Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 24 страница

"No man is an island," he whispered in my ear. "Even if I keep you here with me, we cannot be islands."

I wanted to ask what he meant, but I stayed silent. He went on for a while, talking of Shakespeare, and Prospero, and how Miranda only knew her island. "Do you know, my dear Frank, what the most vulnerable line of that play is?"

I wanted to say something about evictions, censorship, or poverty, but I stayed inside my student-self as long as possible, because that self lived in that apartment. "What?"

"'Does thou love me?'" he said, speaking in Miranda's voice.

I nodded, swallowing hard into his chest.

"Then we will be okay," he told me, and kissed the matted hair on my forehead. "Even in a new world."

There was one week of January left. One week, less than that really, to get ourselves packed and out of the door and into Vivian's place. Since there was a weekend coming up, she wanted our stuff in there by then so she didn't lose any time off work. While we packed up during the days, she would often come over at night to see how we were doing and to help us if we needed any more hands. Usually by the end of the day, though, we were so depressed that all we wanted to do was sit around, have a good dinner, and reminisce about our apartment. Vivian caught on and then began to bring us casserole after casserole and to help ease our feelings.

"Tell me about your favourite memory in this place," she started, getting us to focus on better times during that first dinner. I had jumped in first, recounting the story of how the handprint had gotten on the wall and how much it meant to me.

" Comme le soliel interminable. I still know what it means," I finished, and Vivian jumped in as soon as I was done so we didn't linger in our feelings.

"The next place you move into, you can paint the same thing on the wall. And it will be even better. "

Gerard told her about our last night in Paris, and how we had painted a new mural with pink hand prints, to leave our mark there as much as we left it here. I smiled, remembering that night, and he nudged my foot under the table.

"Very nice! You can paint both yellow and pink handprints when you move into your new place and maybe even some green and red ones too. The possibilities are endless," Vivian said, and then turned her head to Gerard. "But tell me, Mr. Artist, what is your favourite memory here? You've been here for so long, I would imagine it's a hard thing to consider."

Gerard shook his head, completely disagreeing with his friend. "It was the first time Frank came into my house. It's really very simple, now that I'm recanting it to you both now, but I see this image a lot in my mind. I replay it again and again sometimes. It was the way he stood at the door, unsure whether or not he wanted to come in. He looked inside, curious, and then looked down the hallway. He was considering his options and trying to not have anything read on his face. The way he shifted on the tips of his feet, though, I could tell. He wanted to come inside, but he was afraid. I was too, in spite of my confidence." He smiled demurely and he reached his hand over the table. "I'm glad you came in."

I nodded, and this was one of the few dinners where we visibly cried in front of Vivian. I had wanted to tell Gerard how I remembered that exact moment too, and how I really had been trying to suppress my emotions. But he saw through them - it seemed so profound to me, then, as if the synchronicity of our lives together had come full circle, and I began to be overwhelmed again. Gerard let go then, too, and I noticed him looking at the handprint on the wall out of the corner of his eye. He had been stopping on that spot regularly, sometimes touching the fingers, as if he was trying to hold hands with the memory. In that case, he thought he was hiding his feelings, but I saw his emotions, too. We were both so in sync now - I could see him the way that he saw me - and it hurt. So we cried, because we knew of nothing else, no language to express this longing but tears. Vivian did nothing to try and stop us, just rubbed our backs and then left early so we could be together. We slept super-tight together, not enough space between us for light or paper to get through. We didn't want to separate from one another, as if the apartment itself was the bond between us.

The next time Vivian came over, she played the opposite card: "What is the one thing you'll miss the least about this place? What is the worst feature?"

"The fucking shower taps," Gerard cried, not having to think and I laughed. They were the strangest things ever, and over the years had gotten progressively worse. They had to be perfectly balanced in the position they started in, in order for the water to be shut off fully. Since both taps twisted both ways, it was sometimes a meticulous balancing act to finally get the water to turn off, and in the meantime you were being blasted by an unequal balance of warm or cold streams.

I agreed profusely with Gerard's pick, but Vivian made me choose something different. I considered it awhile, before I finally said the cupboards. "They're so high. They go all the way to the top of the ceiling and it's just ridiculous. I have to get a stool most of the time if I want something on the top shelf."

"Well, unless you have a growth spurt sometime soon, you're going to need a stool no matter what, Frank," Vivian teased, and then told me that she kept a small step ladder under the sink for that very purpose in her place.

"Noted," I informed her, and we went on from there. That dinner had been fun; we spent more time laughing than crying, and I was relieved, because tears or deep fears in the middle of our chests seemed to mark the hours during the day. Vivian was a good friend, too, and that made it all the easier to get through the stress of moving, which I had never really done before. There had never been a strict timeline for when I moved into Gerard's place. I lived there full-time as soon as I could, but my stuff trickled in, bit by bit carried in a backpack or the trunk of a car, for years. I was not used to the art of packing, which was something that Vivian also tried to bestow on us during these more carefree evenings. My rage against her had now completely subsided; I knew there was nothing she could have done. I felt no rage towards anyone else, because by the second day, I realized how useless it had all become. We were moving, that was final. And instead of thrashing and throwing a fit, I put my energy to good use and worked on packing up boxes of our lives and waited until the weekend.

The Friday night was our last night together, and the last day of packing. Vivian had come by during her lunch hour to drop off food, but told us that she would not be back that night. She had to get her own house ready for our arrival and make the final arrangements for the trucks and people. She was getting her graduate students to help us move and one of them was going to be driving Mikey's van. He was coming too, but using Alexa's grandfather's pick-up truck. We were doing this all by ourselves, because it was cheaper, and because these were the only people we trusted with our lives. It felt good, in spite of the shitty situation, to have this many people helping us. The only one who wasn't coming was Jasmine, who said she had been feeling ill and would be no help whatsoever. I was disappointed, but I shrugged it off. I wanted to keep my focus on the present moment and catalogue the entire apartment in my mind. Vivian said she knew that we needed our space for our last night, but she would be back at 8am sharp the next morning, when things would really kick off and get underway.

"Our lives our changing," Gerard said as soon as she left. I nodded, biting my lip to keep the emotion in. Gerard came beside me and put his arm around me. "But it's a good thing, Frank. Change is the only constant, and we need this. We really do."

I just shook my head. "I wanted to stay. I always wanted to stay."

"Of course. No one wants to move, but you have to eventually." Gerard nodded. I wasn't sure if he was convincing me or himself at this point. "We need to have a place together. This was my place, always has been, even when you were living here. There was no choice, only legacy. Now we have a choice - we are forced into it, but I know what I want. I want to live with you and now it means so much more than it ever could because we're doing t together. Right?"

I looked up at him, and kissed him instead of an answer. But he waited afterwards, not letting us get back to work, until I made my choice. He wasn't going to let me go blindly into things - I needed to want it just as much.

"Come on, Frank. Now it's my vulnerable question. We're leaving the island, but do you really want to come?" For exposing himself the way he was, his voice was strong and solid. He nudged me at the small of my back, and I felt the strength to consider my own answer, separate from his influence, but deeply entwined with his life. I began to realize, as he had told me more about The Tempest as we moved, that those were completely different things.

I looked out at the apartment. The only thing we had not packed yet was the art. It was the most valuable, and it was what hurt most to take off the walls and shelves and put into plain cardboard boxes. I looked around at everything, the art we couldn't take with us because it was forever on the walls, and I considered things. I didn't want to move, I really didn't. I wanted to live my entire life in this apartment; I was afraid of the outside world and this place cushioned me. I didn't like the forceful nature of the move and I hated that we had no money. My fear of poverty was coming true, and I just wanted to hide in the darkroom forever. I scanned the environment, then I looked back at Gerard. Did I really love a place more than I loved him, though? For so long they were synonymous in my mind that the split hurt. But I needed to break up the images, to fracture them all and put them back together again. I closed my eyes in a long blink, and I saw the colour all around us rearrange itself into his figure, fill his frame, and compose my life with him. He was the art, and I was going with him. This was my choice - and, of course, I chose him.

"Right," I looked at him. "I want to go, it's just... hard."

"Je sais," he told me. We stood in the middle of the room for a little longer. Eventually we had to move because we weren't done. We packed art for the rest of the afternoon and it didn't feel like we'd ever be done. There was just so much and I was going so slowly. Anytime my legs felt weak or sluggish, I would let my mind take over. I told myself I was not an island, and I filled the empty space that the apartment left with him.

While we were packing, I got a phone call from one of the jobs. It was at the drug store, which would have been around the corner from the apartment. I told them to call me back in a few days at Vivian's place because I was in the middle of a move. I had no idea if they were going to or not, and I didn't care. It suddenly didn't matter right now if I had a job. Money was useless and couldn't save us anymore since there was no time. But I had come a long way and no longer wanted to be saved. As we shut the last box, acceptance flowed through me. We were done. This was it.

I wanted to take a picture, and I was sure that Gerard wanted to paint all the things we both felt right them. How would we remember this place and how would this place remember us? Who would be the next tenants and would they get to see the art on the wall? Would they understand how beautiful it was and would they want to hear our story? I didn't know and it was this uncertainty that was scary and liberating. In the morning we would walk away from all of this and start again. Destruction, I began to remember, was a form of creation. We were going to start again, from the beginning again. I remembered our conversation, a few days back now. Wasn't this what sequels were for?

"It'll be an adventure, you know," Gerard told me as we were eating our casserole, the last dinner we would have together at this table. "I have absolutely no expectations and that means it can be whatever we want it to be. It's an adventure, if you look at it that way, both dangerous and wonderful."

I only nodded.

In the bed that night, I whispered into his ear that I wanted everything again. I whispered I loved him as if the walls would hear me if I talked too loudly, and he whispered back. We kept secrets between us as we took off our clothes. We had sex again, for the last time, in that bed. I was no longer afraid. I remembered the first night we were together, and how I had taken off my clothing. That was the last time I had been truly afraid. The fear I felt before was an imitation, it was not real. This was real. I held him in my hands and I knew we could do anything, everything. And he knew it too.

We spooned afterwards, his body protecting mine like a shield. I felt myself go in and out of sleep, fighting it off each time I thought I would nod off. But I couldn't fight it forever, and a sudden blackness overwhelmed me, and I was pulled into dreams.

And I was still not afraid. Together, we made our vulnerability feel invincible.

Vivian was good to her word, and at eight am sharp, she was knocking on our door. We had been up since six in the morning, but had not moved from our spot. I wasn't even sure if Gerard was awake until I shifted onto my side, and his body followed suit. He wrapped his hand around mine, and whispered something French into my ear, possibly good morning.

"How did you know I was awake?" I asked him, turning back over so our faces met. We pushed our foreheads together and did not open our eyes.

"I know you well enough now to tell," he answered simply. We stayed like this awhile, until his hand dropped down to my stomach and as if on cue, it grumbled. I laughed and he broke our intense huddle by kissing me quickly before getting up and grabbing food. We still had some time before Vivian arrived, so as we ate the rest of her leftover casserole cold in bed, we leafed through the Robert Mapplethorpe book I had deliberately not packed. When Viv did arrive, she brought coffee for us and said nothing about how we were not dressed yet. She knew the two of well enough at this point to not point that out, and to not have any doubt that we'd get ready soon. The shower taps were our least favourite thing about this place, so of course, we skipped it that morning. We threw on our clothing in the old bedroom, one at a time, as the other stayed with Vivian in the kitchen and guzzled a mug of coffee down. She made small talk about the weather (it was wonderful, a fantastic and bright day to move) and we both merely nodded. The muteness from Gerard was especially profound, and it made the entire apartment take on a placid feel. The last gulp done, we now began to shuffle our life down the stairs and into the awaiting vehicles.

It was a good thing that Gerard had so little furniture and both of us had very few possessions. Gerard had actually gotten rid of a lot of his clothing before going to Paris and what I had kept of his and not worn myself no longer fit onto his seven years later self anymore. He only had the stuff that Vivian had got us our first week back. All of his other personal items, such as toiletries, shampoo, and journals, were limited. He had really only been back a month and had nothing to take with him. It was my garbage bags full of clothing, school supplies, and old mementos from college that took up the most space in the van. The first run was going to be just small personal stuff, and then furniture and appliances, which was sparse and could be done in one trip using two vehicles. Then, finally, the art would be going last. That was the bulk of Gerard's possessions, since easels and canvases were large, while film and my camera were small in terms of volume. I lamented the fact that I would probably have to set up a dark room from scratch again (something I had never had to do, since Gerard had let me use Raymond's old one and at school they had already been prepared for us) and it would probably not be until we got our own place. I was relieved I had taken the photos when I did, and hoped that I wouldn't miss the lack of access. I hadn't while I was in Paris, but that had been a special circumstance. I wondered if loss would stifle the creative urge, much as love had in Paris. It was already working: I thought of nothing but the real world as we moved and went up and down the stairs. Once the serenity and calm of the early morning art session in bed had been broken, I was left to my own devices. I could no longer keep myself propped up against the balcony window and watch the winter as it unfolded, or read books until things got better. I was now forced outside, into that weather (which was bright, yes, but still quite cold), and my own knee-jerk responses to it. I thought of nothing but just getting through the goddamn day. I thought of nothing but bills, money, and possible jobs as we got through all of this. The surprising thing was that it actually worked to calm me, and not spiral me further into a depression. If I thought about the good times, I wouldn't want to leave, but if I kept the outside in mind, it made it seem like the only choice.

Vivian took up the role of leader. She was the one getting her graduate students to help, enlisting and instructing Mikey, and directing those on foot. She had joked that she told her students if they did anything wrong today, they would lose their funding. Although I laughed, the stressed look on Callie's and Dean's faces made me almost believe her. Vivian must have caught my concerned gaze because she told me they were graduate students; they always looked scared of their own shadows. This was actually a reward for them. She gave them the option of an art history essay for their midterm or this. Helping two artists move out was now a public performance piece, a work of art in charity, and a conceptual living arrangement, or something like that. She was going to work out the paperwork after the fact, since art-in-action was the best way to then conceptualize art-in-theory. I was glad that even as we moved and it felt as if we were leaving our world behind, we were still creating art in the process. Maybe not art-for-art's-sake, but art with a purpose, at least.

Mikey was here helping and it was the first time I had seen him since the dinner our first night back. He seemed so dignified and organized with how he spoke to me that one night, that I almost felt ashamed before him, like I had let his brother down or something. When Gerard approached him, I watched their interaction carefully to see if there was any animosity. There was none; the two of them just hugged, and got to work. I supposed it made sense; he had five kids, and by that point in his life, he had probably realized there was no point in yelling at someone after everything had already been broken. It wasn't going to make the pieces magically form together again. There was more to their interactions, I began to realize as the morning went on. Mikey never yelled or showed any outward signs of animosity or disapproval toward his brother, but he also never seemed to show any inward signs, either. He did not look down on Gerard, his voice did not take on an arrogant, self-righteous tone, and he did not advise us at all about money (though we probably could have used it). He smiled when he saw me, and extended his hand again. He asked how I was doing, and when he grabbed a box full of my art supplies, he seemed interested. He asked questions. He did not tell me that this was what had gotten us into trouble; he did not tell us that if we had had a normal job and not these photos or canvases that this would have never happened.

"Is this Jasmine?" he asked instead. The old photo that I had taken when I was seventeen was sticking out. I nodded, and his curiosity got the best of him as he pulled the photo out carefully.

"I like it. She looks very..."

"Young?" I offered, seeing a chance to take a break.

Mikey smiled, but ultimately rejected my adjective. "Not quite. You've captured something else in her eyes. I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but sometimes, I see it now. It's a rare look she has, maybe when her guard is let down." He nodded, finalizing his assessment and put the photograph back into my box. "It's hard to catch things like that, Frank. Good job."

We got back to work after that, and the moments of art discussion were few and far between, but Mikey's approval and comment of 'good job' lifted my spirits, even in the highly charged atmosphere as we moved the furniture, and the first loaded car took off.

Vivian had cleaned out a large space in her basement for us to live in. There was a bathroom down there, but it did not have a shower. There were two showers plus a tub upstairs, so it wasn't like it would now be four people sharing the one facility. I joked that Gerard and I could use the same one and save water, and most people laughed, but didn't pay much attention to it at this point. The stress was getting to us. In spite of high spirits, and some shared moments, moving was a stressful time for anyone. Mikey had a hard time strapping down the couch into the back of the truck and everyone slipped at least once during the day. The limited amount of times I had moved, or helped Jasmine, It was in the spring or fall time of year where the ground was not a danger zone. The wintry air made fingers freeze faster as we carried boxes without gloves (because gloves made the packages slip right through) and it made taking deep breaths in and out as we heaved and lifted stuff feel like a claw inside our bodies. It was difficult. A few times Gerard had to sit down and just take a rest. Halfway up the stairs on the second shift of moving, he just sat down and said he needed a while. I tried to stay with him for a bit, wanting to make sure he was okay, but he told me to go.

"I'm just paying for my years of smoking now. You go. I'll be fine."

He sat there for the rest of the second shift, until we were about to get into cars and drive to Vivian's place. He felt better after that and was able to keep going up and down stairs, but it was a heavy weight on me the rest of the day. He was fifty-five years old. He was in good shape, but sometimes it crept up on me like that. Moving wasn't the easiest thing in the world and I resented those seven flights of stairs and no elevator. I was in my physical prime, and even I was getting winded. I hadn’t smoked as long or as much as Gerard had, and I could not imagine what his chest, hips, or knees felt like.

Mikey and I ended up being the ones to move the couch, with Dean spotting us, and fuck, I hated being alive for those moments. Why were couches so heavy? Why did we need this couch? For a while I thought of giving up and just leaving it, but then I remembered that this was the couch I saw Vivian on that first day, this was the couch where we had had sex our last night together, and many other ties. It was ugly and orange, but it was ours, and I summoned my last bit of strength to just get the damn thing to the car and into our new life. It was even worse getting it down Vivian's basement stairs because they twisted, but we did it. And after we did the couch, it was pretty much easy from there on in. Just boxes and awkward things to move like a table, chairs, and some shelves. We slowly began to take over the one side of Vivian's place and there was no order whatsoever in the way we placed boxes. It began to look like a fortress itself, as if we could make a new house out of the leftover pieces of our remaining one.

It was noon by the time we were in the last shift of moving (we had underestimated, and there were going to be three shifts, not two) and it was just art supplies. Everyone was running on empty and wanted lunch badly, but didn't want to stop what they were doing. The thought of eating, resting and then coming back to more boxes was maddening. So we ceased talking and just tried to finish without yelling at one another in our hunger-induced crankiness. Even Vivian had run low on vigour for her supervisory role and stayed downstairs with Mikey and the vehicles. Callie and Dean did a fantastic job and were super efficient at getting all of our stuff and moving it down out of the way. It was a relief to have Dean around, even though he and I didn't exactly speak to one another. He was my age, maybe a little older, and was the only other person here who could handle moving heavy items. He, Mikey, and myself often shared the burden of that couch, the table, and the boxes of books. Dean and I never really talked to one another, except for our shared groans and strain over our furniture. Those moments of intense eye contact with someone as you back around a corner, hoping to not go over the staircase and trusting them to guide you, mean a lot. By the end of the ordeal, he felt like a good friend. I had taken Callie aside at one point and thanked her profusely for her help as well, and then also apologized for not taking their ride when we got here from Paris. She blushed and shrugged her shoulders, trying to downplay just how much appreciation came through our movements. Her brown hair was stuck to her forehead, and she looked over to Dean who was still struggling with a massive stack of canvases, and went over to assist him. That was the last piece for them to take - the rest of the stuff we held in our arms. It was a relief; my arms and legs burned and my emotions were shot from the intensity of the day. Gerard let out a sigh, and then turned his attention towards Callie and Dean before they left the apartment door.

"We will be down in a minute. We're just saying goodbye." They nodded meekly and left, and so Gerard turned his attention towards me. Balancing what he held in one arm, he touched the side of my face with a crooked smile. "So let's say goodbye."

I was quiet for awhile, unsure what he wanted us to do. I think he was trying to figure it out as well. We stared at the empty room, and when he spoke again, there was a faint echo. "You know, I keep trying to think of a proper ending for all of this and I don't know. I suppose I want it to be dramatic, like the ending of a legend or something like that. Vivian would say that is the melodrama that I live and breathe and eat for breakfast coming out. But... I don't know. In situations like this, sometimes it's good to feel too much."

I swallowed hard, but remained silent. I didn't trust myself to speak yet.

"I keep trying to remember the beginning, when I first moved here, years and years ago. The beginning of this place for you is different for me, or at least, I thought so. But I can't remember the first move in. I remember you standing at that doorway, though." He smiled. "I'm trying to make sense of the beginning now that I have the end, but I do not know if the circularity of those narratives are possible. I have nothing. This is just it."

"You have everything," I told him, taking his hand and picking up the final bag with the other. He smiled and then softly said, "Je sais. I have everything, and maybe that's why it's not really the end."

We were silent for a long, long time.

"Goodbye apartment," I said out loud. It was stronger than I had anticipated my voice being, and liking the sound of it, I smiled at Gerard as I screamed, "GOODBYE APARTMENT."

Gerard smiled and let go of my hand to make a megaphone with his around his mouth and followed my lead. "GOODBYE APARTMENT. I'VE HAD MANY GOOD TIMES IN YOU. MANY ART PROJECTS DONE, BUT I AM DONE. I HAVE TOO MUCH EXCITMENT TO FILL YOU UP ANYMORE."

I laughed, continued: "GOODBYE APARTMENT. I LOST MY VIRGINITY IN YOU AND NOW I NEED TO HAVE SEX IN OTHER ROOMS AND OTHER PLACES, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CONTAIN ME ANYMORE."

"GOODBYE APARTMENT. I FELL IN LOVE IN THIS PLACE AND I NEVER THOUGHT I COULD. I LEAVE YOU NOW BECAUSE I'VE GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING I'VE GOT AND NOW, I'M NOT NOTHING, I AM EVERYTHING."

"I HAVE GIVEN YOU SEVEN YEARS AND I AM FUCKING EVERYTHING, TOO."

We looked at each other now, and screamed together, "I AM EVERYTHING. I AM EVERYTHING. WE'VE GIVEN YOU ALL AND NOW WE'RE EVERYTHING."

I swore we were breaking the sound barrier, or at least disturbing the people underneath us. I didn't care, I wanted to keep yelling, but I think my lungs were dead. I didn't want to feel anymore, I couldn't feel anymore, and I stomped my feet because I still wanted to be heard. I still wanted to be the person who lived here, and in spite of knowing that I could no longer contain myself in these walls, I wanted to at least break them down myself.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14