Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapters Ten & Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter 3
By the time I arrived home it was time to feed my dogs. I have 2 dogs. One is named ‘Flat’. She got this name when we brought her home from the pound 3 years ago. My precocious youngest daughter, Maria, (which her mother insisted was to be pronounced“MAR e uh”) age 7, asked if it was a boy or a girl. When I said it was a girl she said with a snicker ‘Then where are its boobies?’ I said ‘girl dogs don’t have boobies that show unless they have babies.’ Her deadpan older sister, Daria, in middle school and growing unequally in her various body parts said, ‘In other words, she’s flat.’ The name stuck.
The other dog got its name in similar fashion. We found it roaming the streets in a rain storm. We brought it home and before I could dry it, it shook all it’s wetness off, all over me. That same precocious daughter said ‘It likes to shower people!’ Its name is ‘Shower’.
The other dog got its name in similar fashion. We found it roaming the streets in a rain storm. We brought it home and before I could dry it, it shook all it’s wetness off, all over me. That same precocious daughter said ‘It likes to shower people!’ Its name is ‘Shower’.
After the dogs were satisfied, I noticed the little yellow light on my phone was blinking. Getting a message was almost as rare as getting mail. The voice on the other end was gravelly but clear. The man speaking said he was interested in the art lessons I advertised. He said his kid wanted to learn how to paint and he couldn’t afford the money or take the time to drive to the museum school in the city 30 miles away. He asked if we could do lessons on Thursday afternoons as it was his only day off.
I called him back and we made plans for him to bring his ‘kid’ over. He must have said ‘my kid’ about half a dozen times. He had that type of voice that you imagined had at least 30 years of cigarette smoke behind it. Right before he hung up he said ‘Oh, the kid wants to learn watercolor stuff most of all. Do you even know how to do that type of art?’. I assured him I did.
Maria, asked if I really was going to give art lessons. I said, ‘Yes, why do you ask?’ She said, ‘Because you are REALLY going to have to clean your studio now!’ I was not looking forward to that.
By the time Thursday afternoon rolled around I had done a pretty good job of cleaning up. I had found 3 sets of watercolors I forgot I had, a broken electric pencil sharpener that I put on the large pile of things to fix on my garage work bench, an apron I had used when I was a waiter and, down in the back of the bottom drawer of my art dresser (where I was stuffing the apron) a very old card I had received from my unwife. Yes, I call her my unwife. She calls me her wasbund.
The card was a first anniversary card. We had been living in a very small farmhouse in Michigan at the time, close to the graduate school I was attending. It made me tear up to read how happy she was about our first year of marriage and how excited she was for our future. The painting on the front was of a sunrise.
As I wiped away my tears I heard a knock on the door. Maria ran to the front door first and opened it. Walking up I saw a grizzled old guy in a pair of bib overalls, a John Deere hat and boots with dry, caked-on mud. He had a face that matched the voice I had heard on the phone. And next to him, with eyes as big as an owls, was red headed Melissa.
© 2011 Marty Coleman
