On Things of Lesser and Equal Value

OTLEV

3:18 PM Cn, Monday, Bedroom with Green Walls

He’s telling me about something the other one’s girlfriend sent him. A series of things. A decidedly one sided text thread by his telling. The other one has adopted an almost funeral expression of deep sorrow, a placid veil, shaking his head slowly after several of the more visceral terms she used to describe Him.

“A disgusting bastard man who likely couldn’t discern the stench of his own dick from a rotting fish, but still could be saved by the awesome power of our Lord, The Great Holy Redeemer. Praying for you.”

He has a history of embellishing these things, his “gift to those less privy to the more subtle of absurdities,” he once told me as we sat atop a tall metal structure and watched the blood drain. This was a lie of course, the intent faces inward if looked upon at all. It’s more a wink into what he calls the void. A carefully calculated display to show himself how little he cares. It was a selfish lie, as they always were.

The other one steeples his finger, closes his eyes and shakes his head once more, prayerlike in his deference. He occasionally glances over at the other one as if to check for appropriate behavior, which should be plaintive and unsmiling unless He puts on his ‘bitch voice’ or pauses ever so slightly for a nose laugh at one of his retorts. Her use of ‘irregardless’ draws his ire for a time and the other chimes in that she really shouldn’t be trying to use words with so many syllables. She is compared to three dissimilar animals in the span of 40 seconds. I notice how the other one rarely finishes his lines with a complete sentence, but rather trails off as if to invite interruption. He looks at me with a knowing smile, which I return having no clue what he is smiling about. It is easiest to operate as a mirror around him, he gets testy when people disagree with what he feels very fundamentally to be true, and he believes a great many things to be self-evidently true. I have gotten quite skilled at nodding and laughing. This is why he likes me. And wants to be with me. He says it is because I am smart, and beautiful, and sensitive, but I know that it’s mostly the nodding. He is in love with a steady voice which tells him he knows a great many things. It always feels strange to hear those three words, but I do not mistake love for the art with the artist. I know things will be ending soon, but I have never enjoyed putting down the dog, least of all those which bite.

He is directing himself towards me now. He is quite good at this, including others in his rants, maintaining complete control by handing off what looks like a wheel. He wants to know what I would say if one of my friends boyfriend’s sent me something like this. ‘Like this’ being relative of course, adjusted for changes in elevation -- the threat of violence becomes far less quaint when convexity and concavity are reversed -- but this is not the correct answer. He has already told me the correct response. The expectation is plain on his face, the other one is already smiling at the approaching release. The other one loves when I deliver the line, so long as it was appropriately gift wrapped, fresh of His tongue. I will get to choose the wording, be the last to speak before the laughter. He wants me to think of the laughter as mine, but only because he gifted it to me. He considers himself to be exceedingly generous. Willing to lend his voice to anyone who would speak with it, a powerful gift for a man who has never been wrong.

And so I say my lines, and I skew towards the inane, and there is laughter, and I let it wash over me, this conversational apex. It is not unpleasant, this momentary relapse from the window with jagged glass. But such things are fleeting, and the other one still goes on, and laughter rings hollow on empty ears, and I decide it must be a certain kind of magic, this window of mine which allows me to see weightless things as weightless, and shows me the shovel and the sweat on my brow when weightless things become heavy with stones of my own choosing. I can remember when it happened with him, laughing at myself even as I heaved the first upon him.