Devon Hartford - Painless

“Yeah, Sam,” Kamiko smiled, “if you need practice whipping someone’s ass, I can demonstrate for you on Romeo.”

“Is it just me,” Romeo smirked, “or would Kamiko make a good dominatrix?”

I looked at Kamiko, who had her hands in her lap while leaning over her drink cup, which was sitting on the table, while she sucked on her drink straw. She looked like a little kid. The only thing missing was a twirly crazy straw. I said, “Maybe a cartoon dominatrix.”

“Butter lettuce?” Romeo said to Kamiko suggestively, like he was trying to seduce her. “Locally grown?”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

Neither was Madison.

“You mean the butter lettuce party?” Kamiko asked. “Those weren’t dominatrices. Those were male stripper unicorns.”

“DominatriCEES?” Romeo enunciated forcefully. “When did you become Ms. Dictionary, Kamiko?” Romeo asked skeptically, as if Kamiko’s word pronunciation was weirder than male stripper unicorns.

I was so lost.

“Yes,” Kamiko said, “dominatrices is the primary spelling for the plural version of the word.”

Madison frowned at me, “What are they talking about?”

I shook my head, “Cartoons? The dictionary? I have no idea. My friends are insane.”

“Butter lettuce party from Bravest Warriors?!” Kamiko suggested with maximum frustration. “Episode three?! Season one?!” She slapped the table top for emphasis. “Don’t you guys watch the internet?!”

“Yeah,” Romeo glared at me and Madison sarcastically, “Duh!”

“Mads,” I said, “I can’t decide who is more cray cray. Them or us.”

“I’m just eating my fish tacos,” she giggled. “I don’t know any of you.”

I plugged my debit card into one of the ATMs on campus near the Student Center. I needed to check how much cash I had left in my account because my monthly tuition payment was barreling toward me at the speed of light. I was going to owe more than $5,000 to SDU in a few short weeks.

After I entered my PIN, I pressed Check Your Balance. Instead of a number, the ATM machine laughed at me and told me to get a job. I’m surprised it didn’t shred my card and flash the words YOU’RE BROKE repeatedly.

There were people waiting behind me in line to use the ATM, so I canceled out and took my card.

Where the hell was I going to find five grand? I had combed through the job search websites with a microscope and hadn’t found anything yet. Maybe I needed to go back to Grab-n-Dash and beg for my job? A scent memory of hot dogs and urine colored polyester wrinkled my nose.

Maybe not.

Short of selling a kidney or other parts of my body to the highest bidder, the only other thing that occurred to me was checking online for scholarships.

I walked to the Main Library and set up my laptop near a window on the seventh floor. I sighed as I logged onto the library’s wi-fi network and searched through scholarship websites. It didn’t take long to realize that most of the application deadlines had already passed. Not that it mattered. Most of them didn’t pay any money until the fall.

I sat back in my chair and sighed. I glanced out at the amazing view of San Diego. I’d always loved the Main Library’s wrap around windows. From the seventh floor where I sat, you could see for miles.

Usually, the view lifted my spirits. Too bad nothing short of a construction crane could lift my spirits today.

I sighed and went back to my job hunt. Trying to remain optimistic, I narrowed my internet search by application deadline. There weren’t many scholarships left on the list.

I found one for bagpipe majors. It paid seven thousand bucks! Bagpipes couldn’t be too hard to play, could they? I would totally double major in bagpipes if it meant seven grand. The only problem was I couldn’t even afford a set of bagpipes. Even if I could, I wouldn’t be surprised if Christos or Spiridon kicked me out of the house for taking up the fartbags. But I would play them every damn day if it meant $7,000. Crap. Who was I kidding? I don’t think I could deal with all that quacking.

Next.

There was one scholarship for people studying the Klingon language. I’d watched Star Trek. Didn’t Klingons just grunt? I could grunt.

There was also one for the American Nudist Research Library. No, seriously. I read it on the internet. What did nudist researchers research, anyway? Increased incidences of skin cancer among the nude? Early onset droopage, for both men and women? Because you know drooping was the biggest problem faced by nudists. I seriously would’ve applied if it wasn’t for the fact you had to live in a nudist colony to qualify. I didn’t even know where to find a nudist colony, unless you counted art models. Hey! Maybe with all the girls coming to Christos’ studio every day, the Manos house qualified! I was totally submitting an application.

I searched the scholarships for another two hours and applied to a dozen more. With any luck, I might actually get picked for one, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

I had to assume that I was no closer to covering the $5,000 I owed SDU than when I started.

Droopyballs!

Ew.

My spring classes consisted of: Sociology 3, History 3 (which focused on 20th Century America), Plein Air Painting (which Kamiko told me to take because she was), and Drawing the Costumed Figure (which Romeo and Kamiko both were taking).

I’d managed to gets B’s in Sosh and History during Winter Quarter, much to my surprise. I think all the cramming I did for mid terms and finals made up for my tendency to doodle in my sketchbook during class. With my current financial problems, I vowed to pay total attention and take notes during Sosh and History this term. No more doodling. The last thing I needed was a bad GPA making my financial aid situation worse than it already was.

I met Kamiko outside the Visual Arts building for our first Plein Air Painting class. It only met once a week, on Wednesday afternoon. How awesome was that? We both held portable easels that collapsed into the size of a suitcase. I’d borrowed mine from Christos. He had several in the studio. I couldn’t afford to buy one, and it was a requirement for the class, so I was in luck.

“Why do we have these easels?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” Kamiko grinned as we walked into the Visual Arts building.

“You know,” I wrinkled my nose, “Plein Air sounds kind of boring.” I was pronouncing it like ‘plain’ because I had no idea how to say it. “Are we going to paint plain things? Like vanilla ice cream and white rice? Because I don’t see how we could paint plain air. Unless we paint the sky? And because it has to be plain, we only paint cloudless skies? Isn’t that just squeezing blue paint on a canvas?”

Kamiko smiled at me indulgently as she held the door open to the classroom. “No, silly.”

Unlike my previous art classes, which had taken place in rooms that were obviously artist’s paradises, the Plein Air room was small and bland. The walls were blank. There was a teacher’s desk at the front of the room, one of those ancient metal ones that looked like a gray battleship that had seen several wars. And of course, a bunch of student desk chair combos with mustard yellow plastic seats crammed together. I had been right about the plain thing. This looked like any random high school classroom in America. Wasn’t this supposed to be a University?

“Why do I feel like we’re going to spend the next three hours in detention?” I asked Kamiko.

She arched her eyebrows, but said nothing.

A few students stood against the walls with their portable easels. There wasn’t much room to set them up. Maybe that’s why we had the portable easels, so we could squeeze them into the scant remaining available space?