The Museum

Every morning I wake and go to my kitchen to brew my large mug of coffee. Some mornings she catches my eye more than other mornings. When I get on a writing jag, I can not help but stop in my tracks and gaze down the road of our run together, that is a long one because I can not get her out of mind, these days, ever since I picked up a brush to do my latest portrait of Rena, and lift the lid on my laptop to capture her in words. I am like a kid with a box, a stick, and a very long string. I wait for her, my ‘Pretty Bird’, to come into my trap.

On my easel in the dining room I have placed a 30 X 36 inch blow-up of Rena Victoria’s photo she gave me the last time I saw her in Lincoln Nebraska. I managed to keep it all these years, and lose her grandmother’s phone number in Grand Island just after I asked Rena to send me a photo of her profile. It was from this little photo that I did my 48 X 54 masterpiece of my Muse that got lost when I was down in L.A. I had taken this image, along with other paintings, to show Christine, because I wanted her to promote me. When her new husband, Rick Partlow, said what he said about our family art, I blew my chance out of the water.

“This looks good. We can take over the Art World.”

What do you mean “we”?

I did this painting so I would become famous and go get My Midwest Wife. I hoped Rena would marry me…….now that I was not homeless and poor.

Several days ago I went into a little book store in downtown Eugene. In 1987, my childhood friend, Nancy Hamren, bought me ‘God’s Man’ by Lynd Ward. She had ordered it after I told her I owned a coy given to me by a mutual friend we went to Junior High with. I had lost it during my wandering years, which lasted a long time.

The owner of the bookstore listened to my request, and nodded towards the shelf just in back of me. There is was!

“Just got it in yesterday!”

“Are you kidding me! What are the odds?”

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After dispatching her rival who dare own and wear the same cape Rena was wearing, she thrust her arm in the crook of my arm, and propelled me forward with a – WOOSH!

“Let’s get you warmed up. Sorry I took so long!”
“Where are we going?” I asked, like a lamb caught-up in the talons of a great eagress.
“To the art department!”

As my Muse pulled me along, her green velvet cape flowing behind, I listened to the determined gate of her riding boots on the quadrangle. Rena had swept me off my feet and placed me on her galant steed. Now we were clipty-clopping to the art department where she wanted to show me something truly amazing.

Panting, both of us out breath, we stood before a gauzed mummy of some kind.
“My boyfriend did this!” and Rena took hold of the edge of the damp gauze, and like dancing around a May Pole, began to take the shroud off a life-size clay statue of……………..?

My heart was pounding. Instead of seeing Rena in the veil of a bride, I would behold her as the Muse of another man, another artist.

Drats!

Why did I come here to have my heart utterly broken, my soul, trampled into the dust. This was not fair. Why was Rena being so cruel. I couldn’t watch as my Muse performed this ritual, the tearing away of that which bound us, to behold that which would bind them together, forever! Surely this statue would make him immortal. From all around people would come to see the bronze goddess of Rena Victoria while I go East to hide myself in obscurity, this exactly what I deserve after our fight, after I ran amuck in Winnemucca Nevada.

I looked up to receive my punishment, like a man, and gasped!

“Rena! I thought you were unveiling a statue of you! This is……?”
“My boyfiend!” Rena said proudly.

This was more information then I wanted to see, for there they were, his family jewels, staring me in the face, while Rena appeared to be admiring them – her handy work?

Within, were stored his fine genetic material that rendered him anatomically perfect. They were made for each other. There is Adam, the man made of clay, and here stand his Eve. Not too many men have sever stood in my shoes. What to do? What to do? Rena had found her Adonis, a younger man her own age.

I was now battling a great jealousy rising like the flames of hell within me, that would consume me, turn me into a little pile of ashes at Rena’s feet. I had to speak, say something.

“But, why isn’t this – you?”

Thank you God, for this most perfect thing to say, that I knew cut my rival down at the knees. What If the tables were turned, and I unveiled my lover, and rubbed her face in her vagina! Rena would not hesitate to grab for a sharp object, and take a mighty swing!

“Off with your head – bitch!”

Indeed, I thought she was going to rip the green cape off the young thing who ruined Rena’s grand entry, when she emerged from her dorm.

“Did you see her?: Rena spat, there a Y formed by her blood vessels on her forehead. She later told me this always happens when she get’s angry – flies into a flaming stare-down.

“Oh!” I said sheepishly. “I swear I didn’t see her come between you and me. I only had eyes for you. How far away from me was she? I came a thousand miles to only see you.”

I didnt’t mean to deflate her, but, I did. Rena took a look within at her own wonderment, now a real disappointment – and character flaw. What exactly was wrong with her lover!

I love Aries women because they do not fight fair. I believe Rena admired my low blow, and thus she could hang with me a little longer.

“He was inspired by Michelangelos David. He thinks it’s the world’s greatest work of art.”
“How narccisitic!” is what I wanted to say, and perhaps did. But, Rena got it. Her look told me there would be trouble down the road, perhaps a dead-end. I truly felt bad for her. I wanted the very best for her, even if I could not have her. I was ready for this statue to be of her. I prepared myself to worship it all the rest of my remaining days.

The flame of an Aries woman can not be extinguished for long. And WOOSH! Rena was all aglow, again

“Come! I have other things to show you!”
“Where are we going, now?” I cried above the beat of her powerful wings.
“To the Art Museum!”

I had a date with destiny, with a goddess come alive. This is the moment every artist dream of, a private showing by your Muse. And what a grand show it was!

In hindsight, the blunder I that I thought the sculptor made, was a stroke of genius. For he understood if he rendered Rena, cast her image in bronze, she would own him, his very soul. He would not be able to get her out of his mind, his life, and thus would never take a wife. If he did, she would bid him to take a blow-torch to her, his Muse that made him famous, the Muse that made my beautiful sister famous! And this fame was not a blessing, but, a curse! Nothing goes easy in the real Art World.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2013

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonis

http://www.oregonlive.com/O/index.ssf/2010/03/sometimes_a_great_yogurt_nancy.html

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0663999/

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