UNDER THE CHERRY TREE
By
Rev. Jesse Penfield Gibson, MDiv, DMin
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters and situations are purely imaginary. Any resemblence to any living persion is coincidental. This story is primarily a romance but does contain some scenes of explicit sex, primarily homosexual but not exclusively.
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seven
I didn't see him again for days, maybe once in class. As far as I knew, he and Carter were still rooming together but Xander was completely absent. Nobody seemed to think it was that odd, with most of the guys I asked saying that he was probably locked up with a girl somewhere in her apartment. Carter definitely didn't seem to mind. So, it was four days later before he showed up again.
Xander was sitting at his desk, drawing into a large sketch pad while Carter was on his bed, typing on his laptop. I stepped into the open room and leaned against the door frame.
"So where have you been?" I asked.
Xander looked up and saw me and smiled a little. He put the sketch pad aside. "I was planning the events for suicide Tuesday but I was too fucking depressed to carry through. You still pissed?"
"A little," I admitted. "So, what are you doing?"
"Schoolwork," Carter answered.
Moving inside the room, I asked "So you two getting along now?"
"Turns out he's the perfect roommate when he isn't here. Besides, they're not going to move me. No place to go. We're making it work," Carter said.
"Well, I'm glad, for what it's worth." I noticed that Xander had a half dozen pottery pieces lined up on his desk. The best one was a slender vase glazed in a deep blue with a relief of a tree on the side. The way the glazed dripped it looked like Spanish moss. Turning it over, the mark was an N inside of a C on one side and a J superimposed on an H on the other.
Xander saw and smiled craftily. "I'm impressed. You picked the one I didn't do."
"Yeah, it's Newcomb. Hattie Joor decorated it."
Carter stopped typing and looked up at me. "Yeah, right" he muttered before going back to typing.
"Now I am impressed. How did you know that?"
"It's got the Newcomb mark and her private mark. My mom really likes Newcomb. She has a couple of them. Every time we went anywhere, she'd go to the local junk shop trying to find one. You know, somebody selling it but didn't know what they had. She's found some that way." I saw a box with a glass figurine of an egg. It was clear with the yolk inside but it looked like it had been devilled all ready. "So what's this?"
Xander laughed. "It's a present for somebody. His name's Darrell and he's kind of known for making these killer deviled eggs. So, the joke is that the yolk is all ready deviled. It was kind of a pain in the ass to do, though. When I thought of the idea, I wasn't thinking in 3 dimensions."
I put it back. "So what are you drawing?"
Xander held it up. In the foreground was a picture of boy but fanned out behind him was a mass of figures, all clearly human but totally blacked out. Some were walking or squatting or jumping, just everyday activities but all were totally black. "It's an exercise for my drawing class. `The human form in perspective'."
I screwed up my face. I was trying to not be insulting. "They look kind of dehumanized," I said. "Just faceless, featureless creatures. Oh, I get it. The perspective of the human form is dehumanized. Clever."
Carter leaned over and looked at it. "Don't you think it's too clever?"
Xander turned the pad around and started drawing again. "Nah, McMahon is completely post modernist. He'll eat it up. They're suckers for this sort of shit. They think it's profound."
"It's not. Modern art is cynical and soulless. There's no meaning to it. God has been exiled and goodness mocked. It's degenerate," Carter opined. Then he leaned back as if waiting for a response.
"I don't agree with that all." I said "There's some amazing stuff being done. You can go to any museum and see some amazing things."
"He's almost right, actually." That statement coming from Xander floored me. "So much of it is just shit. You go to a museum, right, and go by a Matisse or a Degas and it'll have a plaque that gives the title, the artist, and the year and say something like `oil on canvass'. Go to the contemporary section, there'll be plaque explaining it to you. Telling you how brilliant it is. The Degas – they don't have to tell you it's brilliant. You just look at the fucking thing and tell it's brilliant. Because it actually moves you in some way. It says something. It's not just there. So much of it is just fucking lazy. Some shithead puts a crucifix in a jar of piss and everybody goes crazy. It's sacrilegious or it's a cutting statement. But it really isn't. It's just being provocative to be provocative. It's not original. There's no technique or artistry about it. It's just shit."
"Well, so you don't approve of so-called art that trashes spiritual values?" Carter asked, looking surprised too.
"No, art is all about spiritual values. It's about the transcendent. I don't mean religious. In fact it can be anti-religious but it ought to be about something real. And it has to be hard to do. If you're not working at it, it's not art. It's like the Stuckists say: `you can't be an artist if you don't paint'. Think about it. Tell me, if you had to pick one artist and say that he is your favorite, the best ever, who would it be?"
I thought about it and answered, "Is Monet too uncool?"
"Fuck no," Xander said. He was almost bouncing up and down. "That right there proves it. Monet was a fucking genius. I'll tell you something. When I was about 8 or maybe 9, we lived in New Orleans. My mom took us to the museum, I don't even remember why. But they had one of Monet's Rouen Cathedral paintings there. He kept on painting it in different light conditions. I remember looking at that painting for like an hour. Getting close to it, backing up. There's one little section that I remember. The first stroke was thick, cobalt blue. Then there was a thin coat of white over it and on top a thin ribbon of pink. Pure fucking genius. That was the moment I wanted to be an artist. Right there. He was a genius because he broke with conventions of the day, totally defied them and gave us something that was better. Duchamp presented a urinal as art. It defied the conventions of the day but it was totally sterile."
"So, a urinal isn't art. Can porn be art?" Carter asked.
"Sure, some of it," Xander answered. "Oh shit, I don't know why that reminded me. You're good with like physics and shit, right? I'm asking because I want to make this pendant but the center of it is a prism. It's for this girl, a friend of mine, who keeps on running into this glass door. So, the center is a piece of cracked glass but I want to be cracked so that it can be a prism, know what I mean?"
"Not really," I said. "But it's just a matter of the angles. Snell's law."
"Which is?" Carter asked
"The angle of refraction is equivalent to the phase velocity of the two media."
"Okay, that's just a string of words that don't mean anything," Xander said as he stood up. "Come on, you're going to help me. We'll go to the studio."
"It's night time," I protested.
"So?" Xander said, grabbing up his keys and motioning me to join him.Typically he was all immediate enthusiasm. He had an idea and had to bring it to fruition. "It's just right over there. You'll be safe. The boogey man won't get you."
I followed him as he headed over the art school, which is practically next door – only one building away, sitting at the west end of the Quad. The building actually stands out because it is the only white stone building on a campus of red brick. It was originally built almost a hundred years ago as a library funded by Carnegie. He bounded up the steps outside and we entered into a large central area of dark wood paneling and marble floors. Running along one wall is the staircase to the second floor and in the back a stair down to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he pulled out his keys and unlocked a door.
"Are we allowed to be here?" I asked, hanging back a little.
"Yeah, they let us use studio space 24/7. That's why we have keys. Probably someone here anyway, it's still early."
If the first floor was stuffy and Edwardian, the basement was institutional drab. Xander pointed out the printing press and the metal work studios on the far end of the hall from where we headed. Our destination was marked "Ceramics and Glass". Going through that door, I saw a door labeled "Clay Storage" and then a big open space with a dozen or so electric kilns, all bigger and fancier than the one my mother has back home. In the far corner, a guy was grinding glass on a diamond wheel. Xander greeted him and then went to a bank of small cabinets and unlocked one. The thing that caught my attention was a medium sized glass ball about three inches in diameter. Inside the ball looked like a multi-colored vortex. Xander got a stack of thick glass disks out of the cabinet but I was staring at the ball. He grinned a little and picked it up and handed it to me, telling me to be careful. Turning it in my hands, I could see that the colors of the vortex inside changed colors depending on the angle I was looking at.
"How did you do this?" I asked, surprised at the effect.
"Dichro," he answered, walking over to a work table. "My latest craze. Dichroic glass. There's a pendant in there too if you want to see."
Reaching in the cabinet, I pulled out a square pendant. At one angle, roughly two thirds of it, with ragged borders, was mostly purple and the remaining third split between black and green. Turning it 90 degrees, the two thirds was mostly gold and the other third blue and yellow. It was stunning. I examined it from a variety of angles.
"So what do you do to get the dichroic effect? Embed metal oxides in the glass?"
"Actually, you have to vaporize them in a vacuum chamber," Xander answered. "So these are the forms. I tried just smashing them with a hammer but it didn't work."
For the next little while, I worked out the math and we fiddled with the angles of the pieces before I realized that, once broken, it was going to have to be covered in something so that it would be safe to wear. That, of course, changes the phase velocity so the angle of incidence has to change. It was more trial and error than Xander counted on but on the fifth one, we got it. It looked like broken glass but in the light, it shined with multi spectra. It looked like it was encased in rainbows.
"It's pretty neat," I said. "So why are making it?"
"It's for a girl I know. A friend, well she's been nice to me at least. It's a present."
I laughed. "Trying to get in her pants?"
He looked almost offended and shook his head no. "It's not like that. Not that kind of deal. I mean, I wouldn't mind fucking her, not at all. But it's not going to happen. You know, I can have a friend I am not trying to sleep with."
"Okay, okay" I said, holding my hands up in mock surrender.
We went down to the metal work studio and he bent a band of stainless steel to go around the outer edge of it, even having to weld it. It was kind of interesting seeing him in this light, passionate and absorbed by something. When he was finished, Xander held it up and declared it beautiful. Then, as if reading my thoughts, he said, "See, it's not just about partying and fucking. Not if the end result is beautiful, huh?"
I thought about that moment several times that weekend. Erica, Robbie, Reed and me went to Atlanta to see the alternative country group The Drive-by Truckers play. For a brief time on the ride up, they were ragging me about my friendship with Xander and basically putting him down, Reed more than Erica though. I defended him by mentioning what I had seen of his artwork and his obvious pride in what he produced. Even Reed acknowledged his talent but thought that he would be better off if he were more disciplined about it.
The part about Xander was only a small part of the conversation, though. Mostly it was Reed entertaining us with stories about various parties and stunts that he had been involved with. He was actually being quite charming and I was surprised that he often made himself the butt of the joke. Before, I had the impression of him as being kind of arrogant but he wasn't being that way at all.
Reed's family lived in a big house off Roswell Road inside the 285 perimeter, complete with swimming pool. His parents weren't home, there was something said about being in Europe, and Robbie and me helped ourselves to the beer in the sleek chrome fridge. It was some German or Czech beer that I didn't recognize. Unlike Budweiser, you had to use a bottle opener to get in it and the taste was bitter and kind of nasty. We sat around the pool for a while and had a couple of more beers, which began to taste better as I got a buzz going before heading out for the show.
As we were heading for the show, Reed offered me some ecstasy. I thought about it for a long minute as he held out a lump wrapped in a wad of rolling paper. It was an impulse. I took it from him.
"You just swallow it?" I asked.
He said so, so I did. Perhaps stupidly I expected an instant reaction, which didn't happen. Laughing at my naivety, Reed told me that it would probably take 3o minutes for it to work. I didn't feel anything for a long while, the whole trip from Reed's house down to Little Five Points. As we got to Little Five Points, with its garish decoration, I began to feel its effects. We passed by a store with a sign that seemed like psychedelic graffiti called the Junkman's Daughter and a bar with a huge skull as a door. The full effect of the drug almost floored me. I wasn't prepared for it and it was scary in a way. But then by the time Erica parked behind a line of stores in a lot practically surrounded by graffiti, I was calm and happy. I was more than happy. I was at peace. But I was energized and couldn't wait for the music. Walking to the Variety, I was practically jumping with excitement and anticipation. I felt really bonded with Erica, Robbie and Reed, like we were together for more than a concert but off on a really wonderful adventure together. It sounds hooky but that was the way I felt. Everybody I saw as we walked seemed friendly and it was, for a time, hard to imagine any badness in the world. The Drive-by Truckers are an alt-country band. It's kind of cool country. The show was great, the music was beyond great and I felt like dancing. Of course, I was sweaty and hot too, and thirsty. We got some bottled water and I slammed that back. To me, each song was better than the last. Between sets, Reed gave me another bomb and I took it, redosing because I figured if one made me feel this good two would be better. I'm not sure that actually ended up being true but I still felt great. When the show was finally over, sweaty but still rolling, we headed back to the car. I remember talking a lot, saying things about myself that I probably shouldn't have but I had compulsion to talk.
We went back to Reed's. Robbie and Erica went off to sleep together after a little bit of winding down. I didn't begrudge them their intimacy. I wanted them to have a good time. The tough part of being a college student is that while you are free of your parent's control, the logistics of intimacy can be difficult in a dorm. They had the same problems everybody has in that regard. So, I thought it was great that they had the opportunity to take their time, enjoy and end up wrapped in each other's arms. They deserved it. After they left, Reed suggested that I go with him to his room. Instantly, I was nervous. I felt the same push and pull hesitancy that I had after the party with Xander. One part of me wanted to desperately but another didn't. Maybe it was the drugs but I found the courage to go with him. We lay on his bed and we undressed each other, kissing. It was weird. I enjoyed it to be sure. Kissing and touching him felt right and good. I liked it when he ran his hand down my body and when he touched me down there. But I couldn't get hard. I was aroused but couldn't get hard. Reed didn't either. I was actually kind of freaking out about it because in my years of masturbation fantasies, impotence with a guy had never been a thought that I had. I should have known that I wasn't actually impotent because obviously because I wake up with an erection every morning and have gone to sleep many times after tending to a bit of business with it. I was mollified when Reed told me that E did that a lot. So we spent the next lovely hour kissing and hugging and touching. I never ejaculated.