April - The Flood 22 страница

"We are all irrevocably linked," Jasmine said under her breath. I thought it was just me who had heard her, but Lydia looked our way and smiled. She nodded at both of us.

"I am not here to tell you how to live your life. But I am here to bring life into this world. And we all have to share this space right now, like we share the planet. We are all different, but when it comes down to it, your right to exist as you are stops the moment it comes into space with mine. It is at the moment we realize we are all here, together, and that we must make the best of it, in which our rugged sense of individualism wears away and starts to become that isolation and alienation we fall into." She paused and looked around the room. It was pretty grim, so she smiled. She took her flower out of her hair and smelled it, and then turned off the projector that had the facts. "It's a beautiful day out there, everyone. Enjoy it. Enjoy one another. I will see you all again later."

She had pamphlets and handouts of all the facts and excerpts she had just read out waiting at the front for us. We were ending early, and she must have known this would happen because she rarely had take-away material. She always wanted us to be present and she always wanted herself to be present, too. Most of her lectures were memorized save for the titles. Almost everyone in the class seemed relieved to go. It was a gorgeous day outside, and she had given us a lot to think about. Even if no one in that room had an alcohol problem but me (something of which I doubted), nearly everyone there had probably drank at some point. Lots of us had eaten meat or consumed animal products. While the rest of the room began to gather their things and made their way up to the front to grab a sheet of the lecture she had just given, Jasmine and I stayed in our spots. I kept rubbing her back, her words repeating themselves over and over again in my mind. We are all irrevocably linked. I understood that as far as I could for vegetarianism. I knew that I was an animal like the ones that she had shown us and I had no right to its life. But alcohol? Used as a tool for oppression? I wasn't sure of myself anymore. I knew I didn't want to drink, but I didn't know there was this whole movement, other than AA, which understood its dimensions and complexities. It wasn't about me having an addiction problem, if I even had that. Having the addiction "problem" was something that AA had created. It was as much of a story as anything else. If I thought I was damaged, then I became damaged, and with this new knowledge I had been given.... it was a relief as much as it scared me. It wasn't my fault. At least, not entirely. Companies had targeted me in my most fragile moment. Being young, alone, and having no fucking clue what to do with anything and needing companionship, I drank. And I had been drinking again to try and sort out those feelings, but only exacerbated them. I felt that wave come over me, twisted with failure and regret, and tried to remind myself that I was human. I could ask for help, and I was doing that. But part of my own humanity was to realize that it wasn't just me. There were more people that had this happen to them and it affected more than just us. Instead of feeling guilty about it, I began to analyse my obsession. I looked down at Jasmine, and then back over to Lydia. It was just the three of us in the room now, most people having trickled away by this point. I kissed Jasmine quickly on the head and went up to get a copy of the lecture.

Lydia stopped me just before I went back to Jasmine. She grabbed my arm delicately and spun me around.

"The impala is a beautiful animal," she told me with a smile. "But I would have thought you'd say a dove."

"Why did you?"

She moved her shoulders nonchalantly in a small shrug. "I hear things and notice things. It's my job." She paused for a second, and then continued. "Where is he?"

"He's um... at home. He can't come out. Not now, I don't know when...."

She nodded, barely reacting to my statement. It was then that I realized she had already known. She hadn't told me for the same reason that everyone else had been quiet. It was easier to live in ignorance. "So," she motioned towards the lecture slide. "With this new knowledge, are you planning anything?"

I furrowed my brow, wondering how much Jasmine had told her about my issue. About us as a whole and the family we had that was changing shape. "I don't know. I'm still trying to figure things out and deal with everything."

She pursed her lips, taking her time to consider her next thoughts. "It's hard, ushering in a death. Preparing for it. You prepare for it the same way you do a birth. Even if it does not happen for a while, it takes a lot of mental power to deal with it. It takes you over. It consumes you."

"Like a soucouyant?" I asked, and she smiled.

"You've been paying attention, now. Even if it's only in hindsight, you are at least beginning to see what is and always has been there. This is good. You need to keep paying attention, though, especially to him. He is not dead yet, but you are lucky to be aware that it is soon. This way, you can treasure every last bit of it and prepare for that death."

At first, I had been insulted that she had said it was good or that I was lucky. It really didn't feel like that a lot of the time. But she was right: I was paying attention, if even in hindsight. I needed to pay attention to those around me, and switch myself with them sometimes in order to understand their part of the story. I needed to be aware that we were linked, and these parts of ourselves intertwined. I had learned so much about Mikey alone these past few weeks, I couldn't fathom the complexities and depths to each person I interacted with. But that was what Lydia was asking me to do: to consider the others. I had to start with someone, though, and I needed to start with Gerard. He himself, as the abstraction I was now losing, was beginning to make more sense. When I could see him as more than his image, as more than a myth, then I began to see him as the human that I was, too, and that Mikey and Jasmine and we all were. He was a human that could die and be lost. It hurt, but she was right. I was lucky to know. Knowledge was power, she had said in Jasmine's magazine article for that month. Knowledge was like gold. It was painful to dig for it and lives were lost in the process. But the least one could do was learn from the lives lost. Because they were your life, too. Everyone and everything was.

"But," she came in, knocking me out of my thoughts. "You can't forget, either: you are a father now. You have certain responsibilities. You're bringing up a life."

I nodded. I wanted to tell her that the baby was not even born yet - but she gave me one of her taxing stares and I remembered. Beginnings were constructed just as much as endings were. I was now at the place of birth, I told myself. I was also now at the place of death. It still felt weird being called a father, and I did end up explaining to her that I was going to be going by "My Frank" and Jasmine by "My Jasmine"(though she had been considering shortening it to "My J" until the child got a better comprehension for language). Lydia smiled, told me she appreciated why I had chosen what I did.

"But remember to live up to those words. You are that child's now. You are her responsibility and she owes you nothing. And him," she said, referring to Gerard. "He is yours too, now. He is like a child. Let him be. He owes you nothing anymore."

"He's already given me everything," I said, catching myself in a rare moment of openness. Lydia nodded, she knew. She knew all about us, even if not in words. She could see it in how we acted together at the party, how we had recreated the tower of Babel together, placing each brick together. She knew from months of study - and she understood.

"Then I would say that you've gotten more than most people ever would out of life. It's hard," she nodded her head, as if she knew, as if she had lived with her own soucouyant. "It's hard. But life is hard. Life also goes on."

She gripped my shoulders and then suddenly hugged me. It was the most affection I had seen her show, even towards Jasmine. I appreciated it; I respected her for it. We hugged briefly and then, before she walked away to see Jasmine and Hilda who were now lingering outside the door, she gave me the flower that was in her hair.

And then I got it. Beyond my own little sunflower fascination, and the obsession to keep the handprints of those I loved close to me in the winter, I saw the reason to be in love with flowers. Even this one single flower that I held in my hands, that was now dead, but had been alive at one point. Life goes on. It was spring. Life was going on all around us, and just because he was dying, didn't mean I had to let myself die too.

I sat down on the floor, on a cushion, and took a moment. I grieved his eventual death in the blink of an eye. I held it before me, it passed through me, and then it was gone in that instant. It had to be gone that fast because that was how much it would really matter in the end. His death would be nothing but a speck on the great canvas of his life. And he was not dead yet, I had to remember that. He owned me nothing he hadn't already given me. He had given me everything, which was more than most people ever saw from one another. I held the flower in my hand, and I also constructed the beginnings of the life I would have, the life I would let bloom, and eventually, go on.

Jasmine needed some time alone. She had talked to Lydia afterwards and I had no doubt that she had given her a different version of the same speech she had given me. The woman seemed to be full of them; she radiated knowledge and left it whenever she could, wherever she went. Jasmine went home with Hilda who had also needed some time to grieve, and I took the car. She asked me if I would be okay to be by myself until I got home, and I said I would be. And I believed it. I watched as Lydia nodded to us as we left and I knew that I had to be okay.

In the car, I put the lecture pamphlet I had just heard on my seat. The ideas had been coming back the last few days, even in spite of Mikey. I had been good with asking for help and keeping myself amused, but they would come back. I knew they would. There were only so many sex positions, starless Jersey skies, and alternative birthing classes that I could attend before the real problem returned: alone with my thoughts and that idea that became infectious. After the lecture, though, the thought of alcohol sounded awful in my mind. I didn't want to see my parents either to indulge nostalgia. I knew it would not be enough to keep me going for much longer. As I drove, I was calm; not upset or scared for once, but I knew that I had to do something, and find a project, and find it fast. Prohibition created desire, but I also wondered if it could create creativity, too. I wanted to try.

As I drove, I found that my car was trying to head down side streets that I used to take when I was a student. It was trying to cut through the field to get to the bus stop, go around the corner where Jasmine worked during my undergrad, and then to the very campus itself. I kept ignoring it, but I eventually gave in and drove the car to the campus, unsure of what I was doing. I found a phone in the corner of the lot and used it to call Mikey. I didn't know what I was going to do there, or if the information area would even be open. Now was the time for summer school. I didn't think there would be many kids around or really anything for me to do, but I told Mikey what I was doing nonetheless. If I started to lie now, then I would lie about the next thing. Mikey seemed okay with this, but he wanted me home in an hour. It didn't seem like enough time, even though I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew it was the only way. I hung up the phone and took a look around.

I had been right: there were no kids. I had been used to seeing young undergrads all dressed the same, hovering in the corners or open field with their textbooks, backpacks, and expensive computer equipment, but it was relatively empty. Summer school, if it was going on, was not a popular event. The campus felt eerie as I made my way out of the parking lot, and I began to check over my reasons for being here.

At first I thought it was nostalgia of a different kind. I had waded through my high school youth before, why not dwell on my college failure? Maybe I had been feeling masochistic and wanted to rub my own failure in my face again and that was why I had come here, but rejected that reasoning. I had built up my confidence too much in the past little while to completely disregard it like that, and besides, I was calm. I wasn't as anxious as I usually was, and despite feeling a bit lonely in such a huge area, I was good. The area was well kept and cleaned, and Lydia had been right: it was beautiful outside. There was even a small flower bed outside the athletics complex and I walked alongside of it. Some people had come out of the gym and some others were running, but they didn't pay too much attention to me. I wandered back up the path, towards the library, past the statues of the person the school was named after, and over the bridge. There were thoughts in my head, but nothing stuck and nothing was substantial. I knew I was slowly running out of time and the sun was setting. I would have to turn around quickly and head back, lest I wanted to be in trouble. It seemed foolish to hurry back, especially since now I finally wasn't drinking my brains out and could even being doing something seen as akin to productive. I had no urge drink too. I had an urge, but it had morphed from before, like I had needed it to. I wanted to do something, anything. I thought about photography, but pushed it out of my mind. Not yet. I was not ready yet. I kept walking and walking, feeling like a blank slate, a blank canvas. I had been drinking to fill this blankness before because it had been too frightening to bear. Now that I finally exposed myself to it, I was no longer afraid, but the energy that it evoked from me was kinetic and fast. Overwhelming, but with no clear source. I wandered through the outside of the dorms, then back up towards the path and towards the bridge again, still knowing nothing.

Was this writer's block? Or was this the peak before most writers got their ideas? That moment when addiction became nothing and then became passion again? Was this that abyss that I had read about some artists getting to, where they just stared out into the world and zoned out, only to come back, every single idea finally arranged in perfect order? Jasmine used to do her essays by talking out loud and then waiting for the ideas to assemble. But what if I had no ideas right now? What then? Everything I thought I knew from before was gone, including the urge to drink. It was exciting. It was thrilling. But I knew that this would soon turn into fear. I was excited because I could do absolutely anything with my time, but making that final decision - that was what was overwhelming. Lydia had said - I had responsibilities, I was a father, and I was in love with two of the best people ever. These were the facts that I was repeating to myself now. And instead of going to an AA meeting and adding, "I'm Frank and I'm an alcoholic" to my identity, I needed something else. I refused to be an addict because that was something that the society we lived in, this fucked up world, had carved me into. It placed me within the context where I could do nothing but feel alienated and then drink to not feel that feeling, that emptiness. I stood with my emptiness now. I cherished it, because it was mine and I didn't have to label it as addiction. I didn't have to label it at all. But I couldn't just stand around and do nothing with it; I needed to claim it, to move it, to reconfigure it fast before the nothingness became a part of my identity. I stood on the bridge in the middle and leaned over the edge. Hello, my name is Frank and I and I --- I felt like I was falling. I turned away from the bridge, feeling the nausea of vertigo in my stomach. I felt the wind pass through me. I looked around, and I saw no one.

I was about to give up, thinking that maybe this rush of feelings was a start, but it wasn't the last of it. Maybe I had to do this in baby steps and I would need to keep coming back before I really got it. Or maybe that nothingness was all there really was. I couldn't even look over the edge of the bridge and see my own reflection in the water. It was too gray, too murky. Too obscure. I began to think about Gerard again, and I realized I was filing my emptiness with him. I had always been doing that, even when he was gone. I was always afraid of myself, of myself just as myself, with that identity part yet to be figured out. I was a photographer, sure, but what happened when you took the camera away? When you didn't have enough money to support an expensive habit like that? What did someone become? Who was I without photography? Well, to answer that question before I always reverted to Gerard. But he was gone too, even if I filled myself with all the memories that he was losing, he would be gone too. It was too tiring being two people at once. When I walked down the street, this was the body that I had. I didn't have his attached to mine, I couldn't just start a conversation about him without prompt. I was alone and I was facing my own emptiness.

Lydia was right, this was hard. It was hard but though I was giving up for the night, my hour ticking by fast, I was not done. I would keep looking and keep searching. I knew I was finding something. I was on the right track because I had not gone drinking. I did not want to anymore. On my way out, I stopped at the admin building, thinking that maybe I had gone here so I could go back to school again, but it didn't feel right. It would cost money that we really didn't have, and it would be the same thing I thought it was before. It was restrictive, too much criticism, and very little actual learning; mostly mimicking. That idea was out, and I thought all others were out too. I tried to enjoy the feeling of being nothing, of knowing nothing, as I walked back through the campus to my car. I had about twenty minutes left.

And then I saw him. He was walking to his own car as well, carrying a large pile of books. They fell out of the bottom of his bag and he cursed as they hit the ground. He was short, about my height, and he had a full beard. He scratched it as he went down to pick up the books, and I walked over to help. Jasmine's voice of we're all irrevocably linked echoed in my mind as I walked over. I would want someone else to help me out, too.

As I reached down to grab one of his books, the title The Collected Works of Colette and Madame Bovary, stared back at me. That was when I knew it. I felt it. Inside of me, the striking of gold. I was now at the place.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14