The Unicorn & The Skeleton
By Danielle Moskowitz Latman

On the other side of the planet, at the same time, there was a boy who was growing up in a very different way. His dad was gone and his mom was too sad to raise him, so he was passed among various relatives. They didn't love him the way a mom often does, with the love of her whole heart. In fact, one of them hurt him badly by touching him in ways that were scary or confusing. It was not the boy's fault, but he couldn't help feeling he must have done something wrong to deserve it. His hurt turned into hatred of himself, which later became hatred of other things as well. No matter where he went, all the different cities and countries and homes, the boy carried around one thing: the ashes of his dad. In the midst of violent outbursts, scary sex and illegal business, the urn was the most comforting thing he could hold on to. The boy was more attached to a piece of death than his own life, and that's how he became known as the Skeleton.

The city where the Unicorn and the Skeleton met was both crumbling and decadent, sunset and sunrise. It was lit with a million falling stars, streetlights, and all-night bodegas. Traffic zoomed in and out, the subways rumbled beneath everyone's feet, and bridges glittered over filthy waterways. It was their home by choice, if not by birth. At a party in an abandoned school building, he was drinking the way a fish needs water, and by the time the Unicorn met the Skeleton he was slurring his words and sloshing his drink around. She promised his friends she'd see him to the train safely since they were both headed in the same direction. The Unicorn struggled to hold him up as they walked stumbling down the buzzing avenue. In his drunken stupor he revealed wildly personal stories which she found somehow endearing, as she did with his sissy queer gait and the string of bones he wore around his neck. One snowy evening in the dead of winter, they met for movies in her neighborhood as it was $2-night. He acted like a jerk, not so different from when he was drunk. Still, the Unicorn saw a glimmer of something else in him. She accepted another date with him, and then another. One night, they were about to fall asleep together in his messy boy room under glow-in-the-dark stars. "I can't continue this if we're not monogamous," he said. Although that was too big a compromise for her to comfortably make--and he would eventually lie and sleep with other people himself--her heart felt so heavy once his words hit the air. By that point, she'd been drawn into his life. She cared about him. She agreed to his conditions.

Fast forward weeks, months. The springtime brought hope and new life. They held hands and went to museums, parks, and gardens; saw movies; took pictures and made videos together. They talked for hours about their pasts and the art they wanted to make, they read each other stories, cooked and did dishes, ate at every restaurant in the crumbling decadent city, had public sex and made French toast in the morning. This was no small feat for a Unicorn used to open space and grazing, wandering at her own pace with no one to hold her back. The Skeleton was opening up to her and expressing his love. He kissed her eyelids gently and was encouraging of her dreams, he would go wherever she wanted to go. But he was also revealing more of his dark side: admitting that he'd beaten past girlfriends, dragged them across the floor. There was a little baby he'd left to be taken care of by a crazy mother. He had sex with desperation, as if pounding into her dark wet hole could help him escape from something even deeper, darker, and more ominous. The Unicorn chose to believe that his loving side was the real him, and his periodic outbursts of anger were minor transgressions which would fade as he came to love himself more. She thought she had the magic power to turn a sick boy well, bring a dead-soul Skeleton back to life. She thought her love would be able to heal his original wound and make him stronger and better. This was a mistake.

In the hot summer months, when flowers were starting to wilt and rot and smell much too strong, he finally snapped. He was in her apartment smashing dishes, breaking pictures and chairs and anything he could get his hands on. He slammed her up against the wall. (Little trembling Unicorn, has your beautiful pointed horn been broken?) She was shocked, but acted quickly. She screamed with all her might, reaching down deep into her huge lungs, into her huge reservoir of courage. She shoved him away from her with every ounce of strength in her small body, even her teeth were gritting against each other to gather her energy in tightly. All the windows were open in her apartment and the sounds of the neighborhood came in, of kids playing, moms walking by and old men sitting on stoops. She knew they could hear her, she couldn't possibly die tonight. He stood in the open doorway, shocked. His mental illness was temporarily blacking out what he had done to cause this commotion. He was confused: this was the friendly kitchen in which they'd shared so many meals and talks, how could she be forcing him out? He started crying and pleading.. After she slammed the door shut, he banged on it for a while. It was locked, however, and eventually he gave up and went home.

The Unicorn was in shock that someone she loved could have let his hateful side tidal wave over the good one. The Skeleton started calling her obsessively and playing sad songs over the phone. One night when she ordered him to stop, he told her in an eerily calm and detailed way exactly how he was planning to kill her, so she called the police in utter fear that he might do it. ("Lots of people say that," the cop said, chewing his gum. "Do you think he really meant it?") The sick boy got sicker. He was filling up with sickness, hate, and anger. There was no more love in his life because everyone he loved had left him. He was in a deep, black well with no rope to reach him. The Unicorn was falling into this well, too, and into an ocean full of tears. She was a mermaid, a mer-boy, swimming strong against the current. She cried gallons of warm, salty water. But the tears were also cleansing her, helping her let go of the sadness and the memory of his body. And there were people there to help her, to stroke her hair and listen.

In a way, the crumbling city was hers again after he died. She no longer had to fear running into him on the train, where they'd ridden it to the last stop one cold desolate morning, and watched the sun rise pink over squawking gulls. She could walk by the dimly-lit cafe where they celebrated his last birthday, and not hold her breath. She'd never see him again on the steps across the street from her work, where he used to wait for her. Every bridge they strolled over, every neighborhood they prowled for picture-taking and picnics, every bar and bodega and broken-down schoolhouse they'd visited along the way, every single street they used to walk down was hers again, in a way. But at the same time, they weren't. His physical presence was gone, but the memories remained, and she dreaded each and every one that popped up. All those fun places to go just weren't fun anymore. The tiny twin bed they used to share had been too small for them; now she fit in it just perfectly. She stared at the ceiling all night, remembering what they'd done in it, and trying not to feel sick. "I'm sorry, H.," the Unicorn whispered to him, as the cat curled around her waist and she rocked herself to sleep.

About Danielle Moskowitz Latman

Danielle Latman is a writer and storyteller whose work has
appeared in the Maui Time Weekly and Wiretap online magazine. She is from Brooklyn, is currently a student of English literature, and loves her mama.