The Loving Wall

The Loving Wall

from

"¡Existe el amor solamente para matarme! or Love and Me Have No Business Doing Business"

by Stuart González

Paul got an efficiency apartment in Montrose. $375 a month plus bills totaling near $500. He made $1,000 a month after taxes, which was manageable, but he was still poor. The place, tucked away in a corner covered with folliage that sits between an alley and a small street only a block away from the hookah bar on Westheimer, was owned & operated by a couple of gay artists who were famous for their annual Halloween bashes. If he could manage not to get evicted in a month's time...

Sitting alone in a beach chair, he sipped on a beer and exhaled. "Small place," he said aloud. Not even an echo. Small, empty place. With only a chipped, cracked coffee table and a smelly bean-bag chair taking up the rest of the space (most of it), Paul couldn't fathom bringing a girl home.

He didn't even have food. Two beers and a banana were the only contents of the mini-fridge, which buzzed annoyingly in the corner. Every now and then he'd hum along with it or he'd add the lyrics to Gimme Shelter.

Outside he smoked a cigarette with one of the owners. He couldn't think of anything to say to the guy because he knew nothing about art. What could he say? "Oh yeah, I like Picasso." He couldn't even name one of the man's paintings. All he knew is that they all looked like someone spilled water on them.

Instead,

"What do you smoke?"

"Marbs."

"Cowboy Killers."

"Lights."

"Oh."

Back inside his apartment he'd ponder going to the movies. Pondering movies made him think of posters. There weren't any on his walls. In fact, he had nothing to put on his walls. Well, there were the postcards his sister had sent when she was studying abroad in Europe, but he didn't think anyone would want to see pictures that he couldn't explain. He hated explaining things to people.

He considered calling his sister, but decided against it. She talks about boys a lot and cries as if their parents were dying or something. It's unbearable to him.

In the bathroom he noticed that the tub one of those old ones. A classic, as people with extensive knowledge of bathtubs would say. "Maybe one day I'll take a bubble bath," he said aloud.

Then, a knock on the door. Paul stepped onto the wooden floor from the bathroom, which is slightly elevated a step from the rest of the apartment and walked to the door. Peering into the peephole, he saw a young woman with curly brunette hair flowing down her shoulders.

Another knock.

After opening the door, they stood staring at one another.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

"I live upstairs. Randy told me you'd be in. Says you're new to the neighborhood."

"Yeah. Kinda."

"Well, I'm Monica, and I go to St. Thomas."

"Paul. I went to Rice."

"Ooh. Smart guy, huh?"

He didn't want to tell her that he flunked out. It was embarrassing. She asked to come in and he looked around behind him and agreed. He offered her a beer, but she didn't drink. She was only nineteen. The thought came into his head to laugh, but instead he offered her his banana. It put deviant thoughts into his head, which he liked. She laughed and asked for water. He gave her some from the tap in a paper cup.

"Paul," she started, "do you have a girlfriend?"

"Nope. You got a boyfriend?"

"No. Never had one. Parents didn't let me date in high school."

"Sucks. Why not?"

"Because high school boys haven't the resources to get married."

"I see."

Now Paul really wanted to fuck her. Innocence is overrated, nymphomania undervalued, and loneliness is observed seriously as a virtue called solitude. He hated it. This is why he wanted her to leave.

And after a while, she did. They exchanged numbers.

The first night in the apartment was trying. The newness of it was fading and he'd already masturbated twice to the thought of bedding Monica. On what bed, he'd never know, such is the nature of fantasy. But laying back in the bean-bag chair, staring at the empty wall in front of him, he realized that he had never felt as comfortable as he did in that moment. Relaxation had settled over him. He fell asleep.

In the morning he awoke face down on the wooden floor, a pool of slobber trailing from his mouth.

He stepped outside and had a cigarette. Still wearing what he wore the day before. He hadn't taken a bath. He hadn't brushed his teeth. The only thing on his mind was the ennui of the "day off," and how it would eat away at him. This is what he knew, and it was only half past nine.

Monica bounded down the staircase next to him. They exchanged greetings. She told him she was off to class.

"I'm off today," he said. "Anything cool to do around here during the day?"

"You could hang out and flirt with girls on campus at UST or you could go to the hookah place on Westheimer. Just a block north."

Cool, he thought. But hookah during the day is useless. Kind of like drinking. She skipped off out of his sight and he wondered if he should've stopped her to ask where the campus was, but shrugged it off and went back inside. Pulling the last beer from the fridge with a sigh, he knew he couldn't go all day in such a fashion.

From the bean-bag chair he had a great view of the wall in front of him. He finished the last swallow of the beer and tore into the banana. The formless wall was quiet. Plain. Mysterious. Inviting. Plainly, mysteriously, invitingly sexy. It was the only thing about the new apartment that didn't bore him.

In that moment he considered Monica. Compared to the wall, Monica had all of the requisite anatomical qualifications, the aesthetic qualities necessary for attracting the male of the species. But what she lacked was a cool, calming effect. She was animate, talkative, a "mellow harsher."

He stood up, approached the wall, caressed it with his hands and beautiful words. Silence. He put his lips to it, feeling the coldness.

"This could be love."

© Stuart González