A Two Color Artist

No choice now. You plunge down the narrow aisle, struggling to keep your two bags squarely behind your back. At each row, you glance left and right with greater apprehension; each occupied seat brings you closer to the prospect of turning back, of telling the bulk of a man slowly advancing behind you that you'll both have to disembark-or rather, of pushing past him (on the assumption that he is initiated into a mystery of seat acquisition that you will never be allowed to understand), somehow folding him to the side and disappearing behind him, as though behind a billowing black velvet stage curtain.

About halfway to the back, you are surprised to catch sight of two empty seats ahead, to the right, one an aisle seat next to a skinny old black man, and one, just behind him-can you help it that your breath suddenly comes easier, your muscles relax?-next to a plain, freckled Caucasian woman. You stop by this seat and make a stretching gesture with your head (the only expressive part of you not otherwise engaged) that you hope communicates your wish to be seated and your correlative need for her to scoot over, or stand, or at least turn her knees to one side.

The woman ignores you, her eyes fixed fiercely on the back of the unoccupied seat in front of her. Deflected by this reception, you turn your own gaze to the side, and soon realize, to your dismay, that you have made eye contact with the black man, that is he picking up the leather satchel from the seat next to him to transfer it to the space in front of his feet, and that the fat man is steadily closing in behind you, closer with each moment to smothering all choice.

Well, damn it, you're no racist! Tear down the wall! Strike a blow for brotherhood! God bless America! You nod to acknowledge the invitation and stow your bags. In your zeal to fuse new bonds between the black and white communities, you sit down quickly, confidently, and as far away from the black man as possible, your right side braced against the armrest-earbuds in, force-field up.

A little later, you are straining your eyes with the effort of looking left without turning your head. The black man, you can see, has a small stack of blank, unlined paper and a bulging manila envelope. He is holding a blue pen in his hand and staring at the top sheet of his stack. He stares for exactly 38 seconds (You are timing him by the display on your iPod), then begins to draw a curved line near the center of the page. He traces over it several times, following the line exactly each time. The line extends under his steady hand, its curvature remaining the same at all points, until it closes in on itself. The black man has drawn a perfect blue circle, a little over two inches in diameter.

From the bottom left of this figure, he extends two lines which meet and end at a point five radii from the center of the circle (he continues to retrace the lines precisely several times). So far, it could be an ice cream cone. You soon have to abandon this theory, as the black man is now wrapping several curved lines around the cone, which are attached at various points on the circle and meet at the tip of the cone, but are otherwise suspended from it. The configuration of curves (each of which he draws only once, leaving them slightly lighter) appears random, yet, when the last has been drawn, completely harmonious with itself and with the more geometric elements of the drawing theretofore.

The black man considers his drawing, then, apparently satisfied, he caps his pen and returns it to his shirt pocket. You are not impressed. You close your eyes and focus on the public radio podcast about BINGO addiction in southern California. The program does not exactly interest you, but you are tired enough to be absorbed by it, enough that it aggravates you more than a little when it ends abruptly in the middle-apparently, you failed to download it completely.

As you put away the iPod in frustration, you notice that the black man to your left is active again. You were, it seems, too quick to judge; he has produced a red pen and is continuing the drawing. The circle (which has become unmistakably a sphere) is now filled to half with a sloshing red fluid; the color of the fluid is outlined firmly and filled in by two perpendicular sets of parallel lines, whose frequency is thinner on the surface of the fluid to distinguish it from the fluid seen against the inside of the sphere. Two cherubic wings (whose span is equal to the length of the sphere and the cone together (i.e., six radii of the sphere)) have grown from the sides of the cone. Presently, the black man is drawing long rays of force extending from the top half of the sphere. He has drawn three of these, already, and is drawing a fourth, then a fifth. In retracing the fifth ray, he notices that his red pen has stopped working. Okay, so it's finished. He takes the blue pen out of his pocket and signs his drawing: MH. He caps both pens and returns them to his pocket, then slides the drawing into the manila envelope.

Quickly now. Here's your opportunity to establish a connection. Say something before he starts another one. You turn to the black man and ask him, "Where'd you learn to draw like that?"

He points to his forehead in answer, tapping it three times, and adds, "I don't even know what I be drawin'. I just be drawin'."

Okay, that'll do. You face forward again, and MH wields his blue pen once more. A few minutes later, the lights turn off and the bus pulls out of the station. The black man puts his things away and closes his eyes.

You turn on an overhead light and take from your backpack the uninteresting novel you brought for the trip. You attempt to read, but are unable to concentrate. You continue to run your eyes over the lines of words, however, and turn the pages at a steady pace. It does not much bother you that you are missing large segments of the plot-indeed you can't think of a book whose story you'd quite got a hold of by the end; it isn't plots that interest you, but rather that long, uninterrupted flow of words, like a path so long and straight you can walk it with your eyes closed.

A chapter ends. As your attention spills down into the white, unmarked regions of the page, the thoughts that have been occupying your mind under cover suddenly emerge into the forefront: you have been thinking about asking Mr. MH sell you one of his drawings, but you only have a few dollars in your pocket, and you fear that will insult him.

In the sudden clarity of your mind, a solution occurs to you: a trade of art for art. If MH is going with you all the way to Boston, perhaps there will be an opportunity propose the exchange. It can't be done now, of course; the moving bus is much too unstable to allow for work of any quality). As you're getting off the bus, you'll say to him:

"I've got a deal for you-a poem for a drawing."

He'll be intrigued and you'll explain further: he is to draw a portrait of you, in his own fantastic idiom, in return for which you'll compose an impressionistic poem-portrait of him. He'll agree to this. Then you'll sit down in the bus terminal and set to work. For some time, you sit drowsily in the dark, relishing the notion, imagining the simple yet insightful reflection of yourself he will surely produce, thinking how proudly he will receive your poem, how he will say at your parting, "You and me, we a two color artist."

In constructing the scene, however, preceding the creative milestone, it strikes you that perhaps there ought to be some exchange of pleasantries first. You'll have to give each other your names at some point, if only for the sake of titling your respective works (surely "black man" and "white kid" would be inadequate for works of such historical import). But how will this come about? It does not seem to flow naturally from the conversation thus far imagined. Perhaps the introductions will have to precede any mention of the trade. That would perhaps diminish the boldness of your proposition, but perhaps that can be restored to it by some other expedient. You can work that out later. So you're getting off the bus in Boston, and you say:

"I'm Irving Washington. Who are you?"

"Maxwell Henderson," he'll reply.

Or will he? What makes you think you can count on him to be amiable in those circumstances? On the bus, of course, he'll want to be friendly because he's stuck with you, but once you've arrived, he'll be free to scorn you without any risk of awkwardness. He might just as well answer, "We been on this bus together for twenty hours, and now we off you want to start making friends?" And he'd be right, too. It seems the whole affair must be pushed back onto the bus.

Why, you may as well begin right away. You turn again to address the black man, but he is asleep; his eyes are closed and his mouth hangs slightly open. Perhaps you can wake him. But it can't be done directly, or he certainly won't speak to you. You try coughing, but he does not stir. You tap your feet, shift your weight, and shuffle the contents of your backpack. No luck.

Perhaps the thing to do is to get up and sit back down again, making a fuss about recovering your seat, maybe go to the lavatory in the back as a pretext. You get up and make your way down the aisle to the back of the bus, and pull the door handle. Damn! It's occupied. Well, you can wait. This is for art. MHIW!

You stand there for a good five minutes, trying to stare straight ahead down the aisle. You glance over to your left and see that a black woman sitting in the back seat is watching you and grinning. You point to the lavatory door in explanation of your position, and she nods in understanding, but her mirth does not subside. You look around, and, though no one else is watching at the moment, there seems to be a general aura of derision focusing on you. Perhaps they think you are not making earnest enough an effort to win the toilet. You knock on the door firmly three times, but as you receive no answer, this surely will not satisfy them. At last, you grasp the door handle, and jiggle it loudly, only to discover that the door is unlocked after all. It swings open, inward, and you follow after it in shame, and lock it behind you, announcing with a click your disappearance.

Recover yourself, sir! You are a man of dignity, and this episode alone cannot break your stature. There. Now think carefully. They’ll be watching for you to come back out, so you’d better take care to time it well, or your humiliation will only be compounded.

You allow thirty seconds to pass by thousand-count, flush the toilet, then turn on the sink and wash your hands thoroughly (never let them think ill of your hygiene!). The little metal sink catches and sloshes around the meager stream of water with a friendly tinkle. You relax, feeling an ethereal lift around your shoulders.

You dry your hands and turn to exit the lavatory. With your hand on the door, you suddenly realize—panic grips you—that you have, after all, a genuine need of the toilet. The world of hope that has been growing in your heart crumbles to nothing. What escape can remain for you now? Your first thought is to hold it in till Buffalo, but that could be far away yet. You’ve lost track of time completely and cannot say whether you are five miles away or fifty. While your case is not urgent, it could worsen quickly, and the idea of making two trips to the lavatory in so short a time is unthinkable. Yet you can’t possibly stay in here long enough to empty your bladder and wash your hands twice.

Then there is only one solution, though it is a grim prospect: ease nature, if you must, but you must not wash your hands.

Solemnly (and hurriedly), you heed the call as planned, and exit the lavatory, making as much noise as possible between the door handle and your stamping feet to cover the sound of the flushing which ought not be. The white woman who snubbed you before is awakened, and glares back at you irritably. “Hey,” you whisper to her as you pass, “We all have to make sacrifices for the common good.”

You return to your seat at last, and, remembering your plan, sit down heavily and loudly. MH stirs a little, pushing himself up slightly on his left armrest for a moment, then drops back down and is still again.

You lean toward him and say, “I’m very sorry, did I wake you?”

His eyes open and he blinks twice slowly. He looks back at your waiting face in confusion and asks, “Whuzza…er, you what now?”

“Did I wake—” you begin to repeat, but are interrupted by the careless yet sincere voice of the bus driver saying, “Welcome to Buffalo.”

“Oh,” the black man says to you. “My stop.” He begins to collect his things.

You are silent for the remainder of the ride. In the end, he leaves you with a nod. He gets off, and you remain, as always, a ghost, talking to ghosts.