The Anatomy of Perception

by AJ Rose

  I couldn’t help the scowl that crossed my face as I surveyed our surroundings for danger. “Will you keep your voice down?” This wasn’t a spot of grass in Central Park where no one was near enough to hear. There were people everywhere on the sidewalk.

  “Oh, come on, Dane! You have been so happy all day, and you said this morning you were content to be who you are, and you didn’t care who saw you knitting and assumed you’re gay. So why are you hiding?”

  I took a bite of my food so I could avoid answering her for long enough to temper the severe plummet in my mood because she’d broached this subject for the fifty-eleventh time. Once again, my immediate reaction was abject terror. When I swallowed, the bun around the dog was gluey and stuck in my throat. I finally managed to croak something.

  “Why does it matter if my friends know?”

  “People think they know you, Dane,” she said, picking at her bun with slender fingers. “Your friends are worried about you. You’re never with someone.”

  “You know I’m gay, so you’re not worried—”

  “I am, though,” she cut me off. “I’m glad you’re content. But I think that will only last so long, because you have no one to share things with. You seem so together now, but how long can you take on the world by yourself, Dane?”

  “I’m not by myself. I have you.” I grinned at her, my expression turning plastic, my stomach bottoming out when she looked incredibly uncomfortable.

  “I’m not going to be all yours forever, you know,” she said, refusing to meet my eyes.

  “Holly? What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I just… I… you know, want to…. God, Dane! I can’t always save you from yourself!” she shouted and punched the side of her fist into her thigh, startling me. A few passersby glared and gave us a wide berth.

  “Whoa, okay. Come over here and sit down.” I guided her to a bench, smiling at a couple suspicious looks, but otherwise ignoring the crowds. I had to get her to stop yelling and calling attention to us. “What is going on, Holly? I just said this morning you don’t need to save me anymore.”

  “How long is that going to last, Dane? I want to have a life, okay? I want to find a guy who wants to be fucking me when he’s fucking me.” I flinched as if slapped. “Oh, sweetie, I didn’t mean that how it came out. I wasn’t talking about you.” She caressed my face, but then dropped her hand and her chin, and when she spoke next, it sounded watery. “I’m tired of hookups, you know? Or… or boyfriends I can’t tell about my best friend because you’re always hiding. I want something real, something that might last more than a couple weeks. But I don’t think I’ll be able to relax and enjoy a guy’s company until I know you’ll be okay if I look away from you for once. I won’t be able to concentrate on a guy unless I know you’re covered, and that’s not fair to him, Dane. That’s not fair.” To my horror, she started to cry.

  I glared at the people walking by for lack of something else to glare at. Holly and I had been joined at the hip for so long, I hadn’t even considered I might be holding her back even though she wasn’t still bearding for me. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t responsible for her feelings of obligation toward me, but that wasn’t true, considering she’d been the one constant I had relied on for the majority of our lives. She was used to me leaning on her, and now she wanted to be there for someone else. It was sweet of her, trying to see me covered before she’d let herself be involved with anyone.

  Guilt bubbled to the surface of my chest, and I took her hand that wasn’t holding a now-cold hot dog. She entwined our fingers and gripped hard.

  “Sweetheart, it sounds like there’s a specific him. And I’m thrilled for you. I want you to be happy, because if anyone deserves to be, it’s you. You’ve been my partner in crime for so long, I didn’t realize you wanted to join normal society and breed. Ew. But hey, to each their own.” She chuckled despite her leaking and blotchy red face. I pushed her hair back from her forehead and looked into her red-rimmed blue eyes. “You go do relationship things, and don’t worry about me, okay? Except to introduce him to me so I can make sure he’s good enough for the one person I trust with all my secrets.”

  Her smile quickly turned to a frown and she screeched in frustration. “You gonna hide forever? What if I want to ask you and a boyfriend to a game night, or to have drinks or dinner with us for a double date, or fuck, Dane, to our goddamned wedding! What if I want to joke with you about whether you’ve gotten as much cock as I have the last few weeks, just to see Br—his face turn red because I’m an inappropriate mess who likes to make him squirm? You’re in my life until the end, but dammit, I will not censor myself in front of a guy I’m falling in love with just because you are afraid of being judged. We’re in the twenty-first century now, Dane. Gay rights have come a long way. Not everyone thinks gay people suck anymore!”

  “Can you shout it louder?” I asked angrily. “Maybe I should find you a bullhorn and a taxi to stand on? I don’t think all of Manhattan heard you.”

  She smacked my knee. “Dane!”

  “You don’t get to push me out of the closet, Holly. Don’t stick around as my friend if you don’t want to keep my secrets.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Are you serious right now? You would walk away from my friendship rather than come out.”

  It had been a bluff and an obvious one at that. There was no way I’d sacrifice our friendship for any reason. “Dammit, Holly! You’re putting me in a bad position.”

  “What happens to you if people find out?” she challenged. “You may not believe this, but most people don’t give a damn where you park your parts. And you’re hiding for no fucking reason at all.”

  “I can’t even tell my roommates, Holly. They know me better than anyone except you, and they don’t know. You heard Neil when my—” I stopped myself from saying fantasy guy, and instead only “—Michelangelo chalked my face on a jewelry store.” Thank god Neil hadn’t known the artist was a guy that time, or the times my artist had apparently seen us out at a bar, and again at a bowling alley, judging by the subsequent drawings. It was a little creepy and stalkerish, to be truthful, but it didn’t stop my curiosity about him.

  Maybe Holly’s right, and if you’re out, you’ll be more confident to find DaVinci and ask him to stop painting your face all over Manhattan.

  “And I put him in his place,” she sighed wearily. “Because you’re closeted, and if you protested his insulting viewpoint it would look too obvious. Notice he hasn’t said another bad word about gay people? And Braden never did. Braden likes everybody.”

  I chuckled, knowing she was right. But it was short-lived. “Holly, my dad almost killed me once, and I can’t be sure if he quit looking for us. People get gay bashed all the time. I can’t have more than one reason to be looking over my shoulder, okay? I’m doing my best.”

  She laid her head on my shoulder. “Well, can you start with Braden and Neil and see what happens then? I don’t want my life to consist of you over here in this closet, and then everyone else I care about set off away from you. I never did do well with boundaries.”

  I heaved a sigh. “I’ll think about it, okay? That’s all I can promise. I have to work up to something like this, so don’t rush me. And if I do it, I’ll only tell Braden and Neil, and see how that goes before deciding to tell anyone else.”

  She kissed my cheek. “‘Kay. Baby steps, Dane. One person at a time.” She seemed satisfied with that.

  “Who is this guy that’s got you so adamant you’re in love, anyway?” I grumbled.

  “Uh-uh.” She wagged a finger. “You come out, I come out.”

  Three days later, I still hadn’t come to terms with Holly’s pushing, and we hadn’t spoken since the weekend, which made me a little crazy, but I couldn’t have her badgering me into a decision I wasn’t ready for just because she’d found someone. I honestly didn’t understand what that had to do with me. I didn’t need a date to go to her wedding, and while I thought about it, if I wasn’t in th
e wedding, she and I would be having words, whether I had a date or not.

  I emerged from the subway at 33rd Street and turned toward First Avenue, shifting gears from home life to school when my brain shorted out completely. On the wide sidewalk in front of a building full of condos I passed twice a day, every day, was a giant drawing of me, lying on my back in Central Park with Holly resting on my leg, Frisbee forgotten at my side. Holly was a blur of short hair and white shirt, but my face had so much detail the clouds I’d been studying were reflected in my eyes. There was no way this could have been drawn from memory, because it was a bird’s eye view, and I was pretty damn sure there had been no hot artist in the trees above me. But still, he’d been there, and he’d done it again.

  I looked around frantically, hoping he was lurking to see my reaction to another masterpiece. One of the guys from my practical lab class called my name. I couldn’t remember his and I barely acknowledged him as he asked if I was okay. My face burned with embarrassment and anger. Why couldn’t this asshole get the fucking hint every time I scrubbed his work away? And why couldn’t I think about him as a creeper who followed me around and drew my face in the dead of night in places he knew I’d see? While my heart insisted on romanticizing it, my brain snarked that it wasn’t flattering; it was stalkerish. It was invasive and dangerous and that long ago day where I’d run into him on the street wasn’t sweet and fun, as it had become in my memory. It was a blip. A two-minute interaction that was over long ago, and I needed to quit looking for him.

  “Is that you?” the guy from my class asked, pointing to the drawing just as I gave up finding the chalk-wielding possible psychopath.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  The guy laughed incredulously. “Wow, some girl has the hots for you.”

  My face flamed anew, my irritation climbing ever higher. It would be so nice to set him straight, so to speak. God, I’d hidden for so long, mostly safe in my dark, lonely closet, but for once, it was stifling rather than protective. Just once, I wanted to be free to be real, and not just with someone I trusted with my life, but with anyone, just because. It’s the only explanation for what I said next.

  “Some guy has the hots for me,” I corrected impulsively.

  “Oh. Oh,” my classmate said. “Well, that’s cool, too. Are you creeped out or interested back? Because this dude is really talented. He’d be a fascinating date, at least.” I stared like he’d grown a second head. He looked up at me and immediately noticed, then stammered, “I mean, if you’re cool with going on a date with a dude. Not my first inclination, but if someone drew me like this, I’d definitely consider it.”

  “That doesn’t weird you out?” I asked, trying harder to remember his name.

  “Naw.” He waved a hand. “If that’s what you’re into, go for it. See you in class.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder and skirted the edges of the drawing as he left me to my thoughts. I definitely needed to remember his name before I saw him again, if only to say thanks for not being a dickhead.

  My panic subsided a bit. Maybe Holly was right, and it wasn’t as taboo to be gay as it had been when we were younger. I stared helplessly at the drawing, not sure what I could do about getting rid of it sooner than that evening, after classes were over. This was too close to school for comfort. People knew me. There was no way they’d be oblivious enough for this to escape notice. Even if they were cool about it being drawn for a guy by a guy, they would be merciless no matter the artist’s gender. Med school was cutthroat, and my peers stopped at virtually nothing to get a leg up on each other. I’d be crucified. The momentary sense of possibility drained as if my feet had holes in the soles. To my utter and complete humiliation, my sinuses began to sting.

  “You like?” a new voice asked.

  I didn’t acknowledge the guy, not looking up until I could do so with dry eyes. I did hear more people gathering, more murmurs about the art at my feet. After a few moments, I was able to look up with a determined sniff to see if the person who’d just spoken was still there, waiting for me to answer his question.

  It was him.

  My Bob Ross, though hotter and far less hippy, was right beside me, brown eyes alight with mischief and something that made me feel even worse: hope. He wanted me to like his work, and I had to tell him to stop.

  “It’s, um….” I didn’t know if I could do it.

  “Big,” he finished for me, beaming proudly over the colors that easily spanned thirty feet. “If you look at it from this angle, the perspective has a little bit of a 3D effect.” He grabbed my arm and hauled me around the portrait, without an apparent thought for how mortified I was. “I didn’t do that on purpose, because if you look at it from even slightly the wrong direction, it blows the whole effect and looks weird, and I wanted people to be able to see it from anywhere.” He stopped yanking me around and yeah, I could see what he meant.

  “Oh, there it is,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. I must not have pulled it off, because his head snapped up, and his excited expression melted like a Dali clock.

  “Oh. Wow, you don’t like it. That’s why they keep getting erased.” He seemed to diminish like ice in hot water, shoulders hunching as he jammed his hands in his pockets. He was so dejected I couldn’t help wanting to contradict him, but I didn’t get the chance.

  “Dane, this is incredible!” someone from the assembling crowd hollered to me. I found the speaker: Knitter Girl. She shouldered around some more admirers and stood on my other side, eyes roving over it from the 3D side. “Do you know who did this? It’s really cool!”

  “It is good,” I agreed. “Um, this guy did it,” I said, moving to include him in the conversation. I went to tell him her name, but realized I only knew her as Knitter Girl. Then I turned to tell her his name, and huffed in frustration. “Knitter Girl, this is, erm… my own personal Banksy. Banksy, Knitter Girl.”

  Thankfully, they both laughed and shook hands.

  “I’m Sam,” Knitter Girl said.

  “Craig,” Banksy answered. Then he turned to me. “And you’re Dane. I didn’t get your name that first day.”

  “Did you really do this? When? It wasn’t here yesterday, and I didn’t see you on my way home after class. This had to take hours.” Enthusiasm dripped from Sam’s words.

  “I did it overnight.”

  Sam’s eyes got big. “How? In the dark? How could you even see the photo you copied?”

  Craig shrugged. “I have a rig similar to what photographers use to diffuse light over a wide area. The first drawing was a project for a class, but the last three have been for fun and extra credit. And challenge. No reference photo.” He tapped his temple. “Photographic memory.” His eyes flickered to me like there was more to it, but he wouldn’t say so with someone else in earshot.

  “That is so cool!” Sam enthused, taking in the drawing as much as she could. “Have you drawn Dane every time?”

  “Yeah,” I croaked, clearing my throat to sound normal. “Yeah, they’ve been quite the surprise to stumble on.”

  Sam chuckled. “I bet.” With a great sigh, she smiled at us both. “These are great, but I have to get to class. You do too, Dane, if you don’t want to be late.” She checked her watch. “Scratch that. We’re already late. You coming?”

  I was torn. I knew if I didn’t talk to Craig right then, explain how flattered I was and try to make him understand, I’d never see him again. No more drawings, no more chance of bumping into him.

  “It’s okay,” he assured me. “Go. I’ll take the pictures I need to get credit for it, and then get rid of it. Don’t worry about it.” His smile was variegated with emotion—sadness, regret, reassurance, understanding. It didn’t reach his eyes, and if a smile could snap in half, his would have with minimal pressure. He was trying to appease me even though he was probably ten shades of embarrassed. Or hurt. That right there decided me.

  “Sam, can I borrow your notes—er, your recording later?”

  Sam began walking backward. �
�Oh, sure thing! I’ll see you in anatomy and we can make plans to go over it together.” She turned and hurried off.

  “You don’t have to do that if you have somewhere to be,” he began.

  “No. I want you to understand. I….” Giving our surroundings an appraisal, I pointed in the direction of Second Avenue. “I know a coffee shop just around the corner. Can I buy you a cup?” I mentally calculated the cost of two coffees and decided this was necessary; I could part with a bit of the hard-earned savings I’d built working as close to full time as I could manage while living on UMD’s dime during undergrad. There wasn’t much wiggle room if I wanted to stay on budget to finish med school without having to work on top of it, but I didn’t have to make it a habit.

  It’s ten bucks, I mentally scolded myself. Are you really that nervous?

  “I should buy you a cup,” he muttered. “You haven’t liked them at all. God, I can’t imagine what you must be thinking right now.”

  I smiled at him gently. “It’s on me. C’mon.”

  We arrived at Bean & Leaf in silence, and I mentally rehearsed how to let him down easy while we stood in line to order. Once we had our steaming cups and were seated at a two-person table in the corner, I smiled.

  “Craig. I really liked them. I did. My friend Holly has them on her phone. We took pictures of each one before cleaning them off, so I could keep them. I even printed the bowling one out and framed it. You drew me getting a strike. I don’t think that’s ever happened in real life.”

  He laughed shortly but shook his head. “I feel so stupid. Look, you should go to class and let me clean it up.”

  “Please don’t.”

  His head snapped up. “But tonight, you and your friend will come erase it, won’t you?”

  He was right. I dropped my gaze and answered in a small voice, “Probably.”

  “Right. So, I’m not convinced you liked them, and now you’re just being nice. And oh my god, you probably think I was stalking you since I drew you in ways that showed I’d seen you around.” His head thunked on the table, causing little rings to ripple outward on the surface of my coffee. “I’d like to die now.”