Marty immersed himself immodestly in art, and especially cartooning. He was hooked on visual interpretation of the world. He shuttled the Apollo to different branches of the Marin County Library to check out every cartoon book he could find. With a heat lamp to ward off the moist air, he practiced with pen and ink on his cluttered desk at home, admiring the fluid style of Walt Kelly, who actually painted his cartoon strip Pogo with a brush. He analyzed how artists like Charles Schulz and Johnny Hart distilled characters down to basic lines and shapes, featuring the facial expressions as best as possible in the shrinking space afforded to comic strips in the newspapers. The contemporary strips he enjoyed most were B.C., Peanuts, The Wizard of Id, and Doonsbury, but almost anything appealed to him, and he began to experiment with techniques like washes, textures, and cutout sheets of plastic dots called zip-a-tone. He even practiced his lettering skills to make his cartoons look more professional, but rarely had the patience to do a thorough job.
That was when Marty developed his love of early comic strips. They had more room to draw in the olden days, when cartoonists were lavishly employed by newspapers to build readership. Artists like Winsor McKay and George Herriman enjoyed a freedom of expression that today’s cartoonists couldn’t dream of. The full-page Little Nemo in Slumberland impressed him on so many levels, but the relentlessly surreal and sarcastic Krazy Kat was his favorite. Marty wasn’t the draftsman McKay was, so Herriman’s sketchy, impressionistic style appealed to him more, and influenced his own work. Later artists like Kelley and Al Capp paid more attention to the lettering and balloons, which became an integral part of the composition. Ultimately, the daily newspaper comic strip was Marty’s preferred medium. The Jolly Roger already ran his recurring strip, Nertz, but that stupid rag only came out every two weeks. So he pretended Nertz was a daily feature, and cooked up a new gag every day; even developing an eponymous recurring character. He studied the rhythm of the words, and the visual development of the action in the panels of the masters, and tried to emulate their timing.
He rubbed his hands together briskly in the chill of his room. The heat lamp cut through some of the dampness and dried his ink quickly. It was actually the stainless steel hood for an aquarium, which he had wired from old parts at the pet store. It had the double bonus of being a heater for his hands, and a warmer for his coffee. Working in the dark shadows of the evenings allowed Marty to experiment with different lighting angles to produce shading techniques. Besides, it was usually the only time he had to draw, except in Mr. B’s class. As soon as he got home from work, he’d burn a bowl, put on some great tunes, and explore his fantasy world. He drew very quickly, because he couldn’t wait to see how his cartoons would turn out! As soon as his compositions were finished and dry, he transferred them to storage bags with a flat book on top to keep the paper from curling or growing fungus. In the art room, he had a large cubby on which to store all his work, and sometimes he brought his better drawings to school to keep them safe from the ravages of “Soggynitas.” Unfortunately, all those nights spent drawing detracted from the time he could have spent strengthening legitimate social bonds in high school, and he grew ever more distant and isolated. His personal life was a blank page waiting for a creative impulse.
Marty was excited because his favorite musical artist, Al Stewart, would soon be performing in San Francisco. He greatly enjoyed the musicianship of Al’s band, in addition to his erudite lyrics, which were often based on actual historical events. Looking up some of his references, like Nostradamus, gave him an appreciation for history beyond that which was being crammed into his head at school. That would also be his first time to see a concert with Marge since SNACK Sunday. The tickets were a birthday gift for her, but they had to wait a few weeks for the date. Marty offered to drive her in his truck, but she knew he didn’t allow smoking in the cab (and she wasn’t going to ride in the back like his nicotine addict friends), so they took her Toyota. She graciously smoked only one cigarette on the way to the club, and with the windows down, at that. Aside from her noxious vices, Marty loved his mom dearly, and enjoyed being in her company whenever great art was around. Make no mistake, Al Stewart’s music was art. His new album, Time Passages, followed up on the success of Year of the Cat, which was the song and album that inspired Marty to listen to great songwriters. Marge enjoyed his music too, and was feeling much better after her extended bout with the flu. On the drive over the bridge, they chatted in a familiar way that wasn’t always possible at the pet store.
She teased him about being her ‘date,’ and coyly asked, “Do you have a girlfriend?” Marty’s teenage defensive protocol kicked in immediately.
“Incoming parental inquisition!”
“Thank you Mr. Spock.” Captain Kirk braced himself for impact on the railing of the bridge. “Shields up, Mr. Soto!”
“Um, not really,” Marty mumbled with a notable lack of enthusiasm, hoping that would end the discussion.
“What do you mean, ‘not really’? Do you or don’t you?” she asked sweetly, invoking all her maternal privileges to wrest a definitive answer from her son’s lips, which were trying to hide behind his teeth. Kirk and the rest of the crew threw themselves sideways, pantomiming a violent explosion.
“Um, no… I guess not.” Stay calm. Show no interest. Change the subject. “I wonder if Al will play some of his old songs,” Marty offered tentatively.
She didn’t take the bait. “Are there any girls you like?”
“She can’t take much more, Captain!” Scotty’s brogue reported from the intercom. “Aye, I’ve diverted all the power I can to the shields, but I dinna ken this new weapon! It’s paralyzing the dilithium crystals!!”
Through the fog of embarrassment and space battles that were clouding Marty’s brain, he was surprised to see a flash of Michelle’s face on his mental screen. He slipped, and uttered frankly, “Of course, but I’m too shy to talk to them… I guess.” Damn! That was too much classified information!
“It’s a direct hit, Captain,” offered Dr.McCoy. “We are now truly screwed.”
“Well, you know you can talk to me anytime about it,” Marge offered kindly, and laid a sympathetic hand on her son’s tense shoulder, as if he were a homeless man who needed a couch to sleep on. For Marty, it was extremely uncomfortable to be on the verge of “The Talk” while trapped in the small cab of a Toyota with his mom. It was the first time she had shown any awareness of him having an interest in girls. (Aside from the condoms she gave him once, which were ridiculously impertinent.) He noticed he was gripping the steering wheel as if it was his last defense against alien attack, and he consciously forced himself to relax. Lost in deep thought, he tried to remember the last time she touched him with meaningful affection…
“Are you okay?” Marge asked worriedly, and started looking for a place to pull over on the Golden Gate Bridge, where there was absolutely no place to pull over. Marty sensed his eyes were glistening with moisture. He blinked and suppressed the urge to wipe with his sleeve, and quickly told her he was fine and that they’d be late for the concert because of all this traffic. She mercifully stopped interrogating him after that, but his mind was exhausted and cloudy in a misty, sentimental way.
He parked the Toyota in a lot down the street from the club, but Marge needed a cigarette so he stepped outside to ‘stretch.’ The city was weird and intense, and the harsh buildings crowded in on him. When she finished, they walked arm in arm to the venue, huddled together against the cold. It felt strange but nice to feel his mom’s warmth like a little boy again. Inside, the seating was at club tables, with all the chairs facing the stage against one wall. They found pretty good seats off to the side and waited for the show to start. There was no smoking allowed in the club but folks usually got their nicotine fix in the bathrooms anyway (among other things). When Marge left to ‘go pee,’ Marty checked out the crowd. It was mostly older white couples of mixed gender pairings, with a few young city hipsters and bohemians mixed in. He could smell someone boasting a doobie, which made him feel right at home.
Marge came back reeking of cigarettes, and the lights dimmed. What followed was the best concert Marty had ever seen! Familiar songs impeccably performed with great musicianship, lots of innovation, and extended solos that weren’t on the albums. Al embellished most of the songs with a witty narrative, showing great pleasure in his craft; and it was contagious. It was his first time to attend a concert where smiling people sat politely through the songs, applauded enthusiastically without screaming, and didn’t throw up or pass out. It was inspiring, like a visit to a museum, instead of the sonic riots he was used to.
On the way home, emboldened by their terrific evening together, he pried into her affairs, “So do you have someone you like?” She winced, and Marty regretted bringing up the subject so soon after Jimbo’s latest departure.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she silenced him through pursed lips, lighting up a cigarette and rolling down the window – just a crack this time. He watched the traffic lights reflecting off her glasses, to see if she would change her mind, but their intimate little ‘talk’ was stillborn before it took its first breath. Marge could douse a conversation faster than a bucket of water on a campfire. Hiss!
With such busy days and nights, Marty wasn’t sure where he found the time to read, but he couldn’t stop! He always had several bookmarked volumes in his school briefcase (a geekish contraption he stubbornly refused to give up because it was so doggone different). He belonged to the Science Fiction Book Club, and received many random novels in the mail, which he could refuse and return unopened. But those publishers knew their curious readers too well! He couldn’t resist opening the box to read a few pages and see if he liked it. He usually did, and discovered great new writers like Henry Niven, Harlan Ellison, and Philip K. Dick, the latter of whom lived locally and wrote about the Bay Area in the future, which was kind of cool. He read all of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, and Frank Herbert’s Dune series, and anything by Arthur C. Clarke. Sometimes, when he got tired of cartoons, he drew scenes of interstellar ships and space battles. He even ordered the Star Trek geek bible, which was a complete “owner’s manual” for the U.S.S. Enterprise, including specs and diagrams!
But art class was the center of Marty’s universe. Even though it lasted just 50 minutes, it was a time to recharge his batteries, and open up his soul in an incredible outpouring of creativity. There was an energy in Mr. B’s class that he rarely experienced anywhere else – except in nature – where he felt connected to the universe… possibly as a co-creator! It was much easier for him to talk to girls there, as long as he didn’t actually have romantic delusions about them. It was still difficult to talk to Alicia, for example, whom he saw nearly every day as a living symbol of his inability to inspire any attraction from the opposite sex. Kim and Lisa were fun to joke around with, but they both had steady relationships, which made the boundaries quite clear.
There was also a pretty new sophomore in class who acted very shy, and her name was Dawn. The lack of social skills on both of their parts made it very difficult to communicate. “That looks nice,” Marty offered bravely one time, looking at her drawing over her shoulder after he just happened to be passing by.
“Thanks,” she replied in a manner that somehow conveyed, “Go away.”
Marty had already run out of things to say that didn’t sound stupid, and didn’t want to reveal the extent of his infatuation by gushing that he thought her hair smelled nice. So he said nothing, and left with a sense of firm dismissal. That was about the extent of their social interaction, but he pined over Dawn for weeks.
She was kind of a geek too, he realized one day, as they were comparing their favorite Sci Fi movies. She preferred cerebral films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, or The Andromeda Strain, while Marty predictably leaned towards the cartoonish space westerns, like Star Wars and Planet of the Apes. Val was a lot of fun, and gave him a chance to practice actually having a conversation with a pretty girl. His newfound confidence encouraged him to speak a few complete sentences to Dawn; enough to be told (rather curtly) that she was going steady already. It always irritated Marty that some girls hid behind their boyfriends like shields, as if they could no longer engage in meaningful discourse with any other male. In actuality, during his flirtatious moments with women, he projected the amorous desperation of a gooney bird, which probably triggered those shields!
Marty’s thoughts were definitely too big for small talk.