The Narrow Door Read Online Free Page A
Author: Paul Lisicky
escape myself, but maybe I want just the opposite: a cool dark space, tight walls, low ceiling, where I can be attuned to the sound of my breathing again.
Denise would understand. She’d have asked me all about it, would want to know the details, eyes wide open and in awe. She’d have said “why couldn’t I be a gay man?” with mock exasperation. But she’d have meant it, too, without any of the self-delight or condescension of people who often say such things.
A skinny young guy with burning eyes hurries down the hall. He backs up, stops at the door of my little room, with an affable, devilish smile. He seems interested. I might be interested, too, but he keeps on walking. Not with the aura of rejection, but because it’s better to keep moving than to stake your claims on any one person. I think it’s incredible that such places stay open, what with Grindr or Scruff or any of the other smartphone apps. Why keep them open? There has to be some better reason than simply to extend the last hours of an old tradition, which barely exists anymore.
Then another man, thicker, more muscular, appears at the door. My response is instantaneous, animal. My spine goes straighter. The other face is hard, squarish, a smart head shorn to the scalp. All bone and plane and brow. Salt-and-pepper whiskers. A salt-and-pepper pelt on chest and shoulders. In his eyes, certainty, solidity, gravitas. On the street, in a different neighborhood, he might be thought to be a construction worker who spends more time than usual shaping and trimming his beard. But in here I know better.
Skin against skin, salt and musk and heat of mouth on mouth, on chest, stomach: whose body is whose? I shouldn’t be able to answer that; I should be so immersed in my skin that the remix on the sound system doesn’t matter. The fact is that I do know where I begin and end. I’m looking at myself from myself. A stance is wanted from me—a male presence, a take-chargeness—though I can’t find the part of myself that could give someone else those things. At least not now.
All those faces looking at Denise. The thunderstorm outside, the candles in their cups inside. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” playing in the room. I don’t know why this song, of all songs, made me pause and well up when I first heard Joni’s cover of it. At the time I thought she was only singing about herself, the end of youth, the artist who was identified with Blue. But it’s not just that.
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
And joy? Well, whatever it is, joy feels elsewhere tonight. Not in this city, not in this palace of empty rooms.
The man sees questions on my face. Somehow he knows how to sit back and let me say, my friend is dying. He asks questions about my friend and I tell him everything I’m able to tell. I’m careful not to use up his patience, as I know how easy it would be to do such a thing. He’s a nurse, he says, and knows a thing or two about burying people he cares about. And it doesn’t matter if we end up screwing each other senseless or not. It doesn’t matter if the chemistry isn’t right for tonight and I can’t stay hard for him. Kindness has happened instead. He puts his arms around me from behind. Then plants a dry kiss on the back of my neck.
And, piece by piece, he hands me back my clothes.
Later, though M will be touched by this story, I’ll wish that he had wanted me to be home with him tonight.
Dig
1984 | Two in the morning. A twenty-minute walk from Pine Street to the nearest station of the PATCO train, which I must take in order to get back home to my parents’ house across the river in Cherry Hill. The prospect of taking that walk, of waiting for the train, and going through all the rituals that need to be done before I climb into my bed, the twin bed of my childhood, keeps me pinned to the couch. Besides, it’s never easy to tear myself away from Denise. I never want to walk away, even though she talks too much,
Denise would understand. She’d have asked me all about it, would want to know the details, eyes wide open and in awe. She’d have said “why couldn’t I be a gay man?” with mock exasperation. But she’d have meant it, too, without any of the self-delight or condescension of people who often say such things.
A skinny young guy with burning eyes hurries down the hall. He backs up, stops at the door of my little room, with an affable, devilish smile. He seems interested. I might be interested, too, but he keeps on walking. Not with the aura of rejection, but because it’s better to keep moving than to stake your claims on any one person. I think it’s incredible that such places stay open, what with Grindr or Scruff or any of the other smartphone apps. Why keep them open? There has to be some better reason than simply to extend the last hours of an old tradition, which barely exists anymore.
Then another man, thicker, more muscular, appears at the door. My response is instantaneous, animal. My spine goes straighter. The other face is hard, squarish, a smart head shorn to the scalp. All bone and plane and brow. Salt-and-pepper whiskers. A salt-and-pepper pelt on chest and shoulders. In his eyes, certainty, solidity, gravitas. On the street, in a different neighborhood, he might be thought to be a construction worker who spends more time than usual shaping and trimming his beard. But in here I know better.
Skin against skin, salt and musk and heat of mouth on mouth, on chest, stomach: whose body is whose? I shouldn’t be able to answer that; I should be so immersed in my skin that the remix on the sound system doesn’t matter. The fact is that I do know where I begin and end. I’m looking at myself from myself. A stance is wanted from me—a male presence, a take-chargeness—though I can’t find the part of myself that could give someone else those things. At least not now.
All those faces looking at Denise. The thunderstorm outside, the candles in their cups inside. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” playing in the room. I don’t know why this song, of all songs, made me pause and well up when I first heard Joni’s cover of it. At the time I thought she was only singing about herself, the end of youth, the artist who was identified with Blue. But it’s not just that.
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
And joy? Well, whatever it is, joy feels elsewhere tonight. Not in this city, not in this palace of empty rooms.
The man sees questions on my face. Somehow he knows how to sit back and let me say, my friend is dying. He asks questions about my friend and I tell him everything I’m able to tell. I’m careful not to use up his patience, as I know how easy it would be to do such a thing. He’s a nurse, he says, and knows a thing or two about burying people he cares about. And it doesn’t matter if we end up screwing each other senseless or not. It doesn’t matter if the chemistry isn’t right for tonight and I can’t stay hard for him. Kindness has happened instead. He puts his arms around me from behind. Then plants a dry kiss on the back of my neck.
And, piece by piece, he hands me back my clothes.
Later, though M will be touched by this story, I’ll wish that he had wanted me to be home with him tonight.
Dig
1984 | Two in the morning. A twenty-minute walk from Pine Street to the nearest station of the PATCO train, which I must take in order to get back home to my parents’ house across the river in Cherry Hill. The prospect of taking that walk, of waiting for the train, and going through all the rituals that need to be done before I climb into my bed, the twin bed of my childhood, keeps me pinned to the couch. Besides, it’s never easy to tear myself away from Denise. I never want to walk away, even though she talks too much,
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