For Now

FOR NOW
by Michael Kroetch

The man is immaculate. Everything, every single thing about him. He has a look that tells you in a snap he’s not from here. Which is correct, because he isn’t. His jacket, his pants, his tie—they are all perfect. The right fabric, the right style, the right colors. He walks around watching the people watch him and he knows anew how horrible they are. Such pathetic lives. But, sadly, necessary. They are his public after all. And in a roundabout way he needs them as much as they need him—not that he would ever admit this. But then, neither would they admit to needing him. Although they enjoy his life’s work, would they ever claim to need it? Not likely. That’s because they are as ignorant as dirt. Or so he would say if anyone asked. Without my work they are doomed, he would say. Doomed to yet further repetition of their slovenly and exploited lives.

At his exhibition’s opening a young girl asks him to stand in front of one of his large photographs of ice cubes so that she can get picture of him for her school paper. He doesn’t want to. He’d much rather step outside and be away from everyone. He knows how his face will look in this light. Bad. And look at the camera she has, it’s pathetic. Plus which, she’s holding it like it’s a liverwurst sandwich. How did she get in here? She’s only a child, not more than ten. And her clothes—they’re so ill-fitting it’s almost as if she’s trying to be a circus clown! But a group of people have heard her ask for permission, so he feels compelled to go along with it. And for that she thanks him.

What she doesn’t tell him is that his show has changed her life. She doesn’t know exactly what the ice is supposed to mean. She knows it must mean something and knows it is so completely gorgeous hanging on the wall. Lovely beyond words. She only came tonight so she could meet him, this man from Paris. Every day on her way to school she has peeked in here at these photographs, felt an immense sense of joy well up inside her that she doesn’t really understand—except that afterward, on the school bus again with the other kids screaming and taunting each other, there remains inside her a peace that is somehow connected to the ice cubes. At home she took ice cubes out and set them in the sun to look at them up close and continued looking at them even though her mother said what the hell was she doing, was she feeling sick, did she have a temperature?

Those ice cubes from her family’s freezer and his ice cubes had been so completely different it shocked her. His ice had life, stories, a wild array of colors—despite the fact they were in all black and white. In his ice, she’d heard music. Symphonies. Her whole world became different the longer she stood before them.

She had told him the photo she was taking was for her school paper. And this was sort of true. She was a photographer for her paper, but she would never put his photo in that stupid paper beside the smeary images of acne-faced jocks catching whatever-shaped ball they were catching, or hitting, or kicking. She would put this photo beside her bed. Where it would be safe from her family’s prying eyes and constant questions. She did not have much in that house that was hers, but that spot on the wall beside her bedpost where no one else looked—that’s where she would put this man in his perfect clothes and his ice. It was the best she could do. For now.