Free The Man in the Tree by Damon Knight Page A

Ma and Pa Kettle.

Television was a marvel to him; there had been no such thing in Dog

River two years ago. He bought a set for two hundred dollars; it had a

round picture tube on which the faces of actors bloomed in furry lines

of blue-white.

He ate prodigiously and with a pleasure that went beyond the simple

satisfaction of hunger: satiny scrambled eggs, toast covered with jam

or marmalade, rubbery cheese that broke in conchoidal fractures when

he pulled it apart, soda crackers with their mineral incrustations,

each one a pure glittering crystal. Every day for lunch and dinner he

had roast beef or ham, mashed potatoes hollowed by the chef's ladle and

filled with gravy, pale translucent slices of tomato on a bed of lettuce,

and for dessert a piece of cream pie, banana or chocolate, that seemed

to coat him inside with luxury.

His experiments in painting on canvas were not turning out well. No one

had told him about using a medium; he was putting the paint on as it

came from the tube, and his paintings seemed thick and lifeless.

On a side street, tucked in between two grimy office buildings, one day he

found an art school: it was called the Porgorny Institute of Fine Arts,

and a sign in the window said, "Register for Fall Classes." He opened

the double doors and found himself in a wide hall. The office was on the

right. "Fill out this application," said the mousy-blonde woman behind

the counter. Gene wrote down "Stephen Miller," and his address. Under

"Age" he put "15," and under "Education" he wrote "High school."

"Now you've checked four classes," said the woman, "and there's only

three periods a day, so we'll have to work out a schedule for you. The

best thing would be to take two of these classes every day, and then,

the third period, you would go back and forth between the other two."

"I don't understand," Gene said.

"Well, for instance , suppose you want to take Figure Drawing and Oil

Painting every day. That's your first two periods. Then; you could take

Sculpture on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays -- "

A large, heavy woman came in from the hall carrying a sheaf of papers. She

had an imposing bosom under a purple blouse, and a black ribbon hung from

her eyeglasses; her dark hair, streaked with gray, was piled on her head

in a haphazard fashion. "What is it?" she asked in a deep voice. "What

is the matter?"

"This young man is applying for classes -- "

"So." She looked him over. "You are how old?"

Her accent was so strange that he could hardly understand her. "Fifteen,"

he said.

"Perhaps." She was thinking. No pimples. Tall, but not more than twelve.

"And you think you can become artist?"

"I like to draw," Gene said.

"He likes to draw. So many like to draw. But why not? It is better than

murdering people in the streets." She turned to the woman behind the

counter. "Well, then, Miss Olney, what is problem?"

"It's just his schedule, Madame Porgorny -- he wants to take four

classes -- "

"Work it out! Work it out! Do not bother me with these details." Madame

Porgorny swept around the counter and into the inner office, where,

presently, they could hear her shouting on the telephone.

"Does she teach any of the classes?" Gene asked.

"Only China Painting, Wednesday and Saturday evenings. Did you

want to -- ?"

"Oh, no," Gene said hastily. He paid the application fee and got his

schedule. "When do the classes start?"

"September fourth."

The Porgorny Institute was not like any other school he had known. Down

behind the reception room and office was a row of large studios whose

individual smells were at first strange, then loved and familiar: smells

of oil and turpentine, charcoal dust, plaster dust.

Madame Porgorny's booming voice could be heard at intervals all day long

in the corridors. She seemed to live in a state of constant exasperation;

Gene heard her shouting at the instructors, at Miss Olney the receptionist,

at electricians and plumbers.

In the