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by Kimberly L. Perry
Some say it has a taste. For the truly cold people, those who have never opened themselves to anyone, a taste like the darkest baker's chocolate that sits on the way back of the highest kitchen shelf. For the mothers, and the lovers, those who only know how to give without boundaries, it is a barely comprehensible flavor, perhaps the way Clorox would taste if one of these women should love too much and drink the bitter poison. But you know it is a sound. It is the sound of a solitary glass hitting the floor in a dark room and shattering into a thousand pieces. These pieces lurk in the obscure corners where no one bothers to look, forgotten until a piece gets stuck in the rubber soles of your house slippers and grates across the kitchen floor when you fix your evening tea.
This is not about heartbreak.
Gorgeous. This is what he says when he walks in the door, before he even says hello. Gorgeous; the way you stand, the way your jawbone meets your cheek, the way you talk to other men, all gorgeous. The whole time he's talking he is moving, inching toward the corner where he pauses and runs his fingers up the crack where the two walls meet. Even though his back is turned it does not seem awkward since corners appeal to him when he either has nothing to say or something very important to reveal. He does it well, with a casual air, more like a proud contractor studying the finished product than a chastised school boy. Because he can't see you, he can't see that you're shaking your head and fidgeting with your keys, itching to leave this uncomfortable moment and lock the door.
It takes several weeks before he can say it to your face as you sit at a rickety table in a bar. Gorgeous. A piece of spittle flies and hits you in the forehead but you both pretend not to notice. The word spoken while looking directly at you makes you immediately look away. You turn your head and search around the room for a topic to change the subject, some observation that will take the attention away from you. A girl on her way to the bathroom catches your eye. She has the concentration of a drunk trying to act sober as she stares straight ahead and walks assuredly. Just outside the men's room she walks straight into a stool and nearly knocks the plastic fern resting there from its perch.
"Watch it, Blondie," yells a burly guy from across the room, loud enough to be heard over the blaring music. He elbows his buddy and starts to laugh lasciviously. She pivots her head without moving her shoulders and gives him a sly smile.
"I hate being called Blondie," you say, relieved to have found some words. "It always means that a guy either forgot my name or never learned it." But then there are the things that you don't say, like how a guy in high school used to call you Blondie and you let him because he was so handsome and you loved the fact he singled you out. You don't tell him how that is what your father called your mother when he wanted to patronize her for a stupid thing she had forgotten or screwed up. You don't tell him that you think the girl who walked to the bathroom is sexy and that the guy who yelled at her probably beats her. You don't tell him any of this because he's still staring at you with that look on his face, so intent it is almost dazed, so focused it loses the reality of the object altogether. Gorgeous.
When you lead him up the stairs to your apartment, the only way you can lead him up the stairs, is if you remember this is just fucking. He insists you walk first, some kind of good old boy thing you suppose, but it makes you nervous because it seems like a shallow ploy to get a good look at your ass. Then again, you're always nervous leading a guy up to your apartment because he might stay. On the stairs behind you, you can hear him repeating his name under his breath, "John, John, John." It is like a sigh, or a prayer, as if he needs to remind himself that this is real, that you are real, and it's not all a porno movie or a dream.
In times like that, when he is so unsure and sweet, you can almost feel yourself liking him. Or maybe not him, just his habits. You can feel your insides becoming attuned to his presence, smiling inwardly at his bony frame and crooked grins. The sound of his footsteps in the hall before he knocks on the door, the way the sleeves of his shirts are not faded from the elbow down from being rolled up so often, the smell of his hair on the pillow, all seem to be pushing you towards something that you can't quite place or control. You wonder if the desire to be surrounded by these things is different from a desire to be around him, if like him, you can be separated from your joint parts.
When he does the dishes you like how the febrile hairs on the back of his neck curl in the hot steam rising from the sink. It is easiest to talk to him when all you see is his back. Holding a glass of leftover table wine in your hand, you like to tell him stories about Rocco the Magnificent. Rocco is a forty year old bag boy at the local supermarket who is just slightly overeager about the position of the groceries in the bag, and just slightly too happy with his job to have all his mental faculties intact. In reality you find it disturbing when he smiles at you with his name tag that says "What can I do to help you?" So every night you create elaborate stories about Rocco's secret life as a government agent, spying on the cashiers and looking for bombs in the trunks of cars.
You love to entertain him, to make things interesting for him while he does the dishes. You know you are amusing, drawing him in further by being charming, cementing his attachment to you. And when he puts the last glass in the drying rack and turns around with that look on his face that says "Gorgeous" you almost feel sorry for being that way. You feel sorry that he likes you so much that he feels compelled to tackle you against the counter and carry you to bed.
What you understand and he has yet to figure out, is that all it is, or all it can be, is tap dancing. Not fucking, and certainly not loving, just a series of repetitive steps that look flashy, make the heart pound with their fervor, yet work themselves out to an inevitable conclusion. Stamp brush hop step shuffle ball change is no different than I like you I love you it's over goodbye. Big finish and yet your brow never breaks a sweat and the music starts again before you can catch your breath.
Lying in bed he likes to wrap his leg around your thigh and rest his head on your chest before he falls asleep. Often, you find yourself awake, thinking of ways to comfort him like a mother, yet other times you try to think of ways to extricate yourself from this trapped position. You close your eyes and imagine the scene from above; the clothes knotted on the floor, the line of shoes by the closet, the overflowing ashtray, the coffee stain on the rug, and the picture of your family on the dresser. And when all these other things are exhausted your mind's eye can see the tangled forms on the bed illumined in a gentle spotlight from the street lamp below. It is nearly impossible to imagine the way that you look because even though you can feel his big hands resting on your stomach, it feels as if you are not there.
Telling your friends about him makes it seem almost real. When they look up from their lunch salads and smile when you tell them that he brings you flowers and writes you poems, they dab their painted lips with a napkin and assure you that this time it will all work out. "Congratulations," they say, as if you are a show pony who won the big race. But you know that their happiness for you is only a reflection of their own desires.
No one ever asks you what you want, what could bring you satisfaction, yet if they did, you could not tell them. Because, when you ask yourself in those moments of exasperation about that insatiate need that keeps your tap shoes moving, you can catch the edge of someone else's life in a glimpse. The life of a girl, not you, on the eve of her confirmation. Thinking of her white dress all laid out on the hope chest, her white shoes polished, prayers committed to memory, she lies on the family room sofa breathing heavily as the boy from next door kisses her neck. Feeling the hands that do not stray from her shoulders, she silently wills him to slip his hands under the waistband of her jeans. She wishes that she could fall asleep against the afghan and have him take her without her having to admit that she wants it, that it could be rape. Yet when she kneels in church she prays for forgiveness for these impure thoughts. Like you, she prays for guidance from a higher power to explain what she should do, hoping for that power to make the choices for her, or if not God, some boy who takes away her control and will force decisions upon her.
You are at a stoplight when it happens. "I think I love you," he says. Because you are in the car and there are no corners near by, he says this confession to the car window. The light changes and the condensation left by his breath on the glass has disappeared, and yet you are silent. He does not require an immediate answer, surely giving you time to examine your feelings and mull over your response. And the thing is that you're not thinking about him at all anymore. You've been planning what to say in this instance since the day you met. But you'll wait a while longer to say "I'm sorry, it just won't work." Although you might wish that he were different, you know he is the type to accept goodbye unconditionally. You're already savoring the possibility of his absence as the car pulls into the driveway.
So he's gone. And when you hear that solitary glass breaking you wonder if it was half empty, half full, or exactly what it appeared to be which is a job half done. Should you die before you wake and should you lie before you love, then that is the sound of the glass breaking -- an unfinished job losing itself in the afterthought.
