A Fresh Coat Of Paint
by Aaron Polson

 

“Andy, we need to talk,” Mrs. LeClaire said as she intercepted me just inside the art room door. This woman lived art, and she always wore an array of plastic bangles on her wrists, dangling earrings, and articles of clothing either rescued from a dumpster or sewn and dyed in her basement. To the artsy-fartsies, she was the Dalai Lama. To me, she was straight used-up-hippie-turned-Gestapo, holding my fragile future in her grade book because, by some guidance office error, I had navigated three years of high school without scoring that pesky fine arts requirement.

She tried this serious-stern look on me, so I said, “okay.”

“Your mural.” She ran a boney finger down the bracelets on her left arm. “I’m really shocked to see that you’ve decided to start over.” Her voice shook like somebody just burned Van Gogh’s Sunflowers or something equally tragic, and she almost spit at the word shocked.

“Start over?”

“Well, okay, technically you’ve only painted over half of the mural, but you remember how much weight this assignment carries.” She swept to the sink across the room and started filling her watering can. “Let’s make sure you finish soon, okay. I’ve seen too many seniors check out with only a few weeks left.” She smiled at me and shut off the water. “I would hate to see you in summer school.” Then she turned away with her long loose skirt floating behind her, moved around the room, and watered the various hanging houseplants, leaving me to drop into my usual chair and puzzle out what she meant by “painted over half of the mural.”

 

That one fine arts credit stood between me and graduation, so I tried to make the best of Leclaire’s class even though a half-trained gorilla with discount water colors probably had more talent than me. I thought I’d just finished the “major project”—this mural for the wall outside the Spanish classroom. That painting represented half of my grade—no mural, no diploma—simple problem solving. My acceptance letter for seasonal work at Grand Teton National Park rested on my dresser at home, burning as a constant reminder that summer school wasn’t an option. I needed that credit.

Leclaire forced the class to watch some inane educational video called Les Fauves: A Walk on the Wild Side that morning, preparing the artsy-fartsies for the art quiz bowl that weekend, and preventing me from finding out what the hell had happened until the bell. After class, I pushed through the crowds only to stop and stare in shock at my vandalized masterpiece. As I stood entranced, my buddy Mike thumped me hard on the shoulder with one of his meaty paws.

“Andy man, I’m surprised you painted over the windmill.” Mike shook his big blonde head with astonishment. We planned on working at Grand Teton together that summer before heading to college in the fall—Mike’s idea. Six-four with dense muscles and fat white teeth that could probably grind stone, Mike made an imposing figure. We’d known each other since kindergarten but would part ways in the fall, enrolled at separate universities. This summer at Teton was to be our last hurrah.

“But I didn’t…”

“The windmill was the best part.”

“Listen, Mike, I didn’t paint over it. I’m the victim here.”

“Right, try telling that to Leclaire.” He laughed and lumbered to his next class.

After school that day, I tried. She just shook her head and played with her bracelets. I found myself repainting the windmill the next day, even spending time after school to finish. On Thursday morning, a fresh coat of grey paint covered that part of the mural again. Leclaire, probably a little a little soft in the brain from paint fumes or delusional because she was suffering a slow, painful death from kiln lung, seemed convinced that she was the target of some subtle senior prank. I wished someone would fill me in on the joke.

#

After repainting the windmill for the third time on Friday morning, I decided to take action to ensure the mural’s survival that night. I waited in the bushes near the parking lot until the sky washed black—cloudy with no stars—and the last of the night janitors left the building. I scurried from my hiding spot to the heavy shadows resting at the back of the school. A simple matter of leaving a window unlatched in a little used bathroom earlier that day made breaking in an easy task. When I wriggled through the small opening, I felt like the school swallowed me with darkness all around like some great living thing. The faint whispers of the ventilation system sounded like steady breathing, adding to the effect.

Small ripples of red and green light cast by the emergency exit signs lined the empty hallways. I followed a green line to my mural. There, above the lockers and beside the Spanish door, Don Quixote, ready to rumble on the back of his trusty steed, prepared to charge a windmill on the opposite side of the painting. In the half-light, the painting didn’t look too bad; during the daylight, it looked like some half-assed child’s drawing in bright, gaudy colors.

The mural hadn’t been much fun at any stage in the process. By the luck of a class lottery, each student drew the name of a teacher, and Mrs. Bond, our Spanish “profesora” wanted Quixote. I didn’t know jack about Don Quixote, but after an internet search and a few flirtations with Alicia, “La Presidente” of the Spanish Club, I proposed a little scene with the good Mr. Q facing off with a windmill. Supposedly Quixote thought the windmills were giants or something. Alicia thought this was especially funny and satiric, but I didn’t catch that joke either.

 

I hid in a shadowy alcove at the end of the hallway, determined to protect my painting, planning to confront the anonymous vandal, or I might just wait to report him to the principal—especially if he was bigger than me. Either way, this had to stop.

Nothing happened until almost three in the morning. At first I heard the noise, a faint thumping, and thought the sound might just be an outgrowth of my imagination, boredom, and frustration. The thumping grew louder—almost with the rhythm of footsteps—steady, heavy footsteps—coming closer. The whole hallway seemed to vibrate with the steady pounding. My heart sped up a bit and joined the rhythm, pushing the tempo in my head with a throbbing rush of blood.

Something in the distance turned down my hallway. I couldn’t really see the thing at first because it blotted the exit signs and emergency lights like some great moving shadow, bobbing up and down, lumbering in my direction. As it came closer I could see a bit of detail: massive arms, a huge hunched back, great bowed legs, and a heavy head jutting out from the front of the thick torso. The thing—this giant—seemed to duck as it walked, forced into a hunch from the ceiling in the hall. It was a ten-foot ceiling.

The giant passed an emergency light in the hallway, one of those little bright spots in an otherwise lightless place. When it did, the light washed across its blank and half-formed face—a face like a lump of raw clay with indentions for mouth and eyes and a pronounced ridge jutting out above the dark eye pits. The whole thing seemed to be a dull grey, but exact color was almost impossible to determine in the low light. It reminded me of a great lump of clay, but it didn’t move in that jerky, claymation sort of way like a monster from vintage late night Sci Fi; its movements were smooth, flowing, and organic. My hands shook, and my arms, covered with goose flesh, turned icy, reacting with some old, primal fear to the impossible thing plodding toward me.

I pressed deeper into the shadows, worried that the giant would see me, and I planned to run. But, just as my fear almost spurred rash action, the thing stopped and turned to the mural. The small light, now behind the giant, helped me see its outline. For a moment, it stood as though studying the painting, tilting its head slightly, and placing one large hand on the wall. Its head moved from side to side. Then, a slow rumble seemed to rise out of this giant’s chest, growing louder and wilder—a howl somewhere between a roaring lion and the steady vibration of a jackhammer that was about two decibels short of squeezing the urine out of my bladder. Meanwhile, the giant drew one massive hand back and forth across the windmill, slowly and steadily.

I reeled from the sonic assault of that howl even after the creature shut its big yap, but then something strange happened—something oddly human. The giant remained in front of the mural, but its massive head hung low, like in disappointment. The body of the creature seemed to shake, and its great head oscillated from side to side. Then a new feeling banished my fear—this sort of hollow ache, like my guts were scraped out or something. After a few moments, the goose bumps faded completely, but I was left with that dull twinge in my chest. My legs wobbled, and I sank to the floor. I guess I took the critique pretty hard.

Eventually the giant turned, stomping heavily, but somewhat more slowly, back down the hall, and faded into the shadows near the office. Taking a deep breath, I slowly crept from my hiding place, exhausted, panting lightly, but mostly just confused. I moved to the mural and saw the same Don Quixote on horseback, but where the windmill once stood I looked at a fresh coat of grey, still shiny and wet in the dim light. I couldn’t exactly report this to the principal.

The giant had vanished. Filled now with more curiosity than fear, I tried to look for it a while, poking around in the direction it turned—near the auditorium and the band room. Maybe the thing had a bed under the stage. The odd, breathing quiet of the empty school soon became too much for my tired nerves, and I exited post haste, feeling like someone who landed on a completely alien planet and then returned home with the charge of explaining everything in the fullest detail.

#

 

Leclaire sat at her desk on Tuesday morning with yours truly occupying a chair directly in front of her. “Andy, we need to talk.”

“Okay.”

“Mrs. Bond is really, well, a bit disappointed.” She tilted her head in this “I’m on your side” pose. “She wanted Don Quixote with a windmill.”

“Yeah, I know.” I braced for the summer school speech again.

“She’s disappointed, but she thinks you’ve done a nice job—technically that is.” Leclaire fidgeted with today’s bracelets. “She’ll accept the mural as-is.”

“Okay,” I said, and then thought about saying something more meaningful.

“But I don’t accept it. I’m giving you—no, you’ve earned a failing grade for this project.” She smiled this sort of flat, serious smile like my best interests were served by summer school.

After class, I wandered down the hall to look at the mural again. Don Quixote still sat astride his horse, but on the opposite side, where I once struggled to paint the windmills, stood a giant—a grey, somewhat shapeless, clay man like the brute I’d seen that night. Nobody touched the painting last night; this one would survive.

Mike found me in the busy hallway, an easy task for him because he towered above most of the student body. “Hey Andy.” We stood side by side looking at the painting for a moment. “I like the giant.”

“Thanks.”

“So, is Leclaire pissed?”

“Yeah. Summer school.”

“That sucks.” Mike turned and lumbered down the hallway.

It did suck, but the funny thing—in the end I didn’t really care if Leclaire or Bond, or any other teacher or student, past or present, liked the final product.

They weren’t my real art critics anyway, and I learned to live with summer school.