by Trisky
"Just close the window. I don't want the rain getting all over everything."
I survey this prison cell he calls a home. What does he think is going to be ruined, the peeling paint on the walls?
"It feels like a fucking sauna in here Justin. I need air."
"If that's the case, then you should feel right at home." He wraps himself in those revolting sheets and walks right past me to the window slamming it down with as much force as he can muster considering his weakened immune system, the two glasses of wine he had and a good hour of being fucked blind behind him. I can almost hear the wood splinter from the impact. "Do you have any other complaints you feel like sharing, since you haven't stopped since you got here?"
"Come to think of it..."
"Please spare me."
"Don't ask a question you don't want the answer to." I smirk at him and stroll back to the unadorned bed. Well at least he took the sheets with him when he got up. It looks like a prison cot, no sheets so no one will hang themselves. Suddenly I can understand the impulse after being stuck in this box for almost two hours.
"I know it's not the Four Seasons, but I'm sure your first apartment wasn't much better."
He's got a point. In fact it may have been worse, or maybe it just felt that way. My skin crawls at the memory. "At least we had air conditioning."
"We?" He curls himself into a ball at the far end of the couch. As far away from me as possible.
"My roommate. The school had to rent out part of an apartment building since there was no housing left on campus. It probably wasn't much bigger than this place."
"And you complain about having to spend a couple of hours here? You had to *live* with someone in a place this size. I'd love to know how he put up with you."
"He preferred to bitch me out in his native language when I pissed him off. I didn't speak any of the language. It worked well." I light a cigarette, blowing the smoke at the ceiling cracks.
"Imagine that... a roommate you didn't have to communicate with. Why does that not surprise me?" He trails off speaking mostly to himself, but loud enough for me to hear.
I love summer storms. They come out of nowhere, buckets of rain just pouring down in sheets, thunder so loud it feels like the sonic universe is exploding. The lightning is the best part, it's intense. It just crashes right through the drops and turns the sky an electric blue color for one brief moment, before it returns to it's normal midnight ink. Just as quickly as it starts, it's gone. The puddles are the only things that leave a trace of its existence behind, to remind you it was ever there to begin with. I watch the brief flashes of light through the soaked glass with the corner of one eye, and Justin twitch at the sound of the thunder with the other. I guess I never really noticed how uncomfortable storms make him. We weren't exactly close last summer, and it doesn't rain much in winter.
"You really need to get some air in this place." The stink of the humidity being blown around the room by the lone fan is enough to make someone dizzy. Well that and a couple of mouthfuls of that grease he calls food, washed down with three glasses of cheap wine. It's always the cheap shit that makes me sweat and gets me sick. "The window wouldn't support an air conditioner, but I could get you one of those free standing systems."
I watch his chest rise and fall with a discontented sigh that seems to rise up to his head making it shake back and forth. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'll suffer through the heat. It's not that bad with the window open."
"It's only June, wait until you get to July and August. Besides, what am I supposed to do? Suffer with you because you want to play martyr?"
He looks at me with heavy eyelids, his head leaning on the arm of the couch, the sheets covering him from shoulder to thigh. No wonder he doesn't want the window open. He's actually cold. "Why? Are you planning on spending a lot of time here?" He asks, without a trace of sarcasm.
I have no answer.
A quick sliver of blue lights up the window, so close it feels like it might come right through. It's probably a hundred miles above our heads. He doesn't notice. He's closed his eyes and blocked the world out, blocked my silence out. If he doesn't see me, maybe I don't exist. Why does he always close his eyes to block out sound?
"Listen, you got what you came for, you don't have to stick around. I'll be fine." His voice rings through the air.
"I wasn't worried you wouldn't be." I'm restless. The heat is getting to me. I feel like my ass is starting to cling to its position on this mattress. I have to get up before it leaves a permanent imprint. I could put my underwear on but the thought of putting on clothes just makes the room feel ten degrees hotter. "I'm waiting for it to let up a little. I'm trying to avoid killing myself tonight." I pause for effect, stubbing out my cigarette and look at him following my every footstep towards him. "I need something to do tomorrow." I kick his feet with my leg and he gives up some of his precious space to make room for me on the couch. It's hotter than the bed. Fuck.
"Why do you always have to say stupid things like that?" He doesn't like to think about stuff like that. I don't blame him.
"Why do you always get so hung up on the things I do and don't say?" I don't want to have this conversation because I just know it's going to be one of those times that requires me holding up my end, and I'm not in the mood to talk. I'm not in the mood to think. I'm too fucking hot to think. I just want to watch the rain pour down and forget everything else exists. Asking him a question he can't answer usually gets him to shut up.
"Because..." He stretches his legs in front of him, staring at his toes. "You say these... these things... and then you just expect me to forget them. You wouldn't say them if you didn't mean them."
This is why I didn't want to have this conversation, because now he's going to talk it into the ground, remind me of something I said a year ago, six months ago, a few weeks ago. Every word I've ever spoken.
A crash of thunder booms loudly enough for the window to shake. He stares at it desperately waiting for it to crack. But it settles down, awash in some kind of distortion from the streetlight and the lighted sign of the bar across the street. It looks like one of those pictures of cars in speeding motion, just a blur of light.
"I'm not about to throw myself off a bridge if that's what you think. I'll save the melodrama for you."
He buries his face in his hands, rubbing his forehead to relieve some tension, frustration coloring his every movement. "You know what, fucking forget I said anything."
"Gladly."
Only he's not quite done, and I never get away that easily. "Threaten to kill yourself, call me a twat, don't tell me you missed me, don't tell me you want me around, tell me you love me and then just pretend you didn't. Whatever, none of it fucking matters. You're right it's all just nonsense."
When it rains, it pours.
"Now you're catching on." Why... WHY can't I just fucking get it right. Just once.
He stands, the sheet falling off of him. I have an instinct to pick it back up and cover him with it. He really doesn't look well, maybe the wine wasn't such a good idea. "That's such fucking shit Brian," he explodes. I've only seen Justin truly angry a couple of times, and each time it's thrown me because he's like a fucking powder keg just waiting to go off. He's just waiting for the right moment to split the clouds with the thunder of his voice. "If it's all just words then fucking say them. They don't matter, so why make them matter by holding them back? Just throw it out there like you're ordering breakfast or asking for directions. Because that's all it really means right? It's nothing. So just fucking say it!"
"Like Ethan?" Now I'm fucking angry, fucking hot and fucking miserable. "Just fucking say it Justin, go ahead... 'say it Brian, like Ethan can say it'." I mock him and stalk to the window, opening it for some air. I don't care how fucking cold he is.
"Fuck Ethan!"
"You're the one who did that, not me." I cut him with my retort. And he wonders why all the words in the world aren't worth the effort. Yes, let's keep talking because that'll just get us so fucking far. I breathe in a deep breath of rain soaked air.
"I guess you can speak after all." He's angry still, but it's quiet anger, like a deep rumble from far away. In a way that's worse, because all you can do is wait and never know if or when it'll show up.
"I'm just following your lead Justin. Speak only when it's to my best advantage. Just your lead..." I watch the rain, leaning my hand on the wall. I don't want to turn around and look at him because I know I've said too much, and I feel the pangs of regret forming in the pit of my stomach. I don't want to see his face blanch because of something stupid I've said. I don't want him to hold onto all these words he places too much value on to begin with. It's all just words.
I hear him take tentative steps as the floor creaks beneath his feet, but he stops before he reaches his destination. "Then follow this lead. I love you Brian. See? It's not that hard to say. I don't care what you say, or don't say, or what you do, or how you push me away, I'm not going to stop." I feel his hand starting to rub circles on my back, and I want nothing more than to just relax and let go. We both watch the rain under the streetlight slow to a trickle.
Amadou used to sleep right through a storm. It would keep me up half the night, that's how I got used to them. My bed was the one closest to the window, and I'd just watch them until they disappeared and I could sleep. He said he was used to it, that half the year was a rainy season in The Gambia. He was an exchange student, studying biochemistry. Smartest fucking guy I ever met. Big guy too, about three inches taller than me with an accent so thick that I never understood what he was saying, even when he was speaking English. Apparently they speak English there, but half his phrases came out in his native tongue, so I never knew if he was speaking English or Mandinka, was it? I don't know what was worse, the thunder or his snoring. I must have promised myself a thousand times that I'd never live with anyone else again in my life if I could prevent it, after having to live with him for a year.
The housing department must have thought it would be funny to stick me with him since I complained about every other roommate I had. Was I really going to tell some 6'5" guy to shut the fuck up? Not if I wanted to live to graduate. Though truthfully, I don't think he could have crushed a bug. He was just *loud* and he talked a lot, even more than Justin. Thankfully he wasn't talking about anything I was interested in, so I never had to pay attention. He just talked to fill the time and practice losing his accent.
I haven't thought about him or his maniac girlfriend in years. I'd get these phone calls from her in the middle of the night when he'd be over at the lab, and she'd be screeching about him running around on her. Never did manage to convince her that he wasn't. She's lucky I was usually awake and otherwise occupied. There's nothing like pulling some guy off your dick to deal with a hysterical girlfriend calling from thousands of miles away. I don't know how many hard-ons I almost lost because of her. I never understood why he put up with her hysteria. They'd cry and fight one minute and the next he'd be whispering, well as low as his whispering got, like they shared the world's greatest secret between them. He loved the girl, that much was obvious, and he told her so over and over. It was just so easy for him. It rolled right off his tongue. This big, thick guy turned into a puddle of mush at the sound of her voice.
"What the fuck do you want me to say Justin?" That I haven't said a million times already. I feel trapped in this corner, the wood frame brushing my ass. "When I don't say anything, you get mad. When I do, you get mad. There's no winning here. I could say anything. I could just start speaking in tongues and gibberish and it would all amount to the same shit." I turn abruptly, wearing a sarcastic grin. "You know that's not such a bad idea. You want to hear me speak, then have a listen. Dog, tree, shoe, drake, quark, blerk, tanto, kano."
"Shut up!"
"Kanokanokanokanokanokano," I practically sing. I'm *such* A. FUCKING. COWARD. "Doesn't that sound sweet? I think it does, kanokanokanokanokanokano..."
"You are totally impossible. If you don't want me just say so, and I'll never bother you again. If you don't love me then just say so, and I'll stop imagining that you do. It's really fucking simple. You don't have to make me feel like an idiot on top of it all."
Every time he hung the phone up, that's what he told her. "Kano". It might have been "kanu" or "kanoo", I couldn't really make out his accent. All you had to do was listen to his tone to know what he was saying.
"I've already tried getting rid of you, that didn't work." He looks beyond my face to the window behind me, a slight shiver going up his spine. I should hug him, give him some body heat, but I don't move and he really doesn't expect me to. "It doesn't matter what either of us says. It only matters if you make it matter. I keep trying to tell you that. Maybe you're finally hearing me."
"Maybe that works for you Brian, but it doesn't work for me." He looks resigned, but he stands letting the cool air left after a storm breeze on his skin. "But you're right, I think I am finally hearing you. In fact, I think you're speaking loud and clear."
He grins a small, unexpected grin that lets me know that no matter how much I try to hide it, he knows me better than I know myself. He hears every word I don't say, every answer I don't give, hears my cowardice and hears me back away from his challenge. I won't say I don't want him, I won't say I don't love him. I won't lie out loud anymore than I'll speak the truth. Instead I'll just say nothing. Now it's my turn for a chill to run right up my spine, and I'm not even cold.
"What does that mean?"
"Doesn't matter. It's all just words." He moves away, collecting his sheet off the floor and wraps it around his shoulders. "The rain's pretty much stopped. It's probably safe for you to go."
I hadn't even noticed. "What time is it?"
"Probably about midnight." He guesses, without looking at a clock.
"I should go. I have a meeting in the morning."
He climbs onto the bed, wrapped in a big puddle of those ridiculous sheets and closes his eyes, blocking out the sound of me getting dressed and leaving.
"Brian?" The sound of his voice stops me mid-zip. "Maybe the next time you could stay."
"Who said there'd be a next time," I tease. His eyes saunter open.
"You did." He smiles a content smile and turns on his side. "I'm always listening Brian."
I take a deep drag of the humid night air as I slip my shirt on and walk toward the portrait I came to retrieve. I pick it up, look at Opera Guy singing his beautiful aria, and I feel the same warmth of the sun beating through the drawing that I did the first time. I put it down, I don't want it to get wet. I'll come back for it.
The weatherman said it'd be sunny and bright blue skies tomorrow. It'll keep until then.