Out of Place

I may have been premature with my supposed solution. Sarah was very enthusiastic about the idea and wrote a section detailing the days leading up to my moving out. It's been good talking to her about this, and I learned a few things I didn't know. There's a problem, though. Moira grew increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of contributing to this narrative project. I thought at least two other perspectives would give the story a nice, round feel. It wouldn't be such a straight line from my perspective, y'know? But with only one other aspect, it feels disruptive and gimmicky. It makes Sarah's story seem tangential, and I refuse to marginalize it in that way. She's enjoying writing though, so she's going to continue with it. Maybe I'll be able to link to it someday.

The thing about writing my story out in this way, through the blog medium, is that it's difficult to go back. I mean, I could look back and edit what I've already written and "published," but it seems disloyal and fickle. Thus, I choose not to retract my thoughts about allowing the narrative to branch out. They were important thoughts for me to work through and, I think, work to illuminate some of the limitations of a story told by one. I like to think of a group of people sitting around a camp-fire, shadows leering from the shadowy night-forest around, logs grumbling below us, mossy with countless untold stories. One person might tell a story that thrills and ignites, and we might throw more wood on the fire to keep the narrative going. However, think of the story told by many voices, all recounting different aspects of the general narrative. Wouldn't it be that much more fulfilling? For the multitude of voices twining together like embers rising to the night sky, that is the dream towards which I write. It seems it is not to be fulfilled here, with this story, but know that it is one of the sparks that resides, informing the direction and flow of my heart. Hence, I continue forth alone, a single sighing ember through which hopefully you'll be able to rekindle the life of fire.

After leaving Sarah's, I walked around Brookline. My footsteps felt numb and the buildings that outlined my walk looked on numbly. My stomach was the only part of me that felt alive. It growled at me angrily for letting it get so late. I found a familiar place and ate something familiar. It might've been a burger, I don't remember. Usually I don't eat the same thing twice a day, but I was so out of sorts. The bar was a jumble of colors, greens and blues and browns slipping in and out of each other. I thought about the things Mike had said. Go back to Ohio? Not likely. Go to work on Monday? Probably. What should I do 'til then? I didn't really want to go back to Mike's, not so much because I didn't want to ask for more hospitality but more so because it would be a kind of admission that I was buying into his philosophies, moving on, doing something towards something else like some kind of twisted, blind progression. But where was I going?

I wanted to talk to Rafi, that was sure, but it could, should, wait 'til the next day. I shouldn't have been so adamant leaving Sarah's. It had been suffocating there, and I had desperately sought escape. It seemed silly in brief retrospect, this urgent need to leave, this childish refusal to go to bed with my problems. I had been like a leaf floating on the surface of a pond that spilled out into a stream, but slowly the spilling had become a trickle and there was no way out and I could taste the water becoming stagnant, filling with ancient algae, choking into my lungs. Perhaps I was a leaf floating on the air just above this pond, and I had chosen the wind to pick me up and batter me to pieces, rather than drown in the water that was looming below with its threat of going bad. I exhaled deeply, trying to empty myself. Not back, then. Not to Mike's. Or Rafi. Moira kept coming up the verdict. But I felt awkward going there. Out of place. It was like a music box or a snow globe there, and I nothing but a pair of grubby hands stirring things up uselessly.

I took my time getting there. Maybe I should just find a hotel, I thought. That would've been, perhaps, the epitome of melodrama. Why did I care about not succumbing to my melodramatic tendencies, though? It had been something Sarah had tried to wean me of. This, then, was the rebuttal of her temperance. I would go all out! Paint the town red! A red hand glared at me at a cross-walk, and the light swam in my eyes. I would go to a hotel and then I would go and find a prostitute! I would get drunk and buy drugs! I would fall asleep in the gutter and slip away, washed out by the morning street sweepers, a piece of garbage to keep from the eyes of Sunday morning church-goers. Maybe there was something to temperance, I thought sheepishly. Something to prudence, as old fashioned as it sounds. I didn't really know how I'd feel tomorrow, and all those ridiculous schemes took money. Without a permanent place to stay, I'd probably want to watch how I spent.

I was really running through those scenarios in order to distract myself. I wasn't ready to face Moira. I don't know what I was afraid of. What was the worst that could happen? She'd turn me away and I'd have to find somewhere else to sleep? She'd think less of me for...what? Needing someone? I knew these fears were senseless and trivial and Moira was my friend and one of the most gracious people I'd ever known, but still I was afraid. Maybe I was afraid of myself. Or maybe I was afraid of not feeling afraid, worried that this was coming too easily. It wasn't like I was happy. It wasn't like I'd wanted this. But what if Moira welcomed me with open arms? I mean, I'd woken up in the same bed as her this morning! What would that mean? What would it say about me? What would it say about me and Sarah if I could "move on" this easily? That our time together hadn't meant anything?

I shuddered as I faced the intercom of her building. The night had turned cool and clear. Above me, the stars had taken the place of the clouds, twinkling silently and distantly with laughter at my mortal concerns. I almost didn't want to interrupt the stark quiet of the night. The intercom would buzz and crackle to let me in. It seemed an excessive interruption. And it was late. What if I woke her up? I wished I had watched Mike more closely when he had dialed in the code this morning. Luckily, my most minor of problems was solved for me. There was a soft click and someone strode out of the building. He held the door open for me. I ducked my gratitude and walked quickly up the stairs. I don't know if it was the lighting or what, but I felt like I was in a bad noir film, a Dick Tracy pantomime replete with swinging cones of light outlining my cloak-and-stagger-lee.

All of a sudden, tripping over myself and my thoughts and all the embarrassing things I'd ever done that Moira might know about or that no one might know about but that I'd done regardless and knowing I didn't want to add this moment to that mortifying memory list, I was in front of her door. My body and mind cleared off all movement and I stood there, thoughtless and still. My mind reached up to grab the key like Mike had done and I didn't know if my body did it too. I'm not sure that I touched the door, but I remember thinking the wood looked cool, alive and moving, changing like ice, not like something that used to be a tree. Somehow feeling the door, an unpleasant thought burst like a star in my head. What if she was with someone?

Moira was more private than the rest of us. We always joked when she wasn't around that she was probably seeing someone without telling us, or half-a-dozen someones. I always thought Moira's understated demeanor didn't belie a separate persona away from us, just a pleasant lack of Sophie-like verbal exhibitionism. It was one of the things I liked about her. Still waters run deep, right? I imagined myself a leaf or a pebble or a raindrop. The slightest touch or the existence-altering plunge. Either resulted in the quiet ripple across the surface. What of the waters below? Would the leaf, drowned, become an amphibian, webbed-toes, a missing link between life and love, water and air, floating and sinking? I reached up and grabbed the key. I slid it slowly but with certainty into the lock, feeling as its tumblers tripped into place, as each little contour of the key reached into the corresponding recess and the metallic sigh as everything fit just right.

I thought about knocking, but it was too late. The key was already in the lock. I turned it and opened the door. The apartment was dark. I exhaled in relief. Closing the door gingerly, I padded through the dimly-lit living room, careful not to step on the spot where I thought my morning's dilemma had occurred. My toes dug quietly into the carpet. "Moira?" I said. I pushed open the door to her bedroom. It was as I remembered it, like a pearl in the moonlight. "Momo?" I used her infrequent nickname, feeling it was more appropriate. She stirred and murmured my name. She turned towards me and looked at me and recognized it was me. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--" Out of nowhere, her arms were drawing me to her. I resisted at first, anxious at her ready acceptance. But then I let her pull me into her bed. I was warmed, thawed, by her; she cuddled into me. "Wake you," I finished softly. "Hi." "Hi," she whispered into my chest. "Where were you all day?" I wasn't sure. "Oh, around." I took in the smell of her, her hair pressed to my face as it was. It was different from Sarah, who was more like a spring day, corn fields, the sun. This was more hushed, like the smell after a fleeting rain or what the smell of a brisk, cold night would be like if you paused it, slowed it down, like lilacs. "Thanks for having me." She made a low noise, muffled by sheets and the slow twining of our bodies, a noise that was not quite a chuckle and not quite a giggle. "Does anyone really have you, Dub?" She paused before calling me Dub. She made the noise again. I could almost feel her smile against my chest. "Did you really call me, Momo? I like that." I breathed, exhaled, my agreement, something deeper and more contented than a sigh.

"Momo. Momo." I said, trailing off to a low hum, a sound emanating from deep within my chest. She felt like a snow-white kitten rubbing against my purring, tracing her whiskers across my gently thrumming body. I stroked her hair. It was silky like a painting of the night. She turned to cradle her back against my front. My mouth filled slowly, inexorably with saliva. I tried to stop it but did not possess those thoughts. I tried to swallow as quietly as possible. She seemed not to notice. Her breathing was long and even, which was good because I was trying to breathe as gradually as possible, hoping I could still the desperate inhalations and increasingly ragged exhalations. She reached back and pulled my arm around her. I moved my hand slowly on her stomach, my pinky trailing along her waist until I came to a rest at her hip. The material under my fingers and palm felt like normally t-shirt material after a first wash, except it was incredibly smooth. It was as if the material was supposed to be a normal sunset, but it turned out to be one of those special ones with splashes of fuchsia laughing out from behind the normal puffs of white painted pink. I wished I could see the night sky so I could laugh at the stars and clouds; they weren't feeling anything close to this.

My hand contracted slightly, feeling for the smallest of details. Then it moved up her side, curling my arm around her arm so that my hand was rubbing her shoulder from the front. "Mmm...rub my neck too," she said. I slid my fingers under her hair and let it slide towards the pillow between her head and mine. Her neck was long and so fair I could have traced each individual vein running parallel to her spinal chord, the knuckles pressing the skin up as if even they wanted to touch her skin. I don't even know if people have veins in the back of their necks, but she would have and I would have seen them if there had been more moonlight. I wanted to kiss her so badly.

I leaned my head forward, resting my forehead and nose against the back of her head. I inhaled, not deeply but the scent was intoxicating. Right then I knew I was lost. I inched up and kissed her just below her ear. I felt her stiffen. I nudged her ear with my nose and murmured, "Hey. Okay?" She made a quiet sound of assent. Something in the back of my mind was telling me to stop, but my body had taken control. I nuzzled her earlobe, and then she turned and kissed me. Her lips were soft and cool despite the warm night. And oh were they pliable!

But too soon she pulled away. I gasped at the sudden break. "Dub. Dub, wait. I don't want--" I exhaled, trying to suppress the deep, keening yearning I felt. "Not tonight, okay?" Taking a few breaths, composing myself, I nodded in the dark. "Just hold me," she said. "Just stay the night." Numb, I just nodded again. I felt like I'd tasted the sweet juice of divine fruit and abruptly had it torn from my lips, cast away to lie in the garden, convulsing but not yet banished.

Happy Dragon Boat Festival!!!端午节快乐!!!
Originally uploaded by Pisces Romance

I held her, and I stroked her hair. Soon she was asleep, but I was wide awake. I lay there for what felt like hours and then slipped from her bed. I couldn't sleep. That nap earlier had not put me in the right place for that. I wanted to stay with her, but it was hard lying there, trying not to move, trying not to feel how much of her I was feeling. I had to get up, had to walk. Stretch my legs. Along those lines, I got down on the carpet and actually stretched my legs like I was going for a run. I was working myself up and I knew it, but it was hard to stop. I'd had this problem in the past. Not exactly insomnia, but a difficulty sleeping in the same bed or even the same room as someone else. I paced to her fridge. No milk I could warm up. No beer. Nothing to put me to sleep. I knew from other times, with other women, that it was unpleasant to go to sleep with someone in your bed and wake-up to the realization that they weren't actually sharing your sleep with you, sleep that had felt so beautiful but now somehow felt oddly tainted. I couldn't just crash on the couch. There was no happy medium. I could wait 'til I was calm enough and sleepy enough to drop into slumber next to her.

I shook my head. I was too tense for this, for waiting. The feeling of idiocy remained. I felt an inescapable need to escape lodged in my chest, filling my throat with its nervous, bilious, backed-up air. I couldn't breathe, couldn't clear my head. I had to get out. Had to. Frustrated, I was beside myself, almost hopping from one foot to the other in the kitchen. I gulped down a glass of water. A semblance of calm slowly wound its way through my body, leaving uneasy pockets of tension. I sighed and rubbed my neck. It was the right decision. I shouldn't have come here in the first place, and I definitely shouldn't have kissed her. Now I had one more thing to deal with. What a mess. She would think I was a pig in the morning. I came into her apartment without an invitation and just push myself into her bed? What was I thinking?

I went back to look at her. She looked peaceful. I tore my gaze away from her regretfully to search for my cell phone. It lay next to the bed. Squatting to grab it, I saw Moira's nightie had pulled up, exposing a perfectly formed thight. I stared. My hand reached out. My fingers brushed across the line of the material, and I pulled it down, gently covering her up. I kissed my fingers and placed them on the bed next to her. Then, stuffing my phone in my pocket, I straightened and moved toward the door. I couldn't believe I was leaving this apartment twice in one day without having to be dragged screaming with yearning. I chided myself under my breath as I left. I should have gone to Michael's place before anything else. I hoped he was home.

The Waxy Leaf Floats Reminiscently

On Monday, Julia's ankle felt much better. It was almost completely healed. She wasn't sure why it had healed so quickly, since its progress had been much slower before she left Boston. Carl had given her a kind of poultice and wrap he swore some mentor of his swore by. Julia had wrinkled her nose at him and told him she didn't believe in that kind of stuff, but she'd try it anyway. She shook her head and smiled as she wiped away the traces of poultice. It couldn't have been that. Her body must've been building up to the final rush of recovery. It was more likely the change of direction she'd taken that had helped. It had felt like her ankle was clogged up by all her worries in Boston. Ben stuck his head in the door and said, "It's also called a cataplasm. Poultice, that is. You ready to go, Jules?"

Julia and Ben did the tourist-y things they often did when in the city. They went to the Met and walked in Central Park. They stopped frequently to rest Julia's ankle, but it wasn't bothering her too much. At Ben's insistence, they went to the Empire State Building, though Julia thought it was a waste of time. It seemed to her that Ben was even more loquacious than he'd been before. Walking in Central Park, she realized how disquieting his stream of stories was. She found herself thinking fondly of walks they had shared along these same paths, walks that had been taken in silence, walks where they had spoken only to determine direction. There was one time she remembered when they hadn't spoken at all, only nodding this way or that or squeezing each other's hands. In the end, these silences had been part of why they hadn't stayed together. It hadn't suited Ben's personality and Julia had always worried it made him resentful. It was not without surprise, then, that she found herself reminiscing quietly and fondly over those hushed moments. Her reverie was broken by a bark of laughter from Ben, the kind of laugh she knew meant he was trying not to laugh at his own story. She shook herself internally and tried to be grateful for his idle talk. She'd rather have him talking than not. Wouldn't she? Eventually, she forgot her unease. She let herself be carried along like some buoy, undone and floating away.


Ben talked of many things. He talked about the various routines The Act had been working on, one of which was a reinterpretation of King Kong. "It's really a fascinating story," he said. "I don't know why it hasn't been re-done more, although there was that scene in Jurassic Park II where the T-Rex comes to San Diego of all places, or that Godzilla remake that was pretty terrible." He went on to talk about the differences between King Kong and Godzilla, the phenomenology and sensationalism of it all. Then he brought Tarzan into the conversation. Ben had always been a big Tarzan enthusiast. The thing about his talk was that it was widely and freely ranging, but all the subjects seemed connected or at least strung on to the last thing he'd said. Usually Julia had fun derailing him with sarcastic comments or a roll of the eyes, and then he would focus on teasing her for awhile, but she was uncertain about doing so now. It was almost as if he was focusing particularly hard on not getting derailed, as if he was holding on to something tenuously, as if he was intent on not focusing on Julia as much as possible. Julia knew that might become problematic at some point, but she wasn't so intent on herself either at the moment. It was so much easier to just let him guide her, them, along. Meandering through ideas and stories familiarly, skating across a brittle, icy surface and pretending it wasn't brittle at all.

Ben talked about working on a Chinese folk tale routine with The Act. Or something that sounded like a Chinese folk tale. "Ambitious," Julia commented. "Ukrainian. Chinese. What's next? Australian?" "Good idea!" She rolled her eyes though not in his direction. Looking away, she followed a pair of runners in small, loose shorts. She missed running. Sometimes it felt like her only outlet. She watched the sweat fall from one and then the other, catching the light and glistening like little insects skating across the surface of a quiet pool.

That night they ate again with Julia's grandma and Barry. Julia helped with the dishes. Afterwards, they played a few games of scrabble and Julia got very invested in the games. She thrilled at the challenge of studying the board, figuring out the perfect place to put letters, finding clever intersections of seemingly un-connecting words. Competitive juices were good. Julia wished life could be like that, with scoring clearly the goal and clear-cut victories and losses. Outcomes were still based somewhat on chance, since you couldn't choose the tiles or cards you were dealt. But if you played the game correctly, if you were perceptive and quick-witted, you could always increase your odds at winning. Julia wished this but knew it was unrealistic. Sure some people played life like that, like everything was cut clearly and fairly evenly. But Julia could never be like that. The aspirations and outcomes in real life were just too complex and variegated. Julia often had to remind herself to make decisions, as she would get lost in exploring implications, ramifications, and forget that the outcome was what mattered in the end, what propelled one forward in life.

Putting away the game, Julia felt oddly domestic. Since reuniting with Ben, everything had slipped into place. It felt too easy, like these patterns were more well established than they had any right to be. Was this how life was, if it wasn't like how it had been in Boston? Wasn't there some medium that wasn't so contentedly happy but wasn't sad and lonely either?

Thinking these thoughts, Julia was further upset at finding Ben in her bed, sprawled out and grinning. "Get out," Julia said. "Jules, I was just kidding around." "No. Oh, sorry Ben. I didn't mean...I'm just tired. My ankle." She trailed off, not looking at him. "Okay. Sorry, Jules. See you in the morning. We're going to see your grandpa, right? Hell of a game you played." She looked up to see his parting smile, knowing any traces of hurt would be by then wiped from his face. She gave him a weak smile. "See you in the morning, Ben."

She slept like a rock that night. She may have even snored a bit. When she woke up, Ben was busying himself, "getting the day off to a productive start." He had packed them a picnic basket with Alice's help. "C'mon Jules, it'll be fun!" She sighed and shook her head. It was like standing on the banks of a quickly moving stream. All it took was a small jump and she was picked up by the current and carried along.


She jumped and found herself rushed off to a quaint hole-in-the-wall restaurant that served fried rice and spam. "The Brothers swear by this place!" Ben said. He was overly enthusiastic, compensatory. Julia hunkered down into her silence resolutely. Letting him dig himself into holes and then dig his way out. If he continued, there would be no ground left to cover, and the water would pour in and be everywhere, like a flood after the fact. It would rise to shin level and never waver until someone somewhere found the plug. Julia wondered where he was putting all the earth he was uprooting. The food was not bad. She ate a whole plate. But on the drive to her grandfather's convalescent home she felt limp and oily.

She wasn't sure when Ben had ceased to talk, but without realizing it she had come to stand before her grandfather. He was sleeping. Ben was not in the room, and she looked over her shoulder at him. He smiled and waved her on, turning to stand against the near wall and opening a battered looking book. Julia turned back to her grandfather. She didn't want to wake him. She hadn't seen him much since the Alzheimer's got really bad. In her memory, he was still the suprisingly spry old man who threw her into the air and caught her and sang her happy songs when she was already happy. She didn't want to let go of that. When he had moved into the home, she'd visited with the rest of her family. All the action and change had kept him cognizant, and his conversation had been sharp as ever. He had asked Julia what she was going to major in at Amerherst. She told him Biology, and he said, "Biology? You're not doing anything with that degree." She had replied, "I'm not doing anything with any degree, grandpa," at which he had cackled and coughed.



As if summoned by her thoughts, he crackled into life, hacking and groaning quietly. "Hi, Grandpa." It took him a moment to focus. "Juju-bean! What a pleasant surprise. How long has it been?" "A couple months, Grandpa." "Oh good, good. It's good to see you, Juju-bean. Good to read. I've been reading a lot, Julia." There were no books in the room, but that didn't mean anything. "I've been reading the sheets and the curtains. I read the pillow sometimes. Or I read the light." "You read the labels, Grandpa?" "When they take us outside, it's nice. I read the trees. Or the water. They gave me a peach last week, and I read the juice. Sometimes I read with Charles. He's my friend down the hall. He makes beautiful words when he moves. Kind of jerky, but beautiful." "Grandpa?" "Have you read the book I gave you? The one with the animals?" "Which book? I don't remember." "The book! With all the animals! And the oni." His eyes shrank to slits and he glared straight ahead. Julia followed his gaze, but there was only a lightswitch before him. From the corner of her eye, Julia saw Ben in the hall, talking to a woman in white.

"Grandpa. Uh, Grandpa. What kind of animals, Grandpa?"

"What kind of animals? All kinds of animals. The rat that crawls. The toad. The road-runner or mongoose--do you remember, it's a road-runner or mongoose?--that eats the snake. It dangles from winged teeth. And there is a rabbit! Oh, how the rabbit runs. There's a dog, and a pheasant, and a boar. A wild boar with tusks like ice and a laugh like rain. Oysters. There are oysters in this book. And birds. So many birds! And there is a bear. How it howls! And the cat! The cat, the cat, the cat. Do not trust its smile. You are not one of us. Oh, the cat. You must run when you meet him, but you will not know it is he, and he will not possess the smile of a cat. His smile will taste like honey and will cascade down your throat like a butterfly. He is the king of the animals! Do not be deceived! Do not fall prey to the butterfly's song. You are stronger than that, Julia. Better. You are more than this. You must know that. You must hold on. You must. You must do something. Have you? Have you done anything? Have you at least read the first page? Have you met Elijah? Has he warned you? Do not go to him! Don't let him touch you! Don't let him touch your ears, your lovely ears, or your eyes, your wondrous, wondering eyes. Don't buy his lies! Don't buy anything he gives you! Don't!"


Julia was silent for a minute. She tried to swallow, but her mouth had no purchase, nothing to swallow. She gulped for air like a fish suffocating in the air. Her eyes shot to the hall, the way out, Ben, but someone had closed the door. There was a glass of water by her grandfather's bed. She took it, wondering if it was clean, looking into the water and at her grandfather's fingers. He had been leaning towards her, breathing heavily and spitting, but now he was sitting placidly, his eyes slowly picking at the specks of food under his fingernails. Julia gulped down the water quickly, as if not letting it rest in her mouth or throat would prevent it from being anything but water. She swallowed. Her lips parted as if testing the air. They touched and then parted again.

"Grandpa. Who?" He hummed at her, not turning his gaze, his eyes. "Who should I not go to? Elijah? Who is Elijah?" Her grandpa was humming higher and higher. He sang in a high, giddy voice, "We're watching you. Don't worry your little head off, we're watching you!"

This is not me.

This is not me. This is not me. This is not me. I kept telling myself that as I stood outside my old building. I'm not this, not weak and torn and muddled. I'm not standing at the bottom looking up. I'm a strong Ohio man who made it out of Ohio. I told myself this, but thinking it I saw myself instead as someone who escaped a small-town background to put myself merely at the mercy of whichever coastal city I ended up fleeing to. Like a model with big dreams, big eyes, and long legs. Like an export from a simpler place, thinking he had made it big but really just adrift in the system and tide of it all. Pulled out by the moon and chased by the sun. Luminescent (WotB: look, this is light not produced from within, reflected light like the moon or anything in orbit really, right? is it stolen or borrowed or passed from hand to hand to hand? is it admirable or dissembling and slightly dodgy? I know luminescent is not the same as luminous). Luminescent and florid, like the most beautiful bird with broken wings. I felt small and stupid. For a flash, I saw myself as this little lost boy in a city he didn't know and didn't understand. What was I doing here? Maybe Mike was right and I should go back to Ohio.



The buildings mocked me, laughing down at my miserable churning, my self-loathing, my hateful sense of provincialism. But then I looked up at the buildings and the clouds above and I felt the concreteness and the ephemerality. What claim had anyone to these urban constructs? How different was I? I reached out and the building was cool in my hand. Shadows moved across my hand holding the building cast by the trees and the sky beyond. The shadows, I saw them grinning and laughing and saw that they were not necessarily laughing at me but only if I thought they were. Turning this way, I saw that I could laugh with them. How many people had passed through these buildings before me? How many people from a million further places than Ohio?

I thought of the class I had taken on New York and the section we studied involving the Irish. They had come with literally nothing, literally the clothes on their back, full of holes and blight. There were stories of men walking for days in search of one single potato to eat during the famine, and they arrived to New York or far-off ports in Canada without even family sometimes. Immigrants would sit in the city unable to find relatives who had moved there before and had said they would be waiting with open arms and opportunity. Or they would get lost, separated from their families on sister voyages, cast painfully through the tumultuous human firmament of movement, one fish in a sea of silver flashes, reflected sunlight and floating corpses, one eye up.

Compared to all that, what was this? Nothing, a trifle. Just keep swimming, Dub. It made me feel small and insignificant to think of my troubles as trifling and unimportant, but that was the source of power too, wasn't it? Who cared about my small little pains, so why should I give them more force over my life than they deserved? I was just one more body passing through. There was no sense worrying about the passage. Just do it, like Nike. I went into the building, up the elevator, down the hall to the door and paused. Knock or not? I wanted to be considerate, but I didn't want to be conclusive either. Knocking and waiting seemed a bit fatalistic, like what would it be like if no one answered and I just stood there. So I compromised, knocked and entered. As the door swung away from me, I pictured the faces I might see in its stead, but the apartment was empty. I was relieved and yet not, all the things that had become querulous inside me quieted for the moment. Everything was familiar in the apartment but lacked life. It was like they had no future in my eyes, like those Buddhist monks who burn all their possessions yearly in order to keep from becoming overly attached to the material world. Summer would be the time to do it, I smiled to myself. You'd have time to rebuild, restock, reconfigure your world while it was still warm out. It was really a ruse, a game you played on your mind, because if you were still burning your things every year you obviously weren't doing a good job of renouncing material things.


I wasn't sure what to do. Should I wait? Should I leave a message or call her? No, couldn't call her because we didn't have a land line. As I thought I wandered into the kitchen. The sink was full of dirty dishes, some rinsed off and some still with food. I dumped the food into the trashcan under the sink and turned on the water. It took a minute to warm up, so I went to turn on some music. Nodding my head and smiling, I went back and put my hands under the water. It was hot and soothing. The relaxing, unwinding sensation of a good, hot shower spread from my hands up my body. I felt the tenseness in my shoulders release. I grabbed a plate and scrubbed at it. Running it under the water, I began to move to the music. The suds slipped from the clean surface, taking all semblance of whatever was last eaten on it with them as they swirled down the drain. The song changed and the beat picked up. My arms kept working and my feet stayed firmly planted, but I moved my torso and my head in time with the music.

This felt good. The dishes looked almost new or at least fresh and ready for new uses. My actions brought the apartment back to life for a moment. I could imagine doing this day after day, and I could almost hear Sarah's voice coming in the door behind me. "Ooh, hotstuff, I love it when you greet me with your better side! Shake it!" I would wiggle my hips and stick my tongue out at her over my shoulder. I turned to look at the door over my shoulder, half expecting her to walk through it at that very moment. She didn't, and I turned back to my work, humming along to whichever song was playing. My skin was damp with sweat, but it felt good after the humidity outside. I finished and went to the bathroom to wash my face. I was glad to have worked up a little sweat on such a hot day. At least I'd done something, gotten something done. It was so much better than just sitting around and sweating in inactivity. I splashed water on my face and looked into the mirror. Why had I moved from one sink to another just to wash my face? I laughed and wiped at my neck. Taking off Mike's shirt, I wiped away the moisture. The bed, right outside the bathroom in our tiny apartment, looked so welcoming. I hadn't slept for more than a couple of hours at Moira's and a couple more at Mike's. I sat down and ran my fingers through my hair. So many things I could do or directions I could take, but all I could think of was lying back and letting the bed envelop me. I flopped onto my stomach and then my side, looking at the room and thinking of Sarah. Finally, I succumbed to sleep, lying on top of the covers in Sarah's and my apartment.

Consciousness came back to me in a slow swirl. I heard voices, things being moved around. It was dark, almost dark. I rolled over. I must've gotten under the sheets while I slept, because turning over wrapped me more deeply in them. I buried my head in a pillow. This was not how I envisioned this happening. Well, I couldn't see anything, so what was there to compare to what I had envisioned? But light streamed in. I thought about getting up or saying her name right then, but with the sheets over my head I felt like a caterpillar firmly ensconced in his cocoon and though it should have been enough time I wasn't ready to be revealed to the world, nothing more than a failed attempt at metamorphosis.



I felt pressure on the bed. That must be her knees. Another pull of the sheets near my head, one hand pressing down as she leaned over me. Suddenly the sheets were gone from my head. Sarah's hair framed her face like light. She looked happy and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and kiss her. But she poked my nose and said, "Wake up, sleepy-head. We should talk."

Here I reach an impasse. We talked and hashed things out and we both said some things we didn't quite mean like people do. We also said a lot of things we did mean, which is good, which is the goal, the hope. And look, that's the thing about communication. The goal is to have the other person understand what you mean. Sometimes I think this is idealistic. When I say something and you hear it, you don't necessarily understand what I mean even if we have the same thing in mind. If I say 'blue', it might bring with it for me all these connotations, by which I mean things that mean blue to me. If I say blue, I'm thinking of Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong and the ocean and the sky which meet and kiss and cry all at the same time. Perhaps just having the same things in mind and going in the same direction with these things is the goal. If I say blue, at least I know you'll be thinking of all the things you think of when people say blue, or maybe it's just one thing for you, but as long as I know we're thinking about the same thing, I can call the communication a general success.

Sometimes you walk away from an interaction and feel like the other person didn't quite understand what you were saying. Perhaps the things they think when you say 'kiss' or 'cry' or 'meet' are different from the things you think. This is how arguments happen. The thing about communication is to get through a conversation and feel enough of your intent was understood by the other person. The amount of understanding achieved and the contentment with this amount on the part of each participant in the conversation determines how well you get along. If the amount of understanding is dissatisfactory, it makes it that much more difficult to move forward into whatever future you hold together. And that's hard enough when you both understand each other.



Sarah and I, we understood each other pretty well. But we ended the conversation heading in different directions. I didn't feel like I could abide by certain life choices she was making. She was upset at my stubborn refusal to accept these things into my life with her. So I packed a bag. Nothing dramatic, just the essentials. And I moved out. But moved out, what does that mean? How many people have moved out of a building before? In essence, it's just a movement from one place to another. But we make it more significant by giving it metaphorical meaning. Moving out means going to live somewhere else. It means not coming back. It means thinking of yourself differently. You are no longer the person who lives in Brookline. Instead you live in Newton or Medford or Somerville. What I'm trying to say is that when I say I moved out, I mean my body was no longer there as often as it had been and it was no longer the place I thought of for sleep or for the placement of material things. Beyond that, I leave it to you gentle reader to determine what 'I moved out' means as the story unfolds. Of course there were feelings attached to this transition, and I was very much absorbed in this metaphor of personal change. Prior to this juncture in the story, I felt inclined to describe these things. However, at this point I find myself uncomfortable with the overbearingly subjective nature of this narrative; I think my point of view makes it too narrow a picture of what happened.

Let's put it this way. I'm trying to write out the events of something that happened a significant amount of time ago. When I tell this story, I'm using words and describing situations. That is the entirety of this narrative so far. Keeping in mind what we've discussed about communication, it becomes apparent that I cannot expect you gentle reader to understand everything as I have come to understand it. That is, of course, the goal. But there are so many hurdles. These are just words and you are such a complex person with dreams and worries of your own. I cannot expect to describe these events in the best way possible for you. I can only hope to do it the best way I see fit. However, the way that had taken shapen before now becomes a hindrance, something I hope to overcome.

This is what happened. I was trying to write about my conversation with Sarah. I found myself reliving it and getting lost in the emotions of it and, upon reading it over, I was unhappy with the way I had portrayed Sarah. I felt I was being unfaithful to her concerns, her cares, the directions she took to get to this conversation and those she took away from it. It bothered me and I even considered discontinuing my writing. Because why write about someone if I can't do them justice? The other people I was trying to write about posed similar problems. Reading how I had described them, they seemed less like people and more like archetypes or projections of people. This was the problem: they were metaphors of the real people I was trying to write about it. Believe it or not, Dawn is a metaphor. She is not simply the woman who came awkwardly into my life as a harbinger of my change. No, she has a story of her own, an entire set of experiences and reasons for intersecting with my life at exactly the point she did.



Or Michael, look at him. I cannot help but look at my depiction of Michael and think he is a kind of pastiche, an amalgamation of disparate parts that mirrors my own feeling of disconnectedness. I cannot say whether this is the way he viewed himself. But in writing about him, he becomes a kind of figure representative of my thoughts and feelings and the way the real Michael interacted with my thoughts and feelings. To be more specific. In an upcoming scene, I come across Michael watching porn. This is something I have to think he did. We always joked about it. And sometimes I found myself thinking of Michael as someone who watches porn. More than that, it gave me a huge range of connotations to deal with, some of which really didn't apply to Michael. I mean, I put together the jokes we shared about porn and the fact that Michael slept with more women than I did and I came to a point where I was thinking of Michael as a kind of womanizer. Far from it, though. I remember several conversations we had where I was struck with his vulnerability and tenderness. When he talked about his little sister or an ex-girlfriend he was especially fond of. When he was alone with art or music. Michael was more than a black-Jewish friend of mine who was into Spanish and worked at a marina and watched porn and slept with more women than me. If I was a more talented writer, I could evoke all these things while still telling my story. Or if I achieved telepathy and could beam my thoughts and memories right into your head. Sadly, when I look at what I've done so far here, I shudder at how how conventional my beautiful, unique friends come to seem. They might as well be cardboard cut-outs springing from the landscape of my tale as if from the pages of a pop-up picture story book. And I wonder if I too become a character in my own story. I feel like I am reading along as the events unfold, but there I am on every page.

Thankfully, there is a solution. I beat myself up over this for days, a whole week at least. How hard my life is! Discussing this with my friends, the answer finally presented itself. I would let them tell their part of the story. I propositioned them and they eventually acquiesced. I would like to do this for the rest of my story, perhaps alternating my take on the events with the story from someone else's perspective. This proves impossible, however, as there's no way of asking the people from the rest of my story for their version of events. I would have to leave Boston again, retrace my steps, although I guess that's what I'm doing here anyway. I guess that's the value of telling a story: you get to relive the events without the trouble of actually going through them again.

Anyway, without further ado, I hand over the reins of this here narrative. Back in a few.

-Dub

It's Not Easy

It was raining on the drive down to New York. Ben talked endlessly of his adventures touring with The Act and Julia was content to listen for the most part. He had always been like this. It never seemed he was uncomfortable with silence, but rather that he was worried Julia would be uncomfortable. Julia knew he wasn't a stranger to long streams of pensiveness. When they had dated, they had spent a lot of time without talking. She thought it was because he hadn't felt the need to fill the moments for her anymore. Like his presence could do that since they were dating. But she had felt uncomfortable at the change. It had changed how she saw their friendship, and it had felt like an acknowledgment, a quiet fatalism. Whenever Ben lapsed into silence now, Julia didn't notice right away, her thoughts trailing off like the rain on the windows. She filled these moments with quiet anecdotes or descriptions of Boston and Amherst, her family and dorm life, a cat she had watched for an entire afternoon bathing in the sun, a party she had felt uncomfortable at (there were a lot of those, but the stories were all the same).

It was nice, though, driving with Ben. And it was nice heading for New York. It finally felt like her summer was taking a direction. Things were falling into place. She didn't really know what would happen after New York. She certainly wasn't planning on spending the summer there. She had thought to do a little traveling with Carl, but now that she was with Ben instead that picture changed. It wasn't a worrying change though. Carl was often sporadic, enthusiastic in one direction until he all of a sudden decided to change course. Ben was much more steady. It struck Julia as a little odd that it felt so easy after the kind of interval they'd had. Since separating, they had only interacted over the phone or through the occasional e-mail. It had been his suggestion, breaking up, but Julia had felt implicated in that suggestion. Now Ben had slipped effortlessly into their old patterns of friendship. Julia felt too comfortable, too relieved at the comfort, to question it. As they moved on, she quietly drifted to sleep. When she woke, the rest of her muscles were stiff from sleeping in the car, but her ankle felt better. She reached down to touch it lightly and smiled up at Ben. "Feels better." He grinned at her and said, "Almost to New York. Your consciousness is as timely as ever." "Sorry I fell asleep. You were in the middle of a story, weren't you?" "That's okay, I'm always kind of in the middle of a story. It's like dropping a call on the cell phone. Sometimes you're not sure when the other party has dropped off, so you just keep talking. It's no one's fault, just a change in reception."

Julia's head was a little muddled as they entered the city, dull from sleep. Ben needed no directions. When they'd been together two years ago, they'd spent half the summer in New York. Julia's grandma's building wasn't in the city proper, so traffic wasn't a big problem. They arrived just after 4 pm. The building looked normal enough, but the lines didn't seem straight. It always reminded Julia of a parallelogram somehow, or a trapezoid. Julia's grandma came down to meet them and greeted Julia with a kiss on the cheek. She gave Ben a strong hug and then wagged her finger at him. "Now, what's my name, young Starky?" "Hi, Alice," said Ben, flashing his usual stunning smile. Julia paused in the street as Ben and her grandma dipped into a familiar pattern of banter and conversation. Julia felt like wrapping her arms around herself. Ben's smile had somehow reminded her of her Greyhound acquaintance John. Perhaps it had been the winning air it exuded. Ben's teeth were smaller, a facet of his smile, where John's had been the entirety of his smile, as if he had crafted them them specifically for that purpose.

Ben came running back. "Sorry, Jules. Thought you were right there. Ankle bothering you again?" "No, just tired," Julia said.

In the apartment, Alice interrogated Julia on her life. She asked about classes, potential grad schools, boys, work. Ben laughed at her questions about boys. Julia did her best to fend her grandma off. "I can't believe you just left your job," Alic said. "Life doesn't pay for itself, Julia." "I know grandma. I'm going to try to work extra hours in the Fall. I might help Professor Faber with some translations." "I don't know what you're doing with your life, Julia. You talk about all these things, but you're not going anywhere. You're just treading water as far as I'm concerned." "Jeez, grandma--" "Oh, here's Barry. Barry, tell the girl."

Julia's grandparents had gotten divorced six years ago. Barry had moved in with Alice two years ago. Barry didn't seem to move. He just stood places. Standing in the door, he took off his hat and his coat slowly. Looking at him it would've been hard to tell it was summer. He carried a cane, but Julia could never picture him using it.

"Oh, you do go on, Alice. Let the girl alone. Let me alone. I just got in and already you're starting. What's she on about this time, dear? You're not getting A pluses in all your classes? You're not taking eighteen credits with ten extra-curriculars? You haven't met a nice young man who's marriage material? Give it a rest, hon. The girl's not yet twenty-one and you're down her throat to be a woman already. She'll get there. Time grows on trees if you let it, hon. Just let it. Let her. It's so nice to see you, Julia."

Julia liked Barry. She kissed him on the cheek and said, "Hi, Bartleby." Julia didn't use nicknames much, but had taken so much to the old man that she had simply fallen into it one day. Barry had never gone out of his way to gain Julia or Carl's favor, but he always stuck up for Julia. She was, perhaps, the granddaughter he'd never had. Julia had only met Barry's family once or twice, but she was always surprised that they were related to this gentle old man. His grandsons were all noisy and obnoxious and the general jock type. They were invariably the kind of boys who would run up to flirt with Julia before running back to their never ending football games.

Dinner was less querulous. Ben filled the warm air with his characteristic arc of anecdotes and thoughts, all very suitable for a dinner table. They talked about China and President Bush and the Haruki Murakami novel South of the Border, West of the Sun. The dining table was just removed from the kitchen. Julia thought the light was more like candle-light and, though the window was not open, she thought it might be. Julia was pleasantly conscious of it being summer, which made her drowsy.

Washing the dishes was usually Julia's job when she was visiting, but Alice had waved her off and was whistling contentedly swaying at the sink. Julia sat nearby on a bar stool. The men had went off to another room, Ben explaining the physics of juggling. Julia thought about shifting uncomfortably but decided against it. Instead she just sat there uncomfortably. After awhile watching her grandma work, she said, "How's Grandpa?" "Oh, the obligatory question. Usually you wait longer to ask. You know I would normally tell you he's fine and you can go see him yourself." Here she stopped and looked up at Julia. Julia's grandfather was not fine. He had been battling Alzheimer's for a year. "You should really go see him. That man." She shook her head and resumed washing. "He gets worse and worse everyday, and he refuses to do anything about it. I wish you would go talk some sense into him. He barely listens to me, and I can't be his guiding light anymore anyway."

Julia watched her grandma until she was done. Alice then went to the fridge and brought out two pieces of raspberry pie. She swung herself onto a stool and pushed one Julia's way. "So you're running around with Ben again?" she said. "Can we not start with that?" said Julia. "I didn't even know he was on this side of the country until Carl pushed him on me. He's just helping me get around." "What's wrong with Ben? I always liked him. I don't see why you two couldn't work things out." Julia ate her pie in small, bird-like forkfuls. She barely tasted it, so she was surprised to look down and find half of it gone already. "It just didn't make sense, Grandma. There were too many factors." "Too many factors? What does that mean? What's so hard? You're both attractive young people and you get along with each other. What else is there?'' "You make it sound so utilitarian." "Oh, Julia. You always think too much about these things. Everything will come if you just let it. You're too young to worry like you do." "Now you sound like Barry." "Forget what I said," Alice said, grinning. "I wouldn't want to be like Barry. Of course it's not that easy, but it shouldn't get you all nervous like this. You look like the air on a hot day, Julia, all wavering and limp and sometimes you see things that aren't actually there. You need a toehold. Ben could be your toehold. Or not Ben. Just something to hold on to. I feel like you're going to disappear. You don't want to evaporate when the hot day turns cold." "I don't think that's how that works." "You understand what I'm saying. Look at your grandfather. No toeholds. Nothing to hold onto so he can't hold onto anything. All his memories, his entire life, just fading away."

Julia looked at her grandma. Alice was shaking ever so slightly, like a leaf in the wind or the rain. Julia didn't think she was upset. The shaking was more like a rocking, sped up to look like a series of quick movements rather than one long, back-and-forth movement.

"You think he wanted this?" "He certainly wasn't above forgetting before. I can only assume this is an extension of his regular personality traits. You don't forget things that are important to you. You don't forget if your memories mean something."

Julia wanted to tell her grandma that it wasn't something that could have been prevented, that her ex-husband was sick, but she knew her grandma had been over it and over it again. Alice had accompanied her ex-husband to all the doctor's appointments and helped him get into the convalescent home he now lived in. Julia knew her grandma understood what was happening on a rational level, but it was unsettling to see her grandma through the parts of her that were not rational. Instead of telling her grandma any of the many things running through her head, Julia said, "I'm sorry, Grandma."

"He didn't remember me today. Didn't remember he had a wife. Didn't remember my name."

"Oh. Grandma." Julia wanted to say she was sorry again but thought the repetition would sound silly.

At the tone in Julia's voice, Alice's eyes came into focus and she said, "Oh, don't worry about it dear. What did I say about worrying? Where are the boys? It's almost time for Jeopardy." As they left the kitchen, Alice gave Julia a large, reassuring hug. "It's so nice to see you, dear," she said.

Julia smiled as they entered the living room. Ben stood in the middle of the room, juggling the remote, a small cushion, and Barry's keys. Barry was cheering him on. It was nice to be able to count on some things. Alice and Barry retired to their room to watch Jeopardy and Julia and Ben decided to watch a movie. As they were watching, Julia found Ben's arm around her. She didn't react at first, but then she pushed closer to him and rested her head in the crook of his arm. He leaned towards her and she heard him inhale deeply. He breathed out and she felt him shudder. They sat like this for awhile. Ben shifted to reach something, having to first pull his arm back from Julia. Shifting back, he looked at her and said, "Is this okay?" She nodded, but something exploded in the movie and they both turned back to watch. Ben's hand lay on the couch next to her and Julia thought about touching it, but she didn't. Eventually, he moved his hands to his lap.

When the movie finished, Julia kissed Ben on the cheek and told him she was going to sleep. Lying in the guest room, Julia couldn't get to sleep. Ben had already fallen asleep in the living room, and she could almost feel his snores through the walls. He didn't always snore. In fact, he had never snored when she was in the same room as him. It was as if he knew. Unable to sleep, she thought about the previous night in Carl's apartment. She and Ben had shared the pull-out couch. After a large dinner and a few hours of talking, Carl and Lindsay had closed themselves into the bedroom. Julia felt the silence creeping upon her and Ben as soon as they were alone, but he had filled the moment with bustling movement toward sleep. She followed. By the time she had changed and brushed her teeth, he was sprawled across the pull-out, making it look tiny. She struggled under the covers, trying not to wake him but at the same time trying to get his offending arm and leg onto his side of the bed.

She didn't have the easiest time getting to sleep. She'd never been very conscious of Ben sleeping when they'd dated. They were both solid sleepers and had generally drifted off around the same time. That night at Carl's though, Julia felt engulfed in his presence. She could smell the faint scent of pine needles and sweat Ben exuded. She could hear his even breathing and became very aware of his warmth mingling with hers under the blanket. His presence soothed her. She didn't feel anxious at all about being attracted to him. He was, after all, asleep. She didn't touch him that night, nor did she want to. Rather, she was content to lie next to him, just to have him there. She dreamed about him, though, and in the dream he was awake. They were lying similarly to the way they were in the pull-out, only he was facing her and staring into her eyes. She looked away from him, afraid to meet his glance. In the dream, she was upset. She felt like throwing up, felt like throwing off the covers, and yet she didn't move. She just let him stare at her, and his gaze was hypnotizing. He reached out to touch her face and they became water birds, storks. They flew and their shadow was cast on what seemed like the sky. It turned out to be a reflection, though it was unclear whether it was the sky reflected on a body of water or if it was a painted simulacrum of the sky on a vertical surface. The two birds merged so that there was only one bird and one shadow, and it dipped to touch the reflected surface. It's beak broke the surface and the water rippled back into place like mercury. The bird burst into a thousand pieces of paper, all a different color, and as the paper faded towards their shadows they became so small that they looked like they were white. As Julia woke, the dream was an expanse of nothing but clouds cast upon a baby blue surface. She woke and found that she was holding Ben, cradled to his side with one arm across his chest. She pushed her head into his chest and kissed his cool skin. He opened his eyes and she propped herself up to look into his face. She leaned over him and touched his lips with her own. The kiss was soft and chaste and Julia then moved back to lie against his side, but her heart was pounding with the possible implications and she could feel his heart pounding too.

In her grandma's guest room, Julia tried to sleep, but again she had difficulty. She thought about going out into the living room, but she felt too good about how things had been going. Besides, if she went out there, Ben might keep snoring. Or, worse still, he might stop snoring. Julia contented herself thinking about which would be worse and eventually she fell fast asleep.