Prettyboy

15: In The Nick of Time

Through my antics and their ramifications, I learned that melancholy is but an evil whisper on a summery night of loneliness, but it falls upon you like a pall, and lingers.

How quickly one can shift and convey oneself through time, using the brilliance of words. How petty and trivial you can make everything sound by narrating incidents, that have had such a severe impact on your psyche, you cannot go through a day without thinking of them. Language is truly an abomination. Language is the most useless and, at the same time, malevolent creation of mankind. I'd rather live in Babel sometimes, rather than anyplace else. But why do I choose to rave about language, now, in the middle of my memoirs, I hear you say. Precisely, reader, because I am in the middle of my memoirs, and my emotions are conquering me, my own mind detests me. 

And it all began after the roaring success.

After the 'roaring success' in Stable Gallery, as a magazine put it, Robert was awaiting the big kahuna. I, of course, could not be more laid back, or 'blasé' as my friend often put it. The roaring success resulted in a greater profit, one I had never had before. I was getting quite a lot of attention, even from where I was situated, in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Next to Cooper, I was spending some time, or rather all of it. Days passed with the taste of whiskey in my mouth, the delicacy of his touch, the pleasantness of his company, the rather annoying chirping of cicadas. Robert dropped me a line, sent an anxious telegram to my mother's, which she hid from me for several days. It was something along the lines of: 'Come back. Quick. Big road ahead awaits you. No more of S.H.' And S.H. being an abbreviation of Squirrel Hill, in case you failed to notice. I telephoned him, therefore, the very next day and inquired what it was all about, and the response I got was him being garrulous over invitations, and, God, so many telephone calls! And, Frank, you're no longer an artist that goes by unnoticed and blah-blah. Not to forget the critic article by someone who had attended the exhibition at Stable that read: 

'Mr. Iero is not omitting to make it obvious, that he is reinventing the art of photography and the fact that he is doing it in an absolutely ludicrous way. However, the lack of desire to boast about his achievements or the way he chooses to ignore his latest success as if trying really hard to liquidate it, prompts me to say that he is rather blasé of character. What a shame! Since Mr. Warhol's latest statement, Mr. Iero remains unresponsive.'

"What a shame? What a shame! By the by, I am not ashamed of blotting out pointless interviews or statements alluding to me by pseudo-allies."

"They did call you blasé and you are rather blasé, as I have always stood by it," said Robert, extending his arm to fetch us a cab. The wind blew his hair away from his face, as the cab came to a hilt before us. "You better start showing some desire to be there, at your exhibitions, because people are getting quite skeptical. Once they have fathomed that I am not the Frank Iero, they get rather disappointed, you should see their faces. It's not a good thing, I'll tell you, having oodles of pairs of eyes boring into you because you're not the person they want to have in front of them."

My reluctance heaved a sigh out of me. "It's not my fault people are often quite boring. And muckle-mouthed."

"You didn't seem to think so last time at Stable. Yeah. I saw you looking around, wide-eyed and all. What was that all about? Surprised by how much attention you've been getting lately?"

"It was different then," I had to argue, feebly so, however. I couldn't explain the cause of my felicity to Robert, but one particular someone on this planet knows how I couldn't wait to see a certain person that night. My driveling excitement. 

He still wrote to me, back then, my pretty boy. He wrote every two weeks and I couldn't wait for his next letter every time. He was basking in the greatness of thriving. He was opening his eyes and I longed to be there with him. Once he wrote two pages on how beautiful a single cloud in the clear sky looked, how he perceived it. He had such a way with words, that my words seem feeble and inadequate every time I describe him and his ways. He had an affinity for plays lately, said he was going to go to so many when he would move out. San Francisco; he was planning already.