"I find it
ironic." I said on the blanket in the dark room lit by a dozen 99 cent candles from
Wal-Mart where I had also gotten a pair of pale blue slippers like the kind black women wear to the grocery. "I can't seem to feel any other emotion in the void of real
joy."
The fan above is for once silent and still, a five fingered star, white on white. The ceramic bricks set in a metal cage on the wall glow oranges, competing and losing against the yellow tips in the glass jars. We are talking and the room is small.
"I was at my desk today and listening to a song he wrote. I looked to my right at the pictures of my parents, pictures that had been cropped from poorly framed images taken too far away. And my parents have always been that way, even in person: out of focus and far away." One cube of ice slides off another in the glass of Coke on the small table next to my elbow. I want a cigarette but wait. I end up waiting until the next morning.
"It's like I cannot feel anything unless I'm running on a joy that's already there." I look at the ceiling. "You know, those things or people you miss but can't have anymore. But you're happier without them than you would if you could have them back...that kind of thing." He nods. When he doesn't know what to say, he'll say something like, "You know what ? I really like sweet potatoes; I wish they made sweet potato candy." Usually he'll just say I don't know, but it's all ran together like one word. Either way, I'm sure he'd rather say something else but like me, he doesn't.