Dreams Come to Life

by Adrienne Kress

  “You don’t have to, I just was wondering if you knew,” I said. But I didn’t say it too forcefully. Dot was really good at “looking into” things, and I appreciated any help here.

  “No, I want to.” She glanced over my shoulder then and I turned around. Mike, one of the writers, had just come off the elevator. “Let me know what Accounting has to say, but there’s no hurry,” she said loudly, and I quickly realized we were pretending now.

  “Of course.”

  I turned around and passed Mike, who gave me a sideways look as he took off his jacket and sat at his desk. He pulled the brim of his hat lower down and tipped his chair back onto its rear legs, picked up something he’d been working on, and began to read it over.

  I made it back to the Art Department just in time to be sent on an actual task to the Music Department. The last thing I wanted to do was see Sammy, but fortunately he kept to himself, sitting on his stool at the conductor’s stand, looking over notes and muttering. Beside him was a half-empty bottle of ink.

  Normally I’d never have paid much attention to something like that, but now, well, now I stared at it for a moment. Wondering.

  I shook my head and quickly dropped off the folder I’d been given in the “In” box by the door and turned to leave.

  Maybe I should just ask. Maybe there was a way I could ask.

  I turned back.

  The ink bottle was now empty.

  How?

  “What do you want, Art Department?” asked Sammy, suddenly looking up at me.

  “Nothing! Just left a folder for you,” I said, backing away quickly.

  “Fantastic,” he replied, looking back down at his work.

  I left immediately, feeling deeply unsettled. It wasn’t just being snapped at. I was used to him being unpredictable. It wasn’t even what I’d heard him say earlier either. It was that I could have sworn, when he’d turned to face me, that there had been a small bit of black in the right-hand corner of his mouth.

  I got home early enough to join Ma and my grandfather for dinner.

  “It’s nice to see you, Buddy,” Ma said, giving me a big squeeze as she placed my plate in front of me.

  “Thanks. How’s Mr. Schwartz?” I was trying not to grimace as she ruffled my hair.

  “Oh, he’s fine. How’s the studio?”

  I didn’t think that Mr. Schwartz was “fine,” but then again things at the studio weren’t really so fine either. That was kind of what we said though. It was our routine. When life isn’t easy and days are long and tough, you don’t really want to get into it. So that’s what you say. And you carry on.

  We sat there then, in silence. A whole lot of nothing conversation. Including my grandfather, who just sat silently scooping food into his mouth.

  This was fun.

  I ate as quickly as I could and then disappeared into my room. I needed to claim it before my grandfather did. I sat down on the floor and placed my stolen paper and ink next to me. Then I took a sheet and put it on the windowsill. It wasn’t as wide as a desk, but it was a solid enough surface, and I’d been using it to draw on since I was a kid. I was lucky the windows went down as low as they did. And that my body was as long as it was.

  Time to draw.

  Yes.

  Dot, you know very well what it’s like facing a blank page. I know that writers get the same feeling. It starts off exciting, but as the seconds tick by, the minutes, the feeling starts to turn. To feel bad. You get anxious and you can almost feel like the paper is making fun of you.

  Not all the time. But it seems to happen exactly when you really need to draw something. This feeling of pressure.

  Not fun.

  I cracked my neck and pushed my hair up off my forehead. It stayed standing upright since it had been matted down with sweat. I was ready for this summer to be over. I took off my button-up and sat there in my undershirt. It was cooler. A little bit. A very little bit.

  Just start drawing. Draw anything.

  Cowboy Bendy.

  It popped into my head just like that. Dot’s idea. Well, she definitely needed pictures to go with it. And I liked cowboys.

  I grinned to myself and started drawing. It was my first time ever attempting Bendy and it surprised me how much harder he was to draw than I’d thought. He looked so simple to do. A round head, two eyes, a mouth. Not even a nose to worry about. Noses can be tricky.

  But somehow he just kept coming out a bit wonky.

  I stopped. And tried another tactic. I started drawing the horse I wanted him to ride.

  That wasn’t easy either. Somehow the body was looking stubby and thick, like a donkey or an overweight dog. The legs were too wide too. And the head. I didn’t even want to think about what a head like that on a real horse would actually look like.

  I tried again. This time the proportions were a bit better. I stopped and looked at my paper. Three awkward Bendys, and two kinds of horses.

  It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t … good either.

  And then it wasn’t there anymore.

  The paper vanished from beneath me and I whipped around and looked up at my grandfather standing over me. I had no idea what he was doing and yet for some reason I didn’t say anything. I just watched him, noticed that even on a day like today he was dressed in that same long-sleeved shirt, cuffs tightly closed at the wrists, slacks and suspenders, socks and shoes. I had no idea how he wasn’t melting from the heat.

  He was staring at the paper intently.

  He looked at me. Then he pointed at me. “You?” he asked.

  “It’s for my job,” I said. Did he understand words like “job” yet? Did he understand anything? Even where he spoke his own language? I was starting to think maybe the people in Poland might have thought he was as bizarre as I did.

  “Riding?” he asked, and pointed to the paper.

  “Yes,” I replied, nodding.

  He smiled. “Cowboy.”

  I didn’t think in that moment that it was neat my grandfather knew what a cowboy was. I didn’t even think to question how he knew. I was too hot and too frustrated. I sighed. Yes, Grandfather, a cowboy. Can I have my paper back? Please?

  He placed it on the dresser next to me and leaned over, looking at it closely. He motioned with his fingers, a kind of grabbing thing, but didn’t look at me. I didn’t know what he was doing. I didn’t have time for this.

  “Give give,” he said, still wiggling his fingers. It clicked finally—he wanted the pen. He wanted to draw. This wasn’t just some game for me, but he was treating it like I was a little kid doing some hobby. I didn’t like this at all. But he wouldn’t stop. I knew it.

  I gave him the pen.

  He smiled. “Give.” He raised his eyebrows at me. Then glanced down.

  I sighed again and passed him a fresh piece of paper.

  “Ah!” he said. He started to draw on the page while I leaned back against the wall. This was ridiculous. I looked out the dusty window. Mrs. Bilski across the street was hanging the laundry on the line. Her cat was trying to play with the sheets as they dangled. Never liked cats.

  “Cowboy,” said my grandfather. He was smiling at me and pointing at the paper.

  I nodded.

  He tapped on the paper.

  So with a groan I pushed myself up to standing and looked at it.

  And looked.

  And stared.

  I turned back to my grandfather. He was walking out of the room. Just leaving, like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t managed to draw a perfect horse. And a perfect Bendy. Just like that. In less than a minute.

  I grabbed the paper, following him out into the hall at once. “Grandfather!” I turned into the kitchen. He was sitting already, looking at me like I’d lost my mind. How the tables had turned.

  “Buddy?” Ma was standing at the sink staring at me too.

  I ignored her.

  “How? How did you do this?” I asked him, pointing to the paper.

  “How?” he asked me, lookin
g confused.

  “How!” I kind of yelled it, which made him flinch in a strange way, and I hadn’t meant to scare him, but I was just really fully of energy. He slouched low in his chair, like his frail old body was withering away and seemed to almost disappear in it, but even more than just that.

  “Buddy, please,” said Ma, her voice full of warning.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, sitting next to him. “It’s just … it’s … good. It’s really good.”

  He looked at me carefully and thought for a moment. “You draw cowboy?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  I laughed the kind of laugh that isn’t really one. That’s more like a frustrated sigh. “I really can’t, Grandpa.”

  He reached out and took my hand gently in his. It was warm and soft. He carefully looked at my fingers, at the ink stains. “You can.”

  I shook my head. The heat was getting to me now and I was feeling overwhelmed and very tired. And mad at myself. The one thing I wanted to do and I couldn’t even do it.

  “I teach,” he said.

  “No.” I stood up slowly. “No, it’s okay.”

  What was the point?

  I made my way to the door.

  “Where are you going?” Ma asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. I got deeper in my head with that question. Where was I going? What was I doing anyway?

  I went outside but the air was stale. I started to walk east toward the river. I needed to feel a breeze on my face, I needed to not feel completely suffocated. I picked up speed and soon I found I was running. Running away? Running toward something?

  The river greeted me and I could breathe again.

  For that moment at least.

  * * *

  The next day I sat in my dark little corner, and it was the first time I actually didn’t mind being so far from the rest of the team. I pulled the drawing of Cowboy Bendy out of my pocket and spread it out on my desk, flattening it as best I could with my hands. It wasn’t just that my grandfather had drawn the perfect horse. It was more than that. It was the expression on Bendy’s face, confident and proud. It wasn’t just that plastered-on smile that I saw in the large advertising cutouts stored around the studio. There was personality even though there was so little to work with. Just eyes and a mouth. There was a feeling too of movement, like they were riding along at a fast speed. And there was the comedy of his lasso getting all messed up around the cactus.

  He’d done so much with so little. I didn’t know how. I needed to figure it out. So I could impress Mister Drew.

  “What’s that?” asked a voice over my shoulder.

  I looked up. It was Jacob. He bent down and stared at the drawing. “Hey, mac, that’s not bad.” He grinned at me and stood up.

  “Thanks,” I said. I knew I should explain it to him, that I hadn’t done it. But it was the first time anyone in this place had actually said a nice thing to me. He nodded but didn’t go away, so I felt like I needed to say something else. “I did it last night.”

  “It’s nifty,” he said.

  “Is that a good thing?” I asked.

  Jacob grinned. “Definitely.” He turned. “Hey, Ms. Lambert!”

  “No, don’t,” I said, but it was too late. She glanced up from her desk at the other side of the room, unfolded her long legs, stood and marched over to us in a very sharply pressed pair of trousers.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. The line between her eyebrows seemed extra deep.

  “Have a look at what our gofer did last night,” said Jacob, pointing at the picture.

  I tried to smile in a relaxed kind of way as Jacob moved aside and let her peer over my shoulder. But I was starting to panic a little. What if they made me re-create it or something?

  “It’s decent,” said Ms. Lambert with a frown of approval.

  “I did it last night,” I said, feeling a little relieved but also not able to say anything much more than that.

  “You were here?” She looked at me, puzzled. “I was here.”

  “No,” I said, scrambling for words. “No, at home. On my off time.” That sounded good, right? That sounded like something someone who worked hard would say. Even on my off time I was doing work.

  Ms. Lambert stood there for a moment. Then she bent over and picked up the picture. But she wasn’t looking at the drawing, she was looking at the paper, feeling it between her thumb and forefinger. “Tell the truth, Buddy. Where’d you get the paper and ink?”

  Oh. Right. The truth. The truth was …

  Lots of silence then while I tried to figure out what the truth was.

  “I see. Buddy, we were low today on stock, and you know as much as everyone here that money is tight. We’re not a baseball team.” She passed the picture back to me.

  “A baseball team?” I asked. I noticed that Jacob was no longer beside me, but slowly walking back to his desk.

  “You don’t get three strikes here.”

  I still didn’t get it.

  “I’m sorry, Buddy, but this is unacceptable. Stealing is not allowed and Mister Drew is very strict about that. You can’t do it, Buddy.”

  Right, okay. I got it, I got it. I wouldn’t do it again. “I won’t do it again.”

  Ms. Lambert shook her head and then stared up at the pipes running across the ceiling over my head. “I’m sorry, Buddy. I have to take you to Mister Drew.”

  My stomach fell out of my body. I could almost hear it in my imagination, flopping onto the floor with a squish.

  All I felt was hollow at how unfair it was. It was just some paper and ink. But yeah, it wasn’t like I could afford paper and ink. It had a cost. And evidently a much bigger cost than I’d realized.

  “Come on.” Ms. Lambert motioned for me to stand. I did and followed her over to the elevator. I could sense heads turning to watch, but I didn’t look back. I was too embarrassed.

  We stood quietly in the elevator as it chugged its way up to the top floor.

  “I’m … I’m sorry,” I said. I realized I hadn’t said it yet. I meant it, but also maybe it mattered that I was?

  “I know. It’s tough. Things aren’t like how it used to be here. We have to protect every dollar. But even more than that, we have to have trust.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t like I hadn’t noticed that there was definitely some penny-pinching going on. If there was one thing I understood, it was that. Grabbing paper from the wastepaper basket to write on, only one janitor for the entire studio, all the empty offices and dusty corners. Yeah, I noticed it. But I still hadn’t really got it. Until now.

  Ms. Lambert pulled the grate to the side when we arrived at Mister Drew’s office and let me out first. We approached Miss Rodriguez sitting behind her desk, typing away at that fast speed just like I’d seen her the first time I’d met Mister Drew.

  The only time I’d met Mister Drew.

  “Does Mister Drew have time for us?” asked Ms. Lambert.

  Miss Rodriguez looked up but didn’t stop typing. I would have been impressed if I wasn’t feeling so low. “Five minutes,” she said. And without stopping her typing or getting up or anything, she called out really loudly, “Ms. Lambert is here with that new gofer!”

  “That new what?” Mister Drew called back with that gruff voice of his.

  “The kid.” She looked back at me, eyeing me up and down. I instinctively tucked my shirt tighter into my trousers, pulled my shoulders back.

  “What kid? Never mind, send them in!” Mister Drew called out again.

  Miss Rodriguez gestured toward the door with her head and looked back down at her typing. I glanced at Ms. Lambert, who didn’t seem to find any of this strange and walked over to his door and opened it.

  “Mister Drew, we have to talk,” she said.

  “Sure, sure, come on in,” I heard Mister Drew reply. Ms. Lambert turned to me and gave me this look that I knew definitely meant I should follow her.

  So I did.

  And we en
tered Mister Drew’s office.

  He was sitting behind his large desk with a big stack of papers all over it. Everything seemed even more of a mess than the first time I’d seen it, if that was possible. The shades were drawn on the windows this time, no view out to Broadway now. It made the room feel smaller and cramped and uncomfortable.

  Or maybe it was because I was feeling uncomfortable.

  “What’s all this about?” he said, not looking up, instead focusing hard on a piece of paper in front of him.

  It was the first time I’d seen the man since he’d hired me. Since I’d brought him his suit. And now I was about to be fired. What would happen then? Would Mr. Schwartz take me back? I didn’t think so. Ma would be so disappointed in me.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Drew, but this new kid of yours was caught stealing,” said Ms. Lambert.

  “Stealing?” He finally looked up at that. He stared at me. “The kid!” he said, pointing at me, remembering I existed. That didn’t make me feel bad at all, being forgotten. Nope, not at all.

  “Yes, sir, Buddy Lewek. Unfortunately he was caught stealing and per the rules … well, I brought him to you to handle it.” She sounded tired, like this was the last thing she wanted to be doing right now. I didn’t blame her.

  “Ah,” said Mister Drew. “Right, well, Buddy, what do you have to say for yourself?” He frowned his forehead at me, and his thick eyebrows met each other over the middle of his nose to have a private conversation. I imagined eyes on them, and lines where their own furrowed brows would be.

  Ms. Lambert gave me a small shove. “Go on.”

  I looked back at her. She didn’t seem all that angry, she just had to do this.

  “I wanted to draw,” I said, turning back to Mister Drew.

  Ms. Lambert sighed hard behind me. “He stole supplies and took them home with him. You know we can’t afford—”

  “Please, Ms. Lambert. Tell me what I can and can’t afford, why don’t you?” Mister Drew crossed his arms against his chest.

  I looked back again at Ms. Lambert and saw her sputter a bit. She went to say something, but stopped herself. “I was only following your directions, sir,” she said through a tight jaw.

  Mister Drew nodded. “I do understand, Ms. Lambert. I do. And we can’t have the team just taking things. We have stock to keep track of. And of course the fact that he got into a locked cabinet …” He looked at me carefully. I didn’t like it. For a moment I’d thought maybe he was on my side. Now I had no idea what he was thinking anymore. “You get back to work, Ms. Lambert. Let me have a word with our gofer here.”