Barcelona
In memory of Stephen Sondheim.
I tried to make as little noise as possible. I knew I couldn’t be silent. I wanted to maintain the level of noise that I had established when I had first woken up. Slowly I shoved my socks and underwear in the shoes, then wrapped my jeans around the shoes and tucked the makeshift package under my arm. I froze. The still-burning candle on his desk flickered as a warm morning breeze blew through the open window. He had been curled up on his side, more like a dying man than a sleeping one but the breeze made him stretch out. He flicked a hand across to where I would have been and touched only a patch of damp sheets. The eye not buried in his pillow creaked open. I tried to make it look like I was just going to the bathroom, but I had my clothing package with me. I waited him for him to speak. He cleared his throat before he spoke.
“Where yah goin’?”
“Pardon?”
“I asked you-”
He rolled away from me and made a single lunge for his packet of cigarettes. But he didn’t reach far enough and collapsed back down on his back.
“Where are you going?”
Suddenly, he lunged again and snapped up his crumpled pack crumpled cigarette like a heron catching a fish out of a river.
“Barcelona”
It was the only place I could think of. But there was a finality in the name. Like Barcelona was the place all the good men go. He tugged loose a tissue from between his pristine copy of Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo that sat on his bedside table. Gently, he padded at sweat on his nose and forehead using the tissue. Afterwards, I was struck by how near-human about this gesture was. It reminded me of an ape learning to use tools. I could picture the row of highly-strung zoologists standing behind the bedroom window. Sipping black coffee. Quietly congratulating themselves on the success of their experiment. How effortless he looks dab sweat away in that laissez faire way.
“Oh-”
The cigarette sat unlit in his mouth as if he expected a butler to skim into the room and light it for him. His small neck bulged out like a toad.
“Stay a minute”
Then the neck retreated into its typical avian scragginess. I’ll give him this, all things considered, he was disturbingly flexible. Like that way that octopi are intelligent enough to open jars and learn sing language.
“I can do that”
“Thanks”
A silence hangs between us. I sit on the edge of the bed. Just a little too far for contact to occur between us. His black cat meowed in the other room. A small cry for help or food. Isn’t that why we all make noise, when you get down to it? Really? Isn’t that what we all crave? Help and food?
“Alright, what have you got planned for the rest of the day?”
“I’ve been watching the part in ‘Analyse This’ where Robert De Niro starts crying on Billy Crystal’s shoulder about how he killed his father because he recognized the busboy was an assassin and said nothing over and over and over-”.
From beneath the sheet, his legs began to wriggle back and forth like a snake’s tail.
“Is ‘Analyse Fish’ like a movie?”
“Analyse This, it’s called Analyse This. In my opinion, it’s the greatest piece of filmmaking I think I have ever seen. Have you seen it?”
“No”
“Well, I think it’s the greatest piece of filmmaking-”
“I should go”.
His left went rigid on their joints and bent, like the legs of an insect.
“Right of course, Barcelona”.
He said the name of that distant Iberian city like it was an inside joke. I rose to leave. Again, the black cat meowed.
“I’ll see you again soon”.
“I hope so, I mean I’ll just be here watching Analyse This, or the subway episode from Seinfeld”.
Something in me felt compelled to sit back on the bed.
“You know, you know, you could stay?”
The black cat let out a final meow.
“Barcelona”.
Nicolas Van Der Haar is a quietly queer and autistic writer. Previous work can be read at The Victorian Reader, Antithesis Magazine and Vagabond Fiction. He enjoys brisk walks and bird watching. He can be reached on Instagram: @nic_noc_nac
