finally, finally, finally you; with that smile like you knew you could ruin me but were happy with just playing, with that open heart that cut me into pieces. i watched you make music and your music made me. i never wanted to sing so much as when you were beside me.
that grin, those teeth. you pull the wild out of me. i want to dig my fingers into your hair and turn those cheeks pink. every time you laugh a bell rings in me.
This is both amazing and profoundly irritating – the exact writing equivalent of that thing artists do – you know, how they’ll mess up anything that’s on expensive paper and planned in every single detail but get them doodling during a boring lesson and suddenly they’re Michel-bloody-angelo.
You get a penny every time you help someone. You notice nobody else has ever gotten a penny when they helped others, so you asked. But the person you asked didn’t answer, they just responded “You’ll know when you’re 30…” You’re 30 now, and your parents threw you a surprise party. All the people you ever helped were there. Your mother goes up to you, “So. You wanted to know why you got the pennies, right?”
your pocket is heavy. you just served a slice to every other person at this party before you served yourself. it must count for one penny each. it’s best when they manifest in the pockets and not in palms; you hate the sensation of grasping, of taking from others. often they don’t notice. “oh, a penny. here, it’s yours.”
it’s yours. or it was supposed to be. by the time you were seven you had gotten into a peculiar habit. if you gave the penny away, it counted as a good deed. it had to be a neutral thing, to get rid of them.
you’d found a way, after a while. a good way that wasn’t-good-enough. to close the loop. you do it now, without thinking, the way that has become second nature to you.
the only good thing you ever picked up and kept was her, her. your treasure.
your wife is laughing. god, isn’t that the most beautiful sound in the world. her with her short hair and beautiful throat. around you, the party swirls. you’ve got a lot of friends. there’s a lot of people here you don’t know. your breath is caught under your tongue.
x
at nineteen you were getting rid of the pennies when you met her at the carnival. “you dropped this,” she said, holding it up. the lights caught her face and you tried to speak but it came off in pieces.
“thjasnmnkgidsod,” you said.
she laughed, and you thought: oh my god. this girl is the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen, and i am a moron, and i’ve ruined everything.
and then she said, “are you here with anybody?” and when you, dumbstruck and dumb in general, shook your head violently, she laughed again. “want to come explore with me?”
yeah. yeah. fuck pennies. when you followed after her you felt like you were dipped in gold and deep fried.
and then, as a reward, stretched out in her palm at the end of the night: not a penny.
but god, didn’t her number feel like a real stroke of luck.
x
“you wanted to know, right?” your mother tries again. and you want to know and you don’t want to know, but you want to know.
so you follow her, hands shaking, into the bedroom you grew up in. a model airplane. britney spears posters. rainbow flag hidden under the bedframe for when you needed it but couldn’t say the words out loud yet.
your mother sits you down.
this story isn’t about you. it’s about your mother and a deal she made with the devil.
x
the first time you called her, you had your friends around you. “just do it,” one of them said, “you’ve been staring at the number every day for hours.”
“i don’t want to bother her,” you whined.
“yeah,” said another, “she gave you that so you don’t call her, that’s what people do in the real life.”
“oh my god,” you said.
but you called her. and when she picked up and heard your voice, the first thing she said was, “i’ve been thinking about you.”
you were thinking about her too.
x
here is the deal. it is simple. your mother the angel meeting the devil in a fairy ring. the devil said: if you do a good deed expecting a reward, you will start doing the good deed only for the reward, not for the goodness of it. and your mother said – then people would only do bad things, which are much more rewarding. people do good just to do good.
the devil said: people do good to feel good about doing good.
your mother said: they do it because they can, because it is the right thing to do. i can prove it.
you are the proof.
x
dating her crushed you and rebuilt you and the day you decided to propose you stood in front of a mirror practicing, practicing, practicing. you were unsure, wondering if you would just push her away, wondering if you were moving too quick or too slowly. wondering if you were doing the right thing.
and then your phone rang. and she heard your voice and the first thing she said was “i’ve been thinking about you.”
and you knew. and you knew.
x
your mother takes you by the hand. leads you back into the room. everyone at once silences. turns and looks at you.
watching a fairy go from many people into one person gives you vertigo, but you’re unimpressed. you have that many personalities to survive social interactions.
but then it is only you, your wife, and your mother, and a person who is so-many-into-one. sure, yes. you can see why your mother calls him the devil. a wretchedness goes into your spine. you can’t quite look.
it stretches a hand, holding out a penny. you won’t take it. you stare at the thing. your mouth tastes like copper. the fairy smiles. the penny melts to blood.
the rule was simple. you were meant, like a dog, to expect give-and-get-some. and your life, like a dog’s, was almost-someone-else’s. you’d be owned if you failed the stupid test.
but you got rid of the pennies. at seven you learned the not-good-enough and dropped them in seeds on the ground. giving wishes and free money. didn’t do things for it. thought about it, sometimes, about saving up for college on it, and then didn’t. you see them like a road for a second, stretching, stretching. safe place to walk on.
“okay,” you say. you’ve had pennies show up in your pockets for years. this is about what you expected. “so i win, or something?”
your wife is frozen mid-talking. you wave one hand in her face and she doesn’t blink. you love her smile. you slip that hand into her still one. “is she okay?” you wonder. you loved her since you met her. loved her more than a sunset loves a horizon. loved her to cliche. to explosion. who gave no matter what it meant to get.
“is she okay?” the devil twists his head. “you tell me.”
“if she isn’t,” you say, “you’re going to have to answer to me.”
your mother sits down on the edge of a couch. in her hand is a quarter. “the second half of the rule,” she says. “a bad thing is more rewarding.”
“i’m not doing this again,” you say. “not another thirty years of other people’s spare change.”
the devil laughs. and your angel mother laughs.
“you were already doing it,” she says. she holds the quarter up to her eye. looks on through. “you never noticed because, despite the money, bad things were never worth their reward to you.”
okay. “can i have my wife back now?” you’re tired. the cake has fresh fruit filling and you’re hoping for a second serving.
your mother smiles. the fairy smiles. you hope some of your friends outside weren’t this guy. it would kind of suck if you had never made a real friend in your life. “no other questions?” asks the fairy. “you’re not dying to know why?”
“why me?’ asks your mother, “how i met him? how you and i can remain in motion while he stops time? why you can understand him? why me and why you and why pennies?”
you look at your wife. you can sew a million pennies into the ground and nothing you’ve ever done was as good as she is, as her whole being. you could paint yourself in copper and never match her. never be good enough for her.
you think about value. about worth-it-ness. about how when you were nineteen with her and so in love you couldn’t speak for it. about turning twenty-three and realizing if you didn’t marry her you’d die of regret. about your wedding day and how you have no idea how many pennies you’ve earned in the whole of it. you only remember her, and your friends. we can earn money fine, you think. but earning people is the hard part of it.
“no,” you say, “i understand.”
and the devil splits into a million people again, and you are thirty, and you are holding your wife’s hand, and you’re in love, and the joy of it makes it worth it.
“Every time you kiss me, it feels like you’re holding your breath,” Alfred says. His voice is shaky and Arthur glances up from his cup of tea. “Like you’re bracing yourself.”
“I’ve never really been a good kisser.” Is Arthur’s response. He snorts, lightheartedly. Alfred doesn’t return his smile. Arthur clears his throat. “Do you mind picking up some milk next time you get the groceries? We’re running awfully low-”
“I need to have this conversation,” Alfred says. He’s looking at Arthur with those steely blue eyes and Arthur can barely hold contact. Alfred’s hand is on his chin when he averts his eyes back into his teacup, tilting his head back up almost forcefully. Arthur’s gasp is quiet. “Please. Please, just look at me. Just talk to me.” Alfred’s desperate, it seems. “It’s been months since I’ve…” His grip softens. That warm tanned hand of his takes to cradling the side of Arthur’s face and Arthur flinches away, just momentarily, before a look of hurt flashes across Alfred’s face and Arthur stills. “I told you I loved you three months ago and you haven’t said it back. It’s not that you have to, you don’t have to, but I just… I wish you’d just talk to me. I keep bringing it up but you always deflect me, and… I wish we could talk about it. Arthur. Do you love me?”
Arthur lies. He wishes he didn’t. “I don’t know.”
Alfred sighs. It’s pained, but he seems relieved. “That’s okay. There’s no pressure. You know I’d never pressure you into anything, Artie.”
Arthur’s chest burns. In the metaphoric sense, of course, because physically, he’s perfectly fine. Alfred’s attempting to chip at the concrete exterior of Arthur’s heart and the shrapnel’s embedding into Arthur’s chest, so it burns. But he’s physically fine. He feels no remorse, and that scares him. Because Alfred’s on the brink of tears and Arthur should feel some remorse, shouldn’t he?
“But we need to talk about these things. We need to communicate. We can’t keep these things under a lock and key, I need to know this is going somewhere. That I’m not ‘ignoring the signs’ like everyone keeps telling me I am- Arthur, I believe in this. Do you?”
Arthur wonders what relationship column Alfred’s read to make him think this way. He wonders if it’s Alfred’s friends again, telling him to stay away from Arthur Kirkland. Arthur thinks ruefully that Alfred ought to have listened to them. “I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re on about.”
Alfred sighs again. He closes his eyes. His brows furrow, as if there’s a pinching headache between them. “Do… do you trust me?”
Arthur doesn’t lie. “… no.”
And Alfred doesn’t seem to be surprised. His tears, however, threaten to spill over. “Will you ever trust me?”
This is Alfred’s big character flaw. The only fault, it seemed, that he had, in all that beautiful loving body of his. Those big, beautiful, naive eyes. That he was willing to do anything to make this work.
Arthur doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know. But it seemed Alfred got all he needed from Arthur’s silence. He stands up, palms soaking the tears from his eyes. “Arthur, I… I love you. Will you let me help? I want to help, I know I can-”
“You can’t always be a hero. Save yourself the trouble and leave me,” Arthur says. Alfred’s eyes are wide but Arthur’s tone isn’t aggressive. It’s calm. It’s advice. Alfred waits for more but Arthur turns back to his tea so Alfred gets up. He leaves.
Arthur’s face is wet but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t sob. He lets the tears fall onto his lips where they leave a salty aftertaste, and when the taste becomes unbearable, he wipes them away.
He loves the way Alfred’s arms wrap around him. He loves the way his name falls from Alfred’s lips, the way those lips kiss him so sweetly, so gently. He loves Alfred Jones. He loves him when he’s annoying, when he’s loud, when they fight, but he supposes it’s too late to say anything now.
Arthur’s always late. He’s late to cry, he’s late to feel the remorse coursing through his veins. He’s trapped between barriers of his own construction, and he knows there’s something wrong with him. He wants to take a pair of pliers and force himself open, to pull everything out from inside him and put himself in Alfred’s warm, caring hands, because god, he wants to, but he doesn’t trust Alfred Jones. He can’t. He mustn’t. He tells himself that there’s no possible guarantee it can be safe.
So he doesn’t tell Alfred he loves him. He doesn’t do anything because that would make it harder when Alfred finally leaves, finally tires of him. Of course, it’s this vicious cycle of self-preservation that tips the scales, because now, Alfred is gone, and Arthur’s stupid. He’s stupid. He doesn’t deserve a chance at happiness when he can’t stop ruining everything.
Arthur can’t stop hurting Alfred Jones. He can’t give Alfred what he deserves, anythingmore than their shallow, aimless relationship. The shallow, aimless conversation, kisses, cuddles.
So he does Alfred one last favor and watches him leave.
we lived with what came before us. smeared ourselves in what we didn’t carry but was passed down to us. i remember dragging one hand down my face in the car while we passed the rite aid, saying “i just want to kill myself” and you said “we all feel that way.” we pass it down and bury ourselves in it. i taught myself the language of how to be gentle, a language you never learned and didn’t like to speak. we both dance around the things we said to each other and can’t take back, the lines we drew but have to live with like wrinkles. i think i was really ready to love you no matter what, and that scares me. blood ties scare me. i’m sick of waking up thinking the best of you only to be reminded that you take that burden lightly.
we grow up. we grow up. despite the poison in the soil we find our way up.
If something like this happens with a medieval Arabic poet they usually justify it “It is just a different culture, even now in Arab countries male friends hug each other and walk holding hands” or “they could use male forms for female in poetry”(that’s true, they still do, but when the author writes “oh how wonderful it is in men’s hammam”, oh “how beautiful is the body of a young man”)
What’s better than this, just Arab guys being dudes.
you are going to feel so much love and devotion it’s going to scare you. you aren’t used to being the object of so much tenderness; and maybe you don’t even think you deserve it. but you do. you know you do. embrace it with open arms and let it wash over you.
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