February - Giants 3 страница

The perversity of our act and the place we were in, combined with our desire, this place became the perfect end to the perfect show. Gerard dropped down on his knees in the bathroom and undid my fly. He took me into his mouth and I pressed up against the bathroom wall in ecstasy. He held my hips in place and I ran my hands through his hair. He consumed me whole, and then let me go, only to come back for more. His mouth enclosed me and for a moment I thought we were only that act. I forgot time and place. I only remembered us. It was moments before I finished, and then Gerard kissed my stomach, my hips, before coming up to meet my face again. I kissed him on the mouth, and we stayed there, in that embrace, in that bathroom, until all the people were gone, and Vivian was left counting how many of the flowers had been left for us to keep

Chapter Two

Gerard had not sold all his paintings, but enough for an encouraging start. The rest were going to stay on public display for the rest of February, and hopefully, by the end, they would all be gone. Now was the awkward period. We had been working so hard for so long, it felt unusual to take a step back and relinquish control. We had small tasks to wade through, but for the most part, we were just waiting to see what happened. We all had a good feeling about the show and Gerard's work, and we had been given sufficient approval so far. But it was such a slippery slope in such a tricky business that nothing was certain. Vivian told us to not get too excited, and to stay right where we were. "Don't move out if you're just going to need to move back in again," she told us, and I had been surprised. Once we started making any kind of money, I thought she would kick us out and tell us that the free ride was over. "Give me some money, and hell, I'll start charging you rent or grocery money soon, but don't move out. Things are too uncertain right now."

We did start giving her some money here and there. We thought it best not to decide on a set amount. She was taking commissions from some of our work since she had organized most of it, but that would have happened regardless of other extenuating circumstances. There was also the fact that, as Vivian reminded me again and again, that although the appearance of fame and credibly were occurring, it didn't mean the bills were equating with that. We were still just breaking even on a lot of days and Gerard was happy he wasn't going into debt. So we gave Vivian money here and there as time went on, and she was neither elated nor despondent with receiving or not receiving it. She understood how things went, and during a particularly dry spell, we promised to pay her in household chores. She laughed it away and told us not to worry, but she did not stop me from cleaning her entire first floor on more than one night when I didn't have to work. In spite of some complaining, I believed she liked having us around. Vivian's complaining was more like gentle teasing, and it was never about money. It was a sacred subject to artists and friends. It was difficult, messy, and not always around. But we were here, and so was Vivian and her daughter, and we were all getting to know one another on another level. I liked being there. It was nice to have a house full of people again, and people that loved one another. Whenever I was busy, that didn't mean Gerard had to be alone, and vice versa. Cassandra and I continued to bond; Vivian and I got closer as well. I sort of had to get close to her when we had been spending ten hours and more together to get ready for the show. But even when the pressures weren't on us, we still gravitated towards one another. She kept urging me to do a photography show and kept trying to organize a dark room for me, but I declined. I was feeling okay in my position in-between worlds right then.

I was in-between worlds with my other job, too. The night shifts at the drug store were coming up with more frequency and I had adjusted myself to my new life there. 'Adjusted' may not be the right word. I seemed to change my opinion of the job every other shift I worked. I liked Mel Gleeson as a manager and he was an all right person to work for; the discounts were also a perk. When Mel was around, the job was easier because his demeanor seemed to overtake the store. But working night shift meant that the family business became inverted, and it was people who had no family and simply needed the money working. I was the only stock boy then, there was a different manager for the back and not Gary, and there were only two cashiers. The pharmacy was closed, although it opened at six in the morning, two hours before I finished my shift. I would get there at eleven-thirty most nights, change in the back, and clock in by twelve and leave at eight every morning. Sometimes I'd get to go at seven if it was a slow night, and those mornings, I walked home while it was still dark. The traffic lights changing from red to green and streetlamps arching over me became my replacement stars. It was usually freezing at this time of night and I had to start wearing a parka, plus mittens, which I had not done since the second grade. The walk to Vivian's place wasn't much, but in winter, everything felt like it was on the other side of the world. It was a journey into the unknown some mornings, frost everywhere and trees covered in snow, looming over me and threatening to fall. My eyes would often play tricks on me, and each time I walked past the memorial park, I swear I saw my own shadow in the darkness.

I had adjusted my sleep schedule a lot easier than I had thought. Gerard had inadvertently done so as well, and more often than not, he would just be going to bed when I got home in the morning. He said he was more creative at night, and since no one was home during the day and I had started sleeping, he hated to be alone in the house. On the nights that I didn't work we stayed up together and talked, painted, and fucked, while trying to be quiet just in case. Cassandra and Vivian hadn't complained about the noise yet, and we were lucky to have a floor and a cluttered house to muffle the noise. The distance made us feel less guilty when we would suddenly moan or laugh hysterically at three in the morning. Gerard liked having me all to himself the nights that I didn't work, and he made sure to express that whenever he could, although he did keep busy himself. After all, he was a working artist now. Even if the show was done with and it was out of our hands, there was the next step in this matter. Most of the time, if he wasn't painting, he was making appointments for the afternoon to talk to prospective buyers or students. Someone had wanted him to paint a mural on their house wall and he was still debating whether or not he was going to take it.

"Painting the interior of someone's house is so much different than painting a public display," he told me, trying to explain his dilemma. "A house is a private space, and they want me to invade it and put up my art. They can do whatever they want with it after because they've paid me and it is no longer out of doors for everyone to see. It makes me uncomfortable. It is so much different than a canvas that can be both displayed in private or public. That canvas has mobility, it has freedom, it can always move. The wall I would paint, if I paint it... it is so permanent. "

I agreed, and I didn't blame him when he ended up turning it down. Vivian was a little dismayed, but there were enough other offers and things to keep Gerard busy that the disappointment didn't last long. He was content painting most of his time; it was the happiest I had seen him in awhile, actually. For as long as I had known him, there had been this quality to his emotions, as if there was something else undercutting them. There was always a shadow, something present but not tangible. This shadow of inarticulate feeling had all but disappeared for our nocturnal conversations. The shadow had been failure, I thought to myself, and now that he had proved he that could be a success, he could also let his emotions show through a little clearer. He was doing what he loved all day now, and then would occasionally leave the house. But not too much; he enjoyed that private space now more than ever. I was leaving more than he was.

His musing on the private and public availability of art caught me one morning while I was working. I found my mind wandering a lot when I was at work. I hated the job, on sheer principle, and the only reason I kept it was because the money and time allowed for contemplation. Since the house was so full, there were lots of things to distract me, and I didn't want things to get away from me again like they had that first night at Vivian's. I kept walking to and from work, and not taking the bus, so I would have time to sit and think through my emotions. I also began to bring books to work and would read them during my break. I made no friends. I learned people's names and greeted them when I came indoors, but I did not despot my personality there. I did not want to.

But I was slowly realizing the collapse that was happening between what was public and what was private, what was art and what was obsession, and the true meaning of The Flowers of Hell when I was there. I had finished the book on Rimbaud that I was reading before, and had now pulled down a book of myth from Gerard's shelf. I found Saturn amongst the many pages and began to read more about him. I read about Norse Mythology as well, about Scandinavian giants who took over the outside world in the winter and turned everything to snow. I was amazed by giants and cannibals, about their devouring of entire worlds and then keeping them inside themselves, in order to become something new again. I read about fate - and challenging that fate. I thought about Goya and painting the madness on his wall, and how Gerard had refused to paint a mural in someone's house. It was too dangerous, and you could lock someone inside of it.

I did not talk to the people I worked with, but I was foolish to think that they weren't talking about me, or trying to piece me together like a puzzle. I was the new employee and a curiosity, even if I wanted to downplay it. I was always holding a book and I didn't talk. I figured other people had their own lives to amuse themselves, but then again, why did people need to buy other people's art if they could create their own? People became fascinated with me because of my silence, and I realized I had been producing my own mystery the way that Vivian had encouraged Gerard to produce about himself. Even though we were not at a gallery, we were in public, and people needed to make stories about things they could not understand. In particular, I became a subject of fascination for the two cashiers who were a little younger than I was, both of them probably in college. I caught them staring at me once or twice, but always shrugged it off. It was when eye contact turned into hushed murmurings that I became aware of the gossip, and some time before I was being forced to participate in the story they were creating.

"You look familiar," one of them told me in the lunch room. "Did you come here before a lot?"

I shook my head. "I only shop here now because I get a discount."

Discouraged, she walked away. The next day, the second one approached me. She was taller than her friend, and leaned over me as I ate my lunch. "I know you," she told me confidently. "You're an artist."

I froze. I was used to people thinking I had no history and, therefore, no talents. Aside from, you know, stocking shelves. I preferred to be a blank slate at work. I tried to maintain that perfect composure and not give my sudden fright away. I kept my lips pursed and didn't answer her question. She smiled smugly and then walked off, seeming to have gotten all she needed. I should have realized that my silence, was enough to let her know she had been right.

The day after that, they both came up to me with a newspaper. It was old now - a week or so. But my picture was there, with Gerard's hand around my waist. They laid it on the table. "I knew I recognized you," the first one said. They never wore nametags on the night shift, and if they were forced to, they often picked from a pile of discarded ones so their names always changed and I never had a solid idea of who they were. My own nametag displayed Frank in front of them. I couldn't even deny that aspect of myself in front of them, and with visual evidence of this aspect of my life staring up at me, I wasn't quite sure what to do. But I knew I had to speak.

"So you did." I turned my focus right back to my book.

"Are you gay?" the second one asked me. "You look gay."

I ignored them, and tried to keep reading. I had just finished my lunch and one of them knocked the Tupperware container. "Your boyfriend make that for you?"

Again, I ignored them, my teeth grating. I prayed and waited for someone to come into the store. Most of the time, they weren't supposed to be back here. Especially both of them at the same time. They would take turns for their breaks, but that should have been it. We had a camera set up back here to watch and the front door was rigged with a bell so we would know if someone came in. There was nothing so far; the store was still empty. I waited for more, realizing my silence was making the whole situation worse and feeling powerless to do anything now.

Finally. There was a beeping noise from the back. It wasn't a customer, but it was good enough. Sometimes there would be night deliveries, and the back manager would need my help soon. I picked up my Tupperware container, put it in my bag, and fastened my locker. I made sure it was secure twice before I headed out. Even as I left I could still hear them snickering and calling me "faggot" under their breath.

The whole thing didn't matter, I knew, but I thought about it the entire time that I was unloading the truck with Max. It bothered me, and then it bothered me more that I let them get to me. I was used to hearing slurs from men. If Max had insulted me, I wouldn't have been surprised. Most of the time slurs were a ridiculous masculinity game that was played back and forth with one another, where we were actually expressing fears about ourselves more than anything else. This game had persisted my entire elementary and high school career, and while I played it then, I still hated it. I understood its uses and functions, however. I hated it, but since I understood it, I could ignore it. But these women? I didn't get it. I wasn't doing anything to them. I minded my own business. What were they getting when they called me a faggot, except to just hurt my feelings and make my job a misery? I decided that it must have been something to do with the job itself. They didn't like me being around, I was invading their space, or they were jealous because I had an outside talent. That was why they needed to attack me. It was still another projection of repressed emotions, but it only worked if I looked at it in terms of failure. A faggot was a failure to most people and they worried themselves about failing. There, I thought, Cassandra would be proud. Having figured the scenario out as best as I could, it still left a bad taste in my mouth, and the thoughts followed me the entire shift.

I started to become aware of other things as I was working. It had been so long since I had just sat and people watched; I tried to pull myself outside of my surroundings and became a statue. Some nights it felt as if I had encountered Fred all over again, and now I was lost in a Where's Waldo? print and things were staring back at me, demanding an explanation. The poverty I saw when I first began to look for work came back to visit me. At first the night shift provided me some solace, but I realized it had been my inability to see things and being blinded by the work that I had been doing with Gerard. I was desperate to escape my job, and I consumed him more and more when I came home in the morning. We began to feed off our isolation and I pushed everything out of my mind.

At work, as I began to get comfortable in my job, I noticed the people instead of the products. I noticed the line-ups that formed at five-thirty am, sometimes even closer to five, to wait for their drug of choice in the morning. A lot of the time it was just desperate parents wanting to get their kids medicine as they themselves were coming home from their night shifts; I saw a lot of nurses doing that, still in scrubs. They were usually super sweet and always said hi to me and greeted me with a weary smile. But there were also people with beard growth of several days, shaky hands, and people who shifted their cane from one arm to the other, trying to perfect their limp before they got their pain killer prescription filled. I saw a lot of yellowed skin and malnourished bodies. Even when it wasn't the prescription line up early in the morning, there were the people that came in during the middle of the night and wandered the aisles and tried to steal things. The two cashiers were usually good at staring them down and intimidating them, but I saw a lot of people get away with it. I didn't try to stop it. We were told not to apprehend anyone, and it was hard to find fault in what they were doing. So I let it go.

We also had some people come in and stay in the store for hours at a time. It took me awhile to realize that they were doing it only because we were one of the few stores in the area that was open twenty-four hours and it was a cold night. They needed to warm up before facing the outdoors. There were women that came in for Tylenol and aspirin, people that came in for orajel for babies, and like I had been before, a lot of youths wandering down the condom aisle and not knowing exactly what they were getting into just yet. I was caught in this web of addiction and capitalism, of consuming what people needed to an excess and not giving out enough to others. The night was black through the window, and after the faggot remark, I felt as if they were painted black on purpose. I was so far removed from artistic day to dramatic night, that I began to weave in and out of the paintings Gerard had shown me and my own study of myth. Soon enough, I saw Saturn devouring his own children right in front of me. He was in the condoms and in the dentures aisle. He was buying pain killers and then buying orajel. He was eating his son and then eating meat.

One lunch that Vivian had packed me was Sloppy Joes and I got halfway through it before running to the bathroom and throwing up. I heaved and heaved. After splashing water on my face, I put the rest of it away and tried to go out and purchase something else to eat. But the candy, the chips, the packaged products all reminded me of Saturn. I didn't know what to do with myself that shift. I was dizzy from not eating (and probably dehydrated from throwing up) and not able to talk to anyone. When I was stocking in front of the cash register, squatting to reach the bottom, and then suddenly got up and nearly fell, the second girl laughed. Instead of helping me, they called me a pansy and a faggot again for "twirling around." The job that I had once associated with the freedom and creativity of the night was slowly becoming the place where I was eaten alive.

I took it easy the rest of that shift, but in my mind I began to plan. I needed to do something different, because I knew I was trapped. I was becoming Goya, and I needed to unravel this mess. I checked the schedule and saw that I didn't work again for five days, and I was relieved. I needed some time to think and realize if this was really worth it. Gerard was going to have a show soon, or a press release party or something; I couldn't keep track anymore. If I was going to go, and keep being that public, I didn't want to keep bringing it to work with me. I thought there was privacy in the night, but when it came to the drug store, it was another one of those in between places. I began to feel too vulnerable.

A wave of relief washed over me as I pushed myself through the glass doors at the end of my shift. It was still early - just after seven - and though it was still dark, it wasn't black. I breathed in and out and felt the cold sting, but kept walking. I could hear one of the cashiers behind me, but I ignored her and kept moving. The lights loomed above me; I passed shadows and the machinery of night, but I ignored it all. I got tunnel vision and began to think clearly.

Vivian and Cassandra were still asleep when I got home, and so was Gerard, actually. He was easy enough to wake up, and he said he usually wanted me to wake him up if I got home, but I didn't feel ready enough to talk to anyone. I put my half eaten lunch in the fridge. I gagged going near it. I could no longer see any difference between Saturn eating his child and eating meat. I could no longer see any different between that and addiction, that and calling me a faggot, and - though it had taken me until that very moment in the kitchen, gagging - that between my father and I. He was devouring me whole, his ideas for me were devouring me whole. I couldn't do it anymore.

I sat down at the kitchen table, my sudden conviction to go vegetarian working its way into reality. All pain and violence focused into one. Of course. All flesh is flesh, and if I loved Gerard and if I loved Jasmine the way that I did, then why would I turn around and devour something else whole? I thought of how close sex was to food, food to violence, and sex to violence. There was intimacy in all of these things, even Gerard knew that, though he spent less time focused on things that didn't manifest with bodies themselves. I thought of the perversity and beauty in those bodies. I shook from head to toe. Working night shift was screwing with my mind, but at the same time, it was making me think clearer. The sun was coming up and I tried to sort through the metaphors into reality. Would I be able to give up meat? That seemed easy enough with the way I had gagged through my lunch and then vomited. It was feasible to not eat meat. Not a big deal. But everything else? I didn't know how Jasmine excluded so much, how she let that dictate her world.

Thinking about her made my entire body ache. I suddenly felt how stiff my back was from moving boxes, how my feet hurt from walking, and my skin felt tight from the cold. I had not seen her in weeks. The last time was when we had had the leftovers from Food Not Bombs together, and that seemed like ages ago. I lived at the old apartment then and we had had stability. I didn't have this job and Gerard wasn't surrounded by people all the time. I missed her; I missed the way she felt, and how smart she was. I had not understood anything she had said before about veganism and ethics. But I was coming around. I wanted her to know.

I looked around the kitchen to find the clock. It was a little after eight. Jasmine would probably be up. I called her apartment, but got no answer, and then called her work. She picked up on the first ring.

"Mouth Magazine," she said.

"What? No 'taking talk to the tips of your teeth?'" I teased her.

"Frank? Oh hi! Yeah, that whole tagline was getting old. Besides, it's early. What are you doing up this early, actually? I thought most days don't start until noon for you."

It had been a long time for Jasmine too, and we had a lot of catching up to do. She was vaguely aware of what had been going on with Gerard because of the publicity around it (minor though it was) and she knew that we had moved. She apologized to me again for not being able to help, but she was really sick when all of that was happening.

"Are you better now?" I asked. Her presence at work was no indicator to her health, she and I both knew. She considered my question for a while, which hinted to me that she was not completely well yet.

"Enough. Not as bad as before. I can keep food down now," I could hear the smile in her voice. I took this chance to tell her about my new job and how I had been there, getting sick.

"Flu too?"

"No, I think it's about meat. I don't think I'm supposed to eat it anymore..." I felt really odd confessing this to her. It felt cheap, sort of, like I had changed for her. I really didn't want her to think of it that way. I was more than willing to keep eating anything I damn well pleased three days ago. Now all of a sudden, once the dots had been connected, I could not go back.

Jasmine did not take my confession as a way to get to her. She used pure reason and logic. "Well, it's about time. No one should eat meat anymore. Maybe at one point it was good, in some other time and place, but not now. We have no need for it."

"I guess. In spite of not being able to physically eat it anymore, some of this does feel like a restriction..." I cringed as I waited, not wanting to hear Jasmine's fury. But she was calm; she had done this a million times before.

"Don't think of it like a restriction. You change the way you think, Frank, and you change your world," she commented, and the familiarity made me smile. "Don't think of what you're not eating, think of what you are. And if we're really considering freedom here, then we must think of ourselves as irrevocably linked."

"Linked? How so? Like you and I are linked because we know one another?" I bit my lip, realizing I had wanted to add, "Linked because we're in love."

"Well, yes, in a way," Jasmine went on without faltering. "But I was more so thinking about this in terms of the animals and us. How we treat animals is how we treat people. If we think we can cut something up and consume it, we tend to extend this onto others. Consumption is the ultimate act of violation, especially when not wanted. To turn someone into a piece of meat, literally, is horrifying."

"Yes," I said right away, thinking of Saturn. Jasmine seemed surprised by my sudden agreement, and so I went on. "Yes, that's completely it. That's what I realized today. Everything was cannibalism, even just working at the drugstore. They were using my body to do this work and because of that, they were consuming me."

"Yes, exactly," Jasmine said, "To a certain degree, all work is exploitation because of that fact you've just talked about. It's unavoidable, though, because we need money so we can eat. One thing leads to another and we are all linked because of it. The idea is to live with as much awareness as possible of this link and to not just stomp all over everything. Or at least, that's how I figure it. I know I cannot be one hundred percent vegan, but I can try and I think that's the point. We have to try. You don't have to agree, though. In fact, it's kind of weird hearing someone agree."

We laughed for a bit there, and it was so nice to hear her voice. "I miss you," I confessed. "I mean, I've been really busy and having an okay time until tonight, but I do miss you."

She didn't say anything. She made a small noise in her throat, and then said, "I published our story and it looks really good. Do you want me to mail you a copy?"

I assented, and then asked her if there was anything else we could do together. She told me she'd send along the hard copy of the next assignments coming up. "What's this issue's topic?"

"Jazz," she said. "I picked it, though it was somewhat egotistical. Jazz can really feed into all types of music."

I told her it sounded good, and she made another quiet noise in her throat and a silence grew between us.

"You know," I started, wanting to keep her on the phone as long as I possibly could, "Now that I'm vegetarian you should teach me how to cook a few meals. I could learn a lot from you."

Quiet, small noises in the throat, but not much else.

"And, and, you should come by and see Gerard's exhibit. It'll be at the public art space until the end of February."

"Okay," Jasmine said, but not to agree; her omission was merely to move the conversation on. "Is there anything else, Frank?"

I wanted to scream that yes, there was! I wanted to tell her everything that I had realized this morning, I wanted to lie with her at night and tell her about the French symbolist poets and the carnival trickster figure, and I wanted her to know that I was changing too, like she had. But I was so afraid that these changes were driving us apart.

But instead: "No, I think that's it."

"Okay," she said again with finality. "I will mail the magazine out to you this afternoon and the assignment list. Have a good day." And then the line went dead, and my body began to ache again.

I told Gerard and the rest of the house later that day that I was planning on going vegetarian. It was at dinner (which was really breakfast now for Gerard and I), and we had been having pasta and sauce with vegetables. No meat, so I was lucky there. There was lots of cheese, and that was what Vivian seemed the most worried about.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14