"Refreshing vigor? I'm so far gone I don't even have the energy for philosophical abandon."
We were quiet for a moment and then burst out laughing, but it was that crazy laugh where you're so pitiful and mopey that suddenly it's just funny. I'm like that now, only without the laughing and the witty Brechtian banter.
Pants does this act every now and then that I call Mr. Pitiful, and it makes me laugh to the point of hiccups. Mr. Pitiful sits against a wall and flops his arms out limply to either side of him, droops his head, and pokes out his lower lip. He then begins to list all the fantastical ways that I abuse him in a voice barely above a whisper.
"You kicked me in my teeth this morning to wake me up. Then you filled up the bathtub with vinegar and and lemon juice and gave me a bunch of paper cuts and made me get in."
"Oh stop--!" I'll yell, holding my sides. But this means "keep going."
"You said you were going to pack me a lunch, but when I got to work, the bag was full of spiders. And there was a note inside that said you threw away all my underwear. When I got home, you had put hot tar in all my shoes."
The whole time he stares at the floor and shakes his head, and I nearly lose it.
Pants has been gone for almost a month. Or maybe more. I can't remember what day he left. In the time that he's been gone, an essay that I wrote about the two of us, how we've handled all the moves and speed and uncertainty of Navy life, how I still struggle with it, has made its way to Ireland and back. I didn't fully expect it to get published in this magazine, but I also didn't expect it to come back with insightful feedback and a promise for a second look if I can rework a few things. Among my writer friends, this is called a "reject-plus," and is cause for feeling closer to the published end of the spectrum than the completely ignored end.
The problem is that the request for reworking came with the wise and insightful counsel to "tell it straighter." I took this to mean cut closer to the heart of the issue, be less elliptical. In the third (or fourth?) week of Pants's absence, this route is hard to take. Cutting closer brings me to questions of cutting completely, and dangerously close to the phrase "I can't do this anymore." I'm angry at him and I ache for him at the same time.
Mrs. Pitiful slouches in the corner and recites a list of months that you won't be here. You'll miss her birthday this year. You'll miss the entire Spring semester and the entire summer next year. She's found a song (a song, for Christ's sake) by Aqualung that says it all perfectly, and when it came on the iPod's random cycle in the car yesterday, she had to pull over because she couldn't see for sobbing.
This is the video, and it's what loving him feels like right now.
"Pressure Suit"
Two spheres, two spinning spheres
in a bed of stars
Silence is super
Staring out into space, I wonder where you are
You're all that I've ever needed
I know that you won't feel it
Drift out into darkness
Lost out on horizon
It's alright, it's alright
I'll be your respirator
I'll be your pressure suit
It's alright, it's alright
Violently clear the upper atmosphere
Raging out your heart
Somewhere far beneath
Your pointed tongue and teeth
Is where you really are
Don't want to be forgiven
But drag you down from where you are
Drift out in the horizon
Lost out on horizon
It's alright, it's alright
I'll be your respirator
I'll be your parachute
It's alright, it's alright
I will not let you go
Two spinning spheres, they spin together
I'm going to spin alone
I don't know how I can do this
I don't know how to get through
It's alright, it's alright
I can't stop loving you
I can't stop loving you
I can't stop loving you
I can't stop loving you
I can't stop loving you
I can't stop loving you
I'll be your respirator
I'll be your pressure suit
It's alright, it's alright
I'll be your four-leaf clover
I'll be your pressure suit
I'll be your angel wings
I'll be your parachute
I can't stop loving you
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