"The Hat Trick"
We were drinking coffee when the naked man arrived. His bare ass flashed as he ran down the hall. A minute later he came back with a large can of paint. Naturally, we worried. We chewed our lower lips.
This naked man had a metal box, which he set on the floor and opened. He picked out the thickest bristled brush, dipped it in the paint can, and began to paint his torso. "Hey now," we said. Baby blue drops spattered all over as the naked man worked in vertical strokes from neck to midriff, over his shoulders and under his underarms. "There," he said when he finished. "The shirt."
The naked man went down the hall again, his butt wobbling beneath blue shirt flaps. He came back with a can of green paint. With one of the thinner brushes he made straight lines along his legs. "The pants!" he cried.
We tried to keep from yelling when the naked man ran out again. He returned with some smaller paint cans. With regular acrylic he brushed on brown shoes; he used a needlepoint brush to create tan laces, threading them into painted-on eyelets. He dunked a brush in screaming red, then slathered on a jacket. He daubed on a hat, scarf, gloves, and a long, woolen overcoat which he painted up button by button.
Beneath the black fabric, his colors were still there, but hidden, and beating like a heart. A finished picture, the naked man stood in the doorway and waved. We waved back as he vanished in the landscape.
Interesting people of my species.
And how.
Indeed.
Not so much.
Natch.
Franz Kafka. Buster Keaton. David Byrne. James Tate. Donald Barthelme. Lydia Davis. Joseph Cornell. The Beatles. Frank O'Hara. Gertrude Stein. Tom Friedman. Miles Davis. Kenneth Koch. George Saunders. Max Ernst. The Marx Brothers. Brian Eno. Dean Young. Marcel Duchamp. Russell Edson. My brother. John Ashbery. Vincent Van Gogh. James Brown. Dr. Seuss.