Closer Than You Think

Jason Jackson

May 2006

I wait outside for you, wet in the rain. The bass sound moans down the dark staircase, and I shrink into the shadows outside. You’re still in there, still dancing, still a part of Saturday night. But the evening’s already over, and if you were outside with me, you’d know it.

There are people everywhere. They shout, puke, stumble and fall; it’s chaos. But it can’t touch me. These others - with their bare skin and their make-up and their student-hairstyles and their laughter - these others are exhibits. Their lives are paraded in front of me. You see, they say, this is how we live. We are young, and far from home, and there is nothing else. I push my hands deep into my pockets, and turn away from them.

You’ll be here soon.

The alley stinks of piss, and rotten food, and petrol. When we fucked here, that one and only time that we ever did - or ever will - fuck, we were so drunk we could hardly stand. It was September, the end of summer, a new town, and the start of the rest of our lives. You were wearing those shoes, with the little stars that you’d painted on the front.

‘I’m a sucker for shoes with stars painted on them,’ I said, and you laughed. You thought I was joking, but it was true. You ripped a hole in the crotch of your tights, and I counted the stars on your feet as we fucked. Thirteen on each shoe.

‘For luck’, you said, after we’d finished.

The music stops and the light comes on in the stairwell, making the faces of those leaving first seem washed out and decayed. The lipstick on that girl, the one with the bag, makes her mouth look as if it’s been punched, that one has eyes so shadowed they seem like holes in her face, and this one, the one laughing, or crying, is too drunk to lift her chin from her chest. There is a noise that comes down the stairs with them, a kind of rushing, a kind of howling, and I pull my hands from my pockets to block my ears. It’s still raining, but they don’t care. They don’t even notice, most of them. The rain slicks their bare arms and legs, the wind molests their hair, and they laugh, and sing, and argue, and cry, while I wait.

You’ll be here soon.

Before you left this evening you touched my shoulder.

‘Don’t work too hard,’ you said. ‘It’s Saturday,’ you said. ‘You should come,’ you said.

I smiled, of course. I always smile. ‘You go,’ I said. ‘This essay’s due Monday,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ I said.

You clattered downstairs with Angie, the two of you already unsteady with wine. The door slammed and I stared for a long time at the screen, the black letters becoming all the colours of the spectrum as I rested my head on the glass and stared at my own words. My gut was tight. My hands shook.

I tried to work. I kept typing for an hour or so, but it was no good. I needed a break. I needed some air. On the landing, I passed your closed bedroom door. I rested my palm on the handle, but didn’t try it I still have some limits, some depths to which I will not stoop, apparently.

It was just a fuck.

We were drunk.

It was just a fuck, and we were drunk. I repeat the words that you said to me, whispering them into the wind, and they drop to the pavement where the rain soaks them. To you these words were lighter than air, but they weigh so heavily on me I can carry no other burden. The currency of flesh on flesh, of wanting and of being needed, had a value for me. For you, it was loose change, to be discarded, or given as charity.

A taxi passes, cutting through the water that spews from the blocked drain, and when I look back at the stairwell, there you are. That red coat you brought back from home after the Christmas break, the broken umbrella, the tiny bag. You’re already at the bottom of the stairs. I don’t look at the man who’s with you. I don’t see his arm around you, his face close to yours, his confident strut of ownership. The cold wind is in my face, and the freezing rain has drenched me. I smile at you, but I’m held here by the shadows, and you’re already heading to the taxi queue.

You’ll be home soon. You always come home. And if there’s a man, as there is tonight, then sometimes he comes too. You like the safety of the house, you like to know where you are. You even told me once that it’s a comfort, knowing I’m there. Just in case.

The taxi queue is a long one tonight, and my car is just around the corner. I’ll be tucked up in bed before you’re in the cab, and I’ll be listening out for you. When the front door closes, and I hear your feet on the stairs, I’ll lie in the dark and hold my breath so that I can hear every fumble, every sigh, every curse as you undress in the bedroom next to mine. If he’s with you, I’ll ignore the sound of his piss as it drills into the toilet bowl, the rumble of his voice, his heavy tread. I’ll listen out for your words, your laughter, your breath. It’s an old house, but the walls are thin. I’m closer to you than you think.

And when you’re finally silent, when the slit of light under my door darkens, and I know that you’re asleep, I’ll close my eyes and tell myself again that it was just a fuck.

Jason Jackson has been writing for three years. He hopes he gets the time to keep writing.