Corbin Fuller tried. He really did. He wanted to scout out the high school and the middle school. It would dangerous for a gay man to loiter around schools, though, even though times were changing and hoary, antiquated attitudes were generally being replaced by enlightened acceptance. Still, to be quite obviously eyeing the young students as they left school was something he wasn’t eager to have to explain, even though his motives were pure. And, to be truthful, he just didn’t have the nerve to linger. But it really didn’t matter; he couldn’t scout out the schools in any case because they wouldn’t be back in session for weeks yet.
This presented him with a problem. Should he, or shouldn’t he? In the end, he figured he should. This was one of the finest pieces he’d ever done, in his own humble opinion, and he was a humble man. But, he’d been inspired—inspired by the magnificent sunrise, inspired by the contrast of the dark and gloomy mill with the sparkling dawn light dancing on the still millpond waters, inspired by the vast, ever-changing palette of colors in the firmament.
Inspired by two young boys finding themselves deeply in love and expressing it, perhaps for the first time.
At least that’s what he thought he was seeing. It wasn’t as erotic as it was simply beautiful. And it was more. The setting complemented the scene: the ominous mill set against the boys love created an impression of the dangers the boys were inviting into their lives. They were accepting risk by loving as they were, and the dark mill represented that risk. At the same time, the sunrise behind the mill represented the future, coming fast, and reflecting a shining hope on the pair.
It was a remarkable painting. And Corbin Fuller was already recognized as a leading artist of our time. This was going to be accepted as a masterpiece.
If he had the courage to hang it. That was the indecision he was facing. The problem was, he had used two underage and not only unknown but unaware models. And he had a conscience.
He had painted a series of three pictures form what he’d seen that morning: two small and one large, principal one. The first in the series was a smal one showing the mill with the sun just breaking from the horizon, a play of darkness and color. The second in the series was much larger, larger than the other two combined. It was of the mill at dawn, the mill itself set in the foreground of the painting—dark, ominous, even portentous, the pond reflecting it and distorting it into something menacing, something evil; the two naked boys lying in each others arms on a blanket on a grassy slope were to the side and not the focus of the picture. The third in the series was the same size as the first, showing two naked boys together in each other’s arms, the water from the pond glistening on their skin, the mill a mere outline in the background, its foreboding presence muted.
It wasn’t really a triptych; the pictures weren’t joined. But they were obviously a series of pictures, as the sun was in different positions in the sky, having climbed higher as the scenes progressed, but the scenes themselves were very closely the same. He was undecided how to display them. When painting them, his thought had been to hang them together, but on reflection, he realized what he had produced in the largest of the three. Hanging them together would reduce the impact of the principal one.
When he looked at the three, he found it almost impossible not to glance only briefly at the smaller ones. His eyes were always pulled back to the largest painting. He thought that just one of the things that made it so spectacular was that one’s eyes didn’t notice the two boys right off, but once drawn to them, the viewer found it difficult to focus on anything else. By so doing, once the entire painting had been mentally assimilated, it would dawn on the viewer, much as dawn was rising behind the mill, that by switching his attention from the dark the mill to the luminous boys, he was rejecting evil and accepting love in its place.
Corbin had never painted anything else that was so alive, so immediate, so compelling. His problem was that he didn’t know who the boys were. He wanted to find out if it would cause them any problem if he hung the paintings in his gallery. He doubted it would; the boys’ faces were never shown distinctly. But, if someone knew two boys had gone to the mill in the early hours of the morning… someone who didn’t know they were gay… Of course, he didn’t know they were gay, either. They were at the age where boys experimented. Surely everyone knew that and wouldn’t be shocked or aghast or troubled? But this didn’t look like experimentation, and he hadn’t painted it that way. He’d painted love, because that’s what he’d seen.
In the end, he was too proud of the works to let them sit unseen in his back room. So, he hung them. Not conspicuously, not in the gallery’s front window, but on a wall in a recess where only someone going through the entire display of his art would see them.
He had no idea when he did it what would ensue.
««« »»»
“I hung the pictures,” Corbin said, sitting down to dinner. His partner, Bruce, was waiting for him. Bruce worked for KQNI, an independent local TV station. He was a jack of many trades, as tended to happen in underfunded radio and TV broadcasting. One of his functions was to scan news releases from all over and write synopses for on-air talent to read during news broadcasts. Corbin did the cooking for the two, having more control over his time; Bruce tended to work long hours and be called in any time, day and night, when major stories broke.
Corbin had created a turkey tetrazzini. Bruce complained that his partner made too much rich food, and butter-rich cream-sauce dishes like this were a perfect example. Corbin smiled when Bruce complained but said nothing when Bruce was lavish in his second helpings.
“I thought you were going to wait till you’d idnetified the participants and gotten an OK from their parents.” Bruce took a swig of ice tea, then glanced up at Corbin when there wasn’t an immediate answer.
Corbin was fidgeting, a sure sign he was bothered. “I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing. But I’m sure no one can identify the kids from what I painted. And who’s to say the picture wasn’t entirely from my imagination? Bruce, it’s simply too good not to be exhibited.”
Bruce could hear the indecision in Corbin’s voice and moved the topic away from the subject of the picture. “Did you hang all three together or just the one?” He knew Corbin had been internally fussing about this.
“I only hung two, and those aren’t next to each other. The smaller one, just the mill, is on a different wall from the larger one, suggesting that the small one may have been a study or experimental piece and that the large one grew out of the initial try.”
Bruce nodded. “Makes sense. You always know how to present your oils in the best way. What about the third?”
“That’s the one just of the boys. I really want to see if I can learn who they are and talk to them before displaying it.”
Bruce nodded, and continued to try raising Corbin’s spirits. Corbin’s moods were varied and always obvious. Bruce knew he felt things strongly; perhaps, he thought, those emotions were what made his paintings special. Now, he could see that Corbin was troubled by more than the two recent paintings being hung.
“What is it, hun?” he asked.
Corbin showed him a wry smile. “You can always tell, can’t you?” Bruce smiled but allowed Corbin to talk. “Those boys. I just keep thinking about them. And about myself. At their age, I wasn’t open enough to do what they did, even though they did it in what they thought was privacy. But I wasn’t open enough even with myself to do that. Those kids looked like they were 13 or 14. At that age, I had no one, no support at all. It wasn’t till I was in college that I could admit to myself I was gay, and then it was because I’d become desperate to express myself.”
“I know,” said Bruce, very softly. “I was there.”
Corbin smiled and put his hand on Bruce’s. “And it’s been wonderful. But those boys... I don’t know if they couldn’t wait or if they were simply braver than I was. Whatever, I know there are still boys out there that are like I was, incapable of admitting who they are and feeling desperately alone and unique and unsupported.”
He suddenly raised his eyes to Bruce. “I want to do something about it.”
“What? What do you want to do?”
“I want to make it possible for gay boys to have what I didn’t: the ability to talk to someone, to feel safe, to express themselves in the way many feel they can’t now.”
Bruce was thinking and slowly shaking his head. “That’s wonderful, Cor, thinking like that. But kids do have that today. Schools have GLBT clubs. School counselors are available to them. Churches still have a ways to go, but some of them have youth groups where gay kids are openly invited. Some of them.”
Corbin listened but was sitting up straighter now, and seemed to be coming out of his dour mood. “During school, yeah. I don’t think they do here, but many places, yeah. There is more support now. But what about in the summer? Right now? If a kid doesn’t go to church, and a lot of them don’t, what does he do in the summer? Say you’re fourteen, your hormones are screaming at you, your friends are dating girls and working off some of their sexual steam. Where are you? In your room, and that’s only somewhat satisfying and usually very lonely. And being in your room doesn’t resolve all the social issues you’re dealing with. No, we need a place for kids like I was… like you were.”
Bruce smiled. “You’re into this now, aren’t you? Just because of those kids in the painting.”
“I’m going to look at doing something. I really am.”
Bruce got up and began clearing the table. He knew Corbin well enough to know this wasn’t a passing fantasy. Corbin was wealthy. His paintings brought high prices, and he had accumulated a small fortune from them; in addition, he’d inherited money from a father who hadn’t approved of what he called Corbin’s ‘lifestyle’; he hadn’t approved, but he had loved Corbin, had taken to Bruce and had never broken off relations with his son. When he’d died, he’d left all his considerable wealth to Corbin. If Corbin wanted to do something like what he’d been talking about, he had the wherewithal to do so.
««« »»»
Corbin wasn’t one to dawdle. The next day he was driving around town, looking at vacant buildings and, with his creative mind, thinking about what sort of establishment would be best. It had to be accessible, which meant it shouldn’t be out in the sticks, but not in an industrial area, either. Being near a bus line would be good. Perhaps near the high school. How big should it be? How many rooms? Should he have staff? Lots of decisions needed to be made, but he didn’t want to wait several years to make his concept work. When he got an idea, he wanted to see it come to life. And this was one that he thought the town needed.
He phoned the high-school principal and talked to her. It surprised him how easily she came aboard. He got the name of a counselor from her and talked to him. He was very enthusiastic and had ideas. And knew people.
Corbin was surprised and pleased that things moved forward quicker than he’d thought possible.