Chapter Forty-Eight Warzone

It took me longer than usual to make my way back to my house. My thoughts were spinning with not only what I was going to say to my parents, but how I was going to say it. I couldn’t just come right out and ask them to my art show; they didn’t even really know I had been taking pictures. My mom had seen the camera a few times, but didn’t think much of it. Jasmine had been coming over a lot, and I figured she wrote it off as something she had brought over to keep me company with.

Jasmine, I realized, nearly stopping in the middle of the road I was crossing. Her name was like a force field inside of me, making me stop and pay attention to the girl I was merely using as an excuse. She was more than an excuse to me. I needed to tell her. I knew she would be so proud me, and that she would definitely want to go. I was almost tempted to by pass my own street and walk randomly down some other ones in search of where Jasmine lived. I had yet to be to her house, but she had told me the street she lived on, and though I had never been there, the area I lived in was pretty small and I knew I could find my way around, just given enough time.

Time, however, was not something I had at that moment. I needed to go to my house, maybe get some food inside of me before I would run out again, over to where my show was being held. Vivian had given me the address, and told me not to worry if I came late; Gerard had done the very same thing for his show. They even said they would take care of putting the pictures up and getting everything ready so I just had to show up fifteen minutes before it all started. My heart had swelled once more, thinking of the outpouring emotion and dedication the two were demonstrating. I felt bad, letting someone take over my dream, but it was only temporary. Part of my dreams was my parents’ acceptance, and though I knew it wouldn’t go of without a hitch, I had to try. I also knew it wouldn’t be the best idea for me to be at the actual set up anyway. I would only end up knocking something over, and I needed time to cool my nerves before it all began. Somehow, though, I didn’t think going to my house would do it.

Leaving Jasmine behind for now, at least in my memory, I walked down my street, my fists jammed into the bottom of my pockets. I fingered and felt the rough fabric and lint that lined the bottom, my bag heavy on my shoulders. I had brought the camera with me, my weapon to show my parents proof of my passion. I would need all the artillery and evidence I could handle because I knew there would be a harsh battlefield when I walked in.

Though my mother and I had been getting better each day since we had gone to church, I wasn’t entirely sure how she would react. I could never tell with her most of the time. She had been devoid of emotion for so long, it was strange to see it all coming to the surface. I knew she swallowed a lot of her feelings, which was why it was partially so strange to see her express something. She was fairly even territory however. Nothing too scary, nothing that I knew I couldn’t handle, especially after last Sunday. It had been almost a week ago by that point; I had a foundation to stand on. I could gather enough clues and I formed in my head the variety of ways she would act. She would either ignore it, fade into the background and watch my dad yell, or she may actually want to go. She may actually stand up and believe in something. It was a tough call.

She was the more supportive of my parents. She had not ratted out on me when I came home late; she had even been happy for me then, because I was happy. There was a slight possibility that she may actually embrace my new hobby, my new passion. She had lost some faith in me, if I could even call it that, when the whole fiasco with Gerard had happened, but she was gradually building up her resistance. She no longer put her faith in me, but with God and her church friends. She left the house more often, signing up for more and more functions, baking cookies until the house smelt like we lived with Betty Crocker in order to get her mind off things. She was still talking to me, even smiling every once in awhile, especially when Jasmine showed up. She seemed relieved that it was a girl who was biding for my attention and not some forty-something artist. He was still in the picture, but so long as I wasn’t disappearing anymore, and she didn’t see him, he didn’t exist. She was still worried, I could tell, but the lines and wrinkles caused too soon by the added stress were gradually melting away. My rape kit had no trauma, and though nothing had been too official, I had been clean of STDs. Things were getting easier and easier for her, and for once, I could actually be thankful there was a God. If He existed or not, my mother was putting her faith in Him, and even if it was only the idea, it was something that she could cling onto. Maybe she would understand my need to cling to something as well. I would show her the camera, not the artist who had stirred me there, and maybe she would come. I didn’t follow the same faith as her, but we were both worshippers. She could see that.

I didn’t have any doubts of my mother. She was clean and pure and fairly easy to read. It was my father who seemed to invade my thoughts without warning. He was the person I was most afraid of. Even if my mother wanted to go, I knew he would over shadow her, so even her small voice couldn’t escape from her frail lips. My father was always so loud, so booming, deafeningly loud when he never needed to be. My mom was quiet, complying to his demands because that was what good wives did. And before, my voice had been quiet, because I didn’t know where to find it. I may have hated my dad, not wanting to be near him or around him, but I wasn’t going to challenge him. I was going to slink off to my room, play my guitar or stare at the ceiling. It was only now when I was starting to find that voice, smashing the guitar I once used to hide myself behind that he actually needed to his large voice. It was also the one time he didn’t use his voice.

I touched my face again for maybe the seventieth time that day. He had hit me before with the mention of the artist’s name. If I became the artist he feared, what else would he do to me? I shook my head, taking my hand away from my warm skin. I couldn’t let myself think that way. I needed to focus on my goal. I was just asking them to come to a show. They would have no idea that Gerard had helped me. They didn’t have to know the little details behind everything in my life. They were my parents, yeah, but I was almost eighteen. I wouldn’t be able to call on them for everything anymore soon. I might as well get used to it now.

I stood on the porch for a long time, trying to sneak peaks into the house from the small diamond window on our white front door. I could hear the faint murmuring of my dad’s loud voice, just from normal speech, and the clanking of dishes around. I took a deep breath in and smelt the aroma of food already. It triggered the empty sensation in my stomach. I was starving. I needed to get something to eat quickly, and hopefully, after we had all gotten food into our systems, there would be a lot less yelling. I had noticed that before my dad had eaten he was extra irritable. There was no chance in hell you would survive if you tried to talk about something serious or anger-inducing right after he got home from work. He would have not eaten since twelve, and he would have had to been dealing with idiots from his job. An empty stomach and an already mad father was not someone at all to be interrogating. Thankfully, it was Saturday and though his stomach may have been empty, at least I didn’t have to deal with any anger aftermath from his infernal employees. I took another deep breath, almost tasting the dinner, and stepped inside.

I tried not to make a lot of noise, but it was a hard thing to do when the door gives way and creaks with every little bit of pressure applied. My parents seemed to have been waiting for me, my mother jumping right out of her seat and coming into the hallway.

“Honey!” she greeted, a smile on her face. “You’re home!”

She placed a hand over her chest and let out a deep breath. Her hair was up in a bun, brown chunks falling down and fraying, showing how stressed she had been. Her hazel eyes bounced up at me, not just relived to see me, but to see me home safe. It only occurred to me then that I had told her I was sleeping over at Jasmine’s over twenty-four hours ago and she had not heard a word from me since. She was worried about where I was, I could tell, and I felt a slight bitter resentment touch my tongue realizing she had been afraid I was at the artist’s house again.

“Yeah, I’m home,” I said slowly, kicking my shoes off. I could see the small veil of amber light flooding from the dining room. I could only see one end of the table, but I heard my father clear his throat harshly, clinking his utensils around on his plate, waiting for me to step inside the smaller room before he said anything. I turned back to face my mother who still stood, her hand on her chest, leaning against the door frame, a weak smile on her face.

“Sorry I’m late,” I uttered, my eyes dropping to the ground. My skin felt tight around my face, and I realized I didn’t belong inside my house anymore. My mother was making a big deal when I did show up, taking all normalcy out of the act. I didn’t like it, and I couldn’t wait it leave, either for that night or forever.

“It’s okay, just come and sit down,” my mother insisted, waving her hand over to me.

Still keeping my bag on one shoulder and my eyes to the ground, I followed her inside the dimly lit room, traditional beef dinner with gravy and mashed potatoes on the table. They had already started without me, clearly not knowing if I was staying at ‘Jasmine’s’ for dinner. My mother had an extra plate set out for me though; just in case. I sat down roughly, dropping my bag to the side and avoiding eye contact with my father.

“Where have you been?” he barked after tense moments of silence. He had been waiting for me to meet his eyes, but when I didn’t reciprocate, he went on without me. He cleared his throat for about the thousandth time as I just scooped cooked vegetables onto my plate.

“I was getting ready,” I said after some deliberation. I knew I couldn’t just come out and say I had an art show, but I couldn’t beat around the bush forever either. I figured this was a safe statement, considering it had many more meanings than beyond the initial statement.

“Ready for what?” my father asked, spitting it out like it was something absurd. I could hear the food mashing around between his teeth, the gross sucking sound of his throat and mouth working together, and though it made me want to vomit, I knew it was a good sign. He had eaten enough to bring on the conversation himself. Hopefully he wouldn’t react too bad… but then again, this was my father. I couldn’t ask too much from him.

“I have something to go to tonight,” I stated, finishing topping up my plate with food. I put it back in front of me and gripped a fork, but I found it hard to eat again. My chest became tight, and though I tried not to look at my father’s eyes, my vision wandered over there, where the final blow of appetite was knocked out of me. His eyes were gray, like the steel he worked with in his job. They were cold and hard, boring into me, making me forget what color they used to be.

“What do you have to go to?” he asked, ripping up his bread into tiny pieces, only half of them making their way into his mouth. He looked down at his food he was consuming every once in awhile, but mainly kept his eyes on me. He wasn’t mad yet, but by his tearing apart, I could tell he wasn’t pleased either.

“Something…” I started, then never bothered to finish. I pushed my fork around in the gravy and beef, not knowing what to say or do. I had planned it all – or at least a little – out in my head beforehand, but now that I was under my dad’s cold steel countenance my confidence was all but shattered.

“So, let me get this straight,” my father bellowed. His voice deeper than usual, clogged with food and rising anger. ”You leave all day, no call or anything, and then come back merely for food and to let us know that you’re going to be leaving again?” He shot me a glance, to which I only looked away from. I stared at my carrots, slowly becoming orange crushed under my fork.

“No way, Frank,” my dad’s thick voice cut in again. I blinked, feeling the sting of a wound not yet made, but coming soon. “You are not leaving again, unless you tell us where you’re going.”

He clanked his utensils again and clucking his tongue. I was going to answer – I even opened my mouth but I apparently wasn’t quick enough for him. Or good enough, in that regard.

“So help me God,” he started, his arms folding across his chest. He shook his head as he talked, the vehemence working hard in his voice. He looked up, almost calling to that God he had not bothered to worship but curse in the past few weeks. I watched him from the corner of my eye, but feeling it all full frontal.

“If you were with that fag again…” His voice trailed off, implying much more than an insult, but a threat – not only to Gerard, the person I knew he would hurt the second he got a chance to, but to me as well. I gripped my fork hard, feeling my knuckles turn white and the circulation stop. My hand felt numb, but it was nothing compared to the anger coursing through me. I couldn’t even see my mother in the spot in front of me, my vision was so clouded.

“I wasn’t,” I snapped, turning my head to stare heatedly at him.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” he fired at me, his voice shaking the walls. He shot his silver eyes at me, but I fired my own deadly multi-coloured ones right back.

“Well, I wasn’t with him,” I repeated, my confidence returning bit by bit. When someone insulted me, I could by pass it – even believe it. But the moment he brought Gerard into this mess, I took offence. Gerard was more of a father than he would ever be.

“Then where were you?”

I took a breath in, looking around the room. I knew we had started our war, guns raising high and bullets flying, but I had to make sure there were no unwanted casualties yet. My mother was fine. She wasn’t pleased or anything, but she was sitting quietly, eating her food, giving careful looks to both me and my father. She held a napkin tight in her hand, ready to raise the white object when necessary. It was okay to continue, I decided while my dad’s gaze didn’t even bother to look over to see who he was bringing down with him.

“I was getting ready for an art show,” I finally confessed, my voice not raised with such bitter contempt. I still held my chin high defiantly, bracing myself for the harsh words I knew were coming.

“And you say you weren’t with the fag?” My father scoffed and banged his silverware again, unsure of where to release his anger. He focused on me, finding a target. “Is art show what he told you to call it? What did he really do to you? I thought we told you to stay away from him!”

“Dad!” I shouted, but he paid no attention. He shook his head, not even looking at me as he muttered obscenities into the table.

“I knew we shouldn’t have let you leave the house. I knew I shouldn’t have believed what the doctors were telling me. I knew I should have killed him when I had the chance…” He kept going, on and on, not stopping no matter how many times I tried to call his name. I could see my mother tensing, but she was mute to his cries. It left me and my father, who didn’t even seem to be that anymore.

“Anthony!” I finally cried, getting his attention right away. He snapped his head up, looking at me again with those steel eyes, cracks appearing on each one.

“Don’t call me that,” he uttered lowly, his brows knitting together at the center of his forehead. “Don’t use my name like that.”

“You weren’t listening to anything else,” I stated, trying to verify my point. I raised my hands in the air in defeat, not knowing what else to say to defend my point.

“I don’t need to listen when I know the answer.”

“But you don’t know the answer.” I let the words drop like a docile bomb, and waiting for the explosion to happen. It only took mere seconds. “I was not with the fag artist. The show is my own.”

“ Your show?” my father enunciated as if I spoke a foreign language. “Since when do you have a show?”

“Today. Tonight.” I held my head up high. My words fell from my mouth so easily after the first blow had been fired. My confession had been started and the initial nervousness of how to being had been solved. It may not have been the best start, but we were talking again. Screaming, but it had been the most communication I had gotten from my dad in a long time.

“Is that why you were gone all day?” my mothers’ voice came in slowly and quietly, like a mouse trying to get the cheese, but avoiding the trap. I looked over at her, a smile wide on my face. She was so compliant and hushed, slinking into the back of her chair, but fuck, I had been right. She was showing an interest, even if it was only in my surroundings.

“Yeah,” I said breathlessly nodding to her question. She seemed to unfold herself a little, sitting up straighter on the chair. Fueled by this small newfound hope, I kept talking, if only to my mother. “Yeah. I was working on getting my pictures ready and Gerard’s friend Vivian -”

“I knew it! You saw the freak! You just admitted it!”

“I did not!” I exclaimed, shooting him a glad through gritted teeth. “I saw his friend, and she helped me.”

I needed to emphasize that this was a woman friend. Not a man, and certainly not a gay man. A woman. With breasts and not a penis. A woman, just like Jasmine and a woman that was not going to hurt me. Gerard wouldn’t have hurt me either I knew that, but my dad could not get beyond physical appearances.

“And why on earth would she do that?” he proclaimed, still finding errors in my story as a shied I had considered bullet proof.

“Because she cares about me?” I stated, my voice turning up and making it a question, because yet again, I didn’t know if this answer would suit my father either. “Because she thinks my work is good? Because Gerard is her best friend and she knows he’s a good teacher?”

“They’re probably in on it together,” my dad muttered lowly under his breath, loud enough for me to hear, but quiet enough to deny it. He could fucking deny anything he wanted, and it made him right in the long run. It wasn’t fair. It was true and I had to fight it more than ever now.

“No, dad,” I shot back again, twisting the word he wished me to call him by in vile forms. “Her name is Vivian. She works with the gallery a little while from here. I have a show tonight which she helped me get. Gerard was only my art teacher.”

“Why would she get you of all people a show?” my dad asked, his voice so calm and cool it hurt more than if he was yelling. I almost may have been able to forgive him for saying this if they were made in an enraged dialect. When you were angry, you didn’t think clearly. But he was so calm and cool, taking a sip of his drink after he said it. He meant it. He didn’t see what talent I had, and for someone who was already teetering on the brink of not knowing if I had much to begin with, it was a hard blow.

I didn’t answer for a long time, staring down at my hands on the table. “Because I can make good pictures.”

“What? Painting?” he scoffed, taking another sip. “Just like the fucker.”

“No, not painting,” I corrected, thinking that maybe if I changed sources, I could change his attitude. I found my bag by my feet, unzipped it and dug around inside for my ticket to freedom. I placed the camera on the table, watching from the corner of my eye as my mom’s eyes widened in a positive surprise. My dad’s merely closed in an un-amused manner. I didn’t know what to do then. Breathing seemed too hard.

“Pictures,” my dad repeated, his hand rubbing his face, covering his eyes and then flopping down on the table with a thud. He stared at the black object trying to comprehend something that would never, ever make sense to him.

“ Pictures?” he questioned this time, raising his eyebrows to me. I could feel the disgust in his voice. “Pictures from a fucking camera. You just point and click. There is no method in that. There is no point to that. This does not deserve a show. You do not deserve one for doing this of all things.”

He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest with finality. I felt my tongue swell and rise in my mouth, it filling up my throat and lungs and eventually making breathing seem like a distant memory. I could only hear the clicking sounds of utensils, my father’s tongue and the time bomb ready to go off, once the detonator was found. And while I waited the initial blast, I needed to save myself. My father was basically saying all of my doubts about my works and making them a fact. He was telling me that this was easy and essentially nothing; something I had feared all along. I didn’t know how I could build myself back up again, especially all alone. I thought of the lessons I had learned that day, trying to derive new meaning from something, anything. I flung my hands down on the table, letting the fork fly across a little, coming into contact on my mothers’ side. And that was when I she came back into my vision.

She was looking at the camera. She wasn’t looking at the battlefield her ‘boys’ had erected in her living room. She was looking at the camera. She seemed fascinated by it, her eyes growing wide with curiosity. She tilted her head, exploring every nook and cranny with her eyes because she was still too far away and unsafe to touch it. I had gotten very good at noticing details every since I had started to see the artist. And just then, I noticed the best detail of all.

My mother believed in me. She couldn’t say a word, she couldn’t even show it, but the ways her eyes danced with the lens and black features of the object in front of her let me know she liked the idea. She liked it, she supported it, and that was enough to gain my confidence back.

“Photography is something, dad,” I countered, my voice gaining resilience. “It deserves a gallery. And whether or not I deserve an exhibit, I have one. And I am going.”

“You’re not going alone,” he stated roughly, placing his drink down and focusing on the battle he had thought he won again. I wasn’t falling down so easily. “And you’re definitely not going with that fag.”

“He’s an artist,” he quipped a little too fast without thinking. “His name is Gerard.”

“Don’t mention his name in my house,” my dad bellowed, his face flushed and spittle flying from his mouth.

By this point in the conversation, we had both forgotten about our food. I stared down at a pile of coagulated gravy and mashed up carrots and then back at my fathers face. I didn’t know which one made me feel sicker. He couldn’t even fucking handle hearing the man’s name. It was why he had hit me before. I had never, ever admitted anything to him. I may have hinted at it the first time we fought, but everyone says things they never mean when they’re angry. Except my father. He was always angry. It was his state of being, and he was always, always serious.

“I don’t get you,” I found myself uttering, the words coming out as broken and shattered as I felt. He gave me a strange look, twisting his lips in a sneer, almost egging me on to continue. I did, heaving a shallow breath. “I don’t get it. You say you want me to be safe, to not be abused by this man, but when you get the evidence presented to you that I’m not, you still try to find reasons to validate your findings.”

I paused, looking at him to see how my words bounced off his tough skin. Some sank in, and I could see his eyes veer of to the side, thinking. I knew I had an in. I kept talking.

“I am not being abused. You had a kit, a doctor, and most of all me tell you that. Most parents would be glad to hear that news, but you can’t leave well enough alone, dad. You keep picking at this and picking at this, trying to find meaning where there is nothing.”

I knew that last line was a lie, that there was always meaning in everything, even in the vague and frivolous, but my father didn’t need to know that. He wouldn’t have understood the artistic ramblings to begin with. I sat there for awhile, waiting to see my dad’s reaction before I delivered my final sigh. “I don’t get you.”

Before, he had been sitting there, absorbing everything, but now he suddenly deflected all the words, digging out the bullets that struck him and throwing them right back at me, his own blood still on his hands. He knew I was right, but he could still prove where I was wrong.

“I don’t get you, Frank,” he shot at me, his hands curved into claws and trying to grasp at an answer he couldn’t comprehend. “I don’t get how you want to spend your time with this…this…” He struggled to find the right words, giving up and using his safety scapegoat term. “This fag. I don’t get why you wanted to spend all this time with him, and why you wanted to learn art.” He paused, looking at me and then off to the side, searching for a memory in the not so distant past. “You had your guitar. You had an outlet right there. Why the fuck did you let it all go?” He begged the question to me, the broken shards of wood from his old instrument still jutting out in his mind.

“I let go of my guitar because you made me let it go, Anthony,” I said, calling him by the name he refused to recognize. “You told me I couldn’t take a music course. I found something else I wanted to do.”

In that moment, I began to wonder what he had done with his guitar. I smashed it that one night, and sulked off to my room after I had completed the act. When I had woken up the next morning, it was as if the event had never occurred. There had been no remnants of that instrument. Had my dad thrown it all away? Or was he still clinging onto something, bit by bit, shard by shard? The way his eyes flickered, I could tell he still hadn’t let go. And in a way, he was envious of me for letting it go, for destroying it, so haphazardly. So easily.

“Don’t blame this on me,” he grumbled his voice dipping below the table and into our basement, where only lost articles of clothing and childhood memories were kept. “And don’t call me that. I’m your father.”

“Then act like one.”

I stared at him, and he stared right back. This was not about an art gallery anymore. This was about Anthony Iero, my father. He was not being a dad, or even a father at that point. He had relinquished his rights a long time ago, not wanting to deal with me, even after I had proved myself over and over again. Sure, I had acted like a brat before. I had smashed his guitar. I was the kid in the relationship. I was going to do shit like that. He was supposed to let me know it was okay, and steer me in the right direction. He never had. That was why I had gone to see Gerard, long before anything had ever happened. I didn’t know where to go. No one had been guiding me. I needed guidance and I didn’t know how to ask for it. With Gerard I didn’t have to ask. He just did it. My father never just did it. He would have rather yelled at me; that was his guidance. Broken dreams and broken eardrums. That was not what I needed, so I had found it someplace else.

It took me the entire conversation, the entire time staring at my dad’s cold steel eyes to realize that my father was jealous of Gerard. He was envious of him just as much as he hated him. He was trying to give me a reason to hate this man, to hate this person who was taking his place. If he had to make up vicious lies, he was going to do it. He wanted to be my father again, but he was doing a shitty job, his anger making him do horrible things. As much as I hated my dad right then, as much as I just wanted to yell and scream and kick him, tell him that Gerard was never going to hurt me, I didn’t. I could see the pain in my father’s eyes, as much as I saw the anger. I had to be the bigger person.

I un-tensed my shoulders, taking a deep breath in through my nose and blowing it out my mouth before I met my eyes with his again.

“Gerard is my art teacher,” I said slowly and surely, making sure he got every point. “He helped learn art and nothing else. Without him and his friend, Vivian, I would not have this show.” I explained the basics, hoping it wouldn’t be too much for his sad and sorry heart to handle. Waiting a few seconds, letting it sink in, I delivered the final blow of what I hoped to be friendly fire. “And I’m going to my show tonight.”

“You’re not going alone,” he repeated his line from before, less vigor and more serious connotations.
“I know,” I said, nodding my head and heeding to his request. “I’m taking Jasmine.”

“No,” he stated. He was looking at his uneaten food, back pressed into the chair and hand on his chin, thinking hard. “You can bring her too, but I want an adult there.” He spoke his words slowly, clucking his tongue as loud as the heart beating inside my mouth. He raised his gray eyes, looking at me harshly. “And I’m not going.”

Apparently, our battle was not over. He had calmed down significantly, but I could still feel the hate and wrath in his voice. He was still jealous and fearful, no matter what was going to happen. Not only was he not supporting my dream, he was not going to allow me permission, forcing me to feel crushed within my own skin. I could tell him Gerard or Vivian was the adult, but I knew how well that would go over. He didn’t know them, and though they were friends, he only viewed the strange as an unwanted force. Like a body rejecting an organ transplant. It didn’t matter if the body needed it to live, if it was a new invasion, it was gone.

“I’ll go,” a quite voice, so small it nearly blended into the backdrop and echoes sounded. It was such a surprise, neither my father and I knew the original source at first. When I turned my head to look, I was greeted with one of the best thing I had seen in a long time.

My mother.

She was sitting straight, her back pressed into the chair like it was a part of her body, keeping her grounded. She was trying to blend in almost, the beige colour of her sweeter only being a shade or two darker than the wall. Her hair was still up and frizzy, but her eyes displayed something stronger than before. She looked at me, and though she was still too fearful of the place she was setting into, I could see the encouragement in her eyes. It hadn’t dwindled at all.

“What?” my father coughed, the thick sound in his chest rattling around. He was genuinely shocked and surprised, if not that she was still in the room, that she was doing the exact opposite thing he was. He was always so used to her complying or staying out of it, it unleashed a whole new string of anger.

“I want to go,” my mother stated soundly, trying to make her voce as steady as possible. I admired her so much right then, finally taking a stand. She was struggling, stumbling and catching herself again, but that was what it was like when you first discovered some kind of freedom. Your wings don’t always work right the first time. You just have to keep flying. And my mother was working on how to soar.

“I like photography,” she stated, a small smile forming on her lips. “I used to be in a class in high school. It was fun.”

She grew quieter and quieter as she expressed her very own interests, ones I had never heard about before. It started to make sense, however, why my mom had been so transfixed with the black object on the table while the war was going on in front of her. It made sense why photos of our family, no mater how chaotic and conflicting we were in the inside, were always taken every Christmas and summer to be given away to family and friends. It made sense to why there was photo album after album of my baby pictures. Photos were something special to my mother, and the more I looked at her, I realized we shared very different complexities of the issue. She kept her photos for memory, while I held them for truth. I wanted to pause everything that was going on at the moment and just talk to my mother. I wanted to ask her about her pictures, her story. I hoped I would have time eventually, because I was running out at that moment.

“I can’t believe you’re encouraging this,” my dad spat out in disbelief, shaking his head again. He rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger, gripping the stress and making it grow.

“Why?” I asked, trying to come in for my mother’s defense. My father’s face snapped up again to look at me, not pleased he was being faced with two foes to fight.

“Because photography will never get you any where. It is not a job people can use. You need to finish high school and get a better one. One that will pay the bills.” He nodded his head, gripping his drink once more and putting it to his lips trying to seal off the deal. I would have been upset, but I only felt myself scoff inside. He was resorting to money, thinking of numbers and figures to avoid thinking of the real thing behind this all. He wanted me to end up like him, to be just as miserable, so he could feel like he was at least a little bit like a father. He didn’t want me to end up an artist like Gerard because that would have meant he didn’t raise me. I scoffed, and I found my bitter laughter forcing its way on the outside.

“Why are you laughing? Do you find your future funny?” my dad snarled, slamming his drink down again. I glanced over at him nonchalantly, a lopsided grin on my face, saying nothing. “Answer me,” he demanded, squirming in his seat. He didn’t like the lack of control he had in the situation, the fact that I was smiling instead of screaming, and that my mother had let go of her napkin, not wanting to surrender any time soon. I still didn’t answer him because I didn’t need to.

“Don’t worry. I’ll go with him.”

My mother got up from her seat, walking over to my father’s side of the table and placing her small white hands on his shoulders, trying to be a comfort. He grunted and moved away, finishing the last of his drink, chugging so hard dribbles of the liquid ran down his chin. He wiped his mouth out across the back of his hand, staring up at his wife.

“This doesn’t make it any better. I don’t know why you’re encouraging him.”

My mother frowned, pursing her lips and looking from me to her husband and back again.

“Because he’s happy this way,” she finally stated with a long drowned out whisper.
Before she could be verbally beaten once more, she gathered the dishes with unfinished food and descended into the kitchen. She left me with a smile on my face, and a warm feeling inside of me. My mother believed in me. My happiness was still important, and was growing by the seconds.

Once the spot in front of me was devoid of a dish, and the air in the room had grown silent, I clutched my camera in my hand, shoving it into my backpack. My father had been staring at the wood of the table for the longest time, his chest rising and falling, but unaware to put all of the negative emotions flowing through him. It seemed to easy to me at first. He had just stopped yelling so suddenly, I felt like something was about to go off any moment. I even waited at the table, mentally preparing myself for what was to come. But nothing ever did. My dad didn’t move, didn’t talk, barely breathed. He was done for the day and I couldn’t believe it. I had won. My mother was coming with me to my show, and it was happening in a matter of hours. I knew I had been fighting all this time, but I bleakly thought it was in vain. I wanted to win, but it seemed so far off in the distance and essentially unattainable. But I was almost there. I could almost see everything clearly, and I couldn’t believe it. I knew the war was far from over, the battle had seemed to be halted.

I got up from the table slowly, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. I was almost to the door when I heard my dad’s voice once again in my ears. I flinched, not because he was yelling, but because his voice differed so drastically. It was tired and pathetic, and was the quietest I had ever heard him.

“I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, Frank,” he warned again, his voice lacking all authority. He was trying to teach me something – I could see it in his eyes – but it was impossible to teach someone something when you didn’t have the answer key, or at least a general idea. He was just as blind as I was, only I knew from just looking at him that I had way more confidence. The way he slumped himself over in his chair, looking at the wood, staring it down like it was something that he could beat gave my heart a sad pang. I almost wanted to take a picture of it, to see the truth behind it all, but I didn’t dare. I just looked to him and nodded, chewing on my lip slightly.

“I know,” I assured him, my voice quiet and gloomy. I was getting myself into a world of art and culture that may not pay the bills. It may not bring a lot of money, but it may bring happiness. I didn’t know for sure just yet, but I had a good feeling about something.

“I have nothing to loose,” I told him distinctly, before stepping out into the hallway. He didn’t stop me; I didn’t even hear him move as I began to walk up the stairs, the hollow sound they made matching what was probably inside my father’s chest. I knew it wasn’t all of his fault that he was this cold and desolate, but fuck, I didn’t know why he had to be that way. He must have had a back-story, a reason for being the person he was, but he never wanted to share it. And he never wanted to change it, instead of just living in the past day in and day out. I had been doing the same thing before I met Gerard, but I finally changed. Why couldn’t he as well? He didn’t need a fag artist to do what I had done. He just needed to open his eyes, remove the steel intrusion and just see. Just live, just </i>be</i>. For someone that had been blind their entire life though, it nearly kills you when you see color. My dad wasn’t ready to die yet. He was too secure with barely living.

I threw away the questions and ponderings about my father and focused on my show. It was approaching fast and I still had so much to do. Hunger was checked off my list, even though I barely got any food into me. I still had to call Jasmine and get ready, figuring everything out. I made the mental list of things I had to do as I walked, but when I took sight of the blue stained shirt still pinned to my door, my own words from before came flashing before my eyes.

I’ve got nothing to lose, I said to myself in my head again. I paused in front of my door, my hand on the handle and just looked at the shirt. I remembered the day, the blue paint and my rebirth into the world. That was the day I had changed. That was the day things started to make sense and Gerard had come into my life. If it were not for that shirt, I would have not been about to get ready for my show. And really, I may have had nothing to lose in sense of succeeding or failing, but as I looked at that shirt, that work of art from the man I loved, I realized I could lose everything, in all of his meanings, just as fast.