All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 79

79

Over three weeks his Grace emerged.

Sammy came and went, one time told him of Caravaggio in the early hours of the morning, speaking into his brandy as though he were reciting a play to a captive audience of one. A new woman came, and Sammy sent her upstairs and stayed with Patch, who worked as he listened, from sketch to engraving, from Caravaggio at work to his hedonistic evening.

The next night, another woman was ignored as Sammy told Patch of Frans Hals.

“And with those same hands he would later go home and beat his wife.”

And Paul Gauguin.

“To hold absinthe as a day drink and keep wine for the evenings.” Patch noticed the note of awe in Sammy’s voice.

Each time a little more competent, each stroke still deemed an insult to the canvas, a shame to the brushes used to create it. Sammy drank no matter the time or day, once finishing four bottles of wine before an evening showing, so drunk he took to his bed as the cluster of visitors formed their own line in the street, waited an hour in the rain before retreating, muttering their curses.

And, when Sammy thought he was progressing, Patch took the canvas

and tore it in half.

“It’s not her. It’s still not her.”

Through a mild fall and into a heavy winter that smothered all but the color in that small room, Patch settled into a life of stringent purpose. He would sleep in the studio on a small sofa that had appeared a day into the New Year, a heavy blanket and light pillow folded neatly atop it. Sammy

did not mention the new arrangement, and Patch made sure to be a ghost around the building, not disturbing the lady callers. Some nights his mother noticed and he told her he was staying at Saint’s. Most nights she did not.

He trudged the ice through January, shook snow from himself like a wet dog before he removed his boots and worked in his stockinged feet for a couple of hours before and after school. His fingers taped where the brushes left them so raw he could barely hold his pen.

He passed Misty in the hallway, their eyes met, and he would fight the urge to let her know that he thought of her often, that he was glad when he saw her running track, or laughing with her friends, or even that she seemed to have made things up with Chuck. He would be a small scratch in the record of her life, no longer deep enough to alter the perfect rhythm.

He took weekend walks with Saint. She would show at the house with plates of food and tell him she was heading across the Baker fields because she wanted to photograph the frosted crop lines. They would walk mostly in silence, though sometimes she would tell him how she wanted her grandmother to stop driving buses after a minor collision at the apex of Masterton Avenue. Patch did not notice when she wore a light shade of lipstick or a new coat, or curled her hair. He did not notice that she wore a retainer, new glasses with a lighter frame, that she’d grown two inches, that she finally had call to wear a bra.

In the first folds of spring Sammy told him he would need to quit the cleaning and begin helping around the gallery. His tone left little room for negotiation, and one week later Patch was given new slacks, a couple of smart shirts, and a pair of polished wingtips. The debt deepened, though in the immediate term he was able to cover the rent and the bills. Sammy bought a small grill and would barbecue fine cuts of meat on the balcony, seasoning with saffron and cardamom and insisting Patch take dinner with him, pretending not to notice when the boy wrapped cutlets in napkins to sneak home for his mother.

Sometimes Saint showed at the gallery and stood by the window, hoping to glimpse him inside till Sammy scared her away with a narrow stare.

“That girl,” he said, and Patch did not understand at all.

Sammy took a trip to Cuba the week after the ban was lifted, brought back a case of cigars and a deeper tan, and told Patch of a collision of old and new. “Salsa dancing, kid. I tell you, my cock didn’t soften the entire trip.”

In the darkened room Patch breathed turpentine until his nose ran slightly and his head craved the cold and fresh air. Sometimes he made coffee for the visiting women and would sit with them.

“Does Sammy talk about me?” a young blonde asked, her smoky eyes expectant.

“All the time,” Patch said, as he caught Sammy descending the stairs, seeing the blonde’s presence and quickly retreating.

“Do you know if he wants to marry someday?”

Patch nodded. “And he talks about having children.”

That last comment added a penalty charge of a hundred bucks to his tab.

Under that barbed tutelage Patch dry washed backgrounds, underpainted each tone of her skin, layered and lifted and bloomed and feathered. In his contouring Grace gained dimensions till her face floated clear of the canvas.

He learned to sketch first with a heavy 4H pencil, from general to specific, difficult with his small rigger, but he gained in confidence and technique.

He blocked in the dark values, burnt ember and cobalt, squinting as he worked, the light areas still untouched, her skin cooled with feathered pigments. He glossed her hair by leaving a lighter wash visible, loose and gestural, and she emerged from the night with a vagary that took his breath away, sometimes a stranger and sometimes so exacting, so perfectly her he would turn his back and leave and lock the door and not return for a day such was the agony.

There was no praise from Sammy. His skill was nascent, but undeniable.

Patch would not think of it as a gift. A gift was given. He ground his competence out. Slow and hard.

And then, as glimpses of summer blessed the town of Monta Clare, ten months and countless failures later, as Reggie Jackson slugged another into orbit on the small television, Sammy marched into the room and took the brush from Patch’s hand.

“You’re done,” Sammy declared.

Patch stepped back and stared.

“Whether it’s her or not,” Sammy said. “This painting is complete.”

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