Darryl by Jackie Ess

Author:Jackie Ess [Ess, Jackie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CLASH Books

MARCH MADNESS 2

I went to Bill’s to watch another game, this time just me and him. I hope he gets a job soon but it’s cool that we’ve got the afternoons together. I asked him if it bugged him how I was the other day and he said no, that his friends were just being jerks. I think I believe him, but I think he still hasn’t put it together that his friends are always going to be that way when I’m around. He’s never had a real sissy friend before me, I think, so he’s like a “virgin.” He thinks he can have it all. I don’t know much but I know I can’t have it all. Though I guess I don’t know that for sure about Bill. I feel like Bill would be the kind of guy to tell you at some point randomly that he had a boyfriend for a couple years like it’s nothing. If he did, he’d be totally cool about it, he wouldn’t make anything weird, not swishy, not in-your-face. Bill’s not defiant, he’s solid. But I don’t think he has.

The game was good. It’s hard for me to get into college basketball, it’s not as theatrical as the NBA, and I’m really there for the drama and the dance of it. I think college ball is more for people who love the game. I just love the bodies, I think about how maybe with one enormous hand one of these guys— I mean, have you ever met basketball players up close? I knew some of them when I was at U of O. I think there’s no way to ask this without sounding racist but why are there so many black guys? Maybe just a neighborhood culture of playing basketball? And they’re so absolutely beautiful and intense. I don’t want to project anything. I don’t know. Why does life have to be so complicated? Every time I try to give a black guy a compliment I find I start to suspect myself of being racist. Is what I’m saying ok?

During halftime I asked Bill if he knew the story about Brad and he kinda froze. “Yeah, I knew him.” I asked if he knew how he died and he said he didn’t want to talk anymore. I guess Bill and Brad had been close. Then I remembered what Bill had said around New Years, that he had a friend in some fetish lifestyle who died. Is it possible it was the same guy? I was too high to take in the story.

The thing about “triggers,” I was reading about this online, is that it’s really not worth it to dig. Like it’s kinda hard to know what’s going to make Bill feel a lot worse, or what’s going to take him into it. I confess to being really curious but I’m going to look at the obituaries in the Register Guard, it might be a trip to the library. I could finally look at those Berryman poems too, while I’m there.

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