by Ryan Werner<\/p>\n
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\nI don\u2019t know how he traced everything back to me, but Rick showed up at my house one day and told me it was his blood that saved my life. \u00a0This was a full decade after the thrombocytopenia I had in my early twenties. \u00a0I bruised so easy that the pads of my feet were purple. \u00a0My heels looked like tiny plums. \u00a0When I wore new underwear, the elastic would leave a faint yellow bruise around my waist. \u00a0The transfusion I had really did save my life. \u00a0I invited Rick in for a drink.<\/p>\n
We looked fairly similar. \u00a0That was my first thought. \u00a0Our hair was identical in both color and cut. \u00a0We were the same height, our fingers the same length. \u00a0It was as if one of us had been photocopied directly from the other. \u00a0When my wife, Mary, came home I was fixing drinks in the kitchen, and after a brief glance toward Rick on the couch, she asked him how his day had been. \u00a0When I walked back into the living room, she did a double-take, like a cartoon.<\/p>\n
Later, after she had left me for Rick, Mary told me that we really were identical. \u00a0I thought of the sex parts right away, but she had meant more. \u00a0When she grabbed his wrist in the dark, it was of a familiar thickness. \u00a0She went on: the chest hair, the hunching of shoulders, the rate and position of sweat accumulation.<\/p>\n
Rick continued to visit after his original arrival. \u00a0He liked our selection of liquor, our dinners, and our company. \u00a0At first, time spent with Rick was fascinating, a chance to see how I was, but after several weeks of Rick coming over, I made a comment in passing to Mary that Rick makes me feels deflated. \u00a0She said that she felt the opposite, that Rick and I complemented each other well. \u00a0She was speaking of social chemistry, but the idea of one thing complementing another meant something was missing from one and found in the other. \u00a0I tried to notice it the next time Rick was over, but saw nothing except our exactness. \u00a0Smacking our lips after a big gulp of gin. \u00a0Outlining a pocket with our finger when idly talking. \u00a0The height of our knuckles. \u00a0The bulge of a wallet. \u00a0To diagram our positioning and angles while moving from sitting to standing would produce a single path, an old map to be followed by a blind man.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been together for years now. \u00a0I drive by when they\u2019re not home. \u00a0The pictures on the walls are the same. \u00a0They\u2019ve changed nothing. \u00a0Was it Rick\u2019s blood that Mary loved? \u00a0I yelled this to them one night from outside the house. \u00a0They were drinking my booze, breathing my air. \u00a0Rick came to the door and said nothing. \u00a0He opened it as if to let me in, but I only stood in the rain. \u00a0I neither turned nor moved forward. \u00a0It was like this we stood: me fevered with anger, Rick\u2019s cheeks that flushed with heat. by Ryan Werner He was standin\u2019 in the door, I was standin\u2019 in the rain With the same hot blood burning in our veins \u2014 \u201cAdam Raised a Cain,\u201d Bruce Springsteen I don\u2019t know how he traced everything back to … Continue reading
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\nRYAN WERNER<\/strong> has got a body built for sin and an appetite for passion. See him work his magic, turning other songs into other stories, over at Our Band Could Be Your Lit.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"