First Draft: Chapter 26

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I made sure I went to art guild early the next time to avoid being embarrassed by Hermes in front of a large crowd. Hermes and Orpheus were already there. Tucked away in tow chairs in the corner, they talked loudly, taking advantage of the fact that they were the only two there. Hermes bolted out of his seat when he saw me. "There he is!" Hermes exclaimed, running toward me. I braced myself to be tackled, but at the last minute Hermes relented, deciding to slap my hand instead. "I got him here Jonny. No thanks to you certainly, but I got him."
"Glad to see you two are hitting it off," I said, breathing a sigh of relief at seeing everything progressing so well.
"Well what were you worried about?" Hermes asked.
"Nothing."
"Come on Jon, you can say it."
"No, I wasn’t really worried about anything. Really."
"Come on, just say it."
"Would you let it go man?" I raised my voice, not really because I was irritated but because I thought it was the best way to get Hermes to be quiet. Hermes had an odd quirk in that he took a great deal of delight in upsetting his friends. He liked to take little things and push on them.
Hermes just smiled at my response. "Hey, calm down." Hermes resumed his seat by Orpheus. "Come sit down Jon. Orpheus is showing me his portfolio."
"These are just a few paintings I carry around with me sometimes," Orpheus explained. "Actually, my best stuff is in my room. You’ve seen it Jon."
Hermes’ eyes lit up. "There’s better stuff?" He seized Orpheus by the shoulders, almost shaking him. "I have to see it sometime." Hermes looked up at me. "Sometimes I am so jealous of you Jon."
"It is quite amazing," I admitted.
"This stuff is quite amazing," Hermes bubbled. "Have you seen the blue one?"
"Blue one?"
"Hermes turned to Orpheus. "Has he seen the blue one?"
‘No, I don’t think you have Jon," Orpheus said, paging through his stack of paintings. "Here it is," he said, pulling one out. He set it reverently on top of the stack, and I leaned forward to get a better look, being careful not to touch anything. It was a confusing swirl of dark and light blue colors. It looked absolutely meaningless.
"Amazing," I said softly, my voice filed with quiet awe.
"Isn’t it?" Hermes replied. "Now, Orpheus, I have got to see more of these."
Orpheus pulled out another one. Hermes’ jaw dropped. "That is absolutely incredible. How in the world did you do that?"
"Oh, it certainly took me a while. I went through ten, maybe fifteen drafts, before I finally got the colors I wanted. But when I got it, it was perfect."
Hermes seemed to lose himself in the painting, before turning to us and commenting, "you know, I’ve never seen student art this good before. I’ve never seen any student art close to this good before."
As other people started arriving, the art guild meeting got under way. Hermes restrained himself from praising Orpheus too lavishly during the meeting, but a tone of reverence was in his voice when ever he mentioned the name "Orpheus".
Our project for the meeting was to draw a picture of our greatest hope. I drew a picture of a forest. I’m not even really sure why, it just seemed like an appropriate kind of thing to draw. Maybe I was just sick of city life at the time, and how it was so constricting, and how there was always somebody telling you what to do. It wasn’t a very good picture, but it was recognizable at least. You could tell what were trees and what were bushes. A decent picture by my standards, but I wasn’t really heartbroken when no one paid any attention to it. Everyone was too busy admiring Orpheus’ picture.
Orpheus had completely disregarded the assignment, but nobody seemed to care. His painting appeared to me to be little more then a random collection of brush strokes. Unlike most of his other paintings, which usually used several different shades of color, this only had two colors: black and dark red. Kind of somber colors, I thought, considering the original assignment. If he was just going to take two colors and throw them on a canvas, he could have at least used some more cheerful colors. But, there it was. Red and black, red and black, red and black all over.
Everyone couldn’t wait to flatter Orpheus.
"Amazing!"
"Outstanding!"
"Why I’ve never seen anything like it before!"
I was getting a little tire of listening to it, so I walked down the hall to get a drink of water. When I came back, they were still praising him, so I just went for a second drink. On my way back, I ran into Hermes.
"Oh, hey Jon. What are you doing out here?" He sounded surprised to see me. He must not have even noticed when I left the room.
"I was just getting a drink. What have you got there," I said, indicating the canvas under his arm.
He showed it to me. Like I thought it would be, it was Orpheus’ painting. "Amazing, isn’t it Jon? And he was barely even trying. It was just something he threw together for Art Guild. He wasn’t even that attached to it so he let me borrow it."
Black and red. Red and black. I didn’t understand what everyone was so excited about. "What are you going to do with it?" I asked.
"I was thinking about showing this to Icarus. He’d get a kick out of this, don’t you think?"
"I’m sure he’d love it."
"Maybe then we can get him to finally come to our meetings, huh? Once he sees what he’ll be missing out on."
I smiled. "I wouldn’t count on it."
Hermes returned my smile. "No, you’re probably right."


Hermes would later tell me how he had arrived at Icarus’ dorm room, and how he had shoved the canvas in Icarus’ face, blabbering about how Icarus had to look at it immediately. Icarus did little more then glance at the painting before pushing it aside and changing the subject. Hermes didn’t give up so easily, and tried to talk over Icarus. Icarus ignored him. Finally, Hermes had given up and left, leaving the canvas with Icarus in the hopes that he would look at it later.
Hermes was still rather upset about it when he told me. "I don’t get it Jon. I was so eager to show him that painting. I thought he’d love it." The sight of Hermes, who looked so miserable from Icarus’ rejection, was just too much for me and I started laughing. "Oh knock it off Jon," Hermes said, irritated.
"You know, you really should have known he would do something like this," I said. I had stopped laughing, but I still wore a pretty large grin on my face.
"Yeah, I should have."


I was sitting in the cafeteria one day, eating a sandwich by myself and trying to get some studying done at the same time. I held my book in one hand, my sandwich in the other. It was a nice arrangement, unless I needed to turn pages. A friend stopped by the table briefly. "Hey Jonny, where is everyone today?"
"I don’t know Peter," I answered.
Peter paused by my table, contemplating why there were so many empty chairs during lunchtime. Then he walked on.
I stayed studying for about another half-hour or so. Then Peter came running back. He rapped loudly on my table as if to get my attention, even though I was already looking up at him. "Jon, you’ve got to see this," he exclaimed.
"See what?"
"Come on!"
And so, my curiosity sufficiently intrigued, I followed Peter all the way to the auditorium. My surprise, when we arrived there, was full.
Up on stage was Icarus. Resting beside him, on an easel, was Orpheus’ painting. Icarus was talking to the crowd, fully enjoying his moment in the spotlight. He paced back and forth upon the stage, and made grand gestures with his hands. I was too far way to hear what he was saying, but I just assumed it was ridiculous. I was puzzled as to why so many people would gather to hear Icarus.
But they weren’t the most attentive audience by any means. People were coming and going freely, walking in to see what was going on, listening for a while, and then leaving. Others were simply in small clusters, sitting on the floor and talking to each other. That was why I couldn’t hear Icarus from the back of the auditorium. All I could hear was the hum of many different conversations. Some students had gotten into the balcony, and were throwing food at the students below. It was a rather chaotic scene.
Peter and I strolled down to the front of the auditorium. The pathways were relatively free, but we still had to step around people sitting and talking. There was even one person sitting in the middle of the aisle, in the midst of all that chaos, reading a book.
Icarus was so into himself he didn’t even see us coming. He just continued talking, and as I got closer to him, I began to hear what he was actually saying. "…and we see here quite clearly a call for something new. A call for a new way of doing things. A complete break from the past. Different." He was certainly being repetitive, but that was understandable. If he had ascended the stage without a speech prepared, as I’m sure he had, and then proceeded to make everything up as he went, he would have to stretch every thought out as long as it would go. I kept listening as he continued. "What we see here, my friends, is a call for a radical political change. A new political establishment."
Peter poked me in the side with his elbow and leaned in to whisper to me. "I think he’s stretching things just a bit, don’t you?" Peter looked at me with a smile, expecting me to make some sort of joke about Icarus. I barely even heard his comment though. My mind was too busy clicking. I swore loudly, surprising Peter by the abruptness of the action, and ran out of the room.


I ran out of the auditorium, pushing my way past those entering or those leaving slowly. Not caring how many stares I was receiving, I sprinted through the hallways and burst out the door. Once outside, I jumped down a flight of stairs rather then walk down them. My feet pounded rapidly on the pavement, and then I cut across the lawn and the sound was much softer, but then I returned to the pavement again. I dashed into a dorm lobby, frightening all who were sitting in it. I frantically bounded up a flight of stairs and turned into a hallway. As I ran towards Orpheus’ room, I saw three FJC Cadets standing guard outside. Their backs were to the hallway, and they were so interested in what was going on inside that they didn’t notice me even though I wasn’t running that quietly. I quickly pushed my way past them and ran into the room.
Orion was standing in the middle, grinning that stupid grin of his. "I thought you’d show up Jonny," he said. In the middle of the floor was a pile of Orpheus’ paintings ripped to shreds. Orpheus was lying down in a corner of the room, his face all covered with blood. Clio was cradling his head. Orpheus was actually crying as he watched his paintings being destroyed. Weeping maybe would be a better word for it. Huge tears were coming from his eyes, and he would sob every so often.
"What’s going on here?" I asked Orion, my voice choked with fury.
"Surely you must have heard Jon," Orion answered in a patronizing voice, "this art has been condemned as treasonous."
"You have no authority to make that judgement."
"I think the law is clearly on my side. Now, Jon, as an official FJC Cadet, I’m going to have to ask you, as a civilian, to step aside and not to interfere with official business. You know, of course, that the legal consequences for interfering with a government official can be quite sever. Not that you need to worry about that, huh? I mean, with your connections, you seem to be able to get away with just about everything else." Orion turned away from me and walked towards Orpheus. Clio frantically tired to back away, but she was up against the wall as it was. "Alright, Artist, where’s the rest of it?" Orpheus just responded with sobs. "Come on, I know this isn’t your best stuff." Orion turned around, disgusted by the crying. "So this is the kind of company you keep, huh Jon? You left the FJC for this?" Orion looked around the room. "Not too hard to tell what desk is your, is it Artist?" As usual, Dagon’s desk was perfectly neat, but Orpheus’ was barely visible beneath the scattered papers and art supplies. Orion waited for Orpheus to respond, even though Orpheus showed no sign of saying anything. "Go on and cry," Orion said at last.
"Here Artist, let me help you clean." Orion swept everything off the desk and onto the floor. As if that wasn’t enough, he then picked a couple of paint brushes off of the floor, and snapped them in half, then casually dropped them back on the floor.
Orion pulled out one of Orpheus’ desk draws and emptied the contents on the ground. Several papers fluttered out of the draw. They looked like just simple sketches: black ink on paper. Stuff Orpheus probably did in his spare time. Orion gave a nod to the other Cadets. They came over and started ripping up even the smallest drawing, and emptying the other two drawers as well.
"Where is it?" Orion asked again, this time his voice much more forceful. "You might as well tell me Artist. I will find it eventually."
Orion walked over to the closet. Like the rest of the room, the closet was divided into two halves: Dagon’s half and Orpheus’ half. One half was neatly folded, the other had some clothes loosely on hangers, but most of them lying on the floor. Orion didn’t even bother with the neat half, but began throwing stuff from Orpheus’ half out into the middle of the room. It was not a big closet, so he only had to throw out a couple piles of clothes before he found what he was looking for. "Jack pot," he called out.
Orion carefully removed about twelve canvases from the closet and set them reverently against the wall. He looked at them with almost a sort of admiration. "Not bad Orpheus. Not bad at all." He raised his eyebrows and turned to the other three Cadets. "In fact, this is really impressive."
One of the Cadets gave a contemptuous laugh. "Looks like just a swirl of colors to me."
Orion turned to Orpheus. "You and me, we know differently, don’t we? In fact, we’re probably the only two people in this room that truly understand what great art this is." Orion looked at the painting in silence for a while. It was probably just half a minute, but it seemed like an eternity as we all tensely waited to see what he was going to do. Even the other Cadets seemed a little uncomfortable during this time. Then, Orion angrily kicked one of the canvases, breaking it in half.
I rushed forward to protect the other paintings. Fist ready to strike, I lunged at Orion. He calmly stepped out of the way, then used my own momentum against me by grabbing me and throwing me into the wall. Several of the canvases bent or broke under me.
Orion looked overly pleased with himself at having used my body to break more paintings. I didn’t want him to have a chance to gloat. I launched myself off of the wall and plowed my fists into Orion’s chest. I knocked him all the way back into Orpheus’ desk. He fell onto the desktop. Pressing my advantage, I was practically on top of him, hitting him. He grabbed hold of me and threw me to the floor.
I stood up as he got off the desk. I grabbed a chair and started swinging it wildly at Orion. It was a standard dorm issue chair, old and wooden. Orion waited patiently, slowly backing up to avoid the chair. Then, he quickly grabbed one of the chair legs and yanked it forward. I should have just let go of the chair, but I hung on tightly and was pulled forward with it. I hit the wall and fell to the ground, resulting in more canvases being damaged. Orion smashed the chair into the desk, sending the fragments flying everywhere.
I quickly turned around and sat up as Orion walked toward me. He towered above me, but with both my legs I kicked him in the knee with all the force I could. His body wobbled but he was able to regain his balance before he fell. Instead of striking back at me, he just smiled. "Stand up Jon," he commanded.
I stood up cautiously. No sooner had I gotten to my feet, then his hand lashed out. I blocked the first hit, which had been aimed at my head. Orion hit my stomach, and I bent over from the force of the blow. His hand came down hard on my back, but I didn’t fall down. Instead I flung my arms around Orion’s waste, and pushed my shoulder into his stomach. I successfully knocked him off balance, but he grabbed me on his way down. The tow of us fell on the floor. I was on top of him at first, and got as many hits as I could in before he knocked me off. He tried to get on top and, remembering what happened last time, I used all four of my limbs to knock him back into the wall. Then I lunged at him but he knocked me back. And so, the two of us scuffled on the floor for a while until Orion stood up after knocking me down one last time. I quickly stood up as well, ready for whatever he had planned. He just turned and walked away though, without saying another word.
The other cadets were just as confused as I was. "What are you doing?" one of them asked. "Now’s our chance. Let’s get him."
"We’ll get him later," Orion replied. "Our job here is done."
The looked like angry children. One of them took a few steps towards me. "Leave him," Orion commanded. The cadet obediently stepped away from me. I can’t say I blame him. I don’t think I would have disobeyed Orion either if I were in that situation.
Orion was already out the door by this time, and the other Cadets reluctantly followed him. "We’ll get you yet Jonny," one of them said as he backed out through the door.
I didn’t move until all of the cadets were out of the room, and even after they had left Clio, Orpheus, and I remained silent until we were sure they were gone. They stepped heavily, and their footsteps made clear thuds. The thuds grew fainter, and eventually disappeared altogether.
I collapsed into a chair in relief, and Clio ran over and squeezed me tight. As I looked past Clio’s head, I saw Orpheus, his hands shifting through what was left of his paintings.
Clio still held me tight, preventing me from standing up, but I could see Orion’s work from where I sat. All of the paintings he had laid out had been absolutely crushed underneath our bodies. That was probably what he had been planning in the first place, to use my own body against me in order to destroy Orpheus’ art.
Orpheus’ whole body began to shake. His hands were shaking so bad he couldn’t even pick up the fragments of his art. Although not a sound came from him, I knew he was sobbing.


Clio and I tried to comfort Orpheus, but every time I put a friendly hand on his shoulder, he shook it off. He seemed almost beyond comfort.
"It will be okay," Clio told him. "You can always make more." He acted like he didn’t here her.
Orpheus was giving every indication that he wanted to be alone, and I began to feel increasingly awkward, as if I was interfering with some intimate moment Orpheus was sharing with the canvas fragments. I started slowly moving towards the door. Much to my relief Eurydice, Orpheus’ girlfriend, arrived in a short time. I could tell by how quickly she came into the room that she already knew what had happened. She must have heard about it somehow.
Now that Eurydice and Clio were both present, I took my opportunity to slip out the door. They were both so absorbed with Orpheus that I didn’t even bother to tell them I was leaving. And Orpheus was so involved with himself he had probably forgotten I was even there.
I made my way back to my dorm room. The room seemed very empty. Well, it was always empty. I had it all to myself. Somehow, though, it felt more empty than usual. The whole dorm felt empty. I tried to study, but soon ended up throwing my book against the wall in frustration. I couldn’t concentrate. I sat in my chair for a while and reflected on the day’s events. Then I threw a bunch of stuff in a book bag, and decided to go to The Cave. Maybe there I could study. With so many people around, surely I’d be able to escape this feeling of loneliness.
The Cave was always pretty full no matter what time of day I went there. It seemed to be the main place to hang out for campus intellectuals. I managed to find a seat pretty easily, but I didn’t bother to order anything. Things were disorganized enough there that I could slip into a seat without being noticed, and so I avoided the glares normally associated with a non-paying patron. And it was a little easier to study in The Cave. The noise helped to calm me down.
But it was not to last long. I had just begun to study when a steaming cup was placed under me. I looked up and saw Hermes. "Mind if I buy you a drink?" he asked.
"Have a seat," I replied.
I tasted the drink. It was surprisingly sweet. "I got you favorite," Hermes said.
"Thanks."
"How are you feeling Jon?"
"Okay."
"Hey, I heard what happened."
"Already?"
"Yeah, it spread pretty quick. How bad is it?"
"Is what?"
"You know Jon, the paintings. Are they damaged pretty bad?"
"They’re completely destroyed."
"What?"
"Demolished. They’re all in fragments now."
Hermes hit the table. "I never even got to see them."
"He’ll make more."
"But Jon, those were his masterpieces. You can’t duplicate masterpieces." I just stared at my drink. Hermes looked like he was about to tear his hair out. "Jon, I’m so sorry," he said after a moment’s silence.
"Sorry for what?"
"For this whole thing. I had no idea Icarus was going to do that with the painting." It didn’t seem to me that Hermes was really at fault at all for what had happened, but he seemed so repentant that I didn’t want to argue with him. I just shrugged and looked down at my drink. "I just wanted Icarus to enjoy the painting."
"No one can predict what Icarus is going to do," I said.
"No, no one can." I looked up from my drink and Hermes locked eyes with me. He looked somewhat calmer now. "Well, for what it’s worth Jon, do you want to hear what happened?"
"Yeah, sure."
A smile crept into Hermes’ somber face. "It’s really a funny story actually. Icarus has this literature class, and everyone in the class has a specific day where they’re supposed to bring in a piece of literature and tell the rest of the class what it means. Apparently the professor makes a pretty big deal out of it. It’s a major part of their grade for the class. So, most students go to the library about a week ahead of time and pick out a well-known selection, and then read every commentary they can get their hands on. Icarus doesn’t do any of this, of course."
"Of course," I repeated.
"In fact he wakes up in the morning, is just about to go to class, and then for some unknown reason, a flash of inspiration from God perhaps, he decides to check his schedule and see if he has anything due for that day."
I was smiling now too. "I don’t know how he ever made it this far at the University. He should have failed out his first year."
"Ah, Icarus is smarter then you given him credit for. For instance, he’s smart enough not to enroll in any math courses or science courses or anything where the answer is right or wrong. He wouldn’t last a second there. But he flourishes in these literature classes, where sometimes all you have to do is sound like you know what you’re talking about, and that’s enough. Anyway, he realizes he’s in trouble, but of course he doesn’t give up. He looks around his room frantically for something he can bring to share with the class, and his eyes fall on Orpheus’ painting. I don’t think he ever looked at it until then. He probably forgot it was even there. But he sees it, and he grabs it.
"But it’s a literature class," I said, sounding as confused as I felt.
"Well Jon, who really knows what goes on in the mind of Icarus. Maybe he just grabbed the thing and was out the door before he realized the thing wasn’t going to fly in a literature class. Maybe he just grabbed it in desperation and was thinking the whole way there how he could justify bringing it in. At any rate, he didn’t have a problem. Once he showed the class the painting, even the professor fell instantly in love with it. Icarus babbled out something about how art was a visual form of literature, but the class was so impressed by Orpheus’ work that they didn’t even need to hear it. They couldn’t wait to hear what Icarus had to say about it."
I rolled my eyes. "Great. I’ll bet Icarus loved that."
"Well, that was the problem, yeah. He loved being the center of attention, absolutely loved it. And he immediately launched into his description of the painting, and the audience was hanging on his every word. He wasn’t even talking about revolution at that point. I don’t think it had even occurred to him yet. He was just trying to describe the painting, and he was making everything up as he went." Hermes stopped and clinked his spoon around in his coffee cup. He seemed to be fully in a good mood now. "I would have really liked to have seen that whole thing Jon. At one point someone in the class asks him what the artist’s name is, and Icarus has to pause, and think, and then admit he has no clue who the artist is. Here’s this painting, that he’s been lecturing the class on for probably a half hour at this point, and the artist could be from another planet for all he knows."
"Didn’t you tell—"
"Yeah, I did but he wasn’t listening. It went right in one ear and out the other. As you can imagine, Icarus begins to lose a bit of credibility at this point. Some of the other students were beginning to see through him already. They’re still listening quietly, but their faces start to turn from interested to bored stiff, and after a while even Icarus starts to come down from his cloud and notice. So he begins to drop little hints that the picture might have political meaning. Just the tiniest little vague hints at first. But that’s all it takes. The class snaps back to attention. The professor is beginning to get a little nervous, but Icarus is talking in such vague terms that there’s nothing really he can object to. The class time ends and people actually stay after to keep listening to Icarus. Icarus is still talking in vague terms, but the professor is getting very nervous as to how far he’ll go with this, so the professor uses the end of the class as and excuse to clear everyone out, making up some lie about how another class has to come in and use the space. So, Icarus leaves with his entourage and they spill over into the open auditorium nearby. Icarus takes the stage and begins talking and it doesn’t take too long before his political references stop being so subtle and he stops being vague, and then the next thing everyone knows he’s talking about revolution and a new government and then people start flocking into the auditorium to see him."
"And I know what happened from there," I finished up. I shook my head. "Man, I bet that professor is wishing he would have kept this whole thing quietly contained in the classroom."
"To late for that now, huh?"
"And what about Icarus?"
Hermes shrugged. "He hasn’t been punished yet, but I’m sure he’ll be expelled."
"Well, that will probably make him happy. Just like his hero Clodius."
Hermes looked straight at me. "Those kids are insane," he said gravely. "I don’t know what kind of a game they think they’re playing, but they’re going to get hurt."


I went out with Clio later that night. As we walked around the streets by the University, she told me how she and Eurydice had helped Orpheus clean up his broken art. Although she thought that some of the paintings were salvageable, Orpheus had insisted on throwing everything away. "I’m not sure why," she said. "He can be strange like that sometimes."
"Maybe he just wants to avoid further trouble," I suggested.
"Maybe."
It was silent for a while. All that could be heard was a soft rain falling and our footsteps against the stone road. The rain was so light that neither of us were getting very wet, but the air had a very misty feel to it. The light from the street lights became fuzzy and formless in the mist.
"I was very impressed with you," Clio said.
"With what?"
"With the way you stood up to those Cadets."
I rolled my eyes. "A lot of good that did. I got beat pretty bad."
"But you tried. You knew he was stronger then you, and you still wanted to fight him to help us." She paused. "You aren’t hurt, are you?"
"No, I’m alright."
"You were very brave. I was proud that you were my boyfriend." She stopped to kiss me. She had to stand on her tiptoes to get to my lips. I kissed her back, then extended my arm around her. She snuggled in against me. "You’re so nice to me," she said. "I’ve never had anyone do so many good things for me in my life." In the misty light, I’m sure she couldn’t see me blushing, but I was embarrassed by the praise. She squeezed my hand tightly. "There’s something I want to tell you."
"Okay."
"You have to promise not to freak out first."
"I promise."
"I love you."
I probably should have seen that coming. The whole conversation had been leading up to that. It caught me by surprise though. She was looking up at me, knowing she had just exposed herself. She seemed in that moment so sensitive and fragile. I knew I had to react somehow, but I didn’t know what to do. I reached out and hugged her, and she was pleased with this. "Well, that’s positive," she said. The hug was only to buy myself time until I had to say something to her.
Thousands of voices were screaming in my head. There were a thousand different ways to handle the situation. But the loudest voice of all was yelling, "You’re running out of time. You’re running out of time. You can’t pause much longer before you have to say something to her." The voice was so loud it drowned out all the other voices, and I never got a chance to think clearly about it. When the hug was over, I looked at her and gave the only answer I could think of. "I love you too," I answered.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"You’re not just saying this because it’s what I want to hear, are you?" She was giving me every opportunity to get out of it, but I couldn’t take it back after I had already said it. I couldn’t even appear to be hesitating too long. "Of course not," I answered without hesitation.
Did I love her? I wasn’t sure. Even at age 21 I don’t think I had a clue what love is. So, I suppose better to err on the side of making her happy.