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Lorenzo isn’t quite sure when his life began. It’s not something easy to pinpoint because he never went to school and he’s never bothered to get a license. He can hardly remember the faces of his parents, or their names, or even the name they gave him—maybe they never gave him a name to begin with. Lorenzo isn’t quite sure when his life began, because he has lived plenty.
Maybe it began when his parents abandoned him, or when he first swindled a person of all their worth—or better yet, when Snuffy, quite literally, dragged him out from the embrace of death.
Maybe his life began after the first suicide attempt, or the second, or the third.
Or Maybe. Just maybe. Lorenzo’s life hasn’t begun at all.
It truly is hard to pinpoint. It is a contemplation that bounces off the corners of Lorenzo’s skull like a DVD screensaver every quarter of a year. It’s something that drags crayons along the wrinkles of his brain, dilating his memory even more, colouring it in cool tones.
Memory is a cursed thing. It’s an act that Lorenzo has always disliked. If he could simply smooth over the wrinkles adorning his brain, he would. With the twirl of a finger, or the glint of gold—whatever would rid him of the haunting.
A hum shoots through the silence in the air, the sound carving the carbon into geometric shapes of visual snow. Lorenzo glances down at the body beside him, observing it as it creeps its head into his lap like a ball in the centre circle of a field.
Lorenzo remembers the first time he stood in the bounds of a centre circle, imagining that it was a bowl dug into the crust of the Earth, and he was the wine being served at the Last Supper. Lorenzo remembers a lot of first times.
However, Michael being in his bed this morning isn’t a first. Or is it Michael’s bed? Lorenzo can’t remember. The line between their respective places has become blurred, a result of the constant trespassing. Whether Michael’s bed or Lorenzo’s, at the end of the day, it is just another field.
Michael’s head has made its way into the bowl of Lorenzo’s lap. The silence has returned to a standstill, but the absence of sound doesn’t register against the static ringing in Lorenzo’s ears.
There’s something he should say here: a jab at Michael for placing his head in his lap, or the ringtone of a laugh that Lorenzo knows will get Michael turning his head in annoyance. He opens his mouth, only for it to close shut on its own.
The silence continues. The static increases. Lorenzo’s hand twitches at his side as he remains still as Excalibur, upright in bed with his back against the headboard. Michael remains still as Sleeping Beauty, his left arm tucked under his head as it lays against the bowl’s edge.
There is the burning of a hot air balloon between Lorenzo’s ribs, like a third lung. It’s hot, to the point his teeth are digging too far, the hairs of his goatee shrivelled between the gold bones. The balloon’s gas fills the room storing his brain and turns his memory hazy, the fog spanning acres of neurons.
Lorenzo forgets about making fun of Michael for his act of endearment, and he also forgets how to breathe as the balloon expands and the temperature rises. His chest is full of air—of every type of air mass—staying taut in the centre, teasing. There’s a prickling between the flesh of his cheeks and the inside of his mouth, a yard of pinpricks dancing along the line of purgatory.
Fingers of shadow thrum against Lorenzo’s false ribs, the colour of his mother’s hair and of his father’s eyes. Their faces appear within the fog, and Lorenzo’s hand continues to twitch at his side. The hot air balloon is on the brink of bursting, right between two full lungs.
Suddenly, the fog disperses at the touch of something against Lorenzo’s hand. The hot air balloon shrinks until it is nothing but an empty basket, and Lorenzo’s lungs return to their regular programming. When he looks down, Michael’s hands are clasped around his own, cradling it as if it were a bird with a broken wing.
At the sight, Lorenzo is filled with an epiphany, the hot air balloon returning as he watches Michael smooth his thumbs over the expanse of skin on the back. There are sparse forests of black littered on the edges, and Lorenzo imagines that he is running along them, with Michael shrinking behind him. Or enlarging in front of him. He is a beginning and an end.
There is a boy in Lorenzo’s lap that he wants to live with, but doesn’t know how to. There’s a boy in his lap, and in his head, and in his very blood vessels. There is a boy named Michael Kaiser playing with his hand like it’s a ball of yarn, and he wants to live with him. But he doesn’t know how to.
Lorenzo doesn’t know when his life began. Was it when Snuffy took him under his wing? Or was it when he cooked his very first meal, with fresh ingredients in a kitchen surrounded by hanging lights? Or was it when he stumbled across Michael in a stadium hallway and stopped dead in his tracks? If Lorenzo can’t even remember when his life began, how is he supposed to live with the boy in his lap?
He thinks of Michael leaving—of this life ending—and dread trickles down his body, never reaching an end. Instead, it trickles into the form of a second body, and a third. A forth, and a fifth. There are now multiples of Don Lorenzo, and only a single Michael Kaiser. Which one gets to have the boy?
Cazzo. It feels like there’s a star panging inside of Lorenzo’s head.
Lorenzo inhales a deep breath, an attempt to rid his skull of thrumming constellations, only for the breath to enlarge the balloon between his ribs. He squeezes his fingers around Michael’s hand, and the star slips down Lorenzo’s nasal passage and out his mouth.
With his voice as small as a dust particle, Lorenzo asks. “Are you going to leave?”
Michael hums, the sound filling Lorenzo with sewage. He turns Lorenzo’s hand in his grasp, inspecting the limb as if deciding where to best cut incisions to strip Lorenzo of his veins; of the very network that keeps his blood pumping.
Lorenzo thinks about how a zombie doesn’t need a working venous system to live. He thinks that he'd learn to live without the wires strung under his flesh that are connected to his heart, which is connected to his brain.
If Michael wanted to put his heart inside of a clear glass case for decoration, he would let him. Lorenzo could learn to live without plenty of things. But he can’t imagine a life without the boy. He refuses to learn.
“I don’t want to.”
Comes Michael’s reply a beat of a heart later, but Lorenzo is filled with gas that’s making time move as slow as a boulder along a flat surface. Lorenzo’s hand twitches within Michael’s grasp.
“I don’t want to.” Michael says again, lightly, all the air in the world packed into the very words and hand-delivered to Lorenzo with how close Michael’s mouth is to his palm; a gift from the sky.
Lorenzo stays silent. Michael continues to play around with his hand, his fingers pulling at the small hairs on the back, which earns him a swat at his own hand. A ringtone of laughter resounds, the melody causing the slits of sun slicing through the bedroom to waver like a highway mirage.
He doesn’t want to. Michael does not want to leave. The fact smooths the wrinkles, and Lorenzo exhales. A clipped smile creeps across the horizon of his face—one that Michael can’t see, but can feel.
It’s not so important that Lorenzo can’t pinpoint when his life began, because Michael wants to stay, regardless of the haze. Instead of fretting over the past, Lorenzo can live the life he is living now. No more tending to the wrinkles of his brain. It is time to put down the rake and retire.
It is time for Don Lorenzo to build a home. In the middle of a field, like a ball placed in the centre spot, the sun shining down with citrus slices between its teeth. It will be a home surrounded by forest, like rows upon rows of stands in a stadium, the birds and the trees watching.
“Your hand has stopped twitching.”
“Hm?” Lorenzo sounds, his thumb brushing across the tips of Michael’s fingers.
“It was twitching.”
“Was it?”
“It always twitches when you’re thinking too much.”
“Does it?”
„Verdammt.” Michael turns abruptly to face Lorenzo, his blue orchid glaring into Lorenzo’s lilac from his lap. “You’re annoying.”
Lorenzo laughs, the sound bright and possessing the weightlessness of bodies in space. His eyes are closed as his entire body immerses itself in the action. Michael scoffs, his fingers sliding between Lorenzo’s own in an embrace.
The slits of light filtering through the blinds brighten as the sun’s mouth widens, both of their respective thumbs brushing across the backs of hands.
“How dare you be annoying in the early morning in my own bed.”
Lorenzo’s small giggling to himself stops, his gaze flickering to the corners of the bedroom. There’s a pause of silence before Lorenzo’s laughter picks up. The sound makes Michael bite the inside of his cheek.
“What’s so funny?”
Lorenzo’s face splits into blocks of suns as he leans over Michael, who has draped their enclosed hands over his eyes to shield him from the morning.
“We’re in my bedroom, amorino mio.”
There. You have made the boy a place where he wants to stay. And your life has finally begun.