Chapter Fifty-Four Frank 1 страница

When I got up the next morning, Gerard was already gone. As I felt the final remnants of sleep fall away from my eyes as my lids fluttered open and I was left to stare at a dull ceiling I had come to call home. I turned myself over quickly, too quickly, and was merely met with an empty bed. I felt my heart drop inside my chest, but I smiled because I knew I still had one. And I would keep having one, even if Gerard was gone.

At first, I cursed myself for falling asleep when I did, so early and too late at the same time. I wanted to be awake with him all night, to touch him and talk to him, or to just listen to him breathe. But again, I smiled, removing my curse when I realized that Gerard had gotten to experience those things for himself, just from watching me. He told me the night before that he used to watch me sleep and he had probably done that all night. I found myself gripping my body, my bare chest and damp hair, wondering if he had touched me there and how long ago it had been. I didn’t know what time it was, and I didn’t want to know, either. I didn’t want to know how much I had missed Gerard by. I just wanted to accept the fact that he was in a plane right now, going to Paris and achieving his dream. I was proud of him and I realized what an amazing feeling he had possessed when he felt the same with me. My hands started to wander all over my body, up to my face and dabbing my lip tenderly. It was still swollen from the amount of kissing, crying, and biting I had done the night before. As I touched it then, it felt more than just swollen. I breathed in deeply, knowing that Gerard had kissed me before he left, giving me one final gift.

As I finally roused my body from the bed, I found my boxers buried somewhere on his floor and slid them against my bare legs. I didn’t want to be completely naked. I wanted to wrap myself in all the clothing Gerard owned, but I settled for the small shorts. The morning air against my bare chest was enough to feel exposed and confident at the same time. I walked into the general living area of the apartment through the black bedroom door, turning around and viewing my handprint still intact as I did. I smiled again, and it amazed me how easy this was coming. It didn’t hurt as much as it had the night before. I didn’t feel like crying anymore. And it wasn’t because I had run out of tears. I knew I could never run out of tears, not for this, but at the moment, everything seemed to have a new light. It shone down on me, warming me, and making me happy. I was proud of myself, but most of all, I was proud of Gerard.

Our last night together had been filled with so many emotions, but I knew better now than to say I had felt them all by that point in time. I knew that there were so many more colors, so many more spectrums that I hadn’t seen yet, and was still going to see. I had so much hope gathering in my veins that my limbs didn’t even feel stiff anymore. I could feel and still taste Gerard on me, and I repeated the conversations we had had inside my head so much, I thought I would have an aneurysm. We had had a good night together, despite the crying, pain, and minor yelling. It had been good. Better than good – it had been art. I could let him go to Paris, leaving me here in his empty apartment because I knew we would be together again, if not soon, then beyond the end.

Even though Gerard was gone from the living space, there was still something about the walls, the kitchen, the couch, and the floorboards that spoke so much to me. It was like I could hear voices, the soft murmuring of the appliances cascading into my eardrums and the paint coated walls dancing before my eyes. As I looked around, I realized how many possessions Gerard had needed to leave behind. It still felt like he was living in the place. The half-empty bottle of wine we had consumed the night before was still on the kitchen table, along with the morning paper. I had almost expected the place to be cold and sterile, his life and light gone from it when he was, but it wasn’t. It was the exact opposite. It was warm, rich, and I wanted to stay here forever, regardless of Gerard being present. The walls were talking to me, telling me, and showing me all the times the artist and I had shared together.

I looked over to the kitchen and I could see me from my first day here played out before my very eyes. I saw us sipping at tall glasses of wine, myself being shocked by the repugnant taste while Gerard jiggled his girth. I looked over to the window, and saw myself standing there, nervous as anything getting ready to take off my shirt and have him paint me naked. Finally, I drew my eyes over to the orange couch, where Vivian had been drawn and the last place where Gerard and I had had sex. I sighed, knowing everything that was running through me, emotions and logged away tears, was the best thing I had ever experienced. Gerard was the best thing I had ever experienced. Even if our chapter was short, him coming in and out of my life in a matter of months, it was probably one of the longest and most influential. Gerard had changed me, made me into an adult before I had even reached age eighteen. I would always remember him, and I knew, I just knew, that he would always remember me. I didn’t know how my chapter compared to all the others he had written for himself, but I knew we had made the most beautiful art together than he had seen in a long time. And it would probably stay that way for a long, long time too.

I stood in the center of the room for a few drawn out seconds, curling my toes against the hardwood pattern. I wondered where I was supposed to go next. I knew where Gerard was supposed to go; he was on his way there. He was on a plane, most likely in first class, knowing him. He would want the extra arm and leg room so he could spread out his body, and maybe even draw pictures while he was waiting. I gazed around and noticed that all of his art was still here, along with his painting supplies. He really was starting over again in Paris.

I really admired that a lot. He could fail, but he didn’t care. I wasn’t sure about my own opinion on his successfulness. I knew he was talented - holy hell was he talented. I gazed at our mural, the one we had created together, and saw that he oozed talent. It was a far different story getting people to love and believe in that talent, however. In Jersey they hadn’t and even in New York things had been difficult. Paris was another continent away, another world away, so maybe things would be different. I wasn’t sure, but I knew something would work out. It always did.

The more I looked around the apartment, relaying the things that had happened in such a short period of time in my mind, the more I realized that Gerard had been put here for a reason. And for once, it wasn’t a completely selfish reason. We needed each other, equally and wholly to become who we were. Just like images on his sketchbook and photographs that I took, I began to conjure up images of the story I would tell people. They needed to hear this, in time.

I thought of a boy, too ashamed of himself and his friends to actually do anything with his life other than standing outside a liquor store. I saw an old man, coming outside only to get the things he needed, because he thought he already had it all. The old man was cocky and arrogant, only to front himself, protecting himself from the things he was still missing. The boy, well, the boy was just missing in general. When they saw each other, a color explosion had been born. Blue went everywhere, just like dreams, and lives started to intertwine. The old man had to become a teacher, soaking up youth like a sponge, while the boy needed the attention and affection the old man gave. And eventually, they both learned to realize that the best art they could make was only with each other. They learned and grew together, painting a picture blindfolded, proving to everyone else that art was something they could not control. The boy started to become a man, while the old man just started to live again. They fell in love, despite the odds and even apart, they stayed together. Art would always be art. It just couldn’t be helped.

Our story seemed complicated when I dictated it all out. I reexamined myself. I looked at us again, reviewed our story meticulously in my mind, I began to see the pure simplicity Gerard had talked about before, if only for a brief moment. All I saw was holding hands, small kisses when no one was looking, and even some when they were. I saw laughter coming from deep within the belly, and sadness from the same place. I saw rivers of tears in sorrow and in joy. I saw all of these things, and I wanted to take a picture of them all, keep them in an album to show the world what love really was. It didn’t matter that he was old, that we were men, and that I wasn’t even gay. There is always an exception in life. I was his, and maybe together, I thought to myself, we could be the world’s.

I was ready to face that world. I knew I was, I was sure of it. I had a camera in my bag, a heart still beating inside my chest, and deep rooted memories, tattooed onto my skin and on the back of my eyelids. I knew what I was going to do in the long run, but right then, I was still in an aftershock. Gerard was gone, I was alone and though there was so much unabashed hope in me, I didn’t know what to do.

I walked forward, pushing my feet onto the cold hardwood floor. I thought of going over to the couch, maybe putting in more of Gerard’s movies and reflecting on things, but when I got close enough to look over the end of the couch, I saw the coffee table, set up in its normal place, but with something else on it. I drew closer, unsure of what I saw. There were so many pieces of paper that I didn’t know what to think of at first, until my eyes locked in on the canvas.

It was Gerard’s last picture he had painted. I rushed over and flipped the piece so I could view the other side. Gerard had left it face down, probably as a surprise. And God, what a surprise it was.

I was met with paint, piled on so thickly it looked as if the image was flying off the picture. And really, maybe it was. It was a dove, set in an off-brown shade like the one he owned. Its wings were spread out far and wide, from one side of the page to the other. Its neck was long and proud, the beak spilling off and opened slightly, a silent coo coming forth. The background was many shades of blue, coming together to form one distinct azure shade. Though piled on thick and absolutely stunning, it was nothing compared to the bird. Each one of its feathers were acutely done and proportioned, the thickness of the paint marking each one. I stared at it for the longest time, just absorbing it all. My fingers traced over everything, touching it to make sure it was real. It was, and it was amazing. My eyes drew down to the corner, which I spotted the title of the piece, and Gerard’s signature. Gerard had a habit of making his titles for his paintings really long, so much that you would have to take a breath sometimes before you could continue, but this one was concise and simple, only with one word on the page.

Frank.

My heart swelled seeing the name and knowing that it was not the dove he kept in his apartment. It wasn’t the one that had a distinct marking around her neck, like a noose. This dove, though the same color and shape, did not have that marking. I had always been Gerard’s dove, and this dove down on canvas was me – it really was me. Gerard only painted things, people and his lovers, when they were over. Now, I had been painted. He said he would bleed his soul for me, and he had done it, right on this canvas, so thick it was leaping off at me. Like I really could fly.

Marveling at the picture for a few more minutes, I placed it back down and began to look through the other documents that littered the small coffee table. There was a white envelop, blank without anything on it and then a folded up piece of paper addressed to me. I picked that up first with trembling happy fingers and began to read the inside. I almost expected to find another picture, granting Gerard’s hatred of writing words, but he bypassed it for me, giving me a few small syllables and sentences to hang onto.

My dove –

I’m not good with words, and you know that, but there are a few things you need to have written down to remember. One is that you are free now. You can fly - you just have to make it happen for yourself. The other is that no matter what people tell you, no matter what happens to you when I’m not around, just remember that art can save lives. And you, Frank, are a work of art.

Thank you.

- Your keeper

Ps. We are everything, and now everything is yours. Take my apartment. The rent has been paid up for at least another two months. Take anything and everything you want. It’s yours now and you deserve it. The dove is yours, too, remember. And don’t forget to show her what it means to be free.

The tears that I had thought stopped coming, came back again, in small little rivers making their way down my face. It wasn’t the heaving chest baby cries that had happened before. These were tears that I couldn’t quite name, caught and drowned halfway in between joy and thankfulness. I couldn’t believe Gerard was giving me everything. I would have a place to stay, a place to start my art, and actually make my dreams keep coming true. I could keep the place where the walls talked to me, telling me and reminding me of all the times I had had with Gerard. I wouldn’t have to let it go, have someone else who didn’t understand live in the same place and walk where we had expressed our love over and over again. He had not put that he loved me in the letter, I noticed, but there was no place for it. He didn’t need to say something when it was clear in the fine-tipped blue penned words. It was written all over the letter, all over the picture, and the other envelope I still had to open. Gerard didn’t need to say that he loved me again because he had said something far better.

Thank you.

Gerard was thanking me for saving his life, when I should have been doing the exact same thing to him. He saved my life. I probably would have died if it hadn’t been for him. It wouldn’t have been in the near future, unless I maybe got in a car with Sam at the wrong time, but I would have been dead on the inside. I felt so alive on the inside right now, I just didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to yell, scream, kick, and just run through Jersey telling everyone that Gerard the artist they all hated or didn’t give a fuck about had saved me. And then, if they believed me, and listened, I would tell them that I saved him two. How we had done it together, painting a picture for everyone to see. We really did make beautiful art together. I saw that all around us.

Art can save lives, his blue inked words ran through my mind again. It was true, it was so true. Photos, paintings, words, music, chords, melodies, film. All things that had creativity, and even some people, had art attached to them in some way. And that could save lives. It had saved both of us, and I only hoped that in time, apart or together, we could keep making that art that saved and gave people the freedom they needed to live.

I drew my attention back down to the other envelope, thinking that things couldn’t get much better than they already were. The feeling of the paper between my fingers was thick, and once I pushed past the unsealed flap and saw a wave of green, I nearly flung the thing back down on the table. I was just so overwhelmed. Gerard had given me more money, on top of everything else. I knew he would need it in Paris, though he didn’t want to use it until it was necessary, but he still gave it to me. I didn’t want to count how much, but I knew there was a fair amount. I wondered if there was even anything left of his family’s inheritance anymore. I didn’t know what to think. My knees felt weak and eventually, I collapsed onto the couch, sinking into the orange fabric and staring at his gifts in front of me. I bit my thumb, still unsure of what to do with everything. I had stopped crying, but there was something gnawing away inside my chest. Something needed to get out, something needed to be done. But I was drawing blanks left, right, and center over what to do. My mind was a mess, images of my old self, new self, full self, and Gerard going through again and again.

Then randomly, the essay I had been forced to write when I was in high school, describing myself and who I was, popped into my mind. I hadn’t thought about it in ages – not since that afternoon in front of the liquor store, when I had first encountered Gerard. Suddenly, this forgotten high school project became a compulsion inside of me. I needed to think about that essay. I was unable to write it before, because I didn’t know what to say. Now I did. I could write a novel about myself if I needed to at that point time; I had that much to say. Because my arms were still too weak from the shock of everything, I wrote it in my head.

I was so many things now that I had never been in the past. I was an adult, but still a kid at heart when I was with Jasmine. We would goof around, jump on the trampoline, and just have fun. I was her friend, best friend, and she was one right back to me, unlike Sam and Travis. I was an artist, my attempts with paint being somewhat trivial, but I had at least given it a shot. The same went for being a musician; I knew how to play guitar, even if I had smashed it to pieces in front of my father.

My father, I thought suddenly. I was a son again, to both of my parents when before I had just been offspring. I was just their blood before, mixed in with some different chromosomes, taking my father’s nose and my mother’s height. But now, I was their child, someone they could call their own in more ways than DNA. I could call them mom and dad again, something I hadn’t done since I was six.

I was a photographer; my passion and hopefully future occupation finally being figured out and put in front of me. I was also a lover, finally knowing what it felt like to be with someone in all of the ways thought possible, and fighting for that right. I took in a deep breath, touching the painting again as I started to think of the conclusion to my essay.

Most of all, I was a dove. I was a bird that not everyone saw right away, especially when I came from the same family of the pigeons - a group people loved to hate. But I was better than that, better than them. I was more beautiful and graceful, though it had taken a long time to figure out. I had to be kept by someone, the reclusive artist, who taught me how to be the bird he loved so much. He had to teach me how to fly, but I still had yet to do it, I realized. I couldn’t be completely free without spreading those wings first.

I got up from the couch with a sudden stealth of realization. I walked around for a bit, my hands balled at my sides, trying to figure out my next approach. Then the answer seemed to fall from the sky – or at least peck at it from the side window.

I heard the distinct noise that had captured my eardrums a few days ago, coming from the outside of Gerard’s balcony. I looked and saw his dove, but this time, she was still in the apartment. She was sitting by the window, pecking out a plea to go outside. A plea for her own freedom. Heeding to Gerard’s words in the letter, I walked forward, paying as much attention to this small creature as I possibly could.

“Hey,” I soothed, my hands coming down on her slowly. I was afraid she’d flinch or try and fly away, but she stayed put, allowing my fingers to brush against her feathers. I felt a huge rush wash over me, making my body feel weightless. Small claws started to climb atop my arm, the dove head’s bobbing as she perched herself on me. Her black beady eyes began to stare at me, her new keeper and same species at the same time. She cocked her head to the side as if asking me a question. I smiled, reading her easily. I wanted the same thing.

“Let’s go out on the balcony,” I stated, smiling and nodding my head back at her.

I probably looked like some insane bird man the way I was carrying on, talking to her every so often, matching her head bobs as we both stepped outside through the small door. I cupped my hands over her wings, making sure she didn’t fly away. But as I hit her feathers to halt her, I realized that that was all she ever wanted to do. She wanted freedom just as much as Gerard and I had ever wanted it, and she had been helping us to learn for the longest time. She embodied freedom, she was freedom, but that didn’t mean she had it. She may have escaped that one time, but escaping wasn’t liberation. Escaping was doing something you weren’t supposed to yet. You couldn’t just leave and expect to be completely free. The person, the keeper had to let you go. It was only when they obtained freedom themselves that they could pass it on. Gerard was my keeper; he had gotten his freedom right along side me, but he had to make the first move to grab it.

I looked up into the sky, wondering just where his plane was. Even though I didn’t see anything that resembled the aircraft, I smiled, knowing he would be proud of my next actions.

I took a few steps forward, leaning my arms against the wrought iron barrier that kept things from falling off. The dove was still cupped in both my hands, her head peaking out and looking around eagerly. Her coos became louder and incessant, and I laughed a bit at how excited she was.

“Calm down,” I jested, talking to the animal that somehow understood me. Gerard had given me the bird, and I was now the keeper she needed to let her go. I had freedom after all. This was how I was supposed to fly.

Slowly and surely, I removed my top hand from her feathers. She stood up straighter, her head bobbing and looking around, but she didn’t move. She didn’t look scared or afraid, she just wasn’t sure what to do yet. Her beady black eyes met up with mine, and I realized what she was waiting for.

“Go on,” I told her, giving her the permission, final encouragement, and guidance she needed. I knew she understood me, no matter how different we looked on the outside, we were both doves; we spoke the same language.

Within moments of me telling her to fly, she took off, her wings spreading wide and cutting through the air. She flapped them repeatedly at first, her coos loud, almost drowned out by the feathers through the wind. She got her rhythm surprisingly fast, her wings settling in for a slow glide. She was flying straight ahead at first, then circling around in front of the balcony, the sign of the liquor store randomly appearing in between her feathers. I smiled, proud of the small bird taking flight, and also at how I was standing just as high up as she was. I was ages and many, many wingspans away from the dreaded liquor store where I thought life was as good as it got. Oh God, I thought. It got so much better than that.

I watched as the dove began to stop her preliminary circles, casting a gaze at me, locking black eyes before we both bobbed our head in a final goodbye. And then she was gone, just in a blink of an eye, into the skyline. I knew that I would probably never see her again, but I could never be too sure. I knew I would see Gerard, somehow, and someway. Maybe the same went for the creature that ruled our lives, our relationship, and finally, our freedom.

Some of the best lessons I had realized on my own, his guiding hands merely resting on my wings. Anything (and definitely everything) could change the world. Gerard had changed mine; he had changed me. I thought of the man that I loved, who I had saved and saved me in return. He was the artist who lived on barely nothing, but wanted everything. He was the peace keeper with my father, and the dove keeper with me and only me. He kept me in my cage of a life beforehand, only releasing me into the world of his apartment when we both understood the consequences, and we cast them aside like dried paint shells. We made our own world together, one I could still dip into whenever I needed to escape the real one I was in now. He had taught me how to do that, getting me ready and only keeping me for as long as I needed.

I stood on the balcony for the longest time, feeling the wind go through my body, separating each part of myself, fanning it out just like the feathers I had now gained. I stood waiting for something more, given to me by both the bird and the man who were now flying so high above me. I could fly now, and as I looked at the city skyline, feeling the wind through my fingers, I felt like I already was. And I knew I would be for a long time.

“Thank you…” I said into the wind, a coo as my only reply.

He set me free.

He Epilogue

E. Francis Deshane

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
Kurt Vonnegut

Tout ce qui n'est pas donné est perdu.

Paris I

“So,” I felt his lips brush against the tip of my ear. “How do you like Paris?”

You know when you feel something so strongly and though you know it’s coming, it still knocks you flat? Your breath is sucked right out from your lungs and it feels like you’re drowning though you’re not even near water? Every single emotion in your being is trying to cram through your mouth and you end up choking on your soul? It had always sounded so cliché and way too overdramatic to me. But honestly? That was how it felt when I saw Gerard again.

We had agreed to meet at this small café in front of the Louvre. It has the best croissants, he told me in a letter. It had taken him ages to start sending his correspondence in the first place, and when he did, they were often oil marked from the pastries he had consumed on the small gray tables there. He never bothered to clear the crumbs off before starting to compose his letters, so they were always stained; his pictures ran in some areas, his words were hard to read. It annoyed me at first; these were the only tangible elements I had of him anymore, and I wanted to keep every last bit of him intact and with me. Every picture pristine, every word perfectly legible. The words, when used, were sparse and some letters never contained anything more than an address written on the front with black felt-tipped pen, and the contents nothing but pictures, drawings, and this distinct smell of buttery pastries and black morning coffee.

You’ll love it here. It’s called La Même Âme. The Same Soul, in English. At night you can see the Eiffel Tower. It’s like a burning orb of light. He wrote in short sentences all the time. It was so strange when I finally heard him talk again in real life; I had forgotten how long-winded he could be.

The complicated matters were first in our discussions, like why it had taken us nearly seven years to finally have this rendezvous. I used to accept blame, or shift it off on other people, including Gerard. It took a few years, some aging and maturity on my part, and actually sitting with him Paris to fully comprehend that this was no one’s fault. Blame should not have entered the equation. Everything with our initial relationship had occurred in such a short time-span, so after departure, we had to wait it out a bit, find ourselves before we found each other again, or something like that. Gerard rationalized it in such better terms than I ever could myself. I had been an impatient teenager who was suddenly becoming an adult and too wrapped up in my own freedom.

Years passed without me really recollecting them as thoroughly as Gerard did. Though he didn’t write me until the summer ended, and was then sparse among his words and images, he remembered everything about his days.

He kept journal upon journal and stacked them up to the ceiling in his apartment, recounting and recording all of the days he had been away. He wrote and drew and painted and collected and remembered absolutely everything. When I walked into his little beaten apartment in the shady area of town, away from all the cultural icons of importance, I was amazed. But not that surprised. He lived in darkness over there, taking the only apartment he could afford. He had no money, no job, no friends, and was completely and utterly alone. Although it seemed like a harsh fate for someone, Gerard reveled in it. There were no distractions. It was just art. He knew that to stay sane in a place this far away from the center of the city that he could not even see the Eiffel Tower at night anymore; he needed to create it in his mind instead. This was imperative to his survival. So he collected and remembered everything he could in these books. He ate, lived, and breathed art and literature and culture. He learned French. He did so many things, while not doing anything at the same time, to an outsider, at least.

“The people here… I sometimes hear them call me L’Étranger. The Stranger; or a more direct translation, The Outsider. I don’t talk to anyone here, really, except the shop keepers in the art store or the people who sell me croissants. Even then, it’s a ‘good morning’ and ‘have a nice day’; nothing fancy. At first this was because I couldn’t speak French all that well without tripping over my own tongue. Then it was because I was nervous, and then, finally, when I got over myself, and began to comprehend what was around me in terms more complex than language, I realized I liked being L’Étranger. The Stranger, The Outsider, The Recluse, The Classic Hermit Character. I liked it. I was it. I didn’t need anyone here and it gave me more time to concentrate on what was important.”

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14