Drawing Together

Drawing Together

By Paul Crehan

“Do you think things work out for the best?”

“Sorry?” she said, removing an earbud and turning his way.

“People say that,” he continued, “but I wonder if it’s true. Maybe it’s just some comforting thing we tell ourselves.”

If he were hitting on her, this was the weirdest hitting-on she’d ever encountered. But maybe he wasn’t talking to her, but to someone in his ear? Unless—was he crazy and talking to himself?

He turned to look at her directly. He looked…benign—but crazy people often did. He was waiting patiently for her to answer.

She didn’t have any answer and wouldn’t have given one if she did. In fact, she wanted to get away from this guy. What a strange-o.

He continued. “Because, maybe things just resolve. Or not ‘resolve,’ but just end up being. And they’re neither good nor bad. They just are, and we decide to characterize them as good or bad. Or, good and bad. That could be. But they’re not anything until we decide they’re something.”

He looked back at the painting. She thought, well, he’s a strange-o, but a thoughtful one. She didn’t pick up menacing. Still, she wanted to get away from him. She was in no mood for any conversation, let alone something all existential or whatever. But how to make this clear to him, politely?

“In other words,” he continued—and Damnit, she thought, she had missed her moment to move on!—“they work out for the best because we want them to. Or need them to. In other words, this breathing life we’re born into is indifferent to our presence. It’s not here to work for us or against us.”

“I’m sorry,” she suddenly said, holding up the earbud she had taken out of her ear, “I have to listen to this lecture for class.” She gave him a friendly smile and, putting the earbud back into her ear, moved away, to the next painting on the wall. Was he going to follow her? He wouldn’t follow her, would he?

He followed. “Okay,” he said, “I understand. I’m just saying, I think, it’s no wonder we feel so deeply alone.” Suddenly, his eyes widened and he cleared his throat, because it occurred to him, finally, how he might be coming across to this woman, this stranger. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes a painting—or whatever—just stares right back at you. And it’s a lot.”

She wasn’t listening to a lecture for class. There was no class. She wasn’t a student. She was listening to a mixtape she’d made of her favorite arias. It was her soundtrack for her visits to this museum.

She looked at this guy carefully. He wasn’t crazy; or at least not super-crazy. He wasn’t drunk. Or high. But he was shaken. That painting had shaken him. Which was interesting, because she herself didn’t think much of it at all. What was it about that painting that had gotten to this guy? He was reaching out for help. That’s what he was doing.  That’s all he was doing. He wouldn’t have engaged with her had he not needed to. But he needed to. She could have been anybody. A guy. He hadn’t been interested in flirting with her—the usual thing she got here. The downside of coming to the museum. Alone.

But wait. Why didn’t he want to flirt with her? Irrationally—and she would have acknowledged herself as behaving so—had present circumstances allowed her time to reflect—she felt insulted by this. Who was this guy to not want to chat her up? To not be interested in her? She was pretty. She was hot. He wasn’t ugly—he was, in fact, attractive; but still, she’d be doing him a favor by showing interest—not the other way around. But she said, because she was kind, and he did have this need to connect:

“Well, I mean, what is it about that painting that gets to you?” In an instant, she realized that she’d better make her question rhetorical, and not interrogative like this, and therefore showing personal interest. She quickly added, “That would be the question to ask yourself.”

She gave him another kind smile and, putting her earbud back in her ear, moved away. She gave the painting at which she now stopped a brief glance and moved to the next. Please, don’t follow. Please, don’t follow.

“It’s the hands,” the man said, “the monk’s hands. You can see ‘giving up’ in them. You see—just in the hands—more than in anything else—disillusionment.” He hadn’t followed her to this next painting. He had remained where he was.

She heard his words through the soaring notes of Un bel di. His thing about the hands was interesting. You could see disillusionment in the hands? She had barely looked at the hands. In any case, they hadn’t registered with her. In fact, the entire painting hadn’t really landed with her—and here was this guy so terribly moved by it; so much so, that he had to talk to someone about it.

Curious now, but reluctant to move back toward this guy, she nevertheless did just that. He had hooked her with the disillusioned hands.

She stood in front of the painting and looked at the monk’s hands. This guy, this weird guy, was right. The hands told the story. Or, that wasn’t the way to put it, really. Maybe it was that they summed-up the story. They…what was that word?—for a part representing the whole?—a word she had learned in rhetoric class at Uni—whatever. She couldn’t remember it. Nonetheless, he was right. Those hands spoke. And to make the point super-clear, the monk’s lips were pressed together tight. That was interesting. Why these choices? she wondered. The hands clearly doing all the talking?

“You’re right about the hands,” she said. “They do the talking.”

“They do the talking,” he repeated, nodding. He liked the way she had put that.

She saw that he liked the way she had put that. Maybe he’d want to really look at her now. Reframe how he saw her. Not just as a stranger to reach out to because he didn’t want to be alone with the thoughts in his head.

“I guess the artist,” she continued, “really wants to make that point, because look how tightly pressed the monk’s lips are. He’s holding something in. Or back.”

“A howl, I think,” the man said. “Something Vesuvial.”

She liked Vesuvial. “Vesuvial,” she said. “Yes.”

“What do you think happened to that monk to make him this way?” he asked. “Or, I mean, what happened to the artist?”

“He got rocked,” she said.

“Rocked. Yes.”

“Some terrible, maybe unimaginable, loss. Something that didn’t make sense. Something that God, his God, wouldn’t allow—and yet did. And now, he’s disillusioned.”

“Crisis of faith,” the man said.

“Loss of it,” she said. “I mean, I think he’s past the crisis point. This, now, is all about the end result. This is what loss looks like. This is a portrait of loss.”

The man took this in. She watched him taking it in and appreciated that he was doing so.

He was making her feel good. It’s not that it was rare that people took her seriously, but it was…well, it was rare. What if she dressed differently? Didn’t make so much of an effort to show off her figure?

“Yes,” he said at last. “You’re right. That’s what this is. Loss. The title is Fra Domenico. But it might as well be Loss.”

He fell silent as he studied the painting. Should she say something else?

“And now,” the man suddenly said, “he questions all his beliefs and choices. He believed things. Why did he believe them? I think there’s some anger and bitterness—in those lips.” He looked at her, to see if she might agree.

She turned from the painting to look at him. Something in his voice. The ‘he’ was all about him. This guy was ‘he,’ not the monk.

“Well,” she said, turning back to the painting, “I mean.” She paused, because what to say? She herself didn’t see any anger and bitterness in those lips. Not that it wasn’t there. She just didn’t see it. So, maybe he was seeing what was in him to see. She changed the subject. “I mean,” she repeated, “you know what? This is loss, to be sure, but I don’t see giving up. Like he’s throwing in the towel. Like he’ll never get up off that bench. Those hands are strong. Those hands—that’s a lifetime of hard labor. He’s used to hard work. Not afraid of hard work.”

“That’s true,” the man said.

She turned back to him. “He can get a grip. You know? I see that in him.”

But did she see that? Or did she just want to see that—in this guy? Or, most probably, she was just being her kind self—trying to help this guy feel better about himself; and about life, in general. Of course, maybe it could be two things. She was being her kind self, trying to help someone, encourage someone, and she also did want to see strength in this guy. That he was strong. Not a wimp. Troubled. But a man. And maybe she really did see strength in him. For real.

“I see what you mean,” the man said, eyes laser-sharp on the portrait. “But. You know? He’s not looking at his own strength. I mean, see how he’s looking over his hands. I mean, not at them, but at something else—outside of the frame? Something that maybe is heading for him?”

A good point, she thought. The monk was looking over, looking past, his hands. In other words, his strength. His strength wasn’t in mind. He was looking at something only he could see. He was alone with what he saw; with what he was taking in. It dominated him. In this moment, it dominated him.

“Well,” she said, “I mean, maybe it is something heading for him, but couldn’t it be something heading away from him?”

“Or away from him!” the man exclaimed: he was that excited by her thought.

This made her feel good. She turned and smiled at him. She had no idea why the heading away business should excite him like this, but she was glad that it did.

He was tall, she realized. Six-two, perhaps? And he was attractive. Not handsome, no. But attractive. And a definite kind of person. Not run-of-the-mill. Cut from something a little different from most people. He observed. He thought. Observed carefully. Patiently. Without ego getting in the way. If he asks me for coffee or whatever, I’ll go, she thought.

She said, “Maybe we’re supposed to see what he does not—that he’s got the strength he needs. It’s a part of him. Whatever he’s lost, or whatever’s coming, he’s still got the strength to deal with…the rest of his life.”

The man nodded. “I mean,” he said, “yes. You really could make that point.” He turned and looked at her. She was making him feel good; like, not a total loser. He wanted to talk to her more. He wondered if that were in the realm of possibility. To just get a coffee, maybe? But she was really pretty; too pretty for him. She had to have a boyfriend. No ring, he saw. But certainly she had a boyfriend.

“You know,” she said, “we could dip into the cafeteria. Get a coffee. Take the picture with us—as it were. Sit down, you know?”

He truly could not believe what he was hearing. In fact, he looked around the gallery. Was this a prank? Was there a camera crew? But no. It was just the two of them. And that was odd. Where was everybody else?

“I would love that,” he said. “Yes.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m Holly, by the way.” She stuck out her hand, half-humorously.

“Dan,” he said, taking it, fully earnest. “I’m Dan.”

They will be married for fifty-two years before Holly succumbs to her cancer, dying with Dan’s hands pressed hard to the sides of her head as he says to her, his voice strangled by grief, Stay, my darling. Stay…