by Brian Farrey
Brett spreads out a map of the city. “I was in the kitchen about an hour ago for a glass of water. He was still here then. He didn’t have any money so he can’t have gone far.”
Shan grabs the cordless phone. “He’ll go looking for Sable. It’s a long shot but maybe his mom can help us with other ideas. Find Sable, find Davis. What’s her number?”
I turn to Erik, who is paging through the address book on his cell phone. “I’ll call and get us a later flight.”
“No.”
I say this to everyone. It’s not loud, but it’s forceful. “It’s time to go home.”
We say our good-byes to Shan and Brett. Shan’s hug, even though hampered by baby belly, is crippling, and she cries. She throws a one-armed hug around Erik, who smiles. As Brett talks Erik through how to catch the bus to the airport, Shan takes me aside.
“So?” she asks, a glance at Erik. She no longer looks disapproving.
“If he’ll have me,” I say. We hug.
“If he won’t,” she whispers in my ear, “he doesn’t deserve you.”
On the bus, I call Mrs. Sable. I let her know we weren’t able to find her son. This is one lie Erik approves of. She thanks us, but her voice is hollow. I think she knows it’s time to move on too.
An overhead chime assures us it’s now safe to use electronic devices. Bullshit. If it’s so dangerous to listen to my iPod during takeoff, why is it suddenly safe at 30,000 feet? I’d rather listen to the plane’s engines than think I was responsible for crashing us into a cornfield by plugging into a podcast.
“So,” Erik says, “does this crap with Davis have anything to do with why you haven’t touched your paints in a month?”
The days of Erik letting me get away with stuff are gone. The King of Evasions is dead. Long live the king.
I relay the story Oxana told me about Picasso and his blue period. “All the time I spent studying painters … I only ever looked at their work. I never learned about their lives and understood why they painted. That’s why my stuff sucks.”
“Your stuff doesn’t suck,” Erik says. “Evan, everybody learns by imitating what they know. You just never figured out how to stop. Quit feeling sorry for yourself, pick up your brushes, and take the next step.”
But I shake my head. “I’m done painting. I need to find something new to do with my life.”
Before he can question me, I pull out Oxana’s copy of Haring’s journal and show him the passage that said every painting I’ve ever done is unnecessary. He scans it, then stares at me blankly.
“Did you read the whole thing?”
He points at the sentence just past the underlined text I read in Milwaukee.
If they are exploring in an “individual way” with “different ideas” the idea of another Individual, they are making a worthy contribution, but as soon as they call themselves followers or accept the truth they have not explored as truths, they are defeating the purpose of art as an individual expression—Art as art.
I spent the last month feeling like Haring had called me out. Now he’s vindicating me. Talk about a mixed message.
“Are you calling yourself a follower?”
I shake my head.
“Do you plan on exploring a little truth?”
I nod my head.
“Then I think you might have a shot at this whole ‘finding your own voice’ thing after all. I think that’s what Oxana was trying to pound into that stubborn head of yours.”
I gently close the book and slide it into my backpack. I’m not sure my stubborn head can take much more pounding. “Is he still working? Haring, I mean. Is he still painting?”
Erik’s shoulders press back against the seat. “I thought you knew,” he says quietly. “He died of AIDS.”
Oh.
Erik turns to me and asks, “Do you want to move to San Diego?”
I whisper, “Do you still want me to move to San Diego?”
Erik slips his hand into mine; our fingers mesh together. This is the closest thing we have to an answer right now.
When I walk through the door back home with Erik at my side, I expect the world to spin out of control, faster and faster until centrifugal force pastes me against the wall. But, no. For once, I make an intelligent decision. One that took me a year to think about. Standing in my parents’ kitchen, things slow down to a sane speed for a change.
“Mom. Dad. This is Erik. He’s my boyfriend.”
Mom blinks as she looks Erik in the eyes. “Do you live in San Diego?”
Dad squints as he looks Erik up and down. “Your head looks like a square egg.”
It’s Mom who suggests we visit Mrs. Grayson at Mendota. “She needs closure.”
Don’t we all?
We clip visitor badges to our shirts as a nurse escorts us down a pale white hall.
“Will she even understand what we tell her?” I ask as we approach Mrs. Grayson’s room.
“She’ll know,” Mom says. “Mothers always know.”
Mrs. Grayson’s eyes are glassy. Her head bobs from side to side, a childlike smile on her face. Mom starts with small talk, which is sadly limited to how well the store is doing.
“Have you seen my Davis?” Mrs. Grayson asks. Her voice is oddly strong. Like she’s fighting to be lucid.
I don’t know what to tell her. Mom offers assurances so I don’t have to.
“We’ll keep an eye out for him, Clara. Let him know you miss him.”
Mrs. Grayson nods sadly. For a second, I think she gets it. Really gets it. She knows she’ll probably never see her son again. Then a nurse stops by and feeds Mrs. Grayson her evening meds. Soon, her head is swaying again. Any epiphany she may have had disappears. She doesn’t have to worry about Davis now.
“So that’s closure?” I ask as we stand to leave.
“Only for the lucky ones,” Mom says.
Later, at home, I find a set of really nice luggage in the living room with a bow tied to it. My graduation present.
I ask Mom, “If you knew about the ticket to San Diego, why didn’t you say something?”
She’s honest. “If I’d said anything, would it have made a difference?”
No. It wouldn’t.
She heads down the hall toward her bedroom and says, “Next time, you can feel free to say something.”
It’s an invite. Not sarcasm. I’m not sure I’d know how to say something. But I like knowing I can.
Before bed, I write to Mr. Grayson, explaining that Davis is gone but not saying why. I hope he gets that he has to help his wife now. But I’m not holding my breath.
pentimento
My bare chest is pressed tightly to Erik’s back, my arms scooped up under his arms, my knees nestled into the backs of his. I slide my face closer to his left ear. His breaths escape in furious bursts. I glance at the clock. Two in the morning. Time for restlessness to prowl.
The bedroom is stark. We spent the morning at my parents’ house, loading up the U-Haul with everything I own. It was sad; I didn’t even take up a quarter of the truck. Dad watched us from the store; he’s still adjusting to the idea that I have a boyfriend. Mom kept busy in the kitchen, occasionally offering us lemonade or doling out odd bits of household advice. Be sure to immediately wrap and refrigerate any leftovers. Never turn the thermostat over sixty-eight in the winter. In the time it took to move my bed, my dresser, my paintings, and a gross of boxes, she gave me more advice than she had in eighteen years. But at least she tried. I stopped in the store before we left, telling Dad I’d be in for my shift tomorrow afternoon. He nodded but never took his eyes off his ledger.
We unloaded my stuff into the State Street apartment, took a break, and then began the much longer task of loading Erik’s stuff back into the truck. He’s leaving tomorrow for San Diego.
I’m not.
The plan is simple, so simple it’s hardly a plan. Even though Mom and Dad have Ross now, I’ll be working at the store until at least mid-December. I have income. And saving
s. To prevent Erik from paying a huge fee for breaking his lease, I’m going to sublet his apartment until December when the lease expires. After that …
We have to be sure, Evan. Maybe we just need to do a little more thinking. You have to know that you can handle my suspicions and neuroses and I have to know that I can trust you.
I de-spoon myself, moving to the edge of the bed where I stand and look down. Erik lies naked, undisturbed, on the bedsheets. I resist the urge to reach out and touch his shoulder. Instead, I take the plane ticket from my nightstand. It’s the second one I’ve been given in as many months. This one is dated December 15.
There’s e-mail. There’s the phone. Hell, I’ll even fly back a couple times as my schedule allows. I’m not giving up on us, Evan, and you shouldn’t either. But let’s slow down just a bit, take some time.
And I had to ask.
No. I won’t be dating anyone. I’ll be honest and say that I hope you won’t either. But that’s part of what this time apart is about. If you decide you need to see other people, all I ask is that you tell me about it. But I won’t be dating anyone.
I step out of the bedroom. The living room’s cerulean darkness is mottled with half-open boxes. I’ve attempted to spread my few possessions around to make it look homey. It’s like trying to put rouge on an elephant. The hardwood cools my soles and I close my eyes and sway, remembering the times Erik and I spent dancing barefoot in this very room. We danced once more tonight. We made love—and it was magenta and taupe and sapphire—and when we were done, he held me gently as I cried. When I was cried out, I held him; it was his turn.
I won’t lie to you. We both have some big decisions to make. And you’d better be doing some thinking because I sure will be. You might decide you’re better off in Wisconsin or Chicago. I might decide I’m in no rush for a long-term commitment. Or maybe we’ll both decide that the fifteenth of December is the start of Evan and Erik, Part Two. Whatever we decide, we have to make the right choice. Promise me you’ll do some serious thinking over the next few months. Promise me.
I promise.
Propped up in the corner sits the antique oak mirror, orphaned so that I might have a lighter easel. My reflection as I approach is dark and nebulous, the streetlights spilling away from the mirror’s base. I realize it’s been two days since I last thought about Davis, worried about him. He would have found the mirror gaudy. He wouldn’t have seen what I see. One big canvas.
So do it, Oxana coaxes me. Paint your own Haring. Let it stand as a testament that it’s time to move on and find out what Evan Weiss has to say. I unpack my paints; it feels good to hold them again. I spread them out in the faint patches of light, squinting to read the labels. I begin mixing in the semidarkness, squeezing from tubes, picturing the hues and tints in my memory and hoping the dim light doesn’t taint my perceptions. It’ll be interesting to see what shades I’ve come up with, once the sun is up. I study the reflection, tall and lean, settled and unsettled, and begin to paint.
UNTITLED SELF PORTRAIT
INSPIRATION:
Keith Haring’s Radiant Baby
PALETTE:
Background = too many colors to name
Body outline = black
Body fill = white
The background consists of jigsaw puzzle pieces, exaggerated in size, crooked and twisted. Each piece, bordered by thick black lines, alternates with a variety of hues of my own creation.
In the foreground, I am a faceless, featureless infant outline, squatting as though attempting to stand for the first time. Black lines—my radiance—surge out in every direction from my form. The interior of the body is painted in white.
But the portrait is unfinished. I have until December to mix the perfect color to fill in the last, unpainted portion of mirror. In the center of the chest, where the heart should be, is a silver, reflective hole.
A small, square-egg-shaped hole.
afterword
A daunting presence since the seventies, HIV and AIDS continue to exist as a global epidemic, affecting both LGBT and straight communities. More than 56,000 new cases of infection are diagnosed every year in the United States alone. One in five people infected with HIV is unaware that they carry the virus. This year AIDS will kill more than 18,000 people in the United States.
For more information, please visit the following websites:
http://www.avert.org/
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/default.htm
acknowledgments
Endless thanks to the trifecta who made this happen: my agent, Robert Guinsler, and my editors, Anica Rissi and Annette Pollert.
Thanks to the following beta readers whose feedback was in-freaking-valuable in getting through all this: Charlotte Sullivan, Swati Avasthi, Nicholas Hupton, Susan Power, Brett Fechheimer, Mark Schroeder, Pamela Jo Pape Schroeder, Michele Campbell, J. Quinn Malott, Joel Anderson, and Trisha Speed Shaskan.
And my thesis committee: Lawrence Sutin and Mary Logue. I couldn’t have asked for two wiser guides along my path.
Aaron Black, wherever you are, thanks for sparking the idea!
And, of course, all my love and thanks to Benji—my very own Erik—whose faith means the world to me.
about the author
To get to where he is today, Brian Farrey’s path took this route: student, stock boy, waiter, college TV program director, local TV news promotions producer, community theater executive director, bookseller, community relations manager, and publicist. He’ll leave you to guess which were willing choices and which were not. He currently acquires young adult novels for Flux. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his husband. He has an almost obsessive love of Doctor Who (both old-school Who and the recent reboot). You might find him skulking about www.brianfarreybooks.com.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Dedication
Chapter: Rules
Chapter: Octagon
Chapter: Secret
Chapter: Chasers
Chapter: Lesson
Chapter: Big
Chapter: Gift
Chapter: Reckoning
Chapter: Opening
Chapter: Resurrection
Chapter: Moving
Chapter: Deluge
Chapter: Volume
Chapter: Retreat
Chapter: Unnecessary
Chapter: Stonewall
Chapter: Liberation
Chapter: Namaste
Chapter: Shan
Chapter: Lies
Chapter: Escort
Chapter: Bugchasers
Chapter: Ultimatum
Chapter: Unveiled
Chapter: Missing
Chapter: Letter
Chapter: Flight
Chapter: Hell
Chapter: Damage
Chapter: Gone
Chapter: Pentimento
Chapter: Afterword
Chapter: Acknowledgments
Chapter: About The Author
Back Cover