It’s an April night, so it still gets cold. Fern’s arms are goosebumpy, spiky, he feels like a hedgehog. He’s sitting on a bench under a white light. The white light makes colors stand out. His t-shirt is really orange. The bench is really brown. His hair is really blonde. A man in a handsome blue and white leather motorcycle jacket materializes. The man says, “Are you alone?” Fern says, “All alone.” The man says, “There’s a bathroom in the park around the corner that doesn’t close ‘til way late.” He’s right. The stall is cleaner than Fern expects, so he doesn’t mind when the man slides his pants and underwear off and pushes his ass against the wall. The way the man handles Fern’s cock is intentionally uncoordinated. He does everything he can to ensure that the cock bounces off his cheeks, chin, lips. Trails of saliva run between cock and mouth like thread from a silkworm. Fern, in the back of his mind, thinks of this man’s behavior as gauche. This doesn’t stop him from hardening and lengthening. The man deepthroats his cock and in doing so pushes the top of his head into the bottom of Fern’s belly so hard it leaves him breathless for a moment. Then the man slides his head back as Fern comes. The come and saliva now both glitter, their strings twining together into silvery lanyards. The man who Fern is in love with won’t speak to him. This is the face Fern hopes to see dripping and viscous. He is disappointed to see the man in the biking jacket instead. The man is beautiful, or at least handsome. But he looks like he’s trying to imitate a porn actor. And that’s just one of the million reasons why he’s wrong. He wipes his face with toilet paper. There are globs of come still in his salt and pepper beard. Fern uses his phone flashlight to make sure they get it clean.
“That was my first time with a boy,” Fern says.
“Really?”
“No.” A pause. “I wish, though.” And that was sincere.
The man Fern loves is married. To a woman. It makes Fern sick to think about such a perfect man settling for a woman. His name is Perce. He’s not straight, Fern’s not that kind of desperate fag. And when Fern first fell in love with him, years ago, he was single. They fucked once and for Fern it was special. It was the grunting kind of sex, where you make sounds like “urnh” and “greu.” Perce was looking for something else. He married a woman named Magdalene, and called her mommy, and wore a collar. Magdalene once told Fern, “All the men I’ve ever slept with called me mommy, but Perce is the first guy who I ever slept with who sometimes calls his mother mommy too. Which turns me on so fucking much. I get off on listening to him say hi to her on the phone.”
Perce and Fern killed someone together, in January. It was Fern’s idea. There was a boy who they’d both fucked off Grindr, and they talked about him often. The boy was eighteen when they met him and looked younger. He had hair that fell down to his nipples. Fern would say, “Perce do you remember Mitchell.” And Perce would say, “I wish he’d ever called me back.” And Fern would say, “God, Mitchell, when I fucked Mitchell he bit me everywhere, I was covered in these red circles, blood moons.” They had these conversations at Fern’s apartment so Magdalene didn’t hear them. According to Perce, she was always jealous. Fern would say, “I want to encase him in amber.” Fern would say, “I want him in a display case.” Fern would say, “We should stick a big nail through his neck and hang him on my wall.” When the temptation got to be too much Fern and Perce made a plan. It was a simple plan. The plan went like this: “We pretend that there’s nobody on the whole planet Earth that’ll miss him.”
They took the bus to his studio apartment. They forced their way in. They held a pillow over his head until he stopped moving. Being killed gave Mitchell a hard-on. They took turns playing with it, and then Fern kissed Perce on the side of his face. Perce said, “Fern, it’s not like that.” Fern said, “If you don’t fuck me I’ll tell Magdalene you killed this kid.” Perce said, “If you do that, I’ll kill you.” So Perce and Fern don’t talk anymore. When Fern got home that night he cried so hard that he didn’t notice Mitchell’s ghost or spirit or something had followed him. Mitchell’s ghost or spirit or something looked like a jerboa. It watched Fern sleep. When Fern woke up the sun was still completely set and the jerboa on his nightstand emitted its own light. It was like a nightlight. When Fern tried to touch it his hand passed through.
The jerboa that had been Mitchell said, “Most people called me Mitch. The only people who knew me as Mitchell are the one night stands. That made it easy to distinguish who I should be. I was two people. There’s nothing more exciting than being two people. Mitch was unspoiled, he was saving it for the right guy. Mitch liked to read fairy books when he was a kid. Like fairy fairy, not gay fairy, books about princesses and unicorns. He imagined himself in a ball gown and a tiara, he believed in love. There was a prince somewhere for him, with a big heart and an eight inch dick.”
Fern said, “I believe in love. I’m in love.”
The jerboa said, “Who do you love?”
Fern said, “The guy who held the left side of the pillow over your mouth.”
The jerboa said, “Does he love you?”
Fern said, “He’ll probably never speak to me again.”
Anyways, the man in the blue and white leather jacket is writing his phone number on a scrap of paper. Fern thinks, I wonder what will happen if I call this number. Days go by and are each the same as the other. Fern asks a friend if he should call the man. The friend thinks it’s probably a good idea. Fern dials the number, and isn’t sure if the fifth digit is a one or a seven. He tries it with a one. The man didn’t give his name so Fern isn’t sure how he’ll know. An answering machine says “You’ve reached João. Please leave a message.” Fern says, “João, we were in the bathroom the other night. Can we go to the bathroom again? Tonight, at ten.” Fern dials the number with a seven. An answering machine says, “This is Benicio. I’ll call you back, honey.” The answering machine is full.
Mitchell’s ghost or spirit is sitting where it always sits, on Fern’s bedside table. It says, “Two girls and one guy asked Mitch out and he didn’t like any of them but he didn’t know how to say no. So he went on three dates. The first girl and the guy were totally dull, but the second girl he liked. They went to the supermarket and stole. She peeled green grapes with a little knife she kept on her keychain. She popped two of them into her mouth and said ‘I wish these were your eyes.’”
João meets Fern outside the bathroom. He’s wearing the same jacket. João says, “I didn’t expect you to call me.” Fern says, “I called because I like that jacket.” João says, “You’ve said barely anything to me and you’ve already lied twice, at least.” Fern says, “I’m sorry.” João says, “It’s okay.”
Fern says, “Do you usually give your number out like that?”
João says, “You’re not special. I give my number to everyone I fuck.”
“And you want them all to call you?”
“I want everyone to call me. I’m addicted to sex. I was in a sex addict’s anonymous program for a while.”
“You fell off the wagon.”
“I was never on the wagon.”
Fern shrugs. “I guess I did think I was special. That’s why I called you.”
“What did you think? That you were like, the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen? That I was in love with you.”
“I believe in love.”
They sit down and lean their backs against the white-painted concrete bathroom wall. João smokes a cigarette. João says, “That’s a stupid thing to assume. I didn’t even tell you my name.”
Fern says, “I guess it doesn’t work like that for me. Love.”
João says, “So how does it work?”
“It’s all at once or not at all. When I fall in love with someone I do it the moment I breathe in the air that he breathed out.”
“So that’s how it was with me?”
“I’m not in love with you.”
“So why did you call?”
“I’m in love with someone else. I need to get him off my mind. He hates me.”
“Why?”
Fern shakes his head. “I don’t know if I can tell you.”
João says, “I’ve never been in love with anyone. Or at least I don’t think I have. I like everybody I meet and so nobody stands out.”
Fern says, “His name is Perce.”
João says, “I wouldn’t know what to do if I fell in love. It would probably ruin my life.”
Fern says, “We killed a guy together.”
“What? You and Perce?”
“We smothered him. And I was doing it all for Perce, I wanted to show him how much I love him. But it didn’t make a difference. He left me alone, he wants me to die.”
Nobody says anything.
Fern says, “The ghost of the kid followed me home. It looks like a little rodent. Do you want to see?”
It’s about a fifteen minute walk to Fern’s apartment. They pass through a long tunnel, under the highway. Rainwater and sewage have formed massive pools on the sidewalk, which they have to step around. Everything is fetid and brown. João asks, “Are you wanted?” Fern says, “I think they arrested someone else. I don’t really pay attention.” João says, “Is that the only reason you killed him, to impress Perce?” Fern says, “I thought he’d be beautiful, dead. And he was, he was really beautiful.” On the other side of the tunnel someone has planted lavender all along the side of the on ramp. Fern crushes a flower between his fingers, and breathes in the oils. Fern says, “It’s so good to have a way to clear my nose.” He holds his fingers under João’s nose, and João breathes deep. João says, “I don’t think you really did it. I think you’re making it up.”
Fern’s apartment is a mess. Dishes are piled in the sink, the table is covered in junk mail and takeout boxes. They walk into Fern’s bedroom, and on the bedside table is a jerboa, pale white, glowing. Fern turns the light on. He says, “João, this is Mitchell,” and João waves. Mitchell says, “I always liked guys with a lot of muscle. I had a therapist for a few months when I was sixteen who would try to tell me why I liked the kinds of guy I liked. He said I was looking for muscular guys because sex was an implied safety for me, I wanted to be protected, be free to express myself.” Fern says, “Sorry, he mostly talks about himself.” Fern picks a coat and a plate up off the bed so they can sit. João stretches his legs out and Fern lies in between them, with his head on João’s belly.
Mitchell’s ghost or spirit says, “Do you want me to talk about something else?”
Fern says, “I like hearing about you.”
Mitchell says, “One time in middle school, I told a boy I liked him and he pushed me over. This was before I was two people, I was just Mitch but Mitch was everything, Mitch wanted this boy like a princess and like a whore. We were at a park for recess. I made him walk with me all the way to the edge of the park. He called me a really stupid name, something like ‘fudgepacker.’ When I was back at school there was a bit of dirt that rested on the corner of my mouth, it looked like a mole. I saw it in the mirror and it meant that the world had ended, my life was over, everything was fucked.”
João says, “What’s it like being dead?”
Mitchell says, “It’s exactly like this.”
João and Fern screw on the couch, so that Mitchell won’t watch. Fern lets João fuck him, and has a hard time finding where to put his hands. It feels impossible to be stable, so he lets his limbs give out, when João comes, Fern’s upper half is dangling off the couch. Fern asks João if he wants to stay over and João says he doesn’t. He says, “Call me again,” and Fern is fairly sure he means it.
***
A body on a bed is beginning its process of decomposition. This is a long process, most of which Perce won’t watch. The bedsheets are purple and stained, the blanket is white and stained. The walls of the bedroom are eggshell. Perce’s come is mostly pooled under the boy’s chin, around the Adam’s apple. This is because when Perce came he was straddling the boy. Perce is thinking about a stupid queen named Fern who ruined his fun. Fern was always ruining fun things with big, ugly, pathetic feelings. Perce decided a long time ago to ignore his own feelings. It’s better to let other people do the feeling for you. Fern sometimes feels just like him, a twin brother. And then other times, when he talks about love, he is as alien as anyone could be.
Perce, while he was straddling the dead boy and masturbating, had watched Fern leave. He couldn’t help himself. He was scared, and fear is the hardest feeling to ignore. It wasn’t clear what would be worse, Fern going to the police or Fern going to his wife. His hand pumped up and down his cock and he tried to crush the fear into something too small to matter. “All I am is this,” he said to himself, meaning maybe the hand, or the cock, or the whole situation, the thing someone not understanding his perspective might call a murder. Fern left his eyeshot. He groaned and came, his come shot straight forwards, hit the dead boy’s chin.
Perce thinks about jerking off again. He also thinks about going home. Going home would be the easiest thing to do. His wife has complete control of him, she doesn’t let him think or feel or anything else. When he’s around her, Perce feels as though he’s experiencing life maximally. She treats him how he needs to be treated. But he can’t bring himself to leave because he doesn’t want to abdicate the work he (and Fern) did to turn a boy into a beautiful thing. Just because Fern couldn’t have a good time doesn’t mean he can’t. This body is a poem he wrote, an ideal experience.
He is lying next to the body on the bed. He scoots his body down until his head is level with the thighs, and rests his head between the thighs. The body smells amazing. Sweaty, musty. Perce breathes in the scent from the underside of the dead boy’s balls. He falls asleep like this, without meaning to. He dreams that he has names embedded on his arms, in upraised bumps, like the numbers on a credit card. They’re the names of people he’s fucked. The names mean so much more, now that they’re part of him. Each name is so full of meaning, it makes him cry.
Perce wakes up with his cheek wet from drool. His drool is dripping down a dead boy’s thighs, making a little well in the crevice between them. The sun is beginning to come up, and Perce feels frantic, he doesn’t know where he is. And then he remembers, he sees the puddle of come on the throat, the blue and white dead face. Perce rushes to get dressed, he needs to leave. As he moves he’s angry at himself for being frantic, for being afraid. He glances down at the dead boy and blames him. He can’t remember the boy’s name and then he does. He says, “Fuck you, Mitchell.”
It’s a quick run down the stairs and then Perce is outside. He walks for ten minutes or so, in any direction, and then he calls an Uber. A woman named Jackie picks him up in a big silver van. She’s playing Usher. She has little charms and figurines stuck to her dashboard, and a Labubu hanging from her rearview mirror. He gets in the back seat. She says, “Crazy night?”
Perce says, “Something like that.” Then he says, “My wife’s gonna kill me.”
Jackie laughs. She says, “That kind of crazy, huh?”
Perce says, “I just forgot to tell her I’d be home late.”
Jackie says, “This is pretty late, that’s for sure.”
Usher says, “It’s gonna burn for me to say this, but it’s coming from my heart.”
Perce watches buildings and cars and people out the window. Jackie looks worried that he’ll throw up, she passes him a paper bag. He takes the bag and keeps looking. He isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but he’ll know it when he sees it. When he sees it, it will mean that all the hard and nasty things in the world matter, mean something, belong. He doesn’t see it on that drive. He will though, eventually, he’s sure he will.
— Huckleberry Shelf is a writer living on the southwest side of Chicago. He’s had fiction previously published in the Baffler and poetry published in magazines such as Allium and Poetry Review Salzburg. He is a recipient of the 2024 Eileen Lannan award for poetry.