1

In that location are two twins on motorbikes only ane is further up the road, beyond
the hairpin turn, or merely before information technology, depending on which twin you are in
love with at the time. Do not cull sides notwithstanding. It is still to your advan-
tage to remain impartial. Both motorbikes are shiny red and both boys
take perfect teeth, dark pilus, soft hands. The one in front will want to
take yous apart, and slowly. His deft and stubby fingers searching every
shank and lock for weaknesses. You could beloved this boy with all your
heart. The other brother only wants to stitch you lot back together. The
lord's day shines down. It'due south a cute mean solar day. Consider the hairpin turn. Do non
choose sides even so.

2
At that place are two twins on motorbikes but one is farther upwardly the road. Let's
call them Jeff. And because the first Jeff is in front nosotros'll consider him
the older, and therefore responsible for lending money and the occa-
sional punch in the shoulder. World-wise, world-weary, and not his
female parent'south favorite, this Jeff volition always win when it all comes down to
fisticuffs. Unfortunately for him, information technology doesn't e'er all come down to
fisticuffs. Jeff is thinking almost his brother downwards the winding route be-
hind him. He is thinking that if only he could cut him open and skin him
dorsum and crawl within this second skin, then he could relive that last mile
again: reborn, wild-eyed, complimentary.

iii
In that location are 2 twins on motorbikes just one is farther upwardly the road, beyond
the hairpin turn, or just before it, depending on which Jeff you are. Information technology
could have been so cute—y'all scout out the road ahead and I volition
spotter your back, how information technology was and how it will be, retentiveness and fantasy—
but each Jeff wants to be the other i. My name is Jeff and I'k tired
of looking at the back of your head. My name is Jeff and I'm tired of
seeing my manus me down clothes. Look, Jeff, I'm telling y'all, for the
last time, I mean it, etcetera. They are the same and they are non the
same. They are the same and they detest each other for it.

4
Your name is Jeff and somewhere up alee of yous your brother has
pulled to the side of the route and he is waiting for y'all with a lug wrench
clutched in his greasy fist. 0 how he loves you, darling boy. 0 how, similar
always, he invents the monsters underneath the bed to become you to sleep
next to him, chest to chest or chest to back, the covers drawn around
you in an human activity of organized religion against the night. When he throws the wrench into
the air it volition take hold of the light as it spins toward you. Look—it looks like
a star. You lot had expected something else, anything else, but the wrench
never reaches you. It hangs in the air similar that, spinning in the air like
that. It's beautiful.

5
Let'south say God in his High Heaven is hungry and has decided to make
himself some tuna fish sandwiches. He's already finished making two
of them, on sourdough, before he realizes that the fish is bad. What is
he going to do with these sandwiches? They're already made, but he
doesn't want to eat them.

Let's say the Devil is played by ii men. Nosotros'll call them Jeff. Nighttime
hair, green eyes, white teeth, pinkish tongues—they're twins. The one on
the left has gone bad in the middle, and the other one on the left is well-nigh
to. Every bit they wrestle, you can tell that they have forgotten near God, and
they are very hungry.

6
Yous are playing cards with three men named Jeff. Two of the Jeffs seem
somewhat familiar, but the Jeff beyond from you keeps staring at your
hands, your oral cavity, and you're certain that you've never seen this Jeff
before. But he'southward on your team, and you're ahead, you're winning big,
and yet the other Jeffs continue smiling at you similar there's no tomorrow.
They all have perfect teeth: white, square, clean, even. And, for some
reason, the lighting in the room makes their teeth seem closer than they
should exist, every bit if each oral cavity was a place, a living room with pink carpeting
and the window's open. Come back from the window, Jefferson. Take off
those wet clothes and come up over here, by the fire.

seven
Y'all are playing cards with three Jeffs. One is your father, one is your
blood brother, and the other is your current boyfriend. All of them have seen
you naked and heard you talking in your sleep. Your young man Jeff gets
up to respond the phone. To them he is a mirror, but to you he is a room.
Telephone's for you, Jeff says. Hey! It'south Uncle Jeff, who isn't really your
uncle, only you can't talk right now, 1 of the Jeffs has put his tongue
in your mouth. Delight permit it be the right ane.

eight
Two brothers are fighting by the side of the road. Two motorbikes take
fallen over on the shoulder, leaking oil into the clay, while the interlocking
brothers grapple and swing. You see them through the backseat
window as you and your parents drive past. You are twelve years old.
Yous do non have a blood brother. Yous have never experienced anything this
ferocious or intentional with some other person. Your female parent is pretending
that she hasn't seen anything. Your father is fiddling with the knobs
of the radio. There is an empty space adjacent to you lot in the backseat of the
station carriage. Get in the shape of everything y'all need. At present say
hi.

9
You are in an ordinary suburban bedroom with bunk beds, a bookshelf,
two wooden desks and chairs. Yous are lying on your back, on the height
bunk, very close to the textured ceiling, staring straight at information technology in fact, and
the room is withal dark except for a wedge of powdery light that spills in
from the adjoining bath. The bathroom is covered in mint dark-green
tile and someone is in at that place, singing very softly. Is he singing to you?
For you? Black cherries in chocolate, the band around the moon, a bee-
tle underneath a glass—you cannot make out all the words, but you lot're
certain he knows yous're in there, and he's singing to you lot, fifty-fifty though you
don't know who he is.

10
You meet information technology as a room, a tabernacle, the dark hotel. You lot're in the hallway
once more, and you open up the door, and if y'all're prepare y'all'll see it, but
perhaps one function of your mind decides that the other parts aren't ready,
and then you don't remember where y'all've been, and you detect yourself
downward the hall again, the lights gone dim as the left paw sings the right
manus dorsum to sleep. It'south a puzzle: each slice, each room, each time you
put your mitt to the knob, your mouth to the hand, your ear to the
wound that whispers.

You're in the hallway over again. The radio is playing your favorite vocal.
You're in the hallway. Open up the door over again. Open the door.

11
Suppose for a moment that the centre has two heads, that the heart has
been chained and dunked in a glass booth filled with river water. The
eye is monologing most hesitation and fulfillment while backside the
crimson brocade the heart is drowning. Tin can the centre escape? Does honey
fifty-fifty care? Snow falls as nosotros dump the booth in the bay.

Suppose for a moment we are crowded around a pier, waiting for something
to ripple the water. We believe in you. There is no danger. It is not
getting night, nosotros desire to say.

12
Consider the hairpin turn. It is waiting for you similar a red door or the
broken leg of a domestic dog. The sun is shining, O how the sun shines downwardly!
Your speedometer and your handgrips and the feel of the route beneath
you, how it knows y'all, the black ribbon spread out on the greens be-
tween these lines that of a sudden don't reach to the horizon. It is waiting,
like a broken door, like the red dog that chases its tail and eats your rose-
bushes so must be forgiven. Who exercise you love, Jeff? Who do y'all
beloved? You were driving toward something so, well, so you
plant yourself driving the other way. The dog is asleep. The road is exist-
hind you lot. O how the sun shines down.

xiii
This time everyone has the best intentions. You accept cancer. Allow'south say
you have cancer. Let's say you've swallowed a bad matter and now it'south
got its easily within y'all. This is the essence of love and failure. Y'all meet
what I mean but yous're happy anyway, and that's okay, it's a love story
afterward all, a lasting love, a wonderful hazard with lots of action,
where the mirror says mirror and the manus says hand and the forepart
door never says Sorry Charlie. So the md says you need more
stitches and the trample cream isn't working. So much for the facts. Let's
say you're withal completely in the dark but we love you anyhow. Nosotros
beloved you. Nosotros actually exercise.

14
Subsequently piece of work you become to the grocery shop to become some milk and a carton of
cigarettes. Where did you get those bruises? You don't remember.
Work was ho-hum. You notice a jar of bruise foam and a can of stewed
tomatoes. Maybe a salad? Spinach, walnuts, blue cheese, apples, and
yous tin't decide betwixt the Extra Big or Colossal blackness olives. Which
is bigger anyhow? Actress Large has a blueish label, Jumbo has a purple
label. Both cans cost $one.29. While yous're deciding, the afternoon lite
is streaming through the windows behind the bank of checkout coun-
ters. Take the lite inside you like a approval, like a genu in the chest,
holding onto it and non letting information technology go. Now let it get.

15
Like sandpaper, the light, or a blessing, or a bruise. Blood everywhere,
he said, the ruddy light hemorrhaging from everywhere at once. The train
station blue, your lips bluish, hands cold and the blue wind. Or a equus caballus,
your favorite horse now raised upwards again out of the mud and galloping
galloping always toward yous. In your ruined shirt, on the last day, while
the bruise won't heal, and the stain stays put, the red light streaming in
from everywhere at once. Your cleaved ribs, the back of your head, your
hand to rima oris or hand to now, correct now, like you hateful it, like it'due south split up-
ting you in two. Now look at the lights, the lights.

16
You and your lover are making out in the corner booth of a seedy bar.
The booths are plush and the drinks are cheap and in this dim and
smoky light you lot can barely tell whose hands are whose. Someone raises
their glass for a toast. Is that the Hand of Judgment or the Manus of
Mercy? The bartender smiles, running a rag across the glassy wood
of the bar. The drink in forepart of you has already been paid for. Beverage it,
the bartender says. It's yours, yous deserve it. It'due south already been paid for.
Somebody'due south paid for information technology already. There'southward no mistake, he says. It's your drink,
the one yous asked for, just the way you similar it. How can you refuse Hands
of fire, easily of air, hands of h2o, hands of dirt. Someone's doing all
the talking only no one'southward lips move. Consider the hairpin turn.

17
The motorbikes are cervix and neck only where's the checkered flag we
all expected, waving in the distance, telling you you're dwelling house again,
home? He's next to you, right adjacent to you in fact, so close, or. . . he isn't.
Imagine a room. Yeah, imagine a room: two chairs facing the window merely
nobody moves. Don't motion. Keep staring straight into my eyes. It feels
like y'all're not moving, the way when, dancing, the room will all of a sudden
autumn away. You're dancing: you're cervix and neck or cheek to cheek, he's
there or he isn't, the open road. Imagine a room. Imagine y'all're danc-
ing. Imagine the room at present falling abroad. Don't motion.

xviii
Two brothers: 1 of them wants to take yous apart. Ii brothers: 1
of them wants to put you back together. Information technology's time to cull sides now.
The stitches or the devouring mouth? You desire an alibi? You don't get
an excuse, you lot get two brothers. Here are two Jeffs. Option one. This is how
you brand the meaning, you take ii things and try to define the infinite
betwixt them. Jeff or Jeff? Who do y'all desire to be? You only wanted
to play in your own lawn, but y'all don't know where your own yard
is, exactly. Yous just wanted to prove there was i safe place, just ane
safe place where you could beloved him. Yous accept not institute that place yet.
Y'all take non made that place yet. You are hither. You are here. You're
nonetheless right hither.

19
Hither are your names and hither is the list and here are the things you left
behind: The marker on the flooring from pushing your chair back, your united nations-
derwear, one half brick of cheese, the kind I don't similar, wrapped up, and
poorly, and abased on the 2nd shelf next to the poppyseed clothes-
ing, which is besides yours. Here's the champagne on the flooring, and here
are your house keys, and here are the curtains that your cat peed on.
And here is your true cat, who keeps eating grass and vomiting in the hall-
style. Here is the listing with all of your names, Jeff. They're not the same
name, Jeff. They're non the same at all.

xx
There are two twins on motorbikes but they are not on motorbikes,
they're in a garden where the flowers are as big as thumbs. Imagine you
are in a field of daisies. What are you lot doing in a field of daisies? Get up!
Permit'due south say yous're not in the field anymore. Permit'southward say they're not brothers
anymore. That'southward right, they're not brothers, they're but one guy, and
he knows you, and he's talking to y'all, simply you're in hurting and y'all tin can-
non empathize him. What are you lot still doing in this field? Get out of
the field! Y'all should be in the hotel room! You should, at least, be try-
ing to get dorsum into the hotel room. Ah! Now the field is empty.

21
Concord onto your voice. Concord onto your breath. Don't make a dissonance,
don't leave the room until I come back from the expressionless for you. I will
come back from the dead for yous. This could be a city. This could exist a
graveyard. This could exist the basket of a big airship. Leave the lights
on. Leave a trail of letters like those little knots of bread we used to
dream most. We used to dream well-nigh them. We used to do a lot of
things. Put your mitt to the knob, your oral cavity to the mitt, selection upwards the
breadstuff and devour it. I'yard in the hallway again, I'k in the hallway. The
radio's playing my favorite song. Leave the lights on. Keep talking. I'll
continue walking toward the audio of your voice.

22
Someone had a political party while y'all were sleeping but you weren't actually
sleeping, y'all were sick, and parts of you were burning, and you
couldn't move. Mayhap the political party was in your honor. You lot can't remem-
ber. It seems the phone was ringing in the dream you lot were having merely
there's no proof. A dish in the sink that might be yours, some apparel on
the floor that might vest to someone else. When was the last time you
found yourself looking out of this window. Hey! This is a cute
window! This is a beautiful view! i hose copse lined up like that, and the
way the stars are spinning over them similar that, spinning in the air like
that, like wrenches.

23
Let's say that God is the space between two men and the Devil is the
infinite between ii men. Here: I'll be all of them-Jeff and Jeff and Jeff
and Jeff are standing on the shoulder of the highway, four motorbikes
knocked over, ii wrenches spinning in the ordinary air. Two of these
Jeffs are windows, and two of these Jeffs are doors, and all of these Jeffs
are trying to tell you lot something. Come closer. We'll whisper information technology in your
ear. Information technology'south similar seeing your confront in a bowl of soup, foam of potato, and the
eyes shining back like spoons. If we wanted to tell you everything, we
would exit more than footprints in the snow or kiss you harder. 1 affair.
Come closer. Listen . . .

24
You're in a machine with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves
you, but he loves you lot. And yous feel like you've done something terr-
ible, similar robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself
a grave in the dirt, and y'all're tired. You're in a motorcar with a cute boy,
and you lot're trying not to tell him that yous love him, and you're trying to
choke down the feeling, and yous're trembling, but he reaches over and
he touches you, like a prayer for which no words be, and y'all experience your
heart taking root in your torso, like you've discovered something you lot
don't even have a proper noun for.

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