February - Giants 4 страница

"Vegetarian, right? Not vegan? So we can keep the milk and the cheese and everything else here? I don't have to learn how to cook tofu and use soymilk?"

I shook my head and she seemed entirely relieved. "Not that I wouldn't at least attempt to cook for you, Frank, but my god, it's hard enough for me to learn new things at work. I was hoping that at least my eating habits could remain unaltered."

I told her that it was fine, and that I should probably start learning how to cook anyway. I felt bad about Vivian always taking on the role of chef. She insisted it was easier since she was picky in her eating habits, and it just made sense to double what she was making and feed everyone else. But we worked out a schedule where on Saturday I would start to cook my own meals for everyone. Cassandra laughed and said she would have to call the fire department, but then I upped the ante, and challenged her to join in. I knew she would have to say yes; it was a part of her personality. If someone challenged her intelligence or skill level, she needed to rise to the occasion. She could feel vindicated when what she would make for everyone would be excellent, and I won as well because now I had someone else to stress out with about cooking a meal.

Other than those preliminary reactions, there was nothing else out of the ordinary about my announcement. Even Gerard had just nodded and not said much else during the dinner. After the dishes were done and Cassandra and Vivian were getting ready to go to bed, Gerard and I were just starting our day together. He told me to lie down with him in the bed for a while. He was on his back in his clothing, and pulled me on top of him. We kissed idly and he began to take off my shirt. We stripped and kissed passively lazily until we were both naked and laying on top of the sheets. I was right next to him now, our limbs tangled but our torsos separate. He played with my pubic hair and laid his hand over my cock inertly. I touched the tip of his head and played with his hair, while breathing against his neck. We were both uninterested in sex, but satisfied our need for closeness in this manner. I almost wanted to fall asleep again, I was getting so calm and relaxed, but Gerard began talking.

"Is everything okay, Frank?"

I made a noise that sounded like hmmph against his neck, and then turned my head so I stared at the ceiling. I was so exhausted. Before, it had been my mental capacities that had been fraught, but now I could feel my body wanting to give up as well. So many things had been feeding off of me recently.

"I guess I am..." I started, and when Gerard wasn't convinced, I told him about working at the drug store and being called a faggot. How I knew the reality of their words as meaningless, but they still struck me in a way I wasn't expecting them too.

"Do you remember that childish song that kids sometimes sing? Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?" Gerard asked, and I nodded in recognition. "It's bullshit. Words have to hurt you. I would become worried one day if a word didn't hurt me, because that means that they can't affect me as well. The only reason we give stories any validity is because they do manage to stick with us. Their words matter, their words sometimes hurt, so why do we try to discount the words of slurs and insults as well? It's all the same, and it means just as much."

I understood that, and it made sense. But it still left me in a shitty situation.

"But that's not it, Frank. There is something else bothering you."

When I didn't answer, he began to kiss my neck and tried to pull out the issues that had been feeding off of me. He kissed and kissed and kissed and I felt the blood rush under the skin, forming a hickey.

"Flesh is flesh is flesh," he assured. "Maybe I should give up meat too."

"Yes," I told him. I turned onto my side so we were both facing one another, our ribs concave and foreheads touching. "Then you can help me cook too."

Gerard laughed. "I never figured myself for the domestic type, but I have to say, living here and doing what I've been doing... it's starting to look more appealing."

"How so? I thought you loved the attention you're getting?"

He grimaced a bit. "Yes and no. I meant what I said about Warhol before. I'm waiting for those fifteen minutes to end, but sometimes it doesn't seem like they will. And it's different than before. Now that the attention is there... it seems meaningless to strive. Not that I ever want to stop painting or doing art, but now.... Now I'm seeking escape from my escape. I'm going under so many layers of desire and I just don't know how to get out," he laughed, but I could see how serious he was. We were working with too many layers, too many polar opposites. Our lives seemed so strange to us now. I didn't recognize myself in my uniform and Gerard was always dressing up. Now that we were naked, in front of one another, we could finally talk about all that we kept on top, on the surface, out in plain sight but hidden.

I took my hand and put it on the back of his neck. I tangled my fingers in his hair. He touched what little chest hair I had and swirled around my nipple. It wasn't sexual, we were just trying to remember who we were again.

"Failure and success are the same thing," I said, surprising myself with my own clarity. I thought of Gerard's life now, and I thought of mine in art school. He had done one thing, and I another, but we were both unsure of our own position because we had finally obtained something. He was successful, and I had failed. It was the same, we were the same. "No matter what one you get, you have an answer. And then you're no longer working and just waiting. I don't like it."

Gerard nodded. "Very good observation."

We leaned forward and kissed, and then I continued to think out loud. "I sometimes wish we could just move away and not be who we are now. Just be different people. Be no one again and start all over with a new dream."

Gerard smiled. "I keep thinking this art stuff is hard on me. But it's hard on you, too. We're not used to sharing." As if to demonstrate my sentiment, he scooted closer to me and we closed the gap of bed between us. "I'm used to having you all to myself, and to giving the best and getting the best. Now we're pulled apart and we come back empty."

I held him closer, as if it would help. We were quiet for some time; I began to wonder if Gerard had fallen asleep, or if I had, and I was now dreaming all of this.

"I think if I ever paint again, I'm not going to use nearly as many colours. I think I'm just going to do nudes," he stated. I waited for a witty sexual reply at the end of this, but got nothing.

"Why nudes?"

"Because it's the most honest thing I can think of. Flesh is flesh is flesh. I think we would all be so much nicer to one another if we were not wearing clothing. Nude is different than naked, there is no shame there. I'm so sick of dwelling in shame. I'm so sick of argument, of critique, of debate. I just want to love what I love. I am so sick of proving myself."

I rubbed his back. I had no idea he was feeling this run down with the art world. I imagined that he had heard some critiques, but the way he was usually able to have it bounce right off him so flawlessly had always amazed me. Maybe I was witnessing something crumble now, a facade, a wall, an image, a myth - I did not know. I did not need to know, to link it to something bigger. I could just hold him as he held me. Flesh of my flesh. I grabbed his side, and held him in place.

"Life is so delicate. I just want to go slowly from now on. I want to do the dishes, I want to make the bed, I want to do laundry. And yes, I don't want to eat meat. I want to help you cook. We should get an animal..." Gerard trailed off, a new excitement returning to his voice. He looked at me suddenly with wide eyes. "Do you think? A cat or a dog of some kind? An animal doesn't care who's around it, so long as someone is."

I smiled at him, but I really had no response. "I uhhh, I don't know how Viv would feel. Isn't she allergic?"

"Oh, probably," Gerard said. "But it's the idea, the spirit of the animal that I want. We're nothing but animals, too, Frank."

"I uh..." I stated again. I was about to argue with him, when I realized that of course he was right. And animal wasn't a bad word. It was just a word, just a type of being.

I remembered what Jasmine said. We were all irrevocably linked. I felt that then, with Gerard. The suffering of body and mind that echoed through both of us, the discarding of superficial clothing like skin, and lying there together. If he was overwhelmed, so was I. When he succeeded, I failed, and either way, we were together in it. We both had our answers; and his dissatisfaction with his own made me feel better in mine. I would still be toiling even if I had had my photographs published and been revered. We held one another, nestled our necks together, like animals in the den of the basement.

"What's next for us?" I asked, meekly, like a child. I could see our whole future laid out before us, but it was a wide plain. A winter snowstorm. Blank. Uncertain.

"Anything, I suppose," Gerard said. That was enough.

I moved my head away from his neck, and he did at the same time. Our lips caught and we began to kiss with a more reverent force. Our tongues mingled and our hips rocked slowly. I put my leg around him and he shifted his whole body. He turned onto his back and I placed my torso over his, supporting myself with my arms. I looked down at him and thought: he was right. Nudes were the most honest form of expression. I kissed his neck, down to his nipples, and across his ribcage. I placed myself between his legs and looked up from his hipbones. His body was a wide, blank plain. His body was my future. His body was flesh of my flesh, and we promised to not hurt anyone anymore. I touched and kissed his thighs, and then took him into my mouth. My tongue radiated slowly and he hit the back of my throat. I touched him delicately and tried to make this not about consuming him, not about making him burst out of his skin, but that I was just like him. We were both delicate, and when it was over, we were still both going to be there.

We spent the rest of the night naked. At one point, when we went to get lunch, we came upstairs and noticed the snowstorm that was happening. The windows were not black, but white. Wide and blank. Our future stared back at us, and we embraced it.

The snow storm lasted, on and off, for several days. By the time the city plows got around to clearing it all and the sidewalks in Vivian's neighbourhood were done, there were piles upwards of three feet high on each corner. It felt as if you were walking in the middle of a maze and sometimes it appeared to white the entire city out. Life still went on, however, and we could tell whenever it was a weekday with the way Vivian cursed as she began to sweep off her car. Gerard and I, having no other duties for the time being, became the shovellers and the hot tea makers, and tried to keep everyone warm. I took some pictures of the snow when no one was looking; I wanted to remember this large and unwavering feeling of anonymity, but I didn't want Vivian to think this meant she could throw me a show. I took what Gerard and I had discussed very seriously. As much as art was important in our lives, our relationship to it had changed. It was an escape and it became like trying to remove your own skin once you tried to escape your escape. When I told him about Vivian's plan to get him into teaching, he had shuddered at first. "A normal job! Oh no!" had been his response, but he began to warm to the idea. He had taught me, after all. It would be a good life. We would still dream of escaping and not living here anymore, of getting a dog or a horse, or something, but this planning was our escape now. We speculated these high romantic art fantasies in order to leave the drudgery of the phone interviews Gerard was doing, or the impending night shifts. It was working. I was happy.

I got the phone one afternoon, expecting it to be another person for him, but was tremendously surprised when my mother's half-hysterical voice greeted me.

"Frank? Is that you? Please tell me that that is you. I've been trying to find you for hours!"

I felt the guilt crawl through my system and I almost dropped the coffee mug. "Uh, hi, mom. Yeah. It's me. Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I moved. It kind of happened all at once. Who gave you this number? Oh you know about the show...." I trailed off not knowing what to do. I was so used to being in my own little insulated world with Gerard that hearing her voice jolted me back into reality. It felt like falling from the sky and landing on my head. All of a sudden I was aware of the position I had put her in, and I didn't like how it made me feel.

When she had seen my picture in the paper, she was really proud, but when she had tried to call me to see if she could come and visit, the number was disconnected.

"Then I tried to go over to your apartment, but the landlord said you didn't live there anymore and your name was gone from the panel outside. It was horrible, Frank. Please don't ever do that again," she chastised and I felt like I was ten years younger. I told her I was sorry, and that I was glad she found the number by calling the art exhibit and then being redirected to Vivian. All of this must have been recent, as in within the last hour, because I knew that Vivian would have lectured me the first chance she got. I knew I would hear from her as soon as she was done with her work for the day or she might even leave me a few threatening messages on the machine before that time. I made a mental note to not get the phone the rest of the day. I closed my eyes and dreaded this feeling of pure guilt.

I had just started to make peace with my new family and new ideas of family. Gerard and I were brainstorming and revelling in our domesticity. I had made amends with the fact that my biological family wasn't always going to be there, wasn't always going to get it. I had even stopped eating meat because I didn't want, in the big picture, to end up turning out like my father. And I had a choice, right? So why was my mother still calling me? More importantly, why was I feeling so utterly terrible about it?

Her voice on the other end of the phone brought back Goya's black paintings. I couldn't concentrate.

"Frank, honey, are you there?" she asked.

"Yeah, I am. Sorry, mom. Just a bit distracted now. My sleep schedule is a bit weird because of my job," I lied; my schedule was wonky, but that wasn't why I was so discouraged right now. Gerard appeared behind me, realizing this was a difficult call, and began to rub my back.

"I was asking if your art display is still up," she repeated herself. Her voice was a lot calmer now and she seemed happy to be talking to me. I felt bad for not wanting to speak with her.

"It's not my art display. It's Gerard's. I was just at the opening with him," I explained.

"Oh. Well. Is it still open?"

It took me awhile to remember my mother's language of silence and absences. Now that she had been reunited with her missing son by phone, it came time to talk about what really mattered: the art. She wanted to go. It was clear that my father wouldn't take her and she hated to go to things by herself. It occurred to me that I needed to take her, and if I didn't, then I was just as bad as my dad. I swallowed hard and Gerard kept rubbing my back.

"Do you have the car, mom?" She said that she did. "Okay, come and pick me up here and we can go see it." I gave her Vivian's address and she didn't even say goodbye before she hung up the phone and was on her way.

It was going to be awkward. I knew it would be, but that was not enough to discourage me from going. Surprisingly, when I did tell Gerard what I was about to do, he didn't discourage me, either. Family was about choosing who you wanted to be around, and it was possible to discount biology. He had used Duchamp and RroseSélavy to prove that to me, but he had also evoked The Tempest and Miranda to tell me other lessons.

"Family biology, that blood biology, can be repaired too, Frank. It's not impossible. No man is an island. People can change, especially in the right environment. Good luck," he informed me, and then planted a kiss on my forehead. I accepted his goodwill, but I highly doubted that my mother was capable of that much change in that short of a time. But something else pulled me forward, and I waved bye to Gerard as I saw her pull up the driveway.

"Is Gerard coming too?" my mom asked after she greeted me.

I shook my head and told her he had some meetings to attend and she seemed satisfied with that. She seemed excited, actually, and she questioned me in her own unique way about his fame and how he was doing. I realized my mom was one of those art people who lived vicariously. I needed to tell her what she wanted to hear, because what I told her about Gerard The Artist was just as much a product as Gerard's art. It was difficult, though. I kept stumbling over my words and was not quite sure what to say, and how much intimacy to give away. After we had already broken down so much, it was hard to layer everything back again.

"What does he want to paint next?" my mother asked me as we pulled inside. I stumbled again, and decided that it was probably better that I didn't say nudes. He had already been practicing some, sticking to his word. Of course, I was his first subject.

"Let's just go inside and look at this stuff first, okay?"

She nodded eagerly and followed behind. I walked in and was blown away by how different it looked during the day. The coloured lights were now gone, making the walls' stark whiteness take up as much room as the paintings themselves. There was no food, less people, and clearly no carnival atmosphere. It was like a simple community common room with some art in it. Exactly what it was intended to be. My mom grabbed a flier that was sticking out on the wall that talked about the display and I told her I had made that with Vivian.

"You did?" she said, seeming quite impressed. She grabbed more. I told her that I had set up everything in the room, or at least, a good portion of it with Callie, Dean, and Vivian's help.

"Who are they?"

"Art grads. They helped us move, too. Good people," I didn't want to explain too much, and I began talking in stunted sentences. I could have been speaking in gibberish, for all I cared, what mattered was that my mother was paying close attention to the art that surrounded her.

I was surprised that all the art was still there; Vivian had told me there had been a lot of sales. But when I leaned in closer to the title cards, I noticed a small rent stamp in the corners of some that said SOLD. I thought it had been a part of the cards at first because so many of them had it. I guessed that they collected the work when the display was done, but to keep the aesthetic intact, the pictures remained.

My mom made her way from the title piece with the Van Gogh and Gauguin display, to the spectre pieces, the self portraits, and then the artist bio section before I realized that so much of this stuff was probably lost on her. She was looking around and enjoying it, but she didn't really comprehend anything.

"Do you know what The Flowers of Hell is referring to?" I asked her. "Or who Gauguin is?"

She shook her head, and I immediately felt bad. I was trying so hard to be cool and to not let her affect me, when it wasn't her at all who I needed to protect myself from. It was Saturn. It was my father. I sighed, and told her that we should go back to the beginning. She agreed, and then, I realized, to really start from the beginning I had to begin with where it probably hurt the most. We stood in the doorway - no one was around - and I looked at her. She waited for me to lead her, giving me her full attention, her full devotion. My perspective on the situation began to change. I was only seeing half the myth before. There was always a story behind the paintings, something obvious to some, but not to others. And Saturn's wife in the story had been trying to hide the children so he wouldn't eat them. She wanted to protect the things she loved and it had worked, because that son eventually overthrew the father. There was Jupiter.

My mother had been hiding me. She came in the afternoon to see this show, when my father was probably at work, and I knew that she would speak no words of this to him later. We were safe from him here, and I needed to let her know that I appreciated the way she had kept me hidden for so long. Her absence and silence this time filled twenty-five years of life.

I began at the beginning: "Goya, a Spanish painter, has a series of work call The Black Paintings that were done to mourn the loss of his wife. Gerard wanted to do the anti-thesis to Goya...."

I explained it all to her. Goya, The Flowers of Hell, Gauguin, Carnival, and the symbolist poets. I even found myself telling her about the Marquis de Sade, and she didn't even flinch. I talked about prostitutes and poverty, lice and sex, and she nodded, followed along. She did not judge. This was a completely new world to her, but a world she desperately wanted access to. I was that portal, so I told her all I knew. We went from beginning to end and all the way back again, and I wove in bits and pieces of my own reality right now as we walked through the one that Gerard had created against Goya.

"I work at a drug store right now, on the night shift. And I'm vegetarian." This last bit was the only detail that surprised her. "Gerard and I are talking of moving out, but we can't right now until we know about job stability more. So we're with Vivian and Cassandra. She's like my sister. It's nice. And I've published something in Jasmine's magazine, too. We went to a Food Not Bombs meeting. It's a charity organization."

That was really all I said about myself, and it seemed so small in comparison to the work, art and literature history that we had just gone through. I felt tiny in the shadow of what I just said, but my mom disagreed. After awhile of taking it in, she said: "I'm proud of you."

"What?"

"I'm proud of you. Of this." She motioned all around us. I was still sceptical.

"But I didn't do this. These aren't my paintings."

"But you helped, and you know a lot more than I could ever know, especially at your age. Thanks for telling me, Frank. I got worried for a while there."

"Worried about what?"

She turned the corner, not wanting to directly answer. Her language spoke clear enough as she disappeared round: she was worried I had done the same as Goya. That I had completely removed myself from real life, from her. I thought I had, too, but I still hung on. Was it so I could get this meagre recognition? This sense of pride? So many people had said they were proud of me recently. Why did my mom's recognition suddenly really, really matter?

I followed her around the corner. I had nearly forgotten myself what was there, and it became even more illuminated in the daylight and white walls. We stood in front of the portrait of me, shirtless, and leaning out of the canvas. I was naked, although not everything was visible, that was still definitely clear. This was the last picture Gerard had painted in the series, and it was clear that it was now, in my mind, the motivating one that spurred him on his new pursuit of honesty of the naked body. It was an honest piece, in spite of the glaring colours and menacing way they seemed to jump off the canvas. It was just me. And that was all I was.

Would my mom still be proud of me then, knowing who painted that? And the context around it? She stopped walking and looked up at it. From behind her, I looked like both a giant and a dwarf. My real body and my painted one loomed in opposite realms. Art and reality, reality and art. My mother stopped and stared. I finally couldn't take it anymore and came to stand beside her.

"So...." I started, hoping she would say something first. She didn't. "Do you like it?" It felt like a bold question, especially knowing the way my mom communicated. She would actually have to answer me now. I was tired of reading her body language.

"Yes," she stated. "I do, Frank."

She looked at me then, and my mouth must have been wide open in surprise. I was expecting anything but that. I expected silence more than an answer. But it appeared that my mother was finding her voice in this new space within a different framework.

"I've changed your diapers, Frank. I know what you look like. And you've told me what happened between you two. You were being honest. I was scared of honesty. I guess I was like Van Gogh."

"How so?"

"I'd rather cut my ear off than hear the truth sometimes. But..." she stopped, losing the strong footing she had had before. I took a chance: I touched her back to steady her. "But, if doing that means I'm not in your life, then, well, it's not an option anymore."

I could not believe what I was hearing. I flat out refused to for a few moments. This moment was scary, utterly terrifying, for both of us.

"Frank, are you okay?" she asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No! God no, mom, it's just... weird." It was my turn to be honest. "I'm glad. I'm thankful. But... what about dad? I mean he's like...."

"Saturn? I know, Frank. I got that metaphor even before you beat it over my head," she joked. She actually joked! And she was using art references in her speech! This was her second one! I couldn't believe it, and I laughed too hard at it. We both did.

She began again. "I don't know about him. I love him. He's my husband and your father, but you don't get along. It's difficult. But I want to see you. Can we at least focus on that?"

It seemed like the aspect I dreaded most: a compromise instead of an actual course of action. But it was better than nothing, and it was remarkable for what it was. Our genes had changed overnight; were we becoming family again?

We walked through the rest of the display again, to the exit, making small talk. She apologized that she couldn't afford to buy anything, but congratulated us both that most of it was sold anyway. She told me to let her know when the next art show was, mine or his or even Vivian's or anyone's, really. She wanted to talk more - whether about art, me, or about anything, I couldn't quite tell. We got back into her car and she drove me home again. She said a quick 'bye to me, which I reciprocated and then left her car. Even though this huge event, which had once seemed like the scariest thing, was now over, I still found myself thinking of her as my back was turned away.

How did she see me, walking away from her like that? She told me she had changed my diapers, and well, yes, that was an obvious fact, but it was different how she said it. She wasn't doing it to baby me, or to insult my intelligence. It wasn't to own me. She had said it to try and know me, to explain to me that she was not a threat. She had seen me naked, she had seen me fall down, she had seen me when I wasn't this giant picture before her. She knew me at my worst and weakest, and now she was proud of me. That part resonated the most and still made the least sense. How did she see me now, walking away? Were we equals? Or was I still a giant to her?

I turned around from the door and went back to the car. I didn't know what I was doing, but I needed to talk to her again. I needed to tell her that though fame made giants, love wore no clothing.

She stopped the car, the lights still on and the engine running, and I knocked on her window. She unrolled it and looked at me in concern. "Did you forget something?"

"Yeah," I said. I opened the door and crouched down so we were the same level. The car made that annoying dinging sound. I hugged her and I told her I loved her. Though she was shocked at first, she hugged back.

"I love you too, honey, but you already know that," she said. I could tell she was smiling.

The hug was over as quick as it began, but it had served its purpose. I stood and waited for her to leave the driveway and I waved as she drove away. I was not turning my back on her, not anymore. I was not turning into a painting. She was my family now. She had earned her way back in.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14