Crush (5 page)

It's night. It's noon. He's driving. It's happening

all over again.

It's love or it isn't. It isn't over.

You're in a car. You're in the weeds again. You're on a bumpy road

and there are criminals everywhere,

longing for danger.

Henry
, he's saying.
Who is it that's talking?

I thought I heard the clink

of ice to teeth. I thought I heard the clink of teeth to glass.

Open the door and the light falls in. Open your mouth and it falls

right out again.

He's on top of you. He's next to you, right next to you in fact.

He has the softest skin wrapped entirely around him.

It isn't him.

It isn't you. You're falling now. You're swimming. This is not

harmless. You are not

breathing. You're climbing out of the chlorinated pool again.

We have not been given all the words necessary.

We have not been given anything at all.

We've been driving all night.

We've been driving a long time.

We want to stop. We can't.

Is there an acceptable result? Do we mean something when we talk?

Is it enough that we are shuddering

from the sound?

Left hand raising the fork to the mouth, feeling the meat slide down

your throat, thinking

My throat. Mine. Everything in this cone of light is mine.

The ashtray and the broken lamp, the filthy orange curtains and his

ruined shirt.

I've been in your body, baby, and it was paradise.

I've been in your body and it was a carnival ride.

They want to stop but they can't stop. They don't know what

they're doing.

This is not harmless, the
how to touch it
, we do not want the screen

completely

lifted from our eyes, just lifted long enough to see the holes.

Tired and sore and rubbed the wrong way,

rubbed raw and throbbing in the light.

They want to stop but they don't stop. They cannot get the bullet out.

Cut me open and the light streams out.

Stitch me up and the light keeps streaming out between

the stitches.

He cannot get the bullet out, he thinks, he can't, and then he does.

A little piece of grit to build a pearl around.

Midnight June. Midnight July. They've been going at it for days now.

Getting the bullet out.

Digging out the bullet and holding it up to the light, the light.

Digging out the bullet and holding it up to the light.

There are two twins on motorbikes but one is farther up the road, beyond

the hairpin turn, or just before it, depending on which twin you are in

love with at the time. Do not choose sides yet. It is still to your advan-

tage to remain impartial. Both motorbikes are shiny red and both boys

have perfect teeth, dark hair, soft hands. The one in front will want to

take you apart, and slowly. His deft and stubby fingers searching every

shank and lock for weaknesses. You could love this boy with all your

heart. The other brother only wants to stitch you back together. The

sun shines down. It's a beautiful day. Consider the hairpin turn. Do not

choose sides yet.

2

There are two twins on motorbikes but one is farther up the road. Let's

call them Jeff. And because the first Jeff is in front we'll consider him

the older, and therefore responsible for lending money and the occa-

sional punch in the shoulder. World-wise, world-weary, and not his

mother's favorite, this Jeff will always win when it all comes down to

fisticuffs. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't always all come down to

fisticuffs. Jeff is thinking about his brother down the winding road be-

hind him. He is thinking that if only he could cut him open and peel him

back and crawl inside this second skin, then he could relive that last mile

again: reborn, wild-eyed, free.

3

There are two twins on motorbikes but one is farther up the road, beyond

the hairpin turn, or just before it, depending on which Jeff you are. It

could have been so beautiful—you scout out the road ahead and I will

watch your back, how it was and how it will be, memory and fantasy—

but each Jeff wants to be the other one. My name is Jeff and I'm tired

of looking at the back of your head. My name is Jeff and I'm tired of

seeing my hand me down clothes. Look, Jeff, I'm telling you, for the

last time, I mean it, etcetera. They are the same and they are not the

same. They are the same and they hate each other for it.

4

Your name is Jeff and somewhere up ahead of you your brother has

pulled to the side of the road and he is waiting for you with a lug wrench

clutched in his greasy fist. 0 how he loves you, darling boy. 0 how, like

always, he invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep

next to him, chest to chest or chest to back, the covers drawn around

you in an act of faith against the night. When he throws the wrench into

the air it will catch the light as it spins toward you. Look—it looks like

a star. You had expected something else, anything else, but the wrench

never reaches you. It hangs in the air like that, spinning in the air like

that. It's beautiful.

5

Let's say God in his High Heaven is hungry and has decided to make

himself some tuna fish sandwiches. He's already finished making two

of them, on sourdough, before he realizes that the fish is bad. What is

he going to do with these sandwiches? They're already made, but he

doesn't want to eat them.

Let's say the Devil is played by two men. We'll call them Jeff. Dark

hair, green eyes, white teeth, pink tongues—they're twins. The one on

the left has gone bad in the middle, and the other one on the left is about

to. As they wrestle, you can tell that they have forgotten about God, and

they are very hungry.

6

You are playing cards with three men named Jeff. Two of the Jeffs seem

somewhat familiar, but the Jeff across from you keeps staring at your

hands, your mouth, and you're certain that you've never seen this Jeff

before. But he's on your team, and you're ahead, you're winning big,

and yet the other Jeffs keep smiling at you like there's no tomorrow.

They all have perfect teeth: white, square, clean, even. And, for some

reason, the lighting in the room makes their teeth seem closer than they

should be, as if each mouth was a place, a living room with pink carpet

and the window's open.
Come back from the window, Jefferson. Take off

those wet clothes and come over here, by the fire.

7

You are playing cards with three Jeffs. One is your father, one is your

brother, and the other is your current boyfriend. All of them have seen

you naked and heard you talking in your sleep. Your boyfriend Jeff gets

up to answer the phone. To them he is a mirror, but to you he is a room.

Phone's for you
, Jeff says. Hey! It's Uncle Jeff, who isn't really your

uncle, but you can't talk right now, one of the Jeffs has put his tongue

in your mouth. Please let it be the right one.

8

Two brothers are fighting by the side of the road. Two motorbikes have

fallen over on the shoulder, leaking oil into the dirt, while the interlocking

brothers grapple and swing. You see them through the backseat

window as you and your parents drive past. You are twelve years old.

You do not have a brother. You have never experienced anything this

ferocious or intentional with another person. Your mother is pretending

that she hasn't seen anything. Your father is fiddling with the knobs

of the radio. There is an empty space next to you in the backseat of the

station wagon. Make it the shape of everything you need. Now say

hello.

9

You are in an ordinary suburban bedroom with bunk beds, a bookshelf,

two wooden desks and chairs. You are lying on your back, on the top

bunk, very close to the textured ceiling, staring straight at it in fact, and

the room is still dark except for a wedge of powdery light that spills in

from the adjoining bathroom. The bathroom is covered in mint green

tile and someone is in there, singing very softly. Is he singing to you?

For you? Black cherries in chocolate, the ring around the moon, a bee-

tle underneath a glass—you cannot make out all the words, but you're

sure he knows you're in there, and he's singing to you, even though you

don't know who he is.

10

You see it as a room, a tabernacle, the dark hotel. You're in the hallway

again, and you open the door, and if you're ready you'll see it, but

maybe one part of your mind decides that the other parts aren't ready,

and then you don't remember where you've been, and you find yourself

down the hall again, the lights gone dim as the left hand sings the right

hand back to sleep. It's a puzzle: each piece, each room, each time you

put your hand to the knob, your mouth to the hand, your ear to the

wound that whispers.

You're in the hallway again. The radio is playing your favorite song.

You're in the hallway. Open the door again. Open the door.

11

Suppose for a moment that the heart has two heads, that the heart has

been chained and dunked in a glass booth filled with river water. The

heart is monologing about hesitation and fulfillment while behind the

red brocade the heart is drowning. Can the heart escape? Does love

even care? Snow falls as we dump the booth in the bay.

Suppose for a moment we are crowded around a pier, waiting for something

to ripple the water.
We believe in you. There is no danger. It is not

getting dark
, we want to say.

12

Consider the hairpin turn. It is waiting for you like a red door or the

broken leg of a dog. The sun is shining, O how the sun shines down!

Your speedometer and your handgrips and the feel of the road below

you, how it knows you, the black ribbon spread out on the greens be-

tween these lines that suddenly don't reach to the horizon. It is waiting,

like a broken door, like the red dog that chases its tail and eats your rose-

bushes and then must be forgiven. Who do you love, Jeff? Who do you

love? You were driving toward something and then, well, then you

found yourself driving the other way. The dog is asleep. The road is be-

hind you. O how the sun shines down.

13

This time everyone has the best intentions. You have cancer. Let's say

you have cancer. Let's say you've swallowed a bad thing and now it's

got its hands inside you. This is the essence of love and failure. You see

what I mean but you're happy anyway, and that's okay, it's a love story

after all, a lasting love, a wonderful adventure with lots of action,

where the mirror says mirror and the hand says hand and the front

door never says Sorry Charlie. So the doctor says you need more

stitches and the bruise cream isn't working. So much for the facts. Let's

say you're still completely in the dark but we love you anyway. We

love you. We really do.

14

After work you go to the grocery store to get some milk and a carton of

cigarettes. Where did you get those bruises? You don't remember.

Work was boring. You find a jar of bruise cream and a can of stewed

tomatoes. Maybe a salad? Spinach, walnuts, blue cheese, apples, and

you can't decide between the Extra Large or Jumbo black olives. Which

is bigger anyway? Extra Large has a blue label, Jumbo has a purple

label. Both cans cost $1.29. While you're deciding, the afternoon light

is streaming through the windows behind the bank of checkout coun-

ters. Take the light inside you like a blessing, like a knee in the chest,

holding onto it and not letting it go. Now let it go.

15

Like sandpaper, the light, or a blessing, or a bruise. Blood everywhere,

he said, the red light hemorrhaging from everywhere at once. The train

station blue, your lips blue, hands cold and the blue wind. Or a horse,

your favorite horse now raised up again out of the mud and galloping

galloping always toward you. In your ruined shirt, on the last day, while

the bruise won't heal, and the stain stays put, the red light streaming in

from everywhere at once. Your broken ribs, the back of your head, your

hand to mouth or hand to now, right now, like you mean it, like it's split-

ting you in two. Now look at the lights, the lights.

16

You and your lover are making out in the corner booth of a seedy bar.

The booths are plush and the drinks are cheap and in this dim and

smoky light you can barely tell whose hands are whose. Someone raises

their glass for a toast. Is that the Hand of Judgment or the Hand of

Mercy? The bartender smiles, running a rag across the burnished wood

of the bar. The drink in front of you has already been paid for. Drink it,

the bartender says.
It's yours, you deserve it. It's already been paid for.

Somebody's paid for it already. There's no mistake, he says. It's your drink,

the one you asked for, just the way you like it. How can you refuse
Hands