Chapter Three Security

Gerard talked a lot on the way to his apartment. His tongue flashed and flicked in his mouth as he enunciated words, bringing in other dialects like it was nothing. He had this weird fascination with the French language and sometimes even talked with its accent, while slipping in the occasional French word or two. His favourite expression definitely appeared to be ‘sacré bleu’ - the same word he had shouted at us before he tossed down the bucket of paint. When we finally reached the steel gray door to this place, the one he had come out of the day before, and were greeted with the brightly coloured sidewalk, Gerard let out a deep throaty laugh and let the common phrase burst forth from his fleshy pink lips.

“What does that even mean, anyway?” I asked him as he held the door open for me. I walked inside the dark corridor of the apartment building first, my back to him as he stepped inside, feeling vulnerable. I waited in the dim light for him to walk up past me and make me feel less nervous, but he remained in the frame of the now closed door. He stopped, looking at me, giving me one of his now more recognized innocent ‘what are you waiting for?’ faces. His eyebrows were raised and he had a smirk planted on his lips as he watched me shift my weight from side to side nervously in the dark hall. I didn’t know where the fuck to go. Why was he making me lead? I grabbed the inside of my pockets and began to squeeze it hard, feeling very susceptible in the dark with a forty year old.

“Turn to your left and take the stairs all the way to the top,” he said in one breath, shaking his head slightly. He knew he had started to scare me, only a little, but he still had to bite his lip to keep from making fun of me more. However, his battle was unsuccessful and he let his thoughts spill forth. “You are so hilarious sometimes.”

“What? Why?” I asked, still standing in one spot but not shifting nervously. I began to move, finding the staircase in the exact place he said it would be and moving up it when he motioned with his hand, giving me another one of those looks.

“Because,” Gerard started, taking the steps two by two and nearly beating me at our undeclared race up them. I was in no hurry however, and I let him win by a nose. At least I wasn’t leading anymore. I always hated doing that; especially in other people’s houses. I never felt comfortable in my surroundings, so I didn’t want to make my way through them first. As long as I had someone’s previous footprints to follow, I was good.

It took me awhile to realize Gerard hadn’t answered my question with little more than a conjunction. I had been too busy trying to fall at least an inch behind the strong man walking up the stairs confidently. The next thing I knew, we were at his door and he was fumbling in his pocket for his keys. The walls around me in the hall were painted a dark olive green, but the door knobs and the peepholes were all etched in a mousy brass colour, now stained with a slight film from old age and disrepair. Everything around me was so bright and vivid but the lighting had not changed since the dark stairwell where all I could see was metal and concrete around me.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I informed Gerard. I stood behind him with my hands folded over my chest as I heard the jingling of his keys.

“Sacré blue,” he stated with his French accent, drawing out the words. “Sacred blue. Reference to the virgin mother. It’s a curse word. Like holy shit here.”

I furrowed my brow, feeling my body grow tense again. I had completely forgotten I had even asked that question. Even though I could only see the back of Gerard’s head, I could tell he was smiling. He was purposely trying to divert my attention from him calling me hilarious. I was not going down that easy.

“No, the other question,” I corrected, my voice stern and strong. I even specified my claim, so he couldn’t play dumb. And with Gerard, I knew he would have to play dumb because he certainly wasn’t in real life. “Why did you call me hilarious?”

Gerard had just put his keys into the doorknob, but unlike my other question he didn’t keep his focus there. As he turned his keys in the lock, he looked over at me and smiled.

“Some questions don’t have answers.”

I was about to say something back (what, I wasn’t sure, but something to defend myself and get an answer to why I was just so hilarious) but I was taken aback by Gerard’s apartment. He had flung the door open by that point and the aura of the small living quarters had leaked out all over the hallway’s dull carpeting, distracting me entirely.

I didn’t really know what I had been expecting, but I did know it was nothing compared to what I saw then as he threw the door open wide, holding it for me yet again. With all the rumors and well documented facts about the apartment building itself being a dump, this place shattered those records in two. It was no luxury suit or anything and it certainly wasn’t clean but it wasn’t filthy either. It wasn’t filthy like there was dirt and bugs under every nook and cranny; the belongings Gerard had weren’t caked in dirt or grime, but they weren’t organized. In the kitchen, to the left of the open door, there were dirty dishes in the sink and on the counters, flyers and mismatched magnets hanging off an old model fridge, and newspapers on the small round kitchen table. Across from the kitchen, there was a living room area with blankets unfolded and tattered on the dark orange and musty couch and a TV with rabbit ears with a cracked screen that clearly hadn’t worked in years; it was just taking up space. Bookcases lined the remaining wall on the side where the TV was. Each mahogany shelf was filled to the brim with book after leather-bound book, with random sculptures at the end, holding the reading material in place. It was like a small mini-library in the middle of Gerard’s apartment. In fact, it looked better than the public library here, because the books essentially looked like they had some order and they didn’t have dust as their second skin. It actually looked as if Gerard read these books, or at least pulled them off the shelves once in awhile to look at the pictures.

What really caught my eye however was at the rear of the apartment. There were big and bright bay windows that lined the back wall, slightly raised off the ground by about two steps. There was a mini-staircase leading to the upper level of the apartment, where a door was placed at the side of the window that lead outside to the balcony. On the other side of the door in between the windows, was a small bench raised off the ground even more for someone to sit and look out the skylight, when the weather was too bad to go out onto the balcony. I could see the ashtray poised there, its contents spilling over onto the yellow cushion. There was also an empty mug that had previously held coffee.

Near the kitchen, there was another door other than the random closets strewn about his place, where I assumed was Gerard’s bedroom. The door was closed however, so I could not see the state of cleanliness it was in. However, that was not what my eyes focused on or cared about. I was transfixed with the centre of the room; where Gerard did all of his art. There were easels with canvasses of variety of sizes. Some were small, the size of a computer or TV screen while others were huge, nearly the size of the doorway itself. Some were blank and others were covered in paint for the hell of it, a violent orange streak and nothing else on one of the smaller canvasses. Or they had something on them, like the half finished sunset on a medium sized print. There were open buckets of paint everywhere in every colour, except blue of course. There were paint brushes and rollers and all of these magical tools everywhere. Nearby the tools was a giant jug of muggy water that I assumed was for washing out brushes. It was placed on the raised level of the bay windows along with a few other art supplies. Upon seeing this vast display of art culture, I walked right into Gerard’s apartment, not even caring if I was leading or not. I didn’t feel that odd to just walk into this guy’s place anymore. Something about the way he had set up the apartment; the casual messiness of it all and the beautiful arrangement of objects entranced me and practically flung me into the den. And it wasn’t awkward - after all, he had invited me. And he was holding the doors open. He didn’t mind me being there and I was enjoying myself, even if it had only been three seconds.

It was when I stepped into the apartment that I took notice of the walls. They were fucking weird, but it was in the good way. All of them varied. The walls in the kitchen still had the original colour of the paint the previous owner had used; a yellow similar to butter. It was soft and warm, but near the top of the stucco ceiling you could see where the yellow stopped being butter and started being nicotine. Some of the paint was chipping and flecking off from years of smoke and water damage. The walls in the living area however were still painted that shade, but you could barely see it for there were so many pieces of art on the wall. It wasn’t a full collage as there was about an inch of space separating each piece, but they were everywhere and in all different sizes. Most were landscapes of sunsets, mountains or fields. Some were just sketches of people done in simple pencil. Others were of objects that were warped to their initial shape, making them come out in a dream like pattern. A few were cartoons, garish depictions of celebrities or family members with giant ears and hooked noses. And then there were even just more random splashes of paint on canvases, making something abstract; something people could study for hours trying to decipher meaning from. God, the paintings were everywhere. It was covered. But it wasn’t until I saw the wall closest to the painting area, where his bedroom door was kept that I knew the true meaning of covered.

It was that wall, the one to the right of me, that bordered the whole length of the apartment. Aside from the kitchen, which was hidden away and secluded in the corner, it was a straight wall that lead from the windows down to Gerard’s bedroom door. And it was absolutely covered in paint. Some parts were even so covered that it looked thick and protruded from the wall slightly.

At the beginning part near the windows the mural started off as scenery; a hill with a road running down it. But as you began to follow the road further and further down the length of the wall, the picture began to change. You were led into a cityscape of a street with one lone shadow standing in the middle while blurs of people passed him by. Those blurs of people then stretched onto nothingness; just a sea of black. The rest of the wall was painted in black, including Gerard’s door. However, it looked as if a bucket of paint had been thrown over everything at the end. There were drabs and ripples of blue, pink, yellow and orange everywhere. Little flecks and then big blobs. There were handprints and foot prints and what I prayed to god was a face print all over the blackness after the city street scene. The only thing that remained black and untouched by the delicate throwing of paint was Gerard’s door. It was a black beyond black; a shiny abyss that no one could see through. And out of all the glorious things painted on the huge wall it was that door that caught my eye. Not the detail put into each blade of grass on the hill, not the shadow figure in the street, not the pink and blue hands that overlapped creating a purple blob of a heart in the centre but this fucking black door that had nothing on it. But perhaps the reason it had nothing on it, was the reason I was so intrigued. I wanted to know why it was blank, why Gerard had done something so seemingly stupid and a waste of creativity. Everything had to mean something to Gerard; I had only just met him and I could already see that. He threw the paint on us for a reason, and he had left this door blank for a reason. It was a black abyss and I wanted inside.

I began to walk forward more, pulled in by the black gateway before Gerard’s words snapped me back into reality, pulling me out of a black hole I was willingly surrendering to.

“You know, before we go to the bedroom, maybe I should know your name first.” Despite the obvious sexual connotation in his voice, I could tell that by the way he looked at me, his arms folded across his chest and leaning his weight to one side, that he didn’t mean anything by it. It was just one of those things you have to say, especially if you have a dirty mind.

“It’s Frank,” I told him, backing away from the wall as quick as I could. I knew Gerard was kidding, but I still didn’t want to give him any openings for more jokes. It was a little awkward; I could feel my face flush and my stomach turn around. I was the one who usually made the sexual jokes, but rarely was I apart of them. Especially from a forty-year-old. No bedroom. Not now. Not ever. “I was just looking. I don’t want to go inside.”

Gerard’s permanent smile widened and he rolled his eyes. I was about to argue, when he beat me to it.

“So, come on,” he said to me, motioning with his hands. He had already taken off his coat while I had been transfixed with his apartment, giving him time to place his coat on one of the brass hangers on the back of the door. He was wearing a black button up collared shirt, but started to undo the cuffs as he talked to me. He turned towards the kitchen and entered it, still talking, rolling up his sleeves to his elbows. “Let’s get us some wine.”

“Oh, right,” I uttered, collecting my hands back at my sides. They had been stretched out a moment ago, trying to touch the paint that seemed to leap out at me from the walls. I moved myself over to the small kitchen and watched as Gerard opened the small fridge. The contents inside were absolutely bare. All I could see were a few bottles of dark wine, a loaf of French bread and some cheese. There appeared to be tubes and jars at the bottom, but they didn’t look at all edible. I hoped that Gerard was weirder than he appeared to be and kept his painting supplies in the fridge, explaining the odd appearance of the weird bottles. Surely he didn’t eat that...

Gerard withdrew a bottle, cracked it open and picked out some glasses from his top cupboard while I stared awkwardly from the entrance of the kitchen.

“You can come in, you know,” he stated. His back was too me and I thought he couldn’t see my fidgeting but apparently, I had been wrong. “Sit down. Stay awhile.”

I followed his advice, stepping a shaky foot forward and pulling out one of the chairs to sit at. He turned around at the same time, placing two tall glasses of a dark red, almost purple, liquid down in front of us. He took the chair opposite me and gripped his glass in his hand close to his face, smelling the strong aroma coming from the wine. My glass was just sitting in front of me and I still could smell it. I didn’t know if I could take having it as close to my face as Gerard had it without choking, but ostensibly he seemed to be enjoying it.

“Sorry I don’t have actual wine glasses,” he apologized, his voice lacking sympathy. “I think I broke them. Probably threw them at someone from the balcony. They didn’t hold enough wine anyway.” He smirked at me, then without breaking eye contact took a giant swing of the liquor in front of him.

“It’s okay,” I insisted. It felt weird drinking wine for one thing, especially out of a tall glass I would normally use for my juice in the morning. And really, that’s all it looked like then; juice. Really aromatic juice, but juice nonetheless.

“Drink some,” Gerard urged, leaning forward and raising his eyebrows in delight.

I swallowed hard, even before I placed the glass to my lips. “All right…” I agreed slowly. I didn’t know why he wanted me to try some so bad. Probably because this was his wine and his brand and he wanted to convert me from my ‘shitty beer’. And besides, it was alcohol. I was going to try some eventually. I tried to plug my nose by holding my breath as the strong odor got closer to my face, but I failed miserably, especially when I tried to swallow. I choked a little, the juices going down my windpipe. I thought that was the worst of it until I began to become aware of the bitter aftertaste in my mouth left by the wine. I wanted to stick my tongue out and scrape off my taste buds it tasted so nasty, but I couldn’t; not with Gerard staring at me the way he was.

“Like it?” he asked me coyly, knowing the answer already.

“It’s great,” I lied, my voice hoarse and raspy. I tried to smile, placing the glass to my lips again, but only pretending to drink this time.

“You’re such a bad liar.” He shook his head, taking another drink but letting it savor in his mouth for a few moments before swallowing it, almost like he was showing off. He chuckled after he was done at his own personal joke. I tried to smile but my throat still was dry and my mouth was in disarray.

“It will grow on you in time,” Gerard assured me, waving his hand in the air as he leaned back in his chair. I nodded meekly, unsure of what to say. I didn’t really want it to grow on me all that much. It tasted nasty and bitter; too overpowering. Beer hadn’t tasted all that lovely when I first tried it either, actually, none of the liquor I ever consumed did. But I had always stuck it out, hoping to get the buzz off of it before I vomited from the awful taste. Maybe the same thing would happen here.

“How old are you?” Gerard asked suddenly, still sipping at his wine.

“Seventeen,” I coughed out, my voice improving slightly. I found myself biting my tongue back slightly, afraid of what he would say. Age was always a hot topic with people and I had many memories – mostly bad – of people overreacting to my age.

When I was around eight, I had been hanging out at a comic book store, just looking around and trying to find a certain issue I had wanted. I ran into some other boys while I was there and they had been looking for the same thing. We talked for ages and it seemed like we had known each other forever. But when they found out how old I was, they were shocked and absolutely disgusted. I wasn’t even in ‘double digits’ yet. They were twelve and took it upon themselves to be high and mighty and look down on me. They brushed me off that day and never talked to me again. It was only four fucking years difference. It wasn’t like they were the best people in the world, but the whole incident still angered me. And it had happened almost a decade ago, but honestly I was still pissed off about it. I hated and loved my age at the same time. I loved it because I was young and that meant that I didn’t have to grow up just yet. The idea of growing up and growing old scared me because of the decisions and responsibility. I loved being young and not having to make those choices; but I also hated that term because people labeled young as bad. And for some reason, I didn’t want Gerard to hate my age. He already knew I was young, at least younger than him (that wasn’t saying much though). But when he found out the actual number he merely nodded his head, committing the knowledge to memory. I breathed a sigh.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” he then asked me, his eyebrow poised and cock, smirk twisted on his face.

“Uh…” I trialed off. Maybe he wasn’t going to be so lenient about my age.

“Hey, don’t worry,” he breathed out a laugh, waving his hand in the air and dragging my worries away. “I’m not going to rat on you.”

This time, it was my turn to just nod. “Thanks.”

“What are you taking in school?” he asked after awhile, actually genuinely interested. I had gotten this question so much from friends and family but most people seemed to be asking it as a conversation starter or to just fill dead air. Gerard placed his glass down though, and leaned forward waiting for my answer. He actually wanted to know. And it made me nervous; he was taking me out of my normal surroundings. I was used to people not caring.

“Umm,” I started, trying to think. We were on the semester system at my school, and with the ending of the winter break, we had started a new term. I struggled to remember what I was taking, my old schedule leaping to my memory and screwing me up a few times before I got it right. “I have applied math, basic chemistry, a computer course and a spare.”

“Ugh,” Gerard let out a loud sigh, showing his aggravation clearly. He even shivered a bit with the mere mention of my classes’ names. “No wonder you skipped. It’s all so cold and sterile. Math? I hate numbers. Computers? I hate technology. Chemistry can be fun, but I doubt it’s the kind you’re learning.” He gave me a slight wink, making me smile back at him before he continued. He lifted his arms up in the air before he finished with his final question. “Where’s the creativity?”

I smiled at his over dramatics but I honestly could not answer his question. I did have no creativity in my line up. Math and Chemistry were pure numbers, formulas and inputting data. And computers were the same thing, only working with codes and specialized programs. I had no creativity at all. And I hadn’t for a long time.

“I don’t know where it is,” I answered candidly. My face dropped to his kitchen table where I proceeded to trace a small crack I found with my finger.

“You poor soul,” Gerard uttered, shaking his head and sighing. “Do you do anything to help your creative output? Anything at all? And standing at a liquor store doesn’t count, by the way.”

“Umm…” I said, searching my memory for the last time I was creative. I hadn’t drawn or painted anything since elementary school and I didn’t really have an urge to start again. Although looking around Gerard’s apartment made me realize how beautiful some art was, I never thought I could be as good as that, so there was no point in trying. I searched for something else creative I did. I wrote stuff down sometimes when I was really bored and I felt like my head was going to explode but I doubted that was anything. I told him it, regardless and it was able to stir a response out of him.

“That’s wonderful!” he practically shouted, raising his arms in the air. “Write more. Even if it’s pure drivel. Most poets are pure drivels anyway.” He smiled at his own remark. “I should know.”

I scrunched my face up at his suggestion. What I was writing was poetry? It didn’t rhyme and it wasn’t beautiful. I was just being an angsty teenager. But a poet? That was a little fruity for me. The only poets I could think of were Shakespeare and though I didn’t mind his plays, I was not touching his poems with a ten foot pole. They were so flowery and romantic. Drivel, like Gerard said. Not something that I would write at all. When I wrote it was blunt and straight forward and it often didn’t make sense. It couldn’t just stand on its own. It had to have something that went with it. Then it hit me like a pound of bricks.

“Oh!” I uttered, immediately grasping Gerard’s attention like he had mine. “I used to play guitar when I was younger.”

“That’s even better!” the older man smiled, baring his really small and yellowed teeth. He reached his arms out and over the table, trying to hug the air in front of us.

“I haven’t played in forever, though,” I kept talking, my memories coming back to me like a flood. My dad had played guitar when he was in college, but gave it up when he had to drop out and get a job. He still had his guitar because he refused to get rid of it. It was a chunk of wooden nostalgia that he kept to remind himself of what he could have been. He had always told himself that he would get back to it, when he had more money and time. But then he had me. And that sort of ruined everything. I couldn’t help but feel halfway responsible for it all, especially as he presented me with the worn out acoustic guitar on my thirteenth birthday. His voice had been dull and somber, warning me to not get too attached but to have something to do instead of getting into trouble all the time. Sam and I had been really misbehaving, staying out all night and stealing shit from little stores. My dad had given me the guitar instead of punishment, but really it was punishment enough with the guilty feeling I got every time I looked at the instrument. I had made my father give up his dreams that now he was going to try and make me save. So I started to play, learning what I could off magazines that Sam stole for me. I was pretty good, playing stuff like Sweet Home Alabama and easy chords on the guitar, but by the time I hit high school and especially after Sam and I met Travis, the guitar got buried in the corner under a pile of clothing and broken promises. Eventually, my dad stopped asking me about it and I stopped pretending to act like I was playing. And finally, we both gave up on our dreams and settled for mundane lives.

Apparently though, mundane was never good enough for Gerard. The light that went off in his eyes as soon as I mentioned I owned a guitar was phenomenal.

“I want you to go home tonight and play it,” he informed me like it was not an option. And instead of debating about it for ages like I had when I was with my father, I found myself nodding my head right along. I even felt my fingers start to dance on the top of the table, getting ready and warmed up for the strings they had not touched in years. It was so weird, the sensation running through my body. The excitement, motivation and hope, even. I didn’t get it. But I wrote it off as the one gulp of wine I had had. The stuff was different than what I was used to. It was obviously impairing my senses.

And I didn’t mind at all.

“I am so glad you have music, Frank,” he told me matter-of-factly. We had calmed down from our initial hoop-la about finding a creative measure, and were both leaning back comfortably on our chairs. Before I could even ask him why he was excited for me, he answered. “Music and art are so alike. You make songs, chords and melodies that people can hear and follow, but also interpret. I make pictures, drawings and sculptures that people can see and feel, but interpret as well. We’re alike, Frank,” he told me, nodding his head. “We’re a lot alike. And I hope you come by more often.”

My initial relaxed state around Gerard suddenly changed with the mention of his last line. I felt my breathing quicken. I must have heard him wrong, I told myself over and over again as I played with the fabric on my jeans. I could not have heard him right. There was no way he invited me over all the time. What would a middle age man want with a teenager? The thought made my palms start to sweat, but my emotions collide. I couldn’t tell anything apart anymore. All I knew was that I had to say something, fast before he asked me again. He was looking at me still, his eyes deep and projecting into me.

“So, uh, like…” I started, tripping over my words as usual. I rubbed my hands harder on my pants, causing a slight burn feeling and making my thoughts concentrate on one tangent. “Are you one of those starving artists?”

He laughed at my remark or at the fact that I had diverged his attention in such a feeble matter. Maybe both. But he suddenly decided to humor me, leaning back in his chair on two legs and patting his black clothed belly. “Not so starving.” He scrunched up his face and nodded, grabbing and shaking his girth a bit. And if I had not been so tense, I would have laughed. His action was actually kind of funny and cute. But instead, he continued to answer my question.

“Yes, in a way,” he continued, leaning forward again and probing me with his dark eyes. “My sole form of a ‘job’ is my painting. I paint, draw, sculpt if I get the chance. Pretty much anything. I sometimes have shows, or people hire me out to paint. I have gone months with no work, but then again I’ve sold five pictures in one day. It depends. I survive, pretty much. Just doing what I love.” He smiled again, baring his tiny teeth. For someone who essentially didn’t know if they would make the bills the next month, he was so fucking happy and always smiling. I couldn’t quite begin to understand that kind of happiness. It was a different form that what my parents possessed. My parents possessed that happiness that came with security. They knew they weren’t going to get thrown out of the house and that we were going to have water to bathe in. But what Gerard had was something better; he was doing what he loved to do and that was making him happy. He didn’t have security, but he did have happiness. And then I realized the two were not the same at all. All my parents knew is that they were going to survive, whether they wanted to or not was the bigger question, something that I couldn’t answer – not even for myself. There was assurance that my parents would get up every morning and go on living, they had security in that. Whether they had something to live for was entirely different.

But Gerard, fuck, I could see it in his eyes how much he wanted to survive. He wanted to get up in the morning just so he could paint. He wanted to live anywhere he could so he could keep on living. The whole process boggled my mind and I wondered if I could ever live that way. I didn’t have that much happiness before hand and I had no security whatsoever. My parents took care of things; there was nothing for me to take care of. Only school and my friends. And both of those were lacking; not enough to kick me out but enough to make me pissed off a lot of the time. I wondered then that if I started to play guitar like Gerard told me to, if I would achieve the same happiness he had. I never knew why I got out of my bed in the morning; I just thought I had to. Looking at Gerard just then, the way his baby-like teeth smiled at me all the time and the way his eyes lit up when I mentioned music or art, it made me wonder, just wonder about what I would do now. Would I still get up in the morning now that I knew I didn’t have to? Would I find something to fill that void? Would I pick up the guitar and like it? I didn’t know, but I wanted to find out. I wanted to capture the happiness the man oozed and bottle it; keep it for purposes when I felt so fucking alone that I thought I would cave in on myself. I wanted to keep this, somehow. And it seemed possible with Gerard. Everything seemed possible with him.

“So, all in all,” Gerard finally concluded, breaking the silence and snapping me out of another one of my mind melding. “I don’t make a lot of money, but I get by.”

“Cool,” I nodded my head quickly. It was a complete underestimation, but I didn’t know what else to say. My thoughts had veered once again and one of his words totally unrelated to the subject at hand caught my mind. Money. He didn’t have a lot and I was taking up some of it by drinking his wine. Or half drinking it. I had maybe taken two more sips during the duration of our conversation. It was growing on me, but not fast. And I felt bad for taking what little he had.

“Thanks for the wine,” I said too quickly, my words stumbling over the other. “But let me pay you for it or something. I don’t want to be rude.” I stood up slightly, so I could dig my hands through my pockets and find the wadded up five dollar bill I threw in there in the morning. Gerard stood up as well, but waved his hands in the air and shook his head.

“No,” he insisted. He walked over to me and grabbed my arm, taking my hand out of my pocket. He stood there with his grip still around my small forearm as he stared at me in the eyes. It was not menacing or sexual in any way, just friendly and deeply concerning. “You’re not paying me anything.”

“But I want to,” I only half lied. I usually paid the people who got us liquor at the store, so it was common procedure to pay him as well. I could feel his body heat next to me and I receded a bit backwards. He followed, still invading my person space while I finished my thought out loud. “I feel guilty.”

“Guilt is a useless emotion,” he shot back, his face becoming more serious.

“Still…” I trialed off, taking my gaze away from him. I tried to move back again, and finally, this time he caught the point. He took his hand away from my arm, leaving it colder than before.

“Okay,” he started, making it seem like I had won that battle. “You don’t have to pay me – I have no use for money.” That was the understatement of the year, I thought before he continued. “But I do have a use for good conversation. And for someone to clean my paint brushes. I keep having to buy new ones because I’m stubborn and lazy and end up leaving them out too long, and they harden.”

I nodded, following his tangent of thought perfectly but not wanting to answer yet, just in case I was wrong. He affirmed my validity with his next words.

“If I give you more wine, do you want to come and clean up my paint supplies?”

I bit my lip and nodded, unsure of what else I could say. I really wanted to pay him; it seemed a lot less personal and invasive. And less dangerous. Its not that I didn’t feel safe with Gerard, but the idea of what I was doing had a bitter aftertaste of danger to it. But if me cleaning his brushes was what he wanted in the form of a deal, then it seemed okay. He said he wanted good conversation and honestly so did I. I had never talked so expressively with Sam or Travis before, unless we were angry. When Sam and I talked with this much passion, we were yelling at each other at the top of our lungs, usually for some stupid and foolish thing. Feelings would come to the surface and be dealt with immediately. But those sorts of conversations aren’t good; they’re draining. This was the opposite of draining. It was fucking uplifting being here. But I still felt awkward, mostly because of what I knew people would say about all of this. I was going to be helping the forty-year-old fag artist with his work? That didn’t sound good at all. At least he was giving me free liquor in a sense, but still…my stomach still felt a tad weak.

I concluded right then and there that no one was going to know about this at all. My life, sanity and stomach contents depended on it.

“Sure,” I agreed, nodding my head with more strength to make it final.

“Excellent!” Gerard hissed. He threw his hands in the air once again, out and open and walked towards me. Before I knew what was happening, my face was in his neck and he was hugging me, squeezing me and all I could smell was his aftershave and cigarettes. He hugged me for a few seconds, before letting me go and walking back over to his fridge, getting out more wine. I stood in the same spot, his warm sensation all around me. It had been ages since someone had given me a hug. And those who had, were family and did it quick and meaningless. Gerard’s hugs weren’t meaningless. He pressed into me, blending into my body like we were one person. He didn’t just do it because we were supposed to hug, he had wanted to hug me; he was glad we had made a deal and he wanted to show that happiness. And it felt good. His words came back to me from only moments earlier.

We’re alike, Frank. We’re a lot alike.

Maybe we were.

He got out more wine for himself and as I tried to finish what was left of mine, I got a glance at the clock. It was almost five and I needed to be home soon. Gerard seemed a little down, his face falling slightly, but he was nice and walked me to the door. He even offered to give me a drive back or at least walk me out of the apartment, but I declined. I needed to do something thinking and I needed the walk for that. Before I left however, I felt his strong hand on my shoulder, turning me around for one last statement.

“Come here tomorrow after school and you can get started working off your debt for today,” he teased, smiling coyly making the wrinkles around his eyes deepen.

“Yeah, sure,” I nodded, my voice sounding somewhat distant. He sighed upon hearing it, but I could tell there was some seriousness behind the lament.

“Look, Frank,” he started slowly, looking at me with trepidation. “It’s obvious that I want you here. But if you don’t want to come tomorrow or at all, then let me know. I’ll understand.” He looked at me with those deep eyes, so deep I would fucking drown in them, but I still didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

“So,” he broke the ice again, probing me for answers. “Will I be expecting you tomorrow?”

I stood there for the longest time thinking of something to say. I knew my answer but it was so strong it couldn’t be summed up with a yes or a no. For once, I was coming across a gray area that I hated. Or maybe it wasn’t so gray; rather really black or really white. I wasn’t sure, but all I knew is that I could not say it with a single word. Then his own expression hit me dead centre in my chest.

“Some questions don’t have answers.”

He smiled, his ego bulging to the fact that I quoted him and swelling with pride because he was able to understand my answer. Gerard understood me then, and it wasn’t the first time. We were a lot alike.

“And some questions don’t need answers,” he added slyly before he shut the door, sending me on my way home.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14