Kathleen Alcott - The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets

The doors were locked. Paul was inside making lastminute preparations; I felt as though I could feel his mania through the papered glass windows and feared they would crack. He was listening to Leonard Cohen’s Songs From a Room , the song “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy” humming through the glass and hovering above the heads of the crowd, the lyrics dolorous and apropos: “ In the hollow of the night / when you are cold and numb / you hear her talking freely then, / she’s happy that you’ve come, / she’s happy that you’ve come .” The refrain lilted and retracted as my heart quickened, and I tried to estimate just how many people were there, how many I knew. When I sobered, Jackson had left my side and was making through the crowd with a quick pace that furthered my anxiety. He was aimed for the entrance, and purposefully, coldly touched people’s elbows in the way that means Let me through. Let me through right now . Then he was knocking with increasing speed, the flat of his balled fist pounding rapidly. I couldn’t see his face, but Paul’s when he finally opened the door was an awful mirror. People were watching; whether they knew he was the artist was unclear, but it quickly turned the anticipatory murmur ominous, unsteady.

Through the crowd I saw James, knew instantly he’d been watching me the whole time. He arched his eyebrows not unkindly from where he stood on the outskirts. He was, as ever, strangely immaculate, and smoking his cigarette the odd way he always has, the filter held effortlessly between his middle and ring fingers. I was surprised he had heard about the show and more surprised that he’d come. The knots in my heart and chest reshaped themselves at the sight of my and Jackson’s brother and my brain formed several dark rooms surrounding the possibilities of their interaction, given both the long and stubborn silence between them and the state Jackson was in.

I made my way toward him, our eyes locked and my feet carrying me without my explicit permission. Hi there, kid, he said or I think he said through my ears’ insistent ringing. When he hugged me, I immediately let my body go limp, let myself focus for seven glorious seconds on not the impending doom but the way he smelled and has always smelled: like cedar and also fresh ground black pepper, like long loud nights and the ensuing regret, like history, like small but important reminders.

I, of course, needed to provide no explanations: he had seen Jackson’s pounding at the door, had seen my face thereafter, had felt how gladly I’d received his embrace.

“Wanna hear a joke?” He smiled slightly, and I nodded and felt grateful for his ability to manipulate his emotional surroundings and those of others.

“So a guy walks into a bar,” he said, already grinning, “and he stays there for the rest of my childhood.”

I let it settle, then laughed to the point of hooting, all the frantic blood in my body happy for an emotional release of a different sort from the one currently pending. James was laughing too and we fed each other’s joy, like only old friends who’ve been through much that is not funny can.

When the gallery finally opened, the people trickled in, all the more excited for the mysterious aggravated pounding of the man who, a girl who knew Jackson and me had revealed to the rest of the gaggle, was the artist. James entered by my side but took his cue and dissipated; my eyes found Jackson and I forgot instantly what had been so humorous minutes before. It seemed that Paul, if temporarily, had worked his magic. Jackson was, at the very least, still, but had arranged his body in a way that was a familiar, dangerous indication. He sat in the only chair in the room, one that no doubt Paul had scrambled to find in the hopes of placation. His left hand propped up his right elbow and his right arm crossed his body at a diagonal so that his beer rested on his left shoulder. It was an arrangement of limbs that simultaneously signaled inclusion, defense, fear, disgust.

Despite my overall queasiness and remorse, I recognized that the space looked gorgeous. The pages upon pages clinging to the walls were slightly shellacked and seemed to catch the light, then hold it. There was a modest assortment of strange items hanging from the ceiling on transparent cords: pieces of antique lace handkerchiefs, a faded pink rotary telephone, a rusted toy airplane (the left wing of which seemed to be half melted), several rings of skeleton keys, a mobile of a children’s carousel of gilded horses, a few sepia-toned photographs, a chandelier at a ninety-degree angle, a wine bottle covered in different blues and yellows of candle wax. It spoke clearly to the obfuscation of dreams, to their ability to unite discordant objects into a string that is supposed to mean something. The floors painted a matte gray-black that still gleamed with few footsteps, and Jackson’s pieces stretched and mounted as if they could ever be made uniform. Upon entering the gallery, the guests encountered a small block of text: a matter-of-fact narrative about how the pieces came to be and a biography of Jackson that was scant but made clear that he never, in his waking life, harbored artistic inclinations.

The people, who had been moments before factions of groups, became individuals, as is the result of all effective art. They put thumbs and forefingers to chins, they tilted their heads left and right, involuntary murmurs pushed out of their lips and rose. Paul stood at the back of the room, a few feet from Jackson’s chair, his face oscillating between expressions of pleasure and agitation and a combination of both. Jackson was dark in a way I had seen only few times; he seemed to deflect light and noise. He was obviously not looking for me, but I found my body leading itself across the room, expertly maneuvering through the onlookers lost in their own memories as they gaped at the wondrous and terrible that had come to life while I slept. I saw myself stand behind his chair, saw my hand reach for his shoulder. Heard him say through his vacancy, without flinching, “Don’t.”

Paul’s head snapped around as mine stayed still and unblinking, putting off processing what had just been said. He looked from me to Jackson and realized, in the case of the latter, that there was nothing to see. The “artist” had retreated.

Unfortunately, the man in the seat, who looked very much like the person I shared a bed with, fit the bill in a way that further excited the people in the room. They looked from him to the art and back again, imagining the threads between the two. They were convinced that his stance and gaze were of someone taking it all in, though the truth was in every way the inverse. They wanted to assume they were important to him, that he was gathering their reactions to a large piece of his soul to reference later; they saw his posture as sweet, as a symbol of someone who is afraid to share but must. A few of them, after taking in each piece three and four times, began to gravitate to where he sat. Assuming sensitivity to his vulnerable position as a heart exposed, they crouched and spoke softly. They raved and paid respect and when he began to look at them but did not speak, they loved him further for it. He was, they thought, happy to let his art speak to them, viewed their perceptions as truth and felt no need to comment. The bold ones patted his arm and thanked him.

They began to trickle toward the exit, satisfied, once again becoming parts of groups, eager to discuss what they’d seen and felt. Jackson had only moved to reach for more beer, and once he’d drunk all six, filled a large cup then another with the red wine Paul had placed on the table for guests. Paul came over with a cocktail I hadn’t asked for and gave my arm a squeeze. He let out the sigh he’d been holding in, and though I wanted to, I knew that this night would not be isolated. It would stretch many limbs out in just as many directions, and I’d be spending my every minute trying to chart them.