the strobes were merciless, badging them unearthly with reds and purples, and a very mean slash of yellow. But they were spry too, like theyâd just been dug up and were hungry and they were meat to each other. They had the floor to themselves but were only using a foot of it. Then they kissed and kept at it. They were glued and feeding, working their jaws like pumps.
It was gruesome, I suppose, and it might have been disgusting. What made it amazing was, when they broke away for breath, there was a long loop of spit that drew out between them. It hung swaying from their chins and stayed with them as they danced, as they shut their eyes and danced, oblivious and serene inside their own scrap of forever. Thatâs what knocked me out.
Chummy by that time had roused, and was humming or mumbling into his hand. âChummy,â I said, âyou think youâll love me when weâre old?â
He reared then. There was no blinking, and he seemed actually to focus, heaving his whole proud landscape of a face across the table into mine. âI donât even love you now, man.â
PAUL HEADRICK
HIGHLIFE
C hristopher, my husband, is angry â my husband is so angry â he is so profusely angry that he is dying that it is in everything, his anger is in everything. I can smell its sour smell and feel it burning, even in this shocking equatorial heat, and I can hear it buzzing in the air even as he sleeps beside me and the mosquito netting hardly moves in the lake breeze, which does not carry his hot, reeking anger away.
For three weeks after Christopher was diagnosed, his calm and confidence seemed as deep as ever, and then he sold his collection. I returned from a day at the institute just in time to see the last box loaded into the U-haul. It all made sense as Christopher, steady while I wept, explained what he had done. When he died I would not know how to deal with the records, or what was a fair price. He wanted them to go to someone who appreciated them. He had simply alerted his Internet discussion group to their availability, had announced his imminent death and his need to find a buyer promptly, and therehad been no negotiation, only a thorough exchange among his followers and fellow doo-wop aficionados across the continent, a consensus on a fair price, and then a sale. He took my hand and we went down to the basement together, where we stood among the empty metal shelves and turned about in the frightening new spaciousness, and I think now that right then he began to shift and we began to separate. My throat tightened and something numbed and corrupted the contact of my feet with the floor, of my hand with his, and I knew, without realizing I did, that he was banishing me.
Itâs true that I would not have appreciated the records the way another collector would, true that I would have appreciated them differently, and the sale brought money enough to pay for this trip and more. We certainly had enough money to pay our way through airport immigration, but Christopher refused and continued to question and demand as the immigration agent continued to insist. Our papers were not in order, we needed different visas, something was wrong with our visas, we would simply have to turn around and reboard for the return flight to Heathrow. Behind us the whispering, coughing, grumbling grew louder, and yet I knew that I could not simply pay the bribe, that Christopher was already receding and I could not risk a setback. I would have to live with his new stubbornness, his useless anger, and try to find a way to slide by and reach him once more. âThese visas are missing the second authority. They are not valid without the second authority,â the agent said again. Christopher smiled.
We were at the passport office the first time I saw this smile, suggesting something like appreciation for a particularly cruel joke, one with a wit that Christopher could not deny despitebeing its victim. He had
It was gruesome, I suppose, and it might have been disgusting. What made it amazing was, when they broke away for breath, there was a long loop of spit that drew out between them. It hung swaying from their chins and stayed with them as they danced, as they shut their eyes and danced, oblivious and serene inside their own scrap of forever. Thatâs what knocked me out.
Chummy by that time had roused, and was humming or mumbling into his hand. âChummy,â I said, âyou think youâll love me when weâre old?â
He reared then. There was no blinking, and he seemed actually to focus, heaving his whole proud landscape of a face across the table into mine. âI donât even love you now, man.â
PAUL HEADRICK
HIGHLIFE
C hristopher, my husband, is angry â my husband is so angry â he is so profusely angry that he is dying that it is in everything, his anger is in everything. I can smell its sour smell and feel it burning, even in this shocking equatorial heat, and I can hear it buzzing in the air even as he sleeps beside me and the mosquito netting hardly moves in the lake breeze, which does not carry his hot, reeking anger away.
For three weeks after Christopher was diagnosed, his calm and confidence seemed as deep as ever, and then he sold his collection. I returned from a day at the institute just in time to see the last box loaded into the U-haul. It all made sense as Christopher, steady while I wept, explained what he had done. When he died I would not know how to deal with the records, or what was a fair price. He wanted them to go to someone who appreciated them. He had simply alerted his Internet discussion group to their availability, had announced his imminent death and his need to find a buyer promptly, and therehad been no negotiation, only a thorough exchange among his followers and fellow doo-wop aficionados across the continent, a consensus on a fair price, and then a sale. He took my hand and we went down to the basement together, where we stood among the empty metal shelves and turned about in the frightening new spaciousness, and I think now that right then he began to shift and we began to separate. My throat tightened and something numbed and corrupted the contact of my feet with the floor, of my hand with his, and I knew, without realizing I did, that he was banishing me.
Itâs true that I would not have appreciated the records the way another collector would, true that I would have appreciated them differently, and the sale brought money enough to pay for this trip and more. We certainly had enough money to pay our way through airport immigration, but Christopher refused and continued to question and demand as the immigration agent continued to insist. Our papers were not in order, we needed different visas, something was wrong with our visas, we would simply have to turn around and reboard for the return flight to Heathrow. Behind us the whispering, coughing, grumbling grew louder, and yet I knew that I could not simply pay the bribe, that Christopher was already receding and I could not risk a setback. I would have to live with his new stubbornness, his useless anger, and try to find a way to slide by and reach him once more. âThese visas are missing the second authority. They are not valid without the second authority,â the agent said again. Christopher smiled.
We were at the passport office the first time I saw this smile, suggesting something like appreciation for a particularly cruel joke, one with a wit that Christopher could not deny despitebeing its victim. He had
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