A BURST OF CREATIVITY.

[Just roll with me]

Pierre didn't know why his mother named him that. He was born in a southern Ohio town. Population 522. The only exotic thing the town offered was blueberry ice cream during its annual town fair. Other than that, all was mundane. But Pierre was the other exotic exception. And he certainly hated the burden of such an out-of-the-way name. No, he was not part French, like Mrs Steath asked one Easter near the ladies' restroom the time she was unable to hold her bladder. And nor was he a Haitain refugee from Detroit, like his grandfather's girlfriend asked the day before she drank a bottle of Vodka and then jumped, nude, into the Miami River and drowned. He was just Pierre. Long-legged, sad eyes and a head shape that would inspire the muses of Rembrandt and Bearden. He was certainly odd. No doubt about that. His clothes were either too big or too small and never coordinated. He had a tendancy to let his hair go uncombed for more that a week. And on some instances, he walked the banks of the Miami with a sketching pad but no ink or lead for sketching. So when he disappeared without warning that autumn day, folks just thought he went off to Paris or some carnvial, to be among his own oddly-named oddities. Well, his mother and father didn't think that. They were concerned. Oh, he had spent the night alone, camping in the backyard on many occassion, but his mother was never worried. Pierre loved his solitude and there was nothing wrong with that. So on the second day, when Pierre still hadn't turned the knob and walked through the back door, hair uncombed, clothes mis-matching, his mother broke down. She dropped the plate of French Fries she was eating and broke down near the refrigerator door. Tears dripping all over the salty potatoes. When his father walked in and saw her there, he didn't reach down like you expect fathers or husbands to do, no, he reached over to the phone and dialed 911. And said this: "Operator, my son Pierre is missing. And my wife believes he's dead."

The police scoured the countryside for six weeks looking for Pierre or his remains. A woman from Zainesville drove her Cadillac for two hours just to visit Pierre's mother at her job and inform her she had a dream and in the dream Pierre had turned into a Praying Manthis and was most likely somewhere in their backyard. Pierre's mother ignored the woman and went back to the assembly line before her supervisor docked her pay. But later that night, after her husband was alseep, his snoring so loud it woke the poodle, she crept outside, and looked among the Gardenias for him, calling: "Pierre. Pierre."

Pierre was never found. Nor any of his remains.

But to my surprise, I saw him. Just last week. Walking through a Brooklyn park, holding a sketch pad without ink or lead for sketching... and boy, was he smiling.

Until next time,


Keith