Come If You Want - Chapter Three

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You are reading ‘Come If You Want,’ a serialized novella by Brendon Holder. This is the third chapter. Catch up on the first and second chapters before jumping in.

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When Palmer ran out of compliments to give Hank, he resorted to giving him a handjob. He gripped Hank tenderly as he kissed his nose. Then he moved to his forehead, his lips migrating across the imaginary border where his hairline had once been. Hank swelled in Palmer’s fist, his passion hidden underneath the plastic patio table of Raoul’s Roundhouse. Most of the townies cleared out by this point; it was just the two of them and Christmas lights that twinkled earnestly in the back garden year-round. It looked like a romcom if you squinted.

“Tell me about your favourite part again,” said Hank. His left hand was still clothed in a sock puppet, the mayor this time. His free finger popped in and out of the mouth of a beer bottle suggestively. The bottle was half-finished and on the table when they sat down, abandoned.

“The witch doctress,” answered Palmer. Hank had yet to ask Palmer anything about himself, but he thought this was fine. Mason had told him it was best to maintain a sense of mystery for the first few dates. Leave something to be discovered, was what he said. “I like the line about her making her clients look like Halle Berry.”

“If only. The town eventually finds out her medicine is no good.”

“Yeah?”

“Still workshopping it, but by the time I hit tour, I’ll have a more developed storyline for all three characters.” Hank nodded towards his aluminum briefcase that was on the ground, underneath the patio furniture. The box of silver stood on the dirt like a raided treasure chest. “That’s where I keep ‘em.” Palmer thought about this, how someone’s whole life – their career, their passion – could fit so neatly in one briefcase. For some, it could be this simple. He nodded at nothing until he found himself in the dark gloss of Hank’s eyes. In Hank’s eyes, a window of imagination opened:

Palmer couldn’t help but imagine a ‘VIP’ lanyard laced around his neck as he accompanied Hank’s performances from pub to pub, town to town. His mind moved faster than he could rationalize, parachuting him into a rose-coloured world with Hank. He envisioned himself in Hank’s green room, which, in reality, was often just an employee coat room, helping him run lines and rhymes before he emerged on stage and wooed a sea of white women with dreadlocks. By then, he would have soft-launched their relationship on Instagram, selecting a photograph of two hands interlaced, one socked and one not, with the caption: ‘sock it 2 me❤.’ He salivated at the prospect of weekly sashimi dinners, no longer $67 but now $33.50. Destiny fulfilled.

Slowly, Palmer began to experience the things he imagined in real life. The universe brought forth his manifestation just as it had brought him Hank. And when things happened like this, Palmer was happy. Happy enough to close the window.

Happy with the way that Hank would reach back for Palmer’s hand when the two of them were walking, because Hank's legs were longer than Palmer’s and, therefore, naturally, were a couple of steps ahead. Palmer found himself happy with how Hank would remove the pickles from his bison burger, because Hank thought they were nasty – “like biting into a sausage casing of battery acid,” he’d say – and give them to Palmer because he knew, or really, he assumed but never got around to asking, that Palmer liked them more than he did. Palmer became amused with the way Hank would excitedly attend weddings with him as a plus-one, except for that one time he accompanied Palmer to Lindsay’s wedding and, to Palmer’s surprise, brought Fisherman Fred to their dinner table and demanded that Fisherman Fred have his own plate, ruining the meal for Palmer, the accompanying guests, and the culinary team, and embarrassing him greatly, only afterword, when Palmer confronted Hank in their hotel room (as Lindsay’s wedding was a destination wedding, duh), for Hank to say that this was his method and “you knew what you were getting into when you started dating an artist.” Palmer became less amused when Hank would start hiccuping ferociously in bed. It always happened the night before a big show while the two of them were trying to sleep because Hank was ‘nervous’ and the only way for Palmer to calm him down and put him to sleep – which would then allow Palmer to go to sleep – was to jack-off in a sock, slide it on top of Hank’s right hand and watch Hank throw his voice to the cum-sock to sing cum-logged lullabies to the two of them to coax him back to sleep, Hank’s hiccups fiercely evaporating as he fell into a deep slumber while the cum-sock-sleep-puppet miraculously continued belting. Palmer became rather peeved when Hank would forget to put his name on the guest list for his shows, resulting in Palmer having to shell out a modest $14 to gain entry and stand in general admission, amid Hank’s increasingly feral fandom, the quaint charm of the townies now dormant, replaced by something more erratic and cursed, as if hexed by the witch doctress herself. And then there were the times when Hank would make Palmer upset and hurt his feelings with his indifference. Palmer soon learned that Hank lived through perpetual shrugs and nondecisions, his passiveness weaponized to either lull Palmer into submission or have him act aggressively to force an outcome, just like when Hank said, “Come if you want.”

And Palmer – finally! – said, “What do you mean?” His trousers were already on, and he was halfway through ironing a paisley button-up shirt. “It’s your brother’s engagement party. I feel like if I come… I should be enthusiastically invited. I mean, I thought you had invited me.”

“Yeah, no. For sure. That makes sense.” The words rolled out of Hank’s mouth casually, like they just happened to meet at an intersection by chance or something. Palmer eyed the man who was sitting on the edge of the bed, already dressed, strapped into a navy double-breasted jacket despite telling Palmer that the dress code for the party was ‘sport casual.’ His legs kicked back and forth like a child rocking in a swing.

“I don’t really know what to do with that…” It had been one and a half months. Technically too early to ‘meet the family,’ but Hank brought it up so casually over rigatoni the week before. Almost like he assumed Palmer would be there. Or, at least that’s how Palmer heard it. Palmer put the iron on the board and thought about how his group chat would have heard it. He folded his hands underneath his armpits and said, “Does your brother even know I exist?”

Hank blinked and said, “Of course, he does.”

“Alright. So, do you want me to come?”

“I want you to come if you want to be there.” His smile that once seduced Palmer had now decayed into a thin line.

“That’s not really the same thing as wanting me to come.” Palmer wondered how getting the thing he wanted could make him feel worse. Like the empty feeling he sometimes experienced as a child after opening the last Christmas present and not finding a puppy. Sharp stabs used to claw a sense of lack into Palmer, but this was something else entirely. A vacancy. “I feel crazy for having to clarify.”

Palmer stared into Hank for an answer. Certainly, it was his turn to speak; that’s just the way conversations worked, but Hank remained faithful to his blank expression. No response is a response. Who had said that? It struck Palmer then that perhaps Hank never really had to answer to anyone, so used to being the chief conversationalist, throwing his voice only to hear his own words said back to him. How one could live within a hall of their own voice, Palmer didn’t know, but he had grown exhausted sustaining this behaviour.

Tired of it all, and not sure if what he wanted was worth being tired for, Palmer sighed. Then he said, “I won’t come.”

“As you wish,” offered Hank as he played with the metallic buckles of his briefcase. Palmer couldn’t believe that the socks were coming to the engagement party, and he wasn’t. Hank pushed a kiss into Palmer’s forehead and closed the apartment door behind him, leaving Palmer alone once again.

It wasn’t like Palmer was in a rush to be single. It just seemed like the practical thing to do.

He found himself longing for the solitude that came with eating overcooked stir-fry in his apartment alone, the independence he misplaced when he began a relationship with Hank. Vital aspects of his personhood became debris, whittled and replaced with the lint left by Hank and his socks. Where was Palmer’s free thought? Did he ever have it? At times, it felt like there was a force guiding his future. A cosmic pull. But wasn’t this the truth for all romantic love? A mystic compulsion yanking you from one person to the next, be it an algorithm in a dating app, a savvy matchmaker, or an invisible string? This was how people in his life seemed to describe love. Not as an active choice but something that, instead, chose you. But, surely, if he hadn’t picked this for himself, who did?

He walked across Hank’s kitchen, taking in his surroundings with clear eyes. The ribs of the radiator were practically peach-fuzzed under a layer of dust, and a curtain of lace hung like a stained doily in front of the kitchen window. Is this how he imagined he’d be spending the summer? Instinctively, he stretched his hand to the curtain to get a peek beyond the window, but as he pushed back its soiled lace, he was met with the brute sledge of red brick. Hank’s apartment window had no view; its tart veil of bricks cocooned one to themselves without the chance of introspection. Finally, he understood.

Palmer could not recall the last time he got off the train early to meander through the farmer’s market. Hank’s sleep troubles and his late-night cum-logged lullabies caused Palmer to forfeit his weekly routine of morning Tabata. He became dull and groggy, which only made him more susceptible to Hank’s silent agenda. It made Palmer quick to acquiesce. To play his part like a puppet. Passively pathological, were the words he had once read from a wise woman.

Hank made Palmer happy until he didn’t, but this time, it was Palmer who cooled.

“Dump his ass.” Three words texted by Calvin, read by Palmer in bed. After bottling his feelings for months and keeping much of his relationship with Hank a secret from the group chat, he finally spilled the tea the week after Hank’s brother’s engagement party. “There is no need to be dealing with an indirect man,” the text said.

Basil delivered a groundbreaking thumbs up emoji that wasn’t exactly his skin tone, and then sent, “The man of your dreams will CLAIM you with confidence.”

“If he wanted to, he would,” sent Michael definitively.

“And a rhyming sock ventriloquist? I don’t mean to yuck your yum but… YUCK,” wrote Terry.

Jack sent a sock emoji, followed by a water droplet emoji, followed by a yellow face puking. Palmer responded with a “Haha” reaction to obfuscate the horror that the string of emojis closely resembled his bedroom activity with Hank. He adjusted his mouth guard, thinking.

“Well, he’s actually quite gifted,” replied Palmer. “His raps are on Spotify.” Just what did Palmer obtain from defending Hank’s talent? Did it defend Palmer’s taste in men and, therefore, Palmer himself?

“Drop a link,” texted Mason

“Share his IG,” texted Kieran.

“Send a screenshot of the last message he sent you, a recent pay stub, and his blood type,” texted Michael.

Palmer did what he was told and watched his group chat tear at Hank’s digital footprint like a pack of hyenas. The group chat came to new conclusions about the rhyming sock ventriloquist that Palmer had never thought of, which made him feel like his judgment ought to be questioned. Like, what did he know anyway?

“Okay, so, he posted the black square on his IG. That’s good, right?” sent Terry.

“I guess, but like… it doesn’t really look like the real black square. It just looks like he put his hand over his phone’s camera and took a picture. Look closely. You can kind of see that the black isn’t even a consistent shade throughout the whole square. It has these dark magenta blotches in the middle of the square where you can see the backlight getting through his fingers,” voicenoted Calvin. His voice sounded hoarse, like he had just been running uphill. “It was like he was in a rush to put something up.”

Palmer saw what Calvin saw and imagined Hank snapping a photo with the phone camera wedged into the fist of the witch doctress sock. The Black Power fist took on a new meaning at that moment.

“Homeboy was stresssssseeeed,” texted Mason.

“Wait,” texted a number Palmer hadn’t seen before in the group chat. “He kind of looks like Stanley Tucci.” The number belonged to Palmer’s therapist. “He’s hot.”

“What the hell are you doing here?!??!?!??” replied Palmer. But the group chat moved on, changing their minds in unison the way a pack of flying birds changes direction. Heading south, then north, then left, then right. Off was now on again.

“Awooooga,” sent Michael.

“BINGO! Yeah, I see it now,” sent Kieran.

“Thaaaaaat’s who he looks like,” texted Basil.

“Wait, you gotta stay with him,” sent Calvin. “He IS hot.”

Quickly, Palmer felt his love life melt into content, having now, finally, ‘shared with the class.’ He shuddered at becoming romantic entertainment to be picked over like an episode of reality television.

The therapist replied to Palmer’s message. “I’m just doing field research! Turns out some of my other clients are also in this group chat. I never put it together until a couple of them talked about one friend dating a sock guy in therapy. I assumed it must be you.”

“Consider this an intervention,” said Jack, followed by a wink emoji.

An intervention, Palmer parroted back to himself. A notification bloomed on the top corner of his screen. Venmo. Another $350 from the therapist. Palmer smuggled out a groan. From all the voices, what he needed was a break, not an intervention. Some fresh air, he thought.

He thought about his sock but resisted. Instead, he opened up TikTok: flipping a window open, and, begrudgingly, climbed through.

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Thanks for reading the third chapter of ‘Come If You Want.’ I will be discussing it with readers and special guests in the comments and the Subscriber Chat, so download the Substack App to participate. If you like what I do, consider sharing with a friend (or group chat) or upgrading to paid. The final chapter dropped on Tuesday, July 29th. You can read it below:

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