I nursed the beer Alexei had put up for me. I needed to be away from the books that had consumed me for the past five years. It felt good to have enough money in my pocket to have a beer if I wanted. Finally. I wasn’t rich, and I did have loans that were going to be a pain in the ass to pay back, but I could eat. I didn’t have to sleep on the streets, and I was going to have an awesome career as a researcher.
Huh. I guess that meant I really ought to try and get into the PhD program. Academia, here I come?
I pulled out my phone and pulled up the school’s website. The deadline had passed for the fall, but I’d bet I could get Doctor Busch to make an exception. Former homeless gay man looked good on the school’s record.
There was no way I could count on that though, which meant I had to find a job for a year, maybe a year and a half. Damn.
Still, it would be nice to hit the ‘pay rent’ button on the property management site. To know I had the money in the account to make sure I had a warm place to live. Homeless to homeful. Or, whatever.
“Siri, remind me to apply for doctoral programs in twenty days.”
“I’ve set up a reminder for you to apply to doctoral programs in twenty days.”
I tapped on some of the job search apps Mel had insisted on downloading for me. There were a ton of jobs, some of them temp and that sounded like a plan to me. I would have to write up a resume, but I was half sure I had one somewhere. I could do it after my beer.
The TV caught my attention, with some flashy gossip program banner. I looked up and I saw Up Down Left Right on the screen.
“…But have you seen the dapper gent Austin Lowell has been spotted with? The man wears suits and bowties!” The pink haired host was chirping the words like she was a trained parrot.
“He was wearing browntweed,” one of the other hosts said. “Who wears tweed?”
“The man dating Austin Lowell,” Pink Hair said.
The Token Gay leaned forward, his eyeliner perfect, his eyes over-shadowed with 80s blue and his lip gloss nearly blinding in the studio lights. “Do you all want the tea on this guy?”
“Brew it!” the other guy said. “Tell us why he gets away with tweed, and the rest of us just look like bad Sherlock Holmes cosplay.”
Tapping his sheets together, he leaned back. “So, his name is Uriah Orback. He’s a graduate of the Fashion Institute, and he has been working his way through the Broadway backstage for a few years. He’s been a tailor on a few shows, but recently he landed head costumerCatching a Unicornand has been in heavy demand.” Turning his head, Token Gay motioned to someone off screen. “Charlie? You have those slides?”
There was a muffled answer and a moment later the screen was filled with a gorgeous rendering of a ballet costume.
“I didn’t knowUnicornwas going to be ballet,” Alexei mumbled.
“This is from a ballet he costumed for a group of students from Juilliard. It’s calledDanse Sous la Cite Pomme, and if you have a chance to catch this short program, do. It’s amazing, and Orback’s costumes are critical to it. But you can see the man is talented.”
The image flipped off the screen. The Token Gay leaned forward. “But, we’ve discovered he has another talent! He has a condition called synesthesia. Do you know what that is?”
The other three traded looks, and shook their heads.
“Idiots,” Alexei grumbled.
“And you know?”
He tossed a look over at me. “The ability to see sounds in colors.”
“It’s the ability to see sounds as colors,” the gay man on the TV said. “So, once in a while, Mister Orback paints!”
The screen flipped and one of the most gorgeous abstracts I’d ever seen appeared. It was lyrical, which was exactly what it should have been. Blues and yellows that blended through orange without really ever being orange. Vertical lines with a palate knife, almost as if it was a computer analysis of sound.
“Wow,” the pink haired woman hissed.
“That is calledVentual Iteration,” he said, and it’s on display at the Divotion Gallery in Soho. It’s based on the songEventual Evolutionby Robot Servant. It’s currently available at the gallery for the cool price of seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“All things considered,” Alexei said, “that’s not a terrible price. People pay a hundred twenty for a banana duct taped to a fucking wall.”
“And didn’t he eat it right after that?”
“I don’t know. I was having trouble with the money. For a fucking banana and duct tape.”
