by André Aciman
Sometimes I want to turn my head to the bedroom wall and tell the wall things. But what could speaking in the dark do? I should give up, but I can’t. I’m like someone who never got off a train that traveled past the last stop.
* * *
ON FRIDAY EVENINGS, when I leave the office and am struck by the torrent of traffic lights—the cars, the buses, the clamor and frenzy of bicycles and delivery boys cutting ever so close as they speed through one red light after another, and all those people doing things, going places—just a whiff of the brisk night air and it’ll all come back to me: I’m wasting my life, I am so alone. A rush of tenderness fills my heart. But I’m not fooled. Tenderness is sham love, easy love, the muted, civil face of love.
Sometimes on those evenings I’ll put off going home. Why go home? To face what? I prefer to linger on the sidewalks and make up reasons to walk to the next bus stop, and to the next one after that. Or I’ll step into this or that store and forget work, forget everyone, and let myself sink deeper, because I want to suffer, I want to hurt, I want to feel something, even if I know that thinking of you never lasts long enough, and that swept by the scents and the press of a large store, my mind will invariably drift to other things, other faces, and in the crowd I’ll lose you and won’t remember your face.
On one such evening at Barneys, I ran into Claire. “I’m thinking of buying a tie and can’t decide which of these two.” She was buying a tie as well. “Who’s the lucky man?” I asked. She gave me a semi-amused, reproachful smile, perhaps to mean Must you always joke? “Just my father,” she said. She had already picked a tie and was walking around with it to make sure there was nothing else she wished to buy. “How about you?” “Can’t decide,” I said, holding one tie in each hand and catching myself imitating the seesawing motions of a scale. “Wouldn’t it be just like you to waver?” she asked, still amused but also chiding. I did not answer. Instead, I asked what she was doing after buying the tie. “Nothing.” Would she have a glass of wine with me on 63rd Street? She hesitated. “It’s Friday night, Claire.” “I promised…,” she started but then relented. “Fine. One glass.” We buy our ties. “Come. I’ll tell you all about my obsessive romance with neckties and how I court them, love them, and am forever loyal to each one.” But all I wanted was to talk about you. She laughed. She humors me. But I know she doesn’t approve. I never told her that I had wanted to buy you a tie as well. Then I chickened out and didn’t buy you one. But an hour later, I am alone again. I know how the evening will turn out. If only I could dream of you. Sometimes I do. But not often enough. Dreams are like practice runs and mini-rehearsals; they tell us what we’ll do, when to ask, how we’ll touch when the time comes, if the time comes. In the morning, when I stand naked in front of the mirror, I like to think that you’re there behind me. Then you’ll come closer and stand flat against me, naked as well, your chin resting on my shoulder, close to my collarbone, your cheek glued to mine, your arms around me. I smile at you and you smile back. We’re good together. We’ve had a good night. I want to hear you say you liked what we did. Did you really? I ask again, as if I need you to repeat it, because I won’t quite believe it myself until I’ve heard you say it. You bite your lip and you nod four or five times.
I know this nod. I’ve seen it many times on the tennis courts. It’s your quiet way of driving a point home, of following a tennis ball and watching it land exactly where you aimed it. You never pump your arm when you score, you never exclaim anything, you don’t even smile when you fire a perfect backhand straight down the line. All you do is nod several times. Sometimes you bite your nether lip. That says it all. It’s what you do when you catch your body in a mirror in the locker room and check yourself out, especially your shoulders, which you know are perfect. Sometimes you’ll even turn sideways to eye your shoulder blades, which you flex once or twice, and then nod. You approve. It’s what happens when mind, will, body, earth, and time are in total alignment. It’s probably what you did—the nod thing—as a child when hurling a flat stone and watching it skitter on a large body of water, three, four, five, six, seven times. Or when you’d spot an A+ when your teacher handed back the weekly science quiz on Mondays. The nod thing again. It confirmed that something you worked on and saw through finally gave you pleasure. Sometimes, though rarely, when you hit a ball hard, you’ll grunt. I love to hear your muffled grunt. It makes me think that this is how you groan when you come. I like thinking of you coming. It brings you down to earth, makes you human, gives a sound to exertions that might otherwise slip unnoticed. I want to see your face when you come.
I look at myself in the mirror as we’re shaving almost shoulder to shoulder in the tennis house and imagine you’re sending me the nod. I wonder what it must be like to be you, to look in the mirror whenever I catch my reflection and simply nod two to three times. To have your skin, your lips, the palms of your hands, your cock, your balls.
Everything about you is perfect, willed perfect, deliberate. Everything in its time, from the first half of your protein bar before stretching your legs to the second half of your protein bar when you leave the locker room on your way out to the subway station. Timeliness in all things. Which is why I’ve never asked you to even hit a few balls with me. My skittish, uneven playing would irritate you no end.
You arrive by 6:45 and you leave at about 8:20. By 8:30 you’re at the 96th Street station, carrying today’s paper in your right hand. You ride the downtown train to 34th Street and then you change for the uptown R or N to Queens. I know, because I followed you once. Twice, actually. Every weekend I am sure that you have your hair trimmed, because it’s always shorter at the start of the week. On your way to or from the barber, I bet you pick up the shirts you delivered last Saturday and drop off this week’s laundry. I know that you have your shirts laundered because in the morning you always tear out the tag stapled around the lowest buttonhole. I’m quite certain that you iron your pants before going to bed every night or early in the morning before tennis. I can just see you occasionally putting down the iron to eat from a bowl of high-protein cereal. You never rush through anything; everything in its time, down to the way you store your clothes in the locker. You’ll fold your scarf, then hang your jacket and trousers on the hanger you keep in your locker, and finally fold your paper and stand it so it won’t crinkle in the locker or stain your clothes. Everything is minutely taken care of and premeditated. When I think of what kind of work you do, I am almost sure you’re either an actuary, an accountant, or a fussy patent office clerk who prefers not meet clients.
People like you live alone, like living alone. God, you must be dull.
You probably were no different as a little boy—the kind of classmate everyone admires and envies but secretly hates. I can just see you leaving school, dutifully saying goodbye to your homeroom teacher, and heading home early every afternoon. You look happy. You don’t mind walking alone. You’re neither slack nor rushed as you think of what’s awaiting in the kitchen. Unlike others your age, you’re still wearing shorts and you don’t care what anyone says. Along the way home, you’re already planning how to tackle your homework, knowing that if you finish on time you might get to watch your favorite show and later, after supper, go back to the book you’ve been reading. I imagine you have two siblings; you’re the youngest. The one you’re closest to is already in college away from home. You miss him sometimes, especially since you like rowing out with him on Sunday afternoons to fish, the two of you watching the herons standing on the warm sedge, while he talks and tells you about things you know nothing about and you listen. Your parents won’t let you use the boat when he’s not there; you listen to them too, you always listen.
There are no ruffles in your life, no fretting before exams, no threats of having your allowance withheld, you always know what to do, what to expect, what to avoid—poison ivy, ticks, brambles, and the bad boys who linger around but won’t cause trouble if you duck them in time. You’re seldom caught by surprise, a
nd you always budget your time. You don’t call it budgeting your time yet, but I heard you use the expression once when a tennis player asked you what you did for work, and when you told him and he asked how you managed to divide your time between teaching high school during the day and special education in the evening, you smiled and said, “I guess I budget my time.” You were probably never late for school, never late handing in your homework, not late reaching puberty. Punctual in all things. And, yes, unremittingly dull.
* * *
AFTER MORE THAN two years, I still know nothing about you. I can’t even tell how old you are. Sometimes I’ll swear you couldn’t be older than twenty-five. But the elusive hints of incipient male-pattern baldness throw me off and give the lie both to your boyish face and to the taut, marble-white chest on which the outlines of blood vessels are as visible as on the face of a child. I’d have settled for thirty-plus, but your voice is too high, which is why I’ll fall back to late twenties. The other day while riffling through a box of old photographs, I landed on a picture taken of me at the beach when I was twelve. I hadn’t seen this picture in years, and yet it radiates a startling new meaning to me now, because all I want is to show it to you, to draw you into my life, and let you see that the man I am today and the boy I was once are the same person. With you I want to go back to the beginning to restart the story of my life. I remember exactly when this picture was taken. It was late one morning. Two brothers who were going for a swim stopped by to greet my father and stood watching him as he snapped my picture while I felt awkward in front of them and was trying to stand straight and not squint though the sun was in my eyes. I had a crush on one of them and was too young to realize it. Had you told me back then what I want from you now, I’d have laughed in your face; had you held me as I so want you to now, I’d have struggled and freed myself and kneed you in the groin, called you all manner of foul names that I’d dread you’d easily use on me now. Today, all I want is the courage to ask you to hold me as you might have done when I was in that picture at the beach and, after wrestling me to the ground and holding me there with my mouth biting the sand, tell me not to struggle against you, against your mouth, against my life.
* * *
EVER SINCE I first noticed you, I made a point of speaking to everyone else at the courts so that you might get to know me, if only by overhearing my conversations. I wanted to let you know that I love laughter and good cheer, and that despite being friendly with just about everyone, I am no fool.
I love starting conversations with people whom, in other circumstances, I wouldn’t even notice. I’ve made friends with the help, one of them the pert Wendy at the concession stand whose real Chinese name is not Wendy and with whom I flirt every morning when I complain about her coffee. And then there’s the handyman who’s told me the story of his life and how he had to flee Russia and now lives on Staten Island with his Dominican wife and needs to leave home to take the ferry by four thirty every morning to show up at the tennis courts on time. I know about his daughter who works nights as a nursing assistant at Mount Sinai and about his sister-in-law who lives with him ever since her accident. I’ve also spoken to another handyman in my broken Spanish. Now he seeks me out, wants to talk, may even have mistaken my overzealous camaraderie for friendship.
In the tennis house I am forever again Mr. Mirth-Palaver, the one everyone greets and around whose shoulder everyone, from the players to the handymen to the tennis coaches, likes to put an arm when they pass by. Some even shout my name. I want you to know my name. I want you to know I’m five lockers down from yours. But as soon as I see you, I freeze. Should I look, or pretend not to? Should I speak, or say nothing? Better say nothing. For there are indeed days when the whole thing fritters away like a bad dream and I begin to scorn you. I like scorning you. Sometimes I’ll coddle those moments when desire seems to have totally ebbed and indifference has chilled the little that’s left. Then I thank my stars for helping me hold my tongue. I look at your ass, your cock, your face, and feel nothing. The circuit is always the same: from attraction to tenderness to obsessive longing, and then to surrender, desuetude, apathy, fatigue, and finally scorn. But then, just hearing your flip-flops on the wet pavement of the shower area reminds me that indifference was just a reprieve, not a verdict. By the end of your game, your white shirt is all damp and sticks to your chest, and I can make out your rib cage and your abs, not an ounce of fat, the six-pack no secret though never declared. Scorn disappears. I want to bury my head in your chest the moment you remove your shirt, I want to wrap the shirt around my face. So I watch. After taking off your clothes, you’ll put them in the usual white Apple plastic shopping bag and pull the drawstring tightly before dropping it into your swanky leather messenger bag. Sometimes I’ve watched you toss your damp shirt and shorts into your bag as if you’ve suddenly lost your patience with them and refused to be neat. I love the scruffy you. It makes me long to know the unkempt, unbudgeted you, the you who needs others and makes room for them at night and likes dessert when having a story told before bedtime.
* * *
IT’S BEEN HAPPENING again this year. Before shaving and showering, you’ll still come to where the sinks are, close to where I’ll be standing and shaving, and for a split second—and this is my moment—you’ll stand behind me totally naked. If my timing is right, I’ll keep shaving and observe you in the mirror. But just sensing you are scarcely inches behind me is enough to send my heart racing and bring me to the brink of doing something foolish, like leaning back to feel your chest, or turning around to let you see that I’m getting hard. I like when my heart races, when I start to forget things, when I cease to care and all I want is for you to reach over to me, and without warning rest your towel, rest the light stubble of your unshaved chin against my back and lock me in your arms, your cock tucked between my cheeks, staring at ourselves in the mirror as though after a good night together. This is when I must think other thoughts, this is when I push my cock against the rim of the sink to keep it in check.
Sometimes, as you did last year, you disappear for two, three weeks and once again I fear I’ve lost you. Either you’ve moved or found better tennis courts elsewhere. I know we’ve been through this before. But this time I dread the signs. I picture you playing tennis in Queens near your school. And then it hits me: I’ve lost you. You now rank among the things I’ll always regret: opportunities lost, children never had, things I might have accomplished or done far better, lovers who have come and gone. In a few years, I’ll remember this shabby tennis house and its puddles and think back on the splash of your yellow flip-flops. I’ll remember the courts in late winter, when only the regulars and the diehards, including old Mrs. Lieberman, play, or April weekday mornings or May afternoons when lilacs bloom all over Central Park, or when the silence that hovers over these courts and over the park by eight in the morning is as spellbinding as the silence on empty beaches at the break of day. I’ll look back to that beautiful backhand of yours, how you knelt down in something like silent worship for the death blow you were about to strike and then, having slammed the ball, stood there, staring at your befuddled adversary, biting your lower lip as a humble disclaimer in the face of heaven’s silent praise. I’ll regret that nod, because it is the nod I picture on your face whenever I imagine my cock entering your body, slowly, very slowly at first, and then, when I’m all the way in and want to tell you that this is the best life can offer, you’ll nod again and bite your lip, which I now want to bite more than anything in the world as you finally reach up to me and kiss me with your tongue deep in my mouth. What I’ll regret is never seeing your face when you come, never holding your knees, or caressing your face, many, many times, or even knowing that tinge of disappointment after sex that immediately begs to be expiated with more sex.
* * *
ONE MORNING I arrived earlier than usual. By now I’d made a habit of entering the park at 93rd, not 90th. We entered the park at the same time. I hadn’t seen you in weeks. Cle
arly something could have been said on such an occasion. You did not look at me, and after giving you a chance to say something, I decided not to stop looking at you. This was very unusual. I kept glancing at you a few times, perhaps in an attempt to greet you if you so much as looked my way, but you were staring straight in front of you, budgeting your steps, budgeting your thoughts, your day. Better not disturb him, better not intrude, yours were clearly get lost signals.
An hour later, in the locker room, when I saw a huge bandage around your right thigh, I figured I had to seize my chance. “What happened to you?” I asked, with a tone that wished to imply a friendly what idiotic scrape did you get yourself into? “Oh, I was just trying to open a bottle of wine that broke a few weeks ago.” “Stitches?” “Many.” You smiled. Then seeing I wasn’t looking away from you, “You’re the third person who’s noticed.”
“Hard not to. Can you play tennis with this?”
“Tennis is easy. It’s showering that’s difficult.”
We laughed.
“I’ve got it down to a system.” And so saying, you produced a box of Saran wrap from your swanky leather bag, plus a collection of sturdy rubber bands. It made the two of us laugh again.
“It’s really a lot better. But thanks for asking.”
Thanks for asking. There it was. Perfunctory courtesy bordering on dry, dismissive pap. The emperor of clichés. It did not surprise me.
A few days later just as I was opening my bag I cursed out loud. “Can you believe it?” I said, turning to you. “I forgot my sneakers.”
“Don’t you keep them in your locker?” you asked.
“Normally I do, but I took them to play tennis on Riverside Drive last Sunday.”
I looked at my watch, as if I could get back home and make it to the courts in time. You read my thoughts.
“Well, even if you rushed back home you’d probably lose the court. So my advice is sit in the benches, have a protein bar, and enjoy a fresh cup of coffee.”
