Page 10 of Rhymes with Metaphor

T he next morning, while they were making coffee in the kitchen in their bathrobes, Martin asked Reg for another favour.

“I want to take Juliet to the Rail Museum and then go for a walk on the nature trail. Will you stay here with New Bug?”

“Why does he need a babysitter? He can’t even climb stairs without falling asleep.”

“He’s still sick, Reg. And you don’t need to keep him entertained or anything.”

“You owe me one.”

“Thanks, Reg.”

“Have a fantastic time railing Juliet.”

“That remark is in exceedingly bad taste,” said Martin.

“So was your request,” said Reg, and he left to get dressed.

The truth was, Reg had planned to watch tennis on the living room’s flatscreen TV, alone. Juliet, however, had rousted Joel from his bed, herded him downstairs, and installed him in a reclining position on the couch in front of said TV, forcing Reg to sit on the adjacent recliner.

“Have fun,” said Juliet.

Reg changed the channel to the Madrid Open. Flip was playing in the quarter-finals against a Belgian qualifier Reg had never heard of. Quarter-final matches were a big deal for Flip, and he usually sent Reg a reminder to watch. But he hadn’t been in touch with Reg since their latest quarrel.

Flip walked onto the court with his racket bag over his shoulder.

He was sporting a buzz cut, and Reg wondered if he’d done it out of spite.

Flip had always known he was handsome, but he’d never been fully comfortable with looking like a teen girl’s idol.

As it was, he’d had to deal with a lot of unwanted attention from women.

Sometimes, Reg had had to deal with Flip dealing with that.

Something was off with Flip today. He was hitting more unforced errors off his backhand side than usual, and Reg wondered if his old injury was playing up. At the commercial break, he glanced at Joel and saw him watching.

“Do you want more root beer?” said Reg, looking for an excuse not to stare at Joel’s body.

“Yes, please.”

Reg got him a can out of the fridge. When he returned, the match had resumed.

Flip’s play was definitely off. He should have been wiping the court with his opponent, but he was struggling to stay in the match.

At the changeover, Flip asked the umpire to call the trainer, then he sat with his head bowed, looking at his feet.

The trainer came and pulled off Flip’s wristband, and the camera zoomed in on his wrist. Flip wore three bracelets when he played: A copper malachite one for luck, a purple and green braided leather one to commemorate his quarter-final win at Wimbledon two years ago, and the platinum cobra bracelet Reg had given him when they were nineteen.

The same one that featured in the sketch Reg had made of Flip and that was hanging on the wall in his loft.

The one Joel had seen when Reg had brought him home.

Reg glanced at Joel. Joel was looking at Reg with a considering look in his eyes that made Reg feel paranoid.

Flip retired from the match.

“Are you finished?” said Reg, nodding at the can of root beer.

“Yes.”

Reg picked it up and went to the kitchen. He took out his phone and texted Flip:

Call me if you need to talk.

Of course, he’d be in the locker room now.

Then he’d have to talk to the media before he could go back to his hotel room.

Reg didn’t expect to hear from him for a few hours.

He went back to the living room and found Joel asleep.

He switched off the TV and sat in the recliner.

He looked at Joel’s sleeping face. Had he guessed the truth about Flip?

He could have thought it a simple coincidence that Reg had a sketch of Flip’s bracelet in his loft.

Joel had asked about it, if it was real, and Reg had stupidly told him that it was.

Flip didn’t call Reg, and Reg found himself unable to write a single word, let alone a poem. All he’d managed to write were two poems at the beginning of this retreat. The chair was going to crucify him. That was on his mind as he stowed his belongings in Martin’s car, and it made him bad-tempered.

Martin was likewise testy because, although he’d asked to go in the car with Juliet while Reg drove Joel home, she had insisted on driving with Joel because she felt she hadn’t spent enough time with him at the cottage.

“She’s right,” said Reg, as Martin pulled onto the highway. “You need to stop trying to fob him off on me.”

“I know what this is really about.”

Reg stiffened. Had Martin guessed?

“You were like this with Dahlhaus,” said Martin. “And Egregria. You’re jealous. You want me all to yourself, even if it means consigning me to a lifetime of celibacy. You may be happy to live that way, but I’m not.”

Reg relaxed. He’d forgotten how oblivious Martin could be sometimes, more so when he had his lovestruck head up his arse. “Don’t take it out on me because you didn’t get off with her this week.”

They barely spoke for the rest of the drive back to the city, though Martin drowned out the silence with the Cross Country Checkup podcast again.

Reg wasn’t overly concerned. He and Martin had minor spats on a regular basis, and they always made up a few days later. He wasn’t in a chatty mood anyway. He was trying to concoct an excuse for the chair about his dismal productivity.

––––––––

T he meeting with the chair was worse than Reg had anticipated. Afterwards, he retreated to his loft with a plan to do nothing all day but lie in his bath licking his wounds and eating Indian takeaway, then getting shit-faced on the bottle of absinthe Martin had bought him for Christmas.

Perhaps later, he would join the rest of the MFAs from his intake in slagging off the chair in the group chat. But right now, he wasn’t in the mood for human interaction.

He was half undressed and filling his bath when his phone lit up in his jacket pocket on the bathroom floor. He didn’t recognize the number, so it wasn’t the chair or Martin, or anyone else he definitely didn’t want to speak to.

“If you’re not more appealing than my bath, I’m hanging up,” said Reg.

“It’s Joel.”

Reg turned off the taps to give himself a moment to think. “Did Martin put you up to this?”

“No. I’m outside your building. Can I come up?”

“If you keep it brief.” Reg put the phone down. Water dripped off the end of the faucet, and he peered at his reflection.

He succumbed to decorum only enough to put his shirt back on, but he left it unbuttoned. He was wearing trousers at least, and that would have to do.

He buzzed Joel in, and while he was waiting for him, he poured himself a glass of absinthe and started unpacking his takeaway.

A couple of minutes later, a knock sounded at the door.

No scrubs today. Joel wore black jeans and a black hoodie, which made him look even younger and a little delinquent.

Reg let him in, and he pulled off his hoodie, revealing a white T-shirt underneath.

Then he took off his shoes, leaning heavily against the door while he did.

Though he didn’t look as sick as he had on the day Reg had taken him in from the rain, he still looked run-down and unwell.

“Go and sit down,” said Reg. Before you fall over.

Joel sat on Reg’s settee, or rather, on the papers scattered on Reg’s settee, which Joel seemingly didn’t have the energy or the inclination to move out of the way.

“You’re not planning to sleep here again, are you?” said Reg.

“No.”

“Whatever you came here for, out with it. My bath is getting cold and so is my dinner.”

“The MCAT results are released today.” Joel stared at his giant watch, like a condemned prisoner waiting for a call from the governor. “In thirteen minutes.”

Reg sighed. “Well, I’m going to eat—if that’s all right with you.”

Reg’s sarcasm was lost on Joel. At least, he didn’t stop staring at his watch. It was so enormous, and he was so weak with illness, he had to use his other hand to support his watch hand while he stared at the dial.

Reg doled out his food and, as an afterthought, he put rice on a separate plate and covered it with chicken korma. He brought it back into the living room and set it on one of the flatter piles of paper on the coffee table before sitting beside Joel on the settee. Joel stared at the plate.

“It’s not spicy,” said Reg. “It won’t blow the top of your head off.” Reg commenced eating. “Why are you here, Joel?”

“I don’t want to be alone,” said Joel quietly.

“Is that how QDOGs work? You need a witness? Why not ask Juliet? Or is this like signing a will, where you can’t ask the beneficiary?”

“Five,” said Joel. He took out his phone.

Reg peered over his shoulder as Joel entered a login and password on an official-looking website.

Joel was, in general, a quiet person, not prone to making superfluous or distracted movements. But when Joel looked at his phone now, he went unnervingly still .

As Joel was making no attempt to conceal it, Reg peered at Joel’s phone screen.

“Five hundred and twenty-six,” said Reg. “What does that mean?”

Joel looked like he’d been hit by a bus.

A sob burst out of him, so violent it startled Reg.

Then, Joel covered his face with his hands and started shaking.

Reg put a solicitous hand on Joel’s back, and Joel threw his arms around Reg’s neck and hugged him.

Feeling Joel pressed against him, Reg felt alive, in a way he hadn’t for several months.

It wasn’t just the sensual aspect; it was the unaccustomed experience of being acknowledged, physically, by another person.

But Reg wasn’t the one needing comfort. He held Joel, applying just enough gentle pressure for Joel to feel him.

He could feel Joel’s ribs through his T-shirt.

When you find yourself comforting someone who is crying for some unknown reason, presumably not your fault, after a while, even if you’re a very patient person, you start to wonder when they are going to stop.

And, as often happened to Reg when he was forced to sit still, brilliant ideas and images started exploding in his head like popcorn.

Joel’s watch ticked like a bomb, a relentless, oppressive rhythm that cut straight through his heart, and words came to Reg in pulsing bursts.

Joel was still holding him for dear life, and Reg couldn’t bring himself to push him away, but a stick of yellow chalk lay along the back of the settee, and he released Joel with one hand to pick it up and surreptitiously ghost words onto the brick.

No clear area remained, so he had to write across old words.

Reg’s poems didn’t normally come fully fledged like this.

He tried to catch the words as they came, which unfortunately, meant jostling Joel.

Joel’s sobbing stopped abruptly. He pulled back and looked at Reg’s hand. Reg wrote the last line of the poem and dropped the chalk. Released from his creative impulse and also Joel, Reg went to the liquor cabinet, poured a glass of absinthe, and set it on Joel’s knee.

Joel sniffed the glass and flinched.

“It’s absinthe. Not poison.”

“I can’t drink,” said Joel, handing it back. “I’m eighteen.”

Reg sighed and set the glass on the coffee table. “Eat something, at least.”

Joel picked up a fork and tried the korma while Reg resumed his seat beside Joel.

“Don’t tell Juliet,” said Joel.

“Why would I?”

“Don’t tell Martin either. He’ll tell her.”

“I wouldn’t know what to tell him. What’s going on, Joel?”

Joel stared at his food. “I’m supposed to be a doctor.”

“So I gathered. But I don’t understand why you’re upset.”

“You should understand,” said Joel.

“You can retake your QDOG, can’t you?”

Joel stared at the floor, eyes glistening anew. He looked too sick to get himself home.

“Do you want me to call Juliet to take you home?” said Reg.

Joel shook his head.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“I don’t want to go home.” Joel leaned against Reg.

“Why don’t you have a lie down? I’ll take you home later.” Reg moved just enough for Joel to slip down onto the settee behind him. His eyes were already closed.

The bathwater was cold, as was the rest of the korma. Reg ate it anyway, because he felt particularly empty just then.