The Door

[Near]

Near is not, of course, laboring under the delusion that an apology squeezed out like the last glob of toothpaste in the tube will bring him any semblance of the closure that he’s pretty sure is what's been missing from his life. It will not be the source of any real satisfaction. So it’s not like he’s surprised when he comes out on the other end of the tepid I’m sorry feeling no better than he did at the start. He may, in fact, be less satisfied than before – as if Jude’s refusal to pretend even a little at giving a single shit about the various wounds he has left in Near’s life digs them all in a little deeper. But it was worth a try. Probably. It proves a point. Maybe. That he does indeed have some leverage here, even if he hasn’t quite wrapped his head around why.

For a few seconds he's quiet, laying out his his choose-your-own-adventure options and ranking them:

• Graciously accept the apology? Implicitly agree to go to some as-yet defined elsewhere with Jude, where he might be useful! (No.)
  
• Tell Jude where he can shove it and go back in to finish his shift. (Tempting.)
  
• Stay the course, see what other feats of disappointing coercion he can accomplish. (That's the one.)
  

“What for?” he asks, final exam style.

In view of an apparent lack of connection between Jude's words and anything other than the immediate demand for them, Near finds himself curious about whether Jude grasps why someone might consider an apology warranted in the first place. Curious if he’s capable of that kind of comprehension, empathy, or if he’s just emptily mimicking human speech. Human-ish behavior.

[Jude]

Sympathy for Near is constrained by all the other feelings Near has aroused, beginning with his disbelief at Jude's very first performance. To pinpoint a moment where things first went wrong, it was there. Every misunderstanding, every miscommunication, began when Jude cut his hand open and reassembled the glass, and Near brushed it away like it was a sleight of hand at a Las Vegas residency. Jude has never really recovered from it; he has had something to prove ever since.

What for? Jude is unsympathetic, but he isn't stupid. If he thinks about it, he can understand what things bother Near. It is that the cognition is stripped of emotion, the colors sucked out of the picture. He thinks, Fuck you, with an exhausted internal sigh, as Near raps his knuckles at the unsatisfying answer.

"I'm sorry for locking you in your floor," he says. There's a pause where they can hear someone getting into their car in the parking lot, rolling down their windows, and turning on their car, causing the local rock station to blare into the open air halfway through a song. "And I'm sorry for breaking you and your boyfriend up."

The latter he did not need to bring up at all, and as soon as Jude says it he feels he's shot himself through the foot, raising the specter of Guthrie just to self-sabotage. Jude is more sorry about the floor than he is about Guthrie; if he is interrogated on his sincerity in this area, he is sure he will fail to exhibit the necessary contrition. He holds his tongue after saying it though, hoping that somehow it will through Near and attention will instead go to the floor -- the whole reason that Jude has come back. He has not come back to solicit whether Near is still single.

[Near]

The melting floor trick, most recent and most lingeringly visceral of offenses, is a gimmee. To omit it would be to slam the door shut on whatever this conversation is. But Jude does manage to name it; and naming it suggests that, even if he doesn’t sincerely believe it was wrong and worth apologizing for, at least he can recognize that Near might think it is. So that’s … something. Kind of. A glimmer of empathy, if not compassion. He fails to mention waving a knife around in Near’s kitchen, but that may be included in the melting floor package. Or maybe, not having drawn blood, he can’t grasp why that might merit a mea culpa at all.

Part two comes out of left field: breaking you and your boyfriend up. Near’s face flickers briefly toward an expression of surprise, but he doesn’t say anything until he’s sure that’s the end of it.

And no, he is not happy or satisfied with the results of his experiment. Yes, he is still waiting for any acknowledgment that the shittiest thing Jude ever did to him was to disappear in the forest, but that seems not to exist anywhere on Jude’s radar, and even Near knows when he’s pushing his luck. Could he tack on a snide What else? to see if there’s anything more he can shake out? Sure. But diminishing returns, etc.

“Fine,” he says. “All is forgiven. Go in peace.” He makes a little flicking gesture in the air that vaguely approximates some notion of a priest absolving his least favorite parishioner of all his transgressions. “Let me ask you: were you trying to piss Guthrie off? Like actively? I swear to god I can never tell if you’re being malicious or just … socially inept …” Because he has already heaped the lion’s share of the blame squarely on Guthrie’s shoulders and demoted Jude to a hapless vector of disaster. Not that the slippery San Francisco startup ‘something going on’ bullshit hadn’t played a part, but said breakup was already there, waiting for something to set it off.

[Jude]

The only blood drawn in the kitchen was Jude's, and no, that doesn't count. Like many other experiences, pain is dulled through repetition, and so cutting himself is not an event in and of itself for Jude. Near was the event: to him go the attention and apology, with no mention of the means of the floor-melting.

The disappearance in the woods has never struck Jude as anything more than a bruise to Near's ego, as if Jude has failed to play along with some script Near had devised the moment Jude stepped from the fog. To Jude, his abrupt departure was explained by his twin's arrival, either literally by Juliet herself, or through deductive reasoning. The parallels of repetition escape Jude even now, because what? Had Near wanted Jude to stay? Or — impossible! — had Near wanted to come?

The hand dismisses, but the words ground. Jude's face is drawn with deepening suffering as the conversation takes another exploratory turn. He was prepared for the indignity of apologizing, even willing to throw in a little groveling, but the metric ton of embarrassment in which he acted almost purely to spite Near is too heavy to lift. That Near would be so disbelieving of Jude, yet so oddly secretive in the presence of a third party, affronted Jude. If Near had been consistent in his faithlessness, Jude could have simply believed him an idiot.

"I was indifferent to pissing him off," Jude says wearily, failing to shoulder his burden and instead giving it a kick with his toe. He rubs his forehead with the back of his hand and asks in the same tired voice, "Do you want to talk after work?" This Sisyphean rock of persuasion is about to reach its zenith and roll back over Jude. Maybe Jude cannot persuade Near, but maybe Near can persuade himself with a few hours and whiskey neats, or whatever it is bartenders like him drink.

[Near]

Jude, wiping the sweat from his furrowed brow with a beleaguered huff, seems to be demonstrating how the physical and emotional toll of engaging in a five-minute conversation with Near is equivalent to scaling the Matterhorn. Because that’s a solid way to win friends and influence people into further conversations with you after work.

Near would love to be as indifferent to the show of enervation as Jude claims he was to Guthrie’s emotional state; unfortunately, he is aggravated by implications he should really be numb to by now. (Claims because he is not sure he quite buys Jude’s quick declaration of indifference, but it doesn’t really matter.)

Because the thing is, Jude has gotten off pretty easy here: not dismissed, not insulted too badly, barely interrogated. He has not been pressed into any explanation of what he really wants, what “use” he thinks Near could possibly have, where he intends to go. His assumption that the breakup was a breakup and not a temporary schism hasn’t been called into question. And maybe part of the reason is because Near would prefer to avoid the potential vanishings or reality-melting tantrums that come with putting this particular baby in a corner. But there’s part of him, too, that simply is not interested in moving beyond basecamp here at the foot of whatever mountain Jude’s bullshit is.

With both hands, he pulls his hair away from his face and then lets it spring free before shaking his head at his own stupidity.

“Last call’s two. I’ll be home by two-thirty. Three. You know where I live.”

[Jude]

With any stakes lower than the fate of the world, perhaps the conversation would not feel like scaling the Matterhorn. Jude is relieved not to have lost his temper nor to have driven the conversation entirely into a ditch. He thinks there's a tire that's blown out, but that's fine, he has a spare and he has even learned to put it on himself. Near does not appear delighted with Jude's apology — his satisfaction, if it can be called that, is threadbare. Jude only scrapes by. But scraping is better than the ditch.

But what's it to Near if Jude vanishes through the floor or the wall or into his rented Versa? If 'no' is 'no', all roads lead back to Rome. Moreover it doesn't matter if Jude sinks Near into the concrete, as Near will climb back out and have something new to complain about.

"Fine. See you." With the same studious discipline, Jude makes lingering eye contact with Near to show that he is not fleeing like a beaten or frightened animal. After three seconds, he feels he has sufficiently demonstrated his fortitude, and he turns to head out of the alley, weaving around the puddles reflecting the yellow lamplight. Jude's shoulders are drawn tightly together as he recedes from view, not unwinding until he has unlocked the Nissan and is snug in its narrow driver's seat.

It begins to drizzle.

Given that he does not drink, it is not good for Jude to sit at a bar — The Door or any other — killing time. The only place he can think to go is a movie theater, where he picks the longest film at the latest hour and sits in the back row, watching the entrances and letting the light and sound pass over him. The movie is an action-comedy with just the right amount of racism and misogyny, enough to nudge the audience about its daring in the age of wokeness, but nothing that will sour the slightly left-of-centers. The slapstick physical violence and the awkward flirtation between one lead and his romantic interest rattle something in Jude's brain, but no insight is forthcoming.

After the movie, Jude still has another two hours to kill. There's nothing but the bars left, and with no desire to drive aimlessly, he finds the local Walmart, parks away from the entrance, and leans his seat all the way back. Jude dozes, dreaming hazily of Near stealing a car and taking them on a highway chase, Jude bleating frantically next to him in-between a frenzied war to control the radio station.

His phone's alarm buzzes him awake at twenty minutes to three. It is still raining. Demotivated by drowsiness, Jude debates flaking. For the thousandth time, he replays the scene from Near's apartment. It is no less horrifying and awe-inspiring. Sighing, he turns the key in the ignition and straightens his seat.

It is still raining when he pulls up to Near's blue barn-like apartment complex. The rain is steady, patient. What Jude is not. He is awake enough — unhappy enough — to slam his door as he gets out of his car. Why did Near sell the Reaches to live in this shitty apartment? Jude makes a note to ask.

[Near]

Crystal’s schmoozy enthusiasm peters out around one, one-thirty, well after her lipstick. She’s vanished by the time last call rolls around, victim – Near figures – to more regular circadian rhythms, resolving at least one of his existential quandaries. The only customer still hanging around by two AM is a drowsy-eyed older guy whose glasses and argyle sweater vest grant him a shabby professorial vibe that is probably someone somewhere’s thing, but that Near doesn’t find tempting enough to plumb for interest, despite the part of him that thinks it might be a good idea to sniff out some strategy to avoid the further conversation with Jude that he has agreed to.

But no, the professor’s tab is settled without a fuss, and Near is left to the various minor rituals of closing up shop. By two-thirty he’s pounding on Kovich’s door to announce his departure. By two forty-five he’s coasting back into the apartment parking lot, thinking about blah blah blah the only way out is through.

Is it, though? Maybe there are times when you can just drive away and not go in in the first place.

He goes in anyway. The rain outside has seeped through the walls as it likes to do and turned the inside damp. Stuffy. He flicks on the overhead light and surveys his space, the moving boxes stacked and scattered like a fort he forgot to finish building. He’s gotten his shit packed up sooner than he needed to, but that’s a kind of self-indulgence: he’s always found inexplicable pleasure in the sensation of living out of boxes, of putting everything away and out of sight. Of digging out just what you need and leaving the rest in the dark for later.

No Jude yet, and what are the odds Jude will think better of his proposal and not show up at all? The thought bothers Near more than it should, as if being ghosted now would qualify as Jude getting one over on him, haha made you think I was coming over and then I didn’t. The routes his thoughts take in relation to Jude are not good or healthy, but fighting it is impossible so he just lets them do their thing, turning on the TV (he has decided to leave it here with the larger furniture) for the distraction in the meantime. A twenty-four hour news channel squawks about wars and natural disasters.

[Jude]

The only way out is through, but 'through' can be here or there, this way or that way. There's a lot of throughs, some of them through tunnels, some of them through lakes, and some of them through solid rock.

There is another option: simply never getting out. Just staying stuck. Remaining where you're at. There's the holding pattern, treading water, pacing in a circle until it wears grooves in the floor. That can be done here or there too. You can go everywhere and at the same time nowhere at all.

Jude does not know whether he is going through or remaining in place, as he dodges puddles in the parking lot and makes his way up to Near's apartment. Before he puts his hand on the knob, he stares at it, wondering to himself if this is not another turn on the carousel, color and music and motion that leaves him back where he started, plus dizziness. He pauses, and wonders again, What would Courtland do? What would Courtland want?

He turns the knob without knocking. His dark blonde hair is darker in streaks, fluffier in other places, frizzed by the moisture. Jude's entrance is quiet, but not so quiet that the door doesn't announce him. The nostalgic thought of Courtland softens him somewhat, diluting the anxiety induced by the car chase dream. "Hey," he says, as he pauses over the threshold, bending over to remove his shoes. Which he intends not to throw his time. He remembers where that led.

[Near]

“JesusfuckingChrist,” expels itself from Near’s throat, three words conjoined into an inoperable mass of sound that hurtles toward the back of the wasteland that is his freezer.

He’s been hovering there in front of it for a while now, the door lolling open, surveying his collection of boxed microwaveable meals without coming to a conclusion about whether he’s hungry enough to bother. Now he’s definitely not. Hunger is forgotten and replaced with pure jumpscare response. The paroxysm encapsulating it is aimed less at Jude, specifically, than at the unexpected manifestation of Jude’s voice somewhere outside of the insipid chatter that’s still emanating from the television. (As if Jude appearing on the newscast instead would be preferable.)

Snapping around to locate where, exactly, the point of origin is, he locates it quickly enough: there’s Jude in the flesh, daintily taking off his shoes like he is once again planning to stay a while. Near’s own nonslip New Balance sneakers, well broken-in, are, as usual, still on, in spite of their potential to track whatever was on the floor in the bar into his living space.

“Hey?” He lobs the word back in the shape of a question, very pointedly an insinuation of “do you not knock?” more than a casual greeting returned.

[Jude]

Jude feels the comedic urge to close the door, perform a loud knock, and reenter the apartment. Unfortunately this would require that he put his shoes back on, lest he get his socks wet. The effort is too great. In concession to Near's fright, he lingers at the doorway for several moments longer than necessary; it gives him the appearance of being chided. His expression remains at its default: a handsome blankness. 'Sorry' is communicated more in gesture -- hesitance and stillness -- than with lips and eyes.

"Didn't mean to leave it unlocked?" He reaches behind and closes the door, then locks it himself. There is a second concession. He shuts away the sound of the rain.

The couch is equally cursed, as is the kitchen, all of them having lived vividly in Jude's mind in his absence. That mostly leaves him with the option of standing in the living room. This being too undignified, he goes and half-sits, half-leans against the arm of the couch, distancing himself enough from his shoes and the door to indicate he will not leave abruptly, but giving Near enough space not to spook him any further. He seems like he forgot Jude was coming over.

"Was the rest of your night okay?" Maybe something happened that put Near on edge. Something that was not Jude.