the fridge I find some red leaf lettuce, two plum tomatoes, and two-thirds of a carrot, which at first I think is a hunk of orange plastic wrapped in cellophane.
I say, “Do I have a salad spinner?”
“You do not,” Louis says. He flips through the pages of the autumn Williams-Sonoma catalog, dog-earing pages, tearing out the recipes. I toss all the stuff in a bowl, the torn lettuce pieces, wedges of bleeding tomato, and thin, almost transparent carrot slices. Looking at it all mucked up together, I’m thinking that salad is such a stupid food.
“Why do I know your kitchen better than you do?” he says.
“Because I don’t use it. And you buy all this stuff for me.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I don’t even know what half of this stuff is.” I open a drawer and rifle through the clunky metal tools inside. “What is this?”
Louis eyes the gadget in my hand. He turns back to the magazine and, ripping out a page near the front, reaches for his cigarettes. “It’s a nutmeg grater.”
“I don’t have any nutmeg.”
“And this is my problem?”
“Louis, you can’t smoke in my house.”
“Since when?”
“Since always. And what’s the deal with all these cigarettes? Why are there cartons all over the house?” On the kitchen table alone there are seven cartons; more wait in stacks in the bathroom, some on the bedside table.
“What’s your problem?”
“Are you planning on going home?” He turns to look at me and his eyebrows become a dark V. “I don’t mind if you stay here for a while. But I need to go out, or sometimes people will want to come over here. I need to make appointments. What will Mr. Bartlett do if I don’t show up?”
“Does he think he’s the only faggot in Manhattan that you pee on?”
“Yes, I’m sure he does.”
“He’s a freak. All that glass-of-water business.”
“What can I say, I have precious piss.”
“You should bottle that shit. You could be a millionaire.” The word lifts out of his mouth like a crystal balloon. “Anyway,” he says, “I can’t go home now. Farmer called. I invited him and Jaron over for lunch.”
“Today?”
“Around one.”
“Was this your idea?”
“No, actually, it was Jaron’s. He said he couldn’t remember the last time all of us were in the same room together. Especially you.”
“What are you cooking?”
“I am cooking a quiche,” he says.
“Since when do you cook quiche?”
Chapter Seven
Louis can’t decide whether to serve the quiche at room temperature or steaming hot. So it waits on the counter, having been in and out of the oven a few times already. “You’re going to dry it out,” I say. “Make up your mind.”
“Leave me alone,” he says, reaching up into the cabinets. He pauses to touch his hip, grimacing for a second with the pain that I’m sure is spiking up and down his side. I watch him take the next few movements more slowly.
“Take it easy,” I say.
“I’m fine. I just forget sometimes.”
My head feels slogged with mud, and my nipple is pink and tender around the ring. I can only half remember why that is. Only half remember which guy was tugging on it.
My feet crack as I move toward the table, ligament pulling dryly over bone. There are blue cloth napkins that I’ve never seen before folded in triangles on the plates. Shiny new silverware on top of that. The caramel smell of onions wanders through the room, bumping into me as I walk, savory but mostly sweet. Louis hops around, tidying, touching up. He holds two different color pillows, each out at arm’s length, one green, one blue, seeing which belongs where. A cigarette hangs from his mouth, unlit.
“Why are you making such a fuss?” He decides on the green pillow, setting it on its side, laying it warmly on the couch. “We’re not expecting the queen.” He pulls the curtains shut, opens them again, then pushes them behind the chair so they stay out of the way.
My apartment is three rooms. One room serves as the kitchen and the dining room and the living room. The kitchen itself is along the wall, all the parts in a line—countertop, sink, stove. Unmatching cabinets, randomly placed here and there, above the stove, between the fridge and the heating pipes that snake into the ceiling. A table sits left of center, then a few places to sit opposite the television and the Nintendo setup—a tangle of cords and controllers. A skinny bathroom separates the first room and the bedroom. The faucet fills in the center of the tub, which, from endless repairs to the tiled floor, is slanted more than a few degrees, and drips. The drain gurgles in the middle of the night. The bedroom is only the bed scooted into one corner and a chest of drawers. Overall the place looks kind of empty, as if I’m not finished moving in, only there’re more accessories than actual furniture: candle things, miniature lamps, containers—Louis and his Home Shopping Network obsession.
“Simon, wake up.”
“I am awake.” He pushes past me with a bowl. “What is that?”
“Fruit salad.” He places the bowl on the table and covers it with a napkin, as if it were bread dough needing to rise. “Jaron has to eat something. He won’t eat the eggs.”
I fill a glass of water and chug it. Farmer says you should drink a liter of water before breakfast. “Jaron will have a fit if you make a big deal out of him. You know how he hates to be the center of attention.” And then I remember the trips to the hospital, the portable IVs, the tiny stitches running up and down his arms.
You learn about the body when you do what I do. How pain and pleasure are delicately interchangeable, often indistinguishable. How incredibly resilient we are. And how easily, sometimes invisibly, we slip away.
“Simon, you—”
“I’m grumpy in the morning.”
“You’re always grumpy.”
“I like to be grumpy.”
“Shut up already. Take a shower or something.” He twists a rag and pops it on the back of my thigh.
Then, finally, Louis brings the quiche out of the oven for the last time, carrying it with two large oven mitts, and places it onto a wooden trivet. He pushes the other dishes aside, making room for whatever else he has planned. I lean against the sink, watching him move. Watching the vein pulse in his neck, the way the hair is growing back on his chest. Taking a quick, motherly inventory of his body. His injuries are healing. Slowly, but they’re healing. I wonder what’s going on in his head, however. Sometimes he feels so far away.
The buzzer announces their arrival. I scurry over and pick up the receiver. “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” they say in unison—the ubiquitous New York buzzer declaration.
I scratch between my legs and realize that I’m not wearing any pants. I slip into the bedroom. I pull on a pair of Louis’s jeans, stuffing my boxers down into the leg so they don’t bunch up around the waist.
The door opens and Jaron says, “Well, this place looks fabulous. Louis, you really have done a number in here. Quite the improvement.” Of course, his place is a landfill. Stacks of never-used take-out menus and credit card applications. Only it’s never stinky or dirty—no food waste that might cause that. “Farmer, don’t you just love this tablecloth? Is this linen? Where’s Simon?” Jaron herds us like sheep.