THE ARTIST'S CHOICE

Gage sat in the window seat of his cabin and fidgeted with the pad of paper and pencil beside him on the dusty old cushion. He had picked them up at least half a dozen times in the last half hour. He had started to sketch the view from the window seat but hadn’t made more than a few half-hearted lines. Usually, his creative juices were working overtime, but today he felt like a parched lizard sitting by a cactus in the desert. He had nothing, zilch, nada. One big fat zero. He loved art, drawing, painting, and sculpting. It was his raison d’être, his reason for living. It was the only reason he got up in the morning and hustled his buns off to school. Mrs. Buttons, his art teacher said he was gifted, but Gage knew she was prejudiced in his favour. He looked at his paintings and saw only flaws; she looked and saw his talent, his creativity, and his passion. The school board provided students with the basics, but cutbacks meant limited art supplies and therefore opportunity and creativity. 

Mrs. Buttons knew that Gage had a hard life and that as far as monetary advantages were concerned, Gage and his family were at a strong disadvantage. She had often used her own funds to give Gage the art equipment that she felt he not only needed but truly deserved. She begged her friends in the art community for any donations that they might give, for the cause. Most of her friends were the stereotypical starving artists, so donations of used brushes, bent canvases, or half-dried-up paints were few and far between. Supplies had come in meagerly until she had brought in several of his paintings and shown her cronies. They also saw his potential and offered what they could. She ran into a friend from art college, Malcolm Daniels; he had found a niche for his work with a rich and eccentric collector and also found a patron. Malcolm could now afford a few of the finer things in life and liked to give back to the community and pay it forward and thus had outfitted Gage with an art kit with canvases, tripods, oils brushes; the whole nine yards. Gage was speechless when Mrs. Buttons presented him privately with the box from Malcolm. He tried to thank her several times, but he was so overwhelmed that the words just wouldn't come out.

Art always soothed him, no matter what kind of difficulty he was faced with, drawing always calmed him and he could quickly find his inner peace. Just holding a pencil or paintbrush gave him a sense of purpose. The smell of the charcoal, the smell of the paint, the varsol, the turpentine was like a heady perfume. The smells assuaged his soul.

His life wasn't easy; it had never been, and it never would be. That life was one for fairy tales and storybooks. He was the youngest of nine, the only child still left at home, and the last man standing was the way it felt sometimes. The rest had flown the coop as soon as they could; some driven out, some left midway through high school, and some didn’t even wait for the ink on the graduation diploma to dry but hightailed it out when they had had enough of their father's abusive ways. His mother was the only constant in Gage’s life. She was his pole star, his guiding light. Loretta had married Clay when she was very young and lived to regret it every day of her life. There weren't many in the community who did not know the bitter and tragic story of the Miller family. It was a travesty, Mrs. Loretta Miller's face was always cut or bruised which told its own sad story. Mr Miller, the town drunk and ne’er-do-well, got drunk one Friday night after getting paid and tried to kill his long-suffering wife. Gage was the only onlooker to the incident and was the star witness at his father’s court trial.  After his father had gone to jail at least the rest of the family did not have to live in fear every day.

 So it wasn’t surprising that Gage's art was somewhat earthy, dark, twisted, and somewhat melancholy. Some said it showed a tortured soul or was a mirror of his mind. His brothers claimed his scribblings as they called his art, reflected a touch of darkness. They would know because every last one of them was a carbon copy of their father to some degree. Big, strong, brutal, rough, and rowdy, brawlers and drunkards. Gage and their mother loved them but gave a collective sigh when they were gone.  Gabe was more like his mother’s side of the family, delicately built, sensitive, and creative.

Gage, always laughingly, said that his art was a reflection of his soul but Mrs. Buttons felt that if ever there was a boy with a pure heart, it was Gage. He kept to himself most of the time from what she could observe, Usually taking his lunches outside and eating and sketching at the same time in his dog-eared sketchbook. He turned a cheek to the bullying he received when he was mocked for his well-worn clothes. 

Gage glanced up again from his almost blank paper and sighed. It was a rare occasion when his art couldn’t soothe him and fear ran rampant inside him. He had received the distressing news only this morning. The nearest neighbour had popped by earlier in the day with the news. He had stopped in at the town's only coffee shop for a coffee after picking up his order at the feed store. When he saw Clay Miller, Gage’s father, sitting alone at the back of the coffee shop. The neighbour had overheard him asking the waitress if Gage still lived at home. When she answered in the affirmative he gave a smirk and a small nod and buried his nose in his coffee cup. Outside a couple of old timers had been sitting on the benches outside and people were gathering to find out why  Clay Miller was on the loose. Some wondered if he had escaped prison, and others said they had to let some prisoners out of prison because of overcrowding in the prisons. All were concerned that he was back in town and asking about Gage, especially since it was partially Gage's testimony in court that had put his father away.

 Earlier, Gage had finished chopping his pile of firewood and carried the wood and stacked it neatly on the porch beside the front door of the cabin, he had kept one eye on his chores and one eye on the dirt road that led to the cabin. He knew his father's habits, he probably wouldn't show up till after the beer store opened. Eight years in prison can make a man mighty thirsty. 

 After stacking the wood, he sat down by the window facing the driveway. He picked up his sketchbook and pencils. Gage kept checking the clock that sat on the hewn log that served as a mantle for the stone fireplace. The fireplace kept the small kitchen and living room fairly warm in the wintertime but never provided enough heat for the bedrooms. They were always draughty and cold despite the many quilts that were piled on top of the beds. Gage took care of chopping the wood and the kindling, Lord knew that his mother had no time for such things. She worked two jobs and survived on little sleep. With fewer mouths to feed one would think that she could take life a little easier but unfortunately, that was not the case. There were her husband's gambling debts that must be settled and there were no statutes of limitation on debts. After eight long years, she was still making payments. She worked her fingers to the bone but never seemed to get ahead. Gage had begged her to let him get a job on weekends but she staunchly refused. He was a bright and talented boy and she wanted her youngest child to do better than the rest of her brood.  But Gage, Gage was different. He already had the makings of a fine young man.  He had brains, the rest of the lot…well enough said about them.

Gage looked at the clock again, maybe his father would be a no-show, but no, he knew that his father felt that he had a score to settle with Gage. Several of his siblings would occasionally visit their Father in jail and had reported that if Father ever got out of jail alive without someone shanking him, then Gage had better watch his back.

Another glance out the window and Gage rose to his feet and went into his room making sure that all his art equipment was securely tucked away out of sight. He had thought about putting the family's valuables away secretly as well but concluded that they really had nothing of value to lose.

Gage heard a car in the yard. It was him, his father yet his enemy, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. 

His mother would not face him, also she could not afford the time of work. The car stopped outside the cabin, and a man emerged. He had always seemed so tall to Gage, but now he seemed dwarfed in comparison to the image that had burned in Gage's mind for what seemed a lifetime. He looked at his father and remembered hearing the screams of his mother and siblings and also the times he had felt that cruel belt on his back.

‘Watch your back his siblings had said. It was your witness that sent him to prison.

 Watch your back, he's coming for you. Watch your back, he's a vengeful man.’

He could hear their words ringing in his ears.

Gage walked to the door, opened it, and stood on the porch by the doorway, watching as an older Clay Miller walked across the yard.

His father's hair was now gray, his face was lined and his back was stooped. He was an old man now, prison had hardened him, aged him. As his father shortened the distance between them, Gage looked into his eyes. Only his eyes were the same, hard and cold as steel, calculating, vengeful. The eyes that haunted all his nightmares.

“Ah,” said his father,” the little sissy boy has grown up. Taller, yes, but still as delicate as a flower,” he unbuckled his belt as he approached the stairs to the cabin. “Still easy to crush under the heel of my boot.” To prove his point he lifted his boot and brought it down loudly on the bottom step of the stairs leading up to the cabin. “I have a score to settle with you. For eight years I’ve waited for this day.” He pulled the belt from its loops with a practiced hand.

“You best be leaving the property,” said Gage, his voice filled with bravado. “You don't belong here anymore.”

His father advanced one more step, doubling the belt in his hands.

“I give you fair warning,” said Gage boldly. “Don’t mess with me, don’t mess with my mother.”

His Father advanced up one more step. He was the master of evoking fear, every movement slow and precise,  dragging out the moments before he pounced, letting the fear grow in his victims like a predator on the prowl. “You always were a smart alec. Too big for your britches.”

One more slow tortuous step.

“Where’s Loretta?” he asked with a growl.

“That’s none of your business. You know she divorced you years ago.”

“Oh, the pipsqueak has gotten very brave these days. I always knew that you wouldn't turn out to be much of a man, You are still just a lily-livered boy, a weakling, a coward. Why you are as skinny as a rail.”

Gage took a deep breath and let it out slowly but he stood his ground.

“You were always playing with your precious crayons, drawing some stupid flower or tree, how I loved to take the crayons that you got for Christmas and break them. You probably thought your brothers broke them but it was me.”

“I knew it was you, only you could be so evil.”

Gage’s father threw his head back and laughed.

“ I used to be afraid of you, I am not afraid anymore.”

“ I can snap your neck as easily as I used to snap your crayons.” Clay Miller took one more step.  “I see the fear in your eyes boy, I’ve always seen the fear in your eyes. It gives me  a sense of satisfaction.”

“ Yes, I admit it. “ said Gage. “I was afraid of you. I had nightmares about you escaping from prison and finding Mum and me, but guess what?  I’m not afraid of you anymore. I just feel… sorry for you.”

His father had paused on the step, he raised his belt. “ Why you little…”

 Gage leaned to one side of the door where the freshly piled firewood was neatly stacked.  He picked up the axe, his arm muscles rippling under his T-shirt. Years of chopping wood had developed his muscles into powerful bands of steel despite his slim build. He hefted the axe in his hand, passing it quickly from one hand to the other. Flipping it in the air and catching it like how a circus performer toys with his knives or hatchets before an audience.

Gage saw something flicker in his father's eyes, something that he had never seen there before. He saw fear. He knew the look, knew it because he had experienced it his whole life. Fear could fuel you to do many things. Both good…and evil. He hefted the axe in his hands one last time.