Boys Will Be Boys - Their First Time (44 page)

“
Yeah,
”
I said.
“
Love it.
”

“
Never tried it.
”

I pulled one from the fridge and handed it to him.
“
Try one, now.
Andrea?
”

“
I
’
ll just have some water, thanks.
”

I pulled out a bottle, twisted off the top and handed it to her as Aaron sipped at the Bock.

“
Nice,
”
he said.

“
I got some chips, if you want.
”

“
No, thanks,
”
said Andrea.

“
We
’
re gonna grab a bite after I
’
m done, here,
”
Aaron smiled.

Well
so much for the thoughts that had settled in the back of my head despite my best efforts.
Not that I should have been surprised; I already had a pretty good idea he thought I was gay, and the fact that he brought this female with him to act as chaperone just proved it
.

H
ey, I may be dumb, but I ain
’
t stupid.
Oh well
,
at least I
’
ll get to sketch him.

“
Then we
’
d better get to work,
”
I said, making myself smile and glance at Andrea.
“
I have a stool at my art table, if you want to sit.
”

“
Thanks,
”
she said.

Hm
m
ph, limited vocabulary
,
though I guess when you
’
re blond and beautiful, you don
’
t need to be able to understand anything deeper than
Nancy Drew
, huh, bitch?

I turned to Aaron.
“
This chair
’
s for you.
And I
’
ll be here.
”

“
Cool,
”
he said, and coming from him it sounded like high praise.
“
How you want me to sit?
”

“
However
’
s comfortable.
”

He glided into the chair, lounged back like a lion settling down to survey his pride, and looked straight at me.
“
This okay?
”

“
Fine,
”
I said, fighting to keep that waver from my voice.
“
I
’
m gonna do a couple of quick pencil studies, first, to get a feel for your face.
”

“
You ain
’
t already got that?
”
he said, and his smile carried that same
I
-
know
-
what
-
you
’
re
-
up
-
to
hint that I
’
d seen before.

“
This time I don
’
t have to do it on the fly,
”
I smiled, looking straight back at him.

He shrugged, sipped his beer and took a deep breath.
“
Then let
’
s get to it, boss.
”

So I grabbed my Derwent #4b and the sketchpad and got to work.
And I did sketch after sketch after sketch of his face from a number of different angles and aimed for a number of different feels, trying to figure out the best wa
y
s to capture his beauty on canvas.

And it was the worst hour of my life!
Not one friggin
’
sketch turned out right!
Not
one
!
Three-quarters left with shading
,
and his nose became this monster fit for Cyrano de Bergerac.
Full-face line drawing and his eyes were off center.
Profile swipes of full pencil made his neck seem too thin and the back of his head flat.
Quick whipping circles made him look puffy.
I tried doing an eye, just by itself, in the basic art school fashion
,
and it grew deformed.
I focused on his chin
,
and suddenly it exploded into contours that brought to mind Picasso at his most second-rate cubist period.
By the time I started trying to get just his mouth right, I was beginning to lose it.

I didn
’
t know what the problem was, but I could not find a way to translate Aaron from my eye to my mind to my hand!
A ten-second sketch I did of him once while he and Andrea waited at a traffic light was a better rendition of him than anything I was doing, that evening.
By the time I
’
d torn the tenth sketch out of my pad and slung it over my shoulder, I was ready to jump out a window, I was so frustrated.

I think Aaron and Andrea felt it because she began picking up the sketches and saying things like,
“
Oh, this is good
”
and
“
Baby, he got your ears just right
,
”
and bullshit like that.
And Aaron
’
s smile kept getting smaller and smaller and less certain.
Guess they thought I was locked in some kind of creative death spiral and were afraid I was gonna do the equivalent of a fired-worker rampage or something.
I finally slung the pencil across the room, yanked a Bock from the freezer and guzzled half of it down just to shift my focus away from my exploding sense of failure.

I mean, shit
,
I wanted so much to impress him
,
to
“
wow
”
him and make him like me and become my friend and let me hold him or just be with him and enjoy the beauty of his light
,
and I was fucking it up, so perfectly.
Now he
’
d know I
’
m nothing but a stupid little faggot who
’
s just like all the other faggots who
’
ve probably come onto him, and I
’
d be dismissed like I was shit on his shoe.
Just something to wipe off.

Aaron slipped out of the chair and sort of crept over to me and said,
“
Hey, boss
...
you okay?
”

“
Yeah, I
...
I
’
m fine
...I
...
”
I muttered, then said,
“
I don
’
t get it.
I
can’t
get it.
I
...
I
’
ve never had this problem before.
I
...
I can
’
t get the sense of your face.
The contours and life and
...
and
...
”

I couldn
’
t continue.
My stomach was churning, and I was tasting something far stronger than beer in the back of my throat.
Oh, perfect – now I
’
m about to be sick in front of him
.

Andrea took on this soothing expression (I could have killed her for it) and said,
“
Hey, Joe, it
’
s okay.
I know how you creative types can get
...
and it
’
s no big deal.
”

I turned away from her.
I couldn
’
t believe she said
“
you creative types
”
!
That made me sound like some fucking lab experiment
,
and I was about to lose my manners with that bitch.

Aaron picked up one of the sketches and shrugged.
“
Really, Joe, it don
’
t look bad.
”

“
What the fuck do you know?
”
I snapped back, before I could censor the thought.
“
It
’
s shit!
All of it
’
s shit!
I don
’
t know what the fuck I was thinking, saying I could paint you.
I
’
m a fucking idiot.
”

He got this way too patient expression on his face and said,
“
Tell you what, why don
’
t I just buy that watercolor off you for the forty?
”

I was already ashamed of my outburst, so I nodded.
“
Lemme get it.
”

I went to a closet and pulled out one of my portfolios.
I have one for every semester, and I make damned sure I get every piece of my artwork back, no matter how crappy it is.
Nobody gets to mess with my work but me.
I was already digging through it before I realized I was in the wrong one.
I was about to put it back when I noticed a sketch I
’
d done in second semester drawing.
It was a squiggly line drawing of a Chianti bottle with a candle stuck in it and wax dribbling down the sides, like what you see in cheap Italian restaurants.
A nice little rendition layered in more emotion than I
’
d remembered.
No great news
,
but it stopped me dead.

“
Aaron,
”
I said, not thinking (if I had thought about it, I
’
d never have said a thing),
“
lemme try something.
”

“
What
’
s that?
”
he asked.

I rose, holding the sketch of the wine bottle.

“
My
...
my second semester here,
”
I said,
“
I took this experimental drawing class, where you try all sorts of things to jolt you out of old habits.
One exercise was we had to blindfold ourselves and sketch something by feel.
We didn
’
t know what it was until the professor put it on a stool next to us.
I wound up with this candle in a wine bottle.
”

He gave me a wary look and said,
“
Uh-huh.
”
I think he already had an idea what I was going to ask
,
so I let it bolt out of me.

“
Can I touch your face?
Get a feel for it?
”

Andrea finally popped in on what I was asking
–
the dumb bitch.
“
Wait, you want to what?
”

“
I want to close my eyes and run my fingers over his face and do a sketch, that way.
Maybe that
’
ll help me out of this artist
’
s block I
’
ve got.
”

“
You can
’
t draw like that!
”
she said.

“
I already have,
”
I snapped back.
I slapped the sketch into her hands and began digging in my box of supplies.
“
But I can
’
t do it with graphite
...
I need a Conte pencil.
Something I can feel on the paper.
”

“
That sounds kind of weird, Joe,
”
Aaron said, and even though I wasn
’
t looking at him, I could tell he was giving me his
I
-
know
-
what
-
you
’
re
-
up
-
to
smile, again.