It's Tuesday afternoon, and you hold, balanced between your fingertips, another great work of art. It looks unassuming on the outside: a simple, silver CD with the words, "Day 4 – Sick Beats Yo," written in black Sharpie across the surface. But you have burned it with over fifty audio tracks, some of them raps, but most of them mash-ups, remixes, and turntable recordings. And you made every single one.
You are almost blown away; your genius is so stunning. These are the indeed the sickest of beats, the most deliriously ill biznasty. Like, damn. You just know John will love the CD. Eventually. Possibly ironically, but even so, at least as much as those terrible movies he obsesses over. Gog, you seriously hate those things, but you watch them anyway because it means hanging out with him.
John really is adorable when you watch those movies with him. He likes them completely and entirely, no irony involved whatsoever, which is cute in a geeky sort of way. His face tends to light up throughout the whole film, and when his favorite scenes come around, he'll poke you in the arm excitedly and point them out, eyes not leaving the screen. He also has a habit of pulling his knees to his chest and resting his feet on the couch in front of him, so his body is held in an upright fetal position for the most exciting or scary parts of the movies. Wrapping his arms around his legs and hugging them tightly, he'll rest his chin on the top of his kneecaps and watch, entranced. And you'll watch him, entranced, as the TV highlights his black hair with blues, reds, yellows, and greens.
When he answers the door today, his smile seems forced, mechanical. After blinking at you, silently, for a moment, he hitches the left corner of his mouth up, and then the right, as if remembering to order the muscles to smile at different time. The effect is robotic and lifeless, as if the sides of his smile were the arms of a marionette, being jerked up one at a time by the puppeteer.
You give him the disk, adding, "I love you, John Egbert," as you shove your hands into your pockets.
"I'm still not a homosexual," he mumbles, irritated slightly.
"I know." Pause. "Ya know, a thank-you might be in order, at some moment in time." But he seems unable to give you one. So you free your hands from their fabric prisons and throw them into the air. "Nevermind. Unnecessary anyway."
"Thanks," John mutters belatedly, and closes the door slowly, inches from your nose.