One More Time (With Feeling)

3

You're not sure when you got home and went to bed, but you wake up at home the next morning shirtless, with your hair in disarray, and your blanket tangled up around your legs. You jerk up so hard you topple off the bed. But you don't wait to catch your breath, you jump up, sliding on your glasses and grabbing the first shirt in the little pile by the door. You pull it over your head as you make your way down the hallway, through the living room, the muck room, into the garage. You flip the light on and open the door to let out all the fumes you're going to make. It's still dark outside, quiet and soft.

Your canvases are in the back left corner, away from Lola's so they don't get confused. You dive into the messy pile and start digging for one in the right size. You want it big.

Finally, you decide on one about as long as you are tall and two feet or so high, thin and narrow. Perfect. It's much too big for your easel so you spread your dropcloth out to its full size and lie the canvas down on the floor. You prime it with a coat of black, and before it dries, another, thicker one up top so it can drip down the front. Then, once it dries, another dripping layer of pearl star yellow, one of ivory, one of marigold. You want texture and substance and something you could bite into, layers so thick onlookers have to chew their way out. Once it dries, you sketch out a skyline with a white conté crayon, then drop it in your bucket of sketching odds and ends before going back to your paint. It's not the Chicago skyline, it's not even what you saw yesterday, it's just... a place you see in your head sometimes and couldn't figure out how to put down until last night.

The buildings shiver and bend and curl on the canvas, never still, never static, and each layer and each color brings each one more to life, gives each one its own personality. You keep it dark and dim, wrought iron gray and midnight blue, and then for each light, something warmer, yellows and oranges and pinks, but dim and pale and light, barely tinted ivory white.

At some point, the sun has come up, and now it hangs high up in the sky, illuminating your workspace with bright natural light. The colors are a little brighter, a little more pure, and it makes you realize, you need more purples, so back to your paint box and pallet you go.

Hours pass you by as you work in the garage, alone. Occasionally a car or two will drive by outside, and the pipes clanging and banging and the light above you humming and the thunk of your knees on the concrete are loud but easy to ignore when you get wrapped up in your work.

The stray cat that comes around your house sometimes is suddenly beside you, rubbing up against your leg and purring. You look down at her and grin.

"Hey, Schatzi." You hold up your hands, covered in splotches and streaks of paint. "I'd pet you, but, you know. I'm a slob." But of course, she says nothing, and seems content to simply sit beside you and watch you paint.

You spend most of the day out there, alone with Schatzi the stray tortie, only going in once or twice to get something for both of you to drink and to find some food for her while you wait for the paint to dry in between layers. Finally, finally, you lay down the last stroke and you wash your hands, then check the time on your phone in your pocket.

3:24. Oh my God. If you came out when it was still dark, it would have been before 6:00. You've been working at least nine and a half hours, maybe longer. You brush your hair out of your face and wipe the sweat off your forehead with the back of your hand. Your knees pop and crack when you stand to prop up your canvas against the wall to dry. When you go back inside, the air conditioning is like ice after being out in the humid heat of the stuffy garage for so long. Schatzi trots inside after you. You don't usually let her inside, but it's so hot out. Just this once.

Kyle is on the couch with his acoustic guitar, scribbling something down in the blank sheet music of his notebook. Cricket sits on the floor beside him, legs stretched long underneath the coffee table as zie leans on the couch. Lola's head is in zir lap, sleeping quietly as zie plays with her hair. Schatzi prances up and curls up in front of her stomach.