But Blue Was Just A Color 

The storm, though untimely, was not unexpected. The clamor of coked-out college kids and stale hip-hop fizzled out more with each step, until reaching the shore we could hardly discern it from the harsh coming of the rain. 

I exhaled smoke and coughed, the tip of my cigarette a world ablaze three inches from my face, but my eyes were on him. 

His name was Jim and I loved him. 

Trembling, bottle in hand, I clung to him like my life depended on it. Maybe it did. Mormons knocking at our foreheads as the premature hangover set in, so hammered we were. Alcohol or adoration, to chase culprits is to miss the point.  

We fell, sand soon our companion. Inconsolable giggling. A hiccup. “I just—” Another. “Like, once they’re gone, they—” Yet another. “They . . . oh, yeah, they never grow back!”

“Del, what are you talking about?” said Jim, stifling a laugh. He snagged the bottle, took a long pull. 

“Baby teeth! I had a dream where they—they fell out of my mouth! And I—and I knew they would never be back and they were gone forever and I would never—never get a chance to relive—” 

Jim freed a laugh from his throat-prison. “Baby teeth? How’s that even related—”

“It is, I’m telling you it is!” 

“How so?” 

His eyebrows. Divorced from them, I knew nothing of heaven: them, cocking toward it; me, following. “Because . . . when I woke up and I saw you I knew—I knew it was all ok. What I lost, I found in you.” 

Jim, cackling. “So, I’m . . . baby teeth?” 

“Damn it, Jim, you know what I mean.” 

The tide rose, water licking our feet. 

“I . . . I think baby teeth were a stupid analogy.”  

Rain came down harder, world faded out. 

He continued. “It’s just—I’ve never needed anyone to feel good, which is good, because I think some people need others to fill some void they can’t fill on their own, you know? And I think . . . I think I still feel that way, but there’s also part of me that thinks . . . that that’s a lie. Sort of.” 

“Jim, I don’t understand—” 

“I’ve never needed anyone to feel good, but now I think I need someone—to feel. Not just good. Good and bad. Everything. All feelings at all times.” 

Cactus beating in my chest. 

“I love you, Del—no, it’s more than that. You are love. I feel through you in ways I don’t even think I understand. Del, I need you to know you’re part of me.” 

It was cold and he made me warm. I was a jellyfish and he the ocean. I would be born and live and ultimately die in the vastness of his being.

The silence was suspended. Throngs of people, partygoers, mumbling, stumbling over sidewalks, searching for a way out. The weather, too. Rainfall more determined, water more turbulent, waves more eager. They were approaching, the soberless, our moment imperiled. 

“I’m not ready.” 

“Neither am I.” 

“Then where can we go?” 

Jim proposed the dock, only the dock wasn’t a dock per se but a platform detached, a floating dock, a wooden island in violent waters, yet somehow it was home. Would be, anyway, if only we could get there. 

“Let’s do it.” 

Jim grinned, a stupid, immaculate grin, the kind to feed families if families could eat perfection. 

“You’re sure?” 

“Jim, I would follow you anywhere.” 

Pulling in, he kissed a kiss that made my mouth a canvas. We struggled to our feet, sand clinging like unwanted memories, and stumbled a few paces. Jim brought the bottle to his lips, tried a swig, and, finding it empty, whispered into it and threw it as far as he could into the water. 

“What did you whisper?” 

“If I tell you, it won’t come true!” 

It was cold and the rain fell unchecked and the waters they sloshed like a vendetta against us, and maybe just maybe it was so. The water was so blue, but blue was just a color with him.

His white shirt stuck to thin thin frame as I peeled it peeled it peeled it off and he peeled mine though mine was blue but blue we knew was just a color and though now both our shirts were off the pants the pants the pants were not but the thing was addressed and we stood there undressed once peeling was repeated.  

Whether on land or in water was impossible to tell. Each step he took was one too many for me when he and I were left alone and so each time I’d step the same to keep us both together. He grabbed my hand and we were one and holy hell did the water chill but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because he made it not.  

The dock was two hundred yards out and the rain was coming down like a gay comes out only down (not out) so we went straight oh as straight as a love so queer as ours could go until we were ten twenty thirty feet out into the endless. Two three four-hundred-and-fifty feet out. As salt stabbed eyes and cold cut thighs he turned to me both gargling and speaking. 

“I don’t know if I can make it,” said one half. 

“Just grab my hand,” replied the other. 

With fifty feet to go he reached out and grabbed me and drunk and laughing and tumbling through the water it dawned on me how easy dying could be. And if life was just foreplay then what did that make death? Thinking thoughts like these I cried though the rain and the waves I knew would outdo me. Only they didn’t. They did not.

As water began to choke us we remembered maybe drowning was no good just then with more feelings to share more moments to exchange and so I told him no baby no let’s keep going we’re almost there I love you so much and he said he loved me too and we kept pushing, kept pushing until once no longer guided by our eyes the dock was made known by a bump on the head as in this was our island. The sky was our witness, and the waves and the rain. Maybe lightning, I couldn’t say. 

We pulled ourselves to the surface, grounded. That was when the subjective found outlet in the physical: residual garments peeled, whispers, embraces tight and ongoing, adult teeth, breath fueling declared affections, I love you, No, you.  Though rain hammered down and waves harassed us, we declared it not abuse but jealousy. The ocean covets the shore.  It does not love. 

A memory from childhood: In the kitchen. I ask my mom why she chose to spell my name with only one L. She says when she first told my dad she was pregnant, he wrote it off as a delusion. “You’re my Delusion,” she tells me, “and sometimes delusions are better than the real thing.” 

“Del!” 

I came back. “What?” 

“The dock!” 

It shuddered, felt unstable. The storm had escalated. Jim and I we shared a glance, and in that glance I saw divinity. He was my God. My God.

“Maybe we should head back,” he proposed. 

“I don’t know if I can.” And I didn’t.  

“Then what are we doing? I don’t think I can take you all the way.” 

I paused, feeling something. 

“How about we stay?” 

“What? Are you crazy?” 

“Probably, and maybe this is terrible, but I think . . . staying here, with you, would make me happy.” 

In pseudo-silence we sat a few moments, dock swaying all the while. 

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Del . . . I think you’re right.”

“You do?” 

“I do.” 

I, too, said, “I do,” and in that moment we were married, with the wild waves and the rumbling rain and the decrepit dock all bearing witness. We kissed, newlyweds. 

And that was when wood splintered and floor gave way and solid was liquid as we moved and fell (though not nearly as hard as before) and matter shifted as bubbles fell upward and we continued falling, falling without end because nothing could or would catch us. 

We made it all the way to the bottom and could not speak for water is not good for speaking but although the salt burned our eyes peeled they remained and we looked both looking and through that look we shared how we felt because words are just tools and we were beyond that.

The bubbles fell closer and closer to the surface as upward we drifted, before long our bodies half-wet, half-half-wet, three-quarters wet on account of the rain but through this I held him still, I held him and forced my eyes to stay open a few moments longer if only to see his brilliant face, to see that brilliant face seeing my face that was not so ugly when looking at his, our gaze sustained until a big wave came along and knocked us out for the second time that day. 

Closer we pulled as the water washed over and the envious ocean drew us deeper, deeper, toward the object of its covet. 

* * *

“We got him!” came a slurred shout. 

Del’s eyes flicked dazedly open. A partygoer was carrying him to shore. 

“Hey, you’re awake! You gotta be careful, man, swimming out there all by yourself.” 

Del pushed him off, uneasy. “What do you mean? Where’s Jim?” 

“Who?” 

“The one I swam out with, where is he?” 

“I didn’t see anyone else . . . maybe he swam back on his own?” 

“No, he wouldn’t do that.” 

“But in a life-or-death situation—” 

“He wouldn’t! He’s out there and we’re wasting time!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—I’ll go look for him, ok?” Pressing no further, the savior returned to the rubble. Alone, Del waded ashore. No sooner had he emerged than an acute pain seized his body, depriving him of air and forcing him to his knees. While regaining his breath a broken wave crept toward him, bringing with it something cool, something heavy. 

Cold, confused, and with little left to lose, he grabbed the bottle and brought it to his ear.