Keith Haring Journals (43 page)

After this we went to the park where I had been in the exhibition in 1983 or ’84. The building that had had the exhibition was now having an Artschwager show. We walked around the park, took photos, and talked. As we were getting ready to leave we ran into François Benichou. He’s the guy who had published some lithos in Paris with me in 1985 and took me to meet Pierre Alechinsky. I hadn’t seen him in almost three years. Strange coincidence. We talked, agreed to do another project together when I’m in Paris in a few weeks, and then I had to leave because we had a car arranged to meet us at the hotel at 2:30. On the way to the hotel we stopped and saw
Guernica
. It’s always intense. Somehow, now, seeing it behind all this glass makes me despise Tony’s act of vandalism even more. (Kill lies all?) The drawings that are hanging with it are incredible.

We met the driver and went to visit Escorial, the place Claude Picasso told us to go see. It’s about an hour outside of Madrid. It was fucking amazing. Built by King Philip, it has two palaces within it and a monastery and library (the second-largest, after the Vatican’s). We toured the entire thing. There were tombs inside with the remains of kings and queens.

Debbie just called. Yves is dead. He had an accident in Spain on the way to ARCO. I can’t believe it.

I am writing this now, two days later in Nice. We immediately got a plane on Thursday morning to Nice via Barcelona. The whole thing is like a bad dream. I mean, I left New York to try to have a vacation from the omnipresent “reality” of death and my continuous struggle to avoid it by working constantly. Then, a week before I was to leave for Europe Juan Dubose dies, and I have to help arrange all the details of the funeral, contact friends, and spend time with his family. Finally, I leave for Europe determined to have a wonderful and relaxed time . . . and now this. Yves was probably one of my closest friends. I am the godfather of his child. He was the most enthusiastic supporter of my work and one of the few people that I think really believed in me 100%. There is nothing I can say or do to change anything. I feel empty and helpless—especially now, faced with the task of consoling Debra. I’m supposed to be her best friend, besides Yves. I’m supposed to be the man she loved most besides Yves because I am the most similar to Yves in her eyes. I don’t know if I can live up to this expectation. I don’t know how strong I really am. It’s not as if any of this was really unexpected. I’ve driven with Yves on many occasions when I thought my life was in danger. I’ve prayed to myself many times while he drove that it wouldn’t happen while I was in the car.

Yves is dead. Nothing can change that now. I was petrified to come to this apartment. In Madrid, the night before I left for Nice, I tried to go out to dinner to avoid thinking about it. It worked temporarily, but by the time I was finished with dinner I was really about to fall apart. We had dinner with François Benichou, a famous fur designer, and a collector who bought my giant vase from the exhibit in Madrid in ’83 or ’84. I tried to be polite and attentive but it kept becoming clearer and clearer in my head. After dinner they wanted to go to this club but I just couldn’t do it and Gil agreed we should leave. In the taxi I started crying silently and when we arrived at the hotel I sent Gil upstairs and walked to the Prado and broke down. Somehow it was horribly appropriate to be mourning Yves in front of the Prado. While I was walking (or pacing) in front of the Prado I found a black high heel. Again it was horribly poetic. I had to go back to the hotel and face it and face myself. I called Juan to tell him, but could hardly get the words out. I finally made myself go to sleep. Gil is as much help as he can be.

In the morning we flew here to Monte Carlo. You can’t imagine the feeling of arriving in the Nice airport without Yves to meet me or arriving in the Emilie Palace and seeing the faces of the people at the front desk. Debra is not handling it very well. But, how can she?

I’ve run out of clever things to say and I can only try my best to be of some comfort. There are a lot of people coming and going from the house all day. The phone never stops ringing.

My tooth was hurting so I had Roberto Rossellini (who has been here a lot because he lives in the building and is a good friend of Yves and Debbie) call his dentist and arrange an appointment. He took me to the office and they saw me very quickly. They gave me a standard form to fill out that was all in French. The receptionist translated some of it, but not all. He examined me wearing a mask and rubber gloves (which is now standard procedure), but during the examination he discovered the KS spots on the roof of my mouth and asked me what it was and I told him. He became very indignant that I had not informed him I had AIDS. I reminded him he was wearing a mask and rubber gloves and that I hadn’t been fully explained [
sic
] about the questionnaire. He didn’t really care. He was pretty ignorant considering he was supposed to be the best dentist in Monte Carlo. I left with the advice that there was nothing he could do for my tooth since he saw no decay. He said if it gets worse I’ll need root canal. I hope this doesn’t happen.

I left feeling completely helpless and rejected, a feeling that seems to come very easy to me. I was watching a huge flock of birds in the sky near the Casino swooping down and through each other. I got shit on twice. Seems like there’s a lot of that going around.

I’m trying as hard as I can to make some sense out of all this madness. My life, my misguided love, my friends, suffering, pain, and little bursts of sanity. It’s got to get better, I think, but it only seems to get worse. How long can it go on? And who am I to question it? It’s not even a question of understanding anymore, but accepting. I accept my fate, I accept my life. I accept my shortcomings, I accept the struggle. I accept my inability to understand. I accept what I will never become and what I will never have. I accept death and I accept life. I have no profound realizations—it is blind acceptance and some kind of faith. I am becoming numb to all of this, which is in a way even more frightening. Nothing even surprises or shocks me anymore. I am becoming very hard on the outside and even softer on the inside. I have to get through this. All of this and my own life, too.

Debbie’s parents arrived today. Grace Jones and her son Paolo came last night and slept over. Paolo slept between me and Gil—except not exactly in the middle. I had about two feet of bed to lie in except I was so tired I slept anyway. Some strange dreams. Yves’ mother and sister are back from Spain where they saw the body and did the formalities for transportation of Yves to Vence. He’ll be there tonight. They want me to paint an angel on the coffin. Of course I’ll do it—for Yves. Also, Debbie wants me to speak at the service. This scares me, because I’m not good at things like this, but I really have no choice. It’s amazing how resilient I seem to have become. It’s like I gotta be strong for everyone. But inside, I’m all alone. I was reading Yves’ book last night, which he had just published and given me a copy in New York, but now many of the passages take on a whole new meaning. A few of them are really horribly prophetic.

and

and

The whole book takes on a new meaning now. I suppose death has that effect. It sort of forces you to sum things up and make the final appraisal. I’m starting to feel a little lost in my situation with Gil. I really need some kind of support right now and I’m not sure he is capable of giving it to me. He tries, but as usual, this relationship is mostly dominated by me. Even though we are not really lovers, there is definitely a kind of relationship that follows the same pattern. It was inevitable that the magic would start to wear off and things would start to become more realistic. I’m not sure what will happen when I draw the curtains and look at what is really there. I’m completely blinded with infatuation and determined to create something out of nothing. Sometimes I think it is just my own insecurity that creates the problems or illusions of paranoia that cause the tension.

I wish I was not so determined to feel secure about everything. I want everything to be comfortable and in reality nothing ever is. Eventually you begin to make sacrifices and ignore the things you don’t want to see. I’m not sure that the whole thing is not just an illusion in my imagination. Everyone is, I suppose, the center of their own world and therefore its creator. I don’t feel very profound or even very talented sometimes. And I find it very hard to look in the mirror without being reminded that my days are numbered. The bump on my head sometimes looks bigger and sometimes looks like it’s going away, but it’s always there. Last night Paolo was doing a drawing of me and, of course, included a big spot in the middle of my forehead.

Gil tries to ignore it and pretend not to think of it, but I can tell sometimes, like when I take my medicine, that it is freaking him out as much as me. I’m scared. And I’m not sure what role I expect him to play. I’ve gone ahead and put him into the whole situation and wrote him into the will and stuff ’cause I think I’m sort of teaching him (or trying to) to understand how I feel about everything so he can be my voice in the future. But how do I know if he even wants this responsibility? I remember how much it freaked me out when Brion wrote a will right in front of me leaving me all his stuff. He immediately sensed my inability to cope with it and eventually rewrote another will before he died some months later. I can see the same thing happening with Julia and I’m afraid I’m starting to see it in Gil. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone, but I really think I have to have people who I love and trust deciding these things. Especially after seeing the mess that Yves left, with no will, tax problems, debts, unmarried officially to Debra, no money in the bank and a young daughter. At least Madison has his name on her birth certificate.

The whole concept of preparing is uncomfortable, but it is better faced ahead of time, so that I share in the headache instead of passing it all on to “whoever.” I just signed a new will two days before I left for this trip. It is what I feel is best right now. It may change anytime. I really want to try to teach Gil who and what I am. I wish I thought he really was secure about having this responsibility. I don’t know what more he can do to show me he does. He seems genuinely interested. He seems to be absorbing most of what I’m saying and he seems to be the right person to tell these things to. Except I can’t help wondering if it is mostly my own projection of what I
think
he is and what I
think
he thinks. How can I know? I don’t want to be pitied and I don’t know how to be loved. I only know how to love. All I can do is hope I’m doing the right thing. I love Juan a lot. I realize it even more at times like this. He’s the only person I really called to talk to about Yves. I just can’t spend all my time with him when it starts to feel like I’m talking to a wall. Maybe I created the wall. It’s always what you make of it that determines a situation/relationship. At least I’m convinced he really loves me in spite of everything. In spite of my inability to show him love and patience to understand him—he still loves me. I think I just had to have someone else to talk to and to bring all these things to the surface. Gil is playing that role and becoming a good friend. I think I can teach him something during the time I have left and maybe I can learn some things myself. Just the fact that he makes me question all these things and realize certain things must mean that it is worthwhile and the right thing to do. I think he is teaching me who I am and showing me to myself. What I see in that reflection is
my
problem.

I’m on a plane to Barcelona/via Madrid. Yves is buried. I stayed in Monte Carlo as long as I could, but I really have to get back to my trip. Debra is going to leave for New York any day to take care of the stuff in the apartment. Leaving last night was one of the hardest things about this whole thing. I sang Madison to sleep, which was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve had in a long time. She is so precious. The feeling of holding a baby and rocking and singing them to sleep is one of the most satisfying feelings I have ever felt. I’ll never know the pleasure of having this experience with my own child, but the times I’ve done it with Zena and Madison or my little sister, Kristen, are deeply embedded in my memory. To make Madison sleep, I had to sing verses of “Amazing Grace,” but adapting the words and changing each verse as I went. I found it almost effortless to find words that would rhyme and fit the rhythm of the song. I sang to her about life, her father, the love he and I share for her, taking care of her mother, etc., etc.