Art on an Island

       I remember walking into my first college art class. It was life drawing, which means that you must draw or paint a naked live model. The class was on one of the top floors of the Old Main building that I always called the castle because it was regal and historic. This girl about my age with blonde dreadlocks and overalls was sitting down with her large brindled pit bull. I thought she had to be the model since she was so interesting to look at and didn’t follow social normativity, and had a dog indoors. I remember being given forms to fill out and a class syllabus, but I could pay attention to NOTHING else but this girl and her movements. She also refused to sit in a seat- the pair sat on the hardwood floor. At the conclusion of this class she was asked by my 70’s loving, eccentric- to be described as classic “Hippie,” teacher to not return with her dog. I always wondered why she brought her dog, which she had said was not an assistance dog. Looking back, I can recall the feelings of me wishing to be as free as this girl; as uninhibited. But now, I can recall her face of deliberate indifference. She wanted to be weird. She was TRYING to be weird. She was ASKING to be kicked out of class to prove some point to society. But my teacher was keen to this new-age rebellious move. If this were the Instagram and Facebook video days, there would definitely be a compiled story about the pitied, eloquent, and outspoken white girl that was wrongfully told to not return to class. This is what set the stage for my experiences at Wayne State University. I never saw said girl, or her pooch, again.

       Another few months in to my college life, my sister and her friends, whom I admired very much for their free-spiritedness, visited my plain, small, and cheap apartment down a crime ridden side street in Detroit. I remember wanting them to think I had this amazing Detroit, starving artist, free life so badly. We all took the two mile walk downtown to the annual Jazz Festival. On the tiring walk home, we met a strange group of men near our age. They asked us if we wanted to come over to their place. SO, loving a little danger since we were “weird” now, we said of course and followed them on another mile walk to a neighborhood that middle-to-upper-class white kids would not usually find themselves. The house was mostly empty and had dark wood everywhere. The guys showed us around in groups depending on who we thought was most attractive. My sister and I went with Joe: A tall hairy guy that to me, resembled almost flawlessly, the cave-man from the Geico commercials. A protruding brow and hairy face. Yet somehow, his strange features were endearing. My sister and I followed him upstairs and saw a messy room with maps strewn all over the floor. Joe was excitedly talking about the maps for whatever reason; kind of in a conspiracy theory, red strings connecting dots, sort of way. Later on, when I think I was uncomfortable enough, we walked the nearly three miserable miles home. One day, I sat down in my Philosophy of Art class, and guess who was there in the seat next to me…. Joe. We waved at each other, made pleasantries, and waited for roll call. His name was called but he didn’t respond. After my teacher called his name twice, he raised his hand and said, “I was Joe, but I go by Mary.”

       My teacher was super cool and shrugged and said, “okay.” and penciled something on to her paper.

I didn’t want to seem uncool so I always said, “Hi, Mary” when I saw Joe and never asked why. He tried to make plans with me to hang out outside of class, and after a few tries, I finally said yes. He never showed up at the coffee shop we planned to meet at. I ran in to the group of other boys he lived with and I asked where Mary was. They had sly smiles on their faces and said he was going through something and that he was trying to connect with his feminine personality as all men are half women. They were kind of rude and short with me and I swear I heard one of them mutter “bitch” after I walked by. Mary never came back to class and and I never saw him again. Months later I had a missed call from him at two in the morning– no voicemail. He was one of the strangest people I had ever met because he followed the conventional male mold in most aspects but one: His name. I never got the answers and I’ve always felt empty about these two interactions with these enigmas of human beings. Perhaps we imagine and create the most interesting characters in our lives to simply learn from the moments and not the outcome.