Simon Says

There was a house that I shared. I shared it with Simon, that was his name, but it was mine too. The house and the name. He told me it was his house and I was lucky to be living there. Since he was the first, I was the second Simon, not that I minded. 

When he played chess, and it wasn’t often, I would play too. He was the type to win with eight queens and it was the only kind of win he ever really wanted. There could be no pawns on the board, neither his nor mine, and only when my king was left all alone, would his pawns march to my end of the board, promoting themselves. There were only so many pieces in the set, so he would grab my captured rooks and flip them on their heads, declaring them queens. And when we ran out of pieces to transfigure, I knew that if he said his pawn was a queen too, it was. It was his pride that required him to win that way, but I thought it was just his cruelty. I don’t remember when my pride first started to show itself.

I tried quitting once. I think the proper word is ‘resigning’, but he called it ‘bitching’. He said ‘not yet’ so I sat as he urged me to finish the game and beat me again. That time with eight rooks. 

...

Slowly he won with fewer queens and I beat him once. We stopped playing then and it wasn’t long before I left his house. It was colder where I went and the sky looked the same each day. I bought three jackets my first week there so I could sit outside, where it was always evening. I was new and got a small apartment that I could call my own. Just Simon’s, not Simons’. Or at least I thought I was the only one, but when I went to class there was another boy and his name was Simon. ‘So is mine,’ I told him that first day, but he didn’t listen and I decided then he could be the third.

That first winter passed fast, but the evenings were endless and night never seemed to fall on me. I learned a lot very quickly. Some lessons I can share and others I’ll keep to myself for now. I learned how cold burrows inside me until I’m paralyzed and how ash clings to my elbows. I learned how much I needed lotion, not always just for my elbows. And in those days where evenings consumed my days, I thought of Simon. The third, for the first’s face I could only cling to in fragments by then.

I don’t remember when the sky changed, but it happened the day Simon spoke to me for the first time. I can’t picture the sky before then, but it was purple after. I saw him at the library or the brothel, I can’t remember, but he asked if I could help him and I said ‘sure’. He asked if I had anything to drink and I held out my water bottle, but he said ‘nevermind’.

I saw him every day at the library after that, I’m sure it was the library, and he didn’t ask me for a drink again. But he called me my name and he said it like someone who didn’t know how to make all the right sounds. I guess he didn’t have much practice with his own name when he owned it, but he learned it for me since we shared it then.

One day, he asked me to go home with him and I couldn’t sleep that night thinking of his room. Simon lived away from me, the city I mean, on a small farm only a mile out. The house was surrounded by grass on all sides except for the small patch of pavement jutting from the garage, acting as their makeshift driveway. He didn’t take me inside so we sat on the lawn near his porch and talked until his father pulled onto the driveway. His red pickup truck swayed as he climbed out and when I glanced over, Simon wasn’t looking at me. His father climbed the porch steps and went inside. Simon followed his father and I followed him.

The three of us stood around the coffee table and neither of them would meet my eye. ‘I’m Simon,’ I said, sticking my hand out. His father looked at me for the first time almost as if he hadn’t registered my presence before. ‘So am I,’ he told me. I waited for more, but he left us alone and Simon led me outside by the arm I had extended.  He walked me home and didn’t look at me, but outside my apartment door, his hand slid down my arm and his fingers found mine. His face tightened as his lips formed a small smile, but he was grinning at me. I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about his coffee table. 

When I saw him next, he looked at me and we were the only two Simons again. He took me to his farm again, but we went past the house, the overgrown grass, into the fields of pomegranates. Between rows of bushes, he laid out a blanket, and picked one. He picked it for me. I learned that day how to peel one, how to remove the seeds, and how they stubbornly nestle themselves in my teeth after I’ve taken all their flesh. I learned what pomegranate juice tastes like and the way it stains my chin crimson. 

He was stained too, his chest, but it was too much and too dark and he winced when I touched him. I traced the wine stains with my fingertips and he set his teeth, mute. I let my hand fall and he rolled away from me. He put his shirt on without my help and walked me to my apartment. We talked about soil as the grass turned to cement under us, but when we got there, I walked in without closing the door behind me. I smiled when I heard it close. He stood in the living room where I hadn’t lived yet and pulled me to him.

His mouth tasted like nothing. I imagined he would taste like pomegranate. Or blood. But his mouth was wet and cool and I guess he might’ve tasted like Simon. He exhaled into my mouth and his breath smelled of blackberries. We hadn’t eaten blackberries that day. Why couldn’t it have been blood? It would’ve been easier.

He didn’t stay the night, leaving in a rush after saying ‘goodbye’. Maybe it was ‘bye’, but there wasn’t anything bad about it then. 

It was a month, I think, before I saw him again. We climbed into his father’s red pickup truck and we drank as we drove. I couldn’t tell the difference between the wine and pomegranate juice. He asked me about my first house, but he used the word ‘home’ instead. I told him about the first Simon, emptied the bottle, and he let silence fill the car.

He took me to the theater where Hamlet was playing. During the play he watched me and I watched Ophelia. I cried when she died and he asked me why I was crying. I told him if he had been watching her, he would know. So he watched Hamlet instead and I watched him. How had Hamlet captivated him?

He drove me back, but I wanted him to walk me instead and he told me I was being stupid. I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about the brown leather in his father’s pickup. 

When I did sleep, I dreamt of him. Of him, and Simon, and Simon, and me, and all of us crowding the truck. Hot steel cords bound me to the seat but my legs were free. They were all looking at each other and I wanted their eyes for myself. The key was in the ignition so I stomped on the accelerator, but there was only enough gas to take me to the house Simon had called my ‘home’.

...

Now I go to that house and knock. The first Simon answers the door and leaves it open for me. I’m not sleeping, but we’re tired. I say I want to play chess and Simon tells me I’m too grown, but I’m not. I tell him I want to stay and he tells me it’s too late, but it’s not. So I plead and he sighs. 

‘It wasn’t easy to be happy for you.’

‘Are you?’ I ask. ‘Happy, I mean.’

He waits a second. ‘How will I know?’

‘Maybe when it gets easier,’ I tell him. He pauses and looks at me like the Simon at the coffee table.

‘Did you ever miss me?’

‘I needed you.’

‘But you left.’

‘There was no other way.’

‘But I would’ve gone if you had asked.’ 

I let out a slow shaky breath. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘But it didn’t go like that.’ I waited, but he didn’t say anything so I asked him a question before I would be too old for him to answer. ‘Do you want me to be happy?’

His eyes are focused on me or something past me. He doesn’t move or talk so long I fear he’s never going to tell me. ‘You are tortured’.

I don’t get what he means. ‘I am only Simon,’ I say and it never got easier for us.