Chapter 12 #3
May’s living room was small. Cassiel’s first thought was that it was the size of his bathroom.
That was uncharitable; the actual footprint was closer to his bathroom plus approximately one additional bathroom.
The couch occupied most of the room, plush with navy upholstery, a throw blanket folded over one arm.
Then a water-stained low table and an old television.
A single calendar, about to be out of date, was the only thing on the wall.
The overhead light was a cool-white LED, flat and uniform. Cassiel’s eyes adjusted reluctantly.
By virtue of it being the same room, the kitchen was open plan.
The counter contained a pile of mail that had been shoved out of the way for space, a collection of mugs, a pill organizer and a stack of notebooks.
There was an electric kettle with a brand Cassiel had never seen before, in Chinese, in a shade of mint green.
Cassiel looked away from it and had to stop himself from touching the mail.
The containers went straight to the fridge.
“The pile on the left is important,” May said, gesturing at a stack of miscellany near the couch. “The pile on the right is a beautiful mystery. Together they form a vision.”
The floors were hardwood, probably original, scuffed in the path between couch and kitchen. The fog dampened the street noise to the level where May lived.
The apartment itself was not dirty, just unmanaged in a way that made sense for May. Things accumulated on surfaces, landed where they landed. The space confirmed every piece of arithmetic Cassiel had been carrying since September, and being right was not satisfying.
He set the box down on the hardwood.
“Where do you want it?”
“Are you going to tell me what ‘it’ is?”
Cassiel shook his head. May shrugged and pointed to the low table.
Cassiel considered the table. Then he brought the box over and got on the floor beside it, which was not something he had planned to do in these trousers.
“Open it,” he said.
May knelt across from him and unwrapped the kraft paper, then pulled the cardboard flaps open. He looked into the box, then up at Cassiel, eyebrows climbing.
“I—Dude, this is too much.”
Cassiel didn’t meet his eye, just shook his head both at the assertion and at being called dude. He set his phone on the table surface, opened the level app, and watched the bubble. Two degrees off. He reached into the open box, folded a piece of the inner packing, and shimmed the rear left leg.
He lifted the AT-LP120X from its foam cradle and set it on the now-level table, connected the power, removed the transit screws, set the platter on the spindle.
The counterweight went on. Pre-set to 2.
0 grams, but he checked it with the digital gauge from his bag, because pre-set meant factory and factory meant approximate.
2.02 grams. He adjusted. ‘Close enough’ was not a standard he applied to anything, but the purpose of a machine was to be used. The use would be up to May.
May had climbed up on the couch.
“You know,” he said, “you didn’t actually need to buy me a turntable to get into my apartment.”
Cassiel’s hands paused on the anti-skate dial. It was a joke. Eighty percent of what came out of May’s mouth were jokes.
“Didn’t I?”
“No, idiot,” May answered, voice soft.
Cassiel exhaled and carried on, set the anti-skate and connected the RCA cables to the composite inputs on May’s flatscreen—not ideal, but the signal path was clean. He’d look into powered speakers later. This was a continuing project, a promise like the promise of a sequel to the mixtape.
Finally, he reached back and took the record from his bag, slid the vinyl from the inner sleeve, and placed it on the platter. The cue lever lowered and the needle found the groove.
“Are We There” began to play. Guitar and piano, followed by Sharon Van Etten’s voice, low and melancholy. The overhead light was still wrong, but the rightness of the sound made the wrongness of the light bearable.
“You picked this for me too?” May asked.
Cassiel flicked the beads on his ring. “I followed what you like.”
May looked at him. The look lasted longer than the answer warranted and the brightness in his eyes was a different kind of bright. It could have been the light, but it wasn’t.
He unfolded from the couch and disappeared down the hallway, through a red curtain pinned across the bedroom doorway. A drawer opened and shut, the sound loud beneath the music, and he came back holding something wrapped in newspaper.
“So, my thing is not a turntable,” May said. He sat on the floor beside Cassiel, cross-legged, their knees almost touching. “It’s much… okay, it’s smaller than a turntable. Spoilers, no electricity. I don’t know if you even—”
“May.”
May grimaced a smile and handed it over.
The newspaper came away to reveal a notebook.
Midori MD, A5, the cotton cover smooth and pale under Cassiel’s thumb.
The paper was heavier than Tomoe River, not as slippery as Rhodia, a thickness he liked.
He owned few notebooks since leaving college, more jotpads, meant for numbers and specifications and the odd note.
A cat sticker adorned the front cover, clearly bespoke. Orange tabby with one paw raised, beady eyes round. It reminded him of a cat he’d taken a picture of a few weeks ago.
“I know a guy from—you know, the SF Pen Show?” May said, when Cassiel hadn’t spoken.
He did know. It was an annual fountain pen convention he’d occasionally attended.
Why May would have been there is another story.
“I figured watch guys are pen guys, and pen guys are notebook guys. So I texted him, I said ‘he fixes watches and he’s kind of intense about quality,’ so he asked if you use fountain pens and I said ‘yeah probably, he’s got that energy. ’”
Cassiel nodded, still looking at the cat sticker. A track ended on the album and a new one began.
“I was looking at the ones with the colors and the pleather and the real leather and whatever and then he said it’s the paper that matters.” May put his fingertip where the cat’s cheek puffed out. “So I deferred to expertise. And the girl at the shop said I could pick a sticker.”
Fifteen dollars for the notebook, maybe seventeen. The sticker was free. May had texted a stranger, explained poorly, trusted the judgment, and put a sticker on the cover to show that he listened.
“I know you don’t… journal, or whatever, but. Maybe you could use it for something. I have my purple book for purple things. You could—”
Cassiel opened the cover to the blank first page.
“I’ll use it. Thank you,” he said. The words did not feel enough but it was what he had.
* * *
Cassiel crouched at the turntable. He’d gotten up after the notebook, crossed back to the low table, and his hands had found the machine because he wanted to touch something.
So he placed his thumb on the ridge of the dust cover and watched the platter turn.
The track had ended, moved on to something he didn’t recognize yet.
May sat against the base of the couch, his legs extended, the blue oxford untucked.
“I can’t do this with the money,” May said.
Cassiel turned his head.
“Tonight’s the last booking. No more STDY, I just want us to be us. I can’t be here with you on Christmas and then see a notification tomorrow with a dancing lady emoji going ‘Hey STDY BDY, your boyfriend gave you $160!’ —And you are that, right?”
Cassiel never liked the word ‘boyfriend.’ He barely tolerated ‘partner.’ But that was about semantics and labels.
This was about May. May’s financials, May’s pride.
May wanting to be something both more and less complicated than what Cassiel had led them to, all the way back in August when Chuseok and being alone was the foreground of his worries.
“I am if you say I am,” Cassiel said, turning back to face him.
“That is… uncharacteristically roundabout.”
“Yes, May, I am your boyfriend.”
“Better,” May said, standing up. Cassiel straightened and closed the distance, and so did May, until they stood inches apart. They were of similar heights, so their eyes came level. Cassiel should have kissed him then but he spoke instead:
“But you need the income.”
May’s eyes were dark and his voice was quiet when it came, the syllables bitten and precise.
“I know I need the income.” His eyes stayed on Cassiel, his arm extending back in a twisted showman’s gesture. “I live in this.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Shut up. No. Cassiel, listen. You did the math. Cool. Great. I know you did the math. You’ve been doing the math since I told you about the accident.
You looked at my shithole apartment tonight and you ran the numbers again.
You’re right. But you don’t get to hand me a fucking…
five-hundred-dollar turntable and then be all ‘Oh, but you need the money.’ You’re not going to be my sugar daddy. ”
The song played on, indifferent. Cassiel’s fingers wrapped around his index, feeling the ridges of the fidget ring.
“I did not say that,” he said, because he needed to be heard. “I didn’t ask to be your ‘sugar daddy.’ That is not what this is. I wanted your Thursday mornings, so I paid for them. You don’t want this to be a transaction—fine. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re losing money.”
“I’ll keep other clients. Take more, even.” May’s voice was clipped. “I’m not going to quit STDY. That’s work. But you and me—that’s done. The fake shit is done. No more bookings. No more rates. I show up because I show up.”
“Okay,” Cassiel said.
“Okay?”
Cassiel stared at him. What else was there to say? He had listened. He had heard.
May stared back. The flat look on his face held for another second, and then his shoulders dropped and his hand came up and Cassiel watched as May dug the heel into his eye. All Cassiel could do was count his breaths, the seconds before he spoke again. The record had stopped. Side A was done.
“Thank you,” May said.
“Don’t thank me for agreeing to stop giving you money to be with me.”