The Artist's Mechanic

Chapter 1

The Artist’s Mechanic

By J.D. Walker

What am I doing here?

I sat in a small classroom, sun still shining bright through the windows at seven o’clock in the evening, since it was early summer. There were eleven women and men who all looked to be over the age of sixty milling around in front me, adjusting their easels and checking their paintbrushes and such. Everyone seemed excited to be there, while I felt like someone had just put diesel fuel in my gasoline tank, and now the engine wouldn’t start. How the hell did I end up in this predicament?

Oh, yeah. My baby brother Marco had tricked me.

Okay, so it wasn’t quite a trick, but he’d somehow shifted the blame for his lack of enthusiasm to attend school to me, saying, “Oh, well you never graduated, ergo, why should I?” after which I reminded him that I had gotten my diploma last year, ceremony or no. And then, he’d said, “Well why can’t I do the same thing?”

My response was, “Because you can do better than that. You get A’s without even trying, and I want you to have a chance at something good in life, not settle because you made bad choices.” Or because life had knocked you on the ass with responsibilities you never asked for.

After that, Marco had crossed his arms, narrowed his too-sharp brown eyes, and told me I’d have to do something really big and outside my comfort zone for him to agree, something I’d never do in a million years, just to prove that I was serious about him becoming a senior and graduating next year, for his own good. Naturally, it hadn’t taken him long to come up with the most embarrassing thing possible—being a nude model for his best friend’s brother’s drawing class for the rest of the summer at the university where said brother taught.

I’d argued back and forth with Marco, but my brother, whether he’d admit it or not, was the smartest person I knew—if lazy—and he had me by the balls. If I wanted to demonstrate to him that I was serious about his future, I’d have to grow a bigger pair. So, here I was, showing that I could be the bigger man and hold up my end of the bargain if I really had his welfare at heart. Of course, I did, damn it. Always! I simply didn’t want to have to bare my fuzzy nuts to do it.

Geez, the guys at the garage would bust a gut if they ever found out what I was doing on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next two months. Marco owed me big time for this, the little squirt. His ass better be glued to that chair at school for the entire senior year. All I had to do was survive being gawked at for an hour and a half while people drew or painted or the what-the-f**k-ever.

Christ, what a nightmare.