Against the Wall

by Alexa Land

  “A deed to a building.”

  “Wait, you’re giving me a building?” I asked as I scanned the form in my hand.

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m bloody well sick of people painting over your artwork, so I bought you a canvas. It’s been in the works for nearly a year. My lawyer hired people, they got the place all renovated and up to code so apparently it’s quite spiffy now. What you want to do with the interior is up to you. I have a couple ideas, but it’s your call, of course. The main thing is that it’s one great, big canvas!” He took the envelope from me and tilted it into his hand. Three photos slid out, along with a set of keys on an ornate metal fob. “See?”

  I put the deed on my lap and took the keys and pictures. The building looked enormous. I realized it seemed a bit familiar, too. “Where is this?”

  “In the city, in the South of Market district or whatever you call it.”

  “SOMA.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “This is unbelievable, Zan. You didn’t have to do this for me. It must have been incredibly expensive,” I murmured.

  “Well, I can bloody well afford it, now can’t I?”

  I studied each of the photos carefully. The grey concrete building was basically one huge, four story cube, the second and third floors rimmed by glass balconies. It was, in fact, a perfect blank canvas.

  “I know you’re a big fan of the clandestine nature of your art,” he was saying. “Sneaking around at night, evading the coppers, I get that that’s part of the appeal. I figure you can still sneak around at night though as you paint this building, even though no one can arrest you for it. Not with you being the owner and all. You may be losing the thrill, but in return you’re gaining a canvas that’s all yours, one that no one’s going to knock down or paint over. I even had my lawyer file all the permits with the city to clear the way for the whole thing to become one huge mural. But like I said, you can still turn it into a covert operation if you want to.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Do you like it? I really hope that you do.”

  I grabbed him in a hug as I stammered, “I love it. I’m overwhelmed. This is absolutely amazing, thank you.”

  “Oh good. I had my doubts about how this would go over.”

  “So, what were your ideas about the inside of the building?” I said as I let go of him and looked at the photos again.

  “Well, I thought maybe if you wanted to, you could call it the Christian George Tillane Center for the Arts, and bring in people to run an art-based community center. I’ve always seen your artwork as a form of activism. You slip in all these messages of hope and community, so I thought you might like it if there was a place to teach kids to paint and express themselves the way you do. If you happened to want to include a music curriculum in honor of your old man, I’d donate the instruments. But of course, this is all just a thought. You can do whatever you want with it.”

  “I love that idea. I don’t know about putting my full name on the building though, for obvious reasons.” I pulled my keys from the pocket of my jeans so I could add the new ones to my key ring, and that was when I took a good look at the fob in my hand. “Oh my God,” I murmured.

  Throughout Zan’s career, he’d always worn the same pendant on a leather cord around his neck. It appeared in every single photo of him back then. He’d called it his good luck charm. It was an antique, brass symbol a little more than an inch square, which he’d picked up in Tibet. He stopped wearing it when he quit performing. I always wondered what had happened to it but had never thought to ask.

  I grabbed him in another hug and whispered as my voice broke, “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Aw, hell.” I could feel his chuckle more than I heard it. “So all I had to do was give you a trinket. You’re more into that than you are the entire sodding building!”

  “Not true,” I said, sitting back and dabbing my eyes with the sleeve of my grey cotton sweater. “I’m really into the sodding building, too.” I smiled at him as I held up the charm. “This though, this is a piece of you, so I love it.”

  “Ah shite,” my father said, his green eyes going a bit bright. “Quit that, you’re going to make me start blubbering.”

  “Hey, do what you have to do. I’m not judging.”

  He pulled me close with a hand on the back on my neck and planted a kiss on my forehead. “You’re a good kid, Christian. I don’t say it enough, but you’ve always made me proud. Without a doubt, you’re the best thing I ever did.”

  I felt myself getting misty-eyed again and exclaimed, “Oh come on! It’s like you’re trying to make me cry!”

  “Apologies. I’m turning into a sentimental fool in my old age.”

  “Please. You’re not even sort of old. As for the rest of it....” I shot him a big smile. Then I said, “We should name it the Alexzander Tillane Center for the Arts. An art and music-themed community center would be a wonderful use of that building.”

  “Oh no, absolutely not. We’re not naming it after me.”

  “Why not? Everyone thinks you’re dead anyway, so we could just claim it was named in memoriam.”

  “We could, but we’re not going to. That building isn’t about me, it’s about you: your art, your vision, your message. I’ve had more than my share of the spotlight, I don’t need more. This is your time to shine like the star you were always meant to be.”

  “Wow,” I said with a grin. “Last Christmas we drank whiskey, talked about the weather, and watched all the Indiana Jones movies. What the hell is up with us this year?”

  As soon as I said that, I knew the answer. I wouldn’t be here next Christmas, so Zan was pulling out all the stops. “You know, we were onto something with the whiskey,” I said as I got up and headed to the bar in the corner.

  *****

  I had lunch and cocktails with my dad as we sat in front of the TV and watched his favorite holiday movies, Die Hard and Die Hard 2. Yeah, Zan wasn’t the most traditional guy. It was early evening by the time I headed back into the city. I stopped off at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants, which was always open on Christmas because the family was Buddhist, and placed a huge order.

  While the food was cooking, I popped into the liquor store next door (run by a nice Hindu gentleman so it was also open). He did sell a little selection of decorated live Christmas trees in little plastic pots though, and they were now half off. Only three remained and they were a bit on the Charlie Brown side, but I bought them all anyway, along with several bottles of nonalcoholic cider and a package of plastic wine glasses. I then loaded my car with my purchases and the food, which they’d packaged into an empty produce box because there was so much of it, and drove to the station where Shea worked.

  I saw him sitting alone behind the front counter as I walked up to the glass doors. His head was bent, his brow knit in concentration. When I got closer, I saw that he was drawing something in a bound sketch book.

  He looked up when I pushed the door open with my hip, quickly closed the sketchbook and slipped it under the counter. “Hey! What are you doing here?”

  “I brought dinner for you and everyone else that’s working today. I also have some fake wine and this.” I’d brought in the nicest of the little Christmas trees and placed it beside him on the counter. “Are you going to get in trouble for that?”

  He smiled at me as he fished around in a drawer. “No one who’d complain about it is on duty right now.” He produced an extension cord and ran it from a wall outlet to the little tree. When it lit up, it turned out all the little round bulbs were orange instead of red.

  “Well, that’s festive,” I said.

  “It’s cute. They look like tiny, glowing tangerines.”

  I laughed at that. “Sure. Why not.”

  There were eight officers and dispatchers on duty, but I’d brought enough food for twenty. We carried the box back to the break room and his coworkers descended on it like a pack of hungr
y piranhas. Shea filled the glasses with sparkling cider and everyone drank a toast to Christmas before he and I carried a couple of the white takeout containers and our drinks back to the front counter.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked as I grabbed a stool and sat across from him. I was out in the empty public reception area so he wouldn’t get in trouble if a supervisor showed up.

  “Tired, but coping. How about you?”

  “Not bad at all.” I smiled at him.

  We ate our dinner from the takeout boxes as we talked. Shea had his own approach to using the chopsticks, which basically involved spearing the food, then using the second chopstick as a lever to get it to his mouth. It was incredibly cute.

  He asked between mouthfuls, “How did the parental visits go?”

  “Better than expected.” I told him about brunch and the book, then about my visit with my dad and the building. I also showed him the charm on my keychain. “I’m actually as excited about the charm as I am about the huge piece of property I suddenly own in SOMA,” I admitted.

  “Holy crap,” he said, blinking at the little brass square. “Your dad is,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “Zan Tillane.”

  “Yeah, like I said.”

  “I mean, I heard you when you told me earlier, but it didn’t really sink in until just now. He always wore that, I remember it from the cover of one of his albums.”

  “It is a lot to process.”

  “No kidding.” He cantilevered a water chestnut to his mouth and mulled it all over for a few moments before saying, “I used to sit in my room when I was in high school playing his song ‘Never to Have You’ over and over, whenever I was pining for some guy who didn’t know I was alive.” Shea looked a bit stricken all of a sudden. “Oh, ew.”

  “What?”

  “I just remembered that I used to have a crush on him when I was about twelve or thirteen. Now he turns out to be your dad! Talk about awkward.”

  I laughed at that and said, “It doesn’t have to be. You got over it, right?”

  “Yeah. I became infatuated with Kurt Cobain instead.”

  “Zan would approve of that. He loved Kurt and was so sad when he died.”

  “So was I.”

  “Before I forget,” I told him, “I want to take you to my dad’s house for a Harry Potter movie marathon sometime next week. He just started the series, but he’ll probably be through all seven books in just a few days.”

  Shea’s eyes went wide. “Yikes. I’ve never met a celebrity in person, talk about starting at the top!”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. Once you meet him, you’ll realize he’s just this dorky guy with outdated hair and weird taste in floral-patterned shirts.”

  “Is it really okay with him that I come visit?”

  “Yup. He’s looking forward to meeting you.”

  He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then said, “I really hope I don’t embarrass myself.”

  “You won’t.”

  “There’s at least a fifty-fifty chance of me doing something incredibly clumsy out of sheer nervousness.”

  “Eh, you’ll be fine.” I tossed a vegetable in my mouth, then asked as I looked around the station, “Out of curiosity, is the fabulous Finn working tonight?”

  “Yeah. He’s a patrolman though so he only comes in when he’s made an arrest.”

  “Did he work a double shift, too?”

  “No, he spent the day at our parents’ house. He came on at five.” That made me smile, and he said, “What?”

  “You’re so totally the better brother.”

  He chuckled at that. “He’s not as bad as he’s led you to believe.”

  “He really is.” I popped a shrimp in my mouth before asking, “Is it always this quiet, or do the bad guys take time off at Christmas?”

  “It comes and goes in waves. We were really busy earlier, and sadly, we’ll be extremely busy tonight.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It happens every year. Domestic violence always increases on holidays.”

  “Wow, that’s terrible. Why is that, do you suppose?”

  “A lot of reasons. The holidays are emotionally draining, for one thing. There’s a lot of drinking and plenty of stress, which just adds to the mix. Plus, people are home at the holidays, so there’s simply more opportunity for an incident to occur.”

  “Wow, Christmas through the eyes of a police officer. Not terribly cheery, is it?”

  “Cheery isn’t a word I’d usually use to describe my job.”

  A huge cop with a crew cut came up to us just then and put down a paper plate with homemade sugar cookies. “I didn’t catch your name,” he said in a deep voice.

  “Christian.”

  “I’m Duke. Thanks for bringing in that feast, it beat the hell out of the sandwich I’d packed for myself. Thought you guys might like some cookies, I made ‘em myself.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “They look really good.”

  “I called my mom for her recipe, but somehow they don’t taste as good as hers. Anyway, Merry Christmas and thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  When Duke left, Shea smiled at me. “That’s the most I’ve ever heard him say willingly. Normally, you can barely get more than a one-word answer out of him.”

  “You should have plied him with Chinese food a lot sooner.”

  “Apparently. Oh, and that’s one of the good aspects of my job, by the way.”

  “Getting to work with giant men who bake cookies in the shape of tiny Christmas trees?”

  Shea smiled at me. “The sense of camaraderie. Granted, everyone’s a bit cranky today because they’d rather be home, but still.”

  We each sampled a cookie. They were surprisingly good. Then I exclaimed, “Oh! I left your Christmas present in the car. Hang on, let me get it.”

  I dashed out to the Jeep and was back a minute later. His gift was still in the mailing envelope, which I handed to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to wrap it.”

  Shea looked distraught. “I’m so sorry. Your gift isn’t done yet.”

  “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

  “I tried to make you something, actually, but I didn’t count on getting completely ill the week before Christmas.”

  “It’s fine, Shea. Honest.”

  “I’m still planning to finish it, but it looks like it’ll be more of an Easter present at the rate I’m going.” He dropped his gaze. “It’s kind of childish anyway. I should have just bought you something.”

  “Baby, if it’s from you, I’ll love it.”

  “Can I show you a little of it? Then if you don’t like it, I can do something else.” He reached under the counter and pulled out the sketchbook he’d been working on when I’d first arrived. “I’m trying to draw you a comic book. I figured, since you’d been teaching me to draw, this made sense, but now I’m just worried that it’s dumb and amateurish and something a seventh grader would do for his boyfriend.” He opened to a page randomly and turned the book to face me. “It’s all of those things, isn’t it?”

  I picked up the book and stared in wonder at the carefully rendered scene. He’d drawn both of us as superheroes and in the page he’d turned to, we were holding each other in a passionate embrace high up in the night sky, San Francisco sprawled out below us. “Oh my God, Shea,” I murmured.

  “That bad?”

  I looked up at him. “This is absolutely wonderful. Not only is it incredibly well done, I’m so touched that you’d do this for me. Thank you. It’s the best gift I’ve ever received.”

  “Oh come on. Just today, someone gave you a building.”

  “The building was a thoughtful gesture, but this is even more so, because you’re making it with your own hands and I can see how hard you’re working on it.”

  He blushed slightly and looked down, then glanced at me through his dark lashes. “Do you really think it’s okay?”

  “It’s so much better than
okay. It’s spectacular. Can I please look at a bit more of it?”

  Shea came around the counter and turned to the beginning of the book. “There are only a few pages. It’s taking so much longer than I anticipated, because I’m really trying to do a good job.”

  He walked me through the start of the comic book. It was the story of two gay men that didn’t realize they were extraordinary until they found each other. When they teamed up, they both became much more together than they’d been separately, and that was when their superpowers were revealed. “It’s corny, I know,” he said.

  “Baby, it’s so good. I’m not just saying that. You need to publish it so other people can enjoy it, too.”

  “I don’t think I’d ever have the courage to do that. Besides, this is just the beginning. When you read the rest of the story, you might decide it’s really dumb.”

  I leaned over and kissed him, since none of his coworkers were in sight. “I know the ending will be just as amazing as the beginning. Thank you so much for doing this.”

  “You really like it? You’re not just being nice?”

  “I really love it.” He smiled me and closed the sketchbook, then went back behind the counter and put it away. I told him, “Take your time with that. I don’t want you to feel pressured to finish by a certain date. I want you to have a good time with it.” He was still smiling when I indicated the envelope on the desk. “Open mine. It seems so impersonal after seeing the incredible thing you’re doing for me. I hope you like it, though.”

  “I’m sure I’ll love it,” he said, and tilted the envelope so its contents slid into his hand. It was upside down, and when he flipped it around, his mouth fell open. “No freaking way,” he murmured.

  “Is it okay? I have to admit I really don’t know the first thing about comic books. I just knew you liked them, and I figured Captain America was one of your favorites since you had three of his posters on your bedroom wall.”

  “It’s...oh my God.” He raised a hand and covered his mouth.

  “Is it really, really good, or really, really bad? I can’t quite tell.”

  He looked at me with huge eyes as he gingerly placed the comic on the counter. “It’s Captain America number one, from 1941. I’ve wanted this my whole life, ever since I was five years old and discovered comic books. It’s my own, personal Holy Grail. But Christian, this is way too expensive. I can’t possibly accept it.”