Prettyboy

5: The Consolation Prize

The next morning we would go grocery shopping. Actually, I had told him there was no need for him to come along, but he just grabbed his jacket and hurried after me, and like an unexpected but welcome guest, he appeared next to me. And then as we were strolling down the neighborhood, he was ahead of me. 

He immersed himself in the activity of keeping his balance while walking on the tips of his toes on top of perfectly cubic stones alongside the formal and elegant parterre of some neighbor of ours he liked to mess around with—he often liked to throw pebbles at their windows and bark back at their raging dog. At times he would mildly lose his balance and grasp at my shoulder for support, arbitrarily spewing curse words and clicking his tongue just before a smile would surface on his lips. 

I have to admit that in my thirty-one years of life, I'd never met such a person like his anomalous highness before. Breezy attitude and so carefree—and yet a teenager. Our first encounter had given me the absolute opposite impression; that he was hateful, condescending, cold. And it might just have been something normal at the time, but the name 'Gerard' had a different melody to it when I let it roll off my tongue. A whimsical, happy melody. And such a pretty melody. 

Pretty, above all.

If I could ever take a picture of a word, that would be it. Just to see what the word 'Gerard' looks like when enunciated. 

"Robert Capa?"

"Hungarian photographer during the war. Captured a total five of them actually. But he's known for his photographs during the Spanish Civil War and World War II," I said. He lost his balance momentarily again and reached out for my shoulder.

"And out of all the people on earth, in history even," he paused for emphasis as I imagined him rolling his eyes, as he did, "you would want to meet him. Why, you can see his photographs. Isn't that enough? And he's probably still alive."

"Is not, actually. Died a few years ago, in fact. Stepped on a landmine while driving," I announced, moving my hand up to remove his from my shoulder and hold it on my own, but he let go at the moment he'd found his balance again. I chose to digress. "And anyway, why judge my answer when you haven't given one yet. Who would you want to meet?"

"Me?" he raised his chin to look forward, noticing that the grocery store was only a few meters away. He lowered his gaze again and answered briskly, "Good question. Edward Carpenter."

"That name rings a bell."

"Yeah, Mikey might have prattled to you about him. He had something to do with scrapbooking flowers or whatever. Although, I would argue that that was not the crux of his career, considering he was a philosopher and a poet. I mean, come on; picking flowers is nothing compared to that. All it is is just flower picking. Flower killing. And viewing your victims in a scrapbook. How vile."

"You're basically saying..." my voice trailed off and he finished my sentence with his obscene: 

"Fuck flower picking is what I'm saying."

I laughed. And I laughed again. And marched on and on, without realizing that he'd stopped behind me. 

And I did come to a halt after I had laughed once more; then, whirled around and stared at him, trying to understand why he'd stopped midway to the store. I asked him if he was coming, but he didn't move an inch. Just stared at me, frozen, with a smile plastered on his rosy lips that summery day. An inability to move surrounded my lithe body, as my eyebrows drew close, my head tilted to the side. My eyes were focused, but affixed on something I wasn't recalling ordering them to. While he was standing amidst an elegant flowerbed, adorned with the prettiest of roses and tulips that the sun stroked with its luminous beams—yet I wasn't looking at the flowers he was surrounded by.