Real Life(75)

Is this all his life is meant to be, the accumulation of other people’s pain? Their assorted tragedies? Wallace digs his fingernails as hard as possible into Miller’s back, sinks them as deeply as he can; he rakes them down to Miller’s hips, leaving long, dark gashes. Miller lets out a sharp cry of pain and then he looks down into Wallace’s eyes. What does he see there, Wallace wonders. What gazes up out of the lapping black sea of his anger? What strange dark stones make themselves known to him? Miller tries to kiss him, and Wallace bites at his lip, presses his knees as tight as he can to Miller’s sides.

Miller is encouraged by this, shoves himself roughly into Wallace, and Wallace only bites harder, digs harder, like he’s scaling some great mountain, as if his life depended on it.

“Fuck you,” Miller says, lip swelling. “Fuck you, Wallace.”

“Fuck you, Miller,” Wallace says, and he darts up, sinks his teeth into Miller’s shoulder, which is tan and hot from the sun, even hours later. Bites him like a savage. Miller shoves him down, and his head thwacks hard against the floor, and they begin to punch and fight and kick and roll and throw each other against whatever they can.

Miller is tossed rough against the side of the counter, but then lashes out his long white leg and pushes Wallace away, back against the couch. Wallace, breathing hot through his nose, blood throbbing hard in his head, throws a punch down into Miller’s thigh, bruising it. Miller reaches for him then, grips his wrist, and pins him down on the dirty floor. Wallace watches the ceiling fan turn and turn overhead. Miller is panting over him, sweating. It’s so hot everywhere. Sweat drops from the end of Miller’s nose onto Wallace’s chest. And then another drop. A small puddle growing on Wallace’s skin, salt water, a sea blooming in the brown desert of his body. Miller is trying to catch his breath. Wallace spits up at him, and Miller pulls away, which lets Wallace wrench his wrist free. He punches Miller’s chest. He punches it again. Again and again, in the same spot, over and over, and Miller lets him. He absorbs it. Wallace punches and punches, his hand growing hot and then numb from the impact, hard and soft alike, no longer doing any damage, just acting on muscle memory. Miller wraps his arms around him, pulls him in close. No more punching. No more.



* * *



? ? ?

IN WALLACE’S BED, they lie down. Miller is on his side, favoring the nasty bruises on his chest and his back. Wallace is lying on his belly. The fan is going, drawing humid air in from the outside. They are not asleep, but they are silent, lying there like stones.

Wallace’s arm is still numb from the punching and the tossing and the struggling. His fingers are swollen and thick. Too much recoil. Too much collision with a solid body. In all the numbness and the swelling, there is the shardlike pain of something else. He hopes it isn’t broken. When he tries to move his fingers, it’s like rotating a blade beneath the skin. But he can move them, at least. There is hope.

Miller’s weight on the bed is close by. He can feel Miller’s eyes on him, watching him. Wallace is staring into the space beneath his pillow where he’s folded his arm.

“Wallace,” Miller says.

“What?”

“Are we going to talk about this?”

“I’d rather not,” Wallace says. “I’d rather just lie here.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No—” Wallace says, starts to say, but then stops. “I don’t want you to go.” But what he means to say is that he does not want Miller to stay or to go, that there is a flat, cold indifference in him, inflected by his nature to please. At heart he wants only to please people. Miller relaxes, unclenches. They’re still naked, their skin slick with sweat and gritty from the floor.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Miller says. “I’m sorry I was so rough, so ugly to you.”

The words land, and it’s like small bits of water striking a windowpane. Each word a little impact, a soft hollow sound, empty. What do they mean, these words? What is their significance? What is Miller apologizing for at this point? Haven’t they already hurt each other? Haven’t they already resolved it with their bodies? Wallace coughs, then laughs, then coughs.

“Don’t bother,” he says. “It’s okay.”

“I don’t feel okay,” Miller says. “I feel like I fucked up here pretty bad. I feel pretty fucking awful, Wallace.”

“Oh?” Wallace asks. “Is that true?”

“Wallace.”

“I think that you feel guilty because you think you hurt me, and maybe you did. But I hurt you too, obviously. So what’s there to be sorry about?”

“That’s not the point, Wallace. That doesn’t make it better. So what if you hurt me? I shouldn’t have hurt you first. I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“I imagine you shouldn’t have. But you did.”

Miller lets out a hard sigh, and his breath brushes up against Wallace’s cheek.

“But you did,” Wallace continues. “What I’m saying is, I guess, it doesn’t matter to me. What you did. It doesn’t matter. None of it does.”

“Of course it matters,” Miller says hotly. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

Wallace rolls gingerly onto his back and puts the pillow across his chest. Miller comes up close beside him, and the bed squeaks awkwardly under their shifting weight. There are shadows thrown across the ceiling from the outside and from the other room, where the light in the bathroom is cutting an angular path through to Wallace’s bedroom. He stares at the place where the walls meet, and the light flattens, yellow turning diffuse, until it fuses with the color of the ceiling paint. Wallace puts his tongue to the back of his teeth. It is raw and sore. He can feel its meaty pulp against his gums. His vision is still fluttering on its periphery.