Page 43 of Room 13: Bred By the Bears

“I did! I’m parked right over there.”

She pointed to a zippy little SUV across the street.

“I’ll drive it back for you. That way you’ll have your car when you’re done.”

It took her a few long moments to consider handing over her keys. I was fifty-fifty on whether or not she’d continue to my car or tell me she changed her mind. We sat in silence for a while. Just the sad songs of the Avett Brothers filling the cabin singing about winter living in his heart. I knew how the guy felt. That was for sure.

“So, St. Claude’s Home for Boys?” Miele asked as we idled at a stop light that would usher us onto the freeway.

“We may not be brothers by blood, but we are the closest thing.” It wasn’t exactly what she’d asked but at least it gave her some reference how far back we went. We were ironclad. Every celebration, disappointment, and heart break we went through together. And when the state set us loose at eighteen, we leaned on one another. Even helped Armel graduate early so he could leave for college with us.

“Did you always live at the home together?”

I hated thinking about these things. Bringing up all of this darkness. These demons had long been buried in the deepest recess of my soul.

“We had a few stints with foster parents. Never together because we aren’t actually related. Obi and Armel can tell you their own sad tales of militaristic foster parents, absent foster parents, the ones just after the benefits so they hoarded us and shoved us eight to a room. Some kids are lucky, and they get a nice stint for a while. Good, responsible adults that truly want their kids to grow and succeed and become healthy adults. But unfortunately, the three of us were lower than white trash. We never really learned how to speak properly. Growing up in group homes and in neglectful foster homes had made the three of us pretty feral. We raised ourselves out in the woods.”

I pulled over to a small, deserted shack about an hour outside of the city.

“Let me show you something.”

She followed me to the backyard, which though slightly overgrown, still had dozens of my first pieces standing up in relief against the overgrowth.

“I had a teacher in middle school, Mr. Danes. We did some stupid metal working project with iodine and these tiny tools that scratched into the metal. I drew the bayou with some birds, and marshland, a set of eyes poking out of the river. Mr. Danes said I had raw talent. And that I could come and work in his studio whenever I wanted. At first, I didn’t take him up on that. But Armel stood up to the wrong kids at school one day and we needed a place to hide out. Mr. Danes ordered us a pizza, and got us two Pepsis from the teacher’s lounge, and showed us how to warm and mold metal. The next week, he brought us ham and cheese sandwiches on thick crusty bread and sweet tea his wife made by leaving it out to brew in the sun. Week after week, I built up my toolbox of skills. Armel would build things in clay once in a while, but he really hung around for the sandwiches. Eventually when Obi’s foster family returned him, he’d join us at Mr. Danes after school. And those days became more than art. More than getting a home-made meal. He was the first person to treat us like people, not pariahs.”

She took my hand. And that insignificant gesture set my universe on fire. With her fingers linked through mine, I showed her my first sculptures. The first expressions of my pain.

“Mr. Danes kept tabs on me in high school. Pushed me to take classes, to hone my talent, apply for art school. He practically assembled my portfolio for me and let me use his computer and his email address—schools didn’t have student email yet—to send it to RISD.”

“He sounds like an amazing man. A guardian angel.”

“I don’t know where I’d be without him.” I stopped in front of the very first bust in copper I did at RISD.

“Bradley Danes,” She read, “December 1st, 1945 – February 22nd, 2003”

“Drunk driver,” I told her. “Coming back from visiting his youngest daughter at Tulane.”

“I brought you here because I want you to know despite how we grew up, it’s not our identity. The three of us. We thrived despite where we started. Being an unwanted foster kid is not my legacy, Miele. But it’s an important piece of my history. I have something I want to tell you. But I want you to see some of my happier pieces. Which are at Bogue Chitto. If you’ll let me.

“I meant what I said about not pushing you places you don’t want to go. But I want you to understand us. Me. Where we came from and how that has influenced us. Because I want you toknowus. All of us. The good and the bad. But if this is too much for you, I’ll take you back to New Orleans right now and table it for some time down the road. Because this was our life, and the three of us carry pain from these experiences that I’m hesitant to cut myself open and bleed for you, if you still want to maintain that aloof arm’s distance we had in Montana.”

thirty

This was it.The moment where I jumped in or turned tail and ran. Casey’s husband Joaquin and his brother Gabriel, both counselors in different ways, had become my sounding board during the remaining time I’d spent at Troublesome Creek. Not that I came back cured of all that ailed me, but I saw my relationship with Ryker, Obi, and Armel differently.

Sexuality, kink, the things that turned a person on. It was always evolving. Had I been coddling myself into a reality that would never come to fruition? Maybe. But maybe I needed to indulge in breeding fantasies in order to heal. To rewrite over the experiences I had with Jason and learn to love even the broken parts of me.

“Before we drive again.” I swiped through my phone and found the images I wanted to show him.

“You can swipe through. There are about seven pictures.” I handed my phone over to him.

“Your blue period,” he said as he scrolled. “Casey told us you don’t paint anymore because of Jason.”

He must have seen the shocked look on my face. There were few people that knew about my blue period. And next to know one I knew post-divorce.

“You can barely make them out, I know. I tried to salvage what I could. So most of the paintings are only pieces of the original. But they’re all I have left of them.”

“Even if I didn’t know the back story,” he looked at me, empathy overwhelming the green of his eyes and muting them to a grayish green hue, “I can feel the pain in this one.”

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