The heavy-around-the-middle cop shut the front door behind himself, took a notepad from his shirt pocket and flipped it open. His gaze fell on me, crossed legged on the floor in tube socks, sneakers, a puffy little fro and a mouthful of silver braces. “I’m looking for these three people. Have any of you seen them?” he asked us. The third name was mine. The living room full of underage cigarette smokers, truants and long-hairs fell silent but for a ping-pong ball that bounced

Stuart Sheldon, The Name On Everyone’s Lips, acrylic and collage on panel, 2003 “If you smile at me I will understand. That is something everybody everywhere does in the same language.” This opening lyric from Crosby Stills & Nash’s Wooden Ships is one of the reasons I wanted kids. To get back to fundamental human connection. To truly see and be seen by another. Without the ambiguity and nuisance of words. Kids know a real smile when they see it. And they respond in kind 999

Stuart Sheldon, Don’t Hide Behind Words, acrylic and pastel on canvas, 24″x24″, 2004 I shot my brother with a BB gun. IN THE TESTICLES. I’m not proud of it and it’s not funny. OK, maybe a little. But not really. I was about ten. He was 8. A couple of nappy bedhead boys in short cotton pajamas with little baseball mitts on them. We were in the backyard of our mom’s house shooting lizards off the neighbors wooden fence. I remember the morning sun was warm and bright on my freck