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“Ugh! Don’t remind me it comes from an animal. I won’t want to eat it.”
He stops what he’s doing and turns around. “You do know you live on a farm, right?”
“What?” His serious tone catches me off guard. Now it’s my turn for my cheeks to flush with embarrassment, and I’m sure it doesn’t look nearly as charming as when Dean does it.
“A lot of farms around here slaughter animals for a living. And a lot of people think that that kind of ignorance is disrespectful to the animal, especially according to some Native American cultures. You’re supposed to thank the animal for dying and giving you the gift of being fed through consumption of its body.”
“Whoa.” Still, it’s hard for me to look at the pork chops sitting on my counter and imagine that they once belonged to a pig.
“Yeah. So, if you want to take a page out of their book, you want to revere the animal for sacrificing its life for you.”
“You’re right,” I agree. Just because it makes me uncomfortable doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do.
Dean nods and resumes chopping the potatoes.
“So, is that, like, something you’re into?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.
“What?”
“Native American culture?”
“Um, I guess a little bit,” Dean says. He pauses his chopping to give me an intense look. And I have no idea what it means. Probably that he thinks I’m some airhead, city girl. “I had a good friend in college who was a member of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, and he did me the honor of bringing me to the Death Valley Indian Community where his family lived. It was there that I painted one of my favorite pieces.”
“Can I see it?” I ask, before I can stop myself.
“Nah, it isn’t that good—”
“Can I please be the judge of that? Ever since you mentioned your art, I’ve been dying to see some of it.” I know I’m probably overstepping the boundaries of our friendship, but I can’t help asking
“Well.” Dean looks nervously at the ground. I’ve never seen him nervous before. I notice that he’s worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. What the heck, woman? I think to myself. Get a grip!
“I promise I won’t judge,” I say after I get my thoughts back under control. “I can’t draw a stick person, so, if it’s better than that, I’ll be impressed.” I’m not lying. I’ve never been very artistic. “Please,” I plead again.
“Okay,” Dean agrees. “I might have a picture of it on my phone.”
I wait for him to find it, and he hands it to me.
“Oh my gosh. That’s absolutely beautiful.” I zoom in and see the extravagant detail. “Wow.” It’s beautiful, with firm strokes and a melancholy color.
“It’s just a little hobby,” Dean says, after putting his phone back into his back pocket.
“Well, it wasn’t always a hobby if you considered it a career at one point,” I argued. You can take a lawyer out of a courtroom, but you can never take the argument out of the lawyer.
“I considered it,” Dean says, and I can tell he’s downplaying his love for his art. “The rest of the world…did not.”
“What efforts did you make?”
“I had a few shows,” he admits.
“Okay?” I ask, as I grab a pot from one of the hooks above the sink, fill it with water, and set it on the stove to boil. “And what was the reaction to those?”
“A few people showed up.” I have a feeling that more than a few people showed up to Dean’s shows.
“Did you sell any pieces?”
“A couple.”
“Okay, I’m sorry, all I’m hearing is that you were a successful artist.”
