Lick the Knife
by Desmond Everett Fuller
I wrapped my scrapes and bruises in Charlotte鈥檚 old coat and stumbled off to bank distance between me and the asshole who鈥檇 saved my life without asking first how I felt about it.
Freezing fog spread a woolen darkness over the Sound from Northgate to Rainer Beach. I could鈥檝e told you the names of every ice-slicked street. But I couldn鈥檛鈥檝e told you mine, or where in the cold I was going.
The medic who鈥檇 revived me had announced that I hadn鈥檛 passed over but had bailed off the bike I鈥檇 stolen in a rundown place called second chances. Red-headed, barrel-chested, he looked Nordic鈥擮din in Adidas and a ball cap. He鈥檇 warned me: I鈥檇 sustained a concussion. By his curbside diagnosis, if I couldn鈥檛 walk a toe-heel line, neither could my memories.
With big warm hands, he鈥檇 disentangled me from spokes and brake cables. I hadn鈥檛 done anything to warrant walking away from my crash鈥攑edaling fast through frozen corners. The medic peeled back my eyelids, dilating my pupils with a pen light. 鈥淵ou know the saying? 鈥楬e that licks the knife cuts his tongue?鈥欌欌 I had cut my tongue. His thumb swabbed inside my mouth and came away red. I tasted loose change and dick. It was pointless trying to tell him that I didn鈥檛 have health insurance, that I鈥檇 just been at the hospital and biked away into the night minus my only friend. It wouldn鈥檛 matter to him that her name was Charlotte.
鈥淗ey, man,鈥 he said. 鈥淎t least you鈥檙e in better shape than the Mariners鈥 batting lineup.鈥 Was he trained to talk this way when escorting someone back into the world, like everything on our side of the veil was jokes and baseball? Charlotte had loved baseball. We both had.
The medic gave me water. A soft bottle, almost a plastic bag. I gripped it against rising dizziness and shook my head. No way in hell would I go to the hospital. I spat blood and meant it. The medic shrugged. Putting his card in Charlotte鈥檚 coat pocket, he said, 鈥淣ormally I don鈥檛 do this.鈥 He鈥檇 told me: stay awake, call in the morning so he鈥檇 know I was okay. Hadn鈥檛 he? Or had I lost the way it happened through the crack in my head where the past was coming and going?
Charlotte鈥檚 coat smells of stale bread. We鈥檙e too far from a Northgate back room where we鈥檙e crashing, too crashed out to care about getting back there. We lie on a bed of leaves tucked away in the forests of Golden Gardens. Night is briny and marrow-damp. Charlotte coughs, complains of chest pains. In a few hours her heart will seize beside me. For now, she tries to read my palm, but it鈥檚 too dark to see the future.
Seattle in winter was wet without end. All my bones shrank away from it. I wobbled, a rubber suit of myself. Leaving the well-meaning medic and the broken bike鈥攊f I was alive come morning, I鈥檇 steal another鈥擨 went looking for someplace warm to lie down. All I wanted was to be warm and for whatever came next to not be up to me.
I鈥檓 ten when my parents tell me the world is ending. They load a pipe with pungent buds, nod sagely, and burn鈥攖he world is ending. When I鈥檓 twenty-five, it hasn鈥檛 finished ending. In a hospital waiting room, I鈥檓 waiting for Charlotte. Waiting for my friend. Until a nurse brings me her coat that鈥檚 no longer warm. I smell stale bread and wait for something more. But there鈥檚 only the flat white florescence of waiting rooms and everything still slowly ending.
There were no stars. Lamppost coronas grew white hairs of light that spidered from street to street. Beneath the frozen-over sky, I trudged along. Until I was passing a yellow house, where I spied keys left hanging in the lock and gleaming in the porchlight.
It wasn鈥檛 for me. I knew that. But the yellow was a beacon, and the doorknob was cold, painful to grip. My hand hurt. My tongue hurt. Thinking hurt. So I didn鈥檛 think. I opened the door and passed through the door. Because the yellow was a beacon, and the keys were left hanging in the lock gleaming in the porchlight, and that, right then, that was all I needed.
Inside was good quiet. Maybe the last warm place on earth. Bookshelves soaked in lamp light. A laptop slept on a utility-spool coffee table. In a galley kitchen, dried flowers hung in bunches tied with string. A Space Needle magnet pinned a flight itinerary to the fridge鈥攕omeone was flying home on Wednesday. As Charlotte鈥檚 heart stopped, a radio in the hospital waiting area had played 鈥淭op-Down Tuesday: counting back the hits!鈥 But how long had I pedaled black-iced streets since then? Minutes, hours, weeks, some other absurd increment?
When her mania turns sunny, before it brittles, Charlotte bakes a cake from a boxed mix. We find it in someone鈥檚 cupboards鈥攖hey鈥檙e not home, and we鈥檝e forgotten their names. We won鈥檛 stay long鈥攚e never do. She writes the day鈥檚 date in chocolate frosting. 鈥淚t鈥檚 today, today!鈥 she says. 鈥淐ongratulations! We鈥檙e still here!鈥
The house where I鈥檇 come in from the cold was a clutter of a couple鈥檚 mementos: polished river stones lined windowsills, birthday-party Polaroids, two electric-toothbrush docks, two pillows. In the bedroom, a man slept alone on his side of the bed. His chest rose and fell in big exhales.
鈥淜eep the lights on,鈥 Charlotte says. 鈥淲ho knows what our souls get up to in the dark. They might walk out on us.鈥 We sleep bundled in our coats. When I can鈥檛 sleep, I watch Charlotte. Her chest scarcely moves, her breathing, silent. She could fool you for dead. I fix on the pulsing artery in her throat for assurance that, wherever we鈥檝e ended up, we鈥檒l both still be here in the morning.
On the side of the bed someone was flying home to, I lay down next to the man. The pillow smelled like laundry and flowers and hair. It smelled like a long time ago鈥攃lean scalp and a girl鈥檚 Chapstick in sixth grade. I grew dense and heavy and bit down on the temptation to sink out through the bottom of it all.
The man licked his lips. He winced against a dream but stayed down in it. I stayed very still. From a shaving cut and two moles on his cheek, I traced a tiny constellation and named it Charlotte. In a birthmark at his temple, I found my parents I hadn鈥檛 seen in years. I found my sixth-grade crush from when talking on the phone was more than talking on the phone, from when talking on the phone had buoyed us through end-of-world darkness.
The man slept on. I got up. Blood from my tongue got on the pillow. I felt dizzy and nauseous, as my hands began dancing and wouldn鈥檛 stop.
Charlotte says, "I'd rather bite my tongue than my cheek, it heals faster." We鈥檙e in line for EBT benefits. The line isn鈥檛 moving. Charlotte needs things to talk about, so she talks would-you-rathers of bodily harm. 鈥淭hird-degree burns over slivers of glass any day.鈥 With EBT, we can eat. We can attend baseball games and symphonies with subsidized tickets. Almost nobody knows about it, but it鈥檚 part of how we keep showing up for another day. Without Beethoven, without Brahms, without a playoff wildcard, Charlotte might not last the year. 鈥淓xecution? Go old school: firing squad and a final cigarette all the way.鈥 I鈥檓 stalling, thinking she鈥檒l think lying down in front of a car and waiting to be run over is a boring choice. With a sniff of disapproval, she can make you disappear while you鈥檙e standing next to her. A Human-Services lady announces to the queue: everyone will have to come back tomorrow. Charlotte stretches her arms up high and shouts, 鈥淭omorrow鈥檚 a Ponzi scheme!鈥
I wasn't from the Sound or the city. I was from a small town over the mountains. Somewhere no one cared about. Finding my way here is how Charlotte found me. It wasn鈥檛 sex or future. Sometimes we broke car windows. Sometimes we went up in blue flame, waving farewell to our former selves departing in smoke. We were castaways, and that held us together. When the Mariners lost, we cheered anyway. Seattle of the King Dome鈥擥riffy Jr, Johnson, Buhner鈥攐f reasonable rents in wry old neighborhoods, that was all long gone. But we were here. We slept in our coats in sublet rooms, on friends-of-former-friend鈥檚 mildewed couches, under trees in city parks. We slept through and missed Ichiro. We slept together so we didn鈥檛 have to sleep alone. We slept with the lights on.
In the sleeping man鈥檚 living room, I sat on the couch in the lamplight and waited for my hands to slow down, gazing at books on the shelves. It helped my hands to hold onto something. So I picked up a paperback small enough to fit in Charlotte鈥檚 coat pocket next to the medic鈥檚 card and his ask to call by morning. I let the book open, and I read.
A winter鈥檚 night from inside a silent house passes with slowness nothing else can claim. Over a few hours, I read the whole slim volume. It was a collection of stories. They showed me windows in my head I hadn鈥檛 known could open. The characters had unpaid utilities and duct-taped shoes. They had vitamin deficiencies. They all had, because we all have, at least one perfect moment they would never forget or get back to.
By the last page, I nearly forgot, nearly turned to Charlotte to tell her about it. The silence was ongoing. For a moment, I wished my red-bearded medic hadn鈥檛 pulled me back from the wet black gate between worlds where Charlotte had left me behind. His Viking ancestors had pillaged and burned villages鈥攖he shadow of their sails compelled you to lie down in the mud that had been your life. Now, their atoning descendent dashed around saving people, never wondering how long ago they鈥檇 stopped believing in second chances. Because stories weren鈥檛 enough. My only friend was gone and probably would鈥檝e laughed at this book and at me for liking it. She could make you feel left behind without leaving the room, without ever having been there.
Charlotte throws a library copy of The Bell Jar into Lake Union after carrying it around for a week. Not for reading, but for people to see her with it and see her as she wants them to believe she is. I watch the hardcover sink into the shallows greasy with sunshine, knowing better than to say anything. The regular season is fading, along with hopes for a playoff wildcard. We stand out of place in the summer grass and breathing light. Charlotte鈥檚 yelling at young people out enjoying the lake and their lives that make sense on a late September afternoon.
October night, we鈥檙e jawing around Udub and those Greek streets. We go to a college guy鈥檚 place. Though Charlotte insists she鈥檚 anti-intellectual. There are pink welts where she鈥檚 scratched her forearms. So we鈥檙e making an exception. She inspects the college guy鈥檚 books and tells him he鈥檚 got a lot of old white men on his shelves. He smirks and says to look in the other room鈥攖here鈥檚 more old white men on the shelves in there. Then he sells us stuff that鈥檚 nothing we haven鈥檛 seen before. Charlotte鈥檚 spitting out what she鈥檚 rubbed into her gums, claiming that he鈥檚 stepped all over it, that I didn鈥檛 call him out, that I always cave around that masculine-energy trip, that I鈥檓 a typical Aquarius鈥攁lways just tagging along.
My leg had fallen asleep. So I shifted my butt on the couch and dropped the book. On the inside of the cover, someone had written:
With love, always!
Alicia
It鈥檚 just a note somebody wrote to somebody else. In a different time. I know.
But
before I鈥檇 woken up in the medic鈥檚 arms, before Charlotte hadn鈥檛 woken up ever again,
before a lot of things,
I鈥檇 been a kid, still on the near side of many different possibilities.
In my house, no one turns the lights on. My parents say every flipped switch fuels a burning world. They cultivate a dimness heavy with Pine-Sol and pot smoke. Shadows in the hallway to our bathroom stretches on and on鈥攕ometimes I鈥檓 too scared to go. In my sixth-grade class, a girl named Alicia has acne and broomcorn hair. When I ask why she鈥檚 calling, she says that鈥檚 what you do when you want to talk to someone. We tie up our parents鈥 landlines, hold the phones till our elbows cramp and our ears are hot. Her favorite color is yellow. She tunes a radio to Mariners games, and we keep score together. We call each other boyfriend and girlfriend but we鈥檙e too young to be anything breakable. We make up each other鈥檚 horoscopes. We make wishes that won鈥檛 come true. Alicia wishes her mom鈥檚 boyfriend would drop dead. I wish my parents would buy lightbulbs and stock the fridge. She wishes I was better boyfriend material. Before I can wish to feel more fully like anything, her mom鈥檚 boyfriend shouts in her background. Alicia says. 鈥淚鈥檝e locked my door.鈥 From behind the door, her mom鈥檚 boyfriend is barking like a spaniel. I say, 鈥淚 love you.鈥 Alicia says, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 care.鈥 Her breathing is quick and frightened. 鈥淲ill you stay awake with me?鈥 And I do. There are nights when the dark in my house spreads through the rooms, around the cardboard over the windows, out across roads and houses and woods and fields until all light is driven underground, and no distance remains between her voice and mine.
Senior year, I鈥檓 at a party where everyone tracks melting snow onto someone鈥檚 parents鈥 carpet. Everyone knows everyone, at least vaguely. By then, I still only know anyone vaguely. The landline in my house is gone. No one talks on the phone anymore. Alicia and I haven鈥檛 talked much at all. High school is a different country with better boyfriend material.
But I avoid going home if I can help it: the heat is never on, and my parents have unplugged the fridge. It鈥檚 better to stay too long at a party I wasn鈥檛 invited to than wonder where I might go at 2 AM in December. Everyone else is sitting close together. When Alicia leaves with a guy named Tanner, I follow them outside.
Deep drifts of snow reflect full-blast moonlight. Alicia鈥檚 eyes are hard and bright with it. I ask if her mom鈥檚 old boyfriend鈥檚 out of the picture, just to know if anything鈥檚 gotten better for one of us. She throws those cold eyes like she doesn鈥檛 recognize me, like our voices had never crossed great distances to hide in one another.
Now Tanner opens his passenger door for her. He tells me to make tracks. Instead, I lie down on the snow in front of his car. Something essential is hanging beyond my reach. I have no hope of getting it. But I put my head under his tire so someone else has to be part of it. Muffled behind the windshield, Tanner asks, 鈥淲hat exactly the fuck?鈥
Then he backs up and drives around me. I cough on car exhaust and wonder how long I can lie here and watch the stars grow colder. Moonlit snow buries all the hometown details I don鈥檛 want to see. Down the white middle of the road, everything has been erased. I鈥檓 passing through the moment before conception, before everything but me will get a miraculous do-over.
From the sleeping man鈥檚 couch, I suddenly heard him groan. A groan of door hinges. I glimpsed the back of his head going into the bathroom. Behind the bathroom door, his piss pinged against the toilet. When he came out, the bathroom door opening blocked me from view. I stayed very still, until he began to snore again.
I鈥檇 been remembering Alicia. In the book in my hands, some other Alicia, someone I鈥檇 never met, had written: With love, always! My tongue throbbed. Alicia and Charlotte began dovetailing, streaming out through the hairline crack in my head:
Alicia says into the phone, 鈥淲ill you stay awake with me?鈥
Charlotte says into the dank gloom of Golden Gardens that we鈥檙e told to make the world our own鈥攂ut it鈥檚 not that kind of place. Everyone fusses over the wrong things. In a decade, the rainforests will be gone. Blue whales are making their last migrations. But we鈥檙e scandalous for trying to buy eleven-percent-ABV Belgian ale with EBT cards. 鈥淚t鈥檚 literally more nutritious than Wonderbread!鈥 Charlotte hisses at a cashier in a new boutique grocery. It comes in blue bottles corked by monks from an abbey in Belgium. Most of our income supports their lives of contemplation. Their ale supports us keeping off harder stuff. Wherever we stay fills with blue glass. When our welcomes wear out, this is what we leave behind.
Charlotte tells me about an airline pilot who threw his headset across the cockpit and, according to witnesses, declared, "This is not okay." Later, he testified that, in attempting to crash the plane, he鈥檇 been trying to wake up from a nightmare.
Alicia says, 鈥淲ill you stay awake?鈥
Flailing out of sleep on the sleeping man鈥檚 couch, I kicked away dreams and bruised my shin on the coffee table. The laptop there slid onto the floor with a soft thump.
I stayed still and silent. I held onto the book of stories. If I鈥檇 moved from the couch, I might鈥檝e stood right out of myself and started walking through walls. That seemed more plausible than being on my own, more likely than finding a place to stay and a job and health insurance for the next time I briefly left the earth鈥檚 surface.
I scooped up the laptop. It鈥檇 been left plugged in, fan whirling, hadn鈥檛 powered down, hadn鈥檛 been asleep at all. I didn鈥檛 even have to log in. I stared into the blue screen light experts claim disrupts sleep and keeps us gnawing at the raw unholy hours. The keys had been left hanging in the lock and gleaming in the porchlight. And when I clicked the browser, it loaded the sleeping man鈥檚 social feed. This could happen, I knew. And it was happening to me. But it made me wonder if I wasn鈥檛 already a ghost.
Scrolling events in the lives of the sleeping man鈥檚 friends and family, I reacted with hearts and more hearts. His nephew鈥檚 little-league trophy and grass-stained knees. A study-abroad buddy had proposed to his boyfriend on a mountain top. Someone in his hometown was growing azaleas.
Whatever the ID in my wallet claimed about me, I couldn鈥檛鈥檝e guessed without peeking. But Alicia鈥檚 full name came to me without trying. I typed it next to the magnifying-glass icon.
Nowadays, she worked on a flower farm. Her profile picture backdropped in an echinacea field. She didn鈥檛 look like anyone I鈥檇 known from when we鈥檇 whispered across phonelines. I thought, probably, she wasn鈥檛 that person. Maybe it didn鈥檛 matter.
From the sleeping man鈥檚 profile, I DM鈥檇 her. I wrote that someone I鈥檇 loved had died. But stories in this book that found me in this house had saved my life for at least a couple hours. And when I imagined a color for love, yellow fell closest to forever.
I signed off, love, always!
Because I hadn鈥檛 died, and love went on in an awful current tessellating around me.
In the other room, the sleeping man stirred and moaned.
Because coming back hurts every time.
If I made it to the door before he woke up, I鈥檇 leave the keys hanging in the lock and gleaming in the porchlight鈥攁s they鈥檇 been when I鈥檇 needed them.
If I made it out of the house, a couple planets masquerading as stars might gouge holes through the frozen fog and help me find my way.
If I made it down the street, I鈥檇 read this book again through yellow streaks of daybreak.
If I made it to the last page, I鈥檇 fish the medic鈥檚 card out of Charlotte鈥檚 coat pocket. I鈥檇 stumble over words, my tongue still swollen but healing faster than I could鈥檝e believed. If I could recall it by then, I鈥檇 tell him my name. If no name came to me, I鈥檇 tell him I鈥檇 come from over the mountains.
If I made it that far. I'd ask if he'd read this book. And man, I was sure it would dredge the chambers of his heart like it had mine. He might believe me. We might meet for coffee. We might read each other's palms. His lifeline would forgive all his marauding Viking ancestors. The whorl of my thumb would be a labyrinth with many exits. We鈥檇 figure the Mariners wildcard odds, debate whether the Astros or the Yankees were the bigger assholes in the American League鈥擟harlotte would鈥檝e said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 a trick question.鈥 Then, my well-meaning medic and I, we shake on us both being right. And his hands around mine are pink and warm like the moment right before we鈥檙e born, before the first light we ever see;
About the Author