Better Than Running at Night (11 page)

As the conversation slipped back to Ed's usual praising banter, I slid back into sleepy mode. I could've easily gone straight home after class and slept soundly into the morning.

But I was curious to see how Nate's "project" had worked out.

That night I saw the completed piece at Nate's house. He'd cleared a path in the fire hydrant mess from the door to the new painting. I tried not to look at the wall covered with girls as I traipsed through. They were probably all ex-girlfriends and I didn't want to know what they looked like.

He was a better painter than I'd expected, considering the simplicity of his fire hydrants. I recognized the model. She was wearing a tight pink tank-top and black leggings, which were not
entirely flattering to her otherwise voluptuous body. I was sure Ralph wouldn't approve of her style.

"I think I've seen that model on campus," I said. "She looks really familiar."

"She's no model," Nate said, and laughed. "You've seen her because she's a student. Maura Bustier. She's in my class."

"Oh," I said. "Is that the assignment? To paint a classmate?"

"No, just anything from life. But what better way is there to improve your figure painting skills than to paint the figure?"

"Did she paint you, too?"

"She did a still life," he said. "Wine bottle and grapes. Bo-ring."

I wondered if she had kept her clothes on for her entire visit with Nate.

I sure didn't.

Nate was knocking.

I'd made a point of not staying over last night, but I'd left late. On my way home, I decided that it was okay with me if he ever wanted to stay here. I wouldn't object. But if I slept at his place, I'd be allowing him to have too much control over me.

It was only around three when he arrived that afternoon, but it was dark enough outside for it to be almost evening. The sky was
like a global down comforter. Nate sat me facing him in his lap on my bed and kneaded my head.

"Is that a new drawing?" he asked, pointing to the one I had done of Billy and myself. It was hanging on the wall across from my bed.

"Yeah, that was one of my assignments last week," I said. "Put yourself in the picture."

"What a great idea!" he said, pressing harder on my scalp. "And that's a great drawing. You're really talented." He lifted my chin with his other hand so he could look me in the eye.

I thanked him.

He guided my face to his with his fingers and kissed me long and slow. He dragged his teeth over my lower lip and bit it just to the point of hurting.

"Do that more," I said.

"You like the biting?" he asked, with his lips still against mine.

"Yeah," I said. "It's weird how it hurts, but still feels really good."

Pretty soon we were naked under the covers. It was perfect weather to be in bed with someone: cold and dark with weighty snow clouds. When we were done
making love,
I pulled up my shades so we could stare at the sky upside down through my window bars.

"What if you shoveled those clouds away," I wondered aloud. "Would there be a bright blue sky behind them?"

"No," he said, "if you tried to move any of that stuff out of the way, more would move right over and cover up the gap."

Before we fell asleep he wrapped my arm around his waist from behind like a seat belt. He secured my hand in one place with his own, kept me buckled in, and asked me about my past sex life.

"You're it," I told him.

"No way!" he said. "I would never have known! You're a natural." He rolled over, setting me free.

After a short silence, he said in a softer tone, "You know, that makes me feel really special. That I'm your first. Your style will forever be influenced by me."

The 2-D segment had begun, and the three of us were hard at work in the Garage at night. Ed had told us to get an object from the nature lab and to make a magnified drawing of it with a handmade tool or found object.

I was doing a pinecone with pine needles and ink. Ralph was doing a feather with a feather and ink. And Sam was busy smoking his hand-rolled cigarettes so he could use the ashes with a stump made from folded rolling papers. His object was a conch shell. Every once in a while he'd hold it to his ear and zone out. Maybe the shell was telling him how to be a better draftsman.

"Sam, why do you smoke?" Ralph asked.

Sam glared at Ralph. "It makes me feel good."

"I didn't mean to offend you," Ralph said. "It's bad for you, is all."

"I want to die young," Sam said. "I don't want to end up like that model Rose."

For a while we all kept quiet. Our found objects scratched against paper.

"Can I talk to you guys about something?" Ralph asked.

"What?" I knew he would keep going whether we said he could or not.

"Now, you have to promise not to laugh."

"Okay," I said.

"Both of you," he said, looking at Sam.

"Sure," Sam said.

"I'm starting to worry that I'm acting too queer."

"In what way?" I asked, putting down my pinecone.

"I mean, I might as well be wearing a sign that says, HEY NECAD, I'M HOT FOR GUYS! I mean, I love show tunes, I giggle like a schoolgirl, I even
walk
like I'm gay! But you know what? I can't help it!"

He looked back and forth from me to Sam. Sam to me.

"Can't a guy be an apparel designer without being labeled a fag?"

"Well, are you?" Sam asked.

"As a matter of fact, I am, but that's beside the point. I want people to think Apparel first; Queer second. Not the other way around."

"Maybe if you dressed differently," I suggested.

"I dress this way so people know I'm serious about fashion!"

He started pacing around us, flinging dramatic gestures as he spoke.

"When girls hang out with me, all they want to do is go guy-watching. And I mean, that's fun, it's
a lot
of fun, but none of them ever want to talk about what I
really
love! And who will talk to you about clothing if not girls?"

"Maybe other gay guys," I said.

"But that's exactly what I want to avoid!" He threw his arms in the air. "Can't you see that's just perpetuating the stereotype?"

He had gotten so caught up in his misery that he'd forgotten the ink-loaded feather in his hand. He looked down and noticed that in his last sweeping gesture he had swung a black stain straight across his baby blue polyester cowboy shirt.

"My God," he cried, "my new shirt!"

"So what's that scar from?" I touched it lightly.

"Vietnam," he said.

"Right," I said. "Did you also pick up your sense of humor there?"

"Yeah." He smirked.

"Where's it really from?"

"I got it in San Francisco."

"How?" I brushed his hair back from his forehead and kissed the white outline on his jaw.

"Fine, I'll tell you," he said, "but nobody here knows about this."

"Who am I going to tell?" I asked, massaging his scalp. "Besides, I've told you my biggest secret." I let my fingers get lost in massive tufts of thick hair.

"I was a painting major at the Art Institute," he began.

The window in front of the bars was foggy from our
love
making.

"Freshman year, my goal was to be the best painter at school."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I know it sounds cocky," he said, "but people were painting bullshit. One guy made a five-by-five-foot canvas covered with meticulously painted Band-Aids. They were supposed to portray his attempt to cover up his pain. People would talk about that garbage for hours, but none of it had anything to do with skill."

He turned on his side, propping his head up with his hand.

"I wanted to get to the heart of what painting was all about," he told me.

He lay back down.

"I churned out a ton of self-portraits, until I could produce my likeness easily. When I got tired of that, I added props. I found costumes in thrift stores. I posed as a king, as a knight, as the Devil."

The fog on the window was evaporating. I pressed the side of my fist on the glass, and topped the imprint with five dots.

"A baby foot!" Nate said, hugging me. "You do the cutest things."

"Keep talking."

"Right. What was I saying? Oh yeah. I got tired of painting myself. Plus, I really wanted to be painting women. I hired models. During the first semester, I had one model come each week. By the second semester I was using two or three models at a time. Or sometimes I would hire one model to stand in a few different poses, and I'd integrate them into the same painting. I built my canvases bigger and bigger until they were practically the same height as the studio wall."

He paused, scrunching his eyebrows.

"All the other kids thought I was a showoff."

I ran my finger up and down his sternum. I liked the slight angle where the manubrium met the gladiolus.

"But anyway, one day I was on a ladder, setting the lights back to the same angles they were at for the last session. The model was in place on one side of me, and on the other side I was holding my huge painting. With my free hand I reached to turn the light."

He looked up at the window. "Hey, the baby foot's almost gone!"

We watched the fog around the toes evaporate.

"We'll have to find a way to fog that window up again so you can make another!" he said, tickling me.

"Stop!" I laughed, prying his fingers from my sides. "So you reached to turn the light..."

"Oh, right!" His hands relaxed. "And that's when I forgot something crucial: I forgot that when lightbulbs are on, they're hot. As soon as I touched it I lost my balance. The ladder tipped so slowly there seemed to be enough time to stop it, to push it back in place.
I lost my grip, so I dung to the painting to keep from shooting straight down. But of course the painting couldn't hold me up. As it toppled over, I let go and my face headed directly toward the stretcher bars. I tucked my head in, so only my jaw grazed the center stretcher. I could hear everything crashing around me. The ladder, a table, buckets of water, glass jars."

"Wow, sounds like you were lucky if that's the worst that happened."

"Well, I broke my leg. I guess my painting was more damaged than I was. I fell right through the canvas. I ripped a hole in the model's chest. And those were some melons," he said wistfully.

The entire baby foot had disappeared, swept up by the fog.

"How long before you recovered?"

"I was on crutches for a month, but I never got over it emotionally. Everyone knew what had happened. They saw this as their opportunity to get back at me for being such a painting snob. In bathroom stalls I found pictures of my face with lightbulbs over my head. I became known as Lightbulb Boy. One of the printmaking majors silkscreened T-shirts with a lightbulb on the front and a naked woman on the back. I knew I had to get out of there when I saw those shirts. I had to start over in a new place, with a new major."

"Why sculpture?"

"Sculpture is more direct. You imagine an object and you make it. Painting involves layer upon layer of color and revisions. I've always wanted my paintings to look real, to tell a story or to show a personality. I still love to paint, but I can get my ideas out quicker in three dimensions."

He sighed and rolled onto his back once more.

"Or at least that's what I tell myself," he said. "I don't know. Maybe what happened in California was so traumatic that I don't want to get seriously involved with painting again."

"Why are you painting now?"

"To get the ladies." He grinned, gauging my reaction.

I shoved him toward the wall.

"I missed it," he said, laughing. "I wanted to see if I still really loved it, once I'd taken a break."

"Maybe you should throw your heart back into it while you have the chance."

"You're right," he said. "I really should."

We were standing in the Garage driveway, huddled around a pile of construction paper. An orange page was on top.