Part Three – Inspiration

 

The words on his door weren’t the only French phrase to filter through our small lives in the apartment. We had our shower that night soon after, to remove the paint and supposed sins from our bodies. The colors drained away, and we began to emerge from that cocoon, the layers we stripped off becoming more inventive with the water. As they followed slowly down the drain, their twisting vibrant colors made art itself.

Gerard washed my hair again with his European shampoo, which I had actually missed. When I had bathed at home the past week, my hair had felt dry and stiff after, not as lush and full as it had when I used his brand. Gerard’s fingers were somehow better than my own at getting the dirt and grime out of my hair, probably because he was taller and had a better vantage point. I wasn’t sure if it was the shampoo, the way his fingers penetrated and massaged my scalp, or just Gerard himself that I had missed.

He let me wash his hair this time too, making things a little awkward because I was shorter than him. He ended up having to get down on his knees in order for me to do as good of a job. While already in the compromising position he proceeded to give me a blow job in the shower, but only after I was done. He had tried to do it while I was in mid-scrub, but my fingers were rendered useless the moment his tongue flicked my slit. And since he wanted to make sure his hair was done just right, he stopped sucking me, and just let me finish.

It was after we were dried off and ready that Gerard brought out some more French tongues. He walked over to his long and tall bookcases, grabbed down a few titles and displayed them on the floor. I had brought out a sheet from his bedroom, and was lying on my stomach waiting for him to join me. He began to open and flip through the pages, waving his hands in the air and talking rapidly about this poem he just ‘had to show me’. The paint smell was still infiltrating the room, making me feel a tad nauseous. The wine that Gerard had brought out for us as well didn’t help matters, but I drank it anyway, quenching my thirst in some form. I looked around the room aimlessly as Gerard furiously searched, my eyes locking on our mural.

Now that we had stepped back from it for awhile, done other things and got rid of the sexual tension in the shower, I could see it for what it was really worth. I saw the way the colors blended and images began to pop out into my mind. I saw in the center, where the red, blue, and green paint remained formed an image of a bird. Or at least to me, it was a bird. There was a small pear-shaped body, with splashes of blue and green to make the wings flap around the base. The head was a red patch, bobbed more forward than that of the neck. Wave like patterns, from when Gerard and I had let our hands glide along the wall, were made at the end of the bird, forming tail feathers. The other colors that were around it, the bright oranges and pinks, formed background noise; outside creativity coming in to inspire the bird’s flight.

But not just any bird, I began to theorize. My eyes scanned the mural, noticing all the small, specific details. I noticed the distinct curves and symmetry of the body, the way the colors blended together. It was still vibrant, but there was a calming hue to everything. All the colors touched. There were no definite lines where the blue started and the red ended. They blended together at the borders and edges while in the center, they were at their most vivacious. As if on cue, another bird flew by the still drying mural, and there was no doubt in my mind that this image was of a dove.

I knew, like the dove in real life, this one on the mural was flying too. The way its wings appeared to be thrown down on the mural, and how far they were spread out from its body made it look like it was soaring. It was when my eyes followed its flight path that I got the surprise of my life.

The dove was flying in the direction of Gerard’s door; the one that I had just marked. It was flying towards the sun, and the endless sun at that.

I sat there for awhile, ignoring everything else that was going on around me and thought about this. There was so much double meaning in everything. The bird, this mythical and magical creature, was flying towards the handprint on Gerard’s nothingness. The words he had written began to make more sense and the feelings that were coursing through me were beginning to overpower everything. I looked at the painting, my mouth wide open and breathed out a shocked breath. I couldn’t believe we had made that without trying to.

“Gerard,” I called in weak voice, still drained.

“Hmmm…?” he said, not looking up from his poetry books and flipping through the accented pages quickly.

“Gerard, look at our mural,” I commanded, my voice strong yet humble at the same time. Sensing this tone, he raised his head, his hair still damp from the shower and looked. He saw the image right away, always able to grasp art abstract concepts much more readily than I had ever been able to. He glanced over at me, a smile wide on his lips. I noticed the small blue tinge he had to the area, still not fully unstained from the shower.

“The most beautiful art comes when you’re not trying,” he informed me, taking in a deep breath. He had stopped flipping through poetry, and the book rested soundlessly on the white sheet. There was a lull in conversation, consciously drawing me in. He looked at me seriously, and touched the side of my face. “I wasn’t trying to find you, Frank. You found me.”

“I didn’t know I had been looking,” I confessed, looking at my feet. His hand still rested on me, just relocated to my neck. Everything was too intense, and I almost felt a little ashamed. I figured it was sort of true that I found him, but it was not like I had been trying to look for a forty-seven-year-old fag artist. It just kind of… happened.

“That’s the point,” Gerard depicted, putting his book off to the side. “It’s because you weren’t looking for me that we can make beautiful art together. We don’t have to try. It just sort of…happens.”

My eyes locked with his across the room, hearing him mimic my thoughts. Fuck, I thought inside my head. This was real.

His smile afterwards was warm and inviting, but his words still washed over me with an odd self-conscious and awkward feeling I hadn’t felt in ages. It was the good kind, if there was one, though. It was the kind of feeling I got from being paid attention to, appreciated. Maybe even loved. We had never said or discussed the word before. Love seemed too frivolous and fleeting, and yet so permanent at the same time. I had a feeling it was there, but I liked that it wasn’t out in the open. It could neither be confirmed nor denied. We called each other lovers, but that didn’t mean we loved each other or were in love. I knew there was a difference between the two, but I didn’t know it yet. I wasn’t sure if either were capable of being real. Then again, I never thought this could be real either. Whatever it was…

Some questions didn’t have answers, and others didn’t need them.

“So, can you actually read what’s in these books?” I asked, deflecting the attention off of our ‘moment’ and back to the original task. Gerard snapped out of his state and began to plow through the cracked and worn spines in front of him.

“Of course I can read it,” he countered playfully. “That doesn’t mean I’m saying it right though. But, damn, I sure sound good trying.”

I chuckled. “You’re probably ten times better than me. I never even took French.”

“Ahh!” he sighed with mock agitation. “The things you kids today are missing out on.”

I just laughed more as he began to dig through more books, scanning the contents carefully before choosing another.

“I took a course or two in university,” he informed me, telling me yet another story. “But I hated it with a passion. The professor was an old bat and insisted upon grammar lesson after grammar lesson. It was horrible. ” He lifted his hand in the air, adding a bitter French twist.

“Then why do you continue now?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

He sighed before he continued. “I wanted to go to Paris. I still want to go to Paris. It has such an alluring quality to it. There’s so much art there. So much culture. So much romance…“ He shot me another playful look. “I figured if I was immersed in the culture, I’d learn the language fast. I nearly failed my French courses because I refused to do grammar, but I still passed. I still got my credit and despite not doing the work, I had been around the language enough to carry on some limited conversations. It was good enough for me. I was still dead set on going to Paris…”

He paused for a minute, recollecting everything that had happened and made him stay. The story of his youth, college days, and wasted dreams turned into art, though told weeks ago, was still fresh in my mind.

He bit his lip and willed it all away.

“You know how that went. In rebellion for not going, I went out and bought book after book of French poetry and on French poets. I wanted to know everything about the place that I swore I was going to go to…eventually.”

The pace at which he was flipping through the pages had slowed and I could tell he was losing his zest from unpleasant memories. Gerard was a lot more fragile than he looked. He put up this cocky arrogant front, but when something happened that hurt him, it hurt him for years after. I almost couldn’t stand to look at him then, because it was like he was crushing my dream with his own. I stared down at the sheet, fiddling with a piece of stray fabric.

“Do you think you’ll ever go to Paris?” I asked, hoping the prosperity might cheer him up.

“I don’t know,” he sighed begrudgingly, too honest. “I’m old now. I’m settled, for the most part. I don’t know if I could ever uproot myself again. It’s a lot of work, a lot of stress. It’s always worth it for a dream, but I don’t know if I could handle something like that again, at my age. I think I’ll probably end up dying in this apartment…”

My breath caught in my throat. Never once had I ever thought of Gerard dying. He had spoken of others’ deaths, but his own had never been a topic of conversation before. The prospect, when I looked at it logically right then, probably wasn’t too imminent, but suddenly his life became more precious than before. He would die. Everyone would die, including myself, but Gerard was definitely going to die before me. He was going get old before me. And not just the old that I saw in him now. He was going to get really old. Broken hips, white hair, and littered with age spots old. I looked at him then, trying to picture Gerard without his raven locks and without his bright countenance. It didn’t compute. It didn’t work. But it was a possibility.

“Don’t mention death,” I begged him, nuzzling my head against his shoulder. When I had been lost in my thoughts, Gerard had found the book he wanted, and moved closer on the sheet with me. He was laid flat on his stomach, the book propped open in front of him, our shoulders touching. He flipping haphazardly through the pages when I made my request, unknown to the other triggers it set off in my head. He breathed out an apologetic sigh, nuzzling me back.

“Death is important in our lives,” he whispered softly into my forehead. I couldn’t tell if he was being quiet because we were already so close to one another, or if he was trying to speak his mind without me hearing him, and further upsetting me.

I didn’t know why death upset me so much, especially when both of ours weren’t imminent at that very moment. Death, either my own or others’, had always been a weird fascination with me ever since I was fully able to grasp the concept of it when I was eight. I remember going to my grandfather’s funeral on my mother’s side and being completely oblivious to everything around me. I didn’t know this grandparent as well as all the others, so I really had no reason to grieve. I stood there in a corner for most of the wake, shaking other older people’s hands and hearing them go on and on about Bruce. The casket was open, but I had avoided looking inside, when I did, it looked as if he had been sleeping. And I chalked all of what was going on around me to sleep. And a joke. Bruce was apparently a mad joker, constantly pulling pranks. He had been born on April 1st, so it was in his blood, or something like that. Either way, I expected this to all be a big joke, and I kept thinking that right up until they lowered the casket into the ground and the dirt started piling up on top. I remembered realization gripping my small eight year old rib cage. Bruce wasn’t joking. Death wasn’t a joke.

I still never cried, or properly grieved at that funeral, but my thinking changed. A lot. I was suddenly a hypochondriac thinking that each thing I did could possibly lead to my death. As I got older and I was still alive, but other people around me were dying, I started to divert that attention and fear towards them. First it had been my dad, seeing as he was one of the oldest people I knew and saw on a regular basis. When I was in grade eight and we learned all about heart attacks and heart disease, I had been paranoid. My dad did almost every single action to cause heart disease. I had hid butter from him for a week after those lessons, in a vain attempt to not clog his arteries anymore. My father had been mad, not seeing that I was trying to help him, instead of annoy him.

I was pretty sure my fear of growing up surrounded my fear of death in some odd way. If I grew up and got older, I would be one step closer to my death, and that was a scary thought. I knew that no matter how depressed I had ever been in my life, the fear of growing up and responsibility plaguing me, that death was never an answer. I would never commit suicide. It would defeat the whole purpose. Instead of growing up, I had no idea what I had wanted. To stay in a world where everything was the same all the time, and I was perpetually seventeen over and over again? Maybe, though before Gerard had come into my life, that sounded like a far worse fate than death. Being seventeen was not all it was cracked up to be. When I was at Gerard’s place, I had no age. I was just younger than the man I was sleeping with, and I was pretty sure I could deal with that. Even if I couldn’t deal with death at that very moment. The both of us moved on, and Gerard placed a kiss on my forehead, before gallivanting through his book again.

“Ah,” he suddenly breathed, his finger landing on a page and keeping it there, opened. “I found the poem I wanted to show you.”

I moved closed to him, grateful for the change of topic. I focused on the tiny words on the page, but gave up reading them once I saw the first placement of an accent. I waited for him to begin, curious as to how it would all sound.

“On n'est pas sérieux, quand on a dix-sept ans,” he said quickly, his French accent taking over his voice. My eyes widened, seeing a side of Gerard I never had before.

He had spoken French on a whim throughout the house, but it had been little statements or phrases. Sacré bleu, bonjour, bonne nuit, and sometimes pointing to objects and trying to tell me what they were. I could remember that a painting was called peinture, but I could never duplicate it myself. I just knew what he was talking about when he got that look in his eyes as he painted and said that word. This was entirely different. I couldn’t understand anything that Gerard was saying this time, but the way he carried himself altered. Though lying down, his stature took on a more gallant and arrogant façade (I didn’t think it was possible either). His tongue flashed and flicked the words so gracefully out of his mouth that if he had been pronouncing them wrong, I would have had no clue. It was as if he had spoken French his entire life. He really had been practicing hard.

“Gerard, “I interrupted, gaining my bearings. I placed a hand down on the page, his voice catching in his throat as I did. He was nearly halfway done the poem now, and looked at me, perplexed as to why I had put an end to it.

“I can’t understand French. If you want me to get anything out of it, read it in English.” I shook my head at him, rolling my eyes. It may have been a beautiful language, but beauty is lost to the blind.

“Oh,” he said, shifting his weight. “I’ll translate it for you.”

He stared intently at the poem, trying to rearrange the words and put them in an English order. From what I did know about French, I knew it was a mixed up language, everything being backwards and other confusing details. I waited patiently while Gerard worked over each verse.

“When you are seventeen, you are not very serious,” he began, catching my interest right away. He smiled as he saw my eyes light up, and started to translate faster. “One fine evening, you’ve had enough of beer and lemonade, and the rowdy cafes with their dazzling lights. You go walking beneath the green lime trees of the promenade.”

He took a breath there, letting the words sink in for me, and scanning the next passage for translation. I could see a coy smile brim on his lips; he knew what he was doing. He was making me see very clearly why this poem reminded him of me.

“June night! Seventeen! You let yourself get drunk. The sap is champagne and goes straight to your head. You are wandering; you feel a kiss on your lips, which quivers there like something small and alive…”

His reading became more and more dramatic as the poem went on, and I could feel myself being sucked into his words, sucked into the poem, and all of the life it had in it. I watched Gerard’s lips move as he read out loud, but a lot of the time, I would let my vision wander straight ahead on me, where I would focus on nothing but his voice in my ear, and the connotations behind the verse.

“You're in love. Taken until the month of August. You're in love. All your friends disappear, you are not quite the thing you used to be. Then your adored one, one evening, condescends to write to you! That evening... you go back again to the dazzling cafes. You ask for beer or for lemonade...”

He paused again, and looked at me straight in the eyes. The poem was coming to an end, and I had to pay attention here more than anywhere else. His lips parted slowly and he pronounced the poem’s final lines with such clear enunciation. “You are not really serious when you’re seventeen.”

It was done, and I didn’t know what to say. Each and every verse had something to represent me. I was seventeen. I was drinking beer, and getting drunk on something else. I was in love, even if I didn’t know with what or who I was in love with yet. I knew I was in love with this lifestyle, this apartment, but somehow casting those feelings onto another person left me grasping for something more. I wasn’t in love with Gerard because I couldn’t be. I had felt my heart swell when he read that part to me, repeating it twice in the poem for emphasis. It was as if he was reading it to me to tell me he knew I loved him. I could say I loved him – that was very different from being in love. I wasn’t sure how; it just was. I could always love him, but I could always fall out of being in love. I had done enough falling in my life. I didn’t need to get my hopes too high again, only to crash down, especially since I knew we were doomed.

Even if I was just talking love as the raw emotion, no in or out, but as a constant, I had never really come to terms with it. I didn’t want to say it; didn’t want to describe something I had never felt before. I couldn’t just slap down a word to it and have that be it. How could you define something you never saw?

A poem was a series of words, a definition of in itself, though and maybe, just maybe, I could identify with that. I could use that to show my love – or whatever it was – to Gerard. And by him serenading me with those words, it was as if he knew, and was saying them right back.

“What do you think?” the artist asked me, placing the book down and turning over to look up at me. His coy smile had now vanquished from his face and he was just content. Calm.

In love? Or loved? Maybe. I wasn’t too sure yet. I wasn’t going to say anything about that aspect.

“I liked it…” I said nodding my head surely, breaking eye contact.

“Good. It reminds me of you,” he stated the obvious. He wasn’t as enraptured with the verse as much as I had been, and was moving on quite quickly from the intense nature. He ran his hand up my bare back, tousling it in my hair. I smiled and let some air out of my lungs in some breathy laughter, but suddenly, something else grasped my interest. The last lines of the poem, and the initial first one, came back to me, making me think of something else entirely.

When you are seventeen, you are not very serious.

“But I am serious, Gerard,” I argued slightly, then feeling my doubts creep their way into my system. “I think…”

Gerard laughed at me and my complete and utter contradiction in terms.

“I know that, Frank. You’re actually very serious. Very distinguished and intelligent.” Though he smiled, his voice became crucial like at the ending of the poem. His hand relocated from my back, running down my neck and to my face, tipping my chin up high. “But you need to know that. You need to be serious about that.”

I felt awkward under his touch, probably proving his point even further. I knew what he was saying was true, at least the part about denying my talents. I was only confident when I was around Gerard and in his apartment. On the other side, I didn’t pay much attention. I blended into the walls and didn’t ask for anything. But by not asking, I for sure wasn’t going to get what I wanted.

“It’s also not June,” Gerard cut in, thankfully interrupting me from my thoughts.

“If it was June, things would be a lot easier,” I told him, rolling my eyes. “I would be eighteen by that point. We wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught.”

“Yes,” he agreed solemnly nodding his head.

I felt a sudden urge to touch Gerard, so I shifted my weight, and draped an arm across his back. He turned into the touch, flipping himself on his side and pulling us both until we were on our backs, the book done and served its purposed, kicked away off our island made from his thin bed sheet. My head rested just under his chin, and I looked up at him, waiting to hear more. Instead of words, Gerard began to brush his fingers over my sides.

“Do you think we’ll make it to June?” I asked him quietly.

We had only been together for about two weeks by that point, and it already felt like ages. It almost frustrated me that we had only been together two weeks. Two weeks sounded so trivial and fruitless. It sounded like no time at all, when it had really been all the time in the world. I almost wished the clock went faster, just so I could say that Gerard and I had been together for longer, and therefore, making the relationship more valid. It was a stupid thought, I knew, especially since I couldn’t tell anyone about this. Even if I did, they wouldn’t think the relationship was valid, no matter how long we had been together for. Besides, there was no time in Gerard’s apartment, so really, we could have known each other for ages and not even been aware of it. It already felt like we had known each other forever and we were comfortable with that. But June was a few months away. Would this forever feeling of comfort be extended? And even more importantly, could it be extended? There were so many obstacles in our way, I didn’t know anything anymore.

“Of course,” Gerard answered instantly, as if it was the easiest question in the world.

I smiled and beamed inside, but it was brought down again by my infernal worries. “How do you know we will?”

“I don’t,” Gerard answered honestly. I could feel his breath going shallow as his hands began to rub me up and down again tenderly. “I just have hope.”

“But what if we’re caught?” I interjected again, ruining the pleasant atmosphere he was trying to bestow.

“And what if we’re not?” he asked back, his words somehow obtaining more power than I ever thought possible.

I didn’t know how to answer him, but that had been what he was going for. Instead, I brought my lips to his, sealing the conversation. He met with my mouth eagerly, opening and letting our tongues touch. It was an intimate kiss, hands wrapped around bodies as tongues danced in the forefront of everything.

When we pulled away, Gerard moved his hands to my face, curling the hair over my ear. “That’s another good thing about the French language,” he said to brighten the mood. “The kisses.”

He leaned forward again, letting our tongues mingle once more and somehow, passing on some of the French dialect he loved so much.

 

***

 

“Who wrote the poem, anyway?” I asked moments later after the kiss was done.

The heavy aura from our previous conversation had dissipated, but we were still on the ground in our positions, my head resting on Gerard’s chest. I knew it was getting late; the sun had set long ago, though I had no idea what time. It was getting to the point in the year where it remained high for so long, then in an instant when you weren’t paying attention, it would disappear and blackness would surround. We were in that nighttime blackness now, but the small lamp sans shade by the couch illuminated the room with an eerie amber glow. It felt like we were in candle light almost, with the way the shadows danced across Gerard’s bare back. I knew I should go home soon, but I made no effort to get up.

“I was hoping you would ask that,” Gerard gushed. I felt his belly shake a bit with excitement as he went on. “It’s by Arthur Rimbaud, a famous French poet. He wrote his first poem when he was ten –“

“Ten?” I cut in, utterly amazed by the feat. I didn’t know what the fuck a poem was at that age, and this guy was writing them. I knew Gerard had started drawing early, but that was different. You could form lines on a page when you were five; it took real prestige to be able to place words together into a poem at such a young age.

“Yes, ten,” Gerard repeated, brushing me off and going on with his story. “He wrote constantly, poem after poem, when he was in his teens, after having run away from home. He had a few pieces published and was pretty respected, especially for being so young. He was a bit of an ass, but most poets are. Most artists are.” Gerard chuckled in spite of himself. “He stopped writing when he was twenty after –“

I cut Gerard off again. “Twenty? He stopped?”
If this guy was so fucking talented, why the hell did he just give it up like that? I had been trying so hard the past few weeks just to be creative, let alone talented. This guy was born with poetry in his blood – that was clearly obvious. Why would he drain himself so readily and so easily? There better have been a good reason.

“Yes, will you let me finish the story, Frank?” he huffed, playfully batting my arms.

“Okay…” I said, finally being quiet and listening intently. Gerard talked a lot, so I had been getting very good at listening.

“He stopped writing after he had a love affair with another man.” Gerard paused for a second, feeling me jerk forward, wanting to say something, but struggling successfully to keep my mouth shut. Not only was there meaning to the poem, it seemed that Gerard had picked a good poet to talk about, too.

“His name was Paul Verlaine,” Gerard continued, playful smile on his face. “Verlaine was already an established poet, but he was by no means as great as Rimbaud. Verlaine was mostly love poems, sonnets, and all of that good drivel. He was also over ten years older than Rimbaud.” Again, another pause, a jerk forward, a silent cry, and a playful smile before continuing. “Anyway, they traveled Europe together, fucking, writing, and being complete and utter assholes. Verlaine had a wife, and a few kids too, I believe. They eventually divorced and Verlaine was thrown in jail.”

When Gerard paused this time, he didn’t pick up right away, and I couldn’t contain myself anymore.

“ Why?” I choked out, concentrating all my thoughts onto one word.

“He shot Rimbaud in the hand,” Gerard answered, nodding his head as his thoughts came together. “And the police found out about Rimbaud and Verlaine’s relationship thanks to Verlaine’s wife. He was put into jail for two years for sodomy and assault, while Rimbaud went back home. They met up, years later, and that’s when Rimbaud said he would no longer write.”

“ Why?”

“Who knows?” Gerard shrugged, shaking his head. “He was a good poet, but in my mind, totally giving up on something makes you worthless. You can be the shittiest painter in the world, but if you do it your entire life, because you love it, then it’s worth it. If you’re good and just give up, it was a waste of time, talent, energy, and art itself.”

The harshness of Gerard’s words surprised me and I suddenly understood why he was always urging me to play my guitar. He told me flat out that day that I needed work. A lot of work. I sucked, basically. But he always encouraged me, no matter what. Trying to have talent was better than having it and wasting it. I was finally starting to see that.

“You are not an inspiration if you just give up. I’d rather be an inspiration than talented. Inspiration is always better than art, because if you just have art, that’s all it is. But if you have inspiration, there is something backing up that art. There is the possibility of having so much more, striving for so much more. You could make or do or be art in writing and literature and culture. Everything. ”

Gerard drew his eyes to mine, smiling. I felt my heart sink into his chest. His words, though stated in a broad sense, trying to reinforce a lesson of some kind, were deeply personal. In his mind, I could tell, that he thought he would never be a famous artist. No one knew his name. No one had ever showed any interest in knowing his name. I was pretty sure he had sold some art pieces, but he was by no means famous by definition. He was an artist, but he wasn’t famous, and therefore, in the technical approach, that meant he was not talented. No one wanted to know him because of this lack of talent. He had failed at being able to go to Paris. But, he had never given up. And because of that urge to keep going, keep painting and trying to defy something (though never actually having been successful) that made him an inspiration. That’s all he had ever wanted. As he looked at me just then, I knew he wanted to be an inspiration to me of all people. And he had been. He had been so much, but I didn’t know how to convey my words.

My mouth hung open, then closed again, and the process repeated a few times. I reached up to touch his face, at loss of what to do, but he caught my hand half way there. He pressed my fingers to his mouth, and began to kiss and nibble them lightly. The subject was dropped, because he already knew my answer.

“Anyway,” he spoke again, still tasting my fingertips. “I guess in some sick twisted morbid French version, Rimbaud and Verlaine remind me of us. You know, without the hand shooting, jail time, and giving up.”

He laughed at his own joke and since it was infectious, I found myself laughing moments later.

“Only in this case, the younger one is the less prestigious artist,” I countered, trying to make my own joke, but having the serious tones come out.

Gerard stopped laughing and looked down at me. He dropped my fingers, and instead cupped my face in his hands, pursing his lips to the side.

“I don’t know,” he countered, squinting as he pretended to think long and hard, studying my face as if it held the answer. “I think you could give me a run for my money pretty soon. You just have to keep going. With guitar, art, anything you want, Frank. Anything. Everything. There are so many possibilities if you let yourself find them.”

“Thanks…” I uttered, unsure of what else to say. I lay my head back down on his chest as a comfortable silence filled the room.

Even when we weren’t talking with our mouths, we seemed to be able to communicate against the silence. Gerard would play with my hair and I’d know what he was saying to me. I would trace my fingers along the ridges of his arms, dipping at the elbow, and he would let out a contented sigh to answer me. We had our own language, and we didn’t need to use our tongues for speech to understand each other. The silence was comfortable, and kept us warm like the blanket we now wrapped ourselves in. There was a general consensus between the two of us that during these times, things were just plain good. We didn’t worry about anything then. We just were.

I found my thoughts wandering inside my mind, thinking of all the accomplishments for that day. I felt so productive, so fulfilled, I didn’t want to go back to my house and start the drudgery all over again.

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow,” I randomly said out loud, not really expecting a response. I received one anyway. Gerard could never pass up an opportunity to bash a government-run facility.

“I can’t say I blame you,” he sympathized, rubbing his hands against my hairline at the back of my neck to calm me. “You have no creativity in your school. High school in general has none. It’s a place where they just keep you, packed together like sardines, until bigger places are ready to take you. It’s a holding pen, only in the past few years it’s become more like a zoo.”

I laughed out loud when he stated his philosophy. This was one of the rare ones I didn’t have to strain my mind for; I got it right away.

“You are so right.”

“Of course I am,” he replied smugly, messing up my hair. “Even if I haven’t been in high school for thirty years, I still remember it. You don’t forget those days.”

His voice tweaked with nostalgia, and I had the urge to ask him about his own high school experiences. I couldn’t tell if he was recalling the good or the bad at that very moment. I said nothing to extract the story though, and let the silence infiltrate the room again. If Gerard had wanted to share with me, I knew he would have just gone into details not waiting for my approval. He didn’t want to talk about this, so we exchanged nothing but touch.

“I want to skip tomorrow. And come stay here with you all day,” I stated moments later, breaking our silence. I bit my lip, waiting to hear his verdict. Skipping tomorrow meant possibly getting caught by my mother, or worse, father. But skipping also meant not being insane for a day. I liked the odds; I hoped Gerard did too.

“Sure,” he agreed, his voice somewhat distant and thinking. I was about to reach up and thank him profusely, when he began again. “But you have to bring your guitar. And play it for me.”

I opened my mouth to interject, saying something about my lack of talent, when I remembered Verlaine and Rimbaud, and Gerard’s inspirational journey. I had to bring it. Even if I sucked, Gerard would still have respect for me. I would get out of my house, out of school, and out of my redundant existence. And maybe become an inspiration, too.

“Deal,” I said, as we brought our lips forward making it final.