Beautiful Boy

When I was nine, my father gave me the talk. Not the one about sex where he explained in as little detail as possible what went where in order to make babies, and then how to prevent making babies. No, that didn’t happen until I was eleven.

This talk was about my future. He’d wanted me to have a perfect little family; wife, two kids and the white picket fence. He told me that I needed a career that could sustain my family, one that could give my own children a good and happy life, much like the one I’d had in his words. Basically, what he meant is that he wanted me to work in a cubicle in the law firm he was so happy at.

And I was okay with that until I picked up a camera for the first time when I was thirteen. It’d sent me into an obsession with the art, taking photos of anything and everything. My art teacher had tried to convince my father that I should really look into art school and a career in photography, but of course he’d muttered rudely “nonsense, my boy shall be a lawyer!” and hung up.

My mother was a lot more sympathetic of what I wanted to do with my future, and when my father refused, she paid for me to go to the art school in New York telling me not to screw it up.

While it was amazing school, and I leaned a lot about how to take a photo, and take it well – because contrary to popular belief, it’s not as simple as aiming the camera and pressing the big silver button – it never really prepared us for life after we graduated. They hold galleries and showcases of your work while you’re there, and people actually buy some of your photos...you get praise thrown at you left right and centre...but because of that, it doesn’t teach you how competitive the real world is, and how hard you actually have to work to even get your work noticed, let alone getting showcases.

As it goes, people in New Jersey don’t really want to buy pictures of New Jersey.

It’s been six months since I graduated, and I’d not even had one person appear remotely interested in my work, and my father was slowly growing more and more agitated with my unemployment, leaving newspaper ads in the fridge or taped to the door to my basement room.

“You’ve wasted your time on a hobby, and it’s put your future in jeopardy!” he’d told me thrusting a piece of paper, which turned out to be plane tickets, into my hand. “Paris. Is your final chance!”

So, here I was. In the one city I’d always wanted to be, with one more chance to get pictures that would make me stand out from other photographers.

One more chance to make a career.

*

The first time I saw him was through my camera lens.

I was trying to photograph the Eifel Tower from a distance. I was situated behind one of the fountains in the gardens, and in the bottom right hand corner of my view finder I could see the smallest of light-flares. It wasn’t entirely noticeable, even with the picture blown up it probably wouldn’t be seen, but I knew it was there, and knowing that would drive me insane.

Frowning, I zoomed in on the intruding light source. As the camera focused, it became apparent that the flare was coming from a lip piercing belonging to a boy standing on the other side of the fountain. I wasn’t usually one to take a photo of a stranger without getting their permission (and being as anti-social as I was, I didn’t ever want to ask people for permission), but artists don’t like to waste beauty, and I was certainly one to follow that rule.

I must admit, I felt like a bit of a creep, taking photo after photo of a boy I didn’t know, who didn’t look like he could be older than seventeen, but I could feel promise knotting in my gut, screaming at me that this was going to work out well.

I left after the boy climbed into a bus behind who I assumed were his parents (way to make me feel like even more of a creep). It didn’t seem possible to find something more beautiful to photograph than that boy. So instead, I just went back to the hotel, and upload the photos onto my laptop.

Seeing his face on the screen was even better than through a camera lens.

He had shiny black hair that sat lazily across his head. There was an element to it that seemed liked he’d just climbed out of bed and not even bothered to do anything about it, but at the same time, it looked styled.

From one angle, his eyes looked a chocolate brown colour, but when his face was angled towards the sun, flecks of glittering green and gold could be seen. They fitted in perfectly with his olive, Italian looking skin tone, smooth and perfect and not tainted by spots or blemishes.

For someone who looked so young, he had a masculine and square jaw line that looked as though it’d been carved from stone. Following his jaw line down, I could see the clear lines of what looked like a tattoo peaking out from the collar of his shirt.

I’d gotten a little trigger happy with the camera, and had taken a lot more photos than I’d realised, but out of all almost one-hundred that I’d gotten, my favourite was definitely the one where his face was angled downwards with the Eifel Tower clear in the background. I’d matched the angle of his face, so it looked as though it was the tower in the background that was angled. What topped the whole thing off was the perfect grin he had spreading across his face, straight, white teeth displayed for a passers-by or a creep with a camera’s viewing pleasure.

I wasn’t one to brag, but even I knew it was a gorgeous photo.

One Year Later

It was too hot to be wearing a suit, and I couldn’t help but mess with the collar and loosen my tie.

“Gerard,” my mother hissed. “Stop fidgeting will you? Everything will be fine,” she grinned, brushing off my shoulders and straightening out my hair.

“Mum,” I whined, pushing her hand away.

The gallery director was running around, straightening out pictures and checking the lighting. In about five minutes, people would be coming into the gallery and looking at my work and maybe even buying it. Giving me actual real life money for my work!

I had a lot of different sections to the gallery, but the last one was my favourite. It was photos from my trip to France. There was only one picture of the Beautiful Boy, and I’d named it appropriately because it was my definite favourite.

Things had only been improving since arriving home from France, people started to notice my work, and I even had some buyers sponsoring me, enabling me to go to more interesting places to get some more interesting photos.

Not long ago, I was approached by Craig – the director of this gallery, who’d told me that his gallery was having a re-opening, and wanted to open with a new rising artist. I’d said yes in a snap.

“Son,” my father said from behind me, his hand clapping down onto my shoulder. “You proved me wrong,” he grinned.

I couldn’t help but grin as well, engulfing my father into a hug, pulling back just as the doors opened and snobbish people with hopefully very full wallets and purses stepped into the gallery, spreading out on an instant.

The night was spent explaining my inspiration for certain works, and making small-talk with potential buyers. I couldn’t help but grin as more and more sold signs were appearing by certain photos, but kept a close eye on Beautiful Boy. Even though it was for sale, the thought of letting it go kind of worried me. I’d gotten used to that smile lighting up the living room in my own apartment and without it, I was pretty sure my new modern apartment would feel so much more lonely than my mothers basement.

It was fifteen minutes until closing, and there weren’t really many people left wondering the gallery. My mother and father had left a little over an hour ago, my mother kissing my face and sobbing into a tissue.

I made my way slowly over to Beautiful Boy, tipping the champagne glass to my lips and sighing sadly as I saw the red sold sign sitting proudly next to it. So I was $2000 richer, but there was no doubt I was going to miss that print.

“So,” A thick Jersey accent said from behind me. “How much did that go for?”

I turned around like a flash and almost chocked on my own saliva as I looked down on the one face that’s been plaguing my mind for the last year. The face that’d made my career. He was grinning, and I didn’t even need to check the photo behind my head to know that it was the same smile. I’d seen it enough.

“Wha---how?!” I chocked out, my eyes going wide. His face had matured a lot more in the past year, and he now had a matching metal hoop in his nose like the one in his lip. His hair had changed since last time, and was now styled into a faux hawk that was black at the top and hung over one eye, while the sides had been bleached a bright blonde. I also couldn’t help but notice the sleeve of tattoos running smoothly down his right arm in a blend of colours that I kind of wanted to reach out and touch, but I was strong and resisted.

“My uncle came home a few weeks ago from New York with a photo of me in his hands, taken by a one...‘Gerard Way’ at around the time that I was on vacation with my family in Paris,” he smiled. “So I though I’d come check out some of the other work by my stalker. It’s weird...there’s hardly any other pictures of people in here,”

I grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I don’t tend to take photos of strangers,”

“So what was it about me?”

I blushed, and looked at the floor, noticing a scuff on my shoes and feeling the sudden need to go and get some polish and fix it up. “Look at the name,” I whispered.

“That’s what I’d hoped you’d say,” the boy grinned, holding out his hand as if we'd been friends forever. “I’m Frank Iero, and thats an awesome picture,” he grinned, pointing at 'Beautiful Boy'.

“You made it easy,” I smiled in response, shaking his hand. “Gerard Way,”

“Oh, I know who you are. So, I was thinking that...maybe we should go get some coffee together or something, talk about your photos...your inspiration. Oh, and you can pay,” he laughed, gesturing to the price tag on the photo of him.

And leaving the gallery with his hand in mine...I all of a sudden didn’t care so much about the photo or where it was going.