Fic: The Five Stages of Creating Art
Ha! Okay, a little late but I finally got around to this...
Author: Stephanie (Gildedmuse)
Title: The Five Stages of Creating Art
Characters: Mark/Roger (Side, Roger/April, Mark/Maureen.)
Word Count: 4,720
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Mark goes through the five stages of creating.
Author's Note: Finaly, a Christmas gift for Shadow_Mage who is one of the sweetest girls in the world, I swear. Hope you like it.
The Five Stages of Creating Art
The first time Roger meets Mark is during stage one: The Rebellion.
This is not as scary as it sounds. Not unless you're Mark's mother, and then it's a terrifying thing that would turn hair gray early and have you stocking up on extra wrinkle cream just to cover up the mess your son is making of your face. As for the rest of the world, The Rebellion went entirely unnoticed. Not for lack of trying.
For his part, Mark wants people to notice and not because he is an attention whore or anything of the sort. No, that is not who he is at all. Mark would much rather sit in the back directing the leeches that live of the limelight than actually get burned beneath it himself. It is never about the attention, it is about the change. A young, sheltered kid from the suburbs could easily get these ideas into his head that the rest of the world is nothing but an extension of the cookie cutter houses and kids and streets that he grew up in, all baked at 350 degrees and turned half way through then left out to cool and simmer and harder so that they can't be changed unless broken crumbled up. That is what Mark sees in Scarsdale, and going to college in Providence hardly helps to erase that image.
That's all this sheltered, suburban, baked and turned kid gets to see, so it feels like he's the first one in the world who wants change. It feels like he is the first person in all of history to wake up one morning to the same nine am math class that every kid has to take in the same dorm room the looks like every other dorm room down his hall, in the building that is just like all the other buildings, and thinking, "Fuck this."
Mark isn't looking for attention. He just wants people to notice the change. The way he isn't going to class anymore. The way he's quit his job and taken his camera and moved to New York City where people can appreciate Meaning and Change and Art. So he drops out of school and he tells his dad to go fuck himself and he takes a bus to Providence and into the City and from there, well, he'll figure it out.
This is The Rebellion. And the reason no one notices is because Mark is about the millionth kid to do this in the last year. Stepping off that bus and watching the City buzz by him, not caring about yet another poor artist that got dumped on its doorstep, that moment still feels amazing. Maybe because he doesn't realize how much shit he's in.
It doesn't matter. Mark has ideas. Things he thinks can change the world, just like every other kid who has stood exactly where he is standing when he gets off that bus. Mark has a mission, and it's that mission that really is about to give his mom a heart attack. He wants to crumble and reform himself into something that no longer resembles that kid from Scarsdale, and he knows how he is going to do it.
The first step is to get shit-faced.
Thanks to Benny, his resourceful roommate who has lived his whole life in the City and could do without, he has a fake ID and a map of the clubs that have local garage bands playing all the time. So he can go get drunk on beers his dad has never tried and he can stay up all night in coffee shops with blood shot eyes, talking to some guys he just meant about psychological effects of growing up in the seventies, and he can listen to bands shouting about things that would make his grandmother roll over in her grave. And, this is the best part to this whole Rebellion, he can have sex with anyone he wants, because he isn't going to get married to some nice Jewish girl and settle down and have nice Jewish kids. Fuck that.
This is when Roger meets him. When Mark is at one of these clubs, determined to be anything but the person that Scarsdale has tried to mold him into. Roger finds him when Mark lands in his lap. Or would have if he weren't so drunk that he stumbles down to the ground right after he hits Roger's legs. And Roger looks down at this kid, and he is just a kid, with glasses askew and hair dirty from a week of having nowhere to stay and says, "Fuck off."
It isn't the best start to a friendship.
Pushing his glasses up his nose, Mark grabs onto Roger's knee as he pulls himself up to his feet. This takes a few tries. "Sorry," he mutters, and he shouldn't be apologizing, because this is something his parents had taught him, but it's been ingrained in there so long he can't shake it.
Roger has seen this kid a million times. Roger was this kid two stages ago. So he rolls his eyes and puts a hand around his waist and gets him standing. "Go back to Maine or Ohio or Fuck All, Dakota, okay?" Roger suggests as he gets Mark standing up. That is the best thing he can think of telling the kid.
Mark looks back at him, glaring. Trying to, but he's too drunk to get his face to work like that. "'M not from Fuck All, Dakoda," he slurs, barely getting the words out. "From Fuck'll, Scarsdale."
"Right," Roger says, letting go of Mark. He starts to, at least, and when Mark starts tumbling back he grabs him again, grunting as the kid hits his chest. He's heavier than he looks, quite possibly from all the alcohol in him. "Go back."
"No," Mark says, and he puts out a defiant lip as he pouts at Roger. He won't go back there. Fuck them, right? That is what this is about. Not going back there, not being who they want him to be. The first stage of art is to shake off everything you know, and Mark makes a good attempt at that.
Roger rolls his eyes and lets go of Mark, who collapses against the table with a sudden yelp. Before Roger can distance himself from this drunken kid, Mark is turning around and reaching out for him. "Wait." With a sigh, Roger actually stops, looking back to this small little college-aged disaster that can't hold himself up and keeps sliding down, even with the table to hold onto. "Wait... I wan'ned to tell you something. About.. I liked you."
Roger has been hanging out in bars since he was seven. He is used to having drunk people tell them they love him. He just sighs and turns to leave again, but Mark's whining gets his attention. "Your band!" Mark yells, trying to get his point across, struggling with the words and keeping himself up at the same time. "You guys, uh, rock."
This is possibly the worst compliment Roger has ever heard, probably due to the fact that Mark can hardly form the words, much less sound like an excited rock fan. "And it was good," he adds, nodding hard and making himself dizzy from it. "Good to hear something good."
Roger rubs his forehead, which stops him from banging it against a wall. "Oh, fuck," he mutters, and Mark gives him a confused look that makes him look like a sick kid. "Come on," Roger says, obviously annoyed as he wraps an arm around Mark, hauling him up.
"Where?" Mark asks, but he doesn't fight off Roger as he drags him out of the bar. He really couldn't. He doesn't have the balance to fight off anything.
"I'm taking you to my place," Roger explains, hating himself because he can't just leave the kid back at the bar where he found him. No, he has to take him home. "Because I'm a fucking idiot."
*
Once Mark has settled into the loft and gotten used to the moody rocker and kick-ass philosopher, he hits stage two: The Search.
It is the kick-ass philosopher, whose name is Tom Collins ("Yes, like the beer," he says before Mark can laugh), who tells him all about stage two. When he says it, Mark is high and it sounds ingenious, like a secret that everyone should know but no one does. He says, "When you're creating, you need a source, and part of the journey of art is searching out that initial idea. Marx found it in the economy, Lacan found it in language, Freud found it in cocaine."
That is where Collin's speech ends because Roger laughs, smoke pouring from his mouth and he says, "Really?" They all lose their place in the talk about that.
That is all Mark needs to hear, though, because after that he knows what he needs to do. He needs to find his muse, his initial point, someone or something or some idea that is going to guide him. Mark is desperate to prove his dad wrong, because filmmaking isn't about having a steady career. It's about art and creation, and Mark is going to show that is worth more than paid benefits.
Roger is at stage three, and so he tells Mark that he would rather have the benefits sometimes, but Mark just insists that what they're doing is worth it. Not having showered in two weeks, eating ramen for the last month, it's all going to be worth it when he finds his muse.
"How do you know you'll find her here?" Roger asks one day when Mark will not shut up about it. Mark is still just a kid. He's still fresh from Scarsdale, really, and this journey that he is on is still exciting and fresh. Roger has had too many muses, like Sarah and Amber and Jenny, to find Mark's excitement catching.
"How did you know April was the right one?" Mark asks back, and Roger just turns back down to his guitar, strumming away and not answering. Mark doesn't ask why. Like he doesn't ask about the marks on Roger's arm. There is really so much that he doesn't ask about. He doesn't have time, with The Search and all.
He misses a year of living in New York. He's still there in the apartment with everyone else, but only barely. Mark is concentrating on this mysterious muse that he is going to find, every part of him dedicated to this, like simply finding it will make his film write itself. He misses that year, and Roger growing thinner and April's hair falling in clumps in the drain, and the money that Collins brings home from tutoring disappearing without a trace except for lines on his supposedly best friend's arms.
But it's all worth it, Mark thinks, because one day there she is.
Well, not just randomly. Mark is out at some show with Roger and April. At least that's the theory behind it, but it's more like Roger drags his best friend along and then drops him off at the bar while he and April disappear into some alley way together and maybe Mark will see them again, but more than likely he won't. Not until they sober up enough to get back to the loft, collapsing on the couch or their bed or, more than a few times, Mark's bed since that's what's closest to the door.
It's all part of being an artist, Mark tells himself so that he can ignore the junkies on the side of the street. They're not artists, and Roger won't end up like them. He is good at pushing thoughts away. Mark can concentrate his whole being onto one thing and in this case, it's The Search. And today just happens to be the day that she sits down next to him.
She is stunning and vibrant and tossing her hair and when Mark looks over at her, he very nearly chokes. She smiles at him, and Mark's heart actually flips in his chest, or at least it aches like it does and he can't even speak to her. Just stare until finally she comes over to him and asks, "Are you going to keep drooling or buy me a drink?"
"Umm..." Mark stumbles and stutters and very nearly drops his camera, but he doesn't manage to impress her. Then again, she doesn't walk away either. Just smiles and sits down next to him, like his inability to speak to her is somehow a wonderful quality. "Uh... Sure. ... Yeah, oh. Oh shit," he mutters, trying to make the blood rush back to upward to his brain so he can think. "Oh, I'm broke..."
That is it, Mark thinks, he had found her, and now he is going to lose her. First, he can't buy her a drink. Second, his tongue feels too heavy to even come up with a proper sentence. Way to impress.
The girl doesn't walk away though. Just leans down and pokes at the machine clutched tight in Mark's hand. "Is that your camera?"
"What...?" Camera, follow the conversation, damnit! Mark picks it up, staring at the old beat-up thing like he'd never seen it before, and maybe that is how a muse should make you feel, like everything is new and unknown. He takes that as a good sign. "Yes... Oh, yeah. I'm... I direct and shoot films."
"Oh," she says, flashing him a smile, flipping her hair a bit. "I'm a performer."
Perfect.
That is how the first two months with Maureen go. Perfect. Maybe it's because Mark thinks his Search is over, and she is the muse that he needs to create and now he'll finally get his film off the ground. Maybe it is just the mind-blowing sex.
Looking back, it was the sex. Of course, Mark didn't know that. He just thought Maureen with her laugh and smile and hair and lips and hands and leg and - yeah, those legs - and voice and love of the limelight and energy. It's all perfect to him. But then, the first months of any relationship should be.
It's the first time Mark can remember that he's really happy. Okay, yeah, he's still living in poverty, but he has this girl and his best friend and his camera. He's honestly happy, and all he has to do is block out the cheating and drug use, waving it all off because it isn't part of what his art is going to be.
*
Mark hits stage three harder than he should. It's where Roger and April have been stuck for so long, and Mark should have seen it coming but he's too busy blocking it out until, well, having a dead girl in your bathroom is hard to ignore.
It's called writer's block. It's called real life catching up. It's called undeniable cheating, best friend sick, roommates abandoning each other, and still no money in all of this. It's called stage three: The Crash.
It isn't that Mark can't create, it's that there is no time. Not with Roger being sick and on the edge. Someone has to hold him up while he's shaking and can't get himself to the bathroom. Someone has to throw out the needles. And Maureen needs his attention, but then Roger will break down again and Mark has to be there because Benny has walked out on them and Collins has gone off to college. So Maureen doesn't get attention and Roger doesn't get better and Mark doesn't get any of his film done.
It's the worst moment of Mark's life, and not just because his best friend is dying. It's those nights when he's sitting up with Roger that he really realizes how hard he's Crashed. Roger is covered in sweat, vomit dribbling down his chin as he clings to Mark, shaking hard enough that Mark can hardly keep himself up. And all he can really do is stroke Roger's hair, half bleached and all matted and dirty from being unable to drag himself out of bed.
"It's going to be okay," Mark mutters, brushing hair from Roger's forehead as it sticks to his skin. Again and again, day after day it's the same thing, trying to keep Roger sane. This is what makes The Crash so hard, that while he's trying to keep his best friend from going to far over the edge, all Mark can think about is how he could be doing so much more.
"April," Roger whines, voice harsh and broken as his nails scrap against Mark's arms, and he can't even hit the guy away. Just tighten his hold, because if he lets him go he'll go right back to his dealer. And all the time Mark is thinking he should be wrapping up his film. He should be going to festivals. Getting money, his own apartment, moving into a place with Maureen who loves him and would never leave him.
That is all he can think about as Roger tries to claw his way out of Mark's arms. He doesn't think about how hard this must be for Roger, losing his girlfriend, being sick, coming down from heroin. It's enough to kill someone, really, and instead of thinking of how strong Roger is trying to be, or wondering what is getting him through this, Mark is being selfish. He's consuming his time with imagining his next film, and how he's going to piece it all together. What he can take from this and pour into a movie that can change lives.
"Mark?" He's so caught up in not being here, that Mark doesn't hear Roger calling for him at first. Usually all Roger can managing is screaming, shouting out for April, and on his good days he can scream and beg for a hit. "Mark," Roger whines again, this time tugging at Mark's sleeve, and this time Mark snaps out of it.
He looks down at Roger and then to the clock. He's been here for almost two hours, doing this on automatic like none of it mattered. Just another ritual to get through the day, and Mark has to shake that away when Roger actually looks up at him.
Sallow and beaten down and sick. This isn't Roger, really. He wipes the stomach acid from his chin, sitting up. "Fuck... I'm hungry, man..." Mark sighs, nodding. They don't have any food, or any money to get food and he knows what this is about, but the thing is, Mark is Crashing and he can't seem to stop.
"Yeah, okay," he mutters and stands up, grabbing his shoes. His mind goes back to the life that he should be living instead of the one he is stuck in. He has this need to create, and he can't shake that off even when his life is caught up in this mess. So he's really doing neither: helping or filming. He's just kind of dragging himself through it.
What he should do is stay with Roger, because he knows that when he's gone Roger is going to shot up again even after all this hard work. He isn't hungry so much as he needs to get high, and sending Mark for food is just a way to get him out of the loft. If Mark weas really being the good friend with pure intentions, he would stick around and make sure that Roger doesn't go back to the drugs.
Mark's caught in his Crash, though, so he walks out of the loft with thoughts of film festivals and art and leaves Roger to do whatever he wants. That's the worst part of it.
*
Somehow, both boys manage to get on track for stage four together. The Renewal.
It starts December the twenty fourth at nine PM. At least that is what Mark starts his film with, and so that is what all his friends believe when he previews it for them the first time. And because they can only see what the projector is showing, they believe that the film is about his life and the people that pass through. And it works like that, it's beautiful like that, but that isn't what it's about and that isn't where it starts.
It starts December 23, around noon. Hard to say exactly. Mark hadn't been looking for the time. He'd just been lying on the couch, scripts sprawled around them as he went through them, editing and changing and tearing up whole pages. There had been this awkward limbo when Mark could create, but nothing seems to stick and he had been trying desperately to fix that by reviewing all his old work.
Only after what he'd been through with Roger, it all seemed young and naïve and, well, stupid.
Eventually Mark feels like shouting, but instead he lets the scripts fall down to the floor and he lies back on the couch, taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself down.
He doesn't wake up again until he feels rough fingers on his cheek.
It's a light touch, almost like a feather against his skin only just a little too rough, so it almost scratches. At first it's hardly anything, and Mark is just going to knock it away, roll over, and continue napping but then, he doesn't. No real reason, he just doesn't.
Anyway, he knows those fingers. He knows those calluses. He's been holding that hand for a year now, and why wouldn't he know them perfectly?
So Mark just stays still, keeping his breathing even and not opening his eyes. He doesn't know what Roger is doing, but he lets it happen. And maybe it's just because he's half asleep that it doesn't seem strange that Roger is stroking his cheek, or that his fingers are brushing over Mark's lips, rough pads barely pressing down but Mark can feel him touching, tracing Mark's lips with the edges of his fingers.
Maybe it's a sort of dream, Mark thinks. It feels like he's between the lines of consciousness and dreaming, and the touches are light enough that they could be his imagination. If it's a dream it's all in his head, then, so he can control it and change it however he wants. In which case, he really wants a hot dog.
Roger's fingers slide down his throat, and Mark doesn't have his hot dog. Okay then, not a dream.
With his eyes closed, everything else becomes clearer. Like the touch as it slides across his collarbone or the ruffle of his papers as Roger stands up. Mark could open his eyes at any moment and maybe stop this, if he wants to stop this, whatever it is, but he doesn't and Roger's hands continue to slide over him, going no further than his shirt.
Warm lips press to his, and yes those are definitely lips. They're Roger's, too, and Mark would know. Two boys living in an apartment together, drunk or high most of the time, and of course Mark would know. Only this time he's sober, and Roger has been clean for a while, but they're still kissing. Or Roger is kissing him and Mark is letting him.
It's slow, or feels like it should be because it's so gentle, lips to lips and hardly anything more. It feels like it should be slow, drag on, leave him breathless but really, Roger is pulling back quickly. Before it's even half over, and his hands are gone too. "Shit," Mark hears him whisper, hears the paper of his scripts being kicked around as Roger backs up. "Fucking hell... Shit."
Mark waits until he hears Roger's door shut before he opens his eyes. Sitting up, he looks down at the mess of papers around him. This is when it really starts, because this is when Mark realizes that he doesn't need those scripts. He's already got his art, and he just has to put it onto film.
That is what everyone else sees.
*
Creation is the shortest stage.
Once you figure out what you're going to make, everything else is easy. After you throw out common perception to find your own, discover what it is inspires you, after that first crash when everything you make is destroyed, and that renewal that might happen a thousand times over. It's easy to get stuck in that cycle forever, until you really fight your way out. Then, finally, you have Creation. A short burst of work after all of that hell you've been through to get there, and your art is ready.
And just like that, it’s over.
"It's unfair..." Roger is grainy, and that is Mark's fault. He should take care of his film better, but it's hard with everything else going on around them. With Roger coming back and Mimi being sick and her funeral. With Roger’s new depression. With everything else, Mark shouldn’t feel guilty about how his film is a little scratchy, but he is. He should take better care of these things. Still, what's important is that he can see Roger, even if slightly broken but lumps of static, and he's beautiful and beaming down at the camera.
"It is," Mark agrees, and he isn't up on screen. Not yet. First the focus has to bounce around some and then steady before Mark is walking pass the lenses and plopping down on the couch next to Roger.
Roger laughs and wraps his arms around Mark, kissing his cheek, and Mark makes a face but doesn't pull back. They seem to be happy over nothing as they lean into each other, caught up in smiling at one another instead of at the camera.
"You'll be okay," Roger promises, arms around Mark's shoulder, fingers pulling at his hair and Mark laughs, fixing his glasses that had gotten bumped around in the slight tussle. He moves closer, and the camera stays steady for a short kiss before Roger pulls back. "I know you, and you'll be okay."
The thirty second clip winds down and cuts off, and the light from the projector switches itself off as the film snaps back around the reel. Mark sighs, pushing himself off the floor and grabbing the reel, reloading it to play again. He's watched this clip for ten minutes, twice a minute, twenty times. It never changes, but he keeps watching.
He really doesn't want it to change.
"Mark..." Mark winces as the light from his doorway floods in. Maureen stands there in her black dress that has becomes over used, letting the light from the main room blind Mark. "Mark, sweetie, Roger's mom is here. She-"
"His stuff is in his room," Mark says, and he puts up the reel of film and he stretches it over the projector, ready to start it up again. Just waiting for Maureen to give him some privacy. Only she is Maureen, so she doesn't. She just sighs, stepping into the room, kicking some of Mark's things out of the way as she walks over to him.
"Don't you want to say hi?" Mark shakes his head. He doesn't want to say hi. He doesn't want Roger's room to change at all, but his mom probably has a right to her son's things, and he can't really say no. "Do you want something to eat?"
It would be better if Maureen left him to his film, because she is waiting for Mark to say something that he can't. He stares down at the film, the quick thirty second clip that he can't stop playing. He probably has a day worth of film with Roger on it, and this is the only thing he wants to see.
Before Maureen can turn and go, Mark looks up at her. It's been a while, but she still loves him, and she still knows what that look means. "Oh, honey..." He doesn't have to say anything for Maureen to step forward, wrapping her arms around him, and it helps him, oddly enough, to feel her tears against his shoulder. "I know, it's unfair..."
And just like that, it’s over.
Author: Stephanie (Gildedmuse)
Title: The Five Stages of Creating Art
Characters: Mark/Roger (Side, Roger/April, Mark/Maureen.)
Word Count: 4,720
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Mark goes through the five stages of creating.
Author's Note: Finaly, a Christmas gift for Shadow_Mage who is one of the sweetest girls in the world, I swear. Hope you like it.
The Five Stages of Creating Art
The first time Roger meets Mark is during stage one: The Rebellion.
This is not as scary as it sounds. Not unless you're Mark's mother, and then it's a terrifying thing that would turn hair gray early and have you stocking up on extra wrinkle cream just to cover up the mess your son is making of your face. As for the rest of the world, The Rebellion went entirely unnoticed. Not for lack of trying.
For his part, Mark wants people to notice and not because he is an attention whore or anything of the sort. No, that is not who he is at all. Mark would much rather sit in the back directing the leeches that live of the limelight than actually get burned beneath it himself. It is never about the attention, it is about the change. A young, sheltered kid from the suburbs could easily get these ideas into his head that the rest of the world is nothing but an extension of the cookie cutter houses and kids and streets that he grew up in, all baked at 350 degrees and turned half way through then left out to cool and simmer and harder so that they can't be changed unless broken crumbled up. That is what Mark sees in Scarsdale, and going to college in Providence hardly helps to erase that image.
That's all this sheltered, suburban, baked and turned kid gets to see, so it feels like he's the first one in the world who wants change. It feels like he is the first person in all of history to wake up one morning to the same nine am math class that every kid has to take in the same dorm room the looks like every other dorm room down his hall, in the building that is just like all the other buildings, and thinking, "Fuck this."
Mark isn't looking for attention. He just wants people to notice the change. The way he isn't going to class anymore. The way he's quit his job and taken his camera and moved to New York City where people can appreciate Meaning and Change and Art. So he drops out of school and he tells his dad to go fuck himself and he takes a bus to Providence and into the City and from there, well, he'll figure it out.
This is The Rebellion. And the reason no one notices is because Mark is about the millionth kid to do this in the last year. Stepping off that bus and watching the City buzz by him, not caring about yet another poor artist that got dumped on its doorstep, that moment still feels amazing. Maybe because he doesn't realize how much shit he's in.
It doesn't matter. Mark has ideas. Things he thinks can change the world, just like every other kid who has stood exactly where he is standing when he gets off that bus. Mark has a mission, and it's that mission that really is about to give his mom a heart attack. He wants to crumble and reform himself into something that no longer resembles that kid from Scarsdale, and he knows how he is going to do it.
The first step is to get shit-faced.
Thanks to Benny, his resourceful roommate who has lived his whole life in the City and could do without, he has a fake ID and a map of the clubs that have local garage bands playing all the time. So he can go get drunk on beers his dad has never tried and he can stay up all night in coffee shops with blood shot eyes, talking to some guys he just meant about psychological effects of growing up in the seventies, and he can listen to bands shouting about things that would make his grandmother roll over in her grave. And, this is the best part to this whole Rebellion, he can have sex with anyone he wants, because he isn't going to get married to some nice Jewish girl and settle down and have nice Jewish kids. Fuck that.
This is when Roger meets him. When Mark is at one of these clubs, determined to be anything but the person that Scarsdale has tried to mold him into. Roger finds him when Mark lands in his lap. Or would have if he weren't so drunk that he stumbles down to the ground right after he hits Roger's legs. And Roger looks down at this kid, and he is just a kid, with glasses askew and hair dirty from a week of having nowhere to stay and says, "Fuck off."
It isn't the best start to a friendship.
Pushing his glasses up his nose, Mark grabs onto Roger's knee as he pulls himself up to his feet. This takes a few tries. "Sorry," he mutters, and he shouldn't be apologizing, because this is something his parents had taught him, but it's been ingrained in there so long he can't shake it.
Roger has seen this kid a million times. Roger was this kid two stages ago. So he rolls his eyes and puts a hand around his waist and gets him standing. "Go back to Maine or Ohio or Fuck All, Dakota, okay?" Roger suggests as he gets Mark standing up. That is the best thing he can think of telling the kid.
Mark looks back at him, glaring. Trying to, but he's too drunk to get his face to work like that. "'M not from Fuck All, Dakoda," he slurs, barely getting the words out. "From Fuck'll, Scarsdale."
"Right," Roger says, letting go of Mark. He starts to, at least, and when Mark starts tumbling back he grabs him again, grunting as the kid hits his chest. He's heavier than he looks, quite possibly from all the alcohol in him. "Go back."
"No," Mark says, and he puts out a defiant lip as he pouts at Roger. He won't go back there. Fuck them, right? That is what this is about. Not going back there, not being who they want him to be. The first stage of art is to shake off everything you know, and Mark makes a good attempt at that.
Roger rolls his eyes and lets go of Mark, who collapses against the table with a sudden yelp. Before Roger can distance himself from this drunken kid, Mark is turning around and reaching out for him. "Wait." With a sigh, Roger actually stops, looking back to this small little college-aged disaster that can't hold himself up and keeps sliding down, even with the table to hold onto. "Wait... I wan'ned to tell you something. About.. I liked you."
Roger has been hanging out in bars since he was seven. He is used to having drunk people tell them they love him. He just sighs and turns to leave again, but Mark's whining gets his attention. "Your band!" Mark yells, trying to get his point across, struggling with the words and keeping himself up at the same time. "You guys, uh, rock."
This is possibly the worst compliment Roger has ever heard, probably due to the fact that Mark can hardly form the words, much less sound like an excited rock fan. "And it was good," he adds, nodding hard and making himself dizzy from it. "Good to hear something good."
Roger rubs his forehead, which stops him from banging it against a wall. "Oh, fuck," he mutters, and Mark gives him a confused look that makes him look like a sick kid. "Come on," Roger says, obviously annoyed as he wraps an arm around Mark, hauling him up.
"Where?" Mark asks, but he doesn't fight off Roger as he drags him out of the bar. He really couldn't. He doesn't have the balance to fight off anything.
"I'm taking you to my place," Roger explains, hating himself because he can't just leave the kid back at the bar where he found him. No, he has to take him home. "Because I'm a fucking idiot."
*
Once Mark has settled into the loft and gotten used to the moody rocker and kick-ass philosopher, he hits stage two: The Search.
It is the kick-ass philosopher, whose name is Tom Collins ("Yes, like the beer," he says before Mark can laugh), who tells him all about stage two. When he says it, Mark is high and it sounds ingenious, like a secret that everyone should know but no one does. He says, "When you're creating, you need a source, and part of the journey of art is searching out that initial idea. Marx found it in the economy, Lacan found it in language, Freud found it in cocaine."
That is where Collin's speech ends because Roger laughs, smoke pouring from his mouth and he says, "Really?" They all lose their place in the talk about that.
That is all Mark needs to hear, though, because after that he knows what he needs to do. He needs to find his muse, his initial point, someone or something or some idea that is going to guide him. Mark is desperate to prove his dad wrong, because filmmaking isn't about having a steady career. It's about art and creation, and Mark is going to show that is worth more than paid benefits.
Roger is at stage three, and so he tells Mark that he would rather have the benefits sometimes, but Mark just insists that what they're doing is worth it. Not having showered in two weeks, eating ramen for the last month, it's all going to be worth it when he finds his muse.
"How do you know you'll find her here?" Roger asks one day when Mark will not shut up about it. Mark is still just a kid. He's still fresh from Scarsdale, really, and this journey that he is on is still exciting and fresh. Roger has had too many muses, like Sarah and Amber and Jenny, to find Mark's excitement catching.
"How did you know April was the right one?" Mark asks back, and Roger just turns back down to his guitar, strumming away and not answering. Mark doesn't ask why. Like he doesn't ask about the marks on Roger's arm. There is really so much that he doesn't ask about. He doesn't have time, with The Search and all.
He misses a year of living in New York. He's still there in the apartment with everyone else, but only barely. Mark is concentrating on this mysterious muse that he is going to find, every part of him dedicated to this, like simply finding it will make his film write itself. He misses that year, and Roger growing thinner and April's hair falling in clumps in the drain, and the money that Collins brings home from tutoring disappearing without a trace except for lines on his supposedly best friend's arms.
But it's all worth it, Mark thinks, because one day there she is.
Well, not just randomly. Mark is out at some show with Roger and April. At least that's the theory behind it, but it's more like Roger drags his best friend along and then drops him off at the bar while he and April disappear into some alley way together and maybe Mark will see them again, but more than likely he won't. Not until they sober up enough to get back to the loft, collapsing on the couch or their bed or, more than a few times, Mark's bed since that's what's closest to the door.
It's all part of being an artist, Mark tells himself so that he can ignore the junkies on the side of the street. They're not artists, and Roger won't end up like them. He is good at pushing thoughts away. Mark can concentrate his whole being onto one thing and in this case, it's The Search. And today just happens to be the day that she sits down next to him.
She is stunning and vibrant and tossing her hair and when Mark looks over at her, he very nearly chokes. She smiles at him, and Mark's heart actually flips in his chest, or at least it aches like it does and he can't even speak to her. Just stare until finally she comes over to him and asks, "Are you going to keep drooling or buy me a drink?"
"Umm..." Mark stumbles and stutters and very nearly drops his camera, but he doesn't manage to impress her. Then again, she doesn't walk away either. Just smiles and sits down next to him, like his inability to speak to her is somehow a wonderful quality. "Uh... Sure. ... Yeah, oh. Oh shit," he mutters, trying to make the blood rush back to upward to his brain so he can think. "Oh, I'm broke..."
That is it, Mark thinks, he had found her, and now he is going to lose her. First, he can't buy her a drink. Second, his tongue feels too heavy to even come up with a proper sentence. Way to impress.
The girl doesn't walk away though. Just leans down and pokes at the machine clutched tight in Mark's hand. "Is that your camera?"
"What...?" Camera, follow the conversation, damnit! Mark picks it up, staring at the old beat-up thing like he'd never seen it before, and maybe that is how a muse should make you feel, like everything is new and unknown. He takes that as a good sign. "Yes... Oh, yeah. I'm... I direct and shoot films."
"Oh," she says, flashing him a smile, flipping her hair a bit. "I'm a performer."
Perfect.
That is how the first two months with Maureen go. Perfect. Maybe it's because Mark thinks his Search is over, and she is the muse that he needs to create and now he'll finally get his film off the ground. Maybe it is just the mind-blowing sex.
Looking back, it was the sex. Of course, Mark didn't know that. He just thought Maureen with her laugh and smile and hair and lips and hands and leg and - yeah, those legs - and voice and love of the limelight and energy. It's all perfect to him. But then, the first months of any relationship should be.
It's the first time Mark can remember that he's really happy. Okay, yeah, he's still living in poverty, but he has this girl and his best friend and his camera. He's honestly happy, and all he has to do is block out the cheating and drug use, waving it all off because it isn't part of what his art is going to be.
*
Mark hits stage three harder than he should. It's where Roger and April have been stuck for so long, and Mark should have seen it coming but he's too busy blocking it out until, well, having a dead girl in your bathroom is hard to ignore.
It's called writer's block. It's called real life catching up. It's called undeniable cheating, best friend sick, roommates abandoning each other, and still no money in all of this. It's called stage three: The Crash.
It isn't that Mark can't create, it's that there is no time. Not with Roger being sick and on the edge. Someone has to hold him up while he's shaking and can't get himself to the bathroom. Someone has to throw out the needles. And Maureen needs his attention, but then Roger will break down again and Mark has to be there because Benny has walked out on them and Collins has gone off to college. So Maureen doesn't get attention and Roger doesn't get better and Mark doesn't get any of his film done.
It's the worst moment of Mark's life, and not just because his best friend is dying. It's those nights when he's sitting up with Roger that he really realizes how hard he's Crashed. Roger is covered in sweat, vomit dribbling down his chin as he clings to Mark, shaking hard enough that Mark can hardly keep himself up. And all he can really do is stroke Roger's hair, half bleached and all matted and dirty from being unable to drag himself out of bed.
"It's going to be okay," Mark mutters, brushing hair from Roger's forehead as it sticks to his skin. Again and again, day after day it's the same thing, trying to keep Roger sane. This is what makes The Crash so hard, that while he's trying to keep his best friend from going to far over the edge, all Mark can think about is how he could be doing so much more.
"April," Roger whines, voice harsh and broken as his nails scrap against Mark's arms, and he can't even hit the guy away. Just tighten his hold, because if he lets him go he'll go right back to his dealer. And all the time Mark is thinking he should be wrapping up his film. He should be going to festivals. Getting money, his own apartment, moving into a place with Maureen who loves him and would never leave him.
That is all he can think about as Roger tries to claw his way out of Mark's arms. He doesn't think about how hard this must be for Roger, losing his girlfriend, being sick, coming down from heroin. It's enough to kill someone, really, and instead of thinking of how strong Roger is trying to be, or wondering what is getting him through this, Mark is being selfish. He's consuming his time with imagining his next film, and how he's going to piece it all together. What he can take from this and pour into a movie that can change lives.
"Mark?" He's so caught up in not being here, that Mark doesn't hear Roger calling for him at first. Usually all Roger can managing is screaming, shouting out for April, and on his good days he can scream and beg for a hit. "Mark," Roger whines again, this time tugging at Mark's sleeve, and this time Mark snaps out of it.
He looks down at Roger and then to the clock. He's been here for almost two hours, doing this on automatic like none of it mattered. Just another ritual to get through the day, and Mark has to shake that away when Roger actually looks up at him.
Sallow and beaten down and sick. This isn't Roger, really. He wipes the stomach acid from his chin, sitting up. "Fuck... I'm hungry, man..." Mark sighs, nodding. They don't have any food, or any money to get food and he knows what this is about, but the thing is, Mark is Crashing and he can't seem to stop.
"Yeah, okay," he mutters and stands up, grabbing his shoes. His mind goes back to the life that he should be living instead of the one he is stuck in. He has this need to create, and he can't shake that off even when his life is caught up in this mess. So he's really doing neither: helping or filming. He's just kind of dragging himself through it.
What he should do is stay with Roger, because he knows that when he's gone Roger is going to shot up again even after all this hard work. He isn't hungry so much as he needs to get high, and sending Mark for food is just a way to get him out of the loft. If Mark weas really being the good friend with pure intentions, he would stick around and make sure that Roger doesn't go back to the drugs.
Mark's caught in his Crash, though, so he walks out of the loft with thoughts of film festivals and art and leaves Roger to do whatever he wants. That's the worst part of it.
*
Somehow, both boys manage to get on track for stage four together. The Renewal.
It starts December the twenty fourth at nine PM. At least that is what Mark starts his film with, and so that is what all his friends believe when he previews it for them the first time. And because they can only see what the projector is showing, they believe that the film is about his life and the people that pass through. And it works like that, it's beautiful like that, but that isn't what it's about and that isn't where it starts.
It starts December 23, around noon. Hard to say exactly. Mark hadn't been looking for the time. He'd just been lying on the couch, scripts sprawled around them as he went through them, editing and changing and tearing up whole pages. There had been this awkward limbo when Mark could create, but nothing seems to stick and he had been trying desperately to fix that by reviewing all his old work.
Only after what he'd been through with Roger, it all seemed young and naïve and, well, stupid.
Eventually Mark feels like shouting, but instead he lets the scripts fall down to the floor and he lies back on the couch, taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself down.
He doesn't wake up again until he feels rough fingers on his cheek.
It's a light touch, almost like a feather against his skin only just a little too rough, so it almost scratches. At first it's hardly anything, and Mark is just going to knock it away, roll over, and continue napping but then, he doesn't. No real reason, he just doesn't.
Anyway, he knows those fingers. He knows those calluses. He's been holding that hand for a year now, and why wouldn't he know them perfectly?
So Mark just stays still, keeping his breathing even and not opening his eyes. He doesn't know what Roger is doing, but he lets it happen. And maybe it's just because he's half asleep that it doesn't seem strange that Roger is stroking his cheek, or that his fingers are brushing over Mark's lips, rough pads barely pressing down but Mark can feel him touching, tracing Mark's lips with the edges of his fingers.
Maybe it's a sort of dream, Mark thinks. It feels like he's between the lines of consciousness and dreaming, and the touches are light enough that they could be his imagination. If it's a dream it's all in his head, then, so he can control it and change it however he wants. In which case, he really wants a hot dog.
Roger's fingers slide down his throat, and Mark doesn't have his hot dog. Okay then, not a dream.
With his eyes closed, everything else becomes clearer. Like the touch as it slides across his collarbone or the ruffle of his papers as Roger stands up. Mark could open his eyes at any moment and maybe stop this, if he wants to stop this, whatever it is, but he doesn't and Roger's hands continue to slide over him, going no further than his shirt.
Warm lips press to his, and yes those are definitely lips. They're Roger's, too, and Mark would know. Two boys living in an apartment together, drunk or high most of the time, and of course Mark would know. Only this time he's sober, and Roger has been clean for a while, but they're still kissing. Or Roger is kissing him and Mark is letting him.
It's slow, or feels like it should be because it's so gentle, lips to lips and hardly anything more. It feels like it should be slow, drag on, leave him breathless but really, Roger is pulling back quickly. Before it's even half over, and his hands are gone too. "Shit," Mark hears him whisper, hears the paper of his scripts being kicked around as Roger backs up. "Fucking hell... Shit."
Mark waits until he hears Roger's door shut before he opens his eyes. Sitting up, he looks down at the mess of papers around him. This is when it really starts, because this is when Mark realizes that he doesn't need those scripts. He's already got his art, and he just has to put it onto film.
That is what everyone else sees.
*
Creation is the shortest stage.
Once you figure out what you're going to make, everything else is easy. After you throw out common perception to find your own, discover what it is inspires you, after that first crash when everything you make is destroyed, and that renewal that might happen a thousand times over. It's easy to get stuck in that cycle forever, until you really fight your way out. Then, finally, you have Creation. A short burst of work after all of that hell you've been through to get there, and your art is ready.
And just like that, it’s over.
"It's unfair..." Roger is grainy, and that is Mark's fault. He should take care of his film better, but it's hard with everything else going on around them. With Roger coming back and Mimi being sick and her funeral. With Roger’s new depression. With everything else, Mark shouldn’t feel guilty about how his film is a little scratchy, but he is. He should take better care of these things. Still, what's important is that he can see Roger, even if slightly broken but lumps of static, and he's beautiful and beaming down at the camera.
"It is," Mark agrees, and he isn't up on screen. Not yet. First the focus has to bounce around some and then steady before Mark is walking pass the lenses and plopping down on the couch next to Roger.
Roger laughs and wraps his arms around Mark, kissing his cheek, and Mark makes a face but doesn't pull back. They seem to be happy over nothing as they lean into each other, caught up in smiling at one another instead of at the camera.
"You'll be okay," Roger promises, arms around Mark's shoulder, fingers pulling at his hair and Mark laughs, fixing his glasses that had gotten bumped around in the slight tussle. He moves closer, and the camera stays steady for a short kiss before Roger pulls back. "I know you, and you'll be okay."
The thirty second clip winds down and cuts off, and the light from the projector switches itself off as the film snaps back around the reel. Mark sighs, pushing himself off the floor and grabbing the reel, reloading it to play again. He's watched this clip for ten minutes, twice a minute, twenty times. It never changes, but he keeps watching.
He really doesn't want it to change.
"Mark..." Mark winces as the light from his doorway floods in. Maureen stands there in her black dress that has becomes over used, letting the light from the main room blind Mark. "Mark, sweetie, Roger's mom is here. She-"
"His stuff is in his room," Mark says, and he puts up the reel of film and he stretches it over the projector, ready to start it up again. Just waiting for Maureen to give him some privacy. Only she is Maureen, so she doesn't. She just sighs, stepping into the room, kicking some of Mark's things out of the way as she walks over to him.
"Don't you want to say hi?" Mark shakes his head. He doesn't want to say hi. He doesn't want Roger's room to change at all, but his mom probably has a right to her son's things, and he can't really say no. "Do you want something to eat?"
It would be better if Maureen left him to his film, because she is waiting for Mark to say something that he can't. He stares down at the film, the quick thirty second clip that he can't stop playing. He probably has a day worth of film with Roger on it, and this is the only thing he wants to see.
Before Maureen can turn and go, Mark looks up at her. It's been a while, but she still loves him, and she still knows what that look means. "Oh, honey..." He doesn't have to say anything for Maureen to step forward, wrapping her arms around him, and it helps him, oddly enough, to feel her tears against his shoulder. "I know, it's unfair..."
And just like that, it’s over.