The Sum of Sad Smiles A Novel

By Barry Eysman

From a place of pastel watercolor reality quite unlike yours or mine. Where everything is perfect and everyone more lovely than we. And arms hold you tenderly. Where nothing will ever drift you apart. But the lack of a smile, the right kind of smile signals the end of most sublime magic. At least it seems to. Most people would be very brave, and live with it, but not Sum. Who falls from a wing of cold morning into a Connecticut university of such confusion. Where are eccentrics, hidden secrets, horrors, tarantulas, a musical number, time off for "the more you know," angels in mid-flight, a ghost girl made love to, and a mystery inside everyone, all meshing together in the quest for one single soul. If you believe love can last for eternity, you may like to meet Sum and Ty, death and life and life again. The whisper, one golden night, the sole answer to everything, the soft breath of love counted on. Oh hello, Sum, hello. I've tried to make it as unique and original a puzzle as possible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barry Eysman
• Release date: Dec 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465716521

Barry Eysman

My name is Barry Eysman. I also have kindles at Amazons and pubits at B&N. I live in Brownsville, TN with my wife and 2 cats. I have just finished writing my 8th book. I am still tall.Have a house full of books. I write horror, nostalgia, erotica. Have been a newspaper reporter and a high school teacher. My book collections are stories and novellas. I graduated from the University of Tennessee at Martin. I wear love as a heart on my sleeve. I escape through movies and classic TV shows. Shy, though have a penchant for asking questions I shouldn't, because I'm a writer. I have a book video at all the Amazons.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Sum refused to smile. He stood by the snow-topped pagoda, in the midst of the empty naked chinaberry trees. He would not go further than the snow could take him. He wished love at the world. The world did not wish love back at him. He would not watch television again, or go to the movies, for they were worlds not within his kin. No longer.

And he would always be by himself forever all his days and nights long. He stood in the heavy white night snow and looked at the moon and thought it made of glowworm bone. Way up there out of reach. The madness of earth traded for the magic of the moon. He wished this most desperately.

Tan was the entire world to him. Tan was all the beautiful cherry blossom budding in summer time. Tan was spring that felt warm and good and like an especially beautiful clothing round him made of webs spun by starlight spiders all busy in the night time to give him this incredible gift, and the incredible gift had been Tan, and that was no more. Sum was small for his age.

He was 17 and looked younger. He had a face that was a delicate cameo. As were the bones in his body--little bird bones, for no tapestry he, just the moment, just a delicate deft image of a touch of wooden bowls and chopsticks held in blue enigma that was the perfectly balanced boy who was himself.

He remembered how warm was Tan, and how wise, and how they loved to lie together on the near by hill in summer time and tell stories of how they would be big men someday and strong and bold and there would be all the hills of the world for them to roam over, and all the seas for them to swim and do it effortlessly. Tan was tall and strong, and had the ability to balance between reality and dreams, an ability that Sum did not. And Sum would hold him and would kiss Tan.

Tan would smile and his eyes beamed black lights and he would say to Sum who never learned how to smile, smile for me, Sum, let the radiance I know is in you come out, let me see the sun in your cobalt eyes and your braids are the stars I wish my hands to hold as I kiss you forever and a day.

But Sum could not play that way, even when Tan made nova to him in gentle poetical measures, taking a portion of an inch and kissing, then another portion of an inch and kissing and hands and arms exploring, even when he pleasured his friend so strongly and so expertly and so delicately like the rice paper walls within which each lived and the stars were a maze meant for love making all the night through, Sum could not smile.

And they said love, and in time, Tan said goodbye and it was in the season of growing sad summer, not like now which was the highest heaviest snow there had ever been, and Tan said no more, Sum, I cannot take your sadness anymore, and Sum said, when we love, am I sad?, when we laugh at comics, am I sad?, when we watch movies, am I sad? And Sum pleaded and took his friend's hands and looked directly into his friends eyes--oh if Tan could have known how much courage it took Sum to do that, to look directly at him and not at the shadows of the night on the hill come autumn--

Tan took his friend's hands and kissed their warm slightly wet palms, and looked at Sum and pulled him to him; they had been kneeling and now in each other's grip, they lost their purchase and fell over and down half the gentle roll of hill, at which they forced themselves in brown grass to stop the trajectory, and they were both laughing like normal boys should. And they tickled each other and they felt each other, chest to chest.

And Sum said then, Tan, see, I am laughing, and you will not leave me because we have good times together and I do laugh and we do make love and none will ever make love with me but you, and that is a fine thing, that is a good thing, for I wish no one else but you, and Tan turned from his friend and he said in a whisper, you control me, and make me weary.

Sum, you laugh, and Sum said, yes; Tan said, you weep. Sum said I have seen you weep--well, almost; Tan said, you make me happy; Sum said, I will make you happy always for you make me happy and I return it thus to you, and Tan said good bye. For I fear I shall be you. I fear more you have picked this up from me, and I may be the carrier, not you. Forgive my selfishness. I am unworthy of you. Goodbye my friend, goodbye. Not like that, but gradually, as a cloud slowly tearing itself to pieces over the last month to cold October and colder November.

And Sum tried. He tried his level best to be what Tan wanted, to be happy, to be carefree, to be resourceful, to be immaculate in imitation of what teachers wanted and parents and other adults who had control over them.

He tried to be good in school. And at his grades. He tried to learn to play baseball, and in that he was a dismal failure especially. But he did try and that was all that his friend at least, his Tan, could expect of him, was it not? And Tan said good-bye with every morning walk to school.

And Tan and Sum said good bye in every divestiture of clothing at night and running cross the moon shadow, two shadows and falling into china berry leaves and holding on and Sum serious then, especially serious, always unsure beside the blue brocade seeming stream with all the white froth and the blue water and it was a painting too full of happiness to last, too glassine to stand one more winter chill, and Sum let his friend take him from behind, in hopes this would make Tan stay.

And now in the snow the little person known as Sum was standing by the pagoda that had its roof so heavy with snow, it might collapse, and Sum stood in his coat and his heavy shirt and pants and boots, and he had his hands in his pockets, but still in spite of his clothing the rough hard biting Japanese wind came through him, and he prayed it to blow him to bits like a piece of paper that was crumpling already and Sum had tried to smile, had tried to be happy behind the sadness, had tried to hide the sadness behind the happiness. He had tried to be what Tan wanted.

Tan of the good happy dreams. Sum of the sad and lonely dreams and he had tried so hard, had Sum, that he thought he would burst through his own skin, he tried so hard to create another him, to please his friend, who in truth was patient and kind but had made up his mind and had not believed it when Sum worked up a smile after he had swallowed Tan's come and had lain full on his friend’s body and had smiled big and wild and wild and happy and free.

Tan had turned his head away and washed Sum from his life that instant, wilting Sum, as he tumbled off Tan's body, and Tan, still there, was gone already, and Sum ashamed, ashamed of his nakedness, and the quick dressing, not looking, and the quick running away from Tan who lay there, not moving, as if dead. But it was Sum who was dead. And the sheer pity of it was this-- Sum could be happy. He could. He just could not be Tan's kind of happiness.

Sum trudged through the snow to the pagoda and walked up the snow heavy steps, falling to the floor, breath momentarily knocked out of him, having tripped on the top step. He sat under the pagoda, on the swing, which also was heaped with snow from wind blown drifts he pushed off. Tan was gone and winter was dark and deep and cold and he put his head to his mittened hands and he wept for a time, and then found himself angry--he shouted out to no one, why do I have to be you?

Who made it you always call the shots? I can be sad if I want to. I've seen you, Tan, sad sometimes, but you try to hold it in when anyone else is around, especially me. You're the big phony. You're the coward. Afraid of life. I'm not a coward or afraid of life. Not me. This reflects badly on you, not me. I can be me and I was me because I got to love you and you loved me. Can't you see it?, you damned bonehead?

You want me to smile, he said, so you leave me, to make me smile,? like that makes any sense. I would have defended you through anything if you hadn't been able to handle everything yourself, and you leave me because of this? A flex of muscles that make faces look stupid and clownish any way? What about depth? What about emotions and complexity and me and you as sentient beings? Not grinning goofs like the others. You want that? Well, fuck you then.

You are the clown, Tan. You are the clown in the circus. Let them laugh at you. Let them throw peanuts at you and laugh themselves silly at you-- Tan, the fool; Tan, the nobody, who could have been somebody, with me around. Nobody ever laughs at me. You'll see one day. You'll see. And the wind blew hard and cold and whistling and like the rush of a freight train carrying all the late night loneliness there had ever been, and there had been much, an endless supply to last till doomsday and beyond. And there would be an endless amount more.

How crazy, how cruel is that, you bastard? You self-righteous--and he wept and the words stopped and the words formed into tears and the tears flowed for a long time. And took their shape and feel and size and dimensions in absolutely every moment, one way or another, of Sum's forever after life that would be spent alone. All because he couldn't smile. Is that not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard of in your life?

CHAPTER 2

Sum stirred fitfully aroused in his sleep, in his dorm room, and the bone moon shown like winter snow on his naked body. He was profoundly beautiful and profoundly desired. Sum was not above going to bed casually but he was also capable of being ashamed. Thinking, I am to stay in my chastity belt while Tan has all fun, dropping his witless coins out in the sun that he calls smiles and being little more than a whore. Oh but when we were together and in love, worlds were created. Every place newly touched was epic.

Sum turned on his pen light and looked at the pictures on his cell, clicked ones in his home’s kitchen, chocolate cake frosting all over his mouth, his happy grinning cheeks, licking his finger, bending down, his thick bushy hair, his 15th birthday as Tan snapped the picture, stopped time, though the giggles were lost, and all the noisy glorious sounds of then pushed into a vacuum of unimaginable horror, and a million pictures all their lives long as if there was this need to document them for the feeling of going away and being gone away from, that had ridden in his thoughts.

Late that night, in Sum's room, they had made love. This time Sum said, Fuck me, Tan. The word sounded sweet, pure innocence from Sum's gentle tone, despite the real but adorable craftiness in his expressive long lashed black big eyes. They had been lying close tangles on the bed and kissing all over, when Sum had said the fateful words, and Tan stopped, holding his love even closer. What did you say?

Tan had whispered unbelieving, a dream to come true? He had wanted to for so long, but Sum was too tight there. Oh my Sum, I would die tonight rather than hurt you. Sum bow wowed like a puppy dog, licked Tan’s nipples, and said I want it to be you. I love you and want you to be inside me. Like I fuck you.

And then, he hopped onto his knees and elbows and prepared for the ultimate giving of self. As Tan got the lube and opened his love. Warm, how supple, dark. And when he came, Sum could not tell Tan’s penis from his own, or his heart from Tan’s, for here to forever they were together. And they did not wash, but slept in each other's protective arms, and the night had no countenance on them.

As Sum had gritted his teeth in pain but this was Tan’s Christmas tree in him. On Tan's penis, Sum’s muscles were milking. Pain can be beautiful, its own country with its own roads and geography, when you got to be 15, and on your birthday, head over heels in love with the boy right there, beside you, see him, feel him, touch and taste him, as you both burst out of bed, and naked, raid the kitchen for the rest of the birthday cake, number 15 to be exact. And imploding joy all your lives long.

Tan and Sum spreading the cake over each and eating it. Delicate and fragile in summer stay too long, in the glare of a jealous, outclassed unforgiving sun. As beautiful and as vulnerable as a butterfly vying. As Sum looked at them, in the little flickering cone of white light, at the pictures taken somehow of a once upon a time and he came and lay back desolately, turned off the light, looked out the window at the artistry of the advent of the first snows of winter.

The room was cold, and for all its crowded closeness, and the smell of his roomie's rank unwashed clothes till Sum washed them when he washed his own, vast and Artic chill, with only the smell of empty. He emptied his bladder and flushed, then opened and closed the bathroom door again softly. He tried to imagine how once he could not imagine how he could ever have sex with anyone but Tan.

He walked softly to his bed, made himself hot chocolate with warm electric rings, picked up his stuffed animal he called Barrity, a plush purple donkey he got at a fair when he was ten. He held it to his chest and said Tan, I love you. He watched the snow getting thicker and commanding. He would have to take his and his roomie’s clothes to the laundry room in the basement of the building. Sum had discovered something.

He had always thought people manipulated him, and true some did, but other times he manipulated himself. His roomie had never said Wash my clothes too. He had just said nothing, only stared at Sum when Sum had broached the topic, thus Sum saying all on his own, Let me do your laundry too. When the boy nodded his head, Sum had smiled like he was happy to do it, and desperately wanting the boy to believe it.

He put his stuffed donkey, its sweet goofy face and wide cheeks and its crooked eyes, so loveable, in his lap, and crossed his legs Indian style, thinking of the boys here he’d been to bed with. Merely pretending merrily like every bad gay novel he’d ever read. He’s read a lot of them and they were all bad.

Who was sleeping with who, and who ditched who and picked up who and who gives a damn? He thought, in his once funny mind, did Horton hear this and what did he think of these Whos? And each who seemed identical to all the other whos. Chattel differences. Top. Bottom. Semes---hell with it.

He watched the snow and felt the universe around him and how awfully lonely he was. I shall go to bed with no one any more. It was horribly mean and wrong. Everybody was searching for what they half knew they would never find. Sum could tell them, there’s something worse than that. Which was having found the brightest star, lost and never found again.

The sun was beginning a watery ascension. Time spider crawled. He brushed his hands through his long bushy hair and looked seductively. His tongue tip at the corner of his mouth. A picture Tan had taken of him just getting over a cold. And how afterwards they had held each other and looked at the picture as they loved.

Sum thought, there is nothing as wonderful as flesh that is wanted, and nothing as awful as flesh pushed away. It’s like putting a person in a padded cell, naked and humiliated, so he’ll want to live. To go away from me, Sum thought, is to make me smile?

Wings of snow and silver sky where the birds fly and take no notice of us here until we shoot one of them and it plummets from its cathedral world up there. Wing tip to wing tip free and secure with an untouched beauty. Why can I not fly and find love and touch the corners of the worlds? Oh, my Tan remember me, for I’m gone insane, I feel. And he held his quivering body to the donkey and simply cried his heart out.

He wished to go to breakfast at the student union. He wished to go to class and learn not to dream of being a bird flying higher than God. For, with one sure exception to God, looking down at the world, at all those hurting people and animals, with compassion and a blinking of his big black eyes, giving paradise to everyone.

If there was one thing he used to believe in, that life and this world was ending for him, it was optimism. As he dressed, put on his winter coat, and gathered his books, he knew now why gay novels were all so bad.

They were just playing musical beds with the devil. Every body seemed to forget, once upon a time, when a boy reached his fifteenth birthday, and there was a midnight kitchen raid on the remains of a birthday cake, and love was right there at your hands and at your mouth, and God was beautiful then. He should have been there, God. Maybe it would have made him better and kinder. Sum left the room, headed down the dark corridor.

With the opening of doors, being bounced into, the noise, music, curses and shouts and life of getting up in the morning. He went down the dark metal stairs to the first floor and out into the snow, the freeze taking his breath, then pouring it visibly out his nose, the snow pelting, which he felt had adopted him as his brother.

He walked in the wind of snow