3:30 A.M.
I compose a mental postcard.
Dear Blair. Living sucks. Even after death there will be travel.
Plane delay, fat man snoring. Rain and babies. Usual cripple stuff.
Sudden glances. Mundane shit, literal shit in a tiny toilet,
one-handed. Me, gunless, alert for familiar stances, averted eyes,
casual newspaper readers with hidden badges, aliens.
Suspended in night. Black oil. Airplanes give me bad dreams.
Home soon.
6:00 A.M.
His face its usual bowl of curls and knobs. Voice like caramel. "Hey,"
he says. One word, rich dollop. I think of pancakes. Hunger is a
familiar small wolf in my pocket. He wears his flannel, those
earrings, that embarrassment of hair. No gun, just truck keys at
ready. I nod, flirt my eyes to his, we go. He shepherds me with small
chat, friendly body, very human. Aliens are nothing like this, even
when they try.
8:00 A.M.
Lying across me, he dozes and breathes, small rasps of a fading
headcold. His head covers my heart. Anyone would shoot through him
to
reach me. Rain is falling, but a better rain, here. From inside, where
I reside in a long winter, I look out at the top of his head and think
of how he trusts me, what an odd choice he has made. I am unsuited
to
him, but he wears me down and breaks me in as if I am worth the
effort. I’m older than I look in the mirror. Older eyes, up to the
brim with secrets, eyes no longer entirely my own. Grim and quiet on
subjects he rarely questions; dry and facile on what subjects we can
share.
He doesn’t realize his temperament. Thinks he’s patient, when he’s
pushy. Now and then I think of Mulder. Every two men have likenesses,
if you study them long enough.
10:00 A.M.
He is out plucking weeds. I pluck the curtains and sip the coffee he
made. I scan the trees by habit. Nothing worries me. Or nothingness.
The nothing that is there worries me.
I turn away by an act of will, facing inward on what we call the
study, a heaped mess of our habits and reading and work. Syllabi on
his iMac, Free Cell on my PC. Game 31,058. Move ten cards in a certain
pattern and open sesame. Like many a small businessman with an eye
to
practicalities, I’ve learned to operate from my home.
It should be easy not to turn back to the window and watch over him.
I
tell myself there is no care; nothing grows in this infertile soil.
But I’ve learned to prize what is most human. He is odd and moody and
generous and too speculative, this aging hippie man who wears his
solitude and unhappiness badly. He’s human, as good at being human
as
he is terrible at being human, and I’ve grown accustomed.
I turn, watch through curtains. Light rain again. Denim, frown,
tomatoes in the rain.
Living sucks, and travel. Yet I come home.
(Not in frames? Click here to go home.)