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Big Time
I know how you like to split me in half. The last time you
did it was when you moved into my place and rearranged all the furniture while
I was at work. When I got home you put all the dishes in my dresser and all my
suits in the bathtub. I didn't get mad because my suits were folded so neatly
and the tub was scrubbed to a shine I didn't recognize. You moved all the
furniture into the second bedroom, the room that I, that we, were going to sublet.
When I went into my room, I noticed all my tchotchkes, including my box, the
flimsy little black cardboard box, containing my 9.5 grade 1953 Mickey Mantle,
my 9 grade 1959 #10 Mantle, my 9 grade 1954 Stan Musial, and my 8 grade 1948
Joe DiMaggio #1, were gone, having been wrapped in the living room carpet, like
a nation sack in the middle of the now-bare, except for the giant nation sack,
living room. The box was probably rubbing against my grandmother's
nineteenth-century Viennese music box in yin-yang heterosexual bliss. I
imagined the big sack dangling from a helicopter, hovering over Harvard, Yale,
or wherever else my grandkids, our grandkids, plan to pay full price to attend.
The new setup's charm was as unexpected as my reaction to it. When we went to
McSwiggins that night, you called out a chick who spilled beer on you, giving
me that prideful shot of adrenaline and testosterone that took me, that took
us, by the legs and floated us straight to our bedroom. That light-legged
feeling is where that split-in-half idea comes in.
You also had a knack of putting blocks on my feet, drilling
them right through the cuneiforms, almost nailing me to the floor. Heavy, metal
blocks. I can picture the way you would look at me, if that were to happen. Watching
the way I would try to run away. Your laugh is sort of like that air that my
hormones carry me with. It would penetrate me as I try to take a step, so much
weight, so deliberate, almost robotic. I can picture you multiplying into
thousands of women, each one rushing past me, the closest ones slithering
around me, contouring my absurd situation, laughing and taking pieces of me as
they pass. I can picture you taking pieces for yourself, like the queen bee,
salvaging the chips and chunks that are torn off of me, even chasing after the
random clone, or drone, to hoard all that is left of me. My ears dangling from
yours, my hair hiding all but strands of yours. You would even taunt me in my
leaded paralysis, waving pieces in front of my face, even smothering my breath.
And always with that wicked laugh, so childlike, and so knowing, mocking my
pathetic intention to flee. Those objects, they itch, they breathe fire. Making
me feel, with that laugh, is if I'm overreacting, and then running away, as if
my reaction were a victim's final breath, an attempt to shout for help or at
least let anyone within earshot know that I had not entered this alley alone. Of
course, you weren't really running away, just playing emotional hide and seek,
coveting pieces to your breast like a hobo's nation sack, thinking that sack
held the future, something of promise. It humbled me, I must admit, to know
that love was the deciphering factor. It comforted me to know that my eyes
could be more still than my head, could be re-wired to connect directly to my heart.
When these feelings subside I can always laugh as I see my
reflection in the bathtub, my hands, so much closer to middle age than the rest
of me, straightening my tie. I can always imagine myself hanging upside down
from the ceiling, only because that makes total sense with you. And my
tchotchkes feel awfully secure in that carpet-sack, my beacon of security as
preciously hidden as the bitter aftertaste of having rented a yuppie apartment
in a building that probably used to be an orphanage or something. As preciously
secured as those hormones that keep my legs from pegging to the floor and keep
you coming to my bed, our bed. I feel like Mickey Mantle entering the Big Leagues.
Big time.
Christopher Discenza was born in Santiago, Chile, and raised in Long Island, New York.
He received a BFA in Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2001.
He has recently decided to pursue a career in creative writing at the subtle behest of others,
including artists and art dealers. He currently lives in New York City.
Email: Christopher Discenza
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