The Chronology of Water - Lidia Yuknavitch [56]
kicked out drunk tourists and Hyde Park naps and the Tate Gallery and Westminster Abbey choir boys coming out from behind a giant wooden door my crying and crying so beautiful these singing children but we didn’t come for London the food is shit the people are unattractive the Shakespearian tradition is all over everything until we fuck in a giant tidepool near the Cliffs of Dover good really good pub with no Americans but then some show up ugly very very very near to giant fistfight he’s drunk he thinks he’s Bukowski run I say run these are English pig dog thugs we escape to where we wanted to be to Ireland. Becket and Synge and Joyce and at Yeats house we fuck in the castle against the wall we fuck on the stones at Innish Moore we drink and pass out in Joyce’s country his shoes washing away down a river my hair soaked with rain we read books we wish we were part of history we wish we were part of drinking we wish we were part of anything not ourselves we walk and walk but why do the pictures we took of each other have no smiles. Did we become a Beckett play? Year five a restored farmhouse in France my beloved Michael with us his lover with us we live there for a month we drink every French wine $5 to $500 we drink champagne we eat rabbit we eat crepes we eat escargot we laugh they taste like dirt we eat and eat and drink restaurant with menus and walls designed by Chagall the Louvre get lost and too high in all the art and high ceilings and hide in a bathroom hunched like a little troll in the corner rocking until a French woman asks “sont bien vous? sont bien vous?” Back out into the Louvre and even the Mona Lisa looks silly back to the farmhouse which is not in Paris but on the speed train taking speed on the speed train back to the farmhouse which is near Normandy on the coast - stop - war and remembrance - back at the farmhouse 100 year old restored house walk in fireplace cooking and drinking and fire. Next night nightmare we become drunk people driving and getting pulled over and me wishing wishing my beloved friend to talk to these police but beautiful gay men stay in the car and Devin Bukowski begins to fight with the French cop and a miracle we are not all taken to prison. Gay men fight in the French farmhouse we feel less alone when other people fight love. Year six yelling begins a rhythm and me writing book begins and him painting paintings begins and yelling gets louder and drinking gets louder and him kissing women I know and him kissing women I don’t know and how do people last together how do they what is a couple over time but a line and me writing more and more and him painting and my first book and his first painting in a SoHo gallery but nothing stops the yelling that is taking over the house and drinking and kissing that becomes animal and desperate and no travel too much reading graduate school too much writing me reading and writing and language and the liquor of intellectual fights the liquor of love no travel more writing just the distance of two bodies barreling through passion but barreling differently splitting apart into the flames one mind one body splitting. Year seven I start a dissertation he quits grad school drinking and yelling: cleaved. Year eight I get a Ph.D. I get a real job someone here needs to someone needs to take care of this couple gone haywire beautiful fucked up children so full of promise so full of self loathing so full with alcohol we keep on being married and married and married and yelling and drinking and he pisses drunk in the corner and he falls down the stairs and he passes out on the lawn and he passes out driving and how do you do this how do you where is my love going? Year nine here is a job at my job adjunct pretend grown up here is a trip with a drama colleague of mine I am giving you my love go to go to Vietnam here is a life I buy him a loft along the riverfront in Portland I buy him alcohol I try and try to buy our love back I try and try but no money stops him in Vietnam he falls in love Tu-Ha he lies and lies he comes home Tu-Ha he goes back I wait in