I was sitting in the living room. The jar of Jalapenos had spilled on the cook-range and it put a mildly
acrid scent in the air. I see Harold cover his muzzle and wrinkle his brow.
"Joan is cooking." He says.
"Okay." I say and run my talons across the top of the couch.
"You want me to ask her to stop?" I say. I look at Harold and he flattens his ears. He looks to the sliding patio door "I?ll go outside".
Outside the air is cold and cuts across the south-side of town where we live. Patches of grass here and there on the lawn and the rest is yellowed or dirt. Some trash in the corner that won?t be touched until the snow has disintegrated it. I join Harold with a couple beers and we sit on two of the good lawn chairs.
"Here." I say as he takes a beer from my hand. "Joan cooks for me. She cooks a lot now."
"She?s getting better." Harold brings the bottle to his nose and inhales. The hoppy scents blanket his sense of smell.
"She has to. I?m no good in the kitchen, no good." I slowly turn the beer in my fingers before I take a long drink. We look at eachother.
"Not a lot of handyman work." I say.
"Not much?" He says.
"Not much worth doing." I keep turning the bottle like it was the focus of a camera. "Not much." I say and let the air out of the conversation.
Harold breaks the silence. "Joan?s been getting some good commissions. Mostly color right? She?s always dropping drafts on Facebook." I nod at Harold. She is paying my bills and I will not lie about it.
"Yeah. She?s getting some. It?s been getting by." I drain the rest of my beer and set it on the patio table next to a cardboard box of oily greasy tools salvaged from my father?s garage. Some drill bits. Old rusted Kleins and wire strippers. The whole box smells like burnt electrical wires and grease.
Joan opens the door and leaves it to air out the house.
"Oil got away from me again." There are speckles of tan on her white and black face where droplets of oil have soaked into her fur. When she cooks her cheeks get bristly until she showers.
"No worries." Says Harold. The distance between him and my wife makes his amicability more releaving. I look at her hands and see where her art tools have stained her fingers. The tips are black. The edge of the black is a prism of all the colored pencils she?s used in the past two days. I do not like my wife?s hands being more dirty than mine.
She serves bleu cheese burgers on onion buns with a slice of sharp cheddar. "You use the sharp cheddar. It doesn?t melt." I say
"You?re telling me how to cook?." She says.
"It doesn?t melt. Harold it doesn?t melt. You want me to get some better cheese?" I move to get ready to stand up but Harold cuts me off.
I?d like to try it with this cheese if that?s okay." He says.
"Sure its okay." I see Joan and she?s already put the burgers on the table. It has her old table cloth. It really doesn?t matter what stains it at this point.
We get to talking and Joan brings five beers out of the fridge. We polish those off and she gets a few Black Butte Porter from the Garage fridge.
"Its. I don?t know. Do you want to explain it hun? It?s about that thing you?re working on. For Angelique."
Joan doesn?t look at me. Doesn?t look at Harold either. Her eyes just sort of walk across the walls and take inventory of things old enough to not be worth seeing.
"Yeah." She says. "Yeah its. So Angelique. You know. She had some money saved up in the end. You know. I got this call from her probate lawyer. He said there is some money for me and instructions on some commission work if I want it."
"Of Angelique?" Harold says. I like having dogs like Harold for friends. I can read them. The ears move on their own. Their tails.
"Yeah but. Here." Joan says and gets up. She washes her hands in the sink and dries them on an old hand towel with a faded burgundy duck design.
Joan comes out of her studio where she keeps most of her drawing supplies and tools. She carries a rolled up paper tucked under her arm. She?s careful like glass and doesn?t let the alcohol affect her balance.
We put our plates to the side so she can roll the whole thing out. There is a structural blueprint with measurements for a bust, arms and Angelique?s platypus head. I see my wife?s hand writing all over it.
"She wants a full puppet. You know. We talked about it you know. I mean back when. We talked about the designs. I didn?t know fuck all like I do now. But it was. You know. I?m saying it bad." Joan trailed off.
"You aren?t saying it bad." Harold said Amicably and started going through the cans on the table. He picked each one up and gave a little shake until he found his.
"Joan and Angelique go back a ways." I say.
"Back to Inkbunny." Joan says. She rolls up the blueprints. I?m thankful for that. Sometimes she cries when she looks at the blueprints. I suppose she?ll cry more the more of it she finishes.
"That?s a while. How far are you with it?" Harold?s ears lazily track the sounds of my neighborhood. He is not focused on anything as he listens to my wife and gives generic interest responses.
"I have the body roughed out but Nuki has to print the rigid pieces before I can do more. I?m working on the eyes. She?s got those custom eyes. You want to see them? They?re in my shop if you want to see." She got to her feet and started to turn. She turned back to grab her blueprint and we followed her into her art room. It smells like oil, grease and powder. For Joan it probably smells like nothing at all. There is a pile of half sketches next to the chair on the floor. Her easel has some jury rigged fixes in its legs. I promised her I would buy her a new one.
This is some art room you?ve got. Some art room." Says Harold as he inspects a pencil holder covered in dust with clean colored pencils inside.
"I packed it all in here. I used to have a bit of it all around the house. But Joe says it?s too messy." I see her and we look at eachother for a minute. We don?t say anything cause it?s already been said before. She turns and goes to her everything table. She has it set up with a Lens grinder and a little arduino to control it.
She takes a sheet off the lens grinder. There is a small glass magenta disk about three inches across fitted in it. She releases the disk and holds it up. It is the color of Angelique?s iris.
"I?m gonna paint in the detail later." Joan holds the iris in her hand. She looks through it and where its shadow falls turns her white arms the same magenta color.
"She didn?t. I didn?t know she was sick. She never told me." Joan says as she keeps looking into the glass disk. "I hope. I mean, you know. But I hope you know. I hope when it?s done and Myamimic gets her rigged to his system. Maybe it will feel like she?s here. Like she?s here again. I don?t know what I?d say to her."
"He?s pretty good at it." I say and look down at my empty beer.
"He?s getting paid too. She?s set him up to record about fifteen minutes of mocap. A whole performance. You know how much he charges?" Joan says.
"He charges too much." I say. But it?s the truth. I don?t care if he?s willing to do sexual stuff too. He charges too much.
"Talent and skill cost money. People need to eat." Harold says like the amicable Labrador he is.
"Maybe." I don?t want to agree. I agree because I?m also amicable. Joan keeps looking at the eye before she sets it down on the table. It stares upward as we leave the art room to see if there?s any beer left.
