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YOU: You go out to Boogie Street to feel alive.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: That’s what Boogie Street *stands* for.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Your heart pounding in your chest, your lungs expanding until you’re full of enough love to cover the whole world over.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: A glow brighter than the disco ball.
PERCEPTION: Cigarette smoke and the smell of sweat and perfume all visible in the hazy disco lights.
INLAND EMPIRE: You used to come here all the *time,* Harry. Don’t you remember?
YOU: You pass the newer clubs - the anodic clubs, the boiadeiro clubs - and let your feet take you to the oldest part of Boogie Street. The shabbiest. Past the whorehouses and the skua shacks, out to -
BOOGIE STREET: DISCO PARADISIO.
DISCO PARADISIO: Nudged in between two other clubs, the different strains of music overlapping each other like muddy floodwaters. DISCO PARADISIO is - or was - an old tiki-themed disco club. The club is built of white-stuccoed blocks, painted with stylized palm-trees and the hint of an oasis. Around the oasis, men and women boogie in outdated disco clothes -
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Come to think of it, one of those men looks awfully familiar, doesn’t he?
SAVOIR FAIRE: You should get some money for that.
DISCO PARADISIO: Its thatched rush-roof - a false overlay to the real metal roof below - looks like the patchy fur of a dog with mange.
EMPATHY: But they know you there.
DISCO PARADISIO: The club is sparsely attended, even on a Friday night. There are a few regulars you know - fellow disco men and women like yourself - and a gaggle of younger teenagers from Fauborg.
SAVOIR FAIRE: They’re doing what’s known as *slumming it.* Glitter and exclusionary laughter.
COMPOSURE: You don’t join them, choosing instead to dance with yourself, with a few of the others you know, and with Wilbert, the taxidermied camel who stands next to the DJ booth and really *appreciates* your moves.
WILBERT THE CAMEL: Tell me, kid. If music plays in the middle of the desert, under the stars, what kind of sound does it make?
PAIN THRESHOLD: That of pain. That of being alone under an uncaring sky.
PERCEPTION: The sand whispering under your feet.
YOU: Uh, I don’t know.
WILBERT THE CAMEL: Well, it ain’t *anodic* dance music. It’s *disco,* kid.
YOU: That’s what I always say!
WILBERT THE CAMEL: Yeah, you’re one of the *smart* ones. Now why don’t you boogie on over here and show me that thing with your hips again?
YOU: You do. You show everyone that thing with your hips again, until you’ve worked yourself back around to the bar for a drink, pushing up your sleeves, unbuttoning your shirt further, and fanning yourself with a menu.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You’re pouring sweat. It feels *good.*
PERCEPTION: The disco music plays all around you, loud enough to be inside you, vibrating in your lungs. You tap your fingers on the bar as you finish your drink.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: This is what you needed. To come out and dance. To get that nervous buzzing feeling out of you.
YOU: But it’s not gone. It’s still there. Why is that?
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Dance more?
SUGGESTION: No. That’s not doing it.
PAIN THRESHOLD: You’re letting Wilbert down.
INLAND EMPIRE: Wilbert knows all about it. There’s something missing.
YOU: What is it?
SHIVERS: Across the city Kim Kitsuragi sits on his couch, idly completing a crossword. He’s wearing thick, heavy socks, pulled up over the cuffs of his sweatpants. He yawns, stretching, his shirt riding up over his stomach. He pushes his glasses off and rubs at his face. He looks so much younger without his glasses.
YOU: Oh. It’s Kim, of course.
VOLITION: Of *course* it’s Kim. You’ve spent the last few months together as you have every month since March. You work together five days a week, and one or the other of you calls on the weekends. Sometimes game nights, often dinner. You hadn’t talked about it once - the kisses. But you’d caught him looking at your mouth once a day. At *least.*
YOU: You’d both volunteered to work over the holidays, neither of you having a family. You’d taken over a lot of the patrol shifts for the other officers, and often, after the shift would be over, you would keep driving, the two of you, through the city. Kim would drop you off at your door after hours spent on the road. “Goodnight, detective,” he would say, or “good day, detective,” or, once, “good morning, detective.” Once, you’d invited him in and he’d said “No, detective,” but the way he had said it - soft and unsure - had made your lungs flutter in your chest. Another time, he had lingered for twenty minutes, forty, leaning in the open car window as you talked, and your feet turned to ice. Afterwards, you’d curled up as tightly as possible in your bed, trying to get warm, and imagined he was there with you.
SUGGESTION: You should go see Kim. For more kissing!
YOU: The kissing *is* nice.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Goddamnit. What was wrong with some nice, *masculine* disco dancing?
YOU: You take the bus to Kim’s apartment. It takes you forty-seven minutes and two transfers. In between busses, you stamp your feet on the pavement, cold leaking through your thin-soled disco shoes.
VOLITION: Forty-seven minutes is enough time to rethink this trip three times over. To change your mind twice.
YOU: What if he doesn’t want to see me?
SAVOIR FAIRE: You can be a little…intense.
INTERFACING: Kim *likes* intense. Remember? Speedfreak Kitsuragi? Remember the *totally disco* *car chase* he got you into the other week? And *won*?
YOU: That was pretty intense.
SUGGESTION: Remember the glitter to his eyes, the laugh on his open mouth, the way his eyes met yours in the mirror and lingered until you’d flushed and squirmed in your seat?
YOU: I remember.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Don’t think we’ll *ever* forget that, boss.
YOU: When the bus drops you off five blocks from Kim’s apartment, the flush from dancing has left you, leaving you shivering.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You are fully sober.
SHIVERS: Your footsteps are loud on the pavement in the cold and empty night.
YOU: It’s only you. You walk rapidly, hands in your pockets, head down.
HALF LIGHT: You can afford to walk like this. This isn’t Jamrock, after all.
YOU: Finally, you reach Kim’s apartment, nestled amongst a fleet of other tidy apartment buildings. On the corner, the Frittte light glares a menacing and always-open glow across the street.
LOGIC: Kim can afford to live in a slightly nicer place than you. This is because he doesn’t drink his paycheck away.
YOU: You stand before Kim’s apartment, craning your neck back to look up.
INLAND EMPIRE: This position feels…familiar.
PAIN THRESHOLD: You have spent a lot of time outside houses, looking in.
PERCEPTION: You can see Kim’s kitchen light on, can see the window cracked. There is a dark shape leaning in the window, silhouetted against the light.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Typically Kim smokes out on his balcony - he is a fastidious and careful smoker - but it’s too *cold* for him. He’s cracked the window and is smoking close to it. Even now, he looks down out the window, idly ashing his cigarette, and sees you. His breath catches in his chest.
VISUAL CALCULUS: Even with his poor eyesight, that silhouette is unmistakable.
EMPATHY: Is there something wrong? he worries.
YOU: You take the stairs two at a time, all five floors up.
PAIN THRESHOLD: Your leg aches by the time you get up there. You’ll be sore tomorrow, between all the the dancing and the walking and the stairs.
EMPATHY: But it’s worth it not to make Kim worry.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: *And* it’s worth it for that sweet sweet groove-slide you pulled in the club. That move alone, in front of those impressionable teens, kept disco alive another thirty years.
SHIVERS: ONLY YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH.
YOU: When you reach Kim’s apartment, you bend over and brace yourself on your knees, panting.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Trying to regain your breath.
PERCEPTION: You hear a noise, as if someone is standing just behind the door, shifting.
COMPOSURE: He won’t open it until you knock. He will not allow himself to look desperate.
EMPATHY: But he’s a little worried. What now…? he thinks.
SAVOIR FAIRE: He can wait. Get your breath back.You’re here to be *suave,* not suck wind on his doorstep.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: There’s nothing wrong with taking a breather. You’re the picture of virile masculinity, and besides, Kim likes watching your chest heave.
HALF LIGHT: There’s still time to go.
VOLITION: Just knock. Sort the rest out afterwards.
YOU: You knock, smoothing your hair back with one hand as you do so.
KIM KITSURAGI: The door swings open rapidly.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Too rapidly. You’re still gasping for air. Quick, try the Expression!
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective.” His brows are knitted in concern, his posture stiff.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Weird. For some reason, the Expression’s not helping.
AUTHORITY: Even dressed down, the man still *oozes* authority. You could learn a thing or two from him.
YOU: “Kim! Hi! Nothing’s wrong, I promise.”
EMPATHY: If anything, this only concerns him more.
KIM KITSURAGI: He studies you closely, starting with your eyes, running down your body - you shift, nervously - and then back up to the crown of your head. He does this very, very slowly.
YOU: Your skin starts to crawl, not unpleasantly.
KIM KITSURAGI: He satisfies himself that although you *may* have had something to drink, you are not drunk. “Detective,” he sighs. “It’s late.”
HALF LIGHT: See? He fucking hates you.
VOLITION: No - he’s just afraid of giving in. All night long he has been thinking of you idly - what you might be like if you were in his apartment, on the other side of his couch. Your music playing, filling the silent space. Your rasping voice telling him something - anything, you are always talking. Your steady snores on the couch, or perhaps - even -
SUGGESTION: From the other side of his bed.
PERCEPTION: A faint fresh breeze comes to you from inside Kim’s apartment.
VISUAL CALCULUS: From the cracked window. From when he’d bent his own rules and smoked a cigarette inside.
VOLITION: He’s weak, Harry. Just like you.
SUGGESTION: You can get him to bend.
ENDURANCE: To break.
EMPATHY: But we don’t want to break Kim.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yeah. We want *him* to break *us.*
VOLITION: Nobody’s breaking anybody.
YOU: You take a deep breath in.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Imagine your lungs glowing as your chest expands and expands and expands. Like a zeppelin.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The Insulindian Zeppelin Coalition -
SUGGESTION: Not now, nerd. We’re trying to live in the moment, here.
KIM KITSURAGI: The curl to the corner of Kim’s mouth might be amusement. It is incredibly faint, and it would take a very, very great detective to detect it.
SUGGESTION: Or someone absolutely besotted. Totally in love.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective, did you come all the way here just to smell my apartment?”
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Despite the sardonic lilt to his voice, he is honestly a little curious.
1) “Yes.”
2) “Of course not.”
3) [Go for a distraction.] “You’re under arrest!”
4) “No. I came for something else.”
YOU: “You’re under arrest!”
KIM KITSURAGI: He shifts, crossing his arms over his chest.
HALF LIGHT: A half-defensive gesture, even as he knows you are lying. Good luck getting him in handcuffs.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Oh? What for?”
1) “Stealing my heart.”
2) “Being too sexy.” [Shoot him with your finger guns.]
3) “Okay, you’re not actually under arrest.”
SAVOIR FAIRE: Do *not* say that. What is *wrong* with you?
1) “Stealing my heart.”
2) “Being too sexy.” [Shoot him with your finger guns.]
3) “Okay, you’re not actually under arrest.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: *Definitely* say this one.
1) “Stealing my heart.”
2) “Being too sexy.” [Shoot him with your finger guns.]
3) “Okay, you’re not actually under arrest.”
YOU: “Okay, you’re not actually under arrest.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He shifts, leaning against the doorframe. His posture is much looser now. He is enjoying himself. “I thought as much.”
YOU: “No. I came for something else.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He does not say anything.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: The oldest cop-trick in the book. Pure silence will make you incriminate yourself. Start babbling like running water, like a loon, like a guilty man.
VOLITION: Stay strong.
1) “Not many people know the sordid backstory behind the Insulindian Zeppelin Coalition. Did you know that in ’03-”
2) “I had a thought on THE CASE OF THE JEWELED DOG.”
3) “I’d really like to kiss you.”
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Come *on.* Be a man. Do what you came here to do.
SUGGESTION: Coach??
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Do I have to do everything around here?
1) “Not many people know the sordid backstory behind the Insulindian Zeppelin Coalition. Did you know that in ’03-”
2) “I had a thought on THE CASE OF THE JEWELED DOG.”
3) “I’d really like to kiss you.”
YOU: “I’d really like to kiss you.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He blinks, then surveys you closely again. That head-to-toe look that lingers. “Why are you telling me this?” he says.
HALF LIGHT: He’s angry at you.
SUGGESTION: No. He’s thinking, why are you telling me? Just do it.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Face it, Harry. You haven’t really been conducting this courtship with aplomb, have you?
1) Fuck you, I’ve been conducting it with aplomb.
2) Aplomb?
3) Courtship?
ENCYCLOPEDIA: A courtship is when one interested party, in this case you, attempts to convince another party - whether interested or not - in this case, Kim - that they would best be suited in a relationship, of which -
EMPATHY: You know. You’re in love with Kim.
HALF LIGHT: What makes you think it’s going to be any different this time?
1) Kim’s different.
2) I’m different.
3) I don’t know, but I’m going to try anyway.
4) You’re right. It’s not going to be. I should just give up.
VOLITION: Atta boy. Keep going until the infernal machine gives out.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Keep dancing your way through the desert.
1) Fuck you, I’ve been conducting it with aplomb.
2) Aplomb?
3) Courtship?
ENCYCLOPEDIA: “Aplomb” means self-confidence or -
SAVOIR FAIRE: Shut up, nerd. He knows what it means. We mean you should’ve won him over. Really *wooed* him. Flowers, dancing.
DRAMA: A great big, dramatic gesture.
COMPOSURE: Kim wouldn’t have liked any of that.
YOU: Oh, fuck. What does Kim like??
INTERFACING: Motor carriages. Anything with an internal combustion engine, really.
SHIVERS: The stale croissants he gets from the bakery in Fauborg at three in the morning when he can’t sleep and goes for a drive.
PERCEPTION: SPEEDFREAKS FM.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Daffodils, specifically.
SAVOIR FAIRE: The fit of a well-tailored article of clothing.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Completing a case cleanly and well.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Stretching out in bed and feeling the cool part of the sheets.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: The crossword.
PERCEPTION: The way the sun hits the dome on the top of the precinct.
VISUAL CALCULUS: The way the sun hits the sea.
PAIN THRESHOLD: The way the sun hits the green of your eyes and turns them almost gold.
INLAND EMPIRE: The way -
EMPATHY: You.
YOU: Oh fuck, really?
LOGIC: How many other officers of the RCM do you think Kim has kissed?
HALF LIGHT: Don’t answer that.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Just you, Harry.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm.” He stands before you, waiting patiently. It is clear he is a little amused at the train of thought you are lost on.
VOLITION: He would wait forever for you.
INLAND EMPIRE: Love is waiting. Love is sacrifice. Love is pain and darkness and -
EMPATHY: Wrong. Love is Kim’s hand on your shoulder. It’s Kim’s mouth on yours, it’s the way he’s always tracking you. It’s his voice on the phone. It’s leaning against his doorframe right now, watching you, as if you are something very important to him, as if he is glad you are here.
VOLITION: Do it.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Do it.
SUGGESTION: Do it.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Do it.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Fuck it. Do it.
1) Do it.
2) Don’t.
3) Wait, are these my only options?
VOLITION: Yes.
1) Do it.
2) Don’t.
3) Wait, are these my only options?
YOU: You wipe your palms on your disco pants, then again, as Kim watches with amusement. You step forward, then again, until you are just at the threshold.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Your legs feel wobbly.
PERCEPTION: There is a strange roaring in your ears.
ENDURANCE: You’re going to throw up.
YOU: You raise your hands very slowly, on either side of his face, until your thumbs brush his cheeks.
PERCEPTION: The faintest scrape of dry skin. Sparse stubble. Your fingers brush the back of his head, sink into his soft, unstyled hair.
EMPATHY: You feel a rush of something in your lungs. You don’t look down, afraid that they’re glowing.
YOU: And you kiss Kim. He tastes like cigarettes and cold winter air. He tastes like Martinaise, like that first night on the balcony in March - so far away, so close - when you had leaned on the railing beside him, his warmth close enough to feel, and looked down over an alien world with a friend by your side. He tastes like like rebirth. Like life. His lips are soft under yours and a little chapped and they part easily enough, and you lick along his lip - he makes a stifled little noise - and then his front teeth, and then his tongue, wet against yours. You kiss until you don’t have any more breath, until your lungs are glowing so brightly you can see them through your closed eyelids, and then you gasp for breath. Your hands are still on his face, your forehead leaned against his, your noses bumping together. You can feel the slide of your own disco-grease on his clean skin.
KIM KITSURAGI: He doesn’t seem to mind. He’s breathing rapidly, trembling slightly. You can feel it puffing across your mouth.
YOU: “Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry,” he says. Just a breath across your lips. Then he smiles. Then he says, low and sure, “Do you want to come in?”
YOU: You do. So you do. Out of the cold and into a new life.