everything & nothing

THE FIRST DAY 

“The persimmon tree is pretty much my favorite person. Right up there with Lucy, my mom’s dog.” I say. The turntable revolves around Miles and Coltrane.

“Interesting choices.” He says. The needle glides to the edge.

“Why, who’s yours?”

“You’re pretty cool. Charlie Parker’s not bad either. Jesus I guess. I had this one professor in college-”

“I think you should meet him.” The warmth that was simmering in the air fades out.

“Yeah, maybe sometime.” 

“Let’s go tonight, we can go swimming, if you want.” I get up, his blue jeans still crossed on my blue rug. 

“I thought it was far away?” He piles up our game of Pfeffer.

“I just say that so people don’t go looking. Not that they’d find it anyway.” I can already taste the luscious flesh of the persimmon. I’m already in the pool of blue blue water, on my back with him. Already drifting by the tree’s rouge leaves and scarred skin. Already his hand feels like water. Already I can breathe like I’m made of air.

The walls of the pit extend so high you can’t see the upper edge in the candle light. He says “How did you find this place?” And the night bugs circle the moon.

“I just found it.” I laugh, “You already asked me that.”

“Oh yeah.” we laugh, intoxicated.

We trace a hundred circles in the pool. The lightness is mutual. I say “Want another?”

He whispers like his throat is tight and dry, “Yeah…”

I lumber up from the water. Moth wings flutter over my eye lids. I pull an orange pod from the tree, so soft it’s about to burst. I tear it open like paper. We sit at the edge and he eats from my hand. The rosy juice drips into the water and curls in gentle turbulence.

“There’s a band name.” I say. I believe one of us is leaning on the other.

“Hmm?” 

“Gentle turbulence.”

“Mmn.”

We shred the fibers in our teeth and I squeeze the pulp into my mouth. We put our clothes back on, and sleep under the last grasping foliage. 

+

A FEW WEEKS LATER

French penny brews and a bossa nova guitaro flirt in the evening air. I’m at the table with a blanket on and the window open. It’s cold on my skin and warm in my core like the stoneware mug I sip from. 

Everything is distant. I try to remember who I’ve been today, but it’s like I’ve been watching a movie of my life and now I’m fully inside the movie, looking out from behind my eyes. The bus’s hydraulic brakes hiss outside.

He knocks and enters. “Good morning.” I say.

He takes off his shoes and jacket. “Good morning.” He sits but is not still. 

“We’re like an old married couple.” I say. Eyes dart.

“What do you mean?”

“I was just waiting for you to come home.”

“Ah. Well wait no longer.” He fidgets with a coaster.

“Would you like some decaf?”

“I’ll get it.” He jumps up.

“What’s got you in a good mood?”

“You.” He looks back at me from the Mr. Coffee.

The distance is closed now. I’m aware my eyes are my own, and that there is a question unspoken.

He sits down cradling my “I ❤ Montana” mug. “What have you been up to today?” He asks.

“That’s just what I was trying to remember when you came in… Well- it couldn’t have been very exciting anyway.”

“You didn’t work today?”

“I never work on Sundays anymore. How was your work?”

“Long. Long day.” He drinks, shivers.

I close the window and recede into the blanket.

“Well since we’re an old married couple I guess I should ask you what’s for dinner?”

I open the fridge, cupboards, and pantry. “We don’t really have any food.”

“We could eat out?”

“We also don’t have any money.”

“…Do we have any fruit?..”

“We really shouldn’t be eating those on an empty stomach. It’s going to make us sick.”

He squirms. “I could really use one today…”

“…Me too.” I conceded to the stash in my freezer.

The night rises in tones of ruby sugar and excess.

“The Pfeffer gods are not with me.” It’s an off-suit nine and ten. The twilight is out in spades.

“They are notoriously flighty.” He slurs and takes the trick. The game is nearly over and so is the record.

He says, “What did you think?”

“I think I lost.” I lean back. 

“I mean, of the album.”

“Oh,” I had forgotten to pay attention to the roundwound basslines and long flute solos. “I like it. You could, bring all your records here, if you wanted. Instead of bringing them back and forth.”

He leans back to mirror me. “I should.”

“You should- You could- Do you want to stay here? I mean, live here? In my bed, instead of on my couch?”

“Yeah. Cool.”

+

THE NEXT DAY

The windows are shuttered. That daydream sick afternoon sun looks like fog sneaking in between the blinds. My legs tense and relax, my head heaves side to side. The foreshortening down the length of my body makes me feel like I’m either very small or very tall, and as my eye jumps from one interpretation to the next, a line crosses me. 

His arm slumps over the side of the couch. “When did you fall off?” He asks me.

“A while ago. I wanted to be lower. My stomach didn’t like the gravity.” I don’t think I looked in his eyes.

“I don’t feel very good.” He accuses me. 

“Me either.” I deflect.

I shift on my side and brace my back on the sofa. He rubs my arm. 

An empty bag of MnM’s reminds me where I am and who I’ve been. I’ve been walking to the Sinclair, smiling like a dofus. He played with my scarf at the crosswalk. The green brontosaurus seemed happy too. I burned my last twenty for two cans of pop and a frozen pizza. Halfway home I felt a needle in my stomach. Halfway through the pizza it moved in behind my eyes. Halfway through the movie it multiplied and spread, until my whole body was tingling like a harp so tightly strung that if you touched a string it would snap. And they did snap, one at a time, then all together.

“I need a little something.” He pleads.

“We don’t have any more. You need water. I’ll be right back.” I pull myself off the floor.

Flower mug, gloss, embossed clay, rush to the brim, spilt on linoleum, sip away, the hollow way is a long face, bedroom blitz my duvet and a kiss I roll us in.

“Just try to sleep.” I try to say.

He says “Okay.” 

+

LATER THAT EVENING

It’s my first time going to the pit by myself in a while. I skid slowly down the spiral, clutching an ax by the head. It’s not quite night but the sun seems already like a memory. Limestone dust and dead bugs have collected on the water’s surface. The tree is nearly naked and the only gems still holding on are on the highest stretched fingers. I set my weapon down.

I’m shivering from hunger pangs. I’m bear-hugging its rippled bark. I hurl myself at the lowest arm and land heavy in the dirt. Another scuffed knee leaves me swinging like laundry, then back on the ground like a broken clothespin. When I manage to get onto the first branch I’m out of the cold breath burning my throat. I step up into the wasted canopy, rip one sagging fruit off and it leaks onto my hand. I try to step backwards but the branch rolls my ankle and in a second I’m on my back.

My head rings. My twisted leg makes me sick to look at. My bliss rolled into the water, bobbing and dyeing the sump incarnadine. I crawl for it but lightning flares up my spine. 

I watch my joy lilt away in the current and I feel rain. It’s so cold, I laugh and close my eyes. I think of nothing. And when I’m finally damp and numb I pull myself to the water’s edge. In a moment I’m under- notes floating around the sting of water in my nose and eyes. I surface and grab at the persimmon. I still believe it will relieve my pain, in spite of everything. But it’s sinking now and I can’t tread much longer. I have to turn back.

On land it’s just as wet. I prop myself up with the ax that now feels heavier than me. I reel back and slam it into the trunk, but it slides out my hands and bounces off at an odd angle. Again. I hold tight. It sinks in with the sound of a breaking leg. Again. Again. Again. Sap blood and rain. The organ of the body. The object of my life.

I have killed the only thing that made life worth living.

And I am still alive.