doris delay
Bluelighter
Luc Davenport, I truly believe without a doubt that you are mad. Mad crazy, but not crazy mad. Mad to drive and sleep on my six foot sofa. Mad for “old time’s sake.” Mad to say it all in one breath. Mad for a broken heart, broken bones, wild at heart. I fell in love with a photograph of you long before we’d ever met. You were standing in front of an oak tree, doe-eyed and thin in the lips. Your frame was much slighter than my own and turned protectively to one side, like someone had just walked in on you naked.
“Poor little lion,” your mother had said, showing me the picture. “You’ll be home soon.”
Who are you, Luc Davenport? Are you still wet, brown eyes and a murmur in your little heart? I’d sooner forget my own father’s name than forget the turbulent mumble that used to speak to me from under your tiny ribcage. What a fuss we had all made about the blood and the valves, or your too thin bones--such a sickly little lion, such a brave one.
‘That sad little lub-dub inside of you will one day grow strong’, I whispered in your ear. But even years later I never let myself fall asleep on your chest, in fear that one day they would be right, and it would break into a thousand pieces as we dozed.
Do I have the right to come after you, Luc, after all this time? I had a dream you brought a bird home for your family, for your daughter-- a haunted little budgerigar, all blue under the wings and pressed to one side of its cell, trying to avoid the sticky fingers that poked through the wire.
“Why do men build cages for birds and little things?” You once asked me, as we went wading through the tall grass in your backyard. It was your first week home from hospital, and if it hadn’t have been for the tell-tale dark around your eyes I might never have known you had been ill at all.
“I don’t know much about cages, Luc...” I said slowly, pausing to fix a sock that had disappeared into my shoe. I was disappointed with my answer and you must have understood this, because you looked up to the sky and sighed with all your fifteen years, like you were feeling that nobody, nobody, could really understand what was going on down here, and how could anyone ever truly feel sane? You looked smaller than ever under the moody winter sky, but you had a deceiving glow about you, like someone who had just been holidaying in the Bahamas. I couldn’t remember a time where I’d seen you look so healthy, and for a moment I feared the palpitations might stop all together and you’d stop asking me questions about egg-laying vertebrate animals and Siamese twins and taxidermy, and shortly after I’d stop knowing how to love you.
In my dream you wore an uncomfortable lop sided smile that I had never seen before. It slipped all over your glowing face like it wasn’t quite sure where to sit, and you spoke to your wife with a calmness that reminded me of being in a doctor’s surgery. Who taught you how to glow like that, Luc? You’ve never been to the Bahamas, you’re not fooling anybody.
Who the hell are you, Luc Davenport, if you’re not weak wrists and Robitussin? Can I remember you like that? Can I love you like that? I’m here to rescue you, Luc, to take you back to the cold nights we spent walking barefoot through hotel corridors, running our hands across the peeling wall paper. You were, ‘moan moan moan;’ 22 years old, and taking me to the Bayside so you could fuck my brains out without your parents walking in. I was eager from the guts down, ready to snap your tiny wrists, and brush my teeth with your toothbrush in the morning. I took your delicate hands and pinned them above your head, carefully smudging your finger prints with my own, and you told me that I should scream, “Frank Sinatra!” as I climaxed.
Do you remember Luc, how the sheets were starched and they felt foreign and intrusive on our skin as we lay there afterwards, our bodies barely touching? We shivered under the small blanket, and I spoke quietly into the dark, “Winter is never as devastating as we think it is; look how many we’ve survived.” You must have seen me smiling then, because you crept your fingers up to my lips --you were always fascinated with teeth and you touched mine every opportunity you could get. I could smell my sex on your fingers as you softly pushed them into my mouth, one at a time. I let you linger around my swollen pink gums, cringing at how raw and metallic it felt as you paused above the ruptured skin where my wisdom teeth were coming through.
“Well, they’re coming through straight,” you said pleased, sitting up and slipping your shirt back on. “And it’s just as well too; otherwise I would’ve had to have pulled them out.” Your eyes sparkled as you looked over at me for a reaction.
“Oh yes,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face. “They’d have to go.”
The next morning we took our business to Woolworths, sifting through the isles on the look out for self raising flower. You cooked me pizza for breakfast; low fat Mozzarella and Pepperoni. I brushed my teeth very carefully afterwards, in hope you might try to touch my teeth again, but you didn’t.
Checkout was 10am, but we each put eighty bucks on the counter and stayed another two nights. You wore your red socks pulled up over your pajama pants, and I stayed barefoot, tip toeing over to you to suggest that you might paint my toenails.
“Roxy Red?” You smiled, dipping the brush into the lacquer. The polish felt cold and pleasant on my nails, and some dripped down the side of my foot and onto the immaculate carpet. I smudged it with my heel, leaving a pink stain. We had French toast for dinner, breakfast juice and vodka. You drank real fast with your hands around the bottle like a masseuse saying, “Vodka is just right for a night like this.”
You remember all this, don’t you, Luc? How you stood on the Bayside balcony with your little hands in the air like a preacher? Had a story for everything when you were on the booze; murder mysteries and the deepening complexity of crop circles were just the beginning. You were five foot eleven and riddled with conspiracy, a fucking mad man. I wondered for a moment if I should let you back inside.
On the second night Jim Tait came to visit. Jim Tait was a pork-pie executive, a ghetto-tech, lo-fi future forecaster with a fancy car. He was the only friend of yours I ever met and you had invited him over to do business. Jim sniffled too much, cracked his knuckles too much, did everything too much. He was the kind of character who wiped under your cup of tea and soon as you put it down. Nine till five he wore a suit, but when it came off Jim Tait liked to snort and spank and dominate. Jim could really belt a woman with the most love and affection. Behind closed doors he could give you exactly what you wanted for a fair price; fifteen dollars for a punch in the face, twenty for a shoulder dislocation, and thirty five for a slap on the arse with rubber gloves. Sometimes he would dress up as Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland and knock the teeth out of a father of four. We got mates-rates.
You were certain, Luc that I’d be Jim’s favorite customer because I bruise up well, all pretty violet crumble and welts the size of golf balls. I’ll never forget the look on your face as I bent over the bed and stuck my arse in the air. You watched with wide eyes, anxious and excited. You know the rest of it, Luc. He beat me silly, but never fucked me. I swallowed my gum and bled a little from my mouth where I had bitten the inside of my cheek. We sat in the bath together after he left, and you asked me if I was alright.
“Alright? Are you kidding me?” I said, kicking you playfully under the water. “I want the doctor to say he hasn’t seen anything quite like that in his twenty odd years in medicine! I don’t want to sit down for a week!”
For once you fell asleep before I did, and in the quiet of the night I listened carefully for your little murmur, but I never found it.
In my dream you lifted your daughter up so that she could see the bird; she had the same wide inquisitive eyes as you, and the same small mouth. Your wife looked more elegant than I ever could have hoped to, in a simple black dress and no make up, and when you kissed her on the forehead, my lust went soaring aimlessly through your lounge room window.
You should never have left, Luc. You should never have gotten better. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have given you. Nothing I couldn’t have, if you’d really given me the chance. I could have taken up Yoga, Luc, bought the best in cellulite creams, Vitamin E and Coconut oil– the whole deal. We had a song for every moment, for every memory. Kerri-Anne could have almost sold our box-set compilation for $29.95 including postage and handling.
Luc Davenport, get out of my dreams! Uncover your face; get your lips off her forehead! Don’t you know that birds are meant for the sky and nowhere else?
Luc Davenport, are you listening to me? Are you suit and tie, cheerios and the morning paper? Do you think of me when she rearranges the sofa? When she picks up your bowl after breakfast? Does your own clean bathroom remind you of the time we stayed in the Bayside? Sitting on the cool porcelain, we could practically taste the bleach, feel it biting at our skin. We left our bowls above the television set, and in the morning we could smell the sour milk.
“Poor little lion,” your mother had said, showing me the picture. “You’ll be home soon.”
Who are you, Luc Davenport? Are you still wet, brown eyes and a murmur in your little heart? I’d sooner forget my own father’s name than forget the turbulent mumble that used to speak to me from under your tiny ribcage. What a fuss we had all made about the blood and the valves, or your too thin bones--such a sickly little lion, such a brave one.
‘That sad little lub-dub inside of you will one day grow strong’, I whispered in your ear. But even years later I never let myself fall asleep on your chest, in fear that one day they would be right, and it would break into a thousand pieces as we dozed.
Do I have the right to come after you, Luc, after all this time? I had a dream you brought a bird home for your family, for your daughter-- a haunted little budgerigar, all blue under the wings and pressed to one side of its cell, trying to avoid the sticky fingers that poked through the wire.
“Why do men build cages for birds and little things?” You once asked me, as we went wading through the tall grass in your backyard. It was your first week home from hospital, and if it hadn’t have been for the tell-tale dark around your eyes I might never have known you had been ill at all.
“I don’t know much about cages, Luc...” I said slowly, pausing to fix a sock that had disappeared into my shoe. I was disappointed with my answer and you must have understood this, because you looked up to the sky and sighed with all your fifteen years, like you were feeling that nobody, nobody, could really understand what was going on down here, and how could anyone ever truly feel sane? You looked smaller than ever under the moody winter sky, but you had a deceiving glow about you, like someone who had just been holidaying in the Bahamas. I couldn’t remember a time where I’d seen you look so healthy, and for a moment I feared the palpitations might stop all together and you’d stop asking me questions about egg-laying vertebrate animals and Siamese twins and taxidermy, and shortly after I’d stop knowing how to love you.
In my dream you wore an uncomfortable lop sided smile that I had never seen before. It slipped all over your glowing face like it wasn’t quite sure where to sit, and you spoke to your wife with a calmness that reminded me of being in a doctor’s surgery. Who taught you how to glow like that, Luc? You’ve never been to the Bahamas, you’re not fooling anybody.
Who the hell are you, Luc Davenport, if you’re not weak wrists and Robitussin? Can I remember you like that? Can I love you like that? I’m here to rescue you, Luc, to take you back to the cold nights we spent walking barefoot through hotel corridors, running our hands across the peeling wall paper. You were, ‘moan moan moan;’ 22 years old, and taking me to the Bayside so you could fuck my brains out without your parents walking in. I was eager from the guts down, ready to snap your tiny wrists, and brush my teeth with your toothbrush in the morning. I took your delicate hands and pinned them above your head, carefully smudging your finger prints with my own, and you told me that I should scream, “Frank Sinatra!” as I climaxed.
Do you remember Luc, how the sheets were starched and they felt foreign and intrusive on our skin as we lay there afterwards, our bodies barely touching? We shivered under the small blanket, and I spoke quietly into the dark, “Winter is never as devastating as we think it is; look how many we’ve survived.” You must have seen me smiling then, because you crept your fingers up to my lips --you were always fascinated with teeth and you touched mine every opportunity you could get. I could smell my sex on your fingers as you softly pushed them into my mouth, one at a time. I let you linger around my swollen pink gums, cringing at how raw and metallic it felt as you paused above the ruptured skin where my wisdom teeth were coming through.
“Well, they’re coming through straight,” you said pleased, sitting up and slipping your shirt back on. “And it’s just as well too; otherwise I would’ve had to have pulled them out.” Your eyes sparkled as you looked over at me for a reaction.
“Oh yes,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face. “They’d have to go.”
The next morning we took our business to Woolworths, sifting through the isles on the look out for self raising flower. You cooked me pizza for breakfast; low fat Mozzarella and Pepperoni. I brushed my teeth very carefully afterwards, in hope you might try to touch my teeth again, but you didn’t.
Checkout was 10am, but we each put eighty bucks on the counter and stayed another two nights. You wore your red socks pulled up over your pajama pants, and I stayed barefoot, tip toeing over to you to suggest that you might paint my toenails.
“Roxy Red?” You smiled, dipping the brush into the lacquer. The polish felt cold and pleasant on my nails, and some dripped down the side of my foot and onto the immaculate carpet. I smudged it with my heel, leaving a pink stain. We had French toast for dinner, breakfast juice and vodka. You drank real fast with your hands around the bottle like a masseuse saying, “Vodka is just right for a night like this.”
You remember all this, don’t you, Luc? How you stood on the Bayside balcony with your little hands in the air like a preacher? Had a story for everything when you were on the booze; murder mysteries and the deepening complexity of crop circles were just the beginning. You were five foot eleven and riddled with conspiracy, a fucking mad man. I wondered for a moment if I should let you back inside.
On the second night Jim Tait came to visit. Jim Tait was a pork-pie executive, a ghetto-tech, lo-fi future forecaster with a fancy car. He was the only friend of yours I ever met and you had invited him over to do business. Jim sniffled too much, cracked his knuckles too much, did everything too much. He was the kind of character who wiped under your cup of tea and soon as you put it down. Nine till five he wore a suit, but when it came off Jim Tait liked to snort and spank and dominate. Jim could really belt a woman with the most love and affection. Behind closed doors he could give you exactly what you wanted for a fair price; fifteen dollars for a punch in the face, twenty for a shoulder dislocation, and thirty five for a slap on the arse with rubber gloves. Sometimes he would dress up as Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland and knock the teeth out of a father of four. We got mates-rates.
You were certain, Luc that I’d be Jim’s favorite customer because I bruise up well, all pretty violet crumble and welts the size of golf balls. I’ll never forget the look on your face as I bent over the bed and stuck my arse in the air. You watched with wide eyes, anxious and excited. You know the rest of it, Luc. He beat me silly, but never fucked me. I swallowed my gum and bled a little from my mouth where I had bitten the inside of my cheek. We sat in the bath together after he left, and you asked me if I was alright.
“Alright? Are you kidding me?” I said, kicking you playfully under the water. “I want the doctor to say he hasn’t seen anything quite like that in his twenty odd years in medicine! I don’t want to sit down for a week!”
For once you fell asleep before I did, and in the quiet of the night I listened carefully for your little murmur, but I never found it.
In my dream you lifted your daughter up so that she could see the bird; she had the same wide inquisitive eyes as you, and the same small mouth. Your wife looked more elegant than I ever could have hoped to, in a simple black dress and no make up, and when you kissed her on the forehead, my lust went soaring aimlessly through your lounge room window.
You should never have left, Luc. You should never have gotten better. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have given you. Nothing I couldn’t have, if you’d really given me the chance. I could have taken up Yoga, Luc, bought the best in cellulite creams, Vitamin E and Coconut oil– the whole deal. We had a song for every moment, for every memory. Kerri-Anne could have almost sold our box-set compilation for $29.95 including postage and handling.
Luc Davenport, get out of my dreams! Uncover your face; get your lips off her forehead! Don’t you know that birds are meant for the sky and nowhere else?
Luc Davenport, are you listening to me? Are you suit and tie, cheerios and the morning paper? Do you think of me when she rearranges the sofa? When she picks up your bowl after breakfast? Does your own clean bathroom remind you of the time we stayed in the Bayside? Sitting on the cool porcelain, we could practically taste the bleach, feel it biting at our skin. We left our bowls above the television set, and in the morning we could smell the sour milk.
