I think about axe murderers and that creepy guy who made dolls of the girls he killed. I think about his average-sized tongue and say yes, maybe that would be good. I ask if he has a bathtub I could sleep in, and he says that yes, his parents have a bathtub.
I kind of freeze up. My mind fills with sweet, comfortable Jon who warns me that I should disclose everything to this boy, including my age and condition. I should hand him the card I have to carry saying my address and what exactly they think is wrong with me. But I don�t. I tell him that my parents have a bathtub, too, and that the two should hang out.
My parents live in Egypt.
We get off the bus, and neither of us have any bags to pick up and swing charmingly over our shoulders. We make do with hunched backs anyway.
He takes me to a street, and we walk down it, me a little dizzy from being outside and having this much space to move my arms around in. I whack him in the shoulder and he apologizes for me, taking all the blame. It�s easy and friendly, but I think he thinks of it as a little more than that. Which is OK with me. He makes me feel dizzy, I realize, not the bus.
We get to his house, which is small and not a house. It�s an apartment, on top of a Chinese food place. It smells really good down there, but his apartment�s by the dumpster. He apologizes profusely for the smell, and lights too much incense to compensate. I smile and he almost melts.
I realize that I haven�t eaten all day, and mention something to this effect. He says: Well! and reaches for a rope outside his window. He swings it hard, and uses a pulley on the end to rap on the window beneath. �Chinese OK?�
I nod, smiling, and we talk about politics over chow mien that�s perfect. �It�s the ideal apartment� he says, �because it smells so bad, but the food�s so good.�
He pauses. �You�re, um, not vegetarian, are you?�
I�m not.
�Great.�
I look around for a while as he lowers the scraps into the Dumpster. It�s a complicated process involving a lot of swearing, meaning I have plenty of time to examine where the exits are. There is one leading to a fire escape that looks like it�s been there for thousands of years, and one where we came in, and what might well be another one, locked in the corner.
Thus reassured, I look at him. He looks very different in this light: kind of sinewy and graceful. Like a panther.
He�s got his long hair in a ponytail, loose at the nape of his neck. His sunglasses are off, and I see that his eyes are the kind of deep, deep brown that you could eat or get lost in. He has longish lashes and high cheekbones. He catches me looking at him and straightens from his task to return the favor.
I have lots of blond hair, and crackly green eyes. My mouth is wide but nicely formed. My eyelashes are average or so, but the bottom ones really show up, and they make me feel like a rabbit on most mornings. Somehow he doesn�t seem to mind. My chin comes to a point and when I�m mad at you, I dig it into the sensitive place where your shoulder meets your neck. I see that he realizes this, somehow.
I think it�s wrong that he is a panther and I am a rabbit. Because I can fight and steal just as well, I bet. I just look pale and scared.
�My, um, parents live next door,� he says. �If you still wanted to sleep in the bathtub..�
I shake my head, once, and he relaxes in infinitesimal increments.
�Well,� he says, in a voice like the one on the bus, �Let me show you around.� he says.
I see his tiny and spotless kitchen (spotless, he explains, because he doesn�t have to use it, not while living here at least.) I see his main room, where we were just eating, which features a large mural. I look at it, and I see that some of the paint is put on so thickly that bones are sunk in it, and that there are tiny feathers and stones caught in the paint as well. He tells me that the painting is called Flood, and it makes perfect sense. The colors are blue-browns, and mysterious green and yellow tints.
I tell him that he did a really good job with it, and he thanks me.
Next I see his tiny bathroom, which is clean and features a litter box. I tell him that I am excited to see his cat, and he nods.
�Her name is Kalu.� he tells me. �She�s usually in pretty late.�
And then there is no room left but his bedroom, which he shows me. It is painted a deep, deep red color. He moves over to the corner to turn on lights, and I see that he�s painted a flock of crows in black paint on one wall. They shred across it, and I imagine I can feel the sharpness of feather and claw as they pass.
He has bookshelves made of some dark wood in the corner, and I see CDs and volumes of Kafka and Tom Wolfe side-by-side. The rug is thick and brownish, and he tells me that it�s fur.
�I hope you don�t mind,� he says worriedly. �But they were left to me from my grandfather, and I didn�t really have anywhere else to put them.�
I feel the fur, which is the perfect miracle of softness and smoothness that I imagine his hair must be like. Jon�s hair is bristles, like a pig�s hide. Ethnicity-wise, he�s Russian Jewish, and his eyes are wide-set and blue. But I am not thinking of Jon anymore, not now.