Blue Sea, Green Earth, Red Sky

Droning in voice pressed flat by the tedium of her job, the cashier girl repeated the register's digital display, "Your total is $93.89."

My fingers dug deep to the bottom of my left front pocket. I pulled out a few folded bills and put them on the counter, unfurling them along with my opinion; "Shit, almost a hundred dollars for some rough cloth stapled to cheap wood frames, some brushes and a few small tubes of paint? No wonder artists are starving. Who can afford this?" I shook my head in disbelief, "Somebody's getting rich - and it ain't me." The bored cashier girl looked unconcerned for my financial stress.

I worked my way around all four pockets, probing the depths of each and every one. I parted with the dear fifty from the back left pocket. I stacked it on top of the two twenties I'd just pulled out, taking back the ten that I'd first put down. I left a five at the bottom of the stack and pushed the bills across the counter. I held out my palm to collect the $1.11 in change.

"Would you like to donate to the University's Women's Shelter this afternoon?" she asked as she sacked my art supplies.

"Sure. Always a worthy cause." Pulling three one-dollar bills from my shirt pocket, I stuffed them into the jar. I kept the ten-dollar bill along with my change, leaving $11.11 to my name. I liked to have at least eleven dollars, figuring I could make that stretch for three meals. It was good to have a three-meal cushion if I could manage it.

I paused to consider the beauty of the sum of the bills and coins in my pocket; eleven dollars and eleven cents. Eleven is an elegant number, a pair of simple strokes. Two numeral ones standing upright, side-by-side, straightforward without looping crooks in their form. Eleven is uncomplicated. I admire uncomplicated things. I wished the answer to life was 11 - simple, straight and uncomplicated.

The cashier girl smiled at me, "Thanks for your contribution. Art students are always so kind. I think they're the best kind of people."

Acknowledging her compliment with a grunt, I gathered my bagged art supplies and arranged the five stretched canvases under my arms, cramming the receipt into one of my painfully empty pockets. I shuffled my way out the University Bookstore, shifting the awkward bundle pinned under my arm.

I wondered what that cashier girl thought of math majors. I suspected that she, like most people, had an uncharitable bias toward math guys like me. I let her believe I was a fine arts major. I don't like to tell people I'm a student of mathematics. That information always complicates things and I dislike complicated things. It's best to just let others judge by appearances, allowing their assumptions to go uncorrected. It works better for me, I've discovered, if I don't upend people's biases by revealing I'm a mathematician.

Stepping out through the bookstore doors was like stepping into a furnace. It was hot, even for August. I looked down the sidewalk, the storefront signs along the street shimmered in the heat, distorted like the surreal melted watches in a Salvador Dali painting. My flesh glistened with perspiration as I stood under the midday sun. I didn't know much about painting, but I suspected that it was best to not drip my sweat on these expensive canvases tucked into my armpit.

Stopping in the middle of the pedestrian mall, I attempted to rebalance my armload, fighting with gravity to rearrange my purchases. I was an uncoordinated sight to anyone foolish enough to be out under this scorching noonday sun with me. Leaning a couple of the frames against my leg, I readjusted the smaller ones in my arms. I had a loose grasp on the unruly collection, so it was easy for the young woman to walk up behind me and snatch them out of my arms. She turned and stooped, collecting the two larger frames off the ground as well.

"Switch majors over the summer?" She held my canvases in front of her face, but I recognized her voice.

"No. No, of course not. I'm still in the Mathematics Department; but maybe I should switch. Ever notice how people get weird and uptight around math majors, but everyone loves art majors?" Twirling with the grace of a matador, Maribeth avoided my reach as I tried to take back my frames. Her full cotton red skirt flew up above her knees like the matador's cape taunting the charging bull as it billowed with the waves of hot air rising from the searing concrete.

"Don't go getting all insecure on me Marco, too early for that nonsense. It's only August and classes haven't even started. Besides, I think there's something for everyone to love among you pointy-headed number types. Listen, math majors are a pretty bimodal population; at one end of the spectrum you have the straight and narrow, solid and serious. At the other end you have those free-flowing cosmic consciousness types who have an eloquent equation to unlock world peace." Maribeth started carrying my frames down the mall as she finished doling out her opinion on mathematicians.

"Wait! Maribeth, I'm going this way." I pointed to my left.

"Not if you need these white squares."

"Maribeth, they're not squares. They're simple rectangles." I chased after her as she headed in the wrong direction. I was thinking she knew damn well they were rectangles. She was just trying to provoke me.

I caught up to her as she continued her strides, "So, if you're not the next Marc Chagall, then why this armful of empty canvases in the hands of a number nerd?"

"I'm required to take a course out of my major. My advisor recommended a painting class." I trailed after her as she skipped across the sunbaked pavement, writhing under a beguiling watery mirage in the heat.

"So Marco, I wonder if your advisor recommended a painting class to expose you to a loveable group of art majors in hopes of smoothing off the rough edges of your defensive, unappreciated, numerical personality?" Maribeth had a way of asking sharp, mocking questions. "Am I right, you've been shoved outside your comfort zone and forced to mingle with artists? Is that why you're feeling so unloved and threatened as an equation guy Marco?"

I laughed at the way she poked at me with her questions because it kind of hurt. "No. No, I don't think that was her purpose; I think she believes that a math mind complements the arts." I debated as to whether I should open up to her with my feelings, and then I blurted out, "To be honest Maribeth, walking into an art studio makes me uncomfortable. It's not my element."

"Marco, if you're going to go trespassing into the art world, you'll find that painters are lovable, but insecure and needy. But I warn you, nowhere as needy as music majors." Maribeth veered into the dim interior of The Bucket. I followed her and my white canvas rectangles inside.

"What makes music majors so needy?" I hoped Maribeth would continue with her insights into those inscrutable inhabitants of the performing arts world. I wanted to know if she could help me make a connection between mathematicians and artisans. Maribeth was insightful, so I hoped she could and would.

"Marco, we're a very sensual lot. We crave stimulation, stimulation of our senses, stimulation of our body and soul. It's what makes us feel alive and connected to the universe and people. Musicians are ruled by strong emotions, we need to have our connections constantly affirmed, otherwise we fear we'll be set adrift in a meaningless world. We need to connect. We need to be tied to our sensory experiences. We're all insecure and needy in this way."

Maribeth paused under the air-conditioned relief inside the door of The Bucket, looked around and walked to a dark corner booth. I followed her. She placed the canvases she'd swiped on the table against the wall and took a seat. I followed her lead, sliding onto the bench across the table from her. "Does your innate neediness and desire for connections have anything to do with why you stole my art supplies and made me come in here with you?"

"Could be..." She seemed to be thinking about my question. "It could be that, I suppose. And maybe some other things too."

"Like what?" I had to ask. I feared this might be a set up by a wily and needy piano composition and music theory upperclassman.

"It could be a mix of things. It's complicated, now that you mention it." Maribeth mused with a distant look in her eye.

I sighed, "I was just thinking that I don't like complicated stuff. But I guess I'm going to have to deal with complicated artists and musicians now that I spent all this money on painting supplies."

She gave me a wink. "You know Marco, I believe below all that dominant brain mass; you might have a rather perceptive heart."

I put my bag of art supplies next to the stacked rectangular frames and leaned over the table, "Back to the subject of you and your neediness and why you've led me in here. Is it like there are multiple variables with different sets of solutions to explain the way you operate?"

Maribeth snorted in a laugh. "Not the way I would have framed it, Marco. But for you, yes; that is an eloquent way of phrasing it all."

Feeling yet again judged in a pejorative way as a mathematician, I asked, "So Maribeth, how would you frame it then?"

"You know what? It's ten-dollar Tuesday at The Bucket. Why don't you buy us a pitcher and I'll paint you a picture the way I would frame it. You won't be sorry. Not if you're all right with nudes and scandal in the name of social science as compositional elements of this picture. But it is a complicated and highly inappropriate picture." Maribeth cast her gaze over my head; I could see she was thinking about what she had just offered me in the way of a complex, multivariable explanation of her motives as a woman and an avowed needy music composition student.

"I've got $11.11 to my name. That's three meals. Is this pitcher going to be worth it Maribeth? Be honest, don't try and mess with me." I stood, knowing that I was going to buy a ten-dollar pitcher of beer, no matter what her answer was.

Maribeth snapped back into the present. "Guaranteed Marco," she assured me. "I'll give you a complex and intimate view of us artsy and musical types as an introduction to the world outside your orderly universe of formulas. And in return, I'll get my needy fix of sensual stimulation by untangling my story before a live audience. You know I warned you, as a performer, I'm very sensual and very needy. In a way, I crave an audience. And you're my audience on ten-dollar Tuesday." With a flip of the hand, she dismissed me to go buy us some beer.

I set the pitcher and a pair of frosted mugs on the lacquered, rough wood table and poured Maribeth's beer. She watched the head spill over the rim. I asked, "Why are you back on campus this early, or this late, in the summer? I thought you'd been recruited for some exotic, overseas research adventure or something like that."

Maribeth kept her head down, drinking in the beer's frothy head with her eyes. I saw the corners of her mouth pull up in a shy smile as she drew out her memories in halting sentences. "Yeah, you could say all of that."

"I was overseas."

"It was exotic. Yeah, you could say that."

"I'll also say that it was an adventure. And it was erotic as well."

"Yeah Marco, it was quite a wild adventure; a wild, exotic, erotic, overseas adventure." She was reluctant to meet my eyes as she wrapped both hands around her chilled glass mug.

I dipped my head to try and catch her downcast eyes. She saw what I was doing and turned her face to the wall. "Damn it Maribeth! You're being so complicated. First, you stroll up to me and boldly steal my painting class supplies. Then, you lead me to The Bucket and make me buy us a pitcher under the pretense that I am going to receive intimate insight into loveable, yet needy artists and their connection to mathematicians. Now, after I've fallen for all of this, you go all shy and coy on me. Damn girl, do I have to whip out my quadratic equation and solve all of your complexity by myself? Or are you going to help me get a grasp on loveable artsy fartsy folks like you promised?"

Maribeth returned to her beer, hoisting it to her lips without answering me. She tipped her head back, letting her wild, wavy light brownish blonde hair fly off her shoulders. After a big gulp she pounded the partially empty mug onto the table. I stared at her, waiting for my answer. She held her lips in a tortured smirk. She had a residue of foam coating her upper lip. I reached over and swiped my finger across her foamy lip and then tasted my finger.

I smacked my lips in a dramatic fashion, "Hmm. I believe I have discovered a brew that makes women's tongues go mute. Perhaps I can market this brew to hen-pecked husbands and become very rich. It might pay for these overpriced art supplies."

Maribeth's eyes flashed. She took a small sip. She pinched her lips together and propelled a frothy beer-mist in my direction. Maribeth burst into laughter. "Marco, it's complicated. It's hot and I needed a beer. That's my simple start to this. I saw you juggling your canvas squares and I was glad to recognize someone still on campus this summer and I thought we could share a beer. And..."

"...And you need to talk and untangle something - because it's complicated?" I finished her sentence after noticing she was hanging up on completing her last thought.

"You mentioned something about painting me a complex picture with some wild compositional and inappropriate elements? You know that offer is what got me to spend my last meal dollar on you and this pitcher of beer."

Maribeth ripped a paper towel off the spindle in the center of the condiment stand and wiped up the mess she had sprayed onto my side of the table. "This is going to be pretty wild. I'm back on campus this early to download my personal experiences and help edit notes from an anthropology research trip in remote Indonesia. The professor who organized our anthropology expedition needs me to tell him all the details from my wild, erotic experiences in the jungle."

I interrupted, "But Maribeth, you're not an anthropology student; you're a self-confessed needy pianist. What would you have to say that's of any importance to the professor in charge of your research trip? Weren't you just a hireling? Grunt labor in return for a foreign adventure? I understood you kind of went along for the ride, just helping with some bookkeeping, right?"

"Sure, it was quite a ride that I went along on. And it was quite the unexpected experience." Maribeth dropped her voice, "I was taken against my will by a band of tribal men. I was abducted and used."

Maribeth paused; I could see she was drawing some strength from inside herself. "As a captive female, I was forced into this tribe's primitive ceremony. They made me an oracle; I was filled by..." Maribeth again paused before changing the direction of her story. "I was empowered to speak for, or speak as their goddess in a sacred ritual. I became a prophetess of the future. The presiding shaman interpreted my..." Maribeth's words slowed, then stopped short, rethinking what she was about to say.

She took a breath, gathering her emotions and continued with a different line of thought. "I'll tell you it was scary. I had no control whatsoever. I was at the mercy of a group of savage jungle men. It was all kind of traumatic, and sort of sexy and very sensual." She took a deep breath, "It's all going to be compiled into an academic article, or several -- or maybe covered up as a dark secret. I don't know what's supposed to happen. Perhaps my story will be suppressed, never to be mentioned; at least not unless a few of the complexities can get smoothed out. It all depends."

I could see that something changed inside Maribeth as she finished her last statement. I saw that she had found some inner strength. She became emboldened as she warmed to her story of 'what I did on my summer break'.

She took another swig of her beer. "Doesn't matter Marco. I don't think co-authoring obscure academic articles in The Journal of Kinky Anthropology is the big, true story here for me. For me, it's all about connections to the universe and finding meaning in my emotions and experiences. I really don't give a damn about academic theories of social science."

Taking a deep breath, the girl across from me began, "These emotional, complex and meaningful events all happened to me in a remote archipelago hidden among the islands of Indonesia."

Maribeth set her jaw. "Excuse me, but I'm kind of needy right now. Marco, I need to paint you an erotic picture of what happened to me. Someday, if I get the nerve, I might write a book about my wild adventure at the hands (and other manly parts) of a band of indigenous people who belong to a virtually unknown forest dwelling people."

My interest was aroused. "Wow. That's some introduction. I always thought you were the adventurous type. But I'm sorry; it sounds like maybe it got out of hand? Are you all right now?" I regretted my last question, how callous of me.

Maribeth ignored my question and brushed off my concerns. "Oh, what the hell Marco; I'm going to tell you the whole thing. I need to let it out."

She took another sip, exhaled a long breath and began her story, "It was totally unexpected. It all happened to me so quickly. Dr. Friday is gorilla ape-shit terrified over this story. He's terrified that if the dean finds out that one of the school's female students was abducted and personally compromised during a pagan sex ritual on one of his foreign research studies, that it'll be the end of his career, tenure or not." Maribeth brushed her hair over an ear, took a gulp and continued, "I'm back on campus to meet Dr. Friday in private. He needs me to get our stories straight and to alter his reports of the events to third-person anonymous. The plan right now is to pretend that it wasn't me in that compromised position, but some sweet Indonesian lass who was taken against her will and gang raped. At least that's the spin angle we're supposed to hash out."

I was stunned to hear the hints being dropped about Maribeth's summer experience as she began telling me some of the details. It sounded like rape. I thought about the three bucks I'd just stuffed into the Women's Shelter donation jar, wondering if I should recommend counseling for my friend. My guts tightened. This is not at all what I had anticipated when I followed Maribeth in here and bought a pitcher. If Maribeth needed me to help untangle her traumatic sexual experience, I hoped I could muster the proper sympathetic listening ear for a friend in need.

My growing prurient interest in Maribeth's exotic and erotic summer adventure story made me ashamed of my inner, voyeuristic feelings. It seemed like she needed to unburden herself of some intimate details of her forced participation in an ancient, erotic pagan cult ceremony. Her low-whispered description aroused my interest. I hoped that my aroused interest would not come to Maribeth's attention, since my arousal was concealed under the table. I was embarrassed at getting a boner under these serious circumstances, but there are some things that a guy just can't help. I wanted to be sympathetic to Maribeth. I wanted to be her safe, strong confidant. I liked Maribeth - no, it was deeper than that; I had a crush on Maribeth. I just never thought she was interested in me.

"Marco, before I go into details. Do you think you will judge me in a bad way if I tell you about being taken by this tribe and made a central part of their cult sex ritual? It was nonconsensual, I had no choice you know. I was forced into surrendering my body to young warriors and I feel I was also possessed by a strong female spirit." Maribeth took another sip and watched my face.