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--Have we met before?
He’s just as he was. Is. The aristocratic stance of England lends nothing to his posture. Eating away at himself, a wasted look to his cheekbones. The same smile. Have we? Met?
--Stephen Dedalus.
Greeted by laughter. Nothing funny in the name, no matter how Irish it may not be. In the library I would show them my card and they would squint at it. He remembers late nights. Streets in two different capitals in two different worlds. Falling, somehow, the lights in the pub blurring, and I can feel the sick twist in my stomach even now.
--Stephen, he said warmly. I should have known. You have the same look about you as ever. But I would never have guessed it would be you I’d see again on this side of the ocean.
It was like no time had passed. Was there not a slight flush on Cranly’s cheek? The light was dim. He could not see. He took the other man’s arm, gestured to the doublewide doors.
--I would speak to you, Cranly.
A sudden thrill runs itself down my spine. His eyes are wide and full. They look at me as they always did, some sort of calm sea floating there. I have no boat to reach it. He went to untangle their limbs, suddenly afraid of his welcome in the cold air of the night. Cranly did not let go, not even after they pressed through the crowd outside the doors and onto Dublin concrete. Neither of them spoke.
--Tell me about your philosophies, Cranly said presently, steering the two of them through certain half-deserted streets. It’s been a long time since the two of us have spoken. I heard from your mother you were in Paris.
--My mother?
--Yours, and none other. I expect you wrote letters.
--Some.
Dear, best, sincerely. Broken pens by similarly broken lamps, Georges’ absolute refusal to even linger on the notion of a pencil. Two eggs with glistening yolks and a thick slice of bread, butter dripping onto parchment I couldn’t afford.
--Come now, said Cranly, not quite with laughter but the twitch of his lips suggesting at it. You were so free with words when we last walked! Has the city of lights robbed you of your lips? Or perhaps it took your tongue. I see your teeth are all in place, otherwise I would suggest those as well.
Stephen studied his old friend’s face. Handsome? Yes. As always. Beard more fully grown now, body still strong and hard as ever. How many hands has he caressed since we last spoke? How many before then?
--Tell me of Aristotle. Or perhaps he is not French enough for you now. I must confess I don’t know much more now than I ever did.
The setting sun had already passed them by. Moon chases sun, sun chases moon. The egg before the chicken leaves out the rooster entirely. The woman rode a bike down the streets, he remembers, the crude skin of her arms flapping as the tires bounced themselves over the cobblestones. Her dress was white, flecked at the bottom with brown and ruffles. Would Cranly put his arm into hers? His arm.
--I know hardly more than you, Cranly. I find myself in your confession box again.
Cranly squinted at him. There was no real need for it, as the streets were less lit than the pub they had just departed. Just? The concept of time has been forsaken at some point, and I could hardly point towards the nearest clock. I see the lights now, in the corners of my eyes. White. Blue. Black.
--I thought you had given up all that bull a long time ago, Dadelus. Don’t tell me you found God in the city of lovers.
--I don’t believe so, said Stephen reflectively. No. I don’t believe.
In Paris there was a building and in the building there was God, and much the same could be said of any other building on any other street, depending on who you asked. Stephen had tried to divorce himself from all higher authorities and instead had found himself submitting to other masters. The books! The philosophers! The artists! The street musician whose hat had been battered and his case polished like sea glass. I met a man a’walking...Let night come on, bells end the day… He had seven unfinished villanelles and one completed sonnet with the wrong sort of twist at the end.
--There is something in it, though, said Cranly. A subscription to belief. Hell, if I--
He broke off. I too, would not go on to wave support in front of a deserter. What use is speech on tongues with dull brains? Sleeping for a hundred years. A little death. He turns to me, clutches tighter at my arm as I drift.
--Well, did you find it? Whatever it was you were looking for when you left.
His friend--before he goes on with that, discuss the vagueness of the title. Out of sorts in this place of unmovable time, left like a rag on the table, the last glass of the evening, the wine still staining the rim. Like blood, like lipstick, like rouged cheeks and Cranly’s hot breath as it blows past my cheeks. Red, fierce.
--Are you angry with me, Cranly?
A figure against an indeterminable background of time and space. No. It is determinable. Here, now, backlit by moonglow, his face pale in the dark. Brickwork of the buildings beyond and the Liffey below, besides, because.
Cranly coughed out a laugh.
--Angry with you? No. But Doherty, always. I’ve been wrangled into a get-rich-quick scheme in which speed has overtaken riches. If I see that damn fool’s backside again it’ll be too soon and too much of a view for my liking. Oh that doughy-faced scoundrel! Cranly spat viciously. Back on familiar ground. I’ll give him the what-for next time we meet, see if I don’t.
--It consoles me to find you have not yet lost an inch of your fighting spirit.
--More’s the pity, seeing as they’ll come looking for it and its like soon.
--Do you really think so?
--Ay. We are taking the military carriage with the horses’ heads turned towards eternity.
An equine metaphor. Militaristic imagery. Cranly, long seen sidekick, angling for my spot now. I would feel worse if I had a tighter grip on it, or any hope of keeping afloat. They had reached some kind of seclusion now, the two boys--grown men. A rough patch of trees with a bench underneath. It held a dedication Stephen did not bother to read as he drew Cranly down. Many times I have neglected the appearance of some kind of education for the pursuit of a finer goal. I am not so certain of the goal here. Navigating dark deep waters without a compass in sight. Perhaps I do not wish to see one.
Cranly did not let go of him as they sat. Rather, his hand slid down to linger on the bare skin of Stephen’s wrist. He could feel the softness of it, the movement of skin against skin.
--And you have yet to tell me about Paris. Did you find something to love?
Suddenly, Stephen was tired of the whole affair. He felt a bone-sick anxiety, a need to stroll far away from the dark waters of the Liffey. It had been ridiculous to strike out on this night of all nights, on his own, to enter a favored pub in Dublin with the expectation of change, of freeing himself from the awful pattern he was perpetually stuck in, to erase the noiselessness in his head. It was useless. His skull was impenetrable. The more Cranly’s questions banged upon it, the tighter the doors. And to expect from his old friend some kind of answer when the man had only inquiry upon inquiry--it was too much to stand. Stephen made to leave.
Cranly’s thin cold fingers wrapped themselves around his wrist. Through him, a permanent shackle to the land.
--Don’t go. Not yet. I won’t ask anymore, I swear it. You have no sense of how good it is to see your face, after we all thought it lost forever. It’s just a damn hard thing keeping up a conversation with you when your tongue’s been cut out of your mouth.
An attempt at levity. It rings not false, but uneven. Stephen sits again. Cranly does not let go. Are there people passing by? Is there anyone out there? Up there?
--I assure you, my tongue is exactly where it has always been. It’s this hellish brain of mine that has gone blank of late. I can’t think, Cranly, not for the life of me. I can’t get out.
--Perhaps it is not so much a matter of getting out than it is a matter of finding a place within, said Cranly speculatively. He flushed when Stephen looked at him, as if caught out on some kind of lie. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I had to do some growing while you were gone, hadn’t I? Cranly’s tone was forced, as if to draw a facade of frustration over his features. Finding someone to help you disrupt the cycle, shake the wheel. All life is made of circles, Stephen. Dust to dust.
Like waves upon the beach. Deep in him, something stirring. A heat unsuited to the green pastures of his homeland, a different weather pattern emerging from the sweat beneath his thighs. The night croaked.
--You have become a philosopher, it seems.
--As I said. You were away, Stephen. I became many things. As did you. More things than we were before.
Does he know? Those deep eyes, that thick hair. The slight upturn of his nose, the flash of his teeth when he speaks. He bites his lips--suppression. I too have felt suppressed. I mean to erase history from my path and yet keep tripping over it.
--I see you’ve remembered my thoughts on apprehension and beauty from our last conversation.
--Nothing of the kind, Cranly laughed softly. I recall your beauty, though. I see it even now.
I put my hand on the doorknob without thought or recognition. I saw things inverted, did things perverted. The nature of man is to fall. Fall into insanity once in a while. Again and again, if you do it once. The cyclical nature boomeranging, tapping men on the shoulder with misty fingers. Is this my cabin of clay and wattles already? I cannot believe that. I am not ready for beehives yet.
But I could be persuaded into honey, sickly sweet as it is. His hand is on mine. His foot is next to mine. He presses his thigh into mine. Mine.
--Tell me what you said, said Stephen softly. Upon our last meeting. About having another person.
His eyes. Too deep for me.
--There are men. Who are more than friends.
Is there a bell ringing somewhere? You see, I know you wait for me.
--Dedalus.
I feel that and I also fear it.
--Stephen.
He bent to kiss him.
Brine and sand. Salt and dust. Stars strung out along red alleyways. Gas lamps lit and turned down so low they were almost off, before twisting the knob to make them flare into bright being. Being! Was it always this wonderful to move against another person? No. He knew that much, at least. It was like knowing nothing and everything all at once. This was meeting without reserve. His lips were rough with it. He was conscious of nothing but their linkage.
Cranly was the first to pull away, brushing a work-worn hand against Stephen’s cheek. I was mourning him moments before he was gone.
--It’s alright.
--How can it be?
--Would you deflower a virgin?
--Not yourself, surely.
--Ah, but I am wise in the ways of men.
--I am petalless already. And wise?
--Paris was good to you.
--It was kinder to you than it was to me.
--By taking you away? I think the city of love did us both some wrongdoing.
--You can’t mean to say-
--I mean nothing by it.
--Oh.
--And yet there is some part of me that recognizes myself in you. Is that strange? We are strangers, undoubtedly.
--Estranged. I find myself struggling with definitions, of late. Suffering in some odd form of that same religious piety I revoked.
--I know you have given up serving at the altar. But perhaps you’ll find rectitude in false gods. Will you let me worship?
--When you speak of it like that, I feel as if you are cutting out my tongue. My very vocal chords.
--Let me tuck it all back inside you.
--Kiss me.
I want him to rip my body limb from limb in the midst of this grove, and sew me back together while grieving. I can feel the pulse of his heart now, which will be mine when I inevitably reach my hand in to steal some of his organs from his still breathing body. What violence is this? I have not yet begun to bleed. To beg. I feel the bend in my knees as something I cannot take back. I cannot return this to the inside of myself. I fear nothing will survive from this. I fear that something will.
--Tell me you live alone.
--Inside my head, or out of it?
--You cannot speak as if you intend to dwell on separation the whole night.
--I have floor to myself in the midst of many floors.
--In the midst of many buildings, in the midst of many cities, in the midst of many worlds. Riddle me this, Dedalus, do we not all fly under the same sun?
--We do not fly at all.
--Curious. I could have sworn I was just airborne.
Oh, great artificer, lend me your sin. The two men weave through the labyrinth of Dublin streets. Up ahead, somewhere, is the minotaur. There is no intention to find the center. No red string to tie them back. As they walked side by side, every so often Stephen could feel the back of Cranly’s hand brush his. Cranly had long fingers, thick and well-manicured, with rough palms and soft fingertips, the touch of them firm and white. For a moment, Stephen was seized by this knowledge as if in the grips of a terrible unshakable fever. Then the feeling passed, leaving behind naught but a shiver.
They passed a wild rose, dark and colorless in the night. It was nestled in a bower in a wall, leaning slightly forward on what could only be a green stem. In my head, music plays and the lyrics unravel themselves, the endless cycle of the street musician asking without asking for a coin in his case. Years. Minutes. We wind ourselves onwards, beating against the nocturnal current. I am perpetually unsure of my own being. He pulls it to the surface. Show me any state in which permanence is guaranteed. I see no promises in tonight.
The lights around them shut off one by one as they walked. It was not so late yet, but far enough into the night that the hoarse shouts of drunkards found themselves wandering out of buildings and onto the streets. The noise lessened as they left the populated areas for pathways of a more residential lean. The brickwork reminded Stephen of Clongowes, and a sudden recollection stumbled into him. He was in the square, made up of thick slabs of slate, with the smell of stale water despite the endless trickle of it. He was not drawing, but watching the moonboy draw, watching him move and then shut the door. Always locking things away behind doors.
Unconsciously, Stephen had leaned away from Cranly. He was simultaneously trying to lead them home, and turn away.
--Do not go from me yet. Why is it that I always must recall you?
I fumble for the key. Another doorknob to turn. We are incapable of meandering--the very sound of the word has no correlation to the noise he makes as we stumble in. Hallways, hallways, always another doorstep to pass through. Off, off with his head, the only thing I saw at first, unmistakable and unattached, like me, good, eat me, head me off at the underpass, keep me from toeing the line I know is there and I know not where it may lie. Have you gossiped yet? Have you sung the song of psalms? I cannot speak for panting. Dogs, we all have masters. Bring me your light. Turn off the lamp.
--Yours, too.
A quid for a quid. In Stephen’s room, the light has long burnt out. Neither of the men stop to light a candle, as the moonshine streams from outdoors through the lonelylovelylowly window. They are left standing together, entirely disrobed, two pale bodies wreathed in shadow. Centimeters of space slot between them. A soft liquid joy bubbles up. The fountaining of youth.
--You must touch me, before I turn old and gray with wanting.
The nape of his neck, the crook of his elbow, the dip beneath his nose, all the soft secret places that a body can hide from another. Trapped in dark wood walls, the scent of cedar dripping through the cracks. Is that birdsong? Is that noiselessness, or the unbearable aching of throaty vibrations, are we shaking in tune with one another? Something was passing through him. Someone was touching him and he was touching back, and starting up the endless cycle of human energy, sending shooting sparks of poetry down invisible veins. Get him up in me. Swallow me whole.
A spirit filled him, wet with dew, moving in hunger. As heavy as that first hour before dawn when everything weighing down on the world has compressed, in order to be lifted. The seraphim, the angels, holy, holy, holy. Up on his heels, down on his knees. Into the cavern of sin, but this time it is purity. It was his mouth on his, it was the entrance into a chamber where white flame flared up to the ceiling to become an ardent rosy light, it was the rhythm of the pandybat turned into glorious praise of higher entities, it was the final broken cry swallowed by heart and stomach. Being! Light!
Smoke from the fire, streaming slowly upwards.
We are hot from it. Presently, there is speech.
--I begin to feel that I have wronged you.
--Wronged me? Don’t be absurd. I often wonder what goes on it that head of yours. The vocation of priesthood has forever condemned you to a life full of sin, no matter the truth of your actions.
--You mock me.
--Never, my dear.
Cranly moved so that his whole body was slotted over Stephen’s. The room had begun to cool, the fogged window slowly clearing. Stephen reached for the blanket, pulling it over the two of them. His brain had been turned down. He couldn't even fathom a move towards reason or logic or philosophy, despite all the previous obstacles he had overcome in pursuit of their lofty dwellings. But with sincere physicality put into play, it was difficult to remember certain mentalities. He could still taste salt under his tongue.
An ending for the sonnet that had been haunting him suddenly slid into his mind. He hummed it to himself, quietly. He did not wish for pen and paper.
--What are you singing?
--You.
--You poor poet, you. My poor bard.
His words sing. My lowliness, infectious? One man cannot mistake another for himself, and yet we all perform like mirrors for each other. I am cursed with knowledge I cannot shake off. I am cursed with an inability to be content in the things that I have. The room had the sudden feel of mist dissipating. Sleep crept up. He turned their noses to each other.
--What shall I tell them, when they ask what outing we had together? What business we engaged in?
Cranly did not open his eyes. It was time to go away again. It was always time to go away. Fear had no place in it. The displacement of an exile was eternal. The position of an outsider left traces that prevented the companionship Cranly had spoken of so many years ago. Alone, quite alone.
--The business of pleasure.
--Cranly.
Spell, broken. Cranly opened his eyes. The space of a breath between them was an unceasing, impassable distance.
--Tell them we went to the races.