I think I have always wanted a brother. But in my mind a brother is someone who you may also warmly kiss on the cheek, sit snugly against during a rainstorm, whisper your last wishes to on some frozen arctic plain. It is because I have never had a brother in something other than a name, and a half name at that, that I am free to imagine these things, to enact them as I see fit. My mind, so sinful, so impure, in this way possesses an incandescent innocence.
I write these words and my stomach rumbles, seeking, seeking.
Felix comes to town by train, and then by bus. It is September, a week or so after my 27th birthday. He has somehow kept my birthday gift, a beautiful set of handmade bowls made by a very hot man/ professional potter, from cracking during the trip. Later in his stay, we will eat large amounts of penne with assorted chopped veg and bolognese and shaker parmesan and then go on a necessarily slow walk, but first we go to a place called Toast & Coffee for caffeine. I do not remember what I ordered except it was probably an iced vanilla latte because Oklahoma until October or November is steamingly, stinkingly hot and sweaty and I hate to be both of those things. It is so good to be with my friend, however, that I can almost forget this, were it not the slight and constant singe to my skin. We spend an incomprehensible amount of time in the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, literally so long we are stumbling to each other and proclaiming: we are going to die here! but it is still a good time. A great time.
We get back to my place, a deep blue duplex here in this odd and incomprehensible city, change into our matching t-shirts, pick up my friend Hannah, and go for pho. I live in the “Adventure” District right on the border of the “Asian” District, which was once called “Little Saigon” on account of the many Vietnamese refugees who found themselves there and it brings to mind all the reservations I have to drive through to get back to my hometown, which is, in its way, another reservation.
The pho is steaming and delicious despite me ordering the option for white people, weenies, and/or those with stomachs that cannot digest much fat even if it is delicious due to half-breed ancestry and general faulty genetics.
My colonized guts do not stop me from suggesting we have cantaloupe agua fresca and a scoop of coconut or mango or any flavor really of ice cream at Neveria La Fuente de Michoacan to get us through our Aldi shopping trip. And oh, how it does.
Outside the Aldi is a cloud like a spaceship, a foreboding mushroom. We have picked up provisions for the week, including an unbranded Supreme pizza and grape sodas, which we will enjoy while watching Friday the 13th. I know who the killer is, Felix says. Duh, I say back, everyone does.
It turns out that I, in fact, do not know who the killer is, despite the movie being out since 1980 and having a bunch of weird American Indian racisms. The soda is mildly artisanal and feels good on the back of my throat.
A collage: Myss and Martie meeting their Papa. A trip into the First Americans Museum wherein I wipe out completely, scraping both knees, and rally both to cry silent tears and bend in half laughing. A coffee shop that is also a shelter for unhoused people. The bone museum, but don’t get your head in the gutter. A dwarf cat skull and a whale that you can imagine with the skin on.
I promise Felix that we will, no matter what it takes, get him an Oklahoma onion burger before he leaves. The only thing that feels more Oklahoman to me is frybread, which I know how to make but only in theory and it would pain me to serve it if it were not close to perfect. We head to the suburbs at a place next to a Goodwill and split a basket of cheese fries in a cast iron skillet with plenty of ranch on the side. I get a mushroom burger, while Felix gets the onion burger, just as planned. It is good and heavy and produces a relaxed, floating feeling in me while we thrift. Felix gets quite the haul, and I get an ugly Branson t-shirt. It feels like a win-win.
My grandmother calls and says while she is so happy that I am having a nice time she is also worried about me sharing my house with a man for a week and do I feel safe she has heard from my mother I feel safe but inquiring minds want to know themselves. Felix and I are in my bed watching The Terror or Titane or Raw. I glance at Martie, who is making himself cautiously comfortable on Felix’s feet. Never safer, I say.
Felix makes cauliflower tacos with caramelized onions and cheese and guac and they are perfect but my stove is gas because it is in the South and it is hot and so he gets a migraine. I do not remember my first migraine but I know it has been a month or two because I am out of Excedrin. I bring him ginger ale, water, coffee, Alka Seltzer. I know it is horrible but you must drink it. It will help, I say, handing him an eye mask and a cold pack. It will. It is hard to see him in pain but I am relieved when he vomits, for I know that is sometimes the only thing that splits the experience into a manageable half. It is the first time he has thrown up in years and I feel that this place, so different from my dead father’s haunted house, has been blessed, christened. He asks if I can read to him and I do, of course I do. I am happy to be of service. It is sometimes the only way I feel I am a real, tangible thing and not a wandering spirit, pressed accidentally between two walls of flesh. I read Mrs. Caliban in a voice louder than a whisper, but not by much. He says I have an excellent reading voice and I blush.
The next day we go for poke bowls. I do not remember what I got except there was edamame and many cups of tap water.
I think we must return to brotherhood amongst all the feasting. It only feels thematically correct for the end as we know it.
The truth: I never feel more like a boy than when I am with Felix. It is heady, perfect. I do not know if one can define their gender by who they surround themselves with, but I do. With Celia, I am feminine and relaxed. With Sean, I am the high femme-ish college self with the Birkenstocks-dirty hippie self I have become. With Gyasi I am coquettish and manly and an even and balanced mix. With Felix, I am him. We are brothers and boyfriends and imagined kept-boys for [REDACTED], a favorite literary celebrity. We twine our fingers and selves together but know when to leave each other alone. Me, into my room. Him, into the guest room that is also a cat room and looks out into the backyard. We read our own books, take our own naps, and then join together refreshed. There is a seam where we have crawled into each other’s skin. It says yes, yes, let us stay together forever, but also: look how healthy we are. How functional. You are hungry beloved, let me feed you.
***
Autumn Fourkiller is a writer from the "Early Death Capital of the World." They are currently at work on a novel and a variety of essays. Their work can be found in Atlas Obscura, Majuscule, Longreads, and elsewhere.
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