Part two of the story I started posting here.
"Art is the vehicle of truth that allows us to transcend the mundane of the everyday, and yet realize the beauty of the everyday all in the same moment."
Jim had turned instinctively when, three years before, he’d first heard the young voice unapologetically announcing its bold definition. Even though it is now a worn memory, the opening line of the speech always makes Jim turn, and look. Keep in mind the scene that the professor sets on the stage of his imagination changes slightly each time it is conjured again. Today it is a dimly lit room, flooded with the garishly blue hues of a colorless sunrise. The smell of last night's cigarette smoke lacks the fresh, artistic waft it had inherently possessed the previous evening and is, as morning breaks, reduced to a stale, perverse stench. There are not many persons present, as it is too early an hour for the morning rush.
On turning, Jim finds the source of the declaration in the form of two wide black eyes, staring confidently at a certain listener—a young girl of about eighteen—with unwavering determination. The mass of short black curls that accompanies the eyes could neither be comfortably described as collected, or as unkempt, and so their description is, according Jim's inexpert perception, left at 'skillfully unruly'.
Apparently unaware of the new and intent set of listening ears, the young man speaks again.
"It would not be necessary to have art at all if we knew everything, so I like to think of it as a classroom, or a lens through which the world is revealed to us. Revealed safely. Think of it! A world where you can explore a range of possibilities, and all without really changing a thing.”
Acting on an impulse, one closely related to not wanting to be outdone, the girl responds.
"Well. I am studying with the hope of attending medical school. Take Biology, for instance, there are a million processes that go on in you and me everyday. When I learn about them, I think, it's life changing! The world should be different because of this process! But then I realize that it was going on long before I knew about it. Nothing has changed, but it seems it should have. That's a cliché, I guess. But it does make the everyday much more interesting. Science is like art then. Only more useful. I am going to go to medical school, and save lives."
As he listens, Jim finds his principles aligning with the young woman's, so he wonders why he feels she is getting in over her head; and why, if it is indeed an argument he is observing, he feels that the young man is winning.
The boy, being of an obvious better nature than Jim, simply laughs. No reserve, no guile, no pretense—taking unfiltered joy in the conversation alone. He doesn't seem to care that what he has said would have, under most other circumstances, paled in comparison to her trump card. Sadly for the lover of sport, the lad lacks a certain sense of pride that makes one doggedly determined to be right, and Jim can see his mind mulling over what the girl has said. In that moment, Jim knows why the girl is losing the argument. She isn't listening to her opponent, but her opponent is listening to her.
"You misunderstand me!" The boy says with a grin, as soon as his laughter has finished pouncing through the mostly-empty building. "I do not think that art is the only means of finding meaning in the everyday. Finding meaning, anywhere, is valid. I would never discourage anyone from looking for that, no matter how he chose to carry on that search."
His clarification seems passable to her. Still watching, even in his mind’s eye, even years later, Jim is angry at her inability to give a thorough rebuttal. Instead of giving a thought-out answer, she resorts to the oldest trick in the book.
"So what do you want to do with it? Your art degree, I mean." As she speaks, the girl unconsciously holds a Chemistry textbook close to her, challenging the boy with both her dialogue and her body language.
The visual cue of the textbook signals to Jim that he has seen this girl before. She is in his lecture, weekday afternoons. He knows nothing else of her, except that now she appears to be a driveling idiot, but there is hardly an opportunity to dwell on that in the present moment. There is barely enough time between the girl's question and the boy's answer for Jim to mutter quietly, “Ah, the art student's favorite question. It will be interesting to see what this kid comes up with.”
The boy's answer is immediate and intentional.
"I plan to help others see what they are missing."
The sincerity of his response leaves an odd flavor in the air, as if what he has said, and what she had expected him to say, have become opposing forces, wrestling above the table between them and effectively bringing an end to their conversation. It would have been too perfect for someone to have actually coughed in that moment, but in Jim’s mind, in this little reminiscence, someone coughs, and the stalemate silence is broken. In reality, the inciting sound was the bell on the hill, tolling the hour.
"I have to go.” she explains, grabbing her bag, standing, and turning toward the door. "But it was nice meeting you, Rob. Thank you for the coffee, and… good luck, with… everything." She blunders off carting a sort of saved-by-the-bell attitude, pausing only momentarily to acknowledge the un-invited spectator.
"Good morning, Dr. Bentley, see you in class later." She mutters, inclining her head, and clutching her book tighter, as if to say, I have been studying for your class, so give me good marks, no matter what my actual performance.
In the matter of fairness, one must acknowledge that it is only in these re-creations that Jim has time to analyze the girl's body language. At the time, he’d thought nothing of her book, or the way she held it. Only in these moments of reflection does he realize that because she had lost the argument for science, she had left him with a bitter gnawing sensation that could only be interpreted to one end: he was ashamed to call himself her professor.
It must have been her acknowledgement of him that made the younger man turn to appraise Jim as well. Whatever the catalyst for the analysis, we must watch on to see how it plays out.
Rob nods in an unfamiliar salute and then smiles openly. The smile is all frankness, doling out understanding, not asking for it in return. Jim finds it smug beyond all reason.
"You must be a man of science yourself." the boy speaks, uninvited, but not necessarily unexpected, or (difficult as it is for Jim to acknowledge it) unwanted.
"I am."
"And what did you think of my speech, or didn't you hear it?"
"I heard it."
"And..."
"What?"
"What do you think of me?"
"You want the truth?" Jim spits, and then without waiting for an answer, delivers one of his self-termed 'blows'. "Good, because I always give it. I think you're just another damned idealist."
So clever is he, he hardly has to think before speaking. His opinions are quick to form and slow to waiver. Jim has turned around without waiting for, or wanting a response from the overly eager student. Silence returns to the little room, as it is still too early for much of a rush. The professor promptly finishes his coffee, reads three chapters of his book and gathers his things to leave before his spiteful adrenaline allows him to look again at the table where the younger man sits. Jim has begun to suspect that the lad has escaped out the back way to avoid walking past his table, but finds himself mistaken; for there Rob is, still sitting in his chair, scrawling in a black pocket notebook, pausing every few moments to glance in the direction of the older man and then back down again.
"What are you doing, young man?" Jim snarls, already suspecting the answer.
"Sketching you."
Were anyone walking behind Jim, just now, as he storms out of the cafe, they may be startled to hear him repeating the words "damned idealist" over and over, as though he can use his heated words to warm the raw air that claims him as he steps into an outside world—a world slavishly at its task, dressing itself in a cold, damp, dirty layer of autumn fog.
Again, to be continued... thanks for reading.
