My Friends

Chapter Fourteen

FOURTEEN

Art is context.

Because honestly? It isn’t a great painting.

It would have been strange if it was, of course, because the artist who would become known as C. Jat was only fourteen years old when he painted it. It’s the job of fourteen-year-olds not to be great at things, the only expectation they have to live up to is to be morons, they’re put on this earth so their moms and dads will support the headache-pill industry. It really, really isn’t the job of fourteen-year-olds to be geniuses.

So the painting was nothing special, not at all. It was the artist who was. An impoverished little nothing from a run-down harbor town with divorced parents and a gang of friends that a teacher once described as “a pack of wild animals.” All his childhood the artist had seen adults destroy their surroundings, some with violence and others with silence, sometimes with clenched fists and always with empty bottles. Children have two worlds, the one they have been given and the one they can dream about, but not even the artist had enough imagination to believe it was possible to paint his way out of there. It would take a really, really big idiot to dream anything as grand as that. Thank goodness he had one of those.

Joar was often told he was stupid, he didn’t care, but the artist got really angry. Joar wasn’t stupid, he just happened to be the sort of person who only thought about one thing at a time, which was why he was so good at fixing engines. The artist, on the other hand, thought about everything all at once, which was why he could draw, but he always did it in the wrong order. From the edges of the paper toward the middle instead of the other way round, sky first, people last. So the world-famous painting wasn’t even a painting when he started, it was a drawing, because he couldn’t afford paint. And it wasn’t even a drawing of the sea to start with, it was a drawing of clouds, because clouds are nothing and that was how he saw himself. Everything else? That was what Joar saw in him. As an adult, the artist would be told that great artistry is something that has to find its way out of a person, but for him it was something that needed to find its way in. Because for him, art was love. Grief. A story.

A context.

If a homeless man in the street had tried to sell the painting of the children on the pier, it would have been worthless, but once it was hanging on a white wall in a beautiful gallery, it cost a fortune. When sufficiently wealthy people want something bad enough, it becomes invaluable, because then art isn’t experienced through the eyes, but by the ears, they’re not paying for a picture but for its name and history. In their world it isn’t the artist who should be admired, it’s the owner, because only something which has a price can have any value. That’s why the children on the painting are so important that they’re protected by guards, but the children on the pier in real life could die without anyone even caring.

The painting that was called The One of the Sea didn’t become world-famous because it was fantastic, it wasn’t coveted because it was a work of genius, but because of everything the artist did after it. The art he one day created, when he called himself “C. Jat” and painted pictures that knocked the breath out of everyone who saw them, but also the man he became known as: he was shy and broken, and the buyers loved that, the more broken the better. Break some more , they wished, go to pieces in front of us!

When C. Jat stopped going out, he became mysterious, when he stopped giving interviews, he was stalked. The less he had to give, the more everyone wanted. One day he would be called one of the great artists of his generation, and everyone always wants to know what great artists are going to do next, but for some artists it’s the other way round: they become so loved that eventually everyone wants to know what they created back at the start. That was how The One of the Sea became world-famous, because that was where it all began. That was why it was bought and sold so many times, and that was why one day it was so expensive that it cost the artist all the money he had to buy it back.

For what? Nothing special. The brushstrokes were a teenager’s, the narrative a child’s. Even so, plenty of people who had seen it once could never quite stop talking about it afterward. Because everyone only saw the sea at first, all that blue, you had to stand there looking for a really long time before you caught sight of the three kids at the end of the pier. A lot of people actually saw nothing at all unless the figures were pointed out to them, and the people who pointed them out always did so triumphantly, as if they were showing the way to a hidden treasure. That was why the newspapers started calling him a genius, because it was as if that fourteen-year-old had planned the mystery precisely so: as if only someone who loved the sea enough, and understood art deeply enough, would look long enough to see the children.

But the truth? It wasn’t intentional. Joar found that competition but the artist couldn’t even afford paint. He couldn’t even explain that to Joar because Joar got very angry at words he didn’t understand, and “watercolors” is a difficult concept to grasp. Painting in oils was obviously even harder, because when Joar heard that, he exclaimed: “What do you mean, oil? Everything would fucking end up black, wouldn’t it?”

So it was never intentional, any of this, the artist just promised to try in order to make his best friend happy. It wasn’t his intention to paint the sea, and it wasn’t his intention that anyone would see three children sitting at the end of the pier. If anyone had asked him what art was, he would have whispered that it was probably something for other kids, for the rich, the smart ones, the ones with talent. He didn’t know a damn thing about art, his hands just drew for the same reason that some feet dance: they don’t know how to stop.

That was why there very nearly wasn’t a painting at all. Because right after the first funeral that year, just before the second one, his fingers stopped drawing altogether. If Joar hadn’t kept nagging and nagging, they would probably never have started again.

Honestly? It is a great painting. Just not at all in the way that the people who called the artist a genius thought.

That June evening twenty-five years ago, when the teenagers were on their way home from the pier, the artist walked closer to Joar than he ever did with anyone else. Joar said quietly:

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you it doesn’t matter.”

“What?” the artist wondered disconsolately, always heartbroken at not being able to be all the things everyone wanted.

Joar took a deep breath and his old man’s fingerprints shone blue and purple all over his body in the light of the streetlamps. Then he said tersely:

“I know you want me to say that the competition doesn’t matter. That you don’t have to win. But I can’t say that. You have to win. You have to get away from this fucking town!”

The artist walked on with his eyes fixed to the ground and replied unhappily: “You always talk about me as if I was worth a better life than the rest of you…”

“You’re not!” Joar replied immediately.

The artist was so surprised that he almost laughed, but Joar just shook his head slowly and went on with devastating seriousness: “You’re not worth a better life than us. It’s just that you’ll never be able to cope with living like us. A normal life? You’re too soft for that. Staying here and working in the fucking harbor like our dads? Getting up every morning and feeling like shit? Being angry all the fucking time? Day after day for fifty years? That’s hard. You have to be a hard man. You aren’t. You need a different life.”

The artist walked in silence for a long time before he dared to ask: “What about you, then?”

Joar smiled dreamily and said: “I’m going to have a normal life. I’ll work in the harbor. Get up every morning and feel like shit, be angry all the fucking time. But every so often, on a fucking Sunday, I’ll go to some museum somewhere. And deep inside, there’ll be a painting by a world-famous artist, and it’ll be so beautiful that I can cope with being alive for one more week.”

The artist was so happy at that, for a dizzyingly brief moment, because Joar hardly ever spoke about his own future. Joar was always in a hurry for the present. He was in a hurry to love the start and middle of summer vacation, June and July, because that was the best time of the whole year. Because August meant his old man was on vacation from work, and that was the worst. The most dangerous thing you can give evil is free time, because that meant darker jealousy and deeper paranoia and more empty bottles. His mother wouldn’t survive another August, Joar was certain of that, and he knew that his own body wasn’t yet strong enough to protect her. He was always the shortest of them, but his friends would always remember him as the biggest and bravest. His old man was the opposite, he weighed two hundred pounds but was a tiny, tiny man.

One time a teacher at school said that Joar was “irresponsible,” which was the craziest thing the artist had ever heard. Sure, Joar couldn’t sit still and couldn’t be quiet in class, but only because he was in a hurry. Most children don’t know that they’re in a hurry, they’re lucky. The teachers said that Joar didn’t listen, but what they really meant was that he didn’t obey. They said he was violent, but he was just better than everyone else at fighting. He was never the one who started fights, but it always looked that way after he had won. They said he was dangerous to have in the classroom, but it was actually the artist who was the dangerous one, because it was always him that Joar was protecting.

The problem was that once Joar’s brain got stuck on a thought, all his brain cells flocked around it like ants around a sugar sandwich, but unfortunately it wasn’t always the smartest brain cells that got there first. So he got terribly angry at strange things. If his best friend got caught in a door, the door would get a beating, because in Joar’s world, there were no inanimate objects, everything was conscious and anything they did was on purpose. He refused to eat cilantro because some people love cilantro and some think it tastes of soap. It didn’t taste like soap to Joar, he just refused to eat something that was so damn unfair. Once he heard someone on television talking about “organic meat” and asked the artist what it meant, and the artist suggested that maybe it meant the pigs got better food and were allowed to live outdoors, and maybe be happier? “So they only murder the happy pigs? Isn’t that fucking worse?” Joar wondered angrily. The artist had no reply to that. It was hard to argue with Joar’s logic, however flawed.

Once when they were in the fourth grade the teacher asked Joar to stay behind, so the artist had to go out into the hallway on his own, and some sixth graders rushed over and snatched his sketch pad from him. At first they just laughed, but when they caught sight of the naked bodies he’d drawn, they yelled that he was fucking disgusting. That didn’t hurt him as much as they wanted it to, so they hit him and shoved him headfirst into a locker, but that didn’t seem to hurt him enough either. Not until they tore up his sketch pad, the artist had never experienced pain like that, so he screamed. Joar came flying out of the classroom, there were five of the older boys but Joar was a whole gang on his own. They were bigger and stronger, which was fortunate, because otherwise he would probably have killed them. It took a janitor and three teachers to drag Joar away. He was made to sit in the principal’s office while they called his parents, and unfortunately it was one of those days when his old man had been too drunk to go to work, so he was the one who answered.

On the way home after being told off by the principal, Joar stopped in the hallway where the fight had taken place. He bent down to pick up all the garbage that had fallen out of the trash can when he had stuffed one of the sixth graders into it. The adults at school thought he was cold and hard, that he didn’t have feelings. It was the opposite that was the problem, for God’s sake. This was a boy who cared about animals and cilantro and hated fighting. He only fought for those he loved. So the artist lived in constant fear that one day Joar would love someone so much that he would end up in prison.

When Joar got home that evening, his old man almost beat him to death, and if it hadn’t been so unbearably cruel, it would have been almost ironic, beating a child because he had been fighting at school. His old man came down on him like an avalanche, and it wasn’t even to teach him a lesson. He just did it because when the principal called him, he had had to sit there and pretend to be a proper parent, a real dad. It had reminded that bastard of what he really was: nothing. That was why he beat the boy extra hard.

When Joar came back to school, he played soccer at every single recess, throwing himself headfirst into every tackle, to create excuses for a body absolutely covered in black and blue. After that day the artist always hid his sketch pad extra carefully from the sixth graders. Not to protect himself, and certainly not to protect them, but to protect Joar. Because Joar was dangerous, but the world was always more dangerous. The world is undefeated.

Responsibility? No one ever felt more of it.

So as they walked home from the pier that June day twenty-five years ago, the artist whispered the only thing he dared hope:

“Maybe you could come with me? Away from here?”

“I can come and visit!” Joar lied, because of course he knew that would never happen. He knew that his future was nothing, as empty as the clouds. That was why he let himself promise: “Don’t worry about me! You’re going to be world-famous and happy, like the celebrities on TV. You’re going to paint things people love. And you know what I’ll get? I’ll get the best thing of all: knowing that I was part of the reason.”

When they saw the outlines of their homes on the horizon, Joar kept his eyes fixed on his until he could see the flowers growing in the small tin box hanging outside his bedroom window. His mom grew plants that were a small revolution every day, an armed resistance of tenderness in an apartment besieged by hatred and violence. Joar walked slower, and quieter, until he felt something touch his fingertips. It took several seconds for him to realize that the artist was holding his hand.

The artist was fourteen years old and knew nothing about art, but one day he would be grown-up and celebrated around the world, and would realize that he still only knew the same simple things: Art is a moment. Art is being a reason. Art is coping with being alive for one more week.

It was Ted who called out “Tomorrow” at the crossroads that evening, and when the others replied, “Tomorrow!” one of them added a fart as well. Dear God, how they all laughed, until their spines popped like Bubble Wrap, a fart really is the best chiropractor if you know how to appreciate it.

That evening Joar opened all the windows in his childhood home and watered all his mom’s plants, lavender and geraniums, in the tin flower boxes. She kissed him on his hair and said: “That isn’t your responsibility.” He did the vacuuming and hung the laundry on the radiators and she whispered: “Darling Joar, that isn’t your responsibility.” Then they talked about what was the best invention in the world, and she said, “Bottle caps,” and he got annoyed, so she suggested, “Bottle openers, then?” and it took him several minutes to realize that she was teasing him. “I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid,” she giggled. He wanted to say that she wasn’t stupid at all, but instead he said: “Your fly is open.” When she looked down and realized he was joking, she exclaimed: “These pants don’t even have a zipper!” The way he laughed at that made her think that no mother in the whole world was as lucky as her.

She had bought pizza, she really only did that when they had something to celebrate, but sometimes when she needed to help Joar forget. She was so good at that. She told jokes, he laughed, not at her jokes but at how much she laughed at them herself. He had to help her slice the pizza because one of her arms hurt so badly she couldn’t lift it. She had told her colleagues at work that she had slipped on some wet grass and they had laughed, because she was so clumsy. Joar tried to laugh too, but when he couldn’t manage it anymore and the look in his eyes grew darker, his mom simply breathed the words: “Darling, darling, it isn’t your responsibility.”

As if there was anything that wasn’t, as if that was the sort of son she had. Joar was the one who dreamed of being a superhero, but she was the one who had superpowers. Her arm was broken, the radiator that Joar’s old man had thrown her against was buckled, he had thrown her so hard that there were dents in the metal.

“It’s okay, Mom. Now let’s eat this pizza before it gets cold,” Joar nodded, hanging laundry over the dents. She hugged him with one arm. Then they watched TV, and the happy celebrities, and Joar did his job: he made her think he had forgotten, he was so good at that. When his mom fell asleep, Joar lay awake in his bed with dirt from the flower boxes on his fingers. He listened for the key in the lock, waiting for his old man to come home drunk. Outside the window the lavender and geraniums were growing, it was beneath them Joar had hidden his knife.

Art? It’s context.

Soon Joar’s old man would be standing at the door. A few days from now his best friend would start a world-famous painting. In twenty-five years perhaps someone would look at it really, really closely and see that the artist had painted something on the pier next to the teenagers.

Flowers.