there are no texts that bombard his phone, no cloying messages of need that he has to attend to, no pictures he has to send, nobody he has to make sure he responds to within whatever proper allotment of time lightning’s fixed up for him today — one of the many challenges of which is even figuring out what the time limit is — and the silence is bliss; the silence is a stark reminder of what had been his life, ten years prior, when all this was but words on wind: two boys, sneaking out of the party, never realising how they’d tear each other apart. the silence might be ominous, if it didn’t bring about so much relief: for the first time in a while, his shift goes swimmingly; his boss doesn’t shout at him for being distracted while at work — farley, in truth, doesn’t know why he’s been kept on for so long, and thinks maybe this is some dark underhanded working of privilege: that she recognised his name somewhere, and thinks herself liable for a wrongful termination lawsuit if she does so; which reminds him about the unionisation efforts happening in the location he works at, that union membership sign-up form they’ve handed to him only very reluctantly, stuffed in his bag somewhere and still very much missing his signature, and he thinks, amidst all these zigzags: something’s got to give.
it doesn’t mean anything. it’s an offhand comment, a throwaway line that his brain conjured up but somehow sticks; repeats, recurs, that awful refrain: something’s got to give. when his shift ends, and when there’s been no sign of the other for all that time, farley thinks, at first: thank God; then he does the meaningless ritual of mental self-flagellation — why am i so cruel ? he would think. why do i think these thoughts, and does that make me a bad person ? — and ruthlessly dispenses with it with the cool apathy of senseless resignation. he smokes a cigarette in the break room, doesn’t even take a drag, just lets the flame burn near his fingertips, the warmth going from something approximating cold comfort to something fiery against his skin; a cleansing fire that would cleanse nothing, and yet the image of it tickles something deeply symbolic at the back of his brain, a philosopher’s lament, which — again — doesn’t mean anything.
the ruthless picking off, one by one, of the potential places he could find the other in: that, too, or so he chooses to believe, doesn’t mean anything. he thinks, once, twice, about giving up, of going to his flat in greenwich village where ginsberg saw the brightest minds of his generation destroyed by madness, and wonders offhand how creative genius has been replaced with bland, corporate, gentrified self-same self-sustaining anguish. this isn’t a metaphor, except in all the ways it is a metaphor; this is a story that repeats: a story that repeats is a story that never ends; so farley finds himself in that apartment at chinatown, the door opening with a terrible lack of a creak that he finds is almost aesthetically offensive, and he sees his lover hunched over that terrible, terrible gift farley had given him: gauche, in all the wrong ways, and given as some form of supplication after a fight gone terribly wrong. it is those very same hands now — so capable of destruction, of tearing apart — that drop his bag on the floor besides lightning, arms already reaching reach out longingly, come to rest on the other’s shoulders, fingertips grazing against warm skin; this ruthless evidence of the other’s vivacity, though lightning himself might wish for the very opposite right now.
〝 you’ve not been well, 〞 farley says, which is stating the obvious, but redundancy can be comfortable: do something enough times, be stuck with something for so long, and you wouldn’t know who you’d be without it. the sentiment isn’t a simile; it’s simply what it is: motions of the human body, sentiments expressed through a not-very vocal mouth, and farley squeezes, tells his lover: 〝 i’ll just go to the kitchen. 〞 which is a lie, and not a very good one, because this has happened before, and it will happen again: farley first goes to the bedroom — on the way there, he readies the french press ( contrary to what lightning often rags him for, farley actually does know how to make real coffee ) so that he only has to press the plunger when he returns, then takes out a can of campbell’s soup, pours it in a bowl, and throws it into the microwave — and takes out a blanket from the wardrobe: cashmere, soft like sin; then ventures out again, wraps the other in its soothing embrace, hands combing through the other’s hair, luxuriating in this spot of vulnerability, this moment of weakness that left the other so open, so helpless … and yet what does he do with it ?
the microwave dings. farley leaves for the kitchen, not even saying a word, then comes back with a tray containing soup, the coffee he’s made, a couple slices of bread, and some jam. his effort may all be for nought, but the ritual of it soothes him: he pulls down the lid, rests the tray over this gift that he has given lightning, and presents his offering now with the self-same devotion. 〝 for you, 〞 he says, even though it always comes down to this simple thesis: i do everything for you.
then, he takes out a book from his bag, starts reading, lets his voice wash over the silence, thinks, despite very dearly not wanting to:
The touch of a being external to himself is strange — he feels it, the warmth of Farley Corcoran’s tender hands, that is to say that he processes the tactile sensory information, but he doesn’t feel it, that is to say that the touch does nothing to uncoil him from the shriveled state in which he finds himself cemented. In moments other than this, Lightning likes to think of Farley as the sun and himself a nyctinastic plant, slumbering in the darkness and opening up only to the other’s light — today he is seismonatic in the way that he curls up to protect himself from the slightest stimulus. Farley leaves his sight, and there is some vague awareness of why, which manifests itself into reality as small sounds and slowly creeping smells fill the stale, dead air of his apartment. Soon there is even a blanket that envelops him in much-needed warmth, and Lightning feels — as though he doesn’t deserve any of this. As though the sunlight has peeked in and he no longer has any reason to remain closed; except he does, except now all the blame falls to him for resisting still.
For you, Farley prefaces before they set their gifts down upon the wooden surface. Lightning’s gaze flits to the tray of consumables, and he has a vague sense that he should accept this gift, if not for himself, then for Farley who has gone through all the effort to prepare this for him. Later: a singular thought that somehow filters through the discordant silence in his head, a singular promise that he makes silently to Farley, as though the other would be able to hear him. Soon the richness of Farley’s voice fills the air, and Lightning shuts his eyes. He fills the void with the sound of Farley’s voice: not even their words, for fully-formed thoughts are too much to ask of him at this moment, but he clings onto the sound for dear life. It feels a lot like drowning, he supposes, and the sound of this voice feels almost like the salvation of a hand that has pulled through the turbid water to reach for him.
It is a slow process: almost surgical, a careful separation of one object that has amalgamated into its surroundings. It is a process that works: because it is not the first time. It is not the first time, and there is no one who knows where to incise as precisely as Farley Corcoran does. It is not the first time, and the thought that often follows is that it will not be the last. It will not be. These episodes will come more frequently, he knows, but they will not come for very much longer now. And the dam breaks, because this resolve and this resolution fills him with ecstatic delight and unending sadness both — and he feels, and he feels, and he feels. Here he is in his most pitiful, but there is no one more pitiable than that person who stays by his side and reads to him now. He is loved, he thinks, and he does not deserve it, he thinks, and that light that shines upon him so relentlessly, that human being which dares to love this creature of the darkest depths — deserves more, he thinks. He is what he is, that burning creature of obsession and fury and insatiable desire, too much to handle, blazing too brightly, razing all that its heat touches — and they whom he loves most in this world have endured him for far too long now.
I wish I could love you less torturously, Lightning thinks. And this is something he would never speak to Farley out loud, because — this is what they are, and this is what they always will be, and there is no other conceptualization of Lightning and Farley that is not this mutual, gruesome, profuse cycle of taking and devouring and sacrificing and offering. Lightning unshuts his eyes and sees through the blurry haze the sharpening figure of his lover: and Lightning is still bathed in the darkness of the night, but perhaps the moonlight has reflected upon him at just the right angle, just enough for the slightest nastic awakening, leaves uncurling to the light. Lightning loves Farley: he will not allow them to suffer for much longer. Lightning loves Farley, and he thinks, sometimes, that Farley loves him, and this is the love he wants to preserve in amber before it rusts, before it breaks, before it dissolves into nothingness, and in moments like this more than ever is when he feels this love the most. The thought hits him sharply: this is how he wants to be loved in that final moment. This is the very last thing he wants to taste of this world.
And so he asks of Farley Corcoran, hoarsely, weakly, shakily, gently: “Will you do me a favor?” A pause, his lips dry, the words heavy and sharp in his throat: “Can you love me like this for just a little longer?”
