I'm Better Off Without You

           “Hey Travis, did you see my gallery show?” asked Karl. “I’m the up and coming thing in Portland. Oh, and how have you been?”

Travis was surprised that Karl stopped by their table. He’d seen him as he followed the hostess through the maze of buzzing tables with his partner Amir to a side booth near the back of Mother’s Kitchen. He noticed Amir staring at Karl with those huge brown eyes Travis loved. He took Amir’s hand as Karl fawned over himself in front of their booth.

“We’re good, no, we’re great,” answered Travis. He felt a squeeze as Amir confirmed his opinion.

“Well, I just bet you are,” said Karl. “Anyway, like, all of the top critics were at my show, and you should see what they wrote about me in the Portland News.” He began to scroll through his phone searching for the photo of the news article. “Wait. Let me show you.”

Travis noticed the slight frantic high-pitched tone he recognized from when they’d been together. It told of the fragile ego behind Karl’s words. Amir gripped his fingers tightly.

Karl shoved the phone too close to his face. “Here. Read. It’s absolutely delicious.”

Travis moved his head back, focused, and read the two-paragraph blurb. It was as complimentary of Karl as all the art critics were lately, and he felt the twinge of longing to be part of Karl’s world again. He knew first-hand how Karl’s art could pull you into his sphere of energy. Karl’s words faded as the memory of their meeting played across Travis’s vision.

***

Walking with shoulders hunched against the downpour, he glanced into the boutique art gallery he passed every day on his way to get coffee. Like most people he knew, he didn’t even own a coffee maker, preferring instead to stop on his way and engage in a little social interaction each day as he ordered a honey cardamom latte from Heart Coffee before making his way to his office where he worked his way through billing paperwork for a large health network. The art changed monthly, featuring local artists who focused on social issues.

The window was filled with one giant piece that took his breath away. With tiny strokes of black and brown ink across fields of multiple shades of gray, the artist had written words, equations, and descriptions of chemical chains to create an intensely graphic portrait of a black male staring out at the street, at Travis, and at all who passed by the window of this small art gallery. It had taken his breath away, causing love and hate to clash inside Travis’s morning un-coffeed head.

He’d taken the few steps to the window and peered inside, around the vast portrait, to see the walls adorned with other works using the same techniques to draw Travis’s soul inside out. Subjects ranged from scientific studies of eyeballs to a small black kitten. Travis wanted to own every piece, wanted to know the artist, wanted to make love to the artist.

After work that day and just before the gallery closed, he stepped inside the gallery, pausing in the entryway, deciding whether to proceed. The art spoke to his soul, drawing him in. The small Tibetan singing bowl sound chimed his presence to the woman behind the counter near the back who appeared to be matting a new piece.

“Welcome to Sienna Studio. How may I help you?” The woman’s velvet voice surprised him. It didn’t match the frankness of cerebral art adorning the walls. She moved the project to the side of her counter and stood with a welcoming face waiting for his reply.

He almost blurted something about just looking, but the urge to own the piece in the window had him talking before he thought too hard about what he was saying. “How much for the piece in the window?” Too urgent, too desperate, embarrassing. His brain told him to leave. His heart told him to stay. He watched as the woman moved toward him.

“Don’t you just love it?” she asked, stopping next to him to look at the painting. “The artist is one of our recent finds. This piece is one of a study of African American individuals he’s been working on. He’s very political, as you can see. This piece is fifteen thousand, but it will be worth far more once Karl becomes better known.”

Seeing his expression of shock, the woman continued to speak of Karl as she moved around the room pointing at his other works along the wall. His gaze often returned to the back of the piece in the window, coveting it, needing it.

“I have some sketches of the work in the window,” she said.

Travis followed, calculating how much of his stock portfolio he’d need to sell off in order to purchase the painting. He knew he didn’t have nearly enough, and that it was a stupid idea, anyway. He left the gallery with two of the sketches she’d shown him, both of them studies done in preparation for the final painting, and setting him back more than just his coffee money.

***

Travis shook his head slightly to clear the emotions of memory and listened once more to Karl’s prattle, wondering how this self-centered fragile man could make art with such depth of soul.

“So, anyway, that’s how I met Stephan and he’s so fabulous and he loves my work even more than you did, Travis,” said Karl. “Oh, my goodness, look at the time. I’m late for an appointment. Good to see you Travis, oh, and… Amron.” He wound his way through tables and wait staff before disappearing through the waiting crowd of hungry patrons.

“Travis, hello? Earth to Travis,” Amir tugged on Travis’s hand. “You okay?”

“What?” asked Travis. “Oh, yeah, yeah, good.”

Amir continued to stare at him with penetrating questions in his wide eyes before finally releasing Travis’s hand to pick up the check. Deftly sliding his credit card out of the slot it rested in against his cell phone, he slowly blinked at Travis, their secret signal of love. He’d read somewhere that’s how cats communicated their love and had adopted it as his own. He waited while Travis blinked back.

Once outside, they held hands in companionable silence as they meandered toward the wall holding the Columbia River back from flooding Portland. It was a gray day, the kind they both loved and one of the many reasons they had migrated to Portland from their respective hometowns; Travis from Phoenix, and Amir from Los Angeles.

***

Mutual attraction sparked between Travis and Karl when they met at a pub several weeks later. Finding the courage to contact Karl, he’d arranged this meeting in a public place on purpose. Courage and assertiveness weren’t his strengths, but he’d been driven to be in the artist’s presence.

“This is a delicious Pub. I’ve never been to this one,” Karl gushed as he took a seat next to Travis at the bar, ordered a Craft Beer from the chalkboard menu overhead, and smiled.

“I don’t come here often either, but I thought you might like it.” Some instinct told Travis that Karl was interested and he allowed the tension in his head to settle into a lower setting. Now it was for him to find the courage to invite him back to his place.

After a few drinks and some appetizers, he did just that. They moved in together two weeks later, Travis taking up residence in Karl’s studio/loft so that the artist could paint. They shared exactly six blissful weeks before Karl entered a dark sullen period. His work went untouched. His formerly obsessive self-care devolved into days of staying in bed, barely eating, speaking, or acknowledging Travis’ existence.

Travis was confused but confident his beloved Karl would return, if he could only show him enough love and kindness. Leaving for work each day, he’d tuck the comforter around Karl, kiss him goodbye and put soothing aromatic oils in the diffuser hoping to lift his mood. Returning to the darkened loft at the end of his workday only to find Karl in nearly the same position confused Travis, who had always been upbeat and steady. He tried harder. Flowers every day, tempting meals from their favorite restaurants, being silent, or chattering about his day. His efforts were met with blank stares and mumbled answers.

He answered his cell one day with the automatic response expected of him at work and was interrupted by Karl’s excited voice.

“Guess what?” asked Karl, his voice nearly too high to be recognized.

“Karl, oh my god, are you okay?” asked Travis.

“I told you to guess, silly,” replied Karl. “Never mind. I have a new gallery showing. A big one. You know how you always make sure my phone is on before you go even though I turn it off as soon as you’re gone?” Karl didn’t give Travis time to answer. “Well, I fell asleep after you left and forgot! So, anyway, it kept ringing and ringing and I just listened because, you know, you’ve got that sweet Sam Smith song on as my ringtone and it fit into my dreams so nicely. It was a new gallery! They saw my stuff at Sienna and they want an even bigger show. I won’t be here when you get home from work today because they invited me for drinks and I didn’t think you’d want to come so it’s just me, so I’ll see you later. Bye.”

The rest of Travis’ workday went quickly as relief and happiness flooded into him. His beloved Karl was back. But when he got home to the dark empty loft, his emotions shifted. He felt abandoned. Karl should have asked him to go with him. He’d have asked Karl to come along if someone had invited him for drinks. They were a couple. That’s what couples did. He wrestled to find a sense of equilibrium and reasoned that at least Karl was out of bed, happy, and motivated again. Now they could get back to normal.

But they didn’t. Travis rode the wave of feverish production and Karl’s almost maniacal drive to deliver art for his show, at once happy and bewildered, content and stressed. He started to have digestive issues and problems focusing at work. Arriving home, he’d find strangers in the loft drinking and laughing, take-out boxes strewn about.

As they neared their one-year anniversary, Karl slipped slowly back into the lethargy of his post-productive stage and Travis found himself visiting the doctor for new and varied health problems.

“Are you under any stress, Travis?” asked Doctor Patel.

That one question acted to bring Travis’ emotions into focus. Karl was making him sick.

Travis broke up with Karl the next week after securing an apartment on the far end of the city away from any art galleries.

***

“I’m better off without Karl, just so you know.” Travis didn’t look at Amir as he spoke but gazed across the expanse of the river toward the East where he could see the OMSI science museum. A protest was in progress across the Burnside Bridge. “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police” signs bounced along as the peaceful gathering raised their voices at the prompting of someone on a megaphone.

“I want to believe you,” said Amir. “I do believe you. It’s just that he’s so talented and it appears his star is rising. His energy,” Amir hesitated. “His energy is so, what’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Frenetic?” offered Travis.

Amir laughed. “No, I was going to say contagious. It’s hard not to get caught up in his excitement.”

“Tell me about it,” said Travis. “But, that’s just it, Amir. When you’re around it all the time it’s exhausting. He burns through his own energy and then sucks everyone else dry. Inside his studio, he’s completely different. Like, didn’t talk for days, didn’t hear anything I said. Didn’t even acknowledge my existence. Then, when he finished a piece, he’d be like that – like he was in the restaurant just now. I couldn’t take it anymore. I like roller coasters, but I don’t want to ride one all day every day.”

They stopped to stare at the river, arms linked and hands in pockets.