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knot meat
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they were sitting in a jazz bar drinking beer. the jazz group was a bass player a drummer and a keyboardist. the music was all silk, thick or then thin, and percussion. the sounds spread out in concentric circles, crashing in and then retreating, like three bees put in a jar. the music almost seemed a fourth member, because each player seemed in their own world. every now and then the drummer and keyboardist would turn their contorting almost autistic faces towards one another and smile, try to catch with their heads the rhythm leaving their hands. the bass player would make a joke at the end of each set. wine drinking patrons of the establishment would smile and laugh and tip them every now and then to show their consciousness. the only people who looked like they were really having fun were a group of three colorfully dressed black women and a playfully stoic male, who seemed embarassed for their clapping. in fairness to the other patrons' enthusiasm, however, the clapping group had been having margaritas. ian sat across from kira. she hadn't been talking as a response perhaps to his not talking. earlier a pretty well kempt girl in a khaki skirt who had tipped the band, a retired wallflower perhaps, had seen him sitting there looking bewildered and had flashed him an empathetic smile, in what was probably another attempt at appearing artfully conscious. even as he dismissed it in his head, he knew it was what he himself was always doing, was reaching out for. he wondered what she was thinking about him. he knew he wasn't pressed up against her mind in the blinding, benefit of the doubt way that marks new relationships, but was rather something to be considered, dissected, jazz from another room, on record. they drank their beer in silence. perhaps someone was looking at them, as he sometimes looked at sad looking couples in a restaurant and wondering how they got there. he thought of a wrestling match he had had once. everyone had praised him afterwards for his heart, despite the fact that he had been on the verge of giving up. just to pass a point where the average person thinks surrender is inevitable is an accomplishment he thought. but afterwards people praised him and asked him how he did it. it was clear to him that he could make up whatever stories he wanted to about digging down deep, or knowing all along. the truth was, he was barely thinking as it all happened, he was looking for an excuse to give up, but the other person must've been too, and was quicker at it than him. people would forever see the results but never know what it was like to be in there, never know that it wasn't quite heroic. he had tried to tell her that story once but she had made some comment to the effect of "you were just doing what they taught you" which somehow made him feel bad no matter what the results had been. as if there was an extra caveat he hadn't understood about his revelation. now he looked at her and felt distant. he wondered the next day if she'd ever know how close he was to telling her right then about his misgivings. he asked a question which he used to ask as a substitute for how are you, that actually meant do you still love me, "what's wrong." he didn't ask it as much. it seemed an inefficient question. "i'm bored" she said. "i think it's the lounge music, it's like elevator music and you can't get off the elevator" it didn't hurt him when she said she was bored like it had with his first or second or third girlfriends. perhaps it was that he knew she wasn't being specific. or perhaps it was that he had truly accquired a more nuanced sense of cause and effect when it came to him and other people. they left the club. they walked past an old drunk lady with what seemed her boyfriend and a couple of friends. they followed them into a bar and watched them drink. "do you think she's one of those people who's always been single?" kira asked. "those cases are sad i think" he said. "only when the person wants someone but can't find them." she responded. they left the bar and walked down the street to another club called the cellar. wafts of punk music adorned the stairway like family pictures. it was alluring, familiar. he said, "this is good music to get drunk to" it was a girl's punk band. perfect for what he felt he needed - the exuberant chastizing of punk, and the forgiveness (he hoped) of a female voice. they had more drinks. he said, "therapy is so much more expensive than alcohol." she responded, "i wonder if people are any better off than when priests were the psychologists. as if neurosis is more helpful a concept than sin. like if you're thinking about it on a spectrum of healthy to unhealthy, it's more confusing where lines are drawn. sin was something to not even be understood but just avoided." "yeah" he said. "first time i heard some neurosis, i thought, how is that a neurosis, a reaction? that is me. how can i be a reaction? as if there's some more real me which reacts, and now my waking life is just a poor response from some better off me." they leaned on each other as the music continued. the lights came on while a new band set up and the old band cleaned up. they were at a table far away from the music, which was pivotal in the emotional disclosure that was starting to happen, starting to soften the distance again, something which always happened but in each sorrow he forgot could happen. the music was like a shower the first time two people see each other naked, it takes some of the pressure off, it keeps something positive to run to, to stand surrogate for your attempts. they talked about her family. he asked her why they were so proud of her brother despite the fact she could run faster jump higher think prettier. "i don't know, it seems with them, he just does the things they want more, he sucks up to them. but maybe it isn't even sucking up, maybe he's just lucky enough to enjoy the type of hoops they want jumped through." ian told her how he didn't think anyone could not see through his overblown enthusiasm and need to be cherished. it bothered ian that he wouldn't concede somehow with a wink or a bow that he himself saw through it. "maybe he really is that way, either way, he's consistent." "maybe being smart isn't what impresses them." ian said. kira said, "they care about what kind of bragging the world will listen to" ian talked about his own life, his own sister whom he thought could do anything and still be held in the same esteem by his family, whereas if he didn't do certain things, he would be a disappointment. "maybe we brought that on ourselves." ian talked about his cousin who was quiet all the time but would comment sporadically because she didn't want to expose too much or lose her mystique unless she knew the level of the person she was talking to. "as much as i want the approval, as soon as my family gives me any, i want them to stop talking, i feel like leaving the room" kira said in response to his earlier point. it was something ian knew to be true in his own life. "the moment you take it, you feel like you've failed already to live up to it, because you're supposed to want more, that's what supposed to be so good about you. truth be told though, if i wasn't so concerned with what they wanted, if it wasn't my primary source of happiness, i could be happy without being much or doing much. but when you've been told your whole life what your rightful place is, you feel incomplete if you aren't there." the music had changed tones. they didn't even pay attention to the bands really. they talked, their heads leaned closer, they kissed each others cheeks, noses, hands. "you don't even know what's good sometimes. i hate it when my brother gives so much notice about a good deed." kira said. "it should be like one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing" "if you're doing it to get some reward, is it still good, and i know you get a good feeling from it or whatever, but i mean in the outside world. whenever someone tells me something good they did, i have to think, why are they telling me this, what do they want from it?" ian thought about it. "you almost have to go without motivation and intention sometimes. what choice do you have? we can't really know another person's motivation. there's no safe bet." kira repeated it. "there's no safe bet." "i remember there was this girl in fourth grade who called me on something. no one else really saw it, but i did. i mean, i was always on whoever's side i could be. and i'd try to be on as many as possible, so if there was a scapegoat, my law of numbers would force me against them too. i don't mean this in some harsh eating them sense. i just mean, i'd tease people, make jokes about them. i'd be friends with them as soon as it was over, or if we were alone, because then i'd be alone again and i'd need them. i'd switch sides if necessary, it didn't really matter. and she used to say to me when i'd make fun of her for a cheap laugh by pointing out why other people thought they were better than her, "why are you being so mean to me" and it used to eat me up inside a little. because everyone else thought she was so naieve and sincere. she never lied or talked mean about other people and she was shy, eccentric, didn't care about the newest shoes or anything. but it always left me thinking maybe she wasn't nice or in denial of herself out of naevity, maybe it was a choice. and it shamed me in a way. i'd often be trying to justify myself to her in my head while trying to keep other people on my side as well. it showed me that you can't really know what's going on in another person's head or why they're doing something. it's hard to judge or blame someone. " "and yet you have to sometimes" said kira. "there's just no safe bet" she continued. "yeah, even the other people who i thought less of for not seeing the possibility of her wisdom and continuing to make fun of her might have real reasons, might be making more of a choice than me even, so how could i ridicule either side. i seemed the only one who could really fail anything, by not being what i had to be out there to them i'd fail them, but by not being what i had to be in here i could fail me too, and also them it felt." ian said. he felt so close to her now again, newly. a couple of times when she had talked about her family it had seemed tears were in her eyes. "now it's all confused." kira took a sip of her drink after saying it. he told her he loved her. he thought about what kind of children they would have. they'd be athletic, full of laughter. they'd also of course develop their secret pains, but they'd have nights like this to make them forget for a while. they went home that night and made love standing near the window of their hotel room with the curtains open. it brought them closer to each other, the bandwidth of their skin allowing disclosures beyond words, allowing forgiveness which is stilted and tortously spread out over weeks of waiting in words, to be grabbed upon. they watched cars stream down the highway as their breath ascended in the motion of their bodies. they laid in bed for a while after that, opening up to passages of the gideon's bible left in the drawer. there were two drawers, one held the holy bible they were now flipping through. "the other one holds the unholy bible" he joked. the passages they opened to were one about david stealing bathsheba and another one where jesus tells his disciples that "it would be good for you who betrays the son of man to have never been born." "does that mean god created something bad?" kira asked jokingly.
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