Pose

FACES

 

Blue eyes, blue as the sky on a warm, cloudless summer day intrigue me, silently ask me to look into them. Instead, I shy away, not wanting to intrude on the lady's thoughts. Her full, soft pink lips must taste like ripe raspberries waiting to be picked. Between the two is her perfect aquiline nose. It is the exclamation mark that pulls the beauty together.

 

There is a woman sitting beside her on the subway train who is physically from another world. She is a wrinkled crone who reminds me of the wicked witches in the childish stories my mother read to me.
Her steel gray eyes, droopy yellows bags below them and enough black curly hair on her chin to call for a shave are interesting but disgusting. Narrow lips that expose rotting teeth when she coughs do not increase my desire to get home for a good dinner.

 

The two ladies do not acknowledge each other as they stare at passengers coming on and getting off. My busy mind absorbs their faces as if they are golden nuggets, models that I retain mentally for use on the canvases I paint.

 

When the door opens my mind does too. It shifts to the first passenger to get on after the crowd leaving hurries to their next destination. A man is fortunate and grabs the only empty seat. He is swarthy, muscular, evidently who works hard with his arms and back.  I think perhaps he is a ditch digger, builds roads, schools, even a tall skyscraper. This man's eyes are slits, busy gray eyebrows accent the width of his W.C. Fields red nose. His fingernails are cigarette stained, striated, trimmed very short, leaving no room for dirt to accumulate. A tan sweat-stained cap sits backwards on his balding head. It denotes his wish to remain young while his form denies it.

 

At the next stop, 28th St., a tall woman wearing a multi-colored fringed shawl around her shoulders and carrying a soon-to- appear child in her belly gets on. I am the only one who offers her a seat. Her tan face smiles at me. In it I see love, sweetness, flames of anger, despair and hope. As I stand, the subway car lurches. She grabs the leather strap hanging from the ceiling and drops her shopping bag. A snippy kid runs and tries to sit down where I had been. Before he bends his knees, with one strong hand, I lift him up, move aside for the pregnant woman to be seated. It is a glorious moment. Passengers applaud, I bow in thanks.

 

As the kid moves down the aisle away from me, I can see his tennis shoes don't match, can see he needs a haircut but then again, maybe it is a new style of disarray that is currently going around, or his Dad hasn't given him money for a cut. I want very much to see his face, see what he is made of, but cannot. I come to the conclusion that his shift to the next car is to avoid the police who may be searching for him. He may feel my eyes on his neck, be angry, upset. As if he reads my thoughts, he stands next to me, staring hard as I look at him. For a boy so young, his face is troubled. A healed, but very visible scar slashes his right cheek from the bone to the corner of his mouth.  I picture him as my next art subject, know what kind of frame I will use. He is inside of me.

 

The lovely woman and the pregnant woman get off together at 32nd St.
and are swallowed up by the mad rush of offices letting out at 5 p.m. 46th will be my stop but I am not yet sated studying faces, emotions. There, across the aisle from me is a busy lady. She leafs thru papers that are not stapled together. A few sheets fall on the dirty floor and I can see her snarl, cuss a few words as she tries to retrieve them. No one helps her. I would if I could reach her but am blocked.  Her round almost pudgy face gets red as she unsuccessfully tries again to pick up her papers. Well plucked penciled eyebrows furrow. A loud sneeze from the passenger next to her, makes her roil in anger and distaste. The man beside her pulls clean Kleenex from his jacket pocket, wipes his nose and offers her an unopened pack for herself. I can tell what she is thinking. His hands are full of germs. I watch her head simply show him she doesn't need his Kleenex. I file her face inside a red ball of anger, see the train nearing 46th, stand wedge close to the door and am first off.

 

I reach for my wallet so I can grab a cold drink from a vendor and it is gone. There is no sense trying to return to the train because the door is already closed and the train is out of sight. So is my wallet. What a stinkin' kettle of fish this is. I will have to get a new license at the DMV, new Social Security, Medicare cards, contact all of my charge card companies to stop all charges. Oh, god, what am I going to do now?

 

My message machine in the hallway is blinking. A thin, unfamiliar voice asks me to call 516-213-8790 as soon as possible. 'Ask for Willy.' I dial, he answers.  'Mr. Clarkson?' the voice asks. 'Yes.' I'm the boy on the subway who you kept staring at. I found your wallet when you got up and then couldn't find you. Come get it, nothing has been taken. I have to stay home with my mother tonight.' I get directions to his apart- ment, drive my own car there thru miles of traffic and am there in a half hour. Willy lets me in, hands me my wallet. I hand him a fifty dollar bill, and thank him with all my heart. The next morning I start a a new art project, an oil of Willy. It takes a few weeks to get it the way I want it to be, but there on his thin white cheek I paint a small angel with transparent wings. I put a wart on his chin, frame it in white enamel wood and take it to show him and his mother. They love it, want to keep it, but I intend selling it.

 

I promise them ten percent of anything I make and in only one month bring them $200. Everybody is happy.