WEDNESDAY SHORT STORIES

“How did you find me?”

The voice was deep. Rough, but not harsh. Slow breath in. Slow breath out. A struggle. And there was blood. Blood on fur. Blood on snow. Reaching for the ground. Not much, but fresh. And more would come.

The form of a man appeared. Or perhaps he was there the whole time. Present, but unseen. Seen when he wished to be seen. And now he was. Though a vision incomplete. A mere outline. A pale shadow of a man.

“The same way I always find you.” The voice was old. So very old. But beautiful. He held a weapon at his side, loosely. Recently fired. To be used no more.

Ancient eyes of sapphire and ice fell upon it. The gaze was followed. A response.

“I feared you would run.” A labored breath.

“I would not.” Again. “Not now. No more.”

The gaze held. He did not turn away.

“Then I am sorry.”

It was a dark night. But bright all the same. The sky black. The snow white. The moon was full. The stars were out. So many stars.

The man-like shadow stood in white, covered from head to toe. The other was white as well, though of a different sort.

“So my time has finally come.” There were no smiles here. Only a calm resignation.

“I gave you your life, as promised.”

“And now I must give it back again.”

The blood fell. The heavens watched.

“I am the last of our kind,” the creature said, striving to see more than be seen.

“What will you do when I am gone?”

He did not move. He did not blink. And yet he allowed him in, if but a little. “You know.”

“Then in knowing, I do not understand. You gave them your life. In exchange for ours. Why?”

A whisper without sound. A question without answer.

“It was but one of many. And my needs coincided with their desire.”

A look away, no will to face the truth.

“How can you live? As you are?”

A truth long since accepted.

“I am what I am. I can be no other.”

“But how? How can you live by death? Forever killing without end?”

“We all must face the end. Mine is simply yet to come.”

“You have no right…”

“A right given by whom? I was made as I was. Without my design or consent. Merely different than the rest. And yet my will to live is the same.”

“But what makes your life more valuable than the ones you have taken?”

He reopened the door, allowed him back in. “Nothing. It is not about value, right, or morals. We all had the same dream. Only I had the ability. I simply survive. In any way that I must.”

He relaxed, giving in. His body failing. “I do not think I could ever understand. And I can only hope I would never do what you have done.” The not-man looked on, saying nothing. “But I am thankful, in my own way, for what you have given me.”

He bled what was nearly empty and breathed what would be his last. “Come and do what you must.”

A sword was withdrawn and the shadow approached. Their eyes met level, though the creature sat, slumped. The blade rose. The tip carefully placed against the chest. Full strength poised and waiting.

“It is an honor.” He held him for a moment and once for all time.

Metal sprang into action. Cutting cleanly through flesh. Through bone. Through heart. Through life.

The two souls faced each other. So much alike. Then his eyes grew cold. His spirit fled. The other waited. Relishing the moment in a way that no one else could. A sadness beyond memory. A tragedy beyond time. The end had come. And he was gone.

The shadow, the hunter, stepped back. He knelt down. And he reached for the red.

They stood in the cold, in the parking lot.  One pointed toward the station, one facing toward the bus.

 "So my dream starts out like this," Gerry says, "with all these people around, beautiful ones. Are you listening?"

      "My head's nodding up and down, can't you see it?" Marcus leans away from the excitement of his friend, settling into a chair.

      Gerry continues, "I'm saying, you haven't been here in a while, I wanna make sure you're listening." 

      "I'm listenin'."

       "So--I'm piloting this ship. Me, I never left the state, but I'm all over the ocean in my sleep. Anyways, I'm piloting, wait--captaining? It's captaining the ship, right? So I'm doing that real good and there's about a hundred hot chicks around, all over the fucking boat, which, by the way, is bigger than any God damn boat…ship, I ever seen, but remember I'm real good at driving it--" Gerry coughs dryly for  a second, catching his breath.  "I can see you're waning so I'll pick it up here… I lock eyes with this doe eyed chick, little chub cheeks, tight little whatever, looks like a younger Sarah. So we're in the fire gaze, full on--and this is where the dream gets screwy--I dock the boat at some silly island tit fest. As we're getting off I finally break eyes to see our surroundings: tropics, crashing waves, blah blah, then I turn back to look at the broads in the water and all the hot chicks have turned into animals. Goats and giraffes and dogs, couple cats, who knows, fucking Amazonian ducks, whatever right. I look around, my chick is still muffins and donuts: thank shit. It's tropical out, so I grab her by the arm, and we're walking the plank to land when this bearded guy yanks me aside. He looks me right square and I know, like only sometimes you know, and I know I've seen this man before. Maybe across the street, maybe the janitor when my mother still lived here, something inside me says this man knows. Knows right about me--"

      "What he say?"

      "He says to me, says, 'here's hindsight for ya, I coulda grabbed two unicorns and left the bitch'."

      Gerry claps his hands together, leans back into the couch cushion, "Whatta ya think?

      "That it?"

      "Yeah-"

      "The fuck you mean, yeah. What happened after the guy?"

      "I woke up all sweaty and immediately looked over at Sarah.  She'd been working late, she's dead asleep, and I just knocked her awake. It took a second, but I got her riled, then I flat said, 'you gotta leave.'"

      "What?" Marcus asks, pulling his body erect in his chair.

      "Yeah."

      "When was this?"

      "Three weeks, something. Same day this happened," Gerry carefully lifts his foot from the stack of pillows it'd been resting on, showing off his heavily taped, awkwardly braced, left foot.

      "That's sorta fucked up."

      "Which?"

      "Both." Marcus says,  "You get the injury chasing your dream beasts or whatever?"

      "No, the two aren't related. This was an accident, and as far as Sarah goes, ya know, I sleep diagonal, so--"

      "So?"

      "Yeah, just how some people break down."

The two men adjust themselves against their adjacent seats. Marcus, the fatter of the two, tugs his tee shirt, making sure the wrinkles of fabric aren't tight around his mid-section.

      "That foot worser than it looks?"

      "I'm almost outta sick leave," Gerry replies. Marcus nods, distracted by a memory of helping Sarah move in; how she'd taken the heat bulbs Gerry sometimes used for light in the winter, and replaced them with ones that bore a heavy incandescence. They look awkward in her absence.

      "How come you ain't come around for a while? I've been cummin' my shorts to share that story," Gerry asks.

      "It's only a foot, you coulda limped yourself down a few buildings to my place." 

      "Whatever--you gonna leave a hurt man alone? What if I'da died in this bitch?"

      "Then you'da died of a weak ankle and I woulda spent the rest of my days lying about you being my friend." 

One farts. One itches his balls. 

      "Work been busy?"

      "No," Marcus barely replies.

      Gerry barely pauses to listen to the short answer, "Overtime?"

      "Not really, I mean, does it matter?"

      "You got a great shift over there, huh?"

      Marcus rubs his eyes in mock frustration; they're red from friction when he finally stops,  "What's that?"

      "Usually I'm in and out all the time, night day, like a rat or something, the way I'm always tired and moving onto something else. And I never see you going to work, coming, yet and here you are eyes sunk down a bit, skin sorta yellow like you catch for the Yankees, saying you been working."

      "All that moving, still got time to peek from your windows?"

      "This ankle has given as it's taken."

      "I dunno man, I'm out there ya'know, trying to keep my five-hundred channels."

      "It's just that my mind wanders. I hadn't heard from you. Finally it got so I had to call."

      "Ten times this morning."

      "It got to where maybe I thought you were dead."

      "Yeah, thanks-"

      "Maybe you were fuckin' rotting."

There are few things, over time, that silence conversing men; most are ruined stereotypes like sports, or tits, yet in these shortened days it's something much less civil: a lie has broken out, forcing Marcus to stand and crack it from his back. Gerry considers him, looking him over, as if a lie is physical. A liar marks like a witch, any moment a jagged scar should cross Marcus' cheek revealing a silver moon of truth. After a minute, when it doesn't, Gerry admits, "I'm sorry man, I didn't mean to get on you like that."

      "It's fine, I didn't know you were hurt up here; it's whatever. I gotta head out though."

      Gerry looks around, checking the distance to the door. He's not sweating, or uncomfortable, it's just that he suddenly feels her missing. His femme fatale, who dangerously infected him with infatuation, who was here in this room and now isn't. He feels her absence crawling up from his femur settling in his joints: elbow, hip, knee, places where if he moves wrong without her he'll break. 

      Outside in the concrete courtyard, a bottle breaks. Then another. The shattering like a down beat, the hiss of the glass echoing upwards to the room with two men; old friends quickly disintegrating. This complex of aged apartments has always been a place where small things go unnoticed. Where, historically, when events have brought the dinner five news crew into the cul-de-sac, residents say, 'I lived here all my life, I never knew, I never woulda guessed'.

      Marcus opens the door to leave just as Gerry slaps it closed, nearly catching Marcus' nose in the frame, and he remembers every single incident where someone didn't know about the axe under the bed, or the knife in the pocket.

      "Lemme just ask one more question…if you're in no rush or anything."

      "What's going on man?"

      "I'm just wondering, like I said, what you do with all that time?" Gerry's face flushes; the small apartment shrivels. A canned tuna smell wafts down the hall, lending a thickness to the air. There's girly magazines and milk rings on the table. "Get us a few drinks, sorry I don't have any drugs, the union checks me now. I'm sayin' have a seat let's make up for lost." Gerry waves his arm, as if presenting the room's options to Marcus.

      "I don't have any stories to tell."

      "Fine, I'll go first, again, but don't leave me here with unpaid cable bills and a half chubby thinking about lady love."

      "What lady love?"

      "That's parta the story, c'mon grab the liquor nips in the kitchen cabinet." 

      The kitchen is sloppy like Marcus remembers. The fat, slightly cracked tiles are speckled with stains; some spots look like bits of blood, brown and dripped across the kitchen. Marcus pauses to remember where the liquor is kept, and why he hasn't been up here in so long. The apartment doesn't remind him of hell, or salvation, he doesn't find Gerry's laugh towering or motherly; he can talk about cock & balls if he wants.

      In the living room, Gerry braces himself up against the nearest wall. His ankle is twice the size it was yesterday, and the half-wit doctor down the hall told him it should be going down by now. That maybe it's something else beside sprained. Gerry shin slides the coffee table over, positioning the chairs closer, yet still across from each other.

      Marcus tips his head back, pulling from a vodka nip. The music rising from the other room suddenly soundtracks the moment; he dances with a whiskey nip before drinking it down in a single, smooth sip. The beautiful soul song is bass dominant and chorus heavy. There's an honesty to the analog recording. Marcus tosses another nip back. Gerry starts bellowing from the other room, trying to sing along. He's a few seconds off each lyric, making the beautiful soul singer sound as though stuttering. He's removing all the heartbreak. Marcus can only drink a third nip to quell himself. His transitional smile from sober to not comes with flashes of the woman he's found, how she's waiting with wine for him at home.

      Gerry leans further into his cushion. He's watching his living room shift into a small loft space. He's remembering a studio apartment, not his, Sarah's. Sparsely dressed, the apartment and the lady both were. Gerry had stretched himself across her small couch, watching, for the first time, her unfold before him. Everything seems slower in these flashbacks, as if memory can't process itself when bent together with reality. Gerry locks himself in to silly, smiling Sarah as she's dancing over him. She's doing things only women can: slickly pull her bra through a shirt sleeve, then using one hand to tie back a pony tail while her other works an elastic off the wrist, around the hair and in two God damn seconds flat she's finger in his ear, front teeth nibbling his lip. She disappears down between his legs just as Marcus' nip swallowing head reappears in the living room.

      "So--?"

      "What?" Gerry asks.

      "You gonna tell me what had your eyes rolled back like that?"

      "You first."

      "My eyes ain't rolled anywhere, and I don't have that grin you do. Where'd you go to get that?" Marcus sits down across from a leaned back, and wincing Gerry. He places the liquor down, thinking he doesn't need to like the limping friend to drink with him.

      "C'mon there hasta be some small tale. We used to trade porn." Gerry says, keeping the grin on his face.

      "Yeah, so?"

      "So," Gerry puts his best sad face on, allowing his lip to droop and his tinted gums to show, "puh-leease."

      "You realize this is a little gay; you're dying to hear me talk."

      "I won't ever tell, good buddy."

Marcus keeps his seat. He reaches for another nip but they're all empty, already, "This is a joke man. Come by when you can hobble better, we'll catch a buzz then. I've got a chick waiting back for me."

      "See I knew it was something. First I thought you mighta moved to the apartment with the skylight, and didn't want me to be jealous. You don't have the apartment with the skylight do you ?"

      "What now?"

      "I didn't think so. Look, what's the big deal you got your head in a box, that's fine. Fuck fine, that's half this complex, one box of a type or another. I'm just saying a phone call, a knock." After a moment to recoup, he says with the candor of a child, "So tell me about her?"

      "Well--just this chick, I dunno--she's--"

      "She's my fucking Sarah is what she is, isn't she pal?" Gerry says, heat reddening his face.

      Marcus doesn't have a look for this. Smiling feels arrogant. Hands in his pockets, shifting shoulders feels disrespectful. He's easing his tongue over his gums inside his mouth; tentacle of nerves and non-reaction, his fight or flight response dulled after years of neglect.

       "So this is it, huh? This is what happened to your foot."

      "Resent is a black, ugly trait."

      "C'mon let's not be pathetic here."

      "Does she think you're brilliant with something under your sleeve?"

      Before Marcus replies, Gerry raises his leg off the cushion and thrashes his broken appendage into Marcus's knee, buckling it. He drops; Gerry smashes his good foot into Marcus's side, fat jiggles instantly black and blue.

      "I drank too much I think and I'm sorry but now I got something started, I might as well--it's always better to ask forgiveness than permission." Gerry watches Marcus crawl a few steps before kicking him again.

      "I've never been kicked before, but I think you outta get that foot casted 'cause you kick like a chick." Marcus says, coughing hard while climbing to his feet; once up, he doesn't raise his hands.

      "C'mon, say it again!" Gerry's hobbling around, a child of Hamburger Helper and Friday night fights, but, like most, he's forgotten himself, his limits. Marcus side steps his next punch, wrapping him up in a big hug.

      "Someone's gotta be thinking here Gerry or you might end up three floors down."

Gerry exhausts himself back into his seat. His chest heaving like this has been wind sprints.

      "Bet you don't even fuck violent," he says, not embarrassed, and still looking Marcus dead in the eye. "Dropping from me to you, she fell like lead."

      "Thanks."

      "Well what-- just tell me something. That's all. Tell me a story about how you snatched her, or you wanna chat about how she always tells you to hold her hips when she's riding on top and you can't ever feel her up cause of it."

      "I'm not a good sharer." 

      "Think of this like a locker room. It's all dicks and secrets out." 

      "Fuck off--"

      "After I told you all about my dream…my fantasy. The unicorn, two of'em." Gerry's voice rises and falls, his weaknesses dripping from the edges of his shirtsleeves. "What's the harm now? I gotta live knowing I chose the sack of duck feathers, the squawking mouth."

      "It's getting sweaty in here, maybe we should get some air or something." Marcus offers Gerry a hand to his feet.

      "Easy, easy--" Gerry says, waving at him, circulating a small circle of dead air between them, "come sit there, I wanna whisper you something." Marcus sits beside him, too close by a few inches; their bodies rub for a moment before Marcus slides down.

      "She keeps you in that house day after day, you don't leave, you don't work, I see the blinds always open up on the fifth floor, letting that sun in for as long as the day is. I know these A.C. units barely spittle, c'mon man, she's got you sweating for something up there."

      "That how you say you wish you'd held tighter?"

      "I've only got so much that's mine."

      "Uh-huh--you wish you had more?"

      "Wish I still had her plump vagina sitting between my lips and nostril."

      Marcus gets up, crosses the room to finish the last drops of several nips. He then comes back across carrying clarified thoughts in his mouth. He pushes his body right up against Gerry's, leaning down into the nearest crevice of his ear. Marcus whispers a long sentence that's drawn out like a child's. Gerry steps back, trying to clear his throat. He's suddenly coughing. He puts a hand out as a keep away. He's trying to say something, spunking words out in half syllables that Marcus doesn't attempt to understand.

      Finally the jag passes, Gerry sucks in gulps of new air. He stands, wiping the clots at his lip corners, and begins again, "She ditched me cause I left a note that said 'Hi'. One night after a double shift, I'm dead asleep, dreaming of her, and she busts in like it's a fire, wakes me the fuck awake, shouting: you left me a note that just said 'Hi.' You know I hate fucking 'Hi,' like what else besides 'Hi.' 'Hi'; cancer, 'Hi'; fuck me please, 'Hi!' Y'know--explain." He stops to consider the memory, the weight of imitating her voice was too much, something he didn't know before he entered into it. And he's weak again, his foot won't stand his weight.

      "She left you over a note?" 

      "Yeah."

      "That's--"

He stood atop the wall, the ancient wall that had stood for over a thousand years while the city changed around it.  He gazed into the endless expanse of man’s creation that forever spread before him, tired eyes piercing the haze as he sifted through the countless lost ones who continued to walk obliviously through their empty lives.

There was hope, once.

But it had faded.  He could no longer remember the taste of it. 

They had fought for this city. 

And they had lost.

The others had given up.  He was alone.

But something was about to happen.  Change was coming.  And so he stayed the course.  He stayed for the new generation that would arise.  They would need him before the end. 

He would never give up.  He would never stop fighting.  It just wasn’t in him.

The wind whipped his hair.  The clouds rolled in.

He breathed deeply.  The cold air chilled his lungs.

The darkness washed over the city.  Building after building faded into shadow.

He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight.

And then the rains came…

           He calls his father to tell him this is it.  Pop’s from that era that doesn’t ask about the stars, or how the city looks just after dusk. So he doesn’t get to tell him it looks like we’ve been abandoned; those buildings along our famous streets are just ghosts, and we’re haunting among them.
           He tells his father about his day, about the weather, and how come when it rains all the houses tend to slide away; he makes a metaphor from it, saying quickly that home is always sliding away from us anyway. Monday it’s just down the street, but by Friday, home is a room scattered among ruins, and we return to feel just a little bit disappointed.

We ran through dishonest pleasantries like clockwork. Everyone’s fine.
Of course.

She shampooed me (an experience I probably enjoy a little too much) and sent me to the chair.

An inch? Two inches?

I say just an inch, but make sure to clean me up on the sides. My wife hates it when hair touches my ears.

Silence. Her hand rests on my shoulder.

She sets the scissors down and excuses herself to the backroom.

I hear light sobbing because, in fact, Anita knows that I really have no one.

The little girl laughed. She was watching a fuzzy caterpillar crawl across her front porch. It was the only thing like it in the world.

I want to start a fucking fight. I want to hit someone over the head with my Bud Light bottle. I want to batter someone with my bare hands. I will have to get pulled away, and I will start beating the people that try to stop me. I want to create an utterly violent chaos. I want to knock down walls. I want to claw someone’s eyes out. That guy with his fucking polo shirt- who the fuck does he think he is? That fucking gel in his hair. He goes to the gym, works out. “Check out my abs bro.” I want to just fucking kick his teeth in. He deserves it. People will remember it. “Remember that time we were at that bar and that kid just snapped on that guy and kicked his head in?”

There’s this girl, she is probably older than me. She is wearing blue; she has short, brown, curly hair.

I fantasize about waking up in the mornings with her, completely in love. We talk about going to get a late brunch. Moving to Savannah one day, or Charleston. A town with an old Southern charm, with minimal racist tension. Our house will be small, but will have a library. She will do her work; when she comes homes at night, I will be writing in the corner. We periodically will distract each other by our random sporadic thoughts that no one else finds interesting but us. We love these thoughts. We have sex in the shower.

She looks over my direction, sees I’m looking at her. I quickly look away, but can’t find anything to anchor my vision. It was a poor exit.

I walk to the bar, order another Bud Light. Everyone is looking at me. Wondering how old I am. They are thinking about how young I look. What the fuck is this kid doing here? They can tell I haven’t had sex in a long time. It emits out of me like a light for everyone to see. They laugh at me in their heads. No girl would waste her time talking to me. He wouldn’t know what to do with me, he is so young. I try to emit a light confidence and wisdom and wit. But, I can’t muster it; I know it isn’t in me. I know they are all right. When my beer comes, I go back to my seat. The ugly kid who came with us bought some cigarettes for the table. I have just started to get good at smoking. There are six guys sitting at my table. They are all pretty tame and won’t talk to any girls. Not that I do all the time, but I have been known to. There was a time when I was a semi-ladies man, if you considered my beta male status. Not now. People around us think we are gay. A group of guys are talking about it. I can hear them, I feel them looking at us. This doesn’t really bother me. Except for the fact that they perceive that as something wrong with us, when, in fact, the real problem with us is that for all existing purposes we only use our dicks to pee out of. I think about hitting on them- fucking with their heads, then beating the shit out of one of them. They will remember the night a fag beat the shit out of one of their friends. They will think twice before making fun of gay people again.

No one is really talking; we are all just sitting there staring at each other, waiting for something to happen. The guy who bought the cigarettes starts talking to me about a job he got this summer. He talks with all arrogance about how awesome his job was, how important the work he got to do was. His father is a doctor; he owns a practice. He’s pre-law; his dad set him up with his lawyer friends. He has nothing going for him. He openly admits he wants to be a lawyer to get girls. I know he has failed on virtually every attempt, as he does with all other girls. He is most definitely a virgin, but in the most desperate, sad way.

Blue walks by our table. She is standing in a group circle, talking to some friends, all girls. She is the shining star, though. She is the face that you spot when you scan the crowd. Her. I have to go say something to her. What? I’m fifteen. She has so many good things to offer, and I only have potentially good things to offer, things that will never be fully realized. She sees me looking at her again; I don’t take my eyes off of her for a second. I give her a slight smile. She doesn’t immediately look away, but she gives no reaction and then looks back at her friend. Fuck. I’m never going to have a girl like Blue. What can I do?

It gets close to closing time. My friends are drunk and arguing about abortion. I want to get the fuck out of this place. I tell them they should close their tabs before it gets busy at closing time, even though most people have cleared out. They listen because they are shit-faced. I sit, patiently smoking a cigarette, praying to Blue who will never hear me. I feel like I might cry. Keep everything in. Don’t let it out here. My chest feels like it is expanding.

When we get back to my friends apartment, they keep drinking. Two of them smoke up. I fall asleep on the sofa. I wake up at 7AM to a cell phone alarm going off. One of my friends is passed out on the ground, not responding. I look for the cell phone. Then I realize that the cell phone is in his pocket. I leave to walk to my apartment. I pass a couple leaving for the morning.

It was at some mixer or birthday or one of those things. I’ve never really been good at telling what type of party I’m at. I was standing with your friends that I came with and didn’t really know well, watching the crowded mess of people stand around and drink and talk, trying desperately to be funny. Not me, them. They were trying to be funny. You were talking to some guy; some guy’s name I forget now. I knew the guy, though. You had talked about the guy, at some point, in length to me many times. I know he had cheated (in his opinion not cheated) on you with his girlfriend. I was watching you talk to him. In my head, I remember having a beer. But, I couldn’t because I was twenty, and we were at a bar. And, I remember having to get a red bracelet at the door because I wasn’t twenty-one yet. And, not drinking the whole night, I remember wishing that I were trashed. That I was the type of trashed where you aren’t really sure if you are asleep or just trashed.

But, there I was drinking my Bud Light, watching you talk to this guy, when your friend I didn’t really know said that you would probably like me to meet the guy you were talking to.

I thought this was because you and me were kind of on a date, and you wanted this guy to be jealous, to see that you were with some other guy. That’s what I thought. I didn’t know that we definitely weren’t on a date, which I would later hear back through a five-friend chain, and that you were in love with this guy. I was your good friend- your good friend that you had high opinions of and who you wanted to like this guy too.

I don’t remember him. I’m sure he was nice. I’m sure he had deep blue eyes that make you feel like you’re a part of everything that is important and big. I’m sure it’s now hard for you to imagine those feelings you had for him that night- the mixed and equally consuming feelings of lust and infatuation. It’s not hard for me to remember how I thought of you on those nights. Spring in the south always feels like a room after you’ve had sex in it. That’s why I remember the feelings, I think; they felt consummated. I felt like we were already in a full fling, that we had secrets about each other, that we both were sharing with each other a side we had grown accustomed to hiding.

I liked you drunk. I remember that. You reminded me of the first girls I ever got drunk with in high school. Smiling, for the first time letting yourself think things you aren’t supposed to think around boys. You moved in slow motion, with an increased intensity. Maybe you were normally that way and that’s the way you appeared to me when I was drunk. Either way.

I started walking out of the house without any intention. I knew I would probably get lost quickly, not because I didn’t know where I was but because it was dark and there weren’t a lot of streetlights.

It had just stopped raining about an hour ago and the streets were still slick. The air was thick and you could feel it sticking to you as you walked. It made the lights look beautiful, though. Like floating firecrackers or something. I stopped and stared at the traffic light three blocks away.

Red.

Green.

Yellow.

Red.

I looked back. I could still see the porch of the house I left. There weren’t many people left. Just the people who normally came over to the house. I wasn’t one of those people. I was invited to the party by this girl I had gone on a couple of dates with. It was her 21^st birthday. It was the first time she had invited me anywhere. She actually called me twice to make sure that I would come.

I went knowing that she wanted me to be everything great. She wanted me to be funny, sweet, charming. She wanted us to sneak into the kitchen by ourselves, where she would laugh at nothing in particular, staring into her drink. Then she would pretend to be sheepish and look up at me. And I would smile at her. Then we would have gone back to my apartment and I would have sex with her with a gentleness and a passion that she hadn’t felt before. She would always remember her 21^st birthday. We would have left together and she would be walking with me right now, to her place or to mine. But, again, I’m walking home fucked up and by myself.

I once made this walk by myself at four o’clock in the morning and called one of my friends. I had left a different party – drunk, a little high, and alone. Told her I just wanted to talk on the phone with her to deter people from mugging me because it was late and it was a bad neighborhood. But really it was because I was lonely and wanted to hear her voice. To talk to her.

Why can’t you tell people these things? Isn’t that a much more honest and beautiful answer? If I had told her that, though, she would have thought I was weak, or pathetic, or creepy. I might be all those things, but you can’t tell me you haven’t wanted to do the same thing. I wanted her, though. Not just her, but I wanted to hear about her day and her life. Her thoughts. We don’t talk anymore. She has a boyfriend. It’s not appropriate to have talks like that with a non-boyfriend once you have a boyfriend. I think about her too often.

The party was at a drama student’s house I kind of know. A couple of my friends say he’s crazy. Even though every time I’ve talked with him, he’s been funny and nice and offered me pot, I still think he’s crazy. I’m afraid that he’s going to snap on me and stab me or something. He looks like someone that’s capable of doing that, but in the cool way. Not in the scary way. If I could look like him I think I would look like him. I saw him walking across campus the other day, carrying his open laptop and listening to music off of it.

I know all of these people but I don’t normally come to their parties. They know that, too, but there aren’t enough people here for me to hide in the masses of other people who don’t normally come to their parties. I don’t know how their parties normally go. There are stories of cocaine on Wednesdays and orgies. People talk about the orgies as if they’re something to be ashamed of, but I know if I were at an orgy with these people I would not be ashamed. It would be the best thing that ever happened to me.

But I’m the only outsider. Except the pot dealers. They sat on the sofa together, laughing with their retro basketball hats with the perfectly straight bills.

“How old are ya’ll?”

“19.”

“18.”

They looked in their mid-20’s.

“Do ya’ll do anything else besides sell pot?”

“I work at Blockbuster part-time.”

“I don’t have another job now.”

I had so many more questions, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask. We sat in the living room by ourselves for a little while. I gave them crap for selling expensive weed. They gave me crap for buying cheap weed. One of them asked about the girl in the boots.

“I like that girl in the boots.”

I look. I know who she is. I know she has a lot of sex. My ex-roommate brought her home once, but they didn’t have sex. I knew she was there and I knew she liked to have a lot of sex and I knew my roommate was kind of a whimp when it came to that sort of thing. I was really drunk and I went to bed with my clothes off in the hopes my roommate wouldn’t lock it up – like he didn’t – and she would climb into bed with me. But that was the thing about all of the girls at this party. They were all beautiful and they were all dressed in celebration of it. That made it difficult for me.

Most of the girls at this party I would get excited about seeing if I just walked past them on campus. But here I was and here they were, dressed to exhibit their best features. They were all dancing with each other and drinking. It’s not fair that there are so many beautiful girls in the world that know they are beautiful. Not to degrade them, because that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to celebrate their beauty. Fine. Think I’m being sexist. Fuck you. They were gorgeous and it deserves to be written somewhere that on this night – and their whole lives – they were beautiful.

Even the birthday girl. We’d kissed before on a date. It was kind of sloppy and a pretty bad kiss. So bad, in fact, it’s made me think two things: either she’s never really kissed anyone, or the people she’s kissed – and their whole way of kissing – is so different than mine that it makes us kissing very difficult. I once put my hand down her pants and she stopped me. Told me she wasn’t ready. Once, she’d gotten high before I came over to her place. We were talking about something and she got very quiet. I could tell she was thinking about something very deeply. I laughed as I asked her, “What?” She looked up at me and asked, “Do you ever think you’re weird?”

I’m walking past a lamp post and I see someone. Just standing there. I panic. I don’t know what to do. Should I cross the street?

No, that would seem too obvious. I don’t want to embarrass myself. He’s black.

Did I panic because I noticed he was black?

If he were white, would I have panicked?

Did I notice he was black and then panic?

Or did I just see a person and notice he was black later?

Fuck. I don’t know. I mean, I would have been sketched out if he were white. Would I?

I’m getting closer to him. I say, “What’s up,” as I approach him, to let him know I’m watching him.

He replies, “How’s it goin’?”

I walk past him, trying to listen to everything that’s going on behind me.

I cross the street. I think I’m safe now. I can see my apartment building from here. I just want to keep walking around, though. Something feels epic about tonight. Something feels big.

I walked out to the porch. The crazy guy – the one I’ve had only pleasant experiences with – was playing guitar. The drama students were standing around him clapping to the rhythm. He had a good voice. I didn’t know the song. They started clapping faster and faster as the song picked up. He suddenly slows things down.

“Coffee will keep us awake.”

I liked that lyric. It’s all I could make out. I could only understand a couple of other words but the song had a good rhythm and he had a nice voice. I liked the song. It was about something bittersweet. Probably about someone he knew or something he went through. There were people listening to the song that knew what it was about. They either felt one of two things for him: embarrassment or some other feeling.

Is it about one of these girls? Is it a song about how one of these girls hurt him, but he’s cool now? And how he loved the time they had together even though it still hurts? Is it about her drug problem that drove them apart? Is it about his drug problem and how awful it is? How he can’t stop? How he apologized to everyone, but he loves drugs? I don’t know. Whatever it is, I like him now. He’s not crazy. He’s sharing something with us. Something important to him. Something that hurt once, or still does, and he doesn’t care. He wrote this song about it. After he finished, I asked him if he wrote that song.

He turned around, a little surprised, and said, “Yeah.”

“I liked it a lot.”

“Thanks, man.”

I went back inside. For some reason, there was muted porn playing on the TV in the living room right in the middle of the party. I stood there with a beer in my hand just watching. I was amazed at how different porn was without the sound. I’ve had very quiet sex before, but it was nothing like watching muted porn. It had me trapped. And I was fascinated by it. Not in an erotic way. It was just mystifying. They were really going at it and appeared to be screaming out in orgasmic joy. But I couldn’t hear anything. I could only imagine what sounds would be coming out of their O-faces. They appeared to not even be having sex. It looked like they were in the middle of an extremely violent act. I thought about if I somehow had never learned about sex, and this muted porn were my first exposure to sex, how I would’ve thought they were hurting each other. That they were willingly engaged in behavior that was excruciatingly painful for both of them.

I realized I was the only one standing in the living room watching the porn. How long have I been watching? Has anyone noticed me? Should I try to explain myself to someone near me?

Hey, man, watch this porn without the sound on. It’s weird. What’s wrong with it? He would watch, and then agree, and everyone would watch together and be amazed at how weird this porn is without sound. We would then have an orgy.

I say nothing and leave the room.

They convinced the drug dealer to roll a blunt for the birthday girl. About six of us went into one of the guys’ bedroom. I purposely sat on the floor with my back to the door so no one could get in and so everyone was in front of me. I also wanted to sit far away from the girl who invited me because I was kind of drunk and, recently, when I’ve gotten high, I go to a confusing place and I didn’t want to talk to her. We passed the blunt around the room.

Once it got to me, the girl came over and sat next to me. Shit. I’m going to be high in five minutes and I’m going to have to talk to her. We once got high and went to the movies. Our friend drove us. We had a fifteen-minute conversation looking at each other through a mirror. We could see the streets flickering by in the corner of our eyes. We both agreed it was one of the better things that happened in our lives.

But, recently, when I smoke, I go to bad places. My brain goes into super-think mode and I can’t handle conversations with her. I won’t be able to figure out if she’s crazy or if she likes me. Or if she does or doesn’t want to have sex tonight. Is it possible to have had sex and not know how to kiss? Yes. Yes, it is. I want her to not be crazy. I want her so badly. She’s so smart and funny and fun. Please, don’t be crazy. Please, please, please. How long does it take to find out if someone’s crazy? I don’t know. Weeks? Months? It takes crazy people years to know they’re crazy. Could it take me years to know I’m crazy? I have to focus all my energy on trying to listen. Stay here. Stay with her. Don’t go anywhere else. Focus on her. Listen to her. She’s beautiful. And she likes you. Don’t screw this up. I’m not sure how I did. But I did my best.

Soon after we got done, a bunch of people stood up and left, and then some new people came in. This was scary. Everyone was looming over me. I felt like someone was about to start a riot and I was going to be trampled by the angry mob and the police on horseback – even though I would’ve had nothing to do with the mob, and just purely wanted to sit on the ground and not talk to anyone. But getting up seemed more dangerous than staying on my spot on the ground. I couldn’t take it, so I just put my head between my legs and stared at the ground. Just focusing on my spot.

After a while of sitting on the floor, I noticed there weren’t many people left in the house. I deiced I had to go. I went looking for the birthday girl. She’s harder to find now, even though there are less people. It might’ve been the pot. I found her in the driveway talking to someone who was leaving or had just arrived or was just standing by a car. I thanked her for inviting me, but told her I was going to leave. She said if I waited a little bit longer she could give me a ride home. Or that’s what I thought she said. I don’t trust myself when I get high sometimes. I recently had a twenty-minute conversation with a friend before I realized he was talking about a person and I was talking about a book. That’s when I decided to leave the house.

I walked through the gate of my apartment complex when it hit me.

“What the fuck happened to all those girls?”

There weren’t many guys at the party, and most of the guys lived at the house. They couldn’t have all gone home with someone. Or did a couple of them go home with the same guy and are now scissoring in front of him, screaming in ecstasy as he’s praying to god to let everything go on forever? Or did they leave the party to go look for different guys? Are they all at different parties right now, about to pick the guys they’ll go home with?

Then I realize that some of them had to go home by themselves, feeling defeated, thinking, “Why did I think it was going to work itself out differently?” They’re climbing in bed alone, looking at the vacant side they never sleep in. They think about the guy they saw at the party that smiled at them. They replay the event in their head a million times, trying to decide if they could’ve done anything differently to be in his bed tonight. They think of him, and his arms around them, in their bed right now. They slowly begin to rub their clitoris.

When I get inside, my roommate is asleep. I turn on the TV. I watch for what feels like days. The show seems to go everywhere. It’s a sad show about someone who killed themselves. At some point, I decide to go to bed. I had a dream about a zombie attack. I had sex at some point during the zombie attack, I think. I had a shotgun to kill the zombies with, but it only worked part of the time. At one point, I became a zombie. One didn’t bite me, I just switched perspectives and became a zombie. I attacked people, dogs, cats, and they became zombies, too. Then I switched back to being me with a shotgun, killing zombies. It makes sense.

I decided before I got out of bed I was going to let myself think about you one last time. I was going to let myself wade through all the memories of us together or me looking at you from afar one last time. I was going to let myself give tender goodbyes to all of my memories with you. That night we went to the concert and it was ninety degrees inside and we were both covered with sweat when we left exhausted. How you tasted that night when I kissed you and how from the exhaustion when you looked at me you looked like you needed me more desperately than anything you had ever wanted. That night you brought over some coke and we lined it up on one of my vinyl record covers. I trembled all night because I felt like you were touching me from across the room. When we had sex it almost felt like pain. I lay there letting myself think about these things one last time but when I was done there wasn’t going to be another time. You were going to be dead and these memories would be gone with you. I was embracing them all and then pleading them all to leave. The memories began to smash into one another, creating embellishments then entirely new memories I’m sure never happened. Like the night we were going down the creek together. Us both floating on our backs naked, our wet heads touching. Trees on the banks arching over us, protecting us from the stars and the moon. You looked at me and said, “I’m alive right now.” Which didn’t really make any sense but you said it. I think it was the way you said it that made it pierce me deeper than words should be able to. I began to realize this wasn’t going to work.

     In the winter of '86, it was hard to imagine me and you getting to this point. But, here we are and we most certainly are at this point but, what I’m more interested in is the point we used to be at. I know you know the point I'm referring to. The point when our bodies were so new to us and so desperately wanted to consume the other's body we would shake. The point when our life was full of spontaneous sex in showers, in the morning before we brushed our teeth, in the middle of the night when one of us would wake the other up because we couldn’t wait any longer. When I used to run my hands through your hair not knowing if I would ever be able to stop. That is the point I’m more interested in.
     Sometimes when I think about that point, the memories are so clear and so present I think if I just take one step to the left I’ll be there. I’ll be in them. But, this never happens. They are just memories. They are just the impressions that those moments made on me that my brain decided to store and keep. They can’t be mined by anything but microscopic lightning storms.
     When I try to talk about this former point with you, you appear reprehensive. Unwilling to acknowledge that point existed and even more reprehensive to acknowledge that that point meant something to you. I think you’re afraid to think about that point because of this point we are at now. I think if you think about the former point, it will make the current point more painful for you. This is why you are afraid of discussions about the former point. But, we used to be at that point. That point when after you would orgasm you would tell me a secret you had never told anyone. That point where things were easy, clear, simple. That point. Is why this point exists.

He was walking across campus to his 10:45 class. He was on the Magnolia Quad, which has been re-sodded three times since I’ve been going to school. Every time they sod it, they always rope it off so you can’t walk on the grass. Which forces everyone to go to the main quad to tan or throw their footballs or Frisbees. But, on this day, the quad grass wasn’t roped off and he was walking through the grass. Then, he just fell down. At first, the people who saw him just thought he tripped or lost his balance.

Gerry and I had dated for seven months. It was a little over two years since we had broken up when he died. We started dating the beginning of my sophomore year. It’s actually kind of a romantic story. My sorority has this semi-formal where all the girls draw another girl in the sorority’s name. And it’s your job to find that person a date for the semi-formal. Now, you aren’t supposed to tell them; it’s supposed to be a blind date. But, like if you have a boyfriend or someone you’re dating, they just tell that person and it’s not really a surprise. But, I was single so I got a blind date and it was Gerry. The girl who drew me was one of my closer friends at the sorority. She knew Gerry from a lab project she worked on with him. It involved beta fish and how aggressive they were towards other beta fish. They would put a mirror in the tank with them and watch them fight themselves and would time the results. Anyway, she later told me that she was going to try and set up me and Gerry even if she didn’t draw my name because she thought I would love him.

He was dead before the ambulance got to him. It was an aneurysm. They looked for a cause but couldn’t find anything. He only played basketball and tennis- nothing that would cause brain trauma. He had drank often and smoked pot and done coke every couple of months but nothing serious enough to cause worry or concern. He just died. Walking to campus one morning without the slightest clue that it was all going to be over in that next step.

It was a big deal on campus and the school is small; everyone knows everyone so it spread fast. It was all anyone could talk about that day. The campus was noticeably quieter for the next week. Like everyone was worried which one God was going to pick next and if they keep their voices down then maybe he would forget about them.

Gerry showed up with flowers for the date. Which most of the guys do because the girls usually buy them for them. They are normally carnations or roses in the sorority colors: white and pink. Gerry showed up with a bouquet of sweet peas and the carnations, “For options.” he said. When I was allowed to take the blindfold off to see him, the first thing he said was, “I’m Gerry.” I laughed and hugged him and thanked him for the flowers. Told him I really loved the sweet peas.

He was a great date. He was always making sure I had a drink or wasn’t cold or wanted to dance. And what was amazing is every time he asked me something I was cold or did want a drink or did want to dance. It made me feel like if everything were fine he would know it and not ask me anything, just let me enjoy myself.

He danced with me all night and wasn’t afraid to dance, unlike the other guys. They had just a sort of rocking motion. Gerry really danced. He had thick black hair that’s softness could be felt by your eyes, he was well toned, and he had a smile and laugh that just made you fall in love. I kissed him on the cheek on the dance floor at one point. He just smiled and kissed me on the head. And then we just looked at each other in the eyes for a while smiling.

When we got back to the sorority I invited him back to my room. It was still fairly early and neither of us was really drunk. We were watching TV when we started making out. I could tell he wasn’t in a rush. He wasn’t trying to have sex with me. I mean, I know that’s what he wanted to do but he wasn’t like other guys I’ve been with who just try and get there as fast as possible. He was taking things as they happened. He was a good and detailed kisser. It took us an hour probably before we started to have sex. We made love on the floor of my dorm. We just rolled off of the sofa. We were both completely naked. He stayed the night and the next morning we went to breakfast. We were together for eight months after that.

I felt guilty about not thinking about him when I was told he died. I thought nothing but about him the week after he died. I think I was rushed with so many emotions I couldn’t feel any of them clearly. I felt like I might throw up at any time the whole week. It was hard for me to focus on anything felt or determine how I felt about anything else. I had just started seeing a guy when Gerry died. He stopped by my dorm the day of his death to check up on me. I could tell he was only there because he felt responsible to be there. He didn’t know where to start, didn’t know his role in all of this; he had only been my boyfriend for two weeks. He left without touching me. After that day, I never called him again and he hasn’t talked to me since. I don’t blame him; it probably is for the best. I didn’t know his role is either.

After Gerry and I broke up, he started dating this girl four months later. Apparently, when she was told she was in class and she became inconsolable. She began screaming and when someone tried to put their arms around her to hug her she punched them in the face and screamed, “Don’t touch me!” Apparently, she then laid on the ground and sobbed and screamed for thirty minutes before she apologized for punching the person. I didn’t like to think about her. They had gotten engaged about a month before he died. I felt guilty that she felt such an intense sense of loss and I felt nothing disguisable. I remember when my dad died and how awful I felt. My mom told me after school. She had bought me a Barbie and gave it to me and let me play with it a little and then she told me. I remember thinking as a 12-year-old this exact thought: “You gave me a fucking Barbie? Why the fuck did you give me a Barbie?” I was furious at her. A couple of nights after the funeral, I threw the Barbie in the fire. My mom ran into the living room because of the smell. She grabbed it out of the fire with the fire tongs. When she realized what it was, she began to cry and I cried. We cried and hugged on our knees in the living room. I hate to think of someone feeling that.

His Facebook page had become a memorial to him. People posted on his wall. They would write stories about him. Say they missed him. A lot of people began to post old pictures. The day he died there were over 400 posts. Weeks after people would posts messages like “Hey man, I was eating at a restaurant and thought about you I still miss you.” I checked it every chance I could get. I would look at his pictures and find the ones of me and him. The time we went to a couples theme party as Mario and Peach.

I began to think a lot about the fact that we had had sex. That I had had sex with someone who was dead. That someone was once inside of me who is dead now. It would give me goose bumps that would last for an hour sometimes. I started to have dreams that I had gotten pregnant when dating him and I now had his baby. That I had this thing inside of me that was half me half this guy that was dead. They would be so real that when I would wake up I would grab my stomach. My body wet with sweat.

I didn’t know if I should go to his funeral or not. A lot of people who didn’t even know him said they were going to go to it. I found this to be a fake gesture of their sensitivity. Them just wanting to look like they were emotionally aware and profound. I feel like when people die sometimes that it starts a competition of who is the most sensitive. Really, it kind of makes me sick when I think about it. I remember at my dad’s funeral my cousin who was seventeen at the time pulled me aside and told me how upset she was about my father’s death and how she would miss him and felt so bad for me. I remember wanting to punch her so badly. Or scream at her. I had a fantasy that her dad would die and then I could show up at his funeral and cry and tell her the same thing as a way to get back at her. She had no clue what it was like. That’s why I didn’t know what I should do for Gerry’s funeral.

I had met his parents several times. They would probably remember my name. I didn’t know if they would want to see me there or not. I thought about his fiancée and how it would make her feel if I went. If I went, I knew I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t bring attention to myself in anyway. It had to be about the people who were truly affected by his death. That would be hard, I thought, with all the people going to school just wanting to prove how much they were affected by Gerry’s death and how much they would miss him. Anyone that had a closer relationship to Gerry would become a target for the expression of their self-serving sympathy.

I decided not to go. I didn’t want to take away from the people that really cared for Gerry and really needed the experience. The school had cancelled classes for two hours so people could go to Gerry’s funeral. Which was at the request of the student government, it was frontpage news on the student paper. His funeral was on a Friday at 3 so every class after 2 was cancelled for the day. I went to the library to do some studying during the funeral. The campus was empty. Everyone had gone to the funeral or had used it as a three-day weekend. I liked being on campus when it was empty. I had once stayed on campus over spring break and loved it. It made me feel like the whole school was built for me. That I was the whole reason for everything on campus. It’s a nice feeling to get sometimes.

That night I had another dream that I had sex with him. He didn’t look like a ghost at all but he felt like one. He felt like a fog in human form kissing my mouth and going inside of me. During the dream I realized I was dreaming and tried to wake myself up or change the dream. But, I couldn’t. Instead it became one of those outer body dreams, one of those that you are watching yourself and have no control.