𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐄

―𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒖𝒅𝒆²

interlude² | THE SPACE BETWEEN

❝...There will come a day...
That the Lord will find a way...❞

●

Before he met Diana, Michael hadn't known much about art.

Well, not exactly.

He had known art in the sense of music and dance, how the clink of two glass bottles created a simple, intricate beat; how the rumble and shake of the washing machine sent a wave through his shoulders and down the length of his arms; how music was a thing you could grasp with all five senses: the melody crooning in your ear; the warble of a song that put the savory tang of supper on your tongue or whisked you into the smoky-sweet realm of a dense club; the single tendril of a note giving the likeness of fingertips creeping along the back of your hand; the swaying and crooning of a crowd of people, devoted to the song inside you for the duration of a night—or a lifetime if you were lucky.

Art had existed in him from the very moment he took his first breath, and like any aspect of life, it grew, nurtured and fostered by different people and events. Bad or good, big or small.

The Chitlin' Circuit, the gentlemen's clubs, and those nights at the Apollo Theater had colored his early experiences. For what he lacked in a true childhood, music and dance made up for, occupying those under-utilized, deficient spaces with fragments of his favorite performers and performances. With closed eyes, he could see Jackie Wilson in the old black and white, belting "Reet Petite" over the sound of trumpets. With the scuff of his shoes against the pavement, he could hear James Brown's famous footwork. And with a single glance at one of his mother's diamonds, he could hear echoes of The Supremes, the nights in the living room with his brothers and sisters, pushing, shoving, hogging the best spot in front of the television. He was only years shy of his bed-wetting days then, but he remembered it as if it happened yesterday.

For him, that's when it had started. Crunched beside Marlon in a tight bunk bed, replaying a Supremes special in his head, the spotlight of his soul on the skinny, big-eyed lead singer with the mewling resonance to her voice. By then, he had filed away as many Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Temptations, and Supremes songs as his little mind would allow, and in the hush of night, he would close his eyes and mouth the words to himself. Daydreaming, manifesting.

I will meet them, would be his first thought. I will meet her, would be his second.

He didn't entirely understand what it would take then, what it would cost, but his father's grueling brow and heavy hand, as crushing as they were, gave his hopes the kiss of life. In due time, he walked the same halls as the Temptations and didn't need his mother's diamonds anymore to conjure Diana's image. All he needed to do was spin the rotary and she was there in all of her glory, the image of that diamond choker she wore the day they first met branded in his memory like a flaming sigil.

The manifestation of his dreams breathed new life into art. Photography, film, books—one of his earliest recollections was of when Diana, with faint red cheeks and a round, protruding belly, took him and Marlon to a large museum outside of the sprawling palms of Beverly Hills.

Michael was slightly older then, more grumpy, more irritable, face speckled with pimples of old and new. He remembered being a ball of disarray, a raging terrain of hormonal chaos who had taken to grousing in the mirror. Marlon, only a year older, was his polar opposite. Grinning, self-assured, and as cool as a cucumber, a constant source of unbearable envy. The moment they stepped foot in the museum, he wandered off on his own, following the call of apathy toward a section dedicated to sculpture.