Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 42

“From the outside I was a great student. I participated in...

“From the outside I was a great student. I participated in everything: sports, music, you name it. Plus I’d gotten ‘straight A’s’ since elementary school. But there was a side of me that I kept hidden. Even as a kid, I’d been good at being sneaky, if I took some cookies from the cupboard, I’d put the package back exactly like it was. When I grew older, the behaviors became riskier. I started partying and being promiscuous. With each encounter I’d get a rush of dopamine, but I’d end up feeling lower than when I began. Self-worth is something that I always struggled with. My depression got so bad in high school that I began to self-harm. I even went so far as to write out a suicide note in my journal. But I was so good at hiding that nobody ever knew. I seemed like a happy kid. My parents never saw anything that couldn’t be dismissed as teenage angst. And my marching band instructor even nicknamed me ‘Smiley.’ But there were small signs. On my worst days I’d put my headphones on during class, and lay my head on the desk. Then there was a time in British Literature class when we were given a poetry assignment, and I wrote about drowning. Our teacher’s name was Mrs. Hunt. She was the nurturing type. And she always treated us like adults. The day after I wrote the poem, she pulled me aside after class. ‘Should I be worried?’ she asked. I lied, of course, and said that I was fine. But then she asked me again, and I broke down. ‘I think I have depression,’ I told her. She didn’t blink an eye. She asked permission to send my parents an email. She let me read the whole thing, and I told her to send it. Later that night my parents initiated a conversation about my mental health. It was the first time we’d really spoken about it. A few days later we found a professional and I began taking medication. I’ve come so far since writing that poem. I graduated with two degrees. I’ve gotten married. And I’m about to begin my Master’s in Education. I’m hoping to become the same kind of teacher as Mrs. Hunt. When I needed it most, she recognized my cries for help. She handled them with grace. And I’m not sure if I’d still be here if it wasn’t for her.”

(7/7) “Mickey’s memorial was well attended. There had been an...

(7/7) “Mickey’s memorial was well attended. There had been an article about his death in the newspaper, and the art critic had written: ‘The palms aren’t swaying quite as much as they used to.’ I walked through the crowd at his service, greeting everyone, and thanking them for coming. One of the attendees was the woman who’d commissioned Mickey’s final mural, who happened to be on the board of the Austin Museum of Art. Even in his death, I couldn’t stop promoting him. So I asked her: ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the museum hosted a memorial show?’ I think I put the poor woman on the spot. But she promised to look into it, and called me the next day to tell me they’d found an available room.  Mickey’s show ran for a week. His paintings looked so beautiful on the walls. It felt like his work was finally where it had always belonged. There was only one last thing that I wanted to do. And it took me forever, because I couldn’t remember the name of the place. I just kept googling all the details that I could remember: Puerto Vallarta, guesthouse, Silver. Until it finally came up, and I booked myself a room. I took the trip alone. To be there with Mickey. The guesthouse was on a little cobblestone road. It was next to a small alley, with a little gate, and a thousand little steps leading down to the ocean. The first thing I did when I got to my room was open the doors to the balcony. And the view stopped me in my tracks: the ocean was framed by two giant palms. It was the mural from the basement.  Mickey had been here before, with Michael. During that magical time when they were madly in love. And nobody had heard of something called AIDS. They had sat on this same balcony. And I felt with all my soul that they were with me once again. Mickey gave an interview once, and I have an audio recording of this. The woman asked him: ‘Why do you only paint palm trees?’ He let out a laugh, and said: ‘Because they’re phalluses.’ But then he grew serious. And he said: ‘Palms represent life to me. If you see one on the beach, there’s coconuts. And if you see one in the desert, there’s an oasis. Because wherever there is a palm, there is life.”

(6/7) “Mickey had always been a bit of a miracle. He’d lived...

(6/7) “Mickey had always been a bit of a miracle. He’d lived with HIV for so long that the doctors were studying him. He used to come back smiling from every appointment, and tell me there was nothing to report. One time I asked to go with him,  just to see for myself. They ran a routine test that day to see if the medication was damaging his organs. And the results showed that his liver was failing. The specialist said he had 48 hours to live. I sobbed all night in the parking garage. But Mickey told me not to worry: ‘I’ve got to finish that mural,’ he said. ‘So I’m going to get out of here.’ And he was right. He somehow recovered and they let him come home. He worked on the mural every day. I showered him with gifts during this time. I got him a set of nice towels. And I put a lemon tree in his living room, so that his whole apartment smelled like lemons. He kept promising that we’d go to Puerto Vallarta, but I think both of us knew it would never happen. When he finally finished the mural, it looked amazing. But Mickey had grown so weak. I was at his apartment every day: drawing his bath, fixing his meals, making sure he took his medication. He decided to go to hospice on the day I changed his diaper for the first time. I told him that he’d just be there for a few weeks. Just long enough to build up a little strength, so that he could come home. It was the only time I ever lied to him. He was given a nice little room with a view of the garden. And he held on for two more weeks. The last thing he did was apologize. He could barely speak, but he said: ‘I’m so sorry, Robert. I know how hard this will be. Because I remember when Michael died.’ I told him not to worry. Because grief was such a small price to pay for our friendship. At the very end his eyes were wide open. He kept staring at the ceiling, like he was seeing something. And even though he never said it, I know it was Michael. Michael was up there, saying: ‘Don’t be scared. It’s time to come here.’ Finally Mickey closed his eyes. And he started taking these long breaths. With long pauses. And the pauses kept getting longer. Until he took one last deep breath, and he didn’t breathe out.”

(5/7) “Selling that painting was the spark that Mickey needed....

(5/7) “Selling that painting was the spark that Mickey needed. It was nice to make a little bit of money. But more than that, it was proof that people valued his work. From that moment on he painted nothing but palm trees. It became an obsession. He’d buy wooden doors from Lowe’s, sand them down, and create these vertical panels. On each one he’d paint a giant palm tree. And they became a little bit of a thing in Austin. People loved those panels. They had a mood, a vibe. They took you to a faraway place. And Mickey couldn’t make them fast enough. It didn’t hurt that I was promoting him tirelessly. I was doing some interior design work at the time. And whenever I got a new client, I’d push a painting on them. Mickey grew more confident as his work began to sell. I made him cut his hair. I bought him wire-framed glasses so that you could see his beautiful eyes. We even got him a car, not a new car, but a nice Volvo station wagon. It brought me so much joy to finally see him enjoying a bit of security. We must have sold sixty paintings over the next few years. And the prices kept getting higher and higher. Some of the nicer palm panels were going for thousands of dollars. I still didn’t take a commission, but Mickey would buy me little things. He’d take me to shows. We’d stay in a nice hotel one night. And every time he sold a painting, we’d go out for dinner at a place called Jeffrey’s. It was our little ritual. Each of us would get a glass of champagne, and I’d drink both of them. Toward the end of 2000 we toasted his biggest commission yet. He’d just been hired to paint a mural on the ceiling of a woman’s home. And this wasn’t just any woman, it was a board member of The Austin Museum of Art. Both of us felt like Mickey’s time had come. The pay was five figures. And it seemed like he was finally being noticed by the art world. I drank a whole bottle of champagne that night. And Mickey promised that as soon as he finished, we were going to take a trip to Puerto Vallarta. He wanted to show me the guesthouse where he lived with Michael. He even called up Silver and told her we were coming.”

(4/7) “Mickey once had dreams of being a fine artist. He’d moved...

(4/7) “Mickey once had dreams of being a fine artist. He’d moved to New York during his early thirties. He’d rented a hippie artist studio in The Village, and he found a bit of success. At one point he designed the set for a play called ‘Now The Revolution,’ which was featured on the cover of Life Magazine. Mickey was always so proud of that, but his paintings never attracted much interest. He said it was more about who you knew, and less about what you made. Eventually he got worn down by the scene and moved back to Austin. He painted occasionally over the next twenty years, but he was never very serious about it. And when Michael passed away, he lost any remaining ambition that he had left. He’d sleep late every morning. During the day he’d drink coffee, and smoke cigarettes, and visit with friends. He squeaked out a living by doing faux marble finishing. And he really had a talent for it. People would knock on his finishes to see if they were marble. But I always thought he was wasting his potential. He would spend his days getting bossed around by interior designers: ‘Do this,’ ‘Do that.’ Sometimes he wouldn’t even get paid. But he never seemed to care, as long as he had enough to pay the rent. I was the one who cared. I was always ambitious on his behalf. From the moment I first saw his portfolio in that Italian restaurant, I knew that he belonged in a museum. Or at least a gallery. And I wanted that for him. Not only because his art was beautiful, but because he saved my fucking life. I wanted to give something back. So I offered to represent him. I didn’t even want a commission. I convinced a local coffee shop to let us put on a show, and I gathered all the paintings I could find in his apartment. There wasn’t much, because Mickey had given away most of his work. But we did find a few. There was one piece with some guys playing water polo. And we included the folding screen with the pyramids. We only sold a single painting, for $300, which was enough to pay the rent. I can’t remember who bought it, but I remember the painting. It was a solitary palm tree.”

(3/7) “Michael was the love of Mickey’s life. And it could...

(3/7) “Michael was the love of Mickey’s life. And it could sometimes feel like he was still living in that little apartment with us, even though he’d been gone for two years. He’d been a brilliant pianist, and his notebooks and cassettes were still piled in the closet. His photos still hung on the wall. And Mickey kept his ashes in a painted box on the dresser. Back in the eighties Austin was much more of a hobo, hippie town, and that’s exactly the kind of couple they had been. They’d go on hikes and swim in the river. They’d visit with friends. And whenever they could afford it, they’d travel. There was one summer when Mickey got hired to do some decorative painting on a guesthouse in Puerto Vallarta, and he brought Michael with him. They spent a magical summer there. It was owned by a woman named Silver, and she gave them a free room overlooking the ocean. Mickey told me that their ultimate dream was to see the pyramids in Egypt. So they saved up for months. They literally made a penny jar. And they were finally able to do it. Mickey and Michael remained as a couple for a few more years. But Mickey was a lot older. He was ready to settle down, and Michael just wasn’t there yet. He wanted his freedom. So they decided to just be friends. It was during this period that they both tested positive for HIV. Mickey was one of the lucky ones. Somehow it stayed dormant in his body for the longest time. But Michael got very sick, very fast. He was one of the ones who disappeared. He moved back in with Mickey until it was time to go to hospice. He slept on the makeshift bed in the living room. And when he grew too weak to get out of bed, Mickey painted the beach from Puerto Vallarta on the wall. Michael held on for a few months. Mickey rarely spoke about what happened during that time, but he never recovered from the trauma. During the months we lived together, people would ask me: ‘What’s going on between the two of you, really?’ Everyone assumed there must be something sexual. But there was never any of that. Not a single moment. Mickey had set up a giant folding screen between our beds. On it he had painted the pyramids of Egypt.”

(2/7) “That night my parents drove up from Baton Rouge to bring...

(2/7) “That night my parents drove up from Baton Rouge to bring me home, but Mickey talked them out of it. He knew that my parents were one of the reasons for my depression. It wasn’t that they were hateful, but they were filled with fears and judgements. They wanted me to see therapists as a teenager, hoping to ‘fix’ me. And the last time I lived at home, my dad had written out a list of rules on a yellow legal pad. On the very first line he wrote: ‘Lead an acceptable lifestyle.’ And we all knew what that meant. I never found out what Mickey said to them, but somehow he convinced my parents to let me come home with him. He brought me back to his little basement apartment, and for the next few months he nursed me back to health. Mickey focused on me completely. It was reparenting, really. He told me all the things I needed to hear. He’d say: ‘You’re a good person, Robert. And I’m proud of you. And it’s nice having you around.’ It wasn’t anything profound. But these were words that I’d seldom heard from my parents. I remember one night I was feeling especially low, because all my other friends had withdrawn from me. Mickey sat on the edge of my bed and patted me on the shoulder. I began to cry. ‘They just don’t like me,’ I told him. And he said: ‘Don’t worry, Baby Doll. I like you. And I love you.’ That’s the way he was, all the time. He had the most gentle spirit of anyone I’d ever met. He was so giving, and sometimes I was afraid that I was taking too much. There was barely room for the two of us in that basement apartment. I was sleeping on a makeshift bed in the living room, next to a giant mural that Mickey had painted on the wall. It was a beautiful scene from a beach. With bright blue skies, and two giant palm trees. ‘My partner slept in that same bed when he got sick,’ Mickey explained. ‘I painted that mural to remind him of happier times.’”

(1/7) “Sometimes I’ll visit mediums. And almost always, the...

(1/7) “Sometimes I’ll visit mediums. And almost always, the first thing they say is: ‘There’s a man here with long, gray hair.’ And I’ll smile. Because his hair was the first thing I noticed about him. I was in my twenties. I’d just moved to Austin, and I’d gotten a gig helping decorate a new Italian restaurant called Romeo’s. Like all Italian restaurants, they wanted a seaside mural on the wall. A friend of mine suggested a local artist named Mickey, so I reached out and invited him to see the space. From the moment Mickey walked in, I was intrigued. He wore faded, ripped 501 jeans. He had the most beautiful blue eyes. And there was that long, flowing gray hair. His portfolio was an absolute mess, just a bunch of loose pictures. But I could tell it was real art. The kind that belonged in a gallery, or a museum. Certainly not on the walls of a cheesy Italian restaurant. We ended up grabbing coffee at a nearby café. I could certainly tell he was gay. And I thought he was very handsome. But neither of us were looking for a relationship at the time. Mickey told me that his partner had recently passed away, and he didn’t plan on falling in love again. So we began a beautiful friendship. I started going over to his apartment three or four times a week. We’d go swimming at Barton Springs. We’d smoke cigarettes and drink coffee. He became the ‘gay dad’ that I never had. I opened up to him about everything. I even told him about my depression, and it didn’t cause him to pull away. Mickey told me that he’d been there before. And he promised me that one day things would get better. But it was a hard thing for me to believe. My depression only seemed to get worse as time went by. Until one night I tried to take my own life in the bathtub. After about an hour I realized I wasn’t going to die. So I called Mickey, and he rushed over to my apartment. We drove in silence all the way to the hospital. I had a towel wrapped around my wrist because I was too ashamed for him to see the wound. But as soon as we reached the hospital, the nurse uncovered my arm. And Mickey passed out on the floor.”

Once again Amazon is offering a coupon, bringing ‘Humans’ books...

Once again Amazon is offering a coupon, bringing ‘Humans’ books down to $14, which is 60% off. I don’t see any other books getting this discount. And I’m not sure why this is happening, or how long it will last. But I’m certainly not too proud to mark the occasion by building a holiday suggestive display in front of a crackling fire. You can find the discount here: https://bit.ly/orderhumans

“Mom and him are obsessed with each other. They met when they...

“Mom and him are obsessed with each other. They met when they were eighteen. And they’re always hugging, and kissing, and dancing in the kitchen. So we grew up around a lot of love. But Dad has always been more of the ‘Acts of Service’ type. Every night at 8pm, he’d come to all our bedrooms to collect dishes that needed to be washed. And he always took the morning shift. It was his job to wake us up, and make us breakfast, and pack our lunches for school. He’d use a little brown paper bag, and draw a heart on the front with our name inside. He made thousands of these bags, and they always included a stick figure drawing. It might be a picture of me scoring a soccer goal, or joining a club, or getting a part in a school play. Sometimes it would be an inside joke of some sort. He especially loved to quote Disney movies. Mulan most of all. But we were never embarrassed. Our friends loved the bags too. Everyone loves our dad. When my sister’s friend decided to become a baker, he’s the one who tasted everything she made. And when my best friend got benched on our soccer team, Dad wrote her a letter to build her confidence. That’s how he is with everyone. And he’s still that way, even with everything that’s happened. We began to notice the shaking at the end of last year. Then there started to be long pauses. And difficulty remembering. He was diagnosed with ALS, and the doctors have given him 2 to 5 years to live. He didn’t even cry when he found out. But he’d tear up every time he had to tell another friend or family member. Because he knew how much we’d hurt. It’s such a devastating disease. It’s really painful to watch someone we love so much go through this. He still runs every morning—he wants everyone to know that. But that will go one day. And so will his voice. And so will his hands. I know he’s really scared of that. He doesn’t want to lose his hands, because that’s how he’s always shown his love. When my youngest brother graduated from high school this year, we made my dad his own brown paper bag. We drew a picture of the three of us holding him up. And we wrote our favorite quote from Mulan: “The greatest gift and honor– is having you for a father.”