Vincent Perrone

I want to be your older man, but I’m still too young. Don’t think about it. We can meet at a soon-to-be-demolished park—I’ll mistake you for someone else, someone older. You’ll like being mistaken. We’ll be all too clever for public, so I’ll invite you to my apartment.

            “Wow,” you’ll say. “These ceilings are so high. You live here all by yourself.”

            “Just me and my dozen bats.”

            “Where are they?”

            “Sleeping. You’ll have to be very, very quiet.”

            You’ll stick two fingers in your mouth and whistle, shriller than a smoke alarm.

When I call you, it’ll go straight to voicemail. I’ll take several moments trying to determine if I should leave a message and if I should leave it in a funny voice. Now you’ll have thirty seconds of silence in your inbox. I like your John Cage impression, you’ll say.

Arm around the shoulder, arm through arm, arm crooked behind the neck. My public and private arms. I’ll never know what to do with all these arms, but yours will disappear into a lovely trench coat.

We’ll return to the park even when the excavators have torn up every tree and kiss under the sign advertising future condominiums.

            “Would you ever live in a place like that?” you’ll ask.

            “It would be a solid investment,” I’ll say.

            Gagging sounds.

            I’ll say, “I’m only thinking about the future.”

            “Stop it. It’s gross,” you’ll say. “The future.”

The gap between us will be just large enough to notice. But not so large as to be grotesque. It’s a Goldilocks gap. It’s the space between the bed frame and the floor. Enough to slip under and come out covered in dust bunnies.

I’ll have been hurt badly by yoga instructors and bankers, somewhere in the recent past. You’ll hold a steady job in a room without windows or mirrors. For that, I’ll bring you lunch. What is the appropriate face for receiving a free lunch? I’ll only see the menace of your eyebrows from behind a weighty sandwich. You’ll have any history—swans nest.

There’s no ideal. Come in any form, just stop me before I go on and on.

Our arguments will be sturdy. The ratio of cruelties should be in my favor. I’ll be bitter about dirt in the house and toss your sneakers onto the balcony. You’ll note my unreliable narrativizing, how I can’t say for certain whether I promised a vacation or merely alluded to the great deals on European flights. You won’t have a passport.

            “You don’t even have a passport,” I’ll say.

            “That’s because I’m too fucking busy looking for my shoes.”

I’ll start smoking again, with you, and we’ll quit together. It won’t be because you’re young, it will be because time is a silly loop. For the first few weeks, it’s all I’ll be able to talk about; I’ll be overly transparent about my anxieties, but at least I’ll make you laugh. I haven’t been funny before.

We’ll see a Cassavetes movie on a rainy weeknight, and when Falk grabs Rowlands, I’ll lean into your cheek and say, “That’s us. All the rabid love.” And you’ll say, “Don’t ever treat me like that.”

This isn’t an out, I’m just saying you might be older too.

Separate apartments then separate apartments closer to each other. We’ll cook breakfast and feed the scraps to the dog I’ll know we shouldn’t have. I won’t correct your pronunciation until you ask me. We’ll keep most evenings to ourselves, and sometimes I’ll even cry and try to hide it from you. A record on its last lonesome track.

We don’t and won’t and shouldn’t and can’t walk into a relationship with a list of demands. Not just the hang-ups, but the musts and the will-nevers. So many other loves, you’ll tell me, have been like ransom, like blackmail, like embezzlement. Are these crimes of passion? Personal or financial? You’ll build a case. I’ll tell you to go to law school, really and sincerely, but you’ll only be interested in prosecution, not justice. Still, you’ll go.

Here’s something you’ll say when we age in separate cities: “I feel growth.” Thank god. That’s the spin of a tilted earth. That’s the right mind to make it in this world. That’s the future, growing up into luxury condominiums. “That’s it exactly,” you’ll say, “I feel gross.”