The Depths

[Near]

The degree to which the scene at hand is making Near feel unscrupulous is unfair and absurd. New mantra, screed of the rational man; repeat it: having Jude in his apartment at all is absolutely a mistake, but not for the reasons he imagines Guthrie is rolling around in his head. It is not illegal. It is not immoral. He has no reason to feel like an ass about it. Under different circumstances, lying about it might qualify as wrong, but considering how the truth sounds like a fucking video game he got through half of before giving up, it’s not like there’s a less skeevy alternative.

Maybe it’s because he’s seen it from the other side a few times, and it never panned out well then. Unless he was jumping to conclusions, and the strangers he caught his various two-timing sort-of-lovers with were also pretentious disappearing ESP shoe-throwers. He should have asked about that, instead of getting angry, chalking it up to his bad taste, and moving on, like he generally did.

Guthrie should leave. It’s the obvious right move, considering that he has not been invited to stay. They can talk about Jude later, when he’s gone. Near is spinning explanations: he’s a headcase who just showed up, I didn’t want to piss him off, in case he did something crazy. Hell, could he run with that now? Probably not with Jude splayed there watching his romcom. But there’s Guthrie still at the door like a Jehovah’s Witness, still looking almost neutral but with a tightness in the line of his jaw that makes Near feel weirdly cornered.

“San Francisco, huh? I hear it’s gone to shit. What do you do?”

“Do you want to come in?” Near interrupts, uncomfortable with the indoor-outdoor conversation that any of his neighbors could be and probably are monitoring.

“Love to. I want to hear about school. Court’s not big on the reminiscing. But you know that.” Guthrie’s tone as he accepts the invitation is either one of friendly-ish conspiracy or accusation; Near can’t settle on which.

[Jude]

Near didn't even get halfway through the video game: he gave up during the tutorial level. He is a parody of a rationalist, denying his own eyes because theory has told him it's impossible. Jude has never forgiven the insult. Indeed Jude's deepest motivation has been sniffing out an apology, an 'I was wrong, I'm sorry,' for his cool rejection that night, his messy insistence on drinking, the wrecked car, the narrow escape. This is all a replay of the tutorial level.

Only the tutorial level is over now, because there's Guthrie.

Jude is like a different person. After getting into middle-schooler level squabbles with Near, he's suddenly composed. He is so overflowing with self-assurance, the fountain of his self-confidence and entitlement completely uninterrupted by Guthrie's appearance. He radiates the unspoken sense that he is entitled to Near, Near's couch, Near's apartment, Near's everything: that he is where he is supposed to be, unmistakeably.

The way Jude smiles as he says, "I'm a consultant," is so sticky and sweet it could be spread across toast. "It's a little rougher than it used to be, but--" Near interrupts him. Jude pauses politely.

As Guthrie steps over the threshold, Jude buzzes with warm-fuzzy feelings. The opportunity to lie on an extraordinary level has dawned upon the horizon: the chance to come up with the stupidest stories possible, which Near cannot argue with, which he must allow Jude to tell if he doesn't want to own up to his first lie. "He's always been shifty," Jude says, catching Near's eye. "Wouldn't know a straight answer if it hit him in the head." Or the chest. Like a shoe.

[Near]

A consultant, says Jude, and the proclamation nudges Near to the verge of groaning out loud. Almost. The sound is just there trying to rise from the bottom of his throat, but he stops it short like swallowing bile; the lesser reaction of a brief, sour grimace manages to escape into the world.

That’s probably exactly how Jude thinks of himself, too. A “consultant.” Bullshit made-up job title that people who don’t really do anything useful claim for themselves to pull one over on people who do. Well, consult this …

Guthrie hovers near the console table by the wall, grasping the flimsy Subway bag in his fist with no indication of being about to put it down, like it’s keeping him anchored to the floor. His face maintains most if not all of the even-keeled composure that it usually does when they’re together, which has been an unfairly an unremarked-on source of irritation to Near, not only because an outburst might jostle the weird feeling of superfluousness that Guthrie instills in him sometimes, but because it effectively prevents him from guessing what thoughts are happening on the other side of it. His sensitivity to subtler emotional frequencies has been blown out by standing too close to knock-down blow-out drama for too long. All his imagination is capable of is disasters.

“Hah.” (This is not laughter, just a recitation of one of its component sounds.) “Shifty?”

“I think Jude’s got me confused with … Jude,” says Near, aiming for somewhere between pointed and breezy.

“I don’t usually have any trouble getting straight answers out of him.” Guthrie to Jude. Mild. Conversational. “Maybe it’s just you. What kind of consulting do you do?”

[Jude]

Jude's excitement layers inside him, a knot twisting tighter and tighter. Beneath the easy-going placid surface, he is waiting with bated breath for the blow-up. Whether it comes from Guthrie or Near, he doesn't care. Misery loves company. The tantalizing promise of that company ripples electrically in the air.

Consultant. Jude's eyes are sparkling. He looks at Guthrie as he speaks, sadly deprived of whatever look is on Near's face. There is no less sparkle in his eyes when both Near and Guthrie dismiss his assessment of Near. He concedes happily, "Maybe it is just me," seizing upon the leaky implication that there is some part of Near that only Jude possesses and trying to break the pipe clean open. "Maybe that's my effect."

And maybe Jude is right. Is Near giving Guthrie straight answers now?

He flexes one foot on the couch and curls his toes. They crack softly in the silence, and he switches to the other foot. "An alternative energy start-up." The gaiety in Jude's voice is full of California sunshine. Jude too can be insensitive to finer interpersonal emotions, but all his attention is trained on Guthrie now. The straight answer wouldn't get Near much further anyhow. Neither Jude nor Near understand why they're having dinner together. How could they tell someone else?

[Near]

Guthrie fixes an assayer’s eye (the look that Near imagines he whips out when grilling his teenage part-time retail employees on exactly how many grandparents they have and why they keep dying) on Jude while he spins this answer that sounds as asinine as it does probable. “Alternative energy start-up consultant from San Francisco” isn’t a real thing; it’s a stock character that hack writers shove into their books and scripts when they need to fill out the cast with someone forgettably unlikeable. It’s so familiar that you can swallow it almost without thinking, takes a kind of effort to notice how ridiculous it is, a latter-day cousin to twirling mustache villain and manic pixie dream girl.

Near idles uneasily on the sidelines, watching the two men watch each other. Jude’s perpetual smugness seems to be escalating; he’s a monster that feeds on discomfort. Can Guthrie hear it, or does it play at a frequency that takes some training to distinguish from normal behavior?

“I knew you were going to do this.” Guthrie’s gotten whatever he wanted out of his Jude perusal and addresses Near now. Some of the smugness seems to have rubbed off on him, tucked itself into the measured way he announces an apparently long-held suspicion. And isn’t that nice, Near thinks, because he’s been walking around with no clue that his boyfriend (or whatever) has been waiting to catch him in the act of existing in the same room as a barefoot alternative energy startup consultant as he wields a romcom like a blunt weapon. But then Near is beginning to suspect that he is, in fact, some kind of social moron unfit to interact with regular people: the thing unfolding around him feels like one of those god-awful pieces of abstract art, slapped-together shapes and colors whose supposed meaning is lost on him. “But I didn’t know you thought I was an idiot,” Guthrie finishes.

“What the fuck.” Pure exasperation, a generalized kind, loud but dull. “What did you know I was going to do? What do you think is happening here?”

“Come on, Christ, you have so obviously been bored.”

“I like being bored with you,” Near barks back, realizing it’s not a brilliant rejoinder only after it’s been said, even if it’s true. He has enjoyed conflict-free shopping trips and scheduled date nights and sitting in Guthrie’s apartment doing nothing and what was up until now the novel confidence that he was not about to stumble into a knock-down drag-out fight. Probably he should correct himself, clarify. But he doesn’t.

The way Guthrie shakes his head makes Near want to throw one of Jude’s shoes at it. His “Yeah, that’s great, Court,” has exactly the same tone that you’d expect a high school teacher to tell you she’s not mad, just disappointed that you failed to turn in your make-up test and are now failing her class.

“Oh, fuck you,” mutters Near, because screw it, he doesn’t need the passing grade.

Guthrie looks a little surprised by this, at least. He glances back at Jude, who could have done everyone the favor of fucking off to the other room but is just stuck there on the couch like a human tick. “Look, I don’t know you, I’m not mad at you … I’m just going to ask you one time if there’s something going on here, and then I’ll leave.”

[Jude]

The reason Jude's lie comes so easily is because he is taking the truth and just tilting it sideways: certainly what he can do is alternative. It seems to involve energy. 'Consultant' can mean anything, including 'magician'. The only blatant untruth is that Jude is not from San Francisco. He was recently in San Francisco, but he wasn't born there. He was 'born' in Fairfax, Virginia. It doesn't sound as good.

As the fight begins, Jude is lifted into a state of ecstasy. If he was a normal person, he would be uncomfortable witnessing a lovers' quarrel, and at least somewhat self-conscious about being the obvious cause of it. Instead he sets the remote on the coffee table and leans his elbow on the arm of the couch. Now he watches Guthrie and Near as attentively as he was going to watch Drew Barrymore.

At long last Jude is glad he came here. He is grateful to Guthrie. Ten minutes ago it seemed like he had come back to Washington just to be humiliated again, his only recompense twenty-something dollars of DoorDash food. Hearing Near blurt out his like of boredom justifies Jude's own likeably-boring afternoons observing Near. He knows how Near feels, and he also knows that Near was a fool to admit the feeling.

Enthralled by the show, Jude has to blink himself back into participation when Guthrie breaks the fourth wall. "Hmm? Oh." He thinks for a second, and then decides on the worst way to put the truth is, "Well, I guess it depends how you define 'something going on'."

You shouldn't have laughed at me, Jude thinks of Near. You should have been nicer to me. This is what he gets.

[Near]

Even Guthrie, who is standing there actively trying to stir up shit to vindicate his (incorrect) assumption that Near must be finding the excitement he needs to survive with somebody else, seems taken aback by the sheer abundance of shit contained in Jude’s brief, ridiculous non-answer. Double whammy! Near tells him to fuck off, and then Jude doesn’t even attempt to downplay the “something” of what is happening here. His nose wrinkles like there’s a bad smell drifting through the air; his eyes narrow a little as he runs it through various mechanisms in his head.

Cherry, cherry, cherry. Vindication: complete.

So figures Near. Near who hears the baldfaced, tasteless provocation Jude has opted for, when all he ever had to do, if he was going to insist on sitting there and staring bug-eyed at other people’s business, was say “no,” (no, which is true). He takes it in with an odd sensation of his nerves being deadened, like when the dentist drills an anesthetized tooth. He should probably be livid. Maybe it’ll wear off and he’ll be livid later. For now he’s just done.

He fixes a glare previously reserved for Jude on Guthrie, and proceeds in a tone resembling a flat rock wall, “Okay, what’s going on is that Jude’s a sideshow freak who ran off from some doomsday cult and ended up at my asshole dad’s house a couple of years ago. I let him in, which I guess makes this my fault. He abandoned me in the woods so I could watch a woman die, and now he’s back to fuck up my life some more, apparently, because he didn’t get enough the first time. I thought that all sounded kind of crazy, but I swear to god I would rather you leave thinking I’m crazy than thinking I’m over here reaming him because I’m tired of you, so.” It feels like something should follow the so, but he hasn’t thought that far. Didn’t figure he would get out as much as he did, really.

“What?” That’s Guthrie suddenly looking more baffled than self-righteous. Good.

“Are you leaving?” Near asks. A dare. He’s not sure if it counts as a win or lose that Guthrie hands him the Subway bag, shaking his head.

“Yeah, I am,” is all he says, looking back over to Jude. Near thinks he might say more if Jude weren’t still playing furniture tumor within spitting distance, but he doesn’t want to hear more, so he lets him go.

“Happy?” he asks flatly, once he’s closed the door.

[Jude]

Wreathed in the protective halo of victory, Near's description of Jude as a 'sideshow freak' does not scuff Jude's ego. Triumph has bestowed upon Jude a burgeoning sense of magnanimity, and he can think to himself, Yes, I suppose that summary is not entirely inaccurate. Then he thinks, That woman died? This revelation threatens to mar the glow of the moment, so Jude pushes it aside and continues to float on the euphoric waves of vengeance fulfilled. At the end of the day, aren't the details irrelevant? The point of it all is for Near to feel crazy, helpless, and pathetic -- the way Jude feels when he tries to explain his reality to Near. He wants Near drowning in that ocean. Let him reach up for Guthrie and find no hand to grasp his.

When Guthrie gives Jude a final look, Jude is giving 'attentive parakeet': his eyes are bright, his expression is rapt, and he radiates energy and playfulness. Like a bird safe in its cage, he clearly seems to think the chances of Guthrie running up and punching him in the face are at zero. Jude is never afraid of bleeding his own blood: it only activates his latent freakshow advantages.

The climax comes as Near closes the door. The sound of it closing is like the last resonant note in the movement of a symphony. Jude thinks he can finally be satisfied with coming here. This has not been a waste.

"Yes," he answers with venomous joy. The argument has accomplished something else: it has dragged the psychosexual element into the open, where Jude can litigate it with less coyness. "You invited me here. What did you even want?" And it comes off a bit different this time. The previous iterations of the question had the air of a frustrated student who kept failing an exam; this incarnation is much more suggestive. It implies that maybe Guthrie was right, that maybe beneath all the smoke and mirrors Near invited Jude back to his place to ream him, plain and simple.

He finally lifts his legs and sets them down on the floor, unwinding from his sprawl on the couch. The ambiguity gives Jude hearty leeway to deny he would ever accept such a proposition, but the electricity of the argument still crackles in the air around him.

[Near]

For a few seconds, Near stares at the door like maybe, just maybe, he can bore a hole into it if he concentrates hard enough. Why not? Why shouldn’t Jude’s freakshow bullshit be communicable? (It doesn’t seem to be). Vaguely, he wonders if Guthrie is ever going to call him again, or if the blowup has guillotined the head right off the feeble body of whatever they had been doing with one another. He cannot fathom, at least at the moment, finding it in himself to call Guthrie again. The first one of them to reach back out would assume the responsibility of apologizing, and hell if Near is going to apologize for telling the truth. It isn’t his fault the truth is so fucking stupid. So that, he guesses, is probably that. He imagines he’ll feel shittier about it later; for now a00 thick layer of surreal hangs over everything, blunting the edges of what should cut.

He drags a hand through his hair, hits a snag, sighs. Turns back around to face his apartment and its unwelcome new fixture of Jude. Jude whose swift *yes* sparks a dull throb of surprise – not that he doubted the smug asshole was leeching some gratification from his dismantling of the loose semblance of a life Near had cobbled together here, but because he didn’t expect the confirmation to be quite that sanguine.

“I fucking told you,” he mutters. “You angling for a chance to call me insane again, too? I had it in my head that we were on the same side of … something. Whatever. That maybe we could do … something. With the shit ton of money I have sitting in the bank, I don’t know. I was wrong. You don’t want to do shit and you hate me. I get it. Here.” He lobs the sandwich bag toward the couch with an underhand toss, like throwing a scrap to a dog. “Take that. Go get your goddamn shoes.”

[Jude]

"We are on the same side." It's Jude's turn to sound like Near is stating the obvious. They have been on the same side this entire time, yet Near has been very free with his friendly fire. If Jude's sanguineness is a surprise to Near, then perhaps Near has not considered how much he has gotten under Jude's skin. He has made things harder on them both and then been surprised that things have been hard.

Seeing how things played out with Guthrie though, Jude does wonder. His wondering is foggy and unformed, not quite able to extract a moral or a lesson, but it feels to Jude that Near was faking something and that Guthrie had simply gone along with it, waiting to see if the fake would turn out true or become something true. And he wonders if that is how Near lives, ironic and insincere with everyone, everywhere, all the time, and simply that he, Jude, is the tallest tree, the rod that draws the lightning.

At least Jude catches the sandwich in its bag, instead of letting it hit him like a dumb dog with no depth perception. "I hate you because you're mean," he says, and Jude admits it now because it finally occurs to him that maybe Near does not know this. "Can you stop being an asshole for like, five seconds?" He puts the sandwich bag on the coffee table. "I don't want a sandwich. Sit down."