THE BLOOD OF WOOD & ORGANS

Alto

I t is 3:10 pm and, in a sixth grade gym class somewhere in the city, the boy whose name will one day grace the walls of the MoMA fails to catch the ball.

Again.

“Connect with it this time or you’re fucking toast, faggot,” whispers Darrel Darcy.

And for the third time that day, Conner misses the serve. Chasing after the volleyball he didn’t connect with, he falls face first onto the gym floor.

Collective giggles reverberate throughout the gym as blood drips from the boy’s chin onto the cold, wooden floor.

“People, that’s enough. Conner, go clean up,” says Ms. Bosineault, her own disdain barely hidden.

Fifteen minutes. They won’t notice, he thinks.

He’s right.

Last to be picked, again, the boy walks out of the gym. Passing the change room, he turns instead to the art room. His body visibly relaxes when his nose catches the scent of oil paint and glue paste. Stroking the flat brushes and a still wrapped canvas, he dreams of mountain vistas and lush jungle colors. And he thinks of portraits of important people who have left this world too soon. And aching for his mother, her always present, listening ear, he begins to sob.

It’s been three months. Three months since love as he knew it left him in this place alone.

He thinks of her stopping at the Harbord St. bakery, smiling, gesturing at the cupcakes he loves, her hands full of groceries. Then he sees her in the hospital bed. This time, his hands hold the cupcakes.

“Maybe an apple?” asks Hilda from behind the counter. Her expression is kind, though Conner has sometimes heard her talking to the other shoppers. He’s seen the sideways glances, the quiet smirks when they think he’s not looking. She might as well have called him a gluttonous sloth, he thinks, as he leaves the store quickly before she can ask him, again, how he’s “coping with his loss”.

Not well.

Defensively, his young mind has become adept at diverting attention and thoughts elsewhere.

A gym or the art room, he ponders.

Cupcakes or apples.

Popular or fat.

Hot jock stud or sissy fag boy good at painting.

“This or that,” he compares most everything to his waist size, those things that mimic and betray his body. This, he will do for years.

As he surrenders to sleep time, he holds the crimson scarf close to his face, where the silk is soothingly cool and he can just make out the fading scent of L’Air du Temps.

He wants to believe what she has told him is true; that people are decent, kind inside. He has slept soundly through many a night on the promise of a similar truth.

Tonight, his stars will be merciful.

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