FOURTEENAgua Verde, Arizona in summer scorched like a cup of McDonald’s java. Heat rose from the pavement like an apparition from hell, shimmered like a thousand rattlesnakes rising from hibernation. Doobie stood on the Main Street sidewalk, portable easel in front of him, brush in hand. He juggled his mixed emotions. On the one hand he was glad that the gallery had been close to a total sell-out of his paintings, on the other hand he was royally pissed that the gallery was demanding more so they could keep the show going to bring in more sales. They both knew that without his one-man shows the place would dry up and die, so he didn’t appreciate their treating him like a trained monkey. They needed him a hell of a lot more than he needed them. They knew it and he knew it.
Perspiration bur
