Rainbortion (Part 8: Rainbortion)
The day I move into Ben's apartment, we notice a mother pigeon on his balcony, sitting on an egg. "It's a sign." Ben says.
"Oh, baby," I say, "are you saying you want to have children together? I'm all for the experience, but you should know, I'm not properly equipped to conceive."
"Booooo."
I can't explain how much I love that sound.
***
There was Fledge first. Then Noj. Then Chris, who turned out to be an online persona of a twisted pedophile. Then Andy. Then Cute Straight Boy. Then Ryan. Never Elvis. Then Liam. Then The Notebook. Then my almost mutual infatuation partner, David. Then nothing for years. Then Dmitri. Then Ben. I can't say for sure if any of it was love. I never pursued Fledge. Noj was terrified and far away. Chris wasn't real. Andy scared me. CSB was straight. Ryan died before things could get complicated. Liam was straight. The Notebook was too young. David was terrified of what our relationship would do to him. Nothing was too easy. Dmitri had a boyfriend. Ben? No, I still haven't figured out what's going on there. Celeste asks me about our "relationship question mark", inflection is too subtle, she has to spell out the interrogative nature of our friendship/living arrangement/whatever it is. We discuss we and ours, but, if he has his way, he'll be leaving the city too soon enough.
Fuck all if I know if this is love. If I understood love, I wouldn't be a writer or a waiter or a useless fucken philosopher, I'd be a God. I don't know what Ben is thinking. Why he invited me to live here. Why his voice makes my neck crack. There is no logical reason why the way he describes the way he loves someone who isn't me, doesn't put me off. I now find the word "Boo" sexy (though not in that Snoop Dog, Usher/Alicia Keys way). His ugly duckling scowl gives me swan bumps.
I could give a class on how people can fall into what they think is love. How wonderful it feels. But just because I could teach it, doesn't mean I've learned enough of it to understand it. I don't think the average high school math teacher really knows why the Quadratic Equation works. They don't need to understand why, as long as they understand how. I know that the first time I saw Ben, I thought "He's kind of cute, but so annoying." I didn't want to get to know him. I didn't mean to invite him out to dinner that first night. My mouth worked faster than my brain. Thank God. Thank mouth. I don't know when I started thinking "Wow, he is fucked up in the most wonderful ways. I think I could love him." I'm not sure why the thought of him leaving makes my lips twitch. I wonder what this laugh is between us that makes my heart seize.
I love him. No, not in that sappy I'm so in love with him way, and no, not in that lustful he is so hot, I want to fuck him way, and not even in the friendly way that I love Celeste, and Zuzu, and Wiz, and D. This is a weird love, even for me. It's mostly that I enjoy spending time with him. He's funny, he's smart, he's a good listener with a good singing voice, he's talented at what he does, but he is flawed in ways that are frankly none of anyone's business unless he decides to tell them. So it's a friend love. But God I want to kiss, protect, defend, and hold him. And it's not because he has magnificent hair (though he does), and it's not because he has an amazing ass (he doesn't), and it's not because his body is stunning (and I wish he could appreciate that it is), or even because...I don't know why it is, it just is.
There's a not in my stomach that I can't undo. I can't drink it away or even drink it nearer.
***
Two days after I move in, the egg hatches. The next day, the mother pigeon flies into the closed window and dies. The day after that, I come home from work to an oddly jubilant Ben. Oddly jubilant, even for him. "You've got to see this." He says. And opens up the window.
The baby pigeon looks to be in sorry shape. Its eyes are open and empty. Its mouth is open. It looks completely dead, except for the rise and fall of its chest. "Doesn't it look like it's still alive?" Ben asks.
"It is." I reply. "Look at its chest."
"That's what I'm trying to show you." He says. "Those are maggots moving around under its skin."
I shudder. "That doesn't gross you out?"
"Not at all." And he sits back down at his computer.
I walk over to him, put my hand over the top his head and start wriggling my fingers through his hair. "It doesn't even freak you out now, when there are maggots crawling in your hair?"
He brushes my hand away. "The only thing about that sensation that creeps me out, is that it's your hands that are causing it."
***
"It's weird." Celeste says, when we meet for breakfast the next day. "Ever since you started hanging out with Ben, you don't write about anything else. I mean, you mention me, and a couple of other people from time to time, but it's always in relation to a story about Ben. It's like he's the only thing that matters to you."
I don't know quite how to respond to that statement, so I don't.
I've had this feeling with disturbing frequency recently. This need to speak, but lack of proper words to use. Rainbortion. Rainbortion. Rainbortion.
***
"This is totally driving me crazy." Ben says. And he launches into this story about some art opening he went to a few months ago. "I'm minding my own business, when this" and he shudders "fat kid, like Wisconsin fat, corners me. And I'm tripping balls, and his huge chins are all like jiggling while he talks. And eventually I gave him my phone number just so he would go away. It's so gross." He fluffs his hair. "I think I'm reasonably attractive," You're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful and I know you're going to destroy me you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful "and I would never just go up to some stranger and force my presence on them until they gave me their phone number in an act of self-preservation. As if he even had a chance, he's sooooo fat, and gross."
"You used to be fat." I say. I've seen the pictures of Ben as a kid, as overweight in junior high and early high school as I was.
"Fuck you. I was never fat like this kid. And the point is, I'm not fat now, so why would this guy think he had even a remote chance with me. If I was trapped on a desert island with him and no food and nothing to do, I would make him turn away from me when I masturbated. I don't get all these people who think I would even bother with them. Anyway, he called me today. He hasn't called in like weeks. Like, back before I met you, he called me a bunch of times in one night. And the messages went from normal what are you up to chit-chat to well, 'I guess you don't care about me you self-righteous prick' in the course of like four hours. And, yea, I really don't give a shit about him. And I probably wouldn't have called him back anyway, but certainly not after that barrage of messages. So, today he calls and wants me to apologize for breaking his heart. Breaking His Heart? Ugh. I'm so tired of all these men who say that I've broken they're hearts. I'm completely up front with people. I'm a rock. It's not my fault that people keep slamming their hearts against me."
He is a rock. Last week, I felt like waves crashing over him. "You know I love you, right."
His eyes go cold. "We are not talking about this right now."
"Why not?"
"Look, I'm not letting myself be in love or lust or like with anyone right now. I mean, spending time with you is awesome and everything, but no. We are never a yes. Always no. You and me? No. Friends." And he steers our conversation to safer shores. How he's going to New York in a couple of days with Lisabelle to procure some acid. How he really likes Celeste, and wants to hang out with her more.
"I was looking through one of my ex's Myspace accounts." He says. "And he said There is no option for 'I don't care' in relationship status, and then he listed his sexual orientation as straight. Apparently, there was no option for fucken liar in sexual orientation. I should be flattered. I'm the only guy he's ever been with. But when we were making out one time he said 'I want you to fuck me, and then come on my face.' I can see a straight guy getting drunk and maybe asking his gay friend to blow him, but asking to get fucked and have a guy come on your face is pretty much an exclusively gay thing."
Then he says Labor Day pussy drink extra pillow pigeon. Sign language van seat relationship Galouises.
I don't hear more than one word in any sentence he says. I am sitting on the van seat. Asscat is scratching at my leg, but I don't have the energy to pet him or wave him away. I just sit there and watch Ben pretend I never told him how I felt. I listen to him turn the conversation toward his HIV positive ex. How much he still cares for him. How he'd have unprotected sex with him, so that the two of them could share the experience of dying together. A funny anecdote about what happened to him at work the other day. He just keeps talking at me and talking at me like I'm capable of listening or comprehending.
And I realize, I've never been on his playlist. I am an unrequited eyefuck poppy seed zombie. Bombastic proposal of anorexic analogies. You're beautiful. Never a yes. Always no. Beautiful. Never. Rainbortion. Language. I'm maybe not rebuilding but wrecked. Maybe van seat. Maybe fat kid. Maybe vapid. "I think seventeen is a perfect age" Too old for him anyway. Too bombastic. Too pussy drink. Too stem thick. Never too. Never positive. Never you're. Never beautiful.
There must be maggots under my skin. It looks like I'm still breathing.
"Oh, baby," I say, "are you saying you want to have children together? I'm all for the experience, but you should know, I'm not properly equipped to conceive."
"Booooo."
I can't explain how much I love that sound.
***
There was Fledge first. Then Noj. Then Chris, who turned out to be an online persona of a twisted pedophile. Then Andy. Then Cute Straight Boy. Then Ryan. Never Elvis. Then Liam. Then The Notebook. Then my almost mutual infatuation partner, David. Then nothing for years. Then Dmitri. Then Ben. I can't say for sure if any of it was love. I never pursued Fledge. Noj was terrified and far away. Chris wasn't real. Andy scared me. CSB was straight. Ryan died before things could get complicated. Liam was straight. The Notebook was too young. David was terrified of what our relationship would do to him. Nothing was too easy. Dmitri had a boyfriend. Ben? No, I still haven't figured out what's going on there. Celeste asks me about our "relationship question mark", inflection is too subtle, she has to spell out the interrogative nature of our friendship/living arrangement/whatever it is. We discuss we and ours, but, if he has his way, he'll be leaving the city too soon enough.
Fuck all if I know if this is love. If I understood love, I wouldn't be a writer or a waiter or a useless fucken philosopher, I'd be a God. I don't know what Ben is thinking. Why he invited me to live here. Why his voice makes my neck crack. There is no logical reason why the way he describes the way he loves someone who isn't me, doesn't put me off. I now find the word "Boo" sexy (though not in that Snoop Dog, Usher/Alicia Keys way). His ugly duckling scowl gives me swan bumps.
I could give a class on how people can fall into what they think is love. How wonderful it feels. But just because I could teach it, doesn't mean I've learned enough of it to understand it. I don't think the average high school math teacher really knows why the Quadratic Equation works. They don't need to understand why, as long as they understand how. I know that the first time I saw Ben, I thought "He's kind of cute, but so annoying." I didn't want to get to know him. I didn't mean to invite him out to dinner that first night. My mouth worked faster than my brain. Thank God. Thank mouth. I don't know when I started thinking "Wow, he is fucked up in the most wonderful ways. I think I could love him." I'm not sure why the thought of him leaving makes my lips twitch. I wonder what this laugh is between us that makes my heart seize.
I love him. No, not in that sappy I'm so in love with him way, and no, not in that lustful he is so hot, I want to fuck him way, and not even in the friendly way that I love Celeste, and Zuzu, and Wiz, and D. This is a weird love, even for me. It's mostly that I enjoy spending time with him. He's funny, he's smart, he's a good listener with a good singing voice, he's talented at what he does, but he is flawed in ways that are frankly none of anyone's business unless he decides to tell them. So it's a friend love. But God I want to kiss, protect, defend, and hold him. And it's not because he has magnificent hair (though he does), and it's not because he has an amazing ass (he doesn't), and it's not because his body is stunning (and I wish he could appreciate that it is), or even because...I don't know why it is, it just is.
There's a not in my stomach that I can't undo. I can't drink it away or even drink it nearer.
***
Two days after I move in, the egg hatches. The next day, the mother pigeon flies into the closed window and dies. The day after that, I come home from work to an oddly jubilant Ben. Oddly jubilant, even for him. "You've got to see this." He says. And opens up the window.
The baby pigeon looks to be in sorry shape. Its eyes are open and empty. Its mouth is open. It looks completely dead, except for the rise and fall of its chest. "Doesn't it look like it's still alive?" Ben asks.
"It is." I reply. "Look at its chest."
"That's what I'm trying to show you." He says. "Those are maggots moving around under its skin."
I shudder. "That doesn't gross you out?"
"Not at all." And he sits back down at his computer.
I walk over to him, put my hand over the top his head and start wriggling my fingers through his hair. "It doesn't even freak you out now, when there are maggots crawling in your hair?"
He brushes my hand away. "The only thing about that sensation that creeps me out, is that it's your hands that are causing it."
***
"It's weird." Celeste says, when we meet for breakfast the next day. "Ever since you started hanging out with Ben, you don't write about anything else. I mean, you mention me, and a couple of other people from time to time, but it's always in relation to a story about Ben. It's like he's the only thing that matters to you."
I don't know quite how to respond to that statement, so I don't.
I've had this feeling with disturbing frequency recently. This need to speak, but lack of proper words to use. Rainbortion. Rainbortion. Rainbortion.
***
"This is totally driving me crazy." Ben says. And he launches into this story about some art opening he went to a few months ago. "I'm minding my own business, when this" and he shudders "fat kid, like Wisconsin fat, corners me. And I'm tripping balls, and his huge chins are all like jiggling while he talks. And eventually I gave him my phone number just so he would go away. It's so gross." He fluffs his hair. "I think I'm reasonably attractive," You're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful and I know you're going to destroy me you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful "and I would never just go up to some stranger and force my presence on them until they gave me their phone number in an act of self-preservation. As if he even had a chance, he's sooooo fat, and gross."
"You used to be fat." I say. I've seen the pictures of Ben as a kid, as overweight in junior high and early high school as I was.
"Fuck you. I was never fat like this kid. And the point is, I'm not fat now, so why would this guy think he had even a remote chance with me. If I was trapped on a desert island with him and no food and nothing to do, I would make him turn away from me when I masturbated. I don't get all these people who think I would even bother with them. Anyway, he called me today. He hasn't called in like weeks. Like, back before I met you, he called me a bunch of times in one night. And the messages went from normal what are you up to chit-chat to well, 'I guess you don't care about me you self-righteous prick' in the course of like four hours. And, yea, I really don't give a shit about him. And I probably wouldn't have called him back anyway, but certainly not after that barrage of messages. So, today he calls and wants me to apologize for breaking his heart. Breaking His Heart? Ugh. I'm so tired of all these men who say that I've broken they're hearts. I'm completely up front with people. I'm a rock. It's not my fault that people keep slamming their hearts against me."
He is a rock. Last week, I felt like waves crashing over him. "You know I love you, right."
His eyes go cold. "We are not talking about this right now."
"Why not?"
"Look, I'm not letting myself be in love or lust or like with anyone right now. I mean, spending time with you is awesome and everything, but no. We are never a yes. Always no. You and me? No. Friends." And he steers our conversation to safer shores. How he's going to New York in a couple of days with Lisabelle to procure some acid. How he really likes Celeste, and wants to hang out with her more.
"I was looking through one of my ex's Myspace accounts." He says. "And he said There is no option for 'I don't care' in relationship status, and then he listed his sexual orientation as straight. Apparently, there was no option for fucken liar in sexual orientation. I should be flattered. I'm the only guy he's ever been with. But when we were making out one time he said 'I want you to fuck me, and then come on my face.' I can see a straight guy getting drunk and maybe asking his gay friend to blow him, but asking to get fucked and have a guy come on your face is pretty much an exclusively gay thing."
Then he says Labor Day pussy drink extra pillow pigeon. Sign language van seat relationship Galouises.
I don't hear more than one word in any sentence he says. I am sitting on the van seat. Asscat is scratching at my leg, but I don't have the energy to pet him or wave him away. I just sit there and watch Ben pretend I never told him how I felt. I listen to him turn the conversation toward his HIV positive ex. How much he still cares for him. How he'd have unprotected sex with him, so that the two of them could share the experience of dying together. A funny anecdote about what happened to him at work the other day. He just keeps talking at me and talking at me like I'm capable of listening or comprehending.
And I realize, I've never been on his playlist. I am an unrequited eyefuck poppy seed zombie. Bombastic proposal of anorexic analogies. You're beautiful. Never a yes. Always no. Beautiful. Never. Rainbortion. Language. I'm maybe not rebuilding but wrecked. Maybe van seat. Maybe fat kid. Maybe vapid. "I think seventeen is a perfect age" Too old for him anyway. Too bombastic. Too pussy drink. Too stem thick. Never too. Never positive. Never you're. Never beautiful.
There must be maggots under my skin. It looks like I'm still breathing.