Page 18 of Rhymes with Metaphor
“He’s getting some now,” said Reg.
“Thanks for looking after him, Reg.Can you call when he wakes up?”
“I can take him home when he wakes up,” said Reg.“Whenever that happens to be.”
He hung up and checked Joel.He felt partly responsible for this situation and guilty for being so rude to Joel before.It had been partly Joel’s fault for seeming so mature and put-together and...superior to Reg.But seeing him like this took the wind out of Reg’s sails.He felt like an asshole.
Lying drenched on Reg’s settee, Joel looked like little Moses fished out of the river.Though, Reg supposed, things tended to look smaller and more vulnerable when they were wet, just as they looked smaller after being burned.Joel’s scrubs were completely saturated and the upholstery was soaking up the surplus.He was breathing so quietly, Reg had to check he wasn’t dead.He smelled humid and gamey, like a wet cat, but Reg felt it would be sacrilege to disturb him.He got a hand towel from the bathroom and pressed it gently against Joel’s hair and face, blotting up the excess moisture until he was merely sodden, rather than dripping wet.Joel was hot and shivering.Reg turned up the thermostat and got him a blanket from the linen cupboard—a big, thick, black, white, and cardinal red blanket that Flip had bought him in Calgary.He laid it over Joel, tucking it in around him.
There was a piece of yellow chalk on the floor beside the settee.He picked it up and, on the exposed brick right above Joel’s body, he wrote,Are we met with indiscretions, little Moses?Should I fish you from the water?Should I save you from yourself?Are you the ashes of the burning bush?
Reg felt grotty and sticky from the rain, so he had a shower.After a minute under the hot water, more words started oozing out, and he had to stumble out of the shower and write them frantically in the fog of the bathroom mirror.He finished his shower and changed into dry clothes.Joel still lay in the same position, still breathing (Reg checked).
It would be easier getting Joel back into his car if he wasn’t hungry, so Reg ordered food from the local German bakery, and while he was waiting for it to arrive, he sat watching Joel and then scrambled to find blank paper to write on.Whenever he looked at Joel, words rushed out of him.He filled the margins of an old takeout menu, two business cards, and the foot of brick wall above the settee where Joel was sleeping, by which time the food arrived, and he moved on to scribbling all over the paper bag it came in.
Reg ate a couple of liverwurst sandwiches and some obscenely rich Black Forest cake.Joel was still sound asleep, so Reg put the rest of the food in the fridge for when he woke.Reg hadn’t slept in sixteen hours, but he didn’t want to go up to bed, paranoid Joel would stop breathing if he left him alone, so he dozed off on the settee opposite Joel.
He was roused by his phone vibrating in his pocket.He scrambled to answer it before it woke Joel.
“Hello?”said Reg.
“Smithy,” said Flip.
“Flip.”
“I’m in Barcelona.Want to come?”
Reg sighed.“Will I have to share the box with your beard?”
“Caroline will be there, yeah,” said Flip.
Caroline: A natural blonde, leggy American.The woman that Flip’s people had cast in the role of his “girlfriend.”
Once, Reg would have dropped everything to join Flip.It meant a change of scene in a pleasant climate and sex after a long drought, and room service and catching up and sightseeing in whatever city they were in, without touching each other, of course, because anyone could see them, then back in the room for more sex and late night arguments about having to hide their relationship, with Flip insisting he couldn’t jeopardize his endorsements.Then Reg would be seething and sitting in a box seat watching Flip go through the drama and soul-searching, and then saying their goodbyes in the hotel room, and Reg taking a cab to the airport by himself because a public farewell could risk Flip’s endorsements.
It wasn’t that Reg didn’t still love Flip, but after six years, the conditions under which he had to love him, all imposed by Flip, were becoming untenable.So what Reg said was, “I’ve got something going on here.”
“You never have anything going on,” said Flip.
“I do now.I’m sorry, Flip.I can’t.”
Reg hung up, set the phone on the coffee table, and noticed Joel looking at him, blinking.The stubble on his face was more obvious now.He could have grown a creditable beard, were he so inclined.He still looked exhausted.
“I told your sister where you are,” said Reg.
“Where am I?”said Joel, his voice rough with sleep.He sounded twenty years older.
“My place,” said Reg.
“Bathroom?”
“Door behind me.”
Joel walked slowly and unsteadily towards it.He came back a couple of minutes later.Reg noticed the rainwater had dried out of his scrubs.He supposed, as they were hospital clothes, they were designed to dry quickly.
“Would you like me to take you home now, or would you like to eat first?”
Joel made an attempt to shrug, apparently decided that his shoulders were too heavy to lift, and gave up halfway.He looked at his watch.He wore an enormous watch; on his slight wrist, it looked like a manacle.“It’s four o’clock in the morning.”
