I have been trying to write a story. I have been trying to write a story about a scene I did with the Boston Boy late during one of the last play parties in New York, before I flew away.
I’ve been trying to write it down, but I can’t remember how the words should go.
The Boston Boy is short, not small. Thick in his legs, round like apples and then broad like bodies of water. He has dark curling hair that twists into his ears and twines around my fingers.
Where was Maymay, the night of that party? I can’t place him in my mind, which makes me think he was at home. This piece will explain why I will never write a non-fiction memoir; I fill the gaps of my life in with fictions I create from the vapor of nothing, because the gaps themselves are huge and dark and frustrating. Last weekend I walked down the street with Maymay and said that I felt sad, and tried to explain my reasons. He turned to me and said gently, “That’s the same reason you were sad before we moved, six months ago. Don’t you remember us talking about it?” And I had to say no: I remember sitting, I remember words in my mouth, but I don’t remember why I was sad back then, in that anonymous time six months ago. I barely know why I’m sad now.
I remember the Boston Boy closed his eyes tight, and closed his face up as well. When he was finally against the wall of Rob’s little bedroom with his shirt on the floor at his feet, he stood perfectly still. I remember I ran my hands over his body.
“I’m sorry I’m so quiet,” he said, and his words came out odd in my ears. “I know you like it when there’re noises.” I think that I told him it was all right.
And then there is a gap. Trying to fill it with fiction makes me lonely, so I’m going to leave it unfilled.
Later, I grabbed the meat of his shoulder and wrestled him down onto the floor. He went down easy, and when I sat on top of his chest and pinned his elbows to his sides I could feel the muscles of his arms flexing and relaxing as he grabbed at the waistband of his shorts.
“What are you doing?” I leaned over him softly.
“Just trying not to fight back,” he said.
And I remember I asked him what he meant, and then I said, “Let’s try that, then,” and I kept hitting him.
I hit him until he wrenched his arms from under my body, flipped me easily and pinned me to the floor. I struggled a little, then looked him in the eyes. “All right,” I said then, “that’s enough.”
And I remember he threw himself backward, put his back to the corner and curled in a ball with his hands over his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He cried it in something that sounded like fear. I almost melted away.
And then, another gap. Writing like this makes me frustrated, makes me miss the golden sheen of the bubble I’ve capped over my time in New York. I don’t know if capping it makes things better or worse. A few days ago Maymay and I sat in a cafe, and I said maybe I want to move back to the States. No more guesswork, no more tentative movements or subtle disconnections. My life feels faded, fragile, incomplete.
“Let’s go to San Francisco,” I said.
I remember toward the end of the scene with the Boston Boy I pressed the pointed tip of a knife between his eyebrows, and he sank against the wall and made one low noise, without opening his lips at all. I remember deciding that noise was enough, and I remember it so clearly because I keep it wrapped in my head in a bit of tissue paper, that one beautiful noise.
I’m trying to write it down now, how the scene ended. Did we sit on the floor? I think we did. Did I put my arms around him? I hope I did. Some of this piece was fictional, but my hope in that hypothetical moment is real.
