dontravis.com
blog post #516
Image courtesy of Dreamsline.com
Hope you liked “Jean or Gene,” but I don’t know. Didn’t get many comments. Lots of hits, but not many comments. Last time I checked the traffic report, readers from Indonesia outnumbered all others. UAS readers were third down the list.’’
At any rate, here’s the next selection. Hope you enjoy it.
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STATUE OF LIMITATIONS
At any rate, all I’ve ever wanted to be was a sculptor.
When I was a kid, the family went on a vacation to Italy. I can remember to
this day standing slack-jawed in front of Michelangelo’s statue of David in
Florence. I’d been entering puberty, so naturally, I was titillated by the
casual presentation of the male penis and attendant equipment. But I got over
that quickly and took in the marvelous detail of the sculpture. The muscles,
the veins, the… everything. Right on the spot I decided I wanted to find and
model my own David. And to do that, I would need to work hard. And the first
hard work I had to do was disabuse my father of the fantasy that I’d follow in
his footsteps and become a medical doctor.
“Martin,” he would say, “you’ll make a fine doctor
someday.”
“But, dad—”
“No buts, son. It’s in your blood. I know it is.”
We had that exchange at least monthly.
I brought home several souvenirs from that trip to Italy,
but the only one that counted was a twelve-inch reproduction of that statue. It
went on the corner of the desk in my room and stayed there through countless
snickers of friends and acquaintances and a few blushes from the fairer sex who
happened to venture into my bedroom. As soon as we got back home to
Albuquerque, I went to the hobby shop and spent some of my savings on a tub of
modeling clay, after which, I spent many a late hour trying to reproduce that
striking image. My first effort almost discouraged me and drove me back into my
father’s professional arms. But I kept at it night after night, year after year
until by my senior year in high school, I could make a decent statue.
I have to pause at this juncture to admit to another
effect David had on me. I’d run my hands over every inch of the Michaelangelo
replica about a million times, trying to get the feel of how that master
sculptor did this or handled that. And I always got a squirrely feeling when I
fingered the genitalia. At times, it seemed to me that I caressed it.
Occasionally, I’d go to bed in a semi-excited state and the real David—at least
the one represented by the statue in Florence—visited me in my dreams. He let
me run my hands over him the way I did the replica, but it quickly became a
different sort of exploration. Vaguely aware that wasn’t exactly “normal,” I
acquired a statuette of Venus, but it wasn’t the same. I got nothing out of
that one, and she visited my dreams not once… not even to chase David.
Well, with my growing awareness of life, that told me
something. It told me why I’d rather spend time with my buddies—all guys, of
course—than with girls, long after those same guys had abandoned me for female
company. Except for one guy. Randy. I came to understand in our last year of
high school that he’d prefer to study David than Venus. We even experimented in
my room a couple of times, and while it was pleasant—even exciting—Randy was
not my David.
My father acquiesced to my wishes and paid for a fine
arts degree at UNM. All during my four years at the university, I searched for
my David, but only found wannabees. I did models of some hunky guys, even took
liberties with them occasionally. Pleasant, but not earthshaking. By the time I
graduated, I almost despaired of ever finding my ideal, but perhaps when I went
out on my own, I’d move in different circles, and who knows?
After graduation, I located a commodious three-car garage
on the grounds of an estate not far from my family’s ranch style house. The
big, swinging doors were perfect for moving big blocks of stone in and the
finished product out. I struck a deal, rented the place as my studio, and
started to work.
Two more years passed without a resolution of my
ambition. I got good at my craft and produced lots of pieces, including some
statues of handsome young men, a couple of them nudes. I was proud of every
piece I produced, but felt my resolve to find “the one” fading.
And then—serendipitously—he
arrived on my doorstep… or garagestep, to be more accurate.
****
Will
wonders never cease? Martin’s own David. Or is it? Stay tuned.
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See
you next Thursday.
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