More often than not, a burst of energy not yet felt theretofore, a retroactive ghost, shows itself in slipshod pods of time. This one conducted himself in long strides of economy which minimized the footwork and freed up all the guesswork. “I saw you over there while we were waiting in line,” he had said tritely, point-blank, one gray evening in a Starbucks, the chair opposite suddenly obliging him. “You’re not really reading that right now, are you?” People often got the feeling he derived special pleasure from these minor probes, inciting situational annoyances, private offenses. That he liked to perform human litmus tests, social experiments, measure and divine something of a given climate, then upset the balance a little. Knowing him was always preceded, or forestalled, by a languishing lull, certain hot flashes that predisposed a person to his advances. They were the breed of thoughts that visit when you are in bed swarmed by night, inundated by the summer hum of a bright beach, or staring out into a sprawling sunset at an innocuous distance. The point being, you are quite alone when it happens, even when you are not. No real reason. The Russians have a word for it: toska. His was thus a welcome entry of transgression, and one whose then-unlocked society I had sought in secret since time immemorial. That he came expressed phenotypically male, it serves to note, is only incidental and ultimately of no consequence. I no longer had to explain or account for myself; my actions and our quiet solidarity alone proved enough. He would later follow me to college and live on the fringe, coming and going as was the whim and wind. I sometimes glimpsed him just as I would be alighting or disembarking a bus, our sleeves brushing as he climbed down to a stop, or belatedly discovering we had been on the same route for half an hour, respectively. I wondered about his whereabouts, who he saw, imagined mirrored scenarios. He was outward-reaching and generous, self-generating. Even so, he was the one who taught me how to internalize everything. The day he left I’d driven him to SFO, saw him off as he hauled a single piece of luggage from the trunk, a tattered Jansport carry-on clipped to his back. We brusquely hugged at the loading dock, no ceremony, he pulling away with the same long, ground-assailing strides by which he had first arrived, jaw working on some morsel of gum, grinning, me brimming over, he swiveling around just once before the automatic doors eclipsed him whole.
kaledo-art
yousharknotpass
2087
areudirty
dededos
germansingergirl
titsay
