ii. taylor
written by rohan srinivasan
Windy days, rainy days, sunny days. All the same to Taylor. They would dress the part, put on the business casual costume of a working professional who needed to be at the office at eight o’clock sharp, and wait for the bus to arrive. It was a completely unnecessary venture, to say the least, since Taylor worked evenings (at a bar, that too—no pressed shirts needed) and hated waking up before eleven a.m. Usually, at this time, they would be fast asleep, shades drawn, white noise playing from their phone, two foster cats purring beside them.
But not on Thursdays. Thursday was the day of forcing their angry cats off of them, washing their face with ice-cold water, dressing in their thrifted suit, checking their appearance in the cracked bathroom mirror, and groggily walking to the bus stop five blocks away.
Yes, of course this was for a man. Why else would anyone act this insane?
This whole charade began with one of those inconvenient appointments, like a passport photo or a blood test, that you postpone making until it becomes absolutely critical. Taylor couldn’t tell you what they had to do that morning, but they could vividly remember the vulnerable slouch in their crush’s stance, his red-and-white checkered shirt drooping over his belt, his sweet eyes narrowed in on a book he was holding with one hand, his unbelievably pink cheeks, his bushy mustache. This man was not extraordinary by any means. But his unremarkable look, and his self-assuredness in being unremarkable, transfixed Taylor. Taylor missed their stop, only realizing their error once the man stepped off the bus in a wave of other commuters rushing to their offices.
From then on, Thursday mornings were a sacred time, blocked out from responsibility and sleep for the sake of delusion. Taylor wiped away their individuality, put on their commuting costume, blended in with the throng of corporate workers, all to snag an additional glance at the rosy-cheeked man and study the simplicity in his demeanor, his contentedness with his mundane, run-of-the-mill routine. They imagined his upbringing filled with friends and supportive parents and basketball trophies and pretty girlfriends and concerts and minimal anxiety for the future. They dreamed of his morning runs, his board game nights, his healthy home-cooked meals, his meet-cutes with uncomplicated women at the corner market. . ..
Thursday mornings, Taylor was the pursuer.
But at night, Taylor was the pursued, stalked by the man in the black trench coat—a man they swore was the devil.
Our story is about the devil. Fear, in my opinion, always makes a more interesting tale.
Taylor saw him for the first time while working a late shift in the Castro. Though they weren’t sure if this individual even was a “him”—political correctness aside. Taylor assumed it was a man, but they’d never been able to see his face clearly enough to confirm. All of the early sightings were splintered. The man was always in a far corner of the club, illuminated for a second, then shrouded by the dancing bodies, the neon strobe lights, the drinks thrown and spilled in the air. This Castro club—especially on a Friday night—did not want you to remember faces. Boys were filtering in and out, shifting around the dance floor, smooching a man they had made eye contact with at the urinals, gasping for air when a song they liked came on, smooching another man when that song ended, bumping into one of the friends they came with, pushing their way out for a cigarette break while the two men they were kissing started to grope each other, humping and grinding and wondering why their tongues had such a similar taste.
Working as a bartender, Taylor talked to hundreds of people a night but never made eye contact with them, looking instead at the flushed skin under their lower eyelashes. No point trying to decipher the color of their irises when the interaction would last a minute at most.
The only reason Taylor processed the devilish man, collected information about his appearance and stored it in the back of their cluttered mind, was because of his trench coat. Taylor was sweating from every pore possible. It was impossible not to with the amount of body heat stored in the confines of this sticky room. Taylor did a double take after this initial glance, pausing their pour and seeking another look at the idiot who would wear a thick coat in the club, parsing through the bodies and drinks and lights, before catching one more peek, even more brief than the last. He was wearing a fedora and black tinted glasses. His eyes might have been hidden, but Taylor knew he was looking directly at them. They felt it in the shiver running up their spine, the tremor in their hand. He smiled at Taylor, then disappeared behind the myriad of obstacles between the two of them. Taylor didn’t see him again that night, but the shiver they had felt stayed with them until they fell asleep. Taylor suspected that they had just stared into the face of pure evil. The monstrous level of fright Taylor encountered in that one stare convinced them that the devil’s heart held no complexity, no conflicted feelings, no hidden altruism, no traumatic backstory. Just sheer, terrifying, vicious, diabolical, despicable evil.
And Taylor—terrified as they were—couldn’t wait to see him again.
Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to wait long. He would appear back in Taylor’s life more than any man they’d ever dated.
Fear is a nasty emotion. The sad truth is that fear lies beneath all human decisions. Humans can choose to carry on with the way they live, but they’ll fear what they’re missing out on. They can have a wonderful life, but then they fear their happiness will be pulled out from under their feet. Even if you don’t actively seek it, fear will find you. And it can throttle you if you let it. But those who seek fear, whether it be by watching a horror movie, riding a towering rollercoaster, tiptoeing through a haunted house, or peering into the face of the devil—that’s a choice to take ownership of fear and have a fighting chance at conquering it. That’s a choice to feel, to experience, to live. But how does one know where to draw the line? Some humans crave the spike of adrenaline even more than they avoid it. The search for thrills guides them to make choices they know could result in grim consequences. Fear is an easy emotion. It’s fast. It’s available. Not like love, which blooms as slow and rare as an olive tree. Or hope, as fragile as expensive china. Ease—and the cursory intensity of fear—is what attracts thrill-seekers, Taylor being a prime example. For Taylor, experiencing an easy emotion was better than experiencing no emotion. And, no, it’s not because they were insane. It was a coping strategy Taylor had inadvertently picked up during childhood—all thanks to their mother.
But, dammit, I’m getting ahead of myself. I tend to do that. The drawback of eavesdropping on so many stories over the years is that I often lose track of how to order events. Bear with me, please, as I sift through my narration. The devil will have to wait. We’ve got to go back a few years first.
Back to the copper plains and dusty diners of O——, California. A town known to Northern Californian campers and Chico State students as a reliable, quiet rest stop. A place to grab a burger, fill up on gas, and promptly get the fuck out of. Yes, O—— was in the bum-fuck of Northern California, but it wasn’t a barren land. O—— had a Walmart (Taylor’s marker that they weren’t living in a third-world village), sports bars, enough cheap restaurants to have some variety in take-out meals. A long river tumbled over jagged stones at the edge of town, which Taylor would lay next to on hot, dry summer days, boiling in their own makeshift sauna, until a couple of horny teenagers would interrupt their solitude. But before the unwelcome company, Taylor would stretch out along the grassy bank and imagine all the people who had traveled along this river, floating along, never stationary. They would visualize gold miners back in the day wading through the water, shaking their glistening pans, tipping their straw hats over their sun-scathed foreheads, with the hope of striking it rich and moving to a luxurious city. History felt compressed in this town, since many houses still carried photos of generations past that had stubbornly lived and died in O——. You’d ask kindergartners where they wanted to be when they grew up, and about half of the class would proudly say O——. By high school, you’d get answers like New York City and San Diego muttered with scorn and frustration, since most knew the farthest city they’d end up in was Chico if they were lucky. Want? Oh, hell no, honey. Life is not about what you want. Life is about making do with the shitty cards you’re dealt.
A childhood strung together by extended-stay motel after extended-stay motel taught Taylor this lesson early on. For a while, Taylor was good about finding the silver lining. They would run around with the other motel kids, play freeze tag and four-square and (very aggressive) dodgeball. They’d make rounds to the rooms, asking the adults if they had any snacks. They’d lick dripping popsicles until their face was smothered in flavored sugar. They would consciously ignore the loud fights between tired parents as well as the drug deals happening behind the building. They would giggle with the teens poking needles into their bandaged arms, twerk to music riddled with profanity and misogynistic remarks. Childhood was fun—minus the constant fluctuation in housing. The inability to form lasting friendships damaged Taylor. Either they were moving to a new motel, or the friends they’d made had vanished by the following week. The decision to find new housing was so fast, so out of the kids’ control, that saying goodbye was usually not an option. Taylor was crushed by the first several moves, and they would spend the following days questioning if the relationship had meant anything to the other.
Detachment was the only solution. Taylor made it a point never to learn the other kids’ names. They would only refer to them as the “playmate for the week.” If they happened to stay the following week, great. If not, they would easily be replaced by the new kid who’d moved in. Taylor was mirroring their mother’s attitude toward people and homes, treating each week as transitory rather than a permanent state of life. Nancy was so adept at detaching herself from meaning that Taylor was never able to figure out what mattered to her, if anything at all. Taylor often wondered whether Nancy felt any form of love toward them, or if years of severing herself from emotional connection had permanently destroyed the intrinsic care she was supposed to feel toward her kid.
Not to say that Nancy was a bad mother. Far from it. Nancy worked ten hours a day, split between a diner and a retail store. Despite her meager salary, she still provided Taylor with a weekly allowance. It was a modest amount, obviously, but Taylor knew many kids whose parents would withhold money from them, guilting them if they ever asked for some. Taylor never had to worry about meals—Nancy would stock the mini-fridge with enough microwavable food to satiate Taylor’s hunger. Nancy never overshared with Taylor, never used them for forced therapy, never involved them in any sort of financial, medical, or housing decision. She would knit Taylor a sweater every Christmas and treat them to a relatively nice restaurant on birthdays. She was well aware of her parental duties and fulfilled them as responsibly as she could.
Almost like she had been handed an offer letter at Taylor’s birth, with strict terms and conditions and core motherly duties laid out, and since then, had been clocking in for her shift as a mother every morning, clocking out before bed. Each act of service was perfunctory, devoid of fondness. No kisses were given, no congratulatory remarks uttered. Birthdays at the restaurant were mostly silent—maybe a few logistical questions about Taylor’s failing grades. Once Taylor had finished their last bite, the bill was promptly paid and to-go boxes requested, the annual ritual completed to Nancy’s satisfaction. Not a second more was spent celebrating Taylor’s existence.
Taylor didn’t take Nancy’s attitude—or lack thereof—personally. The morning after her mother had passed away in a gruesome car accident, Nancy had headed to work with no change in expression or energy. There were no tears, just acceptance. By that evening, Nancy had already taken on the responsibility of sending out invites and booking caterers for the funeral.
Every night after work, regardless of the motel they were staying at, regardless of when she returned home, Nancy would wash her face, change, and carve out one hour of alone time for herself. She would grab her knitting needles, a ball of yarn, her lawn chair, and set up camp right outside the room. Taylor had spied on her after-work routine once and only once. They’d crouched underneath the window, peeked through the cracks between the curtains, and briefly stepped into their mother’s sanctuary of solitude. Taylor imagined that Nancy, who at all times either had their employee hat or mother hat on, would take this hour to decompress, to let her hair down, so to speak. Taylor was half right. Knitting was a charade, a preventative act to shut down any of Taylor’s curiosity, not that Taylor would ever ask Nancy about what she did during her alone time. Taylor watched Nancy furiously knit for ten minutes and make enough progress on her project so that when she came back inside, she could pretend to Taylor that she’d been working on it for the entire hour. After those ten minutes, Nancy rested the needles on her lap, discarded the yarn to the side of the chair, and silently stared out past the motel balcony into the pitch-black night sky. She didn’t play any music or tap her feet to disturb the silence; she didn’t budge at the annoying moth begging for her attention. Nancy was voluntarily immobile.
And it wasn’t the lack of activity that frightened Taylor. Taylor had never taken their mother to be an avid knitter, at least not avid enough to spend her precious hour of alone time working on a scarf that neither of them would wear. The eyes were what alarmed Taylor, making them vow never to spy on their mother again. Because even in Nancy’s hour of alone time, when no one (at least to her knowledge) was watching her, when she could slouch her shoulders, cry about the hardships of her day, point up to the sky and curse fate for putting her in this shitty position, and feel—oh my God, for once fucking feel something—her eyes were still as dry and vacant and apathetic as always. Taylor realized in that moment that the Nancy she saw day-to-day, the Nancy who remained impassive when a customer yelled at her, the Nancy who’d been unperturbed when Taylor’s father had harassed her with death threats—this was the only Nancy that existed. There was no other life force repressed in that body. Maybe at one point there had been—there had to have been—but something or someone, or an amalgamation of somethings and someones, had cruelly murdered that Nancy, replacing her soul with a lifeless, vacuous entity that would appear to be functioning well enough to those around her.
The eyes frightened Taylor, but they didn’t register that their eyes could also look that way one day. Not until Abigail Goldman’s pregnancy and Keith Monroe’s arrest in the ninth grade. Once Taylor witnessed their peers turn from hopeful kids to overburdened young adults, they realized that dreams were lies that teachers had fed kids to keep them from killing themselves too young. Dreams were only meant for those with money or accessibility or both. Over here in O——, a rest stop to a better destination, you had three options: work for pennies and be bitter about it, work for pennies and be delusional that one day you might not have to (you would always have to), or work for pennies and feel nothing. The first two options weren’t great, but the last one, fuck, the last one was horrifying. What were you, if you couldn’t feel? What was the point of living? Was it too late at that point to even consider saving yourself? Were you too hollow, too dispassionate, to even pick up and fire that gun?
Taylor tried to hold on to hope that Nancy’s soul was salvageable. They flunked out of school, got offensive tats all over their body, came home plastered most nights—anything to get a reaction out of their aloof mother. But nothing could shake Nancy. Not even when she walked in on Taylor riding a fifty-year-old man on their bed. Nancy just held the door open while the man pushed Taylor off, grabbed his clothes, muttered something about not knowing Taylor’s true age (a lie), and fled. Without a word, Nancy started the shower and ushered Taylor inside. Taylor exited the bathroom five minutes later to find that Nancy had already changed the sheets and wiped away evidence of their sinful deed. The incident was only ever addressed again a week later when Nancy took Taylor for an HIV test. Once the results came back negative, Nancy put the matter to rest without any disciplinary action, without even a stock movie speech expressing that they’d expected better from Taylor.
Taylor wanted to scream at Nancy until their voice was hoarse, throw shit at her until she bled. But Taylor knew a tantrum would be pointless—no outburst would ever make that barren woman retaliate. God help them, Taylor would not turn into their mother. They would not give life the opportunity to mold them into another stone-hearted creature. So, when a band of boys passing through O—— offered Taylor a ride in the backseat of their musty, bong-filled R.V., Taylor hopped on without thinking twice, without even saying a goodbye to Nancy. They left behind the once gold-laden river and growing number of pregnant classmates, not following an artistic dream or any of that fictitious crap that guides small-town kids toward the big city. Taylor vowed to live in favor of adrenaline—no matter the source or the cost—afraid that if they didn’t keep up the momentum, their desire to feel would permanently be crushed, and one day they’d be sitting on a lawn chair outside a dingy motel room with emptier eyes than their mother’s.
The devil’s appearance was no surprise, really, given how erratically Taylor had been living. Taylor had expected him to show his face at some point. The question was not if, but when. And in true devil fashion, there was no rhyme or reason, no inciting incident as to why he had arrived on that specific day. He came when he felt like it, teasing and testing humans, and he left just as unexpectedly.
What threw Taylor for a spin was how standoffish he was. Taylor expected that when their choices finally reached a tipping point, the devil would embrace them with full force. But he only appeared to Taylor in tiny glances that could easily be confused for a trick of the eye. The devil pursued at a distance. Played hard to get. And Taylor must have never learned early on how to brush off a fuckboy, because they were immediately enchanted. They yearned for a more regular appearance rather than sporadic one-off sightings. They wanted a closer look, maybe even a touch, just so they could experience what his wickedness felt like. The obsession multiplied, and Taylor lived in service of this mania. Cruising around the city, searching for pockets of privacy in Buena Vista or dingy, under-the-radar parties in dark rooms, dropping their pants and waiting for a hand to grab their ass, never turning around through the act, relishing the intense thrill of not knowing who was entering them. And on their days off, working their way through the Castro clubs, loading up on a random dealer’s ket and blow. Speed, too, if they were really feeling it. Taylor was toying with the tough line between life and death, sensation and delirium, challenging their resilience.
But under those strobe lights, while Taylor twirled their naked torso, basking in the unrelenting thump thump thump in their ears, the warm sweat stinging their eyes, their racing heart (how the hell had it not exploded yet?), all they could think of was how good it would feel to scream at the top of their lungs:
FUCK YOU NANCY FUCK YOU LOOK AT ME NOW BITCH LOOK AT HOW MUCH I’M FEELING LOOK AT ME BURSTING WITH FEELING I’M OVERFLOWING WITH IT FEELING MORE IN ONE SECOND THAN YOU HAVE EVER FELT IN YOUR PATHETIC LIFE LOOK AT ME DANCING AND FUCKING AND LIVING WHILE YOU SIT ON THAT LAWN CHAIR AND ROT
But they didn’t say any of that out loud. They just seductively winked at the devil hovering in the corner, then proceeded to black out for the rest of the night.
Contact wasn’t made until Taylor woke up one night to the sound of sirens racing past them. Once the ambulance passed, they found themselves shivering on the sidewalk near Twin Peaks, swallowed up by hazy fog. The bars along Castro Street were all shut, the strip sucked dry of noise and exhilaration, the mounted pride flags dark and asleep. Taylor wiped away the dried vomit streaking their cheek. A light drizzle broke through the mist, masking the foul smell of Taylor’s tequila-stained clothes. They were disoriented, nauseous, and unbelievably sober—a harsh kick in the chest after climaxing from their high.
One other creature was on this deserted road. Across the street, under the misty, faint glow of a street lamp, was the devil. Face covered by a tilted fedora, a long trench coat hiding his figure, completely dry despite the raindrops splattering around him. Taylor sat up, surprised by his assertiveness. They had come to expect the devil only in the corner of their eye. Every sighting before this must have been a warning. This was the real deal. This was Taylor’s judgement day, and a grand punishment had to be awaiting them. If the devil was accounting for all of their recklessness—not just from the past night—Taylor expected absolutely no mercy.
The devil took one step toward them. Then another. Taylor’s heart was pounding, anxiety heightening as he came closer and closer. But Taylor hated themselves because, goddammit, mixed with the dread and apprehension was uncouth, titillating excitement. Taylor wanted to cast off their enjoyment at his approaching stride, but they couldn’t. They’d trained themselves to derive pleasure from alarm. So, the corrupt, unbalanced mixture of emotions, defying everything they knew to be virtuous and good, proliferated through their fingertips, rocketing through nerve endings they didn’t even know they had. Bam, pop, kaboom, baby!
He was now less than a foot away. Taylor tilted their head to look up at him, but his face was shadowed by his hat. Taylor was crying at this point—blubbering, more like it—salty tears mixing with the salty rain, every inch of their body vibrating with fierce desire. They didn’t even know what they were lusting for. But they were shamelessly begging, repeating please please, while he just stood as still as a statue.
Finally, his head lifted. His illuminated face escaped the hat’s shadow, and Taylor fell back with shock.
The devil—the creature they’d assumed to have horns and a wicked sneer—was completely unremarkable. Your average San Francisco everyman. Joe Schmoe. A man with pale skin and pink cheeks and a bushy mustache you would see on the bus and think to yourself, I bet his life is perfectly uncomplicated.
And the kindness in the devil’s expression, the tenderness in his eyes, sucked out all of Taylor’s excitement, leaving behind unadulterated terror in its wake. No amount of recklessness or risk could ever imitate this level of fear. Because when you’ve grown up like Taylor, in a family devoid of attachment, in motel after motel, the thing you fear most is a loyal hand reaching out to you, caressing your hardened cheek, professing love and care for you, only you, without any deceit.
Despite Taylor’s trepidation, they leaned against the devil’s hand, pressed their cheek against warm clouds, and let him gently guide them to a dream of daisies and daffodils, a family cottage rooted deep in the earth’s soil, a firm bed with white sheets, a mother who anchored her arm around them and whispered sweet nothings in their ear.
Intoxicated by the devil’s touch, Taylor thought to themselves that maybe next Thursday morning they would enter the bus without a costume. They would choose a seat next to him, build up the courage to initiate a conversation. Calmly, of course—not rushed like the thrills Taylor chased otherwise. They would ignore the other stumbling passengers shifting around them, remaining devoted to the charming sounds coming out of his lips. Maybe next Thursday they would finally be ready. Maybe . . .
edited by aaron lelito