Birthmark

Last night I lay in bed with a boy. From the moment I met him in his hooded sweatshirt, red with a white + in the middle, I realized the person in front of me was kind. I hadn’t expected that. When he sat down beside me and began to lead the conversation, I looked into his eyes and realized I was dealing with an intelligent person too. That I was visible to him. I think that is the thing I like most of all. Visibility. We drank beer. Dim lights in his room. I’d biked there. I told him this. I told him it took about 20 minutes to get there by bike. As I walked past the gate into his ground-floor apartment, or what do you call it, semi-underground, garden, maisonette, English basement, whatever—I could see a bike chained up there in the outside area. Already (I thought) we were similar.

What I mean is I liked walking into his apartment with a conspiratorial air, I liked the way he’d left a kitchen light on in the dark and quiet living space. A beacon. In the message he told me he was from Philly. In person I told him that he looked like he came from Philly, because in his face and eyes and in that red hoodie I could see the style and gaze of many Philly boys I’d met before—straight ones, ones I would have no “right” to sexualize with the use of a phrase like “Philly boy.” And yet I’d sexualized them, too, in my mind, just as I was looking at this boy with full cheeks, just as I said to myself: in his wry delivery there is something of the actor Joshua Jackson, who incidentally plays gay in Cruel Intentions.

Side note: only now have I removed the mango from between my teeth, using a piece of floss. The mango from sitting with Ale in the park in Red Hook, our picnic before us, our bikes beside us.

Also: the great thing about writing in your house, in your own space is that you may do whatever you wish. You can bring the laptop to the bathroom, not close the door, and proceed to write there. This is a shallow great thing—or is it? Is it disgusting? Is it simply true? But the small true things are the greatest.

Joshua Jackson and I (to restart from the beginning) walked from outside where he led me into his apartment. His real name was Ryan. After we got inside he locked the gate, then locked the front door, then I saw the kitchen light. On our way to his room we passed another room, a door that had yellow and red glass tiles, illuminated by a light behind them. I heard obnoxious dance music (albeit played at a low level) behind that door and I thought, what is this. Where am I. Where have I gone. This was not the room we entered. The room we entered had white double doors, French doors with curtained windows, and inside the room was already dark, except for a light in the closet that illuminated most of the room, but dimly, including: a large bed, a chair, a sofa with clothes on it, and two windows at the far end. Also a table or a desk, where Ryan’s laptop was playing some music. The music bordered on dance scene, but did not cross the line. Groovy. Things like LCD Soundsystem. Later I would ask him: Do you remember the name of the song I said I liked? In fact I knew what it was, I knew that it was LCD Soundsystem, “Someone Great.” But I asked anyway. And I asked: Do you remember the name of the song you said you liked? This time I actually did not remember, though I had a hunch that it was Magnetic Fields. What was the point of this series of questions? To ascertain whether we had experienced the same thing at the same time; whether what had mattered to me, mattered to him.

The next day back at home, I sorted through every Magnetic Fields song I could find. Searching for a phrase of music in their repertoire—though it could just as easily be another artist of the sort—hoping to find the song. Unlike the words of a poem, or the lyrics of a song, there is no way to “search” musical phrases in your mind; one must simply know them. Eventually I gave up on Magnetic Fields, tried all of LCD—passed “Someone Great,” but this wasn’t the unknown I was searching for at that moment—then whimsically (but sagely, I suppose) tried Peter Bjorn & John. Eventually: “Amsterdam.” There. A gentle song. Called to mind the things Ryan and I talked about. His time studying abroad in the Netherlands (apropos then). Qualities of the Dutch. His time in Israel; work with the Jewish think tank. “Visit Palestine,” a framed photograph on his wall. His love of history. A real person here with intelligence and soft hair and a very soft touch. New for me. In Sao Paulo, a young Ms. Rockefeller, granddaughter of the actual—she was genuine, he said, in response to my question. Legacy. Throughout our conversation (which lasted after sunrise) I used the word “genuine” more than once. Is Ms. Rockefeller genuine? Ryan, are you genuine? And do you think I’m genuine? “You’re sweet,” he said, “but I’m not sure if you’re genuine.” Then he kissed me. Water sports. A joke that led him to explain what that meant.

At another point he said that he could never imagine trusting someone enough, even a partner, to fuck without condoms. That too is a legacy.

Somehow, mango still in my teeth. Impressions of the day with Ale. Drinking Righteous Ale, bringing back the tacos & the memelas. (Googled: ‘eaten as antojitos or snacks in the state of Oaxaca.’) Drunk on that field. The glory! The beauty of Red Hook. The way she cracked the mangos open. The way we consumed the pepper; and used hummus on the memelas as if that’s what you always do. (Side note: Today I’ll cut up bananas & mango & papaya & put them in a Tupperware, smoothies on smoothies! I got almond milk to spare. I do spend time thinking about food & how & when I’ll make it, to a point of anxiety sometimes. I’m sure you know.) Ale told a story about how she only wanted blueberries, she brought enough money to get x amount of $1 blueberries, but when she arrived they were twice the price. She tried to bargain, but the guy said no. That’s the price today. Then she saw organic strawberries, $1/carton. So she changed her desire, and there! Delicious strawberry smoothies for her. I was fascinated by this idea, that one could simply choose to change one’s desire. Impressions: talking about the quiver in my eye, activated by complex patterns, triggered maybe by caffeine. Already a little buzzed off a Rolling Rock. (Her first time trying one. Pennsylvania again.) We talk about staring at the wall in nighttime, how you see a little bit of color still. Why is that, we wonder. (Later I tell Ryan about this, and he muses: “Yes, and what about how my blue might be your red?” Inside I’m thinking, “How typical.” He says, as if voicing my thought, “Deep thought, right?” Then he talks of camp during summers growing up. Jewish camp, I ask. Yes, isn’t it always? I tell him they made fun of me at soccer camp because I was no good, so I stopped going, spent my summers at home. Madame Swann at Home: I do, at some point, tell him about Proust, my love for him; why, he asks. The way I explain it is that I was hoping for a specific illumination of Ms. Rockefeller, of her mannerisms & speech; of how she changed over time; but the point of Ryan’s story was that he had never been treated with so much respect as when, in the fancy hotel room in Sao Paulo, he called for room service, all under the auspices of Ms. Rockefeller.) Sitting in Red Hook with Ale, we talk about her Thai friend, a woman in her late 30s who likes to drink, carries a little vodka on MetroNorth and in the subways inside a bottle of Nantucket Orange, bought perhaps in the Upper West Side Fairway. (Ryan knows the exact Red Hook dungeonesque shutters that I’m raving about; he knows the Fairway that Ale and I visited on Van Brunt to gather all the items for our picnic. He doesn’t know I still have mango in my teeth. He sees me nestled in blankets and he laughs.) Ale tells me how once, the Thai friend came to Bushwick, noticed people cooling off at a fire hydrant. Ale explained and laughed. Ha. Ha ha. But not judgmental. Just curious. Like, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Doing your thing. I despise when people say things like, You do Ryan, let me do Dan. “You do you.” I am glad the phrase died out for the most part. The next day when the sun came out, we woke up and Ryan had to get ready for brunch. Brunch! I was sad to hear it, but no one’s perfect. You do you. Some givens of my existence: I watched some 90s version of Saturday morning cartoons growing up. Summers I spent with friends at home; I was never one for sleepaway; and when I was very young, I put the blanket over the air conditioning vent and set up camp there. I don’t know if I’ll buy tickets to the concert. “Money money money. Must be funny,” sings ABBA. In the gallery Ale and I visited in Red Hook, we look at a piece of art, the map outline of Brooklyn. Ale shows me the birthmark on her wrist—almost identical to Brooklyn’s shape. Beautiful. I tell her I don’t have one, but it’s not true. I do have one, on my stomach, below my right rib cage. I don’t tell her because I don’t know exactly where it is, and I think it might be weird if I started pulling up my shirt and asking her to examine my body to tell me where this possible birthmark is in the middle of an art gallery. Also it is a very faded, very subtle brown, maybe barely there, perhaps hardly even worth mentioning.