April - The Flood 2 страница

Along with buffalos, wild horses, elephants, impalas, and alpacas tended to raise their young in herds; sometimes this would fall into the responsibility of the females (like elephants) but there were always "deviant" cases. There were always exceptions. Impalas especially began to interest me and I read pages and pages and pages on them. The males and females, except for a small size difference, looked exactly the same. I saw that someone - possibly Jasmine - had underlined this. It was imperative to me. Males looked like females and females looked like males. The visible markers of gender difference didn't matter; from the first glance, all couples looked the same. All that mattered were that the children were raised together and protected from predators. I was realizing that with maybe the exception of the elephant, that most of the herd-like behavior was part of animals that had natural predators, which made this behavior imperative to the growth and survival of the offspring. I took a breath and looked at Gerard and I, and thought of Jasmine. Were we hiding from predators too? I thought back to Saturn devouring his own son, to my father and Jasmine's family, and the people at my old job who had called me faggot over and over again. The police that tried to press charges on Gerard and the way he had – we both had -tried and failed and tried again in the art industry. We all had predators.

In spite of this devastating realization, I felt better. We may have been at the bottom or in the middle of the food chain, but we had a herd. We were forming a herd to protect each other as well as our young. For the first time in a long time, I felt secure, validated, and in control of the life we were choosing to lead. People may not have understood, but we were all animals. This made sense to us and this was our life.

I turned the page and kept reading, but I had already reached the exciting part of my adventures in animals. I began to read about foxes and jackals, and then the same feeling of sadness washed over me. The pages discussed the male of the species and how after a certain number of years, they would never see their mother again. I felt a pang in my chest. While I needed to protect the herd from my father as a predator, where did the fox's mom fall in all of this? Who protected her? I began to feel guilty about my own mother and thought back to Jonah and his bottle, his legacy from Alexa. I remembered how my mom and I had just begun to reconnect in the art exhibit. I was about to move again, too, and I couldn't leave her out to fend off attacks on her own. Besides, I had some pretty big news to tell her. Jasmine knew that we couldn't hide it forever. She would most likely start showing this month and had planned to tell work after "the point of no return" and when we moved. I didn't have to worry about visibility, only guilt. I got up from the couch and tried to find the phone in the spare room. I closed the door and began to dial my number, hoping that my mom was still up and my dad didn't get the phone instead.

"Hello?" she answered. Although a bit disoriented, she was awake - and it was her. I heard shuffling on the other end, and I realized she was trying to find the call display thing to recognize the number. It took her awhile, but she suddenly said: "Frank? Is that you?"

I told her that yes, it was me, but she needed to keep it down in case dad was around. "Oh no, don't worry. He's at the hospital for some overnight stuff."

"What? Is something wrong?"

"No, they just want to do some observations. He's not breathing in his sleep at night sometimes, so they're doing a sleep study it's nothing to worry about. Just talk to me. Don't worry about this, I want to hear about you," she said it all so nonchalantly, but her absence was screaming louder than words. This was a huge deal to her. It bothered her profusely and it made her weak with worry. But her son was on the phone. I hoped the news that I had would be enough to counter the worry she felt right then, since she was unwilling to talk about it. She had always wanted grandkids, I thought to myself.

"So, I have some news," I started slow. I told her about the house first and that we were moving. "We don't have a phone yet, but I can get Vivian to call you and tell you the number when we do if you want."

My mother oohed and ahhed and asked for some details about the house, easily avoiding asking who the "we" in my statement was referring to. So far as she knew, it was Gerard and myself, and since that wasn't the best option for her, she tried to ignore it but still be happy for me. I didn't want to let her suppose any longer: "So when I say, we, mom, I mean Gerard and I, but also Jasmine too. Do you remember Jasmine?"

She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "Oh, I remember her. I really like her. Why is she moving in too? Are you and her back together?"

I opened my mouth to emit a silent groan. "We were never together. We were just good... friends, I guess," I made a mental note to find language, eventually, to describe this relationship, "But we're all moving in together, as a sort of family."

I bit my lip, waiting for a reply. My mom was telling me she didn't get it, and most likely didn't approve with her silence. I went on. "I say family because we all love one another. And we're all in this together."

"When did Gerard and Jasmine come into the picture?" she asked quietly. "What about Vivian?"

"I uhhh, a few months ago. And Vivian has a house, so she doesn't need to move. But yes, we love her too. We're just all... good friends.... a family. It's Jasmine and Gerard and I are all living together, though. This is what I really called to tell you. Please don't freak out because it's a good thing, and also, I don't know if you should tell dad yet, but, Jasmine is pregnant."

"I thought you said you weren't together?" my mom asked. In the silence between her words and after, I could hear her screaming with joy. I didn't even have a chance to answer before she began to gush. "Oh this is wonderful, Frank. Is she like a surrogate then? Are you and Gerard getting married and she was artificially inseminated like they talk about all the time on the news now?"

I didn't even know where to begin with that statement. I stuttered and stopped and eventually just gave up. She wasn't going to really get our family arrangement. She wasn't going to understand that we were all responsible for that child, that we were all together, and this move would make us stronger. She would think we were a sex commune or something like they talk about all the time on the news, or that Gerard and I were forming the White Picket Fence that we couldn't biologically create ourselves. She didn't see the way that Gerard and Jasmine were connecting, she didn't see the art projects, she didn't see the hours and hours of discussion. She just saw biological facts in a vacuum of television culture. Not even biology the way I was seeing it, the awe and wonder. I couldn't tell my mom that hey, I was a buffalo and this was how we were going to raise the kid, in a herd, because we needed to protect ourselves. She didn't understand, and I knew it wasn't her fault. She was just like those mother foxes; she was used to them leaving and not coming back. She had a right to know - I felt in some diplomatic way - that I was moving into a house and starting my own life and that Jasmine was pregnant. But she wasn't going to be a part of that. She was always at a distance, and because of the way that we lived our lives, protecting ourselves, we were always going to be distanced as well. She didn't understand, and that was okay, but she also wasn't going to unleash the predators on us either.

"Are you wanting to not tell your father until it's a for sure thing? When is she due?" my mother questioned.

"September. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I will tell dad when I'm ready," I thought, if I tell him. "I just wanted you to know now."

I could feel her smile on the other end of the phone. "Thank you, Frank, I love you and take care. Good luck tomorrow!" she cried and then I said goodbye. I waited until she hung up, because I wanted her to be the one that cut us off first. Like the fox, this would be the last time I would see her as her son. I didn't know when the next time would be, or what we would be to one another then, but it was different now. Everything was different now. But I had so much hope for evolution and biology, that I didn't falter at all.

I went over to Gerard on the bed. He was still busy drawing, so I lay down in the space that was there and looked up at the ceiling. It was getting late, and though I was tired and my body ached, my mind was still revving. Gerard didn't ask about the phone call. I thought he could hear it and made his own deductions and then didn't want to keep me dwelling on the past. He kept drawing, and it was only when he finally put that down and then turned on his side that he begun to acknowledge what had happened. He kissed my forehead and told me it was okay.

"Some people don't get it. But that's fine, so long as we do it anyway."

I nodded. "I didn't know how to explain to her that this wasn't like anything she had seen on the news. That this was just us. That all we wanted to do was survive."

Gerard ran his hands through my hair as I stared at the ceiling, quiet for awhile. Then he commented: "Contrary to what Sylvia Plath said, I'd say that surviving is an art, and not dying. Surviving is possibly one of the most creative arts."

"I thought family was one of the most creative acts?"

"That too. They're all linked. We all define our survival and our family differently, but the important part is that they are there and you must do them your own way."

I began to tell him about all the animals that I had learned about that night, and how, we were all different and we needed protection, so like the impala we protected ourselves and our young. We wanted to survive, that was all, at the end of the day. He nodded and seemed as empowered as I was when I had read over the material. I told him about bison's homosexuality and he laughed, and he mentioned to me the only evolutionary trait that he had remembered from the animal kingdom, was that that some birds mate for life. He gripped me tightly, and I looked up at him. I could not believe we had come this far.

"What do you want the person to call you?"

He let out a long breath. "I have no idea. I haven't thought about it too much. I've thought about them, but not... me in relation to them." He ran his hand over his hair, and he asked me the same question, only making me realize that I had not thought this through enough as well. I still could only see black and white blob. The blob was so important, so much, but since it was still inside Jasmine and she was Jasmine, it was hard to configure myself.

"Papa, maybe," Gerard said, shrugging his shoulders. "It sort of has a French feel to it, and it sounds old. Not as old as grandfather, but old enough. Older." He smiled, he said that he may end up changing his mind a million times, but I told him not to. I liked the sound of Papa. I could imagine a kid saying that. I asked him what Mikey's kids called him, and he laughed. Since his name was so difficult to pronounce, it was usually this strange inflection of bs and rs and then eventually, "hey, you" and a finger pointing to most children.

"So Papa is an improvement," I teased him. I kissed his forehead and then pressed my head against his chest. "It suits you."

We didn't talk about my name, not yet. Father was too ominous and dad didn't seem right either. I would figure it out, like we all would, eventually. At least Gerard, always the anchor, always the person that stood out and was memorable. He had a name. He had done enough with himself that he could have one, and make it stick.

We turned out the lights after that. I nestled deeply into the open crevice of Gerard's body, opened through the loss of weight and protruding bones. In spite of his lack of fat, he was not sharp, nor painful, nor cold. His skin was hot to the touch, and our bodies kept us warm, wearing nothing but skin and twisted blankets. We slept together, in our basement den, for the last night like animals.

Chapter Two

The rain we had for the past week continued until six am that morning, and then the sun came out. We took it as a good sign, and began to work as quickly as we could to get all of our boxes from one house to the new one, and then drive back across town to another apartment and get more boxes to take home again. The sun made the rain that had fallen dry up faster, but we were still surrounded by puddles and water flowing down into drainpipes. The run-off from winter was taking over the land, it seemed. Small ponds in the middle of big grassy fields kept showing up and we all stayed on the sidewalk the best we could, knowing there would be a swamp and wasteland underneath the grass if we trod too much. There was mud everywhere and more than once someone stepped where they shouldn't have and got mud up to their ankles. Jasmine's combat boots looked less impractical and more like a fantastic idea as the day went on.

Vivian had enlisted the help of her two wonderful graduate students, Callie and Dean, who we were all getting to know very well at this point. They were now greeting us with smiles and making small talk, instead of being nervous that they were going to lose funding or a grade from doing this project right. At this point in the school year, they had gotten used to Vivian's taunts and teases and learned to appreciate her tough love. Or maybe the first nice day after a long and arduous winter of being stuck in libraries now helped them to relax. This was the first time I had seen them in good spirits, with smiles that did not seem forced, and it made the day go a lot easier. Mikey and Alexa came to help as well, letting Cassandra baby-sit their passel of children. I could not believe that Cassandra had agreed to this, but when I found out Noelle was also helping, it began to make more sense.

It was a lot easier moving in spring, in spite of the rain and the mud, than in the winter when our hands were freezing and hurting from carrying boxes. This move involved two more intricate stops than the first one of Gerard and myself to Vivian's place, since we had to make a detour across town and get Jasmine's stuff after the first leg had been completed. We split ourselves up to make this transition go a lot smoother; Mikey and Alexa headed to Jasmine's place to help get her stuff together and load it into their truck, while Vivian and the graduate students helped us gather our things. The plan was to meet at the townhouse whenever we got there, but our move proved to be more difficult. The bed going back up Vivian's stairs was the first thing we did, and made me want to quit again. Gerard, myself, and Dean were doing it, but eventually Gerard opted out because of his knees and then his back, so Vivian and Callie had stepped in to replace him. Callie was mostly spotting as we got it up the stairs, but as soon as we took it to the driveway, she picked an end and it became a much easier burden. Having done the most difficult thing first, the rest of the basement was easy. Gerard carried boxes and held doors and whatnot, but he wasn't taking furniture. He was just too tired for that. I didn't mind at all, although I was a bit worried for him. He told me to just focus on getting our new lives started and that he would be fine. Vivian was also going up to him countless times during the day to make sure he was fine, and each time he batted both of us away. He returned to his lists, again, and it helped him feel as if he was contributing to the move. Since he had kept a meticulous inventory of what we were all packing, he became the key person who dictated where furniture and boxes were supposed to go once at the town house. Vivian had the set of keys that she had picked up for us earlier that day and gave Alexa the other pair so she and the Jasmine crew could get inside. We only had two sets between us, and while for moving day this was fine, I realized that one of our first immediate expenses would be to make a third.

Jasmine, Mikey, and Alexa had already arrived at the house and were unloading when we arrived. Dean rushed over to help Mikey with the larger bulk items as Alexa began to take smaller hand-helds and boxes of dishes inside. I was surprised at Alexa's strength. She was wearing another one of Isaac's old sports shirts, with the arms cut off and rolled up. Her biceps flexed incredibly as she lifted one box above her head, to balance on her shoulder as she got the door for the men behind her. I realized that she must do yoga or Pilates. She was intense as she was getting stuff together and taking it inside, her eyes focused and breathing tight and controlled; sometimes she'd hold doors with her leg, her hips in an awkward position, and her face would not change at all. She was a wall of austerity and precision. I wished we had had her when we moved from the old apartment to Vivian's.

Once all of us had descended onto the townhouse complex, with trucks filled to the brim, we divided up and decided to assign roles. Dean went to help Mikey with a lot of furniture that required two people to move it, like the orange couch and Jasmine's other living room furniture. When the beds were reached, myself and Alexa stepped up to do it. Anytime something was too heavy for them, I was called over (which was a lot), while Alexa and Callie handled a lot of the smaller items and Vivian was a box person. Gerard was the organizer and after he and Jasmine had merged together and she had told him what was in her boxes, he began to make a list of her stuff as well. In no time, the two of them had the entire house planned so we could all get things placed where they had to be. Jasmine took smaller bags inside, along with Gerard, but for the most part, the two of them stuck together and conferred about what they had, where it went, and what still needed to be ordered. Jasmine borrowed Callie's phone at one point and sat off to the side and began to call and organize people to come and give us power and water, a phone line, and to make an extra key. For a while we thought we'd have to order a fridge, but Mikey said he had one lying around in his garage; it was still in running order and mostly used for keeping Isaac's science projects cold. He zipped off and came back with something a touch smaller than an average fridge, but we were grateful for it. Jasmine and Gerard were now cleaning out stuff in the kitchen so we could be ready to unpack as soon as our stuff was all inside. A few more car trips were made with, and then, we were nearly done with the hard parts.

I had never felt so much love that day as I had in all of my life. At one point, I stood in our gravel driveway and watched in awe all of these people moving and figuring things out just for us. I watched as Jasmine and Gerard conferred over the ideal arrangement of furniture, and how he even put his arm over her shoulder at one point, and how she laughed and thanked him profusely when he got the inventory ready. They were getting along, they were loving each other too. Everyone else around them, around us, they loved us. They were doing this for us. Even Callie and Dean now had become sort-of friends. Callie was talking to Vivian about a project she was doing on Magritte, and I stepped in to talk to her a bit about that. Dean and I bonded over issues that I hadn't really been able to bond with anyone about yet; since we were spending a lot of our time now moving furniture, our own complexes in masculinity and strength broke through. Were both young and strong, and still, felt feeble under the weight of Mikey's presence. Mikey, although neat and orderly and much older than us, could handle a lot more than we thought. Then there was Alexa, a middle-aged woman (not even forty yet) who had had five children, and was standing on one foot as she held a door and a huge box of dishes. Everyone went to us when they wanted someone strong, and because of that, we had to be strong for so much of our lives. There was no other option. But we did, next to all of these people, feel very inferior and we worried just like them that we could drop the couch, or the bed, or even just become tired out before everyone else. I was able to talk to Dean about real life material things, and I didn't do that often. I didn't feel like I had to hide the relationship I had with Gerard, one that did question my strength (could gay men, or even bisexual men, lift the same weight as straight men? Was I letting someone down by being gay, did that make me not strong enough?), because Dean knew from the beginning. He saw us interact, and though his eyes sometimes lingered, I learned that it was not a judgement call.

During the day, eventually, he confided to me that he had been with a guy. Just once, very, very drunk, and it had never happened again and he had been with his girlfriend for five years now, but he knew that feeling. This was what he said, too. He never described "the feeling" beyond articles of that or this; he let it remain unnamed and intangible, because it was a lot of the time. That sensation of everyone was going to find out about it and though you want to talk about this - and he even wanted to do that again - it was hard and nearly impossible. He told me a bit more about it when we had taken a bit of a break and waited for the next carload, extending his story bit by bit, expanding on the details. It had been more than one time now, and they hadn't been drunk. They had been roommates in undergrad. He still loved his girlfriend and had been with her five years, but the what if s of that relationship had stayed with him. I felt lucky standing next to Dean in the sun, sharing a water bottle between the two of us. Not only did I have someone to talk about this feeling who got it, but I also realized that I did not have the same regrets that Dean did. There was no what if situation for me. All the people that I loved were right in front of me, and, from what I could see, they all loved one another and loved me back.

When we were all done loading the stuff in, we invited everyone inside to sit in the living room and take a break with us. On one of the trips back, Jasmine had stopped at a store and bought ice tea for everyone (herbal for herself and for Alexa) and a bag of corn chips with salsa and hummus. We all sat around, drinking, eating and trying to catch our breath. There wasn't too much talking and this definitely wasn't like the dinners that we usually had at Vivian's. This was just refueling, and our humble thanks to everyone involved. The words "thank you" seemed to permeate the air that day. We all said it several times out loud, to one another, and all around. There was scarce a quiet space where thank you so much, you're fantastic, this is wonderful, was not heard. And then, the response from everyone else that doubled back to us of oh of course, wouldn't dream of it any other way, and well, this is what family is for.

It was the middle of the afternoon, after a lot of chips and lethargic talking, people decided to go. Callie was the first, saying she needed to complete an assignment and then Dean begrudgingly followed. Mikey and Alexa realized that Cassandra probably wanted her life back, and that meant that Vivian as well would have to go pick up her daughter.

"It's going to be so quiet without you all around," Vivian told us. She touched Gerard's hair like she usually did, and then kissed his cheek goodbye. We all got up to give hugs, and then, shut the door. We were alone in the house, and it was already overwhelming. Without missing a second, Jasmine picked up the remnants of food and ice tea and began to clean some things up. Gerard tried to find where he had put down his list, and I went into the kitchen to see if Jasmine wanted me to start unpacking in a particular room. All the boxes were in the right places; now it was a matter of getting it all out. Jasmine seemed distant, but said that it was fine to start in my room and then we'd all work our ways together. I told her that was okay, realizing her distant attitude had probably come from the stress of the day. It had been a big one. After all that time with all of those people, we all needed to disappear into our own little worlds. We needed alone time, especially now that we were facing living our days together. I had been waiting for this for so long, it seemed odd to want to break apart as soon as we had gotten together. When I walked back into the living area to take the stairs, Gerard was already gone. I heard him above me when I got to my own floor, and I figured that this was probably the best for all of us right now.

I went through my boxes and made my bed. I walked over to the window where it was still half cleaned and started to finish the job. I thought it had been a small blemish at first, but as I cleaned the muck out of the way, I realized that I saw a figure standing in what I thought was part of our backyard. They were wearing blue and gray, the same thing that Jasmine had been wearing today. It was Jasmine, I realized. She was standing by the fence that surrounded a patch of dirt near our townhouse. I suddenly felt concerned, and made my way outside to meet her.

"Hey?" I came up from behind. I touched her back gently and she still didn't turn around. "Are you okay?"

Where she was standing was a garden, but it wasn't part of our backyard. It was next to us, and it was actually a part of the whole townhouse complex. It had recently been dug up and was extremely muddy. There were signs all around that said what was going to grow, and at the front of the fence there was a sign that declared Community Garden. Underneath that, there was a small plaque about why it was there and how it had come to be. Since it was set up right next to our house, right near the end of the lot, I wondered how I had missed it all this time. It was visible from the parking lot, but only if you were looking. I supposed that I took the blocked off area to mean some more construction and never considered it more. I began to read the plaque that Jasmine was standing nearby to hopefully fill in the gaps.

"It's from guerilla gardening," she stated with a smile. She hadn't answered my question, but she was addressing me now. "I've read about this before, but I've never seen it. At least, not until now. It's when people see unused pieces of earth and they claim them for themselves. They start to plant things there to make the space look nicer and then people volunteer to take care of it. That's what this garden came from. Someone must have done this after they had started to build the townhouses, to try and keep some of the place from becoming industrialized." She was beaming, ecstatic at what she had found. "Isn't this exciting, Frank?"

"Yeah, it sounds pretty neat," I agreed. I put a hand on her shoulder and rubbed her back. She was still taken with this patch of earth in front of her that still had nothing blooming in it. I saw her eyes light up, as if she could see ahead in time, and it was covered in all the different types of flowers in the world.

"I was so worried," she started, pausing and feeling her way through her own mind for a bit. "I was just so worried that we had made the wrong decision today. While we were actually moving it felt okay. There were a ton of us and I was beginning to feel much bigger than myself, much stronger. We were all so different and that was what I had wanted. Then everyone left. They had to leave, I know they did. But we were still here in this strange house, now strangely domestic. I probably just felt bad because I couldn't help today and because I felt sick all morning. But I was in the kitchen and I started panicking. I felt so normal. I don't know how to live in a house like this. Then I saw the sign from the window."

She touched the plaque, and then touched her chest again. She clasped her hands in between her breasts, over her heart, and sighed. "This isn't normal, though. This isn't suburbia built on a nice little lot that is surrounded by signs that declared NO DOWNPAYMENT. This isn't advertising, commercial, or even remotely domestic, though it is a garden. This is completely different. I'm okay now. This garden exists. I am okay," she kept breathing those words in and out, in and out. It seemed like she was trying to practice something that Lydia had taught her. Gradually, she placed her hands at her sides again, and opened her eyes to look at me. She gave me a hug, telling me that she was glad I came out to see her. I just held her and let her talk her way through this. She told me more about the history of guerilla gardening, of anarchist collectives, and about how she wanted to grow basil out her bedroom window in small hanging pots. Or rosemary, or saffron. I had my arm around her waist, and let her keep talking as my eyes gazed downward. Underneath her long navy blue shirt was a visible bump. I squinted at first, maybe thinking that the wind had caught the fabric of her shirt, so I tugged the side of it where my arm was at her waist. The navy fabric stretched across her skin, pulled taut, across the bump. A bump that had not been there before, a bump that I knew was not a part of her normal stomach. Jasmine was small, and now that the baby had been growing, they was showing through. Her breasts were larger, but there was a visible dip around her ribcage, where the bra line was, and then she became round again. My breath caught in my lungs and I wondered if I was going to need those breathing techniques soon. She was pregnant now, like really pregnant. It wasn't just something hiding under there like a secret anymore. She was going to be getting larger and larger and soon everyone would be able to tell, not just me.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14