Emotions have weight and force and mass. They are made of quantum-size, blood-dappled molecules existing in multidimensions. There are those who feel this weight more than others, and it shows on their faces. Some balance it out. Others get dragged down and become bitter and small people. Some become more generous in spirit. Some even go slowly mad. Gravity Disease is the death of cells exhausted by sadness and disappointment over a lifetime. The doctors have discovered genetic causes for so many diseases. No matter what they find they’ll be stymied — they’ll never cure them all, and new ones will arise. The raw pain of life is the true cause of Gravity Disease, and there is no cure for that except bodydeath. Those who suffer from chronic disease of the mind or the body or the heart carry tremendous emotional gravity. My disease began to weigh when my first son was stillborn and I blamed myself for his death. The heavier your gravity, the greater your wound. If the gravity becomes too great, your life force is crushed too soon.
It happened to Nathaniel. I miss him so.
When we met for the second time, in 1970, I was pregnant with Alchemy. I’d been hibernating in Orient. After what happened with the first baby, I’d suspended all drugs, drinking, screwing. I didn’t want anyone’s dick inside me, getting in the way of me bonding with my child.
Hilda was lighthearted for the first time since Dad got sick. For her, life was returning to the house. Xtine came out off and on, and Hilda was mostly cool with that, except when we played “Guess who’s the father?” although I had a good idea who it was. We read aloud from our favorite books. I played music for Alchemy, everything from Lizst to Stockhausen, Holiday to Hendrix.
I visited Xtine in the city for a few days to nourish the unborn Alchemy with art. I was drifting through the old, old Modern when I got a little tired. I headed to a room where I could relax on a bench and began dreaming in the Water Lilies.
“Sniffing Monet?” I looked to my left, and there stood Nathaniel. He hadn’t changed at all. I mean literally. It looked like he hadn’t changed his clothes in four years. Still slightly motley, with short hair, a reddish-brown goatee, and gold-rimmed glasses. Scraggly jeans, beat-up khaki jacket, and a satchel slung over his shoulder. Just no camouflage cap.
“Inhaling the colors and letting him or her feel art.” My eyes veered toward my mildly expanded belly and his gaze followed.
“Just as Urso predicted.”
It took me a minute to remember Urso’s insult about the “soupçon du jour,” suburbia, and babies. Instead of teasing him about his need for a wardrobe consultant, I stuck out my tongue and tasted the air around Nathaniel. “Alchemy — that will be my child’s name, boy or girl. Next to me is a man who has one of the purest soulsmells, but he just spit out a comment that is unworthy of him because it is not genuine. In typical male fashion, he does not understand that raising a child is an art at which most people fail.”
He laughed and put up his hands. “Okay, I stand reprimanded. I saw you in the Matisse Swimming Pool and you were humming ‘row, row your boat, gently down the stream …’ not noticing a soul.”
“Communing with my child. Levitating out of my body, exactly the way Matisse wanted us to do. It felt glorious. So, how are you?” I’d kept tabs on his career the best I could. I’d seen him on TV when that porcine-faced Mayor Daley had his cops arrest him at the ’68 Democratic convention in Chicago. I’d also read a few newspaper and magazine articles by or about him.
“It’s going better than Time magazine would have you believe, but not so well if you’re an American grunt or Vietnamese peasant getting a napalm skin tan.” Nathaniel had been on the front lines of the Movement for seven or eight years by then, but he still managed a well-balanced mix of rage and optimism.
“I meant you personally.”
“The life of a full-time revolutionary is a big gig.”
“Unless you want me to go back to my dreamworld, you have to talk to me.”
“What do you want to know? I spoke at over a hundred colleges the last two years. Not as much fun as a rock star. Sure as shit doesn’t pay like an arms contractor for the Pentagon. Still, I dig it. I guess I’m part of the new class of rev celebs. Warhol’s a bloodsucker, but I’m afraid he’s right about fame and its currency. I’d give up whatever minor recognition I have in a second if the war ended. That’s my life.”
He shrugged and moved his satchel from his left shoulder to the right. “I saw your Do Not Disturb exhibition. Damn good. I wanted to send you a note or something. You working on a new show?”
“Not seriously. Mucking about.” I followed what came naturally in these situations, to say exactly what I was thinking. “Can you take some time off from bringing down the American Empire and spend a few days with me in Orient?”
Without answering, he stood up and then bent down to tie the shoelace on his combat boot. With his head tucked into his chest, he said in a muffled voice, “I’m sorry. Please don’t say another word.” He stood back up, about-faced, and scurried away.
Fuck, that startled me. And hurt. My reflexive action would be to follow him and give him hell. Just because he had all these political ideals didn’t mean he could act like a dickhead. I tried to lose myself again in the painting. I couldn’t concentrate. I canceled my plans and took the bus back to Orient.
Two days later, as I was painting the porch a vibrant gold, a taxi pulled up. Out bounded Nathaniel with a bouquet of sunflowers and a copy of Catch-22.
“Hey, so sorry, but a Clouseau showed up.” That’s what he called the Feds. “I didn’t want him to catch me talking to you. It took me two days to lose them.”
Nathaniel later discovered he’d made Nixon’s Enemies List. He got hold of his FBI and COINTELPRO files during the brief time when the Freedom of Information Act was being enforced. I found out later they still didn’t divulge everything.
We spent the first three enchanted days together — without having sex. He was totally understanding after I explained why I was so scared of losing the baby.
Also, I didn’t want to rile Hilda. We’d been getting along. Nathaniel behaved with the cordiality of a 1940s gentleman caller despite his appearance, which resembled a Mad magazine version of an anarchist. He gave her the flowers and asked her to show him to the extra bedroom. Later, he treated us to dinner at the Yacht Club. His natural sweetness won her over. Me, too.
The day before he left, we went for a bike ride out to the fields by the Sound and I took him to my and Kyle’s beach. Because the brush was so high, over six or seven feet, and thick, almost no one bothered to trudge through to the clearing. (The developers tract-housed my mini-Eden years ago.) Nathaniel chilled as if I’d slipped him a quaalude. He lay on his back. I took off his eyeglasses and put them by his side. He closed his eyes and, for the first time, remained still with none of his bouncing or body shrieks. Although we’d had some good talks, he hadn’t revealed the deeper Nathaniel, the pure soulsmell that made him, and I yearned to hear it.
“Nathaniel, why do you do what you do? No Vietnam horror stories or superanalytical lecture on protest movements in America allowed!”