus Thrower or something.”

“Who’s going to model?”

“I’ll probably just go to the museum and find a sculpture,” Melody sighed. I was sure she had blushed. Well, old man Johnson was sure no model for that kind of painting. Maybe The Dick Thrower. We all had different places to be after lunch and I grabbed my gym bag to go play racquetball. I was suddenly aware that Melody hadn’t gone with the others. She was still standing beside me.

“Is it hard to play racquetball?” she asked.

“Um ... Not really—at least not the basics.” Why was it so hard to talk to her without everyone else around? “If you get to competitive levels, there’s as many nuances as there are in tennis. Anybody can play, but there are really only a few that reach Wimbledon.”

“Do you compete?”

“Every match is a competition. When you play at a gym, sometimes you are playing with guys—or gals—who are a lot better than you are. Sometimes, you’re the better one. You learn from masters and teach novices. To answer your question fairly, I was in a few YMCA tournaments back in high school, but haven’t done anything but gym tournaments and individual matches since I got here. I do it for fun.”

“Would you mind if I watched sometime?”

“No. Just let me know and I’ll get you a club pass.”