This story was inspired by a song by OneRepublic. I hope you enjoy and I hope I did the song justice. As always, all comments appreciated.
My name is Kurt Cline. You may not know me by name, but when I describe myself you'll think of someone you know that is just like me.
I am an all or nothing kind of guy. Whatever I was into at the time was all I would talk about. I didn't care too much about what you were in to. Consequently, I wasn't your friend, in fact, I didn't have any real friends. You might say "Hi" to me but would try not to get into a conversation with me. I would prattle on and on about what was important to
me
.
Thus, in school, I retreated into my own world. It was a world of art, fantasy art to be exact. I got really good at it. Two artists in particular that I tried to emulate were Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. They both were huge in the 70's. In fact, if you are in to Classic Rock you've probably seen their art on album covers. My dad had his record collection and I saw Molly Hatchet and Ozzy Osbourne cover art. I was hooked. Both of them focus on the human form, especially the buxom women, in fantasy settings. To a hormonal teenage boy, it was like crack.
Being the all or nothing kind of guy, I delved right in, to the exclusion of almost everything else. The way they captured the human form with all the muscles evident under the tan skin, or even the muscles evident in the animals, both real and fantasy, made you believe they were real. It made me believe in fantasy, a world where I wasn't an outcast or an annoyance. I wanted to be in those worlds to be the "hero" standing next to the almost naked woman, the "lady in distress". The shading, the tones, the shadows, they all added to the effect...
Oh, I see your eyes are glazing over as again I monopolize the conversation with details, details, details. I can see you're ready to get away from me. Don't worry, I'm used to it.
Let me tell you some more before you go. One day Dad saw me working on my own fantasy art and said, "Son, you've got talent, but unless you're going to be a tattoo artist you'd better learn a trade to support yourself.
Well as you probably know, I wasn't a people person so tattooing was out. I started checking out some jobs that I could make enough to live on. My Art teacher said, "You should check out Graphic Artist/Graphic Design. I think you would do well in that sort of job. They have courses at the Tech Center."
Long story short, (well shorter) I spent half my day in school going to core classes and the other half at the Tech Center. One of my core classes was biology. I really liked that class, especially when we dissected the frogs. Seeing the muscles when we opened it up was awesome. It made me understand the human form even that much better. It made my art even that much better.
Another reason I really liked it was because I was paired up with Angela, a girl I would eventually marry. It was not a pairing that she wanted. Again, I was the guy people didn't necessarily want to be around.
The teacher thought that it would be good for her to be lab partner with me. She wasn't the prettiest girl in school, but she was to me. What she was, was popular. She was from a rich family so she was one of the "in" crowd. She dated jocks and partied every weekend with the "cool" kids.
When she got assigned to be my lab partner for the project, she complained to the teacher to get reassigned. The teacher evidently told her that she needed to be with me because her grades were such that she might not pass the class if she didn't get an A on this project. Also, I would keep her from getting distracted by talking to her lab partner all day long (which she was prone to do).
As we proceeded to start dissecting the frog I hardly said anything, I was tongue tied. She was way above my station in the hierarchy of our school, and also in life.
She saw how in to dissecting I was and made a comment, "That's gross."
"It's amazing," I said, forgetting my shyness. "To see the way the muscles are made and attached to the bones, and how they move and ripple when I move them is unbelievable. To see the veins and arteries, the cartilage, the way the bone forms the structure and supports the muscles, it's just wonderful."
"You're weird." Was all she said.
"This will help me draw better." I stated.
She looked at me with a puzzled look on her face.
"I'm an artist," I said. "This will help me with getting the muscles to look right."
"You're weird." She said again.
Well, weird or not, I helped her get an A and saved her from having to retake the class.
After biology class was done she didn't say much during the next two years of high school. She would occasionally say, "Hi", but only if none of her other friends were around.
After graduation I got a job at a printer/sign/banner shop. My ability to make the graphics had really flourished and I was soon the set-up man, designing and getting the jobs ready to run. I was still not very good around people so I was given jobs and I did them. On Monday mornings I was given the jobs and my boss and I worked up a deal where I stayed until they were all set up to run production. This took me, usually, until about midnight. It was a 16 hour day, so I got Fridays off, a three day weekend every week. I spent most of that time traveling around the countryside looking for great settings to use for my fantasy art. It was my passion.
Sorry, there I go again, babbling on. You don't care about that. You want to know why I'm just hanging out in my back yard waiting for the police. To explain that I need to tell you how I came to be married to the angel that is my wife.
A couple of years after high school I was in the basement of my parent's house. (Yes, I still lived with them. I was saving to buy a house. My parents didn't mind, I was quiet and didn't have friends, male or female, that would come over. They actually encouraged me to save money.) Anyways, my mom called down to me and said that a woman was calling me on the home phone. (Yes they still had a landline phone.) A woman calling me? Must be a telemarketer.
I ran up the stairs, it was a woman after all. I answered the phone and it was my future wife, my biology lab partner. "What was she calling me for?" I thought. Well, she explained that she had flunked out of the State University because she partied just a bit too much and didn't study enough. Then she explained that her parents made her go to the local college. Maybe, after she showed she could get serious abut her schooling, they would send her back to the State University.
What she was calling me for was that she was studying to be a nurse and was taking an Anatomy class and needed help. She knew I was good at biology and I helped her get an A on our project so she thought that I could help her. Of course, she would, "Make it worth you're while." She had said. I wasn't sure what she meant but my mind was definitely going through some different scenarios. I was a 20 year old red blooded American male after all.
Turns out her parents were willing to pay me to tutor her. I told her that I had Fridays off from work and we made arrangements to meet after lunch. I took a look at her course book and at least all the skeletal and muscular chapters were just review for me. I would, however, have to spend some time studying all the other aspects of the human body.
We spent every Friday afternoon together and we actually started to carry on conversations about things other than her Anatomy class. She was somewhat depressed that she wasn't able to be with all her friends at the University. The people that were going to the local college were not people she wanted to hang around with. Her weekends were boring, none of her friends came home, so she didn't have anyone to party with.
One afternoon, when we were done studying, I made mention of how much better my art had become since I had been studying the muscles for her class. She said, "I'd like to see that."
"No, I don't show anyone my art. It's too personal." I was actually afraid to show it to her, she had been my unknowing model for most of them.
"Come on, you've been talking about it since high school. Let me see your art. I bet it is amazing. Your attention to detail is so great."
"I don't think so." I responded.