samandallen

For Silent Sam, who has always loved me, and for Allen, who never will.

I used to talk to Allen on the telephone every night. We smoke cigarettes in Adam and Eve�s basement and Sam tells me things I shouldn�t know.

Allen and Silent Sam are detectives of sorts. They know more about everything than anyone else I know. Only collectively of course, because on their own they don�t know a damn thing. But that�s not true.

Sam knows all the secrets of the universe and about black holes and space-time. He tells me, �All the energy that exists right now is all we�ll ever have. It can�t be destroyed and we can never get any more of it.� This is comforting to me. We inhale and exhale in unison.

Allen knows about people. He knows and he knows, but he�ll never breathe a word of it to anyone. He is incapable of telling me about himself. I once thought that it was not that he didn't want to tell me, but that he simply couldn't. Now of course, I know better.

On a rainy autumn Friday in a sub-urban area, Allen crosses the street. He is missed narrowly by a speeding leaf blower, zooming up the avenue. Allen smokes his Camel lights and stays up half the night. He falters through soggy leaves and steps lightly on my front porch. He doesn�t ring the bell. Sometimes I wake from a plundering slumber, thinking of Allen. I go downstairs in the dark and open the door. Inevitably he�s there, smoking his cinnamon coloured cigarettes.
In my dreams the evening breeze blows up under my cotton nightgown and Allen kisses me gently. But that�s not true either. On this cool autumn night he kisses me winded and blows smoke in my face.

It�s a different story with Sam. It�s always a different story with Sam. He�s scientific on his best days, and incoherent the rest of the time. This life is filled with jubles and jumbles, and jelly beans. Sam feeds jellybeans to the squirrels in the park, and to me. He saves the white ones for me. �White jelly beans are best,� he tells me, �but it�s okay to settle for green lifesavers.� Red jellybeans have always been my favorite, but on most days it�s okay to settle for white, as long as I have Sam to share them with.

Allen is sick much of the time. He�s a junkie of sorts and reads books by ar-tee-sts like PD Malinger and Mack Derouac. He lends them to me and I read them, treasure them, all dog-eared and smelling of smoke and cinnamon sugar. Allen plays me Pink Floyd on his acoustic guitar, but I don�t think he understands the emotions behind the words. We smoke tea and get all philosophical. We wax poetic and kiss each other�s eyelids, reading poetry and drinking coffee. I tell him I�m afraid of being poor. Allen says, �Money is like sex. It seems a lot more important when you don�t have any.� I love him for the little things. And who needs money when I have Allen who knows his way around this body.

�If you walk real slowly, you can feel the planet breathe.� Sam tells me this seriously over coffee, and I nod and smile, only I�m not really listening. The candlelight twinkles in his gaze, I am amazed. Silent Sam is the smartest boy I know. He tells me that life is just a short series of unrelated events, blessed ends and new beginnings. It is falling in love and falling out of love.

Allen knows the secret to life. He says he found it behind a garbage can in an alley on Cedar Street, oddly enough. I beg for him to tell me how this life will end, and when and why, but this is just another secret that Allen won�t share with me. Perhaps he thinks I can�t handle it. Perhaps he�s right. Allen knows me well enough to know these things. And I am glad (I suppose) that he makes such decisions for me. We sit on his water-stained coffee table and discuss aerodynamics and paintbrushes and books over cold Kraft dinner sandwiches.

"Have y�evr been in love?� Sam asks this at the bus stop, cold autumn air, early November wishing for Christmas. �I mean, for real?� What he is really asking me of course, is if I have ever been in love with him. �You�re kidding, right?� I know by his tone that he isn�t. I don�t really need to see the way he is fiddling with the cuffs of his heavy overcoat or the way his eyes are pleading with me, to know. Dear Sam. He�s such a beauty. �No Sam, I haven�t.� I tell him, and am saddened somewhat that I am not able to lie about it more effectively. I manage to save face by hesitating, faltering. . . �At least I don�t think so.� This seems to suffice, but I feel like a rat just the same. �Have you?� I ask, knowing full well that he has, knowing the story by heart already, knowing he will tell me again, now that I�ve asked. No reply. Sam is scuffing his shoes on the asphalt. He says nothing. Nothing. This is all that there is. It starts to rain. Late autumn rain, dreaming of summer and blessed humidity. �Sam?� He nods, scuffs his shoes, sniffles half-heartedly and lights a cigarette. There is a brief moment between the click of his lighter and the crackle of the cigarette when panic ensues. He will not tell the story. He won�t tell me the story. I panic, frantically searching for memories of the last time he told me this story and of the last time I really, really listened. I find neither. Dear Sam. Please let him tell me. Please let the story escape his pale lips with the smoke. Please, please let him tell me again. All at once he picks up a pebble and hurls it at the red Canada Post box on the corner. Clank. The sound resonates through my ears. Sam says nothing. Nothing. And then; �It began, as most love affairs do, on a Friday afternoon. . .� I breathe. I inhale slowly, cold autumn and leaf blown. When Silent Sam tells a story it feels like it�s not just a story that he�s telling, but the truth. Logic and reason float around in his head and flow through his veins. Dear Sam. I am glad that he loves me. I am glad that he tells me this story. I am glad that eventually he will fall in love with someone else. I stop listening. I watch the traffic go. He knows this. Still he tells me the story. I know it by heart, every comma, every character. And I do not need to listen. This story is a monologue in my head. It is after all, about me. He is subtle about it, but I know. I suppose I have always known. I wonder if maybe he does this purposely. Dear Sam.

Allen and I are walking with linked arms through half-empty streets, muttering words of endearment to the puddles and the trees. The cars move past slowly, making motorized splooshing noise. We�re smoking in this chilly autumn night, it�s two a.m. and our smoke rings are dancing with the condensation from our kissing mouths. We pass the high school, deserted hallways hung faded with pictures of long dead alumni. �Let�s break in.� Allen whispers, barely. He looks at me, his hair glowing rocket-red orange in the mercury streetlamp light. I am unsure. I�ve never done anything like this in all of my life. �C�mon, please?� He pleads with me, not with his words but with his eyes and with the way he is softly squeezing my hand. �I. . . don�t --know.� I stutter, mutter, my stomach flutters like so many butterflies. Allen grins at me. It�s cold outside but it�s warm in my heart when he looks at me. I smile. I agree, I give in to Allen and he smiles back at me because he knows and he knows. . . We slip through the darkness, through the parking lot to the schoolyard where we scour for rocks. Allen finds one, lifts it, hefts it�s weight in his palm. Then, as easily as kissing or smoking or breathing, he tosses it through the window. The glass tears like tissue paper and then we are inside. In the classrooms shadows dance on the walls, cars pass outside and Allen kisses me in the musty darkness. We inhale slowly, mouths full of chalk dust. Allen chases me screaming though the empty hallways, pins me to the wall and kisses me breathless. We bang on locker doors. Allen lights a cigarette that we smoke in the hallway, ashing in the water fountain. We overturn garbage cans and tins cans roll all over the floor. Back in the classroom we giggle and write wicked words on the blackboards. I write I LOVE YOU in red red chalk. Allen smiles at me, kisses me dutifully and then he is gone.

"R�you coming tonight?� Sam�s head appears out of nowhere. He leans against the locker next to mine, closes his eyes, looks thoughtful. It�s Monday, 9:30, we�re at school and what he�s asking me is if I�m going to Allen�s house. Tonight, Monday night. Allen is has invited us to supper; claims he is some sort of culinary wizard. He lives in a basement apartment, sharing the bathroom with the suburban family who lives upstairs. This family contains 2.4 children who cough and hack at the thick smoke from Allen�s cinnamon colured cigarettes. They won�t ever kick him out though, or even ask him to stop. They love having him there, like a piece of reality in their dreamy suburban world. �So r�you? Coming I mean, tonight?� Sam fumbles over his words, tries to look over my shoulder casually, succeeds only in looking nervous. �To Allen�s?� I love Sam this way. When he doesn�t know what to say and best of all when he doesn�t know how to say it. I smile at him, kiss his blushing cheeks and shrug. I close my locker and hug my notebook to my chest. �What d'you think?� I ask him. He nods sadly, shrugs his own thin shoulders and raises his eyebrows at me. Then he goes, turns, slinks away and I know I�ve hurt his feelings. I am going, of course. And I will stay long after Sam has gone and kiss Allen to sleep before I walk home in the soiled evening.

Things have come through October and the leaves have fallen from the trees. It grows dark much earlier now and has grown colder. The grass has grown brown and dead and the world is all frozen and lightly sprinkled with snow. It�s Monday night, 6:00 and I�m riding a bus out of town into the dark, to Allen�s house. The bus belches out black smoke and hurls me toward him. I arrive early, and stand by the back door smoking, stamping my feet in the early November snow. Allen spies my running shoes though the window, bangs on the cold cold glass and smiles up at me. His breath makes foggy swirls on the windowpane. I inhale quickly to clear the smoke from my lungs, drop my cigarette and grind it underneath my toes. I�m stalling, because I�m early, much too early, and I don�t want to be alone with him, now

Allen pushes the window open, sticks his head and shoulders out into the purply cool evening. �R�you coming in?� A question, simple enough, but it seems loaded with some other connotation, dangerous motivation. I nod slowly and turn to the door. Allen is there to open it. He holds it open for me and then lets it close with a swoosh and a click that sounds like the end of everything. I wonder if maybe it is. It�s dark and there are candles on the floor. Pillars and tea lights and birthday candles in little holders. They are unlit. There is dim light shining from a floor lamp in the corner, but otherwise I am in the dark. I inhale slowly. The room smells thickly of smoke and of Allen, faintly. It is almost undetectable, that soft cinnamon smell, but it�s there. Closing my eyes I forget for a minute where I am and dream of gingerbread and Christmas trees. �You�rearly.� Allen says. He�s more informing me than he is asking, but I know that what he�s really asking is why, and I feel silly. I open my eyes. He�s standing in front of me wearing a green turtle neck sweater and corduroy pants. They fit him well, a little too well. I notice he isn�t wearing any socks. �Ummmm. . .� I fumble for the right words, words to make him understand, words to answer the question he didn�t really ask, words to make him realize how beautiful I am. �I�m glad. . . I mean. . . good.� He says. These are the only words he needs to use, the only words I need to hear. It isn�t much, but coming from Allen I know that it�s important enough and I know in my heart that this is all I will ever get. My heart flutters. He might well love me and for now, this is all that matters. I take a step toward him, smiling, beguiling all the while. He puts his hands up under my coat and kisses me. I close my eyes, think of fireflies and find his tongue in my mouth. I pull him closer, feel the rough wool of his sweater under my palms and giggle. He smiles and his five o� clock shadow crackles like cellophane against my cheek. �D�you remember the first time you kissed me?� I ask of him, pulling my lips away from his. �Not now, please?� He is more telling me than asking. �I�m sorry,� I whisper into his hair, even though I�d really like to know. He breathes in quickly, disentangles himself from my embrace, steps away from me. �Don�t be,� he tells me, �don�t be sorry. Don�t be anything at all.�

Suddenly, but almost faster than that, there�s a knock at the door. Allen and I are sitting on the floor now. I am softly stroking his fair hair as he reads to me from an ancient volume of fairy tales. He turns the brittle pages delicately, cradling the book like a baby with his left arm. He is smoking with his free hand, a hand that holds and moulds me. I imagine his were once delicate hands. They are yellowed now, not with age but with nicotine and they look rough and worn, like the hands of a very old man. Allen is an old soul, with wisdom and grace. He puts a smile on my face and yet for the most part he acts like a child. The knock comes again, harder, louder this time. More insistent. Allen is not phased. He finishes the sentence he is reading, rises slowly to answer the knock, leaving the book open on the floor. I sigh, drag on his cigarette, and close the book. I don�t want this lovely moment to end. I am saddened and reminded of Sam. �This energy, these moments that exist right now are all we�ll ever have.� He has told me this time and again and it�s true that we can�t ever get any more. Dear Sam. And in a moment he is there. Standing in the doorway with the velvet evening sky framing his delicate skull. Sam. Dear Sam. He smiles at me. I leave the cigarette burning in the ashtray, rush over to him, and throw my arms around him. He hugs me warmly, then cocks his head to the side. He looks past me into the room where Allen has busied himself lighting candles. Allen grins at him. A half-grin, reserved only for Sam. He never smiles at me that way. Sam and Allen share something, some bond, from which I am discluded. I love them just the same, but somehow, somewhere a bond developed between them, quietly, slowly, like grass growing and this is something that neither of them will share. It�s not that that they don�t want to tell me. I just don�t think they can. Later as we are nestled on the rug, we read to one another in the candlelight. Whispering words of endearment we smile, and are enveloped in stories. Silent Sam holds me close, perhaps a little too close. But for now, for this moment, just for tonight it�s quite all right and I pay no mind. Allen reads to us from his book of fairy tales, making sweeping motions with his arms. The shadows swirl and jump on the walls beyond our little circle. He�s smoking again, and even the blue smoke rising from his cigarette creates a delicate shadow on the wall. Allen turns the next page down, takes a breath as he does so. We wait, in gorgeous anticipation for his thick voice to fill the room, to fill our ears, and our hearts with this delicious story. Allen says nothing, looks puzzled and then a slow smile steals over his delicate features. The room is ripe with silence, soft, but thick and heavy like mud or velvet or pudding.

Pulling the crumpled pages from my pocket I lay them one by one on the table. These faded love letters, tucked away in a well-worn volume of fairy tales hold sway over time. The words explode in the static behind my eyes. They are fresh in my mind and in my heart and I have no need to look beyond the crinkled edges of these pages. I know these gentle syllables by heart, these lines are written on parchment in my brain. Silent Sam enters the coffee shop from somewhere to the left of me. I am paying little attention, watching instead as the steam rises from my teacup. I pray for the rain, for light and for love. Sam folds himself into the chair across from mine, lights a cigarette, smiles, shrugs off his overcoat and takes a deep breath. I hope that perhaps he might have something important to say, some secret to tell, some love to speak of. But I should know better. With Sam it�s all questions and answers, logic and reason, thesis and anti-thesis. He looks at me, exhales through his delicate nose and says nothing. It seems there is nothing to say. There is of course, plenty to say. I grow impatient, uncomfortable and angry in turn. Still, he says nothing. Bittersweet words build up in my throat like bile. I long to open my lips, spew them at him, tell him what I think, tell him I know the truth, that I know, have always known. Instead I press my lips together, focus on the love letters. He sniffles, chews absently on his lower lip. Eventually he speaks to me. His voice is husky, but warm and familiar. I wrap myself in his voice like an old quilt and snuggle down, safe for the moment. It grows dark outside our cozy booth in the coffee shop. We giggle and the afternoon spills into the evening which runs from the night, fights and then falls into dusk. I sigh. Things will go on as they always have, they always will. I love Silent Sam, he is sweet and light and turbid blue. He hides behind blue baby eyes, and knows how to fly, but stays with me instead.

We are lying again on Allen�s rug, sharing a cigarette. His hand lingers over my face, I fall from grace with him again, kiss his sticky fingers let the feelings linger. �I love you.� A whisper barely audible, Allen�s words fall from his lips and get caught in my hair. It takes me a moment to realize what he has said; there is a pain in my head and an ache in my heart. �I. . .� I pause, have forgotten what comes next, think that if it doesn�t come naturally, perhaps it shouldn�t come at all. I could tell him this, have told him a thousand times before could learn to tell him a thousand more, but something keeps the words from my lips. They lie just beyond the tip of my tongue. Allen might well love me, in his own quiet and confused way, but he will never really love me, not like Sam does, not for real. I love Allen, he may be bitter and black like a cold cup of coffee, he may smoke a little too much, but I love him. And yet, I am not in love with him. He might well have fallen in love with me after all this time. The months have gone on endlessly, like an ocean, and instead of drowning I�ve grown gills and learned to breathe underwater. I am lighting the candles again, swimming through calendar days, the weeks melt away like icicles in May. I�m dreaming of schools of brightly colored fish, making wishes on shooting stars, we�ve come this far and now there�s nowhere else to go, but back.

December: In the days before Christmas I sit at my window, watch the falling snow and think longingly of Sam and Allen. They float in and out of my life, just as they always have but it is different now, somehow. I still wake at night to find Allen smoking quietly on my front porch, but now, as in dreams he kisses me gently, and it is more than enough. I have learned to appreciate the details, to accept his gifts, to take what he has to offer. He brings me little offerings; tins of tea, books, and stories he has written and I treasure them. He makes promises I know he will not keep, he doesn�t get enough sleep. I worry about him, fuss over trifles, he tells me I�m stifling him, but I know he doesn�t really mind. I don�t talk to Allen on the phone much anymore, but I keep him close to my heart, this life is such a bore without him after all. I get a little warm in my heart when I think of Sam, his blue eyes shining, and I find myself pining for his logic, his reasons, treasons, mad illusions. When he is there, his links his arm in mine and we stroll through soft December snows, it covers up the things we know and teaches us to forget. He tells me, �There�s no time like the present,� and I agree, wholeheartedly. Because really and truly Sam was right all along. These precious moments are all we�ll ever really have.