June - The Liars 16 страница

"I don't really know if I had a moment, honestly," she had said slowly, scrunching her face up.

"But you changed your actions at one point. When did that suddenly happen? When did you give it meaning?"

"When you left, maybe. That was the first time I really realized we were all connected and how much that connection could hurt. But that was incidental. Eventually, I just realized what I had to do."

Her answer had left me unsatisfied when I first heard it, and it still gave me that sick feeling now. I didn't want to wait for a revelation, and yet, it felt as if it was the only way I could move beyond the resistance that I felt in that moment. I shook my head, and turned away from the cow and out of my daydream. I couldn't linger anymore. I turned around and headed back to The Bear community, and tried to put my thoughts aside.

I had been finishing off my runs each morning with a trip to the communal showers. July was getting warm, and I was beginning to relish stepping under the cold stream every morning, especially when my shirt was soaked through with sweat. The showers weren't as bad as some people (mostly Nicole) made them seem. The only aspect of them that I didn't like was the communal part. The lack of gender segregation carried over to these private spaces, in addition to work areas, for The Bear. In spite of assurances from Daniel and other regular members, I didn't want to make any woman there who didn't know me uncomfortable in this environment and I didn't want to be this vulnerable around another guy. I knew these people were different, and that the weight of masculinity that Dean and I had lamented about before became suspended here, but I was still working through my old mentality. This much of myself I had not forgotten, yet. I wondered if I ever could forget even my own body, my own genitals, and the hormones that ran through my system. I thought of Alex sometimes, even though I had only met him briefly and it seemed so long ago. But he thought he was whole. He felt as if he had had four arms and four legs and that he had been told to hide them. I wondered if, in spite of his claims to be whole, that he was really broken too, just like the rest of us. I wondered if in the showers, both of our masculinity would cease to mean anything within the center of The Bear, and then what would happen next. Could we really forget bodies? Or were we so fatefully attached to them like we were some people, simply because we needed to shit, and eat, and fuck and feel pleasure? I didn't know the answer, but I liked thinking that I could figure them out in the early morning as the stream of water hit me.

I had been getting used to letting go of the luxuries that I thought once made it possible to live and now these showers were pleasant. The soap they had given us wasn't an overpowering fragrance and it didn't look all that pretty, but even that was vegan, too. It worked fine, but that, in combination with the coldness made showers unappealing and unnecessary a lot of the time to others. I was there alone, usually, and I loved every minute of it.

I must have taken a slightly longer time at the fences this particular morning, because Daniel emerged from his lodging and began to head towards the showers. I was halfway done, and wouldn't have noticed him if my ears had not become finely attuned to any sound close by. We nodded to one another, and then he began to disrobe. It startled me to see him undress before he was in the stall, like I always did, and it baffled me even more when he went to the stall next to mine. He mumbled something about how I had probably heated up the water and he wanted to take advantage of that, I barely heard. I nodded casually and said a vague, "uh huh," and hoped I didn't offend Daniel, who was apparently talkative wherever he went. He smirked, but didn't say anything to me directly. As soon as the water blasted on, he let out a "woooo, that's cold," and then a relieved groan when the water got a bit more heat to it. He became far too into his own personal ritual, now, and our small conversation had ceased. I continued to shower in silence, but kept listening for each of his movements.

Though I knew this was a purely utilitarian space and used for a distinct and necessary purpose - getting clean - this was also still an intimate space to me. Jasmine and I had come out to shower together the first time we did this, but we had been in the same stall and tried to figure it out. She and I had also had more heated showers back in New Jersey, and I couldn't even count the number of times that Gerard and I had had sex with water flowing around us. In Paris we needed to, merely to keep warm. Even if I wasn't fucking the person I was with, these spaces held so much intimacy and privacy. I wasn't ashamed that Daniel was around, though it was kind of awkward at first. I knew I didn't need to be ashamed around these people, because they were just like us. Not exactly and each person had their own individual quirk and identity, a different reason they were all brought here, but there were a lot of similarities, too. A line ran through us all, I knew, but some pulled me stronger than others. Inside the stall with Jasmine, as we figured out how it worked, it had felt right. I thought of Korey and Ray showering at the same time as me, and I knew I would be okay with it, but I would want them distinctly on the other side. Nicole I knew would never even bother. But Daniel hadn't given me the time to consider his presence before he showed up, and now that he was right next to me behind a wall, I didn't know how to feel. But I liked it. I knew I liked it the moment he seemed to cut his shower short, and started to head back into the kitchen, his towel barely hung around his waist. His body next to mine, separated by a wall, still haunted me as I stood under the cold stream. I did not want to form this feeling into words. I finished what I was doing, and got out, and regretted that it was already time to start work, because I needed to go on another run.

Dinner that night happened during one of the very first thunderstorms of the season. The heat had been nearly constant since our first day around and the sun had not relented. While it was good for the power, the heat had been making Jasmine, along with some of the other workers, dizzy and irritable. If this had continued on much longer, Daniel was going to have to cancel work to prevent heat stroke. This storm was what we had all needed to break the tension, and at the moment of the first raindrop, everyone had celebrated. We had turned the table to get close to the big glass doors, and all fifteen of us moved to the one side, some of us eating on our laps, so we could all view the show. The rain pounded down hard, hitting the metal and making pinging noises that someone said sounded like tap dancers. Each time the lightning struck, people would cheer. It came down in forks and bolts, and exploded right before our eyes. I began to get worried about the forest, and if there was a tree that was struck. I worried about my log and if it would be tarnished and wet, then become full of mold. The rain seemed to be whipping through the trees - and the crops - though no one seemed to be as worried as I was about those things. They were cheering it on, though our food supply (at least fresh supplies; they were always prepared and had cans in the kitchen) was at stake.

"It's okay, Frank," Gwen had told me, noticing how nervous I was. "This was going to happen whether we were here or not. So let's enjoy it."

She leaned back in her chair, and tried to get me to follow her lead. She had been really friendly with me the past few days, trying to welcome me into the community. It looked like she was going to become another feature player in the mix, and they were going to expanded out and be the five of them. Gwen had spent the winter there, and that was usually the first test and the best sign. If she stayed the winter, then she could handle anything. I supposed that was where she got her calm attitude about the storm. I had not lived through a winter like that, where my food was hanging in the balance, so I didn't know how to inhibit that attitude. I wished I could, but I found myself captivated by the display in front of me, while feeling so helpless to stop it and do something at the same time. I had been balancing my stew on my lap, and now, having finished it, I put it on the table and tried to focus. I tried to think about what she was saying, and I realized how quiet it was around me. We were all captivated by the outdoors, the show it was performing for us.

No, I told myself. The world didn't perform for us. It just did things and then if people came to watch, then that was good too. We had come to watch. It was the same situation with the clothing that we were all wearing here. We were no longer performing work and performing self. Our clothing was just what we wore, and nothing but. The storm was going to happen even if we weren't here to witness, but since we were, we may as well take advantage. I still felt slightly uncomfortable as I watched, realizing the destructive force of nature. I didn't want her to take away what I was just getting used to. Though most people were watching with undivided attention, I felt burning on the back of my neck and turned around to see Daniel there. He was gathering dishes and getting the cleaning area together. But since he had cooked the meal, it wasn't his duty to watch, and he was going to head out of here before the show got too intense. I had not helped to cook, but he invited me to come with him. When I raised the issue, he motioned to everyone still watching. A clap of thunder boomed through the house and Korey cheered, as if keeping score.

"I think they're busy, and the dishes will still be here when you get back. Come with me. We don't really talk," he stated, and then walked away. I gathered myself, and was about to say goodbye to Jasmine, but decided against it. I would see her eventually, and besides, Gwen was now talking to her and working her welcoming magic. If I hadn't of known better, I would say that Gwen was also trying to recruit us to The Bear as well.

Daniel was waiting for me at his door, and unlocked it as I came. He held it as I walked into the corridor, and then our bodies brushed past one another as we went up the long stairs to get to his bedroom. He apologized for the mess and said that he had intended taking me outside to talk tonight, but with the rain changing his plans, this would have to do.

He flicked on his light, which illuminated his bookshelf but did little else for the small and dark room. He had no bed and no other piece of distinguishable furniture; anything that did not fit in the bookshelf was stacked neatly on top of it. He slept on the floor, his clothing hanging out of a closet that had no door. There was a cramped feeling to his place, which reminded me of Vivian's place instantly. With the warm glow of his lamp, I felt at home instantly.

Daniel moved some of his bags and then tossed me a pillow so I could sit down on his floor. He put his back against his wall and his feet on his mattress. His wall was tacked with all sorts of little pictures of people, quotations, and fliers from shows he had gotten together, like the bank protest where he had met Paul. In one corner of his room he had piles of zines. I was beginning to recognize the cut-up contents from affair, the half sized magazines, with pages and pages of text. Jasmine, in spite of liking collage, hated it when the zine depended on that for its worth and the text inside was nothing but drivel that was used to offset "quirky" photos. From the thickness that I saw of Daniel's pile, he liked his text based, too. There were also some fiction books, including Go Down, Moses and the same quotation that was from the book and was written on The Bear's sign: "Be scared. You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid. " When Daniel had time to read, I was not sure. I usually did so at night after dinner, but I never got too far before exhaustion or Jasmine proved tempting. I had brought so much myth with me as well that I wasn't even sure where to begin anymore.

"So," Daniel started after we had gotten settled. "How are you liking the food?"

I smiled, laughing to myself at how neutral this topic was and hardly the type of conversation that we needed the privacy of his room for. I had been nervous, I realized, as we had walked up the stairs. I wondered if I had been in trouble and that was why Daniel needed to speak with me. He and I only had casual encounters with one another; I was usually lumped with guys like Korey and Ray for work during the day, while Daniel was off organizing things. He had still been his welcoming self, and the last conversation we had really had (beyond our awkward shower discussion) that was sustained had been about human fertilizer and asking me how I found the bathroom situation. Usually after day three, people who already didn't like the system now hated it, and he had wanted to check in. It had been more than a week now since living at The Bear, maybe more I wasn't even really quite sure, and he was now asking about food. I wondered if we would ever talk about anything other than what was absolutely necessary.

"Yeah, it's fine," I told him. This was true, but I didn't really think about the items we were eating with that much depth. Usually I was so hungry by the time dinner came around that I was just glad it was there. It was a different type of hunger than being with Gerard in Paris, I noted the second day I had inhaled my food. That one was fueled partly through decadence. We wanted to be hungry because we had wanted to be Hunger Artists, and to see colors more distinctly. We would have deliberately withheld food in order to achieve that goal, if it had not already been taken from us, I was sure. But I was so hungry now because I was running and cleaning and lifting. I was using it like fuel more so than ever now.

But sustenance wasn't exactly what he was trying to get across. Though we were talking about surface things, Daniel always saw the depth. The toilet conversation wasn't just talking about shit, it was talking about living conditions, the mentality of the place. If the nostalgia or dream of living off the land had not worn off by then, then he and I must be similar in certain regards. He wanted to see how similar we were, and the food we were eating was not just food. It was food we had grown, food we had made, and food that did not hurt anyone.

"How do you feel eating vegan?" he rephrased the question.

I took in a depth breath. "I don't think I'm vegan."

"I didn't say you were, but you are eating vegan. You don't identify with it, sure, but you just took part in a vegan meal, several vegan meals, and you can't deny your feelings there. Well, you can, but repression isn't much fun." He smiled, trying to keep it light. I considered what he said and eventually contended with him.

"It was a good dinner. I like the people, and I like that we're all eating the same thing and that we've all contributed to it in some manner. I don't know why I don't see being vegan yet a possibility, though. I mean I agree, I get it, but I don't..."

"It's okay. You don't have to explain anything to me. I see myself as vegan, but not everyone does, even if they eat a vegan meal. That's okay. There is a wall there for you that's blocking something, and maybe you'll climb it. We all have these walls, about this, or other important things."

"What if I don't climb it?" I couldn't help but feel like there was a value judgement hidden in his words. But his face was as honest as ever.

"Then you don't. You have to pick and choose what you can do and what you can't."

I nodded, feeling a lot better. He had a way of talking that made everyone feel included. I knew he didn't agree with me at all, but he didn't show it or emphasize that point. This made a huge difference. There was no right answer here, there was only what you felt and what you knew. I thought back to The Professor and how he had told me knowledge had been a construction. This logic could be applied to The Bear, but I still felt uneasy. There was a definite power system there, a definite place where there was a right answer, even if it wasn't explicitly said. There was judgement and I felt it hot on the back of my neck when I was with The Professor, and even now when I thought back to him. I stared across the room at Daniel and I felt hot all over, but it wasn't judgement. It was acceptance - letting one another be. There was always going to have to be a construction and a foundation base to knowledge. It didn't mean it was wrong. I just hoped that this one, with all the people and conversation that I had had so far, was more useful. We had had few vocal conversations that dealt with us and not some outside issue like work or toilets, and I wanted to keep it going.

"Do you mind if I ask you when you decided to be vegan? Was there a moment?"

"No, I don't mind," he conceded. He sat up for a second and leaned on his knees. He crossed his legs and tried to sort out his own thoughts before he went on. He eventually told me the story of the bear again, but from a different perspective. Having seen the bear's paw and the suffering in its eyes, though he had been eating vegan because it was the most logical thing to him, actually seeing the anguish was when he decided that he was vegan.

"Do you see the difference there?" he asked, motioning with his hands. I nodded along, noticing his slight grammatical changes. Before this had been an action, but now it was part of him, his identity, and integral in order to go on with his life.

I didn't know if I could ever have a moment that profound in my life, or if Jasmine had as well. Was there suffering that spurred her on? Or was it reason as well? She had been so lackluster with her response, but I wondered if it was more honest. She had entwined the two, suffering and reason, in order to reach her tipping point. I pushed the topic of the wounded bear out of my mind. I went back to thinking about The Bear instead.

"It's funny, though," Daniel said starting up again. "Most people assume that since I'm native that I'm this great healer. I remember the way they all looked at me when that bear showed up. It was almost like, 'c'mon Dan, work your magic.' Not everyone said that, but it was there, you know? I love these guys, though. It's just there sometimes. Like I can fill up a room with what they think about me but what's never said, and sometimes, with what is said."

I considered what he was saying, and to a certain degree, I knew that type of silent tension he was talking about. I felt it with being gay - or at least in a gay relationship - and even those identities I began to mix up. If I let go of Gerard, and especially if I had a baby with Jasmine, how did my own sexuality get read? There was visible proof now that Jasmine and I had had sex. All else from before was speculation, and with her pregnancy bump and our daughter in my arms, I would no longer be read as Jasmine's "gay best friend." I used to hate that interpretation, but now I almost wished for it back. I knew that awkward tension of walking into a room and knowing that everyone before had been talking about you, and worse off, your sex life. I thought of the halls in high school, the notes that were passed between Jasmine and myself, keeping track of the rumors that were started. People read me one way, and now that Gerard was actually being erased, people were going to read me another. I didn't want people to read us as a normal family. I didn't want people to see me and assume that I did one thing or another, like with Daniel. I thought about what Cassandra had said ages ago about the family structure of Cree and Ojibwa people, and how the family spread out. There were no lineage bonds; everyone was family. I wondered if the same type of judgements were passed about sexuality there, and I asked Daniel.

"Wouldn't know," he said. "I was raised in a foster home."

His tone of his voice had changed, and then I realized what an idiot I had become and what a mistake I had made. He had resented the association from before that just because he was native, it meant he could heal. I had done it to him again. I had made him uncomfortable in his own skin. Instead of listening to his comment from before, I turned it into my own reasoning and logic, and I forced my interpretation on him. I apologized immediately, and though he accepted it, he still seemed a bit disappointed. His saddened expression could have been because the storm had died down now, and he could hear people downstairs clamouring around.

"It's okay. Not a big deal. You got what you said and you corrected yourself. Nicole still does the look every once in awhile and says some iffy things. But she's coming around. I gave her a book to read, but I don't know if she'll read it."

I wanted to ask him for a book, for something so I did not have to see that disappointed stare ever again. I felt this urgency within me now to go back and undo what I had just said. It felt awful, bogged down, and he seemed to sense the apology written in my body.

"It's okay, Frank. Really. You're fine," he smiled. He leaned forward from his spot and put a hand on my shoulder. It felt too masculine, too buddy-buddy and something leftover from the outside world to belong here. "It's not your fault, really. It's the culture we live in. It's this huge culture of assumption. Happens all the time with gender too, and I bet it drives Jasmine crazy. Because she's pregnant, she suddenly must be visibly a woman and all that recycled garbage."

I nodded. He had articulated it much better than I think even Jasmine could have expressed her dysphoria with being pregnant. She would tell me a lot of the time, especially before coming here, that she had felt like a monster. It was as if nothing was real and everything was foreign; it was one of the reasons she preferred to be a pregnant person, and not a pregnant woman. She had wanted some of her humanity back, in order to not feel like such a monster inside of herself. She said spending time with Gerard and myself helped, but she still had to go to work every day. Ever since The Bear, she had been spending a lot of time with Daniel, and no doubt they had been bonding over the way their bodies were owned by other people's assumptions, and not what was within themselves. I began to feel very odd and very guilty all over again because I didn't always get that. I didn't always see it. But like Jasmine had told me, realizing all of this was like the Where's Waldo? books. Once you find him, you saw him everywhere you went. I bit my tongue at all of my past remarks. I felt like shit.

"It's hard," I confessed. "I just want us all to be humans, you know? For all of us to be animals."

Daniel considered this, and then reflected. "That's all well and good. I like to be linked with animals, because they deserve life just like we deserve it. But to erase difference is difficult, because we lose ourselves in that process."

I stared at him, not quite getting it yet. I thought forgetting myself had been the best part about coming here so far. If we could all just be humans, then there would be no need for that distinct self which I was sure just caused problems. I liked not thinking in the mornings, and just focusing on my body and all it could do. But even in the showers, I was caught by my own visceral reality. I was still hiding from masculinity, from straight or gay assumptions, and I began to concede Daniel's point, if only a little. I heard more people downstairs and the running of water. I would have to get down there quickly and start my drying duties soon. Daniel seemed to realize it as well, and not wanting me to shirk my duties, hurried up his mini-lesson in the antics of oppression.

"Being human is well and good, but some people are treated as if they're not human. Not everyone is seen as human through everyone's eyes, and then that makes it a big deal. It makes it an issue to care about. It's easier for you because you're white. It's just a fact and that's not your fault. But because of where you live, you get these strange ideas about people who are not yourself and sometimes they get repeated implicitly. Yes, we're all human and we have a common humanity, but you will never know my experience."

I nodded. I felt a bit like I was being chastised, but that was my own internalization. Daniel had said it was not my fault, but I was so used to taking everything personally, as if I had somehow fucked up the world. I didn't, though, and Daniel repeated that point to me again when he realized how silent and withdrawn I had become. I couldn't be responsible for carrying the assumptions of the world around with me, even if I was white, male, and presumed heterosexual. Even if I was gay and in a minority, I still couldn't carry the burden either.

"Tonya found that out the hard way, but you know, sometimes we need to go through these things to learn," he elaborated to make me feel better. I didn't exactly know what he was getting at with Tonya, other than maybe race and gender, but I didn't pry about her details. Daniel was being lenient with both sides of this equation. No one could carry the world by themselves, oppressed minority or not. When dealing with politics like this, no one could get too hung up on themselves. "Even if we are talking identity politics. You go too far either way, and you do lose that humanity that I can tell you want. Humanity should be the goal, but it should never be one that is solely based on your own experience. You need to understand people, all different types, and especially ones different from your own. So trust me, Frank, I get it. You've done nothing wrong. We both haven't. Just let it go, okay?"

"Okay," I said. His choice of words made me feel better and I was able to let out the breath I was holding. I could forgive myself for this, but it was good to know that Daniel was as open as he was. I was about to apologize again for good measure, but he reminded me of the fourth rule that had been made just as we came to The Bear. "No apologies, remember?" he told me, and I nodded. I didn't want to forget.

"Now go and do dishes," he added. He got up and opened his door for me, but told me to come right back afterwards because he had some books for me, too. I had never dried as fast as I did that night. I told Jasmine where I was going, and she just smiled.

"He's a good guy. You two will have fun," she said. There was something in her voice, this knowledge that I didn't have access to yet. I hoped that it would be in the books that I was reading. She told me she'd be in the silo, reading herself, and to come in whenever I wanted to. I had a feeling that she'd be spending the night by herself, and as I kissed her goodbye, she seemed to sense the weight of my anticipation. She merely smiled, and gave my hand another squeeze. I thought she whispered to me, "Don't be afraid," as she gave me a hug, but I was not sure.

After I dried the dishes, I went back to Daniel's room. He welcomed me again with open arms, but didn't get up from his place on the bed. He had pulled down some of the books that were teetering over the edge of his shelf, and scattered them around for us to pick and choose where we wanted to go next. They were mostly old anarchist books that he had found in an abandoned house where squatters had been and he had lived periodically when he was in high school. The anarchist cookbook was a scream to look at, since it was mostly filled with how to build bombs. Daniel assured me that any protests he had gone to never got this violent, but he had this book for mostly ironic and aesthetic purposes. It just seemed necessary, and you never knew what you would need. He realized how well he fit into the anarchist punk mold that society had made, with dress and ideology, and Paul had given him this one year for a joke. We went through some of the From The Wilderness flyers, with a few warnings from Daniel that it could get pretty cryptic pretty fast.

"The collapse I don't bother with anymore. Ruppert predicted it, and he's about a year late now. That's not what's important. What he says about oil, though, and foreign trading policies, you should really be aware of," he explained and tried to give me the run-down of the business market. I had told him my job ages ago, and he only rolled his eyes. He knew I had to make a living, especially with Paloma, but we didn't stay too long on this topic. It went over my head, even with the vocabulary I was getting from work.

Most of that night was dedicated to freedom. Anarchism, in its most basic and fundamental representations, was freedom. Daniel tried to stress, however, that it was not the individualistic negation of rules, but a collective freedom, one that made us depend on one another and in that dependence had the acceptance to be ourselves. We weaved through Emma Goldman and spent a lot of time with Mikhail Bakunin. His ideologies of freedom moved me the most, and I found myself trapped in a moment. It was one of those times where everything else felt suspend and I was unified - for that second alone. It was strange to me, but I knew I was whole then, and I knew that Alex hadn't been a liar and neither had I because this feeling was familiar. I knew it had been possible before, but it was very, very rare. It was a moment where I felt free, utterly and completely, and I knew the last time this had happened. It was seven years ago.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14