Organic Material

Twenty-four hours in a day. Sixty minutes in an hour. I am counting down the seconds. I break time into basic units, crack it into pieces like one tears off cotton candy fluff or shreds cigarettes. I am careful. I budget my time. I live my life in color. Carnival rides at Coney Island, painting on my walls, and that pleasant buzz right before drunkenness. I spend each second carefully, knowing that they are ticking away. But at the same time, I’m always in mental transit, waiting for the next moment to arrive. I wait for the weekends when I can visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, wait to graduate in two years, wait to die. 

Right now, I’m waiting for the train. 

The subways are almost a form of meditation for me. I watch the trains blur past. They push air before them which lifts strands of my hair. The air is cool, but it smells warm, causing conflict between my sense of smell and touch. Even so, this is comforting. It’s like the city is breathing. When I stand on the subway platform, I’m inside the lungs of New York. Maybe, if everyone stood still for a second, if everyone was quiet, I could hear its heartbeat. 

I stand leaning against the wall, beside a large poster for Beetlejuice and wait patiently for my train. My backpack rests at my feet, but I hold the largest canvas case than contains my portfolio close to my chest.

I watch the people rush past me and some stick in my mind. A little boy, in a school uniform as dirty as his face, complaining as his mother drags him along. A woman with shockingly red hair carrying a small dog in a plastic tote. A businessman talking animatedly in rapid-fire Mandarin on his cellphone beside me. I like watching people. They all have their own lives, completely and utterly separate from mine. They might see my face, register for a second, then the breath of the subway will wash it away.  

The businessman hangs up the phone and checks his watch then looks up to the neon timetable showing arrivals. My train is late, and I suppose his is too. 

“Damn it,” he mutters to himself, affirming my suspicion. “Can anything in this city arrive when it’s supposed to?”  

He is right, I suppose, but I don’t mind waiting for the train. I can splice the minutes into seconds and let time drag its feet.  

“Everything does seem to be taking longer these days.” I’m agreeing to his question but speaking more to myself. He looks up surprised. 

“I can’t afford to wait,” he says. “My schedule is tight, and I’m wasting time I don’t have.” He’s dressed like new money: Yves Saint Laurent suit and Oxfords shined so bright they reflect the grimy overhead lights. His clothing is neat as can be, but strands of slicked back hair have broken free, probably from him rushing to catch a train which ended up being late. He is stressed, but not annoyed so I risk continuing the conversation. “Where are you headed?” 

He checks his watched and the timetable again. “Board meeting. I was supposed meet digitally with our partners in China right now, but I missed my connection and this damn train is fifteen minutes late. I’ve been forced to make some last-minute readjustments. I don’t think they’ll be pleased with me pushing it back half an hour, seeing as it’s getting late in Shanghai.”   

“I’m sorry,” I say.  

He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, son. It’s not your fault. I’ll get here eventually.” He looks me up and down from convers to bleached blonde hair. “You’re a student, aren’t you?” I nod. “NYU or Columbia?” 

“NYU.” I didn’t get into Columbia and couldn’t have afforded it if I did. “Sophomore year.” 

“What’s your major?” I can tell he’s only half focused on what I’m saying, as he glances at my face then his watch, rocking in his smart Oxfords from heal to toe. 

“Visual art.”  

“Visual art? That’s a hard field, my friend.” 

This is an understatement. I’m basically setting myself up for failure. It’s hard to make it in New York City alone and being an artist is basically signing the warrant for late rent and an inability to afford air conditioning in the summer. It would be easier break into the Pentagon than the art world. 

“It is,” I say, “but I'm willing to work for it."  

He gestures to the canvas case in my arm, “And I assume your work is in here?” 

I hold my portfolio like a child, for it almost is. I've poured in countless hours over the past few months. My future depends on it. “Yes. It is. My professor is reviewing my work from this trimester this evening. Do you want to see?” As one would brag about their child’s achievements, I want to show off what I’ve created. It is selfish to want praise from a stranger, I know that, but I can’t help it. I am very, very human. 

“Yes,” says the businessman, who probably doesn’t, but is too polite to decline. “What’s your medium?” 

“Watercolor on Bristol,” I say. I unzip the case. Inside are several pieces wrapped in plastic to prevent them from sticking together or getting damaged in transit. I gently take out one. This piece is the most important to me.

The picture is of myself, or more accurately, my arms. They are tangled in flowers. Plants grow from the furrows I’ve dug in my forearms, roots digging into scar tissue. The vines twine around my wrists, lace them together, lie like veins underneath my painted skin. Strawberries, small and red as the setting sun, hang from my fingertips. My hands are stained with their juice. White roses dig their thorns into my skin but do not draw blood. Violets bloom. Marigolds drop their petals.  

The businessman leans forward for a better look. “Oh my... Son, this is quite good. What does it mean?” 

In the summer, when I was younger and still lived with my parents, I used to garden. The soil is bad but for those months, I would disentangle the weeds and coax flowers to unfurl their petals and lift their faces to the sun. But most of the year the garden is bare dirt and the browned skeletons of flowers, waiting for the summer when I’ll bring them back to life.

I was very unhappy in high school, and that unhappiness planted the seeds from who I've become. But unlike my garden, I reaped these fruits year-round. At first, they were bitter, and I have scars from that time. Long nights, sitting on the bathroom floor waiting for the bleeding to stop and the sun to rise.

Over time I’ve learned to live with myself, but not all my scars are on my wrists and forearms. Some are internal. I have memories I can’t bear to think of, but bringing it onto paper, soothes the pain. Honey to soothe a burn. When I paint, I don't have to think anymore.

I do not tell him this. Instead, with great care in my voice, I say what I'll tell my professor when we conference: “Surrealism in a way. I’m editing the human body. Adapting it to nature. I want to break the subject down to organic material.” 

“It’s beautiful,” says the businessman, seeming to have forgotten about the meeting for the moment. We are worlds apart: he is obviously rich, successful, and twenty years my senior, but in this moment we exist on the same plane. Right on cue, the rush of warm breath and his train arrive. The spell is broken. 

“Goodbye,” he says. “Thank you for showing me your art.”

"Goodbye. Good luck in your meeting." I raise my hand in a wave as he steps into the crowd.

Some minutes later, I sit on the plastic seat, swaying with the motion of the subway. I wait for my stop. I never caught the businessman’s name. I doubt he’ll remember me by the time he reaches his office, by the time he’s in the board room speaking Mandarin to businesspeople halfway across the world, by the time he is home this evening reading the paper he didn’t have time to finish at breakfast.

Or maybe his partner will ask over dinner, "How was the meeting? I know you've been preparing for weeks."

And he will say, “I was forced to shift it back, but I spoke to a student while waiting for the train. He made the poor choice of being an art major, but I didn't mind seeing some of his work.” His partner will laugh, and maybe the businessman think about me and my watercolor flowers when picking out a bouquet for their anniversary.

Minutes pass. I spend each second carefully, knowing that they are ticking away. My mind is always in transit, waiting for the next moment to arrive. I’m waiting for the weekend when I can visit the Met, waiting to graduate in two years, waiting to die.