All the Days and Nights

by Niven Govinden

  I WATCH THE DARKNESS fade shivering on the porch, wrapped in two of the thickest blankets we saved for winter. I think of the bachelor party they threw for the farmer’s son not so many years ago: how the lot of you raised hell over three towns and the outskirts of the city before a chastened return on the first morning train. I remember hearing of you all stumbling down Main Street at sunrise; an army of penitents. And then a memory of you alone, walking with uncertainty through the meadow toward the house. You were benignly drunk, the strengthening sunlight pushing through your greasy hair and making an angel of you. How you slept where I am sitting now, on a love seat no bigger than a cot, because you did not want to wake the house. It is foolish of me to expect you to reappear in the same way, as night rescinds and morning beckons, but I do so. Like a young woman I rehearse how I am going to look and what to say. In reality, of course, we will have nothing to say to each other. A look will pass between us, something that can reassure the other that there is no animosity, and then only sleep, from which your cheerfulness will return.

  – You should have seen the size of them. Twenty in all, and of a height to make our farm-bred boys look minute. Fed on bad manners and smog, thighs for arms from all the lifting on the docks. Put one of them next to one of us and we looked as unstable as a skittle. And boy were they ready to knock us down! Didn’t like the look of us or the way we spoke. That we could be drunk and still be mindful of our manners. They weren’t used to so many smiling faces in that miserable place. I can’t recall how we even ended up there, save the neon sign calling us, with its promise of beer and can-can girls. The only thing that saved us getting a beating outside that bar was that our legs were not solid like hams. We could run faster. One of us – I can’t remember who, but it could have been me just as easily as the next man – tipped up a table to give us a head start, and we piled through that tiny door and out into the street as quick as we could. We were like anchovies being pulled from a jar; as ungainly. The air was salty, thick with our sweat. The sound of glasses and bottles masked their threats toward us for a merciful few seconds. And in one of those, at least, they were cut silent, the sudden move surprising them more than they could articulate. They had not banked on Hicksville country mice using their wits. We ran through the docks, fast in our pack, pounding hard until our feet were sore and chests fit to bursting with effort. Their voices carried past the few warehouses but their feet didn’t follow. They didn’t have the energy for it, not when there was still beer to drink, and stony-faced women to heckle. Which reminds me, the neon did not live up to its promise. These were definitely not girls. Faces and necks crisscrossed with lines, powder and lipstick thickly lodged in every crevice; breasts and bellies sagging from bearing children; eyes as dark and hard as flint. They were nothing like the girls we were thinking of, which was a sign of our ignorance of what such a bar should be like. Even though you have made me see things as they really are, when I was with the guys all I could think of was the ideal. How funny is that? The only thing I’m sure of is that you would have wanted to stay if you had come along. You would have painted every single one of them. In the midst of our running, I emerged at the front, escaping that fear I have of being hemmed in, I suppose. I found myself leading the boys past one warehouse after another until I got a rough sense of direction from the lights far up on the Lower East Side glittering on the Hudson. That too became something to run from, another place I only wanted to remember as an ideal. My heart was beating fast, both from the running and the fear that one of the guys would ask why we weren’t running uptown, where drinks and girls would be plenty. The double-rush of adrenaline made me feel drunker than before. I was dizzy with it, so light-headed, to the point where I thought my brain would float away, leaving just a pair of running legs and this urgent heartbeat. But nothing was said. We were all overtaken with running; the strength and enjoyment of it. Our feet and breath became harmonized, and if someone had suggested we run all the way home, we were all of the presence of mind to possibly attempt it. Once we left the dockside, uncertainty sat in the air, but I was still at the front, still being followed. I kept my eyes ahead. We passed the factory where my father worked his whole life but I stayed fixed on the street. I didn’t turn my head at the chimneys that used to fascinate me as a kid. Nor at the gated entrance where I would wait for him at the end of the day and where the vans delivering raw hides from all over the city passed. I never stopped. They all ran with my fear on their shoulders. Their muscles ached with it. Only as we reached the bridge did I slow, relishing in the boundary before me; knowing that once I was in Brooklyn I could not be touched. I could drink in Brooklyn. Breathe, and be my own man. Feel that he wasn’t standing over my shoulder. So I spent the last money I had getting the boys even more drunk and ridding myself of that feeling. With every glass I felt lighter, lighter.

  I stayed in the cot and kept lookout.

  BEN REMAINS PERFECTLY STILL, though his restlessness shows in his eyes. They roam. Vishni has given him a plate of eggs, followed by fruit; a menu designed to banish tiredness and prevent bloating in morning subjects, and it would please her to see how he ripples with energy. The tremors across his eyebrows crackle with it. He hesitates to speak, not wanting to disturb my concentration, a mood I silently encourage. Unhappy with the previous day’s work, I fix him in a variety of poses until I find something I am happy with. The easy chair is dragged back to the corner. Now he is naked on the blanket, lying on his side, his knees pulled halfway toward his chest, as if he is in the process of curling or uncurling; paralyzed by sleep were it not for the strength of his eyes. He makes no complaint about the discomfort of his position. The thin foam mattress under the blanket is deeply pocked in places, so that the floor’s chill can be felt. The draft from the open window ruffles his hair and the thin tangle of curls across his prick and balls. At the completion of each sketch, where line and form takes precedence over other details, I have him up on his feet to regain his circulation. I use the exercises that you are so familiar with, and at various times, contemptuous of. Body stretches from top to toe, followed by a couple of minutes’ jogging on the spot, as much as my condition will allow. He does as you used to at the beginning, laughing heartily and with some disbelief as I join in with him; someone who notoriously showed little interest in most physical activity.

  – So these are your secrets? Why you haven’t aged a day?

  – Only a fool would fall for that one, Ben. I work, that’s all. Just work.

  We continue through the morning with a succession of poses and sketches based around the rug. There is no mention of you, as if Ben has made a mental note to learn from last night’s petulance. He charms me as if I am an out-of-town buyer in need of flattery. It’s something I’ve always known, the gallery owner’s ability to blow smoke up anyone’s ass, but something about the silent attention he pays me, the look as tender as an old lover who’s parted on amicable terms, makes me think of how artists are as manipulated as buyers. Perhaps more so. That he has offered to strip seems proof. Unless, of course, he wants to look past the sentimental. He knows that my concern lies beyond an obvious search for youth trapped beneath the skin. How I would pay attention to raised veins and the cluster of moles and age spots on his back that cannot be concealed with make-up. The skin tightening into whorls around each temple where his hairline has gently receded. The yellow staining of hard skin on the soles of his feet, the network of veins on the other side, surrounded by deep crevices of soft skin; so that to stare at his feet closely is to see solidified tracks of volcanic larvae. The effect on his hands, too, is that of a life-force spent. Clothed, Ben is vital and alive; but lying there, he is a paradox of strength and weakness: the hard biceps and modest pecs, the hands and feet that give everything else away. With another artist, Ben would be different again. He would play up to the image of Mr Universe by way of California, kissed by the sun gods and still desirable. If the artist was male, there would be flirting, followed by sexual activity. I t
hink of the numerous boys nurtured in Provincetown over the years: highly talented in their various forms, but whose desirability and volatility habitually expired after the first couple of shows. They could not deal with the pressure to produce work, nor the force of their jealousy. Artists and boys are the same to Ben. There is always new talent on the horizon. His loyalty was and is to his women artists, stoic and focused in their work, preferring to be spared the worst of the Manhattan bullshit. He can flatter us in our studios, where seemingly gossamer platitudes are quickly plastered over in paint, clay, or bronze. We can be relied upon to produce; unpredictable in our content, we nevertheless maintain our drive and anger at most things. We are never cajoled the way those boys are, late at night, with drinks and the offer of a permanent bed. We are never beseeched. There are never tears shed, nor heartbreak. And then you: another loyalty that cannot be bought. Your brotherhood is one that would never be put in jeopardy. It is a love grown out of puppy fat, where trust is more important than the need to compete.

  – Something tells me this is a picture I won’t love. I’ll need it, treasure it, but it won’t be something I want to see easily.

  – What makes you say that?

  – The way you’re looking at me. You’re different to how you were yesterday.

  – From my usual self?

  – You’re different, that’s all. The way you’re holding yourself. The scratch of your brush on the pad. Everything feels harder, more ingrained.

  – That’s the kind of information you should keep to yourself, Ben. It doesn’t work if we’re both taking everything in. I don’t need to know what you see.

  – But this is why I’m so interested! Ten minutes ago I lost the feeling in my left leg, but I didn’t tell you, because you were so concentrated, which in itself was wonderful to look at. I’m in agony and I keep my mouth shut because I’m mesmerized by what I’m seeing. Why has no one painted you, as you sit there with your brushes and pad? You’d rather I play dumb and inspect my fingernails or something equally passive, but there was something in that moment just now, in your face, the way the light hit it. If I knew how to take that information and express it through my hands holding a pencil or brush, I would have wrestled that pad from you.

  – You’re talking like someone who has never seen a painting before. You’ve been surrounded by artists all your life. The murals in your parents’ house, the gallery—

  – That doesn’t mean anything. I’m talking about your face. What I saw in your face.

  – Well … that’s something I’ll have to take your word for.

  We stop again briefly and then continue. It is understood that everything now is a cycle of stretching and posing. He drinks cold coffee because there is not enough time to make fresh and I do not want to call Vishni. To open the studio door would be to depressurize the morning’s work, which I don’t care for. A precious few minutes would be lost in meaningless chat. Even if neither speaks, an additional presence, the weight of her eyes as she scans the room, taking in the details of his position and mine, will batter our equilibrium for a time afterwards, like passing storm winds against a brick house. I am also mindful that although she is not shocked by nudity, far from it, this would be the first time she has seen Ben this way. While he is still a guest, the processes of work are as much about protecting modesty as secrecy. They always were.

  Even naked, there is something so composed about Ben that I feel cumbersome in his presence. The small folds of skin under his ankles negates this. The redness of his neck and ears, as a new position forces the blood flow to his head. You used to ask me why I paint, as if somehow I’d never asked that question of myself. I suppose many years ago, long before you, I would have allowed weeks to roll by as I pondered. Unsure as to whether what I was doing gave me any right to call myself a painter. But that was before I’d done much work, and a lot of other things. My eyes were still stinging from the fumes of new paint, my fingertips raw with turps, back aching because I hadn’t yet understood how posture was as important as what I saw. When I was pretending to be an artist I asked myself those questions. When I began to work, really work, they stopped.

  – I want to paint what I see. There’s something else, but I can’t explain it. Don’t want to.

  When you first posed the way I have posed Ben now, there was something so natural about how you lay. You looked as if you had been found. You had lived here for three years and your eyes were glazed with secret knowledge. Everything you had learned through our work sweeping the remnants of your boyhood away. It was all I could do to record that moment, that point you’d reached. Your face would change daily. You were not always so docile, but still I held that particular look in, slowly coaxing it out, carefully with my brushes month in, month out; inch by inch.

  YOU SPEND THE NIGHT in the park, sleeping deep in woodland where you hope you will not be found. The cypresses stand sentry; the gnarled pine, your umbrella. There will be money in your pocket to cover a night or so at a hotel, for as long as it takes until you are ready to ring the buzzer at Ben’s apartment and tell him that you have left. Even if your pocket holds only loose change and your ticket stub from the train, you know of two hotels you can call upon, boltholes we have patronized for years, which will give you a room without hesitation. The bank on Fifth knows who you are, enabling you to draw money the next morning or the one after that and settle your account. You are the most comfortable hobo in New York. The paintings allow you to walk the city in rags with a dollar and three quarters and whatever else you have remembered to take. There is so much for you to fall back on, so much infrastructure created over the years with just a day like this in mind, yet still you prefer to lie on the city’s imitation of a forest floor and take whatever nature and passing drunks will throw at you. Your need to acclimatize is all encompassing, knowing that you will drive yourself mad cooped up in a hotel room. You want to hear the city’s heartbeat; something that goes beyond the horns of traffic passing outside your window. The catcalls of revelers, the grunt and whine of the garbage trucks are an adjunct to the blood flow, but not the force behind it. Even the Hudson only plays a part. Lying on a bench overlooking the tugboats will not give you what you need. And that location was given much thought. It came close to being in your childhood bedroom with the window pulled up; when something in the city’s speech drowned out the shouting happening down the hall. The whistle from the tugs as the boatmen talked to one another, calls across water that sounded like song. On those nights when flesh slapping flesh was more than you could take, knuckles crunching cheekbones and thudding into stomachs, the river’s edge was your escape. You could hear the words passed between them, paced from the whistle’s blows; a chorus decrying a dishonest coal merchant out by Long Island and the slipperiness of whores. You fell asleep to the sound of their fraternity, where goodwilled parlance ran a tightrope, always moments from an argument. But there is something in the silence of the park that calls you. Lying on the soft ground, the snap of branches, rolls of thunder pushing through your butt from the subway a hundred yards below. It is like being in the eye of the hurricane through which every sound must pass. Your ear crackles with the brush of grass or the laughter from a girl rising from the street. You hear the click of dancing shoes in Harlem, the crack of a liquor bottle being smashed against a wall in the Bowery. Foxes cry out from under shrubbery, as do unhappy women in the privacy of their bathrooms. Along the path a stray dog sniffs for food in the empty garbage cans dotted around the benches. Later he ventures into the undergrowth, hoping for more success, but is too timid to come near you. It’s a disappointment. You would have happily fed the dog a couple of franks from the tin you picked up at a grocery store on Lexington. He is a mutt of some kind; one that has other rich seams where food can be claimed. His coat is glossy, eyes dark and bright, his legs long and defined. You wonder about the butchers in the meat-packing district, whether their generosity has kept him in this fine condition. Unwanted ribs, chucks and rotting s
kirt taken from the pile marked for the dumpster and brought down here. This is not a creature that fights with other dogs in an alley for scraps. His face is too unmarked for that. Equally, it may be attributed to the ladies of the Upper West Side, the women of the house or someone from their staff who brings down the last of the roast, or the steak earmarked for an undeserving husband. He will be fed, and sometimes petted, if there is bravery on both sides. You imagine how he nuzzles against a warm hand whose overwhelming perfume is one of gravy and bread sauce. How, in rare instances, he allows his belly to be tickled. Yet he stays away from you. Somehow you do not fit in this climate of generosity. Something in your scent marks you as an outsider. The wrong pollen has attached itself to your clothes. The park’s soil is not packed into the ridges under your shoes. You are not clean or dirty enough. Your lungs have not yet inhaled enough of the city’s fumes and smog, therefore everything you breathe out is pure. You smell of age, having more in common with the leaves decaying around you than with his benefactors. Compared to those men and women, your heart rate is low, your breathing, small. There is nothing he can learn from you. No strength to take.