vermruka

I heard him coming quick and heavy down the stairs and then he pulled the door open swift, with a sucking of air and hot filth from the street. Quivering there three steps back he gave his greeting – “Hi!” – and it was loud, loud and uncertain, but excited. he leaned a little into the light and then out again. His teeth gleamed in their new fake way, teeth i’d never seen before. His face was thin from drugs and filmed in its familiar sweat.

“Hi!” I echoed, ducking my head in shyness or nervousness and then advancing toward him, readying myself for his breath near me and in my nose while he kissed my face. I held my own breath and expelled silently as he released me, had his look at me. He threw one arm across my shoulders, me one step below him so my shins banged against the wood and I almost lost my balance. He was a little cold, his hands against my warm arm, and the sweat shone on his chin. I felt sick to my stomach. What if all he wanted to do up there was try to invade me with his fragile body, what if he’d ignore all words from my lips and go straight for the waist, wrapping his bruised arms around it tightly, tenderly? I wondered how I might react to things like that – how I planned to react.

Second floor, at the end of a long and wooden hallway, was a door; the last door before we’d get to where he lived and slept. The light was dim when we reached the door but I noticed right away – it’d been painted. Not a solid, certain color, like it was when I’d last seen it – when it was a brooding kind of dark red – no, now it was fabulously decorated; festooned in a maze of elegant body parts; arms over legs, faces between legs, faces beside faces; what seemed like thousands of people piled atop one another in a landfill of living flesh; sexually charged yet subdued as the ocean; interlocking perfectly like an important and massive jigsaw puzzle. over my shoulder he giggled at me, a giggle that i knew and, for the past thirteen-fourteen months, had only heard through a phone. here in the hallway it was injected with a remarkable, youthful glee; through the receiver it had been broken and dry, a sinister laugh from a much older throat. in the hallway he rested his hand faint on my head and asked, “you like that?” his voice was like powder, small clouds burst softly from his mouth. “’s good, ain’t it?”

i pressed a hand on top of his small hand and then lifted it from my hair, spinning myself to face him straight. i hugged him hard, digging my chin into the nest of his collarbone, and i felt i might cry. it occurred to me that i wasn’t sure why i would cry, that i wasn’t sure how i felt in that moment; that i felt nothing, maybe. i planted my chin further down into the meat of his shoulder and stared past the puff of his tucked-in shirt from his pants-waist, the cheap black belt that cinched it; the cheap black shoes. i stared at the floor and saw that it was riddled with color; the dirty brown boards were coming alive with deep blues just barely detectable in the poor light; but also the pinks which gleamed like strips of skin at our feet. white, mint green and orange, confettied around us.  i saw him standing there several afternoons, choosing the mid-day time slot for the quiet of others being gone; but also for the sun through the far window, which would slant ideally at him and his canvas of the moment. i saw him with his tongue flicking out from his (new) teeth with a barely detectable sound like oil heating and popping in a pan, i saw him with his weathered old hat pushed back from his hairless head, the once-satiny bow now creaking with age and dust. and i thought i felt love for him, then, in the hallway; a swelling kind of love that starts in the brain and ends in the chest – an intellectual love. quickly i released him from my grip and got one good, long look at him, right into his wide-open eyes; no lashes; and we shared that same silly old stare. magic hadn’t gone away, it was just different, somehow. there was more clarity, i was older now. i opened the painted door to reveal the stairs there and he just looked at me; i watched him taking a pencil from his breast pocket and wetting it, getting it ready. i let him climb ahead of me this time, waving my hand to let him pass. “i’m only your guest,” i said, and at this he grinned, walking backward for a moment and starting to laugh, a low and gradual rumble like a train approaching. he lingered for a moment, smile still huge as when it appeared, then tucked the pencil behind his ear and turned, bounded up the stairs.