ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
ELEVEN
THE
WORKS
OF
OUR HANDS
“Russell!” Patti called up the stairs. “Are you almost ready?”
Russell stood in the mirror pushing his shoulders back and admiring himself in the black suit. He knew that other people would say he looked a lot more handsome now, his dark red hair short, but he missed it shoulder length. Everyday he looked in the mirror for progress, for the hope of hair returning. When it had first been cut it was shaved at his sides. Now, at least it formed wings over his ears.
“Yeah,” Russell shouted back.
All the McLarchlahns were present downstairs for Frank’s exhibition. John was a week away from moving to Fort Atkins and Denise had never left Geschichte Falls, having made home in Father Ford’s rectory, regardless if he liked it or not. Jaclyn was there, looking odd beside John, unsure of her new status, and Kathleen was present, minus Chase.
“This is my first art exhibition ever,” Frank told them.
“Not ever,” Sara reminded him. “Remember back at Saint Rita’s?”
“That wasn’t a real one.” Frank said.
“It was art, and it was an exhibition and it was you, so it was real.”
Frank turned red, and smiled at his wife
The Geschichte Falls Arts Council had once been the original high school in town. Later it had been the public library, which was now up the block on Bunting Street. Under its current incarnation, the two story brick building with its honey colored, and heavily shellacked hardwood floors was filling up with men in loafers, women in high heel shoes, wine and cheese.
` “I think we came underdressed,” Chayne told Jewell, he in jeans and an open plaid shirt, Jewell in a paisley colored maternity dress.
“This is great! This is great!” cried Abby Develara. “Father and daughter in the same museum!”
Abby threw her arms about Jaclyn, and then gestured to one of Jackie’s paintings beside the veiled one in the large gallery.
“Well, Abby, Frank’s not really my father.”
“He’s your sister-in-law’s father?”
“Yeah.”
“So he’s your father-in-law.”
“N—” Jaclyn started, and then squinted her eyes at the black haired Abby. “Are you drunk?”
Abby smiled, tipped her hand and said, “A little bit. Rosy!” the tall woman bellowed, “Rosy!”
A round red headed woman in gold lamé came toward them, and Abby said, “You know Jaclyn Lewis?”
“I love her work.”
“This is the bitch,” Abby thumped her on the back.
“Oh, my God!” the red headed woman clasped her hands to her mouth. “I love your Red Sessions!”
“Thank you,” Jaclyn held out her hand and smiled pleasantly.
“She never knows what to say in the face of her admirers,” Abby confided.
“I’m never in the face of my admirers,” said Jaclyn.
Abby, in her platform shoes, waltzed off to throw her arms around someone else, and then a grey haired man threw his arms around her.
“Yes, Dad?” Abby waited for the older man to speak.
“Who is that woman?” Mason Devalara demanded.
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Did you just say fuck to you father?”
“I’m afraid I did, I’m a little drunk.”
“Who is that woman?”
“Must I repeat myself—?” Abby started, but then she said, “She’s been here before—”
“I know.”
“It’s Jackie’s mom.”
“Introduce me.”
“Dad!”
“Well,” Mason drew himself up and took a hand through his steel colored hiar. “I’ll introduce myself.”
“You do that, Dad. I’ll be by the wine and cheese.”
“I know you will.”
While Kathleen and Sara and Frank were chatting loudly, Mason stepped into their circle, and the two women stopped to look at him. Mason gallantly took Kathleen’s small bird hand and bowed.
“Madam.”
“Call me Kathleen.”
“Let him call you madam,” Sara interjected.
“I was captivated by your beauty,” Mason told her. “Might I stand beside you for the unveiling?”
“Well,” Kathleen Lewis lost her British accent for once, “well, yes.”
“Wait just a moment,” said Mason. “Let me bring you a glass of champagne. Cheese?”
“Oh no,” Kathleen blushed and twitched her waist, “It goes to my hips.”
When Mason had come back to Kathleen with their glasses, his daughter in her black slacks was before them all speaking.
“The Geschichte Falls Arts Council is proud to present the newest piece of work from—while not a local—the father of one our locals, Patricia Lewis.”
Abby clapped her hands, managing her wine glass, and signaled them all to clap too.
“Mr. Francis Mc.Larchlahn has been an artist for over fifty years. Most of his career, he has been a full time worker in the steel industry, and only with his retirement and the rich love of his wife, Sara, and his three children, Denise, Patricia and John has he been able to turn wholeheartedly to his artwork. This new colossal painting will be hanging here, and later in the town hall, and is inspired by his son-in-law, our very own Thomas Lewis.
Here, Abby gestured to Thom who smiled and nodded. Jackie clapped and roared, “Yay, Thom!”
“Frank, how ‘bout you come up here and do the unveiling for us?” Abby urged.
Frank nodded, and stepped up.
` “I would like to thank my family,” said Frank. “Both born to me and by marriage, and you, Abigail, and your father as well for displaying my work. Long life to the Geschichte Falls Art Council.”
They all clapped again.
“I call this piece,” said Frank. “Adonis!”
And with that, he unveiled the life size painting of Thom Lewis.
Everyone in the museum gasped. Chayne and Jewell stopped themselves from laughing, Thom’s eyes fell out of his head and Abby downed, in one sustained swallow, her entire glass of wine.
There before them in oils, Thom Lewis was giving a salute in a marine’s helmet and bearing a rifle.
And the helmet and rifle were the only things he was wearing.
Chayne Kandzierski left fairly quickly. Many people were coming up to Thom who was keeping his back to his image.
“No I never—No I—no!” Russell could hear his father telling everyone who came up to him.
“Tommy, I never knew you had it in you!”
“I didn’t pose for it!”
“Of course you did!” Frank differed.
“No—no—not like that!” Thom stammered.
“I took liberties.”
“Really, Thomas,” Kathleen drawled. “It’s a masterful portrait.”
“And just imagine, now it’ll be hanging in City Hall for everyone to see,” Jackie’s voice was neutral, but the look on her face was priceless.
“Hey, Lewis!” Ralph Balusik snarled at Russell in the hall of Our Lady of Mercy, “Your dad’s got a nice ass. We got a look at it in City Hall the other day.”
“Yeah,” Jason Lorry added. “Does it run in the family?”
He caressed Russell’s ass and laughed. Russell felt violated and weird.
“Ooh, yeah, honey it does,” Jason said, and Russell was sure that the pretty, dusky skinned half Indian boy who was always calling him a faggot was gay himself, even if he was unwilling to admit it.
“Um, the Lewis ass!” Ralph leered at him. “So, are you and your dad going to be posing for any other municipal artwork?”
“I’m surprised you can pronounce municipal,” Russell said coolly, closing his locker.
Ralph stuck a finger up his nose and was about to wipe a booger on Russell’s lapel when he stopped and said, “Woah!” for his hand was held back by a long brown one.
“Gilead, what’s up!” Ralph pleaded.
“Nicky, whaddo we do with this one?” Gilead Story, impeccably dressed, was speaking in a monotone to his friend as if to say he’d forgotten he was holding onto Ralph Balusik.
“Now, let him go,” started Jason Lorry.
“You back off, little man,” warned Nick Ballantine. Russell remembered him. The other boy was a senior, not much taller than Jason. He was a writer and popped up at Chayne’s house a lot and Gilead was one of Chayne’s cousins.
“I remember you,” Nicky said to Russell, smiling. “I think, Gilead, that you should let him go and make sure he washes his hands.”
“Good idea,” said Gilead, then, turning pleasantly toward Ralph, “Can you do that, Balusik?”
Ralph nodded.
“I don’t know how many of you it takes to screw in a light bulb,” Gilead went on placidly, “but it surely only takes one of you to wash your hands? Eh?”
Gilead released Ralph, and shoved him in the direction of the washroom while Nicky headed down the hall, saying, “See you around, Lewis!”
A few seconds later Mark Young snuck up and said, “That was cool, Russell!”
“Huh?” Russell said, closed his locker and screwed shut his combination.
Mark Young was a junior and a track runner with dark wavy hair and rolled cuffs whom Russell had believed, until this very moment, never knew he existed.
“Gilead’s really cool,” Mark said.
He added, “You are too, Lewis. Stay upright?”
The upper classman gave Russell a thumbs up and hooked smile, and then headed down the hall.
“Wow,” Jeremy looked at him in amazement.
“Yes?” Russell said, still surprised by the turn of the day.
“You’ve got friends in high places!”
“And then you started bellowing, ‘Drink some more fuckin’ wine! Drink some more fuckin’ wine!’”
“Oh, my God,” Abby put a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t.”
“You did,” Jackie told her as they adjusted her new painting to the wall in the gallery.
“I really do need to pay more attention to the cheese than the wine at these exhibitions,” Abigail said. “By the way, my father was positively smitten by your mother, Jaclyn.”
“Mother can be quite...” Jackie sought for the word, “smiting.”
“He wanted me to find out where she lives.”
“You know she lives in Fort Atkins.”
“I know that,” Abby said, “but he wants a phone number, too.”
“Oh, my God—”
“That’s right,” Abby elbowed Jaclyn, “your mama’s on the market!”
“How’s it hanging, Lewis?” Russell felt a thump on his back and turned around to shout, “Alright,” although the other boy was gone all the way down hall before he recognized that it had been Nick Ballantine.
After history class, Jeff Cordino called Russell to his desk, as he himself was stuffing all of his things into a briefcase and moving to his next classroom.
“I couldn’t help but notice that you’re actually coming to class,” Jeff said.
“I could stop,” Russell suggested.
“No,” Jeff laughed. “No. It’s good. I was just going to say, things are better at home now?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And at school?”
“Yes,” Russell said, then added. “Lots.”
“Well, if any of us can help—”
“Mr. Cordino,” Russell interrupted his teacher.
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to say thanks. For everything. When the year started it was so bad, and you were—you’ve been really good. So, thank you.”
Jeff Cordino turned from Russell, and the student could see that the teacher was blushing a little.
“It sure will be good when the snow clears up,” Jeff said.
“Yeah.”
“Lent’s not too far off,” Jeff said. “Wow, then I get Confirmed.”
The new students for the next class were coming in.
“Mr. Cordino, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Alright, I guess.”
“Why do people get Confirmed?”
“That’s right,” Jeff remembered. “Your Dad said you never took the plunge.”
“The plunge,” Russell remarked. “Never heard it called that before. I mean,” Russell spoke confidentially now as he and Jeff left the classroom, “Why didn’t you do it when you were my age and all?”
“I was in public school. We didn’t have CCD or anything like that. So, I guess, now that I’m twenty-five and I know a little about my religion I really want to be a part of it. So this is how I say I take it seriously, I guess. I know that’s not a good answer, but...”
“No, it’s a fine answer, Mr. Cordino,” Russell said.
The talk had not kept Russell from any of his classes. Now was lunch hour. He got his sack lunch out of the locker and was heading downstairs. He was approaching the ground floor and could see the sophomores filling up the cafeteria, when he realized he did not want to go and started back upstairs. He didn’t want to take it today. Something in him said he didn’t want to take the cafeteria anymore. He passed the landing where there was a statue of our Lady of Fatima, and went past the second floor, the third floor and its cafeteria for the juniors and seniors and up to the fourth floor with the band room and the choir room, the equipment rooms and the miscellany of Our Lady of Mercy High School.
He’d never been up here. This long quiet corridor was filled with sunlight and in the center of it were two large, polished wooden doors, and when Russell went in he found the chapel.
It was a surprise because, though Russell knew there was a chapel, he never knew exactly where it was. The school, when there were school Masses, conducted them in the gymnasium, for the chapel was not large enough to contain seven hundred young men.
But it was large. In the center of it was a dome painted with clouds and a cross at the center, and a circle of windows holding the dome up let light in over the two long rows of mahogany pews through which a blue carpeted aisle went to the altar which still had rails, and over the altar was an arch, painted with saints, with Christ looking down. The chapel smelled of old incense and snuffed out candles, and all and all, Russell decided it wouldn’t be a bad place to eat.
He didn’t look around. He didn’t really pray. He just ate the ham sandwich and thought about nothing in particular. Russell washed it all down with his juice box, and looked at his watch, realizing it was time for gym class, balled up his paper bag and baggies and headed out the chapel when he was surprised by the doors swinging open and Gilead Story walking in.
“Gilead!”
“Lewis,” the junior smiled. “So I see you’ve found my hiding place.”
“Your hiding—”
“Who wants to eat in the caf!” Gilead said.
“Do you mind if I’m eating here on your times... some days?” Russell asked.
“Not at all, Lewis. You’re good people.”
“Is that why you looked out for me the other day?”
“I looked out because we need to look out for each other,” said Gilead. “We need to be friends.”
“Mark Young seems to think so too.”
“Mark Young?” a strange look passed over Gilead’s face, a look, Russell thought, that was a lot like someone trying to hide something, though Russell could not begin to say what.
“You know Mark Young?”
“Not really,” Russell said. “He sounded like your friend. You all are in the same class.”
“True,” Gilead said, “but I’ve hardly ever spoken to him.”
“He seems to really admire you.”
“Oh,” Gilead said. “He should tell me himself.”
Russell bursts out laughing, and Gilead laughed too.
“Well,” said Russell. “Gilead Story, you may be my first friend in high school.”
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