Chapter Ten Lesson One: Destruction

 

I barely slept that night, tossing and turning and sneaking outside to smoke again. I was getting better at breathing in and not going into a total coughing fit, but I still had to force the stick to my lips. I had no idea why I was forcing myself to start a habit that so many people are desperate to quit, but I was doing it nonetheless. It gave me something else to focus on other than what had happened that day. Images of Vivian and Gerard were repeated in my mind over and over again. I kept seeing her naked, but the weird thing was that I was no longer seeing her naked on Gerard’s orange couch, but naked with Gerard. And he was naked too. I was convinced that my brain was being affected somehow by the cigarettes, judging by the pretty sick and twisted fantasy I was conjuring up from the facts that he had told me that day. I couldn’t believe he had had sex with a woman, but he was still gay. It didn’t make any sense to me. I mean, if he liked her enough to fuck her, then how could he not like all women? Didn’t they all have the same parts? Or was I missing something entirely in this ideology? I was a virgin after all. Maybe I missed that meeting discussing sexuality. I was completely ignoring the emotional aspect of things and just focusing on the physical, but that’s all I had programmed my mind to do at that point. I was trying to avoid the emotional. If I dipped into that too much, I’d realize that when I conjured up these thoughts in my head of naked flesh and paint, that I was jealous. I wanted to be with one of the naked participants, and it scared the fuck out of me because, (disregarding both of their astronomical age differences) I didn’t know what one I wanted to be with.

And that’s why I smoked. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, for all the bitter and stress filled thoughts I was thinking. I kept glancing around and holding my breath after every time I coughed, making sure my parents didn’t find me in the backyard like this. My throat itched and burned each time I suppressed the smoke and natural reflex in my body, but it was worth it. I was only in my boxers and a thin t-shirt; it was freezing outside but the cold was a welcome distraction. I focused on how numb my toes were instead of the churning in my stomach, and the burning in my fingers and loins. I was getting turned on by the thoughts that kept flashing inside my mind, but they creeped me out too much to act on them. Just yet, anyway.

Finally, at nearly four-thirty in the morning, after finishing off the rest of Gerard’s stolen pack of cigarettes, only really half-smoking them before I threw them in the grass, I gave into my urge and jacked off. It took me longer than usual because I kept stopping each time their bodies came into my head. I didn’t want to get off to Gerard and Vivian together. I didn’t even want to get off to Vivian for that fact. She was way older than me. I tried to focus on the images I had stored from all of my years of watching porn downstairs on the couch, probably being way to violent and jerky with my hand motions. Eventually, I pulled myself the right way, climaxing quickly and not really enjoying it before I turned over and went to sleep. It appeared that I just needed to get some kind of stress out of my body before I could relax.

When the morning sun came up however, and my mother’s dull monotonous call echoed in my ears, that stress came back full force. I was going to Gerard’s today. And I needed to make up a story to go with it. My nerves were back and I didn’t have time for another meeting with my hand. It was too risky anyway with my mother in the next room, gathering laundry and making beds.

Instead I shrugged it off, threw on some kind of clothing, making sure that I packed my cigarettes and some matches. I already had the urge to smoke and it was only five minutes after reaching full consciousness. I was fully addicted to the nicotine, even if I did cough half of it up. I wondered if Gerard would be proud of me. I was smoking now; just like him. And I wanted to show him that day, proving that I didn’t just steal his cigarettes for the sake of stealing. I still felt bad about my actions, each time I thought of it my stomach sunk down to my shoes. Gerard had been so understanding, buying me my own pack and not getting mad at me for taking his own.

Maybe I could smoke with him today after our lesson, I thought to myself. He’d teach me how to make art and then I’d show him my creative outlet I had been practicing the night before. In theory, it sounded perfect. Then again, in theory, I wouldn’t be seeing the artist and his best friend naked in my mind every five fucking seconds.

I walked out of my bedroom in a hurry, almost bumping into my mother who had a large armload of clothing with her.

“Oh! Frankie!” she uttered, calling me by my childhood pet name. The name had always irked me, especially now that I was a teenager. Anytime she called me by it, I would get this weird memory of me at age four eating sand at the park and her yelling that name in an octave so high it would make dogs deaf.

“Sorry, mom,” I muttered, adjusting my jacket. When I ran into her, she nearly knocked the cigarette pack out of my pocket. I didn’t need her finding it, let alone taking it away from me. I was surprised that her or my father hadn’t noticed my smoky smell yet, but there were always some kind of air fresheners in the house, the harsh scent of lilac masking everything.

“Where are you going this early, honey?” she asked, adjusting herself with the armload she was carrying. I was nearly to the stairs by this point and mumbled some bullshit excuse with Sam’s name attached to it, hoping it would be enough. I heard her chipper compliant and was about to descend to my creative freedom when her voice interrupted me with something more urgent.

“What’s this? Do you want me to wash it?” she asked, twisting her face up at the stained blue t-shirt still on my door. My eyes widened as her delicate hands went over to try and undo the tacks I had used to put it up.

“No!” I exclaimed, leaping over to her side in a single bound. I put my larger hand over hers and brushed it away from the shirt. I had put the art piece up so long ago that I had nearly forgotten about it. It became a normal staple of my room, just like my CD collection and my bed. But apparently my mother had never seen this hideous display of dirty laundry before.

“What is it?” she asked, scrunching up her face. I sighed heavily, not knowing how and not really wanting to explain it.

“Art,” was all I managed to say. She took her focus off the shirt and turned it to me this time, her face still screwed up and confused. She was probably more familiar with ‘high culture’ as Gerard would say, but for the life of her she could not fathom how this shirt was anything but a stain remover project. This is what Martha Stewart does to people.

“Leave it up there,” I told her seriously. She could see the deep-rooted solemnity in my eyes and being the good mother that she was, she merely nodded and walked away. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, and even though I could no longer see her expression, I knew it was still perplexed. I stared back at the shirt that I hadn’t studied since I first put it on my wall. I saw the blue paint and I saw Gerard’s face in my mind clearly. This time without Vivian, with his clothes on and without nagging guilt or jealousy. I just saw the artist; the artist that I was going to be spending all day with.

I turned to leave my house, no longer carrying the nerves that had kept me awake nearly all night. I walked out the door and to Gerard’s apartment knowing that even if I couldn’t control my feelings sometimes, at least it was better than being at home where there was not even a chance my parents could understand me.

*

My lessons that day did not quite start as I had expected them to. When I turned my key in the brass keyhole and stepped into the brightly lit apartment from the sun’s morning rays filling the room, I saw something that I never thought possible. I had to rub and blink my eyes a few times before the scene became real to me.

Gerard was in his apartment like he always was, dressed in black like he always was and in his art station like he always was. But there was something off about everything. Though Gerard held a paint can in one arm, he was not painting with it. He was flinging it against his painted wall instead. And it wasn’t one of the plain walls in the kitchen – it was his mural. He was dousing what I thought to be one of the greatest works ever created in layer after layer of an ugly army green colour. My mouth dropped open in horror as I no longer saw the cityscape that he had painted with the shadow in the middle. In its place I saw gray and purple over it, mixed together to form a vomit inducing colour. The green Gerard was tossing at the moment was over the hill scene, clashing everything even more. It looked horrible; like the picture was bleeding and throwing up sick. It always looked as sick as my guitar, damaged from years of not playing, but it was worse because Gerard kept doing it. He kept ruining his own art; flailing his arms violently with each douse. He wasn’t even using brushes. And when I glanced to where his brushes were usually kept, wondering if he had just run out, I saw all of his canvasses lying on the floor in disarray. The sunset scene he had recently been working at was smashed in two and the others also had ugly branding of the vomit-paint. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And I couldn’t move I was in so much shock. I had never seen this before from this man – this man that was always so focused on beauty. He was making his apartment ugly beyond ugly. He was destroying it. All of his hard work gone with a single paint stroke.

I don’t know how long I just stood in the doorway, my hand still on the knob and the key in the door, watching him annihilate and curse over and over again. It felt like hours, especially judging by the amount of demolition he got done. But finally I managed to find my voice, buried deep inside my throat.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I called to him, my tone breaking under the pressure. He looked over at me, his face twisted in a weird sort of devilish smirk. There was a splash of red paint across his forehead and tons of the stuff flecking his shirt. He was breathing hard, his skin pink where there wasn’t paint and sweat. All of his actions pointed to him being mad or upset at something, but when I looked at him, he looked happy. Not even just happy; fucking ecstatic. It didn’t make sense.

“Oh, hey Frank!” he called over to me. He didn’t move from his stance or put the paint can down, but he gave his full attention to me and was not so lost in the world of destruction he had been only moments earlier. “Come over here and join me!”

I swallowed hard, shutting my gaping mouth only temporarily as I took my keys out of the door and placed down my things very slowly. I walked over to him in the same leisurely stance, the look of sheer perplexity on my face clearly amusing him.

“Grab a bucket and come help me with this,” he informed me, motioning with a tip of his head to where his paint supplies were. As I looked to where he kept everything, carcasses of his old work and supplies littering the ground, I couldn’t help but feel angry for many reasons. I had worked so fucking hard in cleaning all of those supplies that were now on the floor like they were nothing. I had scrubbed his brushes for what felt like hours, trying to get out the fucking hardened paint he left in them. I cleaned the floor, tossing out old cans and wiping up stains. And he just fucking messed it up again. I knew I was going to be the one cleaning up the chaos too. None of it seemed worth my time anymore, especially as Gerard was destroying his own work in front of me. I only wished I had that much talent and he was throwing it away. Literally.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked again, my voice resonating with my annoyance. He had gone back to splashing paint on the wall and mixing it in with his open palm, but he was still listening to me. And he was having a lot of fun with my anger.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked, his tongue proceeding to protrude in concentration as he smiled.

“It looks like you’re being a complete and utter asshole,” I answered honestly. I folded my arms over my chest and shot Gerard a death glare, which only ended up being absorbed into the back of his black head. This was the first time I had ever been mad at Gerard. Even when he tossed the paint down on us that first day, ruining my clothing and nearly choking me, I had not been mad; I had been amazed. I wasn’t amazed now. He wasn’t creating art this time; he was destroying it.

He laughed at my insult, completely disregarding it with his next words. “All artists are assholes,” he informed me, eyes still on the wall. “We’re selfish creatures who want everything for themselves and want everything to be their way. We can’t help it. It’s who we are.”

I huffed at his words, getting annoyed at the fact he was being a pompous jerk. And being proud of that fact. He was now segregating himself into another class of people. He was making his own race; and making it superior. He was only doing it too so he could get away with his actions right then. He only made up these bullshit theories on the spot, to write off whatever action he was doing. It was so he didn’t get in trouble; he’d blame his behaviour on the art. It made him do it. But it wasn’t that fucking easy.

“Well, this is the first time you’re really being an asshole I can’t stand,” I barked out in perfect honesty. However, it seemed that no matter how hard I tried to be mean to him, it only made him laugh more.

“Finally,” he breathed, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, careful not to get the paint on his already covered skin. “I was beginning to wonder when you’d start to hate me.” Though he flashed me that trademark smirk, I could see some other feeling behind his eyes; a bittersweet approval for my apparent hatred.

I let my sturdy stance fall a bit, unfolding my arms. “I don’t hate you, Gerard,” I told him with a little calmer of a voice. He rolled his eyes at me as a response and went back to his ‘work’. The paint can he held was empty and he now proceeded to mush stuff together with his hands. I watched him for awhile, trying to figure out… anything.

“I don’t get why you’re doing this,” I said my voice clear and concise. There was no bitter resentment in my tone anymore. It was just a question now, and one he could answer without being sarcastic back to. Or at least I hoped.

“You destroy the things you love,” he told me, his back still before me.

“But why?” I asked, trying my hardest to understand and just not getting it. “Why would you destroy something you love? Wouldn’t you want to keep it forever?”

“There is no such thing as forever, Frank,” he informed me seriously. The bittersweet quality of his voice came back, this time sounding more morose.

“But your art is still so good,” I gushed, walking forward and standing next to him. His arm was stretched up high to smudge an orange spot and his eyes followed. He chuckled at my comment, but did nothing else.

“If I could paint half as good as you, I’d never want to let them go,” I finally stated, my voice losing its volume at the end. My words were so true that it struck a chord in me. Even when I wrote something down, just to get it out of my head so I didn’t explode, I would always keep it. It was pure crap and I knew it, but I still kept it. There was a drawer in my dresser that’s just filled with those papers, crumbled into balls, folded or strewn in piles about everything. They were all there; a little loose-leaf graveyard of thoughts. I didn’t think I could ever throw them away. There was still that part of me that thought maybe, just maybe they would be something more than a dead weight. They could be something great but I didn’t know that if I didn’t keep them. What Gerard had already was great and I didn’t get why he couldn’t see that or didn’t care about it. I cared more than him, and that boggled my mind.

“But the thing is Frank,” Gerard thick voice cut into my thoughts. He finally turned his glare at me and continued. “You have to let things go eventually. You can’t hold onto things forever because there is no such thing. And it’s better if you yourself let it go than have someone else make you.” The way he enunciated every word and flicked them off of his pointy tongue made them fly at me like razor tipped bullets. They hit me and stung me whole because each one of them had a target. They had a truth behind them, one that I hadn’t really thought of before because it was sad. You had to let things go. Those notes I kept in my drawer would eventually have to be thrown away. Even if they were something great, I’d never know because I didn’t share them. I had to get rid of them myself before my hopes were crushed. But the thought of doing that scared me even more. I was fucked either way; share my thoughts and be ridiculed or throw them away and never know their greatness.

Gerard walked away after he said that, to the centre of the room where he kept his supplies, leaving me alone to stare at the muck of paint. And then I really looked at what he had been doing. He was hurting himself before anyone else did. It was almost an altruistic suicide, if that made any sense. I felt pain, guilt, and most of all respect, well up inside of me. I could never do what he was doing. Ever.

“Are you going to come and help me now?” Gerard asked. I turned my attention behind me, back over to him. I saw him standing with his arms to his side, the only two paint cans left full, one in each hand. He cocked a stained yellow eyebrow at me and tilted his head to the side, challenging me almost. I stared at him for a long time, debating my response. I loved his art; I didn’t want to destroy it. But there was something in his eyes just then, something I could never name.
“Come on, Frank,” Gerard whined playfully, stretching out the letters in my name. He walked forward and slammed the paint can against my chest, causing some of the mauve liquid to bounce on my shirt. Yet another piece of art I could tack on my wall for my mother to wonder about.

“It’ll be fun,” Gerard finished with a sardonic smile, shrugging his shoulders up in the air before he slammed the contents of the bucket into the wall again. I looked down at the paint in my hands, at Gerard and then at the wall. I did this at least three times before another realization hit me. I couldn’t let things go by myself, hurting myself in the process. Gerard knew that; he could see that in my eyes and the way I acted when he did this. He knew I couldn’t hurt myself, so he was allowing me to hurt him. He was letting me learn using his own emotions and feelings as my practice assignment.

This was my first lesson in art, I realized fully. Destruction. And I had to make a good impression.

I took a deep breath in before I crashed the contents of my can into the wall. It splashed so hard, some of the mauve flecks coming back and hitting me in the face. My mouth had been open, and one dribble landed on my tongue. I tasted the pungent familiar tang and remembered the day Gerard made me into art. And I corrected my statement from before in my head, taking my lesson on destruction into consideration. Gerard may have been destroying art right now, but the way he did it, the way he mixed the colours and brought emotion to the surface, he was really making art out of the destruction of it all. And by bringing so many emotions into it; all the hurt and pain and regret, it sealed the deal as making it full-fledged art. Because really, that’s all art was; emotions in bright colours.

“Yes! Frank!” Gerard cheered, his free arm in the air, encouraging my next move. We flung paint against the wall, violently together for God knows how long. We moved up and down the mural, hitting every spot, except for Gerard’s jet-black door. He closed it when we got to that area, placing a protective shield of paper around it.

“We can destroy everything else,” he told me seriously, no smile on his face. He meant business. “We have to leave the black door, however. Its nothingness – and that cannot be destroyed.”

I nodded my head vigorously, his words not sinking in and just wanting to do some more damage. I had been reluctant at first, but now with Gerard’s heaving sighs and rhythmic moving of his body and mind, I was completely engulfed. I twisted and turned around his body until we tossed our empty paint cans on the floor, not yet in defeat. We didn’t stop there – we just began to use our hands. I smudged the lines of everything we had thrown up, pushing the cool wet liquid through my fingers, blending the lines of everything so there was no longer a clear distinction. It felt so good and so refreshing. I had been so into it I didn’t even realize when Gerard pushed my body into the wall until I felt the cool feeling on my face. I had receded in horror, more paint getting into my mouth, but by that point I was used to it. I turned to face Gerard, the muck running down my visage and in my hair, and saw him laughing like a little child. His eyes were wide and youthful, his mouth opened in a huge belly laugh. As I looked at him then, the colours spread over and around him, I almost forgot he was forty-seven years old. He seemed just like me, only not as covered in paint.

“Feel the destruction, Frank,” he teased, still holding his side from laughing. I pretended to scoff at him and look away, busying myself with another smudge that deserved my attention until he went back to work. Then I reciprocated the events, slamming him gently into our paint filled obliteration. He wasn’t as shocked with the pigment filling his mouth as I had been, but that was because he had gotten what he had wanted.

“You’re learning well, Frank!” he exclaimed, nodding his head and brushing away his hair, leaving a trail of mauve up the side of it. I nodded and smiled, some unknown feeling of pride welling up in me. I ignored it – I had better things to do just then. We had art to destroy and make, with the very same brush stroke. Or hand slap.

We knew we were never going to be able to finish everything. When you destroy something, there’s so much you can do; so many things you can break, and then build up again, that you never know when to stop. But we had to stop, for the sake of our clothing and our health. We were covered in so many random splotches of paint and breathing hard. We both decided to call it quits with a single look, backing up and away from the mural that looked completely and utterly…amazing. It was no longer the shapes and fine lines Gerard had worked for months on, but it was still art. I didn’t exactly know how to describe it, but it was fucking gorgeous nonetheless.

“It looks like Picasso threw up,” Gerard joked, nailing the description perfectly in his mind. I laughed along, vaguely recalling who Picasso was. I knew he was an artist, and that was enough to get the joke.

“That was so much fun,” I stated honestly. I didn’t have to get the joke or comparison, to appreciate the task. It really had been fun; the most I had had in a long time. I looked over at Gerard who smiled, his chest still going up and down like mine as we caught our breaths. He moved over to me and placed an arm lazily on my shoulders. His touch was heavier than usual and I thought I would fall over at first.

“Just like fucking,” Gerard stated in utmost seriousness, despite the cheeky grin he bared.

“Huh?” I asked, choking on what I told myself was paint.

“Fucking,” Gerard repeated, turning to me with a smile. “Sex.”

“I know that much,” I said. I looked at him with curious eyes, hoping he would explain another one of his theories. And I hoped it was a theory. I didn’t want to think of what else it meant.

“Art is sexual,” he informed me. He took his gaze away from me and looked back at the mural, continuing his lecture. “People draw, paint and fuck what they think is beautiful. People strive all of their life to find that beauty and it is essential. Just like our need to reproduce. Art is sexual…” he repeated, motioning with his hand to the mural in front of us. “Look at what we just did. We ran around, passion in our mouth right next to the paint. We flung ourselves out there, on the wall, on each other, everywhere. We panted, cursed and climaxed. And now it’s all over the wall; the beauty we just shared.” Gerard nodded his head slightly, looking back over at me. His arm was still heavy on my shoulders, but now other things weighed me down. His smirk was deeper than usual and he lifted his eyebrows considerably. He wasn’t implying anything; he didn’t have to. I already understood too much. I swallowed hard and looked at our wall. I looked at what we had just done. And I felt myself shiver from the inside out.

Had we just had sex?

Sex without penetration, but sex nonetheless. We had been naked; our souls were bared and exposed to one another. We had been moving together, panting hard and we tried to reach a desired goal. And we had climaxed; we finished with this work of art in front of us. I felt my jaw drop past my knees to the floor that we had had sex on. I didn’t know how else to describe it. We had had sex… art sex. It made no sense, but God, that’s how it felt. And just like with all sex, after the release, it had felt good. Too good. Too good to have shared it with a man and an old one at that.

“Now,” Gerard called, snapping me out of my thoughts. I went willingly, listening to what he had to say. “Let’s get something to eat.”

Gerard moved and went to the kitchen, taking his heavy arm off my shoulder and leaving me almost falling onto the floor. When I caught my balance, I followed him slowly and sat down in the creaky wooden chair the moment I got the opportunity. My legs were still shaky, from the physical labor or Gerard’s words - I wasn’t sure.

I didn’t remember much that had happened after that; my thoughts were too dense and preoccupied. I remembered sitting in the kitchen a little while, Gerard pouring me a glass of wine while he merely drank from the bottle. I chugged the liquor, finally not giving a fuck about its aftertaste. He fed me the rest of Vivian’s cookies, the chocolate chips in them melting as soon as they hit my flat and lifeless tongue. I stared at the cracks on the kitchen table, not much of the food getting into me and no conversation whatsoever getting out. I didn’t feel like talking to Gerard; we had already done enough bonding that day. Too much, in my head.

It was only moments later before Gerard was ushering me out his door, his strong paint stained hand on the small of my back sending me chills and guiding me on my way. He said we had gotten enough work done for that day and other words I couldn’t recall. I walked home lazily, the wine taste in my mouth leaving me tipsy, with a sugar high and another sensation I couldn’t quite pinpoint without destroying something.

*

I sat at home that night, lying on my bed and looking at the newly pinned up shirt on the other side of the door. I pinned it there so my mother wouldn’t try to wash this one again and so only I could be the one to see it. I didn’t want anyone else to share in what Gerard and I had done that day. I had lost my painting virginity, in more than one way. And I knew how stupid that sounded, but that was all I could think of as I stared at the black shirt, now sprinkled with mauve and yellow. I had had the mauve paint, while Gerard’s had been yellow. Gerard was on my shirt. Gerard was on me. Gerard had taken something from me that day and when I looked back on it all, I was happy he had been the one to take it. When he said and implied what he did, I had been scared. I had been freaked out because I didn’t know what was going on. Another aspect of the painting being similar to sex. I had lost my virginity and therefore confusion was normal. Almost essential.

By the time I was on my bed that night, I had done a lot of thinking to catch myself up. I stared at the shirt, completely engulfed by the fabric and colours, replaying what had happened over and over again in my mind. It was amazing and astonishing. Destruction was fucking beautiful, and the aftermath was even better.

I was too delusional and dreamy that I didn’t even hear the phone ring. My mother rapped on my door a few time before I even heard that too. She finally just walked into my room, the white cordless phone in her left hand, nearly making me jump out of my skin.

“Sorry, honey,” she apologized, not really meaning it. “But there’s a call for you.”

I sat up in bed, pressing my back to the headboard. I was wearing street clothing still, changing and showering for hours when I got home, but I still felt exposed to my mother. I felt like she knew I had had sex today, even if it wasn’t real sex. But instead, she just clucked her tongue waiting for me to respond. I never got phone calls. Sam or Travis would phone once in a blue moon to ask if I wanted to do something or if I had the notes from a class they had skipped, but most of the time if they wanted me, they’d just knock on my door. Generally, it was always me looking for them though. But in the past few weeks we’d barely spoken outside of school. I had no idea who was on the phone.

“Who is it?” I finally vocalized, furrowing my brow.

“Someone named Jared or something,” my mom answered furrowing her brow right back. It took me awhile to realize who exactly my mother was taking about. She had butchered his name, but I was grateful for that. Gerard sounded like such an older name, it would have given a hint to his age, if his voice already hadn’t. But my mom seemed completely oblivious that on the other end of the phone she held was a forty-seven-year-old artist.

“Oh!” I uttered, reaching out my hands and grabbing the desired object from her. She handed to over with a shrug and then closed my door with a faint warning of not being up too late, even if it was a Saturday. I mumbled something over to her and with shaking hands I placed the phone in position.

“Hello?” I questioned. Even if my mom had told me who was on the phone, I still didn’t believe it. Why was Gerard calling me? Of all people? We had never spoken outside of his apartment except for that day in the park. There was no need to; I’d always come to him. For once though, Gerard was coming to me for something. I felt something inside of me flutter, especially as I heard the familiar voice on the other end.

“Hey Frank, it’s Jared,” he answered, mocking my mother’s mistake. I laughed into the receiver, temporarily forgetting my questions.

“How are you?” he asked for a conversation starter, though I could tell that he was not interested in talking long. There was a quickness to his voice – not an urgency to get rid of me, almost just wanting to talk to me for a few seconds, to tease and confuse me. And to be honest by this point I wasn’t surprised with the action. Not anymore. Being surprised and being confused though, are two very different things.

“I’m fine…” I trialed off, grasping one the emotions from the air. “But how on earth did you get my number?”

“I looked it up, of course,” Gerard quipped, the pride oozing from his voice.

“But you don’t even know my last name.” It had always been a first name basis with us. I knew Gerard’s last name, vaguely, from looking at his license. It was something short and started with a W. When I had looked at his license though, that was not the detail I had been focusing on.

“I can look through people’s things too, you know,” was all he said, bringing me back down to reality. I had no idea when he would have been able to go through my belongings and find my ID card but the thought of it made me shiver. I wondered what else Gerard might have known about me…

“Anyway,” Gerard cut in, trying to hurry things a long. “I called to ask you something.”

“What?” I asked, feeding into his desire to get me squirming. If he called me at home – looked up my number – it must have been important.

“I need you to bring something tomorrow,” was all he said, trying to prolong my agony.

“What?” I asked again, feeling his smile come through the phone and slap me across the face.

“A case of beer,” he stated smoothly. “Can you manage that?”

“Um,” I trialed off, thinking and feeling my face contort in surprise. Gerard, the guy who refused to buy me said liquid before because it wasn’t his wine was now asking for beer. God, he was full of revelations. I wasn’t entirely sure where I could get beer without getting caught or arrested, but I lied anyway. “I’m pretty sure I can.”

“Great,” he oozed into the phone. I had always hated the phone when I was kid; it was too intimidating and sterile. And I continued to hate it into my adolescence. You could never tell what someone was actually saying; you couldn’t feel their emotion. But Gerard, like with everything else, was an exception. I felt like he was right in front of me when his fluid voice erupted through the phone.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then, Frank,” Gerard suddenly said. I was about to say goodbye to him or ask him more details about our upcoming meeting, like exactly why I needed beer, but too soon, the dial tone sounded in my ear. I held the phone in place for some time, thinking he’d be back but I was let down. I finally disconnected the line and walked out of my room to return the phone to its resting place in the kitchen.

“Who was that?” my mother asked me as soon as I entered. She was sitting at the table, reading a magazine. I knew she had been waiting for me to come down though. She never read anything in the kitchen – always in her floral loveseat. She was being nosey and curious, and honestly had every right to be, considering the circumstances that she had no clue about.

“Just a friend,” I answered, somewhat detached. She nodded, accepting it as an answer and left to go to her normal spot. I was still in the kitchen, not satisfied with my own answer. I thought about the term ‘friend’ and what it meant. I thought about how I used to call Sam and Travis my friends. Even when we were all close, we were nothing like how Gerard and I interacted. The artist and I were friends by definition - that was true - but it was also a lie. There was something else there that I could not call friendship, no matter how hard I tried, without it being some kind of fabrication. Friends don’t act the way Gerard and I did. They don’t have metaphorical paint sex. No; not at all. There was definitely something else there. Something that I wrote off as mentorship, but still knew it was more. It was something I didn’t want to put my finger on and eventually, I just left the kitchen and the topic, too frustrated to deal with anything else. One thought still remained in my head however.

Since when did friendship become so complicated?