The Cerebral Catalyst

Plue Velvet

by P. S. Ehrlich

There is nothing mushmouthed about Vashti Rodilard. She simply brusks everything she utters, abbreviating what she didn't minimalize. Vashti was an army nurse in Vietnam, followed by a stint working at the state mental hospital. Her past decade in the retail art supply business she treats as more of the same.

"Moneys Lucky twansyoo."

I'd heard a lot of terse snippets over the years about her niece LaQuita, but was surprised she wanted to see me. Much less pose for me. For that I could thank the Mawulisa Exhibit, a major collection of West African sculpture. I went to see this myself and was deeply impressed by the bronze and ivory statuettes, stylized and naturalistic heads, and especially the bas-reliefs from Benin. Came away wanting to try my hand at something comparable, with exotic woods—not just ebony but iroko, wenge, zebrawood, African mahogany.

LaQuita Gibson came away wanting to be memorialized for the ages. Hearing from Vashti that I dabbled in sculpture, she called on me at Green Creek Lane: a tall handsome girl of twenty or so, very angular and very dark.

"That's because we Gibsons are pure, see? Not like those Tortys—they got every color of the rainbow in their family tree, even Korean!"

GASP and (giggle) from LaQuita's fifteen-year-old cousin/handmaiden/chaperone/ chauffeur-with-a-learner's-permit.

My first image of Pluanne Torty was a chocolate Easter bunny with the ears bitten off—or folded back into thick braids. She was shorter, lighter, and cuddly-plumper than LaQuita, with flawless straight teeth that her lips never closed over, and saucer-like eyes behind glasses the size of lima beans. I later learned that her first name was distilled from her grandmothers Pearlie and Louella and her mother Annette. LaQuita usually called her Plue—in two syllables, "like gooey chop suey"—as she GASPed and (giggled), or went "KEEE-ta!" and (giggled), at most everything her older cousin said. For instance:

"You ever meet that mother of Plue, best watch out. She's half Creole and half Haitian, and all mean as a snake!"

"Just don't let her near any chicken bones, I say. 'Mambo Annie,' they call her." According to LaQuita, Pluanne's mother had gone so far as to devise a devil-doll of their great-grandfather Rodilard so she could reanimate his corpse and put it to work mowing the lawn.

I told them that the pieces I carved were not guaranteed to work as talismans, amulets, or juju fetishes.

"Now see what you've got him thinking," chided Pluanne. With a belated (giggle).

See what LaQuita had me thinking a few minutes later. I invited her to assume any pose that made her feel comfortable. She assumed one that involved slinging most of her clothes over Pluanne's arms, and left LaQuita looking very dark but not nearly so angular.

"Sorry I got to keep my drawers on," she said, meaning a thong even scantier than Miranda's. "Ahhnt Vashti'd kill me dead otherwise. Don't know what she'd do to you."

"How's this?" LaQuita asked, arranging her thonged self on the model's stool. Adding "Mind if I take it?" as her cellphone tweeted.

Colorful lady. Took me back to Life Drawing class and the unabashed Cheshire Mack, a jewelry major who modeled on the side (and the back, and the front). I hadn't encountered her particular skin tone to such a living extent before, and since I'd just switched my sights from clay to wood, the effect was that much more mind-blowing. She was like a dryad indeed, a walnut sapling made womanflesh; I damn near went broke hiring Cheshire for extra sessions. But from them I carved some of my first passable figurines, the best of which she accepted in lieu of cash payment. (Charitable lady.)

Nearly two decades passed before I could find another dryad. Now here was LaQuita, ready and willing and talking incessantly to her cellphone, to Pluanne, to me:

"So does being an artist make you a 'mo, or do you like girls? Ever been with a black chick? True what they say, you know—do it with one and" [double snaps] "never go back! 'Cause the sistahs got back, even li'l Plue there—"

"—course she wouldn't take so much as her shoes off in front of a man, which is a shame 'cause under that big ol' skirt she's got hid the most boDAcious li'l booty—"

Plue proved instead that she could blush as deeply and sweetly as any Caucasian girl. Cheeks, ears, brow, throat—all took on an unmistakable raspberry hue.

But only on her own behalf. No sign of embarrassment at her cousin's near-nudity. LaQuita, I knew, had a well-earned reputation as the family wild child; so her kinfolk may simply have grown used to her baring body and soul to hither and yon.

As for me, I gave up hoping for quietude and started to sketch LaQuita on the fly. Pluanne found this fascinating but got distracted by a glimpse of my derelict Commodore PC. "This is even older than the ones we have at school!" she exclaimed.

LaQuita interrupted a cell call to tell me I should have Plue "check under the hood, she's real good with computers and stuff." I gave her a screwdriver, told her she had free rein to work miracles, and barely got back to my sketch before Plue announced the Commodore was reanimated. "Loose cable inside, that's all. But you really ought to buy a whole new desktop."

"Oh I could help you with that! I know exactly the one I'd get if I had the money!"

I told her I'd think about it and let the matter slip my mind till the cousins returned for their next session. Plue scurried up wanting to hear if I'd thought about it 'cause she sure had, and did I know there was a sale going on at Circuit City?

"Girl, let the man concentrate on designing my statue!" scolded LaQuita. "He can buy you a computer any old time!"

Dubious cough from me. But within the week I discovered myself and a hyper Pluanne returning from the mall with a bubblejet printer, flatbed scanner, and Windows 95 Pentium Pro. All of which Plue insisted were essential to my standing and future as a professional artist. All of which she had out of their cartons, hooked up and functioning in the time it took me to hang my coat in the closet. And all of which she asked permission to do her homework on whenever I was busy sketching LaQuita.

Who could resist big brown saucer eyes behind lima-bean-sized lenses? Not me, anyway. Even though LaQuita and Vashti agreed that now I'd done it—might as well rent Plue a corner of my studio, since she was never going to be pried away from that new computer now. "Just five more minutes, Keee-ta!" became her battle cry at the close of every modeling session.

Which probably accelerated LaQuita's disenchantment with posing for me. Too much sitting still, standing still, lack of movement. She liked the first relief I did of her (Woman with Drawers and Cellphone) but thought the rest a bore.

One Saturday in November Pluanne showed up by herself, via the bus. Saying LaQuita couldn't make it but she had a couple of reports to finish for school, would it be all right...? And would I mind if she popped round every Saturday morning for just an hour or two, to borrow my computer and printer and scanner even if Keee-ta wasn't there?

Pluanne was too obviously a good kid to engage in anything illicit involving my PC, right? But what about as somebody else's guileless patsy? I ambled over to take a peek at what she might be up to, clacking away at the keyboard... and watched Microsoft Word spellchecking "Dictator Papa Doc Duvalier" for Mrs. Gedd's 2nd Hour Social Studies.

I told Plue she was welcome to pop round any Saturday she liked. A week later I picked up the phone to hear her fighting back tears: her mother wouldn't let her come alone, was angry she'd done so without asking permission, and now both her parents wanted to "pay me a visit" tomorrow after church. Would it be all right...? And could I possibly be persuaded to put on a necktie?

Early next afternoon the Tortys arrived. Vashti's cousin Franklin towered over me, with forearms so vast his daughter could've fit inside one of his shirtsleeves. But I'd taken Plue's advice and tuned the radio to the Cutthroats pre-game program, which satisfied Mr. Torty that I was a trustworthy fellow.

"Mambo Annie" wasn't falling for that. Garbed as if for a funeral, she looked every inch a Baptist deaconess and more than capable of being mean as a snake.

"You own this place, Mr. Huffman?... Your landlady lives in the house next door? I should like a word with her, if I may."

"Yes?" (Like a shotgun being cocked.) "You'd best come with us, Pluanne. Be so kind as to take us over, Mr. Huffman. Franklin, you can wait in the car."

Mrs. Wilson must have thought my necktie and I had joined the Jehovah's Witnesses. Then that I was signing up to be a Big Brother. In any event she vouched for my good name, and Mrs. Torty gave grudging consent to Plue's popping round on Saturday mornings to computerize her homework.

"Oh I'd be glad to! I don't think he takes near as good care of himself as he ought."

All this while I was straining not to personally observe Pluanne. As I'd been doing from the moment I opened the door and she opened her coat. To reveal the sort of Sunday dress any Nice Girl might wear to church in November: not too bright, not too tight, not uncovering so much as a collarbone. Yet making abundantly clear that what was cuddly-plumpness in a big ol' sweater could be righteous uplift in a blue wool dress. As if this weren't enough she wore her hair more elaborately arranged, a hint of lipstick, a waft of sandalwood that I've always been susceptible to—

Oh-so-bo-DA-cious, oh-so-bo-DA-cious, oh-so-bo-DA-cious yowled my foxhound as Plue (in rebuttoned outerwear) waved goodbye.

It started out fine. Plue's grades, already good, soared higher on the strength of her professional-looking printouts. Her parents agreed our arrangement could continue until such time as they could afford a PC as good or better. They even allowed Plue to quit being escorted to and fro "like a little girl" and come by herself on the bus, providing the weather wasn't too bad.

At Green Creek Lane she swiftly took on proprietary airs. Reorganizing my kitchenette, printing me lists of groceries to buy—I'm surprised I wasn't talked into buying a new stove. Every Saturday after finishing her schoolwork she'd strap on an apron and cook me a week's worth of dinners, telling me what time each should be thawed, how long it should be reheated and at what temperature. "I want to see every bit of this eaten, too."

"Yes ma'am," I'd say, inviting her to sit down for lunch, listening to her chatter about her friend Janet and her friend Shawnda and the snooty-conceited D'Enyce whom they all despised. It was agreeable to have a regular guest, a "Little Sister" type or surrogate daughter-equivalent. All the more reason, though, not to think about her "in that way," however fresh-faced and -bodied she might be. You'd have thought boys of all races would be after her, but she never mentioned any. When I alluded to this, Plue turned raspberry and said I never talked about any of my lady friends.

She'd squawked at my tossing incoming Christmas cards onto the sideboard, taking it upon herself to tape them to the fridge door. Tightening her lips when she saw who enclosed snapshots with their cards. Each of my former models earned a loud sniff, and Miranda Parales more than that. From her I received a new publicity photo in décolleté minidress, floridly inscribed with XOXOXO besos y abrazos.

"Well I don't think she's pretty at all," minced Pluanne. "Got on enough makeup for a whole beauty shop, and look at that big ol' rump."

I could have said that Plue's big ol' skirt enclosed a booty of equal proportion. But since I wasn't supposed to take notice of such things, I held my tongue. So to speak.

She turned sixteen in February and drove up, over the moon, in an elderly Skylark her father'd reanimated for her. I presented Plue with a little mahogany "16" I'd quickwhittled as a knickknack, in case she wasn't permitted to wear it as a pendant.

"Well of course I am! We're not Amish, you know." Proving it by giving me a hug, while I thought hard about frosty showers.

Having her own wheels meant she could stay later after Saturday lunch. Which she did, playing my jazz CDs and reading their liner notes, till I began to wonder which corner of the studio I should rent her.

Of course Plue was bothering me. Two days earlier she'd pounced on the video I'd just bought of John Duigan's Flirting. "Oh, I read about this movie! Can I please watch it? Here, I mean? No, I can't borrow it!—if I brought an R-rated movie into the house, my mama'd have a stroke."

Against my better judgment we watched an ungainly Australian kid fall for the stunning Ugandan girl across the lake, with GASPs and (giggles) from Pluanne every time bare flesh appeared onscreen. Kicking off her own shoes ("See? I can do it in front of a man") to curl up on the futon. Where she dissolved into helpless laughter as Thandie Newton, Nicole Kidman, and their fellow schoolgirls—in full uniform and looking sublimely bored—danced to Duke Ellington's "The Mooche."

That night I found my entire futon suffused with sandalwood. Making it difficult for me to fall asleep. Bed's not the best place to think about cold showers, nor hot ones either.

When I finally did drop off, it was into the first of the phantasms. First and mildest, not far removed from reality: Pluanne doffing her lima beans so she could wipe wet eyes at the film's wistful-drippy ending, then turning to me for comfort—

In actuality she said: "I'll be all bloodshot. What'll I tell Mama?" I suggested she be afraid she ran over a squirrel on the road. "Oh the poor squirrel!" Plue wept, and I patted her arm avuncularly.

So it was by the light of day. But from then on the dark of night held phantasms that embraced me till you'd have sworn I was not alone on that sack of straw. Hearing her breathe. Feeling her heartbeat. Tasting the natural Kahlúa on those never-closing lips, the living Hershey's Kisses on that swelling righteous uplift—

The intensity. The vehemence. As if I were sixteen again myself and not thirty-nine. As I was at the time, for the next couple of months. Then snoopy Plue deduced my birthday and baked me a torte, dishing this up with a raspberry face to match.

After which she asked me to be the subject of Mrs. Gedd's big term paper project: to profile a small businessman. Not, she hastened to burble, that I was small! Just that wanted to learn all about the mercantile side of being an artist. So I escorted her to the Crouching Gallery, introduced her to my dealer Geraldine, and enabled Ben Szilnecky the pencil-necked painter to dine out for weeks on "H's little shadow."

Then she wanted to document my sculpting a piece from blank to finish. "Can't do anything too risqué," I cautioned. "Not if it's going to be shown in class."

"Hey now! You're not talking to a child, you know. I'm old enough to drive and get a job and be married."

Do all Nice Girls know their state's age of consent? At any rate I carved her a discreet LaQuita in iroko from a backlog design, knocking it off in a couple of weeks.

"Like magic," said Pluanne. Heaving an awesome sigh. It was high spring, the fatal month of May, with big ol' sweaters long since shed. Now her uplift was contained in crisp cotton blouses that rose and fell, stretched and slackened, quivering with every pulse—

"Let's say I was your model. Would you want me to sit on that stool there, same as Keee-ta?

"Okay then! I'll just step in here and change first." Sashaying into my bathroom with a frissony smile.

Old enough to be JAILBAIT. Her game from the start? Set off maybe by some bigoted traffic cop pulling her over, the N-word flung at her undeserving head, till Plue vowed to avenge herself and her people—on me? Sure, why not? Who else has played the sap for her these past six months? If she should drop her drawers and scream for help, not one person on the planet would believe me guiltless. And by law I wouldn't be—having known how old she was from the get-go, whittling her that "16" on the fine chain around her fine neck...

...above the slightly outgrown gymsuit she stepped out wearing. Bare-armed, bare-legged, braids unbound and glasses left off, she stood in front of me. Do-re-mi, 1-2-3, A-B-C: attitude, bearing, contours. Especially contours. Above all, below all, behind all...

"You can't, you mustn't! Use Keee-ta's! I just wanna find out what it feels like! This gotta be between you and me, just us two, no one else can know oh pleeeease—"

Entwining her left little finger with mine to enforce my compliance. Even then she made me sketch LaQuita's head from memory first, before she'd contribute the body.

So there we were. Smack in the middle of the covert. Everyone's got something to conceal, as Sam Spade told the district attorney. Though Pluanne had unveiled more of her form. Including lubdub palpitations. Which was all I could underhear when I tried tapping in: lubdub lubdub LUBDUB LUBDUB...

What was she looking with? Shallow saucers? More like swirling maelstroms. Myopic maybe, but bewitching. Entrancing. Drawing me toward them, inside them, down into their whirling-dervish vortex-depths...

"Oh, she's beautiful! What'll we call her?" Meaning my graft of curvaceous limbs and torso onto an angular head.

"Lubduba?" I tried to say, but it came out "Lubaba," and that name eventually graced several experiments with leftover ebony. Each of which left me as numb or number than I'd been after our first clandestine session, after she'd gone home. Telling myself as I turned off the lamp that I was not to be number, I was a free man!—and by God tonight we were going to phantasm about what I wanted to phantasm about! You got that, missy?

Now pose for me, precious, this way and that way, find out what it feels like, this that and the other, especially the other, and then—

As the other took over the phantasm, possessing and transporting me to places I'd never seen but knew at a glance: her own chaste bed surrounded by stuffed animals, then the king-sized mattress belonging to her parents, then onto Mrs. Gedd's desk in Social Studies with Janet and Shawnda and D'Enyce all looking flabbergasted, then atop the altar of the Baptist church while a choir boomed We are—climbing—Jacob's—ladder—soldiers—of the—

Heedless of the hour I staggered to the workbench, laid hands on a well-seasoned block of black walnut, took up a handsaw and cut away what wasn't needed. Took up my mallet and roughed in the profiles of an in-the-round. Decidedly round. With no sketches and no maquette. No grafting and no concealment.

Started in haste, it was finished with care. I took Manet's Olympia for my model but blended the nude, the maid, and the cat into a single figure that sprang to life in the carving: sleek, trim, nimble. And identifiable. With a face intended to be recognizable.

Her term paper turned in, finals crammed for, sophomore year about to be completed, she popped round one last time before taking off with her folks for Memorial Day. Having insinuated with many coy glints that something special was in the works, just you wait and see! Now here she was in her prettiest weekend dress, looking oh so overinnocent as she caught a devastating lower lip between flawless straight teeth and gave it the tiniest of bites.

I took my position by the workbench, gripping the dropcloth that hid my break-glass-in-case-of-emergency recourse.

Out she came, clad in a violet kimono, raspberrying from the roots of her hair to the glimpse of flesh peeping between her lapels—

—realizing a moment later that Pluanne had on a cocoa-colored two-piece swimsuit, scarcely abbreviated enough to be a bikini—

—as her eyes and mouth kept on widening, widening, at the sight of her carven image on my swivel stand. I hadn't sculpted anything for the odalisque to lounge on, the better to expose every meticulous detail of her femininity—except for the underfro one hand was either covering or playing with, depending on the viewer's mindset. And all of it in living color, thanks to walnut's smooth grain and rich warm tone.

While Plue's own blush blanched to sickly café au lait, before resurging to the fore.

"HAWWWW..." she went. Convulsively. Half-doubled over as though she were about to be sick—about to pass out—about to drop dead as I ran forward and caught her in my arms—she hopping astride my thigh—wrapping herself around, mashing herself against, bulging her eyes an inch from mine as the both of us hoped against hope that the closer and tighter you clutch a live grenade the less chance of its going—

The only dying Plue did that day was from spontaneous combustion. In front of me. On front of me. Blubbering on one shoulder while pummeling the other with a small feeble fist. Imploring me not to show her statuette to another living soul, not a slide or a photo or a sketch, never to part with it ever ever EVER—was my mama alive? Then swear I won't, swear it on her grave!!

I did as she asked, hugging and stroking and soothing her, offering apologies and penitence along with anything else she liked, printer or scanner or Pentium Pro (and failing to mention that my mother had no grave, her urn traveling anywhere my half-sister toted it).

A week later in the mail I received a handmade cowlmask of turquoise velour that fit the statuette's head exactly. Enclosed was a note saying "So you can keep your promise," followed by a heart and a P.

"Strewify," brusks Vashti when I ask after Pluanne. She's doing fine. In college now, with a Dell laptop; too busy for boyfriends.

Plue Velvet ended up where it belonged, on top of my media center. None of my few visitors have ever asked to see it unmasked. Even I've left the cowl untouched, other than the occasional dusting, from the moment I first slid it on the statuette.

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P.S. Ehrlich's "Plue Velvet," is a stand-alone excerpt from the in-progress 13 Black Cats Under a Ladder. Other recent excerpts from 13BC have appeared in Thieves Jargon, Ten Thousand Monkeys, Unlikely Stories, The Sidewalk's End, and his own skeeterkitefly.com.