The siege has been on for weeks. I won’t be able to leave my apartment again. Imagine the desperate claustrophobia of a Belfast, Beirut, or Banja Luka: an acrid veil of smoke overhead, bombs and gunfire in the background, Molotov cocktails crashing through every intact pane of glass, rooftop snipers on the lookout for pedestrian targets. Impossible to venture out. My circumstances are different, but the result is the same. I can’t leave. And I’m in Berkeley. Apart from the occasional earthquake or student protest, this is supposed to be a place where nothing bad ever happens.

 

Edward, I write in my journal. It’s exquisite, this journal. Hand-tooled leather the color of chocolate, heavy grey paper. I bought it in Florence. I’m sorry. I will spend the rest of eternity telling you that. Will you ever listen? I’m so sorry.

 

I used to be a flight attendant. Home is this old apartment a few blocks from the university: old furniture I picked up from consignment shops and flea markets, candles everywhere, cobalt-glass vases I filled with fragrant clusters of the white jasmine that grows semi-wild outside. Now I’m overdosing on my own hipness. I want to be above the clouds again, but work hasn’t been an option for weeks. I had to call in, feign an illness, and quit. Too dangerous to do anything else.

Based out of United’s hub at the San Francisco airport, I’d spend a week or two smiling and serving cocktails five miles above the world. One night I’d sleep in a hotel room in Sydney. Sometime later, Paris. Taipei. Never much time to acquaint myself with these cities, to be honest. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. I might have a couple of hours to stumble down some foreign street in search of a café or restaurant worth a second visit, maybe a friendly stranger to wake up with. After a period aloft, I’d fly home to California and sleep for a couple of days. From ShanghaiMadridToronto I’d have e-mailed friends to let them know when I’d be home, and soon enough the phone would start to ring. It was a life.

Now I can’t go outside. The attack comes before the door swings shut behind me, invisible hands ripping at my hair, my clothes, my skin. The walls in the vestibule beyond my apartment cracked last time I tried to leave; clouds of plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The beams in the walls seemed to groan as some immense weight or force bore down on them. The light overhead flickered once, twice, went out. In the intangible distance, screams I couldn’t hear so much as feel. Palpable rage. I slammed the door shut behind me and stayed home, praying the talisman would hold.

 

Last time I left this place was when… (Be honest, Noel) a month ago? Six weeks?

 

I write this knowing it will be my suicide note. Even if I’m not the one who does myself in, my death will be seen as the sad, solitary opt-out by a young man who lost his grip on the real world. The problem is, the real world is slippery. Your grip is never as tight as you think.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t.

But I don’t think I’m going to get any choice in the matter.

 

When I met Edward Wright, we both lived in Baltimore. I had just finished college: U of Maryland at College Park, BA in psychology, useful for nothing but retail or a future of huge student loan payments for the advanced degrees I’d need if I actually wanted to work in that field. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself next. My bookstore job turned into a full-time assistant manager gig, a professional cul de sac in the outer suburbs of hell. And in the romance department, when I met Edward, I arrived with more than my full baggage allowance. I opted to turn away at the check-in counter instead of trying to board.

I met Mr Wright while he was living with Mr Wrong. Edward’s gorgeous Trinidadian boyfriend Nathaniel had lost several jobs in a row and about to lose his visa. The INS hung overhead like the paper-slicer of Damocles. Edward, the sweet naïve fool, had been sucked into supporting the guy: apparently he gave legendary head. I have to say, although Nathaniel made me a little weak in the knees, Edward was the one I wanted. Couldn’t get him out of my mind. He worked 14-hour days as a personal trainer to keep Nathaniel in good clothes and good weed. Nathaniel, an elegant six-foot-three panther of a man with sexy shoulder-length dreads, got by on the occasional modeling gig. He’d pose nude for sculptors or slink down a runway to debut some department store’s new collection. By contrast, Edward’s looks revealed themselves on the second look: a lean and well-developed body beneath his dark clothes, fair freckled skin prone to sunburn, overcast blue-grey eyes, handsome in an offbeat way but devastating when he broke into a grin.

I influenced Edward’s decision to get rid of Nathaniel. You’re addicted, I told him. And you feel sorry for the guy. When I said nobody could blame him for loving to swab his tonsils with Nathaniel’s cock, Edward socked me. Gave me a black eye. I’ll remember the look of mixed shame and horror on his face long after I’m dead. Edward threw his arms around me, sobbing too hard to ask me to forgive him. He dumped Nathaniel the next day.

That same week, Edward threw Nathaniel out of their apartment and changed the locks. Solve your own problems, he told his newly-minted ex, who bawled like he had, in fact, cared once. Go down on the goons from the INS when they come to deport you. It’s not my goddamn problem anymore.

I cheered. The bruise faded. What the hell, we’ve all had our outbursts. You can never predict what someone’s going to do next, no matter how well you think you know him. Thing was, I sort of had it coming. I led him on. But I shouldn’t have forgotten he did that.

 

When the attack comes, it’s like someone is trying to drive an invisible car through the wall. The geometry of the house seems about to fail, as if a massive pair of shoulders are forcing their way into a child’s sweater. The first time this happened, I called Henry, the condo association’s manager. He stopped by my apartment the next day, surveyed the damage with widening eyes.

“We must have had an earthquake,” he said. “Would you mind logging onto the Internet? We can confirm it.”

“Earthquake,” I said. The idea made sense, I guess, if you didn’t know what was going on. “Sure. I’ve got a fast connection. Go crazy.”

Of course there hadn’t been one.

“I’ll call the maintenance guys and get those walls re-plastered,” Henry said.

One more attempt at leaving my apartment was enough to convince me to stay in. The hallway window imploded. Shards of glass peppered my face and arms. I’m lucky I wasn’t blinded. Audible roars that time, deafening, the enraged bellows of a minotaur whose virgin sacrifice lacked a hymen.

 

Ever taken a really long flight, say San Francisco to Sydney or London? New York to Johannesburg? By the time you arrive, the cabin is fetid from all the farts and armpits, bits of food dropped on the floor, crotches in need of a wash. The same bad smells, exhaled over and over, assault you until you want to disinfect your tingling sinuses with a Q-tip you’ve dipped in peroxide. My apartment smells like the lavatory in a 777 that has just crossed an ocean. I live on the shady side of the building, and I keep the blinds closed, the curtains drawn. I’d open the window for fresh air but I’m afraid of what I’d let in.

Last week I parted the curtains and looked outside. Something struck my window hard enough to crack the glass. In my mind’s eye I saw a corpse hurtling toward me, something dead and putrid, a dog flattened on the freeway, then snatched up and flung for the occasion. Noel, you’re seeing things. For a second, I saw lurid purple-red smears across the crazed glass, clumps of fur, a pointed tooth wedged in one of the cracks. The stench of sun-baked rot underlay the armpit atmosphere of my apartment, evanescent like the cigarette aroma wafting off the clothes of a smoker you pass on the sidewalk. Now you smell it, now you don’t. When I blinked, the vision passed. The roadkill stink subsided, and I saw nothing but a run-of-the-mill broken window. One more thing for Henry to take care of.

 

Edward, you’re not going to forgive me, are you?

 

I tried to keep my head down for the two months between accepting the flight attendant job and moving to Dallas for training at American’s headquarters—Barbie Boot Camp, my colleagues called it. (I wouldn’t transfer to United for another year, when I decided I wanted to live in the Bay Area.) My excuse, I told Edward when he called: I needed to work overtime at the bookstore to pay off my credit card debt before I left. I needed some money in the bank to finance the move. Please understand, I begged him. You know I really like you. But I have to do this. Was it manipulative of me? That’s a question for history, not for me; I thought I was doing what I had to do, putting the issue of this putative relationship with him on the back burner until I had put my own life together, until he had more time apart from Nathaniel, until until until…

OK, so I ran away and went looking for justifications after the fact. I had to whistle in the dark. The easy way out tempted me every time I saw the bastard. On one level, I wanted to press myself closer to him when we hugged each other hello, to turn the friendly dry kiss on the lips into something hot, wet, and horizontal. Any idiot could see how much he wanted that. His emotions hung out all raw and naked for everyone to see. When he didn’t think I was looking, he’d look at me as if he couldn’t believe I liked him at all. Even in conversation, his eyes would light up, letting me know there was no other place he wanted to be.

I didn’t think I deserved that kind of adoration.

I see that now, Edward. How many times do I have to tell you I fucked up? That I should never have run away? It’s not enough to say I thought you deserved better, is it? You made up your mind I was the one you wanted, and that was that. You stubborn son of a bitch.

In retrospect, I should have treated Edward like the miracle he was. The odds of finding a man like that… how can I describe it? It was like winning the lottery.

I fucking ran away and stayed gone for a long time. Did I want to punish Edward for loving me? As I said, I had baggage of my own. It’s the classic pathology: you care about me; therefore, there must be something wrong with you, so I must make you suffer. I didn’t call him. Well, that’s not true. I did, sporadically. I weakened. I couldn’t get him out of my head, goddamn it. I needed to hear his voice. I needed to know he was OK. I wanted him to hope I’d come to my senses and find my way back to him. And the hell of it is, I always believed I would. Just not like this.

 

I didn’t kill him. That’s how it sounds, I know, but I didn’t kill him.

Not exactly.

 

Edward, I write in desperation, as if an answer will appear on the page like invisible ink unvanishing. Call them off. This isn’t how our story is supposed to end.

It’s growing dark outside. This is the fogged-in time of year, here in the Bay Area. The sun gives up on the day rather late in the afternoon, 4.30 or so, suggesting winter even in July. Some primitive part of me panics at the coming of night. I used to enjoy lying on my sofa and watching the sky deepen with sunset; now I’m too scared. The furniture becomes a menagerie of dangerous black shapes in the darkened room. Sounds outside take on a terrifying quality. Has something evil hunkered down on the doorstep? What are those voices? Everything rational in me collapses.

Edward and I bumped into each other in Miami three months ago, after a year and a half apart. I’d barely written, e-mailed sporadically, never called once. The usual. I had no idea he’d be there… or where he’d be, to be honest. He used to e-mail me whether I replied or not, and I loved that about him. I hated it, too, and felt guilty. He deserved better. When I noticed his e-mails were coming less and less often, I felt a shameful flush of relief. Part of me wanted him to move on. The other part wouldn’t let go.

After a hard month of too many overtime hours, too many cities, too many languages, my hands had started to shake from fatigue. I kept myself functioning with caffeine and twenty-minute cat naps. My circadian rhythms were as misaligned as trailer trash from Biloxi trying to tango. Exhausted to the point of incoherence, for some reason I couldn’t fall asleep. I left my South Beach hotel for a few drinks, to dull the clamor in my head. In the club, there was Edward, talking with a cute Asian guy he introduced as a colleague. They were in town for a conference.

“But you’re supposed to be in Baltimore!” I steadied myself against the edge of the bar.

“I moved to San Diego two months ago.”

I couldn’t look at him without welling up. Every few minutes I’d hug him again, then turn aside to knuckle tears away from the corners of my eyes.

I called in sick, persuaded a doctor friend back in California to fax a note to my boss, and spent three days in bed with Edward. He blew off the conference. We only got out of bed to let the room service cart in, shower, and use the bathroom. We went for walks through South Beach when we were drained dry, to drink in the sun, the warmth that made us want to tug each other’s clothes off again and roll like puppies in the sweaty sheets of our hotel bed, the nouveau-deco-retro architecture, the acres of browning flesh.

“I could almost live here,” I told him.

He shuddered. “Too muggy. Let’s stay in California.”

Our time in Florida felt like the first chapter of happily-ever-after, but we both had to return to the real world. We parted with kisses at the airport and made promises to be in touch, passionately determined in the moment to see where things could go. My old habits kicked in within a month: I stopped replying to Edward’s e-mails and got slack about returning calls. True, it’s hard to be in constant touch with someone when you’re on an airplane most of the time. No matter how much you love him, the constraints on time and communication technology are real. I drifted away again. I took comfort in the familiar sensation of denying myself what I wanted most.

Three weeks ago, I got home from my last full-length work-related odyssey—Vancouver, Osaka, Singapore—and found a livid Edward on the landing. My legs almost gave out when I saw him. He wore a grey sweater the color of the sky, and his nose glowed red from the midsummer chill.

I fumbled in my pocket for my keys. My overstuffed carry-on suitcases toppled over backward. (Try not shopping when you’re in Singapore.)

“Where have you been?” he asked me after an awkward hug.

I couldn’t answer. With effort, I unlocked the front door and motioned for him to come in. I dropped my bags on the floor and collapsed on the sofa, then let Edward move me like a big ragdoll so that my head rested in his lap. He stroked my hair. I hated myself.

“I got sick of waiting,” he said. “I drove up.”

Edward’s fingers, while slender, were stronger than they looked. He massaged the knots out of my neck and shoulders.

“Noel, I thought we had started something,” Edward said after a long silence.

I tensed up again.

“We did,” I said quickly. “No, wait, that came out wrong. We have.” My face burned. “I’m sorry.”

He stopped the massage.

“Why do you keep doing this? I know you want me as much as I want you, but you keep running away. I don’t understand that.”

I sat up.

“Edward,” I began.

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Don’t,” he said. “Please don’t say anything that sounds like your old excuses. I don’t want to hear it.”

“I don’t have an excuse,” I told him. “If I did, that would be a step up from where I am now. You deserve better than me.”

His face turned hibiscus red, as it did the time he hit me. He closed his eyes.

“Edward,” I tell the air in my apartment. The journal pages feel like skin. I caress them like Edward’s back after the first time we made love. “I know you can hear me. I know you’re out there.”

When mediums channel spirits, a state of deep calm must be attained. I have meditated. I have attempted to clear my mind. I’ve lit every candle I own. The stick of champa incense burning in the kitchen has rendered the air almost too sweet to breathe. Fear clouds my thoughts, but I have done the best I can.

The talisman won’t hold forever.

An eye has opened inside my mind. Something has awakened, something that can see. When I recognize Edward’s backward-slanted chickenscratch on the Florentine paper, I gasp as if I’ve been stabbed in the face with a length of piano wire. The psychic pain almost throws me out of my trance. The tiny window of vision threatens to close.

The voodooienne diluted the recipe to make sure you’d need a new charm from her. Its power is going to wear out in a few hours. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to write through your hands like this. That woman thought you were a fool. She thought you were another stupid white boy who had read too many New Age books.

“This is Berkeley. People here aren’t supposed to do things like that,” I said to the paper as if I’d drawn an ear on it, wondering if I’d ever in this life or the next stop feeling so stupid. The pen in my hand feels as if someone else is holding it, and describing the sensation by whispering to me.

I love you but you’re kind of an idiot.

“We’ve established that.”

You shouldn’t have played with me for so long, Noel. You attracted attention, and once I was dead and the story got around, it pissed a lot of people off. Haven’t you figured that out by now?

“What was there to figure out, Edward?”

On this side, there’s nothing that infuriates people more than someone like you who could have had it so good and kept running away. You were too much of a pussy to grab the brass ring when you had the chance. AIDS and hate crimes sent a lot of gay guys to the grave with loose ends still untied. Couples who had been together for years were separated in their prime. A lot of relationships were never reconciled. Your behavior has been a major affront to those people. They’re not impressed.

My hand ached from being forced to write someone else’s words. My wrists felt as taut as guitar strings. If I were to thump them, they would twang.

It’s like going to prison when you’re guilty of raping kids, Noel. Before the cell door even slides shut behind you, you’re already done for. Your inability to deal with our romance left me at the foot of your stairs with a broken neck, and I entered the afterlife screaming. People noticed. They were insulted, and they decided to do something about it. Pretty soon we’re going to be together on this side, whether you’re ready or not. I’m sorry it has to be like this.

“You hit me once. I should have known you’d do something like this to me in retaliation.”

It’s not me, Noel. It’s not about retaliation, or my temper. There’s nothing I can do. I’ve tried, and it’s like trying to change the course of a hurricane by shouting into the gale. Look at it this way: I’ll be there when they’re finished with you. Be brave. It won’t hurt for long.

I snapped out of my trance and slammed the journal shut, wracked with cold chills, shaking.

 

“You’re never going to pull your head out of your ass, are you?” Edward had pulled away from me. At the other end of my sofa, he hugged himself like a six-year-old boy in adult guise. “You’re going to keep doing this until… what? Until you get tired of the game and find someone else to torture?”

“No, it’s not like that!” I tried to put my arms around him, exhaustion making me feel like a statue brought only halfway to life. “I just… I…”

“What?” He glared at me. “Finish the sentence. I dare you.”

“I can’t.”

“That’s the long and short of it, isn’t it, Noel? You can’t. For the last few years, you haven’t been able to, and you still can’t. I’m leaving now, and when I go, it’s the last time you’re going to see me. I’m done.”

I ran after him and tried to hold on. I stumbled, lost my balance, fell against him at the top of the stairs. We teetered on the brink for a terrible two seconds; I fell backward on the floor and Edward pitched forward, crashing down the stairs headfirst. The amplified cereal crunch of his breaking bones will stay with me until the sun cools and God forgets he ever invented the universe.

 

“Edward, how long do I have?”

A wind has picked up outside. The talisman, contained in one of those tall red bodega prayer candles, has burnt itself out. Inside, its glass container is smudged black with smoke from the special wick the voodooienne had prepared for me and inserted ever so carefully while I watched, doubting and hoping in equal measure, wondering if I’d make it home without being run over by a car veering out of control or eaten by someone’s rabid mastiff.

They’re in here…

No answer comes, but the dozens of candles I’ve lit start to wink out one by one. Shadows are eating the room.

“Edward!” I scream. “Stop them!”

No answer comes. It’s hard to breathe, my heart is beating so fast. My belly is full of rocks. I can’t swallow. I have to wait and watch these little flames snuffed one after another.

Wait, Noel.

Of course I’ll wait. It’s out of my hands now.

I kept Edward waiting, didn’t I? What choice do I have?

Fair’s fair.

 

© 2004 Marshall Moore - Contributor's Bio

Read the Interview with Marshall Moore by Mike McGinty