Gray

3



Now I’m back on the bus, alone. The light on my laptop pulses white on black, like Morse code, sending distress signals into the dark. This ship is obviously sinking. I’m thinking about that waitress, about how I should’ve tried harder. I’m thinking about getting back on my medication. But mostly, I’m thinking about the last time I saw Her. It didn’t go well.

Her lips curl when she’s talking about the Q. Her middle name begins with Q, but she’s not like that, you know? She’s regular. She’s normal just like me. But Her lips still curl in the most exquisite way. You should see it in person. I’m not doing it justice. I call Her up because I want to hear Her lips cup the air around the receiver. I want Her to put the receiver to Her chest, so I can hear Her blood. I want to tell Her to build me a model of San Francisco, because I have a great idea for a disaster. I was drunk if you couldn’t have guessed. She must be on Her computer because the phone just keeps ringing. She can’t be bothered to pick it up. Right now I want to shoot those f*cking Harvard kids who started Facebook in their dorm room.

I call Her up again, to tell Her to build a mini-version of San Jose for me to devastate. This time she answers and tells me she is on the phone long-distance with Her aunt. “I’ll call you back,” she promises. I want to kill every member of Her extended family.

I call Her up again because I want to go over the blueprints for a miniature Atlanta because I crave catastrophe. I want to tell Her I am the new William Tecumseh Sherman. She would get the reference, I think. Like I said, I was pretty drunk. It goes right to voice mail. Right now I hate Her voice because it reminds me of how much I think about Her. The faker. And I can’t stop thinking about Her. I miss Her lips curling around those Q’s. I miss Her body. After a while, when one bounces back and forth between different hearts, nothing gets old. You never really have to mean anything to anyone. My intimacy problems are with the world.

Finally, a call. I pick Her up at Her apartment, even though I probably shouldn’t be driving. Her eyes are blackened around the edges so much that she looks like a raccoon. They look permanently bruised. She’s always the consummate victim. Her hair looks like rows of shark teeth, just jagged dye jobs on top of one another, running away from Her natural color. No one wants to be what they are. We drive around the city so she can alternate between smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. We talk about the kids we hate just so we have something to talk about.

We’re sitting on the edge of my bed now, in my apartment. Every single inch on Her body is filled with millions of nerves. Somewhere inside Her brain neurons have fired to synapses and put them on alert. When my hands brush Hers, it feels electric. Every movement has a meaning, either yes or no. It’s getting later and later.

The conversation and the possibilities are running out. Last call. Every time she moves Her hand to Her hair, she is sending me signals—fight or flight. Why can’t I figure them out? Don’t strike first. Wait until I’m tired enough to make a move. Lean in to kiss Her, bringing an awkward break in conversation. As I pull back, she keeps talking about writers she thinks will make Her look cooler. She’s changed, I think. Or maybe I have. There’s too much distance between us now to tell. Too much water under the bridge. Too much mileage between the legs. It’s awful.

I push my tongue into Her mouth to kill the conversation. She smells like stale cigarettes, smoked by boys who were me on nights before. This is all I can think about as we begin undressing one another, panting with false ferocity. It’s all a show, and we both know it. Her body feels hollow. I push on anyway.

Afterward, we lie in my bed, and I trace my finger down the scar on Her back. It runs the length of Her spine, as if somebody tried to steal it. I joke at Her like this: “Someone must have ignored the blueprints, look at all the structural damage.” But I stutter and trail off. The smoke curls off Her lips. For a second, I am dying to be it. Dying to be as clever and kissable as Her. There she is, lying in front of me, smoking a cigarette, thinking of something or someone else. And that’s how she is stuck in my mind forever. We are two explorers in the dark. Mapless and hopeless. Alone together.

It’s funny how easy it is to sleep with someone, but how hard it is to sleep next to someone. It’s too intimate. It makes my heart race and pound inside my chest. It’s deafening. I slide my arm from behind Her head and slip out the door. I think I hear Her wake up, but I don’t stop. It’s summer in Chicago, there’s a warm breeze on the street. Everything feels wrong. Street signs are watching me go over every moment in my head. Watching me remember Her. Mistake by mistake. Frame by frame. I’m not just taking trips down memory lane; I am broken down on it.

I am a corpse bored with my own funeral. I live like a gypsy, only with less gold and maybe more curses. People say I can’t run away from my problems. I am the problem. Well, that’s just shit because I’ve spent twenty-seven years on the run and can’t remember most of the problems that started this. Maybe that’s been the problem all along. It’s funny.

It’s late now. I’ve been gone for hours, probably, but who knows? I call Her on Her cell phone; she answers and asks me where I am. I don’t really know. She asks why I left, and I don’t know the answer to that, either. Or I can’t tell Her. Same difference. So I don’t say anything. The line is silent forever. Eventually, she tells me she took a cab back to Her apartment, says the door is unlocked. Then she asks me what the hell is wrong with me. I tell Her I don’t know and she hangs up. I walk down to Lake Shore. We used to sneak out of school and drive up here. I stand there for a bit, looking out at the water, at the darkened windows in Lake Point Tower. Then I go home. It’s empty. A few hours later my road manager picks me up and we load up the bus and head back out on the road. I leave my medication on the kitchen counter, next to Her pack of cigarettes. Sometimes I like to think that they’ll both be waiting for me when I get home.

One becomes a different person when they live on the road. You take for granted sleeping in the same bed, looking at the same clocks, waking up with a rug underneath your feet. The world looks different from the back of a rest stop. No matter how much you clean yourself, your clothes and your pillow never really get clean—and neither does your head. It never lets go of that smoky, cold/ wet feeling. There’s probably a name for what I’m feeling right now, but I can’t think of it. I bet it sounds like Her name. At some point, I wanted Her innocence for my own. To breathe in every single breath that she breathed out; to taste Her spit; to feel Her falling asleep next to me; and know what it’s like to be let down for the first time. And the hundredth.

I am still thinking of this when the guys all come crashing back onto the bus. They’re all drunk, laughing about some girl or something. Someone falls down, something breaks. I pull the curtain closed on my bunk and listen. . . . I don’t hear the Disaster, which means right now he’s discovering if cowgirls really do ride better bareback. I bet he’s still wearing his boots too.

Then there’s even more crashing, and some cursing, and the Disaster is aboard. He was taking a leak outside, for reasons clear only to him. I hear his boots clomping through the bus, back toward my bunk. He doesn’t even ask if I’m awake, just whips back my curtain and turns on the light. He’s wobbly, but determined. On a mission.

“You in herrre?” he shouts, looking right at me. “I’ve got somefing for you.”

He thrusts out his massive fist, drops a pair of sunglasses on my chest. They’re mine. The ones I left in the restaurant this morning.

“She came to the party, wanned to give these back to you.” He belches. “She was asking where you were. You blew it, man.”

He stomps back to the front of the bus. I just stare at the sunglasses, watch them rise and fall with every breath I take. Then I put them on. They smell like her. I pull my curtain closed and lie there for a while, thinking of the waitress, her hips grinding on mine. Just a little bit of pain. Camus. Her terrible father. I hear the engine start. We always slip out under the cover of darkness. Dallas disappears into the night.