Big Dump

El Greco

Part 7 (sorry to bother you with my off-the-point graphomania :-)

Stanley and his paintbrushes settled in my room, a shabby makeshift bed settled on the opposite side of mine, his bony bare feet shuffling against the cold hardwood floor to and fro in the early mornings and late nights. He said he wanted me to play music for him while he was working, and that since he could work at any time I was too be ever available.

I found out we went to the same university and that he recognized me when I was at the club, one of the reasons he came there.

“I wasn’t surprised that you ended up there,” he said one night, staring at the ceiling in his bed, “And that I found you there. You are sort of magnetized and draw in certain kind of people. I’m that kind, I think.”

So I played for him and he painted – sometimes he asked me to bring down the guitar – “Stop moaning, I’ve seen you play at school”, and we fed off each other, working in silence and boiling in our own juices, him and I, with minimum interference from ever-subtle Colin who only went through the preliminary sketches with his brow furrowed and a pencil between his fingers.

“I like this,” Colin said after a couple of weeks, when we were in the kitchen, having tea, “I tried to make this book less political, y’know,” he smiled discretely, “It was an escape from all of this. And you gave it a dimension, our own visual.”

Toby came and went, busy in his own world, but Colin forgave him and there was no sign of tension between the two. I could hear their hushed voices when Tobias came to visit, long silences and Colin’s warm laugh, and I thought – it was okay.

The work went well. After playing my old compositions to Stanley and noticing absolutely no emotional reaction from him (apart from his brush moving quickly and his lips pursued together), I tried to compose something new. At times when I’ve been with the music for hours, surrounded by his sketches, I would close my eyes and just carry on, improvising. For once in a long time my head started to wake up and I dreamt of melodies and sounds; something was opening inside of me and the emotion was spilling in the outside world. I picked up my guitar again and I bought a small drum set and in a month, after visiting one of our sessions, Colin brought me a laptop, smiling charmingly.

“I’m quite Victorian,” he said, biting his lip, “And there was an unwritten policy in this place…but never mind that. Your music seems to fit in. And this seems like the next step.”

After much nerves and fiddling I could record and mix, however the quality was horrible; a small closet-like room was discovered, and Colin announced a “construction day”, buying soundproof wall paneling and carpet, along with microphones, amps and speakers.

“’t was a publishing house once,” he shrugged, “Now we are expanding, a proper conglomerate.”

He invited Ed over for floor and wall work and I tracked down my friend to help me with the set-up. Stanley watched us skeptically, his own painting put on hold, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Now he’s going to stay holed up in here forever,” he grumbled, “And I would never get live performances again.”

“Cheer up, Stanley, I thought you were quite independent,” Ed smiled at him, leaning against the wall, “And give young artists a chance.”

“I might break this beautiful moment, but I’m doing all of this out of complete selfishness,” Colin noted, “This is a business investment, as far as I see, and I expect Mr. Yorke’s full participation in my projects. His own undertakings should be put on the background.”

“So much for altruism, Sire Greenwood,” Ed flashed Colin a smile.

“Altruism is quite material. I gave him a place to live, a job and the ability of artistic expression. I shall now collect his loyalties, as a reward.”

“So you bought him?”

“Precisely. And you, and Stanley, and -”

“Your brother?”

“No,” Colin shrugged light-heartedly, “My brother’s music has a life of its own, if I could say so.”

“Ah, those feudal families,” Ed threw his head back slightly, “You’ve got an older brother to take over the village and younger one to stay pure and rosy. But you know what happens later, correct? The younger brother always goes after the temptation,” he winked at Colin’s smiling eyes, “And drags the older brother with him.”

Colin squinted his eyes slightly, smiling toothily and looking at Ed for a second, whose expression grew into an innocent and inviting smile.

“What’s going on here then?” Tobias showed up and Ed dropped Colin’s gaze, turning back to his work with an indifferent face.

“Couple more days, perhaps,” Colin answered, settling comfortably in Toby’s embrace, “And we will finish.”

***

After a couple of months of basking in the bliss of being able to record freely, our project had started to take shape. We added keyboard to my little studio and I was able to record a few demos; and one night, when Stanley fell asleep on the second floor and the blue darkness grew quiet, I took a drink of water and tried to hum a simple harmony in the buzz of the microphone.

I was rubbish, of course, it’s been a while since I trained my vocal cords, but the tingle that went through me made it clear that I has to sing. I practiced at night and for the first time in many years my music obtained voice and words, started to take shape and the stretched material of sound started tangling around itself, compacting into structured compositions – and, later, songs. Rough sketchy, emotionally raw and reminiscent of child stumbling in the huge forest.

But there was Stanley, of course, and in a week or so I found myself standing behind him, watching him work, and putting on the CD with my first songs. I watched him freeze for a second when he heard my voice, high and vulnerable, but after a moment of vacuum he continued his work, and from behind his shoulder I noticed almost-transparent lines going through his new paintings, almost like glass cutting through realities – as thin and fragile as the harmonies I hummed into my microphone.

Colin said he wanted something big for the deployment of our project.

“It’s not just a book,” he explained excitedly, waving his skinny wrists, “Thomas, this is so much more than a book now. This is – art, this is – music, this is – literature, all coming together as a part of the whole. This is a whole new polemic. Thomas, I want people to see it.”

Stanley did not stop painting – he actually stayed up for days and nights, and his illustrations were not limited by just the book, he was now painting on big formats, stacking them once he was finished and starting something else, not talking – just listening to the demos I gave him and only opening his mouth to ask me to play for him again. He would come to my studio at night, quiet as a ghost, and sit on the floor barely breathing, listening to me sing and play.

Colin approved the illustrations immediately. Together with his publishing stuff he ventured into formatting and, finally, printing. When the first copy was made - after the night if printing and reprinting, adjusting and correcting, with the workers asleep on their working tables, he ran upstairs into our room and woke us up, choking with laughter and emotion.

“I want this,” he said, tapping his finger on the cover, “I want every child, every adult to see this.”

He rented the first floor of a warehouse and our team, with Ed and my friend coming in, with even Tobias spreading the word, worked on turning it into a makeshift art-gallery where Stanley’s painting were displayed and Colin’s new book was available to anyone, along with other volumes. We announced the day of the book’s release as the first day of our art display, and I was to play live at the grand opening, the anticipation playing every nerve in my body.

We did not expect a full house, but Colin’s work was famous in the certain circles and the crowd was starved to see something like this – unprofessional and uncorrupted. We did not expect to receive positive reviews and be noticed by a few underground newspapers with low circulations. We did not expect people to inquire about the music that played as the background.

What we did not expect at all, however, was the tall young man walking in unnoticed and standing silently in the crowd, looking at each painting, flipping the pages of the book with long fingers and following the music, finally stopping among other spectators that were my first significant audience.