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UNTIMELY FIGS
"And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth,
even as a fig tree cast her untimely figs,
when she is shaken of a mighty wind."
Revelations 6:13 - King James Bible
Trinity Place, NYC - 1976
Revisited - 2012
Climbing several flights of stairs, I had stopped outside his door in the hallway. The door was boarded with slanting flats of wood. One was open and I entered the loft unaware that Joe was there when I came in. Tripping over boxes filled with rumpled costumes, broken lamps, iron chair legs, a bridge table and old records, through an oblique opening I saw Joe laying on a red sofa asleep.
I became aware of the entire structure of the room. I could feel the influence of the strongest beam in the center wall - its rusty skin wanting to bleed into concrete. Screens breaking the space of the vast floor through were turning orange in the setting sun.
As night fell, the east windows viewed the silhouette of Trinity Church steeple's shadow drawn over the ancient graveyard. Shackles of ghostly chains became my evening's reverie as I watched spirits dance a minuet to secret music in the moonlight. The north window viewed the Twin Towers looming dark as lights began dressing down its floors.
Lying on Joe's waterbed, the large tan curtains shaded the first rays of light. On Joe's dresser were a mirror, brush, some dusty papers and a small photograph in a glass case. The picture was of several children - six or seven - wearing red jackets, each with yellow hair. One was holding a puppy. I thought of Joe's happy childhood set against this bleak morning with no specific plans for the day.
"I want to paint my walls blue", he said. Living with an Icarian image of himself, the kitchen's red color reminded him of his anger. He moved a painting off the wall - a self-portrait of his face - strong, angular, with high cheekbones and flighty green eyes.
After a shower, he lay on the bed, his feet going over the edge. Drinking tequila from a bottle on the floor, I caressed his face, his red hair caught in the folds of the pillow. Wearing a pink silk shirt with black stars, he let me kiss him - my tongue diving deeper into his sweeter painting on canvas with red hearts on green leaves.
When he touched me, his fingers felt like volts. "Who do you want?" I wanted Joe, I always wanted Joe.
Joe became my single feature fantasy man and then the lion's roar.
That afternoon, staring at a map of constellations, I sat on a chair in his studio as Joe drafted models of old ships. He had cut branches off a tree and set them near his work. My conversation bored him. I was careful not to mention his new romance with a ballerina. He teased me about picking up sailors in the street.
Wearing a white Dr. Jekyll inventor's jacket, Joe went to his metal file cabinet and showed me his toys; wooden acrobats on a string, lead eagles, belt buckles, magnifying glasses, prisms and plastic dinosaurs. He pulled out a piece he had started on people falling. He showed me a two-page spread with candid shots of suicides and accidents foretelling the Twin Towers casting their untimely bodies down a facade on steel and glass in aging photographs of suicides and accidents.
I had known Joe for a year and a half. We first met at a downtown bar where Joe ate everyday. Sitting across from him at a table, when we started to talk, I was shocked. Joe spoke as though he had known me for years. We became friends then formed a group with other artists. When the group became successful, we celebrated. But with new found power, the members started bickering. Growing like gluttons, the people became misers and thieves. As ruffians and rapists, local murderers and sadists, they let the rich take from the poor and the rain became heavy. Lightening bolted and cockroaches swarmed like locust. Rats ran out of toilet bowls and rivers turned to sewage. Echoes of fire trucks roared down the Westside Highway to Ground Zero that had smoldered for months. Volunteers sifted through the rumble of a ruin that had become a shell for disillusioned scavengers.
The clock on the bar wall read 10:10. Pinball machines rattled and customers ate sour meatballs. The bartender poured me a gin and tonic. Joe held the burnt out city in his lap for me to study. In it I saw two people looking for a true landscape for their lives. Joe and I creating holographic structures to wander in, memories suspended in revelations of the future.
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