twenty-two- Scars will remember

Some people get numbers.  Numbers on their backs.  On their calves.  On their arms.  Dates.  Anniversaries.  Death dates.  The day their cancers went into remission.  Jersey numbers.  One or two digits they can wear throughout life, remembering their best play.  Touchdown.  Home runs.  The benches they kept warm in their most formative of teen years.  Bones they broke.  Muscles pulled to sprains.  Scars from ancient cuts through polyester uniforms. 

But it’s the scars they get here that they remember.  They touch them and they smell the grass.  Run their fingers across the slight raised skin and they feel the dotted texture of pigskin.  The stitches running the round of a baseball.  They don’t need mirrors.  Just touch it.  Feel the tattoo.  Remember the pain of a thousand stabs in each stroke of ink.  These are the scars they will remember.  These scars tell the story that they’re too sad to admit they’re already forgetting.  Already forgotten.  The happy moments.

Nick keeps himself busy cleaning the stations.  The itchy feeling of waiting for an appointment to show up, he cleans the ink-guns, sorts the containers of colors.  The iPod is plugged in and the surround doles out random songs.  Britney before The Proclaimers.  Kings of Leon begets Smokey Robinson.  He sweeps the floors.  They don’t really get dirty or dusty.  All to keep himself busy.  To stop him from watching his wristwatch.  Springsteen follows The Killers.  Ok Go opens for Carole King.

The phone rings.  Nick drops the broom and counts his steps and the rings.  Three.  Three is enough.

“Hello?”  He grabs the planner next to the desk.  The pages flip open, most of the dates and names scrawled in Audrey’s handwriting.

“I got you down for half an hour from now.”  There are doodles on the sides of the most recent pages.  He smiles.  ‘She’s doodling again.’ 

The surround gets more random.  Al Green then Dream Theater.  Poison takes the mic from Howie Day.

“I can push you back another half hour, but that’s all.”  The front door swings open.  A man in a good suit.  Nick notices the shoes first.  Faraway leather, shiny as the sea it must have crossed to get to this guy’s feet.

“That’s fine.”  The man on the phone and the man standing in his shop have the same voice.  Nick puts the receiver down.

Looking up from the shoes, the gray suit pants pressed stiff, the suit jacket falling an appropriate length from the modest belt buckle.  The tie tip right above the buckle hiding the buttons running the length of the cotton polyester blend white dress shirt.  The cellphone coming away from his ear.  The sunglasses brought to his jacket pocket.  The nose that looks like it just healed from a break.

“Henry.”

“I lied about my name when I made the appointment.  Sorry.”

“You’re not the first.  It’s a new trend.”

Some people get names.  Their grandparents.  Their mothers.  They’re family people.  Their brothers etched on their shoulders.  Their sisters on their wrists.  You can never let go of your family.  So they etch their names on their bodies to carry with them forever.  Decomposing.  Decaying.  But never alone.

Their lovers.  All kinds of names.  All kinds of spellings.  Expecting parents should throw away the books and consult tattoo artists.  These names are loaded with history and emotions.  Marissa the blue-eyed siren of Pearl District.  Robert the wise submissive of Gresham.   Shandi the brick-toting jealous bitch of Old Town.

Tattoo artists see patterns.  Reincarnations.  They can tell you what your kid will become if you name her Wendy—she’ll seduce men with her chicken potpie, mother’s recipe, then cling like Elmer’s—or name him Luke—hopeless romantic, will write a love song with generic lyrics so he can insert a new name each time he gets dumped.  Janes have abandonment issues laced with repressed feelings for their fathers; modern day Elektras.  Zachs want what they can’t have then don’t want it when they finally get it. 

Tattoo artists.  Historians and seers.

“Is this a business meeting?  Or do you actually want something?”  Nick watches Henry slip off his suit jacket and lay it on the sofa.  The sofa where he was with Audrey just a week ago.

“I lied about my name, but I do want a new tattoo.”  Henry unknots his tie and drops it on the jacket.  He fingers the cufflinks open in his French cuff sleeves and plucks them out.  These he puts in his pants pockets.  The right in the right.  The left in the left.

“Relax, Nick.”  Henry taps on his watch.  “We have plenty of time now.”

Nick looks at his own watch.  He makes an hour for each appointment and with Henry’s pushed back half an hour, they have plenty of time for whatever reason Henry came here.  He looks back at Henry, his top half undressed to a white Jockey’s t-shirt.

“This is about Audrey.”

“Yes.  This is about all three of us.  You know Herbie?”  Henry walks towards Nick and stops when they can smell each other’s aftershave.

“Chloe’s assistant.  I inked him last week.”  Nick’s fists start to close.

“You did.  He’s a friend of mine, used to be my boss’ secretary a long time ago.  I introduced him to Chloe.” 

Before the period can close his last sentence, Henry slams a punch into Nick’s side, dropping Nick onto the desk.  Nick tries to push himself up but the ache running the length of his torso and Henry’s heavy palm on his back keep him face down on the desk.

“Herbie’s a decent guy.  He told me Audrey left this shop that morning.  Something about you wiping her lipstick from your mouth.”  Henry lifts Nick by his shirt a foot above the desk then slams him back down.

“This is good, Nick.  You deserve this.”

“I kissed her.  We didn’t do anything after that.”  Nick groans, propping himself up with his forearms.  Henry pulls him to his feet.  Toe to toe, the swelling soreness keeps Nick looking at Henry’s shoes, shiny as floor-tiles in a hospital lobby.  The surround plays on.  The soundtrack for his beating.  Ray Charles loses to The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  Tom Petty triumphs over Lilly Allen.

“I believe you Nick.  But we still have a lot of time left.”  Henry digs into Nick’s gut, collapsing him at the waist.  

Holding him up by his shoulders, Henry plows a knee into the fresh bruise.  A cufflink falls out of his pocket.  He releases Nick onto the fresh swept floor.

“So Nick, why do you think people get tattoos?”  Henry bends down and retrieves the cufflink.  The two H’s flash in Nick’s eyes.  Henry Hurt.

“Hurt,” Nick groans from the floor.

“That’s right.  The cheerleaders used to chant, ‘Henry Bring The Hurt!’.”

“And I’m guessing you brought it.”  Nick pushes a choked laugh from his burning lungs.  His side burns.  His gut burns.  His nose burns from breathing to close to a dust pile he swept together before the phone rang.  ‘I should have picked it up before I answered,’ he thought in his dizzy head.

“I did.  I miss college…”  Henry helps Nick up to his feet and leans him against the desk.  Nick sits down on the edge holding himself up by his knees.  In front of him, Henry stands arms crossed and head slanted and bowed slightly.  His eyes watch Nick from under his great brow.

“It’s so hard to forget pain but it’s even harder to remember sweetness.”  Nick steadies his breathing.  He tries not to wince with each inhale.

“Concussion?”  Henry tilts Nick’s head back and scans his pupils.

“No.  I’m answering your question about the tattoos.”

“Hmm.  Very poetic.”

“It’s a quote from this book that Chloe’s reading.  It’s called Diary.  It’s by Chuck Pah—”  Henry interrupts him with another fist to his gut.  He catches him, stops him from falling forward, and steadies him back on the desk before letting go.

“Sorry.  I’ve been angry about the Chloe thing.  But now I think I can move on.”  Henry laughs loudly, reminding Nick that he remains healthy and upright.  Nick responds with a few heaving coughs.

“It’s so hard to forget pain but it’s even harder to remember sweetness.”  Nick looks at Henry, at his fists.

“I won’t hit you again.  Promise.  Go on.”

“People get tattoos because of the pain.  We remember pain and what caused it.  The sweetness?  The good times?  We forget those easy.  We remember that they were good and that we were happy.  But we forget the details.”  He coughs some more.

“It makes sense.”

“Pain.  We remember the details.  The moment the bone breaks under your skin.  The skin stretching as the broken bone pushes against it like a tent.  The tearing as the bone digs out.  The scars stay.  But we don’t even need them.  We won’t forget.”

“So the pain helps.  We hide the sweet memories in the tattoo.  Remembering the pain of getting the tattoo reminds us why we got it.  Good answer!  You believe it?”

“I do.”

Henry nods at Nick as he rolls up his sleeves to the elbows.

“I told Audrey that she can cheat on me.  With you.”

“…”

“Audrey wasn’t over last night.  She wasn’t at her place either.”  Henry stands bladed, his shoulder facing Nick.

“I was alone last night.”  Nick struggles through a deep breath.

“So no Chloe to give you an alibi.”

“No, but believe—”

“It doesn’t matter.  I came here to give you my blessing.”

“I’m not—”

“You will.  I know.  She will too.  It’s alright.  I’ve got two on the side.  This’ll keep it fair.  Honest.”  Henry rubs his knuckles slow.  The way he’s standing, Nick can only see one of his eyes.  The other he has to imagine.

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to.  Just take my blessing.  Shake my hand.  Then the tattoo.”  Henry’s one eye glares at him serious.  Waiting for a response.

“Alright.”  Nick sits up straight holding his hand out to Henry.  Henry swipes it away.

“The blessing first.”

With a half-cocked grin Henry drives his fist into Nick’s eye, shattering skin around it.  Blood on his knuckles.  Nick falls off the desk, dropping onto his hands and knees.

“Now shake my hand.”  Henry pulls him up and takes his limp hand.  He shakes it slow.

“Alright,” Nick whispers through the loudness of his pain. 

Henry helps him back to the desk.  His body loose and weak, he stares at the shoes, shining and sharp like knives in a drawer.  A red spot on one of them.  A dull ruby on black sands.

“I read that book.  I lent it to Chloe months ago.  She can keep it.”  Henry wipes his painted knuckles with a handkerchief.  Two letters flash before Nick’s eyes: a black H and a red H.  He wipes his wounded eye with the back of his hand.  The red H turns black.

“Why did you come here to kick my ass?  What the fuck did this solve?”  Nick watches Henry fold the stained handkerchief and return it to his pocket.

“We have no scar to show for happiness.  We learn so little from peace.”  A low single laugh.

“A line from the book.”  Nick tries on a crooked smile.  The pain chases it away.

“I think we’ve learned a lot this morning.”  Henry takes in a long clean breath.

“You should clean yourself up before we get started.  You’re bleeding.”

Nick stands up wobbly and searches for the bathroom.  The surround still going.  The ringing in his ears and the wash of painful numb all over him.  He can no longer hear the transitions.  The randomness.  Just one concert now.  One stinging symphony.  Bonnie Raitt’s deep song backed by The Polyphonic Spree.  John Legend and The Strokes waiting their turns to jam with Miles Davis.  Nick finds the bathroom and closes the door behind him.

With his shirt off, Henry closes his eyes and runs his fingers across his tattoos.  Evelyn.  His hometown.  He sees his house in the black distance of his eyelids.  The high school appears beyond it.  Goalposts and grass.  Poles of lights towering like metal trees.  The warmth beneath.  The field where he played.  Where he earned his football scholarship that brought him to Eugene.  The bruises and the cuts.  The bone he broke.  He can smell the green and white of the happy field.

He reaches over his shoulders and feels the tattoo south of his neck.  Sine Qua Non.

“What is it?”  Nick is standing outside the open bathroom door, watching Henry reach behind to his subconscious.

“What?”  Henry, a little embarrassed, lowers his arm and puts his hands in his pockets.

“Sine Qua Non.  Without which not.  What is it?  That which, without it, you are not?”

“Let’s get started.”

Nick points Henry to one of the stations.  He obliges and sits on a chair, his chest pressing against its back.  Gloved, Nick pulls up a stool and sits behind Henry.

“What and where.”  Nick opens packets of alcohol swabs.

“Right under.  The same font and color.  Audrey.”

Nick sweeps his skin with the swabs.  He readies a tiny cup of black and adjusts the gun, playing with the dial on the box it’s plugged into and testing the pedal at his feet. 

He pulls a remote from his pocket and mutes the surround.  No more randomness.  Just the hum of the needle.  White noise.  The one note lullaby.  He sets the needle to Henry’s skin and begins.

“So, Candy Moore?”  Henry chuckles above the buzzing.

“She told you.”  Nick paints strokes of black, a thousand stabs in each one.

“She’s a great lay.  She’s great in the office too.”

“You gave her a job.  That’s good.”

“Yeah, I got her working for my assistant manager.  Loves her.  She’s on top of everything.”

“Yeah.”

“We could be great friends, Nick.  We fuck the same girls.  Read the same books.”  Henry laughs through the pain sticking his spine.

“Yeah.”

“Too bad we can’t.”

“Too bad we can’t.” 

“Because of her.”

“Because of her.”  Nick’s foot massages the pedal, feeding power to the gun.  The tattoo artist.  Skin to write on.  Needle to write with.  Historian.  Seer. 

This is only the second time he’s recorded an Audrey.  And they’re the same person.  No pattern yet.  What she will become is still a mystery.

“You’re a funny guy, Nick.”

“So you’ve said.  What’s funny this time?”

“Candy.”

“…”

Henry bites down hard, the needle sending sharp painful vibrations the whole length of his spine.  Nick struggles breathing, his body aching tremendous.  The burning swell.  The stinging soreness.  His eye squinting through broken bloated skin.  These scars they will remember.

“Candy, she smells just like her.  Doesn’t she?”  Henry starts to laugh.  Nick digs the needle in deeper fuller strokes; filling in the outline.  Henry withdraws the laugh.  It hurts too much.

“She does.”

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twenty-one- Chopsticks

Steam rises from the round grill sunken into the square matte black table between them.  Rises the smell of cooking meat, the sharp sting of an onion unraveling into thin swirls.  The pit surrounded by plates and saucers.  Silver bowls of white rice.  Various incarnations of kimchee.  Stacks of lettuce.

“He’s wrong.  It’s not prostitution.  It’s a round trip.  It’s a trade.”  Chloe picks at the different fillings in each saucer.  Her chopsticks poke at the radish.  They stir the sesame oils.

“It’s not selling and buying.  You give him something and he gives you something.  What you want for what he wants.  And what you need.  There’s neediness to it.  Need is important.  Obligation is passionless but it’s well-intentioned; selfless.”  The chopsticks dip into the grill, turning over thin cuts of pork.  Her chopsticks split a leaf of lettuce in two.

“I understand what he means, though.  You can’t just need someone.  It implies a problem or a lack.  You need them to fix or to fill.  Wanting someone is different.  It’s unconditional.”  Audrey pours soju into two short glasses.  The small upside down domes filling with plum flavor the weak gold of light beer.  The color masking the strength of it.

“But desire is conditional.  You don’t just want anything.  You want a detail, a specific.  Or a collection of those: a whole person.”

“Right.  But the wanting itself is unconditional. You’ll only need something as long as it serves a purpose.  As long as there’s a problem.  But you’ll want for so much longer.”

“People stop desiring too.  They get bored or—they have enough of it.”  The smell of the meat signals them cooked.  Chloe is the first to reach in, plucking tender brown slices from the grill and depositing them into a half of lettuce ready with horseradish and flat kimchee. 

Audrey takes her shot of soju.  “We get bored, but there are ways around it.  We can make ourselves interested again.  Avoid the hold of routine.  But with need, people pass into obsolescence.  You don’t want them back.  A new problem needs a new solution.”  She breaks her chopsticks apart and rolls away any splinters. 

Toji, the most modern looking eatery on its side of Hawthorne, is one of the most popular Korean barbeque restaurants in Portland.  The chopsticks laid out are of hard material, smoothed and fancy looking.  But Audrey prefers to use the cheap wooden throwaways.  When Chloe gave her a puzzled look after she asked for a pair, Audrey replied that she likes breaking them apart.

“Don’t you think you should be enough?”  Chloe drinks her shot of soju and refills their glasses.

“I don’t think anyone can be enough.”  Audrey finishes the refill.

“That’s really cynical!”

“Sorry.  Yes, I think people can be enough but it all depends on the other person, doesn’t it?  Whether you’re enough for them?”  The meat still on the grill burns sticky and Audrey removes them to the plate they came in raw.

“Isn’t that the same thing?  I mean either way, it does depend on the other person.”  Chloe helps her rescue the burning pork.

“I mean—you can be enough for them.  But it depends on whether they have enough of you.”  Audrey sits a half-burnt piece of pork on a sesame oiled pocket of rice, sandwiching thin strands of kimchee.  She covers the mound with a lettuce leaf then drops the sticks around, closing underneath and picking the creation up like a green leafy balloon.  Bite-size, her mouth accepts it easily.  The bursting lettuce reveals the spicy-sweet goodies onto her tongue with each squeeze of her teeth.

“So having enough of you is still wanting you?  But what’s there to want when you already have all of it?”  Chloe has stopped eating.

“You’re right.  They shouldn’t have all.  Or too much.  Or barely anything.  If you have a lot but still not enough, then you keep wanting.”  Audrey nods at Chloe, reminding her to keep eating.  Chloe recollects her chopsticks.

“But how can you stay with him—knowing?”  Chloe’s expression finishes the question.  Her head tilted a little, her squinting brow asks: ‘knowing that he’s cheating?’

“I love him.”  Audrey doesn’t look up from her plate.

“But—”

“The ground underneath me is cracked.  There are potholes.  But knowing—I know where it’s safe to stand.  I see my way around, so I won’t trip.”  Audrey holds up the empty bottle, catching the eye of the waiter.

“My assistant saw you with Nick.  He told me Nick’s cheating on me.”  Chloe crosses her hands on her lap, the chopsticks scratching the underside of the table.

“It’s not true.”

“He saw you leaving the shop last week.  When he went in, Nick was wiping lipstick off his mouth.  I don’t need you to explain.  I don’t even want you to apologize.”

“You didn’t mention this last time.  In Chinatown.  So this is why we’ve been meeting…  Why?”

“I don’t know.  You’re right, I’ve known since that day.  Just tell me.” 

Around them the restaurant is almost full.  There are families talking loudly over steaming grills.  The air mixes with the smells of different animals cooking.  There are couples hunched on opposite sides of black tables, their arms coming together around the hot round centers.  Audrey peels the plastic around a new bottle of soju.  The cap twists off clean and quick.  She takes a sip out of the bottle before pouring into the two glasses; her’s empty, Chloe’s half-full.

“We kissed, but it was over fast.  Nothing since then.”  She offers the refilled glass to her.  Chloe accepts it with both hands.

“He loves you.  Henry.”  Chloe puts the glass down, still full.

“Thanks.”

“But I still don’t understand why you’re staying.  He’s wrong about the religion of lies.  I think honesty is a condition of it.  And telling you that he’s cheating, it proves my point.”

Audrey pours another shot.  She looks out at the smoky room.  The couples are no longer holding hands.  Each person sitting alone on their side of the table, focused on the food in front of them.

“You ever notice how easily people break away from each other?  Like chopsticks.  Before you reunite them, you have to roll them together to get rid of the splinters they made when they split.”  Audrey brings her eyes back to Chloe.  She has finished the small bottle of soju and is waving to the waiter for another.

“Henry wants me to cheat too.”

Chloe opens the new bottle and pours.  “With Nick?”

“He didn’t say in the letter.  With anyone, I guess.”  The two glasses shine empty again.  The bottle is tipped before long.  “Why do you keep meeting with me?”

“I’m not sure.  I just want to know—what it is about you.”  Glasses emptied.  Glasses filled.

“This is about Nick...”  The steam and smoke drifts from one part of the room to another.  As one table’s meat cooks, another table throws meat on its grill.  One table eats, another waits.  Every table is cluttered, crowded.  Countless little plates, dozens of half-empty bottles.  The floor collecting dropped splinters, the fractures of broken pairs rolled away by their rejoining.

“This is about Nick and Henry.  This is about me.  They’re both in love with you.  I love Nick.  I don’t want him to go.”

“To go to me?”  Emptied.  Filled.

“I want to understand.  He can’t let go.  I wanted to see if…”

“…”

“I could fall in love with you.”

“…”

The third bottle is empty.  Audrey looks at the waiter, who is already making his way with another.  They ordered a plate of chicken with their pork and Chloe meticulously lays them on the grill.  Each piece sizzles and the plastic on the bottle cracks as it’s peeled off.  These sounds are repeated on every table.  Though the people are different, in this way they are all the same.  The sounds, the smells, the smoke rising from each center.

“Henry wants me to cheat too.  He said if we both have our lies, then we’ll both survive the truth.”  Audrey picks inside the grill with her chopsticks, her eyes scanning each piece of meat, looking for one to turn over.  Under the table, her foot reaches across.  Her toes graze the inside of Chloe’s leg, a short length below her calf, sliding down to her ankle.

“You told me.  What are you going to do?”  Chloe watches her hunched over the grill.  The smoke clearing before it reaches her face.  Her almond eyes inspecting the grill, she notices the bright shimmer of hazel in them.  How her nose slopes subtle and the regions on either side follow tender symmetry.  And her lips.  A full pout of natural human red.  A thin moist layer, clear and melting as she waves her tongue over slow.

“I lied.  Henry said I should cheat with Nick.”  Her toes reach a little higher.  Inches.  And no farther.

“And?”  Chloe’s voice is even, acknowledging no emotion.

“I’m not ready to do that.  Not with Nick.”

The meat continues to cook between them.  Audrey remains with her chopsticks ready to turn.  From outside, all the tables look the same.  Different people doing the same things.  Smoke rising from each center.  Cluttered, crowded.  Empty bottles next to full ones.

Soon, the grill will shut off.  The check will come.  The table cleared.  But for now, underneath it, the two touch smooth.  Both searching, rolling away any splinters.

Photo1: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/126/389355436_ef1e53283a.jpg

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Photo4: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4509815174_c70845f019.jpg

twenty- Audrey,

What happens after you sleep with someone?  People have different answers.  Nick Hornby says that you can never do right by them.  I agree. 

You’ve tripped a wire.  They’re aware of you.  They know it’s you who just came into the room.  Without looking up.  You set off little vibrations shooting down their legs and even before the ring-tone they’ve assigned to you starts to play, they guess—correctly—that it’s you calling.

You leave something while you’re inside them.  Something intangible gets misplaced during the all-feeling, filling, coupling.  The sex act: all of you touches all of her, all at once.  A hand in a glove.  A body drowning in a swimming pool.

They’re aware of you.  They’re aware of you and where you’ve been.  They know you can go back there.  Doesn’t matter if you don’t want to.  Maybe it was an overnight layover.  Your flight leaves in the morning.  Still, you can go back there.  Maybe you will.  That something you left?  Maybe you want it back.

That’s what keeps us.  That misplaced something that we want back.  We lost it.  And the only way we can look for it, we can’t look with our eyes.  Only grope in the darkness.  But it’s like having a cast on your arm and feeling an itch somewhere inside it.  You can’t see it.  If you could, the plaster’s so tight around your skin that you wouldn’t be able to scratch it.  So you wiggle your swollen arm inside the cast.  You wiggle the cast around your swollen arm.  But you never find the itch.  You bang against the cast and you twist your arm inside it.  But it’s too tight.  There’s no friction.  The two things are held together too close.

So you give up.  You stay with them.  They won.  They have you by your something intangible.  You can’t let go because you’re not the one holding on.  And they squeeze.  The grip bears down.  Your legs slacken; you’re on your knees.  You’re voice lifts up to them, begging—or praying.  But you don’t ask them to let go.  You ask for harder.

If they release, there’s one painless moment.  Then the blood returns—floods.  Magnified.  It takes a while to settle but that spot will always be sensitive, weakened.  The next one who grabs?  It’ll hurt more.

Harder.  You ask for harder, for a painful painful numb.  All feeling and all filling.  True love.

That’s the other way you can give up.  Surrender.  She won.  She has you by your something intangible.  So you let her keep it.  It’s there inside.  Growing in her belly.  Not yours anymore.  Between you two, the sex act and the coupling, it fastens you.  Tight.  No friction.  Two things held together close.

This love will always fail. 

“A lover’s a liar, to himself he lies.  The truthful are loveless, like oysters their eyes!” –A line from Cat’s Cradle.  I agree.

That kind of love—truthful—has no friction.  An arm in a cast.  You can’t find the itch and you’ll never come close to it.  But it’s the itch!  The painful painful numb.  All feeling and all filling.  That’s what keeps us together.  Why you can’t let go.  Why I keep looking for it.

Lies.  Love is a religion founded on lies.  What do you see when you first see?  Hair, skin, muscles, fabric.  What do you hear?  Bullshit.  Mostly true, but also grandiose.  Prostitution. 

These true lies we tell to sell ourselves.  There’s no such thing as a true lie?  Bullshit.  Is there a lie that isn’t somewhat based on truth?  None. 

And what do you feel?  Desire.  That’s the definition.  Want.  There’s no need.  Need equals dependence.  Debt.  Obligation is passionless.

Love is prostitution.  Loving is you being a John.  Buy the whore.  Fuck her.  Come back with more money.  The something intangible.  You want it back?  Keep looking for it.  Don’t give up on it—even if you never find it again.

If you forget it.  No more love.  The whore’s dried out.

If you find it.  No more love.  You’ve gained some new moral perspective.  Or the whore has fled to nursing school.  Time to find a new alley.

Desire.  It pulls.  It pushes.  Friction.

I’m cheating on you.  I’m not going to stop.  Friction.

What do you owe someone after you sleep with them?  Walter Kirn wrote that you owe them everything.  And that the only question is whether they’ll make you pay it off.  I’m deferring the others.  But you?  I’ll pay.

There hasn’t been a woman I haven’t skipped the bill on.  I’m in debt, combined all the loans.  I claimed for bankruptcy.  I have nothing to give them.  But everything I’ve hidden—saved—you can have.

Need.  I need you to hide my something intangible.  So, I can love you.  Desire.

I’m not going to stop.  Because there must be lies.  Our religion is founded on lies.

I need that itch.  You can’t let me find it.

They both work for me.  I can give you their names if you want proof.  You can’t make me stop, but I can keep it to just the two of them.  At least you know.  Truthfulness we can survive.

If I find that something, then I’ll know the truth.  That I need you.  So there must be lies.  Our religion is founded on lies.  But their true lies.

You can have Nick.  He’ll be your lie.  I owe you that.  And I know he honestly loves you.  That’s why he’ll fail.

But you and I?  We have our religion.  Desire.  Friction.  You hide my something intangible, and I’ll hide yours.  We’ll never find them.  We’ll push and pull.

We’ll love,

Henry

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nineteen- Scattered

“Here’s your tea.  Here are your messages.  Make-up in ten.”  Herbie about-faces to leave Chloe’s office.

“How’s the tattoo?”  Chloe asks in between small cautious sips of the steaming tea.  Having almost escaped, the honest concern in her question pulls him back.

“Healing.  The swelling has gone down.”  He stands with his legs twisted, one leaving and one staying.  Paused, he looks at Chloe, blowing long cool winds into the rim of the mug.  The awkwardness of the scene evades her.

“Boss?”

She rises from the papers below her mug.

“Darling?”

“…”

“…”

“Nick is cheating on you.”

With his feet up on his modestly wide desk, Henry almost looks relaxed leaning back against his hard leather chair.  It’s not easy, however, to miss the wrinkling tension contorting his face into a fearsome mask of angry and sad.

He grips in his hand a fat, flat Blackberry that appears almost small in the meaty blood-glow hold of his hands.

“Mr. Hurt?” His secretary bends in through the open door of his office.

“Mr. Hurt?  There’s a complaint from one of the apartments.”  His look scares her a little.  The stone-ness of it and the screaming life behind it.  She wants to step back before he jumps her.

“What is it?”  His voice is eerily gentle.

“There’s a complaint—”

“What’s the complaint?”  He interrupts not so gently.  She doesn’t reply, staring at the black bottom of his soles towering on his desk.

“Alright.”  He saw her eyebrows scrunch at his feet.  He retrieves his feet from the desk, planting them hard, shoulder-width apart, in front of the straightened-up throne.

“Come here.”  He pushes off the desk, wheeling the chair a couple feet away.  The back presses the wall.  She steps into the doorway and closes the door behind her.  The room now private, she leaves a hand behind her back, holding the door handle.  Her other hand fingers the buttons of her blouse open, from the one highest then each one below.  She reaches the waist of her skirt and behind her the door clicks.  Locked.

Nick unlocks the door to the Thursday Tattoo.  He walks in, holding a thermos of too-sweet coffee in his hand, heads straight for the stereo system and plugs his iPod into the surround.  A few clicks and the shop fills with hard drum beating, bass string booming, then suddenly, “I’m walking on sunshine! Whoa-oh-oh!”

Nick falls on the old couch in the waiting area and schizophrenically laughs and sings and laughs and sings until his lungs are gasping and his stomach muscles ache for respite.  Lying flat on the couch, his head hanging back off its edge, he doesn’t see the front door open.  He doesn’t hear the footsteps approach over the joyful declarations of Katrina and the Waves.

He also doesn’t startle or panic when he feels a weight fall on his outstretched legs.  He just grabs at the object and feels around its waist until his hands meet at its back.

“This song is shit!”  It’s too loud not to yell.

“That’s why I’m playing it!  Because it’s shit!  But it’s the best kind of shit, and I’m in the mood for sunshiny shitty music right now!”  Still too loud not to yell back.

The weight walks off.  Nick drops his arms lifeless, suggesting that they have no purpose when they have nothing to hold.  Katrina is cut off and Joni Mitchell takes the stage; “Both Sides Now”.  The low slow hum of strings.  The quick entering then lasting fading of woodwinds.  Joni’s gracefully rough dragging croon.

“Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel…  As every fairy tale comes real, I’ve looked at love that way…”

The difference is like that between a high-school dance and a funeral.  It’s a brilliant song.  It’s on Nick’s iPod.  But the difference is like that of having your arms around someone on your lap and lying alone on an old couch with your dead arms void of purpose; empty.

Before he can sit up, Audrey lies on top of him and pulls his face up from the edge of the couch.

“Boss?”

“…”

“Chloe?”

“Get out.”

“Chloe—”

“Herbie.  Darling.  Get out.”

Herbie leaves Chloe’s office.

She sits on the edge of his desk.  Her blouse abandoned halfway between Henry and the door.  She looks down on top of his head.  His hair getting messed by the hem of her skirt.

She grabs hold of the smooth wood at her sides.  Under her knees, the hills of his traps lift her guiltlessly.  Her head hanging back.  When she opens her eyes, she sees the locked door.

“I have an appointment.”

“We have time.”

“He’s supposed to be here by now.”

“No one’s coming.”

“He’s running late.  You took down the appointment yesterday.”

Audrey rises and walks to the desk.  Around them, Joni sings on.

“But now it's just another show. You leave 'em laughing when you go…” 

She comes back with the Post-It she wrote on yesterday.  She falls back down onto Nick and hands him the note.  He reads it aloud.

“8:00 a.m.  Bob Hepburn.”

“And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.”

She climbs higher.  She looks down at his face.

“No one’s coming.”

He bends her over the desk.  His blood-glow hand presses her back down onto it.  Her hands grip the wood around her.

He breathes fast.  She breathes slow.  Guiltless.

The cab smells like Pine-Sol.  Chloe rolls her thin, flat Blackberry in her hand.  The taxi-driver flips through the radio, one hand steadying the car, the other fingering the buttons below the tape-deck.

Her eyes roll side to side above her blood-glow cheeks, mopping up the leak before it spreads down her face.

The cab stops at a red light.  Beyond is Hawthorne Bridge.  Southeast Portland.  The Thursday Tattoo.

“Make a left.”

“Changed your mind?”

“I need to get home.”

“What are we doing?”  She asks as she straightens her clothes.

He doesn’t reply as he straightens his own clothes.

“Does your husband still need a job?”

“Yeah…”

“Tell him to come in tomorrow.  I need someone to fill in while the guys go on vacation.”

“Thanks…  What are we doing?”  She fingers the buttons of her blouse closed, from the lowest one then each one above.

“We’re going back to work.  Get Audrey’s cell on line 1 and her work on line 2.”

“Ok.”  She unlocks the door, opens it.  Steps out.

“Wait.”

“Henry?”

“Wear that other skirt tomorrow.  The white one.”

“Ok.”

“Close my door.”  Guiltless.

She opens her door and closes it gently.  Her hand behind her, holding the door handle for balance, she folds herself down onto the floor.

She sits there, rolling the phone in her hands.  The forecast still fresh in her mind.  Her sight still spotty from the hot blast of the studio’s lights.  Behind her the green screen and its infinite possibilities.

“Saturday, sunny and delightful!”  She recites in her On-Air voice.

“Sunday, isolated thunderstorms.”

“Hello?”

“I called your work twice.  The first time they said you were running late.  A minute ago they said you called in sick.”

“I’m fine.  Just needed a day off.”

“You were fine this morning when you woke up.”

“Things change.”

“Should I come over?”

“No.  I’m not home.”

“Where are you?”

“Home—I meant I’m not gonna be home.  I’m going to Nick’s shop.  I’ll come over tonight.”

“…”

“Henry?”

“Stop by Mai Thai and get me that spicy fish thing that I like.  And wear that yellow sundress.”

“Fine.  Love you.”

“Love you.”  Guiltless.

Audrey drops her phone on the couch, between Nick’s legs.  Nick sits up.  Joni Mitchell is singing on repeat.

“I've looked at love from both sides now…” 

“Why didn’t we kiss?”

“I’m with Henry.”

“Why didn’t we kiss?”

“Nick.”

“Audrey?”

She sits back down next to him.  In Nick’s pocket is the folded drawing.  Still a secret. “from give and take, and still somehow…”

“Understand.”  She pleads softly.

“I do.  I don’t.”

“You’re with Chloe.”

“I’m with Chloe.”

Nick slides his hand into the pocket.  His palm sweating on the folded paper.

“It's love's illusions I recall…”

 “I—”

“I know.”  She interrupts gently.

“…”

His fingers hold the drawing.  He slides it to the mouth of the pocket.

“I really don't know love at all…”

“I’ll see you later.”  She kisses his cheek, formally.

He walks her to the door.

“Mr. Hurt?”  She bends into his office, through the open door.  He looks at her, past the towering shoes on his desk.

“Miss Moore is here.”

“Moore?”

“She’s interviewing for a secretary job.  The Assistant Manager’s secretary is retiring.”

“Right.  Where’s Rob?”

“Dentist.  Anyway, she asked for you.”

“Send her in.”

Henry fixes himself behind his desk.  He remembers a couple Moores, but is sure he doesn’t know this one.  She enters his office.  He doesn’t know this one.

“Hi.”

He walks around his desk to shake her hand.

“Miss Moore?  Nice to meet you.  My secretary said you asked for me?”

“Yeah.  I met your friend at my previous job.  He told me you were hiring and that you owed him a favor.”

“My friend?  What’s his name?”

“Nick.”

Henry bites his lip into a smile, suppressing a laugh.

“Nick heard we were hiring and he sent you.”  He says moderately slow, as if answering a riddle; half sure, half unsure.

“That’s what happened, Mr. Hurt.”  She giggles.

“Call me Henry.  Have a seat Miss Moore.”  Henry guides her to a chair in front of his desk.

“Thanks, Henry.  And please, call me Candy.”

At the bus stop down the hill from the Thursday Tattoo, waiting for the 15, Audrey’s phone starts to vibrate in her jeans pocket.  She feels the subdued shockwave down her legs, tickling her through to her flats.  She listens for a distinct ring-tone to identify the caller.  It’s a normal ring instead.

The phone revealed in her hand, she doesn’t recognize the number.  She answers it.

“Hello?”  She asks, ready for a misguided dialer, a foreign-born telemarketer, anyone.

“Hi—is this Audrey?”  It’s a female voice.  It sounds familiar.

“Speaking.”

“This is Chloe.”

She doesn’t ask which Chloe.  She only knows a couple and she can hear the same voice advising her that she needs to carry an umbrella.

“Am I calling you at work?”

“No.  I took a day off.”

“Are you with Nick?”

“…”  The 15 arrives, the bus doors swing open.  She waves the driver off.

“Hello?”

“Sorry, bus driving by.”

“Are you with Nick?”

“No, you’re with Nick.”  She wonders if the words left her mouth or if they stayed in her head like she intended.

“I took the rest of the day off.  Let’s do lunch.”

“Sounds great…”  She moves away from the stop, another bus drives by.

“How about Chinatown? In an hour?”

“Ok.”

“Meet me under the red arch on Burnside.”

“See you soon.”  Guiltless.

Chloe drops the phone down on the floor, between her legs.  Her head falls back against the wall of the door.  Her eyes roll side to side above her blood-glow cheeks, mopping up the leak before it spreads down her face.

“Today will be sunny and delightful.”  She recites incredulous.

“With isolated thunderstorms…”

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