When we’d first get into the bed, he would hold me, put one arm around me, and I would take that hand and hold it to my chest. His fingers were freakishly large and it was sometimes a little painful when he’d squeeze my hand, but I’d stay there, on my side, intertwined with him, until he’d say, “Sleepy time,” and roll away from me.
I don’t remember him saying that he loved me, except for that first time, but I’m sure that he did, at least at first, I’m sure that he said it often. I try to hold all the memories that I can, but they slip through my thin fingers. The memories that stay are not the most invited ones. I don’t want to think about them.
I don’t want to think about Richard at all, but this first time, waking up with someone, this first time in years, it’s as if he’s the one here with me, and I feel guilty, because the man sleeping next to me, gently snoring next to me, is a beautiful man who has never hurt me, and I should close my eyes and let my dreams intertwine with his, but instead I lay on my back, staring towards a ceiling that I can’t see, and let my mind fill a bit with Richard.
I wonder if he felt anything like this that first night he spent with someone else. I shouldn’t wonder. Richard was not me, did not feel things the way I feel things, and Richard is gone.
I get up, put on pants and shoes, no socks or shirt, and a heavy coat, and go into the morning rain. I cross the street and stand in front of the building that used to be my home. The first night I spent with Richard was here, but I don’t remember that, or the last one, or any of the other nights I spent with him here before I left. I do remember him in my bedroom, telling me sad stories, crying because he had to leave me, and I remember him standing at my window on the morning of his birthday wearing just a towel. I may only remember that because I took a picture of it. I wish I could remember better things.
I wish I didn’t remember at all.
After my cigarette I go inside again, climb back into the bed and let another man’s body warm me. He wakes, a little, and smiles. I smile too, resting my head on his chest, and wait for Richard to leave me again. I moved to a different city, to a different life, but he’s the one who left, maybe the one who was never really there. He’s not here now and I close my eyes.
The man next to me is not Richard.
This is how it is, now.
--
In May of 1998, I wrote a short fiction piece called "On Richard." It's always been one of my favorite works, but it's definitely fiction. Now, thirteen years later, given some things that have happened recently, I thought it might be interesting to take the first line of that story and use it as the first line of a new piece, this time purely autobiographical. I hope this is the last thing that I ever write about Richard, but I make no promises.
