Free A Horse Named Sorrow by Trebor Healey

what I looked like through a third eye. Probably like one of my friggin’ paintings.”
    He looked offended and furrowed his brow again. “Hey, I like your paintings.”
    â€œDo you really?”
    â€œYeah, I do.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know, it’s like you turn your anger into something funny. I don’t know how to do that. I mean, my poetry isn’t funny.”
    â€œYour tattoo is funny.”
    â€œFuck you,” he said with a smile. The timbre of his voice.
    â€œYour anger is actually kinda sexy, Jimmy.”
    â€œNice to know it makes someone happy.”
    â€œSee? You’re sarcastic. That’s a kind of funny.”
    He nodded and sighed.
    â€œIf we were clowns, Jimmy, you’d be like the hobo clown with the frown … and I’d be like the white facepaint psycho kind.”
    He guffawed. “You’re not as crazy as you think you are.”
    â€œAnd you’re not as serious, Jimmy. You always laugh after you cum.”
    â€œMaybe that’s because sex is sort of ridiculous once you’ve gotten it out of your system.”
    â€œOr maybe we need to have more sex so things are funnier?” Brows high, the question that was my face.
    He guffawed again. “You are crazy.” And he kissed me. And not long after that we were naked and pretty soon we were laughing too.
    And then Jimmy was up on his feet and ready to go out for coffee.
    And like we did a million times (I wish, but it was more like a few dozen, Jimmy not being here that long—it felt like a million all the same), off we’d go to sit in cafés like two kids with our projects. He’d lay out his strings, a handful he’d tied to his wrist that morning after removing them from the bike. Me, I’d sit and sketch up new Marie Antoinette ideas: as Ronald Reagan ( let them eat ketchup ); as a Palestinian teenager ( let them live in refugee camps for three generations ); as two guys having sex ( let them laugh like clowns ).
    â€œYou’re more of a performer than a painter, I think,” Jimmy said.
    â€œI’m no artist, am I, Jimmy? These things are crap.”
    He laughed, and then he stopped when he saw I wasn’t saying it humorously.
    â€œMaybe you should take an acting class or something.”
    â€œYeah, then we could become porn stars and laugh at each other,” I sighed.
    He rolled his eyes. “I just mean it’s good to try something different for a change.”
    â€œLike fight no more forever?”
    He nodded with gravity, as if he weren’t sure whether I meant it like he’d mean it or if I was just being smart-aleck ironic and/or defensive.
    â€œI’m sorry, Jimmy … I just meant …”
    Funny till I wasn’t. Then I’d get all apologetic and it would annoy him. “Sorry, Jimmy. Good Mr. Jimmy. Sorry to bring you down.”
    He knew where that was going. He reached over and shook me hard by the shoulder. “Hey. Pull yourself together. What’s the matter?”
    â€œI talk too much. I say the wrong shit all the time.” And I shook my head.
    â€œJust stop.” He shrugged. Easy for him to say.
    I looked at him. “It’s just the soup, Jimmy.”
    â€œPull.”
    â€œI don’t know how to love you,” I said, but in my mind I was singing Jesus Christ Superstar .
    He put his finger to his mouth, then leaned across the table and kissed me on the forehead. “That’s how.”
    He went back to his strings, and I pulled.
    And pull meant all sorts of things: shut up and pull yourself together; pull the rope of your life—because I’d let it all run out all over the floor with my endless chatter. Or it was like skeet-shooting even: pull, concentrate, aim, and fire.
    Jimmy in a white T-shirt with his ratty green sweater over it, the dark scruff of his chin running all the way down to his Adam’s apple, which was a red delicious, so