Flicker, then flare

When does The Big Picture update? John Rich & The Big Picture updates on Friday afternoons.

Will you release this as an e-book at some point? When I'm done, yes, I'll release this novel in .PDF and .EPUB format.

People keep talking about taxes. What are the taxes? If you enjoyed reading this novel, you are legally required to pay the Friend Tax by telling a friend. Use lots of emojis and sound like you're going insane. (This helps.) Similarly, if you laugh at anything, you have to tell me in a comment or tag me on social media. This is the Laugh Tax. By paying your taxes you help me and others construct a non-monetary socialist gift-based utopia.

John stood up from his stool, slowly. From the sound of it, Tyler was engrossed in conversation with Eliza Schaefer, the writer who profiled him, and was oblivious to the iPhones that were being brought out of tote bags, and the mass of Review staffers migrating to John’s drafting table. The poetry editor, who had been patiently seated for Jean Doring, sighed at Danielle, stood up, and left.

“I actually framed The Review cover that has Sondheim at the piano,” John heard, before Tyler Hughes, Eliza, and his publicist turned the corner. “Oh, wow! Here it is.” Tyler reached out to shake hands with Producer Danielle, Intern Jenny, and pointed as he looked around at the setup—the drafting table, the brick wall, the window. Then Tyler’s gaze finally landed on John. His bright blue eyes creased at the edges. He looked like he had just seen a long lost friend. “There he is. John Rich. Man of the hour!”

The cameras were rolling. They did cold opens like this all the time, where the profile writer led the cover subject to John’s drafting table, and John was usually calm and collected for those. You know, grinning as he welcomed people in, spinning a pencil between his fingers, making a wisecrack to Producer Danielle. Now, John scanned his brain for something to say, anything, but his mind was blank. Tyler was flashing him that movie star smile again and it had the same effect as a blinding flashbulb. Tyler Hughes was not glaring at him from a street poster; he was not safely sequestered away in the frames of viral videos. He was here, now, and this all felt like a bad dream.

John blinked and his eyes darted down. To make matters worse, Tyler wore the softest, plushest, cream-colored jumper that was zipped down to the chest, an inch or so past his collar bone, exposing a nonchalant tuft of brown chest hair. John had an unfortunate reaction to other men’s chest hair. It made him feel like he was just presented with a bouquet of flowers: he wanted to put his entire face in it like Al Pacino at the end of Scarface. This, admittedly, would be a tad unprofessional.

“Tyler,” said John, feebly stretching out his hand, “Hi, wow.”

Tyler’s grin widened. “I know, crazy, meeting like this again, right?”

He grabbed John’s hand and crushed it. Before John could wince, Tyler yanked the rest of John’s body into a familiar bro-y hug, complete with several pats on the back. The question of whether or not John could fit his arms around Tyler Hughes remained unanswered, but John now knew that Tyler could easily wrap his arms around him. And maybe pick him up. And possibly throw John several yards if he wanted to. John felt a warm flat hand at his back pull him in and stubble brush against his ear. He was so close that John picked up hints of mint and rugged mountain pine on Tyler's skin.

 “I get it.” He said it quietly, so softly that there was no way that the boom mic could pick it up. John’s heart rate spiked. “Worst person ever, twice in one week?”

Tyler stood back, squeezed John’s shoulder, and winked. John’s face was so warm his freckles must have evaporated.

John cleared his throat. “Welcome to Cover Sessions, Tyler Hughes. I hear you’re a fan.”

“Told you; obsessed with you. Look at this. The Garfield tie.” Suddenly, Tyler Hughes’s hands were adjusting the knot ever so slightly, loosening it against John’s neck. Hunter laughed along with the rest of John's knowing colleagues. John should have been focusing on the fact that Jenny had the camera trained on the both of them, and not on how warm Tyler’s thumb was against his Adam's apple. “Why has no one on this show ever complimented your styling?”

“Oh. My styling? The suits? They're my great uncles,” murmured John. A beautiful man was inches away from his face. The lashes on Tyler’s lower eyelid were forming gorgeous little u’s and w’s that John wanted to trace with brushstrokes. Dear God, John, stop staring at his man’s face—you’re on camera. He glanced at Hunter for help, but she was taking pictures of John like he had gotten third place in the spelling bee. John took a big step back and smoothed down his tie. “Can we get started?”

John turned away from Tyler and the cameras, wiped off the remaining coffee from his face, and dried his hand on his trouser leg. Okay. He had been hosting his show for a year, and he had aced every interview, in the exact same way. He and the model would have lovely conversation about whatever they were promoting, and John would ask them about art or music, or technology or the world. Then, a little over an hour later, with his signature, yellow, #2 pencil behind his ear, John would peel the bristol board off the drafting table, and reveal the drawing to the world. Then Producer Danielle would say “cut,” and they’d have another cover of The Review complete and another episode of Cover Sessions in the can. 

Tyler Hughes would be no different. Why? Because drawing people while being effortlessly charming was what John did. Yeah, that's right. He wasn't scared of Tyler Hughes. Pft. the last time John checked, Tyler Hughes was a three dimensional being that John could translate into two dimensional shapes. He wasn’t some inconceivable fifth dimensional horror. And if he were, that’d actually be kind of cool, and John would still try to draw him anyway. He’d have plenty of questions. How would an Australian accent sound coming out of an unimaginable god-beast from a higher plane of existence? Food for thought. 

John rounded his drafting table, took a deep breath and a quick look out the windows over the city. There were eight million people out there, and this guy was one of them. He would get him out of here before noon—no, before 11:45 AM. John adjusted his Garfield tie, and took a breath. When he sat down at the desk, he exhaled, and waved at the camera.

“Hi, and welcome to Cover Sessions,” said John, forcing a grin to his face and a smug swing to his hosting voice. “My name is John Rich, and I draw all of the covers for The New York Review. Today, I’m here with the writer Eliza Schaefer—” She waved from the growing mass of Review Staffers, and John gestured to Tyler, a familiar patter rolling of his tongue.“And I will be drawing Tyler Hughes, cover story for the first week of November. Now to ask you what I ask everyone on Cover Sessions, what do people know you best for?”

“Oh,” said Tyler, “I was in a few little movies about a CIA agent who doesn’t need sleep—or is unable to—debatable—that is known as the Jacob Raw trilogy.”

John tried not to roll his eyes as clapping and a “woo!” emerged from the peanut gallery that had formed off camera. At least with a drafting table between him and Tyler, he now felt more confident, his timing returning. “Tyler and I met this weekend during something called The Fountain Incident, which my lawyers told me that I am not allowed to talk about. By the way—” He leaned forward against his drafting table. “Where’d you get that extra raffle ticket?” asked John, point blank.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Tyler, “but thank you again for attempting to draw me. Sorry again about the incident. You get home okay? You had like, a whole easel.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said John, shrugging. “I’m an artist. I carry around easels. Did you jump in the pool after or? I wasn’t on social media.”

“Oh no,” said Tyler, “I left. Funny, are you actually not an online person or?”

“Sort of. Do the parties you attend usually break out into utter chaos?” asked John.

Tyler swiveled back and forth on the stool, grin spreading across his lips as he stared at John. Laced his fingers together politely. “Well. If the party’s worth its salt.”

The Review staff tittered. Tyler was the kind of handsome where he didn’t have to say or do much to get a laugh out of anyone, because it was simply a pleasant surprise that he had a brain, let alone a sense of humor.

“Impeccable media training,” said John.

“Thank you,” said Tyler, “and thanks for doing this last minute. Didn’t mean to catch you off guard.”

“You’re fine,” interjected Producer Danielle, and while the stationary camera remained in a two-shot of John and Tyler, Jenny swiveled the other camera to Danielle. Because she was so far away from the boom mic, John could already see the subtitles popping up as she spoke. “We told him about you, but he refused to check his email all weekend.”

Tyler bit his lip. “All weekend? Busted.”

“Please,” said John, sliding a T-square to the side. He could see the punchline before he even started the sentence. “I never check my email. If you want to reach me, send me a letter via the United States Postal Service, or include a subliminal message in today’s Garfield strip.”

Tyler laughed, a genuine one that scrunched up his shoulders. This did a weird thing to John’s insides that he didn’t really want to think about. It was like a point was added to an invisible scoreboard every time he caught Hughes off-guard, and broke through the media training. Ding! He lifted the pencil from behind his ear with a flourish. “Okay.”

John bit the bullet and looked the man in the eyes—it was a portrait after all—and the desks and windows and people faded away. The remnants of a laugh made Tyler’s eyes blue slits, and there was less product in his short blonde hair. His face was frustratingly symmetrical. And, okay, under the fluorescent lights, it didn’t look like he had gotten that much cosmetic surgery. Or maybe any at all. John visualized someone picking up a copy of next week’s Review—what would they see? Sometimes the models looked off to the side, and for the more serious profiles, John decided on a joyless glance down. Tyler had a soft smile. John’s pencil started to move.

“Question,” said Tyler, “but how do you actually draw while talking?” John erased. “I’ve watched so many episodes of Cover Sessions, and you’ve never explained it without joking. It takes every ounce of my brain power to focus on drawing a single, tiiiny, stick figure.”

And he squinted, sticking his tongue out, and brought his fingers up and together to demonstrate how small of a drawing he was talking about. John heard Hunter absolutely dissolves at that one, and he couldn’t help it, he grinned too. So this guy is jock-shaped and has an enormous personality, but it’s giving class clown, John thought, starved for attention. He remembered Tyler on Friday, on all fours on the terrace, playing with Bella the TikTok dog. Golden retriever to golden retriever communication.

“Talking while drawing is like singing the words to your favorite song while driving?” said John, hand gripping the top of the drafting table. “But much lower stakes. If I majorly screw up, I can erase, and no one dies. I mean, I do, a little on the inside. Die, that is.”

Ding, another point for John Rich. Tyler laughed, and again, John felt like he had missed a step while walking down the stairs. He realized his subject’s eyebrows were actually quite faint. John had to erase the underdrawing one last time, and an unsettling drift of eraser dust grew on the sill of the drafting table. Still, a grin kept tugging at his lips. He snatched his pencil from behind his ear again. 

“You’ve really seen every single episode of this show?” asked John. 

“Yes.” Tyler said it like John was a less than stellar student and had finally figured out an algebra problem. He swiveled on the stool and pointed. “Producer Danielle. Intern Jenny.” He swiveled again, turning all the way behind him. Hunter froze and stopped swirling her empty ice coffee. “Hunter Henderson. I saw you at the party and wanted to say hi, but thought no, that’d be too weird, wouldn’t it?”

“Tyler Hughes,” said Hunter, “oh my God. You can say hi to me anytime you want!”

“Thank you,” said Tyler and turned back to John. “It started off as research for Sunday in the Park but sometimes I just put it on in the background. Yes, that’s right! I’m in the musical production Sunday in the Park. That’s why I’m here. Not sure if you knew, or if Eliza here told you.”

“That’s Stephen Sondheim, right?” asked John, looking up from his sketch. “It’s about Georges Seurat?”

“Yeah,” said Tyler. “It’s about—mostly, the first act, anyway— Georges Seurat painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte? So I started by studying artists, anyone who draws, because I want to be accurate, right? Loads of research. I’ve still got questions. Actually.” Tyler paused for a long time, drumming his knees. Then he exhaled.… and then stood up. “Yup. I’ve got a few questions for you.”

Tyler Hughes pulled index cards out of the back of his pocket.

John’s pencil paused over the Bristol board, and he looked at the index cards like Tyler Hughes was serving him papers. An audible flurry of delight rose from the audience of critics and journalists. Holy mother of God, Tyler Hughes was one of them. Uneven, messy handwriting adorned the notecards and someone had gone ballistic with a yellow highlighter. All John could think was: What the fuck? This man was a goofball but also a lunatic. And to John’s shock, this behavior was making him smile from ear to ear. What a freak! John pictured Tyler Hughes sitting in his trailer, in costume as CIA agent Jacob Raw, covered in engine grease and fake blood, and frowning over his lines with a bright yellow highlighter. Against his wishes, a bubble of amusement welled in him.

“What are those?” asked John. He wanted to finish redrawing Tyler’s nose, but he could not stop staring. “When did you write those?”

“They’re questions, and this morning. I told you on Friday. I’m a big fan.” And when John kept staring, Tyler sat down and glanced down at the first card. “First question. Would you call your interest in Garfield an obsession?”

Ding! But that was a point for Tyler. Because John’s coworkers loved this. John snorted and looked around at the room laughing at him on his own show. You know, like, “oh my God, so you noticed? Yeah, that is our colleague’s weird thing. He loves Garfield. We tolerate it, but do not understand. We’ve all sorta concluded that it’s a psychologically load-bearing hyperfixation.” John touched his Garfield tie and looked down at his pencil bag. Okay, fair.

“I have a lot in common with Garfield,” said John. And maybe with more pride than a grown man should have about this fact: “I’ll have you know that we just so happen to be born on the same day. June 19th.”

Tyler loved this. “Really? That’s adorable.”

“It’s not adorable,” said John. “It’s trivia.”

“Yes,” said Tyler, nodding seriously. “Of course, not cute at all. My apologies. Second question. When you were on The Samwell Bulletin, how did you draw cartoons on a deadline?”

“I’m sorry—were you on Wikipedia on the ride over here?” asked John. “Are you trying to Hot Ones me right now?”

“Sir, answer the question,” said Tyler.

“You’d just sit on the floor with a writer and a stack of computer paper,” said John, “and go through stupid ideas until something hit. It was great.”

“Lovely,” said Tyler, who was having too much fun playing the role of interviewer for the cameras. “Where has absurdism gone in comic strips and why is modern Heathcliff a dadaist text?”

Ding ding ding! Several points for Tyler Hughes. A yelp of laughter escaped John before he could restrain it, and he ducked his head, chuckling. “I’m sorry, what?”

Tyler’s media training failed to keep him from losing it too. He was utterly delighted by how this question landed. John could have drawn stars in Tyler’s eyes, the way they twinkled at him. “You can draw while talking, but nice to know you can’t draw while giggling. Noted.”

”I’m not giggling,” said John, definitely not giggling, “I’m amused and bemused.”

Tyler kept grinning at him. “Whatever you say, mate.”

”Heathcliff through the lens of the Dada art movement?” asked John, drawing the border of Tyler's beard. ”Do they even have Heathcliff in Australia? Why do you know anything about Heathcliff?”

“I take offense. You act as if we don’t have newspapers.” He shuffled to another index card. And, for a moment, Tyler shifted, a bashful shrug. “There was an episode where you talked about different cartoon cats. Listen, I don’t know anything about actual art history. I don’t know if that question made sense—”

“Well, now, no no no, I’m gonna answer it.” said John, holding up his pencil to stop Tyler from flipping to his next card. His stomach was doing another somersault, but he wasn’t sure why. This question was weird and funny and perfect. “Is Heathcliff Dada? If you’re talking about the Jim Gallagher comics which are weird—no. Absurdism isn’t immediately Dada. Dada has political implications tied to the meaninglessness of war.” He looked at some Review writers, either shrugged or nodded in agreement. “Right. I think people see Garfield’s tendency to break the fourth wall and comment on everyday life, then see the playground of Heathcliff and assume some sort of impenetrable commentary. But Heathcliff has a pretty strong internal logic. It might be the opposite of absurd. It’s kind of an episodic sitcom.”

Tyler’s head was cocked to the side. “I knew you’d have a thorough answer to this.”

John nodded. “Big fan.”

The underdrawing was not bad—handsome. Recognizeable. A little confident. John reached for his brush pens. 

“Good, okay. Fourth question.” Tyler flipped through the index cards and found one. “Why do you have that—I think it’s called a T-square?”

John shifted a two-foot long rusty T-square on his desk with a satisfying squeak. “It helps me draw borders, sometimes.”

“Perfect,” said Tyler. Next card. “Do you always wear a suit?”

“John does not own shorts,” Hunter blurted out, and Tyler turned to her, then gaped at John. “You don’t own shorts? Like a single pair? Do you wear a full suit when you go to the gym?”

“Oh, the gym, that’s funny,” said John. He used his entire arm to pull a long curving line of ink down the silhouette of Tyler’s face. “First—wear what you want. I don't care. But for anyone with a baseline appreciation for men's wear, having a pair of shorts in your closet is like putting a Capri Sun in your wine fridge. Completely fine, but I would not break those out for a dinner party.”

 “Do you wear suits,” Tyler asked, already on the next card, “to look older? And is it to counteract the effects of having a babyface?” 

John immediately felt a rush of warmth in his cheeks, and another flutter of his stomach, and he was aware of the dozens of eyes staring at him. He had been drawing the small J-shaped curve at the tip of Tyler Hughes’s smirk when Hunter stifled a shriek at this observation. This admittedly disrupted the line. A good joke hated to see Hunter Henderson coming.

“Wait, for the record, having a babyface is very charming,” Tyler continued. He swiveled back and forth on his stool, looking John up and down. “I mean, I started growing facial hair when I was sixteen—couldn’t be me. But you're going to look adorable forever. Like a button.”

“You wrote that down on an index card?” asked John. He was going for nonchalant but his heart was thrumming in his chest. He knew he was blushing, but if he didn’t look up, maybe Tyler wouldn’t know. He was inking the drawing now—he only needed small covert glances.

But a single glance revealed that Tyler had his sights on him, staring. “So it’s always a suit and tie or a jumper or something? That’s the style? Or do you ever let loose? You know, T-shirt and jeans. Like is this just how you dress for work? Or would you wear that out on a date?”

Now.

Now, John Rich had a very bad gaydar. It was never properly calibrated. This is because straight men who John had massive crushes on were very nice to him, and the gay men he actually ended up sleeping with were very mean. Like knowing either the speed or location of an electron, John was only ever certain if someone liked him or if they were gay. But the scoreboard had now just been replaced with an analog gauge with a single quivering needle. IS TYLER HUGHES FLIRTING WITH ME? 

All this time, it was like John had forgotten he was on the 34th floor of the RCA building, the only puzzles in his mind being figuring out this cover and the man before him. But this question rudely grabbed John by the tie and yanked him back into reality, because the needle vibrated toward yes. John blinked up at Tyler, viscerally aware of the camera set up, his colleagues, the hundreds of thousands of people who would see this, and how flushed he must have looked. Was he acting? Was this revenge? Was this genuine? That’s when John looked down at the page.

John started down at the sheet of paper. The angle of the jaw was too sharp. The triangle that he used as the base of the nose was too thin, and too far from the mouth. There was a line like a bracket around his smirk, and the more he looked at the eyes of this cover portrait, the more they looked like the eyes of Jacob Raw—the steely murderous ones that followed John on the streets of Manhattan. They weren’t the happy thin lines of the man in front of him.

“Oh,” he said. John stood up. “Huh.”

He reached for the Bristol board and peeled off the tape.

“No way,” said Tyler. In awe, he glanced down at the heavy timepiece he was wearing. “You're done already?”

“No,” said John. He cleared his throat and wandered over to the file cabinet filled with archival drawing paper, the camera tracking his every movement. He pulled a screeching drawer open. “I have to start over.”

There was a pause of confusion before Hunter finally said, “Wait. Seriously?” 

“Was it all of the questions?“ asked Tyler, sobering immediately. “Was I moving too much?”

“No, it wasn’t you,” he answered. When John folded the first attempt in half, the bullpen winced, and he pinched his fingers across the edge like a Ziploc bag. John pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. No, John thought, there was something wrong with him.

This was bad. He’d have to work fast now; he killed almost twenty minutes with that failed underdrawing. What was going on? John might erase a drawing. He might end up inking a completely different drawing, but he had never had started over. It wasn’t even a matter of pride—it was simply a matter of time. When a busy person showed up at the RCA building, they had a schedule. John might show up late, but he never turned in a cover late. There was no starting over.

Before John sat down, Tyler Hughes had popped up and searched around the bullpen. “Okay, I’ve got it. Can I borrow a pen?”

Hunter’s arm immediately shot out, along with a pad of sticky notes. Tyler grabbed the pad and pen, knelt down on one knee and began scribbling earnestly at Hunter’s desk. The camera crossed over to watch him, and members of staff peered on tiptoe to get a better look. John looked over the top of his drafting table.

“You’re…probably just…nervous or something,” said Tyler. Drawing really did take a significant portion of his computational power. But whatever he was drawing did not take long. “There, lemme lower the stakes, as an amateur.” He capped the pen, and met John at the table. 

It was a very long stick figure with a scratchy swoop of hair, two, large, round ears, no eyes or mouth, and about 5 dots across the middle of the face. Ah, freckles. The artist behind the piece grinned at him, and a delighted applause rose from his coworkers as the camera trained on John’s face.

“Cover worthy?” asked Tyler.

If this was flirting, John was not sure how he felt about it at all. “You’re a natural.” ✏️