The Hardest Science to Forget (Kirk/McCoy, R), part 2
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It’s 3 AM and I have a headache and I just want to go to back to bed, so of course Jim wants to talk. His breath smells like alcohol and artificial vanilla (cotton candy vodka, disgusting). He can’t shut up about how awesome the party was, and how I should have been there, though nothing would have stamped LOSER on my forehead faster than acting as a Brinks guard for my boyfriend at a house party for kids 10 years younger than me.
“You should have seen the way she looked at me when I said that.” His voice is slurred, 15 decibels too loud. “She has those big brown doll eyes, and they were like, wahhhh”--he pushes his own long lashes apart with his fingers, and Leonard seriously hopes he doesn’t stick one in his eye. “Fuck, I thought she was going to knee me in the groin but she just laughed. Her boyfriend, though--” Jim’s index finger roams around, trying to find the point of the story--”he looked like he wanted to choke me out. At least I think it was her boyfriend; she let him put his hand on her ass.”
“Then I guess everybody at the party was your boyfriend.” It’s mean, but damn it, I’m pissed: he should have let me know where he was, and he shouldn’t have driven; it’s completely irresponsible.
Jim pushes himself back up to sea level in his chair and squints at me. “What does that mean?”
“Just that I assume you followed your usual strategy for making friends in a room full of strangers.” His forehead is creasing, but something hard is rising up inside me, and I can’t stop it. “You said you were going to bring salsa, but it’s still in the fridge. That girl--did she get the special Jim Kirk party favor?”
“Excuse me, what?” He’s upright and looking directly at me. “Cut the cute metaphors and spit it out.”
Too late now to turn back; you said you were going to jump off that cliff, now do it. “I’m saying that I assume you fucked her, Jim. Isn’t that how you get people to like you?”
I’ve never seen eyes that blue and cold. Suddenly he’s dead sober and I have a feeling of oh, shit, like he might punch me even though he’s never done any such thing.
“Fine. Okay. Thanks for explaining that.” He’s pacing, back and forth, like he’s trying to gather escape velocity. “I’m glad that endless, fucking boring discussion about a negotiated, open relationship didn’t keep you from thinking I’m a slut. Because I’d hate to deny you that pleasure.”
“I wasn’t saying--”
“Yes, you were. God damn, you love your moral judgements, sitting there with your 1.75 ounces of Bourbon and your fucking Atlantic Monthly and knowing exactly what everybody should be doing with their lives.” He pulls his keys from his pocket, works the last one off the ring, and slaps it down on the side table. “Here. I won’t be needing this any more.” He grabs his backpack, the one he dropped on the floor when he came home 15 minutes ago and heads for the door.
“Jim, wait, I’m sorry, I--” I scramble after him, dodging furniture, but he’s already slipping away. The door opens and I chase him into the hall, but he evaporates like some insubstantial spirit. “Wait!”
I hear a dog bark out on the street, and it means goodbye.
+++++
“Can’t we just stay in and have brunch?” Through a crack in the curtains I can see brilliant November sky, but I’m still in my PJs and happy about it.
“Brunch? Could there be a bigger stereotype? If you make Bellinis, will Cher come over? God.” He twitches, like his clothes are itching him. “I need air; it smells like grandparents in here.” He knees my leg. “Farmer’s Market, now. Let’s go.”
He’s better in the sunshine with an iced coffee in his hand and a smile on his face.
“I love this neighborhood. We should buy a house here.”
“Sure. All we need to do is sell your comic book collection for $1.5 million.”
“I’m serious.” He whacks me on the shoulder, almost spilling my coffee. “It’s a great time to buy; the housing market is still fucked. I can’t contribute much to the down payment, but I’m great at fixing shit, so that’s sweat equity. I’m sick of apartments; mine has no hot water after 10 AM and the guy upstairs tap dances or something. I want a real house, with a lawn and squirrels and shit.”
I have no idea where this sudden domesticity is coming from, but it makes me nervous. I’ve been thinking about asking Jim to move into the condo, but it’s part of a bigger, better-thought-out but unbroached plan that includes supporting Jim while he goes back to school.
“Having a house is like having a kid--a big, demanding, expensive kid that springs a leak in its water heater on Christmas Day. You want to mow a lawn? Go work for a lawn care company.”
“Because that’s all I’m good for, right? And I’ve got a mental age of 12 so I don’t understand about mortgages and points and homeowners’ insurance.” The caffeinated words tumble out almost too fast to hear, and I know this is going nowhere good. “I have savings. They’re going to make me weekend manager at the shop and you know I could get a programming job any time I want, so fuck that shit. But maybe it’s not the money. Maybe it’s the moving in together. Is that your problem?”
“No, not at all.” I’m sweating, even though it’s barely 60 degrees out. “I want to do that, it’s just-- you get these ideas in your head, and you’re enthusiastic about them, but they don’t last. The programming thing? You haven’t touched your laptop except to check email in a month. You master things so quickly, it’s like you squeeze all the juice out and throw them away and move on to the next thing. A house--”
“Fuck a house,” he practically spits, eyes narrow and cold. “Fuck you, too, if you think I’m a pretty boy with the attention span of a flea who can’t function in the world. I was doing fine before I met you. I managed to pay bills and ride mass transit and everything. You know, maybe I should prove it.” His voice keeps rising, drawing stares. “Maybe I should dump you, right here at the Farmer’s Market. And then you can get some fucking organic milk for your fucking fair trade coffee and go right back to your fucking predictable life, minus the fucking.”
“Damn it, I don’t-- Jim, I never--” I give up trying to slip a word in between the narrow gaps in his rant, and put my hands up in surrender. Jim’s angry voice turns into shrieking, metallic background music for the swirling colors, pyramids of oranges and people in jackets and somewhere in there is Jim, but I can’t---
+++++
“How’s the Massaman curry?” It’s weird that Jim is asking; usually if he wants to know, he just grabs a bite off my plate. But tonight he’s listless, gassed out from work or from a long gym session. I know it can’t be sparkling conversation and sly glances every night, but it makes me feel bad, as if Jim feels obligated to sit here making small talk because I’m buying dinner.
“Not bad. I think I’m going to stick with the Pad King next time, though.”
“Good old, predictable Bones.” It’s one of his nicknames for me, something he got off a TV show. “You don’t like the curry, but you’re not going to ditch it and order what you want because it would be a waste, and because you’re stubborn. You don’t like the idea that you’ve ordered the same thing 30 times in a row at the same restaurant, so it’s worth eating something you don’t like every now and then to prove to yourself that you’re not entirely a creature of habit.”
“Am I really that bad?” It’s depressingly plausible. I stir the rice into the pool of sauce with my chopsticks and feel my appetite leech away. “No wonder we have nothing to talk about.”
“Oh, there’s plenty, but you won’t talk about it.” He leans back and tucks his hands in his armpits, looking engaged for the first time that night. “Your father’s illness. Your divorce. Why you won’t get on an airplane. And yet, I know in excruciating detail why the 1959 Rebels were the best Ole Miss team ever.”
“I don’t hide things from you, damn it,” I say, inadvertently (okay, maybe on purpose) implying that he does. “Those things just aren’t interesting.”
“They are to me.”
Before I can reply, a young, dark-haired man appears beside the table.
“Jim. I am sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I wished to thank you for that book recommendation.” He’s a nice-looking kid in a nerdy kind of way, wearing a sweater that’s heavy for the season and a wool watch cap pulled down down low on his head. “I found the subject matter engaging.”
“Sure, no problem.” There’s a pause during which Jim does not introduce me. “Well, enjoy your dinner. I recommend the Massaman curry.”
“Thank you.” He inclines his head like a benediction. “I hope you and Bones enjoy your evening as well.”
“Who is that?” I hiss, as soon as he’s gone. “And how did he know you call me ‘Bones’?”
“Dunno. Some guy from the bike shop. Or the gym, I’m not sure. Don’t worry about it.”
And I really don’t have anything to worry about: not the curry, which is vanishing from my plate, or the restaurant, which is vanishing as well. I look at Jim in alarm but his face is vanishing, too, turned pink and blank as if with a pencil eraser. I seem to be the only thing that isn’t melting away, but I grab onto my own arms just to be sure.
“Bones!”
Jim’s voice is a red-shifted echo, as if he’s been blasted to the stars.
“Jim!”
I remember now. I remember, I remember. The Ji Yi Institute and the cramped office, and against all probability it’s working. That black-haired bastard is taking Jim away from me.
“Stop! I don’t want to do this any more! I want to stop! Keep the money, I don’t care--”
It’s like shouting into the wind, into a howling void that’s pulling everything away and leaving only me behind.
+++++
“Good morning.”
Leonard opens his eyes to find Jim’s face a few inches away, bathed in caramel-colored light. He’s pulled the sheet over their heads, but he must have opened the curtains first, because Leonard likes to sleep in the pitch dark.
“Hey.” Leonard’s voice is morning-raspy; Jim dehydrated him pretty thoroughly the night before.
“Hey yourself,” Jim says. He puts a hand on Leonard’s hipbone, warm and firm, and then gives it a little shake, trying to get Leonard’s drowsy attention. “Question for you: If I could pull back this sheet, and we could be anywhere in the world, where would you want us to be?”
Leonard suspects where this is going. Jim has gotten it into his head to try big-wave surfing, which would involve two things Leonard hates, apocalyptic waves and flying in airplanes. Leonard’s suggestion of Cocoa Beach or waiting for a hurricane has gotten the Fuck me but you’re old and boring eye roll.
“Where would I want to be? Let me see.” Leonard draws it out, because now Jim’s hand is stroking his hip, and Jim is beautiful, face as innocent as a kid at a sleepover. “Anywhere in the world? Okay, I know. I want to be here, right now. This is the place I want to be.”
Jim lights up like the Fourth of July. He loves praise, but not for anything that comes easily to him--his looks or his athleticism or the way machines swoon into obedience in his hands. He loves to make Leonard happy, and Leonard loves him back for it, because selflessness isn’t a natural habit for either one of them.
“You know the best part?” Jim says after a while, hand making a beeline for Leonard’s groin. “No sharks.”
+++++
“I received your text message,” Spock says, pointing at his phone that way he does, as if he disbelieves that technology is going to work. “Your request was urgent. May I aid you in any way?”
Jim isn’t distressed, he’s half frantic, crawling out of his skin with a need to be anywhere other than here. No, somewhere specific. “Sorry to bug you at work, I just--” He rubs his own arms briskly, trying to get rid of the feeling of wrong wrong wrong. “I feel like I’m falling apart. I mean literally, like pieces of me are flaking off. I don’t want to be alone, and I don’t want to be here. Let’s go to Greensboro. No! Let’s go to Tybee Island.”
“A fine suggestion,” Spock says, with that voice like velvet sandpaper. He’s so unflappable, so calmingly measured in his response to everything, letting Jim be as emotional as he wants. “I believe I have no obligations next weekend.”
“No, now. Let’s go now. I really need to lie on a quilt on the beach and look at the stars.”
Spock tilts his head, considering, as if it’s no less irrational than any of Jim’s impulsive suggestions. “Very well. If you think it will alleviate your distress.”
Hours later he’s lying on Bones' grandmother’s quilt, cooling sand firm and supportive under his aching back. It’s alright now, though; Bones has his hand wrapped around Jim’s, and he can feel that it’s beautiful. Everything about Bones is beautiful.
“I’m happy,” Bones whispers. There’s no one to hear, but Jim understands; the quiet is church-like, just wind and surf and the occasional creaking of palm leaves. “I’m so happy. If I died right now, I’d be completely satisfied with my life.”
It brings tears to Jim’s eyes, because even though he’s known Bones for less than a day, he can tell that this is a profound admission, that Bones lives his life in judgement and expectation. Jim is proud he can give that to Bones, and hopeful about what it means for their relationship. Just once, he’d like to leave somebody better than he found them. Or maybe not leave at all.
A wave crashes on the shore, and it’s followed by silence. Complete silence, and the sand is spilling away beneath them
“No!” Bones shouts, and clutches tight at Jim’s hand. “Not this one!”
“What is it? What’s going on?” The quilt under Jim starts bucking like a mule.
Bones looks around in horror at the scenery, disappearing as if a giant child were putting away its play set. “It’s Spock. I hired him to take away my memories of you, but I don’t want to give up this one. We have to do something. We have to hide you.”
“Where?” In a few moments there’ll be nowhere left to hide.
“I don’t know. He’s seen all my memories of you, if this is the last one, the first one--”
“Then take me somewhere where I’ve never been. Some time. The past.” Jim tries to keep his voice calm in order to not freak out Bones, but he can feel himself being ripped inexorably away. He keeps a death grip around Bones’ wrist. “Think of some other time. Do it now.”
“Okay, okay.” Bones’ hair has fallen into his face and he’s shaking, but his attention turns inward.
A moment later, it begins to rain.
“Is this--” Jim begins.
“Shut up,” Bones whispers fiercely. “Let me concentrate.”
A second later Jim crashes through a door and he’s in a large kitchen, all cherry wood and mirror-black surfaces. He pulls the collar of his wet jacket down from where it’s been keeping his head dry. The kitchen is warm and smells great, and the island in the middle is covered with platters of fancy snacks.
“Hey, it worked,” he says, and makes a grab for something wrapped in bacon.
Bones smacks his hand away. “Don’t. My mom will notice.”
Jim starts to scowl, but then gets a good look at Bones. “Holy shit! Look at you--you’re fucking adorable. The khakis and the floppy hair--you’re like a GAP commercial come to life!”
“I remember this evening,” Bones says, though Jim is having a hard time concentrating on anything but his beestung lips. “My parents were having a party and they gave me $20 to help with the dishes and stuff. Jocelyn came over to talk me into going to the mall. She borrowed her brother’s car, even though she only had her learner’s permit.”
“Oh, a bad girl--I like her already. Who am I supposed to be?”
“You’re my friend Tyler. We’re on the squash team together, and you came over to keep me company.”
Jim looks down at his left pec. “Then why am I wearing a bowling shirt that says ‘Bogdan’?”
“You got it at a vintage store. It’s your favorite thing.”
“Are we dating? Because I really, really want to make out with you right now.”
“Well, we-- a few times, but-- Jocelyn. Jocelyn and I are kind of pre-engaged, I guess. We’re leaving for college this fall.” Leonard keeps his eyes on the swinging door to the kitchen; the sounds of adult revelry--clinking glasses and baritone laughter--are making him nervous.
Jim is doing his usual no-personal-boundaries inspection of a new place, peering into the built-in fridge, running a finger over the granite countertop.
“This kitchen is bigger than my apartment. You never mentioned your family was rich.”
“They’re not, not really. Not compared to some of the kids I go to school with. Tyler’s getting a Corvette for graduation.”
“I hope it gets him laid, because the shirt ain’t working.”
There’s a tap on the door, and before Leonard can stop him, Jim’s gone to let in Jocelyn, and there are the two most important people he’s ever let into his life, standing face to face.
Jocelyn is wearing black leggings under a long, belted shirt and her brother’s leather jacket, which means he’s probably already passed out in his room from drinking coconut rum. Her long chestnut hair hangs on either side of her face, defiantly glossy in spite of the worst assaults of temporary hair dye. Her face is pale and serious and thinks that she’s still growing into her nose, which, to Leonard’s eyes, is perfect.
“Hi,” she says, giving Leonard a twitch of a smile, and then turns to Jim. “What are you doing here?”
“Just hanging out.” The bastard strikes a pose, presumably so his stone-washed jeans will show his package to best advantage. “You look hot, Jocelyn.”
Jocelyn shoots him a look of withering disdain. “Len and I are going to the mall. Tricia’s working at Swiss Pretzels and the 27 toppings are starting to talk to her. I’m bringing her the Holy Mixtape of Antioch to cheer her up.” Leonard knows it well; it’s a bit Chili Peppers heavy (Leonard isn’t a fan) but otherwise solid. “Let’s go, before my brother wakes up and thinks about calling over here.”
“I can’t,” Leonard says, trying to ignore the fact that Jim is looking at Jocelyn like a cartoon character at a roast chicken. “My folks are paying me to pick up dirty glasses and stuff. My dad will be super pissed if I leave.”
Jocelyn gives an existential shrug. “I can’t fix your daddy issues for you, Len. Work it out. I’ll wait in the car for 10 minutes, and then I’m out of here.” She turns on a chunky boot heel and exits.
“Oh my God,” Jim says, breathless. “She amazing. No wonder you’re so fucked up. How did you screw the pooch on that?”
“I realized I was gay, you idiot.” Leonard realizes he’s half-shouting and looks at the swinging door in panic, but no adults come rushing through with butterfly nets.
“Oh, right. Did you ever go through a bi phase? Because Jocelyn’s got a car, and we--”
“No,” Leonard says, whacking him on the shoulder, because his lust for Leonard’s not-yet-wife is deeply disturbing. “We have to stay, because I didn’t go with Jocelyn that night. I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“This is your brain, Len, not a sci fi movie. We can do whatever we want.”
“Maybe you can, because it’s not your memory.” Just then the swinging door cracks open and the smoke-roughened voice of Leonard’s mother yells, “Leonard! Put the brie in the oven, will you?”
Leonard grabs a tray and starts to comply, but it turns to water in his hands. It’s all winking out: the skewered scallops and the bruschetta and the wheel of brie. Leonard grabs onto Jim in sudden panic, afraid he’ll wink out too.
“He found us! Now where do we go?”
“I don’t know, I--oww not so hard. How about--ummm...”
“Now, Jim!”
“How about an embarrassing memory? Something he won’t think you’d want me to see.”
Oh, wonderful. Leonard has plenty of those. “Okay, give me a minute.”
It’s late at night and Leonard is in his father’s study, sitting at his desk, bathed in the pale blue glow from his father’s beloved Apple computer. Leonard’s allowed to use it for homework and nothing else, as his mother has learned from her friends at the raquet club that The Internet is Bad.
“A Power Mac? Are you shitting me?” says Jim at his shoulder. “Sweeet. Can we take it back with us?”
Leonard doesn’t answer, because he’s feeling sweaty and itchy in his flannel pajamas, all too aware of what’s going on on the screen.
The image fills in line by excruciating line: First, gelled dark hair, and then limpid brown eyes and slightly parted lips with a hint of tongue visible.
“Oh, awesome,” Jim whispers.
Next comes the beefy torso with a tiny tank top hiked up to reveal chiseled abs, brown and shiny as a Thanksgiving turkey. Finally--accompanied by frenzied flashing of Dr. McCoy’s 28.8 modem--approximately seven inches of purpleish erection, clutched like a stick shift.
“It’s porn!” Jim crows in delight. “Low-res gay porn! You were a pioneer, man!” He tries to give Leonard a fist bump.
Leonard can’t respond because of what his own hand is doing. He wants to stop; he’s mortified both inside the memory and out, but he can’t stop now any more than he could then, fueled by hormones and craven need, so humiliating but so good in its own way, the shame salty-sweet like the sweat beginning to drip down his face--
“Sorry,” Jim says, lowering his voice and stifling a snicker. “But if this is your idea of embarrassment--I mean, everybody--”
At that precise moment, Dr. McCoy the Elder pushes open his study door, having come downstairs to get a shot of brandy to “settle his stomach” and glimpsed the pale, blue light under the door.
“Len? Are you on the computer ag--” Dr. McCoy freezes, trying to take in the sight of his honor student son jerking off to gay porn in the chair where he does his taxes.
“Oh,” Dr. McCoy says faintly, raising a hand to shield his eyes, as if the porn is a fiery sun. “Well, don’t stay up too late, you have school tomorrow.”
The door closes, and Jim--who’s been holding his breath the whole time--collapses with laughter.
“Shit,” he gasps, “you poor, poor kid. What did he do to you the next day?”
“Nothing. I think he probably erased it from his memory.” Leonard’s retrospective boner is, of course, down for the count. “Not literally, of course.”
“Of course not; that’s impossible.” Jim wipes his eyes and Leonard starts to relax, just in time for the room to smear around him into the by now familiar swirl of incipient nothingness. The Power Mac pops out of existence.
“What now?” Leonard begs, clutching at Jim. “Where to next?”
“I don’t know. I think we’re fucked.” Already, Jim’s voice sounds far away.
+++++
They’re back on the beach now, and it’s late at night. The palms sway eerie and black against the star-dotted sky. They’re walking, hand in hand, and Jim decides he wants to check out one of the fancy beach homes. It’s accessible by a long, wooden walkway that protects the dunes from their feet.
“I like this,” Jim says, looking at the white facade. “It’s traditional but it’s not all cutesy steamboats-and-pecan-pie. I love the porches. If this were my house I’d sleep on the porch every night if the weather was decent.” He tugs on Leonard’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go in.”
“What do you mean, go in?”
“Into the house.” Before Leonard can stop him, Jim’s peering in through the glass that frames the from door. “It’s okay, nobody’s home. And there’s no alarm. That I can see.”
“Jim, don’t--” Leonard sounds whiny to his own ears. “C’mon, this isn’t my idea of fun.” Leonard’s got a decent moral compass but also a teenaged fear of doing wrong and getting caught.
Jim takes his peevishness kindly. “We wouldn’t have been caught, you know. The owners were probably hundreds of miles away; their neighbors, too. Don’t you want to see what would have happened, if we’d gone in?”
Leonard understands; it may be their last chance. “Yeah, I guess. Okay.”
Jim rifles in his backpack and pulls out a multitool with which he makes short work of the lock. Even now, Leonard mostly doesn’t want to know where he got that skill.
The door opens with a click and Jim waves him in, ceremonious. The outside floodlights are just enough for Leonard to make out oceans of white carpet, sofas littered with plump pillows, sleek surfaces of glass and granite.
“Not bad,” Jim says. “How do you like our house, Len?”
“It isn’t ours,” Leonard starts to say, but Jim shakes his head.
“It’s ours for tonight. Next stop: liquor cabinet.”
“Don’t--” Too late, of course. Jim’s found it with the speed of a bloodhound and is pouring the each a couple of fingers of single-malt Scotch.
“Sit down,” he says. “Relax. Or aren’t you physically capable of it?”
“I want to,” Leonard says. “I want to live in the moment like you do. But I’m not you. My mind always injects the worst possible scenario: there’s a silent alarm and the police are on their way. The plane will crash on our way to the exotic island. I’ll lose my job because you wanted to give me a hummer in the exam room.”
Jim leans forward, elbows on knees, looking hopelessly at home in a stylish, overstuffed chair that isn’t his. Leonard wishes with all his heart that he could give Jim everything he deserves--a beautiful home and world travel and adventurous sex every moment of the day.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” Jim says. “I don’t have any answers. I’m not some force of nature sent to blast you out of your humdrum existence. I can’t use magic, liberating sex to make you love and accept yourself. I’m just a guy with a lot of baggage, like you, trying to figure out how I’m going to get out of bed tomorrow morning.”
Leonard can’t make Jim happy, either. He can’t even hang on to this. Already, the walls are shaking, as if buffeted by hurricane winds.
“God damn it,” he says, and feels like crying.
“It’s okay.” Jim reaches out to stroke his face. “Everything comes to an end, sooner or later.” A huge crack forms in the wall behind him, and a window blows out.
“Well, aren’t just a ray of sunshine?” He catches Jim’s hand and holds it. “Would things have been any different? If I’d broken into the house with you?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.” He smiles at Leonard--such a beautiful smile. “I don’t know. But it would have been fun.” Chunks are falling off the house now; the porch that Jim admired crashes silently to the sand.
“What are we going to do, Jim? I don’t want to lose you.”
The ground under Leonard trembles and flies apart, atoms winking out. A voice, almost too faint to hear, says, “Meet me in Greensboro--”
+++++
Valentine’s Day is a miserable excuse for a holiday, and nothing is worse than spending it visibly alone. Dr. M’Benga’s day-long electronic medical records extravaganza--while both salutary and boring--is also the perfect opportunity for everyone who knows me casually to ask if I have Plans. I do not have Plans, unless you count getting buzzed and greasy on a six-pack of Georgia Brown and a pound of teriyaki wings.
However, there’s no avoiding it. Telling myself that gets me as far as the on-ramp to I-75, at which point I decide to go north, not south, and end up in the Ocalee National Forest, getting stares from day hikers who wonder why I’m wearing a blazer and dress slacks.
I’m hungry, but I’ve used up my store of adventure for the day, so I go to a Waffle House and drink black coffee until my nerves are tuned like a grand piano, until I can feel rather see than see the pretty blond boy with the backpack decide to envelop me in his sphere of chaos.
He drags me off to Tybee Island, and we spend a mostly platonic night dozing and talking about the sports we played as kids, our favorite board games. When dawn comes, it isn’t a golden revelatory spectacle, it’s hazy and gray. I try to be a gentleman and drop him at home, and he somehow ends up at my place instead.
Everything fades to gray and two weeks later, we’re sitting on my couch eating fish tacos from Rubio’s.
“These aren’t bad,” I say, not caring that my mouth is full, “but the fish is a little dry. They should really marinade it first so it can hold up to the grilling. There’s this place--”
“--In Panama City,” Jim says, without missing a beat. “Yeah, I know; you talk about it all the fucking time. You get these things into your head and you’re like a dog with a bone. You’d rather bitch about how they could be perfect instead of--” he grinds to a halt, and then starts waving his hands like he’s fanning away moths. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. This just feels weird. I feel like I know everything you’re going to say and do but not in, like, a good way. It’s like you’re my brother or something. I mean, I’d love to go surfing in California, but if I suggest it, you’re going to say--”
“That there’s perfectly good surfing in Florida, and the California breaks are too crowded?”
“Exactly.” He looks so disconsolate that I feel bad for him, until I reflect that I’m the one being dumped. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and though I’m usually the first one to assign blame, I can’t think of one thing he did wrong. “This isn’t working for me.”
“It’s okay,” I say, taking a deep, resigned breath of it’s for the best. “At least stay and eat your tacos. They’re actually pretty good.”
+++++
Jim’s absence is a pain and a relief. I do some trail running, and I work, and I hang out with Janice and Christine. Christine is trying to convince their landlord to let her raise chickens in the backyard. Janice has already picked out the names.
I come home from work one evening and find a cream-colored, official-looking letter with my name handwritten on the front. Long experience with lawyers makes me open it with trepidation. It says:
Dear Dr. McCoy,
According to our records, you have received treatment at the Ji Yi Institute. Please be informed that these treatments were not approved by the governing body of the VSA and may have unexpected consequences. Please contact our office for information on reparative therapy and a refund of the $2000 which our records show you paid.
I’ve got no idea what the Ji Yi Institute or the VSA are, but as it happens, I am missing $2000 that was mysteriously transferred out of my bank account a few weeks ago (I know what people think about doctors’ salaries, but I noticed).
I’m still reading over the letter trying to figure out what the hell it means when my cell rings. It’s Jim.
“Heeey. Um, I’m sorry if this is weird, but--did you receive a letter from something called the Ji Yi Institute?”
“I’m looking at it right now.”
A pause. “Do you have any idea what it’s about? Do you think it’s a scam?”
“I have no idea. Do you want to check it out?”
“Yeah, I think we should.”
I call the number in the letter to set up an appointment, and two days later Jim and I, in awkward alliance, are standing in from of a squat brick building on Tidewater Avenue. There’s no sign, just a sticky spot where one might recently have been.
The man who greets us has a long, angular face like a Roman senator. He’s wearing a pale gray tunic and an incongruous black Fedora.
“Please come in,” he says, not introducing himself.
The spiel that follows is as unbelievable as it is strangely familiar. Apparently, Jim and I both decided to pay some huckster $2000 to erase our memories of each other, and it worked. Or mostly worked, which would explain why I spent our very brief relationship feeling like Jim was responsible for the red wine stain on my sofa, even though it’s been there for more than a year.
“Your memories were transferred to me,” says the long-faced man, “though I assure you I have not attempted to access them. I can transfer them back to you, or you may remain as you are. It is unlikely that there is any physical damage.” He hands us each an envelope. “Here is your currency.” I’d dearly love to know who he is, why he talks like a Victorian schoolmaster, and how any of this even possible. But I notice that Jim is looking a bit pale and unusually serious.
“Can we each get back our own memories?” he says.
“I fear not,” the man says. “They are too deeply entwined. You will receive your joint memories, as well as individual memories concerning each other.”
There’s a long pause during which I assume Jim is trying to figure out the worst thing he could possibly have said about me or done to me in the past year, because I’m sure as hell doing it myself.
“Okay,” Jim says finally. “I’ll do it. How bad can it be?”
He’s never been divorced, so he has no idea. But it seems unfair to burden him alone, plus I confess I’m curious as hell.
“What the hey, I’m in, too.”
The long-faced man nods and extends a hand to each of us. “Please place your hands on mine.” It seems ridiculously simple, like a Pull my finger joke, but he’s clearly not the type.
Reality gives an uneasy lurch, and then my memories and Jim’s are spooling across my inner eyes like a DVR on fast forward.
….Leonard is having lunch with Christine in the staff dining room at the hospital. “He spent the entire weekend trying to restring a guitar he got off Freecycle, but when I asked him to fix the shower head, he was ‘too busy.’ He could have pulled extra shifts at the shop and bought a guitar in the time he spent, but God forbid I should mention it, because then I’m a stuffy old man who’s angry at life and sabotaging his creativity and Lord knows what all. But he’s got so much potential--isn’t it a compliment that I think he’s capable of so much more than he’s doing?”...
“….He has this beautiful flat-screen TV, but he only watches science shows and House.” Jim is lying on his back and trying to loosen a balky derailleur while talking to his co-worker Blake. “And he only watches that because it pisses him off. He doesn’t shut up the whole time, just rants about how implausible everything is and how a real doctor like that would lose his license and how if the residents were really that stupid there’d be patients dying left and right....”
….“And the minute I say anything, it’s like I’ve grown horns and turned into his parents. Who I know nothing about, by the way, because he refuses to talk about them. I want to be his boyfriend and not his father, but somebody has to be the responsible party, and he makes damn sure it’s always me, and then he resents the hell out of me for it. Especially if I point out that building a giant octopus out of LEGO does not pay the cable bill....”
“….He doesn’t realize that except for the limp, he is House. Everyone else at the hospital is a lazy shit-for-brains who couldn’t diagnose their way out of a paper bag except him. It’s no wonder he doesn’t have any friends at work except for this one nurse who must have the patience of a saint. Does it sound like the guy I’m talking about is over 60? Because he’s still in his early 30s. I think he was born 45. Maybe he’s aging backward....”
When I open my eyes, the long-faced man is gone, perhaps to save us embarrassment. I flick a quick glance at Jim, unable to meet his eyes, and see that his pale face is sunburn pink. I feel bad for the long-faced man; what a terrible curse it would be to always know what other people are thinking about you, especially those you love.
“I’m sorry,” Jim mumbles, staring at his hands. “I didn’t realize I’m so annoying. No wonder I drive you crazy.”
“You don’t. A lot of things do, but you’re not even in the Top 10.” That gets him to at least look at me. “Why would you? You’re damn near perfect.”
“It wouldn’t change, you know,” he says, as if we’ve been having a long, well-reasoned argument. “If we got back together. I’m probably not going to go back to school, and I’ll keep jumping around from thing to thing and coming over to your place to watch TV because I forgot to pay the cable bill. And you’ll stay in your little bubble and bitch about how I and everybody else is failing to live up to your expectations, even though you stick with what you’re already good at and don’t push your boundaries.”
“Okay,” I say.
“What?”
“Okay. That’s okay.” And it really is.
“Okay,” he says back to me, and breaks into a grin. For once in my life, it’s seems I’ve surprised him.
+++++
On the beach at Tybee Island, a near-gale is blowing, rain coming from every direction like tiny bullets. Even the seagulls have packed it in; they’re on the shore with their wings folded tight, and there’s not a human to be seen except Jim. His jacket’s unzipped and his hair is plastered to his head, and I should really yell at him to keep his clothes dry, but I don’t.
Jim is laughing, and that’s all that matters.
+++++
Note: The title is ganked from the same poem as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard.”
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
'Tis sure the hardest science to forget!
How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet detest th' offence?
Here’s a suggestion, Eloisa: don’t try.