The Artist

The Artist

by Jon Thompson

“I’m finished with my drawing Miss Anderson.”

Theodore, the newest student in Miss Carol Anderson’s fifth-grade class, found it difficult to fit in. He joined the class mid-year, the students had already established their class social structure. Adding Theodore to the mix called for reordering that structure.

The more dominant members of the class hierarchy were unwilling to make room for the new student. They instead took particular delight in tormenting him.

He didn’t initiate the fights, from what Miss Anderson saw. He didn’t defend himself either, and she worried he would be injured.

Today, to keep him safe, she had plucked Theodore from yet another impending confrontation. After bringing him to the classroom, she assigned him to draw a picture of how he could deal with Gerald and the other dominant males, rather than having them beat up on him. She believed a student, given the option, can often develop a better solution.

“I’ll be right there.” She finished grading the paper in front of her and laid it aside. She walked down the aisle toward the back of the classroom where Theodore sat admiring his work. “Let’s see what you’ve drawn.”

Miss Anderson could only see the back side of the easel, unable for the moment to see the art work. Theodore added one more stroke, and then set the pencil down. Miss Anderson walked around the table and the drawing came into view.

She was dumbfounded. In ten years of teaching fifth graders, she had seen a wide variety of art and artistic ability.

Some students did well to produce a stick figure with stick clothing, formless animals, or a lopsided circle for the sun, moon, and a ball. More artistic students at this age conceived and drew passable figures she could usually discern correctly as a dog, cat, or person.

Miss Anderson immediately noticed the exceptional quality of Theodore’s drawing. Every detail so meticulously drawn, she first thought, this can’t be a fifth grader’s drawing. The lines were intricate, precise and clear, the shading superb. The sense of proportion and perception rivaled professional pencil drawings.

She was so intent on the quality, it took a moment for the scene in the drawing to register in her mind. Her amazement at the quality subsided, and she noticed a second unique aspect.

She drew a ragged breath and put her hand quickly to her mouth to stifle a scream. None of her experience, as a teacher or in life, prepared her for this. The air in the room suddenly smelled stale and felt hot and still. She felt like she would suffocate amid the odor of sack lunches, markers, vacant desks and a trace of burnt matches.

The scene in the drawing was clear, and graphic. The prominent subject of the drawing, Gerald, the class’s dominant male, and Theodore’s principal tormentor hung impaled, suspended in mid-air, on a church steeple. A similar looking church, with such a spire, sat directly downhill from the school.

Though the focal point of Theodore’s drawing was Gerald impaled, as Miss Anderson unfixed her gaze, she realized he had drawn the school, the hill, and the church. Between the drawing, and her recollection of the west side where the church stood, it occurred to her such an incident would be unlikely, but possible. But only if Gerald was foolish enough to climb the fifteen foot fence surrounding the school property, and something forcefully knocked him off.

Feeling the need to preserve and protect Theodore’s self concept from damage, and shield his frail ego, she eventually managed to think up an appropriate comment.

“That’s very – good – drawing technique.” She blurted out. In her mind she struggled with the conundrum of how to broach the violent content of the drawing without offending the boy or stifling his creativity. The administrator forbade any moral judgment of a student’s work, but it seemed she should say something about the socially unacceptable nature of the subject matter.

On the other hand, who was she to stand in judgment of a student’s work from a moral standpoint, after all, was she the authority on morality? Could she pass judgment on whether a subject such as this was appropriate or not? There were no guns involved, even drawn images of guns are strictly prohibited. Nor any implication of overt action that would violate the no fighting rule.

In the end, she decided to keep a moral objectivity. She asked, “Can you share with me the meaning of your drawing?”

Theodore looked up at her from his creation like she was an imbecile, and without emotion said, “Gerald hurt me.”

Once Miss Anderson recovered from her shock, she realized the children on the playground were screaming. She looked out the window and saw a large group of teachers and students standing at the fence bordering the west side of the school. More were running across the open grounds toward them. The gathering stood directly above the church next door.

Her heart skipped a beat and she whirled around to look at Theodore and his drawing. He was staring at the picture, smiling.

Maggie, another of Miss Anderson’s students, ran into the classroom. “Miss Anderson! Come quick, Gerald fell off the fence, I think he’s hurt.”

The blood drained from her face and she felt iced fear shoot up her spine. Miss Anderson felt like she was choking, but she managed to tell Maggie “Stay here.” She started for the door, but before she stumbled out, she called back to Theodore, “You stay here as well.”

Miss Anderson ran across the playground toward the group gathered at the fence. Theodore and Maggie obediently remained in the classroom and stood together at the window to watch.

“Don’cha wanna go see?” Maggie asked.

“Not really.” Theodore said. He left Maggie at the window and walked over to the easel where he had been working. He tore off the drawing, crumpled it into a tiny ball, threw it on the floor, and stomped on it. Once he was satisfied, he picked up the flattened ball and tossed it into the wastepaper recycling bin. Then he rejoined Maggie at the window.

“It was awful.” Maggie said. “Gerald climbed the fence. We told him not to. When he got to the top, it was like a big wind picked him up and blew him right over on top of that church.”

“You don’t say.” Theodore said. He really wanted to say, Serves him right. He’s a bully and he hit me in the face. Since I couldn’t stand up to him physically, I responded the way I’m capable of responding, and he got what he deserved. But he didn’t say that. It would be socially unacceptable, and it would probably scare Maggie if she believed Theodore could affect the behavior of an individual or affect the outcome of a situation by drawing or thinking it.

Theodore liked Maggie, and he didn’t want to offend or frighten her.

It must be a bizarre coincidence. Miss Anderson thought as she stared at the tragic scene before her. Gerald skewered like some grotesque shish kebab. It was identical to Theodore’s drawing but with the addition of hot dry asphalt stench rising up from the track beneath her feet, children screaming, and the splash and stink of vomit on pavement.

She gagged back her own urge to throw up, and the familiar encroach of insanity that constantly lurked just beyond the edge of her tenuous grip on reality.

The children shouldn’t see this. Fighting back her own nausea and hysteria, Miss Anderson called out, “Come children, back to class.” When there was little response, she yelled, “Now!”

Her efforts to herd the gaggle of squawking children awakened the other teachers who stood dumbly transfixed on the tragedy displayed before them. They too began to usher children away from the fence and the grisly spectacle.

Just when the teachers were beginning to get the group moving, a third grader screamed, “He moved!”

Everyone stopped. Frozen in time for a full second. Then the children rushed en masse back to the fence despite the teachers’ attempts to lead them away.

Gerald moved again. He flailed his arms and legs in a futile attempt to free himself, but he was securely impaled on the steeple and he could only wriggle like a worm on a hook.

He realized his predicament and began to thrash wildly trying to dislodge himself, probably not realizing how serious his situation. Even if he managed to pull himself off the steeple, he faced a fall of fifty feet to the ground.

“Stay still. Don’t try to move.” Mister Korban yelled at Gerald.

“Has someone called an ambulance?” Miss Anderson asked aloud.

“Yes.” A teacher replied. “They’re on their way. But it’s gonna take more than a couple of ambulance drivers to get that boy off there.”

“Serves him right.” Lucy, one of Gerald’s classmates, said.

Miss Anderson stood next to Lucy and couldn’t believe the little girl said something so heartless. She looked down at Lucy and said, “Lucy! Why would you say such a horrible thing?”

“He’s always mean, and he hurts us. Gerald’s not nice. He beat up Theodore, the new boy, just last Wednesday during lunch.”

Darkness seeped in unbidden and clouded Miss Anderson’s mind. She shook her head and shuddered to dispel it. “No, it’s a coincidence that’s all, a freakish coincidence.”

“What is?” Lucy asked.

“Nothing.” Miss Anderson waved to the other teachers, “Let’s get all the children back to class. They shouldn’t be watching this.”

The faculty succeeded in breaking the morbid spell that held the children captive at the fence, tore them from the spectacle. The teachers led the children across the playground to the classrooms, the grass muted the fear and vomit.

The principal told his receptionist, “We need trauma counselors here, as soon as possible.” She reached for the directory and the phone, and in seconds placed calls for assistance.

Miss Anderson hurried into her room ahead of her students and headed straight for the easel containing Theodore’s drawing. The other students didn’t need to see it. As she rounded the table, she reached out to rip the paper away before any of the children arrived, but the page staring at her was blank.

“Where did your drawing go?” Miss Anderson asked Theodore.

“It was finished, so I threw it away.”

It turned out to be the longest day Miss Anderson ever spent in school, but it finally ended. The counselors counseled, the students wept, cried, and sat sullenly staring at nothing. After class dismissed, they went home.

Miss Anderson picked through the waste paper recycling basket. After some searching, she plucked out a hard ball of paper and carefully unfolded it.

Crumpling it up smeared the graphite, but Theodore’s drawing was still clear. Gregory impaled. But Theodore had added more. Now in the drawing, children lined the fence watching Gerald’s predicament. In the midst of the throng, the drawing depicted her, staring at the scene.

All of the observers looked shocked, except Lucy. She was smiling. Just a slight tinge of a smile, but it was there. She wasn’t looking at Gerald, she was looking directly out of the drawing, as if looking at the artist. Miss Anderson had the impression Lucy was smiling at Theodore.

Even though it was only three-forty in the afternoon, the classroom seemed to darken and started to spin. She swayed on her feet, and reached out to support herself on the row of desks to make her way back to the front of the room. Once she reached her desk, she sat down. Miss Anderson had felt darkness encroach before, just before her last breakdown, but this was different.

Thinking back, she realized that when Lucy made the comment that Gerald deserved what he got, she was looking back toward the school.

A dark, numbing fog rolled into her and she began to laugh. She couldn’t stop laughing. Instinctively she reached for the bottle of Valium in her drawer and quickly swallowed two pills, then, after a moment’s pause, another.

She stared at the drawing, it smelled of smoke and trash. Her tears fell onto the paper, smudging the graphite, enhancing the odor, and further obscuring the picture.

She lifted the paper to shake off the droplets and noticed another small drawing, on the backside of the paper. It was Theodore. He sat drawing at the easel just as she had seen him doing earlier in the day. He had a smile on his face and a pencil in his hand.

The drawing depicted a large muscular man with a naked torso and a broad smile standing behind Theodore. Curved talon-tipped fingers rested on Theodore’s shoulders, and long black feathered wings protruded from his back extending from above his shoulders and resting lightly on the floor.

Shivers ran the length of her arms and played up and down her spine. She began laughing again, but stopped short when she felt someone standing close to her. Miss Anderson glanced up. Theodore stood on the other side of her desk, staring at her.

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“What?”

“About the drawing I mean. You won’t tell anyone?”

Miss Anderson didn’t know what to say. She looked closely at sweet, innocent looking Theodore. Never the aggressor, always the victim, quiet, withdrawn, and even with all he put up with, he always seemed...content. Yet he had drawn such a horrific scene, and impossibly, what he drew happened. “I-I’m not sure.”

“Because he doesn’t like it when people talk about him.”

“Who?”

“My friend.”

A deep sadness wove its way into the darkness already clouding her mind. What did she have to live for? Life is such a dark place. There is no hope, I can’t maintain a grasp of lucidity, now I’m even starting to imagine this harmless little boy is somehow demented. She opened the desk drawer and looked at the bottle of pills. How many are left? I should take them all.

“He wants this to be our secret. Can you keep a secret Miss Anderson?”

The darkness began fading. Her arm jerked away from the drawer. The sadness vanished as suddenly as it had come. She looked down and stared at the pill bottle in her left hand and the handful of pills in her right. Life had meaning again, she dropped the pills back into the bottle and put it back into the drawer. What was I thinking? She looked up from the drawer, Theodore still stood there staring. He had seen what she did. What must he think of his teacher now?

“He won’t like it if you tell anyone. I like you Miss Anderson. I don’t want him to hurt you, but he will if he has to. Don’t make him do it. Okay?”

She stared at Theodore and sensed more than saw a large shadow looming behind the fifth grader. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Theodore looked up and behind him. “Then it’s okay, right?” After a moment, he turned and looked straight at Miss Anderson and said, “It’s okay then, as long as you don’t tell anyone. Goodbye Miss Anderson. See you tomorrow.”
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