Chet called Bobby Ray for a counseling session the next morning. Since it was a day early, Bobby Ray figured Chet knew about his attempted escape. He sat, wondering how many days he’d be mucking out stalls this time.
Chet took the seat behind his desk. “Glad you changed your mind last night.” He leaned back. “Care to talk about what made you want to run?”
Bobby Ray stared, stone-faced, at nothing.
“Silence is your standard modus operandi, isn’t it, Mr. Dean? Okay. This time we’ll just sit here until you start talking.”
Minutes passed. Chet Masterson looked as relaxed as he had when they entered the office. Bobby Ray grew edgier. He’d always been the one to use silence as a weapon. Sit long enough and the other person always said something, usually enough for Bobby Ray to use against them. Chet didn’t look bothered.
After fifteen minutes of silence, Bobby Ray shifted in his chair. He snarled a couple of words and got up.
“Sit down.” Chet Masterson spoke quietly, but with steely calm. “We have an hour.”
At least there was an end in sight. Thirty minutes had Bobby Ray’s nerves in knots. Maybe he didn’t have the guts to run, but he knew how to get kicked out. All he had to do was find a can of spray paint. He let his mind focus on what he’d put on a wall. After the full hour had passed, his blood had cooled to a steady simmer.
Chet looked grim. “Impressive.” His smile held sadness, not respect. “You can go, Mr. Dean.”
That evening, he spotted a black marker in the dry-erase board tray and felt a rush of adrenaline. Slipping it surreptitiously into his pocket while the others lounged and watched a baseball game, he headed for his bedroom. He could hear the guys cheering over a hit.
“Hey! Why don’t you join us?” José stopped just inside the door. He uttered a four-letter word and stood staring. He went out again, closing the door behind him.
Bobby Ray felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach; then the rush returned, dimming the pain, focusing the anger. Tense, he kept working.
He heard the murmur of voices from the living room as the nightly meeting started without him. No one would miss him when he was gone. After a while, he heard the television again. The door stayed closed.
The marker ran out of ink before he finished, but he figured he’d done enough. He tossed the empty marker into the wastebasket and sat on the floor at the end of his bed. He wished he had a couple more pens so he could finish what he’d started, but it didn’t matter. He had done enough to get kicked off the ranch.
Someone rapped on the door and opened it. Bobby Ray saw Chet Masterson’s scuffed brown boots. Here it comes. Time to go. It’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?
The fear came up from deep inside him, gripping him by the throat. Where do I go now? Where am I going to end up this time?
“You’re finally talking, Bobby Ray.” Chet Masterson stood calmly studying the wall. “Looks like you have a lot to say.”
Jasper Hawley looked at what Bobby Ray had drawn. The next day, he came back with a box of books and dropped it on the table in front of Bobby Ray. “We’re adding art to your curriculum.”
“You expect me to read all these?” After glancing at the first, Bobby Ray itched to see what else was in the box.
“You’ve got time.” He took books out one by one: art history, the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Francisco Goya, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Hieronymus Bosch, Emil Nolde. Intrigued, Bobby Ray opened the last one. Hawley took it back. “Not now. First things first. Math, Latin, and social studies.” He spread his hands flat on the pile of art books. “These are incentive to buckle down. As soon as you finish your assignments, they’re all yours.”
Bobby Ray finished his class work in a couple of hours. He had to be reminded to do chores, but did them quickly. He spent hours looking at John Singer Sargent’s watercolors of Venice and paintings by John William Waterhouse, transported to other places and times. He loved the sharp, bright colors of Van Gogh, the mask faces of Nolde, the starkness of Picasso.
When Hawley gave him pens and sketchbooks, Bobby Ray filled them. Hawley brought a book on twentieth-century muralists. Bobby Ray did more drawings.
Susan peered over his shoulder one afternoon. “Can I take a look?” She grabbed his sketchbook before he had time to answer. She turned the pages. “Ohhh, I like this one.” She put the sketchbook in front of him. “Do you want to paint a wall?”
Was she kidding? She looked serious, even excited.