Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 3 страница

“Yeah, I do.”

This was about far more than the lack of heating, and even more than realizing we could spend the rest of our lives together now, in peace. This was about going home to do it.

“I looked it up already, and the next plane to New Jersey is at noon tomorrow.” He paused, tracing circles on my back. “Do you think you can be ready by then?”

I turned over so I could face him. We had been spooning before in an effort to keep warm, but I wanted to see his face. His serious expression was too much. I knew I wanted to leave, and that I was totally ready to get up and start our lives together again some place familiar, but there was still something hanging in the air. He caught onto my hesitation, his perception still excellent.

“You know, my grandmother used to tell me that you could never truly leave a place unless you left something behind.”

Both of our eyes went to the walls, as if by instinct and by heart. They were all white and barren, smoke stained with years of previous tenants, but the landlord had been adamant about keeping them untouched. By himself or his tenants. It was in the lease, Gerard had told me when I first questioned the lackluster appearance in some places.

But a lease that would have no application come noon tomorrow, because we would be gone. At first, I didn’t mind being in black and white. Suddenly though, I felt a flood of colour. With one quick glance at each other, we were out of bed, and even in the chilled air, our clothing was off. It was back to the things we truly were familiar with: breaking the law and paint sex.

Our mural was small, but it took most of the night. We wanted to keep adding to it; another layer, another coat, another colour. We didn’t have too much to work with from Gerard’s supplies, but since he didn’t want them anymore, we used everything. He still had every colour under the sun – he said he never felt complete unless he held a rainbow in his hands, or the possibility to make one – but we found ways to mix, match, and make our own. Everything he had was up there, from acrylic, to tempera, to watercolor, charcoal, even some modeling clay we somehow adhered to the wall. He insisted upon using everything, and if we could see no place for it on the wall, then it still needed to be left behind. He said he wanted to start all over again, purge himself to build it all up in New Jersey. It was tiring, he told me, but he had a feeling this would be the last time, so he may as well give it his all.

“Are you upset at all?” I asked. We had slowed our pace with the rising of the sun. Light crept in through the small rectangular windows and illuminated our bodies streaked with paint.

He looked at me through blue stained eyebrows, twisted up into confusion. “Why would I be upset?”

“Uh, well, I don’t know…” I touched the back of my neck, feeling as if I had spoiled something. “Never mind.”

He made a noise with his tongue and his cheek, clicking into comprehension. But he still didn’t speak for quite some time. “I used to tell myself that I wanted to be a famous artist. That was what Paris was for. If I couldn’t do it in New York or New Jersey, then I’d know for sure in good ol’ Par-ee. ” He was looking away, as if talking to the former version of himself and not to me. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to interrupt, or if he would continue on. I wanted to ask him, so much, about his dreams and if he thought he had failed himself. Failure had always been a looming shadow in Paris, something in the black areas that I couldn’t always see or speak about. I knew we were happy and we had fun, and this trip was everything I had ever wanted because my desires had been so simple all along. I merely wanted him. But what about something beyond ourselves? Did he feel accomplished in his life here, cramped away in an apartment building that was falling apart because of lack of care and with a lack of colour, just being a man? He was not what I had expected upon returning; this was not what I had expected. I didn’t know if I was disappointed in that fact or if it even mattered to him. Maybe it was my disenchanted nature that I felt in art school which made me want to probe and live through his victories or failures and use them to make myself feel better, or maybe it was sheer obsessive curiosity. I had to know if he felt good, not about love or me, because I knew we were both mutual in that regard, but about other things. We were leaving because we were satisfied – but was he satisfied with the part independent from myself, the one that had made him take the leap of faith in the first place?

He shrugged with a little laugh all of a sudden, and then continued to swirl some colours on the wall by his wrist.

“What?” I asked, too attentive. “What’s so funny?”

“Paris was one of the best things I’ve done, but for all the different reasons that I thought about in the first place. It’s funny, I guess. That’s how things always happen.”

He smiled, and in spite of myself, I couldn’t help but reciprocate. I knew he was talking about me. He took a globe of blue paint from the kit onto his finger and pushed it on my nose, as if it wasn’t clear enough.

And then because I couldn’t help it, I had to ask. “Are you upset that you never got famous? That we have to move out?”

“We don’t have to do anything. I want to leave, and I know you do, too.”

I stared at my feet, which were strewn with green and orange markings. I had had no real plan in coming here. I was just there to see Gerard, to be with Gerard, and I couldn’t really see beyond that. Perhaps in the back of my mind, I was always thinking of going home to New Jersey, but I didn’t want that to interfere on his part.

“Look, Frank. I went to Paris because I needed to see if I could do it. If I could become famous and live my life like that. And I didn’t do it.”

“But you’re still an artist –“

“Oh, I know. Trust me, I know. But I’m not a famous artist. I don’t have the money to live like one anymore!” He laughed a little, somberly, creases around his eyes from old age becoming evident. “But that’s okay. Because I’m an artist, and I’ve still accomplished my dream.”

“How so?” I was confused. If his dream was to be famous, and he’s not, then how could he be smiling and laughing like a little child right now?

“I’ve achieved my dream because now I have absolutely no regrets in my life whatsoever. I never had any before, but I always had what if I could have gone and done this and this and this. Now I know because I finally got up and did this and this and this. So what if the outcome of this was a big no? It doesn’t matter because at least I have an answer.” He looked to the wall suddenly, reaching the last patch of the off-coloured wall. “It’s better to have colour, even if it’s not your favourite, than to be constantly plagued by grey areas.”

With that, he threw the last can of paint down on the new canvas. It was a dark blue, one he never used very often, but blue nonetheless. He gave me a wry smile, exchanging something known.

“We need a new colour,” he told me suddenly, touching his chin. “We’ve done blue, we’ve done yellow, we’ve even done black, red, and green. We need something new.”

“That shouldn’t leave us with too many options.”

We look at our mural, trying to find something that was still wet, something that symbolized us seven years later, seven years apart. We had been living in black and white, something classic, in Paris. I now knew we had to search for the brightest thing in order to contrast, and launch ourselves back over that ocean.

“I’m thinking…”

“Orange?” I suggested. His face was still scrunched up in thought. “Purple? Uhhh…” I scanned my mind, we were kind of running low on options. “Um… There’s brown…?”

“Pink?”

“ Pink?” I enunciated, in disbelief. His demeanor did not waver, in fact, it looked to be a challenge.

“Yes, Pink. Why not? Have an open mind, Frank. You’ll never know what you like if you don’t dig into it with your bare hands first.” He gave me a wink, and then got down on his knees. He scraped the last of the pink out of the bottle onto his thumb, and then began to coat his hands with it. I searched the wall, with a roll of my eyes, for some still-wet pink splotches. When I found some, and his hands were ready, we both headed for the door.

Unlike before, when I marked his door with just my own handprint, it was both of ours this time around. They were right next to each other, and even though I was older now, his hand was still much bigger and more adult looking than I felt mine would ever be.

“Hands do change,” he said, seeming to read my mind. “But for the most part, still hold the same things.”

I was never sure what the pink was supposed to symbolize, but after awhile I remembered the flyer that had brought me here: Rappelez-vous ce que c'était que d'être libre? Do you remember what it's like to be free? It had been a looming question in my mind, something that haunted my existence back in New Jersey that was uncanny. Something I had refused to give words or meaning to. It was the act of forgetting, and I was worried I had forgotten everything he had taught me. I was so worried that I had forgotten how to be free. Even when I got on the plane, even when I met him again, there was still that sense of doubt. He had always been the authority on these matters, and I wondered if I had let him down, or if I had just plain forgotten. But in that moment of recognition, I realized he never had that authority. The worry and the fear of forgetting was unfounded. I had always been free. I didn't remember what it was like because I already knew, and always would know, with or without him.

Yes, the pink made sense now, and I looked at our hand prints right next to one another on the door, and it made sense too. We were next to one another because we were the same now. Just men, yes, but we were free. We would never forget that. And now, neither would the next people who came along.

We were able to walk away from the apartment after that. We put on our clothing after getting off what we could of the paint in the small porcelain sink. But we really didn’t worry too much about appearances. We were too tired, had run out of words, and didn’t talk much during the process. We gathered our two bags, one for each of us, carrying only what we had on our backs. Our pink hands weren’t the only things we left in Paris, but they were the only things that mattered.

It was Wednesday when we left. I only knew because the market was on, and the lady selling flowers was there. All she had were pink flowers, every shade, every blossom, every kind. Nothing but pink. Gerard just looked at me and put his arm around my shoulders.

“So, Frank,” he said in a playful tone. “You never answered my question. How did you like Paris?”

In an instant, I was brought back to the beginning. The first question he asked me after seven years, slipping up behind, and whispering into my ear from behind like a proverb. I thought of the first meetings, the croissants, the stained art paper, flowers the size of my face, the market, the cold nights and morning light, the sex, the postcards with touristy drawings, black and white with gray smoke, fog and rain, the wine, and the pink hands on the door marking our place and our exit. It all led back to now, all in a circle, and we were going home. I took a very deep breath and I didn’t say anything for a long time.

“Yeah, Paris seems to have that affect on people,” Gerard remarked after a few moments of silence. He turned around, pulling me with him, and we stared at the open horizon in front of us. It took me ages to realizes we were facing the direction of the Eiffel Tower.

“Ah, c’est la vie. C’est la grand vie,” Gerard sighed happily, then turned his face towards me. There was a huge grin on his aged face, his wrinkles deeper and eyes brighter than I’ve seen them before. There was a twinge of nostalgia in his voice, but his face spoke of nothing but the promise of new beginnings, and even happier endings. “Let’s say goodbye to our good friend Pah-ree, Francois. Au revior, ma cherie!”

I fumbled over my French, imitating what he said, and then he pulled my arms into a huge wave. We stood there, waving our arms back and forth, back and forth, our tongues tipped with French words on repeat looking like absolute fools until we felt utterly exhausted. And then we got inside our last cab, spent our last euros, and went to the airport.

“So, how do you like New Jersey?” Gerard asked, his lips oh-so characteristically placed on the ridges of my ear as he whispered his inquiry. It was becoming a trademark of his, approaching from behind with new questions coupled with new horizons.

“This time you’re not getting away without an answer for so long,” he teased, sliding his arm around me. We both watched the city skyline from the large airport window for the longest time. I could see by the formation of the clouds and the way the sunlight struggled through after some rain, that there would be a rainbow soon.

“I don’t know yet…” I finally answered, taking a deep breath. My eyes moved towards him, and his towards mine. I felt the jerk of the plane as the wheels hit the runway. We were home.

“Let’s go find out.”

The Rainbow

December

December - The Garden State

"The history books forgot about us
And the Bible didn't mention us,
Not even once."
Regina Spektor, Samson

All this happened, more or less."

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

Preface

All of this story has already happened. It is contained in memories that come and go like fog in early autumn. In pictures and photographs that hang on walls between people and that separate us from one another. This is one of those between places now; it is the light of early morning and at the cusp of something so much larger than I can conceive it to be. All of these things happen all around me, all at once, and I remember everything.

When I told stories before, I used to think that everything happened the way I said it did. It was black and white and there was nothing in between my mouth, my thoughts, and the people who moved between them. I was not a liar, and this is how it happened.

I know so much better now.

All of this story has already happened. I've written it down many times. I've told it to many people. And I've dreamed it every night. But I still haven't been able to tell it and walk away from it. I don't know if this will happen now, but I'm going to try.

What I say now is what I remember. I do not know if it is wholly true. If you ask Jasmine, or Gerard, or Vivian, they will tell you something different. In some parts, I have asked them, and they have told me, but even then, I know that there is something I am missing, something language cannot convey, and some space in their mind that even they don't have access to, no matter how hard they try. But we all work with what we have, what we think we know, and try to create the rest from there.

This is the only thing I know: I am Frank. And this is what I believe to have happened to me and to us, and this is the best that I can do.

All of this story has already happened. This is what happened:

Chapter One

There was a rainbow when we landed in New Jersey. Though it was still struggling against the clouds when we first arrived, by the time we had emerged onto the street, it was fully visible.

"It's really strange," I said, motioning my hand towards the sky. Gerard had lit a cigarette, the first I had seen him smoke in what seemed like ages, and followed my hand. He smiled and nodded.

"I mean, don't rainbows happen after a storm? It's December and cold. I thought heat needed to be involved with this type of thing?" I continued on. At my mere mention of winter, I shivered. I couldn't tell if it was below zero or not, because as we passed the cigarette between us, it masked any sign of breath emerging from our mouths in the cold. There was no snow on the ground, but there were puddles with very thin ice on them, and sidewalks that were covered in coloured salt and cigarette butts. We were at the front of the airport, and it was especially dirty and warm from all the exhaust and the people suffering from boredom with cigarettes as they waited to be taken where they belonged.

Gerard, still smoking, shrugged his shoulders. "One thing I've learned in Jersey is that you don't ask questions or fiddle with facts when you're given something beautiful. You just appreciate it."

I let out a small laugh and nodded. We finished the cigarette while watching the sky, counting the colours from pinkish red, to orange, yellow, green, blue, and then, lost in the smog, the violet stayed hidden. Among the people that ushered out of the airport and into taxies, we also stayed hidden. We waited.

I was unsure of what we were waiting for until I saw it: two young adults, possibly my age, holding up signs at the far end of the drop off area. They looked like students. They were wearing jeans, rolled up at the cuff, sneakers like me, but also collared shirts in muted colours and plaid, with khaki jackets that were clearly not going to hold up the rest of the winter. They looked around anxiously and held up signs that read "DOVES" and "KEEPERS." I let out a laugh, and Gerard let out a groan.

"We are taking a cab," he told me. He threw his cigarette on the ground and then signalled in the air. "I am not going over there and admitting I'm a character like that."

I was still amused by the whole thing. "Did Viv do this? When did you call her? This is fantastic!" Even as I got into the cab with Gerard and I had let go of ever getting a ride with the two students, my vision stayed fixed on them. I craned my head around in the cab as we drove off.

"Those poor graduate students. Viv is exercising her authority a little too much."

"What about them? Should we have at least told them that we were going to take a different way home?"

Gerard thought for a bit, but the shook his head. "They will figure it out, and maybe then Viv will also learn that we don't go by those names anymore. We're a little beyond that at this point."

His hand reached over to me in the cab. I finally took my vision away from the comic display, and grasped his hand tightly. The backseat of the cab was roomy and private; though the driver could see any displays of affection through his little window into us, it didn't matter, and I shoved my body closer to Gerard there. He was right about the names, I knew, but part of me got a thrill from seeing us publicly addressed in that manner. It made me feel barely eighteen again and suddenly sure of who I was and who I needed to be. But I saw something now that I hadn't seen before in the signs: the difference. Embedded in the words was a system of power dynamics and an unequal balance. For myself, seeing the signs was nostalgic and triggering of an amazing time where I was myself as I first knew myself to be. But Gerard, who had worked at just being a man for the last seven years, saw the struggle in those words. He saw the perceived monstrosity and unequal power that used to plague him, but just did not exist anymore.

I shifted closer to him in the backseat, and rested my head on his shoulder. His body was tense. The more I stroked his knee, the more I could feel his muscles relaxing.

"I'll tell Viv that we're just Gerard and Frank now, as soon as I see her," I told him. "She still calls me dove every once in a while, but I can tell her to stop if you want?"

Gerard shook his head, still staring ahead. "It's not dove I have a problem with." He motioned toward his jacket. "If anything, we're both doves again. Because it's been awhile since being here... I will have to learn all over again." His attention went out towards the window on my side, and we both gazed at the city which had eluded us for so long. I felt a thrill go up towards my body; this time around, I would be showing Gerard what he was missing.

When we got back to the apartment, I was expecting to play grand and elegant tour guide, and I had even let my ego get a bit clouded with all that I would have to show Gerard and reintroduce him to, but he practically bounded out of the cab before it was parked. He threw money at the driver and then was gone in an instant, while I struggled to get our bags out of the trunk. Lucky for us, we didn't have much of anything at all in them and they were mostly for show, so it was easy to catch up with Gerard as he practically ran towards the building he had left behind years go.

I ran up beside him, out of breath, just as he was at the door. He realized he was not the only one in the world being reunited and held the door for me. For someone who smoked, was more than twice my age, and very thin now from having a poor diet in Paris, he was in good shape and barely out of breath.

"I'm sorry Frank," he said holding the door. "I let my emotions run away with me." As if to emphasize his point, his hand went on the small of my back and he guided me towards the stairs. He was a bundle of energy as we climbed the seven floors together, and he chatted away about how different things were already between here and Paris.

"I'm excited to have electricity again, and not have to use candles all the time, unless of course you were forgetful like me and also did not want to pay the utilities. But I'm sure Viv has those things under control.... and look! This floor! The woman who played violin in the middle of the night lives here. Does she still? I can't remember...." and neither could I, but my answer did not matter, and he went on. "Oh, but this is so wonderful, Frank. I think I forgot where I lived more in Paris than here. It seems like it was merely a place holder, like I was really living here the whole time, waiting for this."

He looked at me then, and I nearly dropped the bags. "I thought you were happy in Paris?"

"Oh I was, I was quite happy," he explained, starting to walk again. There was a calm now in his voice, as if his excitement had been sublimated into something different. "But there's a difference between happiness there and happiness here. In Paris, I was waiting. I was waiting for you, and for my own fame. Sadly - or quite wonderfully - only one of them came."

We both had large smiles spread over our face. We were on the fifth floor, and I felt dizzy from going around and around up so many flights.

"But Paris never seemed to penetrate my memory. I would forget and lose things all the time, as if I was never really there. I wrote everything down, and painted all I could, and those things were the only things that were real. But here... everything is real." His hands went out and touched the wall, and his excitement started to return.

"Everything, huh?" I said, teasing him a bit and hoping he would recall.

"Absolutely," he stopped touching the walls, turned to me, and putting down the bags, placed his hands on my hips and looked into my eyes. We were on the seventh floor. He kissed me. Chaste at first, but then, as I stepped closer to him, he gave a little more. When we parted, we began to walk down the seventh floor hallway, silent until we got to our door.

Our door. It felt so good to say that, so good to feel it and to have his hands on me again. Publicly. We weren't constantly hiding, we could stay in the stairwell or hallway as long as we wanted, holding each other, and it didn't matter. We didn't have to go inside, and that element of choice, that was freedom in itself. How did we think we were free before? Freedom meant going outside and declaring to anyone; we were silent and muzzled in the past. But it was the past, and I needed to remind myself of that now, especially as we opened the door of the apartment to our future.

I expected Vivian to be there. When I had left for Paris, I pretty much turned everything over to her. I knew that she would be able to keep the apartment exactly how I had it before, and not compromise the state of anything. Vivian was the strongest force out of anyone after me in preserving Gerard's memory as he left. Though she lectured me a lot on having to get on with my life, she never once suggested that I move. She never said anything bad about Gerard, and when she came over, she always commented fondly on how it was just like he had left it. I think she used the apartment itself as a vessel, a time capsule, and a photograph album just as much as I did. Though I created new things for myself, I never put them up or took Gerard's stuff down, and Viv, although she pressured me to show her my work and encouraged me to keep going, only ever offered display at her house or her studio/classroom. Never the apartment. It was sacred in both our minds, and I was excited to enter this place of worship again.

The place was empty, to my surprise, but I could tell that Vivian had been there recently, and was probably returning. The kitchen smelt like a spice rack and there was warm aromatic air from the cooking area. Nothing was turned on, but as I rounded the corner, I saw some pots and some vegetables chopped, as if she had left in a hurry. I called her name a few times, and went around the corner to the bathroom, but there was nothing. On the fridge was the only other piece of the apartment that had not remained the same: a note Viv had left saying she needed ingredients for dessert, and would be right back.

I nodded, satisfied, and pleased to come back to food cooking. I put some chopped carrot in my mouth and was relieved to have some type of food. The airline had fed us, but as Gerard commented, that was barely food at all, and more like replicas of bad art.

I was about to offer Gerard something to eat when I turned around and saw him standing in the middle of the living room, by the orange couch, seeming baffled. He crouched down and looked to see if his TV was still there, and of course it was. Instead of elating him, it seemed to cause him great dismay. He walked over to his art supplies that he had left, and again, opened the drawers to see the paints and realized that they were all the same. Even when I had finished a colour, I had gone out and bought the same kind from the same place. Ignoring me in the kitchen, he walked past, looked in the bathroom, and then heading towards the bedroom. He seemed to stay in there a long time, so I came in after and rested my hand on his waist.

"Well," he said before I had a chance to ask what was wrong. "You know what this means?"

I began to smile and move my hand eagerly over the small of his back, teasing. "What?"

"This bed needs to come out."

"What?" I repeated, this time confused.

He smiled at me, that mischievous one I had forgotten all about in Paris. We were completely intimate there, and now, he was having fun with me again.

"Frank, you left the place exactly how I did."

"Yeah...."

He rolled his eyes. "Come on, variety is the spice of life, and all those standard stock phases. I'm surprised you found inspiration to paint or take photographs when you lived in a time-stuck vortex like this."

"Some things changed..." I said, slightly hurt.

Gerard narrowed his eyes at me and started to strip the bed, and pulled the mattress off by one corner. "Come on. Everything is exactly how I left it. I know this place like the back of my hand, and well, although I didn't want you to totally destroy the place, sometimes it's nice to do something different with our hands." He paused for a second, taking off his jacket (which was really just a heavy sweater done up at the front) and motioning towards me. "This is why we need to move this bed someplace else. We need variety. I'm not sleeping in a cold black room anymore. I'm sleeping out in full colour."

We picked up the mattress and began to pull, outside the door, and then dragged it all the way to the centre of the room where Gerard had been standing before. He dropped it down. "Here's good, don't you think?"

Before waiting for my answer, he headed back into the room to gather the blankets and pulled them all out. He left every piece of furniture in there for now; he was more preoccupied with the bed and making it central and visible from all rooms. He walked to the bathroom and looked; then to the kitchen, the front door, the window, and all the places. He moved things out of the way and into corners, so the bed was the sole focus. And then, after he had made it, he lay down, his head towards the window, his body towards me and the kitchen.

"Come here, Frank," he said to me, very quietly. He supported his body on his arms, and motioned with his head. I knew the tone of his voice and it hit me in the stomach. "We no longer have to be ashamed," he added.

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Дата добавления: 2015-11-14