A First Friend and a Little Hope at Art School

Day one was a doozie. I was sitting there starring at this huge, naked, black male model who had earlier made his appearance up on the riser in a homemade jockstrap crudely fashioned from what seemed to be and old hand-crocheted lace doily. It was so inadequate in covering him, the instructor told him to “Just take that damn thing off.” Confronting the nude artist’s model was incredibly difficult for me. I became more self-conscious by the moment. I was desperately trying to be cool like the other students, but I just couldn’t. I forced myself to refocus my gaze somewhere beyond the model. It landed directly across the room, where, within the large circle of artist’s benches, sat a young man with short black curly hair and the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen. Now, instead of starring at the model I was starring at him. He winked at me without smiling. I didn’t even blink. Instead, I looked down at the blank sheet of ivory-colored newsprint before me as if studying my drawing. Art Learner, the young, lanky, soft-spoken instructor, ordered the model to change position. Twenty art students noisily flipped their pads to a fresh sheet and immediately started drawing. These were quick sketches so you got exactly one minute to capture the essence of each pose. The model turned away from me, twisted his body and struck a contorted but artful pose. No relief for my anxiety. Now I was pondering his big naked butt. In no way was I ready for all of these feelings. Adding to my distraction, was the beastly heat and wilting humidity of that July morning. Every window in the art studio had been opened, allowing the cacophony of Monday morning traffic on Michigan Avenue to rise up these four stories and additionally crowd my anxiety into a dizzying intensity. If I were a girl, I would simply have fainted. The boy across the room, now completely bemused by my anxiety, motioned for me to follow him as he put down his charcoal and smudge stick and dismounted his bench. He looked shorter when he stood up. He was trim, almost buff in his pressed jeans and crisp white T-shirt, also pressed. Outside, in the hall, he leaned against the wall placing one foot there behind himself for balance and offered me a Newport, which I took, though I’d never smoked. I accepted a light from his elaborately engraved Army- issue Zippo. I sputtered and he laughed. He knew I was just off the farm, and he knew that I knew that he knew. What I really didn’t know was how to hold the cigarette. “Byron. Where you from?” An introduction without a handshake and a question. “The Quad Cities,” I said, keeping the cigarette as far from my nose as possible. I could have said Moline but somehow that would have sounded hickish and definitely smaller. “Dearborn, Michigan. You do have a name?” “Bernie. How long have you been going here?” My own answer and a question. He told me most of the guys at Ray Vogue, as was he, were on the GI Bill, fresh out of Korea, and said he’d been there only a month. He mentioned he had a room just around the corner across from the Cathedral. We heard the teacher order another pose change just before he, too, stepped out for a smoke and lighted up a ways from us near the Dutch-door sales counter of a little art supply store operated within the school by a distinguished black gentleman named Hayward. Learner complained of the heat as the two men began a quiet exchange. Byron glanced at the teacher and leaned close to me and whispered, “Learner’s not gay.” A little pause, a deep knowing look directly into my soul and then he said, “Wish he was.” It certainly would have helped if I understood what gay meant but I had never ever heard this word before. I replied with plain dumb confusion, “What?” “You know... queer,” he said matter-of-factly. “Oh. Oh, yeah,” I got it, all right! A bolt of lighting zapped through every circuit in my body. I could never be cool. I always talked too much and constantly said the first thing that came into my head. But I knew at that instant I had to be cool. And I knew I had to shut up. I just stood there smiling and he smiled right back. “If we’re gonna be fabulous artists, we better be gettin’ back in there. Wouldn’t want to waste Uncle Sam’s money, heh, heh,” he chortled. He was obviously enjoying himself and having fun, and I was smitten by the way he had over enunciated “fabulous” in a sort of grandiose, or grand dame, or Dorothy Parker manner of speaking. “Want to come to Charmettes for lunch? I’ll introduce you to the girls from Canada. They’re a hoot.” “I have to look for a job. I have exactly one week of rent money left. When that’s gone, I might have to go back home,” I said. “And just give Mrs. Ray your tuition? You’ll find a job. Don’t worry, I did. In one day,” he said encouragingly. “I didn’t pay the tuition deposit until this morning, and she gave me a little lecture on how the tuition always has to be paid in advance. She was nice about it, though.” “Yeah, she’s in it for the good of art. Like hell, she is! I’ll take you to lunch, okay?” Byron looked younger than I did. Of course, he couldn’t have been, having done a full hitch in the Army. Up close, I could smell his powerful cologne. He was about two inches shorter than I was and carried himself a lot more gracefully than most men. It wasn’t until he started talking and gesticulating that you’d know for sure, though. This worried me, but I liked him a lot. He seemed to have his stuff together, which was way more than I could say. I never actually sensed that I was in over my head at that point. Big ideas had propelled me this far, though I really had no plan or even a clue on how to accomplish them. This was definitely a figure-it-out-as-you-go deal. Go to Chicago, enroll in art school, then get a part time job so you can stay there and not starve. Seemed simple to me. Totally naive. What little money I’d saved from Penny’s mostly went on the five-hundred dollar tuition to Ray Vogue Schools. Then I had foolishly spent half of my precious rent money on three outfits in a fit of self-doubt disguised as wanting to look cool in art school. A pair each of pink, black and white wool pegged pants I could alternate with my new black, pink, and white shirts—all with Mandarin collars, no less. All these outfits had to go with my heavy blue suede wing-tips. I’d told myself I’d find a job in time to pay the rent. How the heck could I have known jeans would be the official uniform of art school? But just look at what had happened. I’d met my first new friend and I discovered, that very same day, I could actually draw as well as anyone in the class, which wasn’t all that great, really, but it gave me hope. I just assumed everything else would take care of itself. Ahh, youth.