Page 53 - Demo

“And what are you going to study?” George said.
Before I could say, “Art and art history, asshole,” my father said, “It’s too early. He has time to decide.”
I went back to my mother and Millie. A short man in a navy pin-striped suit and purple tie, walking with a slight limp, came up to them. He had thick white hair combed straight back and a sharp nose. He said he was John Schultz, Tony’s painting teacher, and want- ed Millie to know how sorry he was for her loss. Tony had been a good man and a special student, not only older, but with great promise. Aunt Millie seemed flustered and blushed. He went over to the coffin and looked at Tony for several minutes then left.
“Forty-one is a little late to have no more than prom-
ise. It was like he forgot his real job was a truck driver and not messing around with paints.”
The grownups started talking about Mr. Schultz and what he had said about Tony. I didn’t hang around to hear the stupid things they’d say. In the hall, I weaved around chatting groups and found a side door. The cool, fresh, night air was a relief. A short, burly man with crew cut blond hair and a thin man with brown hair and a moustache were talking and smoking ciga- rettes. We said hello. They were truck driver friends of Tony from work.
Security lights glistened on the after-rain asphalt of the parking area behind the next building. I walked to the back of the funeral home to get away from the cigarette stink. Nothing there but the backs of the houses across the alley, the alley and its faint odor
of garbage, and brown telephone poles with cross bars and sagging black wires. They reminded me of the telephone poles in the alley behind Tony’s house. They were in some of his best work. I walked back to the truck drivers.
“He was into painting,” thin man said.
“A side hustle?”
“No. Art. Painting.”
“Really? He always seemed pretty normal to me.”
“He showed me some. They looked pretty good but what do I know. He showed me a painting of his truck by a diner and it looked like his truck by a diner but more real.”
Burly man looked troubled.
“It was a hobby, like bowling,” thin man said.
“Oh, okay, then,” burly man said. “You know Cathy’s
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