His mother is silver haired and soft shouldered, his father taller but stooped now. They hug me and are sweet. But they are not prepared for their son’s choice of someone like me. Someone from such a faraway place, a place they have never heard of before. They have not been abroad. They were born into this place, this life, and have never left or even felt the need to. Their ancestors had come here fleeing terrors, and once they had been planted in this soft and welcoming earth, there had been no need to ever leave again.
They had expected that same life for this one child of theirs. Instead he had moved across the country, found me. They never know quite what to say to me. There are awkward silences and strange questions. They ask if I like the food, if I need more spice. I do—the things on my plate are bland and everything seems to be submerged under a white blanket of cheese—but I shake my head. I want desperately for them to like me. They are not bad people; they are simply people who have lived in one place, even one house, for all their lives.
He’s strange around them. Different than I have ever seen him. When they ask how his painting is going, he almost snaps at them. But it is clear they are supportive. All around the house are his paintings, from the juvenilia of high school to more polished pieces, landscapes, portraits, still lifes. A jumble of styles as he was heading toward his own. That night in his narrow childhood bed I ask, “What happened at dinner?”
“What?”
“Your mom asked about what you’re painting now and you snapped at her. What was that?”
He’s lying on his back, hands behind his neck as if we are outside and he is gazing into the sky. His eyes are closed, but I can see them flit under the lids. Then he must have decided to tell me because it comes out in a rush.
“Okay, here it is. In New York a few years after graduation, I was in a group show at a very serious gallery. The kind of gallery that kicks off major careers. The owner was this really great guy. He had sunk all his own money into the gallery because he believed in it. Somehow, through some miracle, it was doing extremely well. He called and offered me a solo show and I was over the moon. It meant I was done struggling, that I was about to get discovered. Be a real artist. I could quit the day job and just paint. It was all I wanted to do. As we got closer I got more and more elated. This was going to be it. My life would change.”
He pauses and I wait, my palm on his chest, feeling his heart thudding under the skin. He takes a deep breath, says, “And then a few weeks before the show, someone called me. The owner had been hit by a car. He died on arrival in the hospital. His wife was devastated. She sold the gallery immediately, and there went all my grand dreams in a puff of smoke.” He opens his eyes to look at me. “I was crushed. I felt like someone had wadded up all my freedom, all my possible talent, thrown it in the toilet and flushed. I saw that … all my life being flushed away. I was gutted.”
I nod in the dim light, our faces near each other. He says, “I stopped painting. I drank a lot. I smoked nonstop. I didn’t eat or shower. I lost my handling job. I just closed up like a book. Withdrew into my apartment, into myself. I didn’t want anyone around me. It was the worst time of my life. My folks finally came and found me and dragged me back here. That felt like death, but they probably saved my life. It was the worst humiliation. Having to move back to my parents like a kid. I lived with them here for about six months. In this room. I felt so guilty, I had gone to this great art school, done well, almost made it big. And then back here. And for those six months everything went dead. I didn’t care. But then slowly it came back. My fingers would ache and I realized they missed the feel of a brush. My mother left out my old art books, things I thought I had outgrown. A book of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. I used to look at his weird backward writing and those tremendous faces he loved, those craggy profiles, those massive rumps of horses, until I couldn’t help getting paper and pencil and trying for myself. Then it all came back in a fever. I moved straight out to San Francisco. Got a crap job. And painted. God, did I paint. But this time just the sensation of the pencil on paper, the drag of the brush and the turpentine in the air, the working out of the ideas in my head, that was everything. This time I didn’t give a fuck about the galleries or sales or numbers. This time it belonged just to me. This time it felt pure.” He leans forward and kisses me. He says, “So that’s why I get annoyed when they ask about painting. It’s stupid of me. But it reminds me of that time when I felt like an absolute loser. I almost died. Then I came back to life.”
Later when he falls asleep I lie there thinking about everything he has revealed. What must it mean to love something the way he loves painting? What must it be like to have your soul claimed by something in this way? I don’t have this. It is the difference between him and me. The only thing I love in this way is him.