A change in lens (Part 2)

“Ever heard of Paul Jackson Pollock, miss?”

“Only the name. And that he’s an American painter.”

Mr. Ishii looked like he was in pain for a bit before his usually serene face returned. I wondered if I had said something offensive.

“They call it drip painting.” He said, beckoning me to come closer. “Come and take a look.”

I had been paying close attention to what he had been doing already so this felt like a meaningless thing to say. Well, I guess not every girl my age was as curious (or attentive) as I was. He had been slowly and very carefully dripping paint onto the flat canvas. Using a plastic spoon to pour drops of paint and cover most of the canvas with different colours.

“The abstract expressionist movement had taken hold of the artistic scene in the late 1940s. Pollock practically defined what we call today ‘drip painting’ with that unorthodox method of his. Splashing liquid household paint on horizontal surfaces and making art that people could look at and interpret from so many different angles.” Mr. Ishii paused for a moment as he finished pouring out the rest of the paint on his plastic spoon. He turned towards the runny mixture of water and paint at his side and poured half a cup of paint again.

He started mixing it with water as he spoke, “It was like a frenetic dance. Some called it ‘all-over painting’ or ‘action painting’ which to be fair, wasn’t really inaccurate. But it really didn’t do justice to how he forced his whole body to paint the canvas.” Those words rang a bell in my head.

“Oh, is this the same Pollock who got a retrospective exhibition at that NYC museum?” I remember my Dad being very excited as he talked about it with uncle Miller.

“At the Tate Britain too. Since 1999, if I am not getting my dates mixed up. Oh, if you are interested to learn a bit more about the style of painting itself- try looking up ‘Janet Sobel’ sometime. She was another abstract expressionist painter who probably had the biggest impression on Pollock’s work.”

I nodded and smiled as Mr. Ishii turned back to his work. And that would be all the talking he would do for today.

It had been almost a week since I had started coming here and hanging out in the ‘closet of deviance’ as the people here liked to call it. By people, I meant the dozen or so painters that hung around here almost everyday. Sometimes working, sometimes talking but mostly just idling. Supposedly it was to ‘find inspiration’. They told me I was too young to really get it.

That sounded like a really good lie to me.

I brushed past the ‘white’ curtains as I walked into the main hall area. Uncle was busy with the ensemble, as he had been for almost every day since I had started coming here. I didn’t mind it to be honest, the music they played was really nice. I had asked my uncle and apparently it was a piece based on a German fairy tale called “Liz und ein Blauer Vogel”. The piece itself being its namesake. How did I know german? My dad, of course.

Staying with uncle Miller had been very interesting all things considered because I had had no idea how much of a mess he was at home. He had that same calm and reserved look on his face that made me think of how prim and proper dad was. Turns out that couldn’t be further from the truth. It had taken more than an hour to clean the guest room in his apartment. He had dumped all of his junk in it to save space for some reason. He had turned it into a storage room, basically.

“Honestly, the funniest part is that he asked you if you wanted to get takeaway for dinner, like did he really think you would say no to that?” Mom had joked about it in our regularly scheduled nightly calls. We had decided to talk every night at 11 because both mom and dad were really busy all day long doing their work. “And then? What did you guys get for dinner?”

We had gotten ‘Keto chicken cheesy breast with sauteed veg and mushroom’. It sounded really fancy when I had seen the menu and ordered but it was really more the veggies and mushroom than the chicken itself. I did think the price looked awfully cheap!

“You had your veggies right? Well, I don’t really need to ask you but I feel like I am obligated to, as your mother.” Unlike most kids, I really liked my veggies. It was my way of being different (or atleast, I thought so). I said as much to mom and she sounded like she approved. “Sorry for leaving you behind, baby. Just try to have fun on your own this one time, okay? Love you tons.”

Honestly I was having more fun than I usually had on my trips here. The freedom of just kinda existing without anyone to look over me was really something. Everyday I came to this lively hall by the sea and talked to the artists about all the different techniques and styles they painted in. Listened to some lovely music and saw some frankly incredible dance performances.

Occasionally, I even got to hear my uncle play the piano and the entire hall became silent for those performances. He was really good at it, or well at least that’s how it sounded to me. I remember Lace gushing about this pianist she had heard in one of those short videos that were really popular these days. It kinda sounded like that. But well, in a way that could just really just capture the audience, you know?

I only really had one thing bothering me these days. Where was that boy that uncle had talked about? I hadn’t really seen him around at all and uncle was always so busy that I didn’t want to bother him. I was just plain curious. Like everyday, I looked around the hall to see if there was a boy around my age hanging out in some corner on his own.

“Hey kid!” I heard a voice call out from within the nest of deviance. I turned around and poked my head inside to find Mr. Ishii staring at me with an awfully crude smile on his face. Like he was forcing himself to do it. “Do me a favour and bring me a steel bucket from that storage room on the back.”

I tilted my head in confusion. Why me of all people? I mean, I didn’t mind but none of the folks here had ever asked me to do anything so this felt unusually welcoming all of a sudden. Well as long as they didn’t mind me barging in and talking to them everyday, I really didn’t mind doing my share of menial chores for them.

“Do you need anything else?” I asked, only for him to cough loudly. “Sir, are you okay?”

“I am fine. I am fine.” He said slowly. I always forgot he was really not that old because he talked and behaved like my grandpa did. “Good luck, okay?”

What an odd thing to say. Good luck on what? I wondered as much as I started walking across the hall. Going around the wall of curtains and then into the little cubby leading to the storage area would probably be a shorter walk but I didn’t trust my claustrophobia to not act up suddenly. I would much rather take the long way around and enter the storage room from the other side.

That was the plan anyway- a plan that fell apart when the incredibly loud sound of a piano made me jump 10 feet into the air and slip on the smooth, recently cleaned maple floor. I never knew how awkward it felt to fall on your ass with the weight of your body. I bit my tongue as I awkwardly tried to muffle my shout of pain. Somehow that hurt far less than my hip did.

Surprisingly, no one in the hall seemed to have noticed, which was good news for me on the embarrassment front. On the other hand, I probably could have died and no one would have cared for god knows how long. I slowly managed to get up, wincing as I felt a dull pain in my hips. I turned around to find out where that sound had come from. Thinking about it, that sounded like it was from that little cubby I had decided to avoid. I sighed aloud as I started walking in that direction.

Turning the corner around the deviant containment, I found myself in a rather dimly-lit space. It took me a moment to realise what I was looking at.

A boy sat on a steel stool, an electronic keyboard in front of him, headphones over his ears as he played something with his eyes closed. I walked closer, noticing a thin notebook placed on a plastic stand over the keyboard. I didn’t really get why he was practising here. Even the sea-facing windows were dusty as little light came in. I nearly gagged as the disgusting smell of probably decade-old floor carpets hit my nose from the storage room entrance. How was he even surviving here?

I squinted as I tried to understand what was written on the notebook. It seemed like piano notation. It was weird watching someone play the piano without hearing the sound at all. I thought of poking his shoulder to scare him, but I didn’t really believe in the ‘eye for another eye’ thing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice in the matter as the dust in the air made my nose itch. Quite violently.

I sneezed loudly and the boy in front of me jumped out of his seat. I could swear he floated mid air for a solid second before he fell on his back on the ground. Honestly it happened so suddenly that I just stood there staring at his face as he blinked at me. He slowly got up, brushed the dust off of his clothes, sat on his stool again and stared at me. Only then did my brain decide to start working again.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“No,” he replied. His voice was quite firm, considering how thin he looked. He looked so thin that it felt like his clothes weighed more than him.

“Of course. Um, do you need help? Will you be okay?”

“Yeah sure, as long as you don’t jumpscare me again.”

“I am sorry!” Wait, I shouldn’t be apologising. “Actually no, this was pretty fair.”

“What?”

“You jumpscared me first!”

“Huh?” He looked genuinely confused.

“The sound of your piano made me slip and fall!” I felt an awful lot like I had lost something after I said that.

He blushed slightly but then a chuckle escaped him.

“It’s not funny!!!”

His chuckle turned into a full-blown giggle.

“I am going to tell my uncle about this and have you expelled.” I said haughtily. But his laughter only grew. You know I didn’t really think it would annoy me so much to see someone laughing at me like this. I grabbed his notebook and dashed towards the exit of the little cubby.

Weirdly enough, the boy immediately stopped laughing. He stood up and walked slowly towards me.

“I am really, really sorry.” He bowed sincerely as he said it. I probably would have forgiven him then. On any other day, that would be that and I would have completely forgotten that it was indeed the boy that uncle was talking about. But somehow seeing him like that, the dusty little space behind me made it click in my head. It made me put the notebook behind my back and click my tongue.

The boy raised his head to look at me. He looked awfully pale, even in that dimly-lit room. He put his hand forward, probably wanting his notebook back.

“Please.” He said.

“Nuh-uh.” I replied.

“What do you want from me? I apologised, right?”

“I want you to not sit in that little cubby hole.”

“Huh? Why? What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. I just don’t want you to.”

“Please…”

“Nuh-uh. You aren’t getting your notebook until you get out of there and play somewhere I can see you.”

“Please…?” He asked again.

“Nope.”

“Fine. You wanna listen to what I am playing right? Fine, go ahead and listen.”

“To hear you play?” Is that really why I had wanted him out of there? I blamed the mild concussion I was still suffering from, but I couldn’t decide if I was just being weirdly curious or just plain weird about this. Well, whatever. “Sure.”

“Okay then.” He put his hand out again. I handed his notebook back as he walked back to his stool and sat down. He unplugged his headphones and lowered a wheel, which I could only assume was the volume. I wondered why it was set to max in the first place. “Are you okay with standing? The floor is really dirty.”

I nodded as he put his finger on the keys. And then he started playing.

You know how I said my uncle’s performance could just capture you? The boy who I would later learn was called Neil Grayson was kinda the same. But not quite.

My cheeks felt awfully wet that day when he stopped playing. I wonder why.