Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 20 страница

It felt like this for a long time, even as I began to approach the park and saw the banners and small tent/shelter area set up for this political event. I persevered with the feeling of utmost confidence and framed this scene as if this was all in place for Jasmine and myself, and we would capture it and share it with the world. I felt like we were back in school again, and instead of us talking about other people's work and blending the love affairs between them, we were creating our own. She was words, and I was pictures, and these people were our audience. I supposed, drudging up the only political knowledge that I learned from school, that we were almost like a newfound Christopher Columbus, and we were discovering and recreating this new America for ourselves.

I did not normally have this much confidence. It was a new feeing for me, and it was addictive, especially given the morning that I had had. It felt good, to finally know who I was, or at least to think I knew who I was, and walk with the confidence to exhibit it. I wanted to keep this feeling, to box it away, so it would never vanish. I took a picture as we approached, and it was then that Jasmine started speaking, and telling me why we were here and what we were going to be doing.

"I don't know if you can read the banner, but it says Food Not Bombs. It's a political organization, and their name is pretty self-explanatory." I squinted, taking my eye away from the camera lens, and I saw the sign now that she had illuminated to me what it was supposed to say. Food Not Bombs was written in a scraggily font and an image of a fist holding what looked to be a carrot was underneath. Jasmine went on, intertwining the politics of the place with her own position and story. "I found out about this group a few months ago, probably around mid-September when I first made the change. Someone came into the cafe and asked what he could eat that was vegan. He had come in before, and I had always remembered him, but this was the first time we began talking and we both found out that we were new in the transition. We ended up talking for quite a long time, because I had to go into the back of the cafe to find the box that the pastries came in, and we discovered together that there was virtually nothing for both of us to eat here. He got coffee instead, and we kept talking about all of this. He told me about this place and how their mission got right down to the point of veganism: the food, and not only that, but the necessity of food.

"You see, they're a political organization in as much as they believe that there should be food and not bombs. Money should be spent on keeping kids in school and feeding people, not on war or terror or weapons. These weekly dinners are their temporary solution for this problem. If the government isn't going to fix it, then these people - everyone is a volunteer - will try to do something about it for the time being. They will feed the people who come around, and anyone who wants to help can help. There are some people that cook, some people that gather the food, and some that do dishes, or help set up like right now. I'm going to go clean dishes tonight, after we get our stuff done, but don't feel you have to come."

Jasmine turned her attention towards me now. We had stopped walking, about a foot or so in front of the encampment. People were busy unloading stuff from a van and didn't seem to see us. Jasmine had wanted to explain it all to me before I got too in over my head. I nearly forgot that she had paused to ask me a question; I was still comprehending what she was telling me and trying to put the story together with the images I was seeing.

Below the flag and banner was the tent which was now fully set up. There were tables inside and the people who had been going back and forth from vans were casually setting down food in large amounts on them. Other than those helpers, there were people walking around in the park in tight pants, some people older and some people student-aged like us. There were a lot of bandanas, patches, and crazy hairstyles. But those people only stood out to me because they fit the prototype of the people I almost wanted to see here. Even though I knew I was going to a political function, the idea of men in business suits never really occurred to me. It was Jasmine, after all, who was bringing me, and I knew from helping her with her women's studies projects that her politics were far from average. What baffled me was the nearly fifty year old woman who had been driving a truck that had just pulled up by the side of the road and who was now taking out trays and trays of food from the back of the truck with her husband who was the same age. These people looked so... normal? Like they would spend their Monday nights watching television and knitting, not helping out with this political collective, and a political collective that contained a member with a green mohawk. The wind picked up suddenly, and it wafted the smell of what had been cooking over to us and it made the black banner wave like a flag.

"Where do they get the food?" I asked, not realizing I had not answered Jasmine's question about the dishes. I reached up my camera and took a picture of the banner again in the wind and the couple from afar. They were too busy loading stuff to notice me.

"That's the best part," Jasmine continued. "All of this food would have been thrown out if not for the organization. That's another thing that the group rallies against: food waste. There is a ridiculous amount of perfectly good food thrown out at grocery stores for no good reason other than to keep the food that's there the same high, stable price. It's unreal that right now food is a commodity instead of a necessity. Have you ever heard of dumpster diving?"

I shook my head, trying not to make my disgust visible.

"It's fascinating. I haven't tried it yet, but I can't wait to. It's basically what it sounds like - going into the dumpsters of food places, usually grocery stores, and grabbing what's good to get."

"So all of this food came from a dumpster?" I questioned. I hadn't eaten anything yet, though the food was now set up. We were still on the peripheries, but Jasmine was making her way closer. I was sure though that if something terrible was going to happen because the food was contaminated or something, it would have happened by now. I scanned around ad I saw no police or no ambulances; just a bunch of people in the middle of the memorial park in the middle of winter, setting up free food.

"No, no. Dumpster diving is more of a partnered, middle of the night venture. Most of the time Food Not Bombs arranges something ahead of time with the grocery stores to come by and collect it on the weekend so we can have the feasts on Monday. Anything that's left over either goes home with us, or is sent to the soup kitchen. It's really good, Frank. I hope you're into this."

Jasmine's voice had changed, and when I looked over to her, I saw something different in her expression. She may have been at work, and this was for the magazine, but this was clearly something that had more depth than that. This was more than just politics and vegan ethics. I nodded my head and told her I was excited. It was still something very new for me, but I wanted to try it. I felt a lot better now knowing that it did not come from an actual dumpster. It felt good, too; free food and preventing waste? This was even better than I figured it would be. Not exactly an art gallery opening, but it was a cross between a political and charity organization. A new America, completely undiscovered from the backs of a grocery store waste bin.

This would make some really good photographs.

Before we went into the tent, Jasmine gave me some more in-depth instructions of what she wanted me to do. She said she had contacted the person who was running this section of Food Not Bombs. Not a boss per se, but the woman - the older woman with the truck and her husband, I came to find out - were the ones taking on most of the responsibility because it was the basement apartment section of their house that was used to cook and wash dishes in. The man used to own grocery stores before he retired; now he acted as a liaison between groups. They had told Jasmine that it was perfectly fine to take their pictures and print their names, but to be sensitive about everyone else. If we wanted to print anyone else's names, we needed to get permission first, and pictures from afar were okay, but anything that involved a portrait-like shot that showed a face would have to be asked for.

"A lot of the people who do come to events like this are sceptical of cameras, so be warned," Jasmine told me. "It's usually because they participate in a lot of activist circles and they get worried about their face falling into the wrong hands. As soon as I tell them about us, they should be fine. I know a lot of these people from before. The guy I was telling you about before, his name is Braden, and he's a regular. I'm sure he'll let us get a picture."

I nodded, hoping that Jasmine would take on a lot of the conversation. I had no idea what I was doing here. The closer I got to the tent, the more my nerves overwhelmed me, and still persisted even as I stepped inside. I felt like a complete outsider, even as I layered on my confidence. Not only was I unfamiliar with activism, but Jasmine hadn't been kidding about the camera. As soon as some people saw it on my shoulder, they put their bandanas over the lower half of their face and their eyes blazed at me. Jasmine ended up making a small announcement to not be worried about the two of us and that we were both "one of them." I had no idea what one of them meant. Was I an activist now too? I certainly didn't feel like one. The idea of dumpster diving had grossed me out until five minutes ago. And I certainly wasn't vegan or vegetarian, which was other thing that Jasmine mentioned. Most of the food they collected was vegan, because it was vegetables and fruit and bread that businesses had to get rid of the most. But on principle, the organization was a vegan one. They saw a direct connection between the violence of war and the violence of meat eating. I thought of my father and the way he had almost declared war on Gerard and I, and how he had munched through his steak. I had wanted to be vegetarian that night, but it had been a passing feeling, a whim in the midst of danger and an aggressive situation. I didn't know what I wanted to be right then, in the middle of the tent and surrounded by people and food. There were still lots of bandanas over faces even with Jasmine's announcement. They were still a part of activist circles that could get them in trouble so they needed to hide, but they were okay with our presence there. Their eyes no longer challenged me, but my confidence had definitely taken a hit.

"Anything for the greater good. This organization needs more presentation and positive representation. I trust Jasmine and her magazine," I heard someone saying. I looked over and noticed a guy standing next to Jasmine and one of the activists who had stared me down before. I figured this was Braden. He was a tall, skinny, guy in black pants with patches on the pockets. He placed an arm around Jasmine's shoulder and he called her a 'comrade'. I took a picture of the two of them, a bandana over his face, and I was grateful for the camera. It gave me something to watch this event through, since I was beginning to doubt myself more and more. I felt the confidence that I had exuded before, the entitlement that I felt being here, slipping away. What was I doing here? I wasn't an activist, I wasn't political, although even Jasmine had corrected and clarified herself there as we served ourselves from trays. The group was more apolitical than anything, anarchistic, because food was just food. Food should not have politics, it should be a need. Either way, I felt way out of line being here. I looked around at everyone and something deep in my stomach hit me. It wasn't the food; the food was actually pretty good. There were a lot of veggies, soups, and pastas, but for the most part, it just as good as anywhere else. The cooks there were pretty awesome, and I talked to one of them for a bit about the sauce they had made that night. He was a tall guy with a few days worth of stubble. He disclosed that he thought rent was theft along with higher education, and he was now couch surfing in order to have a place to live, reading books from the library, and eating here whenever he could and dumpster diving in between.

"I have never felt so liberated," he told me, and I just nodded. I think he expected me to share my freedom story, but what was I to say? I didn't want to be in my comfy parent's house anymore, so I decided to go see an artist? An artist who smoked and drank away a lot of his money, who was consumed by fine wines and coffees and delicious pastries? That art, yes, the convolution and pretension of art, had bought me freedom though I had no discernible talents? And what good were talents anyway when you couldn't even feed yourself? So I kept my mouth shut and just asked if I could take his picture instead. He obliged, and stood up proud and strong, exuding the confidence that I had once had, but no longer felt within my reach anymore. At least not here.

I looked around for Jasmine and saw that she was still talking to Braden. She was laughing, writing things down on the pad of paper she brought with her. He took it over at one point and began writing something as well. I took a picture of them again, to hide my jealousy. Not only was I losing my confidence, I was losing Jasmine to a group of people whom I respected and could acknowledge, that in spite of my initial surprise and disgust, were doing a good job. I just didn't belong and I didn't know how I could change, or even pretend to change, in order to be involved. It didn't seem like a worthy goal, pretending here, acting the part. There were no politics in food, and there was no role playing when it came to hunger. I hid behind my camera and told myself to wait it out.

I turned around in the crowd, seeing who else I could take a picture of. I took some of empty dishes and half finished food, and then I saw that a large pile of food had fallen onto the snow. That's ironic, I thought to myself. Food wasted from prevented food waste. I snapped a photo of it and then I looked up and followed the trace of it. I found a very old man in one of the lawn chairs that had also been a part of the feasting area. He was sitting down, frail and thin under his clothing and a blanket. There was a woman beside him, rubbing his back. She was a little younger, more so middle-aged, and she held a fork in her hands. Her plate was on the table in front of her, and his plate was in his lap. More food spilled down off of it and onto the snow. It took me awhile to realize that the food that had been on his plate, his blanket, and even on his chest was not food per se, but vomit. The woman had been rubbing his back and telling him to slow down.

"Come on, Fred, you gotta take it easy. You can't keep doing this. I know it's good, but remember to breathe, hon. I may not be here the next time," she teased him and he had no response. I realized then that there was no relation between the two of them. I thought she had been his daughter, but there was a man across from her and they were clearly together. She had just been helping him out, and it was clear he was here alone. The man, Fred, nodded, but didn't say anything. I realized that though they did not know one another, all three of them at this table were homeless. Not in the liberated sense that rent was theft, but in the sense that they couldn't pay rent even if they didn't believe it was theft. They would come here every week, though, because it was the one place that gave them food, and Fred, as old and seemingly disoriented as he was, had remembered this place as giving him food and would always come. Most people knew his name; though he never responded, and only ate too fast, he was a regular member of this group.

I turned away. I couldn't take a picture of that and I began to immediately regret the one I had taken of what I thought was irony. I knew I should want to keep it and move forward; didn't all photographers want to get that really good shot? The one that changed people's minds? I knew that shots of the vomit on the blanket, homeless Fred eating so fast he threw up because he didn't get food anywhere else would drive home the message of this group so much more. I had so many, too many, pictures of punks and anarchists. But that was only a fraction of who came here. Of who needed to come here. Fred and the group at this table were the people I was lacking, and yet, Fred was the only person I couldn't bear to capture on film.

I suddenly realized how afraid I was. I was afraid of this; of the organization and what it wasn't saying directly, that the fear of poverty and lack of food supply was so great in all of us that we needed to band together now. That the world was so fucked up and it couldn't take care of its own, so we needed to take care of one another. The message frightened me. I didn't want to believe it, that I needed a place like this. I refused to acknowledge it and I kept taking pictures of the empty plates and empty serving things as if it was going to pacify the fear I had inside myself. It didn't work.

Jasmine came up behind me and asked if I was good, if I wanted to go or get more pictures from the basement apartment. "I'm doing dishes there, and so is Braden, and you're welcome to come too."

I shook my head. "Gerard is expecting me."

She nodded. "Well, thanks for coming. We'll get together again and get the pictures and work on the story. Do you want to take any leftovers with you?"

"No," I said shaking my head quickly. I knew if I accepted, all I would be able to see in the plate of food would be Fred's face, poverty, and the lump in my throat that was fear.

When I got home, Gerard was already in bed. I was surprised - it was only eight o'clock or so. But I guessed his age was catching up to him. He felt it in his bones, it bruised his body, and pulled him into an early sleep. Though I was wide awake, I got into bed with him anyway, and hugged my body over his. I felt his hips, his chest, all the parts of him that still had weight and girth. I tried to remember the substantial quality of bodies, even those tweaked with age, and tried to seek comfort in that. I touched my own chest, my hips, and my legs. I wanted to know what was real, even if it would change at some point. I wanted to have faith in that even though I was getting older and that deterioration was inevitable, the fear of poverty was just that: a fear. Poverty was not as inevitable as aging. It was not as inevitable as death or dying. I wanted to believe that we were okay now as two bodies, and would be like that forever, and that nothing would end, and no one would die. I wanted to stay here, in this apartment, where I could exude the confidence I had possessed for a short time tonight and where reality wouldn't puncture holes in the cases of our lives.

But the excess and starvation that riddled Fred's body stayed with me, and no matter where I touched, I felt fear.

Chapter Three

I began to apply for jobs with a new force. The application process helped to fade The Food Not Bombs assignment from my consciousness and made me feel better; as if I had control over some things again. If I feared something, then I needed to think of ways to avoid it. I didn't want to be poor, so I worked diligently on getting a job. I felt good, practically responsible, as I looked through the classifieds over coffee in the morning. This really wasn't so bad. My fingers shook a bit and I squinted and struggled to understand what some short forms meant, but I could figure it out. I was no longer looking through a camera lens and constantly asking permission to see. I was now being told to come by today between these times and invited to hand in my résumé. I was no longer passive or waiting for someone else to give me something. I was finally doing something for myself and by myself.

Gerard was still asleep as I rustled through the paper and murmured on the phone. Even as I walked quietly around the apartment getting my stuff together and putting on the outfit that Vivian had bought me over a month ago, he still remained in his early morning slumber. Inside the bathroom, I shaved and looked at myself in the mirror, wondering how I could appear more than the twenty-five years old that I was. I felt a little weary as I looked at my résumé, but I shrugged it off. Wasn't half of success about showing up? I tried to evoke the confidence that Gerard had given me last night. It worked, a bit, but it was not as strong as it had been yesterday. The cold was back in the outside air and it felt pretty pointless that I had worked so hard to get ready in the morning because most places didn't see the nice, sophisticated clothing I had on underneath my coat anyway. But I persevered, even as I fell on the ice once and damaged a résumé. Most people got jobs, especially the ones I was applying for, out of pure luck and being at the right place at the right time. Just show up, I told myself, just show up. But I still wondered, at the back of my mind, if this was the right place and certainly the right time. I wondered how they were setting their clock and if there was a universal time I could just tap into and then know where I needed to go. I would just get a job if I just knew how. The truth was that I didn't, and the cracks in my performance were showing. As the day wore on, and I went into place after place, I wondered if my confidence would ever be as high as the day before.

When I went outside the apartment walls, I came face to face with what I was trying to avoid. The first place I went for a job had been a hardware store, and though I knew nothing about tools, I could learn. But as I left I saw copies of my father getting in and out of their cars, one of them yelling at his wife for "being a real pain in the ass, you know, I thought you said you could help?" It made shivers go up and down my spine and I almost wished they wouldn’t call me back with a job. Almost. Maybe if I worked here though, I could lurk in the parking lot and rally up carts and keep an eye on things when they began to go badly. I didn't dare go over to that man now, just being a normal citizen, but if I had an orange vest or a uniform of the store, he might see past my small exterior into some kind of authority. Authority, even minimum wage kind, was the only thing that seemed to work with people like that. For the time being, I was nothing, and I pretended I saw nothing and I walked away from the potentially bad situation of domestic abuse, my mind still reeling (if they were like this in public, what about private?).

I headed to a grocery store next, followed by a drug store, and it began getting harder and harder to get myself heard. There were babies shrieking in the drug store and the mother kept apologizing subtly that her infant had an ear infection and they would be in and out in no time. I let her go ahead of me to talk to someone so I could have the noise put to an end, but when she got to the counter, her insurance wasn't working and she had to pay for the medicine out of her own pocket. She was counting pennies near the end of it and I felt my stomach drop.

I had always been in good health, for the most part, but now that I was older and not in school, I was no longer covered on my dad's health care plan. What if I got sick? Like really, really sick? What if I caught something right there in the pharmacy or last night through the food? Or even worse, what if Gerard got sick? It's not like he had a valid drivers' license here anymore let alone health care. I wondered if he and Vivian had worked out some weird arrangement where he was filled in as her husband or something like that on her medical coverage she got with her job. It wouldn't surprise me, but either way, that left me out in the cold. I hoped I would get the job in the pharmacy when I had the chance to talk to the manager, at least for the prospect of a discount on products if the position didn't offer good health care. I began to understand why Gerard wasn't smoking, and though I saw packs and packs of cigarettes in cases as I applied at the grocery store (also hoping for a discount in product if I got the job), I held off trying to smoke. I was stressed out, yes, but I didn't need cigarettes that would only exacerbate why I was stressed out. The risk was too big to take.

I applied other places, too, but I began to steer clear of all minimum wage establishments. Either the customers began to disturb me or the employees stared out at me from their mono-coloured uniforms and seemed to mock and both envy my freedom. I had one employee even say to me, as I asked for the manager, "No, man, you don't want to work here. Walk away or you'll be here forever." What was I even supposed to do? What was this even supposed to mean? I felt my heart jump out of my chest on a regular basis, just walking down the street. Gerard and I lived at the edge of the downtown, and now I was in the heart of the city. I walked in that direction because I figured it meant more jobs, but it also meant more people applying for those jobs, and subsequently, more poverty, waste, and insecurity. I saw homeless people begging for money and I was quickly checking their faces for recognition. Anytime I heard coughing, I thought it was Fred. Anytime, especially in the grocery store, I was convinced saw Fred. But the fact is that there were too many homeless people, even if they weren't on the streets themselves, and I would never be able to locate the one that I knew, not even his companions, in their faces because it was just too much.

Had it always been like this? I asked myself, the poverty and the fear? Had my one experience of sudden realization now given me the power to see it all around me or had it appeared over night, and was following me no matter where I went? This was not my first time applying for jobs, and applying for jobs in this field or wage range. I had worked at a movie theatre and at a restaurant before, during some summers when Gerard was not around, and I never saw anything like this. Or did I? Maybe I had always been able to escape to the back and not notice things. Or maybe movies and dining out were luxuries that only certain people could afford. They weren't fear producing because there was no fear present or underlying in them; they were not necessities. As the day went on and I began to apply for desk jobs, data entry, and call centres, I realized that fear seemed to begat necessity, and the fear that was established was from the denial of needs. This was why Food Not Bombs was so powerful and a force that Jasmine understood. They provided a substantive need, and it didn't matter who you were; everyone had to eat.

There was also the fear of violence, which also seemed to go hand in hand. It was Food and distinctly Not Bombs, not war or terror. That was the large scale epidemic of violence that was so huge that I couldn't even really understand it. But what I saw today I understood: I had no idea what that husband in the parking lot had been yelling to his wife about, but it really wasn't about his wife. Maybe he had just lost his job and his fear had manifested itself that way. In public it was verbal violence, and at home, I didn't even want to speculate how fear manifested itself. I wasn't sure. I didn't care. By the time noon came around, I realized I had done a sufficient amount of work, and I desperately wanted to go home. My new clothing was stained with sweat, and I shivered as I sweated in the January freezing wind.

Gerard was up when I got back, and there was coffee in the machine. It tasted a little thick and grainy, but it was warm and it felt good as soon as I put the mug in my hand. Gerard said hi to me casually, and I nodded and went over to the window. I looked outside as I drank my coffee and though the fear was still present, I felt okay. I had this warm apartment that I could come to when I needed to. I had this wonderful person who was making me coffee for when I did come home and I felt so utterly safe with him. I knew he wouldn't just suddenly become violent and even though we had no stable income, we weren't destitute. There was still hope for us and we weren't done yet.

After I had my moment to decompress from the strenuous morning, I turned around to Gerard. He had spread out a lot of his canvases and seemed to be taking inventory and organizing his mind. He had been extremely productive with his time. Though there were only a few finished canvases (and most of them appeared to be different variations on a similar theme), others were progressed to final pieces. The ones that were finished seemed to evoke an architectural reference base; here were a lot of towers with bells or clock faces at the apex, cathedrals with grand multi-coloured windows, and plain log cabins with small slanted doors. I saw house after house after house and I wondered what his show was about, but didn't pry too much in case he wasn't done yet. He hated to talk about a piece halfway through, but he never minded people looking. The other works that were only half done were just furniture, I thought, but then I realized he had started to sketch corners and put walls around the bed he had just created. One that was half completed was different in style from most of his work; it was a bedroom with a simple room around it. There was a small table next to the bed, with what appeared to be art supplies next to it. The rest of the picture was black and white, and the art supplies were in colour. My attention became focused on this one piece as I tried to place the familiarity of it while I drank my coffee.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14