Apache Homecoming 2015 |
Christine Nanfra, also known as Christine Marie, began writing about divorce after living through a difficult divorce. She is the creator/editor for the website www.afterdivorce.net and a contributing writer for divorcedmoms.com and divorceforce.com. She has been featured in the Huffington Post and The Good Men Project and has been a guest speaker on several podcasts. Christine is the book author of To Stay or Not to Stay: How to Know When it’s Time to Leave Your Marriage. She recently relocated from the Northeast to the Southwest and is currently employed as a reading specialist for an elementary school. Christine also writes for children and is optimistic she will have a few children’s books in the near future coming to a bookstore near you. |
Loving Thy Neighbor
“I feel a strong connection to you too Ken, you know that, but we’re both married,” Jane stammered a bit. “Hell, we know each other’s spouses.” She breathed deeply to keep herself from falling, falling into arms that held a life force all their own. Arms that were intoxicatingly strong and could probably endure many years of her neurotic tendencies. If only.
“Jane, I know it’s complicated,” he shuffled uncomfortably standing at the bottom of the long concrete driveway that led to her house, before slipping his hands into his pockets for safe keeping. “I’m just so tired of being unhappy and I know you’re not happy either. We could be great together,” he looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. “When I think about Kirk’s party… damn!” his eyes widened. “Let’s face it; we gravitate toward each other whenever we are in the same company, even when our spouses are around.”
Sweat beaded on her upper lip. It was either from her nerves, for which she was always a bundle of, or the high humidity mid-summer tolerated in New Jersey. A jittery energy seemed to crawl into her belly. She rested her hand on her stomach as if to quiet a fussy baby while she eyed the street for passersby. “Ken I really do wish things could be different for us, but look around us. How many married people do you know that are happy? We aren’t the only ones living in misery,” she paused to swallow. Her throat felt dry and closed just like her life.
His hand brushed his dark hair and for a moment she felt a shiver, remembering the feel of his hand caressing her breasts when they kissed at Kirk’s barbeque standing away from the crowd, hidden behind the evergreens. They were acting on impulse like two teenagers who drank too much gin and tonic. Then when Sally, Kirk’s wife, declared they were out of liquor, Ken announced he would run home and get some. Everyone was toasted and barely noticed they both slipped away. Once inside the empty house their mouths tunneled each other with a pent up longing as they clutched, embraced, and seized every body part they could grab or touch as though they had minutes before a bomb needed to be detonated. They both wanted each other desperately, but in a moment of clarity, with her skirt lifted and panties down to her knees, Jane had pulled away. It was a moment she regretted whenever she replayed it in her head.
“I admit I find it difficult to stay away from you, but Ken we have to. I have two boys and you have a daughter. Where would this lead? We have to think of our children,” she was on the verge of tears.
“I know you’re right Jane, but…” A horn beeped, startling them both. Reflexive smiles crossed their faces as they waved to Nancy from down the street, hoping the smiles wiped the guilt off their faces.
“Look, this isn’t the time or place,” Jane said.
“Okay, then when? Let’s meet for lunch tomorrow.”
“No, Ken, you don’t get it. No matter how much I would love to be with you,” she blushed, “it’s wrong. I married John for better or worse and you married Linda.”
“Yes, we did marry them, but how much more can either of us stand?” his voice was pleading. “Linda takes so many prescription drugs she’s barely coherent and John’s an angry asshole.”
Her eyes averted to the ground. She knew he spoke the truth, but even so that didn’t make it right. She distracted herself by kicking a pebble with her foot. She noticed her feet looked worse for wear in her sandals and was in desperate need of a pedicure. She scrunched her toes in hopes he wouldn’t notice.
He was pacing at the end of the driveway with his forefinger on his lips, his very hot, kissable lips. “So let’s say we do stay in our loveless marriages for our children’s sake,” his head was cocked to the side, “shouldn’t we be able to be happy at least sometimes? Why wouldn’t we be able to see each other occasionally until our kids go off to college?’
“That’s 10 years Ken! My baby is eight and your baby is nine.”
He nodded then took a deep breath as though he was gathering all his courage before he spoke and whispered in her ear. “I can’t remember the last time I felt this kind of passion for someone,” his pointer finger touched her shoulder for a moment and their eyes locked. The heat was palpable between them.
“Jane, this feeling doesn’t happen every day, in fact it almost never does.” He moved away when he heard a car barreling down the street, though it wasn’t anyone they knew. “Besides ten years isn’t that long, in fact it might make it go quicker having someone like you in my life.” His eyes held hers and she felt herself weakening. He was right. This doesn’t happen often; in fact it never had before. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this kind of arousal stir in her. After twelve years of marriage to John, she rarely felt anything, except contempt. But she couldn’t throw herself into an affair, could she? It wouldn’t be enough, not with him. She would want it all. In fact, it would probably make her home life that much more difficult knowing she had to go home to John and he went home to Linda.
As if reading her mind, “Please think about it Jane. I want you and not just for your smoking hot body,” his eyebrows raised looking for some kind of acknowledgement. “I know it will make our lives more complicated, but definitely better.”
She smiled at him, but it was a sad smile. Knowing how badly he wanted her made her heart soar, but the very fact that she couldn’t do anything about it made her feel sick.
“Think about how fun it would be discovering each other,” his hands were gesturing with excitement. “I really want to know all of you. I know you’re funny and smart. I see how you ferociously love your kids with your whole heart and you have a husband that doesn’t appreciate the beautiful gift he has.”
His words stung her. Not because they hurt her, but because she didn’t think anyone ever described her as a beautiful gift, certainly not her own husband. It touched her and it took every ounce of strength not to tell him so. She needed time. Time to herself. Time to think.
“Jane,” he said, and she turned to him. She loved how he said her name. “I’m not sure how this will all work out. I’ve never done anything like this before. But the one thing I do know is that I’m willing to take that risk. Living in misery isn’t the answer,” he said turning to leave, and then he turned back as though he forgot something. “My Uncle Dan started a new life after 30 years of marriage and he said it was the best thing he did to save himself.”
“I don’t know if I have what it takes to save myself anymore Ken,” she blurted. He nodded with a sad knowing look. Jane felt her heart sink for a moment and in that moment, she wanted to run into his strong arms and tell him he’s right. They should try, or at least have massive amounts of sex for a while. She hated seeing him look so defeated. The words almost tumbled out, but then the camp bus pulled up in front of her house and the screaming coming from the bus reverberated in her head and heart. As her two sons stumbled out of the bus laughing, she realized Ken was gone. The man, the moment and the opportunity walked away. Though she was certain the offer was still on the table, she felt bad that her parting words were so finite. She willed herself to smile and hugged her boys with a hunger that only people who have lost can understand. His words of affection stung her like a mosquito, leaving her with a swelling that needed to subside.
Later that night after she put her boys to bed she sat watching television. She was grateful for the quiet. John had been working late and she hoped he’d stay away. Staying away for good would be even better. She wondered what happened to her. Once upon a time she was carefree and could never be tied down to anyone or anything. Her old self would have jumped on the chance to screw her hot neighbor. She used to liken herself to the wind, being awed by its’ elusiveness to anyone or anything. As a child, she was ruled by an inconsistent father and a cold mother. Her father was a gambler, while her mother was the great denier. Some nights when her father had come home without a paycheck the screaming would go well into the night. Jane would be in her bed dreaming of being like her paper dolls, only of paper and paste, able to be scooped up by a windy day. She would dream of soaring through the air being carried by the wind from their fourth floor apartment, searching for a new home where love was easily given and received. Instead she would have to tiptoe around her mother, who was often volcanic in temperament after a scene-filled night. Mother would prepare her lava-ful eggs wrapped in bacon ash for breakfast with hollow eyes, devout of anything remotely similar to love, while pretending that everything was fine.
Jane shut the television and went to bed. She wanted to at least pretend to be sleeping when John came home. She laid in their king size bed, as she did most nights, waiting for slumber to take over. She would count the squares on the ceiling by straight rows from left to right, then diagonally, then starting from the center counting outward. Sleep was once natural to her, but like nearly everything else in her life, it required work.
When sleep eventually triumphed she dreamt of fading into the blackness of an evening with Ken holding her hands. His eyes reminded her of a sea of golden daffodils beneath green splendor. His baritone voice vibrated through her ears with repose as her heart danced on the edge of insanity, wanting, needing, touching, and forgetting all about the loveless marriage she succumbed to years before. His tangerine kisses melted her inhibitions, as her hands stroked his burley chest beneath Egyptian cotton.
“Jane,” he whispered. “Jane,” he said louder. “Jane,” her eyes opened and to her surprise it was John inches away from her face. “You’re groaning. I’m trying to sleep.”
She looked into his downcast eyes that were dying a slow Dewar’s death, and she realized her guilt surged like the third rail. Good Catholic guilt is what has kept her at bay, placid, and controlled. She rolled over away from him. “You had to wake me up? You know how hard it is for me to fall asleep.” Her anger was rising along with her tone.
“Keep your voice down,” he slurred.
She grabbed her pillow and the blanket that was flung over the rocking chair near the window.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going downstairs to the couch. I’m wide awake now and you reek of alcohol.” He mumbled something incoherent and she fled the room and shut the door. She needed to be away from him. Since the afternoon all her thoughts kept leading to Ken, apparently even when she had fallen asleep. She knew she shouldn’t be obsessing and replaying every word, every gesture, but it had taken control of her. She knew it was wrong to desire someone else while she was married. Wasn’t it? She made herself a comfy bed on the couch. She lay down and hoped sleep would come again.
Naturally she tossed and turned. She wished she could reach out to Ken. Thankfully she never gave him her cell number or they would probably be texting, or most likely sexting. She walked over to the window where she could see part of his house from her family room. A dim light shone from his den. It was 1:00 am. She guessed he couldn’t sleep either. God she really wanted him, which made her feel both hot and guilty simultaneously. Should she feel guilty for desiring someone else or was she justified? Her husband never cared about her wants and needs, it was always about him. No matter the time of night his hands would be groping her, trying to possess her body, unaware and uncaring of her lack of interest, just as long as his desires were met. This was the barter she accepted for the deceptive allure of the band of gold.
She sort of loved him once in a flurry and they had married too hastily to get out from under one dysfunction just to find another. Dysfunction she thought was something every family shared to some degree, even the animal kingdom. A healthy lioness protects her cubs, even from her mate; the dysfunctional lioness allows them to be eaten. No surprise where her family of origin had fit.
They had met at a party, being in their early twenties, both fresh out of college and a hankering for somewhere to go, looking to explore the countryside before settling down with jobs and life. They had decided on a road trip. The starting point was Brooklyn and they would get on the New York Thruway and take it from there. They basically drove nowhere in particular, but Jane wanted to see small towns to get ideas for new paintings. She had taken a few art classes in college and realized she had some talent, talent she thought she should explore. So, with her drawing tablet and pencil she sketched as John drove.
Three days in they found themselves on the Ohio Turnpike. Not much to look at except brown grass, choking beneath chunks of hay and thatch. Lonely pines stretched out dripping sappy tears. Bended trees nearly dead, surrounded by sprigs of green, a depressive place they both had thought. There was flat land as far as the eyes could see with red barns, white houses and grazing farm animals. Jane wondered why there wasn’t any originality. What about fuchsia, orange, or yellow? No personal markings of life.
The best part of the journey was driving in John’s chartreuse mustang convertible his father had bought for him as a graduation present. They rode with the radio blasting, singing Journey, Springsteen, and the Stones. She had noticed that the air in Ohio was as stifled as the grass that trails along for hundreds of miles. Youngstown, Akron, endless bleached homes with no sign of the wind. She had remembered reading Ohio had many tornadoes and thought it was ironic that only brief, destructive, angry visits of the wind passed through Ohio.
Out of Ohio and into Michigan they had stopped for food. John had been extremely horny and wouldn’t take no for an answer. They did it in the back seat. At least he had agreed to put the top up after several people kept walking by. Not that John minded since it was an ego lay for him. He didn’t mind that Jane was uncomfortable and didn’t want to be screwed in the back seat like a God-damn whore. It had been all about him, the selfish prick. Maybe that’s why she never liked Michigan.
After their two week long road trip, they parted ways for a short while. John kept calling her, but she had lost interest and was ignoring his calls. She thought he was too full of himself and not that remarkable. Then he began showing up at her parents’ house unannounced, and she would often get the feeling when she was out somewhere that she was being watched or stalked. Not long after, she found out she was pregnant. She contemplated an abortion or possibly adoption, which still makes her shudder, but she knew she could never have gone through with either. Her mother, a devout Catholic, found out. She had been eavesdropping while Jane was talking to her girlfriend. Her mother made her call John. Her mother didn’t care that her daughter didn’t love him; she only cared how it would look to the outside world and to God. The rest, as they say, was history.
She sprung up from the couch in the morning and made coffee. She tiptoed upstairs and peeked in the master bedroom. She heard the shower running and knew John would be leaving soon. Thank God! She woke up the boys, and then went back downstairs to make breakfast. John appeared in the kitchen and his intense eyes and angry demeanor startled her. “What was going on last night?” he asked with his hands on his hips.
“What are you talking about?” she said setting the table.
“In bed last night you were groaning, very loudly. I woke you to quiet you. What were you dreaming about?” he said with suspicion looming in the air.
She thought for a moment of telling him. The look on his face alone would have been worth it. How would he react when she said she was dreaming about their neighbor Ken? A man he despised because he knew he couldn’t shine his shoes. A man that she found wildly attractive. Or, if she told him how she longed to be with him and have his biceps wrap around her every day after they made love? How she instinctually knew that his kisses would melt away every horrible memory she ever had from her childhood through today?
“I don’t remember,” she lied. She knew that telling him anything would only make her life that much more difficult and she knew it was time to make her life worth living again.
“Okay,” he said biting his inside cheek, a habit of his that appears whenever he’s contemplating something he wants to say. “I don’t like the fact that you left the bed. That’s our marital bed and that’s where you belong at night. Am I being clear?”
She wondered if he was trying to take a manly stand or if he surmised something was going on behind his back. Either way it didn’t matter. During the early hours of daybreak she had decided that she would play the dutiful wife, while loving thy neighbor. She had already lost so much of her life to John, she wouldn’t lose another day. It was time for her to save herself.
“Yes dear,” she responded with a grin. He smiled wryly as though he won a victory and for the first time in a long while she couldn’t have cared less. For in that moment there were only two things on her mind: calling the salon to make an emergency pedicure appointment, and what slinky dress she was going to wear for her hot lunch date. Perhaps, she thought, she would surprise John and arrive sans panties.
2The End
“Jane, I know it’s complicated,” he shuffled uncomfortably standing at the bottom of the long concrete driveway that led to her house, before slipping his hands into his pockets for safe keeping. “I’m just so tired of being unhappy and I know you’re not happy either. We could be great together,” he looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. “When I think about Kirk’s party… damn!” his eyes widened. “Let’s face it; we gravitate toward each other whenever we are in the same company, even when our spouses are around.”
Sweat beaded on her upper lip. It was either from her nerves, for which she was always a bundle of, or the high humidity mid-summer tolerated in New Jersey. A jittery energy seemed to crawl into her belly. She rested her hand on her stomach as if to quiet a fussy baby while she eyed the street for passersby. “Ken I really do wish things could be different for us, but look around us. How many married people do you know that are happy? We aren’t the only ones living in misery,” she paused to swallow. Her throat felt dry and closed just like her life.
His hand brushed his dark hair and for a moment she felt a shiver, remembering the feel of his hand caressing her breasts when they kissed at Kirk’s barbeque standing away from the crowd, hidden behind the evergreens. They were acting on impulse like two teenagers who drank too much gin and tonic. Then when Sally, Kirk’s wife, declared they were out of liquor, Ken announced he would run home and get some. Everyone was toasted and barely noticed they both slipped away. Once inside the empty house their mouths tunneled each other with a pent up longing as they clutched, embraced, and seized every body part they could grab or touch as though they had minutes before a bomb needed to be detonated. They both wanted each other desperately, but in a moment of clarity, with her skirt lifted and panties down to her knees, Jane had pulled away. It was a moment she regretted whenever she replayed it in her head.
“I admit I find it difficult to stay away from you, but Ken we have to. I have two boys and you have a daughter. Where would this lead? We have to think of our children,” she was on the verge of tears.
“I know you’re right Jane, but…” A horn beeped, startling them both. Reflexive smiles crossed their faces as they waved to Nancy from down the street, hoping the smiles wiped the guilt off their faces.
“Look, this isn’t the time or place,” Jane said.
“Okay, then when? Let’s meet for lunch tomorrow.”
“No, Ken, you don’t get it. No matter how much I would love to be with you,” she blushed, “it’s wrong. I married John for better or worse and you married Linda.”
“Yes, we did marry them, but how much more can either of us stand?” his voice was pleading. “Linda takes so many prescription drugs she’s barely coherent and John’s an angry asshole.”
Her eyes averted to the ground. She knew he spoke the truth, but even so that didn’t make it right. She distracted herself by kicking a pebble with her foot. She noticed her feet looked worse for wear in her sandals and was in desperate need of a pedicure. She scrunched her toes in hopes he wouldn’t notice.
He was pacing at the end of the driveway with his forefinger on his lips, his very hot, kissable lips. “So let’s say we do stay in our loveless marriages for our children’s sake,” his head was cocked to the side, “shouldn’t we be able to be happy at least sometimes? Why wouldn’t we be able to see each other occasionally until our kids go off to college?’
“That’s 10 years Ken! My baby is eight and your baby is nine.”
He nodded then took a deep breath as though he was gathering all his courage before he spoke and whispered in her ear. “I can’t remember the last time I felt this kind of passion for someone,” his pointer finger touched her shoulder for a moment and their eyes locked. The heat was palpable between them.
“Jane, this feeling doesn’t happen every day, in fact it almost never does.” He moved away when he heard a car barreling down the street, though it wasn’t anyone they knew. “Besides ten years isn’t that long, in fact it might make it go quicker having someone like you in my life.” His eyes held hers and she felt herself weakening. He was right. This doesn’t happen often; in fact it never had before. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this kind of arousal stir in her. After twelve years of marriage to John, she rarely felt anything, except contempt. But she couldn’t throw herself into an affair, could she? It wouldn’t be enough, not with him. She would want it all. In fact, it would probably make her home life that much more difficult knowing she had to go home to John and he went home to Linda.
As if reading her mind, “Please think about it Jane. I want you and not just for your smoking hot body,” his eyebrows raised looking for some kind of acknowledgement. “I know it will make our lives more complicated, but definitely better.”
She smiled at him, but it was a sad smile. Knowing how badly he wanted her made her heart soar, but the very fact that she couldn’t do anything about it made her feel sick.
“Think about how fun it would be discovering each other,” his hands were gesturing with excitement. “I really want to know all of you. I know you’re funny and smart. I see how you ferociously love your kids with your whole heart and you have a husband that doesn’t appreciate the beautiful gift he has.”
His words stung her. Not because they hurt her, but because she didn’t think anyone ever described her as a beautiful gift, certainly not her own husband. It touched her and it took every ounce of strength not to tell him so. She needed time. Time to herself. Time to think.
“Jane,” he said, and she turned to him. She loved how he said her name. “I’m not sure how this will all work out. I’ve never done anything like this before. But the one thing I do know is that I’m willing to take that risk. Living in misery isn’t the answer,” he said turning to leave, and then he turned back as though he forgot something. “My Uncle Dan started a new life after 30 years of marriage and he said it was the best thing he did to save himself.”
“I don’t know if I have what it takes to save myself anymore Ken,” she blurted. He nodded with a sad knowing look. Jane felt her heart sink for a moment and in that moment, she wanted to run into his strong arms and tell him he’s right. They should try, or at least have massive amounts of sex for a while. She hated seeing him look so defeated. The words almost tumbled out, but then the camp bus pulled up in front of her house and the screaming coming from the bus reverberated in her head and heart. As her two sons stumbled out of the bus laughing, she realized Ken was gone. The man, the moment and the opportunity walked away. Though she was certain the offer was still on the table, she felt bad that her parting words were so finite. She willed herself to smile and hugged her boys with a hunger that only people who have lost can understand. His words of affection stung her like a mosquito, leaving her with a swelling that needed to subside.
Later that night after she put her boys to bed she sat watching television. She was grateful for the quiet. John had been working late and she hoped he’d stay away. Staying away for good would be even better. She wondered what happened to her. Once upon a time she was carefree and could never be tied down to anyone or anything. Her old self would have jumped on the chance to screw her hot neighbor. She used to liken herself to the wind, being awed by its’ elusiveness to anyone or anything. As a child, she was ruled by an inconsistent father and a cold mother. Her father was a gambler, while her mother was the great denier. Some nights when her father had come home without a paycheck the screaming would go well into the night. Jane would be in her bed dreaming of being like her paper dolls, only of paper and paste, able to be scooped up by a windy day. She would dream of soaring through the air being carried by the wind from their fourth floor apartment, searching for a new home where love was easily given and received. Instead she would have to tiptoe around her mother, who was often volcanic in temperament after a scene-filled night. Mother would prepare her lava-ful eggs wrapped in bacon ash for breakfast with hollow eyes, devout of anything remotely similar to love, while pretending that everything was fine.
Jane shut the television and went to bed. She wanted to at least pretend to be sleeping when John came home. She laid in their king size bed, as she did most nights, waiting for slumber to take over. She would count the squares on the ceiling by straight rows from left to right, then diagonally, then starting from the center counting outward. Sleep was once natural to her, but like nearly everything else in her life, it required work.
When sleep eventually triumphed she dreamt of fading into the blackness of an evening with Ken holding her hands. His eyes reminded her of a sea of golden daffodils beneath green splendor. His baritone voice vibrated through her ears with repose as her heart danced on the edge of insanity, wanting, needing, touching, and forgetting all about the loveless marriage she succumbed to years before. His tangerine kisses melted her inhibitions, as her hands stroked his burley chest beneath Egyptian cotton.
“Jane,” he whispered. “Jane,” he said louder. “Jane,” her eyes opened and to her surprise it was John inches away from her face. “You’re groaning. I’m trying to sleep.”
She looked into his downcast eyes that were dying a slow Dewar’s death, and she realized her guilt surged like the third rail. Good Catholic guilt is what has kept her at bay, placid, and controlled. She rolled over away from him. “You had to wake me up? You know how hard it is for me to fall asleep.” Her anger was rising along with her tone.
“Keep your voice down,” he slurred.
She grabbed her pillow and the blanket that was flung over the rocking chair near the window.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going downstairs to the couch. I’m wide awake now and you reek of alcohol.” He mumbled something incoherent and she fled the room and shut the door. She needed to be away from him. Since the afternoon all her thoughts kept leading to Ken, apparently even when she had fallen asleep. She knew she shouldn’t be obsessing and replaying every word, every gesture, but it had taken control of her. She knew it was wrong to desire someone else while she was married. Wasn’t it? She made herself a comfy bed on the couch. She lay down and hoped sleep would come again.
Naturally she tossed and turned. She wished she could reach out to Ken. Thankfully she never gave him her cell number or they would probably be texting, or most likely sexting. She walked over to the window where she could see part of his house from her family room. A dim light shone from his den. It was 1:00 am. She guessed he couldn’t sleep either. God she really wanted him, which made her feel both hot and guilty simultaneously. Should she feel guilty for desiring someone else or was she justified? Her husband never cared about her wants and needs, it was always about him. No matter the time of night his hands would be groping her, trying to possess her body, unaware and uncaring of her lack of interest, just as long as his desires were met. This was the barter she accepted for the deceptive allure of the band of gold.
She sort of loved him once in a flurry and they had married too hastily to get out from under one dysfunction just to find another. Dysfunction she thought was something every family shared to some degree, even the animal kingdom. A healthy lioness protects her cubs, even from her mate; the dysfunctional lioness allows them to be eaten. No surprise where her family of origin had fit.
They had met at a party, being in their early twenties, both fresh out of college and a hankering for somewhere to go, looking to explore the countryside before settling down with jobs and life. They had decided on a road trip. The starting point was Brooklyn and they would get on the New York Thruway and take it from there. They basically drove nowhere in particular, but Jane wanted to see small towns to get ideas for new paintings. She had taken a few art classes in college and realized she had some talent, talent she thought she should explore. So, with her drawing tablet and pencil she sketched as John drove.
Three days in they found themselves on the Ohio Turnpike. Not much to look at except brown grass, choking beneath chunks of hay and thatch. Lonely pines stretched out dripping sappy tears. Bended trees nearly dead, surrounded by sprigs of green, a depressive place they both had thought. There was flat land as far as the eyes could see with red barns, white houses and grazing farm animals. Jane wondered why there wasn’t any originality. What about fuchsia, orange, or yellow? No personal markings of life.
The best part of the journey was driving in John’s chartreuse mustang convertible his father had bought for him as a graduation present. They rode with the radio blasting, singing Journey, Springsteen, and the Stones. She had noticed that the air in Ohio was as stifled as the grass that trails along for hundreds of miles. Youngstown, Akron, endless bleached homes with no sign of the wind. She had remembered reading Ohio had many tornadoes and thought it was ironic that only brief, destructive, angry visits of the wind passed through Ohio.
Out of Ohio and into Michigan they had stopped for food. John had been extremely horny and wouldn’t take no for an answer. They did it in the back seat. At least he had agreed to put the top up after several people kept walking by. Not that John minded since it was an ego lay for him. He didn’t mind that Jane was uncomfortable and didn’t want to be screwed in the back seat like a God-damn whore. It had been all about him, the selfish prick. Maybe that’s why she never liked Michigan.
After their two week long road trip, they parted ways for a short while. John kept calling her, but she had lost interest and was ignoring his calls. She thought he was too full of himself and not that remarkable. Then he began showing up at her parents’ house unannounced, and she would often get the feeling when she was out somewhere that she was being watched or stalked. Not long after, she found out she was pregnant. She contemplated an abortion or possibly adoption, which still makes her shudder, but she knew she could never have gone through with either. Her mother, a devout Catholic, found out. She had been eavesdropping while Jane was talking to her girlfriend. Her mother made her call John. Her mother didn’t care that her daughter didn’t love him; she only cared how it would look to the outside world and to God. The rest, as they say, was history.
She sprung up from the couch in the morning and made coffee. She tiptoed upstairs and peeked in the master bedroom. She heard the shower running and knew John would be leaving soon. Thank God! She woke up the boys, and then went back downstairs to make breakfast. John appeared in the kitchen and his intense eyes and angry demeanor startled her. “What was going on last night?” he asked with his hands on his hips.
“What are you talking about?” she said setting the table.
“In bed last night you were groaning, very loudly. I woke you to quiet you. What were you dreaming about?” he said with suspicion looming in the air.
She thought for a moment of telling him. The look on his face alone would have been worth it. How would he react when she said she was dreaming about their neighbor Ken? A man he despised because he knew he couldn’t shine his shoes. A man that she found wildly attractive. Or, if she told him how she longed to be with him and have his biceps wrap around her every day after they made love? How she instinctually knew that his kisses would melt away every horrible memory she ever had from her childhood through today?
“I don’t remember,” she lied. She knew that telling him anything would only make her life that much more difficult and she knew it was time to make her life worth living again.
“Okay,” he said biting his inside cheek, a habit of his that appears whenever he’s contemplating something he wants to say. “I don’t like the fact that you left the bed. That’s our marital bed and that’s where you belong at night. Am I being clear?”
She wondered if he was trying to take a manly stand or if he surmised something was going on behind his back. Either way it didn’t matter. During the early hours of daybreak she had decided that she would play the dutiful wife, while loving thy neighbor. She had already lost so much of her life to John, she wouldn’t lose another day. It was time for her to save herself.
“Yes dear,” she responded with a grin. He smiled wryly as though he won a victory and for the first time in a long while she couldn’t have cared less. For in that moment there were only two things on her mind: calling the salon to make an emergency pedicure appointment, and what slinky dress she was going to wear for her hot lunch date. Perhaps, she thought, she would surprise John and arrive sans panties.
2The End
J. David Thayer is an educator living in Texas. His works have appeared in 24-Hour Short Story Contest (2nd Place), The First Line, The Last Line, Fantasy/Sci-Fi Film Festival, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bewildering Stories, 101 Word Stories, Tall Tale TV, Black Petals, Farther Stars Than These, Terror House Magazine, 50-Word Stories, The Drabble, 365 Tomorrows, 42 Stories Anthology, and Pilcrow & Dagger.
A Fiddler in the Mountains
Lawson Riley found himself an empty booth at the Red Spruce Lounge. He knew the place would be mostly deserted this time of year. A few locals only. Two at the pool table, a handful at the bar itself. Sports news on the house flat screen and Patsy Cline from the jukebox competed with each other until neither audio could be distinguished. Not that he was attempting to listen to either. A tall draft of Hamm’s sat undisturbed beside him, slowly edging its way towards room temperature. His left hand steadied a crudely shaped coin upright on its edge, while his right thumb and index finger flicked at it randomly, spinning it to its opposite face each time. His eyes, fixed and vacant, stared at the slivery February sky through the plate glass. Leaves were gone from most of the trees, and their sleeping bones somehow added to the bleakness of his mood. He welcomed it. Today was not a day for cheer.
He knew what he had to do. Knew it as soon as he got the phone call the night before. All day long he searched for ways to avoid it. Following a night void of productive sleep, Lawson busied himself with useful tasks that were in no way urgent, and so his calculated procrastination wore a smug veneer of purpose. As soon as the shop opened, he climbed into his barber’s chair a week ahead of schedule. Del called him on it instantly, and, in so doing, talked himself into a tip two dollars lighter than usual. Then at noon, Lawson stood watch over his defecating dog just to make certain all systems were fully functional. He had introduced a new food some months earlier, and perhaps Caesar was still experiencing adjustment issues. We can now report, definitively, the dog is fine. Next he went to Sitoburg Grocery and purchased as many nonperishable items on his March list as he could predict. Even took a chance on some honey ham stamped with an ambitious expiration date. During all these errands, and in between, and right up to the present, sitting in that worn-out booth, Lawson’s head spun itself around the same fruitless loop of logic, always terminating at the same conclusion: the thing had to be done. Every other consideration was noise changing exactly nothing. There was no way out.
The door opened. A man Lawson knew very well stepped inside the Red Spruce Lounge, undoubtedly looking for him. A flood of outdoor light obscured his face, but even in silhouette, there was no mistaking that hat.
“Ah, hell.”
The man scanned the room, saw Lawson sitting there, and walked right up to his black leather booth. Big hole in the opposite cushion patched with failing tape, foam rubber spilling out.
“Well, there he is! Had a feeling I’d find you sitting up here. O’course, I known that bike out front, so that took the guesswork out of it. Evening, deputy.”
“Hello, Sheriff.”
#
“Rr. Riley? Tht. That you?”
“Dougie? What the hell time is it?” He sat up in bed and fumbled at the spinny switch on the nightstand lamp. It was just after 3:00 AM.
“Li. Listen, Riley. I’m in trouble. Bad trouble. I. I’s makin’ m’rounds little bit ago, oh, God!, and th. [Chokes] This girl. She ju. Jus up’n runs out in fron’ o’me! I hit her, Riley! They’s takin’ her to the E.R., but I knowed what I saw. Sh. She’s gone ‘fore the ambulance got there. Oh! Lawson, I killt somebody! That’s somebody’s baby! Wasn’t my fault! She just ran ‘cross the street an’ I couldn’t stop! Oh, God! No! No, no, no, no, no! This can’t be hap’ning!” He was sobbing now, uncontrollably. Grief and terror washed over Douglas Craig in unrelenting waves, and he could barely speak. But that was not the whole of it. Lawson had heard that same speech pattern before. The memory sickened him. He knew exactly what it meant, and it made the story even worse. If such a thing were possible.
“Dougie. Listen to me, Dougie. You have to go to the hospital. Hang up and go right now. You’ve called your chief, right?”
“‘Course I have! He’s on his way up there now.” Doug’s right hand fumbled inside his front jeans pocket, and it knew what it was after. Sifting through an assortment of loose change, his fingers came upon a coin different from the rest. It was not quite round, and it was much lighter than its peers. He squeezed the coin in his pocketed fist, tightly, and the familiarity somehow made things just a touch more tolerable.
“Good! That’s good. He’ll know what to do. He’s a good man; you’ve told me that many times. Get out in front of this, Douglas. Don’t hide a thing, don’t make excuses. Stick to the facts. You’re a lawman, same as me. You know it's facts, not emotions, that ends up having its say, when all’s said and done. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Okay. Mm. I’m really scared, Riley. Can’t believe this jus’ hap’ned. Oh, God, no!”
“‘Course, you’re scared. And I gotta be real here, Dougie: you should be. But you’ll get through this. Plenty of awful dead ahead of you, and no mistake. But you’ll get through this, y’hear? Now, I got some days comin’. Gonna ask Lex can I take ‘em all right now, and I’m coming out there to he’p ya! Stand right beside ya the whole way. Just hang in there, Brother. Main thing is, you gotta do what you know is right, and right from the start. You understand?”
“Yeah. Oh, God! Please help me! Okay, okay. I’m-a head up th. There n. Now. Bye, Riley.”
“Now, I’ll call you tomorrow, Dougie. It’s going to be alright. Really. G’bye.” But Lawson Riley knew that was a lie while fixing his mouth to spit it out. Things were never going to be alright again; how could they be? Should they be, even? A girl was dead now, and she didn’t have to be. You don’t fix things like that. You gotta do what you know is right, and right from the start! It played over and over in his head, all day long. With each passing hour, he felt himself all the more a hypocrite. Why’d he have to say such a stupid thing? Big talk. “[Sigh] Me and my damned mouth.”
#
Sitoburg, Tennessee sat hard against the edge of Smoky Mountains National Forest in Sevier County. A place of tourists and cabins in the summer and piles of nothing in the winter. Lawson Riley and Douglas Craig grew up together, right here. Native sons, the both of them. When Lawson decided, as a sophomore in high school, that he would apply to the police academy in Nashville after graduation, no one was surprised to learn that Dougie suddenly had the same ambition. Neither had a brother except the other, and neither wanted for anything extra. Somehow Lawson always knew Dougie would need his help, and he was good with that. Least he could do. He could be a handful at times, Dougie, but if loyalty were a thing to pour, his measure would spill over the top of any container. Lawson was always the smarter of the two, and that meant he was smart enough to recognize Dougie had deeper qualities that put his to shame. Now his brother really needed him, and he felt utterly inadequate to meet the challenge. The facts as stated were awful enough. Beyond that, there was a dreadful possibility in play that would render moot any realistic hope of defense. Lawson was almost ready to go there when Sheriff Jasper Lexington, his boss and mentor, walked through the door of the Red Spruce Lounge.
Sheriff Lex knew Douglas as well as he knew Lawson. Watched them grow up together. He hired both of them on as deputies fresh out of the academy, and things were perfect for three years or so. Then something happened.
Under suspicious conditions, Dougie drove his squad car through the storefront of Neer’s Department Store, right across the square from the sheriff station. City Hall was two doors over, and the post office was next to that; this was no small scandal. When help arrived, onlookers said Dougie slurred his speech and appeared completely disoriented. No one was injured, and no charges were filed. No field sobriety test. People whispered at first and made bold accusations later. The thing took on a life of its own, and Sheriff Lex couldn’t slow it down. Small towns are like that. Dougie figured out on his own he couldn’t stay on as deputy in Sevier County, but the good news was Jasper knew a man out West. His friend had taken a job as campus police chief at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Calls and texts were exchanged, details worked out. Chief Wilson assured Lex that he’d look after Dougie and said he sounded like a perfect fit for the campus force. And he was! Everyone loved Dougie, like everyone does. Then Dougie put through a call to his adoptive brother regarding the preventable death of a student. And by his own hand. Funny how often things are perfect, right up to the moment they aren’t anymore.
#
“I expect what’s botherin’ you is the same thing a-botherin’ me, huh, Lawson?” Lawson considered playing it coy, but that requires energy.
“Yeah. I Reckon.” Silence. “You hear from Chief Wilson?”
“Yep. Alex tells me a poor girl just ran out in front of Dougie’s squad car last night. Killt. [Shakes head] Looks like she was being carless, silly. Not lookin’. You know, like kids do. It’s awful.”
“Sure is.”
Then he said it.
“I don’t suppose Dougie ever came clean with his boss about his past struggles, did he?”
“Did you?!” Lawson was surprised at his own combative tone, but he was instantly hot all over. Sheriff Lex would have to cut him some slack. “He’s your friend! You’re the one fixed him up with that job right ‘fore this town ran him outta here on a rail! Did YOU come clean, Sheriff?”
“Deputy Riley, do I suddenly have to explain to you how HIPPA works? You know there are things I can say and things I can’t say. I told Alex everything I could say within the law, and probably one or two details just over that mark. But what we’re talking about here? I couldn’t say that much. The law says, as you well know, that’s up to Douglas to disclose. However, I did let on that Alex might should hold off issuing the boy a set a car keys. I mean, hell, it’s a college campus, not a whole damn town! Give him a bicycle. Let walk. Whatever. [Sigh] I guess Dougie charmed him right out of that advice. Of course he did. Quick, too.”
“When did you first know, Sheriff?” Jasper considered the question.
“Oh, I suppose I knew somethin’ was bad wrong when Dougie started stayin’ up nights. He’d walk all over town! 2, 3, 4, in the mornin’. Later, some days. Then he’d come in to work looking like Hell’s cat found him first. Remember them times?”
“Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah, I do.”
“Remember how, when he would get particularly upset, seem like he couldn’t talk no more?”
“Sure do. Heard that again last night.”
“You don’t say! I expect you did, too. Doc Jenkins said they call that cataplexy. Folks like him lose control of certain muscles during emotional times. Plays hell with their speech, he said. [Sigh] That poor boy. That poor girl. Lordy. Have mercy.”
“Yeah.”
“He ever tell whether Doc Jenkins forbade him to ev’r drive a vehicle again?”
“[Shakes his head] No. But I think we can prolly guess that much, can’t we?”
“Yeah, I suppose. Well, that’s gonna come out. And you know how much harder that’s going to make things on Dougie, don’t cha? That’s why you’re a-sitting here, letting good beer go bad.”
“I can’t let that happen, Sheriff. Here’s my brother! He don’t deserve to go to jail!”
“Ain’t for us to decide, son. But you gotta call him. Tell him to come clean. To tell it all. If they have to find that out through diggin’, that D.A.’s liable to get irritated. Feel like he’s been lied to. Dougie don’t want that. Now theys no one on the planet he’d listen to ahead of you. Same bolt of cloth, you two. You love him; you want what’s best for him. That ain’t runnin’. That ain’t hiding and hoping. That’s facing this thing head on. That’s what he deserves, since you brought it up. It’s what that girl deserves, too.”
Lawson was crying now, very hard.
“I can’t do that, Sheriff! I can’t tell my brother to go into the courthouse tomorrow morning and hang hissef! Right to Remain Silent is just as much a thing as HIPPA ever was, sir! More of a thing, actually, comes down to it.”
“[Heavy sigh] The boy has narcolepsy, son. You know it, and I know it. Most of all, he knows it. Based on that, we can make a pretty fair guess what took place. The girl stepped into the street right when Dougie was having a [snaps fingers]… what did Jenkins call them damn things…microsleeps! Dougie had a microsleep come up on him, and at the worst possible time. Only has to last a few seconds. Anyway, Dougie didn’t see her, and not because she did something wrong. He didn’t see her because he fell asleep, just for a second or two, while he was behind the wheel of a squad car, and he struck her down. Sometimes it happens; they don’t know it! Could be Dougie don’t have a clue. But that’s what happened, sure as the world. [Sigh] He knew better, too. Doc surely told him. You know he did.”
Sheriff Lex noticed the coin now sitting on the table. Lawson stopped fiddling with it as soon as he sat down.
“Hey, lookee there! Don’t tell me ol’ Lee Zingus over in Nashville still hands them things out to cadets as they graduate!”
Lawson was thankful for the break.
“Yessir! Sure does!”
“And the speech? No!”
[Nods head. Laughs] “This is one Denarius! It symbolizes a day’s wages—”
Now Both men together.
“…for an honest day of hard work!”
“You know it too! [Laughs] He strikes those himself. Every year. For each and every cadet!”
“Strikes them, hell! He buys them off Amazon Prime!”
“No sir!”
“Oh, yeah! Found some outfit in the Czech Republic or some damn place, I dunno. Sends ‘em to him in bulk. Hundreds in a single envelope, pennies on the dollar. You don’t need to spread that around, now. Boys like believing he makes ‘em up special.”
“I know! Not sure you shoulda told me.”
“The fellar on the front a that coin: who is that?”
“Nero, sir.”
“Right! Ain’t he the boy was playing on his fiddle whilest Rome burned to the ground?”
“That story ain’t true, Sheriff.”
“Yet here we are, two thousands years later, talking about it at the Red Spruce Lodge in Sitoburg, Tennessee. You expect he planned on all that?”
“No, I’m guessing he didn’t.”
“Some stories live on way past us, son. True or not true, don’t matter. People say Nero neglected his duty. Looked t’other way when he shoulda been protecting his own.”
“Killed the early Christians, too.”
“Well, he’s a bastard, ain’t he! Point is, duty is hard, but duty is clear. Yours is right in front of ya. You gonna call your brother, when he needs you to call him? Tell him what he don’t wanna hear, but needs to hear? Or do I need to scare you up a fiddle somewheres? Pawn shop’s across the street, I do believe. Probably open for another fifteen minutes or so. What’s it gonna be, Deputy?”
“Damn.”
“Yep. Listen: when time comes, I’ll drive out to Las Cruces with you. HIPPA or no HIPPA, I have a part in this. If I don’t make that call to Alex, I wager Dougie never even steps foot in New Mexico. Not ever. Change that equation, and that poor girl lives out her whole life, just like she was meant to. I’ll be chewing on that from now on. Lots of hands get dirty, times like these. Besides, you and Dougie are as kin to me as any blood relation. Ain’t neither of you doing this alone. Promise.” He picked up his hat. “Okay, then. I’m headed to the house. Aubrey Kate’s making meatloaf tonight, and my missing it won’t help nobody. Call me when you need to.”
#
Lawson Riley looked at his beer. He pushed it aside. Picking up his phone, he passed through the back door of the Red Spruce Lounge and out to the loading dock and the dumpsters. The tears rallied, but he chocked them back down. Swallowed hard, made the call.
“Hello, Dougie? Hey, Brother! How’d today go? Uh huh. Uh huh. Good! Yeah, I know. I’m sure. Hey, listen. You know I Love you, right? Brothers to the grave? Good, ‘cause here’s where it gets really hard.”
THE DEPUTY AND 61
As she trudged down the alley, Cenessa saw a small black metal box sitting unattended on a loading dock. There it was. Good chance it had cash inside, or something else amounting to the same, judging by its sturdy construction. She supposed it must have been set there by the only other person in sight: a middle aged overweight white man, smoking away and leaning on dumpster some fifty feet away. Perhaps he was waiting on someone or something, but for whatever reason, he hadn’t noticed her yet. She ducked down behind a waist-high cinderblock wall and watched him carefully, weighing the risks. Then he started talking on his phone. And pacing. Coming to the nearest end of his distracted circuit, he made an about face and began walking back in the opposite direction. Now he was smoking, talking on the phone, and walking further away with his back to her. The box in between. She was hungry and down to loose change. There was nothing left think about.
She made four full strides before the man noticed her at all. Two more strides before it registered that she was running, and with a metal box in her right hand. Three more strides before he remembered once he had been steward of a box very similar to the one she carried. And four more strides before all of these facts rendered their terrifying conclusion. Of course, any lead at all was moot; he couldn’t have caught her had she been running towards him. Still, he knew this was his ass, and a flood of adrenaline summoned muscles that had not been called upon in over a decade to wake from their pizza and atrophy and give chase. It was valiant, if pitiful. She turned left onto O Street towards the north entrance of Quadrangle Square, and certainly would have gotten away forever, had she not collided with Sheriff’s Deputy Rowan Callabaugh walking up the sidewalk at that same moment. Both hit the deck.
She dropped the cashbox; he recognized it instantly.
“Well! Hey, Miss! [Grabbing her by the wrist] So glad you found this! I know a man who is desperately missing this valuable item right about now. He’ll be so happy to have it returned. Let’s take it right to him, shall we?”
“Let me go, pig! That suitcase is mine! Get your hands off me!”
“Oh, I’m sure it is! And I’m sure there are no receipts labeled ‘Clemens Department Store’ on the inside a your luggage, neither. Just jeans and undies and such, right?”
“None of your damn business what I packed; you got no probable cause! Let me go, damn it!”
“Ma’am! You’ve got ten or twelve seconds to change your attitude real quick! Otherwise that fat man I hear stomping down the alley is gonna be around that corner and your day’s about to get a whole lot worse. Believe that! Up to you, sister.”
Before she could respond, the box’s previous owner spilled his spent and asphyxiated soul onto O Street. Seeing the welcomed sight approaching, he allowed himself to stumble to a full stop, lowered his head between his knees, and panted like one-dog sled team. He actually raised one hand, apparently calling for a timeout. Speaking first was out of the question, which gave the deputy the advantage.
“There you are, Wilbur Hollister! This young lady found your drop box back in the alley! Can you believe that?! She stopped by the station house and asked us where she might return it to its rightful owner! Well, I thought it looked like what y’all at Clemens give to the Loomis man of a mornin’, so we were just on our way to pay you a visit! Here it is! Yours, ain’t it? You’re welcome! Have a good day, now!”
“Buh! Buh! Buh! Bullshit, Rowan! Huh! Huh! Huh! Th.. [swallows] That tramp stole it from me!”
“Kiss my ass, you fat walrus!”
“Easy.”
“Ruh! Right off the dock! Now, damn, it! Put the cu. Cu. Cuffs on her and take her to ja. Jail!”
“I’m sorry, Wilbur. She stole it? How could she steal it? Did she come up behind you and hit you over the head? Punch you in the face, maybe? I’m confused, see… How did she wrestle this box outta that death grip you keep on it at all times? Do we have an assault to investigate?”
“Huh. Huh. She stole it, I tell ya! Huh. We have cameras! [swallows] Let’s go look at ‘em!”
“Oh, I think that’s a good idea! Clear this right up! But you know, whatever is on that feed we’ll have to show to Old Man Clemens, just to keep him in the loop where our investigation is concerned. I’m sure he’ll be very interested to see how diligently you look after his deposits ever’ day. Good idea, Wilbur. Let’s go take a look!”
“Huh! Huh! [all stop] Just a damn minute, now!”
“That’s right, ‘Just a damn minute, now!’ Sheriff and me been telling you forever that the daily drop ain’t also your personal smoke break, but you don’t listen. Today something happened that we can fix, so let’s fix it. But tomorrow you might not be so lucky. So huff and puff your fat ass back to work and be glad you still have a job, Day Manager. If you haven’t learned to be more careful after this then you’re too damn dumb to help anyway. Get, now.”
“Aah. Aah. Asshole.” But the point was taken. No more daily deposits were transacted in the Gullet Avenue alley.
“Thank you. Now will you please let me go, officer? Please?”
“Not quite. Now, I’m gonna turn loose a your wrist, but you better stand right where you are, and no foolin’. Get me? I ain’t no over-fed under-walked department store day manager! I’m a new deputy three months outta th’cademy and I’m in my prime! Try to run on me and I’ll catch you, tase you, cuff you, and tase you again just for good measure. We clear?”
She didn’t answer. He let go her wrist. She stood still.
“Good. Now, what’s your name and where ya from? Don’t bother lyin’, ‘cause I’m gonna check out everthin’ you say. Go on, now.”
“[Sigh] My name is Cenessa Marietta. I was from Memphis once, but I ain’t going back there. Ever. Was in St. Louis for a while, but turns out, it was too much like Memphis, so I thumbed my way up Highway 61 and here I am. But not for long. I’ll pass right on through as soon as you let me go, I promise. This shithole ain’t my idea of home, that’s for sure. I saw a chance and I took it is all.”
“You hitchhiked here up 61 from St. Louis?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Did you hitch all the way from Memphis to St. Louis before that?”
“Duh. I mean.. Yes.”
“Well girl, that’s dangerous! All kinds of things can happen to a young girl hitchhiking across America by herself!”
“Yeah, I know that. And one or two of them did. Look, if I had a car I’d drive it. But I don’t. I’m twenty-five; I can take care of myself. Anyway, whatever. Just let me go and I’ll never bother you again. I don’t even know the name of this stupid town, but I promise I’ll never come back.”
“I don’t know. I think I need you to come across the square to the station. I want the Sheriff to talk to you.”
“You’re going to arrest me anyway, after all that? I knew it! Pigs are all the same [Kicks his left shin]!”
“Ow! Damn it, Girl! I never said you was arrested but you’re making it awful tempting! I said I want him to talk to you. You ain’t in no trouble over that cashbox; did us a favor! Showed ol’ Wilbur what we could never teach him by talking. So relax. Just the same, I want you to speak to the sheriff to see if we can’t find some other kinda way to help you. That’s all. Don’t kick me again or I swear I’ll try out a few new moves I’ve been savin’!”
“Okay, okay. I won’t kick you. Chill. But you can save it. I don’t need no help, least of all from the local hayseed sheriff.”
“We’ll see. [Shakes head] You hitchhiked from Memphis to Shippley, MO up Highway 61. What are you, a walking Bob Dylan song?”
“Who’s Bob Dylan?”
“Okay! Girlie. Now you’ve done two bad things today and stealing that cashbox wasn’t the worst of it! Start walking.”
Sheriff Bill Adams did get a kick out the borrowed cashbox story, and he too felt Cenessa had done the county some small bit of service. He also agreed that allowing her to continue hitchhiking north on Highway 61 just didn’t seem right, twenty-five or no twenty-five. But more than all of this, he knew news of strangers travels fast in Shippley, and sooner or later word of this girl would reach Geraldine Adams. The thought of having to explain to his wife why he let a young girl carry on drifting alone gave the man a cold shiver. He wanted no part of that. She came home with him for supper.
After meatloaf and mashed potatoes, Geraldine provided Cenessa with a robe and some new pajamas and instructed her to take a nice long bath. Cenessa wasn’t really the robe-and-pajamas type of girl. She wasn’t the take-a-nice-long-bath type of girl either, for that matter, but she didn’t argue. Geraldine had that effect on people. She also washed all of Cenessa’s clothes while she soaked in the tub—which normally would have been received as an egregious and presumptuous infringement on her personal space, but this was okay too. Somehow she kind of warmed herself at Geraldine’s motherly fire. And it felt really nice. The next morning found the two women alone. Geraldine made them breakfast and they spent several hours talking at the kitchen table.
It could be argued that there has never been a more nosey human being than Geraldine Adams, but she was nosey without an ounce of judgement. Which changes everything. She made you look forward to the next question.
“Babygirl, what’s waiting for you up north of here?”
“I don’t know. Nothin’, I suppose.”
“Why, we got plenty of nothing right here in Shippley. Miles of it in every direction. Why don’t you stay a while until you’re ready to trade in nothing for something?”
“Yes ma’am (she had never heard herself say that), I think I might. At least a day or two, if you don’t mind me staying here with you and Mister Sheriff for just a bit. I’m outta money.”
“If you had money I still wouldn’t let you leave. This afternoon we’ll head into town and get you some new clothes, and no arguing. Only, I hear there’s one store at least we should probably steer clear of. Ha! I wished I coulda seen that!”
“I’m really sorry, looking back on it. Wasn’t right. And I coulda been in so much trouble. I just didn’t see no other way.”
“Well, seems to me it was the only way to get what you needed. Only what you needed wasn’t that ol’ box a other-people’s money. But it got you there just the same. Gave Wilbur what he needed too, I’d imagine. Known that boy since he was in diapers and he never did have a lick of sense. His mamma neither. But he’s not all bad. Few people are.”
“Oh, I could name you a few, ma’am! Met several. I don’t know about that manager, but that deputy was nice to help me like that.”
“Oh, yes. He’s a nice boy. Good looking, too. As a matter of fact.”
“[Spits coffee] If you say so. I didn’t really notice.”
On Quadrangle Square there are two drinking establishments: Heer’s Pub (mostly catering to students from Missouri Northeast Southern State University) and The Sweetgum Lounge (mostly catering to everyone else). Somewhere along the way Cenessa had once tended bar, and she was quite good at it. The MNSSU crowd wasn’t really her speed. The Sweetgum Lounge, on the other hand, was Goldilocks’ porridge. She took to the place right away, and Buddy Gaffrey was glad to have her. Regulars were more chatty those nights she worked, which usually equalled better moods and higher tabs. Some people just seem to add their own light to any room. Even in a dimly-lighted dive of a lounge. She’d been working there for about a week or so before Rowan Callabaugh got up the nerve to stop in for a Löwenbräu after quitting time.
“Hey there, 61. How you been getting on?”
“61? Oh, right! I get it. Cute. Um, I’m doing okay. [Pulls on a draft handle] You?”
“Oh, I’m good. Still staying at the Adams’ place?”
“Ha, ha. Yes. I am still staying at your boss’ house. But then you know that as well as I do. Gee, you were much better at making conversation when I was stealing stuff. Now I have a job and suddenly you’re all awkward and shit. What’s up with that?”
“Ha. Yeah. That was bad. I don’t know. I’m not good at this, I guess.”
“Not good at what? Ordering beer?”
“I guess not. Suppose I’ll just have the one and
head on home.”
“Okay. Oh, by the way. I get off at 11:00, just in case you can think of anything to talk about between now and then.”
“Really? Okay! Well, I’ll see how it goes. Few things I have to do. I’ll be back if I have time, I mean.” He was back at 10:15. New shirt, fresh haircut.
Rowan would have taken her anywhere she wanted to go; she wanted a park with a swing set. Cenessa believed people tell different stories while sitting on swings. Stories closer to the truth. Something about the rhythm, the weightlessness, the looking straight ahead. Even the pauses mean something. Nighttime made it even better.
“I’ve been studying up on Bob Dylan since you got all offended I didn’t know who he was. I’ve listened to a few songs. They’re okay. I don’t really get it, though. Kinda old, isn’t he? And is he serious with that voice? Why do you like him so much?”
“Heh. An acquired taste, I guess. My Old Man loved him. Played his records constantly when I was a kid. Me and my kid brother Gavin know his whole catalogue. You might say Bob Dylan is the only thing the three of us ever had in common. He passed about five months ago, my Old Man, while I was down at th’cademy. Stroked out at Lexington Sawmill working a planer. Friend of mine works at Terrapin County Regional; he was there the day they brought him in. Said he was gone long before the ambulance got there. Never had a chance. Anyway, since I could talk I knowed all those old Dylan tunes back to front. Every album. But they mean a bit more to me these days. Ha. My Old Man’s favorite album, as a matter of fact, was Highway 61 Revisited. I’m a Blonde on Blonde man myself, but 61 is a great, great record. Your story coulda been an extra verse in that song.”
“No it couldn’t, neither. I heard that song. I mean, no disrespect; I understand why you like it and all, but it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Can you explain it to me?”
“No. Not really. So, you thinking ‘bout staying in Shippley now? I figured you’d be gone as soon as you cashed a couple paychecks.”
“I know, right? I should! I mean, what am I doing here? Can’t even find this town on a map! But every time I start thinking on leaving, I realize I kinda don’t want to go no more. I’m too tired inside to fool with all that again. I guess I stopped running long enough to realize one place is the same as another, so long as you’re taking yourself along with you. So Shippley’s as good a place as any, for now at least.. I guess I’m waiting around to find something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something real.” They continued swinging in silence for several very long seconds.
“Is this real?”
“Ha! Slow down, Deputy. We just met. But it ain’t a bad start.”
One of the regulars at The Sweetgum Lounge was Walter Redman. You could count on him to arrive at his favorite barstool, by 6:15 at the latest, each and every evening excluding weekends. Stinky Walt’s Gun & Pawn closed up shop at 5:00 through the week, and he’d be there as soon as the register balanced. Johnny Walker Red. Three. Gone by 7:30, and then back the next night. After about three months, he had really taken a shine to Cenessa Marietta. But then again, who hadn’t? Even Wilbur Hollister learned to pass her on the sidewalk without putting his hand over his billfold. One day she stopped in at Stinky Walt’s looking for a special gift.
“Well, Missy, what brings you here this morning? Miss me?”
“Of course I did, Walter! [Laughs] I’ve always loved pawn shops. So much unique stuff from who knows where. I feel like all of these things have stories leading to how they got here, except no one remembers them. Once they meant something to somebody; then they didn’t anymore. Or not enough, anyway. I get that. Anyway, I’m here to look at your guitars. Got any good deals?”
“Oh, I always have good deals. Ask anyone!” She had asked several, but she gave Walter a chance notwithstanding. “Have you been playing long?”
“Oh, no! It’s not for me. I wouldn’t have a clue. It’s for the deputy. Music means a lot to him.”
“Rowan! Yes, it does. I guess I knew that much, but I didn’t know he played. Hmm. Well, what does he like in a guitar? You want to bring him by and let him strum a few?”
“Walter, I ain’t got no idea what makes a guitar good or bad, but I want to surprise him. Today makes three months since we’ve been talking.”
“Talking.”
“[Laughs] That’s what they call it now when you’re clearly dating but no one has bothered to say so yet. Anyway, can you help me choose one? I just want something he can take with us to the park of an evening, or over to the Nothing Significant Diner, hell—even to The Sweetgum on open mic nights. Wherever. Something he’ll like playing but won’t be too afraid a gettin’ scratched up or stolen or whatever. Does that help?”
“Believe they call that a ‘beater’ guitar, honey. As in ‘it won’t hurt it none to beat on it.’ ’Tween you and me [leans in] my whole inventory is beater guitars. When I get something in worth having I keep it m’self or sell it on eBay; these yokels’d never give what good is worth. E’r’body thinks I owe ‘em a hometown discount, like I should starve ‘cause they live on 9th Avenue or something. But Yeah, I think I got one that’ll do real nice.”
Looking through his impressive collection of over-priced low-end acoustic guitars, he pulled down one marked “Seville.” Hangtag price: $189.99.
“This here’s a Korean made guitar that plays real nice. It sounds… [Strums a G major chord] Well, like a cheap acoustic guitar sounds. But within that expectation, it sounds pretty good. The main thing is, it’s got what they call ‘low action,’ so he can play it all day without getting hand cramps or blisters or carpal tunnel.”
“I like it! I like the color. ‘Seville’? Is that a good brand?”
“Never heard of it. Truth is, some of these cheap companies put out guitars with all kinds of different names slapped onto the headstock. Same exact guitar, mind you. I think it helps them diversify should one name get a bad rap or get sued for patent infringements or who knows what else. Anyway, no. This ain’t a name brand guitar. It’s a good beater guitar, but that’s all it is. Now, if you don’t buy it, my story will change for the next girl comes in here lookin’. So, you best buy it. Don’t be responsible for making me a liar.”
“[Laughs] I don’t have that much money, and I don’t want a works-at-The-Sweetgum discount. Do you have anything else? How are these other ones?”
“About the same. But this one is yours. Or Rowan’s, I guess. I’ve said too much now.”
Cenessa left Stinky Walt’s Gun & Pawn with a Seville acoustic guitar and $60 less in her purse. Rowan was thrilled beyond measure, and name brand or not, he was indeed worried about scratching it or having it stolen. She finally had to bluff returning the thing before he loosened up enough to do with it what she bought it for. Some nights she listened to him play for hours. Not a great voice; an average one at best. Didn’t matter. She still didn’t get those Bob Dylan songs, but she sure loved the way he got them.
Summer was hotter and even more humid than usual that year. Everyone bitched and moaned about it. Except for Rowan and Cenessa. Somehow they never noticed. One year ago she hitched her way into town and never left. On the anniversary of this event, Bill and Geraldine Adams invited them to dinner at The White House Porterhouse Steakhouse. It was a time to celebrate, and The White House was a sufficient venue to let out of the bag the worst-kept secret in all of Terrapin County.
“Sheriff, Miss Geraldine, 61 and I have an announcement to make.”
“You’re picking up the check for the first time in your life?”
“[Slaps his hand] Willie!”
“Um, no, sir. And uh, that was both unfair and inaccurate. Anyway, I’ve asked Cenessa to marry me this fall, and she doesn’t have the sense to turn me down.”
“We’ll talk, honey.”
“Willie Arthur Adams, you best hush up! Go on, dear.”
Cenessa showed off a ring Rowan bought for her at Stinky Walt’s (hometown discount). It was a nice, modest stone. But it looked much more brilliant sitting upon her finger.
“I asked Deputy to get me a pawn shop ring. This ring had a story before it came to me. I don’t know what it was. But it has a new story now. Just like we do.”
Bill Adams actually began to tear up. He reached for his dinner napkin, and Geraldine kicked him under the table.
“Let it sit there. They’ve earned it.”
“[Scoffs] Okay. Well that’s fine. I’m real happy for you. The both of you. So, you planning of having that long-winded preacher over at Shippley Full Gospel officiate like everybody else in town? Please don’t! We’ll be there all day, and I’ll likely have stuff to do. Matter of fact, the court house is right across the square from the station—you wanna just walk over there on lunch or something?”
“No, sir. That sounds nice and all. But we ain’t gonna do neither a them things. Got other plans. In fact, I don’t think we’ll actually tie the knot here in town at all.
“Really?” Asked Sheriff Adams. And then, completely unaware, he set the ball right onto the tee. “Well, where do you want this wedding done?”
“Sigh.”
“Out on Highway 61!”
“Never shoulda bought that stupid guitar.”
She made four full strides before the man noticed her at all. Two more strides before it registered that she was running, and with a metal box in her right hand. Three more strides before he remembered once he had been steward of a box very similar to the one she carried. And four more strides before all of these facts rendered their terrifying conclusion. Of course, any lead at all was moot; he couldn’t have caught her had she been running towards him. Still, he knew this was his ass, and a flood of adrenaline summoned muscles that had not been called upon in over a decade to wake from their pizza and atrophy and give chase. It was valiant, if pitiful. She turned left onto O Street towards the north entrance of Quadrangle Square, and certainly would have gotten away forever, had she not collided with Sheriff’s Deputy Rowan Callabaugh walking up the sidewalk at that same moment. Both hit the deck.
She dropped the cashbox; he recognized it instantly.
“Well! Hey, Miss! [Grabbing her by the wrist] So glad you found this! I know a man who is desperately missing this valuable item right about now. He’ll be so happy to have it returned. Let’s take it right to him, shall we?”
“Let me go, pig! That suitcase is mine! Get your hands off me!”
“Oh, I’m sure it is! And I’m sure there are no receipts labeled ‘Clemens Department Store’ on the inside a your luggage, neither. Just jeans and undies and such, right?”
“None of your damn business what I packed; you got no probable cause! Let me go, damn it!”
“Ma’am! You’ve got ten or twelve seconds to change your attitude real quick! Otherwise that fat man I hear stomping down the alley is gonna be around that corner and your day’s about to get a whole lot worse. Believe that! Up to you, sister.”
Before she could respond, the box’s previous owner spilled his spent and asphyxiated soul onto O Street. Seeing the welcomed sight approaching, he allowed himself to stumble to a full stop, lowered his head between his knees, and panted like one-dog sled team. He actually raised one hand, apparently calling for a timeout. Speaking first was out of the question, which gave the deputy the advantage.
“There you are, Wilbur Hollister! This young lady found your drop box back in the alley! Can you believe that?! She stopped by the station house and asked us where she might return it to its rightful owner! Well, I thought it looked like what y’all at Clemens give to the Loomis man of a mornin’, so we were just on our way to pay you a visit! Here it is! Yours, ain’t it? You’re welcome! Have a good day, now!”
“Buh! Buh! Buh! Bullshit, Rowan! Huh! Huh! Huh! Th.. [swallows] That tramp stole it from me!”
“Kiss my ass, you fat walrus!”
“Easy.”
“Ruh! Right off the dock! Now, damn, it! Put the cu. Cu. Cuffs on her and take her to ja. Jail!”
“I’m sorry, Wilbur. She stole it? How could she steal it? Did she come up behind you and hit you over the head? Punch you in the face, maybe? I’m confused, see… How did she wrestle this box outta that death grip you keep on it at all times? Do we have an assault to investigate?”
“Huh. Huh. She stole it, I tell ya! Huh. We have cameras! [swallows] Let’s go look at ‘em!”
“Oh, I think that’s a good idea! Clear this right up! But you know, whatever is on that feed we’ll have to show to Old Man Clemens, just to keep him in the loop where our investigation is concerned. I’m sure he’ll be very interested to see how diligently you look after his deposits ever’ day. Good idea, Wilbur. Let’s go take a look!”
“Huh! Huh! [all stop] Just a damn minute, now!”
“That’s right, ‘Just a damn minute, now!’ Sheriff and me been telling you forever that the daily drop ain’t also your personal smoke break, but you don’t listen. Today something happened that we can fix, so let’s fix it. But tomorrow you might not be so lucky. So huff and puff your fat ass back to work and be glad you still have a job, Day Manager. If you haven’t learned to be more careful after this then you’re too damn dumb to help anyway. Get, now.”
“Aah. Aah. Asshole.” But the point was taken. No more daily deposits were transacted in the Gullet Avenue alley.
“Thank you. Now will you please let me go, officer? Please?”
“Not quite. Now, I’m gonna turn loose a your wrist, but you better stand right where you are, and no foolin’. Get me? I ain’t no over-fed under-walked department store day manager! I’m a new deputy three months outta th’cademy and I’m in my prime! Try to run on me and I’ll catch you, tase you, cuff you, and tase you again just for good measure. We clear?”
She didn’t answer. He let go her wrist. She stood still.
“Good. Now, what’s your name and where ya from? Don’t bother lyin’, ‘cause I’m gonna check out everthin’ you say. Go on, now.”
“[Sigh] My name is Cenessa Marietta. I was from Memphis once, but I ain’t going back there. Ever. Was in St. Louis for a while, but turns out, it was too much like Memphis, so I thumbed my way up Highway 61 and here I am. But not for long. I’ll pass right on through as soon as you let me go, I promise. This shithole ain’t my idea of home, that’s for sure. I saw a chance and I took it is all.”
“You hitchhiked here up 61 from St. Louis?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Did you hitch all the way from Memphis to St. Louis before that?”
“Duh. I mean.. Yes.”
“Well girl, that’s dangerous! All kinds of things can happen to a young girl hitchhiking across America by herself!”
“Yeah, I know that. And one or two of them did. Look, if I had a car I’d drive it. But I don’t. I’m twenty-five; I can take care of myself. Anyway, whatever. Just let me go and I’ll never bother you again. I don’t even know the name of this stupid town, but I promise I’ll never come back.”
“I don’t know. I think I need you to come across the square to the station. I want the Sheriff to talk to you.”
“You’re going to arrest me anyway, after all that? I knew it! Pigs are all the same [Kicks his left shin]!”
“Ow! Damn it, Girl! I never said you was arrested but you’re making it awful tempting! I said I want him to talk to you. You ain’t in no trouble over that cashbox; did us a favor! Showed ol’ Wilbur what we could never teach him by talking. So relax. Just the same, I want you to speak to the sheriff to see if we can’t find some other kinda way to help you. That’s all. Don’t kick me again or I swear I’ll try out a few new moves I’ve been savin’!”
“Okay, okay. I won’t kick you. Chill. But you can save it. I don’t need no help, least of all from the local hayseed sheriff.”
“We’ll see. [Shakes head] You hitchhiked from Memphis to Shippley, MO up Highway 61. What are you, a walking Bob Dylan song?”
“Who’s Bob Dylan?”
“Okay! Girlie. Now you’ve done two bad things today and stealing that cashbox wasn’t the worst of it! Start walking.”
Sheriff Bill Adams did get a kick out the borrowed cashbox story, and he too felt Cenessa had done the county some small bit of service. He also agreed that allowing her to continue hitchhiking north on Highway 61 just didn’t seem right, twenty-five or no twenty-five. But more than all of this, he knew news of strangers travels fast in Shippley, and sooner or later word of this girl would reach Geraldine Adams. The thought of having to explain to his wife why he let a young girl carry on drifting alone gave the man a cold shiver. He wanted no part of that. She came home with him for supper.
After meatloaf and mashed potatoes, Geraldine provided Cenessa with a robe and some new pajamas and instructed her to take a nice long bath. Cenessa wasn’t really the robe-and-pajamas type of girl. She wasn’t the take-a-nice-long-bath type of girl either, for that matter, but she didn’t argue. Geraldine had that effect on people. She also washed all of Cenessa’s clothes while she soaked in the tub—which normally would have been received as an egregious and presumptuous infringement on her personal space, but this was okay too. Somehow she kind of warmed herself at Geraldine’s motherly fire. And it felt really nice. The next morning found the two women alone. Geraldine made them breakfast and they spent several hours talking at the kitchen table.
It could be argued that there has never been a more nosey human being than Geraldine Adams, but she was nosey without an ounce of judgement. Which changes everything. She made you look forward to the next question.
“Babygirl, what’s waiting for you up north of here?”
“I don’t know. Nothin’, I suppose.”
“Why, we got plenty of nothing right here in Shippley. Miles of it in every direction. Why don’t you stay a while until you’re ready to trade in nothing for something?”
“Yes ma’am (she had never heard herself say that), I think I might. At least a day or two, if you don’t mind me staying here with you and Mister Sheriff for just a bit. I’m outta money.”
“If you had money I still wouldn’t let you leave. This afternoon we’ll head into town and get you some new clothes, and no arguing. Only, I hear there’s one store at least we should probably steer clear of. Ha! I wished I coulda seen that!”
“I’m really sorry, looking back on it. Wasn’t right. And I coulda been in so much trouble. I just didn’t see no other way.”
“Well, seems to me it was the only way to get what you needed. Only what you needed wasn’t that ol’ box a other-people’s money. But it got you there just the same. Gave Wilbur what he needed too, I’d imagine. Known that boy since he was in diapers and he never did have a lick of sense. His mamma neither. But he’s not all bad. Few people are.”
“Oh, I could name you a few, ma’am! Met several. I don’t know about that manager, but that deputy was nice to help me like that.”
“Oh, yes. He’s a nice boy. Good looking, too. As a matter of fact.”
“[Spits coffee] If you say so. I didn’t really notice.”
On Quadrangle Square there are two drinking establishments: Heer’s Pub (mostly catering to students from Missouri Northeast Southern State University) and The Sweetgum Lounge (mostly catering to everyone else). Somewhere along the way Cenessa had once tended bar, and she was quite good at it. The MNSSU crowd wasn’t really her speed. The Sweetgum Lounge, on the other hand, was Goldilocks’ porridge. She took to the place right away, and Buddy Gaffrey was glad to have her. Regulars were more chatty those nights she worked, which usually equalled better moods and higher tabs. Some people just seem to add their own light to any room. Even in a dimly-lighted dive of a lounge. She’d been working there for about a week or so before Rowan Callabaugh got up the nerve to stop in for a Löwenbräu after quitting time.
“Hey there, 61. How you been getting on?”
“61? Oh, right! I get it. Cute. Um, I’m doing okay. [Pulls on a draft handle] You?”
“Oh, I’m good. Still staying at the Adams’ place?”
“Ha, ha. Yes. I am still staying at your boss’ house. But then you know that as well as I do. Gee, you were much better at making conversation when I was stealing stuff. Now I have a job and suddenly you’re all awkward and shit. What’s up with that?”
“Ha. Yeah. That was bad. I don’t know. I’m not good at this, I guess.”
“Not good at what? Ordering beer?”
“I guess not. Suppose I’ll just have the one and
head on home.”
“Okay. Oh, by the way. I get off at 11:00, just in case you can think of anything to talk about between now and then.”
“Really? Okay! Well, I’ll see how it goes. Few things I have to do. I’ll be back if I have time, I mean.” He was back at 10:15. New shirt, fresh haircut.
Rowan would have taken her anywhere she wanted to go; she wanted a park with a swing set. Cenessa believed people tell different stories while sitting on swings. Stories closer to the truth. Something about the rhythm, the weightlessness, the looking straight ahead. Even the pauses mean something. Nighttime made it even better.
“I’ve been studying up on Bob Dylan since you got all offended I didn’t know who he was. I’ve listened to a few songs. They’re okay. I don’t really get it, though. Kinda old, isn’t he? And is he serious with that voice? Why do you like him so much?”
“Heh. An acquired taste, I guess. My Old Man loved him. Played his records constantly when I was a kid. Me and my kid brother Gavin know his whole catalogue. You might say Bob Dylan is the only thing the three of us ever had in common. He passed about five months ago, my Old Man, while I was down at th’cademy. Stroked out at Lexington Sawmill working a planer. Friend of mine works at Terrapin County Regional; he was there the day they brought him in. Said he was gone long before the ambulance got there. Never had a chance. Anyway, since I could talk I knowed all those old Dylan tunes back to front. Every album. But they mean a bit more to me these days. Ha. My Old Man’s favorite album, as a matter of fact, was Highway 61 Revisited. I’m a Blonde on Blonde man myself, but 61 is a great, great record. Your story coulda been an extra verse in that song.”
“No it couldn’t, neither. I heard that song. I mean, no disrespect; I understand why you like it and all, but it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Can you explain it to me?”
“No. Not really. So, you thinking ‘bout staying in Shippley now? I figured you’d be gone as soon as you cashed a couple paychecks.”
“I know, right? I should! I mean, what am I doing here? Can’t even find this town on a map! But every time I start thinking on leaving, I realize I kinda don’t want to go no more. I’m too tired inside to fool with all that again. I guess I stopped running long enough to realize one place is the same as another, so long as you’re taking yourself along with you. So Shippley’s as good a place as any, for now at least.. I guess I’m waiting around to find something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something real.” They continued swinging in silence for several very long seconds.
“Is this real?”
“Ha! Slow down, Deputy. We just met. But it ain’t a bad start.”
One of the regulars at The Sweetgum Lounge was Walter Redman. You could count on him to arrive at his favorite barstool, by 6:15 at the latest, each and every evening excluding weekends. Stinky Walt’s Gun & Pawn closed up shop at 5:00 through the week, and he’d be there as soon as the register balanced. Johnny Walker Red. Three. Gone by 7:30, and then back the next night. After about three months, he had really taken a shine to Cenessa Marietta. But then again, who hadn’t? Even Wilbur Hollister learned to pass her on the sidewalk without putting his hand over his billfold. One day she stopped in at Stinky Walt’s looking for a special gift.
“Well, Missy, what brings you here this morning? Miss me?”
“Of course I did, Walter! [Laughs] I’ve always loved pawn shops. So much unique stuff from who knows where. I feel like all of these things have stories leading to how they got here, except no one remembers them. Once they meant something to somebody; then they didn’t anymore. Or not enough, anyway. I get that. Anyway, I’m here to look at your guitars. Got any good deals?”
“Oh, I always have good deals. Ask anyone!” She had asked several, but she gave Walter a chance notwithstanding. “Have you been playing long?”
“Oh, no! It’s not for me. I wouldn’t have a clue. It’s for the deputy. Music means a lot to him.”
“Rowan! Yes, it does. I guess I knew that much, but I didn’t know he played. Hmm. Well, what does he like in a guitar? You want to bring him by and let him strum a few?”
“Walter, I ain’t got no idea what makes a guitar good or bad, but I want to surprise him. Today makes three months since we’ve been talking.”
“Talking.”
“[Laughs] That’s what they call it now when you’re clearly dating but no one has bothered to say so yet. Anyway, can you help me choose one? I just want something he can take with us to the park of an evening, or over to the Nothing Significant Diner, hell—even to The Sweetgum on open mic nights. Wherever. Something he’ll like playing but won’t be too afraid a gettin’ scratched up or stolen or whatever. Does that help?”
“Believe they call that a ‘beater’ guitar, honey. As in ‘it won’t hurt it none to beat on it.’ ’Tween you and me [leans in] my whole inventory is beater guitars. When I get something in worth having I keep it m’self or sell it on eBay; these yokels’d never give what good is worth. E’r’body thinks I owe ‘em a hometown discount, like I should starve ‘cause they live on 9th Avenue or something. But Yeah, I think I got one that’ll do real nice.”
Looking through his impressive collection of over-priced low-end acoustic guitars, he pulled down one marked “Seville.” Hangtag price: $189.99.
“This here’s a Korean made guitar that plays real nice. It sounds… [Strums a G major chord] Well, like a cheap acoustic guitar sounds. But within that expectation, it sounds pretty good. The main thing is, it’s got what they call ‘low action,’ so he can play it all day without getting hand cramps or blisters or carpal tunnel.”
“I like it! I like the color. ‘Seville’? Is that a good brand?”
“Never heard of it. Truth is, some of these cheap companies put out guitars with all kinds of different names slapped onto the headstock. Same exact guitar, mind you. I think it helps them diversify should one name get a bad rap or get sued for patent infringements or who knows what else. Anyway, no. This ain’t a name brand guitar. It’s a good beater guitar, but that’s all it is. Now, if you don’t buy it, my story will change for the next girl comes in here lookin’. So, you best buy it. Don’t be responsible for making me a liar.”
“[Laughs] I don’t have that much money, and I don’t want a works-at-The-Sweetgum discount. Do you have anything else? How are these other ones?”
“About the same. But this one is yours. Or Rowan’s, I guess. I’ve said too much now.”
Cenessa left Stinky Walt’s Gun & Pawn with a Seville acoustic guitar and $60 less in her purse. Rowan was thrilled beyond measure, and name brand or not, he was indeed worried about scratching it or having it stolen. She finally had to bluff returning the thing before he loosened up enough to do with it what she bought it for. Some nights she listened to him play for hours. Not a great voice; an average one at best. Didn’t matter. She still didn’t get those Bob Dylan songs, but she sure loved the way he got them.
Summer was hotter and even more humid than usual that year. Everyone bitched and moaned about it. Except for Rowan and Cenessa. Somehow they never noticed. One year ago she hitched her way into town and never left. On the anniversary of this event, Bill and Geraldine Adams invited them to dinner at The White House Porterhouse Steakhouse. It was a time to celebrate, and The White House was a sufficient venue to let out of the bag the worst-kept secret in all of Terrapin County.
“Sheriff, Miss Geraldine, 61 and I have an announcement to make.”
“You’re picking up the check for the first time in your life?”
“[Slaps his hand] Willie!”
“Um, no, sir. And uh, that was both unfair and inaccurate. Anyway, I’ve asked Cenessa to marry me this fall, and she doesn’t have the sense to turn me down.”
“We’ll talk, honey.”
“Willie Arthur Adams, you best hush up! Go on, dear.”
Cenessa showed off a ring Rowan bought for her at Stinky Walt’s (hometown discount). It was a nice, modest stone. But it looked much more brilliant sitting upon her finger.
“I asked Deputy to get me a pawn shop ring. This ring had a story before it came to me. I don’t know what it was. But it has a new story now. Just like we do.”
Bill Adams actually began to tear up. He reached for his dinner napkin, and Geraldine kicked him under the table.
“Let it sit there. They’ve earned it.”
“[Scoffs] Okay. Well that’s fine. I’m real happy for you. The both of you. So, you planning of having that long-winded preacher over at Shippley Full Gospel officiate like everybody else in town? Please don’t! We’ll be there all day, and I’ll likely have stuff to do. Matter of fact, the court house is right across the square from the station—you wanna just walk over there on lunch or something?”
“No, sir. That sounds nice and all. But we ain’t gonna do neither a them things. Got other plans. In fact, I don’t think we’ll actually tie the knot here in town at all.
“Really?” Asked Sheriff Adams. And then, completely unaware, he set the ball right onto the tee. “Well, where do you want this wedding done?”
“Sigh.”
“Out on Highway 61!”
“Never shoulda bought that stupid guitar.”
Chery Starkey is a native Hooser, who enjoys traveling, camping and writing. She is on a constant lookout for ideas for stories, from moonlit nights to the screeching of a bird, everything is fair game.
To craft her writing skill, she attended a community college and took several writing courses. The class, Imaginative Writing, is where the story Journey into Paradise originated. She was encouraged by her teacher to submit the story to a magazine, which found a place with the Scarlet Leaf.
To craft her writing skill, she attended a community college and took several writing courses. The class, Imaginative Writing, is where the story Journey into Paradise originated. She was encouraged by her teacher to submit the story to a magazine, which found a place with the Scarlet Leaf.
Journey into Paradise
While the day is still in its infancy a solitary surfer, with his surfboard at his side, starts his journey to leave the world behind. The very air surrounding him has become dry and stale; he can endure it no longer. To remain here another day will push his mind over the edge. Compelled by his thirst, he must travel hundreds of miles to quench it. He is the sole occupant on a long and winding road, surrounded by trees on both sides; only the sound of the radio is evidence of his existence. Above the horizon yellow rays are first to burst on the scene, chasing away the fingers of darkness that cling to the sky, as the sun begins to climb to its zenith warming the air from the chill of the night. Rays of light are split into beams. They dodge the trees; causing a sequence of light and shadow to be cast upon the road, like a kaleidoscope twisting and turning showing the refraction of light and color.
The operatic song of the ocean lures him, beckons him, like a moth drawn to a flame. Nothing matters; he sees only endless waves on one side, a breaking crest and on the other side, and a steep valley that will soon disappear as the crest breaks leveling the plane once more.
With the sun at its peak, the tranquil setting is far behind. He is joined by a parade of cars each clamoring for space on the now busy highway. He skirts on the outer lane frequently passing a few cars, and then swiftly slips back into the sea of vehicles. The blasting heat, like a thermostat set at hell, is the catalyst that drives him forward. His thirst now beginning to bubble and rise to a rolling boil forces his foot to slightly accelerate the gas pedal. The relish sights and sounds of paradise that blaze in his mind will not stay tasty for long. There is no defense against the season’s changing mode. The Atlantic is fickle.
Relentlessly, he drives on with no regard for the temper tantrum the Atlantic may suddenly decide upon, like a child demanding to have its way, sometimes it must be ignored. Stopping halfway through his journey to quickly replenish, he continues towards paradise while the voice of the ocean sings to him steadily and softly, audible only to his ears.
The tantalizing detail of whipped froth floating on his ice frappe invade his mind with thoughts of ocean waves crashing spraying seafoam into the air, however, this image is no match for hot prickly heat now assaulting him with a vengeance. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, his surfboard is the counterattack against the assault grappling him with every mile. A tiny smile crosses his face as he continues his journey.
Slowly drifting on the breeze, the smell of the ocean starts to creep into his nostrils, like the call of Sirens, it grows stronger with each mile he drives. His heart begins to pound with anticipation that is almost irrepressible. He now begins to sweat uncontrollably and wipes his hands against his blue jeans shorts. The smell of salt and moisture replaces the prickly hot dry air. He inhales deeply; his sanity flowing back into him like streams of ribbons riding the wind. The last few miles seem to stretch into eternity. His foot press down on the gas pedal closing in on the last mile, he can’t get there fast enough.
The sound of squawking, screeching, and quarreling seagulls swooping through the air is the conformation of the culmination of his destiny. They glide to and fro riding the air currents, spying a morsel of food they dive bomb using their pirating skills to seize and gobble down their prize. Their triumphant voices ring through the sky. Suddenly, they part as if a curtain cord was pulled and the surfer emerges on the scene.
He stands motionless, rooted to the spot, holding a surfboard upright in one hand watching, waiting; calculating the opportunity to seize the perfect wave that comes crashing upon the shore. Like a snowball rolling downhill, expanding and gathering momentum, the next wave rolls in building intensity as the water stockpiles high. Suddenly the crest breaks, sending mountainous rolling waves tumbling upon each other, lashing out towards the shore, only to be pulled back into the ocean, leaving behind bits of seaweed and small pieces of driftwood. Lost in the bliss of his imagination; the rhythmic sound of the ocean wash over him sending his passion to new heights. Another wave brakes, crashing upon smaller waves sending a spray of mist that envelops him like a mummy wrapped in binding cloth. He narrows his eyes as the sand and salt stings and bites his skin, penetrating his hair, pores, and lips. The salt saturates the air around him, filling his nostrils with a smell that radiates throughout his entire body until it is on fire and only the spray of the ocean can extinguish it.
Another blue wave turns white, as it too suddenly breaks and explodes, sending a burst of fine grains into the air pelting his skin leaving nothing unwashed. Sand settles between his toes before being washed away only to settle there again. The stress of everyday life is swept away as the waves retreat into the hidden depths of the ocean. Another surge of spray sends more salt and sand accumulating in his hair and skin like tiny drops of morning dew that cling to each blade of grass. With each spray, the ocean beckons him to come and play, like a child splashing in a rain puddle. Still, he watches and waits, solely depending on instinct for the perfect timing.
The screech of a hawk is heard as he soars effortlessly on the warm thermal winds; his long broad wings perfect for gliding on air currents. He waits for exact timing to ghost into view and snatches his pray. His cunning and predatory instinct is powerful, like the waves that crash upon the shore. Armed with sharp binocular vision, he is able to zoom in on the smallest pray while in pursuit at high speed. Circling on the winds he spots his pray from above and waits for nature’s intuition to attack. His perception is keen his precision sharp. He circles lower and lower; his claws extend like a jet ejects its wheels for landing and with flawless skill, the hawk snatches his pray.
Scanning over the horizon he smiles a tiny smile, admiring the exquisite beauty of the sea and cliffs that kiss the sky. He knows that this moment will bore into his soul and stay there long after he leaves. Another thunderous wave brakes and rolls onto the shore; the surfer takes a few steps forward and hesitates, like the hawk, instinct tells him that his time has arrived. His dry season is now over, like the rumble of a train, another rolling wall of water comes to its peak and breaks. Taking a few more steps he readies his surfboard and peddles out past the breakers to greet the sun-kissed waves.
The operatic song of the ocean lures him, beckons him, like a moth drawn to a flame. Nothing matters; he sees only endless waves on one side, a breaking crest and on the other side, and a steep valley that will soon disappear as the crest breaks leveling the plane once more.
With the sun at its peak, the tranquil setting is far behind. He is joined by a parade of cars each clamoring for space on the now busy highway. He skirts on the outer lane frequently passing a few cars, and then swiftly slips back into the sea of vehicles. The blasting heat, like a thermostat set at hell, is the catalyst that drives him forward. His thirst now beginning to bubble and rise to a rolling boil forces his foot to slightly accelerate the gas pedal. The relish sights and sounds of paradise that blaze in his mind will not stay tasty for long. There is no defense against the season’s changing mode. The Atlantic is fickle.
Relentlessly, he drives on with no regard for the temper tantrum the Atlantic may suddenly decide upon, like a child demanding to have its way, sometimes it must be ignored. Stopping halfway through his journey to quickly replenish, he continues towards paradise while the voice of the ocean sings to him steadily and softly, audible only to his ears.
The tantalizing detail of whipped froth floating on his ice frappe invade his mind with thoughts of ocean waves crashing spraying seafoam into the air, however, this image is no match for hot prickly heat now assaulting him with a vengeance. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, his surfboard is the counterattack against the assault grappling him with every mile. A tiny smile crosses his face as he continues his journey.
Slowly drifting on the breeze, the smell of the ocean starts to creep into his nostrils, like the call of Sirens, it grows stronger with each mile he drives. His heart begins to pound with anticipation that is almost irrepressible. He now begins to sweat uncontrollably and wipes his hands against his blue jeans shorts. The smell of salt and moisture replaces the prickly hot dry air. He inhales deeply; his sanity flowing back into him like streams of ribbons riding the wind. The last few miles seem to stretch into eternity. His foot press down on the gas pedal closing in on the last mile, he can’t get there fast enough.
The sound of squawking, screeching, and quarreling seagulls swooping through the air is the conformation of the culmination of his destiny. They glide to and fro riding the air currents, spying a morsel of food they dive bomb using their pirating skills to seize and gobble down their prize. Their triumphant voices ring through the sky. Suddenly, they part as if a curtain cord was pulled and the surfer emerges on the scene.
He stands motionless, rooted to the spot, holding a surfboard upright in one hand watching, waiting; calculating the opportunity to seize the perfect wave that comes crashing upon the shore. Like a snowball rolling downhill, expanding and gathering momentum, the next wave rolls in building intensity as the water stockpiles high. Suddenly the crest breaks, sending mountainous rolling waves tumbling upon each other, lashing out towards the shore, only to be pulled back into the ocean, leaving behind bits of seaweed and small pieces of driftwood. Lost in the bliss of his imagination; the rhythmic sound of the ocean wash over him sending his passion to new heights. Another wave brakes, crashing upon smaller waves sending a spray of mist that envelops him like a mummy wrapped in binding cloth. He narrows his eyes as the sand and salt stings and bites his skin, penetrating his hair, pores, and lips. The salt saturates the air around him, filling his nostrils with a smell that radiates throughout his entire body until it is on fire and only the spray of the ocean can extinguish it.
Another blue wave turns white, as it too suddenly breaks and explodes, sending a burst of fine grains into the air pelting his skin leaving nothing unwashed. Sand settles between his toes before being washed away only to settle there again. The stress of everyday life is swept away as the waves retreat into the hidden depths of the ocean. Another surge of spray sends more salt and sand accumulating in his hair and skin like tiny drops of morning dew that cling to each blade of grass. With each spray, the ocean beckons him to come and play, like a child splashing in a rain puddle. Still, he watches and waits, solely depending on instinct for the perfect timing.
The screech of a hawk is heard as he soars effortlessly on the warm thermal winds; his long broad wings perfect for gliding on air currents. He waits for exact timing to ghost into view and snatches his pray. His cunning and predatory instinct is powerful, like the waves that crash upon the shore. Armed with sharp binocular vision, he is able to zoom in on the smallest pray while in pursuit at high speed. Circling on the winds he spots his pray from above and waits for nature’s intuition to attack. His perception is keen his precision sharp. He circles lower and lower; his claws extend like a jet ejects its wheels for landing and with flawless skill, the hawk snatches his pray.
Scanning over the horizon he smiles a tiny smile, admiring the exquisite beauty of the sea and cliffs that kiss the sky. He knows that this moment will bore into his soul and stay there long after he leaves. Another thunderous wave brakes and rolls onto the shore; the surfer takes a few steps forward and hesitates, like the hawk, instinct tells him that his time has arrived. His dry season is now over, like the rumble of a train, another rolling wall of water comes to its peak and breaks. Taking a few more steps he readies his surfboard and peddles out past the breakers to greet the sun-kissed waves.
The Resourceful Heart
Old Hugo nickered as Maria pitched some hay into his stall. A sliver of daylight streamed through the unlatched door. She heard Zeppel, the Border Collie, bark outside. The cavernous interior of the barn muffled the dog’s alarm, but her heart already diverted her mind. Six weeks after the war’s end and with Russians spread throughout the forested Sudeten range in northwestern Czechoslovakia, hope of Bruno’s survival occupied most of her waking moments.
Maria wiped her wispy brown hair across her wide forehead. She snatched a moment to lean against the pitchfork and gaze at her wedding band. From her first date with Bruno two years earlier—a picture show in Prague—to their wedding in Dresden two evenings before its incendiary destruction four months ago, the promise of happily ever after with him became her antidote to this toxic time.
She took a measured scoop of feed from a wooden bin and walked onto the barnyard, scattering it among the bobbing hens. Mid-June’s humidity seemed more pressing in the scattered sunlight than in the shade of the barn.
She reentered the barn and dropped the scoop into the bin before closing its lid. Sprinting footsteps and the creaking door caught her off guard. Day morphed into night as a smelly hand wrapped itself around her mouth.
“What do we have here…a fine German wench…or is she Czech?” The stranger in a musty wool uniform spun her around, keeping a hand over her mouth.
His foreign tongue sounded to Maria as if he were gargling river pebbles in between words. In the artificial darkness the only thing she could make out was the gold hammer and sickle emblem on his cap.
Russians!
“What does it matter?” a second soldier jogged over from the closed door. He caressed the lapel of her dress before fondling her breast with his cupped hand. “She will more than meet our needs for entertainment. He loosened his belt buckle.
Wild-eyed, Maria gushed tears. The vice-like hand jammed her screams down her throat.
Light interrupted the darkness.
“Stop! Stop this immediately!”
Maria still couldn’t make out the words, but they resonated with authority and rescue.
“You sons of pigs, report to base.” A third man, an officer by the billed cap on his head, delivered a swift kick into the groin of one soldier, crumpling him in pain. The officer shoved the sole of his boot into the buttocks of the other sending him sprawling.
Embarrassed and overwrought, Maria collapsed onto the barn floor. Horse manure streaked one side of her face.
The officer inhaled a stifled breath. “I humbly apologize for my men’s actions, miss.” The captain spoke understandable, if imperfect, German. He lent her his hand to get her on her feet. “Allow me to escort you home.”
****
The next day Maria overheard her mother and step-father, Karl, arguing in the kitchen.
“Why shouldn’t she run some errands for us in the village?” Karl’s voice oozed indignity. “Haven’t I provided a roof over her head since she came back from Dresden? Is it my fault she didn’t have the stomach for being a nurse? Is it my fault she was dismissed as a nannie after mere months? Can I help it that she’s so feeble-minded?”
“You make it sound like she was an incompetent. Colonel Goslar explained that with his transfer to Berlin he was moving his family to his in-law’s home in Munich for their safety.” Maria’s mother’s voice spat the words with the hiss of a spooked cat.
After an uneasy pause, her mother made her point with greater reserve. “I don’t want her walking into town unescorted, not after what happened yesterday.”
“I think you’re overreacting. Who knows what happened in the barn. She may have given them a look. They’ve been without for a long time and”--
“I will go.” Maria strode into the room. “What is it you need?”
The young woman’s presence left the older couple’s mouths speechless…for a moment.
Maria’s boldness buoyed Karl, and he jumped on his opportunity. “See, it’s not such a major undertaking for her. Your mother needs flour and coffee from the market. You can take my bicycle.”
“Karl, you must go with her.”
“No…it’s something I will do on my own.” Maria wasn’t doing Karl any favors. The short ride into the village represented a declaration of independence from this bastard.
The blue finish of Karl’s bicycle had faded into rust on most places except the center tube. Maria walked the bicycle into the barn. She took an old rag and lightly dabbed it into a fresh pile of Hugo’s manure. She wiped the cloth under each of her arm pits.
She pedaled with purpose the kilometer into the village.
With only a cursory glance at her identification papers, two Czech partisans in gray uniforms wrenched their noses and waved her through the checkpoint into the village.
Several Russian soldiers milled about the open air market. Their wolf-like grins ignored the vegetables and fruit. The older of the two looked at his comrade before staring at Maria. “My you are a lovely young lady. Would you show us the sights of your little berg?”
Maria hadn’t a clue of the meaning of their barbaric tongue. It didn’t matter.
“She smells of dung!” The seasoned soldier held his nose with one hand and flailed the scent off with the other.
The two stomped off to more appealing adventures.
Maria bought flour and coffee from an elderly women vendor. “Thank you, madam.”
“You’re most welcome, young lady.” The woman’s piercing blue eyes shone through a face of folds and crevasses. She pivoted her eyes sideways in each direction before adding, “The most expensive bottle of Chanel wouldn’t serve you better than the perfume you’ve chosen for this day, my dear.”
****
Zeppel barked with abandon, announcing an intruder’s presence just after dawn. Maria stirred out of bed and wrapped herself in a bath robe. As she met her mother to descend the stairs, someone pounded on the kitchen door.
“In the name of the Czechoslovakian army, everyone must come out!” An angry voice stewed in a fit of impatience punctuated by a ceaseless battering of the door.
Karl crept down the stairs in an undershirt and beltless trousers. He opened the door with the women behind him.
A balding Czech officer with a thin moustache glared, holding a Luger. “Anyone else?”
Maria, her mother and Karl shook their heads. They ventured a few steps onto the porch as Zeppel’s herding instinct made itself a nuisance barking and weaving in between the partisans.
“Zeppel! Come here!” Maria tried to coax her dog. She edged a bit closer to the porch’s railing. In the cool morning air she grasped the robe close to her chest.
Maria counted a half dozen Czech soldiers in gray uniforms and caps standing in an arc within thirty feet of the porch entrance.
The officer motioned with the hand clutching the pistol, and half of his men entered the house to verify the civilians’ claim. From the clamor of overturned furniture and broken fixtures it seemed they sought more than people.
“In the name of the government of Czechoslovakia all ethnic Germans of this village are hereby ordered that they have thirty minutes to gather no more than ten kilos of possessions and proceed to the Richenberg border crossing.” The officer spoke with a zealous diction.
“What?” Karl interrupted. “We have done nothing”--
Without a whisker of his moustache moving, the officer offered Karl the back of his hand, sending Maria’s stepfather to his knees.
Maria felt little pity for Karl. His belief that the village was immune to Czech vengeance was a fool’s paradise. Credible accounts of Czech retribution in the form of rape and mass murder near Prague and points south existed for the past month. Absent the early hour of the intrusion, for Maria nothing about the soldiers’ visit surprised her.
One soldier left the house, nodding that all was a claimed. Two others came out with an empty cigar box filled with jewelry and money. One of them approached Maria and grabbed her hand to remove her gold wedding band.
Maria wrenched backward. “No.” She used both hands to cover her ring, allowing her robe to open and reveal her undergarments.
The soldier cursed and raised his hand.
“Stop!” the officer ordered. With a nod of his head he commanded the soldier to retreat.
The officer’s eyes shifted from his men back to the three residents. “From Richenberg you will march into Germany.”
Agitated by the movement of the two soldiers coming off the porch, Zeppel’s renewed barking drowned out the last syllables of the officer’s mandate. The dog growled as the officer stepped away from his masters.
He turned back to the residents one last time. “You better hurry. You only have twenty-nine minutes.”
Zeppel feigned a lunge at the officer.
Without hesitation the Luger swung around and its sharp report almost obscured the fleeting yelp of the dog.
“Germany has enough dogs!” The officer proclaimed with a lilt to his voice before he took his troop down the road.
Maria started off the porch to the slain dog lying in its own pooling blood.
Her mother grabbed her by the arm, “Come, my precious daughter.” Tears welled in her eyes. “There’s nothing more we can do for him. We haven’t much time…besides, things have to be better for us across the border.”
Maria gathered an odd collection of a few garments, cheese cloth, a small tin and what little costume jewelry she still owned. Along with a few items of food she stuffed everything into a small upholstered travel bag. She stared at the band of gold caressing her finger. She had no control over her husband’s return. However, she could save the tangible symbol of their love the best she knew how.
****
Old bodies leaning against young legs stretched the four hour march to the border into ten. Maria looked back one last time upon the wooded crests and valleys where she grew up. Now three kilos of simple items in a fabric bag were the only echoes of her past life.
After sleeping in a school house on the outskirts of a small town, the exiles received Russian ration and travel cards. Local officials herded them outside where long tables held soup and bread for breakfast. After eating, Maria bid a tearful farewell to her mother who followed a relatively short road north to a sister in Zittau. Maria’s heartache for Bruno sent her on a journey of several hundred kilometers to the west.
Before her tears evaporated, Maria’s heart pumped an iron will throughout her body to overcome her homesickness. A light load allowed her to outpace most of the refugees on the macadam road to Harzburg. Soon she found herself at the front of it. She maneuvered next to a youthful, athletic-looking man and two nurses in white aprons and black caps clinging to the back of their heads.
“Oh…hello.” Surprised by Maria’s sudden appearance, one of two young nurses at the head of the line brushed some auburn hair out of her eyes. “I’m Traudl”--
“No last names, please,” Maria interrupted. “The less we know about each other, the better it will be for all of us…just in case.”
“She is right,” the young man said. “My name is Fritz, and that’s all you need to know.”
“Hello, Fritz.” Maria nodded her head.
“As I was saying, I’m Traudl, and this is my sister Anna.” The woman pointed to a lanky blond with pig tails.
Maria smiled at Traudl and Anna who returned a nervous grin. Maria’s low-heeled shoes clomped across the hard road surface. “How long will it take to get to Harzburg?”
“It will be a good five days’ marching sun up to sun down…if we stay on the road.” Fritz looked back. A good thirty meters already separated them from the rest of the group.
“If we stay on the road?” Anna nervously played with her pigtails.
Fritz peered ahead to the jutting pine-covered peaks on the horizon. “When we get to the mountains, I’ve learned there’s a shortcut if you can handle walking over them. It would save us a day at least, perhaps two.”
“We will be able to ride the trains once we get to Harzburg. Right?” Traudl kicked a stone in front of her.
“Supposedly the locomotive emblem on our travel card gives us that privilege.” Fritz said. “Too many rails here in the east have been destroyed.”
****
“Today we must lag behind the others.” Fritz joined the nurses at a long table for a bowl of potato soup outside a school. A fog bank gave the appearance of dining in a cloud.
“Soup, soup, soup. Three days with nothing but soup and bread.” Traudl complained just loud enough for her companions to hear.
“What I’d give for a piece of a torte.” Anna held a spoon to her lips but her eyes glazed over.
Maria sat down with her travel bag and a steaming bowl. “Perhaps we should just be grateful to have enough food to get us to the west…into the hands of the English…or the Americans.”
Fritz continued. “If my memory serves me correct, today we will take a trail into the mountains that intersects with the road we are on.”
“That’s what will save us a day’s time…or more?” Maria wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Fritz nodded.
The sun frayed the fog blanket as the group left the school grounds.
Three bicycle riders rode through the throng, knocking several refugees down. “Mongrel Germans! Go back where you belong…you gypsies.”
It wasn’t the first negative encounter with locals since entering Germany. Maria wondered how residents of Bruno’s hometown would treat her. She fantasized his capture by the British or the Americans. Like her path, all her hopes lay to the west.
Late morning the foursome made an inconspicuous exit from the rear of the tattered ribbon of wandering souls. They raced up an old logging trail until the coniferous forest shut the door behind them. Fog still clung to the matchstick pine trunks on the ridge. Pine needles swallowed the trail’s surface except for the boulder-top knuckles planted along its way.
Three hours into the climb Fritz put up his hand and exhaled. “We can rest here.”
Everyone found a rock or stump off the side of the path on which to sit.
“How much farther is it?” Anna rubbed her spindly legs.
The stillness of the clouded forest tingled Maria’s spine as she bit into her last shriveled apple.
“I’m not sure,” Fritz said, “other than once we clear the trees at the summit we’ll have a grand view in all directions.”
A few moments later in mid-chew, Maria heard the deafening snap of a dried branch behind them. She turned and dropped what was left of her apple.
Russians!
Two soldiers with little more than peach fuzz on their sunken faces and submachine guns hanging from their shoulders haled the four in their crude tongue. “What do you have of value?”
The three women looked at each other—completely ignorant of the request and terrified of the possibilities.
Strange words in a coarse tongue stumbled out of Fritz’s mouth in reply. “We have nothing.”
One soldier offered a sly grin before grabbing Maria’s arm, the muzzle of his weapon pointing at her watch. “Jewelry? Watches?”
“Give us your valuables,” the second soldier spoke to Fritz. “We’ll give you your lives.”
“They want whatever jewelry or valuables you have,” Fritz relayed.
One soldier pointed his machine gun at the four, directing them a bit further off the trail. “Line up. Hold out your hands.”
He took Anna’s earrings and Maria’s watch. He demanded the rings on Traudl and Fritz’s fingers.
The other soldier looked through their spartan luggage and found nothing of interest until he opened Maria’s upholstered bag. Several pieces of costume jewelry fell out of the bag as well as a fist-sized tin and some pieces of clothing.
The Russian wasted no time in stuffing the cheap trinkets into his pockets before turning his attention to the tin box. He pried off the lid and recoiled.
A small mass wrapped in cheese cloth dropped into a bed of pine needles.
“Agh!” His lips contorted, exposing a set of misshapen teeth.
“Limburger cheese.” Maria pointed to the cloth with her foot.
“Go.” The soldier who robbed the others pointed his gun up the trail where rays of sunshine pierced the fog.
The four picked up their luggage and resumed their trek.
Maria expected a bullet in the back within seconds. Each step up the path was a burning fuse lit by fear. After a minute, she bolted into the mist.
With daylight stretched to its summer limits, they reached the summit by sunset. The group agreed that it was best to camp on the rock-strewn top for the night. They would start the descent into Harzburg in the morning.
****
Harzburg teamed with English soldiers. Of greater importance for Maria, its trains were running to the west.
Once at her destination, Maria walked the kilometer from the train station to her mother-in-law’s cramped third floor apartment. There she freshened up at the bathroom sink, her legs rubbing against the toilet.
In the postage stamp apartment there was little privacy for personal grooming beyond a closed door. She removed the lump of cheese from the tin and carefully pulled it apart. Her gold wedding band rested secure in the middle of the malodorous mound. She returned the cheese to the tin and washed her hands and the ring before placing it upon her finger.
“Maria?” Her mother-in-law curled her nose as her daughter-in-law sat down to coffee. “Are you ill?”
Maria offered a contented grin and shook her head.
Kim Kolarich is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her fiction was long-listed for The Fish International Short Story Prize, and a finalist for the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. Her stories have appeared in The Bridport Prize Anthology, 3711 Atlantic, 34th Parallel, Karamu, Rollick Magazine, After Hours, Streetwrite, Two Hawks Quarterly, Third Coast Magazine, Crossways Magazine, Burningword Literary Journal, and others. |
The Afterlife
by Kim Kolarich (kmkolarich@earthlink.net)
Laugh, Pagliaccio,
For your love is broken.
Laugh of the pain that poisons your heart.
Laugh, Pagliaccio,
For your love is broken.
Laugh of the pain that poisons your heart.
- Pagliacci, opera and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo
Our cutlery set dates back to my husband’s bachelor days. It’s a variety of knives in a wooden butcher block, which we keep in a corner on our kitchen counter. They haven’t been sharpened since we were married, which places their cutting ability a notch above that of a butter knife. To slice anything takes some resolve. A lot of pressure has to be applied even attempting to put a little of your weight into the motion is a good idea. It’s a household problem easily forgotten until the pile of carrots in front of me becomes the enemy and wields the power to delay dinner. I didn’t realize how much these knives would complicate our life.
My husband declined a dinner party invitation we had received. He told me he was too busy at work with a project, which was code for I don’t want to go. Being single for the night, I told my friend I would come by early to help her to prepare dinner. When I arrived, she poured me a glass of wine, pointed to an onion, and placed a knife next to it. I picked up the knife and pushed the blade down as hard as I could into the onion. The knife cut through the vegetable so quickly that I lost my balance, and my elbow hit the counter. I gasped and snapped back, instinctively holding the knife away from me. I foolishly checked to see if all my fingers were still there, but I was more taken aback by the two perfectly sliced onion halves resting on the cutting board in front of me.
“Careful, June Cleaver,” my friend said with a laugh. “You’re not trying to cut through a rock.”
“I know, but I forgot that I’m not using my knives. Mine are so dull. God, this is sharp,” I said, studying the blade as if I might be able to visually detect its sharpness. I placed the knife on top of the onion again and slowly drew it back. A flawless circle of sliced onion made a cathartic plop onto the cutting board. I blinked in disbelief at how swiftly the knife had cut again. I went on happily slicing the rest of the onion, secretly giddy at the blade’s cutting prowess.
I had forgotten what it was like to feel such precision. Experiencing the exact capability of something that was so tangible and unwavering, no matter how small, was powerful. The sensation made me feel alive, and strangely washed my anxieties away. I liked this new gumption and enthusiastically chopped through everything that was put in front of me. The rhythmic tapping of the knife against the cutting board became hypnotic, leaving me feeling slightly stoned. My body, normally locked in a state of fear, forgot about my usual concerns and let me slip into a sense of ease during dinner. This way of being was both familiar and unfamiliar, riding on some distant memory. I’ve always been reluctant to let myself become something new, using the synthesis of unfortunate givens in my life as my guide. But that night, I was protected by my own happiness, however brief. The tension in me had disappeared, and it left my body and mind pliable. My senses opened, allowing me to take in everything around me. Each breath I took felt clear and cool. My skin caught the silky breeze coming off the lakefront and the sparks from the fireplace teased my eyes. My wit, usually dulled by my apprehensions, was fearlessly present and delighted the other guests. But just as suddenly as my euphoric spell had come on, the lightness of my being and the rampant bliss in the air became intolerable. Stabs of guilt and doubt pierced through me, dousing any pleasure I might have had. I was used to walking my life on a tightrope, and I didn’t know how to react without the tension. I allowed my joy to slip away because I truly didn’t believe there was anything to feel but life’s loneliness. It was the only way I had learned to be. That night, I dreamed I was asked to prepare a meal for dignitaries. I wore a white doubled-breasted chef’s jacket and a chef’s toque. A Secret Service agent escorted me to a large table of fresh vegetables. As I began to slice, nothing happened, the food remained whole and perfect. I tried over and over again, pushing harder and faster with the knife until I couldn’t see what I was doing, and in my frenzy, I cut my finger. The knife slipped out of my bloodied hand onto the floor. I was shocked when I realized that the knife I was using came from our home. That morning, my husband found me sleeping in a corner of our kitchen holding one of our knives.
***
I took Halsted Street south into the Loop to a professional knife-sharpening business. A faster route there, requiring on- and off-ramps and speed, would have served me better, but I felt skittish about bringing my old and dull knives to a place with the word professional in its name, so I needed the comfort of a slower street. Nestled in her car seat was my daughter. She eyed the lump beside her that was the butcher-block cutlery. I had wrapped it in a towel, and it looked like a tiny alien who had just showered. The word daughter still sounded foreign to me. My husband told family and friends that he and I were adopting a baby, when our reality was that my husband’s one- night indiscretion had resulted in a pregnancy, and the mother did not want the child, or an abortion. My husband quickly confessed to me his regrettable action, then immediately proposed that we raise the child. I agreed, hoping that it would be the missing piece able to keep our marriage together. Those close to us were uneasy about it, and I overheard their hushed discussions questioning my maturity and my ability to take care of a baby. I wanted to believe that my husband and I could live happily ever after, and I longed not to feel the distance between us. The familiar mantra whispered in my ear: for better or worse.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw a woman going into the store dressed in a half-buttoned, white chef’s jacket just like on the cooking shows in which the contestants refer to one another as chef so-and-so. She swung her knife kit at her side, and she walked with a bit of a swagger.
I gripped the steering wheel as my back tightened with nervousness. I let go and placed my hands in my lap and tried to force my body to relax. I imagined entering the store and getting a disdainful look from the owner, who would wonder why I was in an establishment intended for professionals. I thought about my husband. I wished he had agreed to take on the burden of the knives, but I knew better than to ask him. He would consider it to be housework, although he would never admit it. And to confirm his belief, he would continue working in his vegetable garden or feeding his adolescent interest in baseball by putting on a game and ignoring the circumstances.
Breathing deeply to calm my nerves, I found the courage to get out of the car. I carried my daughter in her car seat at my side and wrapped my other arm around the bundle of knives as if I were carrying another child. My daughter tried to reach up to play with the bundle possibly thinking that it was one of her stuffed animals. I stood hidden behind a streetlight and watched the store’s entrance. After some time passed, the professional-looking chef left the store, and I tentatively went in.
***
Later that week, our neighbors offered us their tickets to Pagliacci at the Lyric Opera, and I happily accepted. The seats were very good on the main floor and right by the orchestra. My husband agreed to go with me even though he wasn’t interested in the opera. He wanted to accompany me only because he was curious about the way the acoustics worked in an old venue. After 20 years working as an engineer, he said there had to be something left that still intrigued him on a professional level. I thought it might be interesting for us because the opera takes place near Calabria, one of the regions we toured on our honeymoon in Italy, seven years earlier. I met my husband while I was in college. His firm was across the hall from where I was working as an intern, and we rode the elevator together every morning. He started our relationship with just a smile and a quick good morning. By the end of the semester, he would wait for me in the building’s lobby with coffee, and on our way up, he would ask me questions about what I did over the weekend. When I let him know it was our last commute together, he was expressionless, almost as if he didn’t know who I was anymore. But at the end of that day, two dozen pink roses were delivered to my cubicle with a handwritten note from him inviting me to dinner. He took me to the Italian Village, the upstairs restaurant, and eagerly told me he wanted to protect me and to give me a life of happiness. He was ten years my senior with movie-star good looks. The first time I saw him I blushed, and I had to turn away to regain my composure. I instantly knew that there was something different about him. His natural reserve and easy manner were offset by a charm that I allowed to woo me. When he spoke, I could feel his voice resonating inside of me, and his eyes had such a strong look of rescue in them that it conjured up a feeling that life had the chance of always being good. When I finally touched his body, I felt as if I were a weary bird that had found its nest, and I had found my home.
***
The atmosphere of the opera was beautiful and dizzyingly entertaining to me. As we walked in, my eyes immediately moved upwards to the architectural detail of the elaborate gold ceiling with its musical trumpets blossoming out of the corners. I felt like royalty when we walked up the red-carpeted stairs that were bordered by grand marble pillars. Looking out over the balcony, I smiled when I discovered the comedy and tragedy masks unassumingly intertwined around the ceiling lights. I felt beautifully cocooned in my black chiffon dress, and relished the cool feeling of my jewelry against my skin. I took my husband’s arm as we went back down the stairs and then walked down the generous aisle of the theater to our seats. After the overture, the strong velvet curtains opened on stage, and the first note gently pulled my body to attention. My husband listened to the opera with his head slightly down and with his ear toward the stage to concentrate on how the sound was moving. Every once in a while, I tapped his arm and motioned for him to look up at the stage. During intermission, we drank champagne and walked around the grand foyer.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Of the opera?”
“Yes,” I said, expecting to hear his thoughts about the acoustics.
“Well, I think the trouble with Pagliacci is that he’s just so fucking sad.”
“It’s because he’s afraid that Bippo’s having an affair with his wife,” I said, surprised that I spoke so easily on the subject of adultery. My husband took in what I said and paused. His hesitation paralyzed me for a moment.
“How can you be that sad when you make a living as a clown?”
Relieved, I let out a laugh, and in his protective way, my husband grasped my elbow to steady me. His lips wore a receptive smile, which was something that I hadn’t seen for quite some time. I permitted myself to believe that I knew where I belonged for a moment. My reverie was quickly interrupted when he handed his champagne glass to me and went off to look for the men’s room. I welcomed the opportunity to be alone and to observe the opera crowd. A pair of crystal blue eyes met mine, and then looked back to a woman who was tapping his shoulder (his wife, I assumed). He pulled out a loosely gathered bundle of cash from his pocket and gestured toward her. She plucked the bills, one by one, almost defiantly, out of his hand, and then stepped into the line at the bar. He looked back at me with a slight smile. He was my physician. I immediately thought of our solemn conversations on the phone, the blood tests, and the snowstorm that I drove through to make the appointment when he told me that I was HIV positive. Suddenly, chimes sounded and the ceiling lights flashed. I was startled for a moment, until I realized that intermission was ending soon, and it was just a warning. I shrugged my shoulders at my doctor while raising both glasses into the air in a mock toast, indicating that things were fine. He turned away from me when his wife returned with their drinks. Moments later, my husband found me, took his glass from my hand, and swallowed the last of his champagne. As we made our way back, a cacophony of notes rose from the orchestra as the musicians warmed up their instruments. Our seats were a few feet from the stage so I motioned to my husband that I was going to take a closer look. As I leaned over the large wooden balustrade of the orchestra pit, I felt the strange energy of random musical notes rush up at me. I noticed the harp first because it was my dream as a child to learn how to play one. A loud noise pulled my attention over to the timpani section. I smiled when I saw the musician beat the drums so seriously and then try to silence them as if they were spoiled children. A cellist played wildly as if her life depended on the strength of each note. I took a deep breath and looked down at the string section at the front of the orchestra. I became confused for a moment when I saw the face of a man who looked familiar to me, but something about him seemed to be missing. As I watched him, my brain sorted through the pages of my memory to find his face. A pair of weary green eyes, sunken in a gaunt face, finally looked up and noticed me. Wisps of fine hair lay across his head and his shoulders hung from his body. He rested his viola on top of his thigh and waved his bow at me. I timidly waved back. A rush of memories flooded my mind, making me dizzy. I eased my body around in the other direction and went back to my seat. I quickly flipped through my program to find the list of musicians’ names and there he was.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” my husband said.
“Oh, I thought I saw someone I knew from years ago,” I said, “but it can’t be him because he used to play the violin. This guy plays the viola.”
“Well, it’s possible for some musicians to switch instruments, especially between the string instruments. I’m sure it isn’t too hard to do,” my husband said matter-of-factly and then went back to reading his program.
“I guess it’s not,” I said.
The viola player happened to be the last man I slept with before I met my husband. Seeing his deteriorating health told me everything about why my life had turned out the way it did. I didn’t hear the rest of the opera, even though I sat and listened. On the way home in the taxi, my husband hummed something from the show as the city flashed past in the snowy night. I looked out the window and was comforted by the snow’s ability to silence a city as big as Chicago, and then was surprised by the touch of my husband’s gloved hand as it gently took hold of mine.
***
“What’s this?” I asked.
My husband, wearing a dishtowel as an apron, stood behind the island in our kitchen and waved his arms over an array of food. His face wore an expression of eagerness. Our daughter rocked back and forth in her highchair and reached her arms out to me.
“We’re going to cook tonight. Together,” said my husband.
“You know I don’t know how to cook.”
“You’ll learn.”
“I see,” I said, as I took off my coat. “The opera must have inspired you to teach me.”
“I could see Italy, and I could hear it, but I couldn’t taste it,” he said as he flipped open a cookbook.
After I put our daughter to bed, I wrapped a dishtowel around my waist and stood at my husband’s side, watching him mix the ingredients to make the dough for what he said was a crostata. When he was finished he placed the ball of dough on the counter, sprinkled a bit of flour on it, then took my hands and placed them on the dough. He placed his hands on top of mine. His touch made my heart flutter.
“This is how you knead the dough,” he said, as he began to push down gently.
“I hope I don’t get this wrong,” I whispered.
He stepped behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and reached for the dough again. “Now use the heel of your hand to knead it.”
A rush of warmth moved over my skin. I turned my head back and smiled at him.
“This takes a great deal of concentration. You had better focus,” he said teasingly. I returned to my task and he let go of my hands. “I think you’ve got it!”
“Well, it’s not brain surgery,” I said.
“Tell that to my Sicilian grandmother.”
“You don’t have a Sicilian grandmother,” I said and laughed.
“Well, I certainly can feel one in my soul.”
He picked up a plump tomato from his garden, tossed it into the air, and caught it. He picked up two more and started to juggle.
“I don’t believe it!” I squealed.
“I learned this trick when I ran away and joined the circus.”
His playfulness made me feel safe and at ease. I hadn’t felt that way since we were first married and before our lives got in the way of us. He caught the tomatoes, one by one, and put them on the cutting board.
He handed me a rolling pin. “What do I do with this?” I asked.
He made a rolling motion in the air and turned back to his work.
“If you say so,” I said and began to roll out the dough.
The sound of a zing hit the air as my husband slid a knife out of the butcher block.
I sighed and stopped rolling the dough. I waited a moment to see if the urge to kiss my husband, something we didn’t do anymore, would subside. I decided that I couldn’t hold anything in any longer. I stepped behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and kissed his cheek. My touch startled him, making him lurch backwards into me. The sound of an uncontrolled knife hitting the marble counter, then the floor was all that I could hear. Something warm coursed over my hands like a river and my skin began to sting. I saw blood seeping into the cutting board as I stepped back in disbelief. A red blossom spread across the front of my husband’s shirt as he pressed his folded arms into his chest. He gestured toward me and said, “You’re bleeding, too.”
***
A gust of cold air mixed with an antiseptic smell came at us each time the doors slid open while we waited in the emergency room. A blood-soaked dishtowel, acting as a bandage, was wrapped around each of our right hands. The bleeding had finally stopped. My husband’s arm rested over my shoulder, keeping me close to him. I nestled my head against his chest and found comfort in the rise and fall of his breath and in the sound of his heartbeat. Our daughter slept undisturbed in her car seat next to me. I lifted my head and surveyed the room for other injuries and their severity, wondering when we would be called. I stopped and looked at the side of my husband’s face. It was the profile that I watched as he slept at night. He noticed me looking at him and turned to me with a soft smile on his lips. He leaned in closer as if to kiss me and I closed my eyes to accept. I felt my whole being cascade down onto itself, anticipating being awakened by his kiss. Suddenly, his body pulled away from me when the nurse called out his name. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that he was gone. The burst of air from his brisk steps moving past me said his farewell.
*****
I recognized him even with his back to me. Of course I did he once was my husband. I stepped behind a pillar to hide from his view. He had the same smile, and his body still moved with confidence as he let a young family with luggage and baby stroller squeeze past him to find a seat in the boarding area. I glanced at his gate information to see where he was going just as he opened a guidebook to Italy and settled it in his lap to read. A small child called out Daddy and ran past me. Her mother followed her in a playful game of chase. My heart stopped when I saw that child crawl into my husband’s lap and call him Daddy again. A moment later, the mother of the child was standing in front of my husband. Her silky hair flowed over her shoulders as she bent down and kissed the child on her head and then kissed my husband. He put his hand at her waist and tenderly slid it down the side of her hip.
“I can’t wait to do this,” my daughter said as she came up behind me. She pushed a magazine and a pack of gum into her carry-on bag like any excited teenager would do. I continued looking at my husband.
“Mom?” she asked and leaned around to look at me.
I turned and looked at my daughter’s face. All I saw were her father’s features. Something that I had forgotten long ago, but today I was startled into remembering that she looked just like him. She waved her boarding pass in front of her like a fan.
“We’re going to Italy together and I can’t wait,” she said taking my hand in hers and swinging it at her side just like she did when she was a child.
“Yes, I can’t wait, either,” I said and took in a deep breath I felt that I could never let out.
My husband declined a dinner party invitation we had received. He told me he was too busy at work with a project, which was code for I don’t want to go. Being single for the night, I told my friend I would come by early to help her to prepare dinner. When I arrived, she poured me a glass of wine, pointed to an onion, and placed a knife next to it. I picked up the knife and pushed the blade down as hard as I could into the onion. The knife cut through the vegetable so quickly that I lost my balance, and my elbow hit the counter. I gasped and snapped back, instinctively holding the knife away from me. I foolishly checked to see if all my fingers were still there, but I was more taken aback by the two perfectly sliced onion halves resting on the cutting board in front of me.
“Careful, June Cleaver,” my friend said with a laugh. “You’re not trying to cut through a rock.”
“I know, but I forgot that I’m not using my knives. Mine are so dull. God, this is sharp,” I said, studying the blade as if I might be able to visually detect its sharpness. I placed the knife on top of the onion again and slowly drew it back. A flawless circle of sliced onion made a cathartic plop onto the cutting board. I blinked in disbelief at how swiftly the knife had cut again. I went on happily slicing the rest of the onion, secretly giddy at the blade’s cutting prowess.
I had forgotten what it was like to feel such precision. Experiencing the exact capability of something that was so tangible and unwavering, no matter how small, was powerful. The sensation made me feel alive, and strangely washed my anxieties away. I liked this new gumption and enthusiastically chopped through everything that was put in front of me. The rhythmic tapping of the knife against the cutting board became hypnotic, leaving me feeling slightly stoned. My body, normally locked in a state of fear, forgot about my usual concerns and let me slip into a sense of ease during dinner. This way of being was both familiar and unfamiliar, riding on some distant memory. I’ve always been reluctant to let myself become something new, using the synthesis of unfortunate givens in my life as my guide. But that night, I was protected by my own happiness, however brief. The tension in me had disappeared, and it left my body and mind pliable. My senses opened, allowing me to take in everything around me. Each breath I took felt clear and cool. My skin caught the silky breeze coming off the lakefront and the sparks from the fireplace teased my eyes. My wit, usually dulled by my apprehensions, was fearlessly present and delighted the other guests. But just as suddenly as my euphoric spell had come on, the lightness of my being and the rampant bliss in the air became intolerable. Stabs of guilt and doubt pierced through me, dousing any pleasure I might have had. I was used to walking my life on a tightrope, and I didn’t know how to react without the tension. I allowed my joy to slip away because I truly didn’t believe there was anything to feel but life’s loneliness. It was the only way I had learned to be. That night, I dreamed I was asked to prepare a meal for dignitaries. I wore a white doubled-breasted chef’s jacket and a chef’s toque. A Secret Service agent escorted me to a large table of fresh vegetables. As I began to slice, nothing happened, the food remained whole and perfect. I tried over and over again, pushing harder and faster with the knife until I couldn’t see what I was doing, and in my frenzy, I cut my finger. The knife slipped out of my bloodied hand onto the floor. I was shocked when I realized that the knife I was using came from our home. That morning, my husband found me sleeping in a corner of our kitchen holding one of our knives.
***
I took Halsted Street south into the Loop to a professional knife-sharpening business. A faster route there, requiring on- and off-ramps and speed, would have served me better, but I felt skittish about bringing my old and dull knives to a place with the word professional in its name, so I needed the comfort of a slower street. Nestled in her car seat was my daughter. She eyed the lump beside her that was the butcher-block cutlery. I had wrapped it in a towel, and it looked like a tiny alien who had just showered. The word daughter still sounded foreign to me. My husband told family and friends that he and I were adopting a baby, when our reality was that my husband’s one- night indiscretion had resulted in a pregnancy, and the mother did not want the child, or an abortion. My husband quickly confessed to me his regrettable action, then immediately proposed that we raise the child. I agreed, hoping that it would be the missing piece able to keep our marriage together. Those close to us were uneasy about it, and I overheard their hushed discussions questioning my maturity and my ability to take care of a baby. I wanted to believe that my husband and I could live happily ever after, and I longed not to feel the distance between us. The familiar mantra whispered in my ear: for better or worse.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw a woman going into the store dressed in a half-buttoned, white chef’s jacket just like on the cooking shows in which the contestants refer to one another as chef so-and-so. She swung her knife kit at her side, and she walked with a bit of a swagger.
I gripped the steering wheel as my back tightened with nervousness. I let go and placed my hands in my lap and tried to force my body to relax. I imagined entering the store and getting a disdainful look from the owner, who would wonder why I was in an establishment intended for professionals. I thought about my husband. I wished he had agreed to take on the burden of the knives, but I knew better than to ask him. He would consider it to be housework, although he would never admit it. And to confirm his belief, he would continue working in his vegetable garden or feeding his adolescent interest in baseball by putting on a game and ignoring the circumstances.
Breathing deeply to calm my nerves, I found the courage to get out of the car. I carried my daughter in her car seat at my side and wrapped my other arm around the bundle of knives as if I were carrying another child. My daughter tried to reach up to play with the bundle possibly thinking that it was one of her stuffed animals. I stood hidden behind a streetlight and watched the store’s entrance. After some time passed, the professional-looking chef left the store, and I tentatively went in.
***
Later that week, our neighbors offered us their tickets to Pagliacci at the Lyric Opera, and I happily accepted. The seats were very good on the main floor and right by the orchestra. My husband agreed to go with me even though he wasn’t interested in the opera. He wanted to accompany me only because he was curious about the way the acoustics worked in an old venue. After 20 years working as an engineer, he said there had to be something left that still intrigued him on a professional level. I thought it might be interesting for us because the opera takes place near Calabria, one of the regions we toured on our honeymoon in Italy, seven years earlier. I met my husband while I was in college. His firm was across the hall from where I was working as an intern, and we rode the elevator together every morning. He started our relationship with just a smile and a quick good morning. By the end of the semester, he would wait for me in the building’s lobby with coffee, and on our way up, he would ask me questions about what I did over the weekend. When I let him know it was our last commute together, he was expressionless, almost as if he didn’t know who I was anymore. But at the end of that day, two dozen pink roses were delivered to my cubicle with a handwritten note from him inviting me to dinner. He took me to the Italian Village, the upstairs restaurant, and eagerly told me he wanted to protect me and to give me a life of happiness. He was ten years my senior with movie-star good looks. The first time I saw him I blushed, and I had to turn away to regain my composure. I instantly knew that there was something different about him. His natural reserve and easy manner were offset by a charm that I allowed to woo me. When he spoke, I could feel his voice resonating inside of me, and his eyes had such a strong look of rescue in them that it conjured up a feeling that life had the chance of always being good. When I finally touched his body, I felt as if I were a weary bird that had found its nest, and I had found my home.
***
The atmosphere of the opera was beautiful and dizzyingly entertaining to me. As we walked in, my eyes immediately moved upwards to the architectural detail of the elaborate gold ceiling with its musical trumpets blossoming out of the corners. I felt like royalty when we walked up the red-carpeted stairs that were bordered by grand marble pillars. Looking out over the balcony, I smiled when I discovered the comedy and tragedy masks unassumingly intertwined around the ceiling lights. I felt beautifully cocooned in my black chiffon dress, and relished the cool feeling of my jewelry against my skin. I took my husband’s arm as we went back down the stairs and then walked down the generous aisle of the theater to our seats. After the overture, the strong velvet curtains opened on stage, and the first note gently pulled my body to attention. My husband listened to the opera with his head slightly down and with his ear toward the stage to concentrate on how the sound was moving. Every once in a while, I tapped his arm and motioned for him to look up at the stage. During intermission, we drank champagne and walked around the grand foyer.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Of the opera?”
“Yes,” I said, expecting to hear his thoughts about the acoustics.
“Well, I think the trouble with Pagliacci is that he’s just so fucking sad.”
“It’s because he’s afraid that Bippo’s having an affair with his wife,” I said, surprised that I spoke so easily on the subject of adultery. My husband took in what I said and paused. His hesitation paralyzed me for a moment.
“How can you be that sad when you make a living as a clown?”
Relieved, I let out a laugh, and in his protective way, my husband grasped my elbow to steady me. His lips wore a receptive smile, which was something that I hadn’t seen for quite some time. I permitted myself to believe that I knew where I belonged for a moment. My reverie was quickly interrupted when he handed his champagne glass to me and went off to look for the men’s room. I welcomed the opportunity to be alone and to observe the opera crowd. A pair of crystal blue eyes met mine, and then looked back to a woman who was tapping his shoulder (his wife, I assumed). He pulled out a loosely gathered bundle of cash from his pocket and gestured toward her. She plucked the bills, one by one, almost defiantly, out of his hand, and then stepped into the line at the bar. He looked back at me with a slight smile. He was my physician. I immediately thought of our solemn conversations on the phone, the blood tests, and the snowstorm that I drove through to make the appointment when he told me that I was HIV positive. Suddenly, chimes sounded and the ceiling lights flashed. I was startled for a moment, until I realized that intermission was ending soon, and it was just a warning. I shrugged my shoulders at my doctor while raising both glasses into the air in a mock toast, indicating that things were fine. He turned away from me when his wife returned with their drinks. Moments later, my husband found me, took his glass from my hand, and swallowed the last of his champagne. As we made our way back, a cacophony of notes rose from the orchestra as the musicians warmed up their instruments. Our seats were a few feet from the stage so I motioned to my husband that I was going to take a closer look. As I leaned over the large wooden balustrade of the orchestra pit, I felt the strange energy of random musical notes rush up at me. I noticed the harp first because it was my dream as a child to learn how to play one. A loud noise pulled my attention over to the timpani section. I smiled when I saw the musician beat the drums so seriously and then try to silence them as if they were spoiled children. A cellist played wildly as if her life depended on the strength of each note. I took a deep breath and looked down at the string section at the front of the orchestra. I became confused for a moment when I saw the face of a man who looked familiar to me, but something about him seemed to be missing. As I watched him, my brain sorted through the pages of my memory to find his face. A pair of weary green eyes, sunken in a gaunt face, finally looked up and noticed me. Wisps of fine hair lay across his head and his shoulders hung from his body. He rested his viola on top of his thigh and waved his bow at me. I timidly waved back. A rush of memories flooded my mind, making me dizzy. I eased my body around in the other direction and went back to my seat. I quickly flipped through my program to find the list of musicians’ names and there he was.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” my husband said.
“Oh, I thought I saw someone I knew from years ago,” I said, “but it can’t be him because he used to play the violin. This guy plays the viola.”
“Well, it’s possible for some musicians to switch instruments, especially between the string instruments. I’m sure it isn’t too hard to do,” my husband said matter-of-factly and then went back to reading his program.
“I guess it’s not,” I said.
The viola player happened to be the last man I slept with before I met my husband. Seeing his deteriorating health told me everything about why my life had turned out the way it did. I didn’t hear the rest of the opera, even though I sat and listened. On the way home in the taxi, my husband hummed something from the show as the city flashed past in the snowy night. I looked out the window and was comforted by the snow’s ability to silence a city as big as Chicago, and then was surprised by the touch of my husband’s gloved hand as it gently took hold of mine.
***
“What’s this?” I asked.
My husband, wearing a dishtowel as an apron, stood behind the island in our kitchen and waved his arms over an array of food. His face wore an expression of eagerness. Our daughter rocked back and forth in her highchair and reached her arms out to me.
“We’re going to cook tonight. Together,” said my husband.
“You know I don’t know how to cook.”
“You’ll learn.”
“I see,” I said, as I took off my coat. “The opera must have inspired you to teach me.”
“I could see Italy, and I could hear it, but I couldn’t taste it,” he said as he flipped open a cookbook.
After I put our daughter to bed, I wrapped a dishtowel around my waist and stood at my husband’s side, watching him mix the ingredients to make the dough for what he said was a crostata. When he was finished he placed the ball of dough on the counter, sprinkled a bit of flour on it, then took my hands and placed them on the dough. He placed his hands on top of mine. His touch made my heart flutter.
“This is how you knead the dough,” he said, as he began to push down gently.
“I hope I don’t get this wrong,” I whispered.
He stepped behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and reached for the dough again. “Now use the heel of your hand to knead it.”
A rush of warmth moved over my skin. I turned my head back and smiled at him.
“This takes a great deal of concentration. You had better focus,” he said teasingly. I returned to my task and he let go of my hands. “I think you’ve got it!”
“Well, it’s not brain surgery,” I said.
“Tell that to my Sicilian grandmother.”
“You don’t have a Sicilian grandmother,” I said and laughed.
“Well, I certainly can feel one in my soul.”
He picked up a plump tomato from his garden, tossed it into the air, and caught it. He picked up two more and started to juggle.
“I don’t believe it!” I squealed.
“I learned this trick when I ran away and joined the circus.”
His playfulness made me feel safe and at ease. I hadn’t felt that way since we were first married and before our lives got in the way of us. He caught the tomatoes, one by one, and put them on the cutting board.
He handed me a rolling pin. “What do I do with this?” I asked.
He made a rolling motion in the air and turned back to his work.
“If you say so,” I said and began to roll out the dough.
The sound of a zing hit the air as my husband slid a knife out of the butcher block.
I sighed and stopped rolling the dough. I waited a moment to see if the urge to kiss my husband, something we didn’t do anymore, would subside. I decided that I couldn’t hold anything in any longer. I stepped behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and kissed his cheek. My touch startled him, making him lurch backwards into me. The sound of an uncontrolled knife hitting the marble counter, then the floor was all that I could hear. Something warm coursed over my hands like a river and my skin began to sting. I saw blood seeping into the cutting board as I stepped back in disbelief. A red blossom spread across the front of my husband’s shirt as he pressed his folded arms into his chest. He gestured toward me and said, “You’re bleeding, too.”
***
A gust of cold air mixed with an antiseptic smell came at us each time the doors slid open while we waited in the emergency room. A blood-soaked dishtowel, acting as a bandage, was wrapped around each of our right hands. The bleeding had finally stopped. My husband’s arm rested over my shoulder, keeping me close to him. I nestled my head against his chest and found comfort in the rise and fall of his breath and in the sound of his heartbeat. Our daughter slept undisturbed in her car seat next to me. I lifted my head and surveyed the room for other injuries and their severity, wondering when we would be called. I stopped and looked at the side of my husband’s face. It was the profile that I watched as he slept at night. He noticed me looking at him and turned to me with a soft smile on his lips. He leaned in closer as if to kiss me and I closed my eyes to accept. I felt my whole being cascade down onto itself, anticipating being awakened by his kiss. Suddenly, his body pulled away from me when the nurse called out his name. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that he was gone. The burst of air from his brisk steps moving past me said his farewell.
*****
I recognized him even with his back to me. Of course I did he once was my husband. I stepped behind a pillar to hide from his view. He had the same smile, and his body still moved with confidence as he let a young family with luggage and baby stroller squeeze past him to find a seat in the boarding area. I glanced at his gate information to see where he was going just as he opened a guidebook to Italy and settled it in his lap to read. A small child called out Daddy and ran past me. Her mother followed her in a playful game of chase. My heart stopped when I saw that child crawl into my husband’s lap and call him Daddy again. A moment later, the mother of the child was standing in front of my husband. Her silky hair flowed over her shoulders as she bent down and kissed the child on her head and then kissed my husband. He put his hand at her waist and tenderly slid it down the side of her hip.
“I can’t wait to do this,” my daughter said as she came up behind me. She pushed a magazine and a pack of gum into her carry-on bag like any excited teenager would do. I continued looking at my husband.
“Mom?” she asked and leaned around to look at me.
I turned and looked at my daughter’s face. All I saw were her father’s features. Something that I had forgotten long ago, but today I was startled into remembering that she looked just like him. She waved her boarding pass in front of her like a fan.
“We’re going to Italy together and I can’t wait,” she said taking my hand in hers and swinging it at her side just like she did when she was a child.
“Yes, I can’t wait, either,” I said and took in a deep breath I felt that I could never let out.
Dan O'Neill is a fiction writer, essayist, and critic. His work has appeared in: the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Esquire.
SECURITY
I suppose I should have realized from the beginning that the security business was empty,brutal,and despite it's title ,very insecure.But,on the other hand people always referred to it as easy money and I was looking for a a job where I could turn my brain off and concentrate on my acting.Besides ,I'm very lazy. At my first post in Century City ,CA, a man somehow got on the roof of one of the twin towers I was working in and threatened to jump.He had made it to the top of the building because the guard,newly arrived from Nigeria had taken an impromptu rest break,claiming later that his urethra was about to break,and he couldn't hold it any longer without spritzing all over. not behaving like a man with the heart of a lion,which was how he billed himself.The man ,who threatened to jump was a lawyer,who had been recently canned.They called his wife,his sister,his priest,and of course all the major news stations showed up,complete with helicopters. The man didn't jump,and the Nigerian only got a warning.but in a way it was an omen for me of what was to come
My name is Michael O'Brien up to and I'm an actor.Commercials,bit parts in sitcoms,usually as the dimwitted stud,and in tv dramas as a hot head / flunky.Mostly extra work in movies,usually as something like beach bum number 3 or horny courier or Dwayne.I got into the security business,because I heard, there were hardly any qualifications.If you were breathing ,could speak some form of English, and weren't a felon,there was a good chance you could get some kind of a so called job .You could always get a schedule that would allow you to go to auditions and to be on call for work.I think I also did it to spite my father, an ex Marine,who wanted me to work at his insurance firm.But insurance bored the hell out of me. I tried it for a couple of months,and thought it sucked.I also got in trouble for supposedly seducing the younger brother of one of the employees at the firm.The dude Adolfo,who was 21,came to me and said he wanted to hook up.He didn't even work for the company.But,of course I got the blame,the old predatory, gay bullshit. My old man was mortified that I'd try to put the moves on someone,right in his office. A typical Virgo,good at Math and office Management,clueless at family people skills. I was lousy at math and management,but good with people.And ,I was sick of him acting like a fucking drill sergeant,with me one of his sheep like recruits.My earliest memories of Dad we're of getting criticism from him.The way I dress,the way I ate at the table(there was only one way to hold a knife and fork),the way I made my bed(you had to be able to bounce a quarter off of it)my haircut.( which was never short enough for him) I always wanted to shout "No dad I don't hear you,so fuck off!Of course, the real problem was he couldn't deal with me being gay.It sickened him.He claimed it put my mother into a mental hospital and a death from a broken heart.He didn't think acting was a real job,and he thought men fucking each other was an abomination.I often wondered if he had ever fucked another guy in the corps, or may have been raped.It could explain that's why he had been so angry. Semper Fi my ass.Maybe I inherited his gay gene,and he couldn't live with the guilt.
It was doing security in an freight elevator in downtown Los Angeles that I discovered the further joys of Latinos.( Adolfo had just been an appetizer.) I had a tasting menu from; Mexico,Guatemala,Nicaragua,,El Salvador,Honduras,Costa Rica.I was like a kid in a candy store.I wanted to savor all the flavors.
My favorite was Oscar,from,El Salvador.He called himself the guapo guanaco. He had dark brown skin and devilish green eyes that always seemed to be smoldering .Though friends and coworkers thought there was something wrong with his eyesight.He had the most beautiful culo,you could eat breakfast off of.He was always grinning,singing.But he had a serious side too, he was usually reading something by Borges or Jack London. He would always ask"Senor Mike do you think I'm a burro?"He was the best kisser,I had ever experienced.Tender but intense.We were able to come just by kissing.He liked to take his clothes off in front of me and ask what he could do to make me happier . He was always open to new positions.I would show him a video online and he would say"Let's go for it cabron!". Once, when we were eating hot fudge sundaes I suggested we make hot fudge sundaes of each other and eat it all off.He said "Si,senor Mike, tienes mucho hambre". His brother ,Mario,also a janitor,found out about us and went into a rage calling me a pinche puto, a sick succio.He said I had sprung his brother,who he thought was a virgin and made him a sex maniac.He would go on rants about how gabachos we're sexually exploiting people from his country traumatized by war. He said I was an fucking demonio. Mario claimed I had corrupted Oscar and poisoned his mind with nasty movies like "Y Tu Mama Tambien",that tried to make guys having sex with each other normal.He made Oscar go to a psychiatrist,but the shrink told him that his brother wasn't sick or disturbed,that was just the way he was wired.He told Mario,he had to adjust his way of thinking and stop tormenting his brother.
Calvin ,my straight roommate who worked some security posts with me,jokingly said I was corrupting the janitors,putting thoughts in their mind that they never had before. When I arrived for work and said I was hungry tonight. He would sigh"And not for food".He also said on my work evaluation form under weaknesses they should put"guys from South of the border". I thought this was heterosexual bullshit,everyone has these thoughts,I just gave them a chance to act it out.Not long after that, they put security cameras in the freight elevator and this religious freak, Howard,a black supervisor,who carried a Bible with him and would often quote from it,about security matters
,would monitor how long the elevator was on each floor with a stopwatch.If he suspected something he'd rush to the floor to catch us red handed.He got off on interrupting regular people(not security)fucking in their cars in the garage or in stairwells.His most used phrase was "Fool put your pants On!".When the janitors asked me what all this new scrutiny meant I said,"Muy malo gueys,no mas fun".Once, when Julio,a Janitor from Honduras,asked me to go dancing with him,because he was the best La Punta dancer in Los Angeles,Howard overheard and shook his head muttering "depravity".Later he asked me "What did you and that wetback do after you went prancing ?".I said we slept.But Howard thundered "You know what I mean".I said that I did know,and asked sarcastically if I could come to his church on some blessed Sunday and testify to my sins of the flesh.He actually considered it for a moment, seemingly taking me serious.Then he said"No sir..I don't think the church is ready for that kind of immoral exhibition.
Sadly, Oscar had to go back to El Salvador when his father had a heart attack.He never came back. I had a feeling Mario,who went with him was holding him prisoner in San Salvador.Probably in some fucked up conversion place,where they'd convert him from gay to a mara salvatrucha.I once received a collect call from him from El Salvador,but I didn't take it.I was afraid.I wasn't sure why at the time.But now I think.I may have loved him,if such a thing is really possible,and isn't just a chemical reaction,a social construct so we can act out bad impulses and try to put a good face on them. Carl,who like a lot of other guards was sadly pussy whipped,told met he other day he had met someone a week ago and was in love.He asked me if I thought it was possible and I said no,you can't know somebody in that time, so how the hell could you love them?You could be in lust,,but nothing more.So it was a fantasy.Pleasant for a while,but not real.For every bullshit story about love at first site lasting,I could give you a thousand stories of " supposed soulmates" not making it a year.
- After Oscar left my life ,security took on a darker hue.There was an incident in a men's restroom at an office building,when
ere an aids patient fell and started hemoraging all over the floor.They tried to get the janitors to clean it up,but the supervisor Guillermo(who
was bisexual.a one night stand for me and not much too text home about.I needed a microscope to find his cock.I almost went into hysterical laughter,when I finally located it.I thought this must be some kind of fucking prank.Plus he had a flat ass(.A two time loser) Guillermo said hell no his workers weren't coming in contact with that fucking blood.So they had to call in a hazmat unit from the health department to clean it up.It was erie watching these men in spacesuits ,entering the restroom,while passersby looked on wondering what was going on and knowing they were being lied to about the situation.Carl asked if I had ever had any restroom sex and I said no,even though I had a couple of times when I was younger and high .It did make me think more about being careful.Renata,the resident Lesbian,who was called semi affectionately "big dyke",looked like a younger ,fatter Louis Ck,said there was a new security crackdown coming on gay sex restrooms in office buildings and malls.I say good,because in this day and age with online hookups,there was no need for nasty,degrading sex in filthy restrooms.You take a shit or a piss and move on.Renata always was bitching about not getting any action She was constantly lusting after woman she could never have,especially married ones with kids,and sleeping with other make guards ,who were too ugly or socially inept to get nooky on their own, for some quick cash After she did one of the guys at work,usually in a storage room,she'd say "watch out Sam's Club Mama's ready to bulk binge tonight".I think she went into security ,because she would have starved to death as a hooker.Everybody is hiding something in security.Tax problems,child support payments,tranny trouble.And boy,would they tell you about it,they didn't have any fucking filters.I wanted to say a little discretion please,a little professionalism if it's not too much to ask.
Around that time ,Carl and I worked
the security at this wedding at a revolving rooftop restaurant in Hollywood.As the guests started arriving I noticed they're all dressed in black.The maid of honor has wings,like a dark Angel.When I mention to Carl how weird it is .He says you think that's strange you should take a look at the groom.I look over in the corner and there's this skinny white guy,with two horns fastened to his forehead,sticking straight out,like a deranged deer.He's Doing lines of coke with his best man,a husky Asian dude wearing a black cape,a leotard and a top hat.Suddenly the room goes black and a smoke machine is turned on.As the smoke wafted into the slowly turning room,a deep,sinister voice,said over the loud speaker."God's and Godesses of the. Universe,Earth,wind and fire come forth to witness this ribald Union of body heat and souped up soul".The guest had all been given something that looks like sparklers when they entered.The voice told them to take their magic wand and light them up to guide the spirits with their molto mojo.I looked at Carl and he said "Dude you're rolling your eyes again"."I can't help it,",I said."Don't you think this is bizarre?"."Yeah,said Carl,"even for Hollywood,this is some fucked up shit."The vows that came after this was relatively normal.There we're no animals sacrificed.After the ceremony ended, a country Western band played.Then came an Elvis impersonator.He was a black man in his 30's ,wearing a gold lamee jump suit and platform shoes.He took one look at the crowd and said"Shit,I'm the most normal person here!"
The post I'm at at now is a homeowners association in Beverly Hills called the Jacaranda Arms.It 's surrounded by those purple trees, that look beautiful,but smell awful and create a nuisance with people slip sliding all over the sidewalk.The post commander is Dennis Craig,who is a sixty five year old white man,who can't wait to retire on his Social Security and go and live with his son,daughter in law and two grandkids.He calls security the slow death.He says it's no business for a young man like me.Dennis has worked all kinds of security posts from :junk yards,to recycling plants,to office buildings,to film studios,to banks,to newspapers ,and he was sick of it.
It's just so stupid and boring he said After awhile it becomes like a Jim Jarmusch movie,during the parts you sleep through."
Dennis hated kowtowing to rich prima donnas, with no concept how most people lived,who treated security as servants.The only thing that made it somewhat bearable was the tips and Christmas bonuses.But basically he said through all his years,management was in a constant war with security."They get constant abuse from their tenants,and security are the only ones they can vent on"
"And it's usually neurotic women.These bimbos spend their time watching cameras of the security and writing memos.They're never happy."I like Dennis,because he had a Midwest directness that reminded me of my father.Though my dad was from Chicago and Dennis was from Kansas City(God did he know his steaks,We both loved t bones),they could have been brothers.It was like Dennis and I had been friends for years.We both thought religion was a fraud,and we both loved weed.Dennis thought it was weird security companies tested for marijuana,in a field where the guards really needed it to cope with the day to day shit.He even told me how he passed his last two drug tests,with someone else's urine.Dennis claimed he never thought he'd live to be 50,with three bad marriages,a heart attack,and a ton of the herb.
"If I did ,he said I might have taken better care of myself,and I definitely would have saved more money.But right now I'm too tired.When I had the money to travel and do things I didn't have the time,now I have the time,but not the money or energy
".But ,it's ok there's something to be said for sleep and no ambition .A nice easy final glide path can be beautiful".
Dennis hated most of the homeowners in the building.Key on his deplorable list were: George and Jane,two married attorneys .Jane dressed like a hooker and was always berating her husband's sexuality and beating him up. He was one of those dweebs that always wore a bow tie and carried an attached case.He looked like he hadn't slept in days.Every day the police would be called and sometimes Jane would be hauled off to the station.Billy Kedsy,a wimpy little realtor to the stars,who had a pet Chihuahua,he carried everywhere with him and didn't know the meaning of tipping,but he did know how to demand service.Mark Salzman,an agent,big time into cocaine.He was sleays running around the building claiming non existent people were chasing him.At night he could be heard screaming that he was being tortured,even though he was the only one in the condo. And, he especially loathed Mrs.Murphy,who he called Mrs. Asshole, a crazy cunt and the Bitch of Beverly Hills.She was always in everybody else's business.Complaining about non existent rules being broken,and threatening to sue or fire anyone who talked back to her.She thought she looked like Heddy Lamar and always dressed in chiffon.But she was a big,fat blob,who whined in a shrill Midwestern twang
Dennis also hated the other members of the staff,Dale an ex policeman who always played the blue card when he screwed up,claiming he didn't have to be here,and was just working to get out of the house.Dale claimed to have been the personal bodyguard for scads of celebrities.Dennis wondered why he didn't go work for the now or collect some pity money.He suspected that like many security guards his stories were bogus.Maybe he had spent the last year's in a mental institution.Dale seemed to believe he could control the weather,by his communication with avenging angels and he was into wearing crystal,a sure sign of Looney Tunes land.He was also into wrestling and threatening to go cactus Jack on people who pissed him off.
His least favorite member of the staff was Barbara,a good old girl from Florida.Barbara wanted to be a country western,gospel singer,was a big fan of President Trump and was a vegan.Dennis called her a three time loser.He also dubbed her "the gossip monger rampant",due to the fact that she was always spreading viscious ,untrue gossip during her graveyard shift.She was also the chief snitch for Mrs Murphy.Barbara told Dennis she wondered why I couldn't be myself with her and I thought,because I,m just here to do this shitty job and go home,I don't need a crazy,messed up bitch,who I probably disagree with on most .major issues,to be my friend.
A week later Dennis was smoking a cigarette in the alley behind the condo.He had a massive heart attack,and died two days later at Cedars Sinai Hospital.I hated seeing him hooked up to machines and thought what a fucked up way to go. but,at least he didn't want to go. It wasn't like my fucking father putting a gun in his mouth and offing himself .That was really meaningless and it left everybody with guilt.I had never told Dennis how much he was like the father I wish I had and how much he meant to me.I had never asked my father why he was so fucking mean and how I was sorry I hadn't turned out the way he wanted. But,it wasn't easy being me.I found it difficult to understand the rage that could have driven him to do that to his head.He was always cranky, going off on supermarket workers ,waiters,movie box office cashier's etc.But,I never saw him being light or charming
.How could I have known it was so serious.?And, even if I did ,could I have stopped him?My Sister,Coleen,who found his,bloody tissue sprayed all over his Notre Dame memorabilia( which he kept like a shrine of his Alma mater)still blamed me.She said"You we're always such a fuckup,getting expelled from school.soliciting an undercover cop.You could have at least told him you loved him.When I explained to her that I didn't have that kind of relationship with him.Colleen called me inhuman and a monster.Carl was the only one who understood my ambivalent feelings toward my father,when I told him he once said to my mother after he had whipped me with his belt.""My God,what have we created!".
"_Look ,bro , said Carl,"that bastard really damaged you.I mean that kind of shit could scar you for life.But,you've got to be the iron butterfly and fuck him back by being happy."Easier said than done.But,what the hell.I thought he was chickenshit for going that way.If I ever confronted him,I'd tell him I thought he was a fucking coward and he really screwed me up.But,he'd probably say he didn't remember any of the shit,I was talking about.It was all in my mind.Or else he'd scream I was the biggest failure of his life and he really wanted to turn that gun on me.I recently had a dream where I was in a swimming pool,doing laps,when all of a sudden I look up and see my father jumping from the window of a nearby building.He lands in the pool, a few feet from me,but I don't do anything.
I just tread water and watch as others move into help him.I figure I should probably go to my therapist again,but I really don't want to go through all that shit.
right now.
I knew I didn't want to go, like either Dennis or my father.In some way,I felt security was killing me.I had to get out.But how?I felt trapped .
A couple of days later my agent,who I never could get ahold of, told me he had an audition for a big part in a major motion picture.
"It looks good Mikey", he said,"I have a fantastic feeling about this one.All the pieces are coming together.This is the perfect
fit I've been promising".
Could this be the big break,I had been waiting for? Probably,not,I had other big auditions that didn't turn out.Sure things that fizzled.But,maybe this time I could get a semi reprieve from failure and move on from security.Maybe not .
The End
Rayanna Christian is a 22 year old philosophy and creative writing major at Appstate. She is a Boone local, eager to leave small town life. In her limited free time she loves singing and DND. Rayanna can be found @good_gal_rayray on Instagram or emailed at rayannachristian@gmail.com.
Positions of Power
It was between lunch and dinner so the diner was quiet, just the sizzling and clanking from the kitchen. Some kids had put Kung Fu Fighting on the jukebox, a song that had been giving me a six month long headache since it came out. I was in the most expensive suit I owned, hair so gelled it looked nearly blue-black, finished off with superman curl. I spotted Danny from across the room. He sat in the far corner booth, big blue eyes bloodshot, ringed with dark circles, greasy blonde hair. We’d seem like such a strange pair. Danny was terrible at faking it. His elbows we’re propped up on the table, hands tightly clasped, staring at nothing. It had been a month and I’d healed up okay but walking towards him, I felt like I had a limp.
My sister had tried everything to keep me from meeting him: begging, bargaining, threats. I’d even considered lying to her about it but I’d never been good at that. I told her the truth, that she couldn’t possibly understand my need to see him, to settle into the familiar groove of our conversations, tumultuous as they may be. Her and her husband’s biggest struggles were who would pick up the girls from soccer practice, whose fault it was that the turkey burned. Their relationship was uneventful, boring even at times, as she often lamented. She couldn’t possibly know what it was like to carry five years of constant drama, not that she ever had the chance to. She was too strong to tolerate conflict and too mature to engage in drama. Growing up, it left her plenty of time to clean up the messes I created because I lacked that strength.
“You didn’t try to find me at Kimmy’s graduation.”
Danny jumped as I sat down across from him, sitting back with his hands in his lap, licking chapped lips and staring studiously at the table.
“Wasn’t invited.” There were two mugs on the table and he pushed one towards me.
“Like that matters to you.” I sipped the coffee. Two sugars, three creams, like I liked.
Danny’s shoulders rose up to his ears and he ducked his head like he could hide his size in the tiny booth. “Kimmy, she’s… she’s important to you so… so I didn’t want to… you know?”
“I’m sure she’d appreciates that.” I watched my coffee swirl.
Danny clicked his tongue and huffed. “That girl always hated me.”
“Because she knew.” He snapped his head up to meet my eyes and I turned my gaze out the window, taking another sip. “Well, everyone knew but she seemed to be the only person who took issue with it. I tried to hide it from her…” But you made it impossible.
4 years ago, after we moved to that suburban hell, I knelt before the fence and the neighborhood. The sun had set. The summer of 1972 was brutal and heat radiated off the sidewalk underneath me. A flock of little kids flew by on their bikes, rushing to get inside before the streetlights came on. I began slathering white paint onto the graffiti.
Get out fagotts!!
Danny hadn’t wanted to call the police, had lashed out at my suggestion of it. He’d been throwing bricks at cops a year ago at Stonewall so it had been a stupid question. Compounded with the stress of the move, it was no wonder he lost his temper. Keeping stupid questions to myself was an easy way to avoid getting slapped again. Still, the throbbing, burning pain on my cheek was spreading to my eyes and throat.
The red paint wasn’t disappearing, just smearing and turning the fence pink. I could wait for the paint to dry but that would be minutes longer I’d have to stare at it and even then the red would still be there, under layers and layers of white paint. What if it faded? What if it chipped?
“Um...excuse me.”
I looked up to see my new neighbor. At the time, she wasn’t a willowy, charming young woman. She was a knobby kneed, gap toothed, awkward little girl, shyly rocking from foot to foot with her arms behind her back, red curls pressed against her head with a flowered headband. Her eyes widened in shock and she politely looked away while I scrambled to wipe tears from my eyes.
“Hey! Um… Kimmy, right? Kimmy. What, uh… what can I do for you?”
She bit her lip, letting her hand fall from behind her back, a paint brush bouncing against her thigh. “I saw you painting and thought I could help. Some of the boys tagged our mailbox last week and it was a real pain. But I don’t want to bother you.”
Tears threatened again. “I would absolutely love your company, young lady.”
She grinned and plopped down next to me, dipping her brush in the white paint and taking slow, deliberate strokes. The words were now indecipherable but even if they weren’t, she probably wouldn’t understand. Still, I’d spared her the wondering. We worked in silence for a while.
“Why do you live with that guy? Cause you guys are old so why don’t you have wives and kids and stuff?”
I scoffed, snickering incredulously. “Well for one, I am a spry twenty seven, missy.” I nudged her with my shoulder and she let out a flurry of giggles but still stared up at me, expecting an answer. Danny had made me promise no more closets before we moved. I wanted to ask her parents first, get a read on their beliefs, but I’d promised.
“Danny is my partner. My boyfriend.” I cleared my throat, focusing on the painting, watching Kimmy’s nose scrunch up in thought from the corner of my eye. She pursed her lips and nodded, continuing her work.
“That makes sense.”
Danny dragged his menu across the table under his finger. “I… assumed most of the straights wouldn’t, uh… wouldn’t concern themselves with what happened between us.”
“So you did it because you knew you’d get away with it.”
“No!”
That wasn’t the answer I wanted and I knew the explanation that would come next. I set my coffee down as he started.
“I can’t help it, Leo. You know that. It was never anything premeditated or anything like that. I’m just fucked in the head.” He knocked his fist against his temple unnecessarily hard, his restrained hissing bordering on pleading.
“That doesn’t make it ok.” My voice cracked and I bit down on my tongue. I shifted in my seat, pulling my back up straight, trying to acquire the posture of someone righteously angry.
“I know.” Danny deflated. “It’s not an excuse, I know.” He picked up his coffee and drank deeply, watching me over the rim of his mug, expecting me to fill the silence. Even when our relationship status was unquestionable he’d never laid a hand on me in public. I stayed defiantly silent.
I was supposed to have stopped smoking when we moved from New York city upstate. But Danny was supposed to have stopped drinking and considering his broken promise had lead to my throbbing black eye, I felt somewhat justified in escaping out into the yard with my stash of menthols while he passed out, sprawled across our bed.
The sky was cloudless, a smattering of stars you never saw in the city above, a cool breeze spreading goosebumps across my skin, signaling summer would be over soon. I propped myself up against the fence, lit a cigarette and groaned as it filled my lungs.
“You smoking in secret too, huh?”
I jumped, turning towards the source of the gravelly, Boston tinted voice. On the other side of the fence, approaching me with a half burned cigarette between his teeth, a stout man, bald with a neat red beard wearing a wife beater and khakis.
“Makes me feel like I’m in highschool,” he chuckled. He leaned against the other side of the fence, staring off into the street.
“I, uh…” I cleared my throat. My good eye was facing him and I turned my head just a bit to make sure it stayed that way. “I never smoked in high school. Picked it up in college. I was trying to quit but…” I chuckled, tapping some of the ash onto the ground and taking another long drag.
“My little girl just started highschool and I told her ‘I ever catch you smoking, you’re living in a shoebox.” He shook his head.
“Your little girl? Kimmy, right? I met her a couple days ago. Sweet girl.”
“Mm.” He nodded, pulling the cigarette from between his teeth. “Yeah, she told me. You’re uh… Leroy?”
“Leo.”
“Yeah. Told me you were queer, moved in her with your uh, your buddy, right?”
I closed my eyes and lips around the cigarette, taking a deep pull and realizing I’d burned all the way through it. I sighed, tucked the butt into my pocket and pulled another cigarette and lighter from the other. “Yes, that’s right. I apologize if telling her was-”
“Nah, I don’t give a shit.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Kimmy’s mom and I, we ended up shacked up with some real hippy, free love types when we was broke and Kimmy was real little. Got no problem with it, especially one’s like you. Now those crazies down in Grenich, that’s a different story. But you’re alright, despite the fact you must have rocks in your head to move here.”
I made a sputtering noise, a mix of a cough, a laugh and general shock. “We wanted to get out of the city,” I started once I regained my composure. “We picked here because I got a job with the paper. I thought that by this time in my life I’d be teaching but for obvious reason, that didn’t happen.”
The man clicked his tongue and turned to face me. “You went to school to teach?”
“Yeah.” I snorted. “I know.”
“Think you could tutor my Kimmy?”
“P-pardon?” I turned towards him, brow knotted up on my forehead.
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah, my Kimmy’s just like her mother was. Dumb as rocks and beautiful. Last tutor I got her tried grabbing her breasts but that’s not an issue with you.”
There was no need to correct his misconception if it would open me up to pedophilic acusations. My chest was suddenly light, like when I first assisted in 5th grade class, the exact opposite of how it felt when my advisor begged my to pick a “man’s major”.
“O-of course. I’d love to!”
He smiled and offered me a hand over the fence which I shook vigorously.
“It’s a deal, uh… Leo.”
“Deal Mr…”
“Call me, Julian, ok? Don’t make me feel old.” His tight grin faltered as his gaze shifted and I realized it was focused on my swollen eye. I pulled my arm back, turning my face away from him as I face flushed. A snorting laugh knocked me from my shame.
“I lived with a couple of guys when I was young. We were always getting into fights, beating the shit out of each other. None of us even wanted to screw each other! Can’t imagine the kind of mess you people get into.” He shook his head, shoulders bouncing with his laughter. He took one last drag of his cigarette and put it out on his side of the fence. “Come talk to me tomorrow. We’ll set up a schedule. Sleep, well, ok?”
He was already halfway across his yard before the cold, naked feeling subsided enough for me to chirp out “Goodnight!” at his back.
The night’s stillness was oppressive and significantly colder. Tomorrow, I’d throw away all the cigarettes I’d squirreled away. Tonight though, quitting could wait.
Danny scowled into his mug, setting it down and reaching for the sugar.“So um… have you been… you look good. You always look good.” His head lolled to the side as he stared sleepily at me and the exact type of warmth that I didn’t want welled up in my stomach. “Your hair, looks good. I like the uh…” He waved his hand in front of his forehead. I looked away and Danny cleared his throat. “But, uh, have you been alright?”
Everything I wanted to say pooled up in my throat as bruises that had just faded began to ache again. He was dumping sugar into his coffee and stopped when he saw me watching, putting the sugar back like he’d been caught.
“I’ve been staying with Summer. Been good to see my nieces.”
“That’s good. Good.” The cup trembled in his hands. His skin was dry.
“You don’t mean that. If you meant it, you would’ve let me go see her once in a while.”
“I never stopped you from seeing her,” Danny said, lip twitching in a lopsided scowl.
“Everytime I brought it up you’d tell me how controlling and bitchy she is or how her ‘perfect heterosexual lifestyle would mess up my worldview.” The words ached coming out but without the looming inevitability of being behind closed doors with Danny, I couldn’t stop the flow of resentment.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to have a relationship with your sister,” Danny sighed.
“Oh really?”
“You just… you depended on her. You even told me. You asked her if you thought you should be dating me!”
“She’s my big sister,” I said. “Of course I ask her for advice!”
Danny rolled his eyes and massaged his forehead. “Is it so wrong that I wanted you to depend on me?”
“Depend on you? And only you?” I had to whisper to keep from yelling.
“Yes! I-” He spoke quickly and fell silent when he realized the trap he’d walked into. He turned red as he scrambled to recover. “Leo, I didn’t mean-”
“How dare you?”
Two years ago Danny went on his first college speaking tour, signing books, debating preachers, inspiring young LGBT kids at colleges and receiving daily death threats. Days after he returned, while he was out running errands, I went to the doctor. When I came back I destroyed a path from the door to our bedroom. I tore down paintings, capsized the bookshelf, smashed his favorite beers onto the kitchen floor, knocked everything off of his side of the sink. He found me in the bedroom, illuminated by what little afternoon light pierced through the drawn curtains, lying in a pile of his clothes.
“What the hell?” Danny said, too shocked to be angry yet.
“Who was he?” My throat was cracked from wailing.
“Leo, what the hell are you-”
“Was it one of the other authors or just someone in a bar or what? That why you didn’t call me every night like you said you would?” I’d cried every tear I had and was now dry on the inside, crumbling. For a long time Danny was silent, ruling out the possibility that the doctor had made a mistake.
“How did you know?”
“You gave me gonorrhea! You dirty piece of shit!” I threw the first thing my hands landed on but it was only a shirt. “Tell me who he is!”
“Kitten...” He had his arms crossed, staring at the floor.
“Tell me!” I swore my throat was bleeding.
Danny took a deep breath, pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “At one of the talks… he was, uh… he was a student.”
“A student?” I could feel my body bulging against my clothing. My smile lines tore down to the bone.
Danny swallowed loudly. His fingers dug into his forearm. I hoped they would leave a bruise. “He was… a fan of my stuff… he was maybe, like… 18? 19?”
“So you wanted a fucking child over me?” All those nights in New York’s gay bars I had fawned at the impact Danny had on kids, the way closeted teenagers with their first mesh shirt and a pierced ear flocked around him, shyly offering him copies of his articles and a pen, tearfully asking for advice which he would happily give them while the club danced around them. In the beginning, during these night, I would usually go home alone. I thought he did too.
He chose then to look at me. “It wasn’t about you, Leo. You weren’t there and-”
“I didn’t go because I already asked off work for two weeks straight to celebrate your birthday! Your fucking 31st birthday, you pig!” I stumbled to my feet, my body trembling as I walked over to him.
Danny threw his arms down at his sides. “Leo, listen! He was a fan, he followed everything I did and I was by myself-”
I stormed up to him, jamming a finger into the exposed flesh of his chest. “I’ve worshipped the ground you walked on from the moment we fucking met and this-”
“Well you fucking shouldn’t!” I knew the type of yelling that was built to rattle me and this wasn’t it. It was the 3rd, maybe 4th time I’d ever seen him cry. There was a pink mark where my finger had been. “I’m a shitty, horrible person and for some reason you decided to stay and I don’t know why!” He pressed the heels of his hands into his temples, pacing away from me, crimson crawling up the back of his neck. “You just… you can’t fucking leave Leo. What would...Fuck!” He wrapped his arms around himself, digging his nails into his forearms, leaving long red scrapes. I closed my eyes, swallowed.
“Make up the couch and leave me alone.”
Danny dropped his gaze to his lap, leaning back in his seat. A thick silence fell over us. The waitress came over, filled our coffees, nodded politely as I handed her the unopened menus.
Danny finally spoke once she had left. “It was just sex. That’s it.”
“And that makes it better?”
Danny shook his head. “No. No it doesn’t. It was wrong but… I thought it was one of those things…” He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “...I thought you knew.”
I grimaced. A second later, my face fell slack. I tried to cover the surely weak expression behind my mug, sipping the bitter, nearly black fresh coffee.
“How many times?”
Danny took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his cheeks puffing out as he did so, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. “None before we moved and nothing in the house.” He looked up at me and I scowled back, lest he think I was satisfied. “Eight different guys. Always while I was out of town for work. Usually only once.”
There was no need to ask ‘who’. I had a clear picture in my head of Danny’s type along with a detailed list of how that picture differed from me that I’d been building for three years.
“You really didn’t know…” Danny’s voice trailed off to a whisper as his hand fell from the back of his neck.
I jerkily shook my head, swallowed and cleared my throat. “I trusted you. It’s what you do when you love someone.”
“For the record,” Danny said. “...I never actually thought you cheated. It was just something that would come out of my mouth when I wasn’t being rational. It only ever seriously crossed my mind once.”
I looked up, fixing my mouth to ask ‘when’ but the flush on his cheek and his pinched mouth confirmed that his embarrassment was fresh.
“Oh God! Danny, come on!”
“I know you didn’t!” He held up his hands, eyes darting around, looking at anything but my eyes.
My face ached with a scowl. He was gonna give me wrinkles far too soon. I wanted to speak but all I had on my tongue were sharp demands of why he thought so little of me, why he would consider such an awful thing. But I already knew the answer to those questions. Asking would only cause a spark of pain and shame that would ignite Danny’s anger.
“You’ve got a fucked up sense of morals.” I picked up my coffee, swirling it back and forth. “And don’t even say it. I get it, ok? I know why but it doesn’t make how you act ok.”
Danny had returned from a tour for his newest book, When The Gays Rose Up: Looking Back on 1969, to a very successful spring cleaning and for the past week, his mood reflected my success. He’d only gone through one twelve pack, spent the evening snuggled up with me and our attention starved golden retriever, Bodie, on the couch, catching up on Charlie’s Angels. For the first time in along time, my body was clear of bruises I hadn’t asked for. I was in the bedroom, scanning over Danny’s newest manuscript with a red pen when Bodie skittered through the door, yipping and whimpering as he nosed at my thigh.
“What’s up with you?” I scratched behind his ear but he continued to jump nervously back and forth. I tried to hold him still to examine for injuries when a sound caught my ear. When it finally registered, my body went cold. It was yelling.
I rushed down the stairs, Bodie following behind me until right before I got to the door, tucking himself in the corner. Danny was out on the porch, roaring in the face of a middle aged man, tall, blonde and broad and red with rage as he yelled back at Danny.
“What is going on?” I stepped between the two men, pressing a hand to Danny’s chest, trying and failing to push him back. The blonde man’s eyes narrowed on me and he brought a finger to my face.
“You’re the one. You sick son of a bitch!” His voice was low and thunderous.
I reeled back, mouth falling open, racking my brain to find out how I’d offended this stranger. Danny grabbed my attention with a tight hand on my shoulder.
“This man says you molested his son,” Danny said with the cool matter-of-factness he used in front of others to communicate a threat to only me. I looked up at him, his eyes locked firmly ahead at the man, nose held high in defiance.
“Sir, I - I’ve never- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My son is not a liar!” he spat. “He told me you lured him in without him knowing you’re a faggot, giving him gifts and favors and touching on him. You sick bastard!” He made a move to push me and Danny shoved me back.
“You try that one more time.”
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Let’s calm down!” I cried, once again stepping between the two men. “Sir, your son’s name is Kyle, right?”
His scowl deepened and he nodded stiffly.
“Ok. Look,I’m sorry if I made him uncomfortable but I had no ill intentions with your son. It seems we just had a terrible misunderstanding.” Maybe it was the light but I thought I saw some tension ease from his forehead. “Now, if you’d like, we can sit down and discuss-”
“Don’t grovel to this homophobic piece of shit.”
“You shut your fucking mouth you degenerate!” The man advanced but Danny stayed solid, a twisted grin on his face.
“You wanna get your ass beat by a fairy? Get the fuck off my property.”
The man blanched in the face of the behemoth of a faggot in front of him and turned with his tail between his legs, flipping us off as he did.
“God damnit.” I stormed back into the house, Bodie colliding my legs as soon as I did so, whining and jumping up on me. I knelt down, holding him tight against my chest. “I know, Bodie, I know. You hate the fighting, don’t you? Poor thing, it’s ok.” I pressed my face into his back and groaned. “Danny, we could’ve resolved that like adults if-” I looked up. Danny was staring down at me, arms crossed, eyebrows cocked. It took me a moment to recognize the face and when I did, it struck me hard enough to draw tears.
“Danny...no…”
He relaxed and turned to walk away.
“What the fuck Dany?” I shrieked to his back. He stopped. “A fucking kid? You would even consider…” Bodie whimpered. I was squeezing him too hard. It had been a good week and I’d hoped it would last a little longer.
“I don’t like kids, Danny! I’m not like you!”
Danny closed his eyes and swallowed,nodding stiffly. “I have… no right…” He took deep breaths in between rehearsed words. “...to be...rough with you… like I have been.”
At first, I was stupid enough to fix my mouth to accept his apology. Then he looked up, showing me those eyes, dumb and desperate.
“Rough with...Why do you think I left? What do you think happened that night?”
He put on a childlike pout, hardened by messy stubble. “I don’t remember,ok? I was wasted! I know I woke up and you were gone and there was... some blood. Look, I know it’s not right, Kitten.”
I put my coffee down, afraid to spill it. The absurdity sitting in front of me seemed entirely alien and simultaneously like my life began and ended with his. He stared at me, the lines in his face growing ever deeper. Silently giving him dirty looks always ended poorly and I dared to test his resolve.
“What?” he finally hissed.
“You’ve been rough with me for five years. And you think that’s the reason Ieft?”
“I don’t know Leo!” He leaned forward across the table. “I’ve been trying to figure out what changed that you’d disappear out of nowhere and I don’t get it. So if you got something to say to me, say it!’
I reeled back in my seat. My jaw was clamped shut. I folded my hands in my lap and considered keeping my thoughts to myself. He was lucky to have been drunk enough not to remember so why should both of us suffer with the memory? And if I said nothing he wouldn’t agonize over the details anymore. He’d simply chalk it up to me being over dramatic and trying to make him feel bad.
But I hadn't told anyone yet. Summer and the doctor has both made assumptions of varying accuracy.The truth still resided in my lungs, pressed up against my chest and had been choking me for a month.
“Summer made me go to the doctor.” I twiddled my thumbs, dragging over torn nail beds. “I had to get stitches.” Danny was seething at my inability to get to the point. He could wait. “There were these med students. I heard the doctor outside my room, showing them my file. He said ‘we can’t forget the severe health risk associated with homosexuality. This is the kind of damage they do to each other co-” I caught the broken word and a sob with a hand clamped over my mouth. If I waited to compose myself, I’d never say it so I sniffed and roughly slapped a tear from my cheek.
“...consensually.”
After it happened I packed six changes of clothes along with Bodie’s collar and went to the CVS, the drugstore we always went to because of its balance between convenient location and hateful cashiers. Sometimes, when we bought alcohol together, Danny would sidle up behind me and whisper in my ear.
“Think the cashier knows what this’ll do to my little lightweight? Wanna tell him how it'll loosen you up, Kitten?” The whole thing was scandalous. I’d swat him away. People stared. We laughed.
That night I bought a bottle of rose, ibuprofen, isopropyl alcohol, two ice packs, cotton swabs and feminine napkins. The cashier rang me up quickly in order to get the battered fag out of his face.
I got a hotel and constructed a story before I called Summer.
There had been a fight about money. I fell down the stairs. I was lonely.
I knew she didn’t believe me when she said she’d be up the next morning but I knew she wouldn’t dare call me out on it without proof.
She got there earlier than expected. I answered her at the door in a tank top and shorts so most of the damage was visible. She glowed like a goddess, neat and painted with wolfish eyes. I went numb with the strike of seeing her but before I could collect my senses, she shoved past me.
“Summer! Wait!” I tried to scramble in front of her but her eyes were already on the floor. She moved the pair of ruined boxers around with the toe of her shoe. I held my breath.
“I’m going to get your things.” She turned to walk out, already digging in her purse. She’d use pepper spray first, then improvise with whatever she could find in the house. Even when the boys my age began to dwarf her, she was there to defend me.
“Summer don’t!”
“Why shouldn’t I kill that bastard? What else am I supposed to do? Why didn’t you tell me?” Summer never cried but her eyes were as red as her lips as she stood shaking before me.
“Because I…” I let out a shaky huff, wrapping my arms around my middle. “Because I needed to deal with it myself a-and… You wouldn’t get it!” My throat ached as he cried out at her. “You wouldn’t understand that h-he… he just...things are complicated and I love him Sissy and I’m so stupid.” I pressed the heels of my hands into my burning eyes. “I’m sorry, Sissy, I’m sorry! I just need you now and I don’t know what to do so please!”
She looked me up and down, weighing her options. In the end, she wrapped her arms around me and my wailing buckled my knees. She sat on the bed and I clung to her, feeling small in her arms but horrified to find I was not as safe as I’d once felt. Summer’s arms weren’t big enough for much more than skinned knees.
I looked up. Danny had gone deathly pale, a white knuckle grip on the table, eyes just barely focused on me. “What are you saying?” he breathed.
I knew it would push him over the edge but I was so close to feeling relief and maybe I deserved to be selfish just this once.
“I never thought that you, of all people… you should know better than anyone how damaging that is. And you did it anyway because you only care about yourself!”
All at once, Danny tore out of the booth, hands clutched over his mouth as he bolted to the bathroom. I bowed my head and tried not to think about him hunched over a toilet, blood vessels bursting across his face, tears streaming down his cheeks. I tried not to imagine my hands in his hair, holding it back when it was long, petting it when it was short. I sat in the booth, staring ahead, sipping my now tasteless coffee.
I’d just started putting my nieces’ artwork on the fridge after a week long trip to see Summer when I heard a hard knock on my apartment door, surely the only person I’d called once I got off the plane.
I threw open the door and barely had the time to crack a smile before Danny lip’s were on mine, grinning and hungry. I threw my arms around his neck and Danny grabbed my thighs, lifting me off the ground and kicking the door closed behind me.
“I missed you,” he snarled against my lips as he stumbled the short distance from the door to the bedroom.
“I was only gone a week,” I giggled. He tossed me onto my bed, the old springs whining as I landed. “You could’ve got plenty of ass in that time.”
“Not yours.”
It took effort to let the accidentally loving statement pass without acknowledgement but I was too excited to risk ruining the moment. Danny straddled my legs and leaned forward, tugging at my belt. “Whatya want?”
Dizzy with arousal, I reached my hand down, stroking the apple of his cheek and sliding my hand to the top of the head, insisting with a nudge. “You could suck me-”
All at once, Danny was off the bed, his excited grin now a deep, fiery scowl, arms shaking at his sides, muscles bulging in his neck as red creeped up his face.
“No! What the fuck, no!” He stumbled back towards the door. “I’m not your fucking whore!” His voice broke as he screamed, spit flying from his mouth.
“D-danny?”
“You want some soft faggot to-” He turned from me, rocking foot to foot, grasping wildly at his head and chest. “-to fucking suck your dick and serve you, get someone else but not- Fuck!” He grit his teeth, breaths coming out in harsh, shallow pants.
I sat up, swinging my legs off the side of the bed and waddling towards him, holding my pants up with one hand, reaching towards him with the other.
“Danny, baby, calm down. Let’s-” I placed my hand on his forearm.
With an ugly, animal growl, Danny swung around, shoving his arm into my chest. I flew back, colliding with a gasp against the bed frame. Pain radiated through my back and the breath was knocked from my lungs as I crumpled onto the ground and Danny escaped into the living room.
Nothing was broken, not even sprained. I’d only be a little sore in the morning. Danny was hurting far worse than me, worse than I’d ever seen him. I tilted my head back to keep tears from running and took slow, purposeful breaths until the banging and slamming from the other room subsided. I crept in as silently as possible across the hardwood floor.
Danny was sitting on the couch, back to me, a glass in his hand half filled with what I assumed was my good whiskey, the liquid inside splashing back and forth with his violent tremors. The wood creaked under my feet and Danny sighed.
“You’re not gonna-”
“I don’t want to talk you into it,” I said as I rounded the couch. Danny’s eyes were red, jaw clenched, refusing to look at me. “Not at all. You don’t even have to tell me if you’re uncomfortable about it but-”
“But what?” He finally looked at me, tilting his head back and flaring his nostrils.
I knelt down, placing my hands on his knees. “You’re not just a fuck buddy, Danny. You’re my friend. So I care when something’s wrong.”
His legs tensed but he didn’t push me away, his eyes narrow, searching my face for an eternity until he tilted his head back and exhaled.
“Had to hook for five years when I got kicked out. Sometimes the Johns didn’t think I was worth the money so they took it for free.” His voice was artificially casual, accompanied by a stiff shrug. “I don’t bottom and I don’t suck dick because I don’t have to anymore.”
My heart climbed into my throat to choke me. Danny hated being treated softly but I could help but reach forward to hold his face in my hands. “Danny…”
“Happened to plenty other queer kids…” he grumbled, tilting his head back down but still avoiding my eyes.
“Doesn’t make it any less awful. I’m so, so sorry, Danny.” I searched his face and for all his soft, curved features I couldn’t imagine him young. Maybe that was the worst tragedy of it.
Danny’s nostrils flared. He peeked at me, then back at the ceiling. “Thanks,” he hissed.
I sighed and crawled forward into his lap, snickering at his half hearted protests as he scrambled to set his glass down before I knocked it out of his hand.
“Always crawling up in my space. You’re like a goddamn cat,” he mumbled, resting his chin on the top of my head as I settled against his chest.
“I’m an affectionate man.” I pressed my face into him, breathing in his familiar scent, now somehow lacking it’s usual erotic flavor but no less comforting. “And...it’s good to feel you relax.” I waited for him to push me away. He didn’t.
Danny slid back into the booth, his mouth still damp, pale and shivering. He ran his hands across his thighs, staring at the ground. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve anyone but… especially you.” He rocked back and forth, sucking air between clenched teeth. “I love you, Leo. God I-”
“Stop,” I pressed my palm into my face. “Please stop, Danny. It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?” He leaned across the table. “If it’s not about me loving you and you loving me then what’s the point?”
I grit my teeth and closed my eyes. “Even if you love me...” I didn’t want him to see me cry. He’d seen it enough. “You were so cruel Danny. That’s the point.”
“Then why stay?” He snarled, the muscles in his jaw flexing, arms tightening around his chest. “Why be with me in the first place?”
“Because things weren’t always bad!” It came out too easily but he didn’t seem convinced. “You were my best friend! We had fun, so much fun.” I propped my head on my hand, caught his eyes and watched as his tight expression faltered and his arms began to relax.
“I can’t believe they can actually legally evict you for that!”
“It happens.”
I thwapped a duvet onto the couch and took to fluffing the pillows unnecessarily. I’d cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the apartment but something was still telling me that everything was wrong.
“Is it stuffy in here?” I turned to him. “I can open a window.”
Danny leaned against the wall, the smallest smile on his lips. He looked me up and down, bit his lip and nodded. “That’d be nice.”
Tearing my burning face away from his vision, I scurried to the living room window, prying the old rusty thing open. I wasn’t exactly humble. When I turned 15, I lost my baby fat, a girl said I looked like Elvis, and my head never fully deflated. But this was the first time since college a man had looked at me this hard and suddenly I was flustered. “I really respect what you did out there at Stonewall. It’s a shame that it had such awful consequences but I really admire you for that, Danny.”
Suddenly, Danny was behind me, hands latched onto my hips, freezing me in place.
“So is respect for my work the only reason you let me crash here?” His scalding hot breath poured over the back of my neck. The women I’d dated had always been coy, never initiating sex or even hinting at it until I did and I was beginning to understand why. I swallowed, still fiddling with the window.
“You’re..” I cleared my throat, took a quivering breath. “...awfully bold.” His fingers crept under the hem of my shirt. “That’s usually my job.”
“Well that’s awkward.” Danny twirled me around, slotting his knee between me legs. He was burning and I hoped he didn’t notice how I was melting. “It’s mine too.”
I’d never imagined I’d be able to touch him and yet here he was, broad and intimidating. I slipped my hands behind my back to hide the shaking and ducked my head in hopes of hiding my assuredly dopey smile.
“What made you so sure…”
“Straight men don’t let gay men crash on their couches. You also haven’t punched me yet so…”
I buried a giggle in my shoulder, bit my lip in attempts to compose myself. Slowly, I brought my hand from behind my back, sliding my fingertips across the veins in his forearms, up his shoulder. “In defense of my innocence, I really did just want to help you out. I didn’t plan for this.” I draped my arm around the back of his neck, pulling myself towards him. His tongue darted out to wet his lips and I held myself back. I may not have had the upper hand but I could still maintain a little control if I made him come to me.
“Well lucky you because I did,” he snarled as he pulled me flush against his body and descended upon me with a wicked grin.
“Yeah, you really fucked my life up.” His lips twitched up at the edges and the warmness of his voice flooded my head. There was little I could do to stop my adolescent grinning.
“Whatya mean?”
Danny shrugged and motioned with his chin out the windows. “You think I’d ever consider this kind of life without you? House in suburbia, white picket fence, dog…” His smile fell and he cleared his throat. My dizziness subsided and I was oppressively sober. I lifted my head from my hand.
“I’m sorry about what I said back then. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
Danny shook his head. “No, it was.”
“Danny....”
I wasn’t allowed to shower before leaving the gym. Danny was convinced (not incorrectly) that the local gym was filled with closeted men and if I’d been unfaithful, he would know. So I drove home, crusted with dry sweat, dreading the three-times-a-week ritual of stripping naked and maneuvering into various position while Danny examined me for foul play.
When I parked in the driveway Bodie wasn’t immediately at the car door whimpering for me. I opened it, peeking around for him as I stepped out. It was only 8, early for Danny to bring Bodie into the house. I shut the door and started towards the door. The street lights illuminated something in the corner of my eye, shimmering gold.
Bodie was lying on his side, motionless, a puddle of vomit around his head, an empty bottle of antifreeze next to him.
I through myself forward onto the ground, gathering him up into my arms. He didn’t wriggle for more attention or lap at my face. He wasn’t warm and pulsing with energy. My throat suddenly ached. I must’ve screamed because soon Danny was standing over me and several porch lights down the street had turned on.
“Holy shit, Kitten. I’m so sorry.” Danny’s voice grew closer and closer.
“Get away from us!” I shouted, jerking away from his voice, squeezing Bodie’s body to my chest. “This is all your fault!” I’d just wanted to be kind, to make friends in a new town with the man I loved, to be a good influence and a safe place for kids like I needed so badly when I was young. “I hate you! It’s all your fault!”
“No! No! No! Daddy!” From past the fence, Kimmy’s voice rung out. “Daddy! Give me the keys! It was Kyle or his Dad or his brothers or someone! I know it was! I’m gonna go kill him! Give me the keys!”
“It ain’t our business, Kim.” Julian’s voice was low but forceful. “People are gonna believe what they believe! Those are grown men over there. They know that.”
I pulled my face from the pillow of Bodie’s fur and looked over the fence, catching Kimmy and her dad’s eyes. Kimmy’s eyes were red, tears streaming down her face, shiny under the streetlights and I hoped those tears were only due to the drama of the situation and had nothing to do with me, that she would run off to her room to sob the night away, that she wouldn’t throw away a highschool sweetheart because of the choices of her tutor.
She turned to her father, pulled her shoulders back, transforming from a girl to a woman for a brief and beautiful instant. “I hate you.” She tore away from him, running onto the sidewalk and through our fence, barreling through the yard to throw herself across my back, arms tight around my neck.
We both sobbed “I’m so sorry.”
“If I wasn’t an asshole, it would've never escalated like that.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hell, if we’d never gotten together you would’ve stayed with that girl, popped out a few babies and never experienced any of this shit.” He huffed a humorless laugh as he ran his fingers over his eyes.
“We weren’t ever gonna work out.” My coffee was hot and full again. I took a long sip. My ex was a sweet girl, a girl I probably would’ve stayed friends with. But her breakdown after she found out I was dating a man had ruined her for Danny and thus for me. “You finally admit I’m not just a tratorious, self hating gay man?”
“I just didn’t want you to leave me for a woman!” He ran a hand through his hair. The few greys there were hidden by the bright blonde. “Do you see how humiliating that would be for me?”
“Well you’re welcome for being a good prop for you activism,” I spat and felt immediately guilty. Then guilty for feeling guilty.
The day before, a hulking blonde man with an earing had collided with me on the way out of my office. He had been fresh from a screaming match with my boss and now he was coming over to my apartment. I was beginning to see why everyone said I was “too nice” for New York City and had warned me against moving. I leaned back on my hideous green futon, holding up the manuscript he’d given me. Queer America: A Collection by Daniel Mathers. I had promised him I’d read the first couple stories and give general feedback but that quickly turned into me devouring the thing over night. I was heavy with sleep deprivation but still buzzed with energy awaiting his arrival. When I heard a hard knock at the door I bolted to the door.
“Daniel! You made it. Come in, come in!”
“If you’re gonna call me Daniel, I’m gonna call you Leonardo.”
“Danny. Come in.”
He mosied in, eyeing my apartment that was impressive for New York, garbage anywhere else, hands shoved in his pockets. I didn’t own a TV, only the futon, 6 overflowing bookshelves and a stack of records nearly touching the ceiling. I waited for him to say something, cleared my throat when he didn't.
“I’ve been really excited to meet with you today!” I gingerly lifted the manuscript off of the futon, running my hand over the cover page. “I have a few questions but-”
“Whose this?” Danny picked up a framed picture of Summer and I from a beach trip a year ago. “Doesn’t look like that girlfriend of yours.” He set the picture back down, scanning slowly over the rest of my photos. “Got a lot of her here.”
“She’s my older sister,” I chuckled, walking up next to him, admiring the pictures I usually overlooked. It was the only proof I had that Summer did anything but sunbathe at the beach. We were both dripping wet, her blonder hair slicked against her head. I was grinning, squeezing her around the waist and gazing at her while she stared through the camera. “Girlfriends tend to be pretty… transient for me so I don’t put up many pictures of them. No offense to my Shelby! Shelby’s great.” She had countless polaroids of the two of us at her place so why would I need any?
“Hmm.” Danny nodded to himself, playing idly with a long blonde curl by his ear. “I’ve got 7 siblings, all older. Don’t really talk to them though.”
“That’s-”
“So. My manuscript?” Danny turned towards me, pulling his shoulders back so he towered over me.
I grinned, squeezing the stack of papers to my chest. “Before I say anything else, this is… incredible. But as far as your struggles to get it published… I hope you don’t take this the wrong way-”
“Only if you mean it the wrong way.”
“What’s your highest level of education?” I asked slowly, shrinking into my shoulders as I kept his eye, gnawing my lip. “Only because some of the grammatical issues would suggest… again, let me say you are a talented writer but-”
“I never finished high school.” He said it cooly, though his eyes drifted from mine. “Got kicked out when I was 15.”
My heart shuttered. The manuscript felt heavier. “Incredible.” He looked at me with a furrowed brow and I cleared my throat, shaking myself back into composure. “Anyway, I can help. This type of editing is right up my alley.”
“Oh yeah?” Danny crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles in his forearms bulging and veiny. “And how much is that gonna cost me?”
“Consider it a passion project.”
“I know you think I’m just some pandering, mainstream conformist…” My face and chest burned, my hands quivered. “...who doesn’t care about the gay community or being progressive…” I wasn't a particularly strong man but I wondered if the mug in my hand might shatter under my grip as I struggled to suppress my pride and get out what I actually wanted to say.
“I never regretted coming out of the closet for you,” I said through my teeth. “Never.”
“Even after everything?” Danny scoffed. “You’re soft, Kitten. You’re not built for hate.”
I opened the door to find Kimmy on the porch with a splitting grin, flanked by an entourage of 5 high schoolers, 3 girls, 2 boys, shyly peeking at me over her shoulders.
“What is this?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“They didn’t believe me that my tutor makes the best lemon meringue,” she said with an innocent pout. “Really, I was helping your reputation so you’re welcome.”
I snorted, pinching the bridge of my nose. “What am I gonna do with you? Alright, let’s see it!” I extended my hand. “Lemon meringue is for A students only.”
Kimmy thrust a piece of paper into my hand, bouncing on her toes as she watched me look over it as torturously slow as possible.
“Kimmy… how do you get a C in gym?”
Her smile fell and one of the girls leaned over her shoulder. “Because she’d rather look cute then wear gym clothes!”
I folded the sheet back up. “Fair enough. You all-”
“You have a dog!” One of the girl squealed, lurching forward past Kimmy.
Bodie let out a yelp from behind me as the girl approached, forcing his way between my legs, tail between his. The girl reeled back with a guilty frown.
“It’s ok. He’s just so skittish.” I knelt down, burying my hand in the golden fur around his neck. “It’s ok Bodie. They’re nice.”
Kimmy smiled, making her way towards the door with the others in tow. I stuck my arm out to block them. “Hey, hey, hey! I’m doing spring cleaning and I don’t want any grubby fingerprints. Stay out here.”
Twenty minutes later, the kids has taken up the porch steps, watching one of the boys stumble through a magic trick. Kimmy sat next to me in a rocking chair, inhaling her large slice of lemon meringue while I sorted through a box of records, intent to have the task done by the end of the day. Out in the yard, one of the boys, a tall, broad blonde, was sprawled out playing with Bodie who had decided the boy was the least threatening of the bunch.
“That blonde boy, is that the one you’ve been talking about?”
“Shut up! Yes…” Kimmy pursed her lips together and flushed pink. “His name is Kyle.” The name dripped off her tongue like she couldn’t bear to part with it.
“Graduating is a good time for a love confession.”
She wrinkled her nose, hiding her red face in her shoulders. She took a deep breath to regain her composure, looking around. “Where’s Danny? I’m sure he wouldn’t let you have a bunch of kids on his property?” She picked up her coke and took a deep swig, probably to wash the acid from her mouth.
“Book tour.” No need in arguing and riling her up or making the mistake of telling her not to bother with adult business.
“Mr. Leo, sir.” Kyle trotted up the stairs, Bodie at his heels. “Your dog is so nice!” His eyes narrowed on the stack of records collecting at my sides and suddenly widened. “Whoah! Is that Grateful Dead?”
I lifted the record up. “You like them? I’m culling my record collection. Want it?” I offered it out to him and he pulled his hand back, shaking his head.
“Oh no sir! I-I mean, I love them but I don’t have any money-”
“Then just take it.” I thrust it towards him. “I don’t have the patience for yard sales.”
His hands fell to his side and he licked his lips. “That’s...I don’t even know you, man!” He flashed an awkward, lopsided smile and looked to Kimmy.
“He’s not going to take no for an answer,” she teased.
I stood, thrusting the record into the boy’s chest. “I’ve got 6 more inside, come on.” I waved for him to follow and headed inside. After a moment a set of quick footsteps followed behind me. I lead him to the record shelf, locating the other records in my alphabetically organized collection, running my fingers against them.
“They’re all yours.” I stepped back next to him. He stared nervously ahead and I finally gave him a small push on the back towards the shelf. He took the records as if they were made of glass, holding them to his chest and grinning in awe.
“How can I repay you, sir?”
I snorted, placing my hand on his shoulder and walking him back towards the door. “First, you can stop calling me sir like I’m an old man. And if something else comes up, I’ll let you know.”
“That’s why-” I looked up. His eyes were big and blue and sparkling in that particular light. I looked down at my lap. “That’s why I admired you so much. Even before things got bad, even before we were together, you were always so strong. I looked up to you.”
Danny snorted and I snapped my head up. A harsh smirk that didn’t reach his eyes sat on his lips. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes I do.” I held his gaze until the smirk fell.
Danny picked up his coffee. “I only did what I did for you.,” he said, barely audible as he muffled it into his coffee.
“For me?” I shifted in my seat, a hand slipping over my tumultuous stomach. Now wasn’t the time to feel light and young and silly.
“Anarchist rebellion is way more fun....” He set the mug down and ran his finger over the rim. “But then you came along and you wanted all that classic American dream type shit. So I thought if I could help be a part of normalizing gay life you could, ya know… you could have that. That wasn’t always my goal, you know that.”
Danny cleaned the mess I made the night before, slept on the couch and left before I woke up. On the kitchen counter was a sticky note.
Picking up the anti-biotics. Be back around noon. I love you.
I tried to get dressed. Most of my clothes were old man clothes though and the others looked like a poor attempt to look hip. I sat on the couch in my pajamas, put a splash of whiskey in my coffee and sat in front of the TV until I heard a commotion outside.
Out in the yard, Danny was facing away from the house, towards a jumping, giddy Kimmy.
“Leo’ll probably wanna keep him in the house. Depends on how big he gets.” Danny’s voice was tight and awkward but kind and Kimmy had forgotten her distrust in him. She looked over his shoulder and beamed, waving me over.
“Leo! Look!”
Danny turned around as I made my way down the porch steps, shyly offering me a bundle wrapped in a yellow blanket. I tried to keep my hopes down as I approached. Surely it couldn't be what I thought it was. Danny never wanted to care for anything.
“Hey, Kitten.” Danny held the bundle out to my expectant arms. A tiny, golden, almost white retriever puppy gazed up at me, latching its tiny teeth into my hand and nibbling excitedly. I stared in disbelief between the puppy and Danny as I delicately held him to my chest.
“Danny….Danny, you… Oh my God.”
He stepped towards me, wrapped his hand around the back of my neck. Instead of trying to shove his tongue down my throat however, he pecked me on the forehead, and walked past me inside.
“Love you.”
I pressed my hand tighter against my stomach. Danny’s thick blonde lashes fluttered against his cheek as he took a slow breath. He pulled his hand from the coffee, his tongue darting out between his lips to lick some of the wetness of his index finger. “My best work, I did for you. Everything in the last 5 years, I never planned for, never imagined. It’s all been you, Kitten. All you.”
My throat went dry. I brought my hand up to massage my tight chest. “And all the bullshit? That was me too?”
“My...issues...aren’t your fault.”
“Then why did you always blame me?” My voice cracked and I leaned back from the table, crossing my arms and looking out the window, biting down on my tongue.
“Leo-”
“You always told me how I nag you and push your buttons or start drama-”
“Yo-” Danny lurched as he cut off the start of a yell, eyeing the other tables out of the corner of his eyes as he forced his anger into a whisper. “You knew I couldn’t help how I am when we got together.” He bit his bottom lip, screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head, the red in his face beginning to slowly subside. “You got me, you know? That’s why I love you. But you knew from the start.”
Only a few weeks ago, right after we buried Bodie, I sat in the window sill, wrapped in a musty cotton robe, matted with snot around the sleeves. Outside, Kimmy was talking to a boy on a motorcycle with a leather jacket. I could see butterflies in her stomach as she rocked back and forth on her toes. Her Dad would be home any minute and her curfew was in two hours so as long as she was back before then, I didn’t need to tell him.
“So my agent fucking calls and another god damn conservative, bullshit, ignorant publisher rejected my pitch!” Danny stumbled through the bedroom door, flopping himself against the wall next to me.
“Quiet down, Danny.” I felt like I’d had a hangover for a week now. He growled, dropping an empty beer bottle. It hit the carpet with a soft clink.
“You don’t fucking care?” he snarled into my ear.
I shivered, pulling my robe tighter around my chest and stood up, shuffling past him towards the door. “My dog was just murdered so forgive me if I don’t want to join in on your pity party.” Maybe if I didn’t show him any weakness he might retreat, at least until he sobered up.
It didn’t work and the first blow was to my head. The rest was fuzzy.
He left me on the kitchen floor and passed out on the couch, leaving me, I thought, to lick my wounds alone. I went through a few exercises in the shower to confirm nothing was broken or sprained. I fell asleep in our too big bed, numbed by a handful of ibuprofen. I woke up to the stink of beer, hands tugging at my pajama pants.
“Danny, no. Come on...” The negotiating was always the worst parts of these nights, though usually I could get away in less then 10 minutes without removing a single item of my own clothing. But for my own pride, I would make him paw and tug for a few minutes before I rewarded his patience.
Without warning he got a hold of my waistband and yanked it down, scratching me as his did so.
“Ouch! Danny, seriously, no. Not tonight.” I tried to wriggle out of his grip. In a flurry of motion, I was pressed onto my stomach, Danny straddling my back, the whole of his body weight pressing into me.
“What the fuck?” I cried, muffled as I pulled my face out of the pillows. “Why are you being such an ass? Stop!”
Danny leaned down and slurred into my ear. “...gonna show you what you’d miss if you left. Ain’t nobody better than me. Gotta remind you.”
For a moment, my body was numb, my head empty. Then I heard the rumple of fabric above me and the numbness gave way to panic. I couldn’t fight Danny but I knew him and knowing him had to be enough.
“Just get off of me we can do something else, ok?” When we’d first gotten together, it had been like this. He’d pinned me down by the small of my back with an almost violent passion.
“I’m sorry, ok! I’m not leaving. Just slow down, ok? Stop!” Sex with Danny had never been gentle but there was something something loving about his roughness, the excited reverence with which he groped and bit and scratched, attentiveness in the way he demanded full control, never wanting to receive, only to give.
“Danny, I love you. Please don’t do this.”
That night, though, there was none of that.
“So that’s just how it is then?” I sat back in the seat and shrugged. “You’re just never going to change?”
“No, Leo! That’s now what I’m saying!” He leaned forward, his hand creeping across the table. We watched as it shyly approached my hand, the tips of our fingertips brushing. “You’ve made me better, Leo!” He grabbed my hand, his jaw quivering.
“No I didn’t. And I can’t.” His grip wasn’t tight. I could pull away if I wanted to. “You have to be better on your own.”
“And I will!” He held onto my hand with both of his. “I’ll do it for you, ok? I’ll stop all this and it’ll never happen again so just please give me a chance, Kitten.” Slowly, as if it might burn, he brought my hands up to his face, pressing his cheek into my palm. Danny hated his soft, pink, chubby cheeks that obscured his cheekbones and jawline. The diner was busier now. Surely people were staring, though that wasn’t what was embarrassing him.
“You’re probably happier without me now but that doesn’t mean…” Danny’s voice trickled off. He scrunches up his nose, gulping. With a hard sigh he pulled my hand back, depositing it back onto the table.
Danny sat up, legs on either side of my waist, wrenching his belt off, grinning down at me like sex with him was a threat and not a promise. The words came out of my mouth thoughtlessly.
“Would you be my boyfriend?”
Danny’s brow furrowed. He tossed his belt and leaned down into the crook of my neck, peppering pink bruises that would be purple tomorrow. “Why?”
“Well we’ve been having sex for nearly two months now.” I ran my hands under his shirt, across that wide muscular expanse, over long stripes of scars. “It would make sense to- Ah!” He always went after the same spot between my ear and my jaw when he wanted to shut me up.
“That’s hardly a reason.”
“God, you’re dense,” I giggled into his shoulder, trying to wriggle away from his tongue. “Mm… Danny… I wanna keep you... really like you... Might even love you.”
Danny froze, leaning up with his hands on either side of my head, unamused by my joke.
“There’s no pressure to say it back or even feel it,” I cooed, draping a hand over the back of his neck. “I just wanted to be honest.”
He blinked once. Twice. “I’ve never... dated like that before.”
“You’re a fast learner.”
We stayed there, silent, sizing each other, waiting for the other to break. He finally laid his weight upon me, mumbling into my shoulder.
“Ok.”
We began our dance again, too eager to get under the covers. Danny was a clumsy, juvenile kisser, all clicking teeth and bumping noses. He loved to tease me for my lack of experience with men, loved to praise me for my willingness to try and enjoy. Then though, he said nothing.
“Have you ever made love before, Danny?”
“What?” he laughed, half blowing a raspberry onto my bare stomach.
“Not sex or fucking.” I reached down, turning his head up to face me. “Making love?”
His lips pursed and he frowned, flushing pink as he shook his head and rested his chin on my chest. I ran my thumb over his lips, his soft, stubbly cheeks, grinning like a teenager.
“That’s ok. I’ll teach you.”
“Why did you agree to meet me here if you thought I was better off?”
Danny pursed his lips. He reached up, scratching the back of his neck “I, um… I haven’t been sleeping. Nothing helps. Nothing.” He sniffed and thumbed his nose. “Before you, you know, I’d never slept in bed with someone else and now…” He tipped his head back, scrubbing his hands over his face. His adam’s apple bobbed. I examined his neck for bites, bruised, scratches and found nothing. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “I uh... found some of your stuff.”
“No, you didn’t. You kept it instead of mailing it to me like Summer asked.”
He bowed his head. “Ok. Yeah. Leo, you… you don’t owe me anything but please… please Kitten… just so I can sleep… just give me one night.”
I’d borrowed Summer’s concealer so Danny wouldn't know I hadn’t been sleeping either.
My sister had tried everything to keep me from meeting him: begging, bargaining, threats. I’d even considered lying to her about it but I’d never been good at that. I told her the truth, that she couldn’t possibly understand my need to see him, to settle into the familiar groove of our conversations, tumultuous as they may be. Her and her husband’s biggest struggles were who would pick up the girls from soccer practice, whose fault it was that the turkey burned. Their relationship was uneventful, boring even at times, as she often lamented. She couldn’t possibly know what it was like to carry five years of constant drama, not that she ever had the chance to. She was too strong to tolerate conflict and too mature to engage in drama. Growing up, it left her plenty of time to clean up the messes I created because I lacked that strength.
“You didn’t try to find me at Kimmy’s graduation.”
Danny jumped as I sat down across from him, sitting back with his hands in his lap, licking chapped lips and staring studiously at the table.
“Wasn’t invited.” There were two mugs on the table and he pushed one towards me.
“Like that matters to you.” I sipped the coffee. Two sugars, three creams, like I liked.
Danny’s shoulders rose up to his ears and he ducked his head like he could hide his size in the tiny booth. “Kimmy, she’s… she’s important to you so… so I didn’t want to… you know?”
“I’m sure she’d appreciates that.” I watched my coffee swirl.
Danny clicked his tongue and huffed. “That girl always hated me.”
“Because she knew.” He snapped his head up to meet my eyes and I turned my gaze out the window, taking another sip. “Well, everyone knew but she seemed to be the only person who took issue with it. I tried to hide it from her…” But you made it impossible.
4 years ago, after we moved to that suburban hell, I knelt before the fence and the neighborhood. The sun had set. The summer of 1972 was brutal and heat radiated off the sidewalk underneath me. A flock of little kids flew by on their bikes, rushing to get inside before the streetlights came on. I began slathering white paint onto the graffiti.
Get out fagotts!!
Danny hadn’t wanted to call the police, had lashed out at my suggestion of it. He’d been throwing bricks at cops a year ago at Stonewall so it had been a stupid question. Compounded with the stress of the move, it was no wonder he lost his temper. Keeping stupid questions to myself was an easy way to avoid getting slapped again. Still, the throbbing, burning pain on my cheek was spreading to my eyes and throat.
The red paint wasn’t disappearing, just smearing and turning the fence pink. I could wait for the paint to dry but that would be minutes longer I’d have to stare at it and even then the red would still be there, under layers and layers of white paint. What if it faded? What if it chipped?
“Um...excuse me.”
I looked up to see my new neighbor. At the time, she wasn’t a willowy, charming young woman. She was a knobby kneed, gap toothed, awkward little girl, shyly rocking from foot to foot with her arms behind her back, red curls pressed against her head with a flowered headband. Her eyes widened in shock and she politely looked away while I scrambled to wipe tears from my eyes.
“Hey! Um… Kimmy, right? Kimmy. What, uh… what can I do for you?”
She bit her lip, letting her hand fall from behind her back, a paint brush bouncing against her thigh. “I saw you painting and thought I could help. Some of the boys tagged our mailbox last week and it was a real pain. But I don’t want to bother you.”
Tears threatened again. “I would absolutely love your company, young lady.”
She grinned and plopped down next to me, dipping her brush in the white paint and taking slow, deliberate strokes. The words were now indecipherable but even if they weren’t, she probably wouldn’t understand. Still, I’d spared her the wondering. We worked in silence for a while.
“Why do you live with that guy? Cause you guys are old so why don’t you have wives and kids and stuff?”
I scoffed, snickering incredulously. “Well for one, I am a spry twenty seven, missy.” I nudged her with my shoulder and she let out a flurry of giggles but still stared up at me, expecting an answer. Danny had made me promise no more closets before we moved. I wanted to ask her parents first, get a read on their beliefs, but I’d promised.
“Danny is my partner. My boyfriend.” I cleared my throat, focusing on the painting, watching Kimmy’s nose scrunch up in thought from the corner of my eye. She pursed her lips and nodded, continuing her work.
“That makes sense.”
Danny dragged his menu across the table under his finger. “I… assumed most of the straights wouldn’t, uh… wouldn’t concern themselves with what happened between us.”
“So you did it because you knew you’d get away with it.”
“No!”
That wasn’t the answer I wanted and I knew the explanation that would come next. I set my coffee down as he started.
“I can’t help it, Leo. You know that. It was never anything premeditated or anything like that. I’m just fucked in the head.” He knocked his fist against his temple unnecessarily hard, his restrained hissing bordering on pleading.
“That doesn’t make it ok.” My voice cracked and I bit down on my tongue. I shifted in my seat, pulling my back up straight, trying to acquire the posture of someone righteously angry.
“I know.” Danny deflated. “It’s not an excuse, I know.” He picked up his coffee and drank deeply, watching me over the rim of his mug, expecting me to fill the silence. Even when our relationship status was unquestionable he’d never laid a hand on me in public. I stayed defiantly silent.
I was supposed to have stopped smoking when we moved from New York city upstate. But Danny was supposed to have stopped drinking and considering his broken promise had lead to my throbbing black eye, I felt somewhat justified in escaping out into the yard with my stash of menthols while he passed out, sprawled across our bed.
The sky was cloudless, a smattering of stars you never saw in the city above, a cool breeze spreading goosebumps across my skin, signaling summer would be over soon. I propped myself up against the fence, lit a cigarette and groaned as it filled my lungs.
“You smoking in secret too, huh?”
I jumped, turning towards the source of the gravelly, Boston tinted voice. On the other side of the fence, approaching me with a half burned cigarette between his teeth, a stout man, bald with a neat red beard wearing a wife beater and khakis.
“Makes me feel like I’m in highschool,” he chuckled. He leaned against the other side of the fence, staring off into the street.
“I, uh…” I cleared my throat. My good eye was facing him and I turned my head just a bit to make sure it stayed that way. “I never smoked in high school. Picked it up in college. I was trying to quit but…” I chuckled, tapping some of the ash onto the ground and taking another long drag.
“My little girl just started highschool and I told her ‘I ever catch you smoking, you’re living in a shoebox.” He shook his head.
“Your little girl? Kimmy, right? I met her a couple days ago. Sweet girl.”
“Mm.” He nodded, pulling the cigarette from between his teeth. “Yeah, she told me. You’re uh… Leroy?”
“Leo.”
“Yeah. Told me you were queer, moved in her with your uh, your buddy, right?”
I closed my eyes and lips around the cigarette, taking a deep pull and realizing I’d burned all the way through it. I sighed, tucked the butt into my pocket and pulled another cigarette and lighter from the other. “Yes, that’s right. I apologize if telling her was-”
“Nah, I don’t give a shit.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Kimmy’s mom and I, we ended up shacked up with some real hippy, free love types when we was broke and Kimmy was real little. Got no problem with it, especially one’s like you. Now those crazies down in Grenich, that’s a different story. But you’re alright, despite the fact you must have rocks in your head to move here.”
I made a sputtering noise, a mix of a cough, a laugh and general shock. “We wanted to get out of the city,” I started once I regained my composure. “We picked here because I got a job with the paper. I thought that by this time in my life I’d be teaching but for obvious reason, that didn’t happen.”
The man clicked his tongue and turned to face me. “You went to school to teach?”
“Yeah.” I snorted. “I know.”
“Think you could tutor my Kimmy?”
“P-pardon?” I turned towards him, brow knotted up on my forehead.
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah, my Kimmy’s just like her mother was. Dumb as rocks and beautiful. Last tutor I got her tried grabbing her breasts but that’s not an issue with you.”
There was no need to correct his misconception if it would open me up to pedophilic acusations. My chest was suddenly light, like when I first assisted in 5th grade class, the exact opposite of how it felt when my advisor begged my to pick a “man’s major”.
“O-of course. I’d love to!”
He smiled and offered me a hand over the fence which I shook vigorously.
“It’s a deal, uh… Leo.”
“Deal Mr…”
“Call me, Julian, ok? Don’t make me feel old.” His tight grin faltered as his gaze shifted and I realized it was focused on my swollen eye. I pulled my arm back, turning my face away from him as I face flushed. A snorting laugh knocked me from my shame.
“I lived with a couple of guys when I was young. We were always getting into fights, beating the shit out of each other. None of us even wanted to screw each other! Can’t imagine the kind of mess you people get into.” He shook his head, shoulders bouncing with his laughter. He took one last drag of his cigarette and put it out on his side of the fence. “Come talk to me tomorrow. We’ll set up a schedule. Sleep, well, ok?”
He was already halfway across his yard before the cold, naked feeling subsided enough for me to chirp out “Goodnight!” at his back.
The night’s stillness was oppressive and significantly colder. Tomorrow, I’d throw away all the cigarettes I’d squirreled away. Tonight though, quitting could wait.
Danny scowled into his mug, setting it down and reaching for the sugar.“So um… have you been… you look good. You always look good.” His head lolled to the side as he stared sleepily at me and the exact type of warmth that I didn’t want welled up in my stomach. “Your hair, looks good. I like the uh…” He waved his hand in front of his forehead. I looked away and Danny cleared his throat. “But, uh, have you been alright?”
Everything I wanted to say pooled up in my throat as bruises that had just faded began to ache again. He was dumping sugar into his coffee and stopped when he saw me watching, putting the sugar back like he’d been caught.
“I’ve been staying with Summer. Been good to see my nieces.”
“That’s good. Good.” The cup trembled in his hands. His skin was dry.
“You don’t mean that. If you meant it, you would’ve let me go see her once in a while.”
“I never stopped you from seeing her,” Danny said, lip twitching in a lopsided scowl.
“Everytime I brought it up you’d tell me how controlling and bitchy she is or how her ‘perfect heterosexual lifestyle would mess up my worldview.” The words ached coming out but without the looming inevitability of being behind closed doors with Danny, I couldn’t stop the flow of resentment.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to have a relationship with your sister,” Danny sighed.
“Oh really?”
“You just… you depended on her. You even told me. You asked her if you thought you should be dating me!”
“She’s my big sister,” I said. “Of course I ask her for advice!”
Danny rolled his eyes and massaged his forehead. “Is it so wrong that I wanted you to depend on me?”
“Depend on you? And only you?” I had to whisper to keep from yelling.
“Yes! I-” He spoke quickly and fell silent when he realized the trap he’d walked into. He turned red as he scrambled to recover. “Leo, I didn’t mean-”
“How dare you?”
Two years ago Danny went on his first college speaking tour, signing books, debating preachers, inspiring young LGBT kids at colleges and receiving daily death threats. Days after he returned, while he was out running errands, I went to the doctor. When I came back I destroyed a path from the door to our bedroom. I tore down paintings, capsized the bookshelf, smashed his favorite beers onto the kitchen floor, knocked everything off of his side of the sink. He found me in the bedroom, illuminated by what little afternoon light pierced through the drawn curtains, lying in a pile of his clothes.
“What the hell?” Danny said, too shocked to be angry yet.
“Who was he?” My throat was cracked from wailing.
“Leo, what the hell are you-”
“Was it one of the other authors or just someone in a bar or what? That why you didn’t call me every night like you said you would?” I’d cried every tear I had and was now dry on the inside, crumbling. For a long time Danny was silent, ruling out the possibility that the doctor had made a mistake.
“How did you know?”
“You gave me gonorrhea! You dirty piece of shit!” I threw the first thing my hands landed on but it was only a shirt. “Tell me who he is!”
“Kitten...” He had his arms crossed, staring at the floor.
“Tell me!” I swore my throat was bleeding.
Danny took a deep breath, pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “At one of the talks… he was, uh… he was a student.”
“A student?” I could feel my body bulging against my clothing. My smile lines tore down to the bone.
Danny swallowed loudly. His fingers dug into his forearm. I hoped they would leave a bruise. “He was… a fan of my stuff… he was maybe, like… 18? 19?”
“So you wanted a fucking child over me?” All those nights in New York’s gay bars I had fawned at the impact Danny had on kids, the way closeted teenagers with their first mesh shirt and a pierced ear flocked around him, shyly offering him copies of his articles and a pen, tearfully asking for advice which he would happily give them while the club danced around them. In the beginning, during these night, I would usually go home alone. I thought he did too.
He chose then to look at me. “It wasn’t about you, Leo. You weren’t there and-”
“I didn’t go because I already asked off work for two weeks straight to celebrate your birthday! Your fucking 31st birthday, you pig!” I stumbled to my feet, my body trembling as I walked over to him.
Danny threw his arms down at his sides. “Leo, listen! He was a fan, he followed everything I did and I was by myself-”
I stormed up to him, jamming a finger into the exposed flesh of his chest. “I’ve worshipped the ground you walked on from the moment we fucking met and this-”
“Well you fucking shouldn’t!” I knew the type of yelling that was built to rattle me and this wasn’t it. It was the 3rd, maybe 4th time I’d ever seen him cry. There was a pink mark where my finger had been. “I’m a shitty, horrible person and for some reason you decided to stay and I don’t know why!” He pressed the heels of his hands into his temples, pacing away from me, crimson crawling up the back of his neck. “You just… you can’t fucking leave Leo. What would...Fuck!” He wrapped his arms around himself, digging his nails into his forearms, leaving long red scrapes. I closed my eyes, swallowed.
“Make up the couch and leave me alone.”
Danny dropped his gaze to his lap, leaning back in his seat. A thick silence fell over us. The waitress came over, filled our coffees, nodded politely as I handed her the unopened menus.
Danny finally spoke once she had left. “It was just sex. That’s it.”
“And that makes it better?”
Danny shook his head. “No. No it doesn’t. It was wrong but… I thought it was one of those things…” He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “...I thought you knew.”
I grimaced. A second later, my face fell slack. I tried to cover the surely weak expression behind my mug, sipping the bitter, nearly black fresh coffee.
“How many times?”
Danny took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his cheeks puffing out as he did so, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. “None before we moved and nothing in the house.” He looked up at me and I scowled back, lest he think I was satisfied. “Eight different guys. Always while I was out of town for work. Usually only once.”
There was no need to ask ‘who’. I had a clear picture in my head of Danny’s type along with a detailed list of how that picture differed from me that I’d been building for three years.
“You really didn’t know…” Danny’s voice trailed off to a whisper as his hand fell from the back of his neck.
I jerkily shook my head, swallowed and cleared my throat. “I trusted you. It’s what you do when you love someone.”
“For the record,” Danny said. “...I never actually thought you cheated. It was just something that would come out of my mouth when I wasn’t being rational. It only ever seriously crossed my mind once.”
I looked up, fixing my mouth to ask ‘when’ but the flush on his cheek and his pinched mouth confirmed that his embarrassment was fresh.
“Oh God! Danny, come on!”
“I know you didn’t!” He held up his hands, eyes darting around, looking at anything but my eyes.
My face ached with a scowl. He was gonna give me wrinkles far too soon. I wanted to speak but all I had on my tongue were sharp demands of why he thought so little of me, why he would consider such an awful thing. But I already knew the answer to those questions. Asking would only cause a spark of pain and shame that would ignite Danny’s anger.
“You’ve got a fucked up sense of morals.” I picked up my coffee, swirling it back and forth. “And don’t even say it. I get it, ok? I know why but it doesn’t make how you act ok.”
Danny had returned from a tour for his newest book, When The Gays Rose Up: Looking Back on 1969, to a very successful spring cleaning and for the past week, his mood reflected my success. He’d only gone through one twelve pack, spent the evening snuggled up with me and our attention starved golden retriever, Bodie, on the couch, catching up on Charlie’s Angels. For the first time in along time, my body was clear of bruises I hadn’t asked for. I was in the bedroom, scanning over Danny’s newest manuscript with a red pen when Bodie skittered through the door, yipping and whimpering as he nosed at my thigh.
“What’s up with you?” I scratched behind his ear but he continued to jump nervously back and forth. I tried to hold him still to examine for injuries when a sound caught my ear. When it finally registered, my body went cold. It was yelling.
I rushed down the stairs, Bodie following behind me until right before I got to the door, tucking himself in the corner. Danny was out on the porch, roaring in the face of a middle aged man, tall, blonde and broad and red with rage as he yelled back at Danny.
“What is going on?” I stepped between the two men, pressing a hand to Danny’s chest, trying and failing to push him back. The blonde man’s eyes narrowed on me and he brought a finger to my face.
“You’re the one. You sick son of a bitch!” His voice was low and thunderous.
I reeled back, mouth falling open, racking my brain to find out how I’d offended this stranger. Danny grabbed my attention with a tight hand on my shoulder.
“This man says you molested his son,” Danny said with the cool matter-of-factness he used in front of others to communicate a threat to only me. I looked up at him, his eyes locked firmly ahead at the man, nose held high in defiance.
“Sir, I - I’ve never- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My son is not a liar!” he spat. “He told me you lured him in without him knowing you’re a faggot, giving him gifts and favors and touching on him. You sick bastard!” He made a move to push me and Danny shoved me back.
“You try that one more time.”
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Let’s calm down!” I cried, once again stepping between the two men. “Sir, your son’s name is Kyle, right?”
His scowl deepened and he nodded stiffly.
“Ok. Look,I’m sorry if I made him uncomfortable but I had no ill intentions with your son. It seems we just had a terrible misunderstanding.” Maybe it was the light but I thought I saw some tension ease from his forehead. “Now, if you’d like, we can sit down and discuss-”
“Don’t grovel to this homophobic piece of shit.”
“You shut your fucking mouth you degenerate!” The man advanced but Danny stayed solid, a twisted grin on his face.
“You wanna get your ass beat by a fairy? Get the fuck off my property.”
The man blanched in the face of the behemoth of a faggot in front of him and turned with his tail between his legs, flipping us off as he did.
“God damnit.” I stormed back into the house, Bodie colliding my legs as soon as I did so, whining and jumping up on me. I knelt down, holding him tight against my chest. “I know, Bodie, I know. You hate the fighting, don’t you? Poor thing, it’s ok.” I pressed my face into his back and groaned. “Danny, we could’ve resolved that like adults if-” I looked up. Danny was staring down at me, arms crossed, eyebrows cocked. It took me a moment to recognize the face and when I did, it struck me hard enough to draw tears.
“Danny...no…”
He relaxed and turned to walk away.
“What the fuck Dany?” I shrieked to his back. He stopped. “A fucking kid? You would even consider…” Bodie whimpered. I was squeezing him too hard. It had been a good week and I’d hoped it would last a little longer.
“I don’t like kids, Danny! I’m not like you!”
Danny closed his eyes and swallowed,nodding stiffly. “I have… no right…” He took deep breaths in between rehearsed words. “...to be...rough with you… like I have been.”
At first, I was stupid enough to fix my mouth to accept his apology. Then he looked up, showing me those eyes, dumb and desperate.
“Rough with...Why do you think I left? What do you think happened that night?”
He put on a childlike pout, hardened by messy stubble. “I don’t remember,ok? I was wasted! I know I woke up and you were gone and there was... some blood. Look, I know it’s not right, Kitten.”
I put my coffee down, afraid to spill it. The absurdity sitting in front of me seemed entirely alien and simultaneously like my life began and ended with his. He stared at me, the lines in his face growing ever deeper. Silently giving him dirty looks always ended poorly and I dared to test his resolve.
“What?” he finally hissed.
“You’ve been rough with me for five years. And you think that’s the reason Ieft?”
“I don’t know Leo!” He leaned forward across the table. “I’ve been trying to figure out what changed that you’d disappear out of nowhere and I don’t get it. So if you got something to say to me, say it!’
I reeled back in my seat. My jaw was clamped shut. I folded my hands in my lap and considered keeping my thoughts to myself. He was lucky to have been drunk enough not to remember so why should both of us suffer with the memory? And if I said nothing he wouldn’t agonize over the details anymore. He’d simply chalk it up to me being over dramatic and trying to make him feel bad.
But I hadn't told anyone yet. Summer and the doctor has both made assumptions of varying accuracy.The truth still resided in my lungs, pressed up against my chest and had been choking me for a month.
“Summer made me go to the doctor.” I twiddled my thumbs, dragging over torn nail beds. “I had to get stitches.” Danny was seething at my inability to get to the point. He could wait. “There were these med students. I heard the doctor outside my room, showing them my file. He said ‘we can’t forget the severe health risk associated with homosexuality. This is the kind of damage they do to each other co-” I caught the broken word and a sob with a hand clamped over my mouth. If I waited to compose myself, I’d never say it so I sniffed and roughly slapped a tear from my cheek.
“...consensually.”
After it happened I packed six changes of clothes along with Bodie’s collar and went to the CVS, the drugstore we always went to because of its balance between convenient location and hateful cashiers. Sometimes, when we bought alcohol together, Danny would sidle up behind me and whisper in my ear.
“Think the cashier knows what this’ll do to my little lightweight? Wanna tell him how it'll loosen you up, Kitten?” The whole thing was scandalous. I’d swat him away. People stared. We laughed.
That night I bought a bottle of rose, ibuprofen, isopropyl alcohol, two ice packs, cotton swabs and feminine napkins. The cashier rang me up quickly in order to get the battered fag out of his face.
I got a hotel and constructed a story before I called Summer.
There had been a fight about money. I fell down the stairs. I was lonely.
I knew she didn’t believe me when she said she’d be up the next morning but I knew she wouldn’t dare call me out on it without proof.
She got there earlier than expected. I answered her at the door in a tank top and shorts so most of the damage was visible. She glowed like a goddess, neat and painted with wolfish eyes. I went numb with the strike of seeing her but before I could collect my senses, she shoved past me.
“Summer! Wait!” I tried to scramble in front of her but her eyes were already on the floor. She moved the pair of ruined boxers around with the toe of her shoe. I held my breath.
“I’m going to get your things.” She turned to walk out, already digging in her purse. She’d use pepper spray first, then improvise with whatever she could find in the house. Even when the boys my age began to dwarf her, she was there to defend me.
“Summer don’t!”
“Why shouldn’t I kill that bastard? What else am I supposed to do? Why didn’t you tell me?” Summer never cried but her eyes were as red as her lips as she stood shaking before me.
“Because I…” I let out a shaky huff, wrapping my arms around my middle. “Because I needed to deal with it myself a-and… You wouldn’t get it!” My throat ached as he cried out at her. “You wouldn’t understand that h-he… he just...things are complicated and I love him Sissy and I’m so stupid.” I pressed the heels of my hands into my burning eyes. “I’m sorry, Sissy, I’m sorry! I just need you now and I don’t know what to do so please!”
She looked me up and down, weighing her options. In the end, she wrapped her arms around me and my wailing buckled my knees. She sat on the bed and I clung to her, feeling small in her arms but horrified to find I was not as safe as I’d once felt. Summer’s arms weren’t big enough for much more than skinned knees.
I looked up. Danny had gone deathly pale, a white knuckle grip on the table, eyes just barely focused on me. “What are you saying?” he breathed.
I knew it would push him over the edge but I was so close to feeling relief and maybe I deserved to be selfish just this once.
“I never thought that you, of all people… you should know better than anyone how damaging that is. And you did it anyway because you only care about yourself!”
All at once, Danny tore out of the booth, hands clutched over his mouth as he bolted to the bathroom. I bowed my head and tried not to think about him hunched over a toilet, blood vessels bursting across his face, tears streaming down his cheeks. I tried not to imagine my hands in his hair, holding it back when it was long, petting it when it was short. I sat in the booth, staring ahead, sipping my now tasteless coffee.
I’d just started putting my nieces’ artwork on the fridge after a week long trip to see Summer when I heard a hard knock on my apartment door, surely the only person I’d called once I got off the plane.
I threw open the door and barely had the time to crack a smile before Danny lip’s were on mine, grinning and hungry. I threw my arms around his neck and Danny grabbed my thighs, lifting me off the ground and kicking the door closed behind me.
“I missed you,” he snarled against my lips as he stumbled the short distance from the door to the bedroom.
“I was only gone a week,” I giggled. He tossed me onto my bed, the old springs whining as I landed. “You could’ve got plenty of ass in that time.”
“Not yours.”
It took effort to let the accidentally loving statement pass without acknowledgement but I was too excited to risk ruining the moment. Danny straddled my legs and leaned forward, tugging at my belt. “Whatya want?”
Dizzy with arousal, I reached my hand down, stroking the apple of his cheek and sliding my hand to the top of the head, insisting with a nudge. “You could suck me-”
All at once, Danny was off the bed, his excited grin now a deep, fiery scowl, arms shaking at his sides, muscles bulging in his neck as red creeped up his face.
“No! What the fuck, no!” He stumbled back towards the door. “I’m not your fucking whore!” His voice broke as he screamed, spit flying from his mouth.
“D-danny?”
“You want some soft faggot to-” He turned from me, rocking foot to foot, grasping wildly at his head and chest. “-to fucking suck your dick and serve you, get someone else but not- Fuck!” He grit his teeth, breaths coming out in harsh, shallow pants.
I sat up, swinging my legs off the side of the bed and waddling towards him, holding my pants up with one hand, reaching towards him with the other.
“Danny, baby, calm down. Let’s-” I placed my hand on his forearm.
With an ugly, animal growl, Danny swung around, shoving his arm into my chest. I flew back, colliding with a gasp against the bed frame. Pain radiated through my back and the breath was knocked from my lungs as I crumpled onto the ground and Danny escaped into the living room.
Nothing was broken, not even sprained. I’d only be a little sore in the morning. Danny was hurting far worse than me, worse than I’d ever seen him. I tilted my head back to keep tears from running and took slow, purposeful breaths until the banging and slamming from the other room subsided. I crept in as silently as possible across the hardwood floor.
Danny was sitting on the couch, back to me, a glass in his hand half filled with what I assumed was my good whiskey, the liquid inside splashing back and forth with his violent tremors. The wood creaked under my feet and Danny sighed.
“You’re not gonna-”
“I don’t want to talk you into it,” I said as I rounded the couch. Danny’s eyes were red, jaw clenched, refusing to look at me. “Not at all. You don’t even have to tell me if you’re uncomfortable about it but-”
“But what?” He finally looked at me, tilting his head back and flaring his nostrils.
I knelt down, placing my hands on his knees. “You’re not just a fuck buddy, Danny. You’re my friend. So I care when something’s wrong.”
His legs tensed but he didn’t push me away, his eyes narrow, searching my face for an eternity until he tilted his head back and exhaled.
“Had to hook for five years when I got kicked out. Sometimes the Johns didn’t think I was worth the money so they took it for free.” His voice was artificially casual, accompanied by a stiff shrug. “I don’t bottom and I don’t suck dick because I don’t have to anymore.”
My heart climbed into my throat to choke me. Danny hated being treated softly but I could help but reach forward to hold his face in my hands. “Danny…”
“Happened to plenty other queer kids…” he grumbled, tilting his head back down but still avoiding my eyes.
“Doesn’t make it any less awful. I’m so, so sorry, Danny.” I searched his face and for all his soft, curved features I couldn’t imagine him young. Maybe that was the worst tragedy of it.
Danny’s nostrils flared. He peeked at me, then back at the ceiling. “Thanks,” he hissed.
I sighed and crawled forward into his lap, snickering at his half hearted protests as he scrambled to set his glass down before I knocked it out of his hand.
“Always crawling up in my space. You’re like a goddamn cat,” he mumbled, resting his chin on the top of my head as I settled against his chest.
“I’m an affectionate man.” I pressed my face into him, breathing in his familiar scent, now somehow lacking it’s usual erotic flavor but no less comforting. “And...it’s good to feel you relax.” I waited for him to push me away. He didn’t.
Danny slid back into the booth, his mouth still damp, pale and shivering. He ran his hands across his thighs, staring at the ground. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve anyone but… especially you.” He rocked back and forth, sucking air between clenched teeth. “I love you, Leo. God I-”
“Stop,” I pressed my palm into my face. “Please stop, Danny. It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?” He leaned across the table. “If it’s not about me loving you and you loving me then what’s the point?”
I grit my teeth and closed my eyes. “Even if you love me...” I didn’t want him to see me cry. He’d seen it enough. “You were so cruel Danny. That’s the point.”
“Then why stay?” He snarled, the muscles in his jaw flexing, arms tightening around his chest. “Why be with me in the first place?”
“Because things weren’t always bad!” It came out too easily but he didn’t seem convinced. “You were my best friend! We had fun, so much fun.” I propped my head on my hand, caught his eyes and watched as his tight expression faltered and his arms began to relax.
“I can’t believe they can actually legally evict you for that!”
“It happens.”
I thwapped a duvet onto the couch and took to fluffing the pillows unnecessarily. I’d cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the apartment but something was still telling me that everything was wrong.
“Is it stuffy in here?” I turned to him. “I can open a window.”
Danny leaned against the wall, the smallest smile on his lips. He looked me up and down, bit his lip and nodded. “That’d be nice.”
Tearing my burning face away from his vision, I scurried to the living room window, prying the old rusty thing open. I wasn’t exactly humble. When I turned 15, I lost my baby fat, a girl said I looked like Elvis, and my head never fully deflated. But this was the first time since college a man had looked at me this hard and suddenly I was flustered. “I really respect what you did out there at Stonewall. It’s a shame that it had such awful consequences but I really admire you for that, Danny.”
Suddenly, Danny was behind me, hands latched onto my hips, freezing me in place.
“So is respect for my work the only reason you let me crash here?” His scalding hot breath poured over the back of my neck. The women I’d dated had always been coy, never initiating sex or even hinting at it until I did and I was beginning to understand why. I swallowed, still fiddling with the window.
“You’re..” I cleared my throat, took a quivering breath. “...awfully bold.” His fingers crept under the hem of my shirt. “That’s usually my job.”
“Well that’s awkward.” Danny twirled me around, slotting his knee between me legs. He was burning and I hoped he didn’t notice how I was melting. “It’s mine too.”
I’d never imagined I’d be able to touch him and yet here he was, broad and intimidating. I slipped my hands behind my back to hide the shaking and ducked my head in hopes of hiding my assuredly dopey smile.
“What made you so sure…”
“Straight men don’t let gay men crash on their couches. You also haven’t punched me yet so…”
I buried a giggle in my shoulder, bit my lip in attempts to compose myself. Slowly, I brought my hand from behind my back, sliding my fingertips across the veins in his forearms, up his shoulder. “In defense of my innocence, I really did just want to help you out. I didn’t plan for this.” I draped my arm around the back of his neck, pulling myself towards him. His tongue darted out to wet his lips and I held myself back. I may not have had the upper hand but I could still maintain a little control if I made him come to me.
“Well lucky you because I did,” he snarled as he pulled me flush against his body and descended upon me with a wicked grin.
“Yeah, you really fucked my life up.” His lips twitched up at the edges and the warmness of his voice flooded my head. There was little I could do to stop my adolescent grinning.
“Whatya mean?”
Danny shrugged and motioned with his chin out the windows. “You think I’d ever consider this kind of life without you? House in suburbia, white picket fence, dog…” His smile fell and he cleared his throat. My dizziness subsided and I was oppressively sober. I lifted my head from my hand.
“I’m sorry about what I said back then. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
Danny shook his head. “No, it was.”
“Danny....”
I wasn’t allowed to shower before leaving the gym. Danny was convinced (not incorrectly) that the local gym was filled with closeted men and if I’d been unfaithful, he would know. So I drove home, crusted with dry sweat, dreading the three-times-a-week ritual of stripping naked and maneuvering into various position while Danny examined me for foul play.
When I parked in the driveway Bodie wasn’t immediately at the car door whimpering for me. I opened it, peeking around for him as I stepped out. It was only 8, early for Danny to bring Bodie into the house. I shut the door and started towards the door. The street lights illuminated something in the corner of my eye, shimmering gold.
Bodie was lying on his side, motionless, a puddle of vomit around his head, an empty bottle of antifreeze next to him.
I through myself forward onto the ground, gathering him up into my arms. He didn’t wriggle for more attention or lap at my face. He wasn’t warm and pulsing with energy. My throat suddenly ached. I must’ve screamed because soon Danny was standing over me and several porch lights down the street had turned on.
“Holy shit, Kitten. I’m so sorry.” Danny’s voice grew closer and closer.
“Get away from us!” I shouted, jerking away from his voice, squeezing Bodie’s body to my chest. “This is all your fault!” I’d just wanted to be kind, to make friends in a new town with the man I loved, to be a good influence and a safe place for kids like I needed so badly when I was young. “I hate you! It’s all your fault!”
“No! No! No! Daddy!” From past the fence, Kimmy’s voice rung out. “Daddy! Give me the keys! It was Kyle or his Dad or his brothers or someone! I know it was! I’m gonna go kill him! Give me the keys!”
“It ain’t our business, Kim.” Julian’s voice was low but forceful. “People are gonna believe what they believe! Those are grown men over there. They know that.”
I pulled my face from the pillow of Bodie’s fur and looked over the fence, catching Kimmy and her dad’s eyes. Kimmy’s eyes were red, tears streaming down her face, shiny under the streetlights and I hoped those tears were only due to the drama of the situation and had nothing to do with me, that she would run off to her room to sob the night away, that she wouldn’t throw away a highschool sweetheart because of the choices of her tutor.
She turned to her father, pulled her shoulders back, transforming from a girl to a woman for a brief and beautiful instant. “I hate you.” She tore away from him, running onto the sidewalk and through our fence, barreling through the yard to throw herself across my back, arms tight around my neck.
We both sobbed “I’m so sorry.”
“If I wasn’t an asshole, it would've never escalated like that.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hell, if we’d never gotten together you would’ve stayed with that girl, popped out a few babies and never experienced any of this shit.” He huffed a humorless laugh as he ran his fingers over his eyes.
“We weren’t ever gonna work out.” My coffee was hot and full again. I took a long sip. My ex was a sweet girl, a girl I probably would’ve stayed friends with. But her breakdown after she found out I was dating a man had ruined her for Danny and thus for me. “You finally admit I’m not just a tratorious, self hating gay man?”
“I just didn’t want you to leave me for a woman!” He ran a hand through his hair. The few greys there were hidden by the bright blonde. “Do you see how humiliating that would be for me?”
“Well you’re welcome for being a good prop for you activism,” I spat and felt immediately guilty. Then guilty for feeling guilty.
The day before, a hulking blonde man with an earing had collided with me on the way out of my office. He had been fresh from a screaming match with my boss and now he was coming over to my apartment. I was beginning to see why everyone said I was “too nice” for New York City and had warned me against moving. I leaned back on my hideous green futon, holding up the manuscript he’d given me. Queer America: A Collection by Daniel Mathers. I had promised him I’d read the first couple stories and give general feedback but that quickly turned into me devouring the thing over night. I was heavy with sleep deprivation but still buzzed with energy awaiting his arrival. When I heard a hard knock at the door I bolted to the door.
“Daniel! You made it. Come in, come in!”
“If you’re gonna call me Daniel, I’m gonna call you Leonardo.”
“Danny. Come in.”
He mosied in, eyeing my apartment that was impressive for New York, garbage anywhere else, hands shoved in his pockets. I didn’t own a TV, only the futon, 6 overflowing bookshelves and a stack of records nearly touching the ceiling. I waited for him to say something, cleared my throat when he didn't.
“I’ve been really excited to meet with you today!” I gingerly lifted the manuscript off of the futon, running my hand over the cover page. “I have a few questions but-”
“Whose this?” Danny picked up a framed picture of Summer and I from a beach trip a year ago. “Doesn’t look like that girlfriend of yours.” He set the picture back down, scanning slowly over the rest of my photos. “Got a lot of her here.”
“She’s my older sister,” I chuckled, walking up next to him, admiring the pictures I usually overlooked. It was the only proof I had that Summer did anything but sunbathe at the beach. We were both dripping wet, her blonder hair slicked against her head. I was grinning, squeezing her around the waist and gazing at her while she stared through the camera. “Girlfriends tend to be pretty… transient for me so I don’t put up many pictures of them. No offense to my Shelby! Shelby’s great.” She had countless polaroids of the two of us at her place so why would I need any?
“Hmm.” Danny nodded to himself, playing idly with a long blonde curl by his ear. “I’ve got 7 siblings, all older. Don’t really talk to them though.”
“That’s-”
“So. My manuscript?” Danny turned towards me, pulling his shoulders back so he towered over me.
I grinned, squeezing the stack of papers to my chest. “Before I say anything else, this is… incredible. But as far as your struggles to get it published… I hope you don’t take this the wrong way-”
“Only if you mean it the wrong way.”
“What’s your highest level of education?” I asked slowly, shrinking into my shoulders as I kept his eye, gnawing my lip. “Only because some of the grammatical issues would suggest… again, let me say you are a talented writer but-”
“I never finished high school.” He said it cooly, though his eyes drifted from mine. “Got kicked out when I was 15.”
My heart shuttered. The manuscript felt heavier. “Incredible.” He looked at me with a furrowed brow and I cleared my throat, shaking myself back into composure. “Anyway, I can help. This type of editing is right up my alley.”
“Oh yeah?” Danny crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles in his forearms bulging and veiny. “And how much is that gonna cost me?”
“Consider it a passion project.”
“I know you think I’m just some pandering, mainstream conformist…” My face and chest burned, my hands quivered. “...who doesn’t care about the gay community or being progressive…” I wasn't a particularly strong man but I wondered if the mug in my hand might shatter under my grip as I struggled to suppress my pride and get out what I actually wanted to say.
“I never regretted coming out of the closet for you,” I said through my teeth. “Never.”
“Even after everything?” Danny scoffed. “You’re soft, Kitten. You’re not built for hate.”
I opened the door to find Kimmy on the porch with a splitting grin, flanked by an entourage of 5 high schoolers, 3 girls, 2 boys, shyly peeking at me over her shoulders.
“What is this?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“They didn’t believe me that my tutor makes the best lemon meringue,” she said with an innocent pout. “Really, I was helping your reputation so you’re welcome.”
I snorted, pinching the bridge of my nose. “What am I gonna do with you? Alright, let’s see it!” I extended my hand. “Lemon meringue is for A students only.”
Kimmy thrust a piece of paper into my hand, bouncing on her toes as she watched me look over it as torturously slow as possible.
“Kimmy… how do you get a C in gym?”
Her smile fell and one of the girls leaned over her shoulder. “Because she’d rather look cute then wear gym clothes!”
I folded the sheet back up. “Fair enough. You all-”
“You have a dog!” One of the girl squealed, lurching forward past Kimmy.
Bodie let out a yelp from behind me as the girl approached, forcing his way between my legs, tail between his. The girl reeled back with a guilty frown.
“It’s ok. He’s just so skittish.” I knelt down, burying my hand in the golden fur around his neck. “It’s ok Bodie. They’re nice.”
Kimmy smiled, making her way towards the door with the others in tow. I stuck my arm out to block them. “Hey, hey, hey! I’m doing spring cleaning and I don’t want any grubby fingerprints. Stay out here.”
Twenty minutes later, the kids has taken up the porch steps, watching one of the boys stumble through a magic trick. Kimmy sat next to me in a rocking chair, inhaling her large slice of lemon meringue while I sorted through a box of records, intent to have the task done by the end of the day. Out in the yard, one of the boys, a tall, broad blonde, was sprawled out playing with Bodie who had decided the boy was the least threatening of the bunch.
“That blonde boy, is that the one you’ve been talking about?”
“Shut up! Yes…” Kimmy pursed her lips together and flushed pink. “His name is Kyle.” The name dripped off her tongue like she couldn’t bear to part with it.
“Graduating is a good time for a love confession.”
She wrinkled her nose, hiding her red face in her shoulders. She took a deep breath to regain her composure, looking around. “Where’s Danny? I’m sure he wouldn’t let you have a bunch of kids on his property?” She picked up her coke and took a deep swig, probably to wash the acid from her mouth.
“Book tour.” No need in arguing and riling her up or making the mistake of telling her not to bother with adult business.
“Mr. Leo, sir.” Kyle trotted up the stairs, Bodie at his heels. “Your dog is so nice!” His eyes narrowed on the stack of records collecting at my sides and suddenly widened. “Whoah! Is that Grateful Dead?”
I lifted the record up. “You like them? I’m culling my record collection. Want it?” I offered it out to him and he pulled his hand back, shaking his head.
“Oh no sir! I-I mean, I love them but I don’t have any money-”
“Then just take it.” I thrust it towards him. “I don’t have the patience for yard sales.”
His hands fell to his side and he licked his lips. “That’s...I don’t even know you, man!” He flashed an awkward, lopsided smile and looked to Kimmy.
“He’s not going to take no for an answer,” she teased.
I stood, thrusting the record into the boy’s chest. “I’ve got 6 more inside, come on.” I waved for him to follow and headed inside. After a moment a set of quick footsteps followed behind me. I lead him to the record shelf, locating the other records in my alphabetically organized collection, running my fingers against them.
“They’re all yours.” I stepped back next to him. He stared nervously ahead and I finally gave him a small push on the back towards the shelf. He took the records as if they were made of glass, holding them to his chest and grinning in awe.
“How can I repay you, sir?”
I snorted, placing my hand on his shoulder and walking him back towards the door. “First, you can stop calling me sir like I’m an old man. And if something else comes up, I’ll let you know.”
“That’s why-” I looked up. His eyes were big and blue and sparkling in that particular light. I looked down at my lap. “That’s why I admired you so much. Even before things got bad, even before we were together, you were always so strong. I looked up to you.”
Danny snorted and I snapped my head up. A harsh smirk that didn’t reach his eyes sat on his lips. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes I do.” I held his gaze until the smirk fell.
Danny picked up his coffee. “I only did what I did for you.,” he said, barely audible as he muffled it into his coffee.
“For me?” I shifted in my seat, a hand slipping over my tumultuous stomach. Now wasn’t the time to feel light and young and silly.
“Anarchist rebellion is way more fun....” He set the mug down and ran his finger over the rim. “But then you came along and you wanted all that classic American dream type shit. So I thought if I could help be a part of normalizing gay life you could, ya know… you could have that. That wasn’t always my goal, you know that.”
Danny cleaned the mess I made the night before, slept on the couch and left before I woke up. On the kitchen counter was a sticky note.
Picking up the anti-biotics. Be back around noon. I love you.
I tried to get dressed. Most of my clothes were old man clothes though and the others looked like a poor attempt to look hip. I sat on the couch in my pajamas, put a splash of whiskey in my coffee and sat in front of the TV until I heard a commotion outside.
Out in the yard, Danny was facing away from the house, towards a jumping, giddy Kimmy.
“Leo’ll probably wanna keep him in the house. Depends on how big he gets.” Danny’s voice was tight and awkward but kind and Kimmy had forgotten her distrust in him. She looked over his shoulder and beamed, waving me over.
“Leo! Look!”
Danny turned around as I made my way down the porch steps, shyly offering me a bundle wrapped in a yellow blanket. I tried to keep my hopes down as I approached. Surely it couldn't be what I thought it was. Danny never wanted to care for anything.
“Hey, Kitten.” Danny held the bundle out to my expectant arms. A tiny, golden, almost white retriever puppy gazed up at me, latching its tiny teeth into my hand and nibbling excitedly. I stared in disbelief between the puppy and Danny as I delicately held him to my chest.
“Danny….Danny, you… Oh my God.”
He stepped towards me, wrapped his hand around the back of my neck. Instead of trying to shove his tongue down my throat however, he pecked me on the forehead, and walked past me inside.
“Love you.”
I pressed my hand tighter against my stomach. Danny’s thick blonde lashes fluttered against his cheek as he took a slow breath. He pulled his hand from the coffee, his tongue darting out between his lips to lick some of the wetness of his index finger. “My best work, I did for you. Everything in the last 5 years, I never planned for, never imagined. It’s all been you, Kitten. All you.”
My throat went dry. I brought my hand up to massage my tight chest. “And all the bullshit? That was me too?”
“My...issues...aren’t your fault.”
“Then why did you always blame me?” My voice cracked and I leaned back from the table, crossing my arms and looking out the window, biting down on my tongue.
“Leo-”
“You always told me how I nag you and push your buttons or start drama-”
“Yo-” Danny lurched as he cut off the start of a yell, eyeing the other tables out of the corner of his eyes as he forced his anger into a whisper. “You knew I couldn’t help how I am when we got together.” He bit his bottom lip, screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head, the red in his face beginning to slowly subside. “You got me, you know? That’s why I love you. But you knew from the start.”
Only a few weeks ago, right after we buried Bodie, I sat in the window sill, wrapped in a musty cotton robe, matted with snot around the sleeves. Outside, Kimmy was talking to a boy on a motorcycle with a leather jacket. I could see butterflies in her stomach as she rocked back and forth on her toes. Her Dad would be home any minute and her curfew was in two hours so as long as she was back before then, I didn’t need to tell him.
“So my agent fucking calls and another god damn conservative, bullshit, ignorant publisher rejected my pitch!” Danny stumbled through the bedroom door, flopping himself against the wall next to me.
“Quiet down, Danny.” I felt like I’d had a hangover for a week now. He growled, dropping an empty beer bottle. It hit the carpet with a soft clink.
“You don’t fucking care?” he snarled into my ear.
I shivered, pulling my robe tighter around my chest and stood up, shuffling past him towards the door. “My dog was just murdered so forgive me if I don’t want to join in on your pity party.” Maybe if I didn’t show him any weakness he might retreat, at least until he sobered up.
It didn’t work and the first blow was to my head. The rest was fuzzy.
He left me on the kitchen floor and passed out on the couch, leaving me, I thought, to lick my wounds alone. I went through a few exercises in the shower to confirm nothing was broken or sprained. I fell asleep in our too big bed, numbed by a handful of ibuprofen. I woke up to the stink of beer, hands tugging at my pajama pants.
“Danny, no. Come on...” The negotiating was always the worst parts of these nights, though usually I could get away in less then 10 minutes without removing a single item of my own clothing. But for my own pride, I would make him paw and tug for a few minutes before I rewarded his patience.
Without warning he got a hold of my waistband and yanked it down, scratching me as his did so.
“Ouch! Danny, seriously, no. Not tonight.” I tried to wriggle out of his grip. In a flurry of motion, I was pressed onto my stomach, Danny straddling my back, the whole of his body weight pressing into me.
“What the fuck?” I cried, muffled as I pulled my face out of the pillows. “Why are you being such an ass? Stop!”
Danny leaned down and slurred into my ear. “...gonna show you what you’d miss if you left. Ain’t nobody better than me. Gotta remind you.”
For a moment, my body was numb, my head empty. Then I heard the rumple of fabric above me and the numbness gave way to panic. I couldn’t fight Danny but I knew him and knowing him had to be enough.
“Just get off of me we can do something else, ok?” When we’d first gotten together, it had been like this. He’d pinned me down by the small of my back with an almost violent passion.
“I’m sorry, ok! I’m not leaving. Just slow down, ok? Stop!” Sex with Danny had never been gentle but there was something something loving about his roughness, the excited reverence with which he groped and bit and scratched, attentiveness in the way he demanded full control, never wanting to receive, only to give.
“Danny, I love you. Please don’t do this.”
That night, though, there was none of that.
“So that’s just how it is then?” I sat back in the seat and shrugged. “You’re just never going to change?”
“No, Leo! That’s now what I’m saying!” He leaned forward, his hand creeping across the table. We watched as it shyly approached my hand, the tips of our fingertips brushing. “You’ve made me better, Leo!” He grabbed my hand, his jaw quivering.
“No I didn’t. And I can’t.” His grip wasn’t tight. I could pull away if I wanted to. “You have to be better on your own.”
“And I will!” He held onto my hand with both of his. “I’ll do it for you, ok? I’ll stop all this and it’ll never happen again so just please give me a chance, Kitten.” Slowly, as if it might burn, he brought my hands up to his face, pressing his cheek into my palm. Danny hated his soft, pink, chubby cheeks that obscured his cheekbones and jawline. The diner was busier now. Surely people were staring, though that wasn’t what was embarrassing him.
“You’re probably happier without me now but that doesn’t mean…” Danny’s voice trickled off. He scrunches up his nose, gulping. With a hard sigh he pulled my hand back, depositing it back onto the table.
Danny sat up, legs on either side of my waist, wrenching his belt off, grinning down at me like sex with him was a threat and not a promise. The words came out of my mouth thoughtlessly.
“Would you be my boyfriend?”
Danny’s brow furrowed. He tossed his belt and leaned down into the crook of my neck, peppering pink bruises that would be purple tomorrow. “Why?”
“Well we’ve been having sex for nearly two months now.” I ran my hands under his shirt, across that wide muscular expanse, over long stripes of scars. “It would make sense to- Ah!” He always went after the same spot between my ear and my jaw when he wanted to shut me up.
“That’s hardly a reason.”
“God, you’re dense,” I giggled into his shoulder, trying to wriggle away from his tongue. “Mm… Danny… I wanna keep you... really like you... Might even love you.”
Danny froze, leaning up with his hands on either side of my head, unamused by my joke.
“There’s no pressure to say it back or even feel it,” I cooed, draping a hand over the back of his neck. “I just wanted to be honest.”
He blinked once. Twice. “I’ve never... dated like that before.”
“You’re a fast learner.”
We stayed there, silent, sizing each other, waiting for the other to break. He finally laid his weight upon me, mumbling into my shoulder.
“Ok.”
We began our dance again, too eager to get under the covers. Danny was a clumsy, juvenile kisser, all clicking teeth and bumping noses. He loved to tease me for my lack of experience with men, loved to praise me for my willingness to try and enjoy. Then though, he said nothing.
“Have you ever made love before, Danny?”
“What?” he laughed, half blowing a raspberry onto my bare stomach.
“Not sex or fucking.” I reached down, turning his head up to face me. “Making love?”
His lips pursed and he frowned, flushing pink as he shook his head and rested his chin on my chest. I ran my thumb over his lips, his soft, stubbly cheeks, grinning like a teenager.
“That’s ok. I’ll teach you.”
“Why did you agree to meet me here if you thought I was better off?”
Danny pursed his lips. He reached up, scratching the back of his neck “I, um… I haven’t been sleeping. Nothing helps. Nothing.” He sniffed and thumbed his nose. “Before you, you know, I’d never slept in bed with someone else and now…” He tipped his head back, scrubbing his hands over his face. His adam’s apple bobbed. I examined his neck for bites, bruised, scratches and found nothing. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “I uh... found some of your stuff.”
“No, you didn’t. You kept it instead of mailing it to me like Summer asked.”
He bowed his head. “Ok. Yeah. Leo, you… you don’t owe me anything but please… please Kitten… just so I can sleep… just give me one night.”
I’d borrowed Summer’s concealer so Danny wouldn't know I hadn’t been sleeping either.
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