If He Had Lived
It was a long time ago. I had been younger then.
Andrew and I were in bed in a hotel not from Plaza Park.
In the West, there was always a Plaza Park.
It was the idea that Tristan was famous that burned my ass. He changed how I saw the infamous. The issue was desire. Everyone I knew wanted him. It’s all beginning to be obscured by smoke.
I have written entire books about him. Sometimes I change his name.
Today would have been his birthday.
Tristan est né à Avignon. Il me voulait. Personne ne m’a jamais voulu comme il me voulait. Nous avons baisé devant d’anciens lions. Je n’ai jamais pensé que je pourrais aimer à nouveau comme ça. Tristan est mort.
Then, Andrew came along, and challenged the vacuum I had built to contain my life. It protected me from involvement. Let alone intimate involvement.
“Who was it. It had to be someone. I can always tell.” I did not believe it.
“How is it that you can see relationships that ended, Andrew.”
“I don’t know. I am a witch, I think. Like you.”
Now, there was something I did believe. The laws of physics are very clear. We can go forward in time. More like through it. But we cannot go back. It just isn’t possible. What you have is what you have. I have him. He will never age.
“You ate his ass.”
My eyes to the sky. “Every fucking day.” I had missed it.
“Tricks who ate my ass all had meathooks.”
“And money.”
“And money.”
“It was not a happy ending.” Andrew was staring at the hotel window.
“It was premature.” All death is premature.
“He was famous.” Andrew’s observations were more visions than observations.
I nodded, yes. “Only to the people who knew him or of him. But isn’t that the truth to all fame. The people who know you are the people who know of you.”
“Jason says…”
“Jason thinks he knows most things.”
“He does. Know a lot.”
“I know.”
“I remind you of Tristan.”
“Our Lady of Sorrows is just down the street.”
“Your sarcasm will never put me off.”
“You would be a difficult lover.”
“Who by my letters to you has never changed.”
“What letters.”
“Letters I never wrote. But I dreamed of them, and you.”
“Ripe nectarines.”
“What ripe nectarines.”
“Sometimes with Ararat Brandy.”
“You like expensive things.”
“He was far more expensive than anyone knew. I drank him up because I could.”
“And his hole tasted like necarines and brandy.”
“Ripe nectarines and Ararat Brandy.”
If we had had a cake, we could have blown out the candles.
“To your mouth, Tim. “A bitter rain and you are your children.”
“You are my children.”
“By the mouthful.”
His shit hole tasted like a sweet saliva. Painting is formed of color. The sensuous reality of eating ass is always political.
*From GOING ROGUE