Flung Backward Unto Static
by Jem Ashton
In June, I took a temp job grading AP test essays. This temp job took me to Cleveland, a city I barely considered existent prior to spending 8 real days there working with hundreds of dowdy gay men, old women, and future old women (the three primary varieties of English teachers) that the College Board shipped in for the week. Cleveland, I found, is indeed real. It is the husk of a leviathan, like many other cities in the Rust Belt, and its hollowness serves as a constant reminder of what it once was, now is, and could have been. Though perhaps this is true of any American town - each has been inflicted with collapse as a form of capital punishment for not being profitable enough. What’s left behind are fragments of an imagined future. And sometimes these fragments are enough.
Each day, I and the other 1,000 English teachers would descend into the cavernous space of the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland at 8:00am to read essays for 8 hours straight - tedious work made all the worse by our removal from the reliable beauty of the midwest summer. The front doors looked out onto Lake Erie, the view partially obscured by the football stadium and the Great Lakes Science Center. Every morning, I would sit by the front doors of the convention center to feel the breeze and the sun for as long as I could before being locked in that giant box with searing fluorescent lights and their shrieking ballasts. These morning moments were important to me - the loneliness and silence was soothing. In the distance, seagulls soared across the endless blue horizon where the lake met the sky. I couldn’t hear the seagulls’ calls, but the window washer’s squeegee gliding across the glass doors of the convention center sounded similar enough. So with my foley artist’s help, the seaside fantasy was as complete as it needed to be.
On the first day of the reading, I met my working group. My boss for the week was a gentle, dark-haired woman who reminded me of both a cat and a mouse. There was one woman from Utah, a high school teacher marked by all the trademark anxieties of a middle-aged Mormon woman who has yet to reconcile her progressive values with her religion. There were three odd women, each peculiar in their own way. There were two who were seemingly unremarkable in every way, one man and one woman - the sex of either is ultimately irrelevant due to their incessant status as peripheral. Then, there was an older gay man who performed the role of workplace homosexual with panache. That would be Steve. He was wearing linen shorts and a light button-down, lending to my first impression of him, which essentially boiled down to a Miami-flavored Snagglepuss. I sat directly across from him.
Steve and I talked during the synchronized mass lunch break and exchanged numbers. He suspected I might be a fellow homosexual and, I suppose, homosexuals must stick together in settings such as this. That we did.
We made tepid plans to get drinks later in the evening, though neither of us committed fully. I already had plans. Jo, one of the odd women, invited me to go with her and a lesbian from another workgroup to the Cleveland Museum of Art after the first day of reading. Of the three odd women, Jo was the mildest. She was severely addicted to online shopping and required access to at least three different liquids at all times - fairly typical of a suburbanite. She was also good-humored and kind - fairly typical of somebody whose career hinges on the belief that humanity is good and that there’s positive potential in our future. The lesbian who joined Jo and I for the outing to the museum was Addison, a grad student like me. Addison, I would later learn, journaled in comic form - her daily narratives translated into two-dimensional abstractions of life, a blend of language and image that could draw on the senses in a way that language-only summaries could not. If she were writing this, you would see that Cleveland is much more beautiful than whatever you’re currently imagining based on your memory and my language. You would have seen my temp boss’s cat-mouse vibes materialized. You would have been charmed by Steve, the Snagglepuss in linen.
Now, you only have these words, the details of the story that I’ve chosen to include or invent.
When we arrived at the museum, we entered through a small entrance into the historic building which was formerly the entirety of the museum. This historic building has since been harmoniously conjoined to modern additions to the museum, allowing more of the impressive collection to be displayed at once. Upon entering, we split up immediately. I turned right - straight to the displays of armor. In all the museums I’ve been to, the rooms filled with armor seem not to be oft visited. These artifacts weren’t assembled by anyone whose name a person like me, an average American, would recognize. More often than not, the only name that can be attached to it is that of whomever wore the armor. Yet we still admire the work of the armorsmiths more than we care about the stories of the lords and lordchildren who wore them. I’m drawn to these artifacts, because the craftsmanship is so apparent. Each link in the chainmail is clear to my eye. I can see where the fabric was cut and sewn together, the metal hammered, the body assembled in iron, fabric, and leather. I can see the hand that put it together and it makes me feel that much closer to history, because history is material - sometimes in the simplest, literal sense.
This simple, literal transcription of history in the materials of armor is comparable to Addison’s comic-based journaling. The armor and her comics both operate on a form-to-form basis. The body remains the body. The body remains extant in space; it relates to shape, proximity, motion. Although the armor and Addison’s drawings are both illusory in some ways - neither are bodies - they’re representative of bodies in ways unlike that which you can read here. The representations of bodies here are gaseous. The minimal descriptions of the figures I’ve described are taken by you and transformed by your own imagination. Who do you imagine the characters in my story to be? Would it make a difference if I said Jo has purple hair? If I said Addison was freckled? If I said Steve was 6’0” with bulging biceps? More on that later.
Done with the armor, I made my way through the halls of the museum and eventually came upon a large, ornate rug from the early 1700s designed by Pierre-Josse Perrot for King Louis XV’s dining room at chateau La Muette. It is emphatically French: ornate, chaotic, romantic. Golds, blues, and pinks swirl in various forms over a rich brown background - a color scheme that is quintessentially me. Its sheer scale drew me in. I gasped. And a security guard chuckled.
At the same time, I received a text from Steve. Digital small talk typical of those who have known each other for less than a day. He asked about the museum and I relayed my first impression - awe. My praises to the museum weren’t specific. Instead, I summed my experience with vague-but-true remarks of exaltation - an endorsement can be so simple. Our texts/conversation continued slowly as I made my way through the rest of the museum, occasionally bumping into Addison or Jo along the way. When it was time to leave, we left.
Back in my hotel room, I wondered how I would kill the hours before I could say it was an appropriate time to go to bed. My roommate, a fellow young homosexual, was already asleep. The night before, he had gone out drinking and stayed up late. Then, he powered through the workday as best he could with what must have been an excruciating hangover. I considered following his lead - sleep, Jem, sleep - but then a question from Steve was delivered to my hand.
“What’s your plan?”
The earlier proposal to meet for drinks seemed to be emerging like the blooms of spring flowers from a late snow. I said that I was on the fence - how classically myself it is to present as wavering and uncommitted. Steve played my game and volleyed the restraint I served by suggesting that we get just one drink at the bar in my hotel. Then, he was on his way.
As he made the five minute walk from his hotel to mine and I made the five minute walk down the stairs to the lobby, I received another text from Steve asking if I’d be up for adjusting our plan by going to Jolene’s, a nearby bar themed around Dolly Parton. I received the suggestion well and agreed to the change of course. Although going to a bar such as the one described is something I would typically agree to do, my agreeability was outside the normal parameters of my personality. In this moment, the haze of travel and onslaught of new experiences thrust upon me by both Ohio and the temp job had cast a spell of listlessness over me. I did not agree out of enthusiasm, I agreed because I would let even the faintest breeze proselytize to me.
In the lobby, I found Steve had switched from his Miami vibe linens into a homosexual outfit of another flavor: tight tight tight. His tight t-shirt revealed a musculature I hadn’t noticed before, both because the draping fabrics he wore earlier in the day obscured his body and because I wasn’t looking for it. I was in Cleveland to work and be alone for a week - until now, this coworker was only a fragment of the scenery that I largely planned to ignore. His body - any body in sight - was irrelevant to the life I intended to live for the next seven days. Now, he was a real person, not only a temp job coworker, and I was beholden to the responsibilities of a respectable acquaintanceship. I must now listen to what he says. I must now remember what he says.
On our way to Jolene’s, we covered the basics. I’m a grad student. He’s a career track professor. We’re, of course, both in rhetoric and composition. Our research interests overlap in some ways and diverge in others. I’m from Utah. He is not from Utah. The specific details here are important to me and I could provide them, but I have no doubt they would be less interesting to you and I am also obliged to maintain some level of anonymity on Steve’s part. While these omissions serve my narrative, I do feel the need to say their absence here is not meant to suggest they are absent from my memory. I did listen to what Steve said. I do remember what Steve said.
When we came upon the street where Jolene’s stands, we found it was snugly packed with the crowd from that night’s baseball game. There was a foot on every cobblestone, a heel on every inch of concrete. The line into Jolene’s trailed all the way up the street. Our plan was erased, our path to alcohol dissolved into uncertainty. If Jolene’s was this busy, might every bar be this busy? Should we go back to the hotel? The lack of a line in front of the door to a corny speakeasy-themed downstairs bar gave us our answer. We opened the door and went down the stairs.
Our conversation mostly stayed within the realm of academic small talk, but that worked in our favor. As I described my philosophies related to teaching, writing, and institutional memory, Steve’s eyes widened and he leaned in closer. He liked what he was hearing. When he described his own philosophies, I’m sure my body language was similar, because I liked what I heard. It was an engaging conversation, thanks to the common ground we shared as academics. You must also know the thrill of finding somebody’s sense for life aligns with your own. You must also know how enrapturing that thrill is. You must also know how rare that feeling is.
We left our table to pay for our drinks at the bar - a quickdraw moment when I pulled out my debit card to assert my independence while Steve drew his card out faster to assert something akin to dominance but quite kinder. I could have held firm and paid for my drink, but why would a poor grad student turn down anything that’s free? I submitted myself to his gesture.
As we walked back to our hotels, we talked about our plans for the rest of our time in Cleveland. Neither of us had our goals set on anything grand. I wanted to go to the beach, return to the Cleveland Museum of Art, visit the library, perhaps walk in a nice park - an itinerary typical of me. The humid air felt perverse, like summer itself had kissed my body. The heat lingered in the dampness and the dampness lingered on my skin. As Steve and I spoke, making loose plans to go to the beach together the next day, my mind wandered. The dry heat back home feels vampiric; it sucks the moisture from my body. The humid heat here felt like a relief now, but I could feel how quickly it could become suffocating. I could get sick of it. Could I get sick of it? I could fit in here. Could I fit in here?
In front of Steve’s hotel, it was time to part ways. I went in for a hug and found myself instinctively leaning in for a kiss. My subconscious desires - or something like that - had taken control, but I stopped myself and pulled back. He’s a coworker, I shouldn’t do this, I don’t know if I want this, I think I do want this, I don’t know if he wants this. Then, Steve put his hand on the small of my back, pulled me close again, and nodded. We wanted this.
✺
The next morning, I ate breakfast in the convention center and sat at a large window that overlooked a segment of the railroad that runs parallel to the lake. Next to the railroad are pens that formerly housed miscellaneous farm animals. Although the pigs and goats were long gone, the little farm was still teeming with life. Birds pillaged the tall grass for bugs and the beehives were still active. Although I did feel an absence-induced pang for the goats and pigs, the birds and the bees were a complete enough scene to hold me in awe-stricken wonderment. Their circling, swoops, and zig-zags through the early morning light gave them a silvery sheen.
A nearby woman butted into the moment, “do you think the goats and pigs are gone because they escaped from the pens and got hit by a train?”
I couldn’t formulate a coherent response.
She resubmitted her thought, “that has to be what happened, right?”
The possibility hadn’t crossed my mind. All this time, I had attributed their absence to the fact that keeping goats and pigs would be an inconvenience. The convention center would have to hire specialized staff for these animals - an expense I couldn’t see them justifying. This convention center, a monument to capital and all unnatural human-made concoctions, would never submit itself to the expense of whimsy. Though perhaps this woman’s scenario was worth considering as well. Maybe all these cute little farm animals were crushed, broken, splattered by a passing freight train. I should be embarrassed by my naivety, my lack of catastrophizing.
Steve was late to our shift that morning. I began to worry on his behalf, though I shouldn’t have. I should be embarrassed by my catastrophizing. He arrived not too long after I had accepted he had been fired for making out with a coworker or had been hit by a train - maybe both. As he sat down at his computer, he looked across the table to me and gave me a wink. All was right with the world.
During our lunch break, we quickly ate the subpar, only-borderline-edible offerings from the caterers - bless them for taking on the labor of feeding 1,000 English teachers, some of whom were needlessly critical of their cooking.
“So what are we doing tonight?”
Steve’s question indicated that he correctly assumed I wanted to spend the night together and that I already had hopes for how we would do so. Earlier, I had complained about the gym at my hotel being too small and too crowded to get a good workout in. Steve informed me that his hotel had a full gym - real weightlifting setups, machines, steam room - and that I was welcome to take his extra room key to use it whenever I wanted. The lack of exercise in the past few days had led to a noticeable shortage of dopamine and serotonin in my system. Instability was creeping into my brain and I desperately needed to exert myself to bring those chemicals back into play. The first thing we would do tonight is go to the gym, not in a vain faggot way but in a self-care way.
After eating, I went back to my hotel to grab my gym clothes so I’d be ready to head over to Steve’s hotel immediately after we finished our day’s work of reading unremarkable essays. Right at 5:00pm, we crossed the street to his hotel, went up to his hotel room to make out as long as we could before his roommate opened the door, then went back down to the gym. We exercised separately, but I would catch glimpses of him working through his routine and I was delighted to discover his lifting form was good. Despite being an amateur myself, I’ve developed an unnecessarily critical eye for form in weightlifting and running. Yet I refuse to look at myself in the mirrors to monitor my own form. Perhaps this could be a useful analogy in describing my behavior - or even yours - in other areas of life as well, but the narrative here calls for me to move on from this fairly quickly. I’ve got to get to the part where I can talk about sex.
After our workouts, we met in the steamroom. There was a stranger in there with us and his leering gaze was egregiously gay and horny. We were in good company. When I put my hand on Steve’s thigh and started stroking his dick, the stranger moved closer to us. I knelt in front of Steve to kiss his thighs - yadda yadda - and I briefly rubbed the stranger’s thigh. My experiences outside of one-on-one sexual activity are limited, but I’ve been curious about finding out more about how these experiences can be and feel. Sex is or can be many good things: an exchange of adoration, a mutual soothing, a tithing of my body paid to another that I worship. With more people present, it would make sense for it to become more sex and more of all the good things that come with it. More adoration. More pleasure. What I’ve found is that this can be true, but it isn’t always the case. What I felt in this moment - my hand on this stranger’s thigh and his hand on Steve’s chest - was that having another person present was more work and that it was distracting me from getting to know this new man in my life. I sat back on the bench and the moment naturally cooled down. Hands off. A couple minutes later, the stranger left. At that point, Steve and I, of course, started making out and touching each other again. The sweat and condensation from the steam made it easy to massage his thighs, back, shoulders, chest. He pulled my body against his, one of his strong arms wrapped around my body, one of his big hands gently placed on the back of my neck. Just us. This was the right amount of work and now I could learn more about this man.
“Can I slap you?”
Yes.
And now I’ve learned something new about myself, too.
After a jump scare where the same stranger walked back into the steam room to grab a water bottle he left behind, Steve and I moved to the showers to 1) shower and 2) make out more. Then, thanks to the endless daylight of summer, we had plenty of time to get to the beach to enjoy a more innocent evening.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Edgewater. Plenty of cities claim to have beaches while only offering dirt and a view of water. Given the city’s location right on Lake Erie, I had no real reason to doubt the validity of the beach, but I also was not yet fully confident in Cleveland. Coming from a midsized city myself, I know how desperate these places are to convince the world of their legitimacy - that their feelings of inadequacy will grant them the nerve to claim any basic feature of a city to be somehow special. We have breweries. We have restaurants. We have sports teams, activities, tales of import. The same grass, the same cud. While pleading for the world to recognize their uniqueness, these midsized cities hinge their messaging on homogenization. We’re so special, because we’re just like any other place! How convincing.
Despite these flawed marketing attempts, these cities are special. No matter how hard they try to paint themselves as nonplaces or everyplaces, they remain singular even with all their similarities. These contrived marketing identities will never entirely erase the peculiarities that make these cities worth knowing.
When we got to the beach, it felt like we had left Ohio. It felt impossible that a stretching soft sand beach that sloped into an endless expanse of blue water would become one of the key scenes lingering in my head after leaving Ohio, but I’ve been unable to escape the memory since stepping foot onto Edgewater Beach. There were boat parties out in the distance, beachballs, volleyballs, balls hugged by tight Speedos, ice cream, flipflops. It nearly felt like we had escaped to San Diego, but it wasn’t quite right. The freshwater lake is missing the salt and the waves that an oceanside beach would provide. It just sounded and tasted different.
We walked along the beach to the far west end; an area where people are officially allowed to bring their dogs. As I always do when I see a dog while I’m away from home, I wished mine were there with me. She would love the beach. She would love Steve. Both facts have nothing to do with the great qualities of either place or person - she would love to be basically anywhere or with anyone. At times, I think the same might be true about me, but then I remember that I do hate some places and some people. Wendover. Brandon. Oakland International Airport. Amy. But I wasn’t in Wendover or Oakland International Airport and neither Brandon or Amy were here. I was in Ohio with Steve on a beach.
We sat on a log and talked about whatever it was we talked about. I said I missed my dog and I told him Wanda’s entire life story - about her brother that I’d never met, about the dead hoarder I rescued her from, that she was often bullied at the dog park. He complimented my feet. I complimented his. We talked about each other. We talked about other people at the beach, wondered about the people on the boats offshore, about what we’d do next this evening and with the rest of our time together in Cleveland.
Then, we made our way up a trail that took us up the bluff to a park overlooking the beach. Although we agreed it would have been romantic to stick around for the sunset, it was still quite some time away. We were both hungry and wanted to make out at a gay bar, so we found a gay bar to make out in before getting dinner - such is the way a faggot inflame would prioritize his needs.
Before parting ways for our own hotel rooms, we held each other and kissed more. Figures.
“If I didn’t have my roommate, I’d invite you upstairs so we could fuck.”It almost doesn’t matter which one of us was the source of that statement, because we both certainly thought it and either of us could have said it, but I’ll give Steve the credit he deserves for being forward. Forward is not something I’m known to be. I didn’t get where I am today by my own volition. I credit the successes I’ve had and the love I’ve found in my life to the ambitions others have imposed on me. However, in a rare moment of incisiveness, I found the strength within myself to elucidate my desires.
“We could go to the bathhouse one of these nights.”
“We could go right now.”
“No, not tonight, but let’s plan on it.”
✺
A few days later, we did go to the bath house. This bath house is one of the few features of Cleveland I discovered while doing my pre-trip research, which primarily involved typing various keywords next to gay into a search bar: gay neighborhood, gay bars, gay beach, gay history, gay cruising. I was already sure the city would have all the other typical traps I look for (art museums, botanical gardens, municipal parks), so I didn’t bother looking them up before my arrival. I was surprised to find that Cleveland has a bath house while so many major American cities, even infamously debaucherous ones, do not. Not only does it have one, it’s also one of the largest in the country. On paper - or screen, I guess - it sounds charming. The place is housed in an old art deco bus station on the east side of the city in a rundown warehouse district. In reality, it was still charming but far closer to what I initially expected than to the pristine fantasyhaüs I began to imagine. The floors were dirty enough that I periodically found myself distracted by my fear of athlete’s foot. The art deco vibes were limited to the exterior of the building and the main pool area, which was closed due to plumbing issues. The porn they played on the TVs was too twinky to be a turn-on; the same could be said about the soundtrack, which mainly consisted of c-list popstar breakup songs.
“This music is a terrible choice, it’s completely incongruent with the vibes a bath house should have,” I said to Steve after we had sex and before we would have sex again. He agreed.
Before shacking up in the sex closet we rented - what they call a cabana - we toured the facility. They had a full gym, which I was tempted to use, but I was already naked, I didn’t know the policy regarding nude bodies on the gym equipment, and I didn’t want to ask. The bath house had a handful of rooms for perverts like us to live out their fantasies. Corners with slings for those who like getting railed in a sling. Adjustable fuck benches for those who like getting railed on adjustable fuck benches. In addition to the gang showers, they had raised shower stalls for those who wanted to take a shower and give a show but higher up. They also had a non-functional locker room for your locker room fantasies. I’m not sure what fantasy the pitch dark steam maze is supposed to fulfill. To me, it felt like a sci-fi horror where spacetravellers are marooned on a dark, misty planet - and that vibe actually really works for me. In one pocket of the steam maze, there was a cement slab designed to look somewhat like a natural rock formation. Steve and I, as you might expect, began to make out here. No matter what planet we were on now or what creatures might be lurking in the dark, we were going to fuck just like those dumb idiots in the movies.
Eventually, two other men found us in the steam maze and they stroked their own dicks while they watched Steve and I kiss while stroking each other. It’s at this stage, dear reader, that I’m beginning to feel like the story is veering into pornographic territory. We already had the moment with a stranger in the gym’s steam room; do I really need to detail yet another moment of heightened perversion and sexual adventure? The truth is I’ve already glossed over dozens of other erotic moments we shared over the course of our time together. We spent the week covertly rubbing against each other on escalators, sucking each other’s dicks in our hotel rooms, groping each other at bars, stealing kisses at the museum, experiencing eroticism ad nauseum. Each one of these moments was consequential. Each one lent to the tension we were now finally able to give into at the bath house - a tension that had built over the course of several days. A tension that was not only raised by our incessant teasing but also by the constancy of our mutual admiration for each other. Being in the same field, we had a unique opportunity for exchanging praises. When I talked about my research interests and my academic philosophies, Steve understood me and could offer compliments beyond “oh, that sounds interesting.” My Cleveland amoretto could lull me into a romantic abeyance where my perpetual doubt about being understood gave way to knowing he understood me. So, although I enjoyed sucking on those two strangers’ dicks while Steve sucked mine, I was eager to have one-on-one time with the man who knew me well enough to predict what I’d be wearing the next day.
We retreated to the cabana and fucked. Then talked, kissed, cuddled, and fucked again. Then talked, kissed, and cuddled more. When we decided to leave, we headed to the showers and my fear of athlete’s foot grew stronger with each step. With my head cleared and balanced by rigorous sex, my anxieties about cleanliness and disease could find more space in my thoughts. I never should have come here without flipflops. Maybe the heat of the sauna could kill the crabs that have surely crawled up onto me from the carpets. These concerns were seared themselves into the cornea of my mind’s eye, making it certain I’ll remember to bring flipflops the next time I go to a gay bath house.
Rather than walk back to our hotels, we called a car. It was dark and raining heavily - god’s (who is both dead and was never real in the first place, by the way) punishment for our hardcore bareback sodomy. Showering off after wasn’t enough to wash the sin away, the whole world needed to be cleansed too. The ride back to the street where both our hotels stood was quiet and relaxing. The perfect circumstance for me to linger on the question of whether or not either of us meant it when we said to each other “I love you” as we fucked.
If we didn’t, at least it still felt good in the moment. If we did, what were we going to do about the fact we only had one more day together?The question lingered as we kissed each other goodbye, as I made my way back to my room, as I took the hottest shower I could handle in hopes that it would kill anything on my body, and as I drifted off to sleep in my angelically white hotel bedding.
In the morning, I grabbed my breakfast and ate it while walking along the streets surrounding the convention center. For the past week, this was my neighborhood. I came to know and love these scenes and I wanted to take a moment to appreciate it all in the quietude of an early hour. The sun slowly crept up from the horizon, its heat cutting through the chilled, humid air. I took deep breaths and focused on the sensations of the breeze hitting my skin. What it felt like to have dampened air in my lungs. What it felt like to be here. This was it. Tomorrow, the fantasyland of Cleveland would fall back into the distance. I would be boarding the shuttle to the airport at 5:30am.
We were on track to finish the last day of the AP reading early - the first time in nearly 10 years, apparently. However, we were also notified that regardless of when we finished, we would be required to stay until at least 3:00pm while waiting for all the other graders to finish as well. The policy is that nobody can leave until everyone is allowed to leave. This is due to a situation that happened decades ago in a year when the reading was hosted in Florida. One group finished and left early, but so many people made a stink over the fact they were stuck grading essays while others got to go to the beach that College Board decided it could never happen again. So now any group that finishes early has to be held hostage while waiting for everyone else to catch up. I brought a book to read and a notebook for journaling just in case. We did end up finishing early and waited for about two hours before being dismissed. During that time, I did read and I did write, but I found what I needed more than anything was to sit in silence under the searing fluorescent lights while being horridly introspective. I noticed that the other first-timers in my group carefully packed their notes away - taking every memory they could with them. Those who had been doing the reading for years just threw them away - they had no impulse to be tender with the memories they might or might not have formed here. Yet another analog for human behavior that you or I could apply to our own varied life experiences. Maybe it demonstrates a lesson in detachment; in finding a healthy middle ground between being neurotically precious about every moment and being too willing to discard the seemingly frivolous little things. I took my notes with me, but I did throw them away once I got home the next day. This left me with no souvenirs from the trip aside from my memories, though I was tempted to find an object of note that I could touch in moments when I wanted to feel Cleveland again.
Once we were finally dismissed, Steve and I went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Neither of us were particularly excited to go, but other AP readers were talking it up and it’s one of those things in Cleveland that’s marketed as a must-see. It’s a loud place and it’s arranged in such a way that lends to chaos - maybe that’s punk, that’s rock, that’s roll. Beyond the displays on the history of rock & roll, there’s little substance or sense. Among all the movers and shakers, there’s myriad capitalist conformists whose sole contributions to music have been successfully businessing their way to the top. Thence there was plenty of fodder for me to work with as the overstimulating museum turned me into a cunt. Sweet of them to include her. That’s not how I’d describe his work. Maybe it hit harder back in the day. We saw all there was to see, read enough to be semi-satisfied, experienced enough of the place to know dissatisfaction was the only possible outcome. We spent more time in the gift shop than we needed to. Both of us, I think, were hoping we’d find something material to imbue with the essence of our time together in Cleveland, but the offerings were tacky and overpriced. We left empty-handed.
On our way out, we bumped into Addison, the lesbian who journals by drawing. Throughout the week, she had continued to pop up on occasion. Each time, I wondered if there was a chance I’d make it into her journal and considered what kind of animal she’d draw me as. Typically, I don’t think of myself as an animal. In most situations, I feel my spirit is better represented by a small stone or a twig. Though if I had to be an animal, I would clearly be a rat. If you, reader, were Addison, would you draw me as a rat? And what about Steve, the huckleberry to my persimmon, has he retained his image as Snagglepuss or have you begun to picture him differently? Maybe he’s become a wolf or a turtledove.
After the Hall of Fame, we flocked to the AP closing party at a bar downtown. We used our drink tickets, found our other tablemates to say our farewells, and departed. The job was officially over. The names I learned this week no longer had any bearing on my life. My Cleveland day-to-day was now irrelevant. These 1,000 coworkers belonged to this short time in my life and, aside from 1, I doubt I’ll remember their names even a year from now.
Steve and I had a reservation at a tiki bar on the west side of town. We removed ourselves from the crowd of temp job coworkers and headed away from downtown. Throughout the day, each departure felt final, like the progression of time had become material. I wouldn’t be coming back here for some time. That’s the last time I’ll see that CVS, Terminal Tower, that crack in the sidewalk that’s shaped like a heart. As I passed each one, they fell into the past. Becoming overly sentimental about this city I hardly even thought of before coming here felt ridiculous, but I couldn’t help myself from getting attached. Cleveland was the perfect backdrop - quiet, slow, full, beautiful - for a week of being called a hot genius by a hot genius.“I just like the way you are.”
I teared up at the tiki bar. It was because sunscreen bled into my eye, but my physical reaction to a foreign substance burning my peepers wasn’t misaligned with how I felt emotionally, so I didn’t mind it. A tear made sense. While we waited for our hard cocktails, we joined our hands on the table and talked. Every minute we spent together meant we were one minute closer to the end of our time together. Whenever this ended, so would our fling. Steve wanted to get one more drink, but I was feeling anxious about my flight in the morning. If I had one more drink, I’d have a small-but-obnoxious hangover for sure. Though I also didn’t want to end the night, so I ordered a mocktail. I always feel stupid ordering a $14 glass of juice and I felt some guilt about Steve paying for this stupid $14 glass of juice, but if a stupid $14 glass of juice was what would keep us together for a moment longer, that juice must be had.
It was getting late and I was getting antsy about getting up early for my stupidly early flight the next morning, so we decided to call it. We were dropped off in front of my hotel and, of course, we made out. This was ostensibly our last opportunity to do so, so we had to make it count. Why must our love be thus cruelly bound unto this narrow span of days? O cruel fate, that dost grant us but a fleeting taste of heaven, only to snatch the cup away ere we have drunk our fill. The sun itself doth linger longer in the sky than thou dost suffer us to dwell in one another's arms. I begged that time, that thief of all delight, might stay his hand and grant us but one endless hour - yet our sweet union hastened toward its end. Then, I decided this couldn’t be the end and I invited Steve to sleep in my bed. Sure, my roommate would be there, but he himself was just a little gay boy and I was confident he wouldn’t mind the innocence of a sleepover. When we first met each other, we established that we had no rules for each other aside from don’t cause any problems. This was far from being a problem. Steve came with me to my room and we slept in the same bed. His warm, firm body replaced the hotel pillows, which were far too soft in my opinion. I would much rather rest my head on skin and muscle than drown in synthetic goose down.
All in all, I slept terribly that night. When my sleeping conditions change even slightly, I get invariably restless sleep. Despite the pleasure I derived from the arrangement, I woke up feeling deflated and half dead. It’s possible I would have slept better if I had not invited Steve up out of romantic desperation, but regretting the decision would be senseless and shameful. I would have liked to sleep with Steve and sleep well, but I could only have one. And while I would have many more opportunities to sleep well, this was the only opportunity I would have to sleep next to Steve. It had to be this way.
I showered, dressed, and finished packing. Our boss, the cat-mouse woman, had given us each handfuls of candy so she wouldn’t have to travel home with it herself. I left that on the nightstand, because I hate candy. I imagined my little gay roommate or somebody on the cleaning crew might take it and enjoy it, though that imagining was more so a hope. I hoped somebody else would take it and enjoy it, because I didn’t want it to go to waste. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it in the trash myself and although I know it’s likely enough that’s where it wound up, I found some joy in thinking it was possible somebody else might have taken it as a sweet surprise.
Before getting in the elevator down to the lobby, Steve and I held each other, kissed, and promised we’d see each other again. We hoped it would be sooner than next year’s AP reading, but there was at least that. The shuttle to the airport was right outside the front door of my hotel and it was crowded by a group of our peers. It wasn’t the right setting for a final make out session before parting ways for good, so we just shared a quick hug and said see ya later, though Steve did turn back to give me one last wink as I stepped onto the bus. And just like that, my love life was over and I was back to being unemployed.