Page 5 of Rhymes with Metaphor

T he departmental chair was impressed with “Paper Soldier.” She was supremely unimpressed that in the nine days since Reg had sent it to her, he had not produced anything else.

“You’ve got two pages of material here,” said the chair.

“You know the minimum requirements for your thesis. When I arranged this meeting ten days ago, I should not have had to stipulate that I expected you to produce more than yourself and a couple of pages. You need to write, at minimum, twenty-eight more pages to complete this thesis. Twenty-eight pages of your best work.”

“I’ve still got four months,” said Reg.

“You have so far demonstrated that in the span of four months, you are capable of writing two pages.”

“You can’t command genius,” said Reg.

“Bullshit,” said the chair. “What I foresee is you retreating into your own head and not making an appearance again until you’re dragged out kicking and screaming and submitting twenty-six pages on the deadline day.

And if those twenty-six pages are substandard—and they will be if you rush them—your thesis will be rejected. ”

“Look here,” said Reg. “You’re giving me a ticking-off for something I haven’t done.”

“Prove to me that you won’t,” said the chair. “Send me something new in two days. Good morning.”

It wasn’t a good morning. With the rain slamming down, there was no chance of enjoying a cigarette.

Reg had an umbrella, but, as he had no idea where it was, he hauled his suit jacket over his head and sprinted towards the car park, passing through the courtyard with the fountain along the way.

The fountain’s basin, filled with pelting rain, bubbled like a cauldron, and a statue sat on one of the benches. Reg stopped and looked back.

It wasn’t a statue. Sitting disturbingly still on the bench, without an umbrella and wearing only black scrubs, was Joel, head bowed as the rain hammered down. He looked so much more wrung out than he had the last time Reg had seen him, like an old, abandoned toy.

“Joel?”

Joel neither moved nor spoke.

By now, Reg’s jacket was soaked through, so he let go of it, and it slapped against his back. He gave Joel’s shoulder an experimental push. Touching him was like touching a sack full of cold, wet sand.

Joel raised his head, but his eyes were blank.

He looked off , like he was far away and receding fast.

This wasn’t Reg’s problem or his business.

It wasn’t .

Reg hooked his hand under Joel’s armpit and lifted him to his feet. Joel was so slight and unresponsive to his touch, it reminded him of a day at the beach as a boy, lifting a dead seagull by the wing, hollow-boned and stiff.

“I’ll give you a lift home,” said Reg, letting him go. “Come on.”

For a moment, Reg thought Joel was going to fall back onto the bench, but he remained standing. Reg headed for his car, but Joel didn’t move. Reg sighed and took hold of Joel’s upper arm. Joel allowed himself to be pulled along, but he came reluctantly, like a prisoner being led to the gallows.

As Reg hadn’t given anyone a lift in weeks, his passenger seat was full of accumulated detritus, crumpled papers, and coffee cups, and where had all those fucking rubber bands and paperclips come from?

Reg shovelled everything into the backseat, where it joined piles of other clutter.

He had to help Joel into the empty passenger seat and shut the door for him, because god forbid Joel make the effort to do it himself.

Reg got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

Rain roared on the roof, and the windshield was opaque with swirling water.

His suit jacket was slicked to his back.

He was soaked beyond redemption and fuming.

He pulled a loose cigarette from his breast pocket, tried fruitlessly to light it, seven times, then chucked lighter and cigarette both into the compartment behind the gear shift.

Reg didn’t spare a glance at Joel as he drove, because, even with the wipers on full blast, he could barely see the road. Joel remained quiet, thankfully, because Reg was on his last available nerve.

When he got to Joel’s house, the driveway was empty, so he pulled in and parked.

“Right,” said Reg. “Here you are. Home.”

Joel stared sightlessly into space, hair still dripping.

“Off you go,” said Reg.

When it became clear Joel wouldn’t get out of the car—not without Reg hauling him out and escorting him to the house under the hammering rain—Reg got out and splashed up the steps to the front door.

Rain was waterfalling off the eaves around the porch, and any part of him that wasn’t thoroughly drenched became so as he ran through it to reach the door.

The windows were all dark. Reg rapped the door with the brass knocker, then with his fist, then with the flat of his hand until the wood sent shuddering booms through the hollow house.

He waited long enough that someone with a Zimmer frame would have had time to make their way down from the attic. But no one opened the door.

Reg was fed up. As far as he was concerned, he’d done his good deed for the day.

In all fairness, he should pull Joel out of his car and leave him here.

He must have a key, though he didn’t look capable of using one and would probably stand outside until someone came home and let him in.

Even if Reg let him in, he’d be leaving him in that state in an empty house.

Reg sighed loudly, for no one’s benefit but his own, and got back into the car. Under the dome light, Joel looked painfully frail, black half moons under his eyes, dark stubble on his pale skin.

“I’m going home,” said Reg. “If you don’t want to come with me, I suggest you get out.”

Joel started shivering, but he made no move to leave. Reg turned the heater on. The windows immediately fogged, and he had to keep wiping the windshield clear with his sleeve as he drove.

He drove to a generic coffee shop’s drive thru and got a cup of atrocious coffee and a hot chocolate for Joel, though, by the time Reg tried to hand it to him, Joel had dozed off, head against the passenger window, and Reg put it in the cupholder.

He parked in the underground garage, out of the rain at last. Joel had to be shaken awake and then coaxed out of Reg’s car and up to his loft.

He barely opened his eyes the entire time.

Once in the loft, Joel looked like he was about to collapse, so Reg guided him to the settee, which Joel immediately fell upon and passed out.

Reg shut himself in the bathroom for a quiet scream.

Then he called Martin on his dripping phone.

“What’s wrong?” said Martin.

“Do you have Juliet’s number by any chance?” said Reg.

“She’s here with me,” said Martin. “Why?”

“It’s New Bug. He’s in a bad way.”

“‘Bad way’ how?” said Martin. “Is he drunk? Wait, I’ll put the phone on the table—speak up so Juliet can hear.” Reg heard Martin say quietly, “It’s about Joel.”

“I ran into him on campus,” said Reg. “He’s not drunk—just exhausted, I think. I took him back to his place, but no one was there, and I didn’t want to leave him alone, so I brought him to mine.”

“Can I speak to him?” said Juliet.

“He’s spark out on my settee at the moment,” said Reg. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know where he is.”

There was a long pause.

“He had his last final exam today,” said Juliet. “He hasn’t slept for two straight days. I told him he needed rest.”

“He’s getting some now,” said Reg.

“Thanks for looking after him, Reg. Can you call when he wakes up?”

“I can take him home when he wakes up,” said Reg. “Whenever that happens to be.”

He hung up and checked Joel. He felt partly responsible for this situation and guilty for being so rude to Joel before. It had been partly Joel’s fault for seeming so mature and put-together and...superior to Reg. But seeing him like this took the wind out of Reg’s sails. He felt like an asshole.

Lying drenched on Reg’s settee, Joel looked like little Moses fished out of the river.

Though, Reg supposed, things tended to look smaller and more vulnerable when they were wet, just as they looked smaller after being burned.

Joel’s scrubs were completely saturated and the upholstery was soaking up the surplus.

He was breathing so quietly, Reg had to check he wasn’t dead.

He smelled humid and gamey, like a wet cat, but Reg felt it would be sacrilege to disturb him.

He got a hand towel from the bathroom and pressed it gently against Joel’s hair and face, blotting up the excess moisture until he was merely sodden, rather than dripping wet.

Joel was hot and shivering. Reg turned up the thermostat and got him a blanket from the linen cupboard—a big, thick, black, white, and cardinal red blanket that Flip had bought him in Calgary.

He laid it over Joel, tucking it in around him.

There was a piece of yellow chalk on the floor beside the settee. He picked it up and, on the exposed brick right above Joel’s body, he wrote, Are we met with indiscretions, little Moses? Should I fish you from the water? Should I save you from yourself? Are you the ashes of the burning bush?

Reg felt grotty and sticky from the rain, so he had a shower.

After a minute under the hot water, more words started oozing out, and he had to stumble out of the shower and write them frantically in the fog of the bathroom mirror.

He finished his shower and changed into dry clothes.

Joel still lay in the same position, still breathing (Reg checked).

It would be easier getting Joel back into his car if he wasn’t hungry, so Reg ordered food from the local German bakery, and while he was waiting for it to arrive, he sat watching Joel and then scrambled to find blank paper to write on.

Whenever he looked at Joel, words rushed out of him.

He filled the margins of an old takeout menu, two business cards, and the foot of brick wall above the settee where Joel was sleeping, by which time the food arrived, and he moved on to scribbling all over the paper bag it came in.

Reg ate a couple of liverwurst sandwiches and some obscenely rich Black Forest cake.

Joel was still sound asleep, so Reg put the rest of the food in the fridge for when he woke.

Reg hadn’t slept in sixteen hours, but he didn’t want to go up to bed, paranoid Joel would stop breathing if he left him alone, so he dozed off on the settee opposite Joel.

He was roused by his phone vibrating in his pocket. He scrambled to answer it before it woke Joel.

“Hello?” said Reg.

“Smithy,” said Flip.

“Flip.”

“I’m in Barcelona. Want to come?”

Reg sighed. “Will I have to share the box with your beard?”

“Caroline will be there, yeah,” said Flip.

Caroline: A natural blonde, leggy American. The woman that Flip’s people had cast in the role of his “girlfriend.”

Once, Reg would have dropped everything to join Flip.

It meant a change of scene in a pleasant climate and sex after a long drought, and room service and catching up and sightseeing in whatever city they were in, without touching each other, of course, because anyone could see them, then back in the room for more sex and late night arguments about having to hide their relationship, with Flip insisting he couldn’t jeopardize his endorsements.

Then Reg would be seething and sitting in a box seat watching Flip go through the drama and soul-searching, and then saying their goodbyes in the hotel room, and Reg taking a cab to the airport by himself because a public farewell could risk Flip’s endorsements.

It wasn’t that Reg didn’t still love Flip, but after six years, the conditions under which he had to love him, all imposed by Flip, were becoming untenable. So what Reg said was, “I’ve got something going on here.”

“You never have anything going on,” said Flip.

“I do now. I’m sorry, Flip. I can’t.”

Reg hung up, set the phone on the coffee table, and noticed Joel looking at him, blinking. The stubble on his face was more obvious now. He could have grown a creditable beard, were he so inclined. He still looked exhausted.

“I told your sister where you are,” said Reg.

“Where am I?” said Joel, his voice rough with sleep. He sounded twenty years older.

“My place,” said Reg.

“Bathroom?”

“Door behind me.”

Joel walked slowly and unsteadily towards it. He came back a couple of minutes later. Reg noticed the rainwater had dried out of his scrubs. He supposed, as they were hospital clothes, they were designed to dry quickly.

“Would you like me to take you home now, or would you like to eat first?”

Joel made an attempt to shrug, apparently decided that his shoulders were too heavy to lift, and gave up halfway. He looked at his watch. He wore an enormous watch; on his slight wrist, it looked like a manacle. “It’s four o’clock in the morning.”

Reg checked his phone. “Yes.”

“I’ve been asleep for...”

“Eleven hours,” said Reg. He got up, went to the kitchen, and pulled a sandwich and a bottle of ginger beer out of the fridge. When he brought them back to Joel, he found him lying prone on the settee, asleep again. Reg rearranged the blanket to cover him properly.

Reg quietly transcribed the notes from his wall, the bathroom mirror, the business cards, and the takeout bag, then went into his office to arrange them into a cohesive poem that would hopefully mollify the chair.

When it became clear that Joel wasn’t going to wake up imminently, Reg ate the sandwich and polished off the ginger beer. As he set the bottle down, he got a text from Flip:

Fuck you, then.

Joel woke seven hours later, bleary-eyed and looking terrible, and Reg drove him home.

The hot chocolate, now cooled, was still in the car’s cupholder.

Reg offered it to him, but Joel stared through the windshield, expression blank, and didn’t respond.

Reg suspected missed sleep wasn’t the only thing wrong with him.

Not that it was any of his business.