Title: Pretentious Assholes

Justin is thinking about the homes of the people he's loved.
Ethan's apartment. Ragtag. Cluttered. Unorganized. Brian's loft. Shining. Exquisite. Coordinated. Ethan's place was worth almost nothing, totaled. His furniture came from the street, he had no bed but a mattress. There was a sense of barely-held-togetherness about Ethan's, a struggling, orbiting cosmos of brown wood and wine glasses, everything in the house seemed to clutch at everything else, begging to be part of a whole. Justin could see Ethan's struggle, laid bare against the wood. He wore it on the outside. He wore it like a badge, and in a way it was one, and in a way Justin had wanted the same distinction. He never got the chance before to have it. Starving Artists, Inc.
Ethan's apartment, though messy, cluttered, was not dirty. Things were strewn about; there was a purposeful randomness to his belongings, his trinkets and keepsakes floated around baseless, but there was no dust, no dirt, no mold or stink or sickness. It was all clean. The apartment smelled like wood. Brian's loft was worth more than Justin could fathom. Brian's loft was tidy, so very coordinated, but you couldn't walk in and not feel dirty. You could feel the sex in your skin. Until you got used to it, it made you squirm. It created the same appealing uncertainty that a dark alley did; the possibility of unseen danger. This is, perhaps, why Justin was drawn to Ethan. Ethan allowed himself to be seen. He played on street corners, where plenty of people admired him, but surely just as many pitied him, with his threadbare jeans and scarf, his pink nose and ears, his floppy, uncut hair and his magic marker, cardboard sign: Starving Student Artist. He pridelessly requested the things other people were throwing away. Ethan wasn't ashamed to need. In fact, Ethan felt that it was to be expected. According to Ethan, everyone needed. Which made it easier for Justin to believe that Ethan needed him. Ethan's open, provocative need was a big part of what kept Justin there.
But Justin understands now. After a while of living with Ethan, looking around at the wood, feeling himself clutch like the wineglasses and the Canadian coins and the Vonnegut books, Justin understands. Brian's struggle was just as obvious as Ethan's, if you weren't blinded by the shine of it. It was a different kind of struggle, so desperately hidden that it was naked in stark light. Brian was trying so hard. So hard, in fact, that he made it look like he wasn't trying at all. Everything about him was seamless, perfect, awesomely so. Because Brian wasn't allowed to try, to struggle; not with people watching, anyway.
Even while Justin was still with Ethan, he knew that Brian needed him, too. Maybe even more. But then, that wasn't the point, either.
It took Justin a very long time to realize what the point was. When he finally did, he was in New York City and Ethan Gold felt like ancient history. Another lifetime, one of little boys and playing house. Justin was thankful for Ethan-- he had taught him how to leave someone without having anywhere else to go. Up until the night of the Girl Scout baring roses, Justin wasn't sure he'd have the balls. He was glad to discover that he did.
And boy, had he put the skill to use since then. Leaving seemed to be Justin Taylor's trademark.
And what better place than New York to discover the meaning of need. In New York, need and want became indistinguishable from each other, and everyone had it. It was in the air, in the rain. It was on TV and in the galleries. People scrambling around, needing all over the place; it was sloppy, gluttonous and messy and intimidating and terribly beautiful. There was nothing so moving in the world.
Justin liked to stand back and watch it. It's good inspiration, good old American need. It gets things done. He watched it build buildings and light fires, splash paint across walls, give people orgasms. It wasn't art, this stuff. It was what art was made to explain, but it was more base than art. More scary and crude. It was the mortar that people like him could use to make their living.
And he did. He did bad temp work and made good friends too, but he painted and people paid. He had an agent and a gallery, and he felt like he could do this forever. Not because he loved it, but because it worked. It felt right. There was something spectacular about friendships in New York, something epic and blood-pumping, even if they weren't as intimate and comfortable as the ones in Pittsburg. He drank beer in a closed gallery at four in the morning with five other boys, all pretty, all candle-lit with eyes like striking flints, lean and hungry and laughing madly with the eyes of their art staring down at them in the shaky light, feeling so close to something important. He held a fake s‚ance on the roof of his building with three girls from the temp agency, only to get chased off by the pigeons and the super. He hung out at Union Square, sharing a joint and watching the hipster boys skate and play hackysack; fell in love with one of them at least once a week. He took subways during the day and walked at night, sometimes a cab if he was too drunk to find his way home. The streets were purple and yellow, like a movie set. He even cruised in Central Park, just to say that he had. And he thought he was living the right way, until his agent asked to have lunch.
"The stuff is good," his said. "Really good. But... passive"
"Passive"
"Do you know what I mean"
"Like, not engaging enough"
"Sort of, sort of. It... just kind of shows things"
"Isn't that what art is supposed to do?" Justin felt himself getting defensive, and he wished they were in his apartment instead of this Indian resturaunt. "Show people something they wouldn't otherwise notice"
"Right, yes, that's part of it"
His agent looked like an agent; he was slick and slightly balding, attractive in a shiny, silly way, with his perfectly trimmed, thick goatee and fitted leather jacket. Justin was already building up self-righteousness in his head; you're a talent scout, who the hell are you to be telling me what art is supposed to be? "But it also needs to do something. It needs to want something. You know what I mean? It needs to want something for itself, or people won't care about it. It can't just be a picture, because if it is these pretentious assholes just won't look twice, you know? I mean they've all seen a pretty picture, and they're not all willing to work for what you're trying to say. Sometimes you've really got to scream at them"
Justin was a little surprised. He had been prepared to brush off whatever criticism was coming, but this struck somewhere in him like a funny bone.
"My paintings want something." He said stupidly, but the moment he said it he knew wasn't true. His agent gave him a long blank look.
"Okay. Well, maybe you need to make it a little less subtle. Maybe you need to just emphasis that." He said. "Fine." Justin agreed, but inside he was terrified. He had no idea how to do that.
He went home that night and stood in front of the work his agent was currently shopping around. There were three paintings: one of a naked woman running across 7th street, one of two boys sitting with their backs against a couch that's been turned up on its side, and one with two city skylines, painted vertically up the sides of the canvas, looking like their squaring off to fight. Neither was Pittsburgh, and neither was New York, Justin reminded himself.
His agent was right. There was no wanting. Even the two boys against the couch look bland and content, holding hands, smiling slyly. So Justin is forced to examine the nature of want, of need. Which makes him think of Ethan's apartment, which makes him think of Brian's apartment, which makes him think of what the fuck he is doing in New York City.
That's when he realizes that his paintings don't have any need because he decided long ago that need was for other people. Need was something Ethan had for him, something Brian had for him, eventually too. That was what moved him back and forth, from place to place, what pulled him. Being needed. It had been so important to him to be needed. New York had needed him, Lindsey said. They were waiting, she said. And near the end, he had gotten the impression that maybe Brian didn't need him anymore. Brian was telling him to go. Justin is up all night. He pulls out photo albums and rereads chapters of books, he looks at old sketches and letters, he plays CDs and throws their jackets and cases all over the floor. Everything that makes him stir he puts into one pile, and then he lays that pile out item by item on the ground, and then he paints Brian. Brian, looking to the east; Brian, half-naked and lying in blue; Brian, with eyes like striking flints, so close to something important. And then he buys a plane ticket. Because who the fuck cares if Brian was willing to need him or not. It turned out, that wasn't the goddamn point.
fin