MIRROR JOEL
Tim Stillman
Once in Joel's bathroom, I pulled down my jeans, faced the full length mirror on
the inside of the door, and kissed my reflected lips, dressed, walked to him, mere ft. away, lying on his side, on his bed, glancing up and reading. And I, pretending later, all those mirror fantasies in movies to come, from THE FOX to GHOST onward to the scare mirror instant rush past, as the fraught woman sees in
the corner of her eye, turns round, but not quickly enough, to MIRRORBACKARDS. At the time, though, it was as gaunt and perfunctory and sexless as that.
Later, there was again, from my childhood, Jimmy. When Christmas came, I put the
few Christmas cards I got, into a sack, not seeing who they were from, and did not look at them till after New Years, and with much relief, looked and found one reading "merry Christmas, Jimmy." I owned the moon that day.
When I was a very young child, I hid the phone under pillows, so if someone called and there was no answer, there would be worry. There was no one to worry.
Was I practicing for later? When there were people who might have, but didn't.
Was I that mirrored image in Joel's bathroom? It was the mirror in the bath of his own room. Did I go through great long leaps of versions of Hedda Gabler and
Chekov ghost plays as I imagined my reflection left behind would envelop him in his sleep as I took my own stylish, sensuously choreographed masturbatory ballet
in front of my living room mirror, in movement and arch and sigh and holding him
in my arms, as he touched me, or my mirrored image, in his dreams?
And woke from it, with the same hollow image of himself, as I? A bleached vast sand blasted distance covered in glowing red sky hue zillions of all the frozen unyielding mirrors of all tickless time, with rhyme and rime and frigid unclosing eyes on me and freezing unto spectral death my sexual warm brief shameful dream?
Elaborate in my ego? No, drenched in my solitude. Reflections are so fascinating, from Lewis Carroll on, to see and not feel, because how can a reflection feel? It must be, for some reason, made of silver and have blood composed of snowy north winds.
And moving with him and inside him, and the lonely growing pains of his, and the
lonely muscle cramps of mine, would cease. Were we Patrick Dempsey and Demi Moore, the morning before school times when he looked at himself in his full length mirror after his shower, naked, toweling himself, blow drying his long yellow hair, dressing? Did he approve of himself? Was he just Joel and that was that?
Did I think myself in Wonderland, and he doing all of this in front of me? Mirrors run silver mercury somewhere in child memory, beads of mercury on
the yellow counter by the sink, as I tried to split them apart, and did, but they kept moving, dimpling, like they had tiny microbes of laughing jelly inside.
I had felt awful invading his mirror that Friday night right before leaving, doing it as I dared, and wanted to tell him, so he would absolve me, and to imagine, dusky years hence, this thought muffled by pillows, so it would only be
heard ringing now to funhouse torment me without a chance of hope, that he would
say, why the mirror? When here I am.
Maybe I meant to be Dorian Gray in his mirror, thus to keep him young forever, and me to take on his age, so one day in the park of autumn, he would blindly put a hand to me, and he the sightless Narcissus, arrowed to ground in mirror beauty, image wrong in my incantation, would see as I would see. Of his maybe masturbating in the mirror and I---no.
My generation got by on that to a certain age, and Joel's earlier than that. It was to be my sole friend, and I needed one fine Spring day to push Joel out of my mirrors. All of them. Including the one school picture of him and long years later to dispose of his letters too.
Not to divest him of a mirror world he never knew existed between us, but to divest myself of his, which did not exist. In mirrors in between, sleepy exhausted morning or night, I see myself as only habitant, for mirrors are made of grains of sand and are very imperfect reflectors of illusion, poorly or badly made, depending on light, and eyesight and hope and bad memory.
And of whoever or whatever it reflects, its methodology unintended with no scorn, and that mirror remained, I suppose, after my 2 years of imprisoned happiness were up.
And it, that I had shown my lean body, unintentionally to, meaning to show it to
Joel, my shirt pulled up, my own mirrors I saw from, off, my eyes half-closed, all this for a grand terrified total of maybe 5 seconds, had seen him grow up, hair shorter when the long hair hippie style left, and his clothing also changing accordingly; and shaving. My God, I never thought of that; Joel with a beard--nooooooooooooo.
The mirror showing him gradually taller and practicing his moves on girls in front of it. The heat of the shower. The little window raised to rush in cold, clear the steam, so pores could breathe again. To have gotten caught in his mirror. To have once upon a time been, for isn't this an attempt to crawl into a
fairy tale,? for a few more years, myself standing still, as I had before it, to
have Joel out there as I implanted my still, silent as granite, reflection that never touched, kept breathing and heart in check, and now I know.
It comes to me in a terrible way of personal certainty, that I, only 8 years older than he, was a not essential mirror for him to gaze into, as teen eyes will look to other human mirrors, to adjust themselves to coming years, possibly, a little of reasons here and there into the wizardly withering ways of utter self awareness, and I, if lucky, was one of his first holy god this is
for real and I am actually here, using maybe me, reality and dream checks, and on everyone he sees....(and what of him did he see perhaps in me? I. Joel's--however momentary-- mirror? What a laugh.)
"Candyman? Candyman? Candy---
"Joel?"