2
It
is strange, too, because I would desire no other company, and the
same goes for everybody who has truly listened to his face, which
he was constantly aware of, hearing him build a new world above us.
He might say that his mind is broken, that he has spent too much time
in a box full of noise. He might say that he was poor, with a restless
home. He might say that he was kicked a lot, dirty. He might say that
he is a genius, but no one would say he hadn't worked for it.
He never finished anything, and I'm sure that it is because
he had beaten all things, mastered them too quickly and his interest
waned.
Other peoples' standards for time did not apply to a man that
grew from a machine where pictures talked a talk that wasn't
rehearsed. His mind was nothing if not like a machine, a machine he
constantly trusted to run without fault. He knew what he said was
true when he said it, because his mind believed it, and his mind believed
it to be right.
He was not perfect, and I don't mean to give the impression
that anyone, including him, believed that he was. His mind might have
been a fine piece of crafted work, but his eyes were nothing but human.
Two dark riddles that opened up and swallowed you if you got too close,
and he would rarely let you, though you would often try.
He was hardly someone to be loved. He had little patience for the
everyday routine of a practical person. To love him would be to invite
yourself to a demure existence, and still no one failed to love him.
They all wanted to love him, but he chased us all away by having a
predetermined love affair with each of us, deeming it unsuitable,
finished the exercise, and never gave as much as a single solitary
word of adornment.
This man, who all of us adored, was not a man to be had. You had him
when he let you, and you lost him when he decided to be lost.
He wakes up in the middle of the night. He wonders what his body might
look like in the little light that dribbles in from the window. He
approaches the window, naked. It is Christmastime, and as he draws
the curtains away from the window, a little cold catches him in just
the right way, making him smile. A few chasing colored lights from
somewhere on the street below him shine across his chest.
He is a marvel.
His body isn't nearly perfect. He is far too thin. I had rarely
seen him eat, and he had little tolerance for those of us who ate
regularly, on a schedule. It was much the same with his habits concerning
sleep. I know he slept, but he had more energy, and existed in more
minutes during a day than were available for someone to exist on proper
rest.
His body is not so thin that it is not sleek. It is sleek. It is fit.
It is a fitness that fills and wanes. His was a thinness something
like the moon.
The moon is alive out the window. He admires the shapes inside it.
He makes shapes, denies others, paints pictures on the surface, and
waxes silently poetic about past lovers.
A young woman props herself up on one elbow from a bed at the rear
side of the room he is standing in. Some nights she forgets how important
he is to the world out that window, but tonight she sees that the
world does not take him for granted, and he appreciates its splendor.
And when he leaves the world it will not be ready. He will have beaten
it before it was ready to let him go. He will be gone, and the world
will still be shining lights on him.
I took his picture that night. He acted as if he didn't notice,
but he did. He always noticed when someone was looking at him.
There was a moment of silence at dinner tonight. I thought about mentioning
his name. I thought about telling them where I think he is tonight,
but we all have our own pictures of where he is, who he has become.
I am sure that, like that photograph of him standing at that window
in early December, he is painting pictures on the moon.
I guess that is my one comfort, that his light keeps me from being
alone. His light keeps us all young. He will always be a young artist
in a world that knows no art without youth.
And we miss him.
