Binary Star

by Sarah Gerard

  John is mad at his culture.

  His culture has made him mad.

  I am always somewhere without knowing why.

  I want to know.

  We have an understanding of damage, and of the fact that what is between us is only thought.

  That I am damaged has a significant effect, it is very important.

  That John doesn’t know.

  He doesn’t need to worry about it. He shouldn’t worry. He has enough to worry about.

  It’s my role to be supportive. That’s why he loves me.

  John loves me. He does.

  Maybe he doesn’t.

  Maybe I don’t.

  Maybe he wants to hurt me.

  Love is giving up yourself. He has nothing to give up.

  John doesn’t believe in sacrifice.

  That nothing is substantial prevents him from owning it fully.

  If I were perfect?

  Nothing is perfect. What is a perfect star?

  A white one.

  They’re all white.

  No. Some are blue.

  And some are red.

  THE FIRST DREDGE-UP

  A GIANT TURNS RED LATE IN ITS LIFE, WHEN IT exhausts the hydrogen fuel in its core.

  Its surface is cool but its radius expands; it is luminous but has low mass.

  The outer layers of the red giant are convective, bringing material exposed to nuclear burning to the surface for the first time.

  This is the first dredge-up.

  Last winter, we spent a month driving around the country’s perimeter. John’s parents paid for everything: hotels, food, and gas. Our job was to drive and come back in January: to find something new. At first, we didn’t know what.

  To step out of time, place ourselves entirely in the present, which is also eternity.

  The week before we’re set to leave, I spend the night at a friend’s house on Jones Beach, cramming for a final. I call John at two in the morning, speeding on Adderall, and tell him that I weigh 98 pounds, which is true at the time. I had weighed myself several times during the night. Then I’d become afraid.

  I tell him that I’m bulimic, which is also true, but not the whole truth.

  You can’t purge when we’re away.

  Then you can’t drink, I say.

  Okay.

  We’ll find equilibrium.

  We make a pact for balance.

  We’ll shed our lives in order to see ourselves clearly.

  As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine.

  I agree.

  This will bring us closer, I say.

  I’m here for you, he says.

  And I’m here for you.

  We start in Chicago and drive west toward North Dakota. All of our necessities are behind us in the backseat. Two cups of coffee sit between us and two iPhones full of music, none of the songs repeated.

  How long have you been doing it? John asks me.

  Ever since I was little.

  Why?

  I don’t know. Why do you need to drink?

  I don’t. I just like drinking.

  Whatever.

  Really.

  Okay.

  I never see more stars than I see driving along the edge of the buttes. We pull over so that I can see them still, and I lie down on the shoulder of the road to stare into the space between them. John stays in the car. The curve of the road is dangerous. John is often afraid, but he doesn’t know it.

  After a minute, he makes me get back in the car. He can’t be alone.

  We are inches away from the edge of the road and a plummet down the cliff.

  I get in and shut the door. I strap into the car. It is dark like the vacuum of space.

  I can’t see my hands. As long as I’m in here, I’m safe.

  We’re silent with each other.

  In the early days of space travel, researchers feared that astronauts would disassociate with Earth once they lost sight of it.

  They would lose the sense of having a body that belonged on the ground, held by gravity.

  They would lose their sense of human value.

  Familial belonging.

  And reimagine themselves as cosmic beings, bound by nothing.

  They called it psychosis.

  In July 1976, Russian cosmonaut Vitaly Zholobov suffered a nervous breakdown when his spaceship failed to dock at the Salyut 5 station and lost power for 90 minutes.

  No light, no oxygen coming in, no communication with Earth.

  They were on the dark side of the orbit. It was Zholobov’s first flight.

  He had to go home.

  The next day, John and I do donuts in the lot of a Butte community theater. Leaving, we’re pulled over and searched by a cop who doesn’t believe that John needs his pills even though he has a prescription. As we wait for him to check our IDs, I read the billboard across the street over and over.

  Hail to the Beef. Hail to the Beef. Hail to the Beef. Hail to the Beef.

  The events are unrelated except that, if you take a wide enough view, they happen at the same time.

  We don’t plan to stop in Seattle, but John hears about a vegan donut shop on the outskirts, so he makes me take a detour, saying it’s for me. The shop is flanked by a Dunkin’ Donuts on one side and a Starbucks on the other, and is across the street from a Fantastic Sams in an otherwise residential neighborhood. John orders six donuts and four holes and we sit in the window eating them and taking pictures of each other and the display case. We finish and I throw up in the bathroom. I don’t make noise because I know how to open my throat and purge in silence.

  When I come back, John knows what I’ve been doing.

  Going to the bathroom, I say.

  Let me smell your breath.

  I know that it smells like donuts because donuts are all I’ve eaten.

  Show me your hands.

  My hands are washed.

  Eat another.

  I’m full.

  He’s angry.

  We came here for you. I’m not the vegan one here.

  You promised.

  (I lie.)

  Later, I look at the pictures and notice a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee on a table in the background.

  When I ask John to stop at Walgreens for Dramamine, I buy a bottle of Hydroxycut as well. I take them sitting alone on a toilet in a bathroom lined with stainless steel walls, like the inside of a spacecraft. I wash them down with water from the sink and hide the rest in the lining of my purse, so they don’t rattle.

  Most spacecraft don’t have seats anymore because sitting is unnecessary without gravity.

  Stand.

  When I come out of the bathroom, John is at the cash registers buying a Mars bar. I read the racks of magazines and stare down the aisles of corn chips and candy and Christmas decorations, beauty products and toys and Ace bandages, and over-the-counter medicine. I relax my focus and they all look the same. I feel far away from everything.

  We find a Days Inn and I stay awake all night staring at the parking lot, buzzing all over while John sleeps and I finger the edges of a Star Magazine. In the morning, he asks me what’s wrong.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  Why not?

  I wasn’t tired. Something was upsetting me.

  Are you sick?

  (Yes.) No. I don’t know what it was.

  Another thing the researchers feared was that, sending astronauts into space alone, they would lose the feeling of belonging to any species.

  They would forget what it’s like to be human.

  We decide to use our tent for the first time in the woods outside Portland. That afternoon, we visit a small zine distributor run out of a ramshackle building set back from the road in a quiet part of town. We have a hard time finding it but John eventually recognizes it from a picture he finds online, on his phone. Closer to the road, there’s a Chipotle on one side and a Moe’s Southwest Grill on the other. Sometimes, signs are easy to miss if you don’t know where to look for them.
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  In two rooms at the back of the otherwise empty unit, we find wooden boxes holding stapled-together multicolored booklets and racks of zines on natural birth control, the Zapatistas, Chomsky, bicycle culture, and primitivism. We pay in cash and John listens to the only employee talk about animal liberation for almost an hour while I continue to browse.

  Big Ag.

  Prisoners.

  Sentient beings.

  Violence.

  Monsanto.

  Mass extinction.

  The guy convinces him to buy two more books, both about veganism, and a book by John Zerzan. He offers us bottles of The Abyss, a locally brewed imperial stout, from a cooler under the desk, and John accepts, explaining that it would be rude not to. I don’t say anything, though I know John expects me to. He and the bookseller drink the beers together, standing in the doorway.

  On the way to the campsite, John stops at a convenience store and buys a six-pack of The Abyss, promising he’ll only have two. It’s the end of the day, and we’re not going to drive anywhere. I need to relax, he says.

  But you promised.

  (I lie.) It’s only two.

  Don’t be a drag. We’re in the middle of nowhere.

  We pitch the tent together and I walk into the woods, saying I want to be alone. John sits by the bank with the six-pack and takes his shoes off and puts his feet in the icy water, smoking. The day is cold, but the air is humid, and the sun is low and bright as I walk through the trees. I put my hands in my pockets and chew a stick of sugar-free Orbit and breathe deeply. I haven’t eaten anything since this morning, but I don’t feel hungry. I attribute it to the gum. The forest has a language of its own. At times, I stop chewing to listen.

  When I return to the campsite, John is talking gibberish. This happens when he takes his pills and then drinks with them, or drinks and then takes his pills, getting ready to go to sleep.

  Why did you take them now? I ask.

  Everyone here is primitive, he says.

  I sit down next to him on the bank. He hands me a beer.

  There’s nobody here, John.

  Revolution is a spiral.

  I don’t really want this beer. I haven’t eaten anything all day.

  The people are ready for revolution.

  His eyes are half open. He struggles to open them more, but succeeds in closing one.

  Let’s go to bed, I say.

  There’s too much to do.

  I’m not sleeping by the river. It’s getting dark. The animals will come out soon.

  It’s always night when the people are sleeping.

  You’re sleeping, I say.

  No, I’m awake for the first time.

  He thinks I’m primitive and I think he’s primitive. We stay on the bank. I wonder how I can help him.

  I open a beer and drink half of it staring into the blackening water. John opens the last one and drinks half of it.

  The natives are sleeping, he says.

  You’re an animal.

  You’ve kidnapped me here with the natives.

  How many Seroquel did you take?

  What and when?

  Whenever. At one time.

  This is not a democracy.

  No, it’s not. You’re drunk. I want to go to bed.

  Complete the circle.

  I’m cold. Please come to bed with me.

  I wonder if I’m angry. Do I feel it?

  It isn’t too late. There will always be revolution.

  Until the rulers fall from orbit.

  I light a cigarette. I blow smoke into the river. Ultra Light.

  I don’t want to go to sleep while you’re sitting here in the cold.

  He finishes the last beer and crawls toward the tent. I try to pull him inside by his hands, but he’s too heavy. I sleep with him half-inside and the door unzipped.

  This is like being in a tree house, he says.

  The water in the walls is a presence in the room.

  Memory may explain things, or else it may confuse things, which is enlightening.

  Memory is curve, a misdirection, a reflection distorted.

  I drink a glass of water and look in the mirror. I distort what I see.

  The next morning, John apologizes for his behavior.

  I see that he’s embarrassed. I’m embarrassed. I look down into the river. Water rushes over a branch that’s fallen from an overhanging tree.

  I’m sorry, too, I say.

  We agree that it never happened.

  We agree to let time erase it.

  We’ve been driving for hours in the wrong direction and neither of us has slept well. We stop at a BP in northern California and put two coffees in the console between us. We put the seats back and look at each other.

  Did you know that astronauts sleep upright? I say.

  I know. You’ve told me this before.

  No beds. They don’t even need pillows.

  I know.

  He turns on his back and closes his eyes, and crosses his hands on his chest.

  Their rooms are even smaller than this car. Much smaller. Are you okay?

  I’m just trying to sleep and it’s freezing, he says.

  I know. I’m cold, too.

  You’re always cold.

  I don’t know why.

  Yes you do. You always shiver. You know exactly why.

  I start the car and turn the heat on.

  You’re wasting fuel, he says.

  Remember the time you gave me your coat at the movie theater?

  No.

  We’d just started dating. It was sweet. It smelled like you.

  We saw 2001: A Space Odyssey at midnight.

  That night.

  Then we met up with Michele at three in the morning and drank Johnnie Walker Red.

  Yeah. It wasn’t fun after that.

  Are you kidding? That was awesome.

  You haven’t eaten for hours. How are you awake? How can you drive?

  I’m always awake. I’m always driving toward something.

  Right now, I’m driving a line toward the void.

  There is work to be done, but I won’t do it. I’ll circle my apartment elliptically burning calories from the kitchen to the bathroom.

  I’ll eat a cup of grapes and purge, eat a cup of grapes and purge, eat and purge.

  Fall into my hunger but never reach it.

  Orbit its atmosphere.

  Objects that fall into orbit around Earth can’t stay there forever. They must come down sometime.

  These objects experience gravity but acceleration cancels gravity. Therefore, they are weightless.

  They orbit for months or years, but without periodic bursts of energy, they start to slip.

  Falling to Earth, burning up on the way down.

  We never see them hit the ground.

  It’s a month of orbiting the hole between us, of the lights of cities looking like land-bound stars as we approach from the distance. In San Francisco, I become viral in the upstairs bedroom of a Hostelling International and beg to be hospitalized.

  Abnormal food behaviors affect the immune system.

  I have made sure that John sees me eating. I only eat a little, and only when he’s looking, and only sometimes. This is enough to give him a general impression.

  Starvation causes cognitive instability.

  It is not exactly lying. Nor is it purging.

  John cares very little about a schedule usually. He is not aware of the time unless someone is wasting his. He feels that the San Francisco hospital wastes his time. Or he feels that I waste his time. Time is so personal.

  John feels that his time has been wasted when someone leaves him. I’m afraid of this.

  I’m afraid of being wasted.

  I believe I’m a waste.

  I have a fever of 104 degrees.

  John lies with me in the bed and holds my waist and we turn together beneath the sheets. I burn him, sweat the virus into the bed, into his hands.

  This is the ho
ttest I’ve ever felt you, he says.

  Fuck me right now and I’ll burn your dick off.

  Turn over. You’re sweating.

  You keep trying to be funny.

  Turn over.

  He sleeps in the chair beside me.

  The nurse brings me food. No, thank you, I say. I’m not hungry. Or I’m vegan. I’ll eat it later. Or I’m nauseous. I’m concerned about throwing it up and blocking my helmet’s respirator. I get motion-sick, you see.

  Just some water, please. My fever.

  John watches me.

  I’m angry.

  I’m angry with you, I say.

  Why with me?

  You lied.

  You’re lying right now.

  I sleep and feel the ocean around the city churn the sky and terrain together.

  I like the attention the nurses give me.

  I like them seeing the attention John gives me, especially because he’s angry.

  I like to make myself a victim.

  I lie.

  I like to be victimized.

  I like when you hurt me. It reminds me that I’m here. I make you angry.

  I lie in bed and feel the moon pulling the plates beneath us together.

  I feel you move me.

  I pull the sheets over my head and stare at the dark, I stare at nothing. I pant. I’m falling through space. I fall through a void without coordinates.

  I think that John doesn’t want to be here. I think he’d rather be moving. I wonder if I’m faking it.

  I’m lying. Am I lying?

  Faking it?

  Am I being fair to John?

  I wake with a tube in my arm. Calories.

  I think I can stop when I want to.

  I can be well when I want to.

  I can stop this right now.

  Be whatever I want to be.

  Nothing.

  Whatever I want.

  What do I want?

  Fill me with fluids.

  Shed unnecessary matter, I say.

  They’re not listening.

  What do I want without John?

  I love you.

  I want nothing. Nothing. I actually want Nothing.

  But to chew on the hospital sheets.

  A binary star is a system containing two stars that orbit their common center of mass.

  The relative brightness of stars in a binary system is important. Glare from a bright star can make detecting a fainter companion difficult.

  Except in the case of spectroscopic binaries, where we know that stars share a binary relationship by their shift from red to blue.