a tale by Chris Lewis Gibson
SLEEPING ON WATER
Published on November 26, 2004 By Owen Ellis In Welcome



“These two generations have been sad ones.... Yours and mine.”

-- Delorian Matthews




“BUT that’s impossible,” he said.
Waverly Blake’s face was--for once--caught in surprise and horror, his mouth a little
open. He was not overly handsome, but neither was he an unattractive man. He was
winsome, easily liked, the sort of person you did not forget because he would not forget you.
He was average height, wiry and pale and a little preppy looking like he’d fallen out of a
Land’s End Catalogue and liked to shop at Old Navy--which he did. Usually his thin lipped,
red mouth was open in a smile. Today it was open, but not in a smile. He had--what some
would call-- “everlasting sideburns, thin and long and pale brown like the spiky hair on his
head, and over a long nose in a narrow face he had old eyes that were usually crinkled in
triangles, a happy or sometimes a resolved smile.
“But Waverly, I’m afraid it’s true,” the doctor told him from the other side of the
desk. This was a comfortable desk. Doctor Mallorn was a friend of the family, their godfather
who had encouraged Justin--Wave’s older brother--to attend medical school.
“Well, it can’t be true,” Waverly returned. “I mean... how do you get it?”
“Gonorrhea is sexually transmitted. You know that, Wave.”
“I know,” Waverly said, “and that’s why there’s no way-- there’s no way I can have it.
Cindy’s the only girl I’ve ever been with.”
Doctor Mallorn opened his mouth to say something and then he shut it right away.
Waverly cocked his head and put a long white hand over his mouth. Then, slowly, he
removed it.
“You’re going to ask....” he began, “if I’m the only guy Cindy’s been with?”

Wave Blake was used to telling everybody everything.
He knew that some guys, some people, were private and kept things to themselves.
He’d known from afar people who thought everything was a matter of great quiet and could
never tell you anything at all. Waverly remembered back in college how hard it was to know
anyone because no one could answer any questions about themselves. Knowing some folks
had been like pulling teeth. Some people didn’t think they had a story to tell. Or they thought
the story was shameful.
Waverly Blake was born epic. Everything in his life was noteworthy of telling. He was
known to write e-mails that lasted for pages on end, addressed generally, telling everyone of
his rambling thoughts. And his throughts rambled everywhere. He was the sort of man who
wanted everyone to know everything about him and he wanted to know you too. All of life
was a mystery. Everyone was a mystery. Life was meant for philosophy, storytelling and
sharing and so it felt odd today, this keeping things quiet. He kept this locked inside of him.

When work was over he drove quickly home, out from the eastern boonies that were nothing
but firms and ad agencies, odd museums, malls and Wal Marts, overpasses, bypasses. and
back into the city. He drove through Willowfield with the old houses under their canopy of
green trees and the interlacing side streets of old, cracked ol asphalt. The children playing. He
braked at every stop sign, not annoyed by them for once, looking around from house to
house. He came to Mernau Street, passed the red brick house at which he was tempted to
stop. He told himself not to stop long before he reached the corner it stood on as Mernau
reached an incline over the river. If he slowed the car even a little bit, someone would look
out of that window and see him and wonder why he didn’t stop. If he slowed down the car a
little bit he’d tell himself he should stop and he would go in and sit in the large kitchen with
the huge ceiling fan and these Black people would all sit around like they didn’t care what he
had to say and he would find himself telling the Matthews everything.
So he drove on.
Toward Saint Peter Street where Willowfield ended and the city began again before
turning into Slaterfield, Waverly saw Delorian’s house. There was no telling if he was there.
Delorian did not believe in possessing an automobile. He’d just gotten a phone line a few
years ago. This was torture. He was just torturing himself driving through the old
neighborhood.
However he did not stop to visit his father.
He crossed Saint Peter and drove through Slaterfield. Any Izmirite worth his salt put a
nose up at the glitzy neighborhood that always put a nose up at the rest of the town. Anyone
who lived in Willowfield was allowed to spit out the window as they passed through
Slaterfield. Waverly contented himself with simply turning up the music as loudly as possible.
And then he passed out of Izmir altogether, into River Bend where he lived in that
little apartment in that little non-descript area. And as he drove around and around the
complex he saw Cindy’s car in one of the car ports and finally he parked beside it.
The car, turned off, gave a long shuddering gasp that was replaced by silence. Wave
sat in it, under the darkness of the car port saying nothing.
At last he spoke:
“Shit.”

That night Rush was doing the dishes. He paused because he felt really happy. His uncle had
always said, “When you feel really happy stop and be thankful for it. Young people never do
that, and that’s how they turn real old, real fast.”
“Do you do that?” Rush said to his uncle, even though Delorian was not there. Rush
liked to talk to himself.
And he heard Delorian in his memory saying, “How do you think I stay so young
and fresh?”
Well, there was that Rush admitted as he returned to the moment, and rinsed the
glass he’d been holding over the sink. There didn’t seem to be much of an age difference
between Delorian and his nephew, a fact which always pleased the former and sometimes
irked the latter.
There was a knock at the door of the houseboat, and from around the wall of the
kitchen, Cassidy shouted, “I’ll get it!”
A blonde boy ran out of his room to the deck of the boat saying, “Oh, Wave! What’s
up? Come on in! Did you eat yet? If you haven’t we’ve got leftovers but Rush has just done
the dishes....”
Rush Matthews washed off his brown hands and pushed up his glasses. He looked
younger than what he was. He was slight with wide brown eyes, and his hair was in rough
reddish curls close to his head. His father had always said that this had come from his mother
because there were NO redheaded Black people in the Matthew’s family.
“Wave, you look awful,” Rush told him.
“I feel awful!” Wave told him and then he told his friends everything. He didn’t
know how anyone could keep things in all the time. He told them how he’d gone to Doctor
Mallorn who told him that he had gonorrhea and he talked about how angry he was because
not only was it painful, but it made himm feel tainted, dirty and stupid, and he told them
how Cindy had been screwing around. ALL THE TIME. Which was a bit of an exagerration.
They’d been together since they were seventeen. But, damnit, it had been a long time, And
he had confronted her, and she had told him tonight and then broke down and cried as if
that would do anything! And she said she really wasn’t sure if she loved him or not or even if
she knew how to love anyone. And he asked her where she had gotten IT-- the STD from,
and she said she didn’t know. There had been so many.
And then Wave broke down in the living room of the houseboat and started to cry.
Cassidy kept a hand on his friend’s shoulder and looked at Rush. Rush was a practical man.
And so he began to prepare a plate of food, microwave it, get out a beer and the last of his
cigarettes. Then he brought them all out to sit on the deck, where he and Cass usually ate.
“Of course,” Rush said, lighting a cigarette himself and handing another to Waverly,
“you will stay here. As long as you want to.”
Waverly agreed, nodding weakly and wiping his face, blowing his nose with the
handkerchief Rush had given him.
“I guess, I guess,” Waverly stammered over his words. “I’ll take back the engagement
ring?”
“The ring?” Rush snapped.
“Yeah, I was going to propose to her on Friday?”
Cassidy, round eyed, looked at Rush.
“You were getting engaged and she was getting laid by half of Del Mario County?”
Rush said with a raised eyebrow.
“I guess so,” Waverly nodded, trying to smile.
“Well, now that is failure to communicate,” Rush said. And then he said, taking a
final inhalation os his cigarette, “That bitch!”
“She’s not a bitch,” Waverly protested. “She’s confused. She’s...”
“She’s a bitch,” Rush insisted.

WAVERLY WOKE UP WITH THE SUN IN HIS EYES. His back hurt him and he grunted
as he turned over and then pushed himself from the couch, making for the small bathroom.
Next he stumbled out to the deck to find that Rush and Cassidy were already out there in the
half lotus position, sitting on the river.
“What time is it?” Waverly yawned and stretched
“Time for you to go to work,” Rush told him, pushing up his glasses. “Work,” he
said the word, still amazed by its reality for some people.
Cassidy looked at his watch. “Seven-twenty.”
“Yeah, time to get dressed,” said Waverly. “Oh, man, that’s beautiful.” He sighed and
looked out on the grey river.
“How you holdin’ up?” Cassidy asked, looking up at him.
“I feel great. I feel real good this morning,” Waverly began swinging his arms like a
monkey. “I better get dressed. I’m gonna be late already.”
“Don’t forget breakfast,” Rush told him, taking out a cigarette. “It’s the most
important meal of the day.”
“No time,” Waverly shouted from the house.
“I’m talking about Yoplait and a cup of coffee, not the I-HOP. Now that’s what the
trouble is with this age,” Rush said, lighting his cigarette. “No one’s got any fucking time for
anything....”





“Are you serious?” Delorian said, his mouth half opened as he cocked his head.
“Well, that bitch!”
“Delorian!” his father said.
“Well, now, Cecil, what else should I say?” Delorian poured himself another cup of
coffee and returned to the large kitchen table, taking his father’s pack of cigarettes and turning
to his nephew for more information.
“And the bitch ---exucse me,” Delorian turned to Cecil, “gave him an STD?”
Rush and Cassidy nodded together, and Delorian shook his head. “Now that’s
rough... That’s real rough.”
“I’d feel bad about talking about it here...” Rush began.
“Except before the day is over Wave’ll probably be here blathering it all over the
place.”
The door opened and a pale woman with unwashed copper colored hair tied in a
ponytail came into the kitchen and said to Delorian, “I was looking for you all over the
place.”
“Well, you found me.”
“Frances,” Rush looked up at her.” You’ll never guess what happened.”
“Not if you don’t tell me.”
“It’s awful,” Cassidy said. “It’s really just awful.” Cassidy had the sort of face that
made you believe in genuine sorrow.
“Waverly’s girl--”
“That Cindy thing he’s been with ever since high school?” Frances said, bored.
Cassidy and Rush nodded. Delorian said, “She’s been screwing around behind his
back and gave the poor bastard gonnorhea.”
Frances’ face went three shades paler than usual and then she said, “That bitch!”
“Oh, Frances, don’t--” Cecil began, and then shook his old head saying, “Why bother
fighting a losing battle?”



2.

The bell over the front door of Scarborough Fair rang as Fred Wehlan entered, navigating his
way through windchimes and suncatchers, moving past shelves with little Native American
and African statuettes, stacks of shoes made of one hundred percent hemp and shelves full of
freshly ground incense. Frances looked up from the book she was reading at the counter in
the back of the shop, and pushed her glasses up, waiting for her brother to speak.
“Did you hear about--?”
“Yeah, have a mood ring,” Frances stuck one on Fred’s index finger. She examined
the color while her brother examined her.
“It’s blue. Means you’re calm.” Frances smacked her gum.
“Delorian told me all about it this morning,”
“I thought Monterey would have,” said Frances.
“Oh, no. Monty’s been out of town. He doesn’t get back until this afternoon. And I
can’t imagine he’ll even care about this.”
“He’ll feel bad. Monterey’s everyone’s grandmother.”
“He’ll feel bad for Wave,” Fred agreed. “But not until about six hours of sleep.”
“Poor Wave, poor bastard. Should we wait for him to tell us and pretend like we
don’t know?”
Fred was staring at his ring and Frances said, “Fred. Fred Wehlan, I’m talking to
you.”
“I was just thinking.... Ghonorrhea’s treatable? Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Frances said with more certainty than she felt. Then, “Well, I think. Well,1
maybe we won’t bring it up to Wave until he’s mentions it.”

The big yellow taxi cab came to a halt before 1531 Mernau Street late that afternoon. No one
was home, and this was just as well because if they had been he would have had to talk to
them. Monterey climbed out of the taxi, and the driver climbed out of hte drivers seat to help
him with his two bags before Monterey Matthews generously tipped him and headed up the
the stairs to his room.
He slept on the third floor, in the bedroom of his childhood, not one of the three
dormers that poked out of the one time attic overlooking Mernau, but a little inconspicuous
one that looked over the large wrap around porch, down the graden to the river where--not far
off--floated the houseboat Rush was living in with Cassidy.
Monterey did not even take off his shoes, He just lay on the bed. He never fell asleep.
He passed into the trance state where he heard all the activity in the hosue beneath him and
did not bother to get up. He heard his son pass by and his brother say, “I hear him snoring,
and I’d just as soon let him sleep.” He smelled dinner wafting up, and dishes being washed
and the room darkened as night set in. Finally there was a tap on the door, and Monterey
knew it was Fred.
“Frederick Wehlan, you--”
“Look like the devil!” Fred finished, grinning, and sat on the side of the bed saying in
his slight drawl, “and you look like you’ve been fucked by the devil, my friend.”
“I am so exhausted. Once again I promise that I will--”
“Never leave home again.”
“Only this time I mean it. I’m so tired.”
“Waverly’s girl broke things off with him.”
“Eh?” Monterey raised an eyebrow. But nothing else, he was so tired.
Fred explained everything and Monterey said, “Oh... the poor.... the poor. Well, get
me that phone.”
“Monty, man!”
“Get me the damned phone, Frederick!” Monterey sat up now, and the little redhead
got up and gave his old friend the cordless. “Where is he?” Monterey muttered.
“At the houseboat. He was here.”
“Well, shit,” Monterey murmured. “Then. Wave? Yes, Wave. You poor son of a
bitch. I didn’t know. Well, I tell you what, it’s completely treatable--”
“Oh, my God!” Fred said.
“Does your brother know? Have you told Justin? Jesus Christ, why are you living in
that shit of a boathouse when there’s this house. And Delorian’s! Oh I know Dory and
Frances wouldn’t mind--”
“Monterey!”
“Yes, see you in the morning,” Monterey rang off and Fred said:
, “Unbelievable!”
“Drawn together in brotherhood against the forces of evil,” Monterey said.
“Remember... there is no end to the evil which lurks in the seemingly innocent rivers
and cornfields of Indiana....”
“You are--- a nut job,” Fred Wehlan insisted while Monterey continued:
“I do solemnly pledge to resist all evil, keep all secrets and stand back to back with my
brother Dragonflies in times of woe. I sign this in blood under the secret rites of the Oder of
the Dragonfly!”

CECIL MATTHEWS HIMSELF HAD SAID MANY TIMES OVER THE YEARS THAT
HE WOULD NEVER FORGET THE DAY THERE WAS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR
AND A LITTLE SEVEN YEAR OLD BOY IN AN OVERSIZED TEE SHIRT WITH A
SHOCK OF RED HAIR STOOD BEFORE HIM HOLDING A SAXOPHONE AND
TALKING IN A VERY GROWN-UP VOICE.
“Mr. Matthews, sir, I’m here for your son,” the little boy said. “My name is Frederick
Wehlan, aged seven and three quarters.” And then he stuck out his hand and broke into a
smile large as his face.
“Well, come on in,” Cecil told him, and ushered Fred into the most luxury the little
boy had ever seen in his life.
“Monterey John Francis!” Cecil shouted up the steps. “I assume it’s Monterey and
not the other one? Delorian is only three.”
“No, sir,” Fred said. “It’s Monterey. Sir, this is a beautiful kitchen you have.”
“I put out the best one for you,” Cecil said.
The boy seemed puzzled over this, and then burst into laughter, and rolled on the
floor heedless of his saxohpone. “The best one! You put out the best one! The best kitchen.
Like you have a spare! That’s funny! It’s like the best china! Only it’s the best kitchen!”
And then suddenly a horrible suspicion occured to the boy rolling around on this
terra cotta tiled floor of the finest house he’d ever seen in his short life, and he shot up, his
dark red hair sticking up all over his head.
“You don’t... have a spare kitchen, sir? Do you?”
And this time it was Cecil’s turn to look amazed, and then he bursts out laughing.
“Oh, God, no!”
By now Monterey, skinny and caramel colored in dungarees and a white button down
shirt hanging out of his pants came downstairs. He was tall for his age, and he looked at Fred
in amazement.
“Monterey,” Cecil began, “this is--”
“It’s Fred,” Monterey stepped forward to shake the boy’s hand. “He’s in my class,
Dad.”
“Would you boys like lemonade? Cookies...?” Cecil asked. “A cigarette?”
Fred bursts out laughing again and said, “A cigarette. A cigarette! Cigarettes!” Then,
once again, “You wouldn’t really give us a cigarette?” This man seemed capable of doing
anything. That’s what they said about Cecil Matthews, at least.
“No, Fred,” the young man said. And he was young. The youngest looking Dad Fred
had seen.
“Your Dad is a cut up,” the seven year old said to Monterey.
“Sometimes,” the other little boy said with a cryptic archness that made his father
raise an eyebrow at such seven year old wit.
“But sir,” Fred pushed on business like, “maybe we can chat later. Right now I’ve
come to show your son around town. If he’s going to know how to get around, someone’s
got to show him all the bus stops and little shops and things. Where to go.”
“Where not to go,” Cecil added, thinking that this little child would understand.



The Matthews were a matter of great interest at Saint Alphonsus
Parish. Cecil Matthews had blown in just that year in a sky blue Corvair big as a boat,
Motown and Aretha blaring unapologetically from his speakers. All the children had seen
him. How could they not? In all grades K through eight at Saint Alphonsus there were only
ten--tops-- Negroes. Maybe one of them was actually Catholic. For the most part they were
nice enough, once you got past their blackness they were quite ordinary, and content to
remain so. One usually did not see a Negro parent, and when you did you got all interested
over their color for a moment and then the interest died down.
The interest never died down with Cecil Matthews. For one, he was literally the black
sheep in the Saint Alphonsus family. He had gone there to school and to high school in the
days when Saint Alphonsus had possessed a high school. His sister was a nun, an Oblate
over in Maryland. Negroes were generally expected to keep their place and--if not do what
they were told--then at least not get up in decent folks faces. Cecil made you feel like you were
in his face. In the days when he had come to Mass he was always in the front of the church.
He actually understood the words when everything had been in Latin. He could sing and
dance and recite poetry and just generally live it up around you in circles that left you
goddamned exhausted and, from what was remembered of him, he had a habit of casual
blasphemy, telling priests in catechism class, “Oh, I don’t believe in Limbo at all! What kind
of God would send a little baby to something like that just because his parents were too dumb
to get him baptized on time?”
“Our God!” Father McConneheigh would say in a voice that had always been
effective in shutting all the Irish and German kids up.
“Well maybe your God!” Cecil would return.
And this was all when he was about twelve.
And the nuns were no match for him either. The corporal punishment so liberally
dealt to most boys Cecil never received. Once Sister Mary Saint Stephen had called him
forward.
“You want to beat my hands with a stick?” he said in amazement. “And I’m supposed
to come up and let you? Oh, I don’t think so. Only my Daddy could do that, and even he
better not try now.”
And that, everyone agreed, was the problem. Cecil’s Daddy--no one ever heard about
his mother, but it could be assumed about her as well-- was not a Catholic. The Matthews
were Baptists. Everyone knew this. Even Cecil’s conversion had not been under the best of
circumstances. The nuns and the priests at Saint Alphonsus remembered this, and it was a
reason they tried not to deal with Mr. Matthews.
Gibralter Matthews had stormed into Father Edmund’s office when Cecil was nine, a
new student at Saint Alphonsus, and said, “Well, now why can’t all the Negro children eat
the bread? What the hell kind of school is this where you talk about Jesus and then you feed
all the little white children? But none of the Negro children get to eat the bread?”
It had taken a good while for Father Edmund to puzzle out that what Mr. Matthews
was talking about was Cecil’s public embarrassment at being turned away from the
Communiion rail at daily Mass a few days back, and how he had noticed that all the other
Negro children sat back quietly at this time and didn’t go up to receive the Communion that
all the white children seemed to take for granted.
“Mr. Matthews,” Father Edmund assured him, “it is not because your son in a
Negro, but because he is not a Catholic that he cannot... receive Holy Communion.”
“Well, then make him a Catholic. If everyone else’s kids can eat the bread, why can’t
mine?”
“Sir, do you understand what that means? Making a child a Catholic, being baptized,
receiving the sacraments.”
“Naw, I don’t really understand none of that. It’s all God to me. And it’s probably all
God to God too. But you understand. That’s what you here for. Get him all Catholicked up,
and then let my boy go to your Communion thing like everybody else.”
So what else could Father Edmund say? It was 1942 and he was saving a soul from
the darkness of Protestantism. However he did it did not matter. However the child came to
the True Faith did not matter. And so Cecil came into the Church of Rome that year, and he
entered the family of Saint Alphonsus, and this meant that no matter how much trouble he
was, and in the end he was not much trouble--he was never less than in the top ten percent of
his class--everyone could just hold on and pray that Cecil would change.
But Cecil did not change. Saint Alphonsus changed. Midway through his freshman
year they received news that the high school would close and Cecil was sent to Assisi, on the
other end of Willow Field. It was 1949. For almost the next fifty years Assisi High School
would be a part of the Matthews family and the Order of the Dragonfly.

And even though he was not seen in the halls of Saint Alphonsus high school anymore, he
was seen at Sunday Mass. And then when he disappeared Cecil’s memory was discreetly put
away. But the day he roared up to the school in that Corvair... nuns, priests, parishioners....
they all began to remember.

At seven, Fred Wehlan had begun to observe what in later life he realized with a great
accuracy. How the middle class hated the rich or those they perceived to be rich. For the poor,
there was no time to hate anyone except maybe the middle class, and then the time hating
was time taken away from praying to gain your daily bread. But it was the middle class who
always wanted one thing more, who always strived for a little more than the middle, who were
always looking over their shoulders.
And what they saw over their shoulders were the rich.
And so it wasn’t just that the Matthews were Negroes. But, my God! They were
uppity Negroes who lived in a dark brick house on the river with three dormer windows that
looked out over Mernau street from an imperious third floor of old slate tiles. No one knew
how much money they had. But they had it. They never seemed to worry about it. They blew
in and out of town on it, always going here, always going there. Later on Fred was to note that
in this way Monty’s growing up and his growing up had not been terribly different. He would
never romanticize growing up poor, but to grow up that way was to never put your trust in
money because money was never there. Everything the Wehlans did was done with the same
carefree attitude, the same lack of questioning how much it costs, the sheer lack of care for
public opinion as the rich, though maybe for slightly different reasons.
So for this reason when Monterey had come to Saint Alphonsus Fred had instantly
skipped over all the little blond and brunette heads in the classroom and gone to his, to the
Matthews boy. Fred had never had any friends. Nor did he feel the need for them. What was
more he felt the same was true of Monterey. He was filled with a profound respect for the
other little boy. Once or twice he’d heard his family talking about the Matthews’--and in a
good way--and his mother had said, “I wonder if that boy even knows how to get around
Izmir. He just moved here. He can’t know that much.”
And Fred had stopped playing the saxophone his grandmtoher had given him, and
gotten up and gone through the impressive houses of Willowfield to find Monty.

Monterey learned about the streets of Izmir that day, and Fred learned about Chicago and
New Orleans and Mexico even. All real news of Cecil Matthews stopped at his disappearance
at seventeen. He had simply climbed out of his window in a need to be “Wild,” and never
come back. Well not until now to care for his aged father. He had come with two children,
one little more than a baby and tales of adventure and the story of a wife, fabulously dead.
Her name had been Dora and she was a poet and she was beautiful.
And how can one be fabulously dead? She had fallen into the water on a boating trip
and some said it was suicide, by Monterey said it was not, and that his mother had been
unable to swim a lick, and she had disappeared and her body had not turned up until the
next day. It had drifted into a small pond, and was all covered in lotuses, her hair fanned out
just like that painting of Ophelia.
“Father said he just wanted to leave her that way,” Monterey told Fred. “And then he
just started picking flowers, and more flowers and he told me, ‘Get more flowers’. And then
we just poured all these blossoms all over Mother.... It really was beautiful. She looked so
happy.”


And Monterey learned that Fred was the oldest of two children. His mother was pregnant
with another. She hoped it would be a girl. His father was-- of all the odd things-- Amish, and
had left his people for his mother, which was romantic; and then left his mother to become a
Buddhist or a Hare Krishna or something like that which-- in later years-- everyone just said
was neurotic. At any road, Fred Wehlan’s mother lived with her own mother, her two aunts
and her five brothers, all roaring alcoholics, and they were nothing like well to do. The
Mc.Guires were not the Kennedys, their household was not Camelot. Fred’s Grandmother
refused to go to Mass now that everything had gone to English and thereby gone to pot. She
sat by the T.V. saying her rosary all day long, and she did not actually look at the television,
because she preferred radio and thought the Devil lived in the giant glass tube. To Imogen
Mc.Guire the Devil was very real. This was no the upwardly mobile, newly Angicized Irish
American Catholic family of which the Church was becoming so proud. The Mc.Guires were
a disgrace and a throwback, and this was the reason that up until Monterey, Fred Wehlan’d
had no friends.

IN YEARS TO COME EVERYONE WOULD ASSOCIATE THE DRAGONFLIES WITH
DELORIAN.... AND TO SOME EXTENT FRANCES. But the truth was: that hot August
night in 1965 when Fred and Monterey, dressed elaborately in white sheets, the first holding
aloft a white votive candle ripped off from Saint Alphonsus, and the other using a similarly
ripped of censer, Delorian was quietly asleep in his crib and Frances was not yet born.
Of course Cecil was the kind of father who would have perfectly understood the
creation of the Order of the Dragonfly, but it was a Secret Society and by very defintion of the
term secret society, no one could be told of it’s birth. Fred was staying over that night. It was
so hot they slept on the large screened in back porch. The air smelled of heat, and the bed
sheets used for robes were cool on their bodies. They wore only swimming trunks beneath.
Careful not to let the screen door bam shut, they made their way through the dark descent to
the river, and with secret words spoken in Squiblish, the language of Dragonflies, prepared
for the Sacred Rites.
Then the candle was extinguished. The smell of incense drifted on the hot August
wind, Fred took a pen knife, and cut the palm of his hand, and then the palm of Monterey’s.
Then Monterey intoned:
“May our blood be mingled forever and may you be my brother until the end of time
on this holy night-- Howl Night.”
“And now may we receive the sacred Rite of Emersion which will make us
Dragonflies,” Fred said solemnly, and they cast of the bed sheets and stepped into the
refreshing water, ducked their heads, and then came out quickly Tempting as the idea of a
long midnight swim was, they were about serious business now.
“And now let us consume the sacred Crumb Cake, and drink the Blessed Wine,”
“You got wine! How!”
“Fred!”
Fred cleared his throat and said, “I mean: let us consume the Sacred Cake and drink
the Blessed Wine.”
When they had, Fred felt a little full, and a little certain that he was a little drunk...
“Just a little.”
“It’s the magic,” Monterey assured him. “And now I give you your new name which
is Fizzatkin the Red.” And Monterey, sheet draped over him, his faced hooded, made a sacred
circle around him with the censor.
Fred did the same for Monterey and said, “And I name you, Malrupan the
Magnifcent.”
And then they went upstairs, all the way to Monterey’s heatbox of a bedroom, and
with a quill pen--which was actually the ink cartridge of a ball point stuck inside a pigeon
feather, they signed their names to the charter while Fred read it in a solemn voice:

“The Order of the Dragonfly. Izmir, Indiana-- Drawn together in brotherhood against the
forces of evil, founded August 8th, in the year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and sixty-Five.
Magicians: Monterey John Francis Matthews-- Marlupan, Frederick Joshua Wehlan-”
“I like the name Joshua,” Monterey interrupted.
“Thank you,” Fred said, and continued to read, “Frederick Joshua Wehlan--
Fizzatakin. Remember--”
And the both intoned together:
“There is no end to the evil which lurks in the seemingly innocent rivers and
cornfields of Indiana. I do solemnly pledge to resist all evil, keep all secrets and stand back to
back with my brother Dragonflies in times of woe. I sign this in blood under the secret rights
of Magician’s Guild of Izmir, Indiana. August 8th, 1965: Howl Night.”




















3.

THE DAY WAS LONG. Waverly’s boss found any excuse to complain about him, and
Waverly began to wonder if he ought not to have been complained about. The truth was that
he hated this job, really. And what he called was just that: this job. The highlights of it were
spent writing e-mails back and forth to other people locked in their corporate prisons.
To make it worse was the medication he was on, unpronouncable shit for the next
month and a half, and not even being able to think about sex. Waverly regarded himself as a
sexual and unashamed person. When he had lost his virginity he had written an essay about
it for his religion class in high school. Now to think about sex was to think about betrayal,
and it was to think about the pain that accompanied every single time he had to go to the
bathroom.
Piss break was now a painful word. Standing over the urinal a burning ordeal.
Sometimes he looked at what came out, how the color changed. And it looked like milk or
semen was coming out. Cindy had done this to him.
Wave had a writer’s mind and it was full of horrors. Doctor Mallorn had not talked
to his father. He had said, “Please don’t tell my father or my brother,” though there’s no way
he would have. The doctor had informed Wave that he was treating him for chlamidiya too,
since the two diseases also went together.
I have a fucking STD. No... I have TWO FUCKING STDS.

In Wave’s mind he felt like he deserved this, like he had done something to get this.
Being cheated on was an emotional thing, sort of up in the air. It was psychological. An STD
was real and in the flesh, and everytime Waverly took a pill or took a piss he felt like he was
ingesting, eliminating, infidelity, stupidity and yes-- good old premarital sex.
Because this was the deal--Waverly had grown up knowing that premarital sex was a
definite no. And when he and Cidny had fallen in love he had thought, “Well, we are almost
married,” and then once they’d gotten the apartment together they were “pretty much just
about married.” Waverly had gotten the ring. When they went down the aisle everything
would be in the clear, so to speak. It would all be right. Waverly had thought before, “Maybe
it’s not right me and Cindy sleeping together. Maybe God doesn’t approve. But, surely, he
understands.”
And now--a day before he was about to give Cindy the engagement ring--here was
proof from on high that God most certainly neither approved of nor made accomodation for
cohabitation.
Waverly had not shared this with anyone.
It was all of those years of being under the influence of Rush and Cassidy--especially
Cassidy, an ardent, twenty-two year old Quaker, and before them Delorian that had made
Waverly--along with his own conscience--believe that maybe God was not so conservative,
maybe God did not vote Republican, maybe the Lord in heaven bent the rules and
understood the realities of the modern day world. Of love.
But he didn’t.
What was also on Cassidy’s mind was his brother, Justin. Justin Blake would be
turning thirty nine this year. Justin Blake had that sort of youthfulness Delorian possessed.
He loved Justin, really he did. But for some reason he couldn’t get up and go talk to him. In
the not so distant past Wave had idolized him, and now he didn’t know what had happened
to him to change how he felt about his brother.
Justin was brilliant. It was because of Justin that he knew the Dragonflies. It was
because of Justin that Monterey had come into his life, and later on Rush. Justin was a full
fifteen years older than Wave, and Justin was what Wave could not be. Wave wrote e-mails
complaining of bending his back for corporate America and the necessity of having to make
money. Justin did not care about corporate America or money. Wave talked about how hard
it was to pay bills for a place of his own and a girlfriend to care for. Justin lived in his family’s
house when he was here, on the road when he wasn’t, and said a girl who couldn’t pay her
way wasn’t worth having--unless you could afford to be a sugar daddy. Waverly felt that at
heart he was an artist forced to serve the J.P. Morgans of the world--and this is exactly what he
said. Justin told him, “You’re free as a fucking bird,” went off to California to live in a
Buddhist monastery, and read Henry David Thoreau.
Waverly, who had spaced out at his desk before his computer, understood why he
and Justin could not get on. Because they always fought. Justin was always telling him how to
live his life and how to loosen the fuck up, and Waverly was always telling his brother that if
he loosened up he would lose his grip and then--”
“You’d be like me!” Justin said. “Only you don’t want to be like me. No, never that.”
But Waverly did want to be like Justin.
Only....
He didn’t.

“Blake! Are you spacing out again. I told you I wanted the Macaffery assignment at
11:45. You gonna have it ready?”
Waverly sigh and said, “Yes, Jack. I’m almost done. I was just--”
“You were just woolgathering is what you were doing,” Jack told him and moved on.
Waverly shook the anger and the wool out of his head, and set back to his project.
Justin would never have stood for Jack.
Justin had fucked half the world and he’d also never stand for getting an STD.

“You were never around,” Cindy told him. She had, by now, graduated to the
it’s-not-just-my-fault-you’re to-blame-too phase. “We were on the verge of splitting up all the
time. You’re never around, Wave, even when you are. You’re so into you and into your work.
Which really, the work was boring anyway.”
This was his third night in the houseboat. He had come to get the last of things from
the apartment which he told Cindy she could have. He hadn’t even said anything. He didn’t
really looked at her. He didn’t blown up at her. He had a hard time blowing up at people.
Waverly liked to be pleasant.
Now he just stood looking at her. He was hefting the box because it was cumbersome
and she was telling him: “That’s why it happened. I just never felt like you were here. You
remember we kept on getting ready to break up.”
“But I would have been willing to make it work.”
“Waverly!” Cindy’s voice broke off. “There are six billion fucking people on the
planet. Why try to make it work? Just becauee I’m the first girl you ever fucked? And don’t tell
me I’m the only one!”
Now she was hysterical, and he wasn’t moving. He just looked at her very sadly and
said, “Of course you are? What do you think I am?”
Cindy half sobbed, looking back at him. She didn’t speak right away. When she did
she sounded perplexed.
“A good man.... And you’d think that would be enough. But it isn’t. Like.... I bet you
would take me back right now if I asked you. Wouldn’t you, Wave?”
“If you asked... If you wanted...” he began.
“I fuck around on you! I suck other guy’s cocks. I--”
“Please stop.”
“I suck other mens’ dicks! I like it. Big ones, small ones. I fuck! I fuck old men. And
I come back and you just say-- ‘Okay. Alrighty!’ I take it on my stomach. Up the ass! And you
don’t care.” she shrieked. “What are you? It’s not enough, Wave. It really isn’t.”
He stood looking at her dumbstruck.
“Just go,” Cindy said, miserably, putting a hand over her face.
Waverly nodded, feeling numb, and went for the door. On the stoop of the
apartment he turned around.
“Cindy? “
“Yes, Wave?”
“Was I your first?”
“Yes.”
“Did you.... when you were with me... Were you ever faking it?”
Cindy started to laugh behind her hand. She sucked up snot and laughter at the same
time and shook her head out of her face.
“My God, Wave,” she said, miserably, “I can honestly say: no. You’re probably the
fuck of the century. If that makes you feel better.”
Wave smiled half heartedly.
“A little better,” he told her. He got in his car and drove to the other side of the
complex, into one of the dark, hooded garages. He parked in it, turned off the car and buried
his hands in his faced sobbing until he was ready to go to the houseboat where his new life
awaited him.

That night Delorian came over to Mernau Street and cooked, which meant that it was best
not to ask what it was. The dessert casserole apparently had baked candy bars. It stuck to
everyone’s teeth; Monterey lost a filling and cussed his brother out. Then Delorian and
Frances--his housemate and eternal partner in crime-- got up and said they had to be at
Shawn’s house by eight because they were going to to the movies.
Down by the river, on the boat, Wave, Rush and Cassidy sat on the bobbing deck
passing a cigarette as if it were a joint, and drinking from a communal bottle of bourbon. The
moon made a shimmering white path across the black water, and above the darkness Rush
could see the lights of his family’s house.
“Cindy said the thing was that I was too nice,” Waverly told them, passing the
ciagarette, “that I was too good. She told me everything she had done and I... I just couldn’t
move or breathe or do anything. It doesn’t make any sense. I mean. I would take her back.
Because I love her. If she came I would take her. And she despises me for that... For loving
her.”
“I would jack the shit out of her,” Rush said. “That’s what that dumb slut needs.”
“Rush,” Cassidy and Wave both said.
“Well, all three of us have been through it, awful girlfriends.”
“Sara wasn’t awful,” Cassidy said. “It just came to an end is all.”
Rush shrugged and chugged from the bottle, slamming his fisherman’s hat down on
his face.
“But what kind of world is it,” Waverly demanded, “where love makes people despise
you?”
“A sad ass world,” Rush said. “But we already knew that.”
“But, I mean, there’s hope, right?” Wave said. “It’s so easy to give up. I want to
believe that there’s hope. That some people really want to love and be loved.”
Before Rush could open his mouth, Cassidy put a hand over it and said, “Of course
there is. Ouch!”
Rush had bitten his hand.
“I was going to say the same thing, Cass,” Rush told him, insensed.

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