The Patriot

by Evan S. Connell

  Once she had been there, late in the afternoon when the light was altering, and he had looked around, with some brushes in his hand, and found that she was looking not at the painting but at him. For an instant she did not realize his attention had turned to her, so deep was her concentration; then she seemed to awaken, flushing in embarrassment, with shining eyes, and with the gesture he had come to know so well she lowered her head and tucked away a wisp of hair. Often he had recalled this moment; it had revealed more about her than he could ever learn from talking to her.

  Having picked up ten copies of the paper in which he and the bull had been so roundly praised, confident that he would need at least that many copies, he grew increasingly baffled and frustrated as he perceived, having tucked one clipping in his wallet and mailed another one home, that he had no idea what to do with the remaining eight. He thought of giving them to his professors, or of mailing them to various influential publications, but could not bring himself to do either. Again and again he studied the laudatory sentences: “Isaacs’ subjective statement carries the unmistakable marks of originality, relevance, and a sublime degree of artistic integration. His bull is inexplicably right. The sculptor began with a clear and cogent idea and brought it to eloquent realization by means of the most expressive symbology imaginable. It is this symbolic content, epitomized by the necklace of beads, so inchoate and archetypal, that makes the Isaacs sculpture easy to grasp, yet difficult to interpret.”

  And so aroused and persuaded was he by these lines that he decided to grow a beard. He experimented with a stick of charcoal, studying himself in the mirror—since he wanted a beard which would be flattering and would at the same time identify him as an artist—but was not pleased with anything he designed. The Van Dyke he rather liked, except that it made his head resemble a gourd, and the L-shaped beard of a Parisian existenialist was suitable to the angularity of his features—it gave him a formidable, ascetic appearance, he thought—but it cried aloud for a beret and he did not dare walk around in Kansas wearing a beret. Having considered several other styles and found them even less satisfactory, he decided, simply, to quit shaving and observe what developed.

  One evening not long after this he was at his desk half asleep, thinking of the time he had been a cadet, when there came a familiar, insistent rapping at the door.

  “I can only stay a minute,” his father said, stepping inside and immediately looking around for the bull. “Your mother and I are invited to Lake Quivira tonight, a cocktail party with people we just met. Unbelievable.”

  “It’s over in the studio,” Melvin said. “It’s locked up. You can’t see it.”

  “It must be beautiful. I have always been extremely fond of animals, sculpture, and music, as you know. If the price is reasonable I will be delighted to make a purchase. We could put it in the back yard, next to the bird bath. Your mother thinks that would be nice. How much are you asking?” He began to peel off his gloves. He was wearing a long, tight camel’s-hair overcoat, a pearl-gray Homburg, and a cream-colored silk muffler with a fringe.

  Melvin, struck by his father’s extraordinary resemblance to a Hollywood gangster, replied that he did not want to sell the bull.

  “Ridiculous! Artists hope to—eh! Eh? What’s that? Is that a little beard? You can’t be growing a beard, I hope!”

  “I’m thinking about it,” Melvin said, pulling his chin.

  “Excuse me, but you can’t do that!” his father exclaimed from the depths of the Hollywood overcoat. “To be shabby and bearded isn’t wise.” Neatly he tucked a few dollars into Melvin’s pocket. “Buy yourself new clothing. The police. This is America. You could be questioned.”

  24

  It had never occurred to Melvin that he might be regarded with suspicion merely on account of his appearance; the more he contemplated the implications of such a philosophy, the more sinister it seemed, and the more outraged he became. He resolved to let his beard flourish, and, rather than buy new clothing, he spent the money on a new phonograph. Having gone this far he felt he had somehow entrenched himself, or fortified himself, and was prepared to defend his position against the Philistines.

  Day by day he grew shaggier and more conspicuous, yet no Philistine helmet broke the horizon. A number of strange figures did appear on the horizon, however—people who came to look at what he was painting. He had abandoned realism and was painting nothing but abstractions, which, since they were not impressions of the tangible world, were necessarily statements of a thought or emotion, indisputably personal, and therefore subject to any number of interpretations, and because of this fact they, like the bull, were exempt from criticism—a situation very much to his liking.

  At first he had not understood non-objective art, having assumed that an abstract shape or composition was no more than the foundation of a painting, and had commenced, indecisively, one afternoon after the professor and the other students had left the studio. He painted a circle in the center of a fresh canvas, because that seemed a plausible departure, but did not know what to do next. He backed away, trying to avoid thinking of it as a target, and for about fifteen minutes considered the circle, all the while growing more ill at ease. Since he could not then think of a better idea, he added a triangle, stepped away again, with his head cocked, trying to recall how Kip Silver and the other progressives went about the business. Suddenly he dipped a rag in turpentine and washed off what he had done. He walked to the window, where he smoked and stared over the campus. The snow had almost melted from the hill. The wind keening thinly through the trees was not a winter wind. A few birds circled above the stadium. It seemed a long time ago that he was released from military service. He wondered if the bases which had been so congested and purposeful were the same, or if, now that the nation was at peace, they were abandoned. He thought of his cadet friends and wondered if they were alive or dead. How immediate and how significant the war had been not long ago—newspapers full of it, and radio broadcasts. And yet already, so soon, so easily, the war was gliding away, slipping from sight like an iceberg in the mist.

  He returned to the easel, on an impulse shut his eyes, and mashed the brush against the canvas. The result, when he looked, was oddly attractive. Furthermore it communicated his feelings, which, in turn, suggested he might have hit on the proper approach to contemporary art. And on this basis he proceeded and had no difficulty. An application of color—if harmonious, fine, it was harmony; if not, why, naturally it was disharmony, that is to say, a spontaneous manifestation of the dissonant elements of which life itself is comprised, a perceptive reflection of the troubled times—a bold stroke there, here a shape, there a form, arabesque and filigree, all topped and crowned, capped and gowned, so to speak, with a daring smear, or, for depth, a symbolic cipher. Very soon he realized he could not possibly do anything wrong; here, at last, was something at which he would not fail.

  Prior to the festival nobody had shown the slightest interest in anything he did, but, having won a blue ribbon and been written up in the paper, he was a celebrity of sorts. He could sense people on the campus furtively looking at him and knew they were talking about him. Then, one afternoon in the studio, after he had shown a number of his canvases to some visitors, one of them asked the price of a certain oil painting, Melvin felt a clutch at his heart, a premontion, said fifty dollars, and found he had made a sale. He was so shocked and frightened that perspiration broke out on his face, and when the buyer asked if a check would be acceptable Melvin merely nodded, unwilling to trust his voice.

  Then, not two weeks later, he made another sale. And then another. He was completely amazed. There was, furthermore, a good chance of additional sales. He had heard, unofficially, but reliably, that one of his paintings might be purchased for the university library, and if this should come about there was a chance some gallery in Kansas City or Topeka would give him a show. And as if this were not enough, Kip Silver was sick with jealousy, a state of affairs which gave Melvin the utmost satisfaction.
<
br />   He set to work with great industry, and the more abstracts he manufactured the better he liked them, and he saw that he had been wasting his time attempting to paint comprehensible objects; indeed the modern method had something to offer, and he had never felt so assured, so positive, not only of his talent but of himself. What he chose to put on the canvas, or where, or how, did not matter in the slightest, although it was comforting to putter about with a palette knife—he would paint a while, scrape it off, paint a while longer, and scrape it all off with a groan of anguish for the benefit of whoever cared to observe the artist at work, and this could be pursued indefinitely because nobody knew what he was up to.

  Now and then, however, he did become troubled and acutely depressed; he would sit in a corner tugging his beard, or hold his head, and would not respond when someone in the class spoke to him. He was aware that these fits were growing more frequent and more pronounced, and he was worried. Meanwhile he painted his way along, day after day, deeper and deeper, discovering, much to his surprise, that, together with a subtle yet irresistible feeling of guilt, his signature was becoming larger. Soon it came to the point of usurping the beholder’s attention—Melvin Isaacs seized the eye and would not let go.

  His moods, his eccentricities, his flamboyant assaults on canvas, and, to some extent, the ferocity of his black, piratical whiskers, all contributed to the stories growing up about him on the campus, and he was mentioned rather often in the student newspaper, which rolled off the press in the journalism building five afternoons a week:

  Promising abstractionist Mel Isaacs seen in Navy flyer coveralls descending the fire escape at North Hall . . .

  He had accidentally gotten locked into the men’s toilet; even so, there was his name once again, and publicity meant sales.

  In the campus humor magazine he was startled to find a caricature of himself. He did not think the caricature was very good: the hair was kinky, the nose long and hooked, the feet too big and flat, and the face generally expressed fear and mistrust, and he was further disconcerted to see that it had been drawn by a freshman art student to whom he had paid no attention. He felt both flattered and resentful, and took care to ignore the boy who had drawn this picture of him. He could not make up his mind what attitude to adopt; he felt restricted, and, at times, was seized with such desperation that he thought he was strangling, but he did not know to what or to whom he could turn for advice.

  One Sunday evening his father telephoned to read a feature article on the university art department which had appeared in the Kansas City paper. Melvin was mentioned and described as “gifted.”

  “Such painting, this entire movement,” his father said, “escapes me, I admit. Pictures I love, of course. It’s an English countryside with cows, a brook, a shepherd and his dog, fine. I have the greatest admiration for art. But to be frank, I’m the first to say I don’t have time to keep up with everything, especially art, and if what you are painting is selling—if other people like it, we are all very proud for you. It’s fine. Congratulations. Your mother just called from the kitchen. She’ll be here in a minute to say hello. Leah and Louis were over earlier today and asked about you. Leah says you should write more often. She plans to send you some cookies. Why don’t you come home next week end? A client of mine is back from a duck hunt in Canada and we have three nice birds.”

  “I’d like to very much,” Melvin said, “but I’m going to stay here and paint. I feel that I’m beginning to make some real progress.”

  “What kind of progress?”

  “It’s difficult to explain. But my vision is getting more comprehensive now.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I’ve put up an easel on the porch,” Melvin said. “I can’t get into the studio on week ends, that’s why.”

  “Fine. Fine. We’re glad to know you are serious about something. Come home soon.”

  “I will,” Melvin said. “It’s just that finally I’m realizing my potential.”

  He had tried to bribe the janitor to admit him to the studio on week ends, and failing this—knowing of a second-floor window that was never locked—he once attempted to scale the wall, which was thickly overgrown with ivy, but he became alarmed halfway up when he heard and felt the vines tearing loose and jumped to the ground in his brogan shoes and coveralls with arms outstretched and his beard neatly parted by the breeze.

  He much preferred working in the studio, not only for the atmosphere and the north light, but because of the space; the porch was quite limited and he was doing progressively larger canvases. He had taken to broader brushes, since it might require weeks or months to complete a painting with a three-quarter-inch sable; he now got his brushes at the dime store—house painter’s brushes they were, glossy, rectangular, and as rigidly thrilling to the touch as a foxtail. There, too, he had discovered that house paint was much cheaper than the finely ground oils for which he had been obliged to pay up to a dollar for a few ounces. The GI Bill gave him an allotment for supplies, but it was insufficient, so he began experimenting with quart cans from Woolworth; he was not displeased, so far, with what he had accomplished, and stimulated by success he had an impulse to try painting with a kitchen spatula instead of a palette knife. He bought several sheets of absorbent gray cardboard, chipboard it was called, placed one on the floor, and got down on his knees with the spatula and the enamel.

  Chipboard had a number of virtues, but the thing that most pleased him was the absorbent quality: the paint dried in a few minutes, enabling him to work with great rapidity. So it was that before long he had accumulated a stack of brightly painted cardboards—shimmering yellows, blues, reds, lurid whorls and spirals with such titles as “Ambiguity,” “Security,” “Anxiety,” “Ambition,” “War,” and “Genius.”

  In addition, he had several dozen cylinders of waxed paper, about two feet in width, on which he had drawn immensely elongated figures with a carpenter’s crayon. He drew these egregious figures on the floor, since each was fifteen or twenty feet high, crawling on hands and knees along the immaculate waxen path which unrolled ahead of him with the inscrutable majesty of a carpet in a fairy tale; there was, he reflected, something symbolic about the way the cylinder unrolled, though he could not quite define it. In any event, the attenuated drawings turned out to be mysteriously popular among the campus intellectuals; in particular, he observed, among the Socialists. He could not imagine why, but it was so: the Socialists, who for some reason always managed to look rather hairy, almost bushy, would buy the drawings and roll them up and surreptitiously carry them away while he pocketed the money with a sense of baffled gratitude.

  He concentrated on achieving spontaneity above all else, and, having learned from an art digest that something described as “an elusive intimacy” had been revealed by someone in Wisconsin who had hit upon the idea of painting without implements, he eagerly seized on this and commenced dipping up the house paint with his hands. This he found to be exhilarating, and he plunged his hands ever more deeply into the can, squeezing, squeezing rapturously, squeeze, squeeze!—till he felt his very fingers melting and his eyes began to glow with inexpressible affection and concern for everyone, everywhere, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze! Soon he could not bear the thought of stopping. He wished all his friends were present so that he could let them know how dear they were to him, how unutterably he was longing for them, ah!—how the paint gushed, spurting, sucking, opulent globules! Was Paradise half so tantalizing?

  Divinely at ease after thirty minutes of squeezing the paint, he began to work, choked with sentiment, scooping it by the handful and allowing it to drool down his fingers to spread in widening, gracious pools across the chipboard. Overcome by emotion, alone in the studio, he could not help removing his shoes and socks, and then why should he not squeeze that ineffable paint between his toes? Oh, yes! Squeeze! Squeeze! His lips trembled and tears rolled down his cheeks until at last, so stupefied and glutted with sensation that he did not know where he was, or who he w
as, and could not care less, he felt that he must skate upon this paper, he must perform a glissade before his soul overflowed, and he did, pouring a stream of that indescribable paint ahead of him and singing madly in tune with himself. But then, somehow, he tripped and stumbled and went down, fell, shocked and profoundly mortified even as he caromed off the end of his magic carpet and with the majestic aplomb of a bowling ball went crashing through the easels.

  Moodily he spent some time in the washroom with a rag and a bottle of turpentine. The paint in his beard was exceptionally difficult to remove. He walked home and took a steaming shower, but for some days after the accident his beard gave off a curious, unfortunate odor, not unlike a dinosaur egg, perhaps, or a mistake with chemicals.

  “Are you doing sculpture?” his father inquired, a bit hesitantly, as though he did not quite know what to call it, the next time they talked on the telephone.

  “A little,” said Melvin. He had made some bric-a-brac sculpture—soldering, nailing, gluing together fragments of junk from the dump, although everything seemed rather anticlimactic after the bull—a duck constructed from a flatiron and a nozzle and some watchsprings, a camel made of two skillets welded together, and a few other animals.

  “Is it selling?” his father inquired.

  “Not too well,” Melvin replied.

  “How many have you sold? Not that I am prying into your personal affairs, but how many have you sold?”

  “Not too many,” said Melvin.

  “How many is that?”

  “Well,” said Melvin, “none.”

  “That’s too bad, but I’m not surprised.”

  “I’m doing all right otherwise,” Melvin retorted sharply. “Last Tuesday I sold another little oil. I’m doing all right.”

  “Nobody said you weren’t, Melvin. Do you hear from your Navy friend?”