And Then the Gray Heaven Read online

  I prepare for the six hours until I can go upstairs and do what I came here to do. For six hours, I will eat my protein bar incredibly slowly so it becomes an activity and a meal. I will think about my child self and how they would have wanted to use this time being in a museum overnight.

  I inspect all of the miniatures, and feel like a god of this small world. I think about B and how much they loved this stuffy place. I imagine all the ways the museum’s creatures could come to life and get themselves into trouble only to resolve everything and return to their exact places and poses when the museum opens. I will imagine B and I are also these creatures, and it is the others who do not belong here, not us. This is our museum. B and me: we’re just more bodies, more dust, more objects at rest.

  I don’t mean to, but I doze off. I check my watch in a panic and am so relieved to find it’s only eleven-thirty. I still have a window. I open the door a crack and look all around me. The lights are off, but the corridors are still brightly humming with exhibit lights, vending machines, emergency fluorescents, and other stray beams. I take a deep breath, and prance for the door to the stairs. All the lights are still on in the stairwell, and I feel exposed even though there’s no one around. I hold the railing to steady myself, and climb. My body is shaking so much it’s vibrating. I go up one flight and open the door just a bit, so I can see what the Main floor looks like. I am behind the Nature Walk, and the construction area is dim but visible. I do a kind of tiptoe to the plastic sheet nearest me. I go crazy for a half-second in anticipation of all the noise plastic makes, but I do one lifting motion, duck in, and release. The plastic makes a whoosh, but only one, and I remind myself that the sound could be just how things fall sometimes for no reason when they’re left alone. I’m invisible. I’m nothing. I look at the white-tailed deer, and a wave of grief knocks me sideways. In the quietest whisper I can manage, I ask do you remember B? They’re right here. I zip open the bag so slowly, I can feel the teeth pull apart one at a time. This is not the point of a zipper. I take B, and climb into Autumn, careful not to crush any of the leaves. B will have to go in the front, by the pond, by the deer that looks people in the eyes, where there is the most space for me to crouch. I dig the smallest hole with the pads of my fingers so there aren’t any sharp edges, and lift B by the handful into this campy, sweet grave.

  I don’t remember walking away from The Four Seasons. I don’t remember going down the stairs or back into the Learning Collections room. I do remember waking up in the back of the room in the morning, groggy and haunted by myself, my own existence in this dead place. This is happening. This is all real. I am doing this. I check my watch, and the museum has been open for twenty minutes. I wait another hour, drink some water, place the key on the floor by the door, and walk out the Ground floor exit of the museum, toward the water. I turn on my phone and call Theo.

  I passed out at one but woke up at four and couldn’t stop worrying about you, they say. How’d it go?

  All according to plan, I say. I’m a pro now. And I’m exhausted.

  Incredible, they say. Are you headed back here now?

  Meet me at the Shedd, I say. I want to say hi to the alligators. I miss them.

  Okay, they say. On my way.

  At the alligator tank, Theo tells me they got a call from Tina this morning. The house is okay, but the hurricane wrecked her yard and my yard and half the neighborhood. She says she needs help cleaning up, and soon, because the plumbing is messed up and it’s possible sewage might back up into one of our houses any minute now.

  So what do we do? I say.

  I think you have to keep going, they say. But I have to go back and help Tina. I can work on your yard too, empty the pool, and clean out the basement. You take the truck to New York.

  But, I say, but I can’t.

  You were going to before I made you take me with you, and you can.

  Okay, I know. You’re just really good at scheming. You have good schemes.

  I know, that’s what I’m known for, they say. So you’re leaving?

  I’m flying out of O’Hare tonight. We’ve already paid for one more night at the Travelodge, then you can leave for New York like we planned in the morning.

  This is happening so fast, I say.

  Fast as anything else, they say.

  We head back to the Travelodge and Theo packs their bag. They leave me with the supplies, and I drop them at the Blue Line.

  In the car, we put our arms around each other and kind of slump into each other until after a couple minutes Theo squeezes my sides.

  Did you have a good time? I ask them.

  The best, says Theo. The absolute best.

  When they disappear behind the turnstiles, a new grief mixes with old grief in my body, and I’m out. I wander around the loop thinking about how there is too much world to know about that is so unconcerned with me, which is why I need B’s good severe diamond eye—to watch for me and watch me. It took me so long to know myself, to begin living: how will I do it without them. To place just one part of my calf on just one part of their thigh again when we’re sitting next to each other on the couch.

  26

  I wonder if now is a good time to have twelve hours to myself and long uninterrupted strips of asphalt on which to play out my life like a bad summer movie with lots of deleted scenes but not enough. At a rest stop in western Pennsylvania there are some Mennonites selling cinnamon rolls and other baked goods, and I buy a whole carload to have someone to talk to for fifteen minutes.

  These young Mennonite women tell me that in their traditional culture, there’s no dancing or television, but now their community allows them to have youth dances. They are thrilled about it because they do some fashion things for the dances too. They can only continue having the dances if they do line dancing specifically, so there’s kind of a western theme to the fashion. They tell me they love bolos and boots. Anything structured is a good kind of dance, they say. Sometimes ballroom is okay too, but only the ones where you don’t have to touch each other. They’ve been doing some dances that come from European courts and also some step dancing, and a little bit of choreo from Bollywood. They give me a free loaf of seeded bread and tell me to be careful in New York because they can tell I’m in a wounded way. I walk away from their stand and realize maybe this is one of those moments I’ve been talking to actual angels.

  I figure when I get to New York, I can hand these breads out to folks on the street and have some more conversations. I realize this is exactly how Theo imagined me, in a place where I don’t know anyone working out some new identity by losing myself in stranger stories. I get why this is not always a good thing, but I’m a landfill of memory right now.

  I still have a lot more driving to go, so I’m trying to ignore this sharp pain in my throat, and my neck starting to get a little big in that way where I know I’m about to be fucked up by mucus. I just have to get to the Days Inn on the Upper West Side, and then I can wedge my head under a pillow and disappear into the sweaty void of sleep. Just as I’m finally rolling into the city, a fever sets in low around my eyes like those clouds that circle the mouth of a volcano. I grab some nighttime cold medicine from a Duane Reade and fall asleep spooning B in B’s bag.

  In the feverdream, B is inspecting the jaws of a lion. They walk around the museum: the museum we now live in, which is an amalgam of our house, all the places I have ever lived, and all the places I have buried and will bury B. The dioramas in this museum don’t make any sense. They have the animals and some trees, but also, a toaster, a television, musical instruments, trash, mirrors, candles, beach umbrellas. The creeks have bath bubbles in them. There are rainbow streamers in the back of a diorama with hyenas. There is bunting that says 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110010 01110100 01101000 01100100 01100001 01111001. I can’t read it but I can hold it in my head, which feels like another kind of understanding. There are windows in the back of some of the dioramas, where people seem
to be washing dishes in a kitchen. One diorama has a hotel bed in it. This hotel bed I’m in right now. One diorama has a bird in a cage, which I point to, and shout to B:

  Seems like overkill!

  Huh? they say. Roadkill?

  They move from diorama to diorama like they are looking for something. They stick their hand in a lion’s mouth, and shake their head, no, that’s not it. They approach an alligator, and place their hand in the long jaws of the alligator. They pull it away and shake their head again. They do the same with a grizzly bear. They appear to be getting more and more frustrated. I try to help them, but they ignore me. Finally, they place their hand in a wolf’s mouth, and their face changes. They get so excited they jump in the air. They run to me and bring me over to the wolf to introduce us.

  This is the one, they say.

  I’m trying to match their enthusiasm, but I don’t understand.

  This is the one I’ve been wanting you to meet, they say to me.

  Okay, I say.

  I’m not sure what’s happening. The wolf doesn’t move or speak. I look at B to try and figure out what they want.

  What do you want me to do? I say.

  Come on, says B, taking my hand.

  They put my hand in the paw of the wolf.

  I want you to be happy, they say. Both of you.

  I wake up soaked in sweat and groan. Today is supposed to be my test visit at the museum, but I can’t imagine leaving this bed right now. I look at my phone screen and worry I am hallucinating because I have a message from Fran. I’ve been trying to reach him for what feels like forever. I feel no relief. I’m furious about the returned call because it feels so late. In real time it’s only been a few weeks, but in grief time, he has left me out here on my own for lifetimes. I don’t know if I have it in me to listen to the message, but Fran needs to know about B, and I could use some family right about now.

  I get myself out of bed, take a hot shower, and manage to get outside into the sunlight. There’s something about Manhattan that is so hot and smelly and crowded and brimming, you actually find this weird peace. The cold medicine makes me feel floaty over the highway and the Hudson, and I sit down in Joan of Arc Park in Riverside and listen to Fran’s message.

  He apologizes, a lot. He was on a retreat in the Cape with no service. I’m annoyed, but now more grateful than anything to hear his soft-spoken baritone, his almost imperceptible habit of going up at the end of every sentence like everything is a question, a wondering, a curiosity. Good old Fran. He’ll be wrecked.

  I call him back to let him know I’m in New York, sick, and in the middle of a scheme that is so beyond any of my other schemes, he would be proud. I tell him we need to talk about something, today if possible. He demands I leave the hotel and come stay at his so he can make me an essential oil cleanse and some sopa de fideo.

  That sounds great, but this scheme is a lot, Fran, I say. I could get in real trouble. You sure you want me at your place?

  Baby, what’s changed, he says. We’ve always been against the law.

  Okay, I’ll head over in a few hours.

  So why didn’t B make the trip up with you? Are they busy with work? he says.

  I’ve been dreading this moment.

  No it’s not work, I say. Hey I have to go, but we’ll talk when I see you later!

  Okay, love you baby, he says. Can you pick up some chicken thighs on the way?

  Yeah, love you, I say.

  I hang up the phone and call Theo. I miss how they’re easy to be around and also completely stubborn and also up for anything. They’ve been staying at Tina’s cleaning and doing handy things. I let them know about being sick and delayed and hearing from Fran. They drained the pool, they tell me. My plants must love a hurricane because the everything in the yard is suddenly growing like crazy. The house is good. Almost no flooding, they report. I ask them about the dishwasher.

  Run it for me, will you, I say.

  Sure. Let me know when you get out of this one safe, they say. Full moon in Capricorn tomorrow.

  27

  When I open the door to Fran’s, he doesn’t rise from the couch, but rather beckons me to him. He has these small ways of making me feel like I live here and just haven’t been home in awhile. He wraps his arms around me and asks me about my plans in the city. He puts his hand to my forehead as if to feel for my temperature and then strokes my cheek. He asks me if I’m having a sad summer. I feel raw. I nearly collapse at his knowing.

  We cook up the chicken thighs and let the soup simmer, and Fran shows me his new Kiki Smith print. It’s an etching of what looks to be the bottom of a squid, and a little bit larger, just below, a spider with a flower on its thorax. It’s called Untitled (for David Wojnarowicz). Fran met Kiki and David in the late eighties and modeled for some X-rays they were working on. He and David had a summer fling, nothing too serious, but mostly, David’s influence changed Fran’s work forever. They were collaborators and friends. David and Fran shared a birthday, and one year held a joint rooftop celebration that they both documented on film the whole time. They left the party to drink gimlets and compare and cut their shots together. Fran left New York for Mr. Nguyen’s when David died. B used to say, David is Fran’s Fran.

  Fran asks if I’m planning to get to the museum while I’m here, which makes me wonder if his intuitive magic has bloomed to an intolerable power, or if there is such a thing as bleak coincidence. It’s so good to talk to Fran, I forget for a moment that he doesn’t already know about B, and that he will soon have to feel that rupture. We sit down at the table to eat, and I’m panicked. I’m straining against this thing I have to do, when Fran says:

  Okay Jules, what’s going on?

  Fran, I start. I put a burning spoonful of broth in my mouth and shut my eyes tight.

  What is it, says Fran.

  Fran, there was an accident. B hit their head, and the hospital, they weren’t able to stop the bleeding. B died a few weeks ago.

  No, no, what? Fran says quietly. How—how did—

  He looks at me, and I just nod.

  Then he shouts no, and hits the table with both hands so hard soup spills out of both our bowls. He stands up, knocking over his chair, and disappears into his bedroom.

  I give him a few minutes, and then push the door open to find him lying on his bed with his face in a pillow sobbing. I hold him, and I cry too, and finally: to mourn with someone else who knew and loved B is such a gift.

  When B was working at the Ameican Museum, Fran got a pass and visited all the time. He would show up and take them out for lunch, or pick them up at the end of the day because there was some kind of protest or party or Fran had something to tell them that couldn’t wait. He knew the museum and eventually the history better than many of the docents, and would interject when he overheard an error in the tour.

  He was devoted to B’s work, and he let them use his studio to experiment with chemicals and materials to produce the airbrushed marble dust that would become their signature in diorama foreground restoration. In that way he is present in the dioramas B worked on at the museum, and in everything they made. And whenever they would feel themself losing direction, as Mr. Nguyen taught them, they would pay tribute to Fran.

  Fran was paying tribute to Mr. Nguyen and David Wojnarowicz, who was paying tribute to Arthur Rimbaud, and Peter Hujar, who he called “the wind in the air.” Hujar was paying tribute to Diane Arbus, who was paying tribute to outsiders and queers and radical artists, who were willing to be photographed, so B would know generations later they were alive in their discomfort and resilience. B paid tribute to all these artists, and B made things that led them to me, and then B let me know I was alive in my discomfort and resilience, which is how I made it this far.

  28

  I tell Fran everything. I tell him about B’s family, what happened at the hospital. I tell him about Alvin’s weird way of trying to include me after the funeral, and I show him what’s left of B in the army backpack. He says
he’s sorry and holds me some more. It’s sad but not surprising.

  Right, I say, which is another thing to be sad about.

  In death, Fran says, we are the most valuable because we can’t disprove their narratives. So B is a saint, and you, well. If they can make us invisible while we’re still alive, queer death proliferates. It recolors the world.

  So this is only—what’s a third of two-thirds?

  I don’t know, says Fran. I don’t do math.

  This is only that much of B.

  Wow, fuck. Fran places his hand over his heart and stares at the bag. Where’s the rest?

  That’s my scheme, I say. That’s why I’m here, to bury B.

  Oh, says Fran. Where?

  I’ve been breaking into museums, Fran, I say.

  Oh my god, he says. His lips curl into a dark little smile. Oh no, not the American Museum.

  Yes. Tomorrow.

  You’ll never get in there. You’ll never get out!

  I have to, I say. I’ll find a way. I open my other bag, and start to unfurl my museum maps. So the wolf diorama is being restored again because of the new lighting. They’re using B’s technique for the moon shadow on the snow: I read about it. The glass is down right now, and the whole area should be cordoned off.

  Well, you’ve certainly done your homework, Fran says. He seems genuinely impressed.

  What I don’t know, I say, is the guard schedules, and I don’t know what the alarm system is like, but that’s easy enough to figure out when I go in.

  Wait, Fran says. He runs both hands through his hair. Wait! He is running in little circles around the table. Wait wait wait wait!

  What?

  What if you don’t have to break in.

  Oh yeah, I’ve already figured that out. I’ve been going during open hours and then finding places to hide, so I only really have to break out.