Read Online Thalo Blue by Jason McIntyre - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jason McIntyre
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slackening up, when it instead hurls its victims backwards, sucks all the blood in their skulls smacking into their foreheads, and sends them through the loop and into the corkscrew ass-backwards, with no vision to ease the mind, no way of calming the heart or the head—well, that was the most thrilling part, and simultaneously the most excruciating part. It was the blind ride backwards that promised the most—it was also that ingredient that threatened the most.
His popularity cycles didn’t bother him much, certainly not back in the days of the Bat and his water paints. But later they slacked and the result became almost painful. That was, until Jackson Cavanaugh made art seem okay again. Zeb had put down his 2B, B, and HB pencils, his pencil crayons, and even the paints his mother had started him on, but Jackson, who could sketch like no other person Zeb had ever met, brought the passion forward anew. And Jackson was popular, cool even. So when Zeb picked up a paintbrush again, spent time with Jackson and Jackson’s other friends, doors opened. And a new, rounded period of popularity and fun began. The pain eased. Thankfully.
He and Jackson were commissioned to paint a mural on the long interior wall in St. Vincent’s gymnasium and they managed to stretch the work out and take up most of the last year the two spent at the private primary and junior high school. But working on that project kept Zeb more in touch with the goings on at school than it did the inside-world of the mural. Before the project arrived in his life, he had generally gone straight home at three to spend his evenings alone, but now he stayed on sometimes until six to work on the project. The basketball teams and volleyball teams practiced while he painted, sometimes even paused to watch as they sat out on the benches. And, as coincidences of location and time will dictate, he made friends through the process. Jackson and Zeb became the two art boys of St. Vincent’s. They ran the art club and were generally perceived as the two greatest artists the school had ever seen. Their pieces hung in the hallways near the staff room and even teachers had definitive respect for their abilities, it seemed. In a strange way, that alone made him known. It made him something unique. And unique has its own special badge.
His popularity slumped again the next year when he began attending Wilt Marin High School. From St. Vincent’s only nine boys came to Wilt Marin, which was a little further out of the district, and so the circle he had built up was emptied in a mere moment. Zeb protested attending the school when nearly everyone else from Vincent’s had gone on to attend Vaughan Collegiate. But Oliver insisted he attend Wilt Marin, as it was generally believed to be more appropriately appointed to post-secondary goals than Vaughan. And at that point, every supper hour seemed to be built on what would get Zeb more easily into a suitable business university. Appearances, Oliver told him, had nothing to do with it. The end result, the presentation, is what mattered. And the end result of Wilt Marin was a university of his choice.
His social status remained bleak until the eleventh grade. He attended parties before that, was a part of the photography club, and produced visual art pieces for every student show and for the yearbook. But real popularity—even popularity based solely on his talents in the arts—eluded him. As a result he spent most of his time in the dark half of the basement where an easel and some drop clothes were set up. He painted and painted and painted more. Stacks of his works—pieces that were brightly colored, beautiful and majestic, sat in piles under the crawlspace or leaned against a pipe beside the wine cellar. It made him come alive to see the colors in his head sprawled on the canvas. It seemed to make everything he felt, everything he saw and heard, the stuff no one else had ever experienced, real.
Vivian Leland, a gold-haired
His popularity cycles didn’t bother him much, certainly not back in the days of the Bat and his water paints. But later they slacked and the result became almost painful. That was, until Jackson Cavanaugh made art seem okay again. Zeb had put down his 2B, B, and HB pencils, his pencil crayons, and even the paints his mother had started him on, but Jackson, who could sketch like no other person Zeb had ever met, brought the passion forward anew. And Jackson was popular, cool even. So when Zeb picked up a paintbrush again, spent time with Jackson and Jackson’s other friends, doors opened. And a new, rounded period of popularity and fun began. The pain eased. Thankfully.
He and Jackson were commissioned to paint a mural on the long interior wall in St. Vincent’s gymnasium and they managed to stretch the work out and take up most of the last year the two spent at the private primary and junior high school. But working on that project kept Zeb more in touch with the goings on at school than it did the inside-world of the mural. Before the project arrived in his life, he had generally gone straight home at three to spend his evenings alone, but now he stayed on sometimes until six to work on the project. The basketball teams and volleyball teams practiced while he painted, sometimes even paused to watch as they sat out on the benches. And, as coincidences of location and time will dictate, he made friends through the process. Jackson and Zeb became the two art boys of St. Vincent’s. They ran the art club and were generally perceived as the two greatest artists the school had ever seen. Their pieces hung in the hallways near the staff room and even teachers had definitive respect for their abilities, it seemed. In a strange way, that alone made him known. It made him something unique. And unique has its own special badge.
His popularity slumped again the next year when he began attending Wilt Marin High School. From St. Vincent’s only nine boys came to Wilt Marin, which was a little further out of the district, and so the circle he had built up was emptied in a mere moment. Zeb protested attending the school when nearly everyone else from Vincent’s had gone on to attend Vaughan Collegiate. But Oliver insisted he attend Wilt Marin, as it was generally believed to be more appropriately appointed to post-secondary goals than Vaughan. And at that point, every supper hour seemed to be built on what would get Zeb more easily into a suitable business university. Appearances, Oliver told him, had nothing to do with it. The end result, the presentation, is what mattered. And the end result of Wilt Marin was a university of his choice.
His social status remained bleak until the eleventh grade. He attended parties before that, was a part of the photography club, and produced visual art pieces for every student show and for the yearbook. But real popularity—even popularity based solely on his talents in the arts—eluded him. As a result he spent most of his time in the dark half of the basement where an easel and some drop clothes were set up. He painted and painted and painted more. Stacks of his works—pieces that were brightly colored, beautiful and majestic, sat in piles under the crawlspace or leaned against a pipe beside the wine cellar. It made him come alive to see the colors in his head sprawled on the canvas. It seemed to make everything he felt, everything he saw and heard, the stuff no one else had ever experienced, real.
Vivian Leland, a gold-haired
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