Life's Minor Interuptions

I have this problem. I'm painting, it's midday, and I can't tell whether the yellow is my paint or the sunlight. I don't know whether the blue it my water color or the thin sheet of air in front of me.

My mother walks in often. Her hair is round like a balloon, not a hair out of place. That's what my mother's like. She does not like stray hairs or stray anything. She walks in and she is bathing in yellow paint.

“Lu! What are you still doing here? It's lunch time!”

I don't really make an attempt to argue, I dab at my painting, I say,

“I've had my lunch.” I point at a unfinished sandwich at the corner of the room. A paint-covered sandwich.

“What about the girl? I told her you'd meet her at lunch.”

I remember slowly who it is she is talking about. But I continue to dab the pink on my female apparitions that dance on my canvas. I think about how nice and quiet the canvas looks. I like quiet.

“I don't know what to do with you, I really don't. Do you want to stay in this studio all your life? Do you?”

I don't answer and my mother and that is the last straw. She leaves the room with a noise and the sunlight does not miss her when she is gone. I continue drawing pink apparitions on my canvas. Pink like the meat of juicy grapefruit. I do not look up from my canvas or my apparitions.

“Lucas.”

It's my younger brother and it's his tie-wearing day. Beside him is a women completely dressed in pink. Her face is pink, too. So are her slender arms and her bony ankles.

“What are you doing today?” He asks me. The women besides him merely swaying in the sun's gentle breath, as if she doesn't exist.

“This.” I say and turn back to my canvas. I dab some more. This time it is the blue of a pond, greenish-blue and the golden dot of sunlight is the goldfish.

“But what about the women!?” My younger brother cries.

I ignore him and give my goldfish an eye.

“Don't tell me you've forgotten! This afternoon! The party! Lucy will be there and you know how much we like Lucy!” I look slowly up at his pink lady friend standing beside him. I wonder if she minds what my brother is saying about Lucy. The pink lady seems to melt in the sun, like paint.

“You coming?”

There is a silence and it claws at my canvas.

“No.” I say.

My younger brother looks at me with the most ugly combination of frustration and sympathy.

“I don't understand you.” He says, and he walks out of the door, his quiet, pink lady friend follows him out. I continue to paint the orange scales of my goldfish, orange-peel-yellow and happiness-red. I think about how beautiful fish are.

The door opens again and this time the studio stinks of perfume.

“Lucas, honey. I thought you'd be at work!”

I do not look up from my canvas, or the golds and yellows, because it is only Anne and I wouldn't mind if the sun just inhaled her.

“You spend so much time over here. What about making a living? What about our money?” Her face is suffocating in yellow sunlight, so I can't see her expression, but I can hear the anger and desperation in her voice. I see the hems of her velvet, green dress. It looks expensive. I see that in her right hand she is holding a plastic bag full of water and inside the bag is a tiny goldfish. It's scales like yellow orange peel.

“Why Lucas?” She walks over to me and she sits down on a stool. I see her and her slits of green eyes, she places the goldfish at her side. “Don't you want me to be happy?”

It's a long answer and I don't want to waste her precious time, so I say,

“Where did you get that goldfish from?”

She looks at me like I am crazy.

“I worry about you a lot, Lucas. Always painting. I barely talk to you anymore.” She holds her face in her green hands, and the water in the goldfish's bag quivers, “Do you know how that feels, Lucas? Do you know how it feels to have the man you love never speak to you?”

I grunt. I swirl a blob of sun light on my pallet and I draw a pineapple on the edge of my canvas.

“Okay Lucas.” She says, “Okay. I understand. It's clear to me now. We've kept this relationship a secret, but now –“

The air rustles as she stands up.

“Now we're over.”

She leaves the room and she takes the golden goldfish with her. It takes a while for the room to be quiet again. The dust particles nestle back down on the floorboards, beams of light slowly stop shaking. It's quiet and still again and I continue painting my pineapple. Big and happy and yellow. That's how I want it. Something that gives people something to talk about, something to dream about, breath.

“Lu.” The door opens, Sam is in the room, absorbing the yellow paint. “We've got to talk.”

I look at him. I nod. But I notice something odd about him. On his head he is not wearing a hat but a pineapple. Big and yellow and happy. I smile. Sam's wrinkled sagging face gives me a quizzical look and I curse that I do not have a camera to capture one of life's most beautiful moments.

“It's the money, Lu.” He says, he sits down on the stool in front of me and the pineapple on his head wobbles slightly. I continue to smile, “I love your paintings, you know I do. But I've got a job...and a family. I don't know how long I can support you, Lu.”

I look at him as the sunlight reveals the ugly silliness of his face and his chubby, round body.

“I want to support you but the truth is I don't have enough money...”I watch the pineapple jiggle as he speaks and it makes me laugh slightly. Sam frowns. “Why you staring at my head for Lu? I'm serious! I feel terrible. I know how you love your art but...”

I see him, his pineapple and his wrinkled face and suddenly I see the goldfish swimming in the yellow paint behind him.

“You can't make a living from it anymore, Lu....I'm sorry...”

Suddenly the pink women appears beside him. She's swimming in the sunlight, too. They are all swimming. The pineapple bobs like it would if it were on a swaying branch.

“Lu! Aren't you paying attention!”

The pink women's face is soft and gentle, and I see her mouth curl into a beautiful smile. She strokes the pineapple and she laughs.

“Don't you care, Lu?! Lu!”

The yellow paint washes her face and even the goldfish seems to be smiling. A wet, sneaky smile.

“Oh! I don't know! A man tries to be generous and then...”

Sam gets up from his stool and so does the pink women and the pineapple and the goldfish. They are all laughing now. I am laughing too because I understand the inside joke.

“Lu! Why are you laughing!? I am serious!”

The pink lady dusts off her skirt and smiles again.

“Well...okay...if you think this a joke then I will too!”

The pink lady blows me a kiss from the depth of the yellow sunlight that caresses her pink skin.

“Goodbye!”

The door slams close. It is deadly silent. Sam is gone and so are the others, the goldfish, the pink lady, the pineapple, everything. I wait, patiently. Soon the dust has settled and the beams of light have stopped shaking. There is no noise. I look at my painting bathed in this new silence. I admire the yellows and reds. I decide to call it, “A Warm Collage of Life's Minor Interruptions.”