Chapter 10 (continued)

The mural was such a new thing for Sedgewick, and it filled him with dread and joy at the same time. He wanted to create. He wanted to take the brush in his hands and watch something amazing flow from his hands. But at the same time, he didn’t know such a thing was possible. He didn’t think he could capture with his frail hands what he saw in his mind’s eye.

“You know, boy, it’s all in how you look at things,” Charles said as if he were reading Sedgewick’s mind. “Painting a masterpiece is a daunting task, but painting a shoe isn’t so bad. You’ve got to take it one piece at a time.”

Sedgewick nodded and wondered if it was really as simple as that.

“It’s kind of like the whale. If you take manageable bites and keep at it you could eat the whole thing.”

Charles smiled. “That’s Silverstein, am I right?”

“Yeah, grandfather used to read that one to me.” Sedgewick remembered cold winter evenings curled up in his grandfather’s lap and stories upon stories being read by the warm orange glow of a lamp. Shel Silverstein had been one of many. And Sedgewick knew there were actual memories, not just fabricated thoughts generated from stories his grandmother told or second hand remembrances.

The two kept walking down the sidewalk toward Charles’ house and then on to the church. As they approached the church Charles asked Sedgewick if he’d do something.

“Yeah, what do you need?”

“I’d like you to paint more than just colors today. I’d like you to paint a river scene for me.” Sedgewick didn’t speak, but his eyes dropped to his scuffed shoes. “It doesn’t have to be Jordan River or the Rhine or anything fancy. Just a river. One ripple at a time.”

Sedgewick just nodded, trying not to think about the details of what he just committed to.

Inside the church yard, Charles gave Sedgewick a brush and paints and pointed him to an unfinished, bare section of fence.

“Have at it, boy.”

Sedgewick approached the section of fence, set his paints down and sat down next to them. He picked at the grass and then scratched his head and finally focused on the fence. He gazed at it for so long it finally disappeared in a blur and was lost in middle distance. He began to imagine all the great rivers he’d seen, all the artistic renderings of flowing water, all the perfectly captured photographic prints of rushing water, carving its own path in the land.

He finally settled on an image in his mind and began to bring the fence back into focus. He could see his image on the fence, but that was the easy part. Actually putting it there seemed impossible.

He narrowed his gaze in his mind and looked at one minute speck of river, the smallest ripple he could see, and then brush in hand he quickly soaked it in a rich blue and slathered it on the fence. It wasn’t the right color, it wasn’t the right stroke, and it wasn’t the right spot. But that was okay. Sedgewick had begun.

He began mixing colors on his palette, a raggedy piece of cardboard, searching for the perfect tint of white and blue that would capture the curling wave of water he saw in his mind.

He came up with another color and spread it atop the first with a lighter stroke, a smoother, more fluid motion. This one looked better, but it still wasn’t right. He spread it a little farther and wider, thinking it might work for another section of the river. He wiped his brush on a rag and tried again, this time pulling in a tint of grey.

Painting with colors wasn’t like the crayons Sedgewick and every other child had worked with so long ago. Crayons were crayons. You put a color down and that was what you got. They didn’t mix very well, and if you tried the swirl of wax and crayon bits was too much. But paint was a different animal. The colors would mix and bleed, revealing new and different colors and shades, not just bits of wax. It gave you an artistic edge, but also a medium that required much more mastery than simple motor skills.

The third time had been the charm, and Sedgewick stopped biting his lip for a moment and smiled. From a distance it looked like a grayish-blue gash on the fence, nothing to look at and nothing to wonder at. But in Sedgewick’s mind it was a tiny glimpse of a great stretch of water.

On the other side of the yard Charles watched and he did wonder. He expected more of a protest from Sedgewick, more of a fight at the request to paint something more than abstract patches of color. While he didn’t protest, he did tremble. And that’s what Charles liked to see. An artist that trembled at the thought of a monumental task had the right mindset. Art was to be approached like you approach deity, with fear and trembling.

Sedgewick had that fear, but he also had the raw determination to face his fears. His past had uniquely trained him for that. Sedgewick had learned early on that life did not allow you to crawl into yourself and escape. There was no escape that way; only suicide.

On the other side of the yard, Sedgewick’s ripple was becoming a real ripple, a tiny stretch of color that still didn’t look like anything. But Sedgewick saw the tip of the iceberg.

His mind was adrift as he painted, at some moments so fully consumed in what he was trying to do that he couldn’t imagine thinking of anything else. At other moments his mind had wandered a million miles away from applying oily paint to a rough wooden fence.

He thought of Allison. He couldn’t help it, not that it was a problem. He hoped her evening at home was going okay, that she could handle all the remembrances of her mom that would surely come, Sedgewick had always found that dealing with those unexpected memories had been the worst. At times he’d come out of a sudden recollection and expect life to return to those days gone by. He’d expect to see his grandfather sitting in his chair or walk into his father’s studio again. But then the reality would set in and it could be crushing.

He stopped to mix another color, finding the perfect slate grey with a mix of blue for a calm stretch of water between the ripples.

He also thought of work and school and what classes he might take next year and the year after, and what he might be doing in that first year after college, assuming he continued with the traditional four-year college plan. Sedgewick had never been very traditional.

He liked learning, he liked classes, but he wasn’t sure where to go with it. He wasn’t sure if a college degree was something he needed. He liked Cub Foods. He didn’t know if he wanted to be a lifer, but at the same time he didn’t see such a position with the same stigma. People had to work, and what did it matter if they shelved cereal or flipped burgers or drew detailed architectural plans in front of an expensive computer? Did it really matter? You still had to put in the hours, put in the time to make do. As long as you enjoyed what you were doing, found some sort of happiness in doing your work, wasn’t that all that mattered?

For Sedgewick it wasn’t a complicated question, but it also was. It wasn’t because he found joy in many things. He liked to work. He liked to feel useful, like to accomplish something. Even the worst jobs at the grocery store, the ones others would piss and moan about, Sedgewick would tackle with the same shrug as if he’d been asked to work in the baking goods aisle. Work was work. He wasn’t the type to look for an easy way out.

Sedgewick didn’t believe in get rich quick schemes. More than anything, they seemed like an escape. And why would you want to escape from life? What’s the point of not living the life we all have to live?

So Sedgewick kept working at the grocery store. He didn’t jump at job opportunities that came up, he didn’t get excited about other avenues. He was content where he was at.

School was another matter. It was the fast track to making something of yourself, to doing something with your life and becoming something. Sedgewick didn’t know what he wanted to become. He wondered what was wrong with him the way he was. Certainly knowledge was useful, but would it really change him that intrinsically? He didn’t think so.

He thought about dropping out—again that negative stigma—though it seemed early for such a move. Part of why he was even taking classes was to try things out and see if there was something beyond stocking groceries that would capture his attention. Life was hard like that. You have to try things out and see what fits and though some people think they can figure it out early on and be set their entire lives, Sedgewick though it would be more of a continual working and refining and relearning and refiguring process.

Surely what he enjoyed now wouldn’t always fill him with the same wonder. Things can get old and tired. Sometimes you have to rediscover them. Sometimes you owe them that much. But sometimes it’s just time to move on to something else.

Moving on wasn’t always the answer. Sedgewick thought that sometimes people had their priorities flipped, that they were willing to stick with something longer than it deserved, but other things they were willing to jump ship and leave lost and alone when really they owed them so much more.

He stepped back from the fence to see a tiny section of river, perhaps four inches square.

“I told you it didn’t have to be the Jordan.” Sedgewick looked up at Charles and smiled.

“It’s not. It’s the Mississippi.” He paused. “But I guess it needs some more work.”

“It always does. You can’t imagine how many times the great masters stood back from a future masterpiece and said the same thing.”

“One bite at a time.”

“You got it, bit by bit.” Charles took his brush and Sedgewick gathered his paints. Before leaving he turned to Charles, but Charles kept humming and just smiled at Sedgewick. Gratitude didn’t always need words.