Incubus, Episode One

March 21st, 9:18 AM

The painting was meant to be of a sunset.

The colors swirl together on the makeshift palette—a strip of cardboard torn from the box the new paints were delivered in. Oranges and red dance together, pulling yellow in their wake. Purple watches from the sidelines. Kyle pulls her brush through the chaos and studies the image before her. A soft shadow is added to a harsh jawline.

Footsteps sound behind her, uneven and heavy. Mr. Branscom coming to check her progress. She can feel him standing at her back, see his hand pull through the wiry hair of his salt and pepper beard as clearly as if he stands directly before her. A small huff of air escapes his lips, and she turns to face him, orange paint still clinging to her brush.

“I thought you were done with your study of faces,” he says, his voice gravely. Kyle shrugs. Her teacher leans closer, inspects the lines she’s painted. “Who is he?”

“He—” Kyle struggles for the right answer. He’s the man who sits in the back booth of The Shack from eight to close. The figure that has shown up in her dreams for the past year, long before he ever walked through the diner doors. He is a part of her, connected in a way she can't understand. But she still doesn't know who he is. “Nobody. I just thought the colors would be nice for hair, so I went for it.”

Colter snickers from behind his own easel, and Brady nudges his foot against an empty stool, which emits a high shriek as it slides across the aged vinyl floor. Each sound in the nearly empty classroom seems to overwhelm the space, piling one on top of the other until soon the room won't be able to hold anything else.

Mr. Branscom's warm hand falls to Kyle's shoulder. “You've done well. This is your best piece yet.” Peppermint and coffee swirl in her nose as he leans even closer. His head cocks to the side. “What about his eyes?”

Kyle stares at her portrait. She'd been adding faint shadows and highlights to the hair, the jaw, and the collarbone for almost the full second hour of class. Finish work. The final bits of detail before she declares the piece done. But still, the face on the canvas stares back at her with blank, colorless eyes, untouched from the initial rough sketch. Unable to think of anything else to say, she tells her teacher the truth: “I've never seen them.”

Colter and Brady sit stock-still, obviously listening to the conversation. Even Mr. Branscom freezes for a moment, no vibration traveling through his hand where it still rests on her shoulder. Kyle wishes Jayne were here today.

Then everything breaks loose, and her teacher's deep, rough laughter fills the air. “You've never seen them,” he repeats, and Kyle's face burns under the criticism from across the room. “Darling—” Mr. Branscom never calls anyone else that, and Kyle can’t decide whether to be pleased or uncomfortable by the term. “That's the joy of being an artist. You can make them look however you want.” He squeezes her shoulder and drops his hand. “Finish that peace. We're submitting it to the gallery.”

Kyle spins on her stool so fast she almost topples to the ground. “But,” she starts.

“No buts. I know how badly you've wanted a piece in that gallery. This is the one.”

“I thought—”

“You thought they only stocked sunsets and beach scenes? The kind of coastal dregs the pushover tourists want?” Kyle nods, and he continues, “That's true. But if we show those tourists what real art looks like, maybe they'll buy something else. A piece in the gallery will do wonders for your scholarship applications.”

Colter, who has no doubt been fighting the urge to interrupt for the whole conversation, finally breaks. “You're kidding, right? You really think some beach-lusting tourist is going to want a stupid portrait painted by a high school girl?”

Blood rises in Kyle's face, and she looks back to her canvas. Suddenly, all the flaws in the paint are screaming at her. She should say something. Should stand up for herself. If Jayne were here, and if it weren't this painting, she'd give Colter a piece of her mind. And maybe her flip flop-clad foot in his crotch. But this painting is different, and she can't bring herself to say a word.

Mr. Branscom's voice comes to her rescue. “Don't be upset, Mr. O'Connell, just because your work is only fit for the sides of train cars and tattoo parlors.”

A stool scoots back, and the linoleum screams again. Colter's face appears around the side of his canvas, red and splotchy. “What did you say to me, fag?”

The room stands still. Even the echo of a stool screeching across the floor cuts off abruptly, as if it knows better than to make its presence known. Energy pulses off Mr. Branscom, so strongly it slams into Kyle in great waves threatening to push her over. When her teacher talks, all the usual joviality is gone from his voice. It is, instead, hard and dead calm.

“I think, Mr. O'Connell, that you may want to reconsider your choice of vocabulary. It's such an ugly word you've used, and we all know how much Wayne hates ugly words.”

Colter blanches, and Brady shuffles his feet on the ground—Kyle can see the movement, but somehow no noise is made. Her teacher's words hover in the air. Wayne hates ugly words. Wayne, Mr. Branscom's partner of twenty-some years, is 6'5” and works as head of security for Craven Correctional in Vanceboro. Nobody calls Wayne a fag. Not even behind his back.

The four occupants of the room remain still, watching each other without looking at one another. Wondering where things go from here. And then, just as suddenly as they left, the normal sounds of the classroom come rushing back. A tree branch tick tick ticks against the old pane window; the floor creaks under Mr. Branscom as he shifts his weight from one side to the other; soft voices carry through the paper-thin walls and ill-fitted door.

“Finish your painting,” Mr. Branscom says, the usually friendly lilt back in his voice. He claps a hand on Kyle's shoulder again and walks to the storage closet, his familiar shuffle-step sounding his retreat.

Kyle, Colter, and Brady study each other around their canvases, faces displaying matching expressions of shock and confusion. Colter's changes first, molding into a brief look of apology, a hesitant smile and a softening of his eyebrows. Kyle shrugs her acceptance, and they go back to work. She drops small puddles of green and silver on her palate, making certain they are too far to be courted into the mess the wild oranges have made, and turns back to her canvas.

She's finally going to see what his eyes look like.