Tag was tired of playing manager to Moses Wright, and had his own dreams of blood and glory (literally), and I was tired of perpetual homelessness. I’d been a drifter all my life, and I found I was ready for something else. We’d landed in Salt Lake City, back where it had all begun, and for some reason it had felt right to stick around. I’d come back as a favor to Dr. Andelin, who had kept tabs on me and Tag as we’d trotted the globe and managed to stay alive and mostly out of trouble. I had agreed to paint a mural at Montlake, something hopeful and soothing that they could point to and say, “See? A crack baby painted this, and you can too!”
Noah Andelin was so happy to see us, and his genuine pleasure at our success, and our friendship, along with his gentle concern about our well-being, led to dinner and drinks later in the week, and it had been Dr. Andelin who had pointed us toward the warehouse apartments, thinking maybe it was something we would be interested in.
I’d worried about Tag staying put, because Tag needed to move like I needed to paint, and traveling for years had met each of our needs, keeping us both sane. But Tag rented the floor below mine, and instead of an art studio, he turned his open space into a gym and got involved with the local fight scene—mixed martial arts, boxing, wrestling. He did it all, and the activity kept him clean and focused. Before long he was talking about bouts, a fighter’s clothing line called Tag Team, and collecting sponsors to open a new facility for local fighters to train to compete in the UFC. While I painted he pounded, while I raised the waters he raised the roof, and we settled into our respective floors and kept the monsters at bay. It was the closest we’d come to finding ourselves, and we were both learning how to deal.
And now, alone in my own bed, in my own space, with my own things and my own life, I had been awakened by Batman at the end of my bed, and I was irritated by the little trespasser. I turned over and concentrated on the water, on pulling it down on top of me so the boy, my little visitor, would go. I’d obviously picked up the straggler at the hospital today. Shaking hands and signing autographs and trying to paint while a crowd assembled around me was my least favorite kind of job.
I didn’t like painting in hospitals. I saw things I didn’t want to see. And I could always tell the people who weren’t going to make it. Not because they looked any sicker than anyone else. Not because I saw their charts or overheard their nurses gossiping. It was easy to tell because their dead always hovered nearby. Without fail, the dying would have a companion at their shoulder. Just like Gi did before she died.
I’d painted a mural in the children’s ward in a French hospital several years ago. A row of sick kids, cancer patients, had watched from their beds as I created a swirling carnival, complete with dancing bears and cartwheeling clowns and elephants in full regalia. But I’d seen the dead standing at the shoulders of three of the children. Not to drag them down to hell or anything sinister. It didn’t frighten me. I understood why they were there. When the time came, and it would come soon, those children would have someone to meet them, to welcome them home. By the time I was done with the mural, the three children had died. It didn’t scare me, but I didn’t like it. And hospitals were filled with the dead and dying.
The mural I’d done for Dr. Andelin and the Montlake Psychiatric Facility had inspired several more around the valley. The cancer center came knocking about a month ago, applying a little pressure and doing a little hand-wringing, and I ended up agreeing to donate my time and talents to painting yet another hopeful, happy mural. It was good publicity. Publicity that I didn’t want or need. But Tag was looking for sponsors for his club and when he told me one of the hospitals biggest patrons was on his list, I made sure the patron knew my price for the mural was a donation to Tag Team. But the mural had taken its toll on me.
I was tired. Incredibly so. And maybe the exhaustion was leaving me more vulnerable to small ghost boys and memories better left forgotten. Seeing Georgia had messed with my head and brought back the hopelessness of the old Moses. The Moses who couldn’t control himself. The Moses who lost himself in paint. I didn’t ever want to go back to Levan, or Georgia, or the time before. I had never wanted to go back, so over the years I had piled rocks on Georgia’s memory, and I’d buried her at the bottom of the sea. But every time I parted the waters and let people’s memories across, my memories of her would rise to the surface, and I would think about her, I would remember her. I would remember how I had wanted her and hated her and wished she would leave me alone and never let me go. And I would miss her.
And when I missed her, I would list the things that I hated. Five things I hated. She always had five greats, I had five hates. I hated her innocence and her easy life. I hated her small-town speech and small-town beliefs. I hated how she thought she loved me. That was the worst thing.
But there were things about her I didn’t hate. So many things I couldn’t hate. Her fire, her stubborn streak, the way her legs had felt wrapped around me, her eyes locked on mine, demanding that I give her everything as I tried to take her without falling in love with her. She had wanted all of it. Every last, private piece.
She was so beautiful still.