Manta Rays
PRESTON PHILLIPS
I refuse to delete the pictures of my ex-boyfriend I’ve got saved on my phone. I saved every picture I took of Daniel: some with him smiling, some with him frowning, some with him making that stupid, pseudo-artistic pout he thinks makes him look like a model. It doesn’t matter. He’s gorgeous in every one. Looks exactly like a trust-fund bitch--because he is one--but still gorgeous. Solid ten, trust me. I don’t even usually go for other guys, but still. The crazy ones are always hot. Usually I only look at pictures of him when I’m alone in my room.
I broke up with Daniel six months ago and now I live with my only friend Karl, in this little shit-box apartment down by the strip where all the bars are. All I do is stay in my room on weekends and write code. Lately in Malbolge, because I can.
I squint at my screen. Even with the brightness at minimum, it’s still the brightest thing in my room.
The fucking pictures. There’s so many of them. Pictures he took himself, which always just remind me of when he’d go out of his way to find a good light source, even when doing so defied convenience or even logic. Pictures with his hair freshly dyed, the same sadboy problem-child purple he always colored it. Pictures with his dark brown roots showing, which he constantly said he hated, even though you’d have to be an idiot to think his hair was naturally bright purple. Pictures of him laughing. Pictures of him naked. You name it.
My favorite ones are of him sleeping. He knew I took them, it wasn’t weird or anything. I’m not a photographer, but sometimes I’d wake up first and see him drooling on my pillow, his hair frizzy and sticking up everywhere because of all the stuff he puts in it, and I’d just have to grab my phone off the nightstand and take a picture. He always looked so undignified, which was very unlike him, which was why I cared. Sometimes I stop coding altogether if I remember them. There’s a whole folder on my phone, even. Twenty-two pictures, which I think is a good number.
But I should delete them. I know. Every time I open my phone, it’s icicle-through-my-heart depressing. Freezing fucking cold. One minute I’m minding my own business, the next I’m looking at some picture of him in front of the Ferris wheel at Coney Island, or reading The Prince in his bedroom, or smoking a bowl at Risa’s place. Before I know it, I’ve scrolled through all the pictures and I arrive at the most depressing one of all: our first date. He insisted I take it, grabbed my phone out of my hand and smushed his face against mine before pressing the button to take the picture. You can see it too, if you look at the picture. He’s got this big sharky smile with all his teeth showing, and I’m next to him grimacing. I hate that picture the most, probably because after that there’s nothing else, I have to move on to whatever I was trying to do before.
Trying to move on—man, that’s what gets me.
I think Karl knows I’ve kept pictures. I have no clue how. It’s anyone’s guess. He keeps asking me if I’m “OK”, even though it’s been months and he should know better. That’s always the word he uses, too: “OK”. As if feeling “OK” is any big accomplishment. Talk about a participation ribbon. Congratulations. I am OK. That’s what I’d say if I were.
The thing about Karl is that he’s a hypocrite. He’s the kind of guy who always talks about how he wants to fight. I’m gonna fuck you up, he always says, in this real serious tone of voice. Listen, Karl, you’re like five feet tall; what are you going to do, run and get a stepladder? Please. He means well, I guess. He wants to help people. Not his fault that every time he tries, he eats shit. It’s the same with relationships: he talks this big game about the importance of beingemotionally intelligent. Communication is key, he says. Yeah, right. Like I’m gonna take advice on communication from a man who has to ask through sticky note if I plan to do the dishes. Pass.
We went to high school together. That’s where I met Karl. God, I hated high school. Anyone smart does. As far as society is concerned, you can stew in your own misery for as long as you want, but the second you try to hang yourself? It’s a big damn deal. I think it came from back in medieval times, where if you tried to kill yourself the town would be missing its baker or blacksmith or whatever. Plus your body would just lie in the sun and stink. Anyway, killing yourself is bad and you should never do it, unless your life is an endless treadmill of apathetic schoolteachers and disgusting classmates, in which case you get a pass from me because I tried to do the same thing. Except if you do want to kill yourself, don’t make a show of telling your best friend Karl goodbye in fourth period, because he will freak out and follow you home from school and find you trying to hang yourself in your closet, because you are a sentimental idiot who should have just kept his mouth shut.
Karl does care about things. You have to give him that. Just recently he knocked on my door three times, knock knock knock, which fucking annoyed me but I told him to come in anyway. He leaned against my doorframe, wearing a too-small hoodie and smelling like outside. He always smells like outside, he’s always doing things. I probably smell like the canned air you use to clean keyboards. Or energy drink spit. Or something. I don’t know.
“Hey, Saul,” he asked. “You’re not doing anything, are you?” I put my phone down in an instant. I’d been looking at Daniel pictures, of course. Karl looked at my phone as I set it down, but it’s not like he could do anything about it.
“I’m doing homework,” I said. I wasn’t, but I thought he wouldn’t argue. Instead, he invited himself into my room and looked over my shoulder at my laptop screen.
“Saul, don’t insult me,” Karl said. “It looks like you took out your dick and rubbed it on your keyboard.”
I grinned at him, just for a second. I know why he got confused. Malebolge is a programming language intentionally made to be obfuscating. You think Java’s bad? Java is nothing. Malebolge is pure, liquid shit. It looks like shit: it’s barely a language, just brackets and at-signs and colons. “Hello, world!” looks like your computer had a stroke. Oh, and it runs like shit, too: it runs on trinary and doesn’t self-regulate. And it fucking skips newlines. But here’s the thing: I love it. Sure, coding with it gives me a migraine and almost any other language is more efficient. But it’s also a challenge, a real test of my skill. Maybe I’m a masochist, but I can deal with that.
“That’s just the language,” I told him. “Look it up sometime. It’s esoteric. It’s meant to suck shit.” I’d hoped this would be enough to convince him to leave, but no, of course not.
“Risa and I are going to the movies,” he said. “You should come, too.” Risa is this blonde, smart little hipster fuck Karl can’t keep his hands off of lately. Every sentence out of her mouth is calculated to sound intelligent and artsy. She’s kind of like Daniel in that way. In fact, I originally met Risa through one of Karl’s disastrous attempts to get me back in the dating scene. He tried to set us up, until he decided he wanted Risa to himself. Every so often I can hear them screwing a few rooms over. It makes me gag on my Red Bull.
“Dude, I’m not third-wheeling on your date night. Go have fun. Don’t worry about me.” Some people don’t mean that when they say it—sure, they say not to worry, but what they really want is a big blown out scene where you trip over yourself trying to show how much you care. Daniel did that. When he started moping you could ask him twenty times what was wrong and he’d insist he was fine—then next thing you know, he’s cutting himself with a BIC razor in the fucking bathroom. But when I say it, I really mean it, especially with Karl. I never want Karl to worry about me. Mostly because it means he won’t leave me the fuck alone.
“Fine,” Karl said. “You just have to promise me one thing.” He gave me this big, earnest look. I hate that look. It makes me feel like I’ve been neutered. At any moment Karl looks like he’ll tear up if you forsake him, and he’ll do it, too. He looked from me to my phone and back at me again.
“Don’t call Daniel.” I was genuinely surprised; since when do I call people? But I could tell from the look on his face that he thought I was really at-risk of diving back into sticking my dick in crazy, so I made eye contact and nodded.
“You got it. No calling Danny.” That was back when I still used the nickname. I’ve been weaning myself off it. No big loss. He hated it anyway.
“I mean it, Saul. He’s got enough problems. More than you want to know about. So help me God if you call him.” Something about Karl: he is earnest about everything. I swear I could hear him capitalize the “G” in “God” when he spoke. Like I said, he cares a hell of a lot.
“I’m trying to program a version of Malebolge that works in binary. I don’t have room in my schedule for Danny. Besides, I’m over him.” I wasn’t, but I thought Karl would want to hear me say I was. Besides, how many problems could Daniel have? Young, hot, and vibrant. That’s all he ever was.
“Alright. Since you’re sure, I’m going to head out.” In that moment, he paused, and I wondered if I was going to escape his verbal, maternal embrace.
“Will you be OK?” Damn it.
I didn’t answer, though. You stop seeing the point after a while.
So, I’m totally going to call him. It’s not like it’ll hurt anything. I just want to know how he’s doing.
Actually, I’ve given it a lot of thought—which is ironic, since I never would have dreamed of trying to reach him if it hadn’t been for Karl trying to de-program me. Sometimes if I’m feeling cynical I think he intervenes because he’s tired of me. God knows I would be.
I’ve reached a point where I’m starting to wonder if the bipolar diagnosis is bunk, that’s how long I’ve been depressed. I know that sort of thing is normal after you end a relationship, but still. All I do is eat, sleep, shit, and program. The daily grind. There’s Sims out there with more point to their lives than me. Actually, fuck it, I wish I were a Sim. At least then someone could build a little gray box around me and set me on fire. I’d run around and piss myself for a while, but if you want to know the truth, that’s not a hell of a lot worse than what I’ve got going on right now.
Daniel is probably the only person who really “got” my depression. I think he’s always been depressed—even when he’d smile, something about him still seemed dead. Our first date was like that. We went to the aquarium downtown. He was trying too hard to be cutesy, reading all the plaques out loud and naming the fish.
“One of the manta ray’s natural predators is the whale shark,” Daniel finished. There were lots of manta rays in this tank. They didn't swim; they floated. Daniel seemed most interested in them, for some reason.
I pointed to one manta ray that wasn't moving or anything--it just hid in this little cave thing. It would dart out every few minutes, and then dart back in. There was this big chunk missing from its side. Fucked up little fish.
"Look at that one," I said. "It kinda looks scared.”
For a while Daniel didn't say anything out loud. He just kept nodding. I wondered if he didn't know what to say, if he was just nervous or something. Finally, he spoke.
“That’s me,” he said, pressing his finger to the glass like you’re not supposed to. “What?” I said, not sure I heard him right. “What do you mean, it’s you?” He looked irritated for a second. Mostly perturbed.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just said, it’s...Mimi. That’s its name. Like the chick from Rent.” I definitely didn’t believe him, but it was a first date and I wanted to impress him. I still never forgot, though. How wide his eyes seemed, when he looked between the fish and me. We kept walking after that, though I couldn’t help noticing that he seemed a little more withdrawn. And that’s how it would be for the rest of our relationship. Withdrawn.
Now I feel that more than ever. Not that I think it’s a good idea to call your ex because you’re feeling shitty. That’s not what I think. What I think is that I’m curious to know if he’s feeling worse. Even though statistically speaking, he probably is…I have to know.
I look at my phone. My background, thank you very much, is not a picture of him. It’s the Apple default. I type in my password— 01100001 01110011 01110011. Binary passwords are usually fairly secure, despite not including letters. Having the spaces helps. People don’t guess spaces. Most people can’t read binary either, but even the ones who can don’t usually guess it for passwords.
When I broke up with Danny—Daniel, I mean—Karl made me delete his cell phone number in front of him. I have no idea why he thought a computer programmer wouldn’t be able to memorize a ten-digit string. Anyone’s guess.
I type in his number.
He picks up on the second ring, which is unusually charitable of him. He used to keep me waiting until the very last ring when he was pissed off at me. I guess it’s a good sign—that he’s not pissed off, I mean. Either that, or I’ve fallen completely off his radar.
“Hello?” I ask. For about thirty seconds I just hear rustling, and I wonder if he just sat on his phone or something. I’m about to hang up when I hear a voice.
“Saul?” The voice is incredulous. The voice is indignant. The voice is actually a little hushed, which makes me wonder where the hell he is. But by god. The voice is Daniel’s. Of course it is. Not that I really expected anyone else to pick up. But still. It’s weird hearing him talk. All this time I’d been acting like he died.
“Uh.” I’m not great with words. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to pick up.”
“It’s almost ten o’clock,” he says. “What the hell do you want?” He sounds defensive and I realize he probably thinks I’m trying to booty call him.
“Not sex,” I say. Fuck.
“Thanks for clarifying,” he says. “Seriously, what the hell do you want?” I can hear him rolling his eyes over the phone. This isn’t going as well as I’d hoped. Maybe this is why Karl didn’t want me to call. He knew I’d be about as eloquent as a clown passed out in a pool of its own vomit. I kind of want to die. On the plus side, I might get around to deleting those pictures.
“Actually, I wanted to know if you’d be down for dinner. As friends,” I add quickly. I am embarrassing myself. I want to clip through the floor like a bad glitch.
“Really?” He sounds surprised, not angry, which is a plus. “That’s. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can do dinner. I think so.”
I’m about to lose my fucking mind here. My ex, who I’m not over, is actually agreeing to see me even after I put both feet and probably some ankle in my mouth.
“Holy shit. Okay. Great. We can go to the Thai place downtown—wait, no, not there. Uh. I’ll text you the details,” I say. The Thai place had a roach outbreak. I am so unprepared for this.
I hadn’t expected him to pick up the phone, let alone agree to meet me anywhere. I have to cross-reference all the restaurants in the city limits to see which one has the most stars/least recorded murders. I can actually feel my heart pounding, like a rusty car engine that hasn’t worked since the forties.
“Definitely not downtown,” he says. “And actually, lunch’ll probably work better than dinner. But yeah, you can text me. Listen, I gotta go.” I hear more shuffling, and now that I think of it, his voice sounds kind of echo-y. I wonder if he’s in the process of sneaking out of someone’s bedroom, sitcom one night stand style. Probably not, although with Daniel anything’s possible. He gets incredibly desperate at times.
“Fine, whatever,” I say. I’m way past caring—I wouldn’t care if he wanted to meet me at the Butthole Bistro. I hang up and spend a good two minutes silently celebrating what I consider to be a rare Saul Callister victory in a long, long line of Saul Callister losses. When Danny gets mad, he holds a fucking grudge—but he agreed anyway, which means he’s either being held hostage, or he still has a thing for me. Yesssss.
As a reward, I treat myself to some nice, smooth Java.
Danny still has a thing for me. There’s no way he doesn’t.
The reason I know this is because he’s clingy as shit. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t think about that sooner. His whole life is lonely; his dad died when he was little, and his mom remarried some asshole when he was 16. No siblings, except his mom’s new husband did have a son a few years older. I learned even that the same way I learned everything about him: careful couching of my words. Because for all of Daniel’s dramatics, he never really cared to talk about anything from his past. He was moody like that.
“My brother just called,” I said, even though he hadn’t. My brother doesn’t call anyone, although he does spend a lot of time making incoherent Facebook posts about wanting to rail his girlfriend. I made up the story anyway because I wanted an excuse to try and figure out what the hell Danny’s deal was. You start to wonder that kind of thing when you see your boyfriend ignore every call he gets from a certain area code.
“Is that where you were?” Daniel asked. He was sitting on the couch, curled up in a blanket, watching the game show network. “Geez, that took forever. He must like to talk.”
In actuality, I’d been amusing myself by trying to make an AI bot that would act kind of like a word filter, only instead of functioning in a Web browser, it would work on IM programs like Discord and Skype. Not that Danny needed to know I’d ditched him for programming work. Historically speaking, he’s never liked that.
“Sorry, I just couldn’t get out of it.” No, I did not feel even a little bit bad. Instead, I sat down next to him and lifted part of the blanket onto my legs. “You know how it is with family.”
“I guess,” he said. “I don’t know.” I gave him a Look and he kept talking. “I mean, my mom doesn’t use the phone ever, and I don’t have siblings to call. Besides a step-brother, which isn’t the same.”
“I’d say that counts.” Danny overreacts to everything, and I didn’t want him to think I was implying his weird blended family didn’t count for anything. Instead he seemed annoyed I’d talked at all.
“No, it doesn’t,” he said quickly. He sounded on the brink of “fuck you, now I’m pissed”, so I deflected
“Gotcha,” I said. “It’s cool, you’re not close. I’ve been there.” I hate my brother sometimes too—I assumed it was something normal like that, you know? But Danny just laughed at me, this little barking noise. I remember it made me feel funny, though I couldn’t place why.
“Oh, we’re close,” he said. He made that barking-laughter noise again and hugged his knees on the couch. “Couldn’t be closer.”
Of course I could tell he was just being ironic, but what do you say to something like that? The answer is, you don’t say anything, you just turn on the television and watch Food Network until he falls asleep on your shoulder, and for once he finally looks calm.
I decide on this tiny cafe that opened up a block from the apartment called Cherry Pie.
It’s new, so who knows if it’s any good, but Danny is a primo-hipster and I figure he’ll appreciate the change in scenery. Not just the name here is “cherry”, I’m talking cherry everything; red walls, red counters, and the type of smooth, shiny vinyl you’d expect to see in a fake-fifties diner. It’s trying too hard. But so am I.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen him that I start looking at strangers wondering if they could be him. Redhead with the killer tits probably isn’t; Danny is feminine, but not that feminine. Scrawny emo kid who looks too young to be smoking cigs probably isn’t either. I wonder if I’ll even recognize him.
But I do--somehow. Even though he looks more different than I could have imagined. He’s got more red flags than a matador, written all over his face (red eyes, gaunt cheeks), his body (hyperskinny, draped in uncharacteristic grey hoodie), even his hands (chewed, bloody nails). But the most appalling thing is his hair. Danny told me when we were dating that his hair was a lot of colors in high school, mostly unnaturals with stupid indie names. And I could have dealt with Icky Lizard green or Beached Beluga blue.
But it’s brown--mousy brown, like the carpet in a GameStop. I can’t for a second believe that’s his natural hair color, except that it matches his eyebrows. And honestly? He looks like shit. He sits down across from me looking the way he did when we’d get in arguments: cold.
“Uh,” I say, not because I’m nervous, but because I’m stunned. “Hi.”
“Saul,” he says. He sounds polite, if slightly distant. “I didn’t think you’d call me.”
“Neither did I,” I say. “Promised Karl I wouldn’t, but you know how he is.”
“He’s a meddler,” Danny says. “He was always stickin’ his nose where it didn’t belong. You still live with him?” It’s probably the most interested in Karl he’s been in his whole life.
“For now,” I say. “I mean, I’m looking at other places, but I probably won’t move out anytime soon. Even though he got a girlfriend, which is kind of ruining my life. Does that sound selfish?” I know it sounds selfish, but I want him to say so, like he would have before. Danny’s personal hobby used to be calling people on their shit. Now he just stares at me, his shoulders slumped.
“Probably,” he says. “You mean Risa, right? We’ve met, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” I say. “I kind of thought when we broke up, you’d stop-”
“Stop what? Talking to your friends?” Although there’s a little bit of color in his face, I somehow don’t feel better. I’m reminded of when we used to get in fights and he’d clear off the dresser so we could fuck on top of it. I always thought it turned him on a little, the yelling and drama of it all. He doesn’t look like that now, though. If I had to pick a word, I would pick “sullen”. He doesn’t look like he’s been having sex with anybody.
“I mean, kind of,” I say. Since I’m the one who dumped him, I’m not sure if I have a right to feel that way. Still, the idea of him talking about me to Karl makes my head feel heavy and my heart jump in my chest.
“Yeah, well, they’re my friends too,” he says. I realize that neither of us have ordered anything, so we probably look like ungrateful, non-coffee buying jerks. No one around seems to be listening, which means they probably are, since Daniel is being loud. I’m remembering why we fought so much. I’m thinking this was a bad idea.
“I don’t want to do this,” I say, because I don’t. I should have known he’d act like this. At least I can finally get over him. I stand up, tuck my chair into the table. “You’re making a scene.”
“Oh, that is too funny,” Daniel says. He puts his hands on the table like he’s going to stand up and leave too, but he doesn’t, he just keeps them planted there. “You know something, Saul? I thought you asked to see me because you really cared how I was doing after what happened. Now, maybe that was stupid of me, but--”
“After what happened? After I dumped you? Because look, I had the right to end the relationship. You acted like a fucking bitch all the time. You started fights for no reason. Just like now.” I’m about to walk out when I hear him call my name. I turn around.
“What?” I ask. I look at Daniel in the cafe shop chair and feel something tear inside. His eyes are rimmed red at the edges, and his hands shake on the table. I wonder if the break-up hurt him more than I realized. I mean, I was keeping pictures of him on my phone. What was he doing?
“Karl didn’t tell you?” he asks. He looks relieved and depressed at the same time with this wry little smile on his face. It’s a familiar expression. One time we went to the drug store and he saw a bunch of those cheapo bathroom razors in a pack for six dollars. He looked at me and said, smiling slightly:
“You can’t afford not to cut yourself!” he said, as if he were talking about a really great deal. Then he sighed like he was in love. “It’s meant to be.”
“Karl hasn’t told me anything,” I say. “Except that you had a lot going on, or something. He told me not to call you, but I broke that rule. Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Daniel says. “I thought he would. Thought for sure he would. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
God help me, I want to tell him he’s right. But I shouldn’t do that. I’ll sound like a smug asshole. Especially since I don’t know what apparently happened.
“You’re right, you shouldn’t have,” I say. God damn it.
I do sit back down, though. My stomach feels like it’s digesting itself as I realize I’m still oblivious to what’s going on. Did someone die? God, I hope no one died.
“So what happened?” I ask. “Really. I do want to know.” Danny traces a spiral into the table with his finger.
“I don’t know if you care, or if you’re just curious,” Danny says. “But I did kind of blow you off near the end of things. I should have told you what was going on.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a pack of cigarettes, but he doesn’t take any out of the carton. “First of all, Mom and Thaddeus are getting divorced.”
“Oh, shit,” I say. I wait for him to elaborate because I know for a fact he hated his step-father. Hell, he probably celebrated when they finalized the divorce, as mean as that sounds.
“They weren’t getting along anymore,” Daniel says, “although that’s not why they’re splitting. My step-brother got arrested,” he says. I don’t know anything about his step-brother except his name, so that’s what I say.
“Mark?” I ask. Daniel takes a cigarette out of the pack and holds it in his hands. Doesn’t light it, just looks at it.
“Yeah, Mark.” He laughs. “Did you know I was pretty old when we met? Him, too. I was fourteen, already in high school.”
“I don’t know, I mean.” I don’t really want to contradict him, but fourteen is pretty young to me. I got my first laptop at fourteen, and probably my first zit or something. It’s not even old enough to drive, but I don’t say anything, I just let him talk.
“Anyway, he got arrested. At first I thought, for shoplifting. ‘Cause he did that a lot.” Daniel’s family is rolling in cash, so the idea of poor little rich kid Mark stealing from corner stores makes me more than a little annoyed. I still don’t say so. Daniel looks faraway, almost dreamy, only the cigarette between his fingers grounding him. He lowers his voice.
“But no. Not shoplifting.” He feels around his pockets like he’s looking for something--probably a lighter--but gives up. “Some fifteen year old. He said she looked older, but who knows.”
“Wait, what? Fifteen? What the fuck?” My voice is lowered too. I feel like I’m going to go to jail just talking about this guy.
“Yeah, it shook all of us up. Me most of all. I loved him, you know. Nobody thinks I mean it when I say that. But I do.” He lifts the cigarette to his lips but then, just as suddenly, puts it away completely. “God, I really do. I even miss him sometimes. Can you believe that? I don’t want to. I really don’t. But I do.”
I hate myself for thinking this, but I wonder: what did Daniel mean when he said they were close? God, I don’t want to know. I hate to say this, but Karl was right. I really shouldn’t have called.
“He’s a criminal,” I say. “Daniel. There’s a name for that, you know. It’s statutory rape.” I’m almost whispering at this point.
“I know that,” Daniel hisses. “God, don’t you think I know that? I never said he was nice.
I just wish none of it had happened, that’s all. Does that make me bad? Tell me I’m not a bad person. Please,” he says, and his eyes are wet, “tell me I’m not a bad person.”
I stand up again.
“I’m sorry,” I say. That’s all I can manage. I walk away with him still repeating that, still begging me to confirm whether or not he’s a victim.
Once I get to my Camry, I open my phone and look at the album one last time. Danny’s beautiful face smiles back at me, promising we can be a normal couple, promising we’ll be together forever. Fucked up little fish, I think. Just like at the aquarium. I understand him better now, although I wish I didn’t. Like Danny, I wish none of it had happened.
I press delete. Just like that.
PRESTON PHILLIPS
I refuse to delete the pictures of my ex-boyfriend I’ve got saved on my phone. I saved every picture I took of Daniel: some with him smiling, some with him frowning, some with him making that stupid, pseudo-artistic pout he thinks makes him look like a model. It doesn’t matter. He’s gorgeous in every one. Looks exactly like a trust-fund bitch--because he is one--but still gorgeous. Solid ten, trust me. I don’t even usually go for other guys, but still. The crazy ones are always hot. Usually I only look at pictures of him when I’m alone in my room.
I broke up with Daniel six months ago and now I live with my only friend Karl, in this little shit-box apartment down by the strip where all the bars are. All I do is stay in my room on weekends and write code. Lately in Malbolge, because I can.
I squint at my screen. Even with the brightness at minimum, it’s still the brightest thing in my room.
The fucking pictures. There’s so many of them. Pictures he took himself, which always just remind me of when he’d go out of his way to find a good light source, even when doing so defied convenience or even logic. Pictures with his hair freshly dyed, the same sadboy problem-child purple he always colored it. Pictures with his dark brown roots showing, which he constantly said he hated, even though you’d have to be an idiot to think his hair was naturally bright purple. Pictures of him laughing. Pictures of him naked. You name it.
My favorite ones are of him sleeping. He knew I took them, it wasn’t weird or anything. I’m not a photographer, but sometimes I’d wake up first and see him drooling on my pillow, his hair frizzy and sticking up everywhere because of all the stuff he puts in it, and I’d just have to grab my phone off the nightstand and take a picture. He always looked so undignified, which was very unlike him, which was why I cared. Sometimes I stop coding altogether if I remember them. There’s a whole folder on my phone, even. Twenty-two pictures, which I think is a good number.
But I should delete them. I know. Every time I open my phone, it’s icicle-through-my-heart depressing. Freezing fucking cold. One minute I’m minding my own business, the next I’m looking at some picture of him in front of the Ferris wheel at Coney Island, or reading The Prince in his bedroom, or smoking a bowl at Risa’s place. Before I know it, I’ve scrolled through all the pictures and I arrive at the most depressing one of all: our first date. He insisted I take it, grabbed my phone out of my hand and smushed his face against mine before pressing the button to take the picture. You can see it too, if you look at the picture. He’s got this big sharky smile with all his teeth showing, and I’m next to him grimacing. I hate that picture the most, probably because after that there’s nothing else, I have to move on to whatever I was trying to do before.
Trying to move on—man, that’s what gets me.
I think Karl knows I’ve kept pictures. I have no clue how. It’s anyone’s guess. He keeps asking me if I’m “OK”, even though it’s been months and he should know better. That’s always the word he uses, too: “OK”. As if feeling “OK” is any big accomplishment. Talk about a participation ribbon. Congratulations. I am OK. That’s what I’d say if I were.
The thing about Karl is that he’s a hypocrite. He’s the kind of guy who always talks about how he wants to fight. I’m gonna fuck you up, he always says, in this real serious tone of voice. Listen, Karl, you’re like five feet tall; what are you going to do, run and get a stepladder? Please. He means well, I guess. He wants to help people. Not his fault that every time he tries, he eats shit. It’s the same with relationships: he talks this big game about the importance of beingemotionally intelligent. Communication is key, he says. Yeah, right. Like I’m gonna take advice on communication from a man who has to ask through sticky note if I plan to do the dishes. Pass.
We went to high school together. That’s where I met Karl. God, I hated high school. Anyone smart does. As far as society is concerned, you can stew in your own misery for as long as you want, but the second you try to hang yourself? It’s a big damn deal. I think it came from back in medieval times, where if you tried to kill yourself the town would be missing its baker or blacksmith or whatever. Plus your body would just lie in the sun and stink. Anyway, killing yourself is bad and you should never do it, unless your life is an endless treadmill of apathetic schoolteachers and disgusting classmates, in which case you get a pass from me because I tried to do the same thing. Except if you do want to kill yourself, don’t make a show of telling your best friend Karl goodbye in fourth period, because he will freak out and follow you home from school and find you trying to hang yourself in your closet, because you are a sentimental idiot who should have just kept his mouth shut.
Karl does care about things. You have to give him that. Just recently he knocked on my door three times, knock knock knock, which fucking annoyed me but I told him to come in anyway. He leaned against my doorframe, wearing a too-small hoodie and smelling like outside. He always smells like outside, he’s always doing things. I probably smell like the canned air you use to clean keyboards. Or energy drink spit. Or something. I don’t know.
“Hey, Saul,” he asked. “You’re not doing anything, are you?” I put my phone down in an instant. I’d been looking at Daniel pictures, of course. Karl looked at my phone as I set it down, but it’s not like he could do anything about it.
“I’m doing homework,” I said. I wasn’t, but I thought he wouldn’t argue. Instead, he invited himself into my room and looked over my shoulder at my laptop screen.
“Saul, don’t insult me,” Karl said. “It looks like you took out your dick and rubbed it on your keyboard.”
I grinned at him, just for a second. I know why he got confused. Malebolge is a programming language intentionally made to be obfuscating. You think Java’s bad? Java is nothing. Malebolge is pure, liquid shit. It looks like shit: it’s barely a language, just brackets and at-signs and colons. “Hello, world!” looks like your computer had a stroke. Oh, and it runs like shit, too: it runs on trinary and doesn’t self-regulate. And it fucking skips newlines. But here’s the thing: I love it. Sure, coding with it gives me a migraine and almost any other language is more efficient. But it’s also a challenge, a real test of my skill. Maybe I’m a masochist, but I can deal with that.
“That’s just the language,” I told him. “Look it up sometime. It’s esoteric. It’s meant to suck shit.” I’d hoped this would be enough to convince him to leave, but no, of course not.
“Risa and I are going to the movies,” he said. “You should come, too.” Risa is this blonde, smart little hipster fuck Karl can’t keep his hands off of lately. Every sentence out of her mouth is calculated to sound intelligent and artsy. She’s kind of like Daniel in that way. In fact, I originally met Risa through one of Karl’s disastrous attempts to get me back in the dating scene. He tried to set us up, until he decided he wanted Risa to himself. Every so often I can hear them screwing a few rooms over. It makes me gag on my Red Bull.
“Dude, I’m not third-wheeling on your date night. Go have fun. Don’t worry about me.” Some people don’t mean that when they say it—sure, they say not to worry, but what they really want is a big blown out scene where you trip over yourself trying to show how much you care. Daniel did that. When he started moping you could ask him twenty times what was wrong and he’d insist he was fine—then next thing you know, he’s cutting himself with a BIC razor in the fucking bathroom. But when I say it, I really mean it, especially with Karl. I never want Karl to worry about me. Mostly because it means he won’t leave me the fuck alone.
“Fine,” Karl said. “You just have to promise me one thing.” He gave me this big, earnest look. I hate that look. It makes me feel like I’ve been neutered. At any moment Karl looks like he’ll tear up if you forsake him, and he’ll do it, too. He looked from me to my phone and back at me again.
“Don’t call Daniel.” I was genuinely surprised; since when do I call people? But I could tell from the look on his face that he thought I was really at-risk of diving back into sticking my dick in crazy, so I made eye contact and nodded.
“You got it. No calling Danny.” That was back when I still used the nickname. I’ve been weaning myself off it. No big loss. He hated it anyway.
“I mean it, Saul. He’s got enough problems. More than you want to know about. So help me God if you call him.” Something about Karl: he is earnest about everything. I swear I could hear him capitalize the “G” in “God” when he spoke. Like I said, he cares a hell of a lot.
“I’m trying to program a version of Malebolge that works in binary. I don’t have room in my schedule for Danny. Besides, I’m over him.” I wasn’t, but I thought Karl would want to hear me say I was. Besides, how many problems could Daniel have? Young, hot, and vibrant. That’s all he ever was.
“Alright. Since you’re sure, I’m going to head out.” In that moment, he paused, and I wondered if I was going to escape his verbal, maternal embrace.
“Will you be OK?” Damn it.
I didn’t answer, though. You stop seeing the point after a while.
So, I’m totally going to call him. It’s not like it’ll hurt anything. I just want to know how he’s doing.
Actually, I’ve given it a lot of thought—which is ironic, since I never would have dreamed of trying to reach him if it hadn’t been for Karl trying to de-program me. Sometimes if I’m feeling cynical I think he intervenes because he’s tired of me. God knows I would be.
I’ve reached a point where I’m starting to wonder if the bipolar diagnosis is bunk, that’s how long I’ve been depressed. I know that sort of thing is normal after you end a relationship, but still. All I do is eat, sleep, shit, and program. The daily grind. There’s Sims out there with more point to their lives than me. Actually, fuck it, I wish I were a Sim. At least then someone could build a little gray box around me and set me on fire. I’d run around and piss myself for a while, but if you want to know the truth, that’s not a hell of a lot worse than what I’ve got going on right now.
Daniel is probably the only person who really “got” my depression. I think he’s always been depressed—even when he’d smile, something about him still seemed dead. Our first date was like that. We went to the aquarium downtown. He was trying too hard to be cutesy, reading all the plaques out loud and naming the fish.
“One of the manta ray’s natural predators is the whale shark,” Daniel finished. There were lots of manta rays in this tank. They didn't swim; they floated. Daniel seemed most interested in them, for some reason.
I pointed to one manta ray that wasn't moving or anything--it just hid in this little cave thing. It would dart out every few minutes, and then dart back in. There was this big chunk missing from its side. Fucked up little fish.
"Look at that one," I said. "It kinda looks scared.”
For a while Daniel didn't say anything out loud. He just kept nodding. I wondered if he didn't know what to say, if he was just nervous or something. Finally, he spoke.
“That’s me,” he said, pressing his finger to the glass like you’re not supposed to. “What?” I said, not sure I heard him right. “What do you mean, it’s you?” He looked irritated for a second. Mostly perturbed.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just said, it’s...Mimi. That’s its name. Like the chick from Rent.” I definitely didn’t believe him, but it was a first date and I wanted to impress him. I still never forgot, though. How wide his eyes seemed, when he looked between the fish and me. We kept walking after that, though I couldn’t help noticing that he seemed a little more withdrawn. And that’s how it would be for the rest of our relationship. Withdrawn.
Now I feel that more than ever. Not that I think it’s a good idea to call your ex because you’re feeling shitty. That’s not what I think. What I think is that I’m curious to know if he’s feeling worse. Even though statistically speaking, he probably is…I have to know.
I look at my phone. My background, thank you very much, is not a picture of him. It’s the Apple default. I type in my password— 01100001 01110011 01110011. Binary passwords are usually fairly secure, despite not including letters. Having the spaces helps. People don’t guess spaces. Most people can’t read binary either, but even the ones who can don’t usually guess it for passwords.
When I broke up with Danny—Daniel, I mean—Karl made me delete his cell phone number in front of him. I have no idea why he thought a computer programmer wouldn’t be able to memorize a ten-digit string. Anyone’s guess.
I type in his number.
He picks up on the second ring, which is unusually charitable of him. He used to keep me waiting until the very last ring when he was pissed off at me. I guess it’s a good sign—that he’s not pissed off, I mean. Either that, or I’ve fallen completely off his radar.
“Hello?” I ask. For about thirty seconds I just hear rustling, and I wonder if he just sat on his phone or something. I’m about to hang up when I hear a voice.
“Saul?” The voice is incredulous. The voice is indignant. The voice is actually a little hushed, which makes me wonder where the hell he is. But by god. The voice is Daniel’s. Of course it is. Not that I really expected anyone else to pick up. But still. It’s weird hearing him talk. All this time I’d been acting like he died.
“Uh.” I’m not great with words. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to pick up.”
“It’s almost ten o’clock,” he says. “What the hell do you want?” He sounds defensive and I realize he probably thinks I’m trying to booty call him.
“Not sex,” I say. Fuck.
“Thanks for clarifying,” he says. “Seriously, what the hell do you want?” I can hear him rolling his eyes over the phone. This isn’t going as well as I’d hoped. Maybe this is why Karl didn’t want me to call. He knew I’d be about as eloquent as a clown passed out in a pool of its own vomit. I kind of want to die. On the plus side, I might get around to deleting those pictures.
“Actually, I wanted to know if you’d be down for dinner. As friends,” I add quickly. I am embarrassing myself. I want to clip through the floor like a bad glitch.
“Really?” He sounds surprised, not angry, which is a plus. “That’s. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can do dinner. I think so.”
I’m about to lose my fucking mind here. My ex, who I’m not over, is actually agreeing to see me even after I put both feet and probably some ankle in my mouth.
“Holy shit. Okay. Great. We can go to the Thai place downtown—wait, no, not there. Uh. I’ll text you the details,” I say. The Thai place had a roach outbreak. I am so unprepared for this.
I hadn’t expected him to pick up the phone, let alone agree to meet me anywhere. I have to cross-reference all the restaurants in the city limits to see which one has the most stars/least recorded murders. I can actually feel my heart pounding, like a rusty car engine that hasn’t worked since the forties.
“Definitely not downtown,” he says. “And actually, lunch’ll probably work better than dinner. But yeah, you can text me. Listen, I gotta go.” I hear more shuffling, and now that I think of it, his voice sounds kind of echo-y. I wonder if he’s in the process of sneaking out of someone’s bedroom, sitcom one night stand style. Probably not, although with Daniel anything’s possible. He gets incredibly desperate at times.
“Fine, whatever,” I say. I’m way past caring—I wouldn’t care if he wanted to meet me at the Butthole Bistro. I hang up and spend a good two minutes silently celebrating what I consider to be a rare Saul Callister victory in a long, long line of Saul Callister losses. When Danny gets mad, he holds a fucking grudge—but he agreed anyway, which means he’s either being held hostage, or he still has a thing for me. Yesssss.
As a reward, I treat myself to some nice, smooth Java.
Danny still has a thing for me. There’s no way he doesn’t.
The reason I know this is because he’s clingy as shit. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t think about that sooner. His whole life is lonely; his dad died when he was little, and his mom remarried some asshole when he was 16. No siblings, except his mom’s new husband did have a son a few years older. I learned even that the same way I learned everything about him: careful couching of my words. Because for all of Daniel’s dramatics, he never really cared to talk about anything from his past. He was moody like that.
“My brother just called,” I said, even though he hadn’t. My brother doesn’t call anyone, although he does spend a lot of time making incoherent Facebook posts about wanting to rail his girlfriend. I made up the story anyway because I wanted an excuse to try and figure out what the hell Danny’s deal was. You start to wonder that kind of thing when you see your boyfriend ignore every call he gets from a certain area code.
“Is that where you were?” Daniel asked. He was sitting on the couch, curled up in a blanket, watching the game show network. “Geez, that took forever. He must like to talk.”
In actuality, I’d been amusing myself by trying to make an AI bot that would act kind of like a word filter, only instead of functioning in a Web browser, it would work on IM programs like Discord and Skype. Not that Danny needed to know I’d ditched him for programming work. Historically speaking, he’s never liked that.
“Sorry, I just couldn’t get out of it.” No, I did not feel even a little bit bad. Instead, I sat down next to him and lifted part of the blanket onto my legs. “You know how it is with family.”
“I guess,” he said. “I don’t know.” I gave him a Look and he kept talking. “I mean, my mom doesn’t use the phone ever, and I don’t have siblings to call. Besides a step-brother, which isn’t the same.”
“I’d say that counts.” Danny overreacts to everything, and I didn’t want him to think I was implying his weird blended family didn’t count for anything. Instead he seemed annoyed I’d talked at all.
“No, it doesn’t,” he said quickly. He sounded on the brink of “fuck you, now I’m pissed”, so I deflected
“Gotcha,” I said. “It’s cool, you’re not close. I’ve been there.” I hate my brother sometimes too—I assumed it was something normal like that, you know? But Danny just laughed at me, this little barking noise. I remember it made me feel funny, though I couldn’t place why.
“Oh, we’re close,” he said. He made that barking-laughter noise again and hugged his knees on the couch. “Couldn’t be closer.”
Of course I could tell he was just being ironic, but what do you say to something like that? The answer is, you don’t say anything, you just turn on the television and watch Food Network until he falls asleep on your shoulder, and for once he finally looks calm.
I decide on this tiny cafe that opened up a block from the apartment called Cherry Pie.
It’s new, so who knows if it’s any good, but Danny is a primo-hipster and I figure he’ll appreciate the change in scenery. Not just the name here is “cherry”, I’m talking cherry everything; red walls, red counters, and the type of smooth, shiny vinyl you’d expect to see in a fake-fifties diner. It’s trying too hard. But so am I.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen him that I start looking at strangers wondering if they could be him. Redhead with the killer tits probably isn’t; Danny is feminine, but not that feminine. Scrawny emo kid who looks too young to be smoking cigs probably isn’t either. I wonder if I’ll even recognize him.
But I do--somehow. Even though he looks more different than I could have imagined. He’s got more red flags than a matador, written all over his face (red eyes, gaunt cheeks), his body (hyperskinny, draped in uncharacteristic grey hoodie), even his hands (chewed, bloody nails). But the most appalling thing is his hair. Danny told me when we were dating that his hair was a lot of colors in high school, mostly unnaturals with stupid indie names. And I could have dealt with Icky Lizard green or Beached Beluga blue.
But it’s brown--mousy brown, like the carpet in a GameStop. I can’t for a second believe that’s his natural hair color, except that it matches his eyebrows. And honestly? He looks like shit. He sits down across from me looking the way he did when we’d get in arguments: cold.
“Uh,” I say, not because I’m nervous, but because I’m stunned. “Hi.”
“Saul,” he says. He sounds polite, if slightly distant. “I didn’t think you’d call me.”
“Neither did I,” I say. “Promised Karl I wouldn’t, but you know how he is.”
“He’s a meddler,” Danny says. “He was always stickin’ his nose where it didn’t belong. You still live with him?” It’s probably the most interested in Karl he’s been in his whole life.
“For now,” I say. “I mean, I’m looking at other places, but I probably won’t move out anytime soon. Even though he got a girlfriend, which is kind of ruining my life. Does that sound selfish?” I know it sounds selfish, but I want him to say so, like he would have before. Danny’s personal hobby used to be calling people on their shit. Now he just stares at me, his shoulders slumped.
“Probably,” he says. “You mean Risa, right? We’ve met, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” I say. “I kind of thought when we broke up, you’d stop-”
“Stop what? Talking to your friends?” Although there’s a little bit of color in his face, I somehow don’t feel better. I’m reminded of when we used to get in fights and he’d clear off the dresser so we could fuck on top of it. I always thought it turned him on a little, the yelling and drama of it all. He doesn’t look like that now, though. If I had to pick a word, I would pick “sullen”. He doesn’t look like he’s been having sex with anybody.
“I mean, kind of,” I say. Since I’m the one who dumped him, I’m not sure if I have a right to feel that way. Still, the idea of him talking about me to Karl makes my head feel heavy and my heart jump in my chest.
“Yeah, well, they’re my friends too,” he says. I realize that neither of us have ordered anything, so we probably look like ungrateful, non-coffee buying jerks. No one around seems to be listening, which means they probably are, since Daniel is being loud. I’m remembering why we fought so much. I’m thinking this was a bad idea.
“I don’t want to do this,” I say, because I don’t. I should have known he’d act like this. At least I can finally get over him. I stand up, tuck my chair into the table. “You’re making a scene.”
“Oh, that is too funny,” Daniel says. He puts his hands on the table like he’s going to stand up and leave too, but he doesn’t, he just keeps them planted there. “You know something, Saul? I thought you asked to see me because you really cared how I was doing after what happened. Now, maybe that was stupid of me, but--”
“After what happened? After I dumped you? Because look, I had the right to end the relationship. You acted like a fucking bitch all the time. You started fights for no reason. Just like now.” I’m about to walk out when I hear him call my name. I turn around.
“What?” I ask. I look at Daniel in the cafe shop chair and feel something tear inside. His eyes are rimmed red at the edges, and his hands shake on the table. I wonder if the break-up hurt him more than I realized. I mean, I was keeping pictures of him on my phone. What was he doing?
“Karl didn’t tell you?” he asks. He looks relieved and depressed at the same time with this wry little smile on his face. It’s a familiar expression. One time we went to the drug store and he saw a bunch of those cheapo bathroom razors in a pack for six dollars. He looked at me and said, smiling slightly:
“You can’t afford not to cut yourself!” he said, as if he were talking about a really great deal. Then he sighed like he was in love. “It’s meant to be.”
“Karl hasn’t told me anything,” I say. “Except that you had a lot going on, or something. He told me not to call you, but I broke that rule. Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Daniel says. “I thought he would. Thought for sure he would. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
God help me, I want to tell him he’s right. But I shouldn’t do that. I’ll sound like a smug asshole. Especially since I don’t know what apparently happened.
“You’re right, you shouldn’t have,” I say. God damn it.
I do sit back down, though. My stomach feels like it’s digesting itself as I realize I’m still oblivious to what’s going on. Did someone die? God, I hope no one died.
“So what happened?” I ask. “Really. I do want to know.” Danny traces a spiral into the table with his finger.
“I don’t know if you care, or if you’re just curious,” Danny says. “But I did kind of blow you off near the end of things. I should have told you what was going on.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a pack of cigarettes, but he doesn’t take any out of the carton. “First of all, Mom and Thaddeus are getting divorced.”
“Oh, shit,” I say. I wait for him to elaborate because I know for a fact he hated his step-father. Hell, he probably celebrated when they finalized the divorce, as mean as that sounds.
“They weren’t getting along anymore,” Daniel says, “although that’s not why they’re splitting. My step-brother got arrested,” he says. I don’t know anything about his step-brother except his name, so that’s what I say.
“Mark?” I ask. Daniel takes a cigarette out of the pack and holds it in his hands. Doesn’t light it, just looks at it.
“Yeah, Mark.” He laughs. “Did you know I was pretty old when we met? Him, too. I was fourteen, already in high school.”
“I don’t know, I mean.” I don’t really want to contradict him, but fourteen is pretty young to me. I got my first laptop at fourteen, and probably my first zit or something. It’s not even old enough to drive, but I don’t say anything, I just let him talk.
“Anyway, he got arrested. At first I thought, for shoplifting. ‘Cause he did that a lot.” Daniel’s family is rolling in cash, so the idea of poor little rich kid Mark stealing from corner stores makes me more than a little annoyed. I still don’t say so. Daniel looks faraway, almost dreamy, only the cigarette between his fingers grounding him. He lowers his voice.
“But no. Not shoplifting.” He feels around his pockets like he’s looking for something--probably a lighter--but gives up. “Some fifteen year old. He said she looked older, but who knows.”
“Wait, what? Fifteen? What the fuck?” My voice is lowered too. I feel like I’m going to go to jail just talking about this guy.
“Yeah, it shook all of us up. Me most of all. I loved him, you know. Nobody thinks I mean it when I say that. But I do.” He lifts the cigarette to his lips but then, just as suddenly, puts it away completely. “God, I really do. I even miss him sometimes. Can you believe that? I don’t want to. I really don’t. But I do.”
I hate myself for thinking this, but I wonder: what did Daniel mean when he said they were close? God, I don’t want to know. I hate to say this, but Karl was right. I really shouldn’t have called.
“He’s a criminal,” I say. “Daniel. There’s a name for that, you know. It’s statutory rape.” I’m almost whispering at this point.
“I know that,” Daniel hisses. “God, don’t you think I know that? I never said he was nice.
I just wish none of it had happened, that’s all. Does that make me bad? Tell me I’m not a bad person. Please,” he says, and his eyes are wet, “tell me I’m not a bad person.”
I stand up again.
“I’m sorry,” I say. That’s all I can manage. I walk away with him still repeating that, still begging me to confirm whether or not he’s a victim.
Once I get to my Camry, I open my phone and look at the album one last time. Danny’s beautiful face smiles back at me, promising we can be a normal couple, promising we’ll be together forever. Fucked up little fish, I think. Just like at the aquarium. I understand him better now, although I wish I didn’t. Like Danny, I wish none of it had happened.
I press delete. Just like that.