He’s rolling out a row of sacks, all clipped together with plastic zip ties, and I go to help him. Each row is tagged with a letter, and we line them up in alphabetical order. Then he hands me a bunch of ties.
“It was too bulky to attach them all beforehand. This seemed the best solution,” he explains as he starts attaching each row to the one below it through grommeted holes. I look at the art. It’s amazing. Love is love, but on a grand scale. A heart made up of all the graphics arranged together, takes shape as we attach all the sacks. The dye shifts color in a gradient rainbow pattern. It’s going to look fucking amazing.
“Too bad it won’t be able to be lit up by the totem.”
“I know. I wanted to get it up here sooner, but…I don’t know. Nothing quite works out the way you want it to, ever. I like the idea, too, of bringing it out into the light. Like love is more than a nighttime shameful thing. And then again, like what you did, whistle-blowing.”
Ha. It’s not quite the same. I tell him, “Sometimes bringing something into the light only shows you how filthy it really is. What you’re doing is different. Noble.”
He snorts like he disagrees. “Shit. Putting truth out there—doesn’t matter which kind—you only do it hoping to make the world a better place.”
I get into a rhythm with the ties, kind of amazed at the undertaking. “How long did it take you to get this ready?”
“Months,” he says. “I just hope…I hope it stays up long enough to make a statement. It’ll be easy to take down, but I didn’t want to damage anything. Not the museum.”
I wait. He’d promised the explanation, but he’s in some kind of zone, working.
“You were gonna tell me how you got started,” I remind him.
He looks up. “Oh, yeah. Well, it goes back a bit. A few years ago, my family took my kid sister to Harry Potter World for her eleventh birthday. Like a rite of passage, you know. Have you been?”
I nod. I have. So fun.
He grins knowingly and continues, “Even though I was like, eighteen, I still felt the magic of it. But for me, one of the highlights wasn’t in the park. We were at the hotel, hanging out in the pool. I was watching my sister come down the waterslide, over and over again, basking in the sun while she laughed and ran back for more, but I looked over and I saw this couple. Two guys. And they were like in love, you know? Like, standing in the water, with eyes only for each other. Staring at each other, touching each other’s faces, kissing briefly. It was gorgeous.”
I can imagine it: the bright blue pool, baking sun overhead. Two attractive men, caressing each other in the water. In my mind, they fuck each other with their eyes.
Troy speaks again. “I mean, it wasn’t…how can I say this? It wasn’t erotic in the basic sense. Not salacious. They weren’t doing anything scandalous. Just touching each other. Looking. It was beautiful. It was romantic. Breathtaking. Everything.”
“Were you out at the time? Do your parents…?”
He waves his hand like it’s no big deal. “My parents are cool. I’ve known for like, forever that I’m not straight. But the thing that was awesome was no one in the pool seemed to give a shit. Nobody really noticed these two guys. Everybody just let them be. And I thought…”
He pauses and shakes his head. His voice, when he speaks again, breaks with emotion. “I thought…that was the future. I thought, holy fuck, someday I can do that, fall in love, get married, just be in love like everybody else. Not have being in love be an issue, you know? I mean, it was happening, right? And then…”
I know. I fill it in for him, “The election.”
He blows out a breath and crouches down among his vibrant grain sacks. “It scared the shit out of me. So many people, voting for that guy. It was like a slap. ‘Hey, Troy, you mighta thought it was getting better but there’s still a whole helluva lot of people out there who don’t want your kind in their country. Who think your existence is a moral wrong. That the way you love, who you love is not right, and that you’re scary and bad and shouldn’t be allowed to love the way you love.’ It sucks. So bad.”
“I know,” I say it out loud this time. “It’s like an extra stress I carry around all the time now. A fear. On top of all the other shit that normal life throws at us.”
“I hate it. I couldn’t figure it out. Why? Why shouldn’t love of any kind be okay? Why would anyone be against that? So, I started doodling. Then I worked to make the doodles better. One of my friends saw them and was like, ‘You should make stickers.’ So I started doing it guerilla-style, putting them around. My friends helped. I went a little bigger—posters, stuff like that—but it felt like not enough.”
I smile. “So you started planning this.”
“Yeah. I still don’t know if it’s worth it. But it feels like I’m doing something anyway.”
“It’s awesome.”
He shrugs, but I know it means something to him. It’s important.
We work on in silence, until finally all the panels are connected. The end result is sublime. I can’t wait to see it on the wall. Troy’s excitement is infectious, but when we finish, it’s well past midnight, and I’ve been up since six. I yawn, unable to help myself. He arranges it properly so when the time comes, it’ll be easy to toss it over the wall. We roll it all up against the base, and he lashes the top end of it to the inside edge of the wall. It creates a little tent-like space along the roof line. He crawls underneath, dragging the backpack with the food and one last bundle. “Come on in,” he says, popping out again.
I follow him in on hands and knees. The totem has long since shut down. He turns on a little tiny fake lantern, and the light glows golden, dim and soft, but reflecting the vivid color of the dyed sacks above. It’s like a womb, snug and cozy. He opens the food and a thermos. The smell of hot tea fills the air.
“Tea?” I’m surprised. I guess I expected liquor.
“I like it better than coffee. Do you mind?”
I don’t. He’s so sweet. So focused. It’s like the idea of alcohol never entered his brain.
The other bundle is a sleeping bag, synthetically orange.
“I only have one. Didn’t know I’d have company,” he says. The words lie hot between us.
“I don’t mind that either,” I say, after a second, swallowing hard.
He sits back against the wall and pats a spot next to him. I settle on the silky fabric. He offers me a baguette, and I tear off a piece, reminded that I haven’t eaten. The tea is warm and sweet. Despite all the excitement, despite enjoying the contact of my shoulder to his, I get sleepy. “You’re tired,” he says.
“Long day.” I take a risk and put my head on his shoulder. It feels natural and profoundly odd at the same time. I just met this guy. Why does this feel so normal?
He scoots off the bag, and so do I. He unzips it and crawls inside, lying down. I stretch out next to him, and he pushes up on an elbow, looking at me in the dim light.
I’m so tired. “Did you drug me?” I say, sort of a joke.
“Fuck, no. We were both drinking the same thing, weren’t we?” His Indiana accent sounds strong right then. Musical. Drainkin’. “I wouldn’t do that to you, to anybody. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
I believe him.
“Kiss me again,” I say. He does, whisper soft, and I drift, feeling him all along me, feeling safe.
4
I wake later in darkness, disoriented, the way you do in a strange hotel room, when you’ve forgotten where you are. Why you’re there. Who you are.
I can’t see, but it snaps back to me. Troy. The roof. I’m freezing, and I shiver.
Troy’s hand tightens on me, and I feel him swimming to wakefulness, his body shifting along mine. He swears softly, “Fuck, it’s cold. I’m glad you’re here.” He feels nice, secure…certain. Something to count on.
I’m overcome. I need air. Crawling from the tent, I inhale and stretch, everything stiff. He follows, standing warm and strong behind me, nestling his chin on
my shoulder. I like his heat, his strength, his height. His arms are around me, his hands on my hips and I yearn for more. “Is this okay? Do you want to?” I hear him whisper. Oh, shit, could he be more perfect? My head nods, but he still waits for me to say it out loud. I can feel his breath on my neck and I shiver again and not from the chill in the air.
“Yes,” I breathe. This and more, please. I am not too proud to beg, if it comes down to it. He puts his lips on my jaw. Drags them down along my throat, turns me around in his arms. Walks me slowly and gently back to the wall and drops down, unbuckling my belt. I let him. I’m not cold anymore.
“Sing for me,” he says.
I am. My body is. God, it feels good. His lips paint me, outlining me, defining me. I’m throbbing for him. I let him take me in his mouth, let him make me lose control, my breathing shallow and rapid.
After, we lie on the sleeping bag again, enveloped by his art. It’s dreamlike. We don’t speak. I kiss him, my lips rough on him, and I make him sing too. I hear it in the soft, urgent sounds he makes, the breaths, the moans. The way his fingers sketch me, still. I feel it in the way his body arches to mine, the way his skin vibrates at my touch. I know it in the way he gives in, gives over, subsides sweetly in my arms.
Then I lie there, holding him, for a long time. Did this really happen? Am I really here? It feels like something of a fantasia. Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m Oberon. There’s magic. The bone-deep fear in me ebbs away.
The next time I wake, I have the sense of light coming. The expectation of it before you see it. The way birds feel it and start singing.
I rise again, crawling out to greet the dawn. Behind me, I hear Troy rolling the sleeping bag up, tucking everything into nice bundles once more.
I glance back as he emerges and our eyes meet. I breathe deeply. His breath catches.
It’s real. This is real.
Below us, campus is dark, quiet. Nothing and nobody.
Just me and Troy and his art. He stands beside me. I feel his nervousness. I remember his words in the night.
I start to sing.
It’s Vivaldi, a piece I know well, my voice ringing pure, joining the dawn chorus. My voice teacher would murder me for singing like this, with no warm-up. But I have to.
I sing it with what’s in me, hands loose at my sides, until I forget anyone is watching, listening.
I can’t explain what it means to me. How it feels so right to do it. All the craft I’ve put into my performances, it’s all there so that when I want to, this sound can come out of me. Can speak for me in words most people don’t understand. Can speak for me when I don’t have the words to say what I feel. I don’t think about how to do it, I just do. I just feel.
I just sing.
When I finish, I look to Troy. He’s crying. Honest tears slip down his cheeks.
“What’s the point?” he says, gesturing at the dark empty street below, gesturing back at his waiting banner. “I do this. You do that. What is the point if no one hears? If no one sees?”
I grab his shoulders. “You heard. I saw.”
“Is it enough?” Right then, he’s broken, but I don’t know how badly. It could be this precipice moment or the crazy night we’ve had. Or it could be something deeper. He knows my story. Some of it. But I realize I don’t know his. Not yet.
“I think so,” I answer. But I don’t know for sure.
He crouches down below the roof parapet. “What if it’s all bullshit?”
“It’s not,” I insist, kneeling next to him. It’s the same truth as always, the deep down one. “It can’t be. You have it right. Love is love. It’s all we can do…love each other., all of us, everyone. It’s all that matters. It’s the only way things change.”
“What if they don’t? How can you be so optimistic? Even tonight you were hassled—threatened—by small-minded people unwilling to give up whatever they believe, unwilling to look around and see your beauty. Anyone’s, who isn’t like them. I should be doing more. I’m not lobbying or anything, campaigning…doing the important stuff.”
“Don’t be dumb. You’re making art. Art can change the world.”
He makes a scoffing sound, a tortured kind of laugh.
I go on. “I know it sounds stupid and naive, but I really believe it. I try to. I have to. Small things, passion, art, it speaks to people, even if they don’t know they’re listening. You think you’re not fighting because you’re not marching in the streets? Why are you crying?”
“When you sing, how beautiful you are when you do it…It hurts my heart,” he grinds out. “God, I sound like an idiot.”
I clasp him to me. “No, you don’t. You sound like a human being. A human being who can be inspired. If Vivaldi moves you that way, how do you think…what do you think someone will feel when they cross campus this morning and see this?” I fling an arm toward his quiescent art.
“Oh, God, I don’t know.” His lonely voice is desperate. “Maybe I’m crazy to think it’ll mean anything. Maybe I think too much of myself.”
Now my heart hurts. “Doubt only means you’re taking a risk. You’re alive. You’re doing something.” I shake his shoulders. “Before I even met you, I knew I’d probably love the person who made those stickers. Seeing them would lift my spirits. Not a joke.”
He flings me a tiny grateful smile, before it turns rueful. “But I’m still hiding. Hiding the real me.”
“Not from me. When you’re ready, the world can know too.”
Things start to go cobalt with the coming dawn. He scrubs his cheeks. He looks too young for a second. It seems unfair for someone so lovely to be in any pain. I kiss him again. Again and again and again. Until my knees start to ache from kneeling there.
“You should be careful,” he says when kissing subsides into just holding each other. Just hanging on.
“Why?”
“People could fall in love with you.”
Something blooms in my heart. “What if I want them to?”
He shakes his head and rises from his crouch.
“We doing this?” I say as he helps me up.
He nods.
We take our places on opposite ends of the banner. I feel like I’m on a diving board, waiting to jump. We unfurl it over the edge, listening to the satisfying thump as it rolls down, the bottom weighted to hold it steady. The first glow of true dawn lets us see its many pieces ripple and flutter in the warm spring breeze. It’s as if it’s vibrating, waiting to be seen, to tell its story to the world.
“Fucking glorious,” I murmur, full of emotion.
He smiles. Also glorious. He grabs any leftover stuff, and we head to the opposite side of the roof, where a knotted rope awaits us. My heart pounds in a new way. Once I leave this roof, will this all become a dream? Will everything be back to the way it was before? Troy puts a hand on the small of my back and his touch reassures me, though nothing has been said between us about what’s going to happen next—today, tomorrow, the rest of the year. We throw the rope over and I go first, hood up, making my careful way down the side of the building. Then he comes after and I don’t breathe until we are both safely on the ground.
We get in his car, laughing in giddy relief, and he drives it away from the scene of the crime. “Anywhere you need to be?” he asks.
My phone dings and I look down, away from his stunning eyes. It’s a text from my friend that says Check it. This is amazing. And there’s a photo, Troy’s piece shockingly bold on the art museum wall as sunrise hits it.
“Holy shit,” I swear and hand him the phone, hearing his indrawn breath. “I want to see it,” I say quickly. “I want to see it from the ground. Walk with me?”
He parks his car somewhere, and we stroll together, joining the crowd staring at the banner. Pairs of all kinds are kissing with abandon in front of it, their friends taking photos with the banner as a backdrop. My phone buzzes again and again.
“I think you’re trending,” I say to Troy with a laugh.
“I�
��m gonna fucking get arrested for this,” he says. “They’re gonna find me.”
“People should know you. But I won’t tell. I’ll keep your secret as long as you want.”
We turn to each other and join the other pairs, hands on each other’s necks. Eyes on each other’s eyes. Lips on each other’s lips.
“Thank you, Jonas,” Troy says in my ear. “For everything.”
I get what he means. Everything. Helping. Singing. Kissing. Talking. It occurs to me I want to know more, to really understand him. I’m greedy. I want to know his full story, all his troubles, his dreams. I want to tell him mine. Everything.
We pivot, leaning on each other as we gaze at his work. “It may be lack of sleep talking, but I’m so fucking thankful that sign was there, that you were the one who was there, when those idiots chased me into your store…into all this.”
I’m buzzing with a rush of happiness. Too much to comprehend. I’m overwhelmed. I ponder how I got from the lonely day I had yesterday to all the hope I’m feeling right now. It feels like a beginning.
His art hangs in front of us. We’re jostled by the crowd. His shoulder is firm touching mine.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if it happened for us?” he says. I feel his eyes flicking carefully over to me and I know what he’s saying without him saying it. “That’s ludicrous, right? Tell me it is.”
I shake my head. I can’t.
Love, after all, is love.
Acknowledgments
The record store in this story is purely fictional, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say that it was inspired by the great Amoeba Music in Hollywood, who notably does welcome all within their walls. It is not only a safe place, but a wonderful place, full of amazing people and an abundance of inspiration hidden in all corners.
I am likewise inspired by all artists who put time and effort into their art—whatever form it might take—especially during dire times when art might feel like a frivolous pursuit. It most surely is not. Being moved as a human being is important and sustaining in its own right, especially when the world can seem like a pretty dismal place. Making your art, being who you are, and speaking up about it will hopefully end up creating a world where Love is Love is universally accepted as the truth.
Rogue Passion (The Rogue Series Book 5) Page 22