Hugh

Hugh stepped outside, closing the door softly behind.  He let his stringy, thin fingers trail slowly off the doorknob and brought them around.  He rubbed his hands together and stared a while at the S-like curved birthmark that ran along the knuckles of his right hand.  He descended the porch and set off across the cool, damp, evening grass of his front yard. 

There was a light wind — the sound of someone softly blowing in his ear followed with it.  There was the varied sound of his feet upon the grass, the light crushing sound like paper being crumpled.  Then his shoes dragging up onto the sidewalk like pencil scratches.  Then the dull thump of the soles to the cement.  He walked down the streets, quiet and void: a freshly polished car parked along the curb a half-block down, dimmed blue lights flickering from a television set beyond the picture windows of living rooms, crickets in the grass, a car engine a long way off, the rustle of leaves from the apple tree in the Foster’s yard. 

Moonlight painted the sidewalk with shadow and light, he crossed through the images, disturbing them, becoming part of the canvas for a moment and then going on, leaving the image to reassemble.  The moon was painted in the sky, grey clouds textures over its edges and streaked here and there without intent or control.  A dog barked.

He walked on, lightly.  He took his time.  His hands swung weightlessly at his side, softly brushing against his jeans.  His shoulder blades, slightly dimpled from premature birth, shifted back and forth, almost flapped with the strange bounce of his step.  His light blue eyes, still bright in the evening, here at this moment just shy of midnight, stared at his feet as they kicked up strangely, like an awkward robot they moved.  His muscles barely registered, he did not feel them, he did not understand the way he worked.  He walked on, lightly.

For several blocks he walked.  A right turn at Madison where he stopped to stare at an empty bench that waited for the bus, he felt always when he passed public benches like they were always full even when they were empty, a left onto 3rd, a wait at the bright, grating red stoplight.  The walk signal flashing into existence.  His feet sidestepping the dull painted bars of the crosswalk as he looked on down the street through the varied beams of streetlight falling down and the sterile spill of white light from gas stations, and the super market’s neon sales sign.  All the streets were barren. 

He walked on, lightly, then stopped.  He looked at the house in front of him.  It was small and painted a brick red.  The three-paned window leading into the living room was black like an ebony monolith, three black slabs driven into the side of the house.  The grass was well kept and flowers — roses, daisies, orchids, lilies, tulips, sunflowers — lined along the side of the house.  The combination was odd and circus-like, but still he smiled at it, so that was fine.  It was a fine house…a nice house.

He stood still.  The wind blew in his ear like a kiss without lips. The trees rustled lightly, he listened.  The rustle was like rubbing hands, like expectation, good or bad unknown.  He looked up at the moon, the clouds were receding, it was bright and beautiful, it was a comfort the way it shined.  His chest heaved and he ran his hands through his short blonde, curly hair.  He blew the air out with puffed rosy cheeks.  He stepped forward.

He walked on, lightly, counting the sidewalk slabs to the two steps up to the door.  He looked up to the yellow light in the room upstairs still on, curtain closed.  He raised his knuckle up to knock and stared at the mark again.  He stood still.  The wind blew in his ear and he did not breathe.  He did not make a sound.  He did not hear any either.  He watched the mark for awhile, his hand hanging in the air, the muscles in his arm pulled taught, his hand ready to shoot forward and strike. 

He let it fall.  "All right."  He turned around and stepped back down the steps.  He did not count the slabs.  He walked on, lightly, heading home again.  He moved slowly now, hands in his pockets, eyes up in the sky.  The moon looked like it was getting closer and then receding with every glance away then back.  The stars around it were barely visible but he could see them, he felt them struggling and he felt his eyes light and weightless.  The wind picked up for a moment, it rustled his hair and pulled at his shirt.  He walked on.

He came to the street, and waited for the sign.  He crossed and did not look towards the gas station or the super market.  He stared at the leaves, half in light, half in dark, shifting slightly, rustling, ruffling, and letting the moonlight roll along them like massaging fingers.  He walked on lightly.  He came to Madison street.  He stepped out. 

The rush of wind was sudden and violent and it made him close his eyes harshly, the bright white light washed over him for a moment and he felt his nerves tingle.  He opened his eyes.  He was sitting on the ground in the street.  He felt his body ache, his hands felt gritty and stung to touch.  He looked at them.  They were fine.  He knees felt bloody and scraped raw, but his pants were unharmed.  He was clean but he felt soiled, bloody, and hurt.  A man sat on the bench and cleared his throat.  He wore khaki pants, his leg crossed non-chalantly.  His white button-down dress shirt a little too open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up.  His arms were draped across the back of the bench and his head was cocked to the side as he watched Hugh.  He had black hair, slick and shiny but clean.  He had blue eyes like Hugh’s.

"You all right?"

"Not sure," a moment of hesitation.  Hugh looked the man over.  "You…"

"You’re a quick one.  But I should know."

"Are you…"

"For you, yes.  I’m for you.  I’m yours.  One of many, but yours."

"Really. "

"I’m sure it doesn’t quite explain it, right.  I know that.  But, well, some other time for that.  For this moment, for this purpose, for ours together like this, as I have decided, that’s how it must be."

"All right."

The stranger smiled lightly, a slight up-turn at the side of the mouth.  "How you doing, Hugh?"

The pain had gone from his hands, they felt better.  They felt worn, warm, and numb.  His head was dizzy.  He stood up slowly and lightly and walked over to the bench.  He looked out at the quiet night.  Everything was empty.  "It was all empty," he said.

"We take it for granted that it stays the same.  But everything’s always changing, now isn’t it?  Well, we, being not me of course.  We being you…Hugh."

Hugh smiled lightly.  "Am I?"

"Yes.  Yes you are.  Sorry about that."

"It’s ok."

"I knew it would be for you.  You all right?"

Hugh thought.  He looked at the moon which seemed very still now, the white rim around it seemed to stretch now, strands of it lancing down as he focused closely on it.  He examined the dark spots, the pale grey-blue spots carefully.  He looked at the trees ruffling and rustling slowly and lightly in the soft wind that blew in his ear.  He felt it run through his hair and across his skin lightly like bedsheets.

"You know, the first thing I felt was regret.  And pain.  Disappointment, too.  I felt the ache burst.  Like a dam.  You hold back for so long from what you want because, well, there are so many reasons.  And then when it happens, when you come out the other end, like crossing through a blackhole, passing that threshold you see all the reasons on the other side."

"The light was on, yes."

"Yes.  It was.  The light was on.  And what I felt…what I felt….I wish I could tell you."

"You can’t tell anyone such things, I know.  Nobody can, nobody can really tell that."

"Doesn’t make me feel better."

"I know."

"I don’t.  I don’t know what to do.  What was I supposed to do?"

"I wish I could tell you.  But I can’t.  I don’t know either.  I only know what happens, what is thought, what is felt.  And I can’t tell you her mind.  I’m not hers.  I’m yours."

"Too bad."

"Too bad, true."

"And here I am now, wanting one thing….wanting longer than I can remember.  Knowing my desire before I knew the name of it, still unknowing of the name that could be given to it.  Never really knowing it.  Filling the void here and there, but the void being refilled again when all was said and done as time wore on.  I wanted this one thing.  Had I gotten it I would’ve wanted something else I’m sure, moved on to some other desire without a name seeking to name it and know it and hold it and own it.  And yet, this one thing, which I never could keep or hold…it’s all I wanted.  And perhaps had I knocked, it would have come to be…that which I wanted."

"Then again, maybe not."

"I know what I was supposed to do.  What the world expected me to choose because I am a man.  I am a man.  I know that.  I feel it."

"You are a man."

"And yet I couldn’t do what they tell me men do.  Why is that?"

"Because it is not you.  And if you must be you and what they say a man is, you will still always be you, and thus not a man."

"But I am a man."

"You are a man."

"So…"

"Maybe they don’t really know what a man is.  Who are they to say?"

"Then what is a man?"

"Who am I to say?  What good is anything that is said anyway?"

"Felt?"

"Feel, true."

The wind blew softly in Hugh’s ear.  "Feel true."  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the corner of the stranger’s smile.

"You all right?"

"Yes I am."

"Why?"

"You don’t know?"

"I will shortly, now won’t I?"

"Because I love her.  I love her enough to know that loving is….well…loving her better in secret is better than loving her when she does not want it."

"For you?"

"For her, too."

"Oh?"

"I don’t want my love to be a burden or a curse on anyone.  And I can’t help what I am.  I feel it.  And if I feel it, I can’t help it, so they cannot help it either.  So I don’t want them to be hurt by it.   So there it is."  Hugh stood up.  "Now what?"

"Up to you, Hugh.  Here’s where the two of us and this part ends.  Damn, that’s cliche.  I’ll have to work on this part."

Hugh smiled.  The stranger smiled.  "Good night."

"Good night."

Hugh turned and looked up at the moon, the light felt like home.

"Oh Hugh."  Hugh turned.  "She knew, Hugh."

"How do you know?"

"I just do…Hugh."  The stranger smiled and winked.

Hugh turned.  He walked on, lightly.