I remember the day you tore up my notebook. You rode in on a motorbike and yanked it right out of my hands. You read the cover, flipped halfway in, and you took an honest look at my work. You rolled your toothpick back and forth, like a pendulum tracking your progress through my dotty outlines and vague ideas. I couldn’t see you through the haze of you but I like to think I saw you anyway. You saw me, at least.
I remember how composed you were. You had grease dripping from your aviators that I knew came from your hair and your ride simultaneously. I figured that maybe the bike ran off of you, I don’t know. You sweat the kind of stuff that makes the cogs whir. The certain sorta something that makes motion possible. Whatever you wanna call it, that’s what I’d call it too. For now, I call it grease.
And you were grease, in the beginning. You soothed me and fed me and you talked to me about things I already knew. Maybe you didn’t get that far in the notebook, so you didn’t know that I knew. But I remember you getting pretty invested before you ripped it all up, so I’m not sure how much I believe that. I remember you holding the book with both hands clenched, visibly moving your entire head in agreement. You let out an audible “yes!” three different times. You even said “exactly!” as your toothpick dropped out of your mouth. Then you looked at me and you saw me and you nodded and you smiled and you tore my notebook clear in half. At least, I think you saw me.
That’s what I never could like about you. You were always looking somewhere else. You have these flagpole eyes, the sort of vision that would kill other men, were they ever the ones responsible for seeing things the way you do. You knew it too, that’s what bugged me. That’s what’s always bugged me. You haven’t ever heard a joke before, and the things I’m serious about, you think that I’m kidding. You can’t even see the humor in that. I’d do anything to make you stop fucking preaching for the rest of our natural lives. But if you still wanted to write a little, I suppose I wouldn’t mind. Also, I wish you’d get rid of the greaser look. It was charming at first, but I’m beginning to think you don’t know who you are.
You threw what was once my notebook high in the air, all of the assorted papers fluttering in their own unhindered directions. You pointed up towards the book and made a finger gun, gripping your wrist with your other hand for stability. All the papers made their silent departure with the wind. The hardcover fell back into your lap, heavier than when it left. It was only then that you fired.
“I’ve lived a photograph’s life.”
I didn’t know if you were speaking to me.
I came to you from the couch of God. You looked like a military child. A jovial little war machine. There was sacrificial blood on your shins, not that you noticed. I wondered: How did a youngster like you get so eager to hurt? Yes, you were a youngster. We were the same age, but you were young in your spirit. You prayed to doughkneaders and trumpet salesmen. I could see their rosaries around your neck, although you tucked them into your shirt when you saw me coming. That type of faith is the mark of any young man. A man who doesn't know God truly. Little children with diced brains would admire the same things as you do. Surely, you can see that.
You had a bruised book in your hands. All things are bruised with you. You squinted toward me, struggling to make out just who you saw. You saw a man of higher power. A man right with the Lord. I saw “grand ideas” stenciled on the front of your book. I’ll be the judge of that.
…
I tossed the cover off of my lap, which you stumbled to catch before it hit the ground. I offered you a ride. I wanted to know more about you. There was only one condition: You had to leave that flimsy cover behind. You flipped me off and started to walk away. I revved the engine, its sweet music stopped you in place. You know what it’s like to hear the roar, don’t you? It’s a fishing hook skewered into both of our hearts. All we can do is wait and be reeled. All good men are minnows, being tugged out of the sea by the great roar of desire. I knew as you walked back to me that you understood this.
“You know, I don’t appreciate the distaste you’ve shown for my dream.”
“It’s bad work, you should respect honesty.”
“I do respect honesty. I said I didn’t appreciate it.”
“Then I don’t really know what it is that you want.”
“I want to accept your ride.”
You hopped on the back of the bike, your empty cover still held in your arms. I guess there’s some things nobody can let go of.
You called it a dream. That’s the one thing I can’t stand about you. Dreams? We do not live in a dreamlike manner. We are real men with beating wills. Passion is what moves us, not dreams. You talk of cowboys and strongmen, crop circles and sausage links. You move like windmills and you balk at peace. You want for a carnival more than you ever could a monastery. It makes it so damn frustrating to know you as I have.
I suggested to drop the cover one last time, if only to have a safer grip on the motorcycle. You waved me away, a superhero glean in your eye. You pulled the rosaries out from under your shirt, they were candied red, and you let them hang free atop your tee. I get the message. But believe me, this doesn't mean I'll stop trying. I love you too much to let you be so wrong.
See these men, who are young in the way of loving things, as they share this road together. It is frozen over, and the wheels of their cycle skids and scrapes. Eventually, they’ll crash. They know that they will crash. But it’s okay, because they are gliding now. Right now, they are gliding. They are rocketing down the mirrored highway, and they are free. More importantly, they are together. Sternness and splendor. Mountains and oceans. Both on the same world.
Together, they ride into the progenic hibernal. They share winter mouths as the cold breeze wafts in. It is frightening, facing the inevitable on the frozen road. But there are many great gifts waiting for them, and it is for these gifts that they keep on. The cycle will lapse against the ice, but it hasn’t yet, and for now they glide. Each with a silent prayer, one they will never tell the other they have made, wishing that they may glide only a little further, until the very last gift has been picked up from the brush.
There is another prayer between the two. One that neither even knows they want. As they huddle together in the chilled night, a faux-leather jacket as their only blanket, they wish for the road to thaw. They wish that one day, there will be puddles beneath their wheels. It is “their” wheels now. It’s been so long since the cycle was only his. That is precisely what scares him. When the road thaws, will his friend still need to bum a ride? When the sun comes out, will his cycle be lonely once again?
The friend is scared, too. If the road thawed, would he have to admit the awful truth? The truth that he has always wanted a little more than what the road provides? Or rather, their life on the road together. Yes, he dreams of more. He wants to see the land of mythologies. The silly fables that his companion always ridiculed him about loving. It would make his blood boil when his companion laughed about this. It was enough to make him hope for the crash to arrive.
The truth was they needed the cold. They needed the pressure that comes with the thin edge of total annihilation. They could survive alone, but it wouldn’t be as easy. And of course, it wouldn’t be as fun. But the road was indeed thawing out. Day by day, the weather got a little warmer. A third prayer, one that they said aloud together:
“May the cycle crash before the road melts. May we always be forever riding into the new white north.”
Together, they would mark this prayer with a blood pact. One more drop upon the friend’s shin, one more scar upon the companion’s brow. This blood, the warmest thing in the world.
