Love Is the Higher Law

by David Levithan

  tell me more about korea,

  peter

  7/5/02

  the 4th of july was a little bit of overkill this year, i have to say. i think i’m getting tired of flags. at first, i didn’t mind how they sprang up everywhere, because it was a sign of unity. but now it’s turned into this weird patriotism contest. and that’s not the point, is it?

  claire’s worried about war. she says hi.

  here to your there,

  peter

  8/5/02

  we’re back, and soon you’ll be back (although i’ll be off to orientation by then). building a house was an incredible experience—at the risk of sounding like claire, it’s pretty incredible to do something so concrete for total strangers. at one point they had this t-shirt contest, where we were all supposed to come up with a phrase for our t-shirts, and claire won it with this simple phrase—“strangers are neighbors”—that completely summed it up.

  in other news, there was this boy there, clayton, who was totally in love with claire. she denies it completely, but she blushes every time i bring it up. i hope they write.

  in other, other news, of a less blushworthy variety (unless it’s a blush of embarrassment), aiden and i finally called it quits. i think he was waiting until i got back from arkansas because he didn’t want me to be bummed out while i was there, but the truth is that although that’s a sweet thing to do, i don’t actually know how bummed out i would’ve been. college was going to break us up anyway, but i’m glad it was clear that it wasn’t just college. i’m sad, but not too sad. i’m more sad that it went on for so much longer than it should have, you know?

  claire and i are going to koreatown for dinner tonight. because we know you spent the last week going to arkansas restaurants, just to be with us.

  we’ll raise a toast,

  peter

  8/20/02

  okay, we’ve exchanged at least thirteen thousand emails without coming out and saying it, and since i’m leaving tomorrow, i’m going to come right out and say it.

  it’s about time for our second date, isn’t it?

  have a safe flight tomorrow,

  peter

  ANNIVERSARY

  Claire

  I think I’ll retrace my steps—but there’s too much that’s happened in the year. There is no way to do it. I’m in college now, still in the city, but part of a lifetime away from Mrs. Otis’s classroom. There’s no way to be standing where I’d been standing, no way to go to Mrs. Lawson’s classroom and stay with her and Sammy. We think that time is the only thing that passes, but it also changes our relationship to places.

  So I narrow it down to a spot. I tell my lit professor I’m going to miss my nine a.m. class—she understands—and go down to the apartment I still think of as home and take Sammy to school. It seemed unusual at first to decide to live in the dorms, but I petitioned to be in an international dorm, and the fact that I’m surrounded by people from all over the world seems to make up for the fact that I’m still twenty blocks from home. I only moved out three weeks ago, so I don’t think Sammy’s even missing me yet.

  He’s quiet as we walk from the subway to the school—aware of the anniversary, I think, but not of its full meaning. I wonder what’s going to happen when he’s older, what parts of 9/11 he’s going to remember.

  After he’s safely inside his classroom, I leave the building and stand outside, in that gap on Sixth Avenue between the lower school and the upper school. As the time nears, a few more people stop and hover, regathering. I wonder about Marisol, and where she is. I wonder if some of the other people here were also here a year ago. I find I can’t remember them, I was so caught up in getting to Sammy and finding my mother.

  A year ago, I wouldn’t let myself turn around, look back. Now I join everyone else in looking at the space. Silent, we look at what isn’t there. We are doing our own acts of retracing, so much more complicated than the retracing of steps. We are retracing the lines and windows that are no longer there. We are rebuilding from our memory, trying to do with our eyes open what we usually do with our eyes closed.

  At 8:46, bells ring out. And I think, This is the moment I wasn’t here. This is the moment of what I didn’t see. And then, when the time comes, This was when I came out here. I stood over there. This was when.

  I still cannot hear a siren without fearing the monumental. I cannot help noticing the airplanes over the city, which I never paid attention to before. Most of the time I manage to forget to be afraid. But sometimes I think, This could be it, and I move forward anyway.

  It crosses my mind every day. Sometimes it will be a story I hear on the radio. Sometimes I’ll be walking and will look downtown. And other times it will be like I am seeing it out of the corner of my eye.

  I feel emptier this morning. That empty space goes inside. It is not the whole story, but it is a part of it. And the rest of the story is: We love and we feel and we try and we hope.

  I can’t help it—I find Sammy’s new third-grade classroom and peek in through the window. I see him at his desk, doing something with pipe cleaners. He isn’t smiling—instead he’s concentrating in that complete, unembarrassed way that kids have. I stay there for a minute or two, watching.

  This has to be part of the day, too.

  ANNIVERSARY

  Peter

  I said, “Are you sure September 11th is an appropriate day for a second date?”

  And he said, “I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

  But the conversation didn’t end there, as it once might have. He paused and said, “Who else would you want to spend it with?”

  And he’s right. Probably Claire, but she’s in New York right now. So, yes, Jasper.

  I pointed out that it wasn’t even our real anniversary—only the anniversary of the night we were supposed to go out. He laughed into the phone and told me that was great, because now he didn’t have to bring flowers. I pressed the phone to my ear, heard his breathing after the sentence was over. I waited for him to say something else, because if I wait long enough, he always does. He’s like Claire in that way. Whereas I can stay in silences for hours.

  We decided that he’d come to visit me in Boston, so I’m waiting for him at South Station. I spent most of the morning—the time I wasn’t in classes—reading the papers, reading all of the takes on what 9/11 means, one year later. I still feel like I should be at home. Maybe standing outside Tower Records. Or with my family.

  I haven’t seen Jasper since Claire’s party in May, but it feels like I have. When I find him in the terminal, we hug, not kiss. And before we do anything else, we call Claire, who picks up on the first ring and tells us she was hoping we’d call. She says she’s been looking at the photos of the lights, creating her own little remembrance ceremony. She wishes she were with us, and we wish she were with us, too. Not that we don’t want to be alone with each other. But today, now, we’d also love to be with her.

  “So,” Jasper says once we’ve hung up, “what should we do?”

  I’ve only been here a few weeks; all I know are cheap restaurants and record stores. I take him to Newbury Comics and buy him the Now It’s Overhead CD because he says he’s never heard of them. I launch into this whole history of Saddle Creek records, then cut myself off, because it’s not really something he would be interested in.

  “I don’t really have sophisticated musical taste,” he tells me. “But I’d like to.”

  That’s good enough for me.

  Next stop is Bertucci’s for dinner. It’s a little too crowded, a little too loud. And even though the papers and newscasts have been full of it, everyday life doesn’t seem to have stopped much to remember a year ago. Not in Boston, at least. I’m worried that we’re not talking, that we haven’t had a chance to talk, and that maybe we’re going to end up much better at emailing than being with each other in person.

  “This is strange,” he says, and I don’t know whether he’s talking about us or the restaurant or the day. I wait, and he g
oes on. “I saw Amanda on my way to class this morning—you know, the girl I tried to give blood with? I don’t think I’ve seen her in at least half a year, but today of all days, I bump into her. And she tells me she was just thinking about me—she’s been thinking about me a lot lately, because I was a part of that day for her. And I understood what she was saying, but the weird thing was that I hadn’t really thought of her at all. I think of you, and Claire, and even Mitchell and his party. It’s like, for most people, that day is about what happened on that specific day, but for me it’s become about what happened right after. It’s not what I saw, but it’s about who I shared it with. Is it like that for you?”

  “The truth?” I ask.

  He smiles. “Yeah, the truth.”

  “The truth is that I don’t know. Because you were a part of that day for me. I was so excited that morning when I woke up, about going out with you. I mean, I was excited about the Dylan album, too, but mostly about you. I was thinking about you when I picked out what to wear, and I was thinking about you when I got on the subway, and I was probably thinking about you while I was waiting for Tower to open. And even after it all happened, I remember thinking that I had to email you, that I had to make sure you were okay, that it meant something that such a big event got in our way.”

  “And then, of course, I was a complete asshole to you,” Jasper says.

  “No,” I say. “You weren’t. That’s how you’re remembering it, but you weren’t. When you say things like that—” I stop.

  “What?”

  “When you say things like that, I wonder if we’re here now because you feel bad. You know, about the first date. That you’re only doing this to be nice.”

  That gets a laugh. “I think that’s the first time anyone’s accused me of doing something just to be nice.” He moves forward so that his knees are touching my knees under the table. “I promise you, this isn’t about then. It’s about now.”

  I press my knees back into his. “Fine, then.”

  “We have an understanding?”

  “I believe we do.”

  We talk about how strange it is to be away from New York. We both called our parents this morning, as if it were Mother’s Day or a birthday. There wasn’t much to say, except to acknowledge what we should already know.

  “I remember on that day,” I say, “one of the city officials—it wasn’t Giuliani, but someone else—anyway, when he was asked what people should do, he said that everyone should go home and give their kids a hug. And while I understood why he was saying that, part of me wanted to say, dude, you should always go home and give your kids a hug. It shouldn’t take the World Trade Center falling to inspire that.”

  Jasper shakes his head. “I’m not sure my dad would’ve gotten the message anyway. But you know what? I’m okay with that.”

  I know I should be planning the next thing to say—I know I should be trying to tap into all the relationship politics, the signs and signals, that could be at the table. But instead I just talk and listen. And he just talks and listens. Maybe in the end that’s all we need. Talking and listening.

  At the end of the meal I say, “Hey, do you want to come back to my dorm room and watch Cabaret?”

  He pushes back his chair in surprise and says, “Whoa, this is so Sliding Doors.”

  “I actually think it’s more like Groundhog Day,” I reply. And then I explain: In Sliding Doors, the whole idea is that every choice you make, and every single thing that happens to you, changes the trajectory of your life, and once you are put on that trajectory, there is no way back. But Groundhog Day—which, I tell him, also happens to be a much better movie—says the opposite. It says if you mess up or make the wrong choice, you just have to keep at it until you do it right.

  “So we’ve been stuck in the same day for a year?” Jasper says. And I know what he’s thinking—that the day in question is September 11th, which would be somewhat lunatic, because that day is about much, much more than our date going right.

  So I shake my head. “No. The fact that it all happens in one day in Groundhog Day is a comedic conceit.”

  “Oh, sorry. Silly me.”

  I swat at him with my napkin. He fends me off with his water glass. Water spills everywhere.

  “What I’m saying,” I continue, “is that the trajectory can loop around. If we want it to.”

  He leans into the table and presses his knees against mine again.

  “Do we want it to?” he asks.

  And I say, “Hey, do you want to come back to my dorm room and watch Cabaret?”

  This time, the TV stays off.

  This time, we sleep in the same bed.

  “You have a little more body hair now,” I say.

  He kisses me, then whispers in my ear, “No, I don’t.”

  MARCH 19, 2003

  Claire

  It’s a similar dread, a similar fear, a similar sadness, only in reverse. Instead of reaction, the dread comes in the anticipation. Instead of aftershocks, the fear comes from the assemblage. Instead of the devastating After, the sadness springs from the devastating Before.

  I know we’re going to start a war. I know it as soon as the president starts talking about it. I know it as soon as they start linking Iraq to 9/11. I know it when they start conjuring doomsday as the alternative.

  It’s a similar helplessness, only in reverse. It’s not that I can’t undo what’s happened, but that I can’t stop something from happening. We have our protests, but Dick Cheney doesn’t care what a hundred thousand people in San Francisco have to say. We hound members of Congress, but our money doesn’t talk as much as that of the other forces. We argue with our friends, but our friends are powerless, too.

  I don’t want to watch it happening, but I have to. I have to turn on the television and read the papers, because we all need to be witnessing. I thought, for a time, that we understood that we are a part of the world. And many of us do, just not the people in charge of our government, the people who less than a majority of us voted for. We are losing the human scale.

  The night the war begins, I cry more than I did on 9/11. Jasper and Peter are home together for spring break, and they come over and try to cheer me up by reading me things from the paper that show me that humanity is alive and well. Animal rescues. Families reunited after fifty years. A town of four hundred people chipping in to save its fire department. I love Jasper and Peter when they do this, and I love those people in the world. But still I despair.

  We keep waiting for the next attack, and then we go and make the next attack.

  I wish someone had taken George Bush and made him spend the night in Union Square, surrounded by the candles, surrounded by the dead. I wish there was a way to make him feel the depth of that loss. I wish he had been forced to spend a night in Baghdad, talking to the people there, before he bombed it.

  There were lessons, I want to tell him. Don’t you understand?

  It’s a similar sleeplessness, only in reverse. I used to wander at night to connect myself to the city. I searched desperately to find out what I could do. It was never enough, but it was something. Now I still want to know what I can do. It’s never enough, and it feels like nothing.

  An eye for an eye. Blindness.

  I believe we’re better than this.

  Jasper and Peter stay up with me. Together we head into the West Village, then cross over to the East Village. I know so many more people now, but it feels right to be with them. I hold them dear like I hold my mother and Sammy dear. I know I can count on them—meaning, they are as reliable as the simple sequence of 1-2-3.

  “If I hadn’t met you,” Jasper says, “I probably wouldn’t even know there was a war happening.”

  “If I hadn’t met you,” Peter says to Jasper, “I probably wouldn’t even know what the songs meant.”

  “And if I hadn’t met you,” I say to them both, “I would’ve wondered if it was all in my head. My whole life, in my head.”

  We are in anothe
r part of the city, in another part of another year. Our thoughts, I’m sure, travel to different things—how difficult long-distance relationships are, how scary war is, how close the summer is already seeming, how amazing it is that friendships can become so full that you can’t imagine what your life was like before them. We talk and we talk, and then we talk some more, until we are back in my dorm room. My roommate is home in Ghana for the break, but even though the second bed is open, we all lie on my bed, Jasper leaning into Peter, me leaning into them both. There’s no way for them to take away my sadness, but they can make sure I am not empty of all the other feelings.

  “I honestly thought we were going to be better,” I tell them. “After what happened. As a country.”

  “I don’t know if you can change a country,” Jasper says. “You can only change the people.”

  And here we are, so different from who we were on September 10th. And also different from who we were on the 11th. And the 12th. And yesterday. Sometimes you see the before/after. And sometimes it’s as soft as saying hello.

  It is so comfortable, just the three of us on our bed in our room. It would be so easy to want to confine us to this. To unplug the TV. To turn off the computer. To only look at the sky whenever we looked out the window.

  But that’s not the way we live now. Every day, we choose not to live that way. Instead we have each other as we try to navigate the world.

  We fall asleep in my bed, a tangle of three. It is the sweetest feeling, to be nestled between the two of them, their smiles fading into sleep, their arms enfolding me and each other. This is the antidote.

  The next morning, we go to get breakfast together. As we are walking through Washington Square Park, Peter looks downtown, at the empty space.

  He doesn’t have to tell us to wait. We all stop. The sun is newly in the sky, and the city is like a quiet house, still ours.

  For ten minutes, we keep watch over the sky and the skyline.