SEVENTEEN
EXALT!
“Exsúltet iam angélica turba cælórum:
exsúltent divína mystéria:
et pro tanti Regis victória tuba ínsonet salutáris!”
Father Branch sang into the darkness.
“Gáudeat et tellus, tantis irradiáta fulgóribus:
et ætérni Regis splendóre illustráta,
tótius orbis se séntiat amisísse calíginem.”
The sun was just beginning to stay up past eight. Outside, on Kirkland Street, as the blue sky was turning charcoal, Father Geoff had made the roaring pit fire, and its light shone on the faces of the people of Saint Adjeanet, making them all premative, making them something before theology as they called light out of the darkness back into the world that cried out for it. With the grace of a magician, Geoff Ford lit the Easter candle. Moments before he had chanted, as he traced the year 2000 onto it and made the sign of the Cross with the red wax nails:
“Christ, yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega. To Him belongs all time and all the ages; all glory and dominion is his now and forever.”
And they all said, “Amen."
Delicately he placed the grains of incense in the candle as the first stars budded in the blue sky, diamond hard, and Michael Branch chanted:
“By His holy and glorious wounds may Christ our Lord guard and keep us.”
They processed into the church, Father Branch before Geoff Ford and Robert Heinz. At the Easter liturgy they always needed at least three priests and Michael Branch said he would be glad to help out so long as he could preside. He said it with a wink, but the younger priests knew he was serious.
Behind the priests came the lectors, the altar boys and altar girls, the choir in white robes instead of the robes once conned from Evervrigin across town where Gilead was with Mark right now. Bells were ringing somewhere, not here, it was not time yet, and Russell, as he walked behind Chayne and Rob up the winding stair to the choir loft, had thought, down south, across the bridge, Ralph is at Saint Celestines with Anigel’s family. Anigel was here, and Ross was here as well. Father Branch had chosen to chant the Exsultet in Latin, which was one of the few things Russell was good at in school. On the program, he saw the English translation.
…Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness…
One taper had been lit from the Easter candle, and it lit the tapers of servers in white, and they went from aisle to aisle, lighting the candles of people at each end, and each shared the light. Looking down from the choir loft, Russell could see the blackened nave of Saint Adjeanet fill with little yellow stars and now, up the wooden stair came Abe Handley with a lit taper, and he lit the tapers of some choir members as well. Under the expanding golden light, while Father Branch chanted, the veiled altar was visible under the veiled Crucifix. Light shone on the painted scenes of the Way of the Cross, Jesus stumbling once, stumbling again, here the body of Jesus placed in the arms of weeping Mary. At this moment Russell saw it in almost mystical fashion, wax tapers a sea of stars, the whole of the universe shining on one suffering man, as it always did. The body of Christ was the body of the whole world.
“Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness.”
Everyone was here. There were the Dwyers, but not quite together. Cameron was with Chris in a row beside Anigel and Ross. Brad and Nehru were here and here was Marissa with her belly rounding. And there was Aunt Kristin, just arrived this evening with Uncle Reese, who was holding the sleeping baby, his little cousin. Rob looked more handsome than Russell knew. Russell was nearly jealous of Chayne. After all, Rob and Cody were the same age, and Rob was white gold and elf faced to Cody’s chocolate and thick limbs. They were both fey and well built and when he stayed at 1421 Curtain, he heard the noises from Chayne’s room and thrilled to them.
And there was Cody, and he loved him. He was with Jill and Shane, and Russell loved Cody and Cody loved him. But he loved all of them. And here he was. Nothing mattered. Sin did not matter, or if it did, it did not matter forever. God welcomed all. He had to, for Russell felt that all of him was welcomed. The light made sense of all darkness. For the first time in a very long time, Russell was certain with a potency that shook him, that this same light would make sense of all his darkness.
The morning RL died, the house was filled with a strange lightness. Happiness wasn’t quite the word. They’d all come through something, and for most people it was the vigil to be present for the people you loved, to stand beside the people you love and face what most people feared. Those who were asleep had almost immediately awakened, and outside in the yard they could hear Kristin wailing. Russell remembered what it had been like to hate his father, and what it was like to love him again. His aunt Kristin, the first born, had been the first baby in R.L’s arms. There had been a time when it was only the two of them. The trust he had broken had taken a life time to restore, and not even completely. The reunion, the restoration, was unfinished, and it would have to be. Death was a jagged thing.
As people had come downstairs into the morning, Russell had seen something that was slightly surprising, but ought not have been, not if he truly knew these people after all this time. Chayne went outside, followed by Anigel, and both of them knelt in the grass and held Kristin while she sobbed, She placed her face in Chayne’s chest and Russell thought, “Well, I never thought about it, but if they all grew up here, she must have known Chayne all her life too.”
Then a lot of things happened at once, and they were governed by Patti. The ambulance arrived, and by then only Thom and Kathleen and Jackie were in the room. The room was strange to Russell now, holding only the body of his grandfather, a man he had just begun to know. He was surprised when the EMTs simply left the house, but almost as soon as they left, like a procession, Mason Devalara arrived in his black Oldsmobile, followed by an elegant black van, and out of it came Chayne’s father and three of his many Prince cousins. They entered the house quietly, and Sharon followed them into RL’s.
“Kathleen,” Graham Kandzierski said more kindly than he had ever spoken, “Do you have plans?”
She looked at Mason, who would be her husband, and then at the bed where what had once been her husband was a mass covered over by the blanket.
Now Finn began wailing profusely, but Kathleen said, “Life wasn’t really that kind to any of us. He’s been cut up enough. He wanted to be free. Burn him. Why should this old body hang around?”
Russell was beside his best friend when he saw the body of his grandfather borne out of his living room on a stretcher. Gilead said and did nothing, but Mark but an arm around his waist and squeezed him. He loved them both.
Cameron was standing with her brother and her father. Niall and Bill watched as a body in a black bag passed them. Bill crossed himself.
“Dad…” Niall began.
“I love you, Niall,” Bill said.
Niall nodded his head and tears went down his face.
“I’ll be better,” Bill told him. “I promise.”
In the hour after the Prince’s had come for R.L, the house lightened. Chayne and Rob left. Anigel and Ross did as well. Brad and Nehru remained longer than Russell expected, and when they left they took Cody with them. Jason and Ralph had left after the EMTs did, though Gilead said he doubted they were going to school, and Gilead and Mark were still there long after the Princes had taken RL away.
“Why don’t you guys do something,” Thom said.
“Are you trying to get rid of us?” Macy asked.
“No! No,” Thom shook his head. “I’m so glad you all came. Mark, Gilead, I really appreciate you all being here, but life is for living and young people shouldn’t be cooped up in a house of death, Go,” he said. “Go.”
“Well, I could do with some breakfast,” Gilead said.
They were all heading out when Thom said, “Flipper, could I talk to you?”
Russell;’s stomach did somersaults while he waited in the living room, and he watched his father talking to a boy who, with his dark brows and black hair seemed like another Lewis relation. He looked a little like if Thom had brought forth a tall son, and then Russell realized Thom had brought forth a tall son which was him and he wondered what he and Fkipper looked like side by side. But Flipper was laughing now, and Thom shook his hand warmly and squeezed his shoulder.
“What was that all about?” Russell asked on the way to the car.
Flipper blushed and grinned at Russell.
“I’ll never tell.”
The Volkswagon Beetle Flipper drove was as yellow as the afternoon sun Russell saw from the seat beside him.
“You’re headed back tonight?” Russell said.
“I am,” Flipper said, unnecessarily.
“You didn’t have to come here for me, but I’m so glad you did.”
“You’re my friend, Russell.”
“More than a friend, maybe.”
“There’s nothing more than a friend,” Flipper said. “Some friends might be your lovers, or they might be your mate, but there is nothing more than a friend.”
And then he said, “That Cody…. Is that the Cody? Is that the one?”
“The one?”
“I know you. The one you’re hung up on.”
“He’s my brother.”
“You said it, not me. Is he the one?”
“I didn’t know he was my brother. By then things had happened.”
“Then the answer is yes.”
When Russell said nothing, Flipper said, “I’m not judging, just trying to understand. Because we won’t know what we are if I don’t know what he is.”
“I can’t be with him.”
“Are you talking to me or the imaginary people in your head you don’t want to judge you?”
“Fine,” Russell said. “I love you. And I love him. And I don’t know what to do with that. He’s here, but he’s not allowed, and you’re allowed, but just barely, and at Saint Alban’s.”
Flipper nodded. He didn’t talk for a while.
“I still have all these feelings for Andy, you know? He’s not perfect. I get that, but I still have a passion for him. I was feeling the same way as you. Wondering. Wondering what to do? Maybe we don’t have to know and pin it all down, maybe we just need to be open for now. Honest.”
Flipper’s eyes were on the road, but he put out his left hand for Russell to take, and he kept driving. Russell realized they were on Thompson Road, headed toward the old gas station.
Russell couldn’t remember at what point knew Cody was sleeping with Nehru and Brad. Had he overheard it in conversation? Or did Cody tell him that morning after his own threesome with Jason and Ralph, when he came to the house on Colum Street, stripped, and weeping, fell into his arms. Whenever he had learned, now, while he and Flipper fucked in the room where Cody had been with Brad and then with Nehru, he imagined them all here, all together. Outside Russell glimpsed the private grassy place where the yellow Volkswagon was parked. He clung to Flipper’s waist and Flipper’s face reddened as he shuttled between his thighs, arms planted on either side of him, sweat dripping from his face. His face, his face. His face went from determined to angelic, to blissed out. Russell didn’t think either of them would come, they fucked so long and so hard, and then, at last, there was Flipper, almost floating above him, and there was the hot jet of seed, and Flipper’s loosening loosened him. In this bed in this house he imagined Cody and Brad and Nehru here, and Jason, and Ralph and Ralph and Jason and Ralph was with Cody and Cody was with Flipper, and gently rising out of his body, the same way the semen welled out of his cock, he floated too in the edge lands with Flipper. Undone, they sprawled together in the bed sheets for some time, watching the daylight change the shade of the green trees.
That was the day Flipper had begun to teach Russell to drive. He ony laughed when Russell almost crashed his Beetle into the oak tree off Thompson Road. Russell was terrified and embarrassed, but Flipper only kissed him deeply, lay back and chuckled.
“Start over,” he said, lying back in the passenger’s seat and chuckling. “Try not to drive us into the fucking river.”
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