PART TWO
To Chase
the
Cold Winter
Away
NINE
THAW
There was something ugly and inartistic about the look of the year 2000. The bleak air of that new year seemed to hold in it, as far as Bill Dwyer was concerned, the broken promises of the future. As he sat across from his wife in their strangely empty house, what he saw was the absence of things that should have been, a world without the cure to cancer, or without the apocalypse of the computer bug everyone was hoping for, a world without flying saucers the Jetsons took to work from their homes perched in the sky. And why were those homes perched in the sky? What disaster had taken place below that kept the Jetsons airborne? There was something to that. The future had to do with the air, with going up and up till you met space. No one assumed the human race would still be crawling on the earth come 2000. Maybe this was why they were all so busy ruining it. Barely two years into the future, William Dwyer would look back to an explosion, planes in the air going through buildings and blowing them up and wonder, after everything, could this have simply been the wish of someone like him to see this new millennium start off with the bang that, on this drab January morning, it so clearly did not receive?
But never mind. All of this was a tangent from the wife who sat across from him, who was still pretty in her own way, but not pretty enough to excite him. He could feel how she felt the same way about him, probably had felt this way for a long time. After this was over, after whatever happened between them, Bill was going to drive an hour to visit Lynn and spend the afternoon fucking her. He loved Lynn, but he didn’t think of himself as making love to her. Making love had been Dena and their old tepid marriage. Bill, with this twenty-three year old, her knees bent behind her head and him frantically slamming himself balls deep into her, was fucking. The exhausted boyish look on his face that he saw in the mirror when they were finished, when his copper hair was plastered to his red face, was fucking.
“Do you think you’ll be coming back to the house?” he asked Dena.
“No.”
“You and Niall and Cameron could have this house instead of crowding up Lee ad Dave’s.”
“Cameron stays here anyway. She doesn’t want to stay with me, and I don’t really want her to,” Dena said in a tone of discovery. “Lee and Dave have two extra rooms and me and Niall don’t take up any space.”
“I should talk to Niall.”
“He doesn’t really want to talk to you.”
“But still.”
“Don’t press him, Bill. When he lived in this house you didn’t have much use for him. Why try to talk to him now? You can have your favorite child, and I’ll have mine.”
“That… isn’t right.”
“Right?” Dena raised an eyebrow. “When we tried to be right, what did it do for us? Let’s not be right. Let’s be sensible.”
Bill said nothing.
Dena said, “Look, we haven’t loved each other for a long time. Still, I know you’ll be fair. Do you think it’s fair that I get what I got when we were married, and I get child support for Niall? You’re going to have Cam, and by the time things are settled, she’ll be eighteen anyway. Is that fair?”
“Yeah,” Bill blinked. “Yeah, that’s fair.”
She was being so fair, or at least, she was so single minded in her resolve to be divorced from him she had no time for revenge. She sounded reasonable, and he knew she would continue to be reasonable. What was more, everything he offered, Bill realized he didn’t mean. He didn’t want to give up this house and run off to Gale or Grand Rapids or even get an apartment here for that matter. He certainly didn’t want to give up Cameron. What he was afraid to look at too closely was that he probably did not care that much about Niall. And he certainly didn’t want to be here much longer. The moment he’d thought of Lynn was the moment he’d gotten a boner as thick as a Christmas sausage, and all he could do was think of shoving it in Lynn Messing. There was, he was sure, something not right, not entirely grown up or properly penitent in him. He was too like his father. He wanted to understand what that was about, but more than that, his cock ached. It throbbed and anticipated an hour in the future, speeding up the highway. He wanted to fuck.
“Jeff Cordino’s brother is a lawyer. He can draw things up.”
“You’ve thought about this,” Bill discovered.
“Yes. Yes,” Dena said with a far off look on her face.
“I’ve thought about it for a long time.”
Andy Gilson returned from the bathroom. Moments later, without even looking at him, Chris Knapp leaned to his right and passed an ink pen to Gilead Story. He went back to taking notes, as if he’d done nothing at all while Mr. Collier continued his lecture. He was good at this, Gilead thought. He had always liked Chris, but now he wished he’d known the wild haired young man better.
Gilead pulled away the tip of the pen and around the ink stem was a strip of paper.
“The Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Persians were an Iranian people who arrived in what is today Iran around 1000 BC and settled a region including north-western Iran, the Zagros Mountains and Persis alongside the native Elamites...”
Beside Gilead, Chris Knapp mouthed, exagerrtedly, “E-lam-ites.”
“For a number of centuries they fell under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire that would be about 911 down till 609 BC, based in northern Mesopotamia…”
“Gil, don’t you take notes?” Adam Hauer whispered.
Gilead shook his head.
“Gil likes history. He just soaks it up. It’s gross,” Brad Andee whispered.
“Too bad he couldn’t soak up a little sports too. Gil, you’re a horrible athlete.”
“The Persians were originally nomadic pastoralists in the western Iranian Plateau. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as the Medes, another group of Iranian peoples, established a short-lived empire and played a major role in the overthrow of the Assyrians….
Gilead did not respond. He was paying attention to Mr. Collier’s lecture, yes, but he was thinking about the pen in his hand. Gilead opened the strip and read, in Mark’s fine handwriting.
Meet me at the chapel at 11:15?
Check here for yes ___
Here for you can’t ___
That Gilead would tell him no for any other reason than not being able to had never entered Mark’s head, and it hadn’t entered Gilead’s either.
“Cyrus revolted against the Median Empire in 553 BC, and in 550 BC succeeded in defeating the Medes, capturing Astyages and taking the Median capital city of Ecbatana. Once in control of Ecbatana, Cyrus styled himself as the successor to Astyages and assumed control of the entire empire. By inheriting Astyages' empire, he also inherited the territorial conflicts the Medes had had with both Lydia and the Neo-Babylonian Empire…”
This was his second history course of the day. Mornings started out with 19th Century sitting between Mark and Russell. Gilead loved history, and would have loved a more interesting teacher for it, but the attention which Mr. Collier paid to his lectures was the attention he did not pay to his students and so Gilead marked a yes, then folded the note back into the ink pen and handed it to Chris who raised his hand and then left to go to the restroom or, presumably, Mark.
11:15 was study hall, and if you knew what you were doing an excellent time to have the run of the building. Much of OLM had been as renovated as one could make it without building a whole new school, but the wide steps under the great skylight with its diamond cut panels of glass looked as old as they were, and as they left the third floor and, on their landing, turned to the fourth, Gilead saw Mark waiting for him, hand in the pockets of his chinos, his blue blazer dropping over them. Mark gave him that damn nod, the cool nod that Gilead was almost embarrassed had such an effect on him, and when he met him at the top of the stairs, Mark caught his hand.
Gilead had always known this as the floor with the chapel. Now he saw this old floor was composed of a corridor with long windows at both ends, and only a very few doors. One of them. Gilead was sure, led to the news paper room, but Mark was not concerned about that room, and opened another, quickly dragging Gilead in and shutting it as he pressed him against the door and kissed him.
The last few days before the end of vacation and the beginning of spring term were maddeningly busy, and this morning, when Mark’s car had arrived at Gilead’s house, was the first time he’d seen him in days. Sharonda had already gone off to work, and Gilead locked the door behind him and then headed down the steps to hop into the passenger seat where he squeezed Mark’s hand. They didn’t kiss because, for some reason, having Mark’s hand in his felt even more intimate. They drove up Archer until Breckinridge and picked up Russell. On their way there Gilead said, “You know, it would actually make more sense if you picked up Russell first.”
“Not necessarily,” Mark had differed. “I’m on North Westhaven. It’s all about what in what. Besides, it’s not Russell I missed.”
Mark had grinned and turned away from him, looking out of the window, but rubbing his thumb along the inside of Gilead’s hand. Gilead thought Mark should drive with two hands, but kept this to himself.
“We’re almost kinda sort of late,” Gilead had noted as they parked beside the old stone school on Lincoln Street, but they weren’t the last people here. Chris Knapp’s car was pulling into the parking lot and Russell said, “He probably took Cameron to school.”
“Well, if they want us to be on time they should start school later,” Mark said, and as they entered the main lobby of Our Lady of Mercy, they heard the morning bell ringing.
“We haven’t even had time to see each other,” Gilead said as Chris Knapp burst through the door in his Starter jacket. He contemplated running to class on time, but on seeing his friends, he simply leapfrogged onto Mark’s back
“We all have our first two classes together,” Mark said. “So that’s plenty of time together.”
“Not me,” Chris said.
“You have fourth period with me if it makes you feel better.”
“It does, Gil,” Chris said stoutly, as they came to the third floor, “it does.”
So now they were in the closet and Gilead had removed Mark’s blazer and was running his hands up and down his sides, and then reaching under his shirt to feel his skin. He brought Mark down in a corner of the room and Mark Young knelt between his legs, kissing Gilead deeply.
“I almost thought that us together was a dream,” Gilead said. “I almost though I was making it up. I haven’t seen you in three days.”
“And debate team starts tonight,” Mark said, between kissing him, “and practice for cross country, and… I really, really, think you should join the paper.”
“Fuck the paper.” Gilead said.
They sat side by side, disheveled and kissing.
“I wish we could go home right now,” Mark said.
“How did you find this place?”
“I’ve known about this place. Because Billy Rathko was on paper and yearbook and they get that little room down the hall. He said he used to make out with his girlfriend here. Before he graduated I got the key. I just haven’t had a reason to use it.”
They stopped talking and Mark leaned in to kiss him again.
“We’ve got like… a half hour before lunch…” Gil began, but Mark was lifting his shirt and Gilead said, “Are we… here?”
“If you want,” Mark said, but his voice was husky, and he apparently assumed they were, had shrugged off his shirt and was unbuckling his belt.
Mark smelled like heat and desire and teenage boy cologne right next to him, and in the last minutes of their kiss Gilead remembered how firm and athletic his body was. And then there was the welling of tenderness Gilead felt for Mark just because he was Mark. And he remembered the way he felt about this school and his life here, and decided that having sex in a large utility closet was just what he needed.
After Christmas, Russell Lewis had the powerful desire to lead a grown up life. This is the way he had phrased it to Gilead, and he was sure Gilead, who was his best friend, and who had found him as he once was, would understand. Russell had been leading something that was almost a grown up life before, but somehow the introduction of not only teenage social life, but sex had made him less grown up, less focused. All of these fallings in and out of bed with Ralph or with Jason or with Cody, all of this falling in and out of love and the almost treachery surrounding it felt very ungrown up. He felt sillier and more in turmoil than he had in the past. He did not want to share his life with his friends anymore. He didn’t want to talk about it with Gilead or even with Chayne. Suddenly, what Gilead had with Mark seemed very mature, very real, quite solid, and Russell felt like there was nothing solid about himself.
He remembered Christmas, when he was finally alone with Flipper, and they were driving over the snow crusted streets of Geschichte Falls, slowly pulling up to his house. The whole family was gone because there had been a power out, and no one was coming back till the morning. He and Flipper had gone through the house seeing what was on. He’d thought—very briefly—of calling his parents, telling them to wake up and come home from the rectory. He told himself that he didn’t want to wake them up, but privately knew that was a lie. He’d gone into the basement to find Flipper. Jason was sure sex and a strange set of lustful feelings. Ralph was something else altogether. Cody was burning and crazy passion, but Flipper was stability. Flipper was the first right feeling. When he closed the door and set the lock and Flipper was undressing, when he went to Flipper and took his face in his hands, there was a sense of relief, of rightness.
Sex felt good. It felt great. But so far Russell had never felt “like a grown up” the way it was supposed to make you feel. Flipper was younger than Cody, yes, but for some reason, in that room on his back, Flipper moving between his thighs as he looked down on him with those eyes gone black in the night, lightly licking his lower lip, the black curtain of hair touching Russell’s cheek, it felt like making love to a grown up, and as Russell felt his own body move, he felt like a grown up too. Being with Flip at Saint Alban’s was like that too. He didn’t feel like a dumb kid in over his head. But then, he never had been. He’d always been wiser than his years, or wise as them, and with Flipper this was exactly how he felt.
The sex was long lasting, which surprised Russell. He had wanted to be with Flipper so badly he though that things would culminate in five minutes. But neither of them seemed to be in a hurry, and they moved through all the measures of love slowly. Flipper did what Jason or Ralph would not have known to do, which was lie on his side in a sort of lazy peace, working Russell’s body until, finally, Russell shuddered and bubbled into quaking orgasm while, under his dark lash’s Flipper watched contentedly. When, a little later, with a staggering force almost embarrassing in its revelation of vulnerability, Flipper came, seizing in his arms. The two of them lay in that bed, warm and naked under the yellow light they had never turned off, limbs linking and unlinking, stroking one another’s arms, shoulders, hair.
“I want to stop being stupid,” Russell said, at last, turning onto his stomach and folding his arms under his chin.
“You aren’t stupid at all,” Flipper said.
“Only I’ve bee very stupid, and you don’t know it. I’d like to start acting like a grown up.”
“But you’re not a grown up.”
“If I’m sleeping with you I’m a grown up,” Russell said. “And maybe I don’t mean be a grown up. Maybe I mean be someone who acts like they have sense. Because I used to have sense. Too much sense. So much sense I was depressed and too afraid to do anything. But… I’d like to be reasonable again. It’s no fun being a basket case.”
Flipper had lain on his side, looking over Russell, taking the back of his hand over the young hills of his ass, the valley of his back, taking his hand through his hair so that his ring was a little snagged in Russell’s red hair. He turned it round on his finger and in a movement untangled the ring.
“Russ, would you mind if I wrote you?”
“No,” Russell said.
“I wanted to call you. Ross said I should. It felt awkward. Calling your house.”
Russell was not completely thoughtless. It would be off for a twenty year old to be calling for a eighteen year old.
“I could call you,” Russell said.
He felt this was a loss of power, almost an act of desperation, and wondered where such ideas about love had come from. It really just made more sense..
“If you called me I’d just hang up and tell you I’d call back. That way you don’t pay long distance,” Flipper said.
“D.L. has one of those flip phones,” Russell sighed. “I wonder if…. That would be great.”
“But we’ll do something,” Flipper said.
“Yes.”
Suddenly, Russell wanted to say, “Be my boyfriend!” And he was aware that this was the first person he’d wanted to say it to. In a way, he’d never wanted to say it to Cody, maybe because it didn’t need to be said. But he felt the strange pang of knowing this boy was leaving, and somehow he needed something to make him his. And he also knew this was foolish, and selfish, so he said nothing.
