June - The Liars 7 страница

He was having a good night, and because of that fact, so was I. I had been so confused the past few weeks because he had been confused and in that fog of madness he had described. Dementia, I had been learning from Jasmine and our own research at the library, was the Greek for madness. Because I knew this now, though he had never told me out right, I knew this was what he was communicating to me that night. I used to think that the artist would suffer from a different type of madness, one that took over their soul and consumed them, one that ended in suicide because no one had supported the arts and therefore never supported them. This was another creative illness, a different form of forgetting disease or syphilis. I realized that Socrates was sick, too, only he believed in his sickness too much. He let himself die, because he had chosen death in order to live the artist's life. Gerard, plagued by something different, had promised me he would never do this. He would never believe in his disease that way, he would never kill himself in order to escape the madness, and he would never hurt us. He would rather give up art than hurt us. I took a deep breath as I held him, and with our foreheads together, I tried to telepathically thank him. That night he had given up his own myth. He was now human. This was that truth lurking behind us, but I pushed it away, knowing what the next step needed to be. He still used words as we went on with our task, but they were simple, complete and compact, and they held their own meaning within our own private lexicon.

"Yes, of course, my dove," he whispered in my ear when my hand trembled over him. I ran my hands up and down his back as our hips jerked together; I grabbed his ass and I tried to push our bodies into one. His hands went all over me, too, and he held me, stiff and aching, in his fist before he replaced his hands with his mouth. I propped myself up on my elbows and watched as he went down on me, biting my lip and breathing heavily. I ran my hands through his hair, and then he began to kiss my fingers. As he straightened himself up, he began to touch me outside before his fingers ventured in. I touched his cock as he slid in and out of me, hoping to get it erect. I wanted him to be inside me, to be a part of me again. Then maybe, if there was enough time after we were done, we could switch positions and put ourselves back together again, both forwards and backwards. He was getting harder the more I touched him and groaned his name; eventually, we switched positioned a bit and I began to use my mouth on him. When he said he was okay, we kissed on the mouth one final time before I positioned myself at the head of the bed, leaning down. He placed one hand on my hip as he used his fingers before he began to slide into me. As he entered, he touched the skin of my back softly and then began to kiss each notch of my spin.

It had been a while since we had done this, and it hurt a fair bit at first, but he moved slowly until I began to make noises in my throat. He quickened his pace then, becoming slightly erratic with his movements, but he was okay. He was good. I straightened my back a bit more, and he responded by gripping my chest and pulling me back to meet him. I touched myself as he kissed my neck, but I also held off because I wanted to go inside of him, too. When he came in a groan, I gave him a while to pull out, and then I turned around. I kissed him on the mouth, and tried to bite his lip and tease him, but he had lost some of his stamina. He kissed back, but he was lethargic and his breath came in chopped inhalations. I decided to lie down with him, instead. I finished myself off as he watched with his arm around my shoulders. I cleaned up in the bathroom shortly after, laughing at how the sink was still filled with the small remnants of paint from his jar. It was beautiful, and I decided that this new array of colors were my favorite, ever.

When I came back, he pulled me in for a kiss. It was breathtaking, literally. We seemed to both breathe in and out at the same time. It took me a while to recover from it; it felt like he had passed through me. I sat back down in bed with him, but I was sitting up as he was lying down. He was touching my arm, but looking up at the ceiling where our painting was. He was focusing on it, remembering it. From the way he touched me, I knew he had forgiven me for my past indiscretion. He knew, as well as I knew, what our story really was. If that made us liars, when I told the Professor tomorrow night, then I was okay with that.

I held his hand for as long as I could, before we heard Jasmine's car pull into the driveway. I wondered how three people could form one person like he and I just had, but I pushed the thought away.

"I love you," I whispered in Gerard's ear. He smiled, and replied, "Je t'aime."

Chapter Four

The Professor's house was big. It was in the nice part of town, like I should have expected. I knew that professors, especially ones that had tenure and were heads of departments, made a lot of money, but it didn't really hit me until I saw it. It was a two storey house, with a well manicured lawn that was clearly contract work (the small sign in the corner of one flowerbed gave it away), and every spot on the outside of their house was immaculate and clean. There were two nice cars in the driveway, ones that were definitely new and equally clean. Seeing the two cars fill up the driveway, forcing me to park on the street, made my financial isolation more prominent in my mind. Jasmine's car was our family vehicle, and was something that she had saved up for years to buy and then bought used. She was worried about how old it was becoming now, heading onto ten years, but dreaded the idea of buying a new one. We both hoped it would endure long enough for Paloma to be beyond her toddler years, because we had to focus on house payments (and then Gerard's medical bills, we would add silently, if it ever came to that). That night I was borrowing Vivian's car, which was nice, but definitely aged and well-loved. She had bought hers brand new when Cassandra was in school and was determined to drive it into the ground. Although Vivian wasn't rich by any means, she was beyond our income level at that current moment, and it felt good to be in her car. Not to mention how it was cluttered in the back, with registration papers for her department in the summer months and then some of Callie and Dean's final essays. The car smelled like Vivian too, and it was reassuring for other reasons. I had taken the car from Cassandra, not Vivian, since she was still having a hard time dealing with Gerard. She had been telling us that she would come and see him for weeks, now, but more often than not she was working late. Cassandra, cold as ice, did not show her emotions about the issue, and since I was in a rush and nervous for this dinner, I did not press her. I couldn't tell if she was disappointed or relieved.

I could see the warm light of their house as I stood on their doorstep, and feel the cranked air conditioning from underneath the door. I knocked and waited, unsure with what to do with my hands. I had brought some food with me, a loaf of French bread and cheese. While The Professor had been okay with the vegetarian request ("just like Pythagoras!"), he did have a hard time figuring out what being vegetarian actually meant. He thought I could eat fish, or at least shell fish and muscles, since he had read an article recently about how their central nervous system functioned. Without a spine, there would be no evidence of pain, and therefore, not bequeathing the animal with suffering, he figured, and it was fair game. I was startled by his logic and had never heard of this study at all. I was tempted to forward the email to Jasmine and have her provide me with the commentary, but I decided it was my turn to teach him something, now. It had not gone exactly as I would have wanted to, on the argumentative front. "Yes, I see what you mean about not eating animals, but I prefer to think of ourselves as inevitably placed in a hierarchy," he wrote to me. "Instead of turning my back on it, I try to appreciate it. You must if you want to live life. At least, I think. We can discuss over dinner. I am writing a note now to my wife, no fish!"I wasn't exactly too thrilled about discussing this decision over dinner, and I had brought the food with me just in case we were still not understanding one another.

I began to hear feet shuffling towards the door, and the faint sound of jazz coming from inside their house. The Professor's wife opened the door.

"Hello, Frank. It's very nice to meet you. I'm Melinda," The Prosecutor said, introducing herself to me. I was struck dumb, and stood there for a few minutes not uttering a word. Her name actually became a part of my consciousness then, though The Professor had said it many times now. It was finally sticking and I was no longer making her abstract through the use of art. She became more than The Justice card, and more than the photo inside The Professor's desk. She was older, her hair cropped shorter just around her ears, and she was dressed very formally. She had a ruffled shirt underneath a light blazer, and a mid-length skirt. This was definitely her work clothing, but her voice softened the professional and authoritative atmosphere that they presented. And her name, I thought to myself. Melinda was such a pretty name, and it suited her very well. In spite of her dark skin and hair, she had light colored eyes. They seemed uncanny and surreal; I began to wonder if they were contacts.

She ushered me into the front hallway, where I began to take off my shoes and she thanked me profusely for the bread. It would make a great appetizer for what she had made; gazpacho soup since it was so hot outside, and then a small stir fry for afterwards. "Nothing fancy," she insisted, and it seemed to be an understatement. Everything inside of their house seemed fancy. From the hardwood floors to the oak paneling, the grandfather clock and the Bach coming through their large stereo system, this seemed like a completely new world to me. When she took me aside, into the living room where her husband was drinking a glass of wine before dinner, I was floored again by the sheer amount of books. There were shelves upon shelves lining every inch of wall space, all of it ordered neat and precise. There were decorative book ends for some of the shelves, and one of them I noticed was a bust of Socrates. It made me think of Gerard, and I swallowed, realizing what I still needed to do tonight.

The Professor rose from his chair, and extended his hand to me once again. He thanked me for coming. "Didn't think you would for a little while there. It had me worried."

"Sorry," I said. Everything out of my mouth felt like it didn't belong here, like it wasn't fancy enough and wasn't intellectual enough. Gerard had books in his room, covering the walls, and so did Jasmine. But somehow, it seemed like we were not measuring up, as if we used our books differently than they did.

"No apologies, here, at least not this kind. You're here and that's what matters."

I nodded, and continued to look around. His wife - Melinda, I kept telling myself - appeared by my side, after dropping off the bread in the kitchen. I was about to ask where Kiddo was, but heard the sizzle of a stir fry in the kitchen, and began to realize he had taken over dinner for us. I was impressed; he looked to have been about twelve in the photos, but maybe as old as fourteen. Cooking dinner for three adults and himself seemed like a lot of responsibility. Melinda must have sense my curiosity, because she explained to me about Kiddo, and how he has been doing this since he was young.

"He likes it, and I'm pleased to say he's quite good at it. Even when he was younger and he couldn't reach the stove, he knew his way in and out of the kitchen. Very good table manners, too." She and her husband exchanged a small smile and tipped their heads to one another. I wondered vaguely if Jasmine and I would congratulate ourselves like that.

The Professor offered me wine, but I declined. There were a few more minutes of small talk before Kiddo poked his head out and called us all in. I felt completely inept as I sat at their table, and wondered what order I was supposed to do this in and how I was supposed to sit. My parents had given me manners, but they had never given me an education like it appeared Kiddo had. It rattled me, but not in a good way. I had no idea how to eat anymore.

"So, he's captured you for one of his recruitments?" Melinda teased, turning her attention to me again. Her soft eyes looked kindly at me, as if giving me permission to fuck up the manners. "He loves doing things like this. He thinks he can play Dead Poet's Society and gather all the undergrads."

"But Frank is not an undergrad, my dear. He is a real youth with real experiences," The Professor retorted. I couldn't tell if he was teasing his wife, or teasing me. Either way, I felt uncomfortable with the implications.

"I guess I'm not the first person you've had over for dinner, then?"

They both shook their heads. I wondered if the other students they had entertained were this bad at table manners, and if that was another thing on his lesson plan for me later on. They did begin to tell me about a female student that he had bonded with a lot last summer, and how she ended up staying and visiting all the way until winter.

"What made her stop coming?" I asked, wondering if I should be aware of any dangers lurking in my midst.

"Why else would anyone?" he questioned me. "They got all they need to know."

I nodded, and figured it made sense. I thought through the things we had already done together, and I realized that beyond this dinner, he expected to continue. I wondered why, now that I was in his house, he had not shown me his books in more detail. Were we done with books, then? Was that why we had skipped over them? His dining room was bare save for the table and china hutch and on the wall hung a few prints of impressionist landscapes and some done by local artists. Did he expect me to comment on those first, and engage with him through what I knew? I knew I should have been telling him about my own contextual knowledge base - Gerard - but I kept prying into this previous story about the girl that had hung around for months instead. I wanted to know what else he would show me and try to teach me, but I didn't get much.

"What else would we do? Talk. Discuss things. Work our way through theory."

"You didn't go to the library again?"

"Why? She knew how to get books. And you do too, now. So that topic is over for now," he said. "But I would like to know what you're reading. Did you find anything in particular? I said I would tell you about The Republic, didn't I? I know Melinda and Kiddo have definitely heard this one too much, so maybe we’ll wait until they leave."

His wife shrugged her shoulders a bit, but went on eating her food. Kiddo had barely been involved in the conversation up until this point. I had tried to engage with him a few times, asking him about the food he had cooked, and who his favorite chefs were, but he seemed resistant. It was as if he knew that talking at the table could incite a friendly argument, and he was tired of losing to the seemingly endless procession of students who had come before me. The Professor had slipped a few times with pronouns and details of the prior students. There had been more than one woman and more than myself as the only guy. It also seemed like there were varying degrees of severity and dedication. The poor kid had probably always had a new debate partner to warm up to, and to grow up next to. While his son was physically growing and maturing, I was piecing together that The Professor had been gathering around intellectual growth. Now that Kiddo, who I had confirmed as fourteen, was finally at the start of his pursuit of knowledge, he seemed to prefer being mute. It wasn't that he wasn't smart; surely through osmosis and proximity alone he had gathered enough knowledge to fill a small cave, but he was not budging. He stared at his food a lot, answered questions with as few words as possible, and when he was done with the meal that he had made himself, he asked to be excused.

"You guys probably want to talk about stuff. My dad's right, I've heard it before. Know it like the back of my hand by now," he said, and then took his plates away, collecting some of his mother's as he went by. I thanked him for dinner, and he merely nodded, taking his graceful exit.

I had eaten plenty of meals at Mikey and Alexa's house at this point in time; I knew there was a different way of parenting than this. There was nothing ultimately bad about what I saw, but it rubbed me the wrong way. Kiddo seemed neglected in a way I was not sure existed. He knew a lot of information, he was smart and talented, but when he was at the table, he entered a different realm. For years, I imagined that they had wanted these students around because they could not engage with him in the same type of discussion that they both craved. That didn't seem right to me. They were providing for him very well, but did Kiddo ever get to run around? Did he ever get to just be a child? I knew that Cassandra held herself in high regard and tried to reach intellectual depths like this. But she had chosen that, it was her form of freedom. Had Kiddo chosen this, or was this just how he was supposed to live until he could get away?

I didn't have an answer, and apparently, The Professor was asking me a question.

"So what have you been doing, Frank, to keep you busy? What have you found that is earth-shattering?" he quipped. He leaned back in his chair, glass of wine in his hand. The color of the liquid made my own memories come forward. I took a deep breath.

"Well, I started to read The Symposium. "

"Good. You found the love in Plato. I promise he's not always so cruel."

I nodded vaguely, and told him about the part that had captivated me the most. "It was how we all used to be pressed together, back to back, before we were split in two. It reminded me of something, of someone."

"No doubt, I bet it did. Aristophanes wanted it to remind you of something. His satire on the creation myth, similar to Adam and Eve, is a brilliant commentary on love."

I stopped my train of thought; he had thrown me off. "Satire? What do you mean? He wasn't serious?"

The Professor smiled. "Oh, of course not. It's Aristophanes! He loved to make fun of Socrates. The man took himself too seriously, really. It got him killed."

I swallowed hard again, thinking of Gerard's promise to me. My pause was quick, and I recovered without them noticing.

"Anyway, don't be so quick to think satire is a bad thing, Frank, or that it is disingenuous. I'm laughing at Socrates, at that creation myth, but in order to satirize something you need to fully understand it. The best jokes are made from knowledge. Aristophanes knew Socrates better than Socrates knew himself, and that is why his plays are funny. He knew that creative myth better than anyone, and because of it, he also knew about love. He knew it so well, he could laugh at it." He looked at his wife then, and she smiled. She was done her food at this point, only half through her stir fry because she had filled up on bread, and she sat back and listened to her husband talk. She knew this story, I could tell. She had heard this many times before, and she had probably laughed with him about a lot of things. I didn't know how she could, though. I was realizing that Melinda was even faster with her questioning and her reasoning than her husband was. She had to be; she was always on her toes at work and then when she came home. Where did it end for her? For him? They were both in their work clothing, saying that they only understood love from laughing at it. They understood Socrates because they found him funny, and they thought he took himself too seriously, and that was why he had died. He took his life too seriously; were they going to laugh at life, too?

"You must always laugh, Frank," he told me seriously, maybe knowing this routine so well that he could intercept his students thoughts. "You have to laugh. If you don't, it will ruin you. You will ruin yourself."

"Assuming that there is a self to ruin," I repeated meekly.

"Oh, you've already reached ontology, I see." He chuckled. "Heavy topic right there, whether the self has meaning, let alone the life! No wonder you didn't want to come. Don't worry about that, we will get to it."

I sighed. I didn't want to have to wait another week for his lessons anymore. My anger mounted, my fear rolled away, and I asked him point blank the question I had been struggling with all this time: "Who are you?"

"Oh," he said with another laugh. He leaned forward onto the table, elbows and all, and took a drink of his wine. "What a simple and complex question. Probably the best one of them all."

He was quiet for a while after that, not answering me. He made eye contact and smiled, teasing me and baiting me. I knew he was doing this deliberately, this waiting out of the moment. But was it because he didn't know for himself, or because he needed me to figure it out? I had no idea anymore and was getting fed up with this battle of wills.

"You're a very serious young man," The Prosecutor told me. I felt myself pulling back from her, back from her name and her humanity. But I fought it. "You will learn to laugh someday. Maybe not right now, but you will get there."

I sighed, putting my fork down. I didn't care if it adhered to the manners or not. I looked at Melinda, wanting some closure, but I just felt defeated. I didn't think I could laugh at life, being so close to losing what precious little that I had. I began to question The Professor's logic, then, really interrogating it. I still didn't understand how he could not realize that a fish was a living thing and that we were all linked. I shook my head, not really getting it. He and his wife took up their own discussion again, engaged in a friendly battle of words over a topic that I tuned out. I began to wonder why I came, especially now that Kiddo was gone.

"Why am I here?" I asked over them. "Why did you decide to take me in, to start helping me? You're not getting paid for it. We talked about this last time, but you never answered me."

He smiled, pleased that I had finally mentioned it again. "I like to help people, I guess. I try to find the people who are willing to do work, but can't afford school and help them out."

It was a simple answer, at least for him. I nodded, at first thinking that it was even a good one. I was about to open up again, or at least try to, when he went on with the story of The Cave that he had promised me. "You reminded me of it, just now. Plato says in The Republic that in our lives, we are all trapped in a cave watching shadows on the wall. But we think the shadows are real - of course, they are all real because they are all we have ever known. They become our entire world until we begin to turn around, and we don't realize that what we have been watching is a cheap imitation. Then we realize there is an exit to the cave, and we go outside. We see the sun, what Plato believed to be the idealized state of enlightenment, and then from there we live our lives. Only most people seem to forget that part where Plato stipulates that it is the person's duty, now out of the cave, to go back and get the others. To show them that what they had loved before is not real, and to usher them until they are able to get to enlightenment." The Professor smiled. "I know, it sounds like I have a huge ego, but I want to try and maintain my role in what Plato is talking about there. That is why, I suppose, I try and help students who come to me. Sometimes they appear out of nowhere, sometimes they serve me coffee or bump into me in the grocery store, or sometimes they try and pick up my books for me."

He was referring to me then, to our story then, and I perked up again. The allegory of the cave, as he told it to me, resonated. It had been what Gerard had done with me, however. He had been the one who showed me all I needed to know about life, who showed me that the shadows that I thought were real (my drinking, my shitty friends) were really not helping me at all. He took me outside of the cave, and he loved me as he showed me the sun. That was when I understood, that he had really known all along. Comme le soliel interminable. Like the never ending sun. He had wanted to teach me from the beginning and the world that he had given me was immense. The Allegory of The Cave was us; I knew this story.

But The Professor had not been the one to teach it to me. Gerard had. I was insistent on this point. I began to tell him then, about a teacher I had had once. "I knew a man, and he did the same thing for me. We were... in love. It may sound weird but we were. We still are, I mean, it's complicated...." I trailed off. I felt heavy under their eyes, confessing something so personal. I looked up at them; they were smart and educated and I knew they wouldn't freak out that I was gay. In fact, The Professor leaned in more, as if he had some part of his own hunch confirmed.

"No doubt it's complicated, but please understand when I tell you this, I mean not to criticize your love. I don't think love can be criticized to a person inside of it, and trust me, I know that. Melinda and I had a hard time marrying because of it. But anyway," he said, brushing his hand away. "Frank, you have potential, but you are still in that cave."

"What?" I said, my mouth hanging open. How was that even possible? I had already come so far in my life; this place was no longer an option. "No, I've come outside. I've seen that sun, trust me, please, I know that sun."

"You went into another cave," he criticized. "You saw the first set of shadows as illusions, but you traded them for a different set. You are still functioning as if you know one single truth."

"But I do. There is, there has to be," I insisted, and The Professor just shook his head.

"There are so many things in life. Don't get stuck inside the only one you think is true. There are so many options, there are so many meanings and interpretations. This does not have to be scary. It can be exhilarating. But know it's all shadows, and that you must always reach for that sun."

"But I have..." I tried to insist, again and again, knowing it was useless.

"It's okay, Frank. Just laugh. It will come to you in time. It always does."

I didn't bother fighting it anymore, because I knew I could not convince them. I knew I was free, because he had set me free, but it didn't seem like it could be possible to them. So what was the point in pleading? Melinda, while she was silent for this, did not disagree with her husband. She gave me sympathetic looks with her caring eyes, but she did not dispute. She couldn't at this point.

Frustrated, I looked around their house. And I realized again how they were rich. This fact hit me more than I wanted it to; it seemed to be rubbed in my face. They had a big house, nice things inside that house, and two cars in the driveway. They had time to sit around and read books and talk amongst themselves and feel smart. They thought they were helping me by giving me knowledge and showing me how to do this myself, but they weren't giving me money. They weren't offering to pay for my college education so I could get a degree, which would then get me a better job. They were talking down to me and making me feel stupid, making me question my fundamental beliefs, the ones that got me through the day. He lectured about freedom, about happiness, and the meaning of life, but he almost insisted that his work was different from his life.

Moreover, I did not see an ounce of affection in him. He seemed to enjoy and delight in his wife, mentioned their marriage, but I had not seen him touch her once. These were very different things, I knew that, in some place deep down inside of me. I knew that taking delight in someone and then loving them and touching them no matter what were two completely different things. I had not seen them speak to their child with affection; it was only manners and astute accountability. This was all well and good, but I failed to see how their life lived up to their teachings, and how their teachings had any bearing on my life whatsoever.

Then it hit me: they were not from where I was from. They had constructed their beginnings from a different view point, and from there, it had informed their world. These were not things as they were, and they were liars as much as I was. I felt good in my logical deduction, but that still did not change where my beginning and my current path was. I had a baby on the way and was struggling to pay our mortgage. We had a person living in our house who was now dependent on us. And I was here, being told I had never been illuminated to the workings of the world? I knew what I was doing, and there was no time to doubt that.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14