All Roads Lead to Blood

by Chau, Bonnie;

  *

  The artist likes his beef cooked medium, he likes me bloody. Doesn’t mind me bloody. I am less than racked, but still confronted with feelings of guilt. Blood guilt. Rag guilt. Unsure. This requires additional layers of uncertainty, questioning, attempts at predicting, understanding. Do I tell him before agreeing to meet up that I’m on my period? Is that incredibly presumptuous or incredibly unnecessary? Or just slightly one or the other?

  He gives me a toothbrush, a small towel. We go to bed, what’s the matter, he asks, when I squirm out of the way when he reaches down into my shorts. I’m on my period. I’m on my period. An apology, a groan, a half laugh. Contrition, a request for forgiveness. Forgive me for my blood. Excuse me for my mess.

  He says something like, so? or That’s okay. I say something like I don’t want to bleed all over your sheets. Gus once said it looked like we had killed a squirrel in our bed. Or I don’t mind, maybe that’s what the artist is saying. I remind myself that this all makes sense. He’s an artist, he’s lived with women before sometimes in shacks in the woods for years. I say, I have nowhere to put my tampon, he tells me just to put it in his T-shirt, I am shocked. I would rather not be shocked all the time—I tell myself this is great. It’s dark, we’re on his lofted bed, here, yeah, just put it in here, doesn’t matter, I’ll just wash it. I shrug a small shrug, in the dark, yank out the tampon, place it in the folds of the T-shirt he is holding out.

  Was there blood everywhere, I ask later. Am I hoping for blood? The artist is coming back into the room from the bathroom. No, he says, but I definitely had to wash my mouth out with Listerine. I don’t know what else to do but laugh, a laugh of astonishment, open-mouthed chagrin. The taste of blood in your mouth.

  I wake up sweating, another heat-wave wake-up call, and reach over to the table to grab a glass of water. I open the door to the bedroom. In the hallway to the rest of the apartment, there floats a strip of spotlit dust motes, in the beam of light shining in from the bathroom window. It’s above eye level, and I stare up at the specks. I breathe deeper, inhale more dust, everyone is inhaling all of this dust all the time. Specks of bodies.

  *

  When I receive a copy of Gus and Slayde’s wedding film, I have just had a long restless day of nothing. It is my first day off in two weeks, a Monday, and what I did was this: woke up. Noted the deflated nature of my inflatable mattress. Took a shower. Ate cereal and blackberries for breakfast. Went to the bank to get cash for rent. Ate a left-over sandwich from the afternoon prior, reheated questionably on the stove in a wok, on low heat. Read a little, wrote a little. Discovered the hole in the inflatable mattress. Ordered a patch-up kit online. Went to the drugstore and bought some black tights and two cans of soup.

  I watch the wedding video while eating Chickarina canned soup—the voice-overs of family speeches and toasts overlaying shots of the bride getting her makeup done, the groomsmen at the barbershop. I watch it twice. The third time, I stop it, before it gets to the part with Gus tying his tie and shoelaces, in slow motion.

  2006

  One summer toward the end of college, I moved in, just for six months, into the house Gus lived in. It was probably July, and L.A. was hot and dusty. It was hot at seven in the morning, it was hot at seven at night. Dusty because of desert dirt, dusty because of the construction sites that were always outside of whatever window through which you were staring.

  I moved in, next door. A few turgid and warm summer months leading into some mild and windy fall and winter days, over those creaky hardwood floors, and then I would be gone to study abroad. But for now, this was what it was. Gus moved my mattress for me. Hefted it to one side, walked up the sidewalk with it, sixty feet away, to my new house. He was shirtless, wearing shorts, flip-flops. His body was Roman-statue perfect, but he carried himself as if he were heavier, stomping, hulking, ungraceful, clumsy. Then back, and back again, with my box spring.

  I was skirting a wide gaping hole of pre-graduation angst and uncertainty, and living in that big dark house was some sort of perfect backdrop to it all. The entire complex of houses was a sunken forest in the middle of the street, swarming darkly with vegans, bisexuals, hippies, rock stars, skateboarders, and graffiti artists, and then, them. Or, us.

  There was always that Astroturf walkway, dividing the two sides of the bunch of houses, and you could tell it was a bright green a long time ago, but now it was blotchy and dark, and most of the time when you crossed that walkway, it was soggy. The front door was almost never locked. At night, at the table in the corner of the living room, Gus and I sometimes sat side by side, reading or writing, with just one small lamp on the table spreading out its light, the rest of the rooms dark and still.

  When the small slew of strange summer subletters started coming through, each staying only a few weeks at a time, Gus and I watched them, idly guessing about their comings and goings. We especially liked the first roommate—Albert. We talked fondly about his odd mannerisms, perhaps because he fit in so awkwardly with the rest of us, and smiled proudly when we discussed his predilection for trance music and hookah bars. We waited up for him, and worried when it was late and he still hadn’t returned home.

  I tried to organize that summer into a nice orderly chronology later on, but always failed. While I lay in bed, staring at the small oblong poster on the ceiling, I tried, but I realized I couldn’t remember eating at all that summer and fall. Those months were filled with that house, and those streets, but what did we eat? What was in the refrigerator, the pantry, the cabinets? It seemed like we all miraculously floated on through, surviving on the odd handful of sour candy or bite of blood orange.

  Once, we bought a watermelon and tried to fill it with vodka, but became confused. Philippe, from Austria, was living with us at that time, Philippe, with his white blonde hair, and elfin face, who always walked around in a red silk robe. Gus and I sliced off the top of the watermelon, and started pouring the vodka in, but it was absorbing too slowly, so Philippe gave the melon a few stabs. The three of us ended up feeding it the vodka slowly, over a couple of days, like a cranky baby we were nursing around the clock.

  Most of that summer, we just watched movies, or read, one or two or three of us at a time. It was like being in some other universe, the bamboo blinds moving slightly in the windows at night, the sound of crickets outside, and the bunch of us in there, disparate orphans, speaking sleepily or energetically about art and politics and school and books and drugs and films.

  On occasion, we ventured out, usually late at night, and strolled in the aisles of the twenty-four-hour drugstore, or hung out at Penny Lane, searching for the few movies left in the foreign section we hadn’t yet rented. Sometimes we went to Ralphs, sometimes we struggled over the fence and into the cemetery.

  I left at the end of September. We lit sparklers left over from the fourth of July in the driveway, and I hugged everyone goodbye. I’d write postcards, and emails, and I’d be back soon enough, I promised. And I came back. There had been an earthquake while I was away, but I came back.

  *

  We were having a dinner that Sunday after my return. I set the table. Slayde was coming up to eat with us, this dinner. I didn’t say anything to anyone, about this. Nobody said anything. We went to the store, and cooked, and moved things around, as if we were a normal family of friends, getting ready for a normal dinner. I was looking forward to it, I realized, to the actual dinner, sitting there at that table, in the lamplit evening, close together, so that I could watch her interacting with him, but also with everyone else. So that I could watch her and feel condescension about who she was, and what they were, and how she did not fit in with us, how she was not one of us, how she was intruding on our family. I felt calm, I didn’t feel anything.

  2016

  He’s an artist. I say this to my friends, by way of explanation, by way of the last ditch, by way of being merciful—turn on the
fountain, turn on the water, and suddenly the fountain makes sense.

  Before I said this, I could see in their restless trembling eyeballs, that nothing made sense. But that they would let it slide. I don’t want to let it slide, so I give them the thing that will connect the dots.

  The artist sends me a message that ends in an ellipsis, only instead of three dots, it’s three commas. I cannot fathom how someone can function like this.

  I think about the artist while I masturbate. I slide under the covers, the covers being an empty duvet cover, in my jeans, it feels dirty to be doing this. Inside the bed is supposed to be clean, only for pajamas, flannel, matching top and bottoms. Peter Pan collar. Not for denim, which harbors in its tiny ridges all the dirt of the day, like macaroni pasta harboring hidden reserves of cheese. You never know what you might find. Surprises and secrets.

  I slide shut the window. It’s only October, but it’s cold. Crisp is a euphemism for cold. Masturbate is a euphemism for breach, alone. My fingers are cold. My toes are cold. Insides are still warm. Even a dead body will hold warm wetness, for a while.

  I wash my hands, soaping especially the middle fingers on my right hand. I look at my face in the mirror. My cheeks look a little pink—from what? An unvigorous walk? A cigarette? Espresso? A blush signifying residual shame, or intensity of something, from having almost wept over the cop in Chungking Express, forlornly telling his towel, “You’re a real disappointment to me.”?

  Once, the artist asked me, don’t you want to touch me? I didn’t want to, then. Or, I thought by not touching him, I was staying shy of crossing a certain boundary, I was not-crossing a certain line, I was refraining for his sake. I could be cold, I could be crisp, I could sing songs in a light, airy voice while working behind a snack bar counter and feel nothing.

  I wake up in the morning, and look at the thermometer on my nightstand. Fifty degrees. In my bedroom. I eat all my meals at the coffee table and couch in my living room. I eat all my meals at knee level. Below, knee level, really; I know this because the coffee table hits my shins right below my knees. My bowl of boiling hot oatmeal cools completely in two minutes.

  2006

  Somewhere recently, grafitti on the side of a building, someone had written: it’s simple—if you want to be seen, show yourself. If you want to be understood, explain yourself.

  Was that stupid or smart? Neither. Meaningless.

  2046

  The day after the movie marathon night, I would meet my parents for dinner. They would express worry, as usual, about me being alone. It’s good to have someone, my mom would say. Someone who’s in your life, a lot. Someone who lives not too far away. Soon all of your friends will be married and with kids, and with families of their own... Well, you’ll see.

  I would refrain from saying anything, except uh huh. What else is there to say? Yes, I am fucked.

  Or, should I say, actually, well, there is someone. There is someone who would notice. The artist, who’s resurfaced in my life, would notice. If you must do something as conventional as scorekeeping, then yes, I suppose you would conclude that I talk to this person everyday. But I cannot tell my mother this, I cannot tell him this, I can barely even tell myself this.

  It does not soothe me, or reassure me, that friendship can be this wide open and lenient. I had not wished for this, for this demonstration that friendships—relationships—could be so pliable, so shapeless, so prone to stretching in all directions.

  2006

  Gus and I ventured out of my bedroom, into the living room. The apartment was empty except for us, and we were both in our underwear—he was wearing boxers, everyone wore those boxer shorts then; I was wearing an old undershirt tank top and underwear. We needed water. It was hot. He pulled open the screen door, and we stepped onto the grimy floor of the balcony to look down at Sunset Blvd. rushing beneath us. The sun had not quite set yet, but its intentions were clear. If someone down there looked up and saw me, they might think I was completely naked, he said, kicking at the bumpy cement wall of the balcony, that stopped at his ribs. We grinned at each other. He walked back inside, into the dimness of the living room, and we danced, swaying for several moments. While I poured another glass of water, he walked over to the barstool, where he had left his phone. I walked back out to the balcony, and watched him from outside. He put the phone up to his ear, expressionless, then serious. He looked up, met my eyes. As much as part of me started sinking, another part of me started to feel like I was floating—either way, I forgot about breathing. I walked inside, he looked panicked, turned away from me, walked into the kitchen, his voice low and I heard fast words, I’m okay, I’m okay, yeah, yeah, I’ll be back. I looked over at the coffee table. There were a whole bunch of red Netflix envelopes scattered on top, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, Eileen Chang’s Lust, Caution. He was walking back now, calm. I had about sixteen missed calls from my brother and then my parents since yesterday afternoon, he said quietly. I looked at him and waited. I have to go, he said, they were really worried, they called the cops. What, I interrupted. He looked down, My brother thought I would come home yesterday. I mean, I was supposed to go home. He’s not used to—He stopped. I don’t know what to say. And Slayde, she flew back to surprise me. I have to go, he said. I nodded. We kissed, behind the building, by his car.

  2016

  When I look back to that moment behind the building, by his car, I think to myself, yes, that was the kind when you know it’s the last time.

  2046

  While I wait in line, I would think about this speed dating thing—the concept of it would seem very antiquated, but also strangely futuristic, like something we should be doing now. Fast, forward. A little bit like an over-the-top version of the future, as envisioned by people from back in the 1990s, when they had no idea what it would be like. Oh, are you feeling like love is too slow? Fear not, my lonely ladies and gentlemen! Try this new-fangled dating method we’ve transported straight from the future: SPEED DATING!

  I would keep staring at the dark blue weave of the sweater on the man in front of me. Intarsia. I’d be really into this word, intarsia, because of its old-fashioned sound—it’s a word used for knitting and woodwork after all. Although in 2046 it’d also happen to be the name of a very popular over-the-counter psychostimulant. I would stare into the wayward fibers, really into them, into the dust and the knit and the wool and the motes and mites. I would think about how this man in the sweater who could not open his energy bar wrapper appropriately could be the love of my life.

  *

  Once, they say, people wrote love letters. It only counted as love if the love was not there anymore. It only counted as love letters if the letters were all that was left. There was love, war, and afterwards, letters floated like debris, back to the ground. Nothing was around. There was nothing left, nothing but a very thin air.

  2016

  Gus used to write me letters from his shared recording studio space at The Brewery, on the nights when he stayed late, when he was there long enough to take a break to eat a sandwich, and write me a letter.

  I’m back in Orange County for a funeral. I’m there for a week, cleaning out my old closets at my parents’ house, and boxing up some things to take back to my new place in Echo Park. I find the letters at the bottom of a box labeled CONTENTS: DISCONTENTS, and I read them, imagining him on his cracked leather stool. I do not care to count how many years later it is.

  Dear Celine,

  I arrived home this evening and the house was full of people. My brother’s band had been recording, and everyone was still hanging around, drinking beers, leaning against walls, seated on the couch, boots propped up on the coffee table. It was loud, din, laughing, it was hot inside the house, and I was supposed to be talking to Peter about a new project we are doing together, but all I could think about was you, and so I excused myself, and went to my room, and
sat at my desk, and decided to write to you. You are at work now, and I wanted you to have this, to read, when you got home. It was only here, the rest of the sounds and the rest of the world stumbling loudly forward in the other rooms, sounds made dim by my closed doors, and the walls, that I felt happy, that I felt quiet and happy and that was because I could think, which meant I could think about you.

  It is difficult for me to think about what this means. Everything here in this house is my life. My brother, his friends, who have become my friends, the work they are doing, the work I have started in collaboration with them, everything I have been creating for myself for the past three years. My weekends are regular, the time spent with my brother, running with him, our drives into the desert, hauling out all of our sound and recording equipment and instruments, the smell of the saguaros and the Joshua trees, the dry heat of the wind when we are on the 10 and the 62 with the windows cranked down. Coming home to this is what I have made for myself, something I have consciously created, this space, the ability to have this to come home to. People to make music with, to make art with, to put on shows with, to talk with about sound synthesis theory over an endless parade of watery Tecates.

  It’s not something I can dismiss, or put aside. It’s important to my life—for what it is, it is my life. I am tied to this, to my family, not just to my brother, but to my parents for whom I have caused grief and for whom this, finally, is something they do not have to worry about and make sacrifices over. Slayde, too, is a part of all this. She has taught me so much, she has given me so much, of herself, of her life, her friends and relationships, her support and guidance, she has shared this world with me, given it to me.

  And yet, now, this.

  It is unfair. We talk about this, you and I, this notion of fairness, of deserving, who gets what, for what? I’ve made myself a sandwich, to escape the party, to take into my room here with me, while I write to you, and I look at it on the plate, and I only understand that you are right, that nobody deserves anything, nobody has a right, intrinsically, to anything, we place these importances as we see fit, according to our own feelings. But, here, I want to do what is right. I want there to be something that is undeniably right, and when I think about this, all I think is Celine Celine Celine.