\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2003\u2003There\u2019s always going to be that once upon a time in my life where I held two small, hardened beans in the palm of my hands. There\u2019s always going to be a little bit of me that wishes I could believe people can be trusted to sit and stay. That you can look at paintings and not see the imperfect brushstrokes or that you can look at two hardened beans and see a potential for growth. I wonder sometimes where that little bit of me went and why I don\u2019t care for it anymore.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two sunstained legs pounded the cement of the bustling Vatican city those days in Summer when I confused fun with freedom. Weaseling my way between tourists with their flashing cameras and their sunhats and complaints had become second nature. The Sistine Chapel beckoned me in its white marble glory.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGood morning, Michelangelo,\u201d I shouted to the ceiling, startling a couple passerby. They passed by in the sea of people, craning their heads to the ceiling. Above, the mosaic of paintings etched through the ceiling.\u00a0 In the corner, <\/span>The Sacrifice of Michelangelo, The Drunkenness of Michelangelo<\/span><\/i>, and then right there in the middle of the building which all pillars and walls led up to: <\/span>The Creation of Michelangelo<\/span><\/i>. No other name came to mind other than <\/span>Michelangelo<\/span><\/i>. They were fine lines of paint that reached for me, stippling the corners of my vision until all I could see were clouds of paintings.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGood morning, Michelangelo,\u201d I repeated, slumping my backpack off my bony pre-adolescent shoulders. A few passerby stepped out of my way, as I sat and pulled out a loaf of bread from my bag. \u201cI brought your bread today! Fresh from the fridge!\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When he didn\u2019t move, I shrugged. <\/span>More for me, I guess<\/span><\/i>. I took a bite out of the bread, stale, patches of green sprouting along the bottom of it, consuming it with me. My two friends: Michelangelo and the mold.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I held up my hand, imagining a chalice. A grail with delectable wine, dark as blood. I tried to do it the way I remember my father always showed me back when we went to church on Sundays. Back when he would look down at my freckled face and pass me the tray with small plastic cups of purple wine and little doughy squares of crackers in the middle.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When I passed it onto the next person, my father would place his balled-up, calloused hands over mine and drop two cold coins into my palms<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor offering,\u201d he\u2019d whisper with a kindness in his brown eyes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor offering,\u201d I repeated.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis is his body,\u201d my father said, pointing to the small cracker in my hand. Then he\u2019d point to the virgin wine in my other hand. \u201cThis is his blood.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I took those words and repeated them to Michelangelo and the mold, holding the stale bread and the invisible wine when their turns came. I took another bite of the moldy bread, setting it on the ground near my backpack for safe-keeping, and took a little sip from my transparent chalice.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd for offering,\u201d I said, reaching into my jacket to grab what I\u2019d brought. It wasn\u2019t quarters, but I had two beans to replace what I couldn\u2019t bring. I set them on the floor next to the bread.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I watched them there for a brief moment, half expecting the green of the beans and the green of the bread to grow into a beanstalk right in the middle of the chapel. Two tendrils of vines entwined, sprouting into a story that I remember my mother used to recite to me as I fell asleep on her lap. I thought about myself climbing its limbs up to the ceiling and talking to Michelangelo, examining the colors and brushstrokes that weaved between the spaces of reality. Like clouds. And I would be there, visiting Michelangelo in his kingdom observing all the people down below.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As morning broke earlier that day, I stumbled into the hall. I slinked in and out of the dawn shadows on the walls, tracing my fingers along their textures. I imagined the indentions as miniature mazes, tracing themselves through the amber paint until they pushed me out into the destination where the hallways expanded into a proper room.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I followed the countertop along the wall, letting my fingers glide along the splash of sunlight that hung onto the edge. Leftover dust left indentures for my fingers to feel. The countertops were littered with leftover beer cans, stacks of fruit and a wad of paper towels that were golden brown and hardened. The cardboard for the paper towel roll still sat on the holder, pointing stoically towards the sky.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With caution, I gripped the handles of the refrigerator. There was a time before when my father would have helped me sneak in afternoon snacks despite my mother saying it would ruin my appetite. There was a time when my father would have pulled out a knife and I would think to myself, <\/span>Achille Romano: Death by Apple, <\/span><\/i>only to have him cut the apple instead of me. There was a time when he\u2019d wink at me, placing a finger up to his lips in sworn secrecy. But that time was not now.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I gripped the handles of the fridge and let them linger there for a moment as I mustered up the courage to open it up, grab my bread and go. When it slid open, the sound of the breaking seal rang in my skull, and I winced, grabbing the bread as fast as I could and turning away only to have my heart do another somersault across my chest.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the living room, my father\u2019s limp body lay cast out across the sofa, his face turned towards me. I froze. Then I realized that his eyes were sheathed into his eyelids. His dark brown hair fell loosely over his face, intermixing with the stubble of a beard that wanted to return. His face lay smashed against the arm of the couch in an unnatural position and the top buttons of his flannel lay open, exposing his upper chest. He still had his pair of jeans on.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I debated if he was dead or not until I noticed that his pale lips parted in steady breaths that filled the air with even more fragrance of beer. His arm reached over to the birch side table with its three remaining legs, and his hand settled in the middle of crumpled beer cans like a moat. A last line of protection from everything outside.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Above him, paintings hung in a diagonal line, abstract. Some had circles, some had squares, and some had miscellaneous shapes that I hadn\u2019t yet taught myself to identify. But each had a tear developing in the middle, splitting the canvas in two, sometimes scratching the frame as well, like in the painting on the far end just above my father\u2019s head. Three triangles stood\u2013blue, orange, and grey in the middle\u2013with a tear ripping straight through it, separating the blue and orange and splitting the grey.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A chill ran through me despite the Italian Summer heat, and I realized I\u2019d forgotten to shut the refrigerator door. I did it as lightly as I could, then tiptoed my way out the front door, bread in my backpack.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So then I sat at the Sistine Chapel, having offered Michelangelo the Lord\u2019s blessing of both body and blood, and I started to make small talk with him.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNot much has changed since yesterday,\u201d I said to him, taking a seat on the checkered floor as though we were on a chess board. \u201cMy dad says hi.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Michelangelo stared back at me with knowing eyes, grey like the figure in my father\u2019s painting. He tipped his head at me, raising his eyebrows slightly.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAlright, alright,\u201d I sniffled. \u201cHe didn\u2019t say hi. He never says hi, you know this.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Michelangelo looked at me. The mold looked at me, too.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d I shrugged. \u201cYou guys know what he\u2019s like. He\u2019s busy. He has stuff to do with work and life and\u2026\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My words drifted as I caught them looking at me in exasperation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c…stuff.\u201d My shoulders softened, sagging toward my chest. \u201cHe\u2019s got better stuff to worry about. He barely knows you guys anyways. He hasn\u2019t been here in a long time.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Looking down, I saw the mold staring back at me as if to say, <\/span>Oh, so we\u2019re not important enough?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I raised my eyebrows at them. <\/span>Really? Honestly, really?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Looking up to Michelangelo for support, he just looked back and me and shook his painted head. <\/span>What are you gonna do?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cListen,\u201d I said to the mold. \u201cI really don\u2019t need your sass right now. He\u2019s doing his best.\u201d I then flipped the bread over so the mold couldn\u2019t be seen.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Michelangelo peered down at me a question tainting his tongue.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHey, they started it!\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Michelangelo looked tired. \u201cAre you lost, bud?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Suddenly, I was thrown out of my thoughts and the image of Michelangelo shifted to another face, clean shaven and brown hair tousled. Michelangelo\u2019s white robes shifted to a white hoodie that reeked of summer sweat. His green eyes met mine in concern as he crouched down to my level.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I shifted, standing up and grabbing my backpack, raising my chin and looking down at him. \u201cNo, I know exactly where I\u2019m going. Thank you very much.\u201d Then I turned and walked towards the exit of the Sistine Chapel, leaving him crouched. Shoving my hands in my pocket where my beans lay patiently, I left feeling baffled.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t return home until much later that night when I jumped the fence to the backyard and climbed a stack of meticulously-placed pallet crates. Nearly slipping on a sanded edge of the top box as I tried to maneuver to the roof, the pencil that rested on my ear nearly slipped and fell, but I was able to reach out and catch it. I stuck it sideways in my mouth for safer keeping and stepped both my legs out onto the shingled roof only to be interrupted by a crash from below.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I was ready for the wind to sweep me up and carry me away as I froze on the roof, afraid I\u2019d stirred the beast. A single slip could send him over the edge. But I didn\u2019t dare peer over the lip of the roof any more than I had to, so I sat still for a long while wondering if I had actually heard anything at all. And just when I was about to start moving again, another crash broke through and tears threatened my eyes as the house thudded. The pencil splintered between my teeth.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Trying to think of something to distract from the rampage and shouting, I set my backpack down, grabbed out a lined notebook and lodged my pencil in the spiraled binding and laid my head against the rooftop. The stars were especially bright tonight\u2013something my mother would have called the \u201cArtists\u2019 Touch.\u201d When the stars look brighter than they actually are, they aren\u2019t actually\u2013it\u2019s just in my brain. Something that I made myself, artistically, to make myself feel better\u2013to make the world seem just a bit brighter.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s up, Mio Pittore,\u201d she would say to me sometimes when I would gaze out at the stars from my bedroom window on winter nights when frost would threaten to enter the room.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Without even looking at her, I would ask her about the night sky and what the stars meant. She would kneel next to me, nudging a notebook under my elbow and I would look up.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Her blue eyes were dark as the waves in the night sky where stars seemed to swirl into whirlpools of mystery. And her black hair held speckles of grey that reflected the moon. Her tangerine hoodie felt soft to my bare skin as it grazed me. She\u2019d smile, and then say to me: \u201cI\u2019m not sure, Mio Pittore.\u201d Then, she\u2019d place a pencil in my hand. \u201cWhy don\u2019t we figure it out?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The notebook she\u2019d given to me that day was now filled in with various pictures drawn of the night sky, etching the locations of the stars each night that I returned home and needed to kill time before heading inside.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Each page was labeled with a date, the weather, and any extra notes that I could come up with. Cloudy days were sometimes my favorite since they covered up some of the stars and I could draw the few I could see, but the clear sky days were also nice to get a good look at the pure amount out there past the atmosphere.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I started drawing each of the stars that shone brightest first. There was one to the north that shone especially bright, surrounded by a cluster of stars that went off towards the east in a straight line, like it was pointing. I thought of <\/span>The Creation of Michelangelo<\/span><\/i> and the way that Michelangelo pointed towards God in that moment of creation and I followed the general cluster of stars until a vague silhouette of a man started to take shape, lounged on a cliffside as if creation was just the normal.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My, what a creative mind, <\/span><\/i>I heard Michelangelo say to me as I etched him into the stars above. <\/span>You have an artist\u2019s touch<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It was about that time when I heard the door creak open and I quickly turned my flashlight off. In the night, a silhouette of a man stormed out into our driveway. A shout echoed across the neighborhood, though I couldn\u2019t discern what it said or if it was even anything of real importance. I skulked, peering just barely over the top edge of the roof so he couldn\u2019t see me.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I heard the banging of boots to metal and the sound of the car door clicking open as the sound bounced off the front of the house. When two headlights split the darkness, I hid away, pressing my back to the roof, sighing into the Summer air.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When I saw his headlights disappear around the corner, I clicked my flashlight back on, adding some brief finishing lines to my drawing of Michelangelo between his stars. I also went below the date and weather conditions sections. I paused, not knowing quite what to write but feeling like I needed to add something.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I thought of my mother, wondering what information she\u2019d like to know about the sky tonight. Flipping my pencil in anticipation, I looked back up at the stars that shone bright in return, and I wrote in the lines two simple words: <\/span>Artists\u2019 Touch.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I slunked down the crates, and slipped into my bedroom where I fell asleep in my jeans and hoodie, holding the beans in the palm of my hands. My dreams took me to clouded castles before the slamming of a door pulled me awake.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Fifteen years later, and there was still no beanstalk. I\u2019ve since gotten a locket for the beans to go in so I wouldn\u2019t have to worry about losing them, but I\u2019ve given up on wishing for them to grow into anything more than just beans. Their hard exterior didn\u2019t allow for much room for growth anyways.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When I told my father that I was traveling to America for my schooling, he stared at me from the couch and simply said, \u201cWhere to?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I told him New York, and he turned away, wishing me a fair trip and safety. That was his way of saying that he loved me.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s been five years since that day. Sometimes I still open his number on my phone that reads (from me): <\/span>Landed safely in America<\/span><\/i>. Read 7\/28\/2014 at 11:12 p.m. I sent him it when the plane landed at 11:38 a.m. two days prior. No messages sent since.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I had a father once, but I don\u2019t need him. I know where I\u2019m going with my story.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Instead, I built a family out of people I\u2019ve met along the way, many enthralled by somebody who came from across the sea.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow often did you go to the Sistine Chapel?\u201d my friend, Alix, would ask me sometimes when I went out with her.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAll the time,\u201d I\u2019d answer, not including how I\u2019d sneak in or how\u2013now that I think about it\u2013they probably let me through out of pity.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re so lucky.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n