I sing to the motherfucking body electric, you think as you hit your third mile. By now, all you're running on is your will not to go home. There's something frightening about expectations -- his and yours. You don't know how you'll feel when you see him still tucked up in your bed, asleep like a child. He was right, he does look like a painting. A Klimt, he's lost in his hair and tipped in gold leaf. A Picasso, he has more angles than you can count. It takes you a moment to see him as he is. A Van Gogh, the bedsheets are swirled with the motions that your bodies made together. You don't know how you'll feel when you come home and he's gone. It's not an anonymous no-name encounter like everyone thinks you're only capable of because you're young, you're handsome, and well, most of all, because you're a man, too. You think this all as you hit your third mile because it just happens to be the first good weather day of the year and that may or may not be a fateful coincidence. March fourteenth, two-thousand whatever.
It'll take another two miles for you to give up the guise and go home to face whatever it is that you have waiting for you there. It'll take another mile for you to acknowledge that a part of you secretly hopes he'll still be there. Right now, you're just coasting along on aching legs with a hangover between your ears and sweat crawling down your spine. It feels like a finger. Tickling, trickling. You should have stayed in bed.
It was dark when you woke up for your morning run. Five a.m. comes early regardless of circumstances hinged to the hour before or after. It was dark and you were scared of the body that wrapped around you like a vice. He had that wonderful slippery, sleep quality that makes everything softer. The wrap of his biceps, the sour of his sweat. He had flopped onto his back, arms spread and waiting. He smacked on the dialogue of his dreams, but none of it was coherent. A foreshortened Christ figure, hands dangling off the bed and feet twitching together. You drew the sheets back over his waist for modesty's sake and kicked yourself for it. What's the point? What is ever the point though? You question this every day because you are a well-oiled machine that runs on necessity. Want is a foreign concept. Even now, after you've processed want into being, you wonder if it's worth it or if you are on the slippery slope towards wasting precious time and energy. You worry about the future because for once, there's something on the radar that might just stick.
Is this what you really want? And need -- How about it? It's been years since you've needed somebody. You've done just fine on your own and its dangerous to add in that variable of another body... No, another person with wants and motivations. Another person who you know needs movement and the constant rotation of new things to see and do. Can you possibly sustain the interest of someone like him? If you can't, how will you handle not being that shiny new thing? Will you throw a tantrum and dissolve into a pathetic mess like before? You don't want to think about it, but you've been here before.
That's when you realize that you've detoured and left the shaded overhang of the park. Your apartment is in the distance and you imagine you see his blinking white body flickering in movement from the window. A lighthouse signal. There are rocks everywhere and you're going to need it as you ease around mothers with their three wheeled jogging strollers and newly brought out patio furniture. You smell morning smells. Fresh coffee. The sugary tang of doughnuts and other breakfast pastries. Diesel fuel from the rumbling garbage trucks. Sweat.
You stop only to unlock your door and fling it open. He's standing in the middle of your kitchen, sheepish and holding a mug. In your absence, he's showered and figured out the mechanics of your coffee maker. He's wearing one of your striped towels like he belongs. Maybe he does. You look just as caught as him, red cheeked and trembling with the lack of movement.
"I can't survive without a cup of coffee and a shower," he explains. It's the small things that keep him going, you realize. Your theories and concerns begin to receed to basic, more manageable ideas. He is young and bright in his towel. His smile wraps around the coffee cup. It is inquisitive and twitching with a private joke.
"Good morning," you said and the words don't quite fit. Still, they're there and they're all you've got to offer.
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8 comments:
You know what I feel about this.
Kim, it's so hard to comment on your blog because of the distance I perceive (obviously) between you and your fiction. It's interesting to me how my initial reactions to blogs are to ground them in some kind of readily-accessible reflection of reality, and, when that's not available, my thoughts just stop. But enough about me.
There are several moments and phrases in this that really strike me visually. The first is "regardless of the circumstances hinged to the hour before or after." It's amazing how evocative a word like "hinged" can be when used well. I also really loved "two-thousand whatever." It really conveys the urge to mark the date of an occasion, and the simultaneous recognition of such silly pomp.
I loved the use of putting the reader in the position of the character. You also have a way with words in painting a picture.
Sometimes I'm really tempted to interpret your writing as thinly-veiled non-fiction. That said, I think running long-distance is one of the most emotional athletic activities one can do; all alone with your thoughts while the scenery is often secondary, even in a race. The endorphins at the end are worth it, though.
I think that the flow of the language in this pieces powers it and makes it work well. The writing is fluid, like the movement of the running protagonist. Similarly, the plot of the story is in constant motion, again like the protagonist. It works well as a character study.
I wanted to leave you a comment letting you know that I do read your blog every week, but I never really know how to respond because I'm not very good at critiquing fiction or whatever... and leaving comments like "Good Job!" just seem inappropriate.
That being said, I guess I am kind of a "normal" reader when it comes to fiction... I just let it wash over me-- probably like a lot of other people do. So when I say "Good Job," it's coming from an average reader, I suppose.
So good job on all of your stuff, but (luckily for this comment) I especially liked this piece. Madison had posted about women writers and how love and relationships and whatever should be tackled in a way that transcends the gender of the author. I truly think you have done that with this piece because, in my eyes, it doesn't matter whether it was 2 men or 2 women or any combination you can think of... you focused on the emotion that the character was feeling. I feel that it's rare in our society to just accept things for how they are in a human way (it reminds me, I actually wrote a screenplay for a screenwriting class where I wanted the sexuality of the lead-female not to be the focus... but my professor just couldn't get over the fact that she had a girlfriend, or that she was a gay-female in a role that didn't make her seem manly... though she was part of a troublesome plot... all right, sorry about the rambles).
I think one of the biggest mistakes one can make in this world, aside from putting your pants on backwards, is reading fiction as thinly veiled non-fiction.
I get sucked in every time I read your blog. You can't stop reading before the end with yours, you really can't.
I love how well you can get inside the mind of a male main character. I don't know if that shows how similar men and women really at that level or if you just have a real knack for it. Either way, I love reading your writing.
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