Good Form

I was in the big white house in the gated community where the lawns were manicured to the blade and the roads were pounded flat so homeowners would never feel a single bump as they drove their expensive cars with German-engineered suspensions home from their overpaying jobs in the up-and-coming city of San Antonio, and that was great. I lived in a similar house in a different gated community, and I drove a BMW, leased but my plan was to buy it. And that was great, too. And in the big white house it was game night.

Helen slapped down an UNO card, ironically drawled, “draw four,” and winked at me, purred. My cheeks burned, hot with liquor. I smiled. I glanced at Andrew, who was raising an eyebrow at me, watching my every move with a strangled electric attention, urging action like a pubescent teenager outside a woman’s window.

            “How sultry, Helen,” Susan said. “How bad of you.”

“Helen’s hot,” Andrew said, staring at me, “for beating you.” He made a hand-job motion, gushed some spit around his mouth in time with his thrusts. 

            Susan, sitting next to Andrew, slapped his groin.

“You’re gross. You’re bad.”

Andrew’s eyes dragged toward Susan, his soon-to-be-wife, the coiled sexual thing between them. I smiled my immaculate white teeth. I liked Susan and Andrew, their repartee, their balance. They were still having sex, it was obvious. I imagined they yelled at each other when they fucked, profanities of all colors and stripes. Then sweating, naked, they would admire the gazebo in which they’d be wed.

I drew my four cards.

These were my friends, people like me—handsome and solvent, smart but loose—and I was pleased to sit with them on this white pleather couch in the white expanse of their white-walled living room. It affirmed that everything I had attempted and dared throughout my life had been worth it.

Helen, her eyes melting, eyelids flickering, breathing through her mouth, cooed, “Your turn, Robert.”

Later, in the kitchen, Andrew clapped me on the shoulder, gripped. He was built thick and muscley like a bull, all energy and kick. His fingers burrowed into my well-formed muscle. He lingered there for a moment, massaging me, his face close to mine.

“What do you think?” he said, his voice hoarse. 

“Helen’s great,” I said.

His gaze gripped me, that same electric attention begging the silhouette: undress. Then he stepped away, leaned on the marble counter. He was dressed in business slacks and an oxford shirt buttoned down to his waxed, well-formed sternum. It looked like he’d started game night the moment he got home from work, wasting no time. I liked that. It made him seem desperate, like a desperado. 

            “Helen’s hot,” he said.

            “And a coworker.”

            “So was Martinique.”

            “That was different.”

            “Different how?”

            It wasn’t different—I knew that—but it was different to me. Helen’s posture, her bearing—the way she breathed too hard. The way she looked at me—so eagerly, too eagerly. I wanted to work for it. I’d gotten to where I was in life by working hard. By making plans and testing them and leaving no stone unturned.

            I said, “It’s not good form. To date in the office.”

            Andrew actually bent over laughing. He spilled his drink. I became conscious of my crossed arms, my frown. I tried to laugh with him, loosen my hands.

            “You’re too good for us,” Andrew said. “You’re a god damned saint.”

I smiled. I splashed some water into my whiskey.

Then it was a blur, then Helen and I were outside waiting for Ubers. She hooked her finger into my belt loop. My nose was filled with Texas spring and Helen’s lilac perfume and her rye whiskey breath. She pressed her cheek into my chest, rubbing herself into the contours of my flexed abdomen. We were really drunk.

            “Just gonna lay here,” she said.

            Her fingers released the belt loop and began walking down my thigh.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered.

I grabbed her hand, raised it to my mouth and sucked on her pointer finger. She groaned, said my name, kept saying it, until the headlights caught us. Then I led her to her car and bid her goodnight.

            I liked to spend Sunday mornings at the farmer’s market in Alamo Heights. At this time in my life, I considered patience my greatest strength—I’d cultivated it for years and applied it to everything I did; it was a modus operandi, a way of seeing, of being better. I would spend hours at Quarry Market on Basse Street carefully selecting the best produce on offer, searching for ripe fruits in places most shoppers never looked—four layers deep in a pile of apples, underneath a blueberry carton on display—easily findable if you made the effort, if you cared. This was the secret to unimpeachable quality: effort, patience. I enjoyed figuring the stone fruits most, peaches and plums whose decay hid beneath the skin. I’d clasp one, shut my eyes, and read all along its pressure points with my fingers, detecting the contours of its pith, its suppleness, my sensitive instrument seeking out the broken flesh. I would accept nothing less than perfection. This was the last ingredient to success: knowing what you want.

            The day after game night, I was holding a candidate plum when my sister called. 

            “It’s terrible,” Lara said. There was a tinkling, rustling sound in the background of the call. “It’s so awful.”

            I was used to this from Lara. I simply continued to palpate my plum and told her it would be fine.

            The sounds over the phone crescendoed into a glassy crash. “You don’t understand,” she yelled, and I could hear something shatter. She swore. She was panting, then she screamed.

I made the final pass on the plum, double-checking around the style. I pressed in with my thumbs, found the rubbery give that meant that even at its weakest points the plum held its structure. It’d be a tangy one, a fruit you had to cut through, as I preferred. My method was once again affirmed, and that was a pleasure. I felt a surge of pride. How pleasing it was to master every element. How worth it.

“Do something. Say something,” Lara said.

            I said I would come over soon. I had a presentation I needed to focus on that week, and Andrew’s bachelor party was the weekend following—I’d need to make sure everything at the office was in order before I left.

Then I felt the depression at my thumb.

            “Bob, please.”

            I hung up. I looked down at the plum, astonished. I’d missed the rot, dead center in the suture, the cinch where the ample lobes meet. My thumb stroked the crease once again, confirming the disintegration with disgust. Then I put the plum back on the display. Every fruit, then, seemed defective, abject. Suddenly sure that everything I had built for myself with great attention to detail could at any time slip from my grasp, I told a manager about the situation. “Talk to your buyers,” I commanded them. “This doesn’t work for me.” Then I left the market and headed for the gym, where I lifted until my muscles screamed and I no longer felt a need to punish myself for my carelessness.

            We had a new Development Officer at work. Their name was Jaim—“they” was their preferred pronoun. There had been chatter about this—I ignored it. Helen had come to my office and said, “So. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

            “I’ve forgotten all about it,” I said.

            “Forgotten all about what?” she said meaningfully.

            “Nothing,” I said, furious with myself for slipping.

            “What I wanted to talk to you about. This, I guess, person—this new person, I mean. Jaim?”
            “What about them?”

            “Just … you know.”

            “No, I don’t know.”

            Helen blinked at me. She blinked and fluttered her eyes at me, trying to show me she was having trouble understanding what I was doing without saying anything—and this was precisely why I didn’t want her. So I told her what was going on: Jaim had excellent credentials, that’s why I hired them. End of story. Helen left smiling, pretending to not care.

Jaim was my subordinate, below me—I was the head of the San Antonio Mayor’s Office of Philanthropic Initiatives. Jaim was well-dressed, clean, fit. Most days they wore their blonde hair up in a ponytail that accentuated and revealed their side buzz, wore dangling sapphire earrings and boxy glasses that seemed to perch on cheeks angular and stately like the cliffs of Dover. Jaim would pair this with anything at all: one day, a white collared shirt underneath a mustard cardigan, sensible slacks and shoes. But another day, they’d come in with their hair teased and crinkling, wearing a short sleeve button-down shirt, a tie, black jeans, a look almost punk-rock, almost New York.

Jaim and I had our first development meeting together that week. We sat in a conference room alone for the first time since their final interview. They were dressed “normally,” that day, and I felt an overwhelming urge to comment on this—which I muted, understanding very well that I had gotten this far precisely because I never—never—made this mistake. I did not slip. There were rules to uphold, and they were there for a reason. I was kind, harmless. A gentle giant, I’d heard, amongst other comments and prognostications about my physical appearance. Martinique and I had disclosed our relationship to HR. Everything was above aboard with her, how I liked it. It just hadn’t worked out between us, and she’d moved on to a different municipality. 

“How are things going?” I said to Jaim.

“Good!” They said. “Really looking forward to his first meeting. I think this is a really strong opportunity, something the mayor can really get behind. I’m thinking about climate change, of course, I think we want to show that we’re blue around here, you know? Or at the very least purple,” they said, laughing. “And I can see the need to project a softer touch, in general. The mayor is concerned with nature. You know, and not just politics as usual.”

While Jaim spoke, a lightness fuzzed into my brain, soothing and smoothing. I was listening to their voice, mellifluous, so smooth, but missing some of the words—but I couldn’t stop the fuzzing. Usually I listened with irreproachable tenacity: but not with Jaim. Their voice made me smile, made me resonate, as if it were vibrating not just in my head but throughout my body.

“I love that,” I said.

            Then the executive from the Arboreal Society entered, and we all shook hands. He was a Texan through and through: ruddy-faced and round, white with a rawhide cowboy hat and rawhide leather boots. He got to it. “The trees need savin’. They are the root of our great republic …”

            I smiled my white teeth and nodded. I kept throwing to Jaim, kept wanting to hear their voice, vibrating in me so sweetly. And I liked the way Jaim’s earrings dangled when they spoke, always impassionedly, about mission, belief, “our goals.” As Jaim handled this rough Texan like a damaged dog, I began to imagine Jaim telling me what to do—I couldn’t stop myself. They could tell me to do anything with a voice like that: I would do it. Jaim in charge, telling me how to dress, telling me how to be. Jaim finding the rot in me, telling me to stop fucking around you worthless piece of shit, shape up. Jaim telling me to dress like a woman: put on a dress. That’s right. And lacy underwear that goes up your suture. That’s right. And I realized I would if they asked, as the Texan crumbled like cake. “The Mayor is doing things the right way, now,” Jaim said. They were effective—highly effective.

            When the executive left, pleased and promising to send a gift in the mail, Jaim and I were left alone again. My heart was pounding. I could feel my palms very keenly, their thin skin and their itch, as I pressed them into the table, subduing their revelations.

            “You were great,” I said. I kept the breath out of my voice or thought I did.

            Jaim said, “Thanks,” showing their white, well-ordered teeth. They gathered their things. “I thought it went really well.”

            They were standing. I was sitting. They were tall, my height, but I felt small and usable. I put my hands in my lap.

“I’m gonna make a call in here,” I said.

            Jaim smiled and left. I watched them as they went. I watched.

My hands pressed and pressed. I tried to think of trees: their beauty. But then I thought of trees being pulped to paper, stretched and beaten ceaselessly until they surrendered their shape and were distributed to the world to be dominated by inks overwriting and obliterating their nature, telling them what they are. 

“You could be mayor someday,” Andrew said. 

We were having lunch in the office canteen—I was eating a salad, a rainbow of vegetables with a lite dressing, Andrew a fried chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A.

Andrew was in City Planning, and we often worked together. Our first project had been managing a gift by the Zurleins, a wealthy family, earmarked for a substance recovery center. It’d never been realized, the patrons died, and the children were dissolute, lazy, addicted—they squabbled, nothing ever got done. We’d wiped our hands of it and become friends as our departments commiserated over beers three years ago.

“I was thinking of it the other night,” he said, “after game night. You’re magnanimous as fuck, you know that?”

This was not the first time I’d heard something like this, but it was the first time I’d heard it from Andrew.

“That means a lot to me, Andrew.”

“You got it, pal. Of course. I’d fucking vote for you.”

We ate our meals in silence. The thought of running for real political office had of course crossed my mind—I’d spent my adolescent years seeking election. In third grade, I’d been told there was an activity called student council where you got to make decisions with sixth graders, whom I revered. As a third grader, I could run for Treasurer—the lowest ranking officer in the cabinet. I did run and I did win. I became the favorite to win Vice President the next year, and I won that hard-fought race. Every subsequent year through my senior year of college I was elected to a leadership position. At Baylor, I was the class VP. The President, Mary Beth, whom I’d desired desperately at the time, was now working in Washington D.C. as an operative for the NRA. I’d come to realize I stayed in politics to outmatch her, somehow—and I was still here.

Andrew said, “You ever imagine where you’d be if you were someone else?”

“Of course,” I said. “I think everyone does that from time to time. It’s healthy.”

“You could be anywhere. On a private jet, about to do something massive. Something awesome. You could have a yacht with a bunch of girls around you, like that guy, just floating around some fucking beautiful fucking scenic fucking ocean.”

“But you wouldn’t have Susan in that scenario. So, you know, there are reasons to be grateful for what you have.”

Not hearing me, he squeezed out mayonnaise from a packet into a mound of ketchup. At work, Andrew was different than he was at game night: he always seemed half-present, as if he didn’t realize or didn’t care what it looked like to be so detached. I didn’t like this about Andrew; in fact, it made me angry, at times. Because Andrew got promoted anyway. No one seemed to notice that he didn’t care. He mixed the pinkish glop together with a fry, and said absent-mindedly, “I’d be different, I think.”

“No one’s perfect,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe you are though.” He faintly shook his head, as if clearing his head of these delicate ideas. “Anyway. You ready to get fucked up next weekend?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Yeah. I just need to let loose. Time to get messy. Right? It’s good to make a fucking mess sometimes, right? Healthy.”

“Sure,” I said, not sure at all.

He glopped the fries again, making a mess of his meal, getting pinkish ketchup-mayonnaise slop all over his fingers, which he licked absentmindedly, his mind on the yacht in the Adriatic and the women he’d pay to look hot beside and possibly fuck him.

After work the next day, I drove out to Sabinal. It was hot, muggy; things went still that deep into the country. It was around six when I arrived at Lara’s, a trailer just beside Sabinal Creek, which is what we called the rut in the road that once held water. Not that I’d ever seen it. The air smelled of dogwood and silt, humidity and dust and hot metal. A dust devil swept up a few feet away. There was some kind of grit in my teeth; I spat out sand.

The trailer door was open—a bad sign. I went inside.

Astrid, Lara’s eight-year-old daughter, was sitting on the floor, playing with a bit of tin foil, shaping it into a hat with a pointed top like the kind eccentrics on TV make to protect themselves from alien communications. I’m sure Lara had been watching something like this, babbling fearfully to Astrid.

“Hi, Uncle Robert,” she said. Her thin gingham dress was spread out on the false wood floor, her legs splayed at an odd angle. She was blonde, fragile, and gentle, like Lara had been as a child. Her curls were tucked back in a red clip.

“Where’s your mom?”

She pointed toward the bedroom.

            I had to step over the usual crap to get there—boxes filled with junk, scraps of broken things, mounds of materials, creaky stained half-destroyed furniture. Lara was, according to her, an antiques seller. But I paid for everything, she never sold a thing—what was there to sell?—and I felt a familiar frustration as I struggled to get around a rocking chair encrusted with some blue syrupy liquid that smelled like antifreeze. Plates of old food, flies hovering around them, littered the plastic counter—I was disgusted. I was ashamed. That was familiar, too.

The bedroom smelled of charred foil, a faintly chemical musk. But there was no sulfurous curling smoke this time, no arms flashing out, no frozen moment of desperation—I was grateful for that, at least. Lara was tucked into the creaky pull-out bed, groaning and muttering under the covers. I lay down next to her and stared at the ceiling, the tin shell of the trailer blackened from my mother’s constant cigarette smoke. She was dead, and I’d given Lara the trailer, our childhood home, to live in. My mother, so much like Lara, had wisely entrusted me with such decisions. Lara had changed the curtains years ago, it was going to be the start of something new, and they matched the old covers and the goldenrod floral wallpaper so in the setting sunlight the room glowed yellow then gold then tawny. But that was the extent of Lara’s efforts, and the room was now filthy.

I shook Lara awake. She resisted at first, brushed me away. Then I said my name. She turned to me.

Her eyes were glazed, half-open. She looked serene, blissed out, beyond reach—I couldn’t help but think of Helen, drunk out of her mind, drawling at me, thoughts floating to the surface, fading away—of Andrew, brainless over the Chick-fil-A.

“It’s you,” she said.

I flicked Lara’s forehead—she didn’t react at all.

Two seconds later she rubbed the spot. “What …”

I could smell her hot, metallic breath—unclean.

“What do you need, Lara?”

“You’re …”

I waited for more. The room was hot, and I could feel myself begin to sweat.

Lara turned away. She was quiet for a moment, then she smashed the mattress with her fist. She began to sob, to heave, and then abruptly stopped.

She was asleep again, just like that.

Suddenly full of energy, Astrid was running around a rusted jungle gym, an unvarnished, latticed dome stuck in patchy crabgrass. The sun had set, but it was still humid, still hot. The only other apparatus to play on was a swing set a few feet away. Standing there, watching Astrid exhaust herself, I remembered all these playground pieces having paintjobs, having color, when I’d lived here as a boy. But they didn’t now. Someone had graffitied the word “TITS” on a swing.

“La-di-da-di-da-di-da,” sang Astrid.

The sight of the swings made me think of sixth grade, when I was President of the Sabinal Elementary School Student Council. I would hang out here, on the swings, after after-school meetings, with Jordan, the Vice President. Although he was a fifth grader, I respected him. He could piss his whole name into the dirt, in cursive, using a single stream.

“See?” he said the first time he showed me, his tiny little dick still out.

I tried, but I couldn’t do it. I could barely even piss in front of him, which was humiliating.

“You have to practice,” Jordan said.

Even after months of practice, I never got the trick right. My letters always looked boxy and uncontrolled, jagged-edged—Jordan’s name came out in perfect script. And I didn’t feel the impulse like Jordan did—even when he wasn’t trying to show off his talent, he’d do it. I saw. If he just needed to piss, he’d spell Jordan anyway, letters looping in the dust. I thought that was interesting and impressive. Although I was President, he had that skill on me, and I’d seen his dick and he’d never cared. I always cared, always hid myself, and peed in straight lines when we weren’t competing—I feared my lack of talent would be exposed if someone ever saw me try, only myself to blame. Jordan died of an overdose at age nineteen. Heroin, I think.

Astrid was now sitting in the dust, looking at a rock.

“Hey. Wanna swing on the swings?” I asked.

Her face brightened, and she nodded vigorously.

And Jordan could do backflips off the swings. He had taught me how.

Astrid sat in the seat and tried to propel herself up, but she couldn’t do it. She started to get frustrated and kicked at the dust.

“Do you need a push?”

She nodded vigorously again.

After a few shoves, she got the hang of it, and I watched her pump up and down, arcing into the twilight as the swing set squeaked.

I thought of Jordan revealing himself, and then, weirdly, of Jaim. Those sapphires, dangling. How clean they were, so put together—how unafraid Jaim was of themselves, of showing themselves to the world, of letting people bend to them, while I, on the other hand, accommodated everything, everyone. I was always trying to get elected. But I could never speak like Jaim could, I could never make someone’s brain fuzz and melt. But I wanted to. I wanted to be soft and wear dresses so Jaim might like me, my “softer touch,” in general, or something.

I felt blood pulse in my eyeballs as the something touched my heart and said no, then yes. No—then yes.

And then Astrid, at the top of an arc, leapt off the swing’s saddle. On her landing she collapsed in a heap, as if the momentum of the fall had brought her, catastrophically, straight through her legs.

I bolted over, my panic complete. I turned her over, fearing the worst—but she was laughing, laughing hysterically, a feral addicted look in her eye.

“Again!” she squealed. “Again!”

            I spent the rest of the week stealing glances at Jaim whenever I could, inventing stupid things to ask them about, taking trips to the bathroom to pass by their desk. Had we heard back from the Arboreal Society? Had we received the executive’s gift in the mail? No, and no—but yes. That yes flared every time I passed them. And every time it flared, I felt a need to crush myself into softness or piss my name in script. I was confused. I was absentminded. And that made me want to punish myself at the gym, so I did.

            On Friday, I went over to Jaim’s desk with every intention of asking them to Andrew’s game night. I needed to see them outside of work, it had gotten to be too much. I wanted to touch their leg under a table and have them bat my prying profane hand away, teaching me to behave, to be good. I wanted them to make my brain fuzz and soften and then penetrate me, telling the bad part of myself that it was good, but not too good. But when I planted myself outside their cubicle, these words did not arrive. Jaim was wearing a version of their “punk” outfit that day, and I couldn’t make eye contact, let alone look in their direction.

            “Still nothing?” I asked. My loose words sounded pitiful to my ears.

            “Still nothing,” they said, sighing a bit.

“Keep me highly updated,” I said seriously.

            They said, “I’m so glad you’re so interested in this. You know, my last boss wasn’t really like that. But this is, you know, so great.”

            I said, “Well, you know, trees. They’re the lungs of the earth. Nature is important.”

They smiled strangely, as if acknowledging the outward awkwardness of the conversation—or was it thoughtfulness, Jaim truly considering the idea?

“Yeah,” they said. “I guess they are.”

Afterwards, I closed my office blinds and did as many pushups as I could without breaking a sweat. I wanted my muscles to scream at me, Jaim to scream at me, like I was screaming at me for my stupid fucking comment.

            After the pushups I told everyone they could go home after our weekly wrap-up meeting in a couple of hours. I wanted to feel magnanimous, and I wanted to treat people—to treat Jaim. I’d be off next Friday, too, so there was a practical reason for it: next week was bound to be busy. I had to keep the ship steered straight: the mayor depended on that.

            At the meeting, everyone was in good spirits, I observed out loud, especially Jaim, who was really fitting in nicely, really settling in.

            “It’s great to see,” I said, smiling pathetically.

            Some nodded their heads in earnest affirmation—some rolled their eyes at one another. Helen scoffed, masked it as a cough. Fuck you, I thought. Yesterday, Jaim had worn blue jeans and work boots and a plaid shirt, no makeup. They astonished me, I had to stop myself from saying. I wanted to say, “you astonish me,” and let the words sit there, sparking something in Jaim’s face, watching the others’ faces redden and burn in shame and embarrassment. Fuck them. 

            I instead talked about the Arboreal Society. Gave them an update on the latest. They’d asked for funding for a seed bank, we energetically had agreed and asked for a photo-op and their public support on a few upcoming propositions affecting property taxes. I looked knowingly at Jaim, who looked at me inscrutably.

            “All this thanks to Jaim,” I said.

There came applause, a smattering. Jaim blushed.

“Thank you,” they said. “That’s very kind of you, Robert.”

I winked and smiled with my teeth. I fiddled with my hands and breathed with my mouth closed. I thought of crushing stone fruits with my bare hands in the middle of Quarry Market. I thought of Jaim at game night, their body glowing in the white of Andrew’s living room, making me draw four over and over and over again until I had no more breath and no more brain and no more cards and no more cum.

Andrew passed me a shot of the premier tequila he’d brought straight from work.

“This is the good stuff,” he said. He shot his back, I threw back mine. “Doesn’t even burn.” He smacked his lips.

It didn’t burn. 

Andrew poured us both another shot.

“You know,” he began, then halted. Andrew was in an aggressive mood, his shirt was undone all the way, as if to signal something had been unleashed, ready to strike—the bull alerted, having seen red. “I didn’t think it’d feel this way.”

I listened. I watched. His eyes were darting, darting at me, looking me up and down, devouring everything they saw.

“I thought I would feel like I deserved it. I’d have Susan, I’d have this fucking house. I’d feel good. But I feel like …”

Then he settled on me. Magnetizing me—inflamed.

“Look at you. Look at you.”

“You should feel good about what you have. Susan is wonderful.”

He smiled cruelly. “I don’t have what you have.”

            “What do I have, Andrew?”

He gripped my shoulder, bruising me.

“I don’t have a story. I don’t have a past. I don’t have Sabinal motherfucking Texas.”

Andrew never spoke to me like this. I felt I had to defend myself, explain. “I consider those things impediments.”

He laughed at me then—just laughed with that full-chested guffaw that seemed to uncoordinate his limbs for a moment.

“You lucky bastard.”

Andrew picked up his shot. I did too.

“To your marriage,” I said.

“To fitness,” he said, and threw back his shot.

Then he tried to sack tap me: to strike me in the nuts. I barely avoided him, but I felt his hand brush my penis.

He just laughed and went back into the room.

A few shots later, Andrew and I were sitting together on the couch, legs touching. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. He slapped a draw four down and grabbed me by the neck and whispered in my ear, “draw four, bitch.” His tongue licked my ear.

“Woah-ho! Andrew!” Susan cried, clapping and rocking back, pumping her arm in the air. “Woop, woop!”

“He’s a touchy guy,” Diane said. Diane was Susan’s old friend from college, in town for the weekend. Andrew wanted me to get to know her. “He’s hot-blooded.”

I laughed. I showed my white teeth.

Andrew said, “If I’m touchy then this guy’s feely, am I right?”

He elbowed me in the stomach. It hurt, but I grinned anyway.

“Hard as a rock!” Andrew roared. He grabbed my bicep.

Susan said, “Robert’s a hard body. Or so I imagine.” She purred at me, like Helen had.

“Okay, wife,” Andrew said.

It was as if the music had stopped, the record scratched. Something passed between them I’d never seen before. They just looked at each other.

“What, we’re not married yet,” Susan said.

I suddenly felt dizzy. I excused myself and went to the bathroom.

I splashed water on my face and breathed for a minute. I was thinking of my mom. I was thinking of the dialysis machine whirring, the cigarette smoke pooling on the ceiling, the rollers in her hair. She was screaming something, her jaw was open wide, her black rotting teeth leaning out, leaning unnaturally from her gums as if over a cliff, about to dive out of their mouth to a rancid, violent death.

I went straight to the kitchen. I took a shot quickly, secretly, and then Andrew walked in. He passed me and slapped my ass as he passed.

“Hard body, eh?” he said.

“Guess so.”

He poured another shot for both of us.

“To strength,” he said.

I woke up askew on my bed, a vague taste of puke or weed in my mouth. My head was pounding. I opened my phone and saw I had ten missed calls from Lara. When I called her back, she didn’t pick up. The world spun.

Two hours later I was in Sabinal again, the day hot and punishing—my reward, I thought, for last night’s excesses. I stewed in my shame, turning over and over the black gap in my memory, revealing nothing. My hands shook. You’d think after years and years, Lara’s descent and my mother’s death, I would have learned some things. But I was pathetic. I was just like them. I wanted to crush something in my hands. I wanted to crush my head in my hands.

I opened the door to the trailer. Astrid was sitting there, playing with foil. I sat down on the floor with her. My teeth and gums felt coated in acid or sugar. My vision wobbled randomly, my stomach lurched after it a moment later.

“Hi, Uncle Robert.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“I dunno.”

It felt as if my brain were being pried open by tongs.

I picked up the roll of tin foil Astrid was playing with, ripped off a long sheet and laid it over my face like a shroud. I shut my eyes.

Lara never came home. She never picked up her phone.

I stayed on the floor with Astrid for a while, and when the throbbing pain subsided, I cleaned up and made dinner on the stovetop, where I had made so many pathetic dinners before. I couldn’t believe the kitchen still functioned—in fact half the burners didn’t, the microwave bulbs were burned out. It seemed the refrigerator couldn’t stay cold enough to prevent food from rotting: most of the produce had devolved into formless fetid juice, wet fibers. I slapped together cheese quesadillas, which Astrid loved.

She was a good kid—she stuck to herself mostly, even as I tried to ask about Lara, her mothering, the truth. She didn’t tell me much, and I recognized that old pact I’d had with my mom: I never told on her, though I had every reason to. There was devotion, despite everything, and I respected it because I knew it by heart. Our hearts had become entangled in our depravity, and to have told on her was to have told on myself: was to have told the word that I was as despicable and unworthy as she was.

Later, Astrid asked if I could help with her homework. She was talented at math, it was obvious, and as she talked through her problems in a sweet singsong I realized she’d be an arresting, enigmatic person all her life—she already was. Men and women, friends and lovers, would break their hearts on her, as they had with Lara. But Lara broke hers on them, too. That, in many respects, was her most pernicious addiction. She was addicted to proving her own badness, to breaking herself, because she had always been broken, never whole. And then it registered, somehow deeply for the first time, that Astrid was growing up without a father, like Lara and I had, and I had to step outside for a moment to grieve. Then I did a minute of high knees, which did not help.

Astrid slept with me on the couch—she tucked in just as my eyes were shutting—and slept soundly even through the commotion that woke me at six in the morning.

It was Lara, sitting in the dust, her dress spread out around her, her legs splayed. She looked petite and vulnerable, just like Astrid, except she no longer had an excuse, no longer had innocence to protect her. She sat there staring into the blue expanse as if her mind were broken and what she saw had no weight, as if she were somewhere far, far away, a world where no one needed to sacrifice anything good for anyone.

“He doesn’t want me back,” she said. “He doesn’t want Astrid.”

I watched the grasses sway in the dry wind. I thought of our mom. I felt an immeasurable burden, an anger that Lara refused to take it up. I felt grief spreading outward for miles and miles into the Texas flats. I felt resentment spewing from me like an oil leak.

I looked down at Lara like she was a scarab scuttling in the sand. I did not help her up.

Andrew called later. He apologized for how weird Friday got. I said it was okay, even though I didn’t remember everything that had happened. He hoped I was still excited for the bachelor party. I said I was. I wished him well and hung up.

I didn’t get to the market that day, or the gym. I ordered pizza, watched re-runs of Friends, and, for reasons I couldn’t then explain, looked at photos of women’s clothing online until three in the morning. When I woke, I had several carts full of clothing.

A new mandate came down from the mayor, as well as a congratulatory email. He greatly approved of the Arboreal Society deal, it was a terrific message and showed canny alignment with the mayor’s thinking. One of the mayor’s aides, a prominent person we all knew, came down to my office and shook my hand.

“We’re keeping an eye on you,” the prominent person said.

When he left, I stepped out onto the office floor. I felt inquiring eyes directed toward me, even a sense of pride. Helen smirked. I saw Jaim looking up from their desk. They wore the dangling sapphire earrings that day, “normal” clothes. I felt good in that gaze, accomplished, like I’d done something right. I gave Jaim a small silent clap.

I called Jaim into my office every day that week. I wanted to put them on the new mandate—partnerships with local agricultural interests—but also wanted to get to know them better. They were from the area, it turned out. They’d lived on the east coast for a while but wanted to come home and make a difference. They had aspirations, ambitions. I said that I did too, and they said, “I know,” with a smile. I’d never felt so worthwhile.

Late on Thursday, Jaim and I sat next to each other during a meeting. All I could think about was their proximity, their heat, their smell—Jaim smelled like dust and dogwood and lilac, like Sabinal, like home. They wore a burgundy cashmere sweater, a bit big and retro-seeming. Their hair was up in a top knot, revealing their buzzed hairline like a secret. It felt so intimate to see their scalp up close, as I would if I were lying in bed with them, and my heart skipped and caught at once, a delicious warning.

A small nudge against my knee interrupted my thoughts of Jaim at game night, Jaim meeting Lara, Jaim meeting Astrid, Jaim with me at Quarry Market, Jaim burying my face into a pillow, suffocating me, my penis erect. It was almost bizarre to recognize it was real-life Jaim who’d touched me. They laid their pencil down casually on a legal pad, as if accidentally pointing toward the words: “Most boring meeting ever?”

Playing it calm, I nudged Jaim back and coughed. Jaim chuckled under their breath ever so coolly, almost undetectably.

Before the end of the business day, I decided I could not take it any longer. Jaim was bursting from my skin, tearing through my skin. I can only describe it that way.

I called Jaim into the office. I asked them to sit.

“I’m just going to cut to the chase. You inspire me, Jaim. You’re beautiful, you’re talented, you’re like no one I’ve ever met. I want to get to know you even better than I have. I want you to meet my friends. I think you’re what’s been missing in my life. I want you. All you are.”

I knew instantly. Jaim didn’t need to sigh, shake their head, try to find a smile.

“I’m sorry, Robert,” they said.

They didn’t need to say a word.

 “I think you’re a good guy? But it’s not really like that for me. Let’s just … put it at that. And maybe this is not so appropriate for work?” And they smiled gratefully, honestly, and said, “but I think I can forget it, because we’re doing such good work together, and I’m really excited about that. And I really do think you’re a good guy, but maybe just … confused?”

“You’re right. You’re one hundred percent right. It was incredibly wrong of me.”

“It’s really okay.”

“I’m bad.”

“That’s—not what I said.”

“I’m disgusted by myself. And I understand that you’re disgusted too. I’ll tell HR personally that I crossed the line.”

“No, Robert. Jesus. It’s fine.”

I tried to stay calm. I remembered everything I had built for myself with patience and great attention to detail.

“Thank you for your understanding. I am sorry, Jaim.”

“Again—it’s okay.”

They stood. They smiled their well-ordered teeth. And I felt so small and usable.

“Have a great weekend, okay? Maybe … do something relaxing.”

“Okay,” I said. “I will.”

They walked out. 

            Alone, I wanted to explode. I wanted to explode out of my skin with Jaim. But I did not. I gathered my things and left. I went to the gym, because that is what I do. That is what I am.

We gathered at Andrew’s house for the bachelor party—a couple of guys from the office, a few college friends, some whom I’d met before. Andrew’s attentions were on the group, the night, the party, and he barely paid me any mind. Friends lavished Andrew with praise, put him in chokeholds, made him do shots. I took a few too, had civil conversations with the men, who were all interesting. I was healthily buzzed when the limo arrived.

We piled in. Andrew took out a bag of coke, we all did bumps.

We ordered cocktails at dinner, several bottles of wine. I had a full branzino. We talked about women, money, sex, and sports. I told the men about my workout routine, all my supplements. I explained in great detail what it is I do for work.

At the next bar, Andrew sat down next to me. I was drunk and high already, and I didn’t give a shit anymore. He put his arm around my shoulder, drew me close, and licked my earlobe, said “bitch” into my ear. I told him to fuck off, and he laughed—everyone laughed.

Andrew was drunk, dancing on the dance floor. I came up to him and told him I didn’t like how he touched me. He told me to just fucking dance.

I did. I drank. I hit on a woman, and we danced. The woman kissed me, grabbed my bicep, then disappeared into the crowd. The men bought me a shot for that.

“To the next motherucking Mayor of San Antonio!” Andrew roared.

We were at a strip club then. Things were spinning fast, really fast. I wanted to talk and talk, and I was talking about talking about I don’t know what. Then Andrew was talking about me. “You’re the trailer park mayor,” he screamed. I was trash, I was a saint. “You’re the fucking soul of America, you bastard.”

He slapped my ass again. This time, I grabbed him by the throat. The boys had to rush to pull us apart—I wished they hadn’t. I wanted someone to fucking punch me. I begged someone to punch me. No one did. They gripped my shoulders, massaged me. They complimented me on my appearance.

I did more coke. I watched a stripper dance. She was skinny, lithe, had small breasts. Her hair was shaved at the sides. I was in agony, dreaming of Jaim.

“How much for a private dance?”

She reached down and said a number. I agreed to pay it. There was a roar, men cheering, calling my name.

“He’s the king,” they said. “He’s the god damned king.”

In a room, she began to dance. I stopped her immediately and asked whether she had any duct tape. She called me kinky and fetched it. When she returned, I ripped off a long piece and wrapped it around her breasts, taped them back so she looked flat.

I told her her name was Jaim. She used the pronoun they.

They said, “You can call me whatever you want, king.”

But it wasn’t what I wanted, not at all, and disgusted, I threw down the money and stepped outside.

I was calling Lara. I was telling Lara to pick me up.

I was sitting on a curb. I was crying into my filthy hands.

Then Lara showed up, I don’t know when, don’t know where. I remember seeing Astrid, asleep in the front seat, looking so quiet. But she was frowning, even in her sleep. The careless, fatherless world was already imprinted on her face.

I wanted to be hit. I needed to be punished for what I’d done.

I slammed my head into the roof of the car and howled at the top of my lungs—to the entire city, to anyone who would listen.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I howled.

The blood dripped into my eyes, stinging me, and my head throbbed. It was a relief.

I smashed my head again.

And then it was not a relief.