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Show 185 scarcely yet understood. He worked with only four colors: black, white, chrome yellow, Chinese red. "Flames and ashes," Hunt kept reminding himself - though he wasn't sure, precisely, of what: "Flames and ashes." He heard the marten change position. He thought about his forfeited friend, had the image of full and sagging willow branches in his mind, like a scribble, green and gold scribble, trying to cancel any excess of thought. Hunt set his brushes down and went out jogging, running new streets in the foothills above his house. The air was dry, warmer, more typical of Tucson than the day before; Hunt's lungs were torches: His chest filled with a dry, dry, aching. All Hunt's pants except his pairs of shorts were baggy around these leaner legs now. When he wore a coat and tie, instead of looking sparer, he looked more clownish. Perhaps he should contribute all his clothes. Perhaps he should live alone in some residence motel with only wood veneer and a bed. Perhaps he should leave, paint in some cold place like Minnesota. He was running, running hard, downhill now. And he sweated -- dry sweat. And Hunt was wondering what, possibly, he could give up today. What could he abandon? Begin to abandon? Divest himself of? The hemispheres of his brain slammed themselves against one another like rocks. Back at the house, he swam. Forty laps. The water was cold. Hunt was the only family member, season moving into December, still swimming. And so he'd turned the pool heater off. Drying himself, checking in the bathroom mirror, Hunt saw his skin as blotchy. There was a carmine bloom, like an impressionist flower, near his left shoulderblade; and Hunt wondered if he |