Marathon Cowboys (17 page)

the best thing I’ve ever done, and you’re going to be so pissed

off at me.”

“Um, and why is that?”

“I want to show you before Sam gets here. Because he

just texted me that MOMA is bidding on it.” He looked at my

face. “That’s the Museum of Modern Art. I sent him an

image, though it isn’t done yet. So this painting, it’s about to

blast out of here, and I’m not going to have time to explain.

And I won’t change it, even if you’re really pissed. Because

once you calm down, you’re going to understand.”

I stood up. “Let’s go look.”

“You want some coffee first?”

I just gave him a look, walked down the steps. The

screen door opened, and The Original came out on the

porch. “I was wondering where you boys had gotten to.”

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“Come on to the studio,” I said. “Jesse’s gonna show us

his Grievous Angel.” I was watching Jesse’s face, saw him

flinch and close his eyes. Good God.

I opened the door to the studio, stood back, and let

Jesse and The Original pass in before me. Jesse noticed the

ironic gesture, gave me a look out of those beautiful eyes.

Then I heard The Original take in a sharp breath, shout,

“Sweet Jesus, Jesse!” I walked in behind him and took a

look.

“Jesse, did you ask Lorenzo if you could paint him buck

naked? Ten feet tall? Jesus, son, what have you done?”

What had he done? The painting hit me like a two by

four across the face. He’d painted me like Jesus, hanging

from the cross, ten feet tall, and as The Original said, buck

naked. And the cross I was hanging from was covered with

money, twenty-dollar bills plastered over the wood, some

peeling off, some falling to the ground. Crucified on a cross

of American money. My mouth fell open.

I was wearing the boots and the hat, but the riata

hadn’t made it into the picture. My cock looked about two

feet long, and the tattoos on my arms, the devil dog and

USMC, were perfect. I was me, but I was every Marine too,

every single one who had died in an American war. I felt a

weird buzzing in my head, thought I might be about to pass

out.

There was an automatic weapon in one dead hand, and

smoking pieces of black shrapnel coming out of my chest. I

reached up, rubbed the scar. Coming out of my back were

the angel’s wings, long black wings that looked like they were

made of feathers of some iridescent black metal, the same

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metal that was sticking out of my chest. A dead warrior

angel, killed by my own kind.

I turned around, tried to walk out the door, but I

bumped into one of the unfinished canvases. When I looked

at it closer, I saw he had sketched in the next angel, and the

next, all the canvases had the central figure drawn, and that

figure looked a lot like me.

I went into the house, into my room, shut the door, then

I realized I hadn’t had a shower since I’d come back from my

run. I grabbed a change of clothes and stayed under the hot

water for a long time. I didn’t let myself think. I avoided my

own face in the bathroom mirror, and when I came out and

walked down to the kitchen, The Original was standing next

to the stove, frying bacon. He turned around, gave me a

sharp-eyed look, and I sat down at the table, pulled the

newspaper over, and opened it to the comics page. I was

staring blankly down at it when he set a cup of coffee next to

me. His hand came down on my shoulder.

“Son… I don’t know what to say.”

“Where is he?”

“Out in the studio. Painting. He said the background

isn’t finished.”

“Oh. I didn’t notice.”

He turned back to the stove. “Fried or scrambled?”

We ate in silence, and nobody thought to call Jesse in

from the studio for breakfast. The scar on my chest was

aching like a bitch, and I couldn’t stop myself from rubbing

it, over and over. “The thing is,” I said, like we were in the

middle of a conversation, “I understand how you could use a

person’s image as a symbol in a painting. But that’s not

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what that is.” I pointed out toward the studio. “That’s not a

symbol. That’s
me
. It’s very obviously and personally me.”

“Yes, it is. Jesse must have some powerful feelings for

you, Lorenzo. I’ve never seen…. His paintings, they tend to

be gentle, some of them, or amused, you know? Like he finds

the world funny. I’ve never seen anything like this, like he’s

furious. Furious at the shrapnel that nearly killed you.” He

pushed his plate away. “Let me ask you this. How did it

affect you, looking at it?”

“I felt like I’d been punched in the face. I couldn’t

breathe right.”

“How would you feel if it wasn’t you? If he’d painted one

of your brothers, hanging from a cross covered with money?

Holding his weapon, with a devil dog on his arm and blood

dripping down his chest?”

I stared down into my plate, thought about the cartoons

I had been drawing, my platoon going off to war, with shoddy

equipment we knew wasn’t going to do the job. Jesse had

been thinking about war too.

“It’s too powerful. I’m not the only one who’s gonna feel

that like a punch in the face. He managed to say something

about politics, religion, and race, all at once.” The Original

looked confused. “My Navajo face, and I’m wearing a replica

of a US Cavalry hat, from about the days when they rounded

us up and put us in Bosque Redondo. That’s the design he

drew for my boots. It doesn’t matter. That might be too

subtle for most of America to get, what with the crucifix

covered in money, and the dead cowboy Marine hanging

there with shrapnel in his chest. He said something once,

when we first came down here, about Jesus, Geronimo, and

the Marlboro Man, American Icons, how he wanted to find a

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way to put them all together. I should have paid more

attention when he was talking.”

“But you, Lorenzo. How do you feel about the fact he

painted you, not a symbol, I agree, but
you,
like that,

without asking you?”

Objectified. Betrayed. Like he used me.
I shook my head.

“I can’t talk about this, sir.”

He patted my arm. “Son… I can’t tell you how sorry I

am. He thinks art matters more than people. You do

understand that about him, Lorenzo?”

“I do now.”

I walked back out to the studio, started putting my

papers away, folding them up, and closing the computer

down. Jesse didn’t come over from his half of the studio, and

I didn’t say anything to him. I could hear him moving around

over there, but I just kept thinking,
I’ve got to get out of here.

I’ve got to get out of here before the old boyfriend shows up

and makes everything worse. I looked at the cartoon he’d

drawn of us, Yoda and Luke Skywalker, and thought about

leaving it, but I put it with the rest of the papers and carried

everything in the house.

It took me less than ten minutes to pack. I was sitting

on the edge of the bed, wondering if I should write him a

note to say good-bye, when I heard the car pull up outside.

Jesse’s voice, and another man’s I didn’t know. They

talked for a moment, then their voices disappeared. Out to

the studio, I suspected. I felt my stomach knot down at the

thought of a stranger looking at that painting of me. The

Original was out on the porch. “Did Sadie get home okay?”

“He says he dropped her at her mom’s.”

“I’ve got to get out of here.”

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“Are you coming back, son?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Lorenzo… I know this is probably for the best. For now.

But don’t make it permanent. Let me know where you are.”

“Yes, sir.” I thought he was telling me that he’d let me

know when the coast was clear, when Jesse had gone back

to San Francisco, and I could come back. I didn’t think I

could bear it, though.

I went into the house, carried my bags out to the truck,

and was setting the computer case down in the front seat

when Jesse came around the corner of the house with Sam.

Sam was older, probably forty, and his sweet-faced good

looks weren’t going to last much longer. Honey-brown hair

and freckles, big brown eyes, and an easy, pretty smile. He

was wearing jeans with the hems rolled up and a pair of

sneakers without socks and a jacket made out of the same

cream silk and linen as the pants Jesse had been wearing

when he got in the bar fight, up in Alpine. Great. They were

sharing clothes.

“I know you,” he said, holding out his hand. “You’re the

Grievous Angel.” I could no more shake his hand without

breaking his arm than I could breathe underwater.

Jesse stared at the truck, his mouth open, and I turned

around and slammed the door. “You’re leaving? You’re just

packing up and leaving? What….”

Sam was laughing. “Oh, I get it. Jesse, Jesse, how many

times have I told you, you can’t sleep with your models! They

always fall in love with you, beautiful, and then there’s the

messy—” He stopped speaking when I reached out and

grabbed the front of his jacket, lifted him off the ground.

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“Get your hands off me! What the hell’s the matter with

you?”

Jesse gave me an unfriendly look. “Oh, for God’s sake,

put him down. Sam, would you mind? Shutting the hell up

and leaving us alone?”

I dropped him, and he straightened his jacket, glaring at

me. Jesse and I stood, staring at each other, waiting for him

to go. By the time he was around the corner of the house,

Jesse was livid. “You were going to sneak out of here without

saying a word to me? What the fuck is that about?”

I lifted him up and shook him, so furious all of a sudden

I was ready to break his skinny neck in my hands. I pushed

him back against the door of the truck, his feet dangling off

the ground, and he was kicking me with those red sneakers,

the round rubber toes bouncing harmlessly off my knees. I

was crying then, and kissed him so hard I could taste blood,

and I didn’t care if it was his or mine. I kissed him again,

and he was crying now, wrapped around me, legs around my

waist, arms around my neck, saying,
please, zo-zo, please,

please don’t leave
, and I pulled him off roughly, set him

down, and climbed in my truck and drove away. I didn’t let

myself look in the rearview mirror. His tears were mixed with

mine on my face, and I put them in my mouth, so I could

taste both of us together one last time.

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Chapter Eleven

I DROVE, then I drove some more, let the endless miles

numb my mind until I could breathe like a normal person. I

got a hotel room in Amarillo, but I was afraid to keep going.

The lonesome plains lay ahead, the saddest, flattest

landscape in America, and I wasn’t sure I would make it to

the Rockies alive. I just wanted to keep driving, not thinking,

not feeling, just drive, drive, and not let the smell of Jesse’s

hair into my mind, the taste of his mouth. I’d never lost like

this before. I’d never had something shatter at my feet,

utterly lost, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I wasn’t a

drinker, not growing up out on the rez. But for the first time,

I felt some sympathy for the terrible grief that would come

rolling off some of those old men, holding their bottles.

My mind had shut down. I didn’t want to be around

other people. I didn’t want to go home. The painting hung in

front of my eyes, opened or closed, and it saved me, because

I was thinking about it when I thought about going into the

desert. Forty days and forty nights? And he had to pass

some tests, right, resist the temptation of the devil or

something, and then the angels came and fed him.

Forty days in the desert. I could do that, and I’d come

out the other side with Jesse burned out of my blood. I’d

burn him out of my heart, let the harsh wind blow my soul