JP buddies
ALINA GETS IT, she always has. So you watch her as she stands up and closes the curtains, locks the bedroom door, she turns off your bedside lamp. The light in the room is like you’ve lit candles, a burnt yellow, but you haven’t lit anything, it’s just because of the late afternoon, mid-winter sun. You’ve had the heater on for about an hour now; they’d said the day’s temperature wouldn’t make it to double figures. Alina returns to the bed, gets onto her knees, puts her hands on the back of her neck, gathers together her long black hair, and bundles it up onto the top of her head. She looks to the ceiling, then lets go of herself.
Right now the two of you are going to make something sacred.
You get down on the floor, slide out the album from under your bed. That’s photoalbum, not music album, although when done well they’re pretty much the same thing. But yours is not filled with photos. It’s filled with pictures of paintings. You get up onto the bed beside Alina. Together you open the book. She grips one side, you grip the other. A few months ago it was a shoe box, not an album. Most kids would have other things under their beds, other pictures, but not you, not you and Alina, you two have got what you’ve got and no one knows, no one at all. If you told people what the two of you do they would think you’re freaks, really they would, they’d probably have you certified, they’d think you’re doing something that will bring rack and ruin on your selves, your bodies, give you the plague, frogs will start raining down on you. But you don’t have the plague, no frogs have rained down on you, not yet anyway. As long as the door remains locked, as long as your Mum and Dad never come in, nothing bad will come of this.
‘What do we feel like today?’ Alina asks.
You turn the plastic-covered pages. You used to have funny ones. Him with a shepherd’s stock in his hand, standing in a green pasture, lambs frolicking around like they’re filled with helium. Yeah, the tacky pictures you find in cheap magazines, the magazines that are more like pamphlets, the sort that get hand-delivered by nice people in nice clothes who want to take you away to the nicest of places. That’s how you and Alina started – with the funny ones. All the best things should start with a laugh. But you guys soon grew out of that tacky stuff, you both turned sixteen and moved on to new things. Became connoisseurs, fine art curators, critics even. Now the two of you know what you like and you know why you like it. But it’s got nothing to do with brushstrokes, well, it’s got something to with strokes, just not the brush kind.
‘Do we want dark?’ you ask her.
‘It’s cold outside,’ she says. ‘I’m thinking we’ll need the really good stuff if we’re to stay warm.’
‘We’ll go dark, then.’
Alina really does get it. She understands you. Thank Christ she moved next door last year otherwise you’d be doing this by yourself, and that wouldn’t be right, now that would be certifiable. You don’t know what you’d do without her. You’re lucky, you’ve always thought that, you think about it often. Especially when it’s all over, and she’s gone home and you’re alone again, and there’s that great feeling of gravity, when you don’t give a shit about anything, nothing at all.
Together you flick through the pages. You’ve got so many pictures now, all different styles, all different artists, all different times in history. You’ve ordered them chronologically – in order of the events, not in the order of when the paintings were done. It starts with the last supper. Then the crucifixion. Then the resurrection. This makes sense to you and Alina, this order. Often when you do this you don’t get all the way to the end section, the resurrection ones: him with light around him like he’s the light himself, which to many he is, you suppose. But no, it’s the middle pages you love the most, the dark pages, like really love them. If the album had a sealed section the middle pages would be it. It’s always better with the dark ones, always better, when he’s on the cross – they’re the best. There’s something about it that cuts right inside you, like a sword in your side.
‘How dark do you want it?’ you ask Alina.
‘Really dark,’ she says.
She’s got her spare hand on her crotch now. She’s seen a few pictures, they’ve entered her, she’s almost ready now.
‘Alright,’ you say, ‘we better go to the very middle page.’
You remember the last time the two of you did this. Two weeks ago, a Saturday night, your parents had a posh dinner party. You’d overheard talk about a particularly fine parmesan cheese bought from a friendly local delicatessen, wine-fuelled chatter about massive mortgages and low interest rates, the certainty of job promotions, the joys of job security, new DVD players, and the latest model Audi A4. None of it meant anything to you – you wondered afterwards if it would ever mean anything to you. You hoped not. There’s only one thing that means anything to you. That night, with the aimless babble of the dinner party in the background, you didn’t get as far as this. You only got about a quarter of the way through the album, to the last supper. But today you’re going to bring out the big guns.
‘We both know the one we need,’ Alina says.
Just the thought of it is enough to get you going. You turn to the page, the very middle page. There he is. Together you place the book on your pillows, sit it up as if it’s sheet music and you’re about to perform. Alina is performing already, and you’re all revved up now and ready to go. You put your hand on your crotch. You’re as hard as you’re ever going to get, which is pretty hard, being your age and all.
The very middle page – look at it. The sky is evil, all reds and browns and oranges as if it’s not the sky at all but the ocean and the ocean is full of blood. There are the two other figures, one on each side, they look similar to the main one, but who takes notice of them? They were just common criminals. Him, the big dude, his head bowed, blood trickling down his face – that crown’s really digging into him. He’s so thin in this one. So thin. Ribs. Bones in his hands and legs. Hips. Blood.
Alina unbuttons her jeans so she can get in her hand. You unbutton yourself, put your hand in, get yourself out. They don’t teach you this gear in art class, in sex ed, they don’t teach you about this in religious studies. This is for home, home work, real home work, the stuff you look forward to all week, after the classroom has made you feel like you’ve been living your life inside a carcass. How can you learn good stuff when you’re stuck inside a carcass? How can you feel good stuff when your family has made you feel like you’re made of silver?
‘What is it you like most about this one?’ she asks you.
‘His thinness, I love it.’ Pause. ‘What about you?’
She doesn’t answer you. She’s thinking.
‘The way his head’s bowed,’ she says finally.
‘What is it about his head being bowed?’ you ask her.
‘He looks like he’s in pain.’
‘Why does it matter that he’s in pain?’
Alina doesn’t respond – she’s in full swing with herself.
‘I love his stomach,’ you say, filling in the silences (although it’s not totally silent; skin on skin makes noise), ‘it’s so hollow, like something’s been gouged out of it. Imagine kissing it! They never paint him with a happy-trail.’
It’s true, they never do.
‘How long do you think it took him to die?’ she asks you.
‘Wasn’t it hours?’
You’re not far off it now. At your age everything happens so fast, everything’s in fast-forward. It should be the opposite, in slow motion, your finger hovering over the pause button. You slow down a bit, trying to string it out.
‘Do you think the artist did something like this as he made this picture?’ asks Alina.
‘What, maybe got his hand covered in oil paints and made himself hard?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Imagine that,’ you say slowly, deliberately. ‘Being able to paint as good as this, having all that talent, being as special as him. Imagine having your hands covered in the paint you use to make things as amazing as this. It’d be like having your hands covered in blood after you’ve...’
‘Keep talking like that, Iain.’
Given half the chance you could keep talking like this forever.
‘While the paint is still wet,’ you say slowly, ‘I’d put my tongue on his stomach, lick it, taste the foul-tasting paint. My lips would be covered in it. My tongue would be covered. I’d swallow it down like poison. I’d turn my face so that my cheeks got covered with paint too. I’d lick the canvas clean, until it’s so white it looks like there is light coming out of it. Perfect light. Everyone wants perfect light. That’s what he was about.’
You can’t talk anymore, you can never talk right at the end. You’re nowhere and everywhere. Like he would have been in the few moments before his final breath. Like the painter when he’d made the last brushstroke. Like you and Alina now; Alina, your Jesus Picture Buddy. Some might say you’re self-indulgent, some might say this sort of thing has no place if you have brains. But surely this is better than a fine parmesan cheese, job promotions, job security, dvd players and the latest Audi A4. Surely this is better than a silver life. Surely this thing that you do, this adventure, this freedom, all this is special, more than special. Yes, you’ve just made something sacred alright.