Gone, Gone, Gone(10)

I waste our last five minutes by thinking about Craig instead of talking. Eventually, Adelle says, “Okay, Lio. I’ll see you on Friday.”





CRAIG

I COME IN FROM FLAMINGO’S NOT-QUITE FUNERAL, and I spend so much time hugging the animals that it takes me a while to check my email, which is weird, because it’s usually the first thing I do, and then the second thing, and then the third, refresh refresh refresh.

I got an email from Lio. I don’t think I’d know anything about Lio if not for emails and those IMs. But I’m not sure how much he would mean to me if all I saw was the confident, kind of douchey boy who writes these emails and IMs, as much as I like that boy. I don’t know how all the parts of Lio manage to mash up and work for me, but somehow it happens. Somehow the bits and pieces of him keep coming together in my head again and again, like when you watch The Wizard of Oz while playing The Dark Side of the Moon, and somehow it all fits together. Even though it’s probably not supposed to.

Anyway, I got this email.

Craig—

Hope your house is a little noisier already. Let me know if you need to borrow a TV. My sister Veronica’s set is still here in some box. She’s too holistic for it now, or something.

But really, I hope it’s louder because there are more animals.

Went to therapy. You’ll be happy to know I’m still a little f*cked up. We didn’t talk about DEAD BROTHER this session. Kind of a gyp. Veronica would hit me if she knew I said gyp.

Can I be honest with you? I like talking about DEAD BROTHER with you a lot more than I like talking about him with thera thera therapist (that’s her full name). So if you want to talk about it or whatever? If you ever need a reason to feel depressed or you want to feel thankful for your lymphocytes or whatever, yeah, I can hook you up.

I liked that shirt you wore today.

We can talk about me getting all cougar (you’re more than six months younger than me, you know) on you if you want. Or we can pretend that it’s just that thing where two gay boys kiss because they’re the only two gay boys around. Like on sitcoms. And then we adopt a Vietnamese baby.

I’m not delusional enough to think this is a sitcom. It’s not like I have wedding bands picked out or something.

See you tomorrow.

Lio



I’m not sure I can deal with this tonight. The self-awareness of it is kind of killing me—how many times did Lio edit this email? It’s so f*cking carefully constructed, and that’s not the kind of thing I can handle, so I always just reply as fast as I can without thinking and right now I’m just so tired.

And the part about his brother is the worst, because I’d totally talk to him about it, I’d love to talk to him about it, I live to drink up other people’s problems and pee them out and probably drink them again, knowing me, though it’s not like that turns me on or whatever, but if it did I’d know just the websites because insomnia is ridiculous.

But anyway, no matter how many times Lio says “Yeah, we’ll talk,” the bottom line is, the kid doesn’t talk, and I want him to, because I’d like to see what he says when he doesn’t edit. I want to see if it’s beautiful, because right now I don’t know.

Or we could . . . use our mouths for other things, is I guess what I’m trying to say. I mean, if that’s easier for him. Or if it’s even possible for me, in my current state of eunuch.

God, I’m so tired, and I don’t know what I want, which is probably why kissing seems like the best option, but it sounds like he doesn’t even want to kiss me anymore, so now I don’t even know. I should go to sleep, I guess.

I check the kennels and the beds again and again, and I pet Caramel for ages until he starts to get really annoyed with me. I should sleep.

That’s my part of me that’s “a little f*cked up,” I guess. If we can divide ourselves up that way. I have Cody and the fact that I don’t sleep. And the animals, though I guess they’re all connected or some shit like that. God, I should go to therapy with Lio. I bet she’d have a field day between the two of us. And then we’d get better, because I guess that’s the point of therapy, and then what? And what happens when you don’t get better? I know the answer to that and it’s not something I want to happen to me. Or Lio. Although I guess he probably knows more than I do about not getting better, but the more I get to know Lio, the more I learn that you can’t use cancer as a metaphor for real life.

I flop down on my couch and turn on the TV. Sandwich walks in a circle on my back like a dog before she settles down. I hear my parents walking around upstairs, shutting off the lights and double-checking all the locks on the doors before they go to bed. The windows are already fixed, because it’s not safe to have all that broken glass around when there are animals.

I can hear my brother getting ready for the suicide hotline job. He likes it, even though the pay is shitty and it’s about people killing themselves. He says he likes to help. My family is all full of beautiful people who care about everyone they don’t know, and then we can’t even get along most of the time. I think it’s gotten to the extent that, if we were going to kill ourselves, none of us would think to call my brother for help first, and isn’t that just the most pathetic thing in the whole world?

The man on the TV talks about a big jigsaw puzzle I can buy for four payments of something—no, three payments of something, special TV offer, I need to call right now. I don’t even have a phone with me. I am a waste of his infomercial. There’s no way he could make money off of me, and I feel really guilty about that.