PART ONE
“Beauty is God’s daughter; that I’m sure of...”
-- Saint Francis in Saint Francis by Nikos Kazantzakis
Glory surrounds us from birth. It encircles us as we draw our first tentative wail, and enfolds us after we empty our lungs for the last time.
--Katherine Whitmire
Cecil Matthews finished the cup of tea that -- by tradition-- he tried to drink every night by himself at this time when the house was finally quiet.
The children were safely gathered in he thought, even if the youngest of the children was thirty-nine years old now. In the old parlor, with the doors shut, he could not really hear them breathing, of course, but he felt as if the house itself was inhaling, exhaling peace.
He felt he’d had something to do with that. Forty was middle age now. People got old at forty, or so they said. Everyone wanted to stay young. But Cecil hadn’t been forty for nearly thirty years, and he didn’t feel old yet.
“But my mother....” Cecil thought, “and my father.... They were old then.”
No one wants to believe their parents will die; not when they are young. You see old people pass everyday. You know they are someone’s mother, someone’s father. And then your own are gone and after a while, though the pain is great at first, you wonder how you could never have believed there would be a world without them.
Cecil was a decade widowed with two children, one half way through high school, when Gibraltar died. He was cutting hair at the barbershop when he got the phone call from his mother.
“I know it crushes you,” Elizabeth Matthews said. “This will be a difficult time for us to get through. You should call the schools and take the boys out. Bring them back home.”
“No,” Cecil disagreed. “I don’t think I’ll be doing that, Mother.”
When Monterey arrived home with Delorian and Fred, they looked around the house in confusion. Half of Mount Olivet Baptist was there, and Cecil was standing in the kitchen in dungarees and a tee shirt, smoking a cigarette.
“Dad?” Monterey said.
Delorian was eleven, in sixth grade. “Is Grandad dead?”
Grandmother was sobbing in the living room.
“Um hum,” Cecil nodded, and finished his cigarette.
The funeral director arrived at the house that afternoon. He held Elizabeth’s hand and said to Cecil, “this must be awful for you.”
“No, it was time,” Cecil said, and his mother looked at him in shock.
As long as Cecil lived -- and though he did not know it -- as long as his sons did as well-- they would always remember the shock on Grandma’s face and wonder, who did she think she was married to?
The funeral was quick, functional, and unreal. The Matthews family had been Catholic for over thirty years, Mary came in from the convent school where she was teaching. The world of Mount Olivet Baptist was not their own. There was not the comfort or the elegance of the requiem Mass. There were no sacraments. Gibraltar was not buried in the Catholic cemetery down the street from Saint Alphonsus. None of the rites were present. There was no priest to say the blessing. Cecil felt, with Roman peculiarity, that it was not a real funeral. It happened in a Protestant world he was not used to, that had no place for him.
And then the exhaustion and the effort and the cross that had been Gibraltar Matthews... was gone. And Cecil sat up and blinked and he was the only Mr. Matthews.
Tonight, as he takes his tea cup to the empty kitchen and rinses it out, he remembers a sunrise nearly thirty years ago when he thought he was old and past it, and woke up to realize that there was plenty of life in the old bones yet. He thinks of that morning after Gibraltar was put in the ground, where he said, “I am so glad I never lived for you... I am so glad I did it the way I had to... did everything, even bringing the boys back... I am so glad I was not willing to put up with your shit.... “ The sun was coming through the lace curtains, and he took a very deep breath that found home behind his eyes and in his heart.
“I am so glad.... that you are dead.”
Ara Tolliver cannot sleep that night, and she has been telling herself that the reason is because she is too hot. But then the reason is also that it is too cold from the air conditioner. She has been telling herself a lot when she gets out of the pallet that passes for a bed in the summer time, and goes out into the little backyard behind the house.
She paces for a long time. The night air is thick, and smells like spice. She does not want to smoke. She does not want to think, either, but she knows she’d better. She thinks about Waverly more than she ought. Why is he taking that woman out all the time? His boss’s wife. Three weeks now? What the hell good can come of that? What’s more, why should she care? Why should it even matter to Ara Tolliver?
“Because Wave is my friend. I don’t want him wasting time on that loon,” Ara says.
Wasting time, wasting time, wasting time.... This phrases chases itself around and around in her brain. Wave is still there in her mind, in the nighttime darkness, but Rush Matthews is as well. Two men in her life. Well, there have been several, but these two nothing has ever happened about, dominate her thoughts in different ways. Both of them her brother’s friends from high school. Her telling Rush, “I can’t... just do that.” That being run off and leave her job. Rush saying, “Yes, you can.”
The finality in his voice.
They leave in the morning and where they are going, Ara cannot say. Wave will not be going. He has a good job to get up for. Nelson... the same. She has the Meet and Eat.
Going back to her room with very little resolved, Ara Tolliver thinks about Rush, how she wants to be near him. She had always enjoyed being physically close to him, and now she realizes that if it ever had anything to do with sex, that’s hardly where it begins and certainly not where it ends. She likes being close to Cassidy as well. And Wave. She wishes Wave was going on the trip, which makes her think that she must be going now, as well.
In her room, Ara flicks on the halogen lamp and starts randomly reading parts of Women Who Run With the Wolves.
She flips to the story of Vasilisa and the Baba Yaga. Vasilisa has been sent into the forest by her evil stepmother and stepsisters to get a coal for their fire from the Baba Yaga. The Baba Yaga ask, “Why should I give you fire?” Vasilisa asks the doll in her pocket to provide her with the right answer, and then looks at the Baba Yaga and says, “Because I ask you to.”
“Right answer,” says the Baba Yaga.
And somehow, Ara realizes she has found her answer too.
Delorian awoke, sweaty and smelling of salt. Though the window was open the air was thick, and there was no breeze coming into his room. He slept on a soft, firm pallet under a long, wide window that looked out onto the herb garden, and that he shut as he heard the air conditioning roar to life.
Across the hall he could hear Frances snoring. He went to the kitchen, and opened the coffee pot. Every night he prepared it, and Frances said, “I don’t know why you do that,” and Delorian explained that when you were fresh out of bed, all wool headed, it was just easier to flick on the coffeepot and go back to bed, than to clean it out, and do all the other stuff he was doing now, right before bed. They had this argument at least once a week.
Delorian climbed back under the covers. For several weeks now he had awakened with a sense of, “Oh, God! What a shitty day! Oh, God, make it end. Oh, God, how can I get through these hours?” And this wasn’t like him. He loved life, and when he went to church he wasn’t the kind of person who prayed to God to make things better. He was firmly convinced that God had put it into his own hands to make things better. There was help, and plenty of it, but the responsibility was on him.
And Delorian also possessed a strong ethic of pain, that everyone had pain and so it was not wise to complain too much about your own. It was better to see a way through it, than to always try to escape it, or pray to get out of it.
So when this ennui had turned to misery, Delorian had said, “Lord, make this shit stop or at least help me make it stop. Give me the wisdom to know what to do. Or teach me what all this shit is about so that I can find a way through it.”
As a child, summer was good up until the middle of it in late June, what people called the first day of summer. Then, when it had begun to get hot, tempers began rising, Grandfather was drunker than usual, and Delorian would walk into his father’s office and find little notes from Cecil like, “Jesus, make it end!” “Mary, assist!” and -- most frightening of all, “Is arsenic really undetectable.... one teaspoon in his Scotch.... For how many nights?”
Nearly every summer of his life, around this time, life in Izmir became just about unbearable. Last year Delorian hadn’t traveled at all, and he’d began to make little trips all this year. But now the first great adventure in over a year was about to occur, and so he lay in bed, for the first time in days--- smiling.
There was a repeated thumping on his door, and Justin began to pull himself out of sleep.
“Whoosit?” he mumbled, the room was dark, the curtains drawn over in the windows of the house in Orleepaluk.
“Nate,” came the young man’s voice from the other side of the door.
“Ohhh.... Holdon,”
Justin, his joints cursing him, disentangled himself from the bed sheets, he was always a messy sleeper, and reached for his boxers and pulled them on before opening the door.
“You look awful,” Nathan said frankly.
“What time is it?” Justin looked down at the red headed boy.
“6:45.”
“Well, that would be the reason,” Justin mumbled, folding his black haired arms over his hairy chest.
“I wanted to know...”
Justin’s face looked like a fallen soufflé at this time of the morning. He was not in the mood for long, drawn out questions, and suddenly the look the older man’s eyes gave Nathan prompted him to speak.
“If I could go with you. I mean... since Dad isn’t and... you all have such a good time and... I never get to go on trips. I would be really really grateful if--”
“Yes,” said Justin.
“You’d let me go with you, and I wouldn’t be any trouble, and I’d pack light and--”
“Yes,” Justin said again.
“And you could listen to whatever music you wanted to. I mean, of course you could, and you would hardly ever--”
At this Justin shut the door, and went back to bed, leaving Nathan Wehlan to stand in the dark hallway and ponder what he’d just said.
“Yes,” Nathan repeated, amazed. “He said ‘Yes.’ “
Ara pushed the Mustang to its limit, and gunned it all the way to Mernau Street, narrowly missing arrest. Then she ran down the hill, almost breaking a leg, and came to houseboat without knocking.
She burst into the cabin shouting, “I hope I’m not late!”
Waverly, half dressed, Rush and Cassidy, in boxers and tee shirts, looked up at her in amazement.
She stood there, her smile fading only a very little as she perceived that no one was in any hurry to leave, and said, “I’m not late, am I?”
“Not really,” Cassidy shook his head, speaking in the understated way he used for humor.
“I’ll be, though,” Waverly said, and continued with his tie.
“Did you tell everyone at the Meet and Eat you were leaving for a few days?” Rush asked.
“Are we only going to be gone for a few days?” said Ara.
“Actually, I have no idea how long we’ll be gone.”
“The Meet and Eat can kiss my ass,” Ara said, sitting down. “However, I am hungry.”
“How does flapjacks with bacon strips and three types of syrup sound?” said Cassidy.
“Oooh,” Ara said.
“And fresh squeezed orange juice, and milk so cold your teeth rattle.”
“And toast?” she added. “Could we have sausage?”
“Yes,” Cassidy said with a great smile.
“How are you gon cook all that?” said Rush.
“I’m not. We’re going to I-Hop.”
WAVERLY PARTED COMPANY WITH THEM, HEADING TO WORK. On his way there he realized that he hadn’t actually talked to Justin at all. Justin had been in town for a bout two weeks, and he’d never said a word to him.
“There will be other times,” Waverly assured himself as he drove into the parking lot.
For the next few days he would have the houseboat to himself and there would be time to meditate on life and the right direction to move in, what was best and what was not. Like-- sooner or later he should get his own place again. Not that he minded the houseboat, just, it was a houseboat. A man should live in a real place and pay real rent instead of acting like a bohemian. Which-- he added this caveat-- was perfectly fine for Rush, but not so for him.
Ara had gone off with them, and this made him a little sad, but really, Waverly thought, it also meant that now his mind could be totally on work and totally on sanity, on getting his recently shattered life together. He was looking forward to some sanity, some eventlessness.
His cell phone rang.
“Hello, Waverly,” he said.
“Wave!” it was not an excited voice, but a panicked one, and one he had to think about.
“Yeah....”
“It’s Jack!”
“Jack, man! What’s up. Did you get my e-mail? What’s going on? How are things?”
“I’m going to kill myself,” Jack stated with a perfect frankness.
Waverly spent the next hour clicking away at the computer, and putting a crick in his neck while he wedged the phone between his ear and his shoulder. Jack’s statement of intended suicide was the only coherent one he could make. As to why he wanted to kill himself, he was unable to specify. He had a hard time talking about it. Waverly realized that he would have had a hard time talking about it too.
Out of all the Dragonflies it was Waverly who had more friends who were not Dragonflies, not part of the august circle. The Matthews men had the whole Black community at large. Fred, in some way, had Orleepaluk and his Amish connections. It was Waverly who had a whole set of friends he had met and become very close with in college, one of those being Jack Seth who was now intending to kill himself.
“I knew things were bad.... but,” Waverly sighed and said, “I tell you what? I’m coming. Today. After work. I’ll be there tonight.”
They talked a little longer. Waverly wanted to beg Jack to please not kill himself, but didn’t think this was the right thing to say. As the conversation came to an end, Jack said, “Say, hi to Cindy for me.”
Waverly was about to say, “Me and Cindy aren’t together, anymore.” but this brought the question: why didn’t Jack know this? So he just mumbled something and told Jack he’d be there tonight.
There was in Rhodes, Ohio, and Waverly estimated that it was going to take about four to five hours to reach Jack. It was early in the morning. For a whole day Jack would have to sit feeling suicidal before his friend’s arrival. Waverly did what he hadn’t done in a long time, and when he realized how long it had been he felt bad again. He began praying like the devout Catholic he had once been: Please, God, don’t let Jack do anything bad to himself.
He parked in front of the brick house, and was preparing to run down the hill to the houseboat again and get his things, hit the road and be on the highway in twenty minutes when he saw Cecil and Monterey through the screen of the huge back porch. Neither father nor son waved. They just regarded him regarding them, and Waverly ran to the porch, his hairline sweating, sweat darkening the stiff collar of his blue Oxford.
“I am about to make a five hour drive to rescue an old friend,” he said. “He thinks he’s going to kill himself, and called me at work this morning to tell me.”
As if this were everyday news, Cecil looked at Monterey and Monterey looked at his father and then they both turned to Waverly, and Monterey said, “I think you’d better go. You might want to tell your boss you won’t be in tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, good call,” said Waverly.
“Very good call,” said Cecil. “If you want to stay employed.”
In only a very few moments Wave had packed and checked the house and his suitcase to see if he was missing anything, and then headed out of the houseboat, running up the hill, waving at Cecil and bounding into his car.
For the next twenty minutes, heading east, he was going generally in the same direction he took to work. But then, out of Izmir, approaching Canaan and the Indiana border, Waverly began to realize that what he felt was freedom.
It was in the height of summer and the days were long. The sun remained up as he crossed into Ohio, going north through Jamnia, Fort Bellows, Montremaine. Wave had brought a lot of CDs with him, traffic was infrequent, the sun shone on the fields, and on the red of the distant barns like gold. Like gold it set into the stands of trees built off the highway, and he began thinking about the last few weeks.
He began to think about how a few days ago he’d stopped feeling the last gonorrhea, but his doctor told him it was still there. He thought about Cindy, and asked over and over again how much of what he had known of her love was real. Rush’s words came back to him, that Cindy had never been that wonderful, that what Waverly had lacked was imagination. He had seen this one girl and put everything into her. Was that true? He had given all of his affection and devotion to her and made like she was capable of accepting it. Was that true?
But Cindy said that he had given all of his time to work. Well, who was right?
“I haven’t given any time to me,” Wave said, fiercely, as he gunned the car to eighty for a while. “That’s what the problem was. Where is me? If I’d been somewhere... maybe...” And there were lots of maybes.
Maybe he would have been there for Cindy. Or maybe he would have seen that she wasn’t worth being there for. The thought of fucking her while she was fucking everyone else was nauseating. The thought of things that they did in that bed, that she repeated, made him clinch the wheel with both hands white knuckled. Until now, as night dropped on Ohio, he had never really been enraged. Hurt? Yes. And grieved. He cried about it, even wondered about it philosophically. She had given him a disease. She could have given him worse. And at that thought a terror that left an iron bile in his mouth passed through him.
“Who can you trust?” he thought.
“Maybe....” Waverly began.... Maybe if he’d been looking, maybe if he’d been paying attention then he wouldn’t have to ask that question. Ultimately, wasn’t that the point? He hadn’t trusted him. He had lost any sort of intuition. Waverly didn’t have intuition or else he would have seen this coming.
“I would have seen Cindy. I would have seen.... Jack wanting to die. Why didn’t I see that? Why didn’t I see it?”
Because I wasn’t paying attention.
Or Cynthia Neary.... Why didn’t he see her?
They had gone out two more times before the time when he thought, “this mustn’t happen again.”
He had not shared this with Rush even. He had been to embarrassed by his stupidity, sure he’d done something wrong. They had gone to a movie and Cynthia had finally said:
“Look at me.”
“I am looking at you,” Waverly said honestly.
“What do you think? Of me?”
“You’re.... You’re very nice.”
“How do I look?”
“You look nice.”
“No, really, what do you think of me?”
“What do you want me to say? That you’re a beautiful woman.”
“Yes.”
“Well then fine,” Waverly felt a little flustered. “You are. You’re a beautiful woman.”
“And mean it.”
“I do mean it,” Wave said. “I mean it very much. But what’s it to you.... You’re married... to my boss.”
“Waverly, can I tell you a secret?”
He turned to her.
“Ross.... asked you to take me out because I asked him to ask you.”
“He said it was his idea… Because I was loyal to my friends--” it sounded stupid now. Waverly finished off lamely, “or something like that.”
“Ross hates shows. I knew he’d hate it. I... I wanted to get to know you Wave. I really wanted to go out with you. You’re a really nice man.”
She was running a hand along his thigh and Wave was getting an erection.
“You’re trying to date me,” his voice had come out raspy.
“I guess so.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Waverly said suddenly, shaking himself out of his confusion. “You’re married, and that’s sort of a hindrance where I come from. So, let me take you home.”
When Waverly had gotten home that night he felt more of the shame he’d been feeling for a long time, the shame of not being able to pick up. The shame of being so sexually stupid. He had probably led her on. There was the guilt that maybe deep inside he wanted it. He admitted he did. His body had responded to her.
As the sky finally darkened, and the lights on the dashboard lit up, Waverly blew out his cheeks. He was getting faint he needed to eat. He thought, “Jack, I understand.... Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning too.”
Regalville, Belmont, Lassador, and then west: Toledo, Sandusky, Rhodes in the darkness of night, lying on the shore of black Erie. Waverly drives with the windows down, yawning, and feeling the cool lake air. He has only been here a few times.
When he reaches the home where Jack lives with his parents, it is Jack Seth who answers the door.
“Oh, Wave,” Jack hugs him quickly and Wave sucks his breath in and pulls back to get a look at Jack.
“Well,” Jack attempts a laugh. “Don’t just let out all the air conditioning. Come on in and shut the door.”
And Waverly does.
“My folks are asleep,” Jack says as they go through the living room and into the kitchen. Jack’s little terriers are running around their feet, not barking, put hopping up on Wave’s legs and sniffing his trousers.
“Sit,” Jack says, gesturing to a chair. “Let me get you something. You... You just got in. Did you eat? Oh, Wave, thanks for coming.”
“I’m not hungry, I ate on the way,” Waverly says, picking up the little tan terrier, “Water’s fine.” he begins talking to the dog while Jack makes the ice water and plops it on the table.
“I just... I just want to help out,” Waverly tells him. “I just want to do something.”
Jack takes a deep breath. Waverly is surprised by how little and young he looks, how defenseless. He doesn’t remember this about Jack.
“You are... just by being here,” Jack tells him. “Ah... I have a lot to tell you, but I’d rather tell you in my room.... Or on the porch.”
Waverly nods.
Waverly is on the bed with his eyes closed. Jack is sitting on the floor, Indian style.
“I don’t think you should stay indefinitely,” Jack says when Waverly tells him that he’s taken off of work and doesn’t know when he’ll be back. “Things aren’t that bad.”
Waverly sits up.
“You called me on the phone this morning and said that you wanted to swerve into a tree. That’s bad man, real bad.”
“Yeah, but I don’t feel that way right now.’
“That’s because I’m here.”
“Yeah,” Jack admitted. He reached for Waverly’s cigarettes.
“I thought you’d quit.”
“I thought I had too,” Jack shrugged. His brown hair fell in his face. “How’s Cindy?”
At the look on Waverly’s face, Jack cocked his head.
“Is she out of the picture? Not Cindy!”
“She gave me gonorrhea,” Wave said simply, and told him the entire story. He told Jack about Cynthia, all about Cynthia, and about the houseboat and finally Jack said,
“You know what? I want to die. I mean, right now, at this very minute I want to die. I’m so glad you’re here but I’m so scared the moment you go it’s all going to come crashing in again. It just.... “ Jack sighed and the look on his face terrified Waverly. Jack looked as if he were seeing something terrible, right behind Waverly, and all Waverly had to do was turn his back and he’d see it too.
“Waverly, I had thought your life was.... Perfect.’
“Hardly,” Waverly shook his head and took the pack of cigarettes from Jack. “I hate my fucking job. I can’t talk to my brother. I haven’t spoken with my father in.... weeks and deep inside you know what? I have done everything he wanted me to and I still have this feeling that.... it’s not enough. It’s not enough. And I have failed my friends.”
“No,” Jack’s voice was almost a whimper.
“No, Jack, I have. You would have known everything going on with me and, I would have known everything going on with you if... I’d been there.”
“I’m at fault too,” Jack tried to say, but Waverly went on. Somehow being with someone so sad they wanted to die freed Waverly to be sadder than he’d been in a long time.
“I wasn’t paying attention. Just a little less caution and a little less good luck and you might be dead now and I might have AIDS or something, on my way to being dead. Here we are... I’ve been sleeping my life away. I--”
“That’s just the way I feel,” Jack said desolately.
The two young men were very silent for a while. And then Jack said:
“Waverly, I.... was jealous... of you.”
Waverly looked up at his friend.
“I was jealous.... but happy at the same time. You had this... perfect.... little world. I had a crappy life, everything about it is just crappy. But I thought, ‘Somewhere out there is Wave’s world, and maybe I can go there,’ and now I find out that world isn’t there. What if it’s all just a joke and there is no point.”
“There is a point,” Wave said suddenly.
“What if there is no God at all. It’s just bullshit.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No,” Jack almost cried. “No, but.... it goes through my head. And you know what else goes through my head? If... there is a God, and he does have a plan... Who cares? Cause life is just so bad. I just... need to bale out....” Jack began repeating to himself, “Need to bale out... need to bale out.”
After awhile there was a silence and the two of them sat exhausted, as if they’d just taken a long run, and then Waverly said, “You know what I need?”
Jack, who was staring at his finger as it traced circles around the dirty ashtray beside him, looked up.
“I need to get really drunk,” Waverly told him.
2.
ONE THING WAVERLY HAD LEARNED ALMOST IMMEDIATELY ABOUT BEING A DRAGONFLY IS THAT IT WAS MANDATORY TO FIRSTLY: ENGAGE IN SOME FORM OF ROWDY BEHAVIOR AND, SECONDLY: POSSESS IT’S ANTEDOTE.
Unlike Rush who was raised on wine, Waverly never started drinking until college. One night he had gone out with Rush and a few friends and been plastered out of his mind. Later Rush insisted that he’d been drunk too, but Waverly couldn’t tell. Rush held his liquor so much better and could drink so much harder. As they were staggering into their respective dorm rooms and Rush was putting Waverly to sleep he gave him two aspirins.
“Take them now, and take two more in them morning. You will never be hung over. I promise.”
And this was always the case. Only once had Waverly known a hangover, and it was after a cousin’s wedding when he had -- that’s right -- forgotten the two aspirins before bed, two in the morning policy.
He had not forgotten them last night, and had forced two on Jack. So he woke up feeling comfortable.
There were drunks who said going to bed with liquor in them made them get up nice and easy in the morning. Waverly hated to admit that this was true for him too. But then part of it was Jack, being with a friend, being away from all the shit going on in Izmir. He blinked at the ceiling a while and then closed his eyes and settled back into the sheets. Jack had insisted he take the bed and Waverly had insisted that Jack take the bulk of the blankets-- he kept tons of them on his bed.
Not that Waverly ever had a hard time talking, but liquor loosened his tongue to talk even more. Waverly Blake had always been a man of epic proportions and sometimes talking normally was difficult for him. Or even worse, talking about dirty things. But as they’d passed the bottle back and forth and chain smoked their way through three packs of cigarettes Jack had talked about everything in his life. He hated his family. He hated Ohio, He’d wanted to get home so badly after college, but now he found out home sucked. He didn’t know if happiness was even real or if he’d been happy in college. His job was pointless. His family was pointless. He felt isolated. He was tired of being a virgin. He couldn’t meet a nice girl. For a while he’d thought he was gay, had even gone to a gay club, but the men had freaked him out and he had realized that he was certainly not a homosexual.
“Maybe I should just give up and join the priesthood,” Jack said. “Or castrate myself.”
And Waverly pieced together the whole troubled last year of his relationship with Cindy, trying to figure out what to do. The time they nearly split up. The time that Waverly had hoped the infidelities had occurred in, could have occurred in. He talked about the night that he returned from here, in Rhodes, thinking it was all over, and he and Cindy had made out and made out in the kitchen and then moved to the living room of the apartment and then began to undress. He described it in detail the way he had never talked to Jack about his sex life, and Jack -- greedy virgin -- listened with rank excitement as he never would have done sober.
Wave and Cindy are kissing and licking and biting and undressing slowly, and he’s cursing to himself and then they’re on the floor half naked and becoming more naked, doing it with him on his back, and then him coming from behind, holding her hips to him, and then on the ground like a man picking up a bundle, gathering her under him and they’re straining together on the floor, shouting out together, groaning with deep satisfaction and doing all the crazy things to each other’s body they haven’t done in forever.
Wave gets hard telling the story and Jack gets hard listening and Wave forgets this is the girl who cheated on him.
“She says she never faked it with me. She would rake her claws down my back and over my ass and bite down on my lip and I just kept on hitting her like this--,” he demonstrates with his hips. “--over and over again like a fucking jackhammer, and she’s just like, ‘Jesus! Jesus! Wave.’ And we’re against the walls, and then over the kitchen table. When it’s over we pass out and get up and do it all over again. That was the night I thought our relationship had started up for the better. I woke up hungry as fuck. We both did, we ate half the house and showered together, and I went to work with my back in welts from her fingernails.”
And then Wave had stopped talking. It was the first time he’d ever bragged about his sex life, really told anyone anything about it.
He remembered this in the morning, when Jack rose and the sunlight through the blind slats highlighted the other young man’s lanky frame.
“What’s up?” said Jack.
“Cynthia... “Wave said. “You know.... My boss’s wife.”
“Um hum.”
“She says she wants to fuck me.”
THE EARLY PART OF THAT DAY WAS SPENT ARGUING EXACTLY WHERE TO DRIVE. EVERYONE WAS IN GENERAL AGREEMENT THAT THE PATH WAS WEST, BUT THERE WERE SO MANY WAYS TO GO WEST.
“I thought you all had mapped this out, already,” Ara said from the back seat of Justin’s Buick.
“Well, yes,” Delorian allowed. “We had... but.... “
“Things change once you get on the road,’ Justin explained.
“Like, why are we going the direction you came in?” Delorian said.
“What, from Izmir to Orleepaluk to Indianapolis to Terre--”
“There’s no need to go to Indianapolis or Terre Haute,” Delorian said.
“You already said that.”
“Because I already meant it.”
Beside Ara Rush had just shaken his head.
“Might I said something?” Cassidy leaned forward in his most politic tone.
“Speak, Cass.” Justin said, fondly.
“I think Delorian is right.”
“Shut up, Cass.”
“Let the boy speak,” Delorian told Justin.
“Everyone knows the best route will be just to hit Fort Wayne and then drive until we get to South Bend, hit the toll road and then head along the coast of Lake Michigan until we get to Chicago-- stay on the highway. Go west. There is no need to go across Indiana into some bofo part of Illinois.”
“And isn’t most of Illinois bofo anyway?” Nate Wehlan chimed in.
“I thought you,” Justin said to Nate, “were not even going to be noticeable. But... you’re right.”
“Which means that I was right,” Delorian muttered.
“What’s that?” said Justin.
“Nothing, I’m going to read.” He picked up his book of Basho’s travel logues and hid his face behind it.
“I’m going to sleep,” Rush said, sinking low in his seat between Ara and Cassidy. “Tell me when the sites get interesting.”
“Oh, I think you’ll be sleeping for another two hours or so,” Ara told her old friend.
They stopped for a piss break twenty miles outside of Plymouth, Indiana and ate at a Burger King in South Bend before hitting the turnpike. Justin gave the wheel to Delorian but complained about his driving skills so badly that finally Delorian let loose a string of expletives and then gave the wheel to Cassidy.
“It’s getting late,” said Cassidy. “We could stay the night in Chicago.”
“I had hoped we’d make it into Iowa by the time the night was over,” Justin said disconsolately, and this Delorian could agree to.
“How about this?” said Cass with a yawn. “We eat dinner in Chicago... or outside of it. Stretch our legs and then drive on?”
And they agreed to this.
They were on the road again by late afternoon and Cassidy agreed to drive saying that he missed it and singing in a country twang:
“On the road again.... don’t know the rest of the words,
I’m on the road again,
I’m Willie Nelson smoking pot
with all my friends
Can’t wait to get back on the road again!
On the road again--
“Cassidy!” Rush interrupted him.
“You tired of that song?”
“You know that one song where you don’t say anything at all?” Rush said, “The Quiet Song. Maybe we could sing that one for a while.”
“You slay me beloved,” Cassidy said, and then drew an imaginary zipper across his lip..
“Quakers are supposed to be the quiet people anyway,” Rush told him.
That night, in an old abandoned barn on the border of Iowa, Justin and Delorian were sitting around a fire they’d made, brewing strong coffee in a pot. Justin was reading a book and Delorian, ever the devout Catholic was saying his rosary before bed time. Bedrooms were the rolls of blankets scattered in various places. Nate Wehlan came into the barn grinning with a half gallon of Moose Tracks ice cream, and Justin shot up crying in a British accent, “God bless you boy!”
On the roof of the car, sitting Indian fashion their knees touching as they faced each other, Rush and Cassidy were meditating. Rush spared a moment to look at Nathan returning with the ice cream, and then he and Cassidy both looked down at Ara.
“How is your first trip with the Dragonflies?” Rush asked her.
“Well, I thought we’d be at a Motel Six and I need to bathe, but I....” she looked around the barn: “I like this. I feel free.... Is there a chance we’re gon get arrested?”
“Whenever you’re with the Dragonflies,” Cassidy said, “there is always a chance that you’ll be arrested.”
“I’ll talk to Uncle Dory about that whole bathing thing tomorrow, though,” said Rush. I’m starting to feel the itch and I know he doesn’t like to go a day without being clean.”
Since there was no refrigerator there was no point in trying to save the ice cream. They broke out the cigarettes, poured the coffee into thermoses, and passed the bucket of ice cream around until it was gone while Justin discussed why they had stopped here and now. It wasn’t uncommon just to drive the whole night through when several people who were half way decent drivers were in the car. But they had seen something in this town.
“Does this town have a name?” said Nathan.
“I’m sure it does, but I couldn’t tell you what,” Justin replied.
There was an old, almost in good condition, Volkwagon bus: olive green and white, with lace curtains and a FOR SALE sign in the window. Delorian and Justin both exclaimed when they saw it and declared that it was a must.
“You’d trade in the Buick, though,” said Delorian.
Justin nodded. “It’s Volkswagon bus. Think of the fun, Dory!”
“And besides.” Nathan added, “I’m getting crushed in the back seat of that Buick.”
“Then it’s decided,” Justin put down his mug of coffee. “In the morning we’ll see about that bus.”
“But before that we’ll see about washing,” Delorian said firmly.
“See,” Rush turned to Ara, “a man of good sense.”
The YMCA on Dover Street was a one story built on an incline so that the mezzanine was revealed from the left as they drove into the parking lot.
“Do we have to check at a desk or something?” Nathan asked as they climbed out of the car.
“I don’t know,” Justin confessed.
“Then it’s a good thing no one’s at the desk,” said Delorian. “Quick, let’s cut on through.”
The basic philosophy was that while no one cared to be publicly naked, since they would never see these people again it was no big deal and seeing as it was early in the morning, hardly anyone would be in the community showers.
“Well, I’ll just go in now,” said Ara, taking a towel and her clothes for the day along with a basket of toiletries.
“We’ll all go in the locker room, or billiard room or whatever room,” Delorian instructed. “Cass and Rush go in first. Nate, you can go in second.”
“I’ll go in with Dory,” Justin said, “because I’ve seen it all after thirty years. It’ll be just like high school. Only things will be hanging a little lower.”
“Ara stopped a giggle as she dipped into the women’s locker room and Delorian said, “Speak for yourself. And as for me, I have no desire to see your naked ass.”
“Which is why the arrangement is perfect,” Justin decided.
Delorian was exasperated with Justin for not bothering to write the name of the street where the van was. Justin explained that it didn’t matter because he knew the general direction of it. It was on the outskirts of town, about five minutes from the barn. Delorian suspected that Justin was less sure than he sounded. It turned out that Delorian was right on this score, however, and Justin said, “Please, Dory...”
“I won’t say a word.”
“I appreciate that.”
“But they did find it with the bright orange-red FOR SALE letters on the black background and after a bit of searching they found the Mr. Hannover who owned it.
“I’ll trade you the Buick for it,” Justin said simply.
“The Buick and a hundred dollars,” Mr. Hannover said simply.
Justin reached for his wallet, but Delorian said, “No, the Buick and you give us three hundred dollars for the renovations.”
“But... that’s --”
“It’s really not ridiculous, is it?” Delorian said, daring the man to argue with him.
“It’s steep. I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”
“One fifty,” Delorian said.
Mr. Hannover nodded.
A few minutes later they were piling into the bus and Ara was saying, “In the next town we had better get some air fresheners and cleaning products.”
“We can clean it at one of those do it yourself car washes,” Justin added with a nod to Ara’s suggestion.
“But otherwise,” Cassidy played with the curtains. “This is fun.”
“And there is even,” Justin pushed the button and his face lit up in shock, “working air conditioning.”
“How’d you do that, Delorian?” Nathan said.
“Do what?”
“That... deal with the man. He gave us a hundred fifty dollars.”
“Bargaining skills,” Rush answered for his uncle. “And knowing someone else’s greed.”
As they headed up Malcolm Street for the highway, Delorian nodded and said, “The Young Matthews speaks wisely. You’ll go far, James.”
“Thank you, honorable Master,” said Rush with a perfectly blank expression.
As they drove out of the little town the sky overhead grew darker.
“I actually like it,” Ara said. “Makes the car cozy.”
“I hate driving in stormy weather,” Delorian told Justin.
“I hate the idea of you driving in stormy weather,” he said. “Fortunately I don’t mind my doing it.”
And so he continued to do it.
Delorian leaned back in the passenger seat beside Justin. In the back of the bus sat Ara and Nathan playing cards, watching the highway and the state of Iowa go by. The van rattled a few times. Nathan looked up at Ara and said, “What if this thing breaks down?”
“That,” she said, “I believe is what the Dragonflies call: Adventure.”
Justin had thought of stopping for lunch at noon, but the road felt good and natural to him, better when his friends were present, Delorian right beside him reading the road map. He wasn’t hungry and everyone else said they were fine, except for Cassidy and Rush, who took up the whole middle seat and had fallen asleep in each other’s arms.
“I forget they’re together, sometimes,” Ara said, peering over the sea where Rush was snoring lightly and holding Cassidy, “until they do stuff like that.”
Nathan nodded, said, “Gin!” and Ara swore. “I used to think it would freak me out,” he went on. “But now it’s just sort of cute.”
“Does that mean we can’t rip up little bits of paper and confetti them while they sleep?”
“Not at all,” said Nathan. “Not at all.”
They stopped at a Steak and Shake around three in the afternoon when the sky was turning black, and Justin cried, “Everyone out! Steak and shake!”
Cassidy scrambled out of Rush’s arms muttering something about, “Somebody say strawberry shake?”
“Shake?” Rush mumbled groggily, pushing himself up.
“Welcome back to life,” Nathan said.
“I have to piss,” declared Rush. “Badly.”
Even as they entered the Steak and Shake the downpour began. It soaked the parking lot and made the sidewalk glossy with wetness.
Rush shook out his legs and said, “I’m headed for the john.”
“Where are we sleeping tonight?” Ara said.
He turned to her, “Woman, what an irrelevant question!”
Cassidy smiled mildly and said, “Ee cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“How do you like that?” Delorian asked her.
Ara looked outside to the black green sky that rained grey water on the darkening landscape of some restaurant and used car strip in Iowa.
“I just hope the bridge isn’t flooded before we reach it,” she said.
When their meal arrived they sat quietly for a second, everyone saying their various graces, and then Ara threw back her head and screamed so that every table turned and looked at them. Nathan Wehlan was sitting directly across from her and just looked at her wide- eyed.
“I feel all free and shit,” she said. “That’s all!”
“Oh,” Justin said, “Well, then in that case. Carry on.”