Episode 13: Birthday (Rhyss)

He woke on his birthday to the smell of paint thinner on his clothes and in the air of his room. Maybe it would give him cancer, sleeping in a room full of chemicals.

Maybe he didn’t care.

It was well after noon, because he’d been up until three playing games and painting.

The painting was bad. He looked at it in the daylight and the oranges in the bowl weren’t even close to the right colors.

He got out some cerulean blue and decided to turn the painting into modern art with a few slashes and splashes of paint.

After a quick shower, he went down into their kitchen. His mom sat at the little round table in the corner, a light buzzing over her head and a deck of cards spread out on the table in front of her.

“Sam?” she asked, hopeful.

“Just me,” he said. “Rhyss.”

“I’m sure this deck is missing a king, but every time I count it there are four.”

“Why do you think it’s missing one?” he asked, pouring her an orange juice.

“I can’t win the solitaire.”

He set the orange juice in front of her. “What are we having today? Cereal? Toast and eggs? A sandwich?”

“I’m having juice. See it? It’s there, in front of me.”

He sighed. “How about some cheese and grapes?” Opening the fridge, he took out cheese and grapes and arranged them on a plate for her. He grabbed a snack cake and a soda for himself before joining her at the table.

“I have to go out longer than usual today,” he said slowly. He put his hand on the cards to stop her from counting and kept his voice even and gentle. “Do we go outside?”

She shook her head.

“Do we answer the door?”

She shook her head.

“Do we answer the phone?”

She hesitated, and looked at him with her grey eyes. “Do we answer the phone?” she asked him, full of trust.

“We can answer the phone,” he said. “But if it upsets us, we don’t have to.”

“We can answer the phone,” she repeated.

“Do we use the stove?” he asked. He knew if she turned the stove on she could forget about it, and if the house caught on fire she might not notice.

Again, she hesitated.

“We don’t use the stove. If we want to make tea, we use the microwave.”

“The microwave,” she repeated. Her eyes flicked to the deck of cards.

“Can you point to the microwave?”

Her eyes looked back and forth between him and the cards, and her mouth started moving, in anticipation of counting them again. He sighed and leaned back in the chair. It creaked, and somewhere inside the seat a spring made a pinging sound.

He stood. “I’ll be back before dark,” he promised.

The street smelled like chemical trash.

He walked to his car. It wasn’t much; a rusted ‘74 Snare with original paint barely visible, but it was his. He’d rebuilt a lot of the engine block and worked in a few junkyards as trade for parts he needed.

In his car, he hit the radio three times with the heel of his hand before it started to work.

His first stop was his job, to pick up his paycheck.

He walked in the back way, to the smell of heat and motor oil, and climbed the stairs to Hal’s office.

He looked around the shop while he climbed. It was quiet, which meant no one was probably working.

There wasn’t even any music playing.

He knocked on Hal’s office door. “Hal? It’s Rhyss,” he called through the wood.

Hal didn’t open the door. His wife Sadie did. She gave Rhyss one of those smiles that was supposed to be warm but was really just fake.

“Rhyss,” she said. “Come in.”

He had a bad feeling.

“Is Hal okay?” he asked.

“Oh, he’s fine.” She sat, cross-legged, on Hal’s spinning office chair. “He’s decided to retire, and Noah offered him a good price for the business.”

Noah didn’t like Rhyss, the way a cat on a porch didn’t like a passing dog.

Noah had a lot of family in the car business.

Rhyss was about to be fired.

He waited. Maybe he was wrong.

“Noah has some plans for future employment prospects,” Sadie told him. “In lieu of two weeks’ notice, he’s offering you a severance package of one thousand dollars.”

In lieu of.

A thousand dollars could last them a while, if he was careful. He wouldn’t be able to finish school right now though: He’d have to get a full-time job. He could see his whole life playing out in his mind. He would get a minimum wage job now, and work it until he died, and he’d always have a falling apart house and a falling apart car and a falling apart mom.

He took a deep breath and signed the paperwork before telling Sadie to have a good week.

At the school, instead of heading to class he went to the bursar’s office and filled out the paperwork to quit school and get a partial refund on his classes. The refund was less than he hoped, but having a few hundred extra in the bank would be a good buffer in case the stove broke or the fridge died.

Then he went to class, because he figured there was no way the teacher would already know he had dropped out.

Rhyss barely heard the teacher. He was too busy scanning the supply area at the back of the room, wondering how much trouble he’d be in if he left with some paints and some smaller canvasses in his bag.

He shook his head. Stealing for food was one thing, something he might have to start doing soon, but stealing for a hobby was just wrong. It was playing with fire. If he got arrested, he had no idea what would happen to his mom except that it wouldn’t be good.

At the end of class, Rhyss waited to talk to the teacher.

“I just wanted to let you know I’m leaving school.”

The teacher, an older man, shook his head. “If you’re not dedicated to the material, you’ll never finish.”

Rhyss didn’t know how to answer that. “Can I take my wet paintings home?” he asked.

“You’re good, Hartmann. I don’t understand why you’re just quitting.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Money, mostly.”

“Most people who take this class, they think water’s blue so they paint blue. And dirt is brown, and clouds are white. You see the true colors, and the way they fit together on the canvas. It’s a shame to lose a talent like you.”

“I’m sorry,” Rhyss wasn’t sure why he was apologizing.

“You can’t give up something else? School is money in the bank for your future.”

“No, sir. It was this or food.”

His teacher assessed him for a moment. “Why don’t you keep coming to class, and no one has to know. You won’t get a grade, or a degree, but you’ll learn some techniques to help you. Maybe sell some paintings and get money that way.”

It felt wrong to Rhyss, like lying. And the teacher could get in trouble.

He opened his mouth, ready to refuse, when the teacher said, “Next Saturday, I’m doing live painting at a festival in the city. Meet me here at ten, I’ll take you with me. It’s good money.”

He wasn’t about to argue with money. “Thank you,” he said, on his way out the door.

“Hartmann. I expect to see you in class on Friday morning.”

To get money next Saturday, he would have to lie his way through attending three classes.

He could live with that.

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