Something unfinished, but hanging there. Fiction meets its maker.

She was an average-shaped girl. In this town, that meant she was invisible. Her hair was a muddied streak of red and brown, licks of goldenrod. The roots of it were a fawn-brown. She must have been blonde as a child and he imagined her still slipping and telling everyone that she was naturally blonde. Things had changed though. Beneath the constant rotation of dye, her hair had darkened and turned ash. She'd be gray by forty, but her reliable comfort stayed. Her posture was terrible -- that curve of her spine and slouched shouldered-pose over her book. Stellan watched as she meticulously peeled back the protective plastic layer that covered the thick hardback. His chin buried into the tops of the hands spread out in front of him on the desk. His eyes didn't waver, but when her's did they realized that their eyes were the same watery blue. Back home, fifteen hundred miles away, the girl's mother had a picture that documented this color. It was a sea at storm, all rabid froth and wreckage. The frame was an ugly brown with a black sooty streak in the middle of it. Her mother claimed that she had lit the picture on fire when she was younger, but no recollection past that story exists otherwise. It's an interesting idea though. She likes to think that she is capable of damage. In a way, she is. The color of the paperback lifts as the plastic is shredded away.

"Why do you do that?" He asks finally, but not to her surprise. She shrugs and continues to let a rippling piece of plastic feed up from the book. The cover feels waxy beneath. When she hits the snag, the silence strung between them is broken like a chain. Creak! Creeeak! The girl grimaces and Stellan's head lolls. His knuckles bury into his cheek now. He is most handsome like this. When he is lazy and at rest. He's something from an old neoclassical painting. He is more real than real with his curling hair and sensitive mouth. He has the look of someone who will not live long and must make up for the lack of time with beauty. Unlike her, he begs to be noticed. She resents that. Creak! Still, that would not keep her from fucking him in the book stacks that loom behind them. Creak.

After a moment, "I have to. I started and now I have to finish. I think I'm done but there's always a little piece curling up from the paper."

"Do you start everything you finish," he asks.

"No," she replies in a firm tone. Her mouth is soft though. She's grinning over and shaking her head at him as if they are sharing a private joke. He seems to perk beneath that look. She is not beautiful, but there is a kind and gentle quality to her. Then again, she might just be polite. Stellan props himself back upright, an elbow is anchored into the table and his fist smears up against his ear. He watches the conscious spread of her hands over the book. She resists picking though she wants to. He wonders what else she picks at. Is it a nervous habit?

"What's your name?"

"Kim," she says. Her eyes crease with a polite smile. They look like the moon. Happy and bent at the corners. Her teeth are symmetrical and straight in their pose. She waits for reciprocation.

"I'm Stellan."

"Nice to meet you," she says with a nod. It is a response that is familiar and well used in this country. He doesn't know how to respond and smiles dumbly. His head nods as if he agrees. Yes, it is nice.

Saturday Night

I'm sitting around the house and my mom's watching her favorite show on the tube. She's got the volume up too loud again but I don't have the heart to tell her to turn it down. Nobody tells Donna Kid what to do, you know? It's not cos' she's scary and intimidating like some of the girls around here. It's the opposite actually. She's so sweet and nice that once you do you end up feeling like the most rotten creep ever. You see my mom's the greatest girl in the world.

Sometimes I bring kids over and they see my mom sitting on the couch with her knitting and they're like, "Gee Bill, who's that?" I hate it. When people call me "Bill" I have to stop them right there and say, "Look pal, the name's Billy."

Only serial killers and carnival workers are named "Bill" in my opinion and I'm definitely neither. For the record, my name is Billy. I'm none of the following: William, Sweet William, Bill, Billy-boy, Billy-willy or "Hey Retard!" You got that? Okay, so about serial killers -- I've only killed one person and that was totally for a film. Meaning fake. The only reason why there was any real blood involved in my last film is because the broad asked for me to punc hher. I don't know what it is with girls and hitting. Maybe if I had a sister, I would know but I don't. It's just me and my mom Donna. But, I've gotten off track -- So, I'll br bringing someone home and they'll see my mom on the couch and ask who she is. I've just got to look at them all crazy for a moment. "Who the hell do you think it is," I gotta ask. While my mom tells me to watch my language, they just shrug and say they don't. They wouldn't either.

My mom's a real looker. Back in her day, she as a Georgia peach. She got a crown and wore a real nice dress and everything. She still has the wave and smile. I have a picture of her on my dresser from those days. I used to think she looked like Glenda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. Now that's a real movie. Not like the trash they show nowadays at the Cineplex. Thank you L. Frank Baum and Victor Fleming, too.

Anyway, people don't know what to make of it but as soon as my mom puts on the charm and starts heating up a can of soup or some leftovers, they're sold. Everyone loves my mom. Everyone does and if you say you don't, you're a rotten liar. It's cute how she'll put out bowls of soup for everyone, but me. When she does, everyone's all, "Gosh Billy, aren't you gonna eat?" By then, my mom's already pulled out a Hershey's bar from the icebox and told me not to break my teeth on the chcoolate.

"I only eat candy."

When I say that everyone nods like they understand. Nobody understands though. I can tell. It's why people get real uptight when I'm like, "Hey, want to spend the night?" and they're like, "I dunno. Want to come to my place instead?" I don't get it. I mean, we've got a real nice apartment in a good part of town. Usually I get mad and tell them to forget it. You've got a problem with my ma, and you've got a problem with me. It really ruins the mood. I have to excuse myself out of to the fire escape to smoke a cigarette or something.

Gosh, I really wish my mom would turn down the television. It's making such a racket and I can hardly hear myself think at all. I'm working on a scrip to my very own film. Sure, I like working for Fred or Joe or Nancy, but I've got a lot of potential I think. I mean, I've got all these ideas and Ma's already said to me that if I want a camera I should really just got out there and buy one. I told her I'd let her have a part in my first film. I'm writing her this really great part about a faded beauty queen with lots of ex-husbands. I think she'll like it. She's got a swell speaking voice. It's just like all those old movie-star girls in the films she likes to watch. I like Hitchcock myself -- especially all those blondes and close-ups of their trembling, waxy faces and big liquid eyes during the scary parts. It's so sick. If a bird was gonna come and peck at my eyes, I sure wouldn't be standing at the window like Tippi Hedren did. After that birds movie, I started wearing sunglasses a lot more.

People tell me I'm real handsome in them. Sometimes I think that beauty's a lot like the chocolate bars that Ma freezes. Everybody talks a lot, but they don't really know for sure what they think.

The television set's really got to be turned down. I throw my pen at it and my mom looks up from her knitting and shakes her head. She's got that look on her face that says I better straighten up. I love that phrase: straighten up. Good luck lady. All I can do is smile and lean over to kiss her cheek like a gentleman.

7:30 AM

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.

Weekend portrait

Happy Birthday. You’re thirty now. That means you’ve got to be accountable for your actions. The past decade was a freebee. Everyone knows that and that’s why the bars and clubs are packed with pretty young things on the prowl. You drink too much. You freeze to death outside with a cigarette in hand and miserable look on your face. Behind you, the brick façade is shaking. The open and shut of the door lets music sneak out. You realize that you don’t know what the hell any of the innuendo means. You can guess, but there’s no point in it.

Later, you’ll bring home a girl who’s much too young for you. She talks and talks, but really that’s not why you brought her over. Still, you smile and pour a little juice in your vodka. The vodka is cold and crisp. It’s gone syrupy from a shelf life spent in the freezer. Vapor fills your lungs when you steal a sip before shoving it back into the fridge. It makes your heart hurt. The glasses go warm on your counter.

When you pass out, it’s like the outro to an old cartoon. Black fills the periphery and zooms in. The girl becomes a pinprick of skin. A blink and then she’s gone. You wake up in the morning only to find that she’s cleaned out your wallet and taken your copy of The Great Escape.

You retreat back into bed, draw up the sheets over your head and trick your bruised brain into thinking its night. The muscles pulled taut at temples begin to loosen. Sleep slackens you. The hours pass quickly. You’ve got clothes waiting two blocks down at the cleaner’s. Your refrigerator is empty. Your house is slowly becoming a pit. These are things for tomorrow though. The phone rings in the other room, but you let it go to the answering machine. The voice is cool and impersonal. You have reached…

“Jonathan, its Mom. Just calling to wish you a happy birthday, honey! I’m so proud of you. You’ve really got yourself together…”

A pillow drowns out the maternal pride. You don’t want to hear it and feel the disappointment that comes from being a total sham. You don’t know who you are, but up until now you haven’t had to think about it. Things are different now. You’re older. Everyone’s expecting a little bit of wiser too. You roll over and sleep for another hour.

You’re too old to be out with this crowd, but that doesn’t stop you from pulling on a shirt from the pile and shoving feet into shoes. By the time you leave your apartment, all the buildings around you are closed for the night with their grates drawn. You see your reflection in the glass behind them: a square viewfinder for your nose, your chin, and part of an eye. You’ve been chopped up. You are a sum of your total parts and it’s not looking good, baby.