Muse

It was 1:15 am when I got the call from him. I’ve been his lawyer since he released his second major collection in New Jamestown. That was 35 years ago when both of us were young and strong enough to dream. Currently, I haven’t spoken to Gregory in over two weeks. Ever since his cancer diagnosis, he’s been pushing everyone away. Afraid of being pitied and having his friends watch him wither away. I get it, but hurtful words hurt more when they come from someone you admire and cherish. Gregory’s anger was also a confession of fear and love. He always used to say, no matter who you’re with, you still die alone. When I got his urgent phone call, I feared the worst. “ Maurice, my dearest friend. I need your help. Come to the house right away and bring the documents.” It was all he could muster before erupting into a fit of labored coughing. I threw on my robe over my pajamas and stuffed my feet into my slippers and grabbed my keys and wallet, his documents; and was in my car, headed to my best friend’s house. His voice frightened me and all I could do on the drive over was imagine what his physical person must look like for him to sound like that. I mourned Gregory as I drove to his house. We were twenty-three when we first met. My girlfriend at the time had invited me to an art gallery opening at the on campus museum. I’d been avoiding these gatherings because I found her friends to be pretentious. Free champagne and fancy refreshments were just enough enticement to get me out of the house. The affair was semi-formal, and the nicest item of clothing I owned was the suit that I wore for depositions. I worked as a legal aide. Which meant that I was overworked, underpaid, and starving most of the time. We met her friends just inside the mezzanine and that’s when I saw him standing in conversation on the far side of the room. Hovering in front of his three-piece collection. A whisper of flowers was the name. “ Who is that?” I ask, interrupting my girlfriend’s banter. She’d been going on about my work and how we met and I couldn’t have cared less. The look on her face told me I was being rude, but I couldn’t help myself. “I’m sorry,” was all I said as I took her hands in mine and kissed her on the cheek before excusing myself away from the group. I snagged a drink from a waiter carrying a silver platter of champagne flutes. It felt a bit like double-dutch waiting for my chance to jump into conversation with him. So I pulled an old trick, dropped my napkin and bumped into him, when I picked it up, I spilled champagne on his suit jacket. “ I’m so sorry! What a clumsy fool I am.” “ Don’t worry about it.” His voice was just as striking as his appearance. A deep gentle baritone that made me think of animal printed silk. Flawless, iced tea colored skin with jet black eyelashes and a full head of thick curls cropped close to the scalp. Chestnut brown eyes gazed at me with amusement and intrigue. My heart raced from the visual contact and then he reached out to help me up off the floor. His hands were soft and a little cold from his champagne glass. As I was being drawn into his magnetism, my girlfriend suddenly appeared, sobering me back to reality. “ Who’s this?” He says, in a gentlemanly manner. The look in his eyes said that he was familiar with my plight. My girlfriend pulled me away to reunite with her friends and my heart broke a little. Memory fades into the present as I park my car in the driveway outside my friend’s modern apartment building. Cool air breezes past my cheeks and leaks through my robe as I ring the doorbell. The nurse answered the door. “ Mr. Pimbleton is in his bedroom. He is expecting you.” “ Thank you, Kayla.” I ascend the elevator up to Gregory’s resident floor. His bedroom door is slightly ajar, yellow light spilling into the dim hallway. He’s coughing up a lung, and that makes me take my time getting to his room. Adjusting the look on my face and finding enough positive energy to not meet him with pent up worry. It felt similar to when I spent all those weeks looking for him after the night we met. I was walking past the gallery on my way to a lecture on that side of campus when he ran into me this time. Making a show of it to tease me about how we’d first met. “ Did you know the whole time that I bumped into you on purpose?” I ask. “ Yes, and it immediately endeared you to me.” He says in that extravagantly sultry voice of his. I skipped my lecture, and we went for ice cream instead. Hanging out on the benches along the jogging path in the park near campus. “ So, am I the first man you’ve ever fallen in love with?” His forwardness terrified me and excited me at the same time. “ How did you know?” I ask. “ I’ve felt that look on my face a thousand times; seen it just as many in the photographs.” “ Photographs?” “ For a self portrait. I want to capture every emotion I can.” “ How many times have you fallen in love?” He looked at me mischievously starry eyed and said, “ I fall in love at least once a day.” Then he kissed me on the cheek and stood up from the bench, headed down the path back towards campus and never looked back. It would be four months before I saw him again. 

 “ Stop skulking around in the damned hallway and come help me!” His sudden command and barking cough snapped me back on task as I finally entered the bedroom. “ What were you doing out there? I said right away!” “I’m sorry.” “ Help me out of this bed and into my wheelchair. I must get to my studio at once!” “ For what?” “ Stop asking questions and start helping me like I asked you to! Time is of the essence!” I stopped stalling and helped him from the bed into his wheelchair. He shrugged off my help with pushing and wheeled himself to the elevator. I barely made it inside before the doors closed. Annoyance stared up at me, withered and sick. Even without words, Gregory could make me feel guilty. A gentle bounce as the elevator settled on the next floor and a bing for the opening doors. My estranged friend wheeled off the elevator and across the hall to his art studio. I opened the doors and switched on the lights. One by one, the overhead illumination revealed a set of eight, nine foot tall canvases. A project Gregory began three years ago, six months before his cancer diagnosis. “ What am I doing here, Gregory?” “ You’re here to watch me finish the last piece, and then you’re going to execute my estate according to my end-of-life plan.” Each of his statements broke my heart, but I didn’t argue. I just nodded my head and waited for his next command. He wanted me to just stand by the door until he finished. A set of paints up on a shelf he couldn’t reach, he struggled to lift himself up out of his wheelchair by holding onto the lip of the counter. When I went to aid him, he rebuffed me back to my position at the door. Watching him struggle felt cruel, and I had to fight back tears. Eventually, he claimed the prize for his efforts and wheeled himself back over to the unfinished canvas. Reverently, he opened the kit of paints and brushes. Choosing one, he whispered something to it and I could’ve sworn he glowed slightly. As my brain processed this, he got up out of his chair, his movements fluid like he’d returned to his old self.

Beauty and tragedy are the two extremes of my life. There is no room for anything less than profound bliss or complete devastation. Constantly seeking new inspiration means tapping deep pocketed resources and gaining as many of them as I can handle. Unfortunately for some, my most lucrative muse is love. And a new love easily becomes jealous of a new love. I see them as colors meant to play and dance together. Socialize on the canvas of life to create scenes that tell the raw truth of our experiences. Maurice was a beauty that was destined to become a tragedy. My heart wrecked itself in my chest the first time we locked eyes. The kiss I planted on his cheek that day in the park, I carried the salt of him on my lips for the rest of the day. Pondering just how precious a man he was. Loyal to a fault and as naive as a kitten. He was adorable in every single way and my heart broke because I knew that no matter how many times I caused heartache in his life, that he would return time and again. Because Maurice truly loves me, without rhyme or reason. I’ve crashed through many people’s lives, siphoning their adoration for my canvas. The dynamics of a full throttle love affair are a powerful creative fuel. I had to know how much of a monster I was before I let Maurice get too close to me. Maurice is infuriatingly doting. He has a precognitive ability to know what I want when I want, diffusing my moods when I want to explode. His love was ushering me into mediocrity rather than allowing me to exist in extremes, and I resented him for it. I told him as much when I saw him two weeks ago. Knowing that I was a poison that he’d become a cure for, solely by building up an immunity to my behavior. His love made me feel guilty because I didn’t feel the same way. Yes, he was handsome and everything that one would want in a partner. Maurice was safe and didn’t live in the gray areas because he valued clear cut communication to avoid drama. Disgusting! Drama is the spice of life and he was depriving me of my most delicious fuel. A broken heart, love desperate to compete for top prized attention and lustful affection. Maurice was taming me and I refused to be tamed. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I found a new muse, a new love, and broke Maurice’s heart.

Standing in by the door reminded me of the night I finally saw him after all that time. I was standing in the room where I’d bumped into him, thinking that he may show his collection in the same space. Turns out, he wasn’t showing at all. He’d come to view the collection of a friend. Heightened emotions of infatuation rushed my system when I saw him. Desperately, I wanted to lock eyes with him, and that’s when I noticed he had a date. A slim, bookish thing with average looks and limp hair parted down the middle that landed just above his eyebrows. It was an icy knife pushed into my heart seeing them together. I downed my champagne and left the exhibition without approaching them. I learned then that Gregory’s love was cruel and that he didn’t know how to love any other way. He was an artist who found inspiration in the flesh. That included the drama of a broken heart. He was a slave to his gifts and unrequited love is how he fed his addiction to painting life on canvas.

After the way I’d spoken to him, even the way I was speaking to him now, Maurice’s loyalty amazed me. Knowing that I could count on him is why I called him. I needed him one last time while there was still a bit of magic left in my brushes. Seeing him again after our two-week separation felt like a reunion after years apart. His aged face was still handsome as the day we met, and the heartache I caused him lived in his expression. A full circle moment happened in that elevator. And allowing my mind to go back to the day I made the choice to use Maurice’s love for artistic inspiration brought a lump of guilt into my chest. His eyes told me he knew how I was using him; that he allowed it because he understood that my only true love was my art. Maurice was the only one of my muses that hadn’t left me or become jealous and threatened to ruin me. All he ever asked of me was not to lie to him. A simple request that felt like a noose around my freedom. When the lights came on in my studio and the work I’d started came into view, my body buzzed with artists-high. Tapping into that energy allowed me to stand to my feet and claim my brushes from their resting place. And speaking the incantation of love over my tools awakened them from their slumber. “One last time, old friends. I sacrifice the love that loves me to paint my soul on canvas.” A soft gold glow from my brushes filled my hands and then the rest of my body. Youthful vitality and strength overcame my weakness, and I stood on my feet and went to work on my last painting. It was  my love letter to the chief artisan who created me and blessed me with my gifts. And it was an apology to my muses. Those that dared to love me despite me not being able to love them back. 

 That night, after having my heart broken, I made the remarkably foolish choice to endure this man, because it felt like my responsibility to love him. Tonight was no different. He needed me, so I was his muse one last time. Allowing him to siphon my love as energy while  I watched him work masterfully, putting paint onto canvas. The last piece was an abstract patchwork of crimson, red, and brown. When viewed up close, the painting was a photo replica of the afternoon we spent together on the park bench, eating ice cream and sharing conversation. From far away, it was the artists’ self portrait. Hours felt like moments as I watched the creation of my friend’s final work. With the last brush stroke, he sat down in his wheelchair and motioned for me to come over. “ You have all the documents?” He asked, suddenly out of breath. “ Yes.” “ Excellent. I’ll need you to capture my updated signature with today’s date. Kayla can bear witness.” I followed my friend out of the art studio across the hall to the elevator. We rode down one floor to his residence and captured his updated signature. When the last document was signed, Gregory Pimbleton stood up out of his wheelchair, hugged me with all of his strength, and looked into my eyes and said. “ I’m sorry, dear friend.” Then he died in my arms.