Old Carlos or New?

Somehow during this last spate of desolation, my lank dark hair has grown long and wildly lustrous.

“Amazing,” Carlos says as I toss it back, out of my way.

[This is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here for the first episode, or here for the previous one.]

“If I weren’t so benevolent,” I say, “so saintly, if you will, I’d make you crawl.”

This is too much, and we both start to laugh.  Carlos, reverting to form, harrumphs,  “Yeah, right.”  Except instantly then, the new, more submissive guy is back:  Lying on his side, hand propping his head, Carlos picks at the sheet, stares at his fingers, and mumbles.  Of course he is still Carlos with the same old complaint.  It’s just that instead of shaking his fist in anger, he’s whining!  “For twelve years, I did all the work and you bagged the money.  And now, for ten minutes—our roles get switched.”

“Ten minutes, Carlos?  For ten minutes I do the work and you bag the money?  You’d die if I left!”

Sitting up cross-legged, naked, old Carlos or new, I can’t really tell, shrugs this off, as if, so what, why should he care?  Alive or dead, it’s all the same to him.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”  I say, heading for the door.  “You’d die if I left!  You can’t live without me!”  The situation couldn’t be plainer:  I’m on top;  I have the advantage.  But—it’s taking me forever to cross the room. 

I hate to look; and yet—I cannot not look:  Carlos is getting dressed.  In this light, my lust slaked, I can see how shorn and skinny he is, how hairless and withered.  So leave the room, Malcolm.  But, my God, there’s no escaping it.  Awkward, unsatisfying, infinitely lamentable—no matter what I say, it’s not completely over.  Repercussions are camping out around the block.

I was almost out the door, home free, when I stopped and turned around.  Because there was that finger snapping sensation.  That wait a minute, what’ve-I-forgotten hesitation that’s impossible to ignore.

So back in the room, arms folded, I huff and puff:  “All right, what is it?”

And Carlos tosses his head, saying,  “You do know, don’t you, the message you’re sending?  You want me to kill myself!”

“Oh please—”

“You’re hanging around to see how close I’ll come.”

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