by Chip Kidd
“Shhh . . .”
He'll destroy you. As you destroyed Himillsy.
“Shut up.”
Stares everywhere—horrified pity for an escapee from a botched firing squad. Don't worry, folks—I'll go back. Wouldn't miss it.
Yet another indignity: tried to sleep, couldn't. I read magazines that were printed in dancing hieroglyphics, pictures turned on their heads and back again, laughing at me, asking me questions no one should ever have to answer. It would have been fascinating had it not made me want to scream. A jagged hour passed.
“Hi.”
They finally released her at two o'clock. Not even time to go to the Belly and gather our stuff.
Looked as if they'd grafted an oven-mitt onto her arm, hung it from her neck.
“. . . hurt?” I asked.
“No. Got to keep it raised. A week. Should take.”
“Let's get to class. Just make it.”
Solemn. “W-what. Are we going to do . . .” Wretched. “. . . say to him?”
We opened the door onto the poisoned apple of the world.
Feet moving. Heavy, awful steps.
“Don't . . .
. . . know.”
v i .
T H E F I N A L E X A M.
Art 127 ( Introduction to Graphic Design) ,
Winter Sorbeck, instr.
For which we are required to combine each of the assignments of the spring semester in order to fashion from them a pleasing whole.
Too tired to sleep, to care, to fear. Let him do his worst. Beat me to death and save me the trouble. I mounted the stairwell in the Baxter building—might as well have been scaling Luxor. Opened the door to the hallway, leading to my . . . tomb.
I was just going to calmly explain what happened. I'd just say I've . . . failed. I've only, ever, failed.
“I think you should go in.”
At the other end, sitting on the bench, in her Fruit Salad Surgery dress, swinging her legs. Her face a Cheshire grin. I . . . reached out to her.
“Hims, it's so great to, I'm . . . sorry.”
Gone. Into the air. But she was right. I walked towards where she was sitting. Nothing.
Then I went for the door.
“You can't, it's only a quarter after.” Maybelle plodded, delirious, ten paces back. Over on the other bench, actually there: Mike and the others, projects in hand. Waiting. No Himillsy, real or imagined.
“What's he gonna do, throw me out?” I muttered. “Too late for that.”
I pushed through, into the room.
No Winter either. Not here yet. Hah.
Just a manila envelope taped to the wall. A note on it—typed on A&A letterhead.
Made my way up. Could barely see:
Kiddies:
It would appear The Cookie Cutters didn't take too kindly to my little installation at the Dog and Pony Show. (Philistines!) As a result, it seems my services here are no longer required. I would have seen out the term, but the June job market looms, and I wanted to get the jump on all of you. I've left your grading slips here, presigned by yours truly, as a small consolation prize. You are welcome to fill them out as you see fit and submit them for processing. I urge you to be fair.
—W.S.
No. No.
Yes.
I went back to the hallway. “Come on in. Won't believe it.”
• • •
David David read it next. “That's too bad. He had potential.” He laid the paper on the table and looked for his grading slip. “And he owed me thirty bucks . . .”
Maybelle, who had every right to make the sound of one hand clapping, took in the letter and mumbled “No. He . . . they . . . can't do this.” Crushed. “It's not fair.”
“What? Where is he?” Mike's turn. “When's he coming?” He read it again.
“Well, so much for that,” said David David. “Later.” He stooped to gather his things from the table.
“No. No one's going anywhere.” Mike closed the door. Locked it. Faced us. “We have to grade each other. He said. That's how it works . . . ”
So much for my impression that Crenck escaped the dementia of sleep deprivation. He crouched like a skinny ogre guarding a bridge and held his X-Acto blade dagger style.
“Mike,” I wheezed, “there's no need for—”
“SHUT UP!”
Never seen him like this—breathing crazily.
“Do MINE!” He lifted his project, all four pieces, with one hand—his tray of labor. His rectangular soul. “TELL ME!”
Thick silence.
“I,” I started, then the tears—they just . . . grew out of me . . . vines trailing down my cheeks and neck and below because . . . I was on the side of the road again, in the middle of nowhere, only this time no message . . . on any piece of paper, no matter what it said, or what it looked like, could ever, ever save me. Winter . . . Hims. You're really gone, aren't you?
And it was all a joke.
God had withdrawn from His creation. A day early.
“Say,” said David David, nodding to someone he could see down the hall. “Look, there he is, after all. It's Winter.”
I bolted up.
Mike spun like a top. “Where?”
DD hauled off and gave him a good pasting, square across the jaw. Who'd have thought he had it in him? Mike was sprawled on the floor, a hole in his back where the key used to be.
I got to my feet and howled, stepping in front of Crenck's crumpled form. “Hey hey HEY! Don't hurt him!” The minibreakdown had jumpstarted my batteries. Things regained at least a quasi-clarity they hadn't in days. “He hasn't slept for a week, he doesn't even know his own name . . . for Chrissakes.”
A knock at the door. In the window: Not Winter, but a guy dressed as a mailman from central casting. God had sent Mercury's flunky. I reached over and unlocked it.
“UPS delivery. Can somebody sign?” He was ready to relieve himself of a considerable burden. I looked at his nametag: PHIL.
Fill. Filled out. “I will, Phil.” Did.
Then, a jangling sound. My imagination? No, in the hallway—the pay phone was ringing. I . . . needed to get that. I knew I did. Maybe it was Him. God checking in on his package to Earth.
“Mike,” I said slowly, stepping carefully over his crumpled form, “it's the phone. I think . . . I should answer the phone. Right?” He hugged his head and rolled onto his side, sobbing. I went into the hall and picked up the receiver. “Hell—”
“Did it GET there?” Through static: part desperate plea, part belly laugh, part horror shriek.
It was really her. Christ, what had I done to her? “Himillsy!!” I practically jumped through the mouthpiece. “Where are you? I'm sor —”
“Is it THERE?”
I could see Phil through the doorway. He carefully put a good-sized box on the table in the center—she'd sent it? Of course. “Yes, it's here. Wh—”
“Is he there?”
Phil took a slip of paper from his shirt pocket, studied it a moment, put it back, and slit the box open.
She didn't mean Phil. “Yes,” I lied. Why was I lying, why did I care? Because it was her, it was really her. And she wanted him here.
And so did I.
“He's here, yes, Winter's here, he—”
“I want him to LOOK AT IT.” Phil huffed and lifted it out and set it next to the box as gingerly as he could. It must have weighed a ton. “IS HE LOOKING at it?!!” She was slipping into someone else—a dissolving acid negative of whoever I thought she was. I could feel her evaporating, with each word.
Oh Jesus—Hims, I'll help you out of this, I swear—I just have to keep you on the line, and find out where you are—“Yes, he's looking at it. In, in fact, he's smiling.” Please. Please don't. I can't let you go again. I'll make it up to you. “Where are you? I'll come get y—”
“HaHAH!! Look! It's my final.”
In front of Phil was a large glass bowl—two, maybe three feet in diameter. Filled with water and . . . I could
just make it out—a tiny, opalescent fish, which zagged and zigged in an iridescent vortex, terrified.
Phil made himself scarce. Everyone descended on it, crowding to get a look. Did they see what I saw? Did they see that she'd aced it, in this single elegant gesture?
From the first crit:
The bowl, relative to the fish, is Kimbrobdagian.
From the second:
The fish has no arms.
From the third:
It can't park anywhere.
And the fourth:
Looks just like a bullet.
Did they want what I wanted?
Did they want to understand, to unlock it? To decode it? To glean, to touch, to learn, to get something, to proceed, to get somewhere, to graduate, to work, to thrive; to someday, sometime, finally earn the luxury, the permission to . . . stop, to stop all of this, to relax, and forget?
“Are YOU looking at it?” Voice ghostly now.
“Yes, I am. It's . . . brilliant, it is.” What does she want to hear? “It's just genius. Now will you PLEASE tell me where you ARE-”
“You IDIOT.” She spent the last of herself. A cinder, a falling firework, “You don't GET IT. I'm in the BOWL! Where I've ALWAYS BEEN!!”
It was as if she'd put the receiver on a table and was backing away from it, screaming but fainter. She'd never retreated from anything, not her.
“What?! Himillsy, I can't see you!” Oh God, I can't see you.
“There! That's MMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEE-”
Click.
“I want you to design a moment in time. What does that mean? That's what you will show me. At some point this semester (pick a point, any point), you will take something you have made and use it to claim a moment for yourself-yours and only yours-in front of the class. It could be a word, a picture, a poster, a combination of these, hell . . . maybe even a book-you get the idea.
”At least you'd better. Like it or not, you'll be doing it the rest of your life. Might as well put some thought into it.
“And you will be graded.
”Ready?
“Go.”
Table of Contents
Copyright
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Epigraph
P R E L U D E
FA L L S E M E S T E R,1 9 5 7
i. REGISTRATION
ii. ART 101: INTRODUCTION TO DRAWING.
iii. ART 101: INTRODUCTION TO DRAWING. (cont'd)
iv. WINTER BREAK
SP R I N G S E M E S T E R, 1 9 5 8
i. ART 127: INTRODUCTION TO COMMERCIAL ART.
ii. THE FIRST CRITIQUE.
iii. THE SECOND CRITIQUE.
iv. THE THIRD CRITIQUE.
v. THE FOURTH CRITIQUE.
vi. THE FINAL EXAM.