Free The Angel of History by Alameddine Rabih

on which Kawahi had written in blood or red lipstick, WATCH YOUR DUMB , but of course at my height I didn’t have to worry about hitting either my head or my dumb, whatever that meant. Deke’s flat, shaggy blond hair told me he’d skipped his shower that morning and probably the day before as well. His hands languidly parked in the pockets of gray mechanic’s overalls without a name on his left breast, which was why I asked him for it when I shook his hand, and you know that I don’t have a strong grip, you used to enjoy calling me Limp Wrist, but Deke made sure to squeeze so hard I almost felt my knuckles pop, and I gasped, and he knew, he knew right then, he looked straight into me and said, Buy me a baggie, and I did, of course, anything he wanted me to do I did without question, I did, I did. Hegrabbed the bag when I offered it, glanced at his friend sitting on a filthy fauteuil, fake Italian baroque, and smirked as if saying, See, this is how you do it, get your own boy. His friend looked puzzled, not comprehending, a smaller guy, nondescript, lost in the grandness of the fauteuil, which you’d think would have looked odd in such a room but not so, everything about the place was bizarre. The filth seemed arranged, like the graffiti safe, the red lettering, the idiosyncratic collection of glue guns on a corner table, an honest-to-goodness halberd leaning against the wall, no stench at all except for the vestiges of inexpensive jasmine deodorizer, and I could imagine that Kawahi’s name was probably Lawrence or Philip, and if there were rats they’d be bejeweled, that pretend downwardly mobile decor was what frightened me, the inauthenticity of everything, one committed the most heinous of crimes to defend the make-believe.
    Deke, on the other hand, was all authentic. So fine, this blond god, hair wavy when washed, statuesque, skin the color of peonies in a Fantin-Latour painting, an ideal tone if you ignored the purple and yellow bruises that appeared once or twice a week out of the blue, blue eyes with lashes so long. He was all man, so he said, spermed a baby and everything, once beat his woman when she got out of line, she left when she got tired of his bullshit. He was no Sunday night master done up in black leather drag, he was no expert in the art of pain manipulation with a box of toys, he was the real thing, low-class grade-A trade, a little funky, a little nasty man whose every other word was fuck, fucking motherfucker, shit, or pussy. I liked the word
pussy
out of his mouth, I was that pussy, that was me, he didn’t fuck me, though, never, that would prove he wasn’t a man,unlike getting his dick sucked, prison pussy, a mouth is just a mouth, he said, and he never heard of Freud, or Gertrude Stein even though he was born and raised in Oakland.
    When I left Kawahi’s room, he came with me, didn’t say anything, didn’t talk, just walked out with me, walked like a sated big cat surveying the savanna. Outside he seemed surprised that I didn’t have a car, disappointed, but he accompanied me to my apartment. I chatted nervously about this and that, probably even the San Francisco weather, and he didn’t listen or pretend to care. He followed me into our home, looked around, asked about your room but decided not to expropriate it because he didn’t appreciate ghosts, said all phantasms and demons hated him. He claimed my room instead and my sheets and flowery duvet, and he banished me to yours. I could suck his dick but being in the same bed with another man disturbed his sleep. We smoked my rocks, then the ones I bought for him, then we went to work, he to whichever garage employed him and I to the bowels of the law firm, where the slogan JUSTICE MAY BE BLIND BUT SHE SEES IT OUR WAY 90% OF THE TIME was embossed right above the entrance to the word-processing room. All infernos have a sign on their gates. When I returned home he was there, and he relied on me to feed him and take care of him and bathe