A/N: Sorry I've been MIA. This week has been rough (serious roommate troubles—think I'm gonna need to move—plus work's being crazy busy). Again I'm playing fast and loose with the timeline. Everything in here is true but the Ai Weiwei work I mention he actually did a few years later than the time of the story. Also sorry if I included too much art and politics…I'm trying to get Justin situated. He's also evolving but not like Brian (emotionally – his evolution is as an artist).
A lot was happening at the same time. A confluence of disparate forces …
Brian and Justin were climbing a building … despite their altitude, Justin couldn't see the stars, just what often passes for stars in New York … city lights. Fields and fields of them. Orange, yellow, and blue. Warm colors move forward, cold colors recede, Justin remembered his first art teacher telling him (in Art 101), but he couldn't remember why. Something about wavelength maybe.
Someone had brought an old-school boom box to Barclay's Center, one of the tall silver ones with a single handle at the top spanning the length of it. Icona Pop's I Love It was playing. More than a hundred people had gathered in the wide open space in front of Barclay's Center. There they were, climbing on top of each other's shoulders. Eagerly. Passersby had started to stop (to watch) and now gaped incredulously. Despite the fact that New York was a city where flash mobs and protests weren't unusual and dancers and singers often took over subway cars, this was something the likes of which they'd never before seen. Oddly, most weren't really looking at the pyramid in the making but at their smartphones, which they held at arm's length in front of them, recording the event for posterity (well, Facebook and twitter anyway). Cynthia was down there among them, doing the same.
The whole scene, infused Justin with … something … some intense energy. His body shuddered and tingled. Justin knew he shouldn't, but halfway up, he looked down. Brian chastised him, "Hey … eyes up. The last thing I need is for you to get vertigo." But Brian's voice wasn't sharp and barky. It was soft but urgent … worried. Justin smiled brightly at the thought, but he kept his eyes looking straight ahead or up (when Brian was looking anyway). The air was clearer here. Fresher. And the stars seemed to shine more brightly, perhaps because Justin was moving away from the ambient light of the street below. Justin wasn't sure what it was he was feeling, but this moment, this experience, seemed important somehow. Like the beginning of something. What ... Justin didn't know. He thought back to what the guest speaker had said about his portfolio: "I see perfect lighting, the 'perfect subject', and perfect technique. Where's the immediacy? The urgency? Is this a hobby or the reason you exist? In a world without God, where language itself has failed ... We have no values or traditions or hope. Love doesn't make the world go round. Blood and money do. Every day, governments, corporations, and the ignorant oppress others. Where's the struggle? I don't see that here. I see nothing raw. Nothing that will appeal to people on an instinctive, primal level. We live in the jungle. In a fucking warzone. What do we have in a world like this? What protection? What purpose?"
Maybe this was it. Justin had literally ascended (or was in the middle of ascending). Literally changing his vantage point, his perspective. Maybe this one experience would be the key to finding his 'personal vision.' He remembered Sao Paulo's pixadores. And Ai Weiwei. For them, art was a moment, a sliver of inspiration acted upon and moved beyond. Part of the artistic experience and resultant expression was the freedom of 'doing.' Subverting. Resisting. Sending a message, much more directly, to city dwellers. To the world.
Justin had just finished the ascent to the middle ring (forming the 'tea cup' of the building) and set his feet on brick when he had an epiphany. It began with a memory of lecture about Ai Weiwei, where Justin's professor described "Remembering." This mixed media project was a response to an earthquake the Sichuan province suffered and a criticism of the Chinese government for the shoddy construction of Sichuan's schools, which caused the deaths of thousands of children. The government refused to release the names of the children who died, so Weiwei issued a call to action (Against Forgetting) for citizen journalists. He and others collected names and backpacks. The names Weiwei posted on a Web site (and he asked spectators to record themselves reading the names – one each). He then played these recordings on the Web site. The 9000 backpacks he and others collected he used to create a 10x100m installation in Munich spelling out in Chinese characters "for seven years she lived happily on this earth," a statement one grieving mother made about the daughter she had lost in the earthquake.
This memory Justin quickly connected to something a black classmate had mentioned (New York City's long-running Stop and Frisk policy—that year alone, the police had initiated more than 100,000 such encounters – predominantly black and Latino men and 90% of which led to no fine or arrest). One night, the classmate was walking in the Bronx from a subway station to his aunt's apartment. He was wearing a hoody (hood up) and jeans and carrying his book bag. He had his hands in his pockets and his head down because rain had started to fall and he didn't have an umbrella. Then out of the blue, no warning at all, a police officer grabbed him and threw him up against a nearby wall. Justin's classmate had no idea where the cop had even come from. The cop held him against the wall, one arm against his throat, while rooting through his pockets and feeling up and down his legs with the other. The cop found nothing illegal and let him go, but the classmate's neck and throat were sore for a week after that, and he had a huge bruise on his back from hitting the wall. Justin's classmate had mentioned wanting to do something Ai Weiwei-like with this topic. Something communal and subversive. At the time (a few weeks ago), Justin was angry, very angry (he hadn't exactly 'felt the love' from the cops after the bashing two years before – Chris had gotten off with community service). But … Justin was already deep into his Brian-thrall then, so he hadn't spoken to the boy about participating. Now, he thought he should (speak to him). Especially now that he had ideas of his own to bring to the table.
Justin glanced over at Brian then. He was unhooking his harness, standing in profile against the blue-black sky, wind whipping through his hair. His skin was flushed a slight melon-pink from the chill in the air, and his clothes were skin tight (and of course black – which was a particularly flattering color for Brian – with his bronze skin and chestnut hair). Justin smiled softly and flushed – despite their earlier 'tryst' in the copse of trees (Brian always turned him on). Justin felt like he could have an infinite number of orgasms a day if Brian were around. Maybe not infinite. But many more than was generally possible (without exhaustion).
Brian turned to help Justin (when he was done with his own harness). Justin had just stood there a little dumbstruck – gazing at Brian, watching Brian unhook and unbuckle. Then when Brian turned to him, Brian's proximity, the way he smelled, and the way his hands moved over Justin's body (quickly, but steadily … a little roughly) just made Justin's 'situation' worse. But when Brian asked, "You ready?" Justin fell back to Earth.
As Justin spray painted a picture of the Flash's upper body in bright red and yellow on the upper ring of the building's 'tea cup' and the word 'THE FREEDOM TO BE YOU' in big block letters just below it in black (rimmed with white), Justin realized that 'this' (his evolving personal vision as an artist) was not something he could discuss with Brian. Even though Brian was not the most law-abiding citizen (this stunt case in point), he was only breaking this particular law for money and advancement. He wasn't 'speaking truth to power' or challenging the status quo. He wasn't championing the oppressed. He was making already rich people richer. Even if Brian agreed in principle, he would worry about the risk Justin's ideas might have for Justin's academic career (and, by extension, on Brian's professional career). Chances were, Brian would have some conflict. The mayor and the NYPD had many friends, many of which in the world of business and finance. Even if Brian wanted to support Justin, NO WAY he could. Better for Brian to keep him in the dark.
Brian was happy (no thrilled) with the result of their guerilla campaign. He actually grinned, laughed, squeezed Justin's shoulder, and THEN kissed Justin gently on the lips (a very slow sensual kiss) and in that order. His only comment was "Wow!" BUT that, of course, was WAY better than the usual "not bad" Justin had to contend with. Consequently, (due to Brian's VERY positive reaction and his own epiphany) Justin's entire body was thrumming. He'd never felt so alive or filled with purpose.
Right before they began their descent, Justin asked nonchalantly, "Hey, Brian. Any chance I could keep the harnesses? I'm about to start work on a HUGE canvas, and these would be perfect."
Brian, suspecting nothing, shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
All the way back to Manhattan, Brian stared at his phone, flipping through the pictures he'd taken. His eyes were narrowed and out of focus. That could only mean one thing: wheels turning. Brian was well on his way to getting the vodka campaign. Particularly if he had a strategy for the presentation. This would doubtless be the most imaginative campaign anyone spun the Flash guy. He'd be an idiot to pass. This was perfect for his target demographic.
Brian was so in his head that alarm bells didn't sound (as far as Justin could tell) when Justin took Brian's hand in his and threaded their fingers together, holding Brian's hand for 12 whole stops without an iota of resistance from Brian.
(What Justin did not know was that Brian wasn't THAT in his head. He just pretended not to notice and quickly pulled away when he heard their stop announced. He had to keep up appearances after all.)