penance. a love story (The Böhme Series) (2 page)

I turned and followed him as he was going towards my classroom. I could see the unease he now wore as if he thought I was going to attack him. I was thankful he held that. I had no reason to fight him, but knowing that I intimidated him made the walk to class bearable. The intimidation helped with the insane fear that consumed me as we rounded up the circular hall toward my classroom. I wore that intimidation as armor.

The building made me uneasy as the hall circled as a parking deck, going up and up past doors and windows. It was a giant fucking circle and I hated circles, being inside one was even worse. I wondered if Stinson was trying submersion therapy. I clenched my hands at my sides as I tried to focus on my steps leading me to my destination.

Circles. Circles. Circles
. I need end points. Rooms can’t go on and halls shouldn't either. Give me right angles. Room 212, 214, and I stopped, at last, in front of room 216. I watched the guy from earlier continue on his way. He looked back and gave a vague smile expressing his relief that I no longer followed him.

I took a breath and turned toward the door of the classroom. I didn’t want to walk into the room, but it was what I needed. When I step into the room I will learn and grow. It wasn’t about learning art, it was learning to cope. If I stay outside the door, the standstill in my life will continue. I needed to get past this fear. I focus
ed on my steps as I moved toward the door.
I have to make myself sit in the classroom for the next forty-five minutes and try to focus on the professor's words
. I pulled the pen from my bag and after clicking it five times entered the room.

I found a
girl sitting in the chair closest to the door. I always sat near the door. I can’t sit across the room and have people between me and the exit. I always sit near the exit to leave without obstruction. I can’t have anyone between me and it or my chest will explode from the stress. I imagine it breaking apart and spattering blood and bits of me around onto everyone. People will then never sit near the door again, haunted by the memory of the guy they blocked from the exit.

With reluctance, I take the seat behind her, though the rest of the room is empty. But I don’t care. I tried to count my breaths. I remember that each breath I take means I’m alive. I am still here, I am not going anywhere and I’m breathing. My chest isn’t going to explode. I am fine.
I am fine.
My heart continues to beat. I am breathing. Nothing will happen as long as I am breathing.

The seat was a typical college chair and mine was touching the girl’s in front of me. Her chair was close enough to mine that it allowed her hair to trace across the edge of my desk. I scooted my chair back from her to distance myself from the internal struggle the nearness spurred.

I thought on the explosion I housed in me. I visualized the countdown and my own miniature bomb diffuser guy cutting the wires. Her hair was still sitting there on the desk and my bomb diffuser began to sweat.
Was he choosing the wrong wire? Should I have stayed home?
I moved back another inch and his hand steadied. Another inch and her hair no longer touched my desk.
He decided on a wire and clipped it.
We both breathed a sigh of relief as the countdown stopped.

I placed my bag on the floor and in the same moment I removed my book, she flipped her hair. This caused a strong floral scent to float back to me. The slight whoosh of her hair sent the lotion or perfume or whatever the fuck it was right to me. The more it enveloped me, the more my resilience suffered.
My bomb diffuser was shaking his head, wondering what he did wrong.
I closed my eyes and counted my breaths as I sat up in my chair.

Okay, that is another issue I have with people—they always smelled fake. No matter what, man or woman, they wore scents that were not natural on human beings. The fake concoctions on women disgusted me and the musk men had to spray to entice women was just as annoying. Smokers are restricted under laws while products filled with nauseating chemicals are free to roam.

The girl turned around to get my attention, with her eyes raised and wearing a flirtatious smile, she lifted her hand to run it through her hair. She wore a fake ruby ring on her pointer finger that looked as though it added weight to her hand. A thick layer of makeup left a contrasting line of color across her chin. She tried to entice me with her eyes, but it had the opposite effect, leaving me with nausea. I imagine most men approved of her attention. She played this game often and though she wasn’t unattractive, she was too accepting of being average. She was playing the part she thought society wanted her to play.

Noticing my tattoos she asked, “Are those quotes or something?” She put her elbow on my desk and leaned her chin into her hand
, waiting for a response. She gave a tilt to her head as she tried to read my tattoos. She was eyeing Bradbury and it made me uneasy. She wasn’t one to understand the tattoo. She saw it as lofty words written on a man who was deep. The alpha male in her mind was the passionate Renaissance man and she dreamed of me being him.

I adjusted my books and pen to avoid eye contact. “Yes,” I said with a slight gruff. I was showing my indifference, but by one glimpse of her face, I saw that she thought it a ploy on my part.

She giggled, “Wow, you sure have a lot of them.” She ran her hand through her hair again and tossed it behind her shoulder and gazed at the ceiling with a veined dreamy expression. “I love tattoos,” she said on a sigh. She held that dream state as if the determined imagination she wore caused my attention to increase.

“Yep,” I blurted out, not wanting to expound. I learned that people often start conversations just to speak of themselves. They open the conversation with questions of you, in the hope that you start asking questions in return. For instance, she wanted me to ask her if she had any tattoos. I won’t of course. She hoped the conversation led into dinner and drinks. Years from now we say our wedding vows and tell everyone how our first conversation began in that art history class so long ago. She planned her future according to romantic comedies and dime store romance novels.

“Hello, everyone, sorry for keeping you waiting,” declared a stout man, breaking our conversation as he entered the room. His facial characteristics reminded me of a cartoon, with his round cheeks and strawberry nose.

The room had filled with other people as my bomb diffuser and I were at work trying to distract us from the girl’s heady scent. Wall-to-wall people now occupied the room. I tried to calm my breathing as I thought of the other people using up the oxygen.

After he introduced himself, the professor passed out the syllabus. We opened our books and I examined the images, vying for a distraction. Turning off the lights, he started a slide show and continued to discuss each of the images. My knee began to hop as I tried to push my nervousness out with physical motion.

We started from the beginning of art history. As I listened to the professor discuss cave drawings and ancient statues, I found my thoughts drifting. I appreciated art history for the mere fact that it showed that human beings always had the drive to create. Even humans from eons ago needed to express themselves
.
Stories find their way in each of us.
Guilt filled me for my dismissal of the girl in front of me. But I didn’t have enough energy to know her story, because she didn’t interest me. Not as bench girl did.

“
Who knows who this beauty is?” the professor asked looking across the room. He looked for someone to respond and I grew frustrated as no one did. I always hated this part of school; no one wants to respond first as if being intelligent or knowing answers is something to bring one shame. I lifted my hand in the air. I hated being in this room, I hated taking part in the ritual of raising my hand, but the silent waiting for someone else to respond was far worse.

The professor pointed at me, “Yes.”

“It is the Venus of Willendorf—thought the oldest sculpture ever found in existence. Another female figure discovered a few years ago dates to an earlier time, but hasn’t reached the fame that she has yet,” I said so fast it was as if I hadn’t even spoke. The words flew from me as if they belonged to someone else.

“You are correct, what's your name, son?”
Well it's not son.
I hate the labeling term of
son
by older men. Women never refer to younger women as daughter in passing. Why am I called son? It’s degrading.

“Wynn. Wynn Hawthorne
,” I said, trying to keep my voice and expression neutral.

“Thank yo
u, Wynn,” he said as he made a note in his book.

The rest of the class continued as expected. No one else responded to the questions and I knew most of the pieces discussed.

When we were leaving, the girl sitting in front of me turned to give me another seductive smile. “You sure know your art,
Wynn
,” she said with a proud expression as if her knowing my name was an integral piece in a puzzle she had solved.

“Yup,” I said as I stood to exit the room in a hurry without looking back at her. It was a dick move, but I didn’t want to try to stave her off any further. It was a tiny step taking the time to answer questions. Stinson might be right in his assumption and I learned a few things. First, I can sit in a room full of people if I push myself. Second, I know enough art history that I could teach a beginning level class. Third, I didn’t hate
every
minute of it.

I left the art building and decided to find a space others weren’t occupying. A short walk later, I found the quietness in a disused building that sat away from others on campus. Abandoned buildings were the focus of most of my photos.

I looked for any eyes watching me before I pushed open a cracked basement window. Pressing myself against the ground, I lowered my legs into the abyss below me. Darkness surrounded me in the first room and since I don’t use flash and prefer natural light, I moved forward.

I found the stairs of the building that led up to the main floor. They didn’t look old and I wondered why the building was no longer used. I wonder why any of the places I visit are. What causes someone to leave and not take items with them?
How does one choose which items to take and which remain?

I snapped a few photos of the stairway as I climbed it and found a large room at the top. I entered a library filled with dusty books. Anxieties faded as my focus centered on the surrounding decay. I pulled one of the many dust masks from my bag and continued to take photos. Everything I needed was always with me and I craved the control it gave me. It extended from the control I needed in my life. I kept my thoughts and emotions compartmentalized in much the same way I did my bag.

The buildings reminded me of my own history. Where I had order and details, they were dirty and in disarray. They led me to believe my decision to control my life was rational. I created order out of the chaos.

I took a deep breath and eased into my steps as I rounded the corner to the art department’s offices. An average young woman with plastic rimmed frames sat behind a desk. She didn’t acknowledge me as she continued to read her book and I cleared my throat to draw her attention to me.

She looked over her frames and gave an annoyed glance at my nerve to interrupt her. “Can I help you?”

I met her eyes to show she did not intimidate me. “I’m here to meet with Lawrence,” I said as she looked me over and raised an eyebrow. I raised my eyebrow right back at her. Not allowing myself to drop her gaze first, I kept hold of her eyes. She rolled hers at me before turning to stand from her seat. She didn’t give me another look and I smiled to myself as I watched her disappear through a door in the back of the room.

I took a seat and opened a book that I assumed was for one of the art classes. It had many old paintings that I had never seen. I paused on one that I did recognize. It was a Renoir.

When I was a girl, my mother owned an old board game she purchased from a garage sale. The game had cards with famous paintings on them. I always loved this Renoir
, Two Sisters on the Terrace
. I envisioned Lily and me on the terrace with them. Where the one sister wore a bright red hat, Lily would choose blue. I imagined we shared tea with them and ran through a field of flowers, because that is what civilized girls do when they wanted to disobey their parents.

As girls, civilized was not a term to describe us growing up on a farm in rural America, though. I stared at that painting and thought of times when I was a child. One word always echoed through my mind when I thought of those days—freedom. That’s what I experienced when my sister took my hand and danced me around our living room. I thought of one Sunday morning in particular.

Three Little Birds
by Bob Marley was playing on our mother’s stereo that day. It was Lily’s favorite song. She always sang the verses of that song to me any time I was unsure of myself. But that day, she sang it for her own pure joy. She grabbed my hand and led me out the back door. I kicked my little legs to keep up with her as we ran toward the field of flowers behind our house.

I remember the wind on my face as I ran after her and knew possibilities and dreams never ceased. They stretched to the horizon and nothing stopped us. Daddy was riding his tractor around the field that day, having waked before everyone else to finish mowing before were to leave for church. We jumped in a patch of daisies to hide from him. Falling back to the ground, we looked to the sky and watched the clouds roll over us. Lily kept singing her song and I couldn’t stop gigg
ling as I thought of how upset Momma was going to be when she saw our white nightgowns covered in grass.