The alarm went off in the closet, rousing me to consciousness with one mighty skullbuster of a headache.

BLAAAT BLAAAT BLAAAAT

over and over geeez knock it off already....

With the alarm off I arose, pulled on the light and put on my robe. I grabbed my toothbrush, toothpaste, and shampoo, put on my bunny slippers and shuffled out into the hallway. As usual, I had to scrinch my eyes half closed because of the contrast in lighting- going from the pitch black closet into an extremely well lit drawing room, where students are rapidly scraping their charcoal on giant pads of paper, while another student, sans clothes, changes positions on a dias every minute or two.

The professor glances up and says "Good morning Art." I grumble a positive reply and wave to a some acquaintances in the class, as I make my way to the bathroom. The hangover had possession of my skull and was not going to let go for a while. Too many Shits Tallboys. Uff da. I washed my hair in the sink, brushed my teeth, took a glorious dump, and went back to the closet to dress.

I pondered what would be best to go to court in? I know- the clothes I was wearing the day of the arrest. HA! That'll be perfect. As I dressed I started making up the emotional space to come off as some complete, but innocent, IDIOT.

On my way down the stairs, a student of vague acquaintance informs me that the dean wants to know why my head is not on a pike in his office, and I should go out the back way. I thank him for the information and follow his advice.

I then walk down to the courthouse, the very same courthouse where Eileen had met so much trouble. A courthouse later fictionally featured in Buckaroo Bonzai. A grat grey slab of a building. After stopping at a vending machine for some coffee, I went to the appropriate courtroom.

Judge Death or whatever his name was presided. First case:

"Sadie Tompkins- you have been charged with DUI, how do you plead?"

"Not guilty"

"Fine. released on own recog- show up at superior court on.... the 23rd of next month for your execution. Got that?"

"Yes, yeronner"

"Good- bailiff- give her these papers and get her out of here. NEXT????"

"Your honour, the state calls Gary Townsend. Please approach the bench."

"Hmmm. OK Mr Townsend- you've been charged with assualt and battery on your wife here."

Mrs Townsend was there all right- sporting an eye that was nearly swollen shut, a number of cuts and bruises and a broken arm, and her large Afro hair cut was wrapped in a brightly coloured scarf. she interjected,

"Damn STRAIGHT! He pounded me bad- I never want to see his black ass again! Send him to hell!"

Mr Townsend said "I didn't mean ta hit her, she jus' won't fuckin listen ta me!"

"Fuck you Gary! You gots NO business poundin' me like that you jackass!"

Judge Death was not interested in hearing this.

"So I gather, Mrs Townsend that you do desire to press charges?"

"You betcha!"

"OK, send Muhammed Ali here back to his cell, This will be heard in Superior Court next Wednesday at 11. Bailiff give her the documents, and get these people outa here."

Mr Townsend was led off in shackles to his jail cell screaming about how much he really loves Louise, but she can be sucha bitch, etc. and so on, And Louise Townsend loudly complained to her friends and relatives about "Who's gonna watch the kidz" and various other imperatives.

My name was called and I approached the bench. I noticed that the floor was covered in green and white tiles, heavily scuffed, and some of the tiles were missing corners, revealing the black glue and wood flooring beneath. Either I was very flushed, or the heat in this place was set at 80 degrees. My heart began to beat very quickly. I noticed my headache was gone.

"You have been charged with Criminal Trespass- how do you plead?"

"uuuh, guilty with an explanation?"

"You realise that by pleading guilty, I have to impose a sentence, and that this crime carries a punishment of a $1000 fine and up to a year in prison?"

"Uuuh, no. I didn't know that, but would you like to hear what happened to me?"

"Sure... go ahead."

"Well ya see, remember on Saturday when it was like really really cold? Well, my mom dropped me off at the corner, so I could go get my homework and she'd pick me up later that afternoon, cuz she was going to go shoppin' in the city.

And ya see, there's spozed to be a guard there by 10 AM, but he wasn't there, ya see, and my mom had already driven off, and so like I was really really cold, 'cuz all I was wearin' was this jacket and shirt, which I think the officers can testify to, and you know how cold it was- I was FREEZIN'- and so I went to my friends house, but she wasn't home, and I called a few other people and they weren't home neither, so, I figured I'm gonna die of hypothermia in about an hour if this keeps up, what with the wind and all, and so I climbed up the side of the building, and across an awning and in through a window. Then I found my art work, and started rollin' it up, when the cops came in with guns and stuff. It was very scary.

(at this point the judge was losing interest and was checking his watch, and asked)

"well, what did they say?"

"After 'put yer hands in the air and turn around slow?' "

"Well, yes, after that."

"They asked me how I got in, and so I showed 'em. I thought I was pretty clever, being so cold and this jacket's so thin and stuff. And so they asked me what I was doin' and I told 'em I was rollin' up my homework I needed to take home, and they didn't much like that answer."

"So, is that when they arrested you?"

"Uuuuh, yeah!"

"OK, I see. $25 fine- SUSPENDED! Bailiff, give him his papers and get him outa here- people cluttering my courtroom...."

So the bailiff shoves these pink, green and white papers in my hands, and shoved me out the door into the hallway.

I walked back to the school. The temperature was cool, but tolerable. The air had the odd stiffness of late winter, where odors all smell like cardboard and the ground is hard. I walked through the front door, and the dean was there to greet me.

"Hi, Art."

"Strange concept, isn't it?"

"What?

"High Art."

"Whatever. Give up your keys. I know you made a set. So fork 'em over. You should be thankful I don't throw your ass out of this University."

I gave him the keys.

"Yeah, well I am thankful, thank you very much."

"You're a good student- I looked and you're running a 3.7 average. If you get straight A's in your academics this semester, and next year, you'll have the highest GPA in the school, and one of the highest in the University. You'll be Dean's List, kid. I may be gruff 'n' tuff, but I am fair, and forgiving. I just don't want anyone on the dean's list acting up like this. Looks bad on the School and all. I'm sure you understand. We have high hopes for you, Art."

"So do I- and I hope that I can finish the projects I have started here."

"Whatever. Good. I have an appointment from Campus Security here and I have to talk to them."

"Well, tell them it'll never happen again"

"Right. It won't!" and he jangled the keys at me and smiled and winked, and stiffly strode off to his appointment with the Campus Constabulary.

I went upstairs to my class- another HORRIBLE painting review. ACK!!! I hated painting review classes more than anything.

Mostly because I had no paintings to show- this weekend was taken up with more important matters...

We all sat around and "critiqued" each others work. What a bunch of SHIT! It was just a way for mediocretins to make mewling excuses for their perverse excesses of stupidity on canvas and for the truly talented to stumble around looking for words, while psychotic misanthropes such as myself sit and ridicule the whole experience, drinking ENTIRELY too much coffee.

This week would be no different. We all put our paintings against the wall, like prisoners at an execution. Soon, the professor bumped in and after a few pleasantries, started with "Who would like to go first?"

NO ONE wanted to go first. This week, there were only 4 paintings for review.

On the far left was a small work by a talented fellow- former VietNam Vet. Much Older than the rest of us, he was a very serious sort, and kinda jumpy most of the time. It was basically an impressionistic work, depicting the interior of his room in late afternoon. What a mess- clothes thrown everywhere, bed disheveled, drawers out and oozing socks onto the floor. A disaster of an apartment, and a very well painted painting.

Everyone agreed that it was well painted but some people objected to the subject matter.

"His place is a mess. Why would you paint such a rat hole?"

As usual, his reasoning started "Ever since I got back from Nam...."

It came to my turn. I said "I like it. It's a great portrait of a distraught and frightened mind- scattered and incapable. But I mean that in a good way. Really. The impressionist style, an intimate scale gives it a sense of immediacy. I can almost smell the laundry."

The general look, as usual, was one of deer in the headlights.

NEXT!

The next painting was a splattering mess of a work, filled with poorly drawn figures bent in some kind of anguish.

The instructor said, "So, talk to me about your painting." And the student went on some rambling crap about Nietzsche and Heidegger and existentialism and blah dee blah.

We all gave our opinions. Mine was scathing as usual.

"Looks to me like you're too lame of a painter to have ever learned how to paint hands and feet."

Invective was hurled in my general direction. I didn't care. I beat the rap this morning, I live in a closet, and these little whelps drive to school in cars their mommy's and daddy's bought them, and they have warm rooms with real beds and desks in them.

Except for the Viet Nam dude- he lived in an apartment, and a number of these brats who still lived with their folks.

The next painting was very interesting. It was made out of sheet steel. A classmate and friend, Tina, had made it. She wasn't as good a "painter" as the Viet Nam dude, but she had a great sense of composition, and liked working with different materials. She was also one of the most inarticulate people I knew.

"Well, I uuuuh. Well, I found this steel down by the uuuuhh the river, and uuuh. Well, I liked it, and I figured it would make a good painting. So I painted on it."

That took about a minute and a half to drag out of her. When she wasn't talking about her artwork, she was quite vivacious and you couldn't shut her up for all the money in the world. But get her started on her painting, and it was like she was falling into a psychic black hole.

I liked the painting and said so, for all the reasons Tina enumerated. It's a nice piece of steel and it looks good all painted up the way she did it.

(The previous year, I had a bit of a crush on her, and we spent some time kissing after a party, but it never went anywhere. We were totally unsuited except as school friends and allies.)

The next painting was SO BAD, I didn't wait my turn- I didn't even let her finish the stupid excuses she offered. NOPE. This one had to die.

It was a 5 foot tall painting, a portrait of the face of.....

DAN FOGELBERG....

ACK!!!

"Well, I really like Dan Fogelberg I think he's SO cute, and I just wanted to make something..."

"SHUT UP" I said. "This is The Single Biggest Piece of CRAP I have seen in years. Dan Fogelberg SUCKS. His music is putrid. And your painting reflects this putrid mediocrity. The handling of the paint is all out of your wrist. There is no commitment, no vitality to your brushwork. You also got his face all crooked, or he's a horribly deformed troll. If you were doing it on purpose, I could find it forgivable, but you didn't even do it well. You suck and you should quit Art School Right Now."

At that point everybody started yelling at me. The professor told me to apologize. Tina rolled her eyes and whined, "Oh, Art, really..." The look on her face was her "Why do you enjoy embarrassing yourself- you make anyone who knows you look like a dork by extension" look. One that I was familiar with, as I had a habit of being embarrassing.

I asked, "What for? Her work totally bites, and it's a horrible painting!" Tina glanced at the painting and curled her lip in silent agreement. The prof said, "Let's all just take a break and come back in 20 minutes."

I walked over to my closet and took a nap. When I woke up, class was over, and it was time for dinner. I called Eileen, and let her know what happened with the keys. Now I'd have to make ANOTHER copy and leave them at her place, but it was better than getting busted, and I'll still want to get together with her to arrange this with her later in the week. She agreed, and I hung up the phone, watching the traffic go by on the dark chilly street outside and below me.

I went to the top floor, stood on a chair and lifted up a ceiling tile at the end of the hallway. Looking into the space above the drop ceiling, I could see a flap of wallpaper. I reached behind it, and grabbed my extra set of keys....

As I scampered down the stairs and out the door to dinner, I laughed and laughed and laughed.