Epilogue: Dying, but Goofier

 (Note: This is the epilogue to a mostly-completed novel; if you’re interested in some of Hugo’s earlier adventures, then you can click here.)            

     I might be dying. You always thought that Hugo would die in a stupid accidental fire—one that Hugo himself set out of sheer absent-mindedness and maybe, in the last moment, he’d fallen in such a way that he’d landed with a chimney poker stabbing him in his asshole or something like that—or as an unsuspecting bystander in a heroic shootout between communists and police or as a result of falling face-first into a mountain of elephant shit or whatever. Nope. There’s still time, but it looks like I might just die at the age of forty of a completely preventable disease. In France. With a nurse for a girlfriend. Probably, all I had to do was to go to the doctor once in a while. Niveen told me. I knew it. I was finally getting my life together. Maybe if I hadn’t been getting my life together, then I wouldn’t have even found out. For the first time, I’d started exercising at the gym a few times a week. I’ve now been doing that for almost a year. Getting healthier? Welp. I don’t know; maybe it’s nothing, but I might be dying. I can’t even die in a noteworthy way. In my life, I’ve sucked up everyone’s resources and given nothing in return. I thought that I finally might make good. Oops.

                  This morning, I woke up, got ready to go to class, participated in a good seminar. I’m a PhD candidate at an obscure university on the West coast of France. You probably never heard of it. Not because I’m an academic hipster but because this is a shitty university. I’d applied to École Normale Supérieure a few times over the years, making small and large revisions to my application. I’d hoped to work with The Next Big French Philosopher™, but at some point, you have to give up on your dreams and your self-worth. My research topic is on the rituals of French housemice—very Althusser mixed with Foucault mixed with Bourdieu mixed with Latour. Finally, I focused my application more on the rituals and less on the mice, and I got into this third-tier university. Luckily, the EU enthusiastically funds me with some grant money. Dieu merci for cultural studies. After the seminar, I went to get bloodwork done at the clinic near campus. I’d had to starve myself—they require that you fast for at least 12 hours. I was fucking hungry. I would’ve eaten a pinetree. The whole thing lasted five minutes. She gave me a red bandage to keep me from bleeding too much from the inside of my elbow. In 2022, leftist academic walks around wearing a red armband. Sounds right. The nurse gave me a lollipop as though I were four fucking years old. I put the lollipop in my mouth and sucked.

                  Things between my girlfriend and me had been weird for a few days. She texted me and told me in the sweetest possible way that she didn’t want me to make the two-hour drive up the coast to see her for the weekend. I couldn’t blame her. I went to therapy. Kamala (my therapist) agreed that Niveen (my girlfriend) had been gaslighting me. Niveen is very sweet, but maybe that’s part of the problem. She never has to apologize to anyone. She’s perfect. She’s too perfect. She’s bad at apologizing. Instead of being an expert apologizer (like I am), I guess, she sometimes scurries (like one of my housemice) through convoluted alternate realities in her mind and convinces herself of something that never happened. Then, she gets upset at me for accepting the reality that came from the past, from conversations we’ve had, that’s written in black-and-white, that holds together all the facts that we bring to bear. Great. She has moments when she says, in her painfully cute, but all-too-cliché Algerian French accent, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I misremembered.” She looks up at me, half-smiling, half-pouting with that crimson fig of a slightly-oversized mouth; big chocolate marble eyes; high cheekbones and little pointy chin; tightly-curled jet-black hair. I almost feel bad for her in these moments. Poor thing. She’s right. She’s trying her best. She just misremembered. Look at how cute she is—like a little Algerian French nursemaid sexnymph. Who wouldn’t love this angelic woman? Ugh. Of course, not long after her doe-eyed recognition of her possible misrememberance, she finds a plausible explanation and runs with it. She speaks so slowly and softly. She sounds like a victim of a genocide, but not in an unhinged way—almost the opposite: like when someone’s been through so much that they seem unable to assert themselves enough to ever be mean or unfair to anyone. I can picture her saying, “I just want to hug tout le monde sur la terre and feed them and make them happy.” It sucks. Anyway, so, I left therapy. I sent Niveen a voice message to let her know that I loved her and that I just wanted us both to feel safe and to be able to talk about our feelings. I saw that I’d missed a call from a local number.

                  I figured that this mystery call had to do with my bloodwork. I went home. I got a text. I’d received a message in the health portal. I opened it and read:

I called you and tried to leave a voicemail. The partial results of your bloodwork came back extremely abnormal. You seem to have a blood disease. Please go to the hospital as soon as possible.

Dr. Jain

She left her phone number. I called. She said that my white blood cell count was astronomically high and that she was very concerned. She said that I needed to see a blood pathologist. She suggested that she call around and find me an appointment for the next 48 hours. She asked if I’d been feeling any symptoms. “Nothing crazy,” I said. I’ve been coughing for six months, there’s sometimes a little bit of blood in my shits, I had erectile dysfunction for two or three weeks that magically went away, I think that I once tore my ACL and so that sometimes feels uncomfortable, I’m constantly dehydrated and a little bit tired, the soles of my feet hurt, and I’ve been wheezing a lot lately, I thought.

                  I sent Niveen a screenshot of the message. She called. Niveen is an infirmière. Since my sudden weird changes in heartrate had begun pretty much immediately after I’d received my COVID booster, and I’d heard that the booster could cause myocarditis or pericarditis, I asked her if I maybe had one of those. She said it was unlikely. I could hear the nervousness in her voice. Niveen is usually unshakable. Even when she’s unreasonably mad at me, she never sounds nervous. She always seems confident and calm. She asked to see my charts. I said that I had no idea how to get them. She suggested I look in the portal or that I ask the doctor when she called back about the appointment. I messaged the doctor. Then, I found the charts in the portal. I sent them to Niveen.

                  I asked her again if I had myocarditis or pericarditis. She said that more likely was some form of leukemia, but that wasn’t likely, either. I didn’t really react at first. Suddenly, I might be dying. I said that I’d probably rest for a bit. Maybe I need rest. I watched some Instagram videos about the aftermath of a then-recent US school shooting. I’d moved from the US in part to escape my home country’s irrational carnage, but I still tuned into the news more than was healthy. It made me sad. I texted Niveen, asking if I’d die. She said, “No.” I told her that I was scared. She called me again. I started pathetically crying. She asked if I wanted her to drive down to see me. I told her that I didn’t want her to come since she didn’t want to see me that weekend. I could hear that she was in the car. I said that I should just let her go.

“Why? Why don’t you want me to go if you’re sad?”

“I don’t want to bother you. You’re obviously busy. I don’t want to keep you from going to the gym or whatever you’re doing. Don’t you need to go?”

“No, I’m just going to the hardware store to get some nails. As long as you let me off the phone before they close in the next… three hours, it’s fine. No rush.”

She said that, if I wanted her to come comfort me, then she’d come. I told her that I wanted her to come. She asked if I wanted her to get me a pizza and some pumpkin pie. “There’s no pumpkin pie in May,” I told her. She laughed. She barely knew what pumpkin pie was. She asked if I wanted Neapolitan or Sicilian and what toppings. “Pepperoni and mushroom.” She laughed, even though those are the best toppings. I told her to get half of the pizza the way she wanted. I asked her to bring chocolate. I asked her what most likely ailed me. She said that she had never seen a white blood cell count that high, so she was confused. Hmm… She told me that she needed to charge her electric car, but she’d be to my place in a few hours. She suggested that I try to sleep since I was tired and that I meditate.

                  I sat on the couch, playing Candy Crush for a few minutes. I went to my room, laid in the bed, opened my dilapidated laptop, and started watching a long video by a political YouTuber. He pointed out how the most popular conservative YouTuber’s attempts to blame Democrats for the Replacement Theory conspiracy theory were mostly just repackaged white nationalist rhetoric. Seemed right to me. I live near a lot of Le Pen disciples. It’s awkward. Of course, an américain dating an arabe probably doesn’t bug them too much. They’d rather we just both leave. However, the cheese and wine there are excellent. Life is all about trade-offs. Fuck.

I’m really infected by the couple economics classes I took in my youth. Or, maybe it’s just all the capitalist metaphorical language in everyday US English. Fuck. I turn off the video even though I’m getting exactly the cathartic political release/angry vilification that I seek. I need to get ready for Niveen to arrive.

                  I go to the local Carrefour. I wanted to get Niveen the coconut water and popcorn that she likes. We’re gonna watch It’s a Wonderful Life. She hates old movies and especially black-and-white movies. Okay, I said she’s perfect, but no one’s really perfect. I walk in. It’s chilly. Carrefour is always fucking chilly. Do I need to start carrying around a blanket? Am I gonna have to do chemotherapy? What would I look like bald? The popcorn is in the same aisle as the chips and nuts. In France, you have like three or four options of these kinds of things, so Carrefour is about a fourth the size of Safeway. That’s probably not why. I only took a couple econ classes. I choose the butter option for the popcorn. I get some garlic salt and paprika. The coconut water is near the produce, so I get her bananas. She likes bananas. I like the thought of her eating bananas. I feel guilty for that. It’s weird, though. I’m in a Catholic country, but I often feel that I feel far more guilty than these people do. Do US Catholics feel more guilty than French ones? I feel like Irish Catholics feel guilty, but they’re kind of secretive about it. The whole thing about Freud and the Irish, I guess. Or, maybe it’s that I now think of the Irish as that way because of the stupid Freud thing.

                  As I walk through the grocery store, I feel that thing you feel when your grandfather dies or something. You find out from a family member. They’re probably not crying, but they’re performing the most somber tone they possibly can. They speak real low and slow. They choose words like “sorry,” “loss,” “gone,” “unfortunate,” “time,” “better place,” “rest,” “painless,” etc. It’s supposed to be comforting. You get off the phone, and either you started crying halfway through the call or you don’t start crying until a minute or two after you get off the phone. It’s a torrent. The tension washes out of your face and your shoulders and your hips and you’re sad but you’re relieved. At some point, the crying has helped you release something and maybe even the fact that the grandfather (or whoever) isn’t suffering offers a little solace.

I look at these little French faces, grimacing as they try to choose the right aubergine or smiling as they talk to their partner or telling their little French kid to shut the fuck up or whatever. They look at me and maybe they’re annoyed that I’m there. Maybe I’m moving too slow or I’m in the way. Maybe they can smell my “American” sensibility. Some fat lady’s standing on one side of the aisle and her kid is dancing in the middle of the aisle. “Pardon,” I want to say, but the lady notices and pulls her daughter in toward her. I feel guilty for having been annoyed. Maybe partly because I can’t blame someone for not noticing everything that’s going on all the time and partly because the way that she pulls the child toward her plump body looks the way that it looks when a mother pulls her kid toward her.

I say “her” because French people really don’t seem to be into the new gender politics. I mean, I’d refer to the mother as “they” and “them,” but these French people would be offended, so I either offend the US people or I offend the French people. Since I live in France and I’m a coward, I follow les gens.

But, none of them know that I’m probably dying. They’re happy or they’re preoccupied because their coworker wore the same shirt as them at work or they’re wondering who’s going to win Eurovision or they’re figuring out PSG’s ideal starting eleven or whatever. They’re focused on optimizing their recycling regime. They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to try to look wealthy (even though the wealthy can, with their eyes closed, detect the low-class). They don’t know that I’m dying. And, I don’t know which one of them recently had their grandfather die. They’re just buying bananas and cornflakes and aubergines and trying to get their kids to shut up long enough for them to get their groceries after an annoying day at work when their coworkers were stressing them out with their trips to Ibiza or whatever. Most of life is a lot of petty bullshit. Most of life is also the failure to recognize when someone’s dying in one way or another or when someone close to them has just made them feel crushed. Like Frank said, “That’s life.” But, the truth that Frank didn’t allow himself to say was that not everyone always gets back in the race.

                  Back home, I put away the groceries, taking some of them to my room for Niveen. I lay down and put on a guided meditation video that Lily sent me a while back. It’s a good meditation video. Lily lives in England, so the lady guiding the meditation is British. It makes the woo-woo shit feel more dignified—as though Victoria herself had maybe been rubbing cheap crystals on her earthly (divine?) flesh. My eyes are closed. I try to relax. I let my legs lay flat. I cross my hands over my chest. I listen to this nice lady’s voice. Do I have cancer? Stop thinking. I listen some more. I never feel my root chakra, but now, it’s like my root chakra is yelling. I wanted to do some good in this world. What about my daughter? What about her social anxiety? Is her mom doing a good job? I’m not so sure. I wanted my baby to go to therapy. I was planning to get partial-custody in the next few months and to pay for my girl to get regular therapy. Now, I’m gonna leave the world having contributed really nothing. I try to relax. “Let the loving-kindness flow into you.” Sounds nice. Let’s do that. My heart is pounding. I feel the acid tingling in my skin. I’m like a razorblade made of meat. Where’s my crown chakra? Am I meditating right? I feel 5% more peaceful than before. That’s really not at all peaceful. I stop the meditation video to go pee.

                  Niveen’s pulling up. I can hear her electric vehicle. It looks like an electric shaver or a dildo from the future and it sounds like a spaceship. She got the white version, which makes it feel more like Kubrick’s 2001. Or A Clockwork Orange. In the end, is there a difference? I walk out to meet her at her car. We kiss. She’s smiling, making her dimples visible (her right dimple is always deeper than the left one). The Neapolitan pizza is in the trunk (which opens and closes like a 1960s spacepod) with a couple pains au chocolat. We walk into my place, holding hands.

We lay on the bed for a minute. She jokes about the fact that I might be dying. She gets away with this kind of thing, and I love her for that. We go up and start to eat the pizza. We talk about how bad she is at apologizing. When we talk about this stuff, she looks like a prisoner. She feels that I’m right and she feels that it’s unfair. She’s scared but she’s humbled. She wants to protest, but she knows that she shouldn’t. She’d prefer if people could just accept that she’s an adorable angel 99% of the time and let the 1% slide. After all, she lets everything slide with everyone, for the most part—the one exception being when people misjudge her intentions. How can you be mad at me when I was trying to be so sweet? she seems to want to ask. It’s hard to blame her. I don’t blame her. Of course, I also want to have lots of sex with her. I’m not the angel here.

                  We bring down some popcorn and set up her laptop. We start watching It’s a Wonderful Life. You know the first scene, with the bell? Fuck, I’m excited. She’s gonna love this. You know, because she’s so sweet and George is so sweet. It’s so well-written and Stewart’s “Aw, shucks” charm is perfect for this role. It’s a fucking crazy movie, but it’s so good. I mean, the gender politics aren’t good, but it was made in the mid-1940s. I don’t know if that’s a good excuse. Probably not. (Does the movie imply that George actually fucked Violet in the scene in his office?) But, she keeps laughing during the movie. It’s all the “Aw, gee” and “Holy mackerel!” I get it. I mean, it is funny. And, she seems to like the movie, but she’ll always fall asleep in a movie masterpiece because she’s a philistine.

Her little black curls barely keep from covering her eyelids like windowpanes. Her lips are parted, but barely. How can I be mad at this adorable little piece of shit? I pause the movie.

“What?” she asks.

“You falling asleep?”

“A little.” As though, there’s a way to fall asleep “a little.” I kiss her forehead and grab the laptop. She immediately knocks the bowl of popcorn off the bed and starts laughing—cracking up. If she owned a Da Vinci, she’d spill acetone on it and then start laughing. And, she drives a $400,000 spaceship everyday. I mean, she’s responsible both financially and socially. It’s just funny to me.

I set her laptop in an inconspicuous spot by the lamp where I think that she won’t step on it and cause an explosion and burn down the building. I turn out the lights. She tells me that she likes the movie. She kisses me. She presses her lips hard against mine. She lightly drags her nails across my chest. I see what’s going on here. We make love. We kiss. We cuddle. We tell each other sweet things and sassy jokes. We fall asleep in each other’s arms and don’t separate until morning.

---

                  We get up in the morning. I eat a couple slices of leftover pizza. She’s off from work today, but she’s gonna help run a Zoom meeting from home. She drives us to the little café a few hundred kilometers down the road. As we walk from the car to the café, I notice that the sky is grey—all these deathclouds hanging over our heads. I’m probably dying, and my beautiful, sunny little French beachtown is grey. Seems right. We get inside and pick out a table. I say something to Niveen, and she’s confused. That beautiful mouth hangs slightly ajar; I’m just staring. I lean in, “If you leave your mouth open too long like that, you just make me horny.” She smiles.

I order a black coffee and a croissant. The café isn’t far from the university campus, and for the moment, they’re playing some Gainsbourg song. Niveen laughs a little and puts in those little wireless earbuds that match her fascist spaceship. I pull out my laptop to look up who to vote for in the upcoming election, but I get distracted by the question of whether Mercury is in retrograde. It is! I’m dying because Mercury is in retrograde! I fucking knew it.

Niveen’s working on something. I have no idea what. As I ask her what she thinks is the most likely thing causing the high white blood cell count, she’s gently rubbing her thumbs over her clasped hands and her eyes widen slightly. She might even be starting to sweat. She says that she doesn’t know because she’s never seen a white blood cell count that high. I ask her what the range might be from the most innocuous to the most life-threatening. The most life-threatening, she says, is probably leukemia. Great. I have cancer. Eventually, she leaves to go back to my flat. I think about how I have a couple little gold keys and she has a little digital fob to get into her place. Sometimes, this world is strange to me.

                  I figure out all my voting shit and I get started on my research. The Cultural Lives of Mice, Rats, and Chipmunks, by Valerie Prévost. Fuck, this is so good. Did you know that rats sometimes rub their hands before eating but most housemice don’t? I’ve been thinking that I want to argue that there’s something really Catholic about rats whereas mice seem more Protestant. Of course, while the French are plenty religiously Catholic, they’re not so culturally Catholic, I don’t think. That’s an issue that’s really outside my research, though.

                  Niveen gets back to the café, and we have a couple salads. Niveen is the only French person who dislikes sparkling water, so I have a Perrier and she has a sugary soda. She’s a nurse, but she prefers sugary drinks over sparkling water. She refers to my sparkling water as “flavorless” sparkling water, as though she’s never tasted a sparkling water before.

We arrive to the hematologist’s office, and the doctor, Maria Krostag, greets us. She’s maybe 5’10” (182 cm or something) and lean. She’s probably 55 and she has long blonde hair. She speaks to us in a German accent that seems thick for how long she must’ve lived in France by now. She leaves us in the examination room and someone checks my vitals and stabs my finger. Maria comes back and says with a big Kansas smile, “The good news is that there are a lot of non-life threatening possibilities for what’s going on!” Uh-oh. She explains some other things that I don’t totally understand. Niveen’s face looks very focused: her brow is furrowed, she nods her head and rubs her chin. Without losing any of her overflowing cuteness, she looks a bit like a sexy medical professor or something. I can almost imagine her: “Nurse, please hand me the hemoglobin cytoblast spectrometer plasmaray. By God, we’ve done it! People will now live to 150!” Maria looks in my mouth (Why does every doctor in every field look in your mouth? Why do they all insist that you drink lots of water? “Oh, yes, your leg is badly broken. You’ll need to drink lots of water.” “Your brain seems to be seeping into your pancreas. Drink plenty of water.”). She listens to my heart, to my lungs. Normal. All is good. She feels my lymph nodes. All good. But, my mom had a lymph thing. “Interesting,” but it doesn’t make a dent. She rubs and probes my stomach with her cold German hands. She stands more erect. “You see, I can feel your spleen. Normally, a spleen is tucked under the ribcage, but yours is much larger than that.” Gently pressing halfway between my ribcage and my pelvis, she adds, “I feel your spleen all the way down here.” Maria slinks away to check my blood smear. Niveen wonders what could be associated with high white blood cell count and enlarged spleen. She Googles it and shows me, but she just shows me the first-page results without really reading anything. The Kansas grin re-enters the room.

“I have good news! It looks like you have something that’s very treatable and everything should be fine. I think you have chronic myeloid leukemia. Basically, the DNA sometimes switches letters in certain places, causing the bone marrow to produce white blood cells of different shapes and this enlarges the spleen. Now, I know that the leukemia word is scary, but nowadays, most people who get treated for this live long, normal lives. If you’re going to get a leukemia, this is the cancer you want to get! You take a pill once a day, get some tests, and not much else. If all goes well, you probably won’t really have side effects and within a few years, you won’t even have to take the pill anymore. The worst-case scenario is that you’d have to get a bone marrow transplant, but that’s unlikely, and you’re young enough that it probably wouldn’t be a big problem. In the meantime, we’re going to do some tests to confirm that this is what’s going on, and we’ll get you a bone marrow biopsy. I’ll order the medication in the meantime so that we can get you started on it as soon as I get back the results of the biopsy to confirm that it is what we think it is. Most likely, everything’s going to be just fine.”

I’m gonna fucking die. I’m gonna try the medication, and she’s gonna tell me that it’s not working. Or, she’s gonna get my biopsy and realize that I actually have something much worse. I’m gonna end up bald, vomiting, always tired, always cold and clammy, alone. I’m gonna die in the night and my nurse is gonna find me the next morning. Four people will be at my funeral. I was finally starting to get my life together. What’s gonna happen with my daughter? Will she keep struggling socially? Will she go to therapy? Will this make things better or worse for her? Will most people remember me as someone who was kind of an asshole and who said and did some problematic things, but not much else? Will they mostly just remember my well-publicized failed suicide attempt from all those years back? I’ll probably die with shit in my pants. Bet on it.

                  Sexy professor Niveen keeps talking with the doctor, asking her questions, half-smiling at me every few minutes. They keep asking if I have other questions. “If I take this pill and it works, then there’s a 50/50 chance that I won’t have to someday take it again?” She answers, but I can’t really pay attention. I’m gonna die, I keep thinking. She mentions that, if we’re planning to have kids, I won’t be able to have kids for as long as I’m on the medication. After I get off of it, then it’s fine if we have kids, but not until then. This is fine, I guess, since Niveen doesn’t want kids, anyway, but it does make me a little sad. I think it’d be nice to have kids with her. Maybe I could finally be a good dad to someone. Oh, well. I rub my hands over my stomach. I can feel my spleen like a pigskin beneath my epidermis. I suddenly have the sensation that it might just pop out like the scene from Alien. Niveen gently smiles at me. They expect me to say something. “I don’t have any more questions right now.” In the next few days, I’ll get tests done and we’ll set up my biopsy.

                  We go back to my place and pack our things to head up to Niveen’s Stepford apartment complex. We cuddle for a while. She makes some cancer jokes, kisses me. She tells me that everything’s going to be okay. We get in the car, but I realize that I forgot something in the apartment. She’s parked in the middle of the street. I come out with the books that I need, and a neighbor passes by, asking how I’m doing.

“I just found out that I’m very, very, very, very, very sick.”

“Sick of people?”

“Physically sick, but I should be okay.”

“You think any interesting thoughts lately?”

“Oh, I dunno. I’m heading up the coast with my girlfriend right now. How was your day?”

“Oh, it wasn’t good, but it was effective.”

“You got stuff done?”

“Yeah, I guess.” He looks at the spaceship. “Do you know whose car that is?”

“Yeah, that’s my girlfriend. I should get going.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Have a nice night.”

“You, too.”

                  We drive up the coast, and she makes sure to play a lot of Radiohead for me. She offers me snacks. Niveen basically insists that snacks are a love language. The middle console of her spaceship contains various little packages of fruits and nuts. I tell her that she’s a mom. She’s always taking care of everyone. Her home is like a snack smorgasbord arrayed for visitors—plenty of reserves in the cupboard. She loves kids. She’s really good with them, but she doesn’t want children. It seems like some galactic tragic irony. I fall asleep in the car. We get to her place and unpack our stuff. We decide to eat some Ethiopian food.

The Asian boy at the counter is efficient, curt. It almost seems like he’s joking. The restaurant smells of strange chemicals, and it’s making Niveen nauseous. She orders vegetables and chicken, even though she usually doesn’t eat meat. We sit at a little table along the street. I ask her to remember one time when we’d made love that really turned her on. She thinks for a minute. “Umm…” She can’t think of anything. “I’ve slept with you so many times and each time was so good that I can’t think of any.”

When she and I had started dating, she’d been dating a couple other guys. Recently, when we were having sex, she was bouncing on top of me, and I asked her to recall a time with one of them that had turned her on. She immediately started to whisper in my ear about a time with the Spaniard—the same Spaniard she’d had sex with four times on their first date (which was while she and I were dating) and who she’d said had made her come each of those times. She can tell I’m upset, and she asks me why.

“Well, I think you know why, but I also don’t want to have my fears confirmed,” I say.

“I don’t think you have any reason to be upset,” she responds.

                  We go into the housewares store, and she’s being weird. She keeps trying to change the subject, telling me jokes, saying almost completely random things. She asks again. I say basically the same thing as before. She says, “You know I love having sex with you. I prefer having sex with you over Tomás or Michel or anyone else. I think you’re very sexy. What’re you worried about?”

We get through the checkout. I carry out the aquamarine cake stand and the red plaster vase. We walk down the paved road to her mid-rise complex. I say, “You know, you told me you would call me that night, but you had sex with Tomás, instead. We broke up in part because of him. Before having sex with him, you told him, ‘If you keep that up, I’m gonna have to have sex with you.’ You had sex four times and he made you come each time—some of them multiple times. You might prefer to have sex with me, but I can’t help fearing that you find him sexier than you find me in some way. I mean, it’s not that I expect you to think I’m the sexiest man in the world in every way. I know I’m not a combination of Brad Pitt and a pornstar or something. I realize that this is just my ego, just my narcissism. I can get over it on my own, but it makes me feel bad that you can’t think of one single time with me. You’ve had sex with me a hundred times and him five times, and you can instantly recall a time with him and not one with me.” She pauses for a second.

“I can think of one with you.”

“That’s not the point. It doesn’t matter.”

“Look, I’m not the sexiest woman in every way, either.”

“Well, that’s not the point,” but really, I think that she’s absurdly sexy. “I keep telling myself that I can’t expect you to think that I’m the sexiest guy. Maybe you find Tomás sexier in some way. I should just be okay with that.”

“I don’t, though. I find you sexier. You probably made me come every time we had sex. You’re worried about something that’s not real.” No one talks for a minute. “I Know It’s Over” plays in the background.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I believe you.” Her head tilts. She hugs me.

“We didn’t break up because of Tomás.”

“It was partly because of him.” She kisses me. She usually looks at me while she kisses me.

                  We restart the movie. It’s about halfway through. After a few minutes, she softly says something in an unnaturally high voice, but I don’t know what it is.

“What?” I ask.

“Your beard—it’s poking me.”

I ask her if she’d rather I shave it. She says she doesn’t care. I tell her that I grow it for her. I’d rather shave at least once a week. She says something about Tomás, but I half don’t hear it and I also cut her off, “No, I don’t want to know anything about what Tomás looks like.” She rolls her eyes.

After twenty or thirty minutes, she falls asleep again. I move her laptop again. I come back to bed and kiss her. Her eyes are closed; her mouth forms a crescent. She asks how I am.

“Happy and hard,” I say.

“Oh, really?”

She reaches down and pulls like an arm attached to a water wheel or something. We make love again. I stay inside her for a minute, and she says, “Get out! I know what you’re trying to do!” I laugh and roll over, sighing.

She lays her head on my chest, and I ask, “How’d you like fucking a dying man?”

She smiles and, in that saccharine, high-pitched voice, says, “You definitely don’t fuck like a man who’s dying.”

---

Lately, I’ve been experiencing a kind of vertigo. I used to always take my health for granted. Before this year, I’d never gotten sick more than once in a 12-month span. I was healthy. I’d see other people who were unhealthy, and feel that we were different, that we lived different lives. I lived on one side of the line—free to do as I pleased, free from care—and they lived on the other side of the line.

Some of them worried. They would sometimes go to the doctor. They would miss class or miss work. They had little cases of pills. They would hold their heads down and speak quietly. They might have a little cough. People looked at them sympathetically, sad for what they were going through. I had nothing to do with that. I felt lucky. I was grateful, but also, I was never even really scared that I’d be on that side of the line because I had always been on the other side of the line and I was sure that the line wouldn’t come and get me any time soon. Now, I’m on the other side of the line.

Working out, eating healthy, no family history of cancer, never having been a smoker, no real reason to worry. But, I’m dying. My body is killing me. It’s attacking me. My DNA is confused, and my bone marrow is shooting out white blood cells like Oprah yelling to let everyone know that they’re getting a car or whatever. My body thinks that it’s doing me a favor. It’s so proud. Like the dog who brings you a dead rabbit. You’re welcome! But, my body is actually killing me. It’s Grendel, innocently fumbling about, killing.

I never had to worry before, but now, I’m on the other side of the line and I’ll never return to the good side of the line. Once you’ve been a sick person, you can never again go back to being someone who’s never had to worry about their health. That’s me, now. I’m over there. Forever.

Fear and Trembling

Hugo is shaking. He’s not yet aware of how he’s feeling, but he’ll become more aware and it’ll increase his anxiety and self-consciousness. He’ll question himself, thinking that there’s something wrong with him; he’ll want to know what’s wrong with him, and he’ll realize that he doesn’t have an answer except to think that he seems to exist. Sometimes, Hugo questions even his existence. He’s right to do so, but his reasons are the wrong ones. His questioning of his existence is merely a distortion of the problem, if we assume that there’s legitimately a problem.

Hugo’s paternal grandmother—”Nanny,” he calls her—has always had a tremor. She’s an old, displaced Connecticutian, full of Catholic sanctimony and guilt to go with an air of undeserved superiority over her fellow Southern military townies. So Hugo’s mom always said that he got his anxiety from “the other side’s kin.”

How is this happening? What did I do? Again? It’s not the same. But Hugo’s not exactly right. In fact, each time has been different from the last. Hugo’s not reliving the same nightmare; he’s forming escalated spirals in a chaotic universe, spewing entropic residue over unwarned experiences of relatively innocent witnesses. It’s the unmitigated, perpetually deepening tragedy that’s Hugo’s recent life.

It’s getting worse. There you go, Hugo.

Hugo stands, unpresent, his eyes fixed staring forward, failing to see anything, as his thoughts take over his mind. Metacognition is a hell of a drug, and Hugo’s not exactly going to meetings.

Hugo’s head rotates uniformly toward his right shoulder, his jaw stuck and unhinged. He looks up slightly, quickly snapping his down head into his hands before shrinking into a fetus behind the old, rust-colored couch, his feet bent at a 45-degree angle. It’s like an awkward imitation of a Michael Jackson music video.

Smack! Smack! Smack! Hugo’s arms flail as his legs redden beneath his pants, vaguely forming handprints on his thighs, like Elementary School students’ craft projects meant to look like Thanksgiving turkeys.

Rarely in Hugo’s life has he been physically violent, despite his tendency to be consumed by anxiety and insecurity to a point prohibitive to consideration of others. Rarely, Hugo had engaged in self-harm or bursts of violence thoughtlessly directed at himself. It was reactionary, as though he had been calibrating his external world to coincide with his inner self.

Once, in middle school, Hugo had been sick for a few days when a kid had ridiculed him for the last time. Hugo grabbed the kid by his shirt and ran him down the row of desks, before ending at the wall, saying, “Please stop being such a jerk!” The substitute teacher who was in class that day felt baffled and helpless: What do I do now? But Hugo and the other boy weren’t a problem for the rest of the class period.

Today, Hugo’s propensity for self-harm, like his ever-graduating neurosis and ill mental health, is growing, promising to test the limits of Hugo’s masochism.

Monsters

Hugo was walking back and forth along the floor, unwittingly causing the wood to creak as he stepped. “First, I find a song that strikes something in me. Or, you know, not always. I mean, I feel like I could sample anything, really. Maybe not anything. I dunno.”

“You always start with a sample?” James asked.

“No, not always. I don’t have to. I’d say I do it half the time? No. Maybe like two thirds of the time. You know, it all depends.” Hugo spoke more loudly than normal. He smiled a lot and gesticulated in big, flowing motions.

After some quick, careful consideration, Hugo’s eyes got big and he snapped his fingers. Snap! “You know, I get into these moods. Every six months or so, I go back and listen to my beats and they all sound like shit. I mean, not all of them, but most of them, and usually there are obvious things that I was consistently doing wrong. There’s so much to this, you know? You have to learn so many things, but there are also so many ways to do it.”

“I see,” James said. He gently grinned.

“Like, I’ve learned all these styles. What I really try to do is to take the best and beat them at their own style.”

“Beat them? Like who?”

“Well, you know—”

“I don’t know. Who are your favorites? Who do you most admire?”

“Dr. Dre, J Dilla, Flying Lotus—”

James’s back straightened. “Wait! You mean to tell me you try to outdo those guys?!”

“Well, I’m not saying that I’m better than them!”

“Hugo, you’re fucking crazy, man.”

“Whatever. I’m just trying to do my best. I mean, my beats are pretty good.”

“Hugo, I constantly hear you working on them. Honestly, it makes me a little crazy, but I don’t complain because I want you to feel good about something. They’re good. You’re not Dr. Dre.”

Hugo’s neck and back lengthened. “I know that! Look, I’m not a narcissist.”

“UMM…”

Hugo glared at James. His voice lowered. “Look. I think that if I just knew how to market these things, I could make a career making beats.”

“You think so? Why don’t you market them?”

“It’s just not my thing. It’s boring. I like making beats. I’m not a salesperson.”

“Sure.”

“Well, I also don’t have all the tools, you know? And I could use some training. I could grow so much faster if I were properly trained. There are things that I know need work.”

“Sure.”

“But my beats are pretty good!”

“They’re pretty good, Hugo. Maybe you’re right.”

“I dunno. I think so. Who knows?”

“Maybe I could find some way to help you or to get someone to help you.”

“Yeah! That’d be great! We could work together, Jim!”

“Yeah.”

Hugo plopped into the recliner across from Jams. James was sitting on the old, decrepit couch, not moving, before his body stiffened and he grew erect: “Hey, you know Michelle called.”

“Called?”

“On the house phone. I guess you gave Michelle my number?”

“Really? I didn’t even know we had a house phone.”

“Oh. Well, Michelle called.” James turned his head toward Hugo. “Well, who’s Michelle?”

“I wonder why she called. She’s an ex. I keep thinking that she hates me, but she never really seems to hate me.”

“Why do you think she hates you?”

“Maybe I don’t. I dunno. I’m just scared. I get scared.” The distance between Hugo’s irises widened, as though he were looking far off into the distance, far past the wall that impeded his view. “We had a pretty good relationship. The end was really stupid and it was all my fault, but I didn’t fuck it up. Well, no. I did fuck it up, but not in my usual way.

“I mean, I didn’t cause a giant disaster. I just walked away. I kind of just ignored her. I think I started dating someone else. I’m sure that happened. I don’t know why I would’ve intentionally chosen loneliness. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, she was so good to me and she was really into me. For some reason, she really seemed to forgive me and to understand me.”

“So why’d you end it?”

Hugo cocked his head to the side, his neck stiff like a branch that had broken and fallen at an angle from a tree after a storm. He enveloped his head and neck with his bent arm as he massaged the back of his neck with his fingers. “I don’t really know. It was too perfect or something. I remember that she’d made fun of me for some little stupid thing. I don’t remember what it was. It was entirely innocent and I was just being stupid. I knew it at the time, but I couldn’t avoid this terrible feeling. It was like my whole body was some toxic element. I would shake, you know? You know how sometimes my hands quiver?”

“I thought that was just when you were hungover.”

Hugo’s neck straightened as he looked at James. “Yeah. Well, not just.” He looked toward the floor. “She’d made this stupid joke, and I felt like she was gonna leave me. I’d always felt like she’d leave me, but this was like a big, meaty corpse on the pile of reasons why I was scared she’d leave me.”

“You’re such a poet.”

“Well, I’d always been scared of her, and then she’d said this thing.”

“But why were you scared that she’d leave you?”

“I dunno, man. It’s just how I am. I’m scared that you’ll leave me, but not as scared and I don’t care as much about it. No offense.”

“No, no.” James’s mouth formed a downward-facing crescent.

“It’s just—I dunno. All the women eventually leave. My mom always left. She started leaving me when I was very small. I’d cry for her, to her, wanting her. All the time. When I was like two or three, I’d cry for what felt like hours at her bedroom door. I’d lay on the ground and shove my squishy little child hands under the door and wiggle my fingers. But it didn’t stop there. I did that for a while, but even as I got older, I’d go to my room and I’d cry for what felt like hours. I’d run away. Well, I wouldn’t really, but I’d try to. I’d announce that I was gonna, but no one cared. My mom would insult me and tell me that she couldn’t wait ’til I was old enough for her to be forever done with having to deal with me. She wanted to abandon me in a more absolute way. When I was really small, at one point, I even—or maybe it was at several points; I don’t remember—well, I basically intimated to her that I was feeling suicidal. Of course, I did it in a bratty, shitty way, and I think I was just kinda copying It’s a Wonderful Life, but you know her response?”

James slowly responded, his face like clay, “Tell me, Hugo.”

“She basically just defended herself. I told her I wished I’d never been born, and she just blamed me for what was going on, yelling at me, and she walked into her room, crying, leaving me stunned, shocked! I went to my room, and felt even more alone.”

“And you didn’t kill yourself.”

Hugo stared into James’s eyes. “I didn’t kill myself. But everyone leaves me, James. I’m the common denominator. I realize that. Whether the situation’s abusive or healthy or whatever. And when it seems too good to be true, maybe I don’t want to go so far down the rabbit hole that it’s completely traumatic when they finally do leave, so I guess I’m fucked. I can never be with someone who’s good to me. I guess I can’t really be with anyone.”

Hugo and James sat, silently in thought, not looking at each other.

Hugo suddenly started speaking, again, loudly: “But it’s not like I’m an angel, and I don’t trust my choices in women.”

“I’ll say.”

“You remember that girl I told you about?”

“Yeah. I mean, well, which one?”

“Damn, James. This shit was really awful. I was thinking about it the other day.”

James slapped his hands on his knees. He looked like a king in the wrong chair. “Hugo, who are you talking about? What are you talking about?”

“You know that time it got really bad?”

“Okay, Hugo.”

Hugo stared at James for a moment, his mouth agape. “Well, she would kind of verbally assault me and then run away. When I would respond, she would act as though I’d done something terrible to her. She’d tell me that she knew that she was a monster, but the moment anything happened between us, she would cry to her whole family and every friend about how I was abusing her.

“This was actually the girl who’d raped me.”

“Raped you? And quit saying ‘girl.’ But rape? Did she penetrate you?”

“No.”

“Then, don’t call it rape, Hugo. That’s kinda fucked up.”

“Whatever, man. I said, ‘No,’ she didn’t respect it, she forced me inside her. It doesn’t matter. It’s not germane to the story.”

“Fine.”

“You see, she would erupt in these very short-lived fits of rage, manipulation, and abuse, but then she would want to run away. I eventually began to insult her. I said terrible things. I became terrified of what I’d become, the things I’d started to say.

“It seemed to me like she viewed herself as a victim. I mean, this much was clear. I think that what really happened was that I started to view her as a victim. She couldn’t see herself being empowered. We’d talk about how she might view herself differently, but she would resist: ‘It’s not that easy.’ Well, maybe it wasn’t, but she didn’t want to try, either. She was more comfortable being the victim, so eventually I gave her what she wanted until she became the ultimate victim in some sense.

“I don’t mean that I killed her.”

“I know, but I also don’t think that’s ‘what she wanted.'”

“I guess you’re right.”Hugo’s mouth went sideways. “She started talking about how we were Twin Flames. In some way, she was encouraged by the abuse we both experienced. She was giddy about it. So I think I just complied with this idea of abuse, while also proclaiming that I wanted to marry her. I really did want to marry her, but I was also terrified of what we’d become.

“I guess we both thought that the intensity meant something other than that we loved each other and that we were intense people, abusing each other. I guess we were both really monsters.”

Verities and Vestiges

I could feel Charlie staring at me, but I didn’t dare to look. When she looks at me like that, it really freaks me out. It’s like she ceases to be a living, breathing, real human. You know when you can feel what someone else is feeling? Other people talk about this, they talk about people’s energies, or at least I guess that’s what they mean. Well anyway, when someone’s really losing control, when they’re about to get real crazy, sometimes I pick up on something. There’s a static in the room and it feels like something Teslan, like anything could happen, only that it won’t likely be good.

Mostly, I was just trying to not look at her. I was trying to ignore her. She was just staring at me. We’d fought a good deal, recently, and the arguments were getting worse. This was the part where the prospective long-term life partner becomes frustrated with me and decides that I’m not worth all this bullshit. I hate this part. It’s uncomfortable for me and they always make it so complicated.

At some point, I was just staring at the wall when I realized that I was staring at the wall and, then, I was intentionally staring at the wall, following the cracks or just looking at it stupidly, as though I was completely mindless.

I ignored Charlie’s incessant fidgeting. This is how they get when it gets like this. At some point — well, not all, but some — some of them get really anxious and fidgety and I get scared that I’m gonna get smacked by some uncontrolled appendage. Chill out. Don’t hit me, you spazz. I’m always thinking stupid things like that when I get in this position.

But, you know, I couldn’t even blame Charlie for this. In fact, I’m experienced in this sort of thing and maybe she’s never dealt with something as ridiculous as this. The thing is that no one ever understands anyone else. Most people don’t understand themselves. Maybe no one does. I certainly don’t. And Charlie doesn’t understand me. Why would she? Why should she? She wouldn’t. No one would.

She was making me anxious. I suddenly became aware of my heartbeat; my whole body was pulsing — no, thumping — thumping against nothing, thumping against itself. God! Now, my heart was beating even faster. What’s wrong with me? Whenever this happens, I feel like I should call a doctor, but I’ve survived through this so many times now. I don’t want to be dramatic. At least, I don’t want anyone to realize how dramatic I am.

And for some reason, I made the idiotic decision to look over at her. I could see it all in her face, all this pain, all this frustration. She’s mad at me, but more than that, she’s disappointed. I’ve wronged her and I should be ashamed. She’s just standing there, staring directly at me. She’s so mad at me. Why is she mad? Does she even know?

That’s the funny thing about being someone like me. By this point, I’ve seen this patterned behavior so many times that I know what it looks like, even if my unsuspecting, undeserving victims have no idea what they’re feeling at all. It becomes so easy for me to divert attention from what I did wrong and to cast doubt. That’s so shitty, but it’s just true.

I almost jumped when she suddenly made a sound, “Are you gonna say something?” She was speaking so strangely, so uncomfortably.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I dunno. You could apologize. You could explain yourself. Anything would be better than you just standing there with your mouth open.”

She was visibly uncomfortable. She sarcastically looked at the wall with me, as though she didn’t realize there was nothing there to look at. She was annoyed and she wanted to punish me now. I couldn’t blame her.

But I was annoyed by her question and I didn’t wanna answer it. So slowly, I forced myself to play along. “I’m sorry that we’re here, doing this. I’m sorry that I upset you. I have no idea what I did, though. I want to figure this out, but I don’t understand what’s happening and I wish you would tell me.”

I knew it instantly. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I said the wrong thing. You’d think I could figure out how to respond to these situations by now, but I always fuck it up.

Charlie kept spazzing out. At one point, I thought that she might come toward me, but her nerves ensured that she returned to the position she’d been in before.

I found myself remembering the first time I ever bloviated in Charlie’s direction: “The first thing you have to understand about me is that I’m a narcissist. I’m not proud of it, and I’m not as bad as I used to be, but I don’t recommend that anyone get close to me. I mean, I want you to. But for your sake, don’t. I mean, I want you to love me. I want everyone to love me. But from afar. I want to pick and choose who I interact with and how, and maybe I want to interact with you, but you really shouldn’t. Just trust me on this. But don’t trust me on anything.” She had laughed at that. She’s not laughing now.

Charlie’s giving up. She made a weird little exasperated noise. That’s when I heard the birds chirping outside and little furry squirrels and chipmunks roaring like cutesie vestiges of the Jurassic or some shit.

Birdsongs and Tiny Roars

Charlie’s eyes looked alert and dead at the same time. Her eyes systematically scanned over Hugo for any indication of his feelings, but instead, she ended up staring at the crooked bottom row of Hugo’s teeth. He might drool.

Her chest heaved and oil began to accumulate on the surface of her skin. Her hair looked like a small, shiny black cloud, and her movements came in unexpected bursts and waves, establishing no sort of rhythm.

She had once imagined Hugo to be a charming, handsome, gentle, spiritual man with philosophical thoughts and a delivery like a slow, old, empathic woman. There was no more illusion. Hugo wasn’t these things; at least, he wasn’t always all of them. Two ways to dehumanize someone…

Hugo stared at the pale, cracked wall. He wondered who had lived there before him. The thing is that no one ever understands anyone else. Most people don’t understand themselves. Maybe no one does.

Hugo noticed the low drumming inside of him, and his sudden awareness of his anxiety made him feel anxious for the fact that he felt anxious. He looked at her face. She’s just standing there, staring directly at me. She’s so mad at me. Why is she mad? Does she even know?

Why isn’t he saying anything? Charlie’s face formed contorted words as her lips stayed tight around her teeth, “Are you gonna say something?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I dunno. You could apologize. You could explain yourself. Anything would be better than you just standing there with your mouth open, looking at the wall.” Charlie tilted her body unnecessarily, as though she were having to look around something that wasn’t there in order to inspect Hugo’s point on the wall. But there really wasn’t anything there. She already knew that, though.

Hugo’s lips pressed together, forming a long horizontal line while the rest of his face remained still and he looked briefly at the floor before looking back at Charlie. “I’m sorry that we’re here, doing this. I’m sorry that I upset you. I have no idea what I did, though. I want to figure this out, but I don’t understand what’s happening and I wish you would tell me.”

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I said the wrong thing.

Charlie’s foot moved toward Hugo at an angle, but her body didn’t. Her foot slid back beneath her. Her neck and shoulders shimmied, causing her head to bobble in a snakelike motion and her arms to dust off her sides. She expelled air in the same way that a dying character in a movie might expel air, softly, “Huhh…”

“I want someone to love me, I want someone to like me. I want them to choose to be with me because they don’t want to be with someone else. I don’t want to be someone’s safe choice. I don’t want them to choose me out of practicality or hope for a good life for themselves. I want to feel like I matter to someone.

“It’s fine if you and I are different. In a lot of ways, I appreciate that. But maybe it means that things won’t work out. Maybe you’ll meet some guy who’ll want everything to be just the way that you want it. Maybe he’ll make you feel safe. I’d be disappointed, I’d be sad. It’d he hard for me. But for you, you’ve got a lot going on, so maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I don’t want this to end, but it’s your choice at this point.”

Sunlight shone in at a steep angle, and the leaves of the trees made kaleidoscopic patterns through one of the room’s windows that stood a little too high off the ground. Why so high? Hugo often wondered. The yard formed a little hill, and a big ash tree had stood there for a few decades now. Birds, squirrels, and chipmunks fought over real estate in the monumental plant, as the high-pitched birdsongs competed with tiny roars from the rodents.

Diversions and Daymares

Hugo yelled across the house, “I’M GONNA GET A SHIT-AND-SHOWER.”

“Why are you telling me that? Shit-and-shower?”

“WHAT?!” The pitch of Hugo’s voice raised dramatically.

James sauntered in Hugo’s direction. “Hugo, shit-and-shower is not a thing. And why do you have to tell me? I don’t need to know.”

Hugo held a clothes to change into. “I dunno. What if you wanted to use the bathroom or what if you were having people over?”

“Well, that’s nice, but I have my own bathroom and you’ve never seen anyone else over here.”

“True. Shit-and-shower is definitely a thing, though. Think about it: what if you run out of toilet paper? Or I mean, why go to the length of wasting a bunch of toilet paper if you know you need a shower, anyway? Like if it’s the morning and you’re getting ready for work or something.”

“Well, if you run out of toilet paper, you just use something else. Also, it’s annoying when you say ‘Think about it.’ Do you assume I don’t think?”

“Sorry. Well, what do you do when you run out?”

“First, newspaper.”

“Newspaper? That’s rough. Newspaper comes first? What’s second?”

“Second is paper towels.”

Hugo’s eyes grew. “Paper towels comes second to newspaper?!”

“No. You’re right. Really, you just buy enough toilet paper, but in a pinch, yeah; paper towels. In really desperate times, newspaper.”

Hugo’s posture was erect. He appeared to be looking down at James, despite them being the same height. “I’d rather just take a shower.”

“That’s kinda nasty, Hugo. Then, you’re getting poop all over the bathtub.”

“Yeah, but you’re using soap. And preferably, you wipe at least a little. I’m not talking about intentionally getting big globs of poo all over the tub. Anyway, there’s already poop all over everything.”

“Don’t say that shit.”

“Really, if you smell a fart, it’s just particles of poop getting in your nose and mouth. There’s poop on everything.”

“I know, Hugo, but why do you have to say that shit?”

“Like, if you take a bath, you’re laying around in your poop. Poop, piss, jizz, sweat.”

James was equally sure of his position. “Do you ever ‘get a shit-and-bath?'”

Hugo realized that James had introduced an impregnable argument, but couldn’t imagine retreating, “Nah, James. That’s nasty.”

“Well, we’re just talking about degrees, right?”

Hugo knew what James meant, but he asked, anyway, “Degrees?”

“Yeah; like, if there’s shit on everything all the time, and if you’re suggesting a shit-and-shower, then you’re not doing anything fundamentally different from a shit-and-bath. It’s just degrees.”

“But you’re not laying around in it.”

“You think that the water and soap gets rid of all the poop particulate that you didn’t wipe off your ass?”

“Well, even if you wipe, you’re not getting rid of all of it.”

“Okay, Hugo. Why don’t you go shit, wipe your ass, and shower? Or whatever.”

“Yeah.” Hugo took a step toward the bathroom while he extended his fingers and thumb, covering his chin. “Do you get poop-boners? I really get poop-boners. Like, a lot. And when I poop, my body temperature lowers or something. I dunno. I feel colder. Yeah. Do you usually get poop-boners?”

James smiled on one side of his face, despite feeling that he shouldn’t encourage Hugo’s inappropriateness, “I sometimes get poop-boners. I don’t know anything about this body temperature thing.”

“It mostly happens when I’m out. Like, if I’m in some office building or Wal-Mart or a hospital or something. I guess maybe your body uses a lot of energy to manufacture and house and maintain all that poo?”

“I dunno, man.”

“I just feel like schools could do a lot more in this area, like, Poop Ed or something.”

“Like Sex Ed?”

“Yeah, something like that.” Hugo appeared to be thinking very seriously on the issue. He didn’t look at James, obviously in a cloud of profound thought.

After a few moments, James broke in, “Yeah. Poop-boners are weird. If there were a God out there, poop-boners would be evidence that God was very weird.”

“Yeah. Like, why poop-boners? What’s the evolutionary function of that? Do people have sex while pooping?”

James disrupted the conversation with unmitigated, boisterous laughter. It took several seconds for him to calm himself enough to respond. “I’m sure that some people do.” James remained distractedly snickering.

Hugo’s sympathetic smile broke down and his brow grew heavy and his eyes were suddenly intense. “Yeah, sexual arousal is strange. Like, you know how nervousness doesn’t feel so different from arousal? I think, sometimes, the thing that is almost so objectionable that you can’t do it is the very thing that most turns you on.”

James walked toward the living room, expecting Hugo to follow, which he did. James sat in a recliner, “Yeah. I dream about some really fucked up sex shit, but sometimes, I wake up and that fantasy is stuck in my head and I’ve been surprised by how much some really fucked up shit can turn me on. When I was a kid, it was even worse. I used to have these very weird sex dreams when I was a kid and they really freaked me out. I didn’t know what to make of them. I didn’t know what they said about me.”

“Same. I used to sometimes do things with men. This was like in elementary and middle school. I mean, I didn’t do very sexual things, mostly basically just making out. Maybe only making out. I don’t remember the dreams so well at this point. I just remember how ashamed it made me feel. Some kids thought I was gay, so I guess I was confused and dreamt of it.”

“Hugo, I’m not gonna judge you for being curious.”

Hugo realized how ridiculous he might’ve seemed and smiled. “I know. I’m sorry. There’s nothing wrong with being gay. Maybe I’m gay. I’ve never been brave enough to try anything.”

James smiled back at Hugo. He was tempted to make a joke, but Hugo was being vulnerable enough.

Hugo looked indiscriminately toward a spot on the wall. “I died a lot in my dreams, too. I would fall a lot — out of all kinds of things — to my death, presumably. I once drove my sister and I up into a tree. In a car, I mean. I was driving a car. Eventually, I couldn’t get the car to keep climbing and the car fell toward a lake, waking me up. I think I was being chased.  A lot of the time, I was being chased in my dreams.”

“What do you think that meant?”

“I dunno. I was a depressed little kid. I would run away a lot. I’d pack all my stuff, I’d leave in a huff, and I’d run away for a few minutes before realizing that I didn’t know where to go and I was too chicken to just walk off with nowhere to go. Eventually, my younger sister started to mock me when I’d leave. I’d always tell her I was serious this time.” Hugo was nearly smirking, but his eyes were sad. James realized that what Hugo was describing was important, and Hugo continued, “I didn’t trust my parents. I didn’t trust any authority.”

“Mhm.”

Hugo ignored James’s sarcastic expression of vindication.  “I still sometimes have nightmares, but I hardly remember any dreams anymore. I think I had a lot more nightmares when I was a kid, but maybe a greater proportion of my dreams now are bad ones. Maybe I don’t dream that often.”

“Seems possible.”

“I don’t know shit about dreams. Now these conflicts permeate my daydreams.”

“You imagine people chasing you around and you falling out of things to your death?”

“No. Not exactly. I just imagine confrontations. With everyone.”

“Not everyone.”

“Everyone who matters to me.”

“With me? What would you and I fight about? How does that go?”

“I dunno. I’m just saying I imagine fighting with everyone; even people I love. Even people I don’t know. I imagine having to run from the cops.”

“So you do still imagine getting chased.”

“Yeah. Sometimes. It actually used to be more when I was younger. Now, it’s mostly just arguments about things and how, in weird situations, I might best people.”

“Not everything’s a competition, Hugo.”

Hugo’s face scrunched sideways on the front of his head. “I’m just afraid, you know?”

James peered at Hugo.

Hugo’s eyes eventually met James’s. “I know it’s not about them. I know it’s about me. I imagine crazy things, Jim. I imagine getting into firefights with whole police departments. I imagine going to trial with my bosses and their business owners. I imagine all the things that potential lovers and past lovers might find or have found to be upset at me for and having to explain myself. I imagine being rejected in every possible way, by everyone, important and unimportant. It makes me feel sad, insecure, afraid.”

James’s eyes turned soft, “Why do you think you do that?”

“I guess I don’t expect anyone to accept me.”

Uplifting Nightmare

Hugo broke the silence: “I had this terrible dream last night.”

She looked up until her eyes met Hugo’s.

“I was in my mother’s house, but it wasn’t her house. I never dream of places as they are. I wonder if people ever dream of places as they are. Do you?”

“I think I do, sometimes.”

Does she know that she does? Why would she respond that way? “Oh. Well, I was in my mom’s house, but not my mom’s house, and I cracked an egg to make a cake. I don’t really know how to make cake.”

“Uh-huh. I know what you mean, though. Sometimes, I dream of places and I’m so sure that it’s that place, but then I wake up and realize it was nothing like that place. Why don’t you know how to make cake? You just do what the box says.”

“Right. It’s just been a long time since I made a cake.”

“Yeah, why would you have made someone a cake? I can see that.”

Maybe that was a slight insult. “Sure. So I crack this egg and the egg is coming out, but it’s way more than a normal egg. It’s just running and running out of the shell, and little bits of shell are getting in the bowl — in the egg, I mean, in the bowl — so I’m concerned as I’m looking at the mess I’m making, but suddenly, I’m doing this in front of a kind of ledge. I don’t know if the ledge just appeared or if I just never saw it, but it’s actually a balcony above a bunch of people who are seated in these rows of black plastic chairs, with an open column in the middle, like some big thing is happening. There’s a stage in front, but instead, they’re just all watching me, I guess. Maybe there was a big-screen TV or something. I dunno. But they’re wearing suits and dresses and shit. They only come to my consciousness… sub-consciousness? Huh. Well, I only become aware of them in my dream because they start applauding me and I feel that helpless feeling you get when people applaud you.”

“Helpless?”

“Yeah, like you can’t do anything. Suddenly, everyone’s attention is on you and you can’t make them stop. Like, what if you wanna talk or something? Or what if you just wanna walk off-stage? But you’re supposed to stand there and smile and acknowledge it in some way that shows some poise and appreciation or something.”

“You’re right. Shit. That’s terrible, sometimes.”

“I hate being applauded.”

Her head lowered, but her gaze stayed on Hugo. She made a face as though she’d just eaten something surprisingly sour. “I hate people just looking at me.”

“It’s a terrible feeling. Suddenly, everyone thinks they’re doing you this great favor and it’s worse because I then feel guilty. Everyone’s there praising me and all I can think is how I want them to stop. Usually, it’s because I did something for the purpose of getting positive attention, but then I instantly regret it.”

“Like makeup or heels. Well, I guess I wear those to feel good about myself, but that’s not totally true.”

She sipped her tea and gazed at the ceiling.

“Like, would I ever wear makeup or heels or revealing clothing or deodorant if society hadn’t told me I have to?”

“Male gaze.”

“Not just male gaze. Female gaze sometimes seems worse, but it’s informed by the male gaze because it’s the men who’ve been in charge.”

“Of course. Fucking Disney, man. Well, not just Disney, but a lot of it is Disney. I couldn’t imagine what it’s like to be a woman and to have to deal with that. My friend once recommended I go around in drag one day and see how it works out, but honestly, I nearly shit my pants any time I hear people applauding, so how would that work out for me?”

She smiled, but her eyes and cheeks didn’t move.

Hugo’s mouth opened as he looked around the room, and he walked in a path the shape of a small, strange orb. “You know what I’d really like? I would just love if everyone, instead of applauding, would simply come up to me discreetly and pay me compliments: ‘Hugo, that egg-cracking was so good and you’re so handsome,’ ‘Hugo, you really shut down that internet philosopher with your argument on the hypocrisy of violence. Please have my babies.’ And some people could touch me a little more — well, they all could if they were just more earnestly effusive in their praise of me and if they showed some emotional intuitiveness. I’d love if everyone would just wear weird, fun socks and be sensitive and quietly sure of themselves, if they wouldn’t talk too much, except to talk about philosophy and shit, if they’d appear a little androgynous, and if they’d all just say moderately sweet things to me with no expectations. That’s a world I could get behind.”

“Let’s get that revolution started, Hugo. Do we start with a blowjob?”

“That’s crude. Kiss me first.”

She looked at him with no real expression.

Hugo’s mind could only wander so far from his current preoccupation. “It really shook me. I mean, I woke up and I felt terrible. I almost cried. I wanted to cry and I was frustrated that I couldn’t cry. I laid in bed and —”

“Lay.”

“Huh?”

“You lay in bed.”

“I thought it was ‘I lie down to sleep.'”

“That’s in the present tense. In the past tense, you ‘lay’ down to sleep. Well, you also lie yourself down. That one’s a little complicated, but the way you said it, it would’ve made more sense to have said ‘lay.'”

“Really? Well, I was just laying there, okay?”

She winked at him.

“It really bothered me. I couldn’t get back to sleep. I wanted to. I mean, look at my eyes. I look like shit.”

“You look okay. You look a little tired, but you’re fine.”

“I woke up, and my heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my shoulders and neck.”

“That sounds scary. You should’ve meditated.”

“Yeah. I mean, I think I kinda tried, but I just kept thinking about things. It made me so anxious. I don’t know why. I don’t know why it upset me so much. People were just clapping for me. That’s not so awful. Then, I woke up and started thinking about how I should be working, about how I have no money, about how I need to be a better father. I thought about Lily. I woke up so scared. I’m such a failure. I fail at everything.”

“Maybe you haven’t always achieved what you’ve wanted to, but I wouldn’t say you’ve failed at everything. It’s all subjective, anyway. And it’s all in the past. It’s not this reality. It’s not what’s happening now.”

“No, I’ve failed at everything. Really.”

Hugo wasn’t understanding her.  He’d made several laps around the room by this point, and seemed to be picking up speed. He stopped.

His arms made wide, sweeping movements, making him appear bigger. “I don’t deserve applause. I’ve never deserved any applause. Why would anyone ever applaud anyone? Who deserves it? Why? For what? We’re all self-motivated and nothing we ever do is some great display of anything except our environmental influences and the arbitrary things that make us different from others. It’s not my fault. Nothing’s my fault, but I don’t deserve anything good or bad, either.”

Hugo realized that he’d had these and similar thoughts a thousand times before. It wasn’t helpful. Maybe it felt good to say these things, but he wasn’t solving any problem. He’d thought he might’ve been finding important answers a few times before, but he’d learned better by now.

“Applause is this act that says you should’ve been doing something or you’re better than someone because of what you did. Applause is kind of a violent act.”

Hugo felt self-satisfied, but it didn’t help anything. He sat, distracted from his company.

He made an expression that wasn’t like his usual freakout expression. She was concerned, but she knew that there was nothing she could say to help.

The Aftermath of Two Fuccbois Colliding, part two

part one

“But look, the sex thing is just a distraction. That’s not the thing.”

“Okay, Hugo. What’s the thing?”

“The thing is that the whole situation was completely fucked from the start and it never should’ve happened. He didn’t even really wanna be with her. He didn’t know that, but that’s the truth.”

“Hugo, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he get with her if he didn’t wanna be with her? And what are you: Miss Cleo? You’re a mind reader now?”

“Miss Cleo? I barely even remember that.”

“Yeah, well.”

“She went to prison, right?”

“Think so.”

“Okay, so you’re right. I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty, but this isn’t rocket science. He pulled some classic young man bullshit.”

“Okay.”

Hugo’s toe started to tap on the floor. “So let me just tell you what happened.”

“Of course. So sorry.”

“Yeah. Well, at one point, she had been talking to both of us, and he got all upset about it. Before that, she’d moved on. She’d told him that she didn’t want to get back with him, but fuccbois do what fuccbois do, right?”

James’s head rotated down a couple inches and returned.

“So he did exactly what he had to do to soothe his fragile, young, stupid ego. He hadn’t been with anyone else, so even though he’d turned this poor, sensitive lady down in so many ways, so many times, even though he’d abused and neglected her, he decided that she was his default option and that was good enough for him to put her back through the ringer again. He told her it was ‘inevitable’ that they’d be together. This was his rationale. I guess he was tired of not fucking or something.”

“It’s hard to go without fucking, man, especially if you’re getting some good ass, but ‘inevitable’ is pretty rough. Not a good look.” James’s eyelids tightened around his eyes. “She went for that?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m sure it was more than just the ass. I don’t blame the guy, but the thing is he hadn’t even been with anyone else. He just kept treating her like shit and I was really in love with her. She was in love with him and with me, which is fine, but he was just being a typical fuccboi.”

“Pretty typical. That’s right. But he just didn’t get with other women because he couldn’t, then?”

“Well, she would say that he wasn’t very interested in other women, but it’s not like women were all over him, either. This guy was young. You know, I guess he did start to miss her. I’m not saying that he didn’t have any feelings for her. Anyway, so he starts telling her all the shit she’s been burning to hear from him for months, YEARS, even.”

James nodded and his voice rose a few pitches and became more nasal, as he mocked, “Oh, baby, I’m gonna change. I wanna be a better man. I’ll do whatever you want. It’s not because you want me to. I want it for myself, blah, blah.”

“Right, but more than that. I mean, she’d been complaining about how he acted for years, so he knew exactly what she’d wanted. He half-acted like he didn’t want to tell her how he felt out of respect for my relationship with her, but the thing is she’d been wanting him to open up and finally show his feelings, and he knew she was in love with him, anyway, so all he had to do was give some indication that something was going on with his feelings and she was gonna push him the rest of the way, making her feel better for him opening up, and letting him say some shit that was really kinda fucked up.”

The corners of James’s mouth bent to form hooks in his face and his eyes flattened out, but he didn’t quite smile. “That’s slick, man.”

Hugo responded, “I mean, it was fucking obvious, but she was in love, so how was she gonna see it? And he probably didn’t even know he was doing it.”

“Yeah. Most people don’t know when they’re being manipulative, and he was feeling desperate and lonely, so he rationalized it. But is ‘manipulation’ the right word?”

“What would you call it?”

“Manipulation. Yeah. But there should be another word. I mean, I think of manipulation and I’m thinking like Scrooge McDuck rubbing his hands together, setting some elaborate trap.”

“That’s true. Still, I think most manipulation happens in people’s blind spots.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s why abuse happens, right?” It occurred to James that the situation was very complicated. “Damn, man. People have to learn this shit the hard way. You can’t convince someone that they shouldn’t go back to their shitty ex, just because the ex was lonely and said he wanted to change. Everyone does that shit. I mean, dudes have to learn to not kid themselves and women have to learn that abusive exes are bullshitters until the jackasses actually grow up.”

“Well, maybe that’s sexist, but I think it’s mostly that way.” Hugo’s eyes met the corner of the room. “I know you’re right. Anyway, it gets worse.”

“Oh. Please proceed.”

“Well, so he’s telling her all this shit and she’s getting roped back in. She’d decided never again, but he’d never pulled any of this heroic shit before because he’d never had to. Now, it’s his only option, right? This time, he’s going to therapy and getting into all this spiritual shit or whatever. Quoting Pema Chodron. They always ended up back together without his having to try. But it’s a matter of his ego, so he’s all in.”

“All in. Absolutely. He can’t let go and he can’t deal with being told ‘no.’ Real fuccboi style. Pema, man. That’s deep.”

“So eventually what happens is she and he are starting to get close and he smells blood. Well, plus, he doesn’t totally know what’s going on with her and me. She won’t admit to him that she’s in love with me, and I guess he’s avoided asking if we’ve had sex, but he also knows she’s getting more emotionally invested in him, so maybe he assumes that nothing’s happened with her and me. It’s more emotionally convenient for him to assume that, I figure.”

“But she won’t admit that she’s in love with you?”

“Well, she told him that she might be or some shit like that.”

“Hugo, that’s kinda fucked.”

“I know, but what am I gonna do? Anyway, so one weekend, she and I hang out for several days in a row and Benjamin’s all butthurt about it.”

“You shouldn’t say that, man.”

“What?”

“‘Butthurt.’ It’s stupid and homophobic.”

Hugo’s eyes narrow, as he looks around the room. “Hm. I see that. My bad.”

“Don’t say ‘my bad,’ like I’m the fag delegation. It’s cool. Just don’t say ‘butthurt’ anymore.”

“Right. Sorry. Well, not sorry. Whatever. Anyway, this one weekend, she and I are hanging out and it goes great. Things have kind of crossed this threshold and we’re totally comfortable, falling more in love, the sex is great, and it feels like it’s becoming real.”

“But she’s also getting more into homeboy.”

“That’s true, but she’s been there and done that. All that has to happen is enough time has to pass and eventually, she’s gonna have strong enough feelings for me, plus there are all the more practical reasons why she’d choose me over him, plus sex with me will eventually be better than with him, at least because he’s young and inexperienced and I’m decent at sex for my age.”

“Don’t talk shit, man. I’ve never heard anyone say how you’re great in bed.”

“Maybe I don’t fuck weird, loud people who brag about that shit, and I’m not saying I’m ‘great,’ anyway. Just not bad.”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway, that’s not the point. I mean, the dude’s young, so let’s just assume that the sex will be at least as good. I mean, who knows? But the way I see it, it was just a matter of time before she felt comfortable enough choosing me, and the thing is that I wasn’t even thinking that it needed to be me and not him.”

“You would’ve been with her if she’d still been with him, too?”

“I mean, I dunno, but I was comfortable with the way things were going at that point.”

“Interesting. But hold on a sec. You said something about ‘practical reasons’ why she’d choose you over him.”

“Yeah. He was just kinda boring and emotionally unaware and shit like that. She thought he was funny, but I could be funny.”

“You can be kinda funny. You’re not George Carlin. You’re not even Jim Jeffries.”

“Just listen, man.”

“Okay.”

“To her, I was this creative person and I understood her feelings and we had all these interesting conversations. She’d talk about how she’d dated other guys who checked off boxes that he didn’t, but no one had checked off all of those boxes, plus the ones he checked off, until I came around.”

“So you were like this superior boyfriend prospect in every way, but she’s caught up in her feelings, basically.”

“More or less. Anyway, so this weekend happens and I’m thinking we’re gonna eventually move in together or something. Or if not that, just that things are about to get more serious at least. But a few hours after she and I part, she texts me and says we can’t talk anymore. This is a little shocking, but I know it’s just a weird reaction, probably to some dumb shit Benji said, and I don’t really know what it means but I figure that she and I are good at dealing with our problems, so I’m cool about it and I just call her.”

“Uh huh.”

Hugo took a long breath. “Well, apparently, he finally decided to ask if she and I’d had sex and so now, he’s fucking pissed. He thinks that she told him they’re gonna be together, but yet she’s fucking me, even though she says she’d never said that she’d made a decision or whatever. Who knows, really, but I trust her. She was always more honest than she had to be. Well, for the most part. Anyway, I guess he’s feeling really insecure. So then, he does what he’s always done, which is to be shitty to her and blame it all on her. He said that she’s terrible and all this shit and then he threatened her, saying he won’t talk to her anymore, so what’s she gonna do?”

“Oh, no. Oh shit, Hugo.”

“Yeah, and in the conversation, she explains how she wouldn’t talk to me for a while even if shit didn’t work out with Benjamin.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. To be consistent? I mean, I think it was like, if she wasn’t going to talk to me, she had to have a reason, and the reason only worked if it worked in both cases. She told me it was because this was all causing her to go through this emotional whirlwind, but she wasn’t suggesting that she not talk to both of us; only me.”

James’s mouth went sideways as he looked at Hugo. “She was more in love with Ben, so he was the priority, even if he was the one being shitty.”

“Because he was being shitty.”

“Right. It’s unfair. Human feelings are weird things. Damn, Hugo.”

“He’d put all this pressure on her and she was so in love with him. He was her first love, so even though it made no sense, she just had to make a decision in the moment, and part of that included not talking to me because it was what she thought she had to do to preserve this thing with her beloved fuccboi. He had this card in his pocket. Once he’d built up enough with her, got all those feelings recirculating, made it as though he was going to right all his past wrongs –”

“That shit’s so alluring.”

“He only had to put all this pressure on her and she’d choose him. And he did it right as things between her and me were really starting to build. Maybe he did it out of fear.”

“Yeah, I get that.” James stood up and took a few steps across the living room floor. “I mean… I get that. Man, that dude really did a fucked up thing. Maybe he didn’t mean to. Shit, man.”

James stopped pacing. “What else could she do? She had to make a choice in the moment. Why couldn’t she see it? I guess she just didn’t know. She was just a kid. Fuck. This is what happens when you date a kid, Hugo. Damn. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“Well, she and I talked about what was happening, but what could I really do? I mean, she was afraid of losing this thing she’d always wanted.”

“Yeah. That’s so fucked, Hugo.”

“He played it perfectly. She had no choice, really, you know? I mean, I shouldn’t have felt bad about it.”

“Well, to be fair, you were losing the love of your life.”

“Yeah. I know I’m not supposed to blame myself.”

“You really shouldn’t.”

“She was so desperate to deal with the intense feelings she had. She was trapped. She couldn’t do anything different, even if it didn’t make sense, even if every sign said she shouldn’t.”

“She just didn’t know. Gotta learn that one the hard way.”

“So of course I tried to convince her. I made every argument. I tried to be understanding. I was frustrated. But then, I blew up on her.”

“Yeah. All of that was stupid. Everything you just said. Why you did any of that I have no idea. You’ve told me about the blowup. You should’ve just let it go. You knew you were probably gonna get another chance. That shit was dumb, Hugo, and you blew it.” James plopped back down in the old, deteriorating sofa, and the room seemed to settle with him.

“Yeah, well, I wrote a letter back when they were together. There was never a good time to give it to her, and then they broke up.”

James’s voice rose a little. “Yeah. There was never a good time because there was never gonna be a good time. You totally fucked shit up.”

James was now frustrated. He was frustrated by all three parties in the situation. He didn’t want to show his frustration with Hugo, but he knew that Hugo had only needed to have been patient. So stupid, Hugo.

Hugo continued, “You don’t even know what the letter said. I still think about giving it to her.”

“Well, what’d it say, then?”

Hugo reached into his front left pocket and James’s eyes grew, “YOU KEEP THE LETTER ON YOU AT ALL TIMES? ARE YOU A PSYCHOPATH?!”

“Look, it means something to me.” Hugo’s hands went above his head and then smacked against his thighs. “It’s not what you think it is. Maybe it’s stupid of me, but I don’t want to lose the opportunity.”

“Opportunity? For what?!”

“I dunno, man.”

“Read the shit, you crazy person.”

Hugo unfolded the crinkled piece of lined notebook paper. He read slowly, “I think I represent something significant to you. I think there’s something inside you — I don’t know how big or small it might be, maybe it doesn’t mean much to you – but there’s some part of you that wants to be with me. You want to know what it’s like to be with me. You want what I can give you, you want what I represent to you. And I think maybe that small part of you will continue to be curious about me, you’ll think about me. When you’re with him, it won’t completely go away. Not for a long time, anyway. You’ll want it to. You’ll feel guilty, but that small part of you will hold on to this idea, this question, this desire. Maybe it’ll grow and it’ll bother you. Maybe it’ll become unbearable and you won’t know what to do. Maybe not. It’s what I think, anyway. It’s what I hope for. I want to haunt you in precious moments with him, but more than that, I want you to be with me. I want you to change your mind. I want you to be consumed by the tension and I want to fix things with you. I want us to heal each other. I want you to stop torturing both of us.”

Hugo looked up from the weathered document and into James’s eyes. James quickly looked away and began repeatedly pinching his bottom lip between his fingers. After a brief spell, James looked back up at Hugo. “That’s so fucked up, Hugo. You want to haunt someone? You’re not even dead. That’s weird as fuck.”

They sat in silence for a while before James continued, “It’s short. I thought it’d be longer. Why would you write that? Why would you think that would work? Did you think it’d really work?” James didn’t realize it, but his head was gently rotating about his neck, back-and-forth. “I’m glad you didn’t give her that. It’s kinda beautiful in a weird way. You’re a very fucking weird dude, man.”

Hugo ignored him. He ceremoniously, even regally, sat in the recliner and put his hands on his knees. He stared intently at a spot a few feet in front of James. Hugo’s face had grown very intense and his whole body was practically motionless as he looked up, “I’ve decided I’m gonna kill myself.”

“No, you’re not. People don’t say they’re gonna kill themselves. They just do it. Anyway, it’d be bullshit for you to do that to Savannah.”

“No. That’s the thing. She doesn’t really know me that well and that’s good. If I died, then she could just resent me, but I don’t have to completely fuck her up. I’m gonna fuck her up. That’s obvious. If I stay alive, then I either fuck her up by not doing enough or I fuck her up by just being me. This is the least bad option.”

“Hugo, that’s some irresponsible bullshit, but you’re not gonna kill yourself, and don’t use some Benthamian shit on me.”

Who the fuck is Bentham, Hugo thought.

“You’re not that kind of depressed. You’re dramatic. You always want attention, but in some weird, fucked up way, you kinda believe in yourself. You’re just feeling desperate. I love you, Hugo, and I don’t ever say shit like that. Not to a dude. It’s not ’cause I’m black. Well, maybe it’s ’cause I’m black. In a way. Maybe. I’m not even black, you know? Shit’s complicated. Anyway, the point is I’m here, man, and I don’t really like you that much, but everyone else hates you, so I have no choice but to try to help you. Don’t kill yourself, man. It’s stupid, and this shit will pass. Look: you stay on my couch, you don’t have a job, shit’s not that bad. You don’t have much to worry about. Just figure it out. I don’t know how the fuck you eat, honestly, but you ain’t lookin’ famished, so I think you’re alright. Why don’t we go out tonight and you can talk to some chicks who are too young for you? It’s disgusting to me when you do that, but it’s kinda funny. I can show you how to get a woman your own age and she’ll be just as hot as the girls you sometimes bring home.”

“Not everyone I date is too young.”

“Yeah, but that shit’s a little weird, Hugo, not to mention maybe a little misogynistic.

“More Patriarchal than misogynistic.”

“Maybe. Anyway, you shouldn’t do that shit, and I shouldn’t enable you, but it’s better than you fucking up my place with a bunch of your blood. I’m kidding. Shit’s gonna be okay, man. Let’s just go out later. I want to. I’m here for you, man.”

“Jim, I can never tell if you’re the wisest or stupidest person I know.”

Hugo walked toward the window. “I’m making the responsible decision here.” Hugo smiled gently and his eyes showed that he was in some place far from James’s home. Hugo seemed serene. “I’m gonna kill myself tomorrow. I’ll have done something good for the world: the least harm.”

James didn’t know what to say. He sat for a few minutes, trying to think of how to help. Finally, he said, “You know, you never told me what happened to set all this off today.”

Hugo’s face barely moved, “I just did.”

The Aftermath of Two Fuccbois Colliding, part one

As Hugo pushed open the door, James sat on the dilapidated couch, half-mindedly playing guitar. “What’s good, Hugo?”

Hugo spoke slowly and deliberately. His voice wasn’t wavering, but it wasn’t even, either: “You know what, man? Is anything good? I don’t know that anything’s good.” His eyes widened, as he considered the thought. “Maybe nothing’s bad. I dunno.”

Hugo paused and, peering at James, quickly collected himself, “Everything’s fine.”

James was caught off-guard.  He stared down at the beat-up old guitar. He was very proud of his guitar. It sounded beautiful. But right now, he was too distracted by the guitar to pay attention to Hugo and too distracted by Hugo to play anything worth hearing. “Hugo… what’s up?”

Hugo took a moment, “You remember that girl Lily?”

“The one you were gonna be Happily Ever After with, but you fucked it up instead, right?”

“Yeah.”

Hugo’s eyes shifted from side-to-side. His face was tight and alert. He was focused, but on nothing. The guitar clanged as it fell from James’s lap, and neither of them reacted. James stared at Hugo and stood up.

Hugo labored through his speech, carefully thinking about every word and every possible word, replaying the past and imagining what-could’ve-beens as he responded, “I really fucked that up, Jimbo. I really fucked it up and I’ve been fucking up ever since. I was fucking up before that, but maybe Lily was the lucky break I was supposed to get. I don’t know if everyone gets a lucky break. Maybe I was getting a lucky break of a sort that most people never get. It could’ve been okay to have fucked up all that other shit, but this was different. This is a real-life tragedy.”

James stared at Hugo, and Hugo looked down at his feet. They both knew it wasn’t really a tragedy. A boy fucked things up with a girl. Okay, a man fucked things up with a woman, but the reality was that Hugo wasn’t in any real danger. No one was dying, but What’s up with Hugo? It looks like he’s crying. Is he on drugs?

“I mean, I know it’s not like that, you know? I’m catastrophizing.” Hugo’s eyes pointed at his perfectly intact hairline. “I’ve tried. Really, I don’t know what more I could’ve done. This is just how I am. I don’t know why I’m like this. I don’t mean to feel sorry for myself. I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself. In fact, I feel bad for everyone around me. You shouldn’t let me stay on your couch like this, man. Maybe I’m one of those people who needs to learn things the hard way. I’m just a blood-sucking nuisance. I come into people’s lives and I ruin things. Even if someone manages to escape my destruction, no one leaves being made better. Not in any way. Never. People just escape me clinging on to whatever I haven’t taken or damaged.”

James spoke calmly. He seemed wise, “Hugo, in the time I’ve known you, and from what I’ve heard, you’ve only had hard lessons. In a lot of ways, I don’t know a more unlucky person than you.”

“No way. No. I’m super lucky. You have no idea how lucky I am. I didn’t grow up like you or like a lot of people.”

That’s probably at least a little racist, James thought. Or maybe just homophobic. Is biphobic a thing? I guess it is. Whatever. Listen.

“I was raised in a medium-sized town in America with every opportunity. I was in the Gifted Program, you know? I was good at sports. I excelled in drama and art. A lot of people liked me, even if a few realized that I was worse than everyone else. People liked me for stupid and shallow reasons, but the fact is that I had advantages. So many people are less lucky than I am, but I constantly do the wrong things. I mean, I barely do anything, but when I do anything at all, I fuck it up, and not just for me. And then I feel bad for it and I miss out on the opportunities in front of me. A lot of times, I can totally fix things, but I’m so goddamn distracted and shitty that I don’t even realize it. And then I take what opportunities I do get and I completely squander them and the cycle repeats all over.”

“Well, Hugo, you weren’t exactly rich. Your family wasn’t exactly great. Hugo, what happened?” James’s hands had become loose water hoses and his voice suddenly had more power.

“You wanna know what happened?”

Hugo’s  big, soft hand went up to his brow and wiped down over his face. His forefinger and thumb rubbed down the edges of his O-shaped mouth. His eyes were as big as apricots.

“I’m gonna die alone, James.” Hugo laughed a little, and James’s brow wrinkled, forming a firm, cushiony shelf over his eyes. “Think about it. There’s no alternative, really, if you think about how I am. The longer I go on, the more I ruin things. Everything. Lily’s alone, too, you know? She has been for a long time now. I ruined her, huh? I mean, she changed after me. She’s going around looking for someone who’s just like me and being afraid of everyone who’s just like me. It’s bad enough that I fuck up my life, but now her life is VERY fucked. She doesn’t deserve this. I probably did irreparable damage. The best-case scenario for her is that she gets over everything in a few years and then she’s just jaded. That’s the best option. That’s fucked up for a best option, Jimbo. It’s no good. I did that.” Hugo was shaking his head, scowling.

“Hugo, look at me.” James’s hands were in the air, mimicking someone pushing a box on a shelf, with his palms moving toward Hugo. “That’s not the best-case scenario. Look, normally, I’d say you need to forget her, and I believe that, too, but the thing is if everything you’re saying is true, then you still have some effect on her. It’s a bad effect, so you need to stay away for now, but she’s going to heal from this, you’re going to heal from this. Who’s to say that in a few years, you couldn’t meet up and exchange a good conversation and you couldn’t apologize to her and tell her about all the good shit you’ve done since then and maybe y’all could get some counseling or some shit? I mean, I don’t want you to fixate on that and that’s not a good goal for you to have, but if it’s meant to be, somehow, that shit’s gonna be. You’re really dramatizing this shit right now, Hugo. I don’t know why now, but shit’s gonna be fine. You don’t need to be trippin’ out right now. What happened, anyway? What set this off?”

Hugo avoided the question: “Nothing. I dunno. I’ve just been thinking. I just can’t believe shit went down like that. You know, I used to imagine being married when I was a kid. Not the wedding, not like that, but I knew I’d be married and have kids some day. And she’s all I ever really wanted. I could’ve been content, I could’ve been okay. Everything was right for a minute.

“Someone told me that she drinks more than she used to. I asked if she ever talks about me, and my friend said Lily hates talking about me and mostly limits discussion of me to mildly insulting things, through sneers. But one night, this friend of mine saw Lily in the restroom, crying, and she asked what was wrong, and Lily just started bawling, talking about how sweet and smart I was, how perfect it all had been, how she constantly misses me, constantly thinks about me, how she even fantasizes about me.”

James looked at Hugo curiously. Their eyes met awkwardly.

“Yeah. Sexually. But my friend was saying how Lily kept going back and forth because she sometimes didn’t know if she’d made the wrong choice, but that all she had to do was remember my freakout to realize she’d made the right choice, that I was a complete disaster and incredibly dangerous.”

Hugo was bothered by this thought. He paused to keep from crying. He was a little angry with himself, “She’s right you know. I am a dangerous disaster. No one should come near me.”

Hugo felt embarrassed and was consumed by the feeling that there was something very wrong with him.

“But the thing is that other guy was fucking awful to her and even worse for her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’d dated him before, you know. They’re just not compatible at all. I mean, they get along okay in certain ways, but he’s so boring compared to her. I have no idea why she was into him. He’s kinda weird in a way and she’s used to him. Who the fuck knows?

“Anyway, I know you don’t really know what happened — not all of it. The thing is that what he did was so shitty. He knew that she and I were dating. She told him that she wanted to be friends with him, but he didn’t respect that. I don’t totally blame the guy. What would you do if you were in love with someone? Still, the whole thing is fucked. She and I were having these long talks about philosophy and we were joking around. Things were getting more serious and we’re thinking about how we can maybe date long term and shit.

“She told me how stupid her fights with him had been and those fights were nothing compared to my past relationships, but that’s just the thing: with her and me, there wasn’t really any fighting. Our conflicts were all so quickly defused that we never managed to get really mad at each other. I mean, sometimes there was tension but it was almost nothing. We respected each other and we had compatible strategies for dealing with these things. When she and her ex would fight, he’d just be a dick to her and not take any responsibility for anything. His strategy was to run away, punching the whole time.”

James was alarmed, “He’d hit her?”

“No, no. I meant figuratively. He’d just attack her as he was running away and then he’d stonewall her. This was his instinctual way of dealing with conflicts. He’d blame her and say shitty things to her and then wouldn’t talk about anything. You know people like that?”

“I think it’s pretty normal, really.”

“I agree. Anyway, she and I didn’t really fight; at least, not in an unhealthy way. With her, everything was good.”

James knew Hugo to be dramatic. He was skeptical, “Everything? Communication? Sex? Money?”

“I mean, neither of us was rich, but it wasn’t that big a deal. I was working a shitty job, and she wasn’t doing much of anything. She’d just come back from France.”

“What was she doing in France?”

“You know, I never totally understood it. She was studying and she was working, but it didn’t sound like she was doing either, exactly.”

“What’d she study?”

“Art and international politics.”

“Man… that shit’s fancy. She must’ve been a rich girl.”

“I mean, not rich, but her parents did okay. Anyway, yeah; everything was basically pretty good.”

“But you said the sex, though.”

“Yeah, man. The sex was good.”

“Was it really good, though? Tell me that nasty shit, Hugo. Like, was it the best you’d ever had?”

Hugo paused. “It was very good sex, but honestly, we hadn’t had all that much sex. When we’d started out, we hadn’t had sex because we knew she was going to France and we didn’t know what would happen. I mean, we only finally kissed right before she left.”

“That’s some real rom-com shit there, Hugo, but you’re avoiding the question. Best? Not the best?”

“Yeah, lemme explain.”

“Fine.”

“Well, so yeah, at first, it really was some cheesy shit, but it was so nice. We would mostly just talk and joke around. We’d stare at each other a lot and we’d find little excuses to, like, brush up against each other. We’d kind-of, almost hold hands, until finally we did hold hands and later that day was when we finally made out, right before she took off. She was kinda fascinated with me. I was fascinated with her, too, of course, but she mentioned over and over how she liked my energy, and she would just stare at me. She’d think I didn’t notice, but I did.”

“Hugo, you’re not even that good-looking. I mean, you’re handsome and shit, but why the fuck would anyone just stare at you?”

“Well, she’s an artist, right?”

“True.”

“And she’s one of those weird, curious, introverted girls.”

“‘Women,’ Hugo.”

“You’re right. My bad. Well, she’s pretty weird. I mean, she’s into philosophy and politics and she’s super-creative. Most of the times I’ve ever seen her, there’s been paint on her somewhere. She often smells funny. Not bad, and not even really in a hippie way. It’s funny and it fits her. It’s sweet in a way.”

“You’re idealizing this shit, but go ahead. She smells like shit. Proceed.”

“Whatever. Well, yeah, so the sex was like, it never starts out as good as it gets, right? Well, that’s not true. You could fuck someone and the feelings are right but the sex itself is actually mediocre and somehow things quickly become very boring, so the first time or two is as good as it gets and then it wears off, I guess. At least, that’s happened to me before.”

Why was Hugo saying this shit? “Okay.”

“Okay, so this was different. It started out and we didn’t know what each other liked, you know?”

“Like anal.”

“Or, like, do you wanna be slapped? Do you want dirty talk in soft whispers? Is doing it in front of people your thing? Do you like some serious dominance? You can’t know at first, really.”

“Well, but you guys had been talking for a year, right?”

“No. I mean, yeah, but we had sex before then. Oh, right, so we didn’t have sex before she left, but she came back six months into her trip, just to visit family and shit. So we fucked then.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, so the thing was that we were so into each other at that point. I mean, by the time we saw each other when she came back, we both knew we were in love. I mean, we didn’t know until we saw each other and we didn’t say it to each other until after she went back to France, but we both knew. Maybe we knew before then. Maybe we’d known right away. But by then, we definitely knew. So the sex was crazy because of all this emotional tension that was pinned back, waiting to make its way out of us. It was just one of those surreal things to be finally making love to this person who was so amazing and such a positive force in my life. I knew her so well in so many ways and I trusted her. I finally felt safe. I’d been fucking around and ruining relationships and finally, someone knew me in this deep way, this way that you can’t describe, and she wanted to be with me. She wanted to be close to me and she wanted to experience things with me. We did all these things together and they were unique things and they were even more unique because they were with each other. We’re unique people but we also had this unique dynamic. It was really special. She wanted to be my girlfriend and I knew all this about her. I knew from the way she would still just stare at me. I knew because we could have these crazy conversations about things that we couldn’t talk to lots of other people about. Well, that’s not totally true. I mean, she and I were really similar and we had similar views. I think that it was special, but she’d tell me how there were other people in her life who were smart and curious and thoughtful and she could talk to them in a similar way. I don’t know that her conversations with others were as special as the way we could talk, but maybe I’m just biased.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Hugo made an irritated face, half out of a sense of obligation. “So the sex was magical in a way, but we also didn’t really know what the fuck we were doing, yet. We didn’t really know each other’s bodies.”

“Y’all were talking all that time, and you didn’t know what each other was into?”

“Well, we were always talking about ethics and campaign finance reform and how much we like trees and spirituality and shit. I mean, we talked about some sexual stuff, but almost not at all. And she wasn’t that experienced. She’d fucked like two or three other guys or something: her totally inexperienced, shitty ex, and some other guy. Maybe another guy, too? This isn’t a detail I put too much care into remembering.”

Hugo stopped a second to remember where he was trying to go with the conversation.

“So it’s weird because this magical feeling eventually wore off a little, though not too much and not for long, since shit ended so abruptly. But the sex didn’t get worse because of it. It’s funny because I could tell she learned some shit from me. There was some shit that she really liked doing with me. It was cool because it was some shit that I really liked to do, but I could tell that, for her, maybe part of it was the novelty or something or maybe it was something else, but it was new and exciting for her. Anyway, we were getting better at figuring out how to fuck each other as we got more used to each other.”

Hugo looked away from James, as though the answer would suddenly appear in the environment. “Was it the best sex I ever had? I had some pretty fucking good sex with a couple other women. I’ll say this: it was the best sex in terms of me having been an actual, full-grown adult and it being so early in the relationship. Sex with other women always took a few times to get really good, so you have to try to compares apples to apples as much as you can.”

“That’s true.”

“I guess it would’ve become the best sex I ever had. I’m sure it would’ve been. It was the best early-on sex I ever had and everything was there for it to be the best. She’s so beautiful, so sweet, so sensitive, and we were so connected in such a profound way. If we’d fucked a few more times, I think that our beds would’ve become orgasm machines. It was getting there. I guess he was better at fucking her in some way.”

“Don’t do that, man. You taught her some shit. You just didn’t have the whole opportunity.”

“Yeah, and then she probably got him to do it to her.”

“Yeah, man; that’s how that goes. That’s life. It’s like a Drake song.”

“Yeah. Fuck, man.”

part two

How to Lose at Life, Especially When it Counts

Nothing matters. Everyone says this drab, obvious shit, but it’s true and you fucking know it. Nothing matters. At all. There’s no point in anything. There’s no order in the world, there’s no justice. Something can make perfect sense, you can feel that you have the answer safely in the palm of your hands, and the universe will pop up and snatch it away and leave a flaming pile of shit where perfection used to be. Then, you’re supposed to clean up the flaming shit while you wallow in terror and shock. Fucking sucks, right?

There’s really no point in doing anything or being anything because it’ll only get ruined. You’ll probably be the one to ruin it eventually because of all the pressure, as well as the fact that you’re just generally a fuck-up. Everything requires a perfect balance, but few of us will ever be such emotional tightrope walkers. And trust me. If you’re reading this bullshit, you’re not doing well. Don’t feel bad, though; I’m actually writing this hot garbage. You’re welcome, fuckface.

Some people deal with the terribly unfair reality that is humanity by being nothing, by feeling nothing, by being perfectly molded by the asininity floating in the atmosphere of the world around us. Some people traverse the Earth looking like they live on a boat, driving SUVs, putting money before all other gods, and laughing at shitty, stupid sitcoms on network television. They take vacations to places like Miami or Wyoming, occasionally going to Cancun when they’re feeling very fucking adventurous. They read novels by John Grisham and E. L. James and Ayn Rand, and they laugh at you when you talk about what’s really beautiful in the world or how good things could be for everyone. And they’re right. In fact, they’re winning. They’ve mastered the whole goddamn thing by just being nothing, by thinking nothing. They’re nothing-people, and that’s how they beat you. They beat the shit out of you, in fact. Unless you’re one of them; in which case, fuck you.

You try to point out starving children in Africa and these boat people violently laugh at you and jack off onto your face. They make fun of your “small car.” They illuminate statistics meant to demonstrate that men are victims of abuse just as much OR EVEN MORE THAN! women or some shit about reverse racism or how transsexuality’s some made-up bullshit so that pervs and queers can molest kids or some other ridiculous bullshit. They fucking hate protestors. They want to murder them all, actually. They gnash their teeth at the mention of Anonymous or Al Gore or The Huffington Post™ or, god forbid, “The Whole World is Watching.” They’re emotionally dishonest with themselves because it’s really the only way to deal with the world. Who could blame them?

College campuses are filled with the children of these boat people, and they pass by signs that are intended to bring awareness to problems like rape on campus, racial discrimination, religious discrimination, LGBTQ issues, etc. These boat students walk by these reminders of the important questions in modern societies while they casually use the words “fag,” “bitch,” and “nigger” in casual conversations. The greediest (they like to say “hungriest”), most driven of them are business majors, and the ones who lack sufficient greed settle for economics or marketing or accounting or some other such Capitalistically-driven bullshit major. Can you imagine the old Greek philosophers observing universities where people major in advertising or management? Holy fuck.

These kids will grow up to wear the same stupid-looking brand name clothes at the same stupid country clubs, playing on the same stupid golf courses as their parents. Sure, lots of them vote Democrat, but they only go for corporate Democrats, who might as well be Republicans for what little difference it makes. Thanks, President Clinton. And to be clear, I don’t necessarily suppose that all Republican politicians are shittier than Democratic ones or are even shitty at all. We live in a weird time, really. The boat people seem to have taken over and driven us to Diarrheaville, USA.

But these people are honestly winning. All of them are winning. They’ll die brainless and happy, and leave large sums of money to their boat children, so that those dumb kids can go to Ivy League schools and later take high-paying jobs in New York, only to cheat on their spouses and thoughtlessly spill Dom Perignon at exclusive fundraising events, just like their parents and grandparents did.

They don’t know what it is to lose. They’ve never had the experience because even the ones who came from more modest means were born into a world that was perfectly set up for them to conquer. This world — their world — has been perfectly calibrated so that their combination of fortunate genetic inheritance and fortunate environmental inheritance can lead them to do whatever the fuck they want at everyone else’s expense. When other people (that is non-boat people) argue for raising taxes, boat people react in disbelief and disgust. That’s when you know you’ve won: you’re now advocating for everyone to keep more of what they “earn” because the needs of the most vulnerable people aren’t even an afterthought anymore. They’re just not a thought at all. Some people aren’t born so lucky, though.

In a way, I almost won once. I held something perfect. It seemed so easily attainable; in fact, it was all completely organic and almost accidental. I finally had the answer. I was at the finish line and I’d basically already won. But then, an evil force emerged from the shadows and found the only vulnerability in the inevitable perfect life I had lain before me, and this monstrosity exploited the vulnerability in the most conniving, effortless, heartless way. It served to ruin what would have been my perfect life. There was no other virtue in it. In fact, it only ruined everything for everyone.

I was made to be the bad guy as the evil force did its manipulating and abusing so that it could have what it wanted: to make me fail and to rob me and others of the best chance at happiness we’d ever had. It worked. I lost. We lost. Completely.

Would I ever recover from this? Well, I can say that I haven’t recovered yet and the prospects don’t look good. I’ll never get back the opportunity at that perfect life that was at that point guaranteed. Maybe I’ll find something else just as good. Doubtful. Who the fuck knows?

I guess I could take solace in the fact that living a good, happy life is kind of pointless, too. We live on this tiny Pale Blue Dot and we think we’re so fucking important, but the truth is that there’s this infinite universe that we know nothing about, and the vast majority of it doesn’t even know we’re here. The limit as x approaches us is zero. For all intents and purposes, we’re practically nothing. Long after we’re gone, the universe will keep spinning around some point that isn’t us, just as it did for the countless millennia before we got here. And it won’t have heard an Earthly sound. And then the universe will eventually peter out, too. And there’ll be nothing. So why give a shit about anything?

Everything dies in the end. There’s no point in pretending otherwise. All we’re doing is delaying the inevitable with childish, vapid hopes that we’ll discover a cure before the last gasp. It’s stupid. We’re dying. We’re all dying. Just as the universe is dying. Might as well embrace it. Or not. Who cares.