The Empty Man

It was the foliage that drew me to those apartments. The view through the large white gate to the main building was like looking into some exotic palace's courtyard. The driveway tiled in red and canopied in green created an illusion of beauty that the dilapidated buildings couldn't muster autonomously. Our home was the first apartment to the left. It wasn't anything special. In unification with the heavy air brought in from the ocean, a large wooden armoire engendered the mildew that perfumed the air inside. A black trash bag fastened with duct tape replaced the glass in the window over the kitchen counter. It didn't matter how rigorously I scrubbed the small bathroom. It never met the clean standard that my home in the United States had set.

That night I sat on the doorstep furiously smoking cigarette after cigarette under the lush canopy. It was so long ago and happened so often that I can't recall the reason for his departure that particular evening. Sometimes he would leave under the pretense of business, or sometimes whatever storm we had created in that palace was big enough to blow him out the door. He would go, and I would wait. Anxiously anticipating his return that I might get to curl into his arms and receive the oxytocin dose I so desperately craved. Hours would pass, and once the cigarettes ran out, I'd retire to the bed. I'd lay there restlessly until I heard the echo of the gate slamming shut behind him.

The footsteps resonated through the corridor, the key turned in the lock, and he spilled in. He lay there sprawled on the floor, in dopamine-induced catalepsy. His brown skin radiant in contrast with the yellowing linoleum. Sweat glistened across his hairline from the exertion of the bike ride home. Dark curls fell in tangles over his back. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. After hours of waiting, there he was, catatonic, a beautiful mess in the middle of my floor. I could have left him there, but with the threat of scorpions ever-present and my determination to satisfy my addictions, I decided to get him to the bed at least. He was heavy, and I am small, he mumbled inebriated words under his breath as I clumsily dragged him over to the bed.

In reaction to feeling the sheets against his skin, he managed to at least get half his body on. No matter how out of it he was, he would never put his shoes in the bed, so there he laid half on, half off. I wasn't satisfied. I waited all night for my fix. So, I untied the shoes and ripped them off his feet, frustrated by the effort. It was like undressing a corpse. I took off his belt. Instantly, he pulled himself onto the bed, curled into the fetal position at the end like a dog. I stared at him, filled with disappointment, sick from the nicotine and cortisol overdose. Arms crossed, I sat there brooding, his lips shown a blueish hue; I wondered where he had been. How many drugs had he taken? How much alcohol had he imbibed?

I leaned over the pitiful shell of flesh, put my ear close to his mouth. Was he even breathing? His shallow breathes were barely detectable. I questioned if he would die in his sleep. He was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, and the emptiness inside him devoured everything in its sphere. Anger welled inside me. I wasn't angry with him but rather with myself for not having the strength to leave him there in the void.