And Then the Gray Heaven Read online

  No I mean, what if you could do it without having to hide or break out.

  I don’t follow.

  I know everyone there. I mean, last year I dated this sweet guy who’s a security guard there, Remy. Sometimes we still see each other. I could explain the situation to him—maybe he’ll understand. He could walk us back there.

  Wait, what’s this us? No, Fran. I’m not dragging you into this.

  You’re hardly dragging me, Fran says, I’m in.

  Nope, I go in alone.

  His face drops. Please, he says.

  We’ll see. If you can get Remy on board, then okay.

  I’m just going to make a quick phone call, he says. He dials his cell, and then while still holding eye contact with me, he says, hey baby, you working tomorrow?

  29

  Fran and B and I walk through Central Park for the first time in years. The leaves shimmy on the branches and splash light all around us. Fran takes my hand.

  Breathe, he says.

  You’re pretty good, you know that Jules?

  I guess, I say. On my better days.

  Your only problem in the whole universe is that you forget to breathe.

  And what’s your problem, I say.

  My problem is that I love too much, says Fran, completely deadpan. Then throws his head back and sighs.

  Times like these I really can’t tell if he’s making a joke or trying to be profound or being profound by trying to make a joke.

  What was B’s problem?

  He looks at me and grins. Too much glue, he says. Always too much glue.

  Remy is waiting for us where the museum tours start, right in front of the Hall of North American Mammals. Fran introduces us, and Remy takes my hand with both of his hands and tells me he’s sorry about B. He says he didn’t know them, but the exhibitions people talk about them all the time. He’ll be right here, he says, guarding from the Central Park West entrance, but before we go in, a couple things:

  The Hall of North American Mammals is so central, this will be difficult to pull off. Even if you’re able to get into the diorama, there’s always someone around—it’s risky.

  He rotates to the second floor at 12:30 so we only have a half hour on his watch. He’s not typically in this area, so he doesn’t know what the traffic has been like for people working on the restoration.

  Fran owes him one Manhattan and the whole story, to be collected at a later date.

  Good luck.

  Just like that, Fran and I walk right into the Hall of North American Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History in the broad light of day. I don’t have to break into anything. I don’t have to fight or wait or hide. We approach B’s favorite diorama in the museum, and are relieved to find that the glass is still set to the side. “Wolf” is an understated nearly hundred-year-old winter scene of two wolves running at night in northern Minnesota. In the moonlight, the wolves’ blue shadows stretch out over the snow. We crouch down to touch B’s fake snow. Fran and I each place one hand on the snow. Part of me expects cold, and a shiver runs through my body in anticipation. We look at each other. There are tears in Fran’s eyes. The snow is made of crushed, colorized marble. It is not white, but grayish indigo, opaque but with sparkle. I realize that digging a hole in this snow might be more difficult than it was in the dirt foreground of Autumn diorama at the Field Museum.

  Fran and I brought a few kitchen items that might be better than our hands: we have a wooden spoon, a metal ladle, a small plastic cup, a miniature trowel, and a coffee scoop. The coffee scoop seems to be the best bet, so very carefully, I scoop a little of the snow near the few thin trees on the right side of the diorama. The scoop is not working, the marble dust sifts and replaces itself immediately. Next I try the trowel. The snow is colored for the shadow cast by the moon so carefully, and I’m trying to only move the base color of marble snow aside. It’s taking longer than we’d planned. I look at my watch, and it’s already almost 12:30. Fran offers to go check with Remy, but I tell him we can’t risk going back out and in like that.

  That’s when we hear the footsteps. My chest lurches. Before I can even turn to Fran, there’s a voice.

  What’s going on here?

  Fran and I turn at the same time. He is standing, and I’m on my knees. I can barely stand from nerves. I manage to pocket the trowel while turning, but we look guilty anyway.

  What are you doing? A tall man in khaki shirt and pants is waiting for us to say something. I’m trying to figure out the best lie, when Fran steps toward the man.

  Oh my god, he says, Jeff? It’s Fran! I didn’t know you were still here.

  The man (Jeff, presumably) now looks at us with recognition and new slightly different kind of confusion. I’m not, he says. I’m just back to work on this project with some of the new artists. But what—what are you doing in here?

  So, Jeff, do you have a minute? So good to see you.

  Fran puts his arm around Jeff and walks him away from me. He turns back to me and says: Jules why don’t you grab something from the cafe. I’ll meet you there.

  I mouth to him what’s going on, and he does this fast nod thing and smiles to say he’s taking care of it. I don’t know what’s happening, but I take B to the cafe and leave them. I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out what the situation is, how Fran knows this Jeff; but nothing I can imagine makes this okay. I’m thinking about the time B told me their favorite thing about working at the American Museum is that all the curators and artists were gay. At the time, I was bitter about being stuck in Florida, so I didn’t give a lot of thought to what a sweet work environment that must have been for B. I also kind of assumed all of New York was gay and I was missing out on that.

  I see Fran and Jeff wandering around the exhibits chatting and pointing at things. Fran waves at me. I’m stunned by whatever casual hang out has popped up in the middle of our crime.

  Fran and Jeff make their way over to me all chummy, and Jeff sticks out his hand.

  Wow, he says, such a pleasure to meet you.

  Uh, what? I say. I mean, you too.

  Jeff was B’s boss, Fran says to me. They restored that wolf diorama together. Jeff and I got to know each other because I’d be picking B up at five, and it was always one more thing, one more thing. They would keep working until Jeff was basically pushing them out the door.

  Ah, I say. B could be that way about their projects, especially if they were doing something they’d never done before.

  Right, says Fran. Kind of a perfectionist, but a fun one.

  I’m so sorry to hear about B, Jeff says. They were absolutely brilliant. They were, he stops. Well you know. Fran told me about what you’re doing.

  I suddenly feel very exposed. I feel shame like a fluttering around my neck. I look angrily at Fran.

  Don’t worry. It’s okay, says Fran.

  Jeff looks at Fran and then me. I want to help, he says. B and I made that snow together. I’m probably the only one who can move it and not injure the diorama.

  I feel like I’m dreaming. Now I don’t have to break in or hide, and there is a trained professional who wants to help me bury B. I’ve come a long way since Chicago. I start to cry without realizing it, and Fran hands me his handkerchief.

  Let us help you, he says.

  Okay, I say.

  Jeff, Fran, and I walk back into the Hall of North American Mammals. Jeff moves the crushed marble with what look like surgical tools so carefully it takes him almost an hour to create a hole deep enough for B. We each take a turn pouring a little bit of B, and then Jeff replaces the moved marble, brushing the edges and checking the color placement with three different lights. We stand in front of the diorama, and I know we’ve given B one hell of a funeral.

  At home in their favorite paradox: these wolves run in this snow for years and never get wet. They never get cold. They’re dead and will never die. Now B would go on this way. What a strange way to worship what we find most beautiful about our world. Th
ese creatures something more than dead and yet ready to perform. Everything back from dust when it is called.

  30

  We hug Jeff and thank him. Fran and he make plans to catch up. It feels like we’ve had this completely normal, if emotional, day together. We see some of the new exhibits because we can. What a revelation, to be just another museum visitor. In Birds of the World, Fran asks me if I’ll stay with him awhile longer. He’s tired of living alone and it could be good for me. I tell him I have to return the truck and spend some quality time with my dishwasher. But I’m thinking I’ll come back and stay at Fran’s after that. I might want to live in New York, where everyone is gay and people show up to help you bury the love of your life.

  On our way out of the museum, Fran walks me by a gallery on the First floor called the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth (H.O.P.E).

  I wanted to show you this, he says.

  It’s nice, I say. I start to read the gallery text.

  No, not because of what’s here now. Because of what it is.

  Tell me, I say.

  This is where they filmed it, the moon landing.

  I look around at the room, dark except the glow of the installation panels.

  Can you imagine it? he says. This room is the moon.

  I close my eyes and open them. I imagine the lunar rover. I imagine the astronaut suits, the smart material and the way it holds up in simulated zero gravity. The artists standing by to touch up moon rocks and arguing about the way the flag would blow but not blow when they stick it in the ground. I imagine Mr. Nguyen consulting on film speed, and then sitting down to roll a bunch of cigarettes before the next take. I imagine Americans sitting in their living rooms, watching the grainy moon on their TV screens like it’s god’s own buzzcut, and they want to touch it. But not with their hands: with that fathom in them that’s a cool null too. We did it: we landed on the moon. We used to be so afraid of space but now, look at it up there. The whole blessed void: a vast field of care.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RE Katz is a former Artist in Residence at Dreamland Arts and Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. They are the author of Pony at the Super (Horse Less Press, 2015). They work in educational justice in Chicago and are interested in personal fashion, antifascist witchcraft, and television.