Chapter Eleven
Unique
I was in bed that night staring up at the ceiling. I really hated the popcorn walls. They weren’t smooth like Gerard’s, they scared me and I was afraid I would cut myself on their rough surface. I wanted to be able to rub my hand against it and feel the slick regular walls, the ones that everyone else had.
I squinted my eyes. I felt a yawn coming on so they started to water. I really hated it when I am simply yawning and suddenly someone suspects I’m sad and sobbing. Showing my emotions and wear them on my sleeve wasn’t something I wanted to do. I thought people might have understood that from their own feelings, but they decide to embarrass me like in the food market or just on the street. I knew they only cared, I guess. I just never saw it that way when the time came. I fought back the yawns every time I felt them come up through my throat and I would end up contorting my face into expressions people coward at instead of just letting it go.
I couldn’t fall asleep. I wasn’t thinking of the obvious, which I probably should have been. The kiss was far out of my mind and I didn’t really care about it anymore. I had labeled it as one of his weird teaching methods. I had been talking a lot while I was with him that day; maybe he did that just to get me to shut up! I convinced myself, though, and decided not to dwell on it any further. Instead I was thinking about what I felt. Gerard was so exact with his words. I was starting to pick up on his points and reasons but this one was difficult. There was something deep inside me that I knew was the right answer but I wasn’t sure what to call it. In time, as he said, it would rise to the surface and I would be able to name this thing that was burrowed inside my thoughts. It was frustrating not being able to convey to Gerard my every detail when he could. I was jealous of his abilities but also thankful that he was helping me gain his knowledge.
I had a rubber ball in my hand. It was gooey and left red marks on the ceiling. I kept throwing it up and up. I couldn’t stop thinking. I didn’t have work the next day. I wanted to go to Gerard’s and talk to him just, regularly but he hadn’t invited me. He didn’t say to come back like he had the first night. I didn’t want to barge in on him when he was busy. It was his home! That would be rude and I really didn’t want to get on his bad side. I haven’t seen it yet (obviously) but still, not one wants to be on anyone’s bad side, especially if they’re helping you in the first place.
As tired as I was and as I felt my eyes wouldn’t and couldn’t stay shut. My anger rose but I knew if I lost my temper then, there was no getting to sleep. I had been a long few days. Learning so much that didn’t make sense to me from a total stranger! I wanted to go back, at night again, and just surprise him with more and more questions. I still didn’t understand why I trust Gerard so much; he was another man that I met at a bar I worked at. Sounds pretty awkward to me – I kept on telling myself that I should really be more careful about what I say and what I do. He has just crossed a boundary I had not seen coming and he was helping him for no reward at all. There was nothing in it for him, but he helped me anyway. Very few people were willing to do that. Gerard opened up to me like so many people didn’t. I was thankful for more than just being taught to live again, I was thankful for just meeting him.
…
I still was deprived from sleep as I gulped down a drink. It was somewhere between six and seven in the morning – about the time I would get up to go to work. I huddled near the place the hot air came out of the heat up the apartment. The cold mornings were coming back, now. Leaving the slight spring fever of the sunrise in the dust; I wanted those times to come back so badly. Those were the best times, the happiest. No one had to deal with the dreary cold anymore. They could be happy again and go walking in the park again. It just made everyone in a better mood, including me. But now, my hopes were crushed by the bitter wind of the mornings. The spring feeling, far from reach and out of sight.
When I was younger sometimes my mom and her many boyfriends would take us out camping. Although my mother hated it I loved it. In the fall it was nice, not to warm not too hot and you could watch the orange and red leaves fall to the ground. It felt like you were actually in a painting but then sometimes we would go in the spring. That was the best time of all. With the green trees that almost looked fake because of their mightiness. The flowers blooming in the meadow just beyond our camping ground. Then it felt like you were in a painting, and with every step that you took the artist would become closer to finishing your whole body and officially marking you as art. Every since those times, whether I thought the boyfriends were pricks or not, spring remained to be my favorite time of the year. While camping, those were the few good times I had in my childhood. Maybe the only good times; I sighed, just thinking about it made me sad. I wanted those times to come back. I didn’t want to feel cold anymore. I wanted to feel the warmth of something that actually made me happy.
I packed up all my things just in case I decided to stop by Gerard’s place. Maybe I could come up with some half assed excuse to go over there again. Or, maybe he was already expecting me. He hadn’t said anything. But if he didn’t want me there today, that made me twitch. I paced throughout my apartment thinking long and hard. I wanted to go back over to him…because…my thoughts ended and I was left with an empty head. Why did I want to go back? I had been asking myself that question ever since the second night at the bar. Why had I wanted to go back? I loved to learn and I loved his teaching, but like everything else, there was something else. I patted my chin to the beat of my own music. I wanted to go because I liked it there. I could be free to say and do what I wanted there, at least, that’s what Gerard told me. We had been sitting in the two garden chairs. I still found them odd, especially while paired with everything else he had in his home. They were out of place and just weird! I liked them, though. I was sunken deep into mine, feeling the wicker run along my fingers in a wave of pattern. The lime green cushion which clashed with everything else was squishy and comfortable to sit on. Although clashing, it was extremely stunning and lit up the room with it’s pop of color.
We had been sitting in the quietness of the apartment for some time after hanging up my first painting. We were both exhausted and tired from sitting (and standing) there for hours. Gerard perked up, though challenging my brain to think when it was it’s time of resting. “When you come in here, Frank, there is really no right or wrong. There is only do or don’t.” It took me a couple of seconds to come up with something to say back, but I was only able to ask a boring stupid question. “Why are you telling me this?” It sounded harsh as it made it’s way into the open air but Gerard didn’t seem to mind. He understood I wasn’t trying to me rude. “Because when you come here, that’s what there is. You can do whatever you want here, Frank. This is your place to be free to do whatever you wish. Fuck, go around without any clothes on and dance. I don’t care. Just remember that when you come here – there is no such thing as right or wrong. Only –,”
“Do or don’t.” I said, finishing his sentence for him. He smiled and was pleased with my participation in his lecture. I smiled back at him and for once wasn’t afraid to just be myself right then and there, that was what he was re-teaching me to do, wasn’t it? And in only three days he was doing a damn good job.
As I walked around in my apartment dazed and confused I realized, from this memory, that he was telling me there were no boundaries. Was that why he did what he did last night? That kiss that apparently meant nothing no neither him nor I? My head started to throb, with too many thoughts in my head I had to decide on something. Was I going or was I staying home? I yelled out loud not caring if the next door neighbor would scold me for being too loud again. He would live. I stopped me feet against the floor as I got my coat and bag. I was going and I didn’t care if Gerard didn’t want me there, damn it I was going no matter what. My car was still parked in the bar parking lot. People were most likely getting suspicious but I didn’t care, people could bother my car. I hated it and barely even used it. It was given to me by one of mom’s boyfriends that “didn’t make the cut.” I could care less if I came back to it tomorrow when I had work again and found it torn apart with my five cent deodorant gone and all of the three dollar bills I had sitting in the glove compartment. I would be absolutely devastated. I laughed and thought I was pretty funny, even though I wasn’t. I laugh again but this time of out pity for myself.
I took long strides as I crossed the street. The sun was just coming up as I stepped onto the sidewalk heading to the front door of the apartment. I followed the path I had been taking for the past few days and made it to his door. This time when I knocked he didn’t answer in a hurry. It worried me but when he opened the door he had the same smile on his face. “Hello!” He brought me into a hug which I wasn’t prepared for. “Hi, uh, I wasn’t sure if I should have come today.”
“Of course you should’ve!” I smiled widely when he said this. I was hoping he wanted me to, I just wasn’t sure. “Oh good!”
“You want to come?” His voice dropped and the perkiness turned into awe and amazement. “Yeah.” There was a smile forming into his lips. But it was a smile I had never really seen before. There was a twinkle in his eye and happy sadness in his face. He let me go completely and guided me into the living room. It was dark in his apartment. All the shade were drawn and no lights were on. “Did I wake you!?” I started to panic. “No! You did not such thing! I was just sitting!”
“Sitting?”
“Yeah, can’t a guy sit?” I laughed and he smiled at me like a giddy little girl. I wasn’t creeped out and I didn’t feel all that vulnerable. I was here as a friend, and acquaintance. “Would you like to sit with me?” I set down my bag where I usually put it near the door and shed my coat. I walked over to where he was on the couch. I could barely see where I was going but I managed to get over to him without falling on my face. “What are we doing?” I saw the outline of his head turn to me. “Right, shut up. Go it.” We both sat there embraced into the couch for a while. His apartment was cold but it was comfortable. I could feel Gerard’s body warmth radiating onto me.
“I was thinking last night.” I said out loud after a little while of just sitting. “Were you?” I nodded, even though I was pretty sure he couldn’t tell when I was moving. “There is something inside that I can’t name yet, and it’s what I felt.” His breath patterns wavered and became un-normal. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling right then or what was happening but I went on. “You said I would soon just know what it is. When, though?”
“When you’re ready, Frank.” I sighed. I thought I was ready; I was more ready now that I ever once was. I wanted to know just what I was feeling. It killed me if I didn’t. My brain would just wrap around the one problem and force me to focus on it until it was a solved case. Now, I couldn’t do that. Gerard was telling me to wait and be patient and that was what I was going to do. I need to be patient because that’s the only way I was going to learn. “Patients is virtue”, my mother always used to tell me. I never listened to her but now I was listening to Gerard. His words rang clear and he was practically saying what my mother had said to me years ago. I hadn’t forgotten that conversation between her and I and that tells you something. “I just want to know, Gerard.” He adjusted his hands and placed them under his legs. “I know you do, I want to know a lot of thing too but I have to wait. Everyone does at some point. You have to work, now, Frank. Before – you just let everything slide away from you. Now you have to stop and think but you have to think and you have to wait and be patient.” His words were caring and calm. “Is it all my fault?” I asked without thinking. “No, Frank. It was never your fault. Sometimes, the life that some people have are not their faults. Sometimes it’s the people around them to blame.” I wanted to say that I didn’t like blaming things on people, but I would be lying. And I didn’t want to fib to him.
To me, I didn’t think blaming someone for something, in this case your life, was good. Blaming got people no where in life and I was sick and tired of hearing all the stories on the news about robbers and family members murdering each other. It was all just a sick joke I didn’t want to watch or read anymore. I didn’t want to know and learn about the world I was living in. “I don’t want to blame,” I looked up at Gerard then quickly back down to the ground. “People don’t deserve to be blamed. It never helps anything.” I spoke my mind and he seemed to like that. I was believing in what I was saying. I wasn’t being fake to please Gerard. He would just have to expect what I thought was right or wrong. But no, there was no right or wrong. There were dos and don’ts. “Very good.” Gerard said clapping his hands together lightly. “I was wondering what you would say. Although I agree with you, people do tend to blame everything on anything.” I nodded, remembering a terrible past of school days. Just like Gerard said, they blamed everything on anything and it started to get old pretty fast. I thought for sure all of that would end when I got out of high school, but it only seemed to escalate and be brought to our attention even more. “It’s not fare.” I said again. “Life isn’t fare, Frank. And I’m sure you’ve been told that a lot but don’t really want to hear it again.” He rested his chin in the palm of his hand. We were still sitting in the pitch blackness, both thinking just what the fuck the world was coming to. “Was anything ever good?” Gerard let out a laugh when I asked. I didn’t know quite what I meant. I was talking about in general but of course, Gerard took it to new heights. “Well, of course things were good. Maybe things that they didn’t really care about…” His voice trailed off. He wasn’t sure how to answer my vague question, but what he did say was helpful. Just because what we experience and heard was bad doesn’t mean someone else wasn’t having a good day. In other words, the world doesn’t revolve around us.
We remained silent for a while longer. Our breaths lingering in the air above us, mingling together as one; the thought of what I felt was still fresh in my mind. Our earlier conversation had led to something much different. A couple times I opened my mouth, about to say something but then I would close my lips together, thinking it’d be best to just shut up and keep it that way. Gerard had done much of the talking before. Maybe this was just him giving me my chance to throw in some things I had to say? I prepared myself for impact. I cleared my throat quietly and began to talk. “Gerard?” I asked for him before going off on my little speech. I would hate to be talking and then find out he had dozed off sometime ago. The outline of his head was still visible; it shot up when I called his name. “Yes?” I cleared my throat again. “I still don’t know what I feel.” I heard him scoff. He thought we were done and through with this conversation, but he was wrong!
“I don’t want to be unique, Gerard.”
“Why not?”
“Because everybody wants to be!” His body leaned against the back of the couch making my side rise a little. “Do you know what the definition of uniqueness is?” Gerard asked from the shadows. “Not really.”
“You.”
“Huh?”
“The definition of uniqueness is you.” I cocked my head, kind of understanding but still feeling fuzzy. “When someone wants to be unique,” He stated with a sigh, “they want to be original, they want to stand out of everything else. They want to be themselves. The true and real definition of being unique is being you.” I bowed my head. I had sort of known that before, but when Gerard continued I became intrigued. “Sometimes, people want to be so unique that they come up with things and ways to make them seem interesting and different. When really, those things don’t mean shit; when people create things that make them ‘unique’,” He did the air quotes with his hands, “Then they really aren’t unique at all, they are fake, phonies, trying too hard to stand out form the crowd. You don’t want to do that, Frank. Being unique isn’t about finding things to make your special; it’s about being yourself, because you yourself are special.”
I had no words to say, again I was speechless. Gerard seemed to have that effect on me. I placed my chin in my own palms now. I breathed in and out with content. Gerard was teaching me something no one had ever told me in my life. Gerard did that too. I fidgeted in my seat, moving from side to side, adjusting my weight according to Gerard’s position. “And you truly are unique, Frank.” I turned my head to him and (I think) looked him in the eyes. I could feel his stare on me even though his features were invisible in the darkness. I shifted closer to him feeling my way across the couch thought he black area surrounding me. “Thank you.” I whispered quietly. I rested my head on his shoulder. I couldn’t see his facial expression, but I stayed there. I was doing whatever I wanted and this is what I wanted to do.
