Page 63 of Nights Without Night
Isadoro holds me closer, and my hand moves from his shoulder to the back of his neck, my fingertips running through the bristles of his short hair. I close my eyes, and let one song melt into the next, pressed close against him.
**********
Two days before the show, Isadoro comes back from the V.A. in the morning with a cloud thundering over his head. He goes straight into his room and shuts the door, which he’s been keeping open more and more lately. I take a deep breath, but despair doesn’t hit.
This is the organic pain of a healing wound, instead of a festering one.
He skips lunch, but I join him on the bed before dinnertime. He turns to face me when I lay down next to him and we just rest there for a while, being.
“How are you feeling about work starting soon?” Isadoro asks eventually. I smile, knowing this simple act of communication is miles ahead of how it was before.
“I’m looking forward to it, actually. I like the work, and the company is good. I mean, the clients are a nightmare, but since I’m not freelancing, at least I don’t get stiffed. I swear to God, there would always be these adverts for ‘young’ graphic designers or artists and what they meant was cheap and desperate. And since I was broke and desperate…it sucked when they thought they could pay you in exposure. Fuck off. And some of the instructions! ‘just make it more…more.’Once I made a logo that was completely made of different shades of purple and the client said it ‘wasn’t purple enough’. Like…I’m about to shove an aubergine up your ass, lady,” I mutter. Isadoro laughs.
“That sounds like how I felt about the Fobbits—the middle and upper management who rarely leave the FOB, you know? It’s like they lived in another world. When I was a Private, they’d have us give out these, like, newspapers to the local population that was basically anti-ISIS propaganda, then ask what the impact of them was. We’d have to tell them that most of the population there wasn’t literate, and they’d be completely gobsmacked. They were just fucking clueless. Even in the Ops, they’d order us to not only raid a mosque, but on a Friday, for some bullshit mission which wasn’t nearly worth the blow-back that would cause regarding building relationships in the town. I almost went ballistic on that one.”
“Fuck…that’s majorly fucked up.”
“Yep. Never underestimate the stupidity of middle and upper management in any area of life.”
“Amen to that. I kinda get why you wanted to go deeper into the army, now.”
“Yeah. When you live through all that shit you either lose hope, or you gain persistence,” he says.
“That’s why you have nothing to worry about, Isadoro. That persistence, it’s who you are. It’s not gonna let you stop,” I say. He looks back at me, saying nothing, but his face doesn’t stiffen and close off. I smile at him.
“Nervous about the show?” Isadoro asks, changing the subject.
“Meh. I think I’ve run out of emotions, to be honest. You’re coming, right?”
“Of course I’m coming,” he says, frowning.
“Just making sure.”
“Have you thought of selling your art? I know we've talked about it before, but…”
“I mean, yeah. But…I don’t know. That’s such an…unknown. I couldn’t afford—like,literallycouldn’t afford—to go down that path before, so…but we’ll see how this show goes. I’ve just never had the opportunity to put anything like this together before.”
“You’re going to kill it. I would definitely buy your pieces.”
“You can have them for free.”
“I mean if I didn’t know you, I’d buy them.”
“I’d still give them to you for free. Who could resist this pretty face?” I tease, pressing his cheeks together to give him fish lips. He smacks my hand away, laughing. We settle again, looking at each other.
“I am so fucking proud of you,” he says, warming me.
The truth is, so am I.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The show takes place in a large gallery big enough to dedicate a room to each of the chosen students. It’s an important event within the local artistic community, showcasing emerging talent to interested parties. The opportunity is not only for the students but for galleries and patrons searching for people they can invest in.
I’m in Iva’s showroom, feeling too anxious to watch people react to my pieces for too long. People mill around with drinks in their hands, travelling the rooms alone or in groups, their eyes on the art pieces.
Iva’s show is stunning. The series depicts a healing Puerto Rico. It transports you to an island that was just hit by a hurricane, not shying away from showing the destruction left behind by wind and rain. The scenes could easily look post-apocalyptic. Instead, they are filled with hope.
Iva has not lingered on the devastation. Her paintings contain the suffering caused by the storm—the expression on an old woman’s face as she looks at the remains of the house she was born in, the house her children were born in. The tired slump of a man’s shoulders as he looks at the downed powerline that affects his whole neighbourhood. But, what glows from her paintings is a sense of community. Of strength. Behind the old woman, her daughter has a hand on her shoulder, comfort on her face. On the road with the man is a group of people hard at work.
