The White Parade

V. Four Weeks:
It’s a month to the show. A month. Four weeks, give or take a day…

Week One.

“I can’t believe it. Prismacolor markers, pencils…oil paints, turpentine…brushes…” He stares at the bounty with wide eyes. “Where did you get all of this?”

I just grin and set down a bag full of canvases of various sizes on the bed. “I happen to have very good friends.”

Actually, Mac happens to have very good friends. Friends in places an artist can only dream to have friends.

“Are those the…?”

“Mm-hmm. I think someone said something about bringing in an easel later.”

“Really? A-an easel?”

“Mm-hmm.” I open the window. A small breeze blows through the screen, but nothing strong enough to disrupt papers. “It’ll be easier than painting on the windowsill. Lessens the risk of your work falling several stories in your attempt to get good ventilation, y’know?”

“Yeah…” He goes back to staring at the supplies, running his hands over them as if trying to get his mind to believe that they’re real. You’d have to be an idiot to miss the quiet excitement he’s trying to hide. “I haven’t used anything but pencils since I was admitted… It’s gonna feel weird, going back to paints…to giving things color.”

“You’ll get back into it quick enough. Have you thought about which ones you’re going to paint? How many, even?”

“Not yet. So many books…so many to go through. It’ll be hard, but my instinct is still good enough that it’ll come to me as I go along. And…I already know of one piece for sure.”

Now it’s my turn to be excited. “Gonna tell me?”

“You probably know. But just in case you don’t…” Ean grins. “Not on my life, Scarf Girl.”

“Oh…fine…”

Week Two.

Claire sits cross-legged on her bed, helping me sift through countless black-and-white photos for the perfect shots to put on display. Recent photos of Ean in various stages of painting coexist with earlier portraits taken over the last month and a half. I have pictures of other things--landscapes, cityscapes…the sky during its transition from day to night--but those photos languish in a folder kept safely on a shelf in my room. They’re basic stuff. Generic stuff. Shit everybody has seen. But these photos… There’s something special about them. Something…perfect.

“The Patient seems to be doing a lot better, now that he has something to do.”

“Huh? Oh-oh…yeah. He is.”

Claire looks up. “Something wrong?”

“No…no, it’s just…” I can’t help but laugh. “It feels like forever since I’ve heard anyone call him that. Been spending so much time using his real name…”

“Yeah.” She puts down a picture of him from sitting on the windowsill--knees drawn to chest, chin resting on arms--into the designated “yes” pile before looking at others. “Why aren’t you in there, anyway? I thought you were going to take pictures of him working.”

“I was. And I did. And I was going to keep doing that this week, except that he’s insisted strongly that I give him time to work on his own. He wants a lot of the actual collection to be a surprise--even for me.”

As if on cue, a gasping cry from a nurse out in the hallway diverts our attention from the task at hand.

“What?” It’s Ean’s voice, sounding mildly annoyed. “It’s just red paint!”

The two of us laugh, and then Claire holds up two black and white pictures of him--both of which I recognize immediately. The first is of him staring straight out of his window, and the second…a trick of the light. They’re two of the first pictures I ever took, the day I was waiting for her in his room.

“These,” she says, adding them to the pile. “Even if you sort through this pile again, keep those in. They’re amazing.”

She goes back to looking through others, but I stop to look at them in a strange wonder. It’s almost funny; it feels like I took these photos years ago… They almost feel like photos of another person--of someone I used to know.

“These are two of my favorites.”

We spend the rest of the week wading through the “yes” pile, shaving down the total from two hundred to at least a hundred and fifty. It’s hard, but the two photos Claire picked out--my favorites--are automatically immune from any type of decisive cut.

Week Three.

You wouldn’t know from looking at him right away, but he’s gained a few pounds. The pallor of his skin hasn’t changed, but it almost seems to have a healthier glow. His hair is a little longer--almost as long as it was in the reference picture--and he actually sleeps on his own every night now, too. He may only get three or four hours of sleep, but it’s more than enough to make the doctors happy. And as far as happiness goes…Ean seems to be full to the bursting with it. He smiles more--laughs a little more--and means it. The intensity of his eyes ramps up as the weeks narrow down to days, and his quiet excitement is only too obvious--and only too infectious--as the show gets closer.

“Maybe I should dye my hair black again,” he says offhandedly as he works on a charcoal piece. “I kind of…I kind of miss it.”

“Yeah…and then watch all the girls suffer a case of mistaken identity the minute you leave the hospital,” I mutter, flipping through his older sketchbooks on the bed. “It’ll be a miracle if we get there on time.”

“Fashionably late. It works for me.” Setting the charcoal down carefully, Ean grins, hazel eyes studying every inch of the piece with careful precision. “You really think I look like him?”

“A little bit, yeah. Enough to get approached--especially once you get dressed…”

“Actual clothes for once… I haven’t really-- I mean, I still have my clothes, but I never saw a point to wearing them, if I never really…went anywhere…” He sighs, wiping his darkened fingers on the leg of his pants. “Come here a second. I want you to take a look at this one.”

The piece he’s showing me is of a rather haunting woman in the remnants of a Victorian dress standing in the middle of a ruined city. The absence of fabric on the large “beehive” frame of the skirt and her crazy white hair are about as striking as the antique gas mask she wears. Somehow, her presence works wonders in making the bleak wasteland she’s standing in that much more powerful.

“It’s amazing. I-I mean it. There’s no other way to put it.”

Ean smiles. “I had a dream once, about her, when I was fighting a fever.”

I love when a particular piece has a story; he can probably see in my face that he’s got me hooked into hearing the rest. He sits on the windowsill, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes never leave the piece.

“It was a bad one; the doctors were trying a new drug on me at the time and it had this…this terrible reaction. It felt like…like someone had set me on fire. I really thought I was going to die, and then…she came. And she said--and I’ll always remember it clearly, because she had the most beautiful voice, despite the mask… She said…that if I promised to immortalize her--to…to do this?--that she would let me live for a little while longer.”

“So you promised.”

“Naturally,” he answers with a chuckle. “So…we’ll see if she likes this or not.”

“I think she will.”

“When I see her again, I’ll ask her. Maybe she’ll like it so much, she’ll let me stay a little longer.”

Staring at the picture of his harbinger, it’s a hope I can’t help but share. He asks for my opinion again about dying his hair black, and it’s what we make the focus of the night. Claire helps, because the last time I tried to dye my own hair, I wore a hat until the color looked less like a freak accident involving glow sticks. The bond quickly, the way war veterans often do, as they relate stories of life in the hospital. I sit, amused, and take pictures until Claire takes the camera from me and threatens to keep it until she takes enough pictures of us--of me and Ean that is--together. I hate being photographed when I’m not ready, but…but I don’t argue. And strangely, it’s notbecause I want my camera back. I-I do, but…

It’s a good night for all of us. It’s the most I’ve ever heard either one of them laugh. It’s the second time I end up falling asleep there--and the first time I fall asleep on his shoulder.

He doesn’t seem to mind.

eek Four.

Showtime.

“Look at all these people… How many are supposed to be coming?”

“I dunno…a hundred? Hundred-fifty?”

“Hundred and fifty…” Ean lets out a breath and shifts his weight from booted foot to booted foot. His eyes scan the crowd with a level of wariness that seems only fitting. “Looks like there’s more than that here.”

“Well, that was just the guest list. Mac has this weird thing about not counting the press as guests, so…maybe…two hundred?”

“Two…hundred.” His fingers idly play with the fringe of his scarf--the one he refuses to take off, even inside.

I put my hand to his shoulder. “You’ll live.”

And for that, I get a half-grin that reminds me for the fifth time tonight of just who he is. I swear…black hair is enough to change his appearance considerably, but in street clothes…in jeans, black shirt and a black blazer…you’d have to stare hard—reallyhard--for any sign that this is in his first time outside in a long time. Or maybe not so hard. Maybe it just takes someone really perceptive to notice that he seems positively petrified from being around so many people. But it’s more than that; all of these people are interested in him. They’re interested in what he’s done, in the pieces he’s created. Sure, they’re interested in me, too, but I’ve done these more often than he has. I’m used to it. But I can only imagine, after almost a year, how unnerving it must be for him.

To his own credit, though, he’s spent the better part of the show avoiding the press, answering questions only when they had him cornered or only if I was around to help him out. He hangs on to my hand a lot; the ever-watchful eye of the press notices. They ask if we’re dating; we laugh, trying to sound like we aren’t embarrassed. Trying to sound like it’s the most ridiculous idea in the world. Because…really…it is.

“Well, I have been seeing him for a month and a half…”

If the ever-open ear of the press catches the sarcasm, they don’t show it. He smiles, makes some quiet remark about “seeing no one else” that’s supposed to be sarcastic but somehow fails, and the press writes that down too. It’s enough for them that he finally speaks without their constant pressure, despite what he actually says. And all the while, his thumb discreetly brushes back and forth…

It’s almost funny to watch him be this shy young man when in the hospital he’s always been so…forward, so confident--so sure of who he was in relation to everyone else. But then you realize why he’s so shy, and it’s…endearing, in its own strange way. Makes you want to hug him and say, “Hey. It’s okay. Just hang on another hour or so and then we can get out of here--maybe even raid the nearest Starbucks unlucky enough to be open this late.”

Then again, maybe that’s just me.

“Hey, Mac’s calling everybody together. It’s almost time for you to unveil those two paintings.”

“Do I…do I have to make a speech?” he asks, shifting some more, watching the guests stroll towards the back of the gallery. “I didn’t exactly prepare one…”

I shrug. “You don’t…have to, I guess. Some people have, but…I don’t think it’s required.”

Ean nods, and we wait for the whole crowd to pass before we walk towards the back where two tall canvases are mounted on the wall side-by-side--both covered with olive-green fabric. For a moment, this isn’t happening to us. For a moment, we’re not artists. For a moment, we’re just spectators who have come to see the show.

For a moment, we’re just like everybody else.

We’re…ordinary.

And then Mac announces our arrival, and the crowd turns. The applause is almost deafening. Flashbulbs go off in time to the shutter-clicks of high-speed cameras, blinding us. For us… This is all for us. For things we’ve done. We’re both taken aback by the reception as equally as we are flattered by it. Ean, especially; I don’t think I’ve seen a wider grin on him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his face have so much color!

He gives my hand a quick squeeze before he lets go, before the crowd parts to let him through. I find my way to Claire, who’s standing near the front, focused on her video camera.

“I think you’re gonna like these,” she says. “Well, the one you haven’t seen, anyway.”

“Really?”

I would have liked it anyway, but something about the quietly excited tone of her voice makes the anticipation worse. The grin on Ean’s face fades a little bit as the nervousness sets in. He wrings his hands together, finally settling with burying them into his pockets as he figures out what to say.

“I…I guess you can tell I don’t do these things very often. Don’t exactly get out much, so…” The grin grows wider for a moment, and soft chuckle courses its way around the crowd before he continues. “It’s…never easy to accept when you’re ill. I think it’s probably worse when…when you pretty much live in the hospital--when you see people around you coming and going day after day. Life kind of just…stops for you. I’ve been sick for a year and I still have trouble understanding why I haven’t left my room for something as simple as going across the street for a sandwich or…or why I haven’t gone back to school…”

The crowd grows silent, somber. Only the occasional flicker of a flashbulb accompanying the shutter-click is heard over his voice. They’re doing more than paying attention to him; they’re listening. Even if they don’t quite understand…they’re listening.

“It’s really just a waiting game,” he continues, going to the paintings. “The days don’t really change, so you kind of have to fend for yourself, in terms of finding things to do. I turned inward…I ignored people because they pretty much ignored me. And well…”

The rustle of fabric is the spark to the small gasp that courses through everyone. The painting is the finished result of the sketch I saw a month ago--the handsome Gentleman Death standing against a plain crimson background, surrounded by Dickinson’s poetry--but it’s gone through some subtle changes since I last saw it. He holds the bouquet of black roses in two hands, and rather than looking out at you, his hazel eyes are lowered to the flowers--looking almost shy--while a soft, knowing smile plays on his lips…

And something else. A black and blue scarf, the fringed ends fluttering in an invisible breeze.

“This is started out as a self-portrait,” Ean says. “But…the longer I stayed in the hospital the more it became what I thought Death looked like. I mean, who better to come for me than someone I used to be? It’s amazing, though…how it only takes one person to change things. How it only takes one person to really see you in order to make you feel…alive again.”

He pulls the second sheet down, and more gasps ensue--including from me. It’s the same red background--so that, side-by-side, the two paintings look like one--but on this one, there’s a girl. She also wears black, Victorian-themed clothes; her dark hair is half-tied back loosely with a hairclip made of what looks like pearls. Free strands of her hair blow about in the breeze. The girl stands almost at perfect profile, facing the young man with the flowers, a wider smile on her face than his as…as she points a Victorian-era camera at him.

Claire was wrong.

I don’t like these paintings.

I’m in love with them.

Ean smiles, catching my eyes…my shocked, awed expression. The crowd turns to follow his sight. They see a dark-haired, green-eyed girl standing a little on the short side, in jeans and a Skeleton Crew thermal, looking several levels of flattered. They see the resemblance of me to the girl in the painting. They see a photographer beyond flattered by the gift of another artist, of her model. But that’s all they see. He sees what they do and more; he sees a friend standing speechless in the middle of the crowd. He sees a friend probably ready to cry, probably more proud of him than he is of himself. He sees someone…who…

He waves me up, and when I shake my head out of grinning, shy embarrassment, he walks down the steps and pulls me back up with him. For the first time since I’ve known him, his hand actually feels…warm. The crowd laughs quietly, amused at the sudden shyness. It’s cute to them, in a strange way.

“This is my gift to you,” Ean says. “For all the things you’ve done for me. You made it impossible to be invisible anymore, and…it was the best thing that ever happened.”

“It’s amazing,” I breathe, eyeing every detail from the lace ruffles of the collar and sleeves to the small, dangling bat-shaped earrings. “I-I mean…there’s no other way to put it!”

Closer inspection reveals words written around the girl, just as he had done for himself--only this time, it’s a set of modern…musical poetry.

“‘The Celluloid Dream.’ You remembered!”

He nods, and the rare blush makes its second appearance of the night. “I wanted it to be special.”

Sometimes, the only way to affirm how much you love a gift is to hug the person giving it to you. In case you haven’t figured it out, this is one of those moments.

The sound of applause goes muffled, the cheers on a low volume of their own. Flashbulbs again go off by the seeming hundreds, competing against the clicking of their camera-shutter counterparts. Again, for just a moment, we’re outside ourselves--or maybe not so much removed from ourselves as the situation around us. For a moment, it’s just us and no one else. Mac’s taken over speaking, playing the middleman in terms of providing rules about buying pieces, listing ten of my prints and three of Ean’s pieces that aren’t for sale. Of course, I don’t need Mac to tell me which three those are.

And then Ean pulls away, grin wide and hazel eyes sparkling with the happiness of a dream achieved.

“I wish my parents could’ve seen this,” he says. “They would’ve died.”

“Maybe they will, once they read the papers…”

He laughs. “You know… This is probably the second best thing to happen to me.”

“The second?”

“Mm-hmm…”

He nods, still smiling…and the kiss is so natural that I’m not even startled when his lips suddenly press against mine. It’s nothing romantic; it’s just simple, sweet…something shared between close friends. Flashbulbs and camera shutters catch it, and the crowd smiles. It’s cute to them, and tomorrow, it’ll probably be misrepresented in all the papers. But for now…it’s a good thing. It’s a good moment.

He breaks it off with a gentle whisper.

“My heart…is-is racing.”

“You can’t still be nervous?”

“N-no. I mean…” Ean swallows. The color in his face drains. “M-my…my h-heart…”

“Ean?”

Things happen so quickly… He collapses before I even realize what he meant, arms wrapped tight around me so that I fall, too. The crowd gasps, and someone screams to call an ambulance--Mac, I-I think. Claire runs over, dark eyes wide, digital camera forgotten as she sets it down to undo the scarf around Ean’s neck.

“What happened, Al?”

“I don’t…I don’t know…. One second he was fine, and then… H-he said his heart… Ean!” Shaking him doesn’t work; his face is whiter than I’ve ever seen it, making the blue that’s starting to tinge of his lips all the worse. “Ean, don’t die on me! Come on, E…Ean…”

“His pulse is too slow,” Claire says, taking her fingers away. She slides one hand under his back. “He’s barely getting any air. Come on, stretch him out…”

“E-Ean…”

“Al, come on. If he stops breathing we might have to--”

“Breathe… Ean, come on, breathe… S-say something.”

But he doesn’t say anything. He just stares up at me, eyes wide and full of panic as he makes small gasping sounds, hand clinging so tightly to mine it almost hurts. Again, someone screams for the ambulance, drowning out the sound of those gasps. If it weren’t for the short jerks of his body or the emotion still lighting his hazel eyes, anyone else would say calling for a hearse would be a better idea.

“Stay with me, Ean. Stay…”

“Al!”

Claire’s voice shocks me. Her arms are prepped to pull him away, to stretch him out on the floor in case he stops even his gasps. Stretch him out. Lay him flat on the floor. It’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s what doctors and paramedics tell you to do. It’s easier to try CPR or mouth-to-mouth if they’re stretched out. But I can’t…I can’t let him go. He’ll die if I let him go. He’ll think I want him to…

Someone screams for an ambulance again, sounding on the verge of tears, and I realize that it’s not Mac. It wasn’t him screaming before, either.

It was me.

“For God’s sake, someone call a fucking ambulance!”