Canvas

8| The Roof

The clouds smothered the moon and left the city to assume that the earth’s companion was loyally crossing the night sky. Charlie was on the roof of The Madison, leaning with arms crossed on the cold concrete of the wall, watching the nothingness of midnight. He saw no one milling about on the streets, and the roads—for once—seemed free of traffic. One by one, he saw lights from apartments across from The Madison extinguish, a single window at a time, until entire blocks of buildings were pitched in utter darkness. The streetlights were lit below him on the street, but their glow wasn’t strong enough to reach the roof, which was clothed in cold shadows. 

“I should have brought my coat,” Charlie mumbled to himself, tugging on the thin white fabric of his shirt. 

He had thrown off his blazer after his father had left to rejoin his mother for dinner. Alone, Charlie made his way around his room to survey the damage. Slowly, he picked up the ruin of his painting and set the broken canvas back upon its easel. The fabric had torn and curled around where his father threw his fist, like painted flames trying to burn its abuser. He touched the tears lightly, brushing his fingers over the canvas to see the picture as it had been only momentarily—perfect and beautiful—but when he pulled his hand back, the fabric coiled in on itself again. 

The paintbrushes waited for him on the floor of his bedroom, scattered about after the cup they sat in was knocked over. Some had rolled under his bed, up against the wall, and one had broken, stepped on by his father’s heavy stride. He gathered them together and returned them to their glass. 

His father’s voice churned in his mind like acid in an anxious stomach. Take this as a warning.

Charlie locked the door of his bedroom when he heard the sounds of his parents returning home. Laying on his bed, he could hear their hushed argument through the thin walls, the muffled sound of a smack followed by the breath of an apology, and finally the soft click of their bedroom door. 

The flame of his candle guttered. It had missed the terror from before, but Charlie felt it knew—could feel the leftovers of his father’s hatred. It danced in the soft whispering sighs of the wind from his open window, flicking back and forth hypnotically. Every now and then, it sputtered out, as if frightened away by something, before coming back to light after the threat disappeared. 

Charlie tossed back and forth on top of his blankets, as fidgety as the fire. You remember, it seemed to say when it jumped high into the air. You are a witness. 

When he heard the first rhythmic growl of his father’s snores, Charlie’s restless legs begged to escape. He needed to get out, to distance himself from this room, this house, this family, for even just a few hours. He sat up, blew out the last of the light in his room, and climbed out his window, taking the fire escape two stairs at a time until he made it to the top.

The cold air stung his eyes to tears. At least that’s what Charlie decided to tell himself—that the dampness that lined his cheeks was from the biting air and not the strangled sensation he felt in his chest, like someone was tightening a belt around his heart. 

His fingers burned in the icy air for a while before the pain eased into a numbness that nearly had him convinced they had fallen off. He bent his fingers, looking at the small lines of paint that had stained them when he was picking up his room. He couldn’t feel the way they moved. It was appropriate, he thought—his life wasn’t his to feel anymore; it belonged to someone else.

He had considered bringing up something to sketch with, but he couldn’t muster the courage. Some small piece of him feared that his father would know, would feel his art leaching out into the real world beyond his bedroom. Besides, Charlie didn’t need any more pictures to remember this evening. He didn’t want to have his father’s anger rekindled in a sketch, didn’t want his art to be as empty as he felt in this moment.