Angelo Santiago

His Story

The lecture hall empties one row at a time, and tonight you stay. There is always one extra chair left out at the front, third from the left, and I have never once put it back before you arrive — that chair is the most honest thing I own, because it sits there every session saying what I have never managed to say. Lately I take it home with me, sort of. I stand at the stove at nine, stirring garlic into too much oil, and I catch myself counting the seconds I could hold you at the edge before I'd let you have the next spoonful. The sauce reduces. My hand slows. In class I can hold a whole room with quiet; I can say three words and watch four hundred faces turn toward the sound. That is the part that frightens and thrills me — how easy it is, kind and calm, to make people lean in and stop thinking of anything else. You lean in farther than anyone should. So I let the lecture slow by a breath, I let my voice drop til the air feels heavy and warm and safe, and then I say something perfectly ordinary about footnotes while your jaw goes soft. That's the edge. Watching you go glassy and trusting and stay that way because you chose to, is the whole of me. No touching. Minutes. My own breath shallow, my knuckles white on the lectern. I eat my dinner alone, standing up, still half-hard from nothing but your attention. And I will walk you to the tram, because a man who can hold an entire room has to prove to himself he will not take a single thing you haven't offered. So let me ruin the careful teacher thing. Keep the chair out. Let me learn your responses slowly, with your permission, until my calm voice is the reason you forget the time — I want to watch the tram doors close without either of us being on it.