"A-Rod as the Devil"*

Dear ——-,

Do you still have my painting hanging on your living room wall? Do you still have it at all?

I told you, more than once, that I believed destroying art was a sin. I imagined that you could, in a fit of amphetamine-spiced frustration, yank it down and slash it through all over with a kitchen knife. Because you were hurt.

I warned you not to, warned you to resist that urge if it ever came over you because that would be so wrong, so awful. Unforgivable. You can’t come back from that and I know you would regret it.

It’s not the painting’s fault. Art is never to blame for anything.

The painting was my gift to you and I loved it and you loved it. It was one of my first big oil paintings and when it was done (note to readers: the version of the painting shown here was not quite finished and still needed some tidying up) and I stepped back and looked at the detail in the folds of the uniform, I was so proud and impressed with myself! I was new to this art form and I’d put so much time and effort into it, for no other reason than to make it come to life the way I wanted it.

I couldn’t have known, then, when I was working on it, that I would ever give it to you, or to anyone.

It’s okay if you took it down, and put it away, out of sight, or even flung it, but I really hope you didn’t destroy it.

With my music I was always trying to tap into the best part of me—some pure, resilient energy that hasn’t been harmed, diminished, and stifled—and to harness it and utilize it to make something with more point to it than I have, existing (and flailing) on my own as a person in the world. But you pooh-pooh-ed your own musical persona. You, the man, wanted to be embraced and appreciated. Not your legend. Not by me. You hated that I loved it, loved the sound of your voice, your unique phrasing and scruffy-soulful tone which made me feel so much inexplicable emotion, made me initially feel so close to you in spirit, like we’d been fatefully connected in some former life and couldn’t shake off or deny that truth, here and now.

It didn’t make sense, really; you were so wild and free and even reckless in some ways—in your approach to your music— while I was so reserved and controlled and protective. But both of us so addled by insecurities and confusion, and defensiveness, and hidden fragility. Damage.

I asked you once if you’d ever swung from a chandelier and you chuckled and said something like, “Do you know me?” And I laughed and said, “What’s it like?” And you said, “They don’t stay in the ceiling.”

I never wanted to swing from chandeliers.

*This painting was made around the time the RED SOX (my home team) were battling the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.