Chapter 53

Captain Shmendy

 

Of course, I continued to drop in on Arnold Zwieback’s drawing classes. On one particular occasion the model was Captain Shmendy, a retired Great Lakes sailorman. Captain Shmendy wore a posing pouch, which is sort of like a bikini bottom and looks ridiculous, also one of those yachting caps. He had a great many tattoos on his wrinkled old hide, including some of lizards in ballet shoes and tutus—the same subject as some of Golyat Thornapple’s paintings. There was also a tattoo of what looked very much like the white house with the vast interior where I had my little studio space in which I never did any work.

I was certainly curious about why those particular images, and was trying to decide whether it was good manners to ask a naked old person about his tattoos during the break.

It turned out I didn’t have to ask. When we took a break, Captain Shmendy did not cover up with a robe like the female models did—instead, he held forth with a lecture about his life and career, pointing out the skin art related to different parts of his story. The lizards, he explained, he’d had done when the ballet de reptile from some island or other came to Chicago in 1939. The house I thought I recognized he claimed was the house he had grown up in, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. These tattoos were on the captain’s upper arms. Down one side of his body were portraits of the five women he’d been married to. On the other side was a list of sandwiches he had specially enjoyed, and the date on which he had eaten them—for example, in 1947 he had a fried egg on toast, which he felt deserved to be commemorated. I wanted to know if the lizards had anything to do with Thornapple’s paintings, or maybe if Thornapple himself had drawn them, but it turned out to be impossible to ask the captain any questions. He was a nonstop talker.

Across his back was tattooed DEEP WATER WALLAH over an American eagle, and an old-fashioned sailing ship.

“This modeling is only a temporary gig,” Captain Shmendy said. “I’m expecting to be put in charge of an important expedition in the near future.” Then, for some reason, he looked directly at me when he said, “And we’ll be wanting some able-bodied young chaps to man the oars.”

Needless to say, the guy was hard to draw, and all the students were frustrated. Except Billy Zwieback—he was sketching away energetically with an intent expression. I leaned over to get a look at his drawings—he was creating a cartoon character of Captain Shmendy, and had even designed a title logo, “Naked Old Loony.” I could see why he was excited. It definitely had possibilities.