In my youth, art was foreign to me, a different language spoken by beautiful souls, put out there on canvass, the stage or screen, with clay or other materials, books, and songs. It was all hard to comprehend. Would I ever be a writer? an artist? No, I often thought. Too much discipline, too many hours of labor. And when you’re young, what does anyone know of discipline and hard work. Humans are soft and squishy like a run over apples in the road on a fall day; nothing solid. Nothing coherent. Just mush.

It wasn’t until I left home and started examining the world around me and writing it down on paper with pencil that I even began the process of being a writer. And those early notebooks were filled with terrible short stories and poems, writing, if I even dare call it that, which was dark and brooding. This is what I thought good writing was. What the hell did I know?

But these hours spent around Chicago writing down these self-indulgent thoughts and scenes from around town at least got me on the path of what it takes to be an artist. I was beginning to gain discipline in my art. If I saw it, thought it, hummed it, encountered it, believed in it, I wrote it down.

This is my task, I said to Cleo. My pencil is my cello. And with it, I shall make music that brings one to tears or great joy. But never to be pitied. I will never pity myself on the page, I told her. That would be inexcusable and just simply bad art. And God knows there’s enough of that around.

David, she said. You are a creature of streets. A vagabond. Don’t ever forget that, she told me. Now, even though there’s a roof over your head and food in your belly, you are still cold and hungry. She laughed. Saying I was an idealist. Nothing more than an idealist who one day might be an artist. But, for now, nothing more than a dreamer.

I wanted to take that cello and stick it right up her ass and pluck those strings as hard as possible with hand and bow. Teach her a lesson her father never taught her. Give her something no lover nor teacher ever had; a lesson in humility.

The problem with Cleo was that life came too easy for her. She was intelligent and beautiful, which are two things needed in America to succeed. God had definitely blessed this child. But, had he really? Remember, the meek shall inherit the earth.

Throughout my life, I’ve always hated the rich and beautiful. Perhaps it was jealousy. Maybe it was the fact that most are assholes, non caring individuals who were out to get theirs and damned be the rest of us. Does that sound of self-pity? Perhaps on the verge of it, but it’s just the way things are in this land. In fact, I think it’s in the Constitution. It sure seems that way. And who am I to argue with that.

All that hate towards rich, beautiful people. And here I was fucking one of them. But, that cello. That music. It drowned me. She drowned me. Submerging me the whole time. Telling me to be myself yet trying to change me into what she wanted. Not only was she a cello player, Cleo was also a sculptor of men. And, there were plenty of busts around her apartment she had shaped and formed to her standards.

Just hang on, David. I told myself. Hold on and enjoy the ride, but don’t lose your soul.