The Trampoline
If Liko’s friendship with Dane had phases, June was definitely their Debauched Era. The siren call of the Pub, with its fabulous food and drink, beckoned them across the road, and the conversation there was decidedly unrefined.
“You know your relationship has gone long-term when frombé becomes the default,” Dane said.
“Frombé?”
“From behind.”
Liko wheeze-laughed but Dane kept a cool face. Demanding, “What, you don’t know frombé?”
“I know what it is, I just never heard it called that.”
“And now you’ll never call it anything else.”
“Jesus.”
“Don’t tell me you and Janelle didn’t have private cutesy names for your repertoire.”
“Buttercup.”
Dane turned over a hand. “See? I don’t even want to know what that is. Tell me.”
“You’re too young.”
“Shut up. What is it?”
Liko closed teeth over his bottom lip and slid his empty plate over.
“Fuck you,” Dane said, and signaled Cora for two more shots.
Liko and tequila had never had a subtle relationship, so naturally he blabbed within five minutes.
“Buttercup is kind of like reverse cowboy, except you’re sitting up.
And instead of kneeling across your legs, she kneels between them and gets her feet under your butt.
Which lets her scootch back real close so you can…
” He raised eyebrows and mimed holding a pair of hips.
“Frombé. Actually now the official name is Buttercup Frombé. Buttercup for short.”
Buttercup, boobs or blow jobs—what was discussed at the Pub stayed at the Pub.
Back at the farmhouse, whether in the pool, the den, the kitchen or on the porch, Liko and Dane’s conversation always turned to tougher topics.
Harder things, sadder things. They talked about grief’s journey (“Fuck that word!”), told hilarious stories about their lost loved ones, or shared memories that could bring them to their knees.
The moments they were grateful for the time they had, and the moments when they looked at how they’d been so unfairly, unjustifiably cheated, and their thoughts turned appallingly violent.
Wanting to tear the world apart and make everyone hurt as much as they did.
“Check this out.” Dane passed Liko his phone, with a video of the performance artist Yoann Bourgeois.
The set was a trampoline next to a tall white staircase without railings.
Over and over, Bourgeois attempted to climb the stairs, only to topple over the side, bounce off the tramp, and have to begin again.
Sometimes he recovered where he left off, sometimes he started over from the bottom.
He took a step and fell, bounced back to take the same step again, only to fall, bounce, take the step again, fall, bounce, over and over a dozen times before achieving the next step.
Maybe two steps. Then crumpling over the side.
Liko held his breath, watching Bourgeois come within two steps of the top, then roll off the edge and fall.
He bounced on his back, defeated, letting the rebounds shrink from feet to inches.
Almost coming to a complete standstill, but then somehow building momentum between bounces to get himself going again, the springs growing larger.
His feet ran up the smooth side of the staircase and down again.
A little further each time. Gaining purchase on an edge.
This time he had it. No, not yet. This time for sure.
No. One more bounce. One more good one. And then he was back on the stairs. Where the journey began all over again.
“Jesus,” Liko said, resonating with understanding. “This is one of the best depictions of grief I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen too many.”
“I watch it at least once a week,” Dane said. “For a long time I was focused only on the stairs and the falling. The Sisyphean struggle. One step forward, nineteen steps back. Then I started thinking more about the trampoline.”
“How so?”
“Well, what is it? What’s mine? What’s yours? What’s the thing we bounce off to keep going?”
“Huh.”
“I guess I just started to marvel at its existence. That the trampoline is there. We all have one. Soft and cushy and bouncy, but tough. We can lie still on it, but if we start moving enough, pushing on it enough, it’ll push us right back. And up. And onward.”
“Yeah,” Liko said. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Some days it’s about climbing a step or two. Other days, it’s just about bouncing off the tramp. Or figuring out how to start moving again.”
“Like if someone else steps onto it with you,” Liko said slowly. “Just their footsteps will get you to bounce a little.”
They looked at each other and bumped fists.
“The first September after Kyle died was tough,” Liko said, as he and Dane hiked along Liberty Loop Trail. “Back to school always meant all this running around. School supplies. New sneakers. Physicals. Sports equipment. A million forms.”
“Hemorrhaging money,” Dane murmured.
“Fifty bucks here. A hundred bucks there. Filling the fridge and the pantry. Just a circus of shopping and planning and organizing and nagging. I always hated it. But that first September came around and the absolute dearth of activity smacked me in the face. I had nothing to do. Nothing to buy. Nothing to sign. Nothing to supervise. No one to nag. Money to burn. The first day of school, I was stumbling around with a cup of coffee. I looked out the window and saw our school bus come down the street. I fell on the floor and…”
“Died.”
“Yeah. But,” Liko said, holding up a finger. “The floor was a trampoline.”
Dane smiled. “You think you’re lying there dead, but you’re bouncing, ever so slightly. Doesn’t seem like it, but you are.”
“This will be my new answer when people ask How are you? I’ll just smile and answer, I’m bouncing.”
They walked quietly for a long time. Liko never found the silences between them awkward. They didn’t run out of conversation, rather it seemed they ran so far ahead, jawing and jabbering, they needed to pause every now and then to let the conversation catch up.
A gentle place to lay my head, Liko kept thinking.
You make a gentle place for me to lay my head.
“Do you miss being married?” Dane asked on another night.
“To Janelle or in general?”
“Either.”
“I miss having a person.”
“God, same,” Dane said. “I remember the first time I caught a cold when I was on my own. Man, I felt lower than low. The first cold, the first flu. Being alone in the house and sick is fucking awful. It really brought the hammer of loss down.”
“Yeah, I remember my first post-separation cold,” Liko said. “No longer having a person who gave a damn. It was beyond lonely.”
“The worst was the first stomach bug. One of those throwing up and throwing down apocalypses. All alone, sitting on the toilet, puking into the garbage can. And nobody knowing or caring. Thinking, I’m gonna die here. This is how they’ll find me.”
“The misery of running your own cold water on your own washcloth.”
“Groping for the Clorox, wiping everything down yourself, crawling back to bed and feeling… Like what word even applies? You left lonely a hundred miles behind. Now you feel totally forsaken.”
“Wretched.”
“Insignificant.”
“Abjured.”
“But,” Dane said. “The trampoline.”
“Even as you lie on the cold tile of the bathroom floor and wish you were dead, you’re bouncing.”
They sat in one of their long, easy silences, nursing their drinks.
“Are you ready for the thing called love?” Liko asked.
Dane smiled and set his glass down. “Saskia asked me to wait a year before I started dating.”
“And it’s been…two and change?”
“Two and a lot of change.”
“I have so many nosy questions.”
“About?”
“Being a house of three.”
“Oh that. Ask me anything,” Dane said.
“You sure?”
“One, it’s a much more pleasant topic than grief. Two, my dude, there’s nothing I haven’t been asked. I’ll be thrilled if you come up with something original. Fire away.”
“Um…” Liko laughed, blanking out. “Now that it’s time, I can’t remember what I wanted to ask.”
“What’s your kneejerk impression of polyamory? First image your mind comes up with.”
“The three of you spooning in bed.”
“Bed. Okay. The three of us rarely slept together. You’ve probably noticed this house has no shortage of sleeping space, so we all had separate bedrooms. Where I sleep now, with the king bed and the adjoining bath, used to be John and Mary’s room.
Then it became Nomi’s room. You’re currently staying in my old room.
Ethan slept on the third floor. The whole attic space was his studio before he had the freestanding one built. Got that mapped out in your head?”
“Got it.”
“Nomi and I slept together the most, usually in her room. Actually it was…” Dane trailed off. “Wow, I haven’t explained this to someone in a long time,” he said. “I’ve kind of forgotten how to make it sound simple.”
“Use short words.”
“I love when you say that.”
“Did you have a bedroom schedule?”
“God, no. It was all instinct, mood and vibes. I don’t know if it was a unique thing about our threesome, or typical.
We just were. We just did. It worked. No, wait, I’m making this sound too ideal.
It wasn’t all effortless. Not by a long shot.
I’ll put it this way: We had ninety-nine problems but the sleeping arrangements weren’t one. ”
“But the three of you rarely slept together?”
“It was a chore to get Ethan to sleep anyway. He’s one of those annoying people who can function on four or five hours.
And his creativity was always highest at night.
We’d have to go over to the studio and demand his presence.
But he hated bedtime on demand, so usually it was me and Nomi going to bed in the king and we’d wake up sometimes to find Ethan had come in.
Man, he was a thrasher. He’d sleep diagonally on us.
Like a dog. Or a toddler. Turning and kicking and punching.
Then Nomi had to pee at least twice a night.
And they both said I snored but I think they were full of shit. ”