Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 20:25:00 -0500 From: Timothy Stillman <comewinter@earthlink.net> Subject: The Sum of Said Things "The Sum of Said Things" by Timothy Stillman Sum denied the partnership. He stood by the snow-topped pagoda, in the midst of the empty naked chinaberry trees. He would not go further than the snow could take him. He wished love at the world. The world did not wish love back at him. He would not watch television again, or go to the movies, for they were worlds not within his kin. No longer. And he would masturbate by himself forever all his days and nights long. He stood in the heavy white night snow and looked at the moon and thought it made of glowworm bone. Way up there out of reach. The madness of earth traded for the magic of the moon. He wished this most desperately. Tan was the entire world to him. Tan was all the beautiful cherry blossom budding in summer time. Tan was spring that felt warm and good and like an especially beautiful clothing round him made of webs spun by starlight spiders all busy in the night time to give him this incredible gift, and the incredible gift had been Tan, and that was no more. Sum was small for his age. He was 15 and looked younger. He had a face that was a delicate cameo. As were the bones in his body-little bird bones, for no tapestry he, just the moment, just a delicate deft image of a touch of wooden bowls and chopsticks held in blue enigma that was the perfectly balanced boy who was himself. He remembered how warm was Tan, and how wise, and how they loved to lie together naked on the near by hill in summer time and tell stories of how they would be big men someday and strong and bold and there would be all the hills of the world for them to roam over, and all the seas for them to swim and do it effortlessly. Tan was tall and strong and wise, and had the ability to balance between reality and dreams, an ability that Sum did not. And Sum would hold him and would kiss Tan and Tan would smile and his eyes beamed black lights and he would say to Sum who never learned how to smile, smile for me, Sum, let the radiance I know is in you come out, let me see the sun in your cobalt eyes and your braids are the stars I wish my hands to hold as I kiss you forever and a day. But Sum could not play that way, even when Tan went down on him in gentle poetical measures, taking a portion of an inch and kissing, then another portion of an inch and kissing and hands and arms exploring Sum's naked chest and sides and making Sum his own, and even during this, even when he pleasured his friend so strongly and so expertly and so delicately like the rice paper walls within which each lived and the stars were a maze meant for love making all the night through, Sum could not smile. He could moan and say oh yes Tan oh yes my beloved oh please please and his penis would stretch in Tan's mouth and Tan would softly and carefully nip at it with his teeth and tongue the slit and the slip of a boy would be commanding Tan, if Sum only realized it, for Sum was the one truly in charge and had never understood it, only that he loved Tan more than heart would ever be able to tell, and he held his friend round his head and pushed his head of his friend up and down and faster and faster and Sum would come in Tan's mouth and he would rear up in an arch and shoot more and more and Tan would swallow so eagerly, as he held his hands to Tan's buttocks and stroked them and pressed his hands into them, making the boy shoot so satisfyingly., warmly, deeply, tenderly. And they said love, and in time, Tan said goodbye and it was in the season of growing sad summer, not like now which was the highest heaviest snow there had ever been, and Tan said no more, Sum, I cannot take your sadness anymore, and Sum said, when we love, am I sad?, when we laugh at comics, am I sad?, when we watch movies, am I sad? And Sum pleaded and took his friend's hands and looked directly into his friends eyes-oh if Tan could have known how much courage it took Sum to do that, to look directly at him and not at the shadows of the night on the hill come autumn-- when they had finished giving each other pleasure and had dressed in pants now, alone, and Tan took his friend's hands and kissed its warm slightly wet palm, and looked at Sum and pulled him to him; they had been kneeling and now in each other's grip, they lost their purchase and fall over and down half the gentle roll of hill, at which they forced themselves in brown grass to stop the trajectory, and they were both laughing like normal boys should. And they tickled each other and they felt each other, chest to chest. And Sum said then, Tan, see, I am laughing, and you will not leave me because we have good times together and I do laugh and we do make love and none will ever make love with me but you, and that is a fine thing, that is a good thing, for I wish no one else but you, and Tan turned from his friend and he said in a whisper, you control me, and I weary. And Sum put his chin on his beloved's naked left shoulder and kissed the little black dots there and he put his cheek to that of his friend's and he hugged him round his chest, for he knew they would be together forever now. His naked front feeling so cared for against his friend's tall naked back. Tan reached up to his friend's small thin arms and held them with his hands, and then after a long time of this closeness under the blue gray coming black sky, he said to Sum, you laugh, and Sum said, yes; Tan said, you weep; Sum said I have seen you weep-well, almost; Tan said, you make me happy; Sum said, I will make you happy always for you make me happy and I return it thus to you, and Tan said good bye. For I fear I shall be you. I fear more you have picked this up from me, and I may be the carrier, not you. Forgive my selfishness. I am unworthy of you. Goodbye my friend, goodbye. Not like that, but gradually, as a cloud slowly tearing itself to pieces over the last month to cold October and colder November. And Sum tried. He tried his level best to be what Tan wanted, to be happy, to be carefree, to be resourseful, to be immaculate in imitation of what teachers wanted and parents and other adults who had control over them. He tried to be good in school. And at his grades. He tried to learn to play baseball, and in that he was a dismal failure especially. But he did try and that was all that his friend at least, his Tan, could expect of him, was it not? And Tan said good-bye with every morning walk to school. And Tan and Sum said good bye in every divestiture of clothing at night and running cross the moon shadow, two naked boy shadows with erections proud and tall and sticking out and falling into china berry leaves and making out and holding on and Sum serious then, especially serious, always unsure, always sure he would get it wrong, that some day he could not come with his friend, and knowing one day, when the love was good and they felt like velveteen rabbits to each other, he knew that sexual coming was for the last time with Tan because it was so beautiful beside the blue brocade seeming stream with all the white froth and the blue water and it was a painting too full of happiness to last, too glassine to stand one more winter chill, and Sum let his friend take him from behind, in hopes this would make Tan stay. And Tan was so gentle guiding in his penis, and taking it slowly and slowly and waiting till Sum said gasping sigh a little more stop wait okay wait easy please more and he made love that was to Sum and Sum on his knees and Tan on his and his hands guiding his penis in his friend and then to the hilt and Sum shouted and Tan immediately stopped and Sum said his voice and breath fast, no faster, don't stop, take me please, fuck me, and they had never said the word before and in Sum's mouth it was not a crude epithet like other kids used it for; it was sleek and graceful and dark haired and sweet angular face and trapezoid cheek bones and a mouth that did not smile but had tried to so often when he knew Tan was serious and was going to go away, not because his parents were moving elsewhere, but because he was running away because he was so in love with Sum and he could never make him happy and Tan came and he started to pull out, not sure how his friend felt about that, they had not talked about it, but Sum said, no, wait, don't go, no, wait, don't go.. And now in the snow the little person known as Sum was standing by the pagoda that had its roof so heavy with snow, it might collapse, and Sum stood in his coat and his heavy shirt and pants and boots, and he had his hands in his pockets, but still in spite of his clothing the rough hard biting Japanese wind came through him, and he prayed it to blow him to bits like a piece of paper that was crumpling already and Sum had tried to smile, had tried to be happy behind the sadness, had tried to hide the sadness behind the happiness. He had tried to be what Tan wanted. Tan of the good happy dreams. Sum of the sad and lonely dreams and he had tried so hard, had Sum, that he thought he would burst through his own skin, he tried so hard to create another him, to please his friend, who in truth was patient and kind but had made up his mind and had not believed it when Sum worked up a smile after he had swallowed Tan's come and had lain full on his friends' body and had smiled big and wild and wild and happy and free, and Tan had turned his head away and washed Sum from his life that instant, wilting Sum, as he tumbled off Tan's body, and Tan, still there, was gone already, and Sum ashamed ashamed of his nakedness, and the quick dressing, not looking, and the quick running away from Tan who lay there, not moving, as if dead. But it was Sum who was dead. And the sheer pity of it was this-- Sum could be happy. He could. He just could not be Tan's kind of happiness. And now--- Sum trudged through the snow to the pagoda and walked up the snow heavy steps, falling to the floor, breath momentarily knocked out of him, having tripped on the top step. He sat under the pagoda, on the swing, which also was heaped with snow from wind blown drifts he pushed off. Tan was gone and winter was dark and deep and cold and he put his head to his mittened hands and he wept for a time, and then found himself angry-he shouted out to no one, why do I have to be you? Who made it you always call the shots? I can be sad if I want to. I've seen you, Tan, sad sometimes, but you try to hold it in when anyone else is around, especially me. You're the big phony. You're the coward. Afraid of life. I'm not a coward or afraid of life. Not me. This reflects badly on you, not me. I can be me and I was me because I got to love you and you loved me. Can't you see it?, you damned bonehead? And he put his hand to the crotch of his jeans and felt nothing under the coarse material. Then took his hand away. You want me to smile, he said, so you leave me, to make me smile,? like that makes any sense. I would have defended you through anything if you hadn't been able to handle everything yourself, and you leave me because of this? A flex of muscles that make faces look stupid and clownish any way? What about depth? What about emotions and complexity and me and you as sentient beings? Not grinning goofs like the others. You want that? Well, fuck you then. You are the clown, Tan. You are the clown in the circus. Let them laugh at you. Let them throw peanuts at you and laugh themselves silly at you-- Tan, the fool; Tan, the nobody, who could have been somebody, with me around. Nobody ever laughs at me. You'll see one day. You'll see. And the wind blew hard and cold and whistling and like the rush of a freight train carrying all the late night loneliness there had ever been, and there had been much, an endless supply to last till doomsday and beyond. And there would be an endless amount more. How crazy, how fuckin' cruel is that, you bastard? You self-righteous-and he wept and the words stopped and the words formed into tears and the tears flowed for a long time. And took their shape and feel and size and dimensions in absolutely every moment, one way or another, of Sum's forever after life that would be spent alone. All because he couldn't smile. Is that not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard of in your life?