Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 17 страница

Gerard began to go back to work on his projects. He told me that he was relieved we had spent as much time as we had together, because our talks had given him a million ideas and directions to go in. "It's almost too much," he teased as he slinked off one morning. "Some people say ideas are infectious, but I don't like the connotation. Something is only a sickness if you believe it to be so, and let it take you over. I know that this does not apply to everything, but even so, ideas are not something to be seen as negative. They are more like weeds."

"Aren't weeds negative, too?" I teased him.

"Again, it depends on the garden and the way you want to look at things. Weeds survive, take over, and sometimes kids mistake them for flowers. They can be good, if you let them. And you, Frank, have planted a seed inside me and now I'm trying to get the garden to bloom."

He was trying to be poetic and playful at the same time, and kissed my lips quickly before he went on his way. To continue his mood he began to quote from Baudelaire's Flowers Of Evil as he did his work - in French, of course - and I was left on my own. I had gone through lots of my photographs and was seeing what ones were useful to me for art shows when I remembered that Jasmine was still expecting work out of me as well. I rummaged through the pile of stuff that had started to form at the opposite end of the apartment, and found the hardcopy of the assignment that she had given me. As I went through the names and story pitches about renegades, I felt my stomach heave and I bit my lip remembering the night she gave this to me. The ache I had for her, the constant missing and wondering, came back. I traced my fingers to the top of the page, and forgot about everything else. Going to the phone, I dialled the magazine's number, hoping she would already be back at work. I let it ring ten times before I hung up, cursing the fact that they didn't have an answering machine.

As soon as I set the phone down, however, and began to walk away, it rang again and I practically leapt to answer it. "Hello?" I pushed the receiver to my ear. "Jasmine? Mouth magazine?"

There was a small pause on the other end. "Is that you, Frank?"

It was a female voice, much softer and more mouse-like than Jasmine, though. It struck the same rings of familiarity inside of me, however. Only this time, as my memory contextualized the difference, it was far different and only slightly more dreadful: "Mom?"

"Yes, honey! It's mom. How are you?"

I was in shock, honestly. I knew I had to call them eventually, but I had always figured the power dynamic was leaning towards my side. How did she know I was back? How did she even remember the number? "What's going on, mom? How did you know I was home?"

"Lucky guess, I suppose. But no, here, I'll tell you my secret." She said this joyfully, as if it really was a secret to her, the biggest one she had in her life. "I've been so busy with the Christmas decorations, putting them up and then taking them down, and your Aunt came again this year, that I haven't really been around. Your father has, and I guess you called when he was around and he either didn't get it or...."

She didn't finish her statement. She knew in her mind what the other option was, but she never liked to say bad things out loud.

"Yeah, I did call. He was out," I lied. "But how did you know? Did he tell you?"

"Oh no, nothing like that! He's no good with messages. I don't know why I put him in charge of the phone. I noticed it on the call display as I finally went through it today. A bit late, but better late than never, right? I recognized the last name and realized that it must be you. You're back at the Wyatt place now? Back from Paris?"

Her voice, normally quiet and demure, could not hold all of her excitement. Not only was her son back, but he had been to Paris! She had always shown an interest in my art, even if she didn't fully support me with it. There were very few things that my mother 'fully' supported, however. She would nod a lot of the time and get excited, but she would not speak about some things. She knew I took photographs for a living, but she didn't say it out loud. That was how I knew she didn't quite approve. She knew it was a reality and what I was doing, but there were gaps between her words and small gestures that made me realize that while she was smiling as I told her I was a photographer, there was something else missing, like I should have been saying I own a business or am the president of a company. I would sometimes play out these alternate histories and futures to see if her facial reaction would change at all in my mind. It wasn't that my mother was a tyrant and always expected the best; that role fell to my father most days. It was that being a photographer meant I was different, it meant I would have a harder life if I couldn't get a job, and it meant that people read me differently. I was her son and I knew she thought I was wonderful, but she worried about other people's reactions too much, sometimes. I wasn't normal, and being not-normal also bordered extremely close to failure. She just wanted me to succeed, I knew, but it was difficult to get actual words of approval out of her mouth, though I could sense excitement on the phone with her then. It was a hard language to understand with my mom, one of gaps and silences and hidden facial ticks. It was how she had learned to survive and still express herself in the house with my father.

Her silences used to get under my skin; I used to think that she was not speaking up for herself and how wrong this was. I used to believe that she should support herself and her dreams and just simply speak. But as I got older, and as soon as I had been removed from their house completely, I began to see things more objectively, as an outsider, and I learned to appreciate her ticks and quirks. I loved my mom; she was such a great person and she was supportive of me. But there were a lot of things which I wished she would say out loud, just so I could hear it repeated back to me and feel my own identity confirmed by another.

On the phone she had said, "The Wyatt place" and instead of her silences being rooted with my difficult art career, it was here her absences lay. Gerard Wyatt was one of those things she didn't say out loud. It was not Wyatt's place, but the Wyatt place; she could only refer to the structure, not the person. Although I had come out to my parents about our relationship, it was another muted point between all of us. No one ever asked about him after he had gone and there was no more legal involvement after the first time the case had been reviewed. Even after I turned eighteen, I waited a safe distance and time span where Gerard was in Paris before I told them we had been a couple. I left it at that, and they didn't pry for more. There was no need to tell them because he was gone, and so far as my parents knew, I was seeing other people, but I had done it anyway. I felt as if I needed to, but not because of some obscure parental obligation. They didn't want to know and would have probably preferred I kept my mouth shut. They didn't want their innocent fantasy ruined, and I knew that logically I should have let them keep it, at least until Gerard came back and we restarted what we had left off. But I had needed to tell them; he was so much a part of me, I had been dreading sitting at the dinner table and feeling as if a part of myself had been cut off. My father could operate with denial, my mother with silence, but I didn't work that way. I told them, and though I felt better afterwards, I could still distinctly remember my dad's lip upturning and my mother's eyes going down towards her place. They knew what couple meant; it meant sex, very bluntly, and though our relationship was more than that, I knew that was the focal point and what had disturbed them the most.

Around the same time that I had disclosed the reality of the relationship to them, I also brought home a girl that I was quasi- seeing (though it never amounted to much, and I even knew that as I brought her over) and I would always mention Jasmine. I knew why I was doing this, and could see my own language between omissions and confessions. Anytime a woman entered the picture, it seemed to somehow diminish what had been in the past. It confirmed my heterosexuality to them, and though I lived in Gerard's apartment, well, that was just a building. Who cared about that? Even though I hadn't bothered to get the phones changed and it still came up in his name, that was also brushed aside. As much as I told my parents about him, I also counterbalanced my own life. I told them bits and pieces, too, while maintaining my own form of honesty. On the phone then, I felt how faulty my own constructions had become, and I began to wonder how long they would last.

"Yes, I am back from Paris, mom, and here again," I informed her. I looked around the apartment to see if Gerard was aware of what was going on. He seemed to be into his work too much, still reciting Flowers of Evil.

"That's fantastic! When did you get back?" she asked, and then hearing me sputter she realized I had been here some time, and quickly moved on: "When can you come over?"

"Um, I guess I could come over for dinner tonight, or something, if that's okay? Does that sound okay to you?"

"Of course. Anything is good, honey, I just really want to see you!"

"Yeah, for sure, but... ummm..." I trailed off and my voice quaked with a combination of fear and obligation. I didn't want to leave Gerard by himself, and I also didn't know if taking him over would go well. I thought back to the art show when my dad had attacked him and dread still coursed through me. I had always thought that in the back of my mind that my father had hated what he'd done, and almost felt as if he owed Gerard something for never pressing charges. My father had had a few DWIs in the past, and I knew that if assault was added to his record that he could have lost his job. But he had been okay, and I was sure it was one of the reasons why he had not gone to the police right away for statutory when I finally confirmed the relationship. Just because Gerard was in Paris meant nothing; there could have been ways around that if someone was dead-set on pressing charges. In spite of the visible anger and disgust my father felt, he had not gone. He wasn't pleased, and I wondered if the lack of charges on their ends my father interpreted as a truce. Even so, now, that truce was invalid. He could not press charges for me because the limitations on any rape case was five years. It didn't matter what had happened to me when I was seventeen anymore, except on a more personal and visceral level.

And that was what I was worried about.

"Well, mom, you know, I'm not living alone anymore..."

"Jasmine? Have you two finally gotten together, for real?" She could not hide her excitement, and I felt that stabbing pain of missing her again, and yet, utter rage that I could not be appreciated for my relationship with the artist.

"No. Gerard. He came back from Paris with me. We're living together now in his place." There. I had said it. It was done. I waited on the other end of the phone, holding my breath.

"And you want to know if he can come too?" my mom asked, seeming tired.

I nodded, then realizing I was on the phone: "Yes, if that's okay. I hope it is. He was in Paris longer, you know, and he'll probably have a lot more and better stories to tell you than me. He has the place practically memorized like the back of his hand," I gushed and gushed, and I felt bad, playing on my mom's one weakness: living vicariously through others. I knew how much she loved art and how restricted she was, like a bird caught in an attic. I needed her to let me bring him, though, to show that we were not failures and this relationship, while certainly not normal, did not have to be as dangerous or doomed as most people perceived it to be. It was suddenly very important to me.

"What time, dear? And what should I make?"

Even after I got off the phone with her, the plans set in order, I could not believe that it had worked. I realized we were the organizers of this event - it helped me in my mind if I treated it like an art show - and so long as we followed our own motivations, we could make it happen. She could convince my father to behave and be good, and I could convince Gerard that things were going to be okay. I didn't know how hard that latter task would be for me. I had never been physically attacked before in the same way he had been; I had no idea if that old and persistent memory was going to be a deal breaker.

As I mentioned the plan to Gerard though (as I brought him lunch - he often forgot to eat this meal when he got to work), he seemed to not register the attack in his mind. He nodded considerably, thinking over what all of this meant. He did not interpret this event from the vantage point of the past, however, but how I had been seeing it - for our future together.

"How do you want me to present myself?"

I was unsure what he was asking. "I want you to talk about Paris, that's for sure. My mom will eat up every last bit of it. She loves this type of stuff."

Gerard smiled. "But us? How do you want me to treat you? Are we a secret?"

I bit my lip. "No, they know about the past. I told them a long time ago."

"Okay, that's good. I'm actually relieved you finally admitted that to them; it's a huge step for both of us," he smiled and slid an arm around me. "Not that I believe it was a confession of some deep seeded secret, or that you owed it to them to come out. People tend to put the onus on us, the perverts of society, to come forward with our deviance as if it's our fault, when it's really the society and how it's structured that forces us into the closet in the first place. Why should we be the ones that have to dismantle the door and step out, when we weren't the carpenters to begin with? It has always felt so strange to me, this confessional nature of sexuality. You tell all your deepest darkest secrets and apparent pathology and then people embrace you for being honest. Except that's not how it goes."

"I thought being honest was the best thing, though? To always be true to yourself?"

Gerard nodded, "Yes, but, you can be true to yourself without telling everyone your deepest and darkest secrets, or even just who you like to fuck and what you like to do with them. You don't need to declare that, if you don't want to. You're not a perversion or a failure if you don't wear a label, so long as you do what you need to do to love and get through the day."

"Yes... but... with parents it's different. I wanted them to know about me as a person."

"You wanted their approval," Gerard corrected, and I was about to argue with him, when I remembered the complex relationship between expectation and manipulation. As much as I tried to deny it, of course I wanted their approval; they were my parents. Their silences made me feel silenced more than ever and want to keep confessing until I was blue in the face. It was a vicious cycle and I listened to Gerard, hoping he had some idea of how to get out of it.

"We don't need to say anything to them if you don't want. Just because you don't say something publicly doesn't mean you're lying. Just because you don't tell everyone you meet you're into a man, doesn't mean you're ashamed. You do what you need to do to survive, basically, and so long as when you're by yourself you don't deny a goddamn thing, then you're still you. And who knows, maybe you're into denial, and well, that's still you as well. Shame, like guilt, is a waste. It's a waste of not only time, but of people." Using the hand he had on my waist, he pulled me closer towards his drawing table and his stool. I went, wanting to be comforted.

Parents were too much emotion and I debated just dropping the whole thing and not going. My mom and I were organizing it, and if I was honest, I had more power over my mother than she did over me. I could call it off. But there was still something nagging me, crawling under my skin and making it fester. I wanted them to see Gerard. I knew that I didn't have to declare this part of myself for everyone I met - though sometimes it still did feel like a secret whenever I didn't because our relationship was so forbidden or unusual to everyone else - but these were my parents. If they didn't want to see Gerard, they may as well not want to see me. It was easier to deal with the two of them in the past, to pretend that I had a family life, when there had been this ocean between Gerard and myself for seven years. This gap was closed now, and quite honestly, I wanted to see if I still did have a family.

I needed to go. In spite of what Gerard said, I needed this.

"Alright," he told me, seeing the resolution in my face. "I will get dressed and ready to go."

We walked to my parents place. I had told them I'd meet them at about six pm, so Gerard and I left the house just as the sun was going down. The city was in full-swing again and it was hard to believe that at one point, it felt as if it was only Gerard and I occupying the state. The streets were plowed and salted along with the sidewalks, and tiny ridges of snow were forming. Tonight was much warmer than it had been in the past few weeks. Although puddles started to freeze at night, the wind was gone, and the day had been warmer. We seemed to walk in the cold as we walked along the sidewalks, against the setting sun, towards the darkness of my house. It felt funny being at the crossroads from the other side, and I kept remembering in high school where I would trudge through all of this, through any weather condition, to go the other direction, towards that apartment. Gerard linked his arm with mine and it made me feel as if I was heading in the right direction, in spite of the nerves and butterflies in my stomach.

"If you slip, I slip," he teased me, grabbing onto my arm tighter. Ever since that really bad fall in Paris, he had been super conscious of his own body and balance. "The last thing I need is to show up at your parents place with a broken hip."

I laughed, and we continued trudging on. When we were about five minutes from my place, I warned him and we both stopped. He took out his cigarettes and we both smoked aimlessly in the cold, bracing ourselves for what lay on the other side of the door.

"Have you done this before?" I asked him, meaning the whole meeting of parents routine that we were about to embark on. The formalities, the dinner, manners, and politeness. I realized, as I repeated all of this in my mind, just how utterly straight this was; how normal and commonplace and all of those other banal words which meant the same thing and evoked the same fear. His answer of "No, never to this degree," should not have surprised me at all then, but it did. Had he never had the chance to do this before or was I just the only person he was willing to put up this charade with? I had no idea, and not a lot of time to think about it before we knocked on my door.

My mother opened it and she practically tackled me. It was alarming, especially since I was now taller than her and much, much stronger. In spite of these factors, she nearly made me slip. "Frank! Honey! I've missed you," she said into the squeeze. She had stopped calling me "Frankie" years ago, after I had requested repeatedly since I was seventeen. She didn't let it go until I was in my twenties, however, as if she was marking my adulthood herself with strategic naming.

"Hi mom, good to see you," I commented, hugging her back, but not nearly as hard. I didn't want to crush her tiny frame even if that tiny frame had nearly knocked me off my feet. While most people's moms seemed to gain weight and fill out their figures with middle age, I swore my mother got smaller with each passing year. She receded into her burgundy cardigan more each time I saw her. Her hair was gray now, too, but it was hardly noticeable with her light brown hair. It was only in the porch and the hall light where it illuminated the white strands through contrast.

"Mom, this is Gerard. Gerard, this is Linda," I said formally. It felt weird introducing them because they already did know one another, albeit as figures more so than people. I held my breath for the first interaction, knowing that Gerard was being just as cautious as my mother was. Seeming to recognize her silences, Gerard eventually took the more dominant role. He extended his hand and said, with a bit of a French accent, " Enchanté, Linda. You have a lovely house." My mother's cheeks flushed rose and thanked him meekly, and that was it. I couldn't believe it. It was almost normal.

Almost, at least, until we got further inside and my dad made himself visible. Even with my growth, he was still taller and menacing to me. At this point in my maturation, I knew I would never reach his height or the depth of his voice. His hair was gray too, almost completely now; Gerard's actually had more colour than his own. I could not help the comparisons, and I stopped fighting how often I was making them. My father was older by a few months, and though they were completely different people, their age linked them irreversibly in my mind. My eyes flashed between both of them, making distinct notes of the markers between them. My father had acquired quite a midsection over the past few years and his skin had begun to wrinkle, in addition to changing its consistency. All the years he had spent outside doing manual labour had caught up with him and it was made visible through the weariness and tough skin of his face. Purely on first glance now, though both men were the same age, Gerard looked like the younger party. Much younger. Even their dress made them appear like distinct generations. Gerard's tight black pants and a button-up black collared shirt was his standard affair, and made him appear more suave and elegant. He was classic, without being old, while my father appeared antiquated and caught in the past. He was wearing a plaid shirt, tucked into out-of-style jeans with a thick brown belt. He was truncated by his apparel and not as cultured, which made him appear older than just those few deciding months. I felt my heart rate slow down. The younger Gerard looked the better, and simultaneously, the older I looked, the better. I found myself gravitating towards my mother and standing near her as if to display my new height and muscular frame. My body language was practically screaming with Look! Look! See! I am an adult and can make my own decisions! I forgot the fatal flaw, however. Actual adults need no validation and in the eyes of parents, children never seem to get older.

My father stood in the doorway a long time, his eyes tracing over all of us. I introduced him in the formal way, but no one extended hands to meet. My father merely nodded, and then headed into the kitchen and living room area.

"Come on," he said to all of us, his back to us but his voice booming. "Let's get this over with."

My mom had made steaks. That was how I knew she was excited, since this stuff was only brought out for the big deals. Inside I beamed, and chose to believe it was because she was really excited to see the person I was living with, to finally accept that he was the most important person in my life, but I also logically knew that she really wanted to hear about Paris. I tried to get into that part of the conversation right away and not let my doubts fester much longer.

"This looks good, mom," I complimented. "I don't think I've had a steak in ages, at least, not since I left. The food in Paris was a lot different."

She leaned forward in her chair and her eyes beamed. "I bet! I would give anything to just have coffee there."

"Don't be so quick to just give anything, Mrs. Spinelli. I would make sure to only go to the best places, because believe me, a lot of people capitalize on location and use it as an excuse to serve swill," Gerard cut in.

As soon as he started speaking, I felt myself relax. I didn't even realize how tense I had been before, simply waiting for the conversation to get off the ground. Before my Paris interlude, there had been a lot of awkward positions in chairs, my mother running in and out of the kitchen to get the meal and explaining what it was, and prolonged glances from my father. My dad was at the head of the table, my mom next to him and across from Gerard. I was at the other head of the table, facing my father. I couldn't help but notice how the power dynamic had switched once we were inside the door. Suddenly it was no longer my mother and I as planner, it was my father and I in a death stare as men of households. I could tell by the way he regarded Gerard that he was not threatened by him nor his masculinity. He was not a man in the proper sense. Gerard's clothing I had interpreted as youthful, whereas I knew my dad would probably use the less cultured word of 'faggoty' to describe the artist's demeanour. My father couldn't possibly be threatened by someone who dressed like that and talked like that, because they weren't a real man. But I was - I could see this contempt in his stare, and he was disappointed. He was challenging. He didn't want his son to do this to himself, and even worse, he didn't want confirmation that I liked it. It was so much easier for him to think that the homosexuality I exhibited was something that was pure circumstance, an abuse of power dynamics, a fluke, or even something forceful. But here I was now, bringing back the man who had shaken the foundation of the house to begin with by altering the idealistic view of what a man should be and I appeared to like it. A lot. If I had been bolder, I would have smiled at my father, but I was barely making enough eye contact to still feel in control of the situation. As much as it was a death stare between us, I knew this was still my night. I was treating Gerard with the same code of ethics that I would for any other relationship: first you date, you live together, and now meet the parents.

What made the situation worse for my father was that Gerard and my mother were actually getting along. After his first comment on coffee using her proper name, my mother insisted to be called Linda and they went off talking about baking and Julia Child and art. She didn't know too much by way of titles, but Gerard was patient as she described some of her favourite paintings and he pulled them out of his catalogue of memory.

Even though I felt a strong victory inside of myself that I would not shake, my dad and I continued to meet eyes across the table, not participating in the conversation and only barely eating. Anytime he broke the stare, it was to cut up his steak. I looked down at my plate and I felt my stomach revolt. It had been so long since I had eaten meat like this. Vivian's burgers didn't feel the same way. It was ground up, barely noticeable. But this was a hunk of flesh and as I cut into the tiniest bit of it, blood seemed to ooze everywhere. I kept thinking of Jasmine and her ethics; though I still didn't get the milk and cheese stuff, I understood the meat. I had liked steak rare went I was a teenager, but now I could barely stand to see the pink flesh. It was made worse as I looked up and saw my father tearing through it. He place meat into his mouth and locked eyes with me in a challenge as he ate. Men ate meat; it was supposed to make you stronger, he told me when I was younger. Even when I tried to argue his point with Popeye and spinach as a twelve year old, I was never allowed to win. Meat was always equated with power and strength, and he was reverting to his old lecture mutely at the table with me. He cut another chunk of steak and lofted it into his mouth, and I could barely touch it anymore. I felt as if he was eating me whole.

"Now that you're back, what do you plan on doing with your art?" my mother asked Gerard. She glanced over to me as well, trying to be supportive. "And you too, honey. Were you able to sell anything in Paris? What did you do while you were there?"

"I actually didn't take my camera," I confessed. I saw both my parents' expression change. My mother, as good as she was being, still didn't like to connect the dots. I was there for four months, with Gerard. If I wasn't taking pictures that would mean only one other thing that would fill up our days.

"I actually have a show coming up, or at least, my friend Vivian is trying to get me a show," Gerard piped up, taking the attention off of us.

"How exciting," my mother cooed.

I felt myself become tense again. My father was done his food. Everyone else still had half or so on their plate, but my dad was done. I knew what this meant. He would talk anytime soon.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14