Je T'aime

“I’m telling you that’s what I heard. She’s going to be there.” Gregg’s voice cut through the inky darkness.

“Really? What else have you heard?” he asked, his mind racing.

“Also that—oops, sorry, ‘scuse me.” Gregg apologized after the two men jostled together momentarily. “That she has taken up with the Professor. They’re just coming to town for this party and are going back the next day.”

“Interesting.” He understated. He had thought of her every single day since they stopped seeing each other a year and a half ago.

“Are you going to go now that you know she’ll be there? Will it be uncomfortable for you?”

“I would like to see her. But I don’t know.” He answered slowly.

“It would be vastly entertaining, you have to admit. Remember that time you two had that huge argument in the bookstore? I thought they were going to call the cops. Still, I always kind of thought you would end up together. If you didn’t kill each other. It’s nothing short of miraculous that you didn’t.”

And ye shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and He shalt smite mightily those that turn away from Him, for His vengeance shalt be heaped upon them with terrible fury in His divine mercy. And his judgments shalt shake the earth, and be done unto the righteous and unto the wicked, and unto the fish and unto the fowl, unto thy herds and unto thy flocks, and unto thy furniture and unto the tiny bit of food stuck between thy teeth. For whosoever shalt speak blasphemies against the Lord thy God, then shalt He smite them with plagues and locusts and boils and telemarketers. And the commandment to goeth forth into the promised lands and multiply and begat many generations was giveth to the sons of Verdeniphil and Teldelaphil and Seldeniphil and the many tribes of the nation. And the Lord thy God did realize that many in the tribes did enjoy the begetting way too much, and then He made the begetting a sacred rite to be performed by the chosen few. And then the Lord thy God did smile quietly to Himself, enjoying His divine inside joke. Amen.

His eyes could see nothing, but in his mind he could see her face as clearly as if she were sitting in front of him. Those clear blue eyes, at times the windows into which he felt he could see the vast expanse of her mind before him, at times the mirrors which reflected his own shortcomings. Those full lips that framed her brilliant smile, givers of a witty riposte or a bitter accusation. He could also see the pain in her face when she cried for no reason or the anger when she flew into a towering rage over a triviality or contorted with jealousy or the angst of her wanting him but not wanting him at the same time and hating herself for not being able to make up her mind. But when she smiled, it was absolutely glorious, like the clouds parting.

They were suddenly immersed in sunlight as their train emerged from the tunnel.

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He dropped the tea bag into the hot water and briskly stirred widdershins. The aroma of the earl grey gently wafted up and he inhaled deeply, the rich flavor filling him with-- Maudlin. That was the word. Sometimes she would drift off into a maudlin phase and they only thing that seemed to help was the passage of time. He could remember her sitting by the window, the afternoon sunlight streaming down, bathing her in radiant light. She seemed to glow as she sewed a button onto his shirt. As he drew nearer, he could see that she was quietly weeping. The paradox of the light illuminating her so wonderfully and her tears sliding silently down her lovely face was such a perfect marriage of beauty and tragedy that Aristophanes himself would have been proud. He sat down the tea he had brought to her, and asked what was wrong. Sometimes she just felt like crying. It was purging. His pet theory was that it had something to do with her having so much trouble falling asleep.

I would often forget whether I was dreaming of a memory or remembering a dream. And then forget that I had dreamt of remembering the dream that I had forgotten to dream of in the recollection of forgetting about that which I had formerly dreamt. Dreams that seemed so vivid when asleep could not be evoked when awake. Losing your memory would be the worst. As I drifted toward sleep I would wonder: are we all just a collection of memories, do we subconsciously direct our dreams so that the outcomes are more to our liking, if we fail to remember something does it cease to exist for us? Was my latest project high art or trash, and how could I tell the difference? As I drew nearer to slumber my thoughts grew more random, sometimes quite beautiful, the commonplace miracle of childbirth, learning again through a child’s eyes, his wonder in taking apart a gadget or a grasshopper. Sometimes the perfect dream lover would come to fulfill me in every aspect of the human condition: physically, emotionally, metaphysically, intellectually, the absolute completion of myself, the companion that resided in my bosom, only to disappear, forgotten, in the morning. There’s a metaphor in there, but I’m too sleepy to dig for it. Continuously slowed by the trivialities that chip away at my life, the distractions that keep me from doing what I know I’m supposed to be doing, if I could only recall just exactly what it is. Like Penelope’s tapestry in reverse, weaving by night, only to have all my progress undone by the dawn. My mother’s sweet good night kisses that let me know that I would always be her little angel no matter how many people I had killed, the realization as a child that I would die, the theory that everyone I knew, my family, friends, everyone, were actors playing parts, that the whole of history was an elaborate fabrication, that the only thing that existed was what I could see, that Madrid and Maine and Mars and everything over the horizon did not exist, but should I go over the horizon, these things, or whatever was necessary, would be constructed especially for me, in order to keep the illusion intact. I reveled in my solipsism until cruel daylight taught me that I was not the center of the universe, despite the obvious fact I should be.

His drink had gone cold. He considered the image that was reflected back on the surface of the tea. It seemed to him that there was a tiny rip on that surface, a crack through which he could squeeze and touch her face one more time.

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--How can I do this? Do I want to do this? Maybe just go up to her at the party and not say a word after all this time and take her by the hand and whisper something smarmy like I love you in French and lead her out of the room out of the party out of this town out of the narrative and never look back.

He roughly pulled her to his manly chest, the lust-fuelled coals of his eyes burning into her very soul. “Oh, no, I can’t.” she protested weakly, her svelte body trembling with longing.

“We have both denied this moment far too long.” He whispered huskily, his large, powerful hands exploring the glories hidden within her dainty dishabille.

“But, I’m…I’m spoken for.” She panted, passion devouring her, consuming her to her innermost depths.

“I must have you, my delicate nymph.” Said he, crushing her in his masculine arms, his carnal appetite knowing no bounds. “And by God, I shall have you!” he flatly stated in a guttural voice, his engorged member straining against the unnatural confines of his codpiece.

Her ample, heaving bosoms moved in a sensuous rhythm as she moaned, “Yes, take me now, my prancing pony. I can no longer refuse you! Your virility, your intellect, your humor, all these things that so make my hormones race! I am only human!” All pretense melted away, her love flower alight with perdition’s flame, her pith and marrow wracked with concupiscence.

As she gave herself over to her basest desires, she could feel the heat radiating from his full manhood, as turgid as the prose that described it.

--I bet I can get Gregg to distract the Professor so I can get her alone I just know that if she knows I want to get back together she will go for it she always loved spontaneity and we will be gloriously happy for a while anyway we always drive each other crazy eventually who knows it could be different this time who am I kidding but it will be great while it lasts I wonder if she is happy with him in a comfortable kind of way not exciting but safe and dependable is that really love maybe that’s what she thinks she wants but she never could refuse excitement I can resist anything but temptation.

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He peered back through the mists of recollection.

She was lying in bed, her current book propped up in her lap. Her eyes darted across the page with incredible celerity as she chewed her full lower lip in concentration. She rearranged herself under the sheets. He was certain he could taste her scent. Love’s Old Sweet Song.

“What does this mean? Transmigration of souls—do you know what that is?”

He thought for a moment. “Reincarnation. The idea that the soul—if there is a soul—moves on and never dies.”

--What was that Greek word. Something about meeting a fish.

“Most of Asia subscribes to it.” He continued. “It’s also referred to in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and some ancient Greeks believed in it as well.”

--Right triangles, a squared plus b squared. Worshipping geometry.

“That I could come back as a tree.” She remarked. “I just can’t see it.”

“Plato was a proponent. They thought that the physical world was non-essential. In fact, an illusion. To them the body was a mere vessel. That’s where the idea of the Platonic relationship comes from, because they thought sex slowed your progress to being freed from the material world, becoming pure spirit.”

“I’m far too tactile.” She said, smiling and stretching.

“Those Platonists and Gnostics and Hermeticists were a mysterious bunch.” he said.

“It seems that a lot of different philosophies and belief systems don’t want people to enjoy their own and each others bodies. Maybe that’s a control mechanism. Or an institutionalization of guilt or jealousy or some other unhealthy crap.”

He replied, “Some personalities gravitate toward the traditional, the need to feel like you belong to something enduring, something bigger than yourself. To some it’s an equitable trade-off.”

She absently brushed her hair out of her eyes and said, “For all the philosophizing and moralizing and fire and brimstone the most important thing of all is to make each moment count, to make sure those who mean something to you know it, even if it is only for today. Everyone is trapped inside an infinite universe contained within their own skull. No matter how much we love or empathize or whatever, we are all ultimately tragically and beautifully alone.”

--Goddam she’s beautiful mind like a steel trap nothing gets past her if you can only hold on to her weaving sand break your heart and never know it the time she didn’t show up at all left me sitting across from the shortsighted bloke scribblescrabbling like a bloody madman in his notebook putting in an appearance like that macintosh character forgotten like an old newspaper she’ll casually cut you and laugh while you’re bleeding but cry over a damn long-distance commercial.

She looked up at him and smiled, “Thus endeth the sermon.”

--If it’s not one thing its her it can’t last try as I might like a fly struggling in a web all my machinations in vain Penelope she’s not such wit an absolute mechanic in the sack but so moody and restless it’s only a matter of time.

--I’d rather know the terrible truth than believe a comforting lie, they thought simultaneously about different things.

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“Okay, here’s what I need you to do.” He began.

“I’m all ears.” Gregg replied.

“At the party I want you to start talking to the Professor, maybe ask him about medieval history or something. He won’t shut up for an hour.”

“He doesn’t mind talking.”

“Talk is nothing. Promises and excuses are easy. What someone says to you is what they want you to think they think. What they do or don’t do is what they really think.” He said, referring to someone else entirely.

“And what will you be doing while I’m talking to him? Making your move on his babe?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.” He replied.

“Seems a little sneaky. Can’t you just challenge him to a duel or something? Not literally, of course, not you two, but say, a war of words, as it were. Sarcasm at ten paces.” Gregg countered.


A clearing in the wood.

Enter HE, PROFESSOR, and Referee.

Referee: Gentlemen, I implore you, perform not this deed, with loss of honour for none.

He: [Glaring at his foe] We will do it now.

Professor: [Glaring back] And to the death.

Referee: Very well. Walk ten paces, turn and fire. [They do so]

He: Avaunt, knave! Thou whose breath would verily knock a vulture from a dung heap.

Professor: The knowledge thou art fixed upon’t tis mine, but prithee, what am I?

He: Have at you, villain!

Professor: She that bore ye has such girth, that her exertions give her cause to perspire
gravy.

He: I will be revenged. But in the least my dame did know the name and rank of he who
sired me.

Professor: Scurrilous dog! Wouldst thou name this drunken scribbling writing? A
baboon with a quill could inform the mind doubly well. Where now your
poisonous words, O sluggard?

He: Thy loose tongue does betray thou, and thou shalt be the more sore for’t.

Professor: Do thou worst, thou master strutting ass! [Aside: Save that of which none
may speak]

He: Thy lady love did beseech thou to engage in union with her, and thou did then beg
pardon of her, and report that congress had begun already.

Professor: Mercy! I am murdered! Now and too soon I do journey to the undiscovered
country, to embrace the darkness, yea, or the light. I expire and shall come to those rewards that are mine own, repayment of all deeds and debts, no man knowing that which awaits, this shell of my person cast away, the sorrows of this world no longer of my charge. Take me! Take me glorious night and

[Referee looks at his watch]

may the next destination comport me with the more diligence, with a care, with patience for a poor sinner’s heart, with naught the wickedness and unfeeling of this wretched mortal sphere, nor

Referee: [To He] Perhaps thou couldst have employed larger words.

the pains that humanity doth inflict, barbed words, fresh slanders apace, daggers no man should face, injustice and rapine, servitude in the debt of a mad master, the keep demolished in the fortress of the heart, a pale shadow

Exeunt He and Referee

[Curtain]

[From behind curtain]

that sorely mimics the true hue of the human spirit, the countenance of that
which none can deny, the [and so on, forever.]

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Through the fog of memory he recalls being awakened at three AM by a persistent rapping at his bedroom window. It was her. He opened the window and she clamored in, obviously inebriated.

“What are you doing?” She inquired good-naturedly.
“I was asleep, actually.”
“Well,” She began, smiling slyly and looking at the floor, pretending to be coy.
“I was in the neighborhood.” She moved unsteadily closer as she said this, the tip of her tongue exploring the corner of her mouth. She reached out and put her hands on his shoulders, as much to restore equilibrium as a seductive move.
“I need a crotch full of you. I thought you might do a girl a favor and fill ‘er up.”

It would be decidedly ungallant to refuse a lady’s request, particularly when couched with such gentility.

He dreamt he was climbing a mountain, every step taking him farther away from the summit. A consumptive young man holding a book with blank pages in one hand and a pair of scales in the other whispered, “You have been found guilty of acute self-awareness. You are sentenced to eternal life.”

He again began his ascent, and again every step toward the top made the pinnacle another step farther away. He wondered if he walking backward would get him closer. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper, the smeared writing on what appeared to be a billet-doux. It mattered not whom it was to or from, only that such lonely objects remind him that he was once loved.

A solicitous snowdrift beckoned for him to lie down and rest, which he did. He floated toward sleep, soon dreaming. He could not escape the feeling that his own existence was the impediment he sought to remove, that his inability to surmount these obstacles served as mute testament to the fact he was indeed, alive. He clearly remembered sitting at his kitchen table when he was a boy, his mother crying because she could not afford to buy him something that she thought he needed but that he did not want.

When he woke hours later, she was sprawled across the bed diagonally, Her freckled face serene and angelic. Her exertions had been particularly adroit, and he was filled with the sense of calm and well-being that comes after consummate copulation. He traced the smooth curve of her back lightly, the downy softness ineffably sublime.

She suddenly snapped awake as if someone had thrown a switch, jumped from the bed, stood at rigid attention, saluted smartly and said:

“More sex, please.”

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A golden shaft of sunlight cut through the treetops, the sun nearing the horizon, its work nearly done. A gently breeze moved the branches and the trees nodded their agreement, another day was coming to a close. June bugs hummed in the deepening dusk.

As he was walking to the party, he noticed a little girl of five or so playing horsie in her front yard. A tomboy with skinned knees, freckles and red hair. Her hair sported a blue ribbon tied into a bow, her mother’s attempt at daintiness. She looked at him out of the corner of a pale blue eye as he passed. Then she turned her back to him, remounted her imaginary pony and raced around the huge oak tree for no apparent reason. He saw before her a lifetime of decisions and choices, carefully laid plans, some coming to fruition, others coming to naught. A cork bobbing on a sea of circumstance. He stopped and looked at the bow in her hair. It vaguely resembled a blue butterfly with a slightly misshapen left wing.

Some would have art as a mirror, be it the cracked mirror of a servant, or a distorted fun house mirror. Art is a mirror to life in that the journey, not the destination, is the key, if we will but use it. If the devil is in the details, then too is salvation.

It is not for me to supply the world with morality tales. This is left to the middling mediocre to pound out and the philistine to review in shopworn phrases such as “epic proportions” and “stark realism”. “Big” themes, human interest, modern culture and writing down so your audience can “get” it all leave me numb. Looking at the stars, holding a child’s hand, the oblique thrill of starting an anticipated book, the fat, unconquered portion of text in your right hand beckoning, or the powerful beauty of a butterfly are much more monumental. Lycaeda dorothea.

“Your face doesn’t look happy.” The little girl said. “Did someone make you grumpy?”

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.” He said dismissively.

“See my scrape?” She walked closer to him so he could see better, then she raised her knee and pointed to it proudly. “I didn’t cry or anything.”

“You’re a tough girl.”

“Billy pushed me off the swing.” She said, her small brow knitting to show her displeasure.

“That wasn’t very nice.”

“He isn’t very nice.”

“Well, I should get going. It was nice talking to you.” He turned to continue on his way.

“Hey, mister. Sorry your mind is full. Everything will be alright.”

For the first time in a long time, he thought that could be true.

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The train swayed rhythmically.

--Dazzling flashes of beauty when she opens up a little and lets me peek inside the unfathomable depths of her soul her love of music and film and reading the day we went to lunch and she fed me a cheese sample and her fingertips touched my lips absolutely electric more erotic than a night of sex okay maybe not she was so open and sweet it was like we were the only people in the world the simple tenderness in the way she talked about her parents the clear love and eagerness to please them her way of cutting through all the bullshit her hearty laugh at my stupid jokes a keen wit completely aroused by someone’s mind turning my double entendres into triples but so very busy a million things going at once it’s a wonder she remembers to wake up not next to me don’t be so greedy lucky even to know her let alone be with her stop thinking of her stop it stop it think of something else I should write all this down someday cathartic think about music it will take my mind off how does that song go you walk by and I fall to she has the most enchanting singing voice whether a melancholy ballad or a merry carol dammit dammit dammit.

He successfully put her out of his mind for approximately 14.2 seconds, during which time he considered: his fingernails, the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, man’s inhumanity to man, the need for some new socks, a child’s laughter.

--Those lips those eyes that mouth who am I to try and get her why is my getting what I want more important than her happiness if she’s really happy I should be happy for her even if every molecule of my body strains toward her if only if only all the things I should have could have said did esprit d’escalier no one ever said life was fair try to be big about this reality crashing down on me like a fat girl off the high dive the past is just that what about the here and now concentrate on the bad qualities punctuality is not one of her virtues is that the worst thing you can think of sometimes a bit brusque when under stress it stings just the same every second I’m with her my veins are filled with fire giddy as a schoolgirl if she takes my hand but what about her needs a rose by any other name what is love it’s wanting her to have whatever it is she wants no matter how much I selfishly selfishly want ache need to be with her.

The train plunged into the blackness of the tunnel. He rode alone.