Chapter 12

Ugly Mug

 

The drawing students began flipping their sketchbooks shut and putting their pencils and charcoal and erasers and rags in their various boxes and bags. Most of them moved fast so nobody could see their drawings. The few who didn’t, except for the blond maestro, didn’t have anything a great deal better than what I had done. Of course, their stuff was better—actually lots better—but not worlds and universes better. There didn’t seem to be any reason why I could not develop the level of skill they had within a reasonable amount of time.

I calculated that the fifty I had from Emil Pfiff, keeping back maybe ten dollars for some art materials, would buy around a dozen classes. If I neglected to mention to my father that I had swapped music for art, the three-fifty a week would continue, so further supplies and lessons would be covered, along with the odd hot dog. And maybe Billy Zwieback would arrange a freebie once in a while if I helped him carry stuff or clean up. I craned my neck to see his drawing board. As the son of the teacher, I figured he ought to be pretty advanced. What Billy had drawn was a series of little square panels, like a comic book, and in the panels he had drawn the gorilla chasing the model, and the model chasing the gorilla—nothing to do with the poses. The style was familiar, sort of like the newspaper strip Beetle Bailey.

“De gustibus non est disputandum.” It was the chick from the Art Institute. She was looking at Billy’s cartoons too.

“What is that, French?”

“Yes. It means, ‘Everybody has their own taste,’” she said. “So, did you look at the painting?”

We were outside on the corner by this time. The two muffled maniacs were still buzzing around the spooky white house, slapping on the whitewash.

“It did things to my brain,” I said.

“You’re not the only one, bud,” the chick said.

“By the way, my name is Jenny Thimble.”

“I’m Harold Knishke.”

“Oh, like the song!”

“The song?”

“Yes, ‘The Ballad of Harold Knishke.’ Blind Beet sings it,” Jenny Thimble said.

“Blind Beet?”

“He’s a folk singer. You never heard of him?”

“Never. And he does a song called ‘The Ballad of Harold Knishké?”

“It’s pretty good. He sings fairly often at the Ugly Mug—that’s a coffee house where it so happens I am a waitress. You ought to come some night. You can hear a song all about you.”

“I might do that. Where is it?”

“It’s on North Park, just north of North Avenue, on the west side of the street.”

“North Park, north of North, on the west side,” I said.

“You can’t miss it. The first cup of coffee is on me.”

“Thanks.”

“After that, they’re a dollar apiece.”

“Pretty steep.”

“Well, there’s entertainment.”

“I get it.”

“Okay, well, I should be going.”

“Right.”

“I’ll see you here at class, I suppose.”

“Sure.”

“Or at the Ugly Mug.”

“Right.”

“Okay.”

“Bushman lives.”

“Right.”

And she was gone. This conversation had gone on a lot longer than the one on the Art Institute steps. I thought I had handled myself pretty well.