The One and Only Ivan

He walks away with my painting. Ruby’s painting. For a moment, I imagine what it would feel like to be the sheriff.

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“Good news, huh?” Bob says when Mack’s out of earshot. “Looks like you might be getting some more supplies.”

“I don’t want to paint for Mack,” I say. “I’m painting for Ruby.”

“You can do both,” Bob says. “You’re an artist, after all.”

While I watch the movie, I try to come up with a new hiding place for my paintings. Maybe, I think, I could fold them, once they’re dry, and stuff them into Not-Tag.

It’s a long movie. At the end, the sheriff marries the woman who owns the saloon, which is a watering hole for humans but not horses.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Western that was also a romance.

“I liked that movie,” I say to Bob.

“Too many horses, not enough dogs,” he comments.

An ad comes on.

I don’t understand ads. They’re not like Westerns, where you know who the bad guy is supposed to be. And they’re hardly ever romantic, unless the man and the woman are brushing their teeth before they face lick.

I watch an ad for underarm deodorant. “How do you know who’s who if they don’t smell?” I ask Bob.

“Humans reek,” Bob replies. “They just don’t notice because they have incompetent noses.”

Another ad comes on. I see children and their parents buying tickets, just like the tickets Mack sells. They laugh, enjoying their ice cream cones as they walk down a path.

They pause to watch two sleepy-eyed cats, huge and striped, dozing in long grass.

Tigers. I know, because I saw them on a nature show once.

Words flash on the screen, accompanied by a drawing of a red giraffe. The giraffe vanishes, and I see a human family staring at another kind of family. Elephants, old and young. They’re surrounded by rocks and trees and grass and room to wander.

It’s a wild cage. A zoo. I see where it begins, and where it ends, the wall that says you are this and we are that and that is how it will always be.

It’s not a perfect place. Even in just a few fleeting seconds on my TV screen, I can see that. A perfect place would not need walls.

But it’s the place I need.

I gaze at the elephants, and then I look over at Ruby, small and alone.

Before the ad ends, I try to remember every last detail. Rocks, trees, tails, trunks.

It’s the picture I need to paint.

imagining

It’s different now, when I paint.

I’m not painting what I see in front of me. A banana. An apple. I’m painting what I see in my head. Things that don’t exist.

At least, not yet.

not-tag

I pull out Not-Tag’s stuffing. Carefully I fill her with my paintings, hiding them so Mack won’t sell them. She’s large, bigger than Bob, but I still have to crumple a few of them.

Bob tries to settle on her for a nap. “You’ve killed her,” he complains.

“I had to,” I say.

“I miss your stomach,” Bob admits. “It’s so … spacious.”

When Julia arrives, she notices that I’ve used up my paints and paper. “Wow.” Julia shakes her head. “You are one serious artist, Ivan.”

one more thing

My finger painting has sold for forty dollars (with frame). Mack is happy. He brings me a huge pile of paper and big buckets of paint.

“Get to work,” he says.

I paint for Mack during the day, and for Ruby at night.

I nap when I can.

But my nighttime picture isn’t quite right. It’s big, that’s for sure. When I place all the pieces on the floor of my cage side by side, the cement is almost completely covered.

But something is still missing.

Bob says I’m crazy. “There’s Ruby,” he says, pointing with his nose. “There’s the zoo. There are other elephants. What’s wrong with it?”

“It needs one more thing,” I say.

Bob groans. “You’re being a temperamental artist. What could be missing?”

I stare at the huge expanse of colors and shapes. I don’t know how to explain to Bob that it isn’t done yet.

“I’ll just have to wait,” I say at last. “Something will come to me, and then I’ll know my painting is finally ready.”

the seven-o’clock show

During the last show of the day, Ruby seems tired. When she stumbles, Mack reaches for the claw-stick.

I tense, waiting for her to strike back.

Ruby doesn’t even flinch. She just keeps plodding along, and after a while, Snickers jumps onto her back.

twelve

I lie in my cage, with Bob on my stomach. We are watching Julia do her homework.

She doesn’t seem to be enjoying it. I can tell because she is sighing more than usual.

Again, for the hundredth time, or maybe the thousandth, I wonder what is missing from my painting.

And for the hundredth time, or maybe the thousandth, I don’t have any answer.

“Dad,” Julia says as George passes by with a mop, “can I ask you a question?”

“May I,” George corrects. “Ask away.”

Julia glances down at a piece of paper. “What’s the difference between the word spelled P-R-I-N-C-I-P-A-L and the one spelled P-R-I-N-C-I-P-L-E?”

“The first one is the head of a school, like Ms. Garcia. The second one is a belief that helps you know what’s right or wrong.” He smiles. “For example, it’s against my principles to do my daughter’s homework for her.”