Wake The Stone Man by Carol McDougall Read Free Book Online Page B

going and at the top stepped onto a flat gravel roof and walked toward the door of the wooden building. I figured it would be locked but it wasn’t. Inside was a long room about six times the length of our house. There were windows all along one side — the side that looked out to the Kam. There was a lot of crap on the floor — pieces of wood, broken furniture, some weird electrical stuff — but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Along the front of the room under the windows was a long workbench. I cleared some of it off, pushing all the stuff into a metal garbage can. I found a stool upside down under some wood and pulled it out, dusted it off and pulled it up to the workbench. Not bad. Not bad at all.
    After a bit I climbed back down and bummed a Cameo menthol off Anna.
    â€œSo?” she asked.
    â€œSo what?”
    â€œWhat’s it like up there?”
    â€œGreat. I’m moving in.”
    â€œOh yeah. Penthouse apartment.”
    â€œYeah. Gonna help me move in?” I asked.
    â€œFunny.”
    â€œNo, seriously.”
    We headed back to my place, bopping over three sets of tracks, and I loaded a cardboard box of paint, brushes and canvases onto Anna’s lap.
    â€œYou’re better than a little red wagon.”
    â€œYou owe me big for this. This shit is heavy you know.”
    We had more trouble getting back across the tracks this time. Might have had something to do with the Old Sailor’s. It took about four trips up the ladder to move my stuff in. There were still things I needed but I figured if I brought a bit each day I’d soon have the place set up nice.
    I spent most of that fall in my studio. Anna’s mom worked in a print shop and she made business cards for me:
    Molly Bell, Artist
    Sask Pool 7 Studio
    After school and on the weekends I’d head over to Sask Pool 7. I brought a few things every day and after about a month I had it set up the way I wanted it. Took an old rag and cleaned the windows and when I was done the light in the room was amazing. I set up an easel in the corner and put my paints and brushes on the workbench. Along the workbench I laid out the photos I had taken the year before. I was working on the one I’d taken of Nakina sitting in the restaurant. I had a few bad starts and was getting frustrated. I couldn’t get her head right, the way she was leaning forward with her face in profile.
    I thought about the day I took the photos — back when Nakina and I hung out all the time and fought like sisters. I missed her. I wanted to show her my studio. I wanted to talk to her and find out what she was thinking the day I took that photo. Why did she look so serious? Was she angry? Angry with me for taking the photos?
    Was she angry with me now? Is that why she drifted away? I kept painting but couldn’t get her face right and I was getting pissed off with myself for being such a shitty painter. Finally I gave up and sat down staring at the photo. She seemed so far away.
    Some days I’d stop painting and look down the Kam River out onto Lake Superior, out to the Stone Man. I could see boats, mostly small boats — not many grain boats anymore. I could see deer out on Mission Island and sometimes, when bigger boats came down the river, I got to see the swing bridge lift to let them through. When I climbed down the ladder at night the sun was setting and the light turned the granite cliffs of the mountains to gold.
    I loved my studio. When I was painting I lost all track of time and the more I worked the more I realized how much I had to learn. I began to think seriously about going to art school. I’d been reading information about the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design — sculpture, ceramics, painting, art history. It all sounded good.
    By November it was getting too cold to work without heat so I had to shut down Sask Pool 7. I wrapped my canvases up in heavy black plastic and tied rope around