Free Yellow Mesquite by John J. Asher Page B

waltz in here? Take up my time? Pick my brains? And I'll be happy as a pig in slop to go along with it? You’re a pushy bastard!”
    “I'll stay out of your way.”
    “You like my work that much, eh?”
    “Yes— Well, I don't know yet. But you know things, things I need to know.”
    Sidney looked pleased. “Hmm. I say we have a little splash of Beaujolais.”
    “A what?”
    “A little vino.”
    “Vino?”
    “Ye gads! Wine, m’boy. Wine!”
    “Oh. I'm not much of a drinker, but I'll try it.”  
    Sidney took a bottle and two jelly glasses from a cabinet.
    “First lesson, my young friend, is never, never, never tell anyone that you’re an artist, and that you don't drink in the same breath. Never .”
    Harley took the glass. He rested one hand on the back of a chair and stared again at the objects about him.  
    “Don't touch that,” Sidney cried, rushing to the chair.  
    Harley jerked his hand back. “What?”
    “That's a piece I'm working on. See? One of the front legs is missing? There, it's on the floor to your side.” Sidney squatted by the chair. “This piece is called Alienation . See how I've done the chair monochromatic? Each rung, each part, all harmonious except that missing leg? Now, look at the leg itself, a jarring orange. Ah, the art is not only in the tension of the colors, but in the placement as well. I think I have placed it exactly for the maximum amount of tension. Does it go with the chair? Or does it not? Have you read The Dehumanization of Art by Ortega?”
    “Never heard of it.”
    Sidney stuck his chin out and scratched his beard. “Um. I don't know…”
    A recollection of Whitehead’s advice regarding Robert Rauschenberg flashed in Harley’s mind. “I'm not leaving here,” he said. “Call the police and have me thrown out, but I'll be back. I’m not leaving till you agree to let me work with you.”
    Sidney brightened. “Oh-ho! Another Jackson Pollock, eh? A brawler, eh? Hmm. Very well, then. Ortega. That is where you will begin.” He lifted his jelly glass. “Salud.”
    Harley lifted his glass in turn. He could hear his own heart thumping. “Salute,” he repeated.

Chapter 8
    Aunt Grace

    H ARLEY WALKED UP alongside the boardinghouse. He lingered a moment, gazing up at the night sky—a velvety blue hole ringed by a dark circle of trees on one side, the boardinghouse on the other. The problem with a big city like Dallas was that you couldn’t see anything. On a night like this back in Separation, you could step outside and see the Milky Way sweeping overhead, horizon to horizon. And sometimes the night was so bright you could identify individual cows over in the pasture. In Separation, there weren’t any trees to mess up the view.
    He went in through the back door. Aunt Grace came in from the parlor as he passed through the dining room. Everyone referred to her as “Aunt Grace,” though she wasn’t anyone’s aunt that he knew of. She wore a print dress with a wide lace collar, a cameo brooch at the neck, and hose rolled above her ankles. It was almost eleven o’clock and he was surprised that she was still up.  
    “Good evening,” she said, fanning the sweat-shine on her forehead with a Japanese fan. She nodded at his paint box. “I see you’ve been to your little art class.”
    “Hello, Aunt Grace.” He didn’t bother to explain that he had dropped that class weeks before, and was working with Sidney two or three evenings a week now. Neither did he take offense at her use of “little” in reference to his art. Aunt Grace’s view was that outside of religion, little in this world was important. She was a large, rounded woman with steel-rimmed glasses and smooth, iron-gray hair drawn back in a knot at the nape of her neck, a severe woman with an imposing presence. He had come to think of her as a Fernand Léger with a Grant Wood’s American Gothic face. It pleased him to make these associations now that he was up to his ears in art history, an