A Little Life

  When he regains consciousness, he is on the floor near the back of the sofa, and the house is silent. “Hello?” he calls, hating the quaver in his voice, but he doesn’t hear anything. He doesn’t need to—he knows, somehow, that he is alone.

  He sits up. He pulls up his underwear and pants and flexes his fingers, his hands, brings his knees to his chest and back down again, moves his shoulders back and forward, turns his neck from left to right. There is something sticky on the back of his neck, but when he examines it, he’s relieved to see it’s not blood but wine. Everything hurts, but nothing is broken.

  He crawls to the bedroom. He quickly cleans himself off in the bathroom and gathers his things and puts them in his bag. He scuttles to the door. For an instant he is afraid that his car will have disappeared, and he will be stranded, but it is there, next to Caleb’s, waiting for him. He checks his watch: it is midnight.

  He moves his way across the lawn on his hands and knees, his bag slung painfully over one shoulder, the two hundred feet between the door and the car transforming themselves into miles. He wants to stop, he is so tired, but he knows he must not.

  In the car, he doesn’t look at his reflection in the mirror; he starts the engine and drives away. But about half an hour later, once he knows he is far enough from the house to be safe, he begins to shake, so badly that the car swerves beneath him, and he pulls off the road to wait, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel.

  He waits for ten minutes, twenty. And then he turns, although the very movement is a punishment, and finds his phone in his bag. He dials Willem’s number and waits.

  “Jude!” says Willem, sounding surprised. “I was just going to call you.”

  “Hi, Willem,” he says, and hopes his voice sounds normal. “I guess I read your thoughts.”

  They talk for a few minutes, and then Willem asks, “Are you okay?”

  “Of course,” he says.

  “You sound a little strange.”

  Willem, he wants to say. Willem, I wish you were here. But instead he says, “Sorry. I just have a headache.”

  They talk some more, and as they’re about to hang up, Willem says, “You’re sure you’re okay.”

  “Yes,” he says. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay,” says Willem. “Okay.” And then, “Five more weeks.”

  “Five more.” He wishes for Willem so intensely he can barely breathe.

  After they hang up, he waits for another ten minutes, until he finally stops shaking, and then he starts the car again and drives the rest of the way home.

  The next day, he makes himself look at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and nearly cries out in shame and shock and misery. He is so deformed, so astoundingly ugly—even for him, it is extraordinary. He makes himself as presentable as he can; he puts on his favorite suit. Caleb had kicked him in his side, and every movement, every breath, is painful. Before he leaves the house, he makes an appointment with the dentist because he can feel that one of his upper teeth has been knocked loose, and an appointment at Andy’s for that evening.

  He goes to work. “This is not a good look for you, St. Francis,” one of the other senior partners, whom he likes a lot, says at the morning management committee meeting, and everyone laughs.

  He forces a smile. “I’m afraid you’re right,” he says. “And I’m sure you’ll all be disappointed when I announce that my days as a potential Paralympic tennis champion are, sadly, over.”

  “Well, I’m not sad,” says Lucien, as everyone around the table groans in mock disappointment. “You get plenty of aggression out in court. I think that should be your sole combat sport from now on.”

  That night at his appointment, Andy swears at him. “What’d I say about tennis, Jude?” he asks.

  “I know,” he says. “But never again, Andy, I promise.”

  “What’s this?” Andy asks, placing his fingers on the back of his neck.

  He sighs, theatrically. “I turned, and there was an incident with a nasty backhand.” He waits for Andy to say something, but he doesn’t, only smears some antibiotic cream on his neck and then bandages it.

  The next day, Andy calls him at his office. “I need to talk to you in person,” he says. “It’s important. Can you meet me somewhere?”

  He’s alarmed. “Is everything okay?” he asks. “Are you all right, Andy?”

  “I’m fine,” Andy says. “But I need to see you.”

  He takes an early dinner break and they meet near his office, at a bar whose regular customers are the Japanese bankers who work in the tower next to Rosen Pritchard’s. Andy is already there when he arrives, and he places his palm, gently, on the unmarked side of his face.

  “I ordered you a beer,” Andy says.

  They drink in silence and then Andy says, “Jude, I wanted to see your face when I asked you this. But are you—are you hurting yourself?”

  “What?” he asks, surprised.

  “These tennis accidents,” Andy says, “are they actually—something else? Are you throwing yourself down stairs or against walls, or something?” He takes a breath. “I know you used to do that when you were a kid. Are you doing it again?”

  “No, Andy,” he says. “No. I’m not doing this to myself. I swear to you. I swear on—on Harold and Julia. I swear on Willem.”

  “Okay,” Andy says, exhaling. “I mean, that’s a relief. It’s a relief to know you’re just being a bonehead and not following doctor’s orders, which, of course, is nothing new. And, apparently, that you’re a terrible tennis player.” He smiles, and he makes himself smile back.

  Andy orders them more beers, and for a while, they are quiet. “Do you know, Jude,” Andy says, slowly, “that over the years I have wondered and wondered what to do about you? No, don’t say anything—let me finish. I would—I do—lie awake at night asking myself if I’m making the right decisions about you: there’ve been so many times when I was so close to having you committed, to calling Harold or Willem and telling them that we needed to get together and have you taken to a hospital. I’ve talked to classmates of mine who are shrinks and told them about you, about this patient I’m very close to, and asked them what they would do in my position. I’ve listened to all their advice. I’ve listened to my shrink’s advice. But no one can ever tell me for certain what the right answer is.

  “I’ve tortured myself about this. But I’ve always felt—you’re so high-functioning in so many ways, and you’ve achieved this weird but undeniably successful equilibrium in your life, that I felt that, I don’t know, I just shouldn’t upset it. You know? So I’ve let you go on cutting yourself year after year, and every year, every time I see you, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by letting you do so, and how and if I should be pushing harder to get you help, to make you stop doing this to yourself.”

  “I’m sorry, Andy,” he whispers.

  “No, Jude,” Andy says. “It’s not your fault. You’re the patient. I’m supposed to figure out what’s best for you, and I feel—I don’t know if I have. So when you came in with bruises, the first thing I thought was that I had made the wrong decision after all. You know?” Andy looks at him, and he is surprised once more to see Andy swipe, quickly, at his eyes. “All these years,” says Andy, after a pause, and they are both quiet again.

  “Andy,” he says, wanting to cry himself. “I swear to you I’m not doing anything else to myself. Just the cutting.”

  “Just the cutting!” Andy repeats, and makes a strange squawk of laughter. “Well, I suppose—given the context—I have to be grateful for that. ‘Just the cutting.’ You know how messed up that is, right, that that should be such a relief to me?”

  “I know,” he says.

  Tuesday turns to Wednesday, and then to Thursday; his face feels worse, and then better, and then worse again. He had worried that Caleb might call him or, worse, materialize at his apartment, but the days pass and he doesn’t: maybe he has stayed out in Bridgehampton. Maybe he has gotten run over by a car. He fin
ds, oddly, that he feels nothing—not fear, not hate, not anything. The worst has happened, and now he is free. He has had a relationship, and it was awful, and now he will never need to have one again, because he has proven himself incapable of being in one. His time with Caleb has confirmed everything he feared people would think of him, of his body, and his next task is to learn to accept that, and to do so without sorrow. He knows he will still probably feel lonely in the future, but now he has something to answer that loneliness; now he knows for certain that loneliness is the preferable state to whatever it was—terror, shame, disgust, dismay, giddiness, excitement, yearning, loathing—he felt with Caleb.

  That Friday he sees Harold, who is in town for a conference at Columbia. He had already written Harold to warn him of his injury, but it doesn’t stop Harold from overreacting, exclaiming and fussing over him and asking him dozens of times if he is actually all right.

  They have met at one of Harold’s favorite restaurants, where the beef comes from cows that the chef has named and raised himself on a farm upstate, and the vegetables are grown on the roof of the building, and they are talking and eating their entrées—he is careful to only chew on the right side of his mouth, and to avoid letting any food come in contact with his new tooth—when he senses someone standing near their table, and when he looks up, it is Caleb, and although he had convinced himself he feels nothing, he is immediately, overwhelmingly terrified.

  He had never seen Caleb drunk in their time together, but he can tell instantly that he is, and in a dangerous mood. “Your secretary told me where you were,” Caleb says to him. “You must be Harold,” he says, and extends his hand to Harold, who shakes it, looking bewildered.

  “Jude?” Harold asks him, but he can’t speak.

  “Caleb Porter,” says Caleb, and slides into the semicircular booth, pressing against his side. “Your son and I are dating.”

  Harold looks at Caleb, and then at him, and opens his mouth, speechless for the first time since he has known him.

  “Let me ask you something,” Caleb says to Harold, leaning in as if delivering a confidence, and he stares at Caleb’s face, his vulpine handsomeness, his dark, glinting eyes. “Be honest. Don’t you ever wish you had a normal son, not a cripple?”

  For a moment, no one says anything, and he can feel something, a current, sizzle in the air. “Who the fuck are you?” hisses Harold, and then he watches Harold’s face change, his features contorting so quickly and violently from shock to disgust to anger that he looks, for an instant, inhuman, a ghoul in Harold’s clothing. And then his expression changes again, and he watches something harden in Harold’s face, as if his very muscles are ossifying before him.

  “You did this to him,” he says to Caleb, very slowly. And then to him, in dismay, “It wasn’t tennis, was it, Jude. This man did this to you.”

  “Harold, don’t,” he begins to say, but Caleb has grabbed his wrist, and is gripping it so hard that he feels it might be breaking. “You little liar,” he says to him. “You’re a cripple and a liar and a bad fuck. And you’re right—you’re disgusting. I couldn’t even look at you, not ever.”

  “Get the fuck out of here,” says Harold, biting down on each word. They are all of them speaking in whispers, but the conversation feels so loud, and the rest of the restaurant so silent, that he is certain everyone can hear them.

  “Harold, don’t,” he begs him. “Stop, please.”

  But Harold doesn’t listen to him. “I’m going to call the police,” he says, and Caleb slides out of the booth and stands, and Harold stands as well. “Get out of here right now,” Harold repeats, and now everyone really is looking in their direction, and he is so mortified that he feels sick.

  “Harold,” he pleads.

  He can tell from Caleb’s swaying motion that he is really very drunk, and when he pushes at Harold’s shoulder, Harold is about to push back when he finds his voice, finally, and shouts Harold’s name, and Harold turns to him and lowers his arm. Caleb gives him his small smile, then, and turns and leaves, shoving past some of the waiters who have silently gathered around him.

  Harold stands there for a moment, staring at the door, and then begins to follow Caleb, and he calls Harold’s name again, desperate, and Harold comes back to him.

  “Jude—” Harold begins, but he shakes his head. He is so angry, so furious, that his humiliation has almost been eclipsed by his rage. Around them, he can hear people’s conversations resuming. He hails their waiter and gives him his credit card, which is returned to him in what feels like seconds. He doesn’t have his wheelchair today, for which he is enormously, bitterly grateful, and in those moments he is leaving the restaurant, he feels he has never been so nimble, has never moved so quickly or decisively.

  Outside, it is pouring. His car is parked a block away, and he shuffles down the sidewalk, Harold silent at his side. He is so livid he wishes he could not give Harold a ride at all, but they are on the east side, near Avenue A, and Harold will never be able to find a cab in the rain.

  “Jude—” Harold says once they’re in the car, but he interrupts him, keeping his eyes on the road before him. “I was begging you not to say anything, Harold,” he says. “And you did anyway. Why did you do that, Harold? You think my life is a joke? You think my problems are just an opportunity for you to grandstand?” He doesn’t even know what he means, doesn’t know what he’s trying to say.

  “No, Jude, of course not,” says Harold, his voice gentle. “I’m sorry—I just lost it.”

  This sobers him for some reason, and for a few blocks they are silent, listening to the sluice of the wipers.

  “Were you really going out with him?” Harold asks.

  He gives a single, terse nod. “But not anymore?” Harold asks, and he shakes his head. “Good,” Harold mutters. And then, very softly, “Did he hit you?”

  He has to wait and control himself before he can answer. “Only a few times,” he says.

  “Oh, Jude,” says Harold, in a voice he has never heard Harold use before.

  “Let me ask you something, though,” Harold says, as they edge down Fifteenth Street, past Sixth Avenue. “Jude—why were you going out with someone who would treat you like that?”

  He doesn’t answer for another block, trying to think of what he could say, how he could articulate his reasons in a way Harold would understand. “I was lonely,” he says, finally.

  “Jude,” Harold says, and stops. “I understand that,” he says. “But why him?”

  “Harold,” he says, and he hears how awful, how wretched, he sounds, “when you look like I do, you have to take what you can get.”

  They are quiet again, and then Harold says, “Stop the car.”

  “What?” he says. “I can’t. There are people behind me.”

  “Stop the damn car, Jude,” Harold repeats, and when he doesn’t, Harold reaches over and grabs the wheel and pulls it sharply to the right, into an empty space in front of a fire hydrant. The car behind passes them, its horn bleating a long, warning note.

  “Jesus, Harold!” he yells. “What the hell are you trying to do? You nearly got us into an accident!”

  “Listen to me, Jude,” says Harold slowly, and reaches for him, but he pulls himself back against the window, away from Harold’s hands. “You are the most beautiful person I have ever met—ever.”

  “Harold,” he says, “stop, stop. Please stop.”

  “Look at me, Jude,” says Harold, but he can’t. “You are. It breaks my heart that you can’t see this.”

  “Harold,” he says, and he is almost moaning, “please, please. If you care about me, you’ll stop.”

  “Jude,” says Harold, and reaches for him again, but he flinches, and brings his hands up to protect himself. Out of the edge of his eye, he can see Harold lower his hand, slowly.

  He finally puts his hands back on the steering wheel, but they are shaking too badly for him to start the ignition, and he tucks them under his thighs, waiting. “Oh god,” he
hears himself repeating, “oh god.”

  “Jude,” Harold says again.

  “Leave me alone, Harold,” he says, and now his teeth are chattering as well, and it is difficult for him to speak. “Please.”

  They sit there in silence for minutes. He concentrates on the sound of the rain, the traffic light turning red and green and orange, and the count of his breaths. Finally his shaking stops, and he starts the car and drives west, and north, up to Harold’s building.

  “Come stay in the apartment tonight,” Harold says, turning to him, but he shakes his head, staring straight ahead. “At least come up and have a cup of tea and wait until you feel a little better,” but he shakes his head again. “Jude,” Harold says, “I’m really sorry—for everything, for all of it.” He nods, but still can’t say anything. “Will you call me if you need anything?” Harold persists, and he nods again. And then Harold reaches his hand up, slowly, as if he is a feral animal, and strokes the back of his head, twice, before getting out, closing the door softly behind him.

  He takes the West Side Highway home. He is so sore, so depleted: but now his humiliations are complete. He has been punished enough, he thinks, even for him. He will go home, and cut himself, and then he will begin forgetting: this night in particular, but also the past four months.

  At Greene Street he parks in the garage and rides the elevator up past the silent floors, clinging to the cage-door mesh; he is so tired that he will slump to the ground if he doesn’t. Richard is away for the fall at a residency in Rome, and the building is sepulchral around him.

  He steps into his darkened apartment and is feeling for the light switch when something clots him, hard, on the swollen side of his face, and even in the dark he can see his new tooth project itself into the air.

  It is Caleb, of course, and he can hear and smell his breath even before Caleb flicks the master switch and the apartment is illuminated, dazzlingly, into something brighter than day, and he looks up and sees Caleb above him, peering down at him. Even drunk, he is composed, and now some of his drunkenness has been clarified by rage, and his gaze is steady and focused. He feels Caleb grab him by his hair, feels him hit him on the right side of his face, the good one, feels his head snapping backward in response.