SUNDAY
PART TWO
Conclusion
“So,” Nehru said, leaning in to take the joint from Cody, while Brad sat back blinking, “What are we…?” Nehru stopped to inhale and hold the smoke in his mouth, take it down into his lungs. “What are we supposed to do with this?”
They were in the apartment over the Noble Red, and it looked half like home and half like the amber lit otherworld where the three of them had recently made love.
“I dunno,” Cody said, shaking his head.
“I was going to say,” Brad began, “this is heavy. But… you already knew this was heavy.”
“It was going to be heavy no matter what.”
Nehru was what Brad called, weed resistant. He could smoke all the pot in Mexico and still be clear eyed and sober.
“What you were doing was doomed from the start. We can’t even say what you were doing. I can’t. My mouth won’t shape it.”
“I know,” Cody admitted. “Well, now it’s totally doomed, and now it’s totally over.”
“If you think about it that way,” Brad said, as smoke leaked from his nose, and he held the joint Nehru had recently passed him, “then it makes everything pretty easy. No matter your feelings, no matter how crazy it was, it’s all kind of done.”
“I feel like I didn’t think this out completely,” Gilead said when they arrived in Sawyer.
“What’s wrong,” Mark asked, climbing out of the car and catching Gilead’s hand.
“Well, for one it’s pretty much night.”
“Yeah, and it’s also winter. You had an impulse. You went with it. I’m cool with it. You think this motel’ll let us stay?”
“I think,” Gilead said, lifting his bag and walking toward the pool of light before the door with the sign that said OPEN, “this is the kind of motel that won’t ask any questions.”
“Great. We can lock the hell out of everything and then go look for some dinner. Then we’re going to the beach,” Mark said. “That’s definitely gonna happen. I’ve never been to a snowy beach. It’s about time.”
It was good to be in that room. Gilead thought it was never until you got to the hotel room that you realized how much you needed to stretch out or take off your shoes or go to the bathroom.
“This is a beachy beach town,” Mark said. “I hope they actually have a Mc.Donalds or something regular like that.”
“We will find something to eat,” Gilead declared, “even if we have to skin a rabbit.”
“No rabbit skinning,” Mark insisted, “but we will find food.”
If they had not been so hungry, they would have stayed in that room longer, but they found a family restaurant that served good burgers and all the stuff family restaurants should. There were two annoying children with their parents, and Mark sloshed a fry through his ketchup and muttered, “Fuckin’ white folks.”
When Gilead looked at him, he said, “What?” and shrugged.
The moon rose high and white over the beach they found. They drove over a long path, past a booth that was closed at this time of year and between high dunes. Now, Gilead stood, feet planted on the hard sand, watching the cold grey water crash to the slush on the shore. Mark, a dark shadow against the darkening night, ran the length of the beach. He ran and ran until Gilead thought he might not come back. He was a small dot who had left his coat on the sand and stripped to a sweat shirt and skull cap. When he came back he was breathing heavily, and the thin boy clutched his knees, grinning at Gilead.
“I needed that,” he declared.
It was then, as they walked back, that Gilead realized Mark was graceful like a colt, long legs surefooted even on rocks and sand. Gil tried to keep up. He couldn’t stand for Mark to know it was an effort.
“That,” Mark said, breathing, “And a bath.”
The water was good. The room was clean. This was not some weird motel. Gilead remembered it now. He had been with one of his aunts once, passing through here, and she had said this would be a wonderful place to lock yourself away and work on a novel.
Now they lay naked together, and Gilead sat in bed with Mark’s head on his chest, Mark’s leg hooked in his.
“I told you because I knew you were the person who would never tell a secret,” Gilead said, his hand stroking Mark’s wavy hair.
“I don’t really have anyone to tell anymore,” Mark said.
Gilead blinked.
“Except for you. And you already told me.”
“You never talk about Joe.”
Mark had been sprawled out in comfort, arms around Gilead. Now he seemed to constrict, and then he sat up.
“I don’t really know how to.”
“You don’t have to,” Gilead told him. “But if you want to you can. All those things you get in your car and drive around to clear your head from you could tell me. If you wanted.”
“I know I could,” Mark said after a time. “It’s just I don’t know how. And… I don’t even know that I want to. I… Sometimes a guy needs to be alone. Needs to be lonely. You know?”
“Yes, I know. I know all about that,” Gilead said.
“That’s what I like about you.”
“I’m just saying,” Gilead said, “I can look like I don’t care—”
“No, I never thought that.”
“But I don’t press. I’m never going to make you tell me things, but when you need to…”
Gilead looked at Mark, and then he sank back into the sheets. Mark was still sitting up.
“Yes, Gil,” Mark said. “When I need to aI will. I promise.”
“Why won’t you let us drop you off at home, boy?” Freestar demanded.
They were on the corner of Breckinridge and Market, near the gas station, and Russell said, “I just need to get some things off my mind.”
“It’s too cold for that,” Freestar murmured from where she sat in the back, but they let Russell out.
“Some times guys just need to think,” Chris asserted from the driver’s seat. “You have a good night, Russell.”
Cameron got out of the car with Russell and threw her arms around him.
“Thanks for being a friend. And everything’ll be alright. I promise.”
“Yeah, Cam,” Russell squeezed her shoulders.
“Same for you.”
As Chris Knapp’s car went north up Market Street, Russell started walking east in the cold. Cam didn’t know everything. How could she? She didn’t know he’d been with Cody or Ralph for that matter. And Chris was Mark’s friend, but had Mark ever talked to him about Gilead? And what were the two of them doing anyway?
He was tired of his mind. He turned it off as much as possible and concentrated on the cold of the air and the look of a cold night, blue and black and white, stars like hard jewels in a blue black sky . He walked until he was there, looking at the large house for only a moment before going up the familiar path that was only lightly covered by snow. He unhooked the latch and went around the side to the back of the house, covered in dried and frozen vines. He passed the shuttered windows of the solarium. He stood on his tiptoes and tapped on a window several times before going around to a little door in this add on that stuck out from the rest of the house.
Jason Lorry, shirtless, but in black pajama pants opened the door, and the two of them stood looking at each other before Russell Lewis walked in, shutting the door behind him.
