To Live a Life

“You needn"t try so hard” He said the second year we were married. Someone who didn"t know us might think he told me not to bother opening a can of tuna, to put together an IKEA wardrobe or simply not to furrow my brow. It wasn"t. And there weren"t many who didn"t know us. "Know" would be a harsh word, "recognized our face" would be a more fitting expression. Our marketing made it sure those who weren"t familiar with our complexion were progressing to counter that. On a global level. We whored out our image, as he put it. Even if the world listened, it wouldn"t have known what he meant. At that point I didn"t know either. My husband. To this day I don"t know how to shape my tongue around the word. It will only ever mean him. It will eternally be connected to his straight white teeth, his long-boned, fine fingers, the dimples when he smiled, the perfect half bow of his upper lip, the smoke curling around it in a way my mouth was never allowed to, the way he shrunk into himself, all his angles darkening, folding into a zone to which I would never trespass, listening to something I perpetually felt mute to. Husband. Not a word, a notion I discovered I had no idea about. No word rang emptier. He was so careful, too. So careful. It deluded me into thinking he must"ve cared about me. Just a little bit. Although the thing about delusions is that they breed delusions. They are fluid, flowing into one another as a stream, without end or beginning. Some days it is just the cruelty I see, others I find kindness. I guess it depends on wearing the right glasses. Gucci or Versace. It sounds so bitter the way I think about it. It seems so long ago though that sometimes I forget I was okay with this, that we began as friends and make no mistake I knew what I was signing up for. I should paint myself more carefully too, since not many had my luck, to be with him, to be allowed to explore the way we do when we love someone in our blindness. He was a self made creature. Doing what he did best: perform. Starting from when he was a lanky kid, awkward, skinny, a nerd with a sense of parchment humor, that later served for a base for satire that still, managed to be funny when he grew into his frame, that black cloak of smoke that hung about him, lighting him in a twisted chiaroscuro that stripped all the childishness but not the infantilism away. I never went to bars. One of the few times I was persuaded to, as well as dragged, it happened against my will. Mostly men who had an air of overconfidence and some expansive scotch, a wad of cigarette scented cash in the back pockets of their well fitted jeans hit on me, bought me a drink which I thanked, then proceeded to ask for my number, with that an insurance for the night ahead. I usually went away after the drink. I only accepted it anyway to not scare away all the others that might have been watching the interaction. You ow all the secret admirers I liked to imagine into the crowd watching me, drooling in their insulated loneliness that matched mine but wore a less attractive body. The human ego has no boundaries. I didn"t see him walk in. He didn"t catch my eye when he sat down at the bar either. I was engrossed in my own misery at having only two more ice cubes left in my whiskey to play with. The bartender grabbed the same bottle he poured my drink from. At the end of his route were two delicate boned hands, webbed in fine veins, tan, not calloused or brusque, hands for something else than loading trucks in orange sweaters or laying asphalt in the tropical heat. He flinched his eyes away. I tried not to stare but it felt like looking into mirrors instead of black eyes. What a crackhead, I first thought. Tousled hair, overgrown, barely groomed beard or mustache for that matter, a prominent kiss of freckles under both eyes, brought out by the bronze of the sun. That didn"t even matter. I had no means to grasp what it was that put a magnet in my eye and planted the opposing polar on him. Knowing who he was made it harder to move. In my own pride I would"ve hated to be the pushy fan who only wants a picture. Because in fact I didn"t want a bloody picture. I wanted many. So I told him he happened to be the only one with a decent taste in this whole place. “We damn well might be the last ones of that dying race”he replied, a frown turning into a tentative smile. I asked what he was working on. He had a movie coming up. I said that"s great. I had an exhibition. He asked where and I told him the address. He knew the place but never been. I made sure he was to come by sending tickets, he thanked me but wanted to pay for it. I told him I would be offended if he didn"t accept so he had no choice. In turn he bought the second round. The sounds slurred into the golden light of the bar and I soon remembered nothing else but the way his dark, dark eyes danced when he talked about what he liked, how his straight teeth flashed every time he smiled. I don"t remember who asked for whose number. He offered to take me home and I didn"t object. Although we both were pissed I didn"t care. Probably because he didn"t either. I felt invincible after a long time then, under the obscure imprint of the Milky Way above us, believing that I truly came upon something worthy. He put on From Nowhere and I dove into the shouting captions saying FOUND. Should"ve been a sign, that he didn"t kiss me. Or that when he did later it was so strong. Too strong. As if he wanted to convince himself he liked me and not me that I liked him. I believed in my infinite charm so when it hit a wall I halted to change tactics or just plainly had no idea how to proceed. The haze clouded my eyes, my judgement, my clairvoyance. All my senses shut to the wonder that it could happen to me. I let myself be a stupid girl asking a shiny but broken thing to reflect my darkness, to mirror my light. And he did. He came to my exhibition. I went to his shoot, met his friends. They cheered me, welcomed me but the frown instantly popped onto their expressions as soon as I turned my back. Women as they always were relentless, they thought they knew better. That told-you-so was nagging at them, pulling at their hair, to say it, say it. I thought I had to be one with him. After he told me he was born on the same day I was, the similarity ached and burnt. Pushing me back was impossible but he tried. I tried too. Everyone else tried. He had my left hand, some latched at my right, some grabbed my ankles and pulled me into this tousled mess we call love with all the intentions of yanking me further, away from it. It bit me, like a rabid animal, I unhinged its jaw and tore it out, carrying its teeth in me waiting for the smolder to fizzle out. He told me not to bother. That he could never respond. Not in that way. “We all need play mates” I said rolling on my back like a cat on the dirty-grey bedspread in his empty unfurnished apartment. I never knew whether to thank him for not breaking me right there and then or scorn him for it. It depends on the day. Monday or Sunday. I purred until he let me and then he presented all his demons, one by one, in a soldiery line, all clear, their fangs clattering as they sized mine up. Each had a name, depression, anxiety, loneliness. Viciously they clawed at mine until they realized they shared a name. So they all nuzzled against each other making peace and alliance. California with its vibrant neons illuminated my plan to save him, drawing a pink-green halo around me as the thwarted savior. Even though I was the villain who said if I couldn"t have his body and mind I will have his soul. The company in Britain was a society of artists. They held monthly get-togethers. I took him. It went pretty well for me, selling my artwork, touring it from one exhibition to another. My income was better than ever. I could afford pretty much what I wanted to. He insisted on staying with me which was still better than what he did most of the time, sleeping in his car to save money when there wasn"t an already paid-for hotel room. My lack of technical equipment was baffling to him but got over it by triggering an inundation of smoke from different substances. We smoked. Weed. Pot. Whatever that came as a ground substance. Then smoked tobacco too. Cigars, cigarettes. Drank copious amounts of wine. Guzzled it, and I thought of hiring a demijohn just for a few months. Hours, days were lost in the redeeming fumigation, weeks I spent becoming familiar with my own heartbeat until we became buddies, exchanging friendship bracelets at the end. I showed him everything, every little Lego piece that shaped me into this big shapeless mess of a human. I loved how he watched the movies so intently even when he was high as the ceiling, his eyes reading the captions of the French, Russian, Italian movies, staring at each shot of the Japanese masters. We analyzed performances. He bathed in self-loathing, sometimes bitter envy. Then I knew my purpose, the reason I couldn"t tear my eyes away from him. I needed his hand. He needed mine. To extend it when the other was down, crouching at the feet of human condition, to help each other back up where we should"ve been. Heads up, raised like a pair of sphinxes guarding what they held dear, that undefined thing that made their souls so similar, tailored to be an equal pair. We talked through endless nights to sleep until endless noons. On rooftops, in parks, trees, cars, me tangled in my thoughts, him bundled in that unreachable place that he owned solely. He made me understand why it was wondrous to watch somebody sleep. He taught me how to covet another"s sleeping thoughts other than my cat"s. Showing great oblivion to my resistance I found yearning to bury myself in the folds of his body, run my fingers across those prominent bones that defined his face, map out the once delicate angle of his shoulders with my skin. I felt everything in me reach out to him while my mind shackled me into my body. The into voice of reason, instinct told me it couldn"t be. Then they spoilt it. The photographers, those who couldn"t live their own lives so they had to live that of others. For a very long time it was a no comment situation, we declared our friendship every step of the way. But seeing him leave my apartment at five in the morning when I had to go and buy another bottle of wine no one believed us to be having serious business conversations. Which we were. One day I found him going through my tablet, he found one of my unfinished scripts and told me he loved it. A pair of lovers, dying for each other through lifetimes, losing their memories, racing with time to find out the reasons behind the never ending sequence before one of them had to give up their heartbeats for the other for the other to live. It wasn"t at all hilarious apart from the cutting sarcasm that splayed through both of the characters. He said he wanted to direct since he new his mind, what he didn"t know was the world he was missing. He said now that I had given it to him he couldn"t wait to start. I nodded relentlessly. My only request was for him not to film mine first. My private nature to my writing was still in the works. I didn"t mind him reading it I was concerned with the whole world. All this lead us to our downfall. We worked together day and night, running errands, me drawing furiously promoting my artwork and putting it on a separate account labeled coffee money for the in humane ours we put into it. Him going to events promoting everything else, me on his arm,the ultimate power couple who weren"t a couple although they couldn"t not ask every time. We bought him a suit. Commissioned it rather. I wouldn"t have anything else but Italian tailoring whereas he objected his head off that he couldn"t pay me back anyway. To which I replied that I always wished to be a meacenas so he could shut the f**k up. Our feet trod countless red carpets, private events, weird after parties in hopes of making good bargains. Networking was crucial. We both agreed with a single glance that we would throw our virtues and morals into the bin if need be. This, we named to be our life"s work and it had to be a masterpiece otherwise it wasn"t worth doing. Both of us felt it. The tipping point. All the build-up, the incredible tension before a great, great event. We didn"t flinch back from burning it on both ends. It was drinking copious amounts of wine alternating with coffee. He suggested cocaine but I told him we"re poor because I only worshipped one white addictive substance: sugar. Then he got the call. The money was enough. The production began in early January, back in California as it was what he knew best, the life, the atmosphere, the common stoic, nihilism of the intelligent, the terrible desperation of the mediocre and the pompous flashing of the bourgeoisie who had more money than braincells. Or so I was told. I helped him touch up a screenplay I started way earlier than the original one he found. It was a version of a Hemingway novel, the Killers, my father mentioned when I was younger, he wanted to film it like one of his favorite directors had. I thought I"d honor him with this. He agreed. My insistence that I had to stay in the UK went down the drain when he tried to convince me. I wish I put up a bigger fight when he asked me to go, he said he needed me there making my bones rubbery. It was stupid and childish. I knew it was real. It scared me to my rubbery bones. Weeks ran away in the blinding heat of the desert. We stood around with the crew all day, waiting for the redeeming sunset to bring us relief. He was cranky and sensitive and a whining kindergartener and incredible douchebag. He might"ve needed me to be there to advertise his status, yet he didn"t treat me much differently. At night when we lay face to face in the dark, starlit room in the faded, creaking trailer on a dusty bed, sunburnt in a heatstroke we caught unnoticed, he told me. He thought he was going to fail. That he will disappoint me, himself, the world. Mostly himself. That his expectations were too high and unimplementable. I saw in the way his shoulders tensed, how his jaw was taut, his eyes had a tight light dancing in their hard darkness that he was a bundle of fears, doubts, insecurities. He either needed a drink or a blowjob. Since the sun dried me up as much as it ground him into powder, it was an obviously unilateral offer. He opted for the latter so I poured him a glass of whiskey.The one we had the night we met. He remembered too. Desperately trying to pour the fifth round into his glass the liquor ended up on the floor, signaling the end of the day. We slept naked, only a fine sheet over us to keep us safe from the real world in its infernal heat. Our burnt skin was hot against the cool of the night"s sandpaper air, chilling us through the ajar window. My reassuring words were never enough. The pressure was too big. He felt like he was playing with the money of others if he didn"t succeed, stripping good filmmaking of its most elemental aspect, the freedom of creativity. So I gave him drugs. The nightly whiskey became a side dish to the breakfast too.