Chapter Forty-Seven Ready

There are a lot of lessons you can learn all by yourself without someone ever guiding or teaching you, in times when people ban together in order for someone’s dreams to come true. I watched this fucking astounding process of learning happen within my system as Gerard, Vivian, and I began to prepare for my show. It was shocking the amount of dedication and vigor these two middle aged adults’ had bodies for some teenager they had only known for a few months. They themselves began to act like the age group they were representing, joking and fooling around as they sorted and framed pictures. It was amazing to me, even if at first I had been too nervous to play along. Once I realized how much knowledge I could still gather from the two of them in front of me, I dove myself headfirst into the pile of black and whites, colors (once they came back from Vivian), and negatives, hoping that I could develop more than just pictures.

My first lesson learned from the process of growing itself was that I sucked at titles. I had tried to help Gerard with the frames at first, but when I nearly amputated my pinky finger, he told me to sit down. I was stressed out enough already; I didn’t need to add sharp things and the possibility of blood to the mix. With Gerard doing the nitty-gritty work, I directed to a task that left me confused and was almost as painful as near amputation.

It was hard enough to go through pile after pile of pictures that I had taken in such a short period of time and determine which ones were good enough to go on a wall. Naming the fuckers was a completely different battle, and one I didn’t want to face. If I named the photos, I owned them. It was so much more than just a sense of ownership; it was a sense of responsibility. If I named them, I was responsible for their outcome and I didn’t know what the future held. In my own head, none of these pictures were good enough to go into a gallery. But from Gerard and Vivian’s head, all of them were. Our mindsets and opinions were too far in extremes to actually have something work, and my indecision wasn’t making it any better.

After anguishing for hours over what to chose, I made up my mind, only to spend even more time dwelling on what to call the piece of thick paper with some color that fell together to make the photograph in front of me. For the first little while I had been trying to think of something witty, but I saw no humor in the photos (or in anything for that fact, I was too tired and stressed to laugh). I gave up that pursuit and decided to call them all what they were. When I ended up labeling about five pictures ‘Outside’ I gave up there as well. I had been debating calling everything either ‘Untitled’ or by numbers, but I was deterred by Gerard’s heavy hand on my shoulder. He and Vivian had been wandering around, putting the photos in organized piles and frames while I was hunched over at the kitchen table, The Name Game rolling around in my head.

“You put numbers on any of these pictures and I will tear them up,” Gerard warned with a smile. His threat was far from empty, despite the lightheartedness his voice conveyed. “You know how much I hate math. There is no creativity in numbers. They are what they are and nothing else.”

He paused again, realizing his serious tone was not helping me, and added a small, slightly bad, but joke nonetheless. “Unless your dyslexic, then numbers can mean something very different to you and they constantly change.” He tried to smile at me, but I merely sighed as an answer, throwing my hands down in defeat.

“I don’t know what to call anything,” I complained, being overdramatic about everything.

Seeing my dismay, he pulled out another chair and sat at the table with me. He grabbed the stack of photos and began to look through them, twisting some of them upside down and titling his head as he looked. I watched him, fascinated by the way his brows moved up and down like bushy caterpillars. I noticed how tired he looked, but complacent at the same time. He was working hard and had been for hours, but even when offered a small break from his duties, he still wanted to help. He felt needed and wanted, and I realized that I recognized this airy contentment from when he did his own art.

I had been paying way too much attention to him and his feature that by the time he started talking again, I had nearly missed the whole point.

“What?” I said, drawing my attention to the black and white pile of miss-sorted dreams.

He sighed, rolling his eyes at me, but repeating his prior statement. “Name them what they are, but not in the physical sense. That’s boring and dull and probably why you’re having such a hard time with titles. Name them what they are supposed to mean, what they’re supposed to represent.”

He stared at me when done, but when I still ceased any kind of brain activity, he reached down and grabbed a photo. He held it in front of me, his fingers draped casually over the corners. I gathered my attention forward, drawn into the focal point of the piece. I recognized it immediately as the photo I had taken of the note pinned on my door from Sam and Travis. I felt myself bite my tongue, remembering the nasty and derogatory insults that had been splattered across the page in Sam’s distinct writing.

“What’s going on in this picture?” Gerard probed, looking around one of the tattered corners at me. He sensed my hostility at the picture, and though he knew it upset me, it was a wound he wanted to fish into. He also knew that talking would be like ripping of a Band-Aid and help the healing process. There are some wounds which you need to pick at in order for proper scar tissue to form. This was one of them.

“That’s the note I got from my so-called friends when I got back from the hospital,” I spat out, kicking my feet around under the table as I tried to sit up straighter. I gave up, and merely folded my arms across my chest into yet another pouting stance.

“And what did the note say?” Gerard fished for more details, though he already could figure out the answer for himself. I had no idea why he was baiting me like this, getting me worked up over something that was in the past, and something that he already knew. I played along, wanting to ride out my bad mood some more and complain.

“It was horrible stuff about me,” I started, staring at the fine lines of the wood on the table. “About you. Just horrible shit. Horrible hate-filled shit.”

“There!” Gerard proclaimed, almost the instant after the words had finished falling out of my mouth. He placed the picture down, face up in front of me, sliding it towards my chest along with his expression of interest. “You’ve just found the title for your picture.”
His eyes were wide and bright, hoping I could convey their meaning.

“What? Shit?”

“Well, not this picture, but I’m sure you could use that title for something else.” He scoffed, running his hand through his hair. When I still remained blank, he went on. “Hate, Frank. You could call this piece hate.”

He pointed his long creamy white finger on the photo, directly over the note that had been on my door. He tapped it a few times, emphasizing each word. “This is hate, Frank. Hate in its finest form, and you’ve captured it in a picture. Call it that, so maybe, people will understand.”

I could feel myself slowly rising out of my chair with each word he was saying. I sat up straight again, my hands on the table and looking at the photo and Gerard with my mouth agape. He was right; he was always right, but this time it meant a lot more. I began to dig through the pile of photos I had already named with shitty one liners and began to see more meaning etched within the ink. The one I had labeled ‘Outside’ became ‘Pollution’ instead. There were numerous pieces of trash surrounding the border of the picture and a chocolate bar wrapper, its hue clearly visible against the grass, was at the center of the piece. My mind started to make connections like a flash, getting so consumed in my work and renaming things that I barely noticed when Gerard had gotten up from the table. His hands were on my shoulder again, his lips pressed into the top of my hair, wishing me luck. He kept his chin placed at the crown of my head for awhile, watching my frantic hands move and label. He was heavy on top of me, but it was a good and constant heavy. He was my rock, and he was allowing me to stay grounded during times of chaos.

“See?” he called to me, just as I had renamed all the photos I had spent hours working on in a matter of minutes. “Much better than numbers.”

I nodded, causing his head to rock before he finally took it away. I would have said thank you or something, but I was still so engrossed, and those words didn’t mean as much anymore.

“Words make people think of feelings,” Gerard added to his prior statements as my ears absorbed it all. He was still behind me, his hands on my shoulders, watching me for a break in his other labors. He began to squeeze his hands on my shoulders, massaging me and encouraging me in one methodical movement. He sighed, thinking to himself. “Numbers only make people think of money, and money is something that should have no place in art.”

His words echoed in my ears long after he had moved away and back to his framing duties. Gerard almost never mentioned money before, and I was surprised to hear such words fall from his mouth. Surprised, at least, until I began to comprehend my next lesson: Money was no object.

Though money had no place in art, along with numbers and straight lines, money was necessary in the art business. It cost money for film in a camera, for the camera itself, the photo paper capturing the art, and the frames to put the works of art in. When we all first started to ban together, I had locked myself in the dark room to look through picture after picture, while Vivian was appointed the runner. After she had dropped in and done my color photos, she ran out to grab all the necessary items for us, like the millions of frames, and specialty lattes from down the street. She nearly bought the entire display in the store, making two trips back up to the apartment with bags and bags of them. I didn’t even know any of this until I emerged from the dark room, pictures stacked high, and saw Gerard standing in the middle of a frame graveyard, foam from his coffee still on his upper lip. More importantly, I didn’t know who was funding any of this. Even when I had asked, he didn’t want to tell me. He sipped his coffee and tried to push me towards the skeletons of photography on the floor, but I was not going that easily.

“It doesn’t matter who paid for your frames,” he insisted when I pestered, forgetting about the pictures that still had no name as I cornered him in the kitchen. The empty vessels were placed all around the counters, on the stove, and even on top of the fridge waiting to be filled. I felt almost as empty as them when I realized Gerard had paid for everything out of his own pocket.

“You don’t need to do this…” I insisted, feeling the guilt creep its way into my system.

For once, I wasn’t making up excuses to not go to the art show. I wanted to go – more than ever by that point, once my option of changing the world had been presented to me. I had just forgotten that in the world we lived in, everything fucking cost money. Money I didn’t have, and probably never would. But also money that Gerard really didn’t need to give me. I already felt guilty enough when he gave me his time and encouragement, but money was something much more tangible – something he could have and needed to keep for himself. I saw the apartment he lived in, I saw how little he probably made. I had never considered Gerard to be poor before; he always had food in his fridge and clothing on his back, but the fact that he didn’t have a real job with a consistent income slapped me in the face. He was dropping money left and right on this one day when he didn’t know if he could make it all back just as easily. He didn’t need to waste his money on me, of all people.

“I know I don’t need to, Frank” he insisted, grabbing my shoulders and steadying me. His eyes probed deeply, and despite my strong will to turn away, I kept looking at him. He kept talking only giving me vague certainties. “But I want to. I want to help you.”

“You’ve already helped me,” I cut in too quickly, trying to displace the issue. “I’ve done nothing for you.”

Gerard blinked slowly, the weight of the words hurting him more than I thought it would. I watched as he swallowed a lump, and it descended down his throat slowly. He pulled me into a hug, one I was nearly dragged into. He pressed me harder than he had in a long time, running his hand through my hair.

“Don’t say that,” he whispered, his mouth hovering over my ear, the touch devoid of anything sexual. “You’ve done a lot for me. You just don’t know it yet.”
He stroked my hair, assuring me, but before I could ask questions to it, he sent me forward on my mission once more.

“If you want to do something for me though, you can just do this photography show. Don’t worry about the money. It would have just sat there anyway. Like the darkroom, and anything else that I may give you. It was just there before; just taking up space. But now you’re bringing it to life. I want you to have it.”

“Okay…” I agreed, still unsure to the whole process. Gerard’s hands were firm on my shoulders for balance (though I wasn’t sure who was going to fall if taken away).

When my attention was diverted back to my lack of titles, I thought the lesson had been over. It was a two parter, and I only understood the final blow when Vivian came back from her fifth trip outside the apartment walls.

“Oh, man!” she uttered, slamming the dark green door and then leaning herself against it. She had a much smaller bag this time, only filled with a few extra rolls of film she had thought I might need (they would come in handy for yet another lesson later on) and the rest of my photos. It felt like she was gone for a lot longer than it would have taken to grab a few rolls and the pictures, but her next words explained it all.

“I stopped by the gallery and secured you a spot.” She gathered herself together, brushing herself off as she walked forward over to Gerard, but looking at me as she talked. She gave me a smug smile, tousling my hair in a playful manner. I felt myself slink down in my chair again, feeling embarrassed that all of this attention was being placed on me. And now I had a spot to fill. It was serious, but it only got more and more serious as time went on.

“I had to give them the down payment and then –“

“Down payment?” My voice cracked. I turned around so I could get both her and Gerard in my full view. They were standing behind me at the kitchen counter, where half of the skeletal frames were being filled. I was at the table in front of them. I shot Gerard a look at first, realizing that he had paid even more money than just a few frames and cups of coffee. He stared back at me, nodding his head slightly before looking away. He wasn’t ashamed per se, but didn’t know how to approach things. Neither of them said a word to my question, Vivian too busy unloading the small contents of the bag, so I asked again. “What do you mean ‘down payment’?”

Vivian was about to open her mouth to answer like it was no big deal, but Gerard gently grabbed her arm, pulling her close so he could whisper in her ear. Her pale red brows furrowed at first, but once Gerard’s reasoning sounded inside her mind, she closed her mouth into a determined pout. She looked at me, rubbing her hands down her shirt to straight it.

“It costs money to make money, Frank,” she insisted, baring her teeth in an over-zealous smile. I could tell she was unsure how to approach the situation as well, the corners of her mouth falling slightly and glancing over at Gerard, who stood with a solid serious expression on his face, leaning against the counter.

“Come on,” Vivian cheered again, her voice strained with plausible excitement. “Don’t worry about anything. Just keep going.”

“But, uh…” I stuttered, my voice falling out from under me. I looked down at the pile of photos in front of me, halfway through naming them and getting them ready. I couldn’t believe I was going to have my own show, and not only that, but Gerard was paying for all of it. I had never felt more like a child than I did at that very moment. Gerard was one of the few adults who always treated me like an equal to himself, like an adult even when I was just that punk kid he had found at the liquor store parking lot. He treated me like a human being, and he gave me a chance to express myself.

I looked at him, my mouth hanging open. My lip quivered because I didn’t know what to say or how to act. He was being a parent right then, paying for everything and taking care of me and my future. I could tell he knew that and the implications it had over me. It wasn’t treating me like a fully autonomous person when he did that. His dark eyes fell when I met them, and he drew in a quivering breath. It was almost like he was embarrassed that he was helping me, but I couldn’t see the exact reason for it yet.

“You don’t have to pay for this…” I started again, looking at both of them dumbstruck and founded. “I’ll never be able to pay you back…”

“You don’t have to pay me back.” He waved his hands in the air, showing that he had no ulterior motives behind anything. “I don’t want you to pay me back.”

“But I want to,” I interjected, switching the focus. If it was something I wanted, I knew Gerard would have to comply. It was a consensual relationship, after all.

He paused for a moment, realizing my discomfort on more than one level. “Don’t worry about paying me back,” he stated again, deliberating for a moment. “You may sell a photo, though. And if you want you can consider that payment.”

He cringed as he said the words, the act of exchanging money and numbers – everything oh so uncreative disturbing him greatly. I felt a pang of guilt for making him feel bad, especially since his words did nothing to calm me.

“What if I don’t sell anything?” I pestered, keeping the low self esteem flowing. “I probably won’t.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, pouting. I hated acting like a child, but if Gerard was going to treat himself like a parent, this was the natural course of action. And at least in my own head, my thoughts were justified. This was my first show, and it was being slapped together within a matter of hours. It was probably going to turn out shitty and if people didn’t want to buy my work, hell, I couldn’t blame them.

“People will –“

“Did you sell anything your first show?” I tilted my head to the side, probing him deeper. I saw his back slump a bit, realizing I had found a weak spot.

“No…”

“See? What makes you think I’ll do any better than you?” I said the words fast, wanting to only insult myself but making it hurt and sting him too in the process. His weak posture stayed, and he slumped into the counter more, Vivian at his side, stationary. I let loose a long and exaggerated sigh, feeling my frustration in my veins. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want the money for fear of hurting him in other ways. Fuck, everything in life did hurt, I thought, remembering Gerard’s words. I just thought I could stop the worse of the pain.

“You don’t have to do this…” I stated again, drawing back everything to the beginning.

“I know I don’t.” More sternly, Gerard started again with his original argument, doing the very same action I was doing. “I want –“

“Even if you want to – this is more than just a few frames,” I countered, motioning to the previous expensive laying all over the counters. Gerard closed his mouth slowly, pursing his lips together. He nodded his head, but didn’t say anything allowing me to continue on my self-hating tangent.

“Gerard, you’ve spent too much money on me already. The frames are one thing, the down payment for the exhibit is too much. I don’t even know how much it is, but I know it’s too much…”

“Nothing is too much…”

“Yes, there is. With money there is too much. This is too much.” I motioned around myself, and though I knew Gerard could see me out of the corner of his eye, he still didn’t look. Vivian was right beside him, but the way she bit her lip and cease to move, it was like she wasn’t in the room anymore. That was saying a lot for her. Usually when she walked in, she commanded your attention. She was now relinquishing it, realizing that there were much bigger issues on hand.

I got up from my chair, not exactly knowing what to do. I grabbed a photo, tracing my fingers over the swing set I had taken a picture of, then over the shiny silver outline of the frame. The frame. Fuck. This was too much. I placed the photo down with a clank, and looked back at the two adults, with only one captivating my attention.

“Gerard, this is too much. There can never be enough art, culture, and love, but with money, and the society we have to deal with, there is too much,” I started slowly, surprised at the depths and clarity of my words. I figured in times like this, you also learn how to become a better speaker, or you lose the ability completely, much like Gerard had done. I took another breath, beginning another tangent. “This is too serious –“

“But you are serious, Frank!” Gerard finally snapped his head up, his voice louder than average. He wasn’t yelling at me, just yelling to command my attention. He wasn’t mad, just emotional. And he had me listening now as I was rendered the silent partner. “You are serious. You’ve found what you want to do. You can do this. I’ve seen the pictures, I love the pictures. You can do this. You just have to let yourself.”

His eyes were dead center on me again, making me feel as if I was naked and exposed. I bit my lip, my ears ringing with the harsh praise he had given me. I was never good at taking compliments, especially when I didn’t believe them myself or didn’t want to.

“But… the money…”

“Fuck money. Seriously, Frank. Move on. In society there is such a thing as too much, but you’re forgetting that we hate that society.” He was speaking sharply, but there was a tender tongue in the last statement. His hands were still on the back of the counter, pushing himself off slightly, and making him lean into his words. His hair fell over his eyes in chunks, and he brushed it aside with a head snap.

“This society is horrible,” he started again, no longer worked up. It felt like we had been fighting for hours, when it had really been mere seconds. “But sometimes you have to cross over to the dark side, in order to understand it.” He clucked his tongue, drawing out the suspense to the next point. “And then you can beat it.”

He left his words hanging in the air, like bullets for the metaphorical gun he wanted to use to fight the civilization that had kept us imprisoned for so long. I let them fall into my already open wounds, but instead of hurt me, they only started to heal me.

“There is passion in fighting. There is creativity and vigor and everything you could ever want.”

He began to walk forward, coming closer and closer to me. I was trying to keep eye contact with him, but they were so strong I could practically feel my retinas burning in place. I looked back instead, and saw Vivian, leaning against the counter, completely in awe with Gerard’s words. I felt proud just then; proud that this genius of a man was helping me. I just had to let him help.

Gerard grabbed my hand suddenly, snapping me back into reality. His face was close to mine, our bodies still separated by the thick air in between us, our hands connected as more words fell from his mouth.

“I want you to take this money, but don’t think of it as charity. You were never a charity case. Think of money as a weapon, my contribution to the war on society I have been fighting all along.”

He pulled his hand away from my own, and I felt the distinct crinkle of more money in my hand. And suddenly, things got a lot harder. Before I could have ignored the transition of money because I never saw it, only heard about it. I never knew the exact amount Gerard had spent on the frames, and I never knew how much the down payment was. I could only guess. I didn’t want to guess on amount because it would only make me feel guiltier. Now, I could feel the money, rough against my palm. The paper clung to me, stung me, but I didn’t let it go. Gerard was giving me ammunition, to fight this. I had to keep going, even if it hurt inside a little. That was what war was about. I wondered if Gerard was still a soldier.

“Did you ever win your battle?”

I had closed my eyes, feeling the burn in my palm, but now I cracked a lid, just one, to watch the man that was still in front of me. He was no longer in contact with my flesh, but a few feet away, his aura radiating around us.

“No,” he answered legitimately. His face was cool and calm, but it still made my heart sink in my chest.

“What makes you think I can, then?”

“What makes you think you can’t?”

I opened my eyes fully then, never seeing things the way he had shoved them in my face before. He cocked his head to the side, a smile brimming on his face when he realized he had finally struck home. He walked back over to Vivian, who was still in awe, and began to capture the slides of life inside frames again. He turned his back on me to work, but I could see feel his smile, his aura, and most of all his war on my side of the room.

All of this time I had only thought of failure. I never thought of the successful nature, of actually winning the battle. Perhaps my thoughts were angled that way because I thought it would never happen, or because I didn’t want it too. When you were used to something, no matter how bad, change from routine was still a frightening thing. Winning would mean I had done something good, something well – and most of all, that I was growing. I didn’t want to grow away from Gerard, but I realized that if I didn’t fight, there would be no chance of winning at all. Gerard hadn’t won the battle of society yet – hell, his first show he didn’t even sell a single painting. But he was still fighting, still alive and kicking. He was passing his gun on to me, showing me that I could still fight, despite my lack of training. He was going to watch from the sidelines, coming up from behind when needed. I thought it had been only me alone in the battle, only myself in No-Man’s Land, but I was wrong. He was putting a lot more faith in me than I was putting in myself. Maybe Gerard could see something I was blind to. I recalled his views on the artist’s opinion of their own work – it was invalid. They were too close to it; they couldn’t see it for what it was really worth. He had been right about that, he was right about a lot of things. Maybe he was right about this.

I took a deep breath, and nodded to him, letting him know I accepted the battle cry. I didn’t know how to fight right yet, but I was leaning a lot that day, whether he wanted to teach me or not. I sat at the table again, my thoughts pooling over my work. Even if Gerard was wrong about this, I still had to fight. This was even more serious than it ever had been before; there was money, a lot of money placed in my work now. I had to do the best I could.

As I sat at the table, finishing up naming the photos I had at my disposable, I hit the pile that could make or break everything. Just touching the black and white finish of the pictures that were Gerard and I together, naked, panting, and everything all at once made my skin shiver with anticipation. I wasn’t entirely sure why I had brought a few of the better photos of us together out on the table; there was no way I was going to use them in the show. I couldn’t use them. They were us together, something we were supposed to be denying, something we were supposed to be fighting in the society’s eye. But I still didn’t stop myself from looking at them, just to look. I didn’t have to use them, but I needed time to absorb what I had captured without the harsh glow of the darkroom.

I touched the picture delicately with my fingers, a smile beaming on my face as I saw Gerard’s eye look into the camera. He looked so happy there, even if he wasn’t smiling. I could see the contentment in his eyes, the way the lids drooped half-way down, his mouth relaxed and flat. There was this utter calmness in his gaze, so much so I wanted to reach out and touch him in the picture, to put myself back inside the moment. I forgot exactly when the picture was taken we had taken so many, but in the dark shades I could make out Gerard’s face, slightly angled to the side, chin and nose pointed down. He was naked, I could tell by the creamy white color that matched his face flowing down the picture. The velvety flow of skin stopped halfway, a darker shade being presented. I didn’t know what the darker shade was at first; the camera had been held at an odd angle, pointing down on him, and it was slightly blurry and dark. The more I looked, flipping the picture upside down at one point, the more it began to make sense. I was looking at Gerard right before he drifted off to sleep. But it wasn’t just that; the darker shade on his body was my head on his chest, completely asleep with him. I smiled, realizing that he had taken the picture long after I had been unconscious. He had probably wanted to preserve the memory and to see the truth in the action we had committed. He had done this all on his own, moments before drifting into slumber himself.

I was beaming inside. I didn’t feel like I was looking at myself, I felt like I was looking at two characters from a book or movie. And they were in love. I could see the love, the gratification with each other, and it made my heart swell. I sat there for the longest time, just looking at this picture and not believing that I was in it. I couldn’t believe that I was with the alluring man who was half-asleep himself. I became so engrossed with the picture itself, I almost didn’t even realize when that same alluring artist sat down beside me, cigarette in tow.

“Hello,” he greeted. His voice was raspy from the initial inhalation of the smoke. He placed his elbows on the table, the cigarette poised in his two fingers as he blew smoke out of his mouth, his lips curled.

“Hey,” I greeted, nearly jumping out of my skin. It was as if he had leaped from the dreamy quality of the picture and was now transported into the reality beside me. His lids were even half-closed as he sat on the chair, tired and content with the work he had been doing.

Acting on instinct, I placed the picture down in front of me and reached over to take the cigarette from in between Gerard’s fingers. We traded vices, his countenance changing as he poured over the pictures I had spent the last fifteen minutes being enraptured by. I brought the cigarette to my lips, forgetting how fucking wonderful it was to smoke. I hadn’t done the crippling action for awhile by that point, my source being cut off from me when I was at home. My lungs expanded to accommodate the new invader, the nicotine rushed my system, and I had almost totally forgotten how good this felt. I realized that I had probably been more moody and whiny than usual because I hadn’t been smoking. I had been craving more than just Gerard.

I took another deep, long, and expanding drag off of the slim stick, hoping to will away the ill thoughts from the money discussion. I glanced over to Gerard through the smoke I was making, watching as he poured himself over the pictures. He seemed to have forgotten our little discussion already, and was being absorbed into the pictures, some of which he took.

“These are fucking amazing,” he gushed, not looking up as he started to shuffle through the other piles. He reached one of the few images that had major nudity in it, our cocks exposed on the film, and laughed to himself before shuffling through more.

“You’re amazing,” I found myself saying before I even realized it. I took another drag from the cigarette, hoping to disguise my words. Gerard merely nodded to my comment, still in a distant land of black and white skin.

“Are you putting any of these in the show?” he questioned, looking up for the first time. He kept his face close to the photo, but raised an eyebrow to assert the question.

I had been inhaling when he first made the remark, and smoke started to billow out my nose as I coughed at a response. “These?” I flicked my fingers without the cigarette at the photos, my voice still hoarse. “In the show?”

My eyes were wide (and watering from smoke) to begin with, but when Gerard nodded nonchalantly, they grew even more.

“Are you serious?”

He didn’t move or change his countenance, so I went on. “We can’t show these, Gerard.”
“Why not?”

“Because it’s us!” I hissed, taking another drag on the near done cigarette. My words ceased to faze him and he even smiled when I mentioned ‘us’. I smiled in spite of myself, trying to convey my next words. “People can’t know about us. I can’t put these pictures up because we’ll get caught.”

“Not necessarily,” he argued, eyes still on the photos. He left it at that, making me bate him again for more.

“What do you mean?” I played along, keeping one elbow on the table with the cigarette in my hands as my other arm dug through the pictures he was gazing over. I pulled out one of the more graphic ones of us together when I was giving him a blowjob. I didn’t even remember him taking a picture of that one. “We can’t show people this one. They’ll have you arrested. We’ll be giving them the evidence they lacked beforehand.”
I set the picture down slowly, my words falling from my mouth just as fast, eyes locked on the bare flesh. “We barely escaped…”

“I know,” he cooed. His hand slid overtop of the one I kept limp on the table. I looked over at him, his eyes deep and probing. Our heads began to get closer, and I felt his nuzzle the side of me, placing a small kiss in my hair before he began to speak in hushed tones, closer to my ear.

“We don’t have to show them that one. But we need to show them something, Frank. They need to see us. How about this?”

He broke away a little, only to pull out another photo of us together. It wasn’t as risqué as the one prior, but we were still naked. It was just our feet and legs intertwined at the bottom of the bed. You could only see us from the knee down, but you could still tell it was us. Gerard’s legs were hairier than mine, the long willowy black hairs reaching down his thick calves like spiders, whereas my short and stout legs were hairy, but more so covered in a downy fluff. Our legs were almost the same shade in flesh tones. My skin was dark from being half-Italian and tanning easier, while his legs were whiter than the flesh on his face, but a dark hue was added from the masses of lissome hair. I liked the picture. The way our big toes overlapped and touched, playing footsies inside a bed where we had had sex made my heart flutter. The gesture was so innocent and pure, but I could see the alarming implications behind it, which people would see no matter how cute it may have been.

“No,” was all I said to Gerard, my voice still cold and hollow. He placed the picture down on the table with a quiet slap, not giving up.

“You have to take risks for art,” he started, sighing before he began to express more and more. “Art is supposed to make people think, to challenge them.”

“I know,” I said, my voice growing in strength. I knew what he was saying; I had heard it before. I agreed with it. I knew I had to take risks. I wanted to. I was already taking a huge one by having this show and it was actually starting to grow on me. I wanted to show everyone these photos, I really did. But I didn’t want Gerard to be put in jail for it. I expressed my thoughts to him, my hands waving and motioning frantically as my face grimaced under the possible outcome.

“They don’t have to know it’s us,” he stated, placing his hand further up my arm. He slid some of his nubby fingers up my sleeve, touching and petting the tense skin that was there. I looked at him, furrowing my brow. It was clearly obvious that this was us. You could tell by our legs. Even if they didn’t know it was us per se, it was clear that it was two males in bed, and they weren’t wearing pants. Since it was from the knee down however, one could argue that we were wearing shorts. Even then people would still assume it was something worse than what it really was. People knew the rumors about me and him. Most people in Jersey were smart enough that they could piece two and two together.

I gave him a confused look, making him follow through with more of his thoughts.

“An image can only take you so far,” he began, getting into another one of his philosophical speeches, only this time, unlike all the others, he didn’t go over zealous with his hand movements, his words, or his tone. He kept his hand on me, stroking me with his thumb to calm me down, and talking to me close to my face in hushed tones. It was so much more intimate, so much better. He wasn’t teaching me then. He was talking to me. We were becoming on an equal playing field.

“An image is just an image, you can put it on the wall, but that doesn’t mean people are going to see it for what it’s really worth,” he started, regurgitating knowledge I could have sworn I already knew. But he kept talking, adding another twist to things. “Some people may walk by and see nothing in this photo. They may not see the good, or the bad. They’ll just keep walking. Remember the discussion we had about the different types of people viewing art?“

I smiled, and he got the recognition he needed to keep going.

“There are ones and there are twos. The ones will keep walking past, not considering it anything special. It’s just a photo to them, just an image. For once, they are the people you need in this kind of situation. They don’t think anything into this. They won’t make up stories to fit their definition. They just won’t care.

“However, we are going to be in an art gallery. It’s going to be filled with number twos. This is where people like them thrive. It’s a new artist exhibit – meaning its new material to work with. New people to critique, and though I hate to say it, judge as well. It is those nasty number twos you have to watch for. They’ll place meaning where they may be nothing, or everything to hide.” Gerard grew somber, taking in a breath. He pulled apart from me slightly, enough so I could look at him, begging for more.

“So, what do we do?” I asked, playing into my foregone naivety. Gerard’s eyes danced like fire with my question, and he practically leaped into me as he breathed the answer.

“You have to give it meaning. You can never fully control a number two – that’s the point and the beauty of them. But, you can give them direction of where to go for their meaning. It doesn’t stop them, but it limits their destruction. It limits the number ones interpretation too, if they ever decide to make one. This is where your title comes in. If people don’t get it, they’ll look for something they can understand elsewhere. If you label this something negative, they’ll see something negative. Name it something positive, they’ll fight their hardest to see that. Titles mean more than the actual work it self on some occasions, and you, Frank, you have control over that.” He brought his lips away from the side of my face, looking at me directly. He clucked his tongue, finding the right words for himself while I furrowed my brow.

“The camera may be able to show people the truth, but the human existence as a whole lies constantly. It is a lie itself. A crack in a looking glass, unable to see their own faults. Titles are important, Frank. You need to use your power to show people what this really is because for the life of them, they will never see it without your help.”

His words resonated with finality, and his hands squeezed my shoulder, making his words sink in. He backed away from me slowly, leaving the photo in his wake. His words still rattled around in my brain, and without him invading my space, I felt empty. I felt shocked, the bits of light from the bay window hitting my skin. It felt like I wasn’t wearing clothing, and I had never been exposed to such harsh rays. I was a new born in his apartment all over again. I suddenly had so much more power than I had when being incubated inside a metaphorical womb. I was breaking free, but instead of going slow in my growth, I was exploding. I was running before I was walking, I was yelling before speaking, and I was saving other people before I saved myself. And this was just about titles. God, I didn’t know what to do. I had ideas, but I didn’t know if they were good enough to save something.

I bit my lip, thinking hard. I knew what I could name the photo – Innocence. There was nothing sexual at all about the action we were doing. It was just a casual game of footsies, fun and lighthearted. As far as everyone else was concerned, this was just me and my art teacher in that photo; nothing had to be sexual. He was my friend and friends got close. It didn’t have to be anything bad if I didn’t want it to be. I could name in innocence… but something held me back. There was still something in the back of my mind, yelling at me, screaming at me to not do this. But there was also Gerard’s voice, still a cadence echoing inside myself. There were too many voices, too many directions, and I had just gotten my hearing.

“Some risks are too big, Gerard,” I told him, picking up some thought inside my head.

“Nothing is too big, nothing is too much.” He was back over to me, gripping my wrist firmly. I had no idea when he had arrived. He made me make eye contact, and I saw the battle field we had talked about only moments earlier in his eyes. As he talked, I saw bombs going off.

“Remember, you need to fight, Frank. This is a war. This is a weapon. This is a giant fuck you. Never apologize for your art. Never, ever.”

He pronounced the words individually, giving each of them their own separate entity. He was so malignant I felt my insides quake and tremble with them. When I was shaken, my boundaries were broken, and I was left a crater to soak up what I had not understood before. I knew what he was talking about, finally. I knew those words he was using, flicking and throwing them at me like bombs. I had already made a giant fuck you statement. I remembered nailing my shirt on my bedroom door, showing that a paint stain could be art and could change someone’s life. That shirt, stains and ruined, was still on my door. My mother had wanted it off, but it had stayed. It stayed with me wherever I went because in that moment the paint hit my skin, my life had been altered. It was changed, and I had to nail it on my door for everyone to see. That had been my giant fuck you statement then. But I soon began to comprehend that I needed another one. I couldn’t drag my bedroom door in from home. It didn’t have a place in an art museum as my display. It still held onto so many childhood and teenage notions, clung and clumped together by the azure marking. I needed something new because I was new. I needed to have a picture to represent everything I had become.

Gerard’s eyes flickered as he saw the understanding in my own. He gave me a half smile, half sneer directed at the world. He was smart; he was getting at something inside of me, picking away at it until it fell down. When you crash, sometimes you make the best art.
“What do you say?” he questioned. I looked at him, locking eyes and a challenging smile coming across my own mouth.

“I don’t want to use that picture,” I enunciated. I watched as he eyebrows fell, his expression clearly confusion. I was glad we had switched roles, if only for a second, as I grabbed another photo and held it up.

“I want to use this one,” I stated, shoving the black and white object towards him. He took it, and studied it wholly, his eyes and hands tracing the page over several times before he looked up at me and smiled.

“It works.” He slid the photo over to me, and I added it to the final pile.
“What are you going to call it?” he asked moments later, when I touched my pen to the label. I paused, realizing I had never exactly thought that part through just yet. I had been too excited to find an image I could change something with. Say fuck you with.

I looked down at the photo, seeing it completely for the first time. It was a picture of our hands, clasped together and frozen in the moment. We were linked together and clinging onto something that we could have, but were never allowed to. Gerard’s much larger hand was over my own and his age spot, the one that when discovered had rendered fear through my small body, clearly visible on his skin. I touched the spot on the photo, relishing in its memory, in its presence. I had nearly forgotten about that spot, that marker of his age. It was as if it had disintegrated off his body once I was able to accept his age completely. It was a mere factor of Gerard, like his pointy nose and his small sharp incisors that I had grown to love just as much as the man who embodied them. I looked at both of our hands there, meshed together, and I thought about so many things.

Hands told the story of what a person was passionate about, what a person was supposed to do with their lives. As I squinted hard, I saw the worn spots on both of ours that told us our purpose. I remembered one other thing Vivian had told me that day she informed me of my passion; Gerard and my hands were meant to be together. I had never fully grasped what she had meant, and always wrote it off as Vivian being her encouraging self. The last time we fought, I had seen what she meant. In black and white though, I could see what she herself saw. I was outside the image now, looking down on it in a captured frame, and I saw it completely. Gerard and our hand’s just fit. They filled the entire page, no other background. Just us; just, just human flesh, just love. Vivian could tell that there was something special about us since day one because of our hands that we took for granted. We saw them every day. We used them every day. How we were supposed to tell that the flaws against my palms, the lines and ridges, flowed together perfectly with Gerard’s?

I realized as I furthered my study that this photo, much like the leg one, could have horrible implications. But suddenly, I didn’t care. People could hold hands without it meaning anything. It showed a bond, a connection, something that Gerard and I had. Whether we had that as art student and teacher or as lovers, it didn’t matter. Looking back, Gerard and I had been connected even before we physically connected ourselves. Just from our art lessons, the way we talked with each other, and everything about us there – it was something special. Something I had no idea about, and had to smoke to forget. I didn’t end up forgetting, and that was what this picture was all about. Maybe, if people could just see our hands together and nothing else, they would get that. They wouldn’t see age differences, homosexuality, or a crime. They would see two hands, together as one being, as one person, connected. They would see just love. Not how much, not what kind. Just love.

And then I knew what to call the photo.

“Love,” I told Gerard, nodding my head as I brought the marker to the label. “I’m calling this one Love.”

I could feel Gerard smile, though my attention was gathered on the photo before me. The chair he had been on creaked from lack of weight as he got up and began to move towards me. He placed a kiss on my forehead, but pressed in a little harder than usual. It felt strong, sturdy, and I almost wished it had been on my lips so I could have returned the affection to him. He walked away too soon, finishing the rest of his framing work. When I was done writing the fine four letter word, I held it in front of me and looked down at it. I never knew a word so small could have so many meanings, all wrapped up into one picture.

Somehow, it seemed fitting.

At first, when Vivian brought back some more rolls of film, I had no idea why. I was already done taking pictures – I certainly had enough to fill a whole gallery by myself, and I was only going to get a little corner where I could display a mere fraction of what I had. People would get an idea of what I was all about, and if they wanted more, or if other people wanted to have me host another gallery, they would contact me. I had no contact information, but Gerard, again was going to be supplying that. It was like I lived in his house already, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to have people call there. I doubted anyone would call, but I needed to take the initiative just in case. Regardless though, I had no idea why Vivian had to rush out and buy me film on the day of, especially when I was already over the count I needed to have by ten. And it wasn’t like I would be having much time to sit and take pictures – I had a feeling we were going to be running very late. I knew I would eventually need more film, but I could have bought that myself way later on. I didn’t know why she needed to take Gerard’s money and do it right that very instant.

“Inspiration can strike you at any time, Frank,” she informed me when I had asked her without words, just by showing my confused countenance. I nodded my head slowly, hearing the expression many times before, but not totally getting it.

It was true, that when I first got my camera, fucking everything was inspiring me. I saw a piece of garbage, I took a picture. I saw a bird, I took a picture. It was clear that everything around me was inspiring just from the numerous amounts of photos that had been stacked around Gerard’s place. But that was when I had first gotten the camera, and I figured everything had just been pent up, and I was releasing it all. I was a starving child then, and I wanted to eat as much as I could until my belly was swollen and I was satisfied. It was only until Vivian made me put the film in the camera again that I realized that with art, you can never be full. It is an insatiable desire within you, and something I was not accustomed to. When I played guitar or painted, even when I wrote something every once in awhile, I had not had the urge to do it, really. I was just bored and needed something to amuse my time, or release aggression within me. If I had bypassed it for another day or two, I would have been perfectly fine. I wouldn’t have starved, and I hadn’t been that hungry to begin with. It was not a survival instinct in me. I did not get thirsty or hungry for it, and most of all, I did not experience any kind of satiety. Gerard had always talked about his art, especially during our lessons, and how he craved it some days. If he went even a day without painting, he would start to go a little loopy. I remembered looking at him, and thinking ‘only a little?’ He was already pretty weird to begin with; I couldn’t fathom that it got worse when he didn’t paint.

I thought back to a few nights ago, when Gerard was just a silhouette against his bay window. He had not been painting the entire time I had been gone. He was loopy then. He wasn’t himself. He was a dark pit of emotion, because he hadn’t been splattering it out all over the page. Painting was like eating, breathing, and even sleeping for him. It was a need, a raw urge, and it was imperative that he listen to his body, his soul. If he didn’t listen, his health, physical and most of all mental began to suffer. His soul was restless then, wanting to escape and leap into those paint cans just to bring back some vibrant colour into his veins.

Weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to unless his desolation. I wouldn’t have been able to comprehend how not painting could literally kill someone. But, I wasn’t supposed to understand it. I couldn’t weeks ago, before I had my camera. It was impossible because I had never experienced it before. How were you supposed to miss something when it was never there, taking up a place inside yourself? When my camera was placed into my hands however, something inside of me clicked. There was more than just an initial surge of alarming emotions when I first started. It was about more than going crazy from extreme lack of creativity; my body was telling me it was hungry and my soul was telling me it wanted more.

Thankfully, Vivian understood that. She had been around Gerard long enough to realize that we all got a little cranky when our art was tampered with. I had not stopped to take a break from photography since I had first started, so I had no idea how I was supposed to act. I was preparing for my show, and though it was still related to my art, it wasn’t my art itself. I was irritable because I hadn’t been creative in awhile. It had never even occurred to me that taking pictures would make me feel better about the pictures I had already taken. It seemed redundant almost, but when Vivian passed over the camera, inspiration flowed through me, and began to strike at any moment in time.

I walked around the apartment, taking pictures of all the things I had missed before. I had not taken pictures of the apartment itself before; just the man inside it, and even those pictures were in a limited capacity. I needed to capture the rest of our story, told in the paint smears and smudges lying around this home we shared. I took a picture of the putrid orange couch, like rotting pumpkin. I had no idea why Gerard kept the ugly thing around, and even though it was fucking ugly, I never wanted him to get rid of it. I associated the couch with so many things; Gerard sleeping through our first lessons, finding a naked Vivian there and finally, the other times we had had sex together, the thick fabric brushing against my back as Gerard thrust into me. The couch made Gerard’s apartment what it was, along with the mural, which was my next focus. The accidental painting of a dove was still there, and I had to back up across the apartment to take it all in. I captured the corner of the black door in my focus and moved closer to acquire the most important thing in my lens. I snapped one solid picture of my yellow handprint and the small script beneath it. It looked pristine, like it had been done just the day before, never an inch of it added. And hopefully, it never would in time.

I breathed soundly, taking in as much oxygen as I could. I felt better when the camera was in my hands, the anxiety of what would happen in the next few hours hovering over my body. It was possible that I could either save the world, or let it keep falling with my photos, but as I took my camera, my gun, and fired without warning, I felt like I was the victor.

Moving along from the furniture and housing that embodied all that I loved, I went to things that had a heartbeat and made both me and Gerard not feel so alone. I spotted the dove sitting happily on her cage. She had this calm and austere demeanor about her, still adjusting from coming back home earlier that morning. She raised her wings high in the air, not to fly, but to merely prepare herself. She dipped her head in between each one of the feathers, cleaning herself as she cooed. I took as many pictures as I could with her head and wings high, preparing to take off. She bobbed her head and looked at me, almost posing for my camera. I wondered what I would see when I developed her; what the truth behind the lens for her would be. I thought back to my aspirations of being a dove, how beautiful she looked doing the simplest of things. She took off soon after a few too many clicks of my camera. Though she wasn’t reluctant to show off, she was being a diva in the amount of time I was allowed to study her. I let my camera become a dead weight in my hand, placing my arm down at my side. I decided I would watch and appreciate, instead of letting the camera capture everything I was supposed to be enjoying myself.

She began to fly around the room, and I felt my heart leap out of my chest and fly with her. I still couldn’t believe she was back, and moreover, I couldn’t believe Gerard had given me her. She was mine now, my dove, my freedom. I could do what I wanted with her. I wasn’t sure what I wanted that to be just yet, but as I watched her circle the room, coos getting louder by the second (or maybe I was getting more sensitive) I knew I wanted her to fly. Whether it was inside the apartment for the rest of her life, or outside again, I wasn’t entirely sure yet. Just like Gerard, I didn’t want to let go too soon.

I wasn’t sure how long I watched her, but I eventually tore my eyes away. It hurt only a little, but I knew I would be back. I looked down at my camera, mentally calculating how many pictures I figured I had left. I was never too good at math, and it was only a matter of seconds before I was distracted by something out of the corner of my eye. It was Gerard. He was back at the kitchen table, yet another smoke in his hand, taking his break. I had finished the cigarette before, so he had not gotten his entire nicotine kick out yet. I was still across the apartment, but I could already smell the smoke, and I felt myself becoming more and more drawn to him. I felt another craving inside of me, like something was gnawing away at the inside of my gut. For once, though, it was not for nicotine, or food, or anything I could hold inside my hands. It was for something intangible, something I couldn’t hold, but something I could capture. The camera began to feel warm in my hands, and I moved closer. Vivian’s words hit me again, just like the sensation I was feeling.

Inspiration.

Something about Gerard just then drew me to him. He was sitting at the table causally, taking a break from his work. We were nearly done, all of my photos picked out and labeled, the framing process not too far behind. We had been working non-stop since we had first started, either on photos or on ourselves, and I had sort of declared a mini-break as I begun to snap picture after picture. Vivian had left to check some final stuff at the gallery, leaving me to dwell upon a muse and Gerard to smoke. His feet were kicked out far under the table, crossed over at his ankles. His elbows were on the table, his eyes wandering around haphazardly through the pictures that were picked, but not going to be used into the display, barring space. The cigarette dangled carelessly out of his two fingers, the smoke clung around him in rings, making halos for his entire body. His face looked chubbier than usual, probably from his leaning forward and tired countenance, but it also made him look more cherub-like. More innocent.

I had seen Gerard smoke many, many times before – even studied it as an art – but there was something about this time that stuck out in my mind. The way he was sitting, the utter nonchalance and grace to it, the way he held the stick carefully between his fingers – all of it was alluring, appealing, and something else I couldn’t form words to find. The stick was so dirty, so cancerous, and yet he held like a baby, as if it could break at any moment, instead of breaking him. He blew the smoke out around him so carelessly that he made art again. It was so simple, and yet the utter mechanics of it kept him alive.

I began to remove myself from the situation and just saw it for what it was really worth in my mind. He was blowing out smoke, art, like it was oxygen. Gerard breathed art. He needed it, like I needed photography. When his gaze wandered over and met me, he didn’t move, didn’t faltered. He just kept breathing. He acted like it was no big deal. He was doing what he did best, and fuck, he did it well. I stepped closer and closer to him, trying not to make a sound on the hardwood floor, and I was overcome by another memory, another sensation that I had long forgotten about. It was when he smoked that Gerard looked his most dangerous. He oozed that danger from his every pore, with the way his raven hair was tousled loosely, his dark clothing clinging tightly to his body like a second skin. The first top buttons were even undone on his shirt, exposing a creamy white chest that I should not have been seeing. He looked even more dangerous in that infinite moment than he ever had before because I knew I had kissed that chest. I had touched that skin and I had seen the man with the cigarette without any clothing, without any barriers. That was what the cigarette was too - a barrier. He was using that, protecting himself with the clouds and clouds of smoke so the society or whoever couldn’t touch him. He was dangerous to them, but the way he held the cigarette so delicately told a different story. The cigarette itself may have been dangerous, but just because you’re given a gun does not mean you’re going to shoot someone. Gerard did many dangerous things, like smoke and fuck someone underage, but he wasn’t a dangerous man. He was just a man. An artist. And as I finally stood before him at the other end of the table, and he sucked back on the slim stick, his cheeks hollowing and revealing his rigid cheek bone, I realized he was a lover as well. My lover.

“Gerard,” I called quietly, the camera like a dead weight in my hands by my side. He looked up at me, seeing me for the first time in those rings of smoke like I was with him. He gave me a lop-sided grin, his lids causally half-way down his eyes.

“Yes?” he asked, taking another drag of his cigarette and blowing it out the side of his mouth. His fingers flexed ever so delicately on the stick, almost as if he was afraid I would ask to have another drag, taking away his only sense of security.

“I want to take your picture,” I told him, straight up. There was something about him in that moment, something about the way he sat, the way he carried himself that inspired me. I needed to take his picture. All of the time I had known him, I had never seen him like that. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The way he was right then was the way I saw him. I saw the artist, the lover, the criminal, the teacher, and the friend all wrapped into one being, all of the traits exposed the surface. I had wanted to capture this part of Gerard for as long as I had known him. I had tried to paint his image, to capture it in some for or another, but failed. And I knew Gerard would never paint himself – he had told me he didn’t want to know how people interpreted him, or how he interpreted himself. I realized that more than ever now, he didn’t want people to see the real him. It involved too many nasty and ugly details that weren’t part of the person he wanted to reflect. The real him involved me, it involved loving someone who was well under age. It involved being a criminal. But in art, there were no crimes, because there were no rules.

I needed a picture to show this.

I held the camera in front of me, hiding my own eye behind the lens, not waiting for his response. He nodded his head anyway, in agreement, sensing that I was on to something. He waited for me to move, for me to respond with something, but I didn’t move. His arm that held the cigarette casually drew down at an angle to knock the ashes off the tip, and I still didn’t budge. I didn’t like the picture I was about to take; something was off. He was still sitting down, unmoving from his position – and that was fine. I didn’t want him to move. He had to stay grounded; like a rock. He had never moved or changed since I met him. I was the one who had changed; he let me into the smoke circles and I was able to find myself while I found him. I needed to go in there again.

I moved closer to him, Gerard not flinching, just easing into the action. But even once I was closer to him, inside the ring he had made for himself and me, I still felt like something was off. I still needed to change, and that was when it hit me. I got down on m

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 556