Distant+Whispers

ecuperating.”
“We both are recuperating,” Mikell said, laughing.
“You say you teach art? What ages?” Toni asked,
“Yes! I teach ages eleven up to fifteen.”
“Oh God, Mikell!” Toni gasped, shaking her head. “Those are the ages of chaos. For us, that is
mostly middle school. Do you like it?”
“I love it! Those are the kids I want to teach,” Mikell responded, leaning back into the sofa.
“Those kids who are in chaos.”
“What made you choose art?” Toni had met many artists while in school at SC State. But none
who taught.
“My father is…was…is a teacher. That’s why I choose to be a teacher. Because of him. But I
choose art because my mother makes, how do you say, arts and craft? She has a shop in Berlin that I
visited everyday when I was young. There were paint and brushes, and my mother said that I had a
natural talent.”
Mikell looked down, hiding the other reasons. Painting had been his way to yell and scream and
cry. That’s what he taught his kids who were in chaos, the other children who were like him, those
who had to face the taunts and insults. He taught them how to use art to yell and scream and cry. Now,
the new generation was into this graffiti thing. They were no longer content with screaming and
crying. This new generation used art to fight.
“Do you paint?” Toni asked. “I mean, your own stuff? You know, personal stuff?”
“Yes. But they are all in Berlin. However, I have my materials here, my brushes and charcoal and
paint. Yesterday, I painted some. I had plenty of time.”
Toni bit her lips and looked away. “I’m sorry. I left you here all alone—”
Mikell waved her off. “Nooo, it was okay. I needed to think. Yesterday was--,” Mikell looked
down, shaking his head.
Toni rushed to change the subject. “So, Mikell, your family lives in Germany?”
Mikell looked puzzled. “Yes, of course. We are all German. I have pictures of them. I’ll show
you.” He retrieved a small portfolio from his duffel bag and placed several photos, side by side on
the glass coffee table. Toni fingered each one. There was an older white couple, a woman and man,
sitting at a restaurant, smiling lovingly into the camera. Another showed a thin white girl staring
wide-eyed into the camera. Still another showed the same couple smiling embracing by a river. In
another the older white couple sat on a couch next to an even older couple. In back of them an
adolescent Mikell was standing next to a young white child. Toni looked up, perplexed, when Mikell
began to put his duffel bag away. He stared proudly at the photos.
“Well! There they are!”
“There who are?”
“My family! My mother, my father, my grandparents and my dear sister. She looks like you. No?”
Toni picked up each photo and stared at each of them.
“This is your family.”
“Yes!.” Mikell eyed Toni curiously.
“But, Mikell, they are all white.”