Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 27 страница

Is this what family was about? I asked myself, and I knew, that yes, of course it was. Family hurts you, and your roots are your boiled blood of anger. I should have been expecting this all along. I would have been far less disappointed.

Chapter Six

I didn't speak to Gerard or Vivian for a few days. I slept on the couch when I went downstairs, and I ate my meals alone or with Cassandra. Vivian, for once, seemed willing to avoid me and let me be. Usually she would be pestering me and trying to plead her case (not that we had ever really gotten mad at one another, I just learned to predict her movements), but she left me alone. I wasn't sure if this was to let me get my anger out of my system, or if she actually felt bad. I hoped both. Gerard, on the other hand, did try to talk to me. The first time I went to bed on the couch, he called my name and said that I should sleep with him. He called my name again, but when I didn't respond, he gave up. He did the same thing each day: he would invite me to join him doing something (sleeping, eating, going for a walk) but he would ask once, call my name, and have that be it. He didn't try to touch me and he didn't try to talk about anything until I was ready. And I wasn't so sure that I was going to do anything about it just yet.

Cassandra's company helped so I didn't feel as if I was completely losing myself. She filled the void her mother would have usually occupied and tried to give me advice. She was more forthcoming than her mother though, and that was why I probably let her go on for as long as she did about her remedy to the situation.

"Just forget about it. It's not a productive use of your time. They're your friends. You love them, they love one another, and have that be it," she informed me regularly, and when I droned on too long about my betrayed feelings, she usually kept it short: "You're being immature."

"I am not," I said, thus proving her point. "You know, maybe you were wrong and maybe Gerard isn't a sibling and this is some sort of weird parental arrangement."

She laughed. "Nope. Sorry, Frank, but I'm almost never wrong. He is a brother, and a younger brother at that. Come on, this is classic Oedipal complex. Back in the mother's house, they are reunited. This was clearly a sympathetic fuck if I ever saw one."

"You didn't see it. I did."

"And it's a source of trauma, I get it, I get it, you do not need to reiterate that point anymore. But you're making this into a bigger deal than it already is. They're both trying to extend their sympathy towards you and establish a relationship again. Stop it with the silent treatment and just make up. You can discuss things like adults. And if you can't, then come get me and I can be your psychotherapist."

We were playing cards together that night, only she had abandoned our game and had gone on to play solitaire as I lamented across the table. She had an aptitude for things that were far beyond her age, and it made me treat her like a mentor figure. There were a few instances where I would be overwhelmed by her age, mostly when she stood up and I was reminded of how short she was, but for the most part it went undetected and her position of the older sister became fact in my mind.

I knew she was right too, which was the worst part. Part of me already knew I was overreacting, but another part didn't care. Anytime I would feel myself calming down, I'd think back to that descent down the stairs and become furious again. I had announced myself, and they didn't care. I had been doing what they told me to do, and they didn't care. They were so into themselves that they had to fling it in my face. They both knew my family history, how hard all of this was for me, and just when I was starting to feel okay in my new situation, my ground was shaken again. What I failed to realize, though, until those first few initial days of pouting were done, was that unlike my original family, Gerard and Vivian did want to talk about the mistake and work it all out. I thought calling attention to it again was another way of stabbing me in the back again, but no, they wanted to work it out with me. They didn't just want to forget it and let it ferment with time until it eventually grew sour and we hated being in the same room together not knowing why. They wanted to fix it before it continued to break, and if not fix it, then at least find a way to deal with it.

My anger was subsiding. I was given time alone to think about things - which at first overwhelmed me to another panic attack in the backyard lawn chairs - but now I was used to being alone. My conversations with Cassandra were bringing me back to the real world and the dilemmas on my hands. For awhile I considered calling Jasmine to see if she had any insight, but I knew that she would be even harsher than Cassandra. She would remind me of our arrangement, and how you could not own anyone and how you could only be yourself. We were ourselves, Jasmine and I, and we were fine. And Gerard and I were ourselves, too. I tried to articulate the difference between the two, and I imagined a whole bunch of scenarios. What if Gerard had walked in on Jasmine and I? Would there have been such a big deal? What if I had not seen Vivian and Gerard? What if I had seen Braden and Jasmine? I knew my reaction would have been the same then, and I realized my anger was rooted in visibility. It was one thing to know something, and another to see it. I was sure Jasmine would explain that to me, and link it to meat production and factory farms or something, so I didn't call her. Not yet, at least. My anger towards the two adults in the house had actually made me miss her less than I usually would. I almost wanted to keep this flame going, so I didn't unleash another emotion hiding underneath. But the anger, or maybe the constant sleeping on the couch, was wearing me out.

I was outside in the deck chair, wrapped in a blanket, when Vivian opened the door and peered out. She called my name, and I must have been ready to forgive her, because I responded without realizing, "Yeah?"

"I don't want to bother you, but Mel Gold is on the phone. It's about the job interview," she explained quietly and then motioned for me to come inside for the phone. "It sounds like good news."

"Thanks," I told her and then jumped inside. She sat at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea as she went over some art history essays she was marking. I stepped around the corner with the kitchen phone so I could have some privacy, not that I was really worried about the delicacy of this call. I did get the job. He wanted me on evening shifts part time. It would only be ten hours a week until I was more efficient, and then we would see from there. I thanked him and told him I would be in for a shift in a few days to begin training. It felt good, finally getting something that I had at least kind of wanted, and having someone appreciate the effort I was making. When I hung up the phone, Vivian looked up from her drink.

"I know we may still not be talking, but I am happy that you got the job. It was fairly obvious from that man's tone of voice that something good was going to happen, so congrats," she said, and blinked slowly waiting for my response.

I reached my hand up to my neck and scratched, unsure of where to focus my eyes. "Yeah, I guess, but he always talks like that. Anyway, I start on Friday."

"Good," Vivian said, then waited for more. "Sit down, please, if you're willing to keep talking."

Though my movements were stunted and gawky and I really didn't want to, I sat down. I knew this had to end sooner or later. "Frank, you know I love you so much. And Gerard."

"I know. It's the same for me," I was pretty sure this was the first time she had really articulated her love, but it wasn't a surprise. We had known each other a long time and suddenly I felt very stupid and humbled. We had known one another a long time. Why was I throwing it away?

"I'm sorry you saw what you did. We should have been more careful," she said.

"I know you are. I'm sorry..." it felt weird to say, "that I took it the way I did. I mean, it's not like I don't know you guys have sex. I just didn't need to see it, you know? Gerard knows I have sex too, with other people, but he doesn't need to see it, either. That was what I hated the most."

She nodded sympathetically and took another sip of her tea. She offered me some tea as well, but I declined. She went up and put the kettle on anyway, to make herself another cup. "Are we okay? Is there anything else you want to say, or has your anger dissipated now?"

"I'm fine," I lied. There were a lot of things bothering me, but there was no time to get into them all, and Vivian was not always the cause.

"I am here if you want to talk, I hope you know that. I know... I know I've been really hard on you," she confessed, staring at the base of the kettle. "But I want you to know that I am proud of you. I am."

I nodded, but it didn't feel sincere. "Proud to be working at a drug store, I guess."

"No. Proud that you have gotten this far without compromising your principles."

I had not been expecting that. It felt like I had been compromising left right and centre. "How so? I thought working in a capitalistic place like that was the bane of ignorance. Aren't I losing out for a pay check?"

"No, absolutely not. You're still making art. That's all that matters. Who cares if the money comes from a drug store and not the art right now? You're living and you're working on what matters."

"I guess..." I agreed. I had been so flustered with the move that I didn't feel as if I was creating much of anything at all, except for resentment. And even that was a waste of time, because I had to let it all go.

Talking about art made a hole in my chest hurt, a hole that I usually filled with Gerard. He had been in the basement most days, in the art room, creating. He would always invite me in with him, as if he had forgotten the basis for my silence, and he would stay there until night and would try to invite me into bed. I heard him then, and I could feel him through the floorboards. I was his body, and I felt him shifting and moving from side to side as he finished a piece. Vivian must have seen my eyes wander to the staircase and gaze longingly because she appeared behind me and insisted I get up.

"Go," she told me, nudging my shoulders. "Don't debate this. He needs to see you too."

I followed her orders. The door to the workroom was open a crack and I could see him move around in the light. In a way, it was almost easier to make up with Vivian than it was with Gerard. There was so much history between the artist and myself, so much to gain and lose. This was the first fight where I didn't even want him to be near me. I had never experience that before and it hit me harder than I expected. I suspected that much of my anger had turned into guilt. Going from wanting someone and something so much that I was willing to wait seven years for it, to die for it, and then wanting it nowhere near me was a huge stretch. It caught me off guard and now I was ready to fill the gap. I timidly knocked on the door.

"Gerard?" I called out. He stopped moving around and then I heard his feet shuffle to the door. He opened it up and smiled at me, and I tried to smile weakly at him. He was not mad, but he was tired. I could see that in his eyes and the way the creases of his skin folded around them. Crow’s feet. Had he gotten older in those few days?

"Come in," he told me when I still hadn't moved. "I'm just in the middle of something and I'll finish it up quickly. Is that all right?"

I nodded, no longer looking at him, but becoming amazed by what he had done in the art room. Like several places in the main living area of the basement, there were labels on things. They were no longer in French, however, and I figured they were in place this time to prevent the confusion since the move. In here, they featured more prominently on the supply chests and on each art piece with its title so he wouldn't forget as well. His supplies were everywhere. On the one large table we had, he had spread out his canvases, old oil paint tubes, and brushes that had already hardened in the air. The easel held a half finished piece, the walls were covered with completed ones, and his small desk where his stool was placed was covered in paper, pencil marks, and more paint. It was chaos, but there was an element of organization transposed on this labyrinth of art through his meticulous labels, which, as I approached the table, even labelled the furniture itself.

Gerard went back to his stool and easel as I looked through the stuff on the table. He worked so quietly, I almost forgot he was there. I was so captivated by all the paintings, so many of them new to me, that I became lost in the display. I felt like I was at an art gallery that was set up just for myself, and I took my time as I began to go through each one of them.

Most were depictions of famous paintings that I knew, ones that Gerard had spent a great deal of time admiring and showing me. But his versions were altered in some way, either to make it appear more sombre, grotesque, or more surreal and dream-like. There was his depiction of Magritte's The Lovers which he had called Star-Crossed. In here, he had depicted their images in constellations over the sky and the ground being filled with the blankets that had once been draped over their faces. There was also a rendition of Dali's Soft Clock, but it was inverted against fabric, so that the person who was carrying a pocket watch was actually carrying the fabric of their coat in a watch shape, and the face of the clock was all over their body instead. It was called Fashion History and made me nauseous if I stared at it too long. There were lots of others that seemed to be original works, ones that were visions of typical still life that was no longer on the table, but suspended in the air and cut up with knives. Nothing seemed to be realistic, and as I went through more and more paintings, they made less and less sense. He seemed to have embodied Jackson Pollock at the end (in fact, the painting was called j.p and j.d) with a scrawl-like pattern attributed to Pollock, but in the shape of a liquor bottle - Jack Daniels.

The last one I saw was my favourite and by far the best. It hung in the middle of the wall that was on the side of the door. Since it was at my back when I first came in, I saw it last as I turned around. It was immense - a large horizontal canvas that spread over the top of the door frame. Every single colour that Gerard owned was on it and the textures that they all produced together was incredible. They all swirled together on one side, like wind or a vortex, and then emerged into gold or glitter on the other side. As if all the colour in the world, when passed backwards through the prism that makes the rainbow, doesn't go back to light, but exploded with gold instead. It was gorgeous. I had to squint and get on the tips of my toes to see what it was called, and when I did, my breath stopped. I Remember Everything stared back at me, and in that moment, I knew what that painting meant. I felt it, too.

"Hello," Gerard said from behind me. Normally he would have touched me on the small of my back to get my attention, but since my standoffish moods, he was apprehensive. "Are you okay?"

I closed my eyes. That tone of voice, those words. I was remembering everything all over again. "Yeah, I'm fine," I told him. "I... I really like this picture."

I turned around to face him, and he looked above, regarding his work. He nodded and looked back down at me. "It's good, thank you, but I want to show you something else. I have something for you."

He walked back over to the small desk he had been at with his stool and motioned for me to follow. He opened one of the draws and took out a tiny canvas. It was blue, but the paint had a speckled quality to it, like it had fallen from a height onto the canvas. There was a dove painted on it. It was realistic, except for the washed and unsettled background. The bird was off-white and almost pigeon like. It sat perched and not flying, but it was looking up as it to question where all the blue was coming from. There was one drop on its beak.

I held the small canvas in my hand and I started shaking. I clasped it to my chest instead. "Thank you."

Gerard nodded. He was sitting on his stool and he held out one of his arms. "I'd like to hug you, if that's okay."

I didn't say anything. I just leaned into him and his arm gripped my back strongly, before he started to rub up and down. "Oh, my dove. We do such foolish things sometimes."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I overreacted."

"I said we do foolish things sometimes, Frank. Not just you. Me as well." He looked at me seriously and maintained eye contact for what felt like ages. "We should have timed things better. I will not apologize for the act, as I'm sure Vivian won't as well, but we could have done it much better. We weren't thinking."

I nodded. I told him I had just spoken to Vivian and I felt a lot better about things. "I don't advocate for silent treatments," he began to lecture. "But I can see why you did what you did. Honestly, I needed to be silenced just as much as you needed to not talk. There is strength in being quiet, in being alone, and there is a power there. But there is too much of a good thing."

I agreed wholeheartedly. I needed that time to be mad at him, and my anger was productive. I told Gerard that, and he got it immediately. "I needed to be mad at you, as well."

I was about to be upset again, wondering why the fuck he had to be mad at me, but then I remembered how I had freaked out without warning and tried to cut them both out of my life. Cassandra's tactful comment of immaturity rang in my ears. And Gerard, also, explained: "I thought you were taking away my freedom of choice. I thought I would have to choose, and I didn't want to. I needed to be mad for the rupture of your aggression."

I nodded, not wanting to think too much about it anymore. "Are we okay now? I mean, we're still..."

"Together? Yes, of course Frank. We'll always be together," he kissed my forehead and I let out the breath I was holding. "But it's good to have silences and angers. It's another form of intimacy between us, another mark of vulnerability. Sex and love, anger and violence. It's all the same thing, it comes from the same place. Being angry at you was a new experience, as I'm sure it was for you too." He squeezed my side a bit, and I let out a breath I was holding. "It's good," he assured me. "I want to experience you, Frank, all of you. Anger and passion, sex and silence. All of it. It's so much better than the alternative."

We were quiet, then. We hugged for a while longer, but then Gerard turned his body and his stool towards the easel, pulling me beside him. He kept an arm around me as he returned to teacher-mode.

"Have I ever told you about The Black Paintings by Goya?"

I shook my head. We had discussed Goya and a few other Spanish artists, but I didn't recall this name. He pulled out a book and opened up the page, and I knew for sure that I hadn't heard about this. I would have remembered it. Gerard showed me a series of several different images, using mostly black, and depicting either grotesque, frightening, or ominous pictures. There were several faces that seemed to snarl at me and snap their jaws, there were dark shadows in corners, and there was one that was literally devouring another whole. I swallowed hard and Gerard began talking again. I listened closely, wondering why on earth he had shown me something this horrific. There didn't even seem to be a message behind the work, despite its violence, like Guernica. It was just black and black and more black.

"The one you're staring at is Saturn Devouring His Own Son. It's a Roman myth, where the god Saturn had a premonition that his son would succeed him, and in order to prevent this from happening he swallows them all up whole. Of course, these things are fated. A premonition is a premonition. His wife hid one of the babies, Jupiter, and he became the leader. He overthrew his father."

I noted Gerard's interesting choice of words: fated. Wasn't that going against everything he believed in? I asked him, "Is fated another word for determinism?"

Gerard nodded. "Exactly. These paintings, all of them dwell in fate, in tragedy, in detrimental linage. That is why they're black and depressing and grotesque. People literally twist their bodies to death for fate, trying to avoid something, and then making it come true. This is what Goya was plagued by."

Gerard turned the page of the book and on the next side, along with some text that I was sure Gerard was paraphrasing, was an image of a house and how each of the walls broke down and where each painting had been done in relation to one another. "Goya was tormented by the loss of his wife. He stayed indoors, he painted his demons, without anyone asking him to, and he began to believe his own madness. He began to think he needed to devour his own children if he was going to get anywhere. You see, he needed to figure out a reason why his wife was no longer with him, and so he turned out these monsters and demons as if they were responsible. But he was responsible. He created them, and he was not merely fated, but fulfilling his own goal. My point is..." Gerard took a breath, "You create your own reality. You think you're fated, and you are. You think you need to devour your children, and you do. His wife died because she died. All he was responsible for was living his life after, and instead, he trapped himself inside his house and he painted the walls black."

I wanted him to turn the page in the book. I kept looking at Saturn and how red his eyes were and the blood that fell down the body in his mouth. It gave me chills. Gerard finally pushed the book away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I looked down at the dove in my hand again to smile and I felt a little better. I had deliberating not comprehended much of his speech. Probably because it was so close to home, so close to us, I felt like the images were devouring me.

Gerard turned around to hug me again. He kissed my forehead, my neck, and then my mouth. I wrapped my arms around him and I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I saw his picture, I Remember Everything in front of me. And I thought I understood.

"When you were gone, I thought it was forever. All I could think about were The Black Paintings by Goya. I came in here and I was determined to paint the walls and to never come out. But then I remembered that there was no such thing as fate or destiny, and you create with what you're given. So I didn't make the black paintings. I wouldn't let myself. I made these instead." Gerard pointed to my chest, taking the dove picture in his hands as well as mine. "I created you instead."

He spoke more seriously now: "You have always been my reality, Frank. Always. Even in Paris, when I felt at my most fated. Vivian, I love her with all of my heart, but I didn't create her in here. I created you, I created us. At the end of the day I remember you. At the end of the day, I think of the biggest grief that Goya ever felt and I understand why The Black Paintings were created. But I will never make a misery of you, Frank. I love us too much for that."

I didn't know what to say. I suddenly wanted my camera; I wanted to take pictures of everything in this room, of everything around us. All of this art, all of the colour that surrounded, ran backwards through the prism, and turned into gold. I Remember Everything stared back at me as Gerard held my hands and the small dove canvas was between our fingers. This was our reality. This was our world, even in the pit of despair. Even when shit went horribly wrong and we lost everything. We could paint it all black, and devour our young or we could make beautiful art and set creatures free.

"Thank you," I told him. We kissed again, and then put our foreheads together and just breathed.

"Whatever did happen to that dove? Is she okay now?" Gerard asked.

"She's fine," I told him. "She's free."

He smiled. "I knew I could trust you with that." We kissed again, as if we were newlywed and all over one another again. We spent the rest of the afternoon together, in the art room, and Gerard went over the rest of his paintings as I watched in awe. Once he had explained the black ones, he needed to explain the colours. He told me they were all going into Vivian's show that was happening soon. He talked with animated vigour about his new project, and though it wasn't as glamorous, I shared with him my job news. We smiled and congratulated one another and there was not a trace of misery or blackness between us. We were creating our reality, though so far removed from what we once had thought we would be. We had no expectations, and could become anything we wanted. I had a feeling we would grow far beyond anything we thought possible, and be the giants and gods of our own minds.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14