Two of us riding nowhere
spending someone’s hard earn pay
you and me Sunday driving
not arriving
on our way
back home
we’re on our way home
we’re on our way home
we’re going home!
Justin Blake sang into the sleeping Delorian’s ear as they rode side by side, the Greyhound trundling over the long stretch of Kansas.
“What?” Delorian shook himself awake groggily.
“You and I have memories longer farther than the road ahead,” Justin sang on.
“You are truly unhinged,” Delorian told him, and bent to rummage through the book bag between them. “I need a Ho Ho and some water. “Now that I’ve talked about water. I have to pee.”
“I’ll move.”
“No, not right now,” said Delorian. “I’m too lazy for it. I can wait awhile. By the way the line is You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.”
“I am so glad you’re traveling with me so I can get all my Beatles songs right.”
“Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t fuck up the classics. If you’re a good boy,” Delorian took a swig of water, “We can do Across the Universe.”
“So loudly that it pisses everyone off?”
“And we get tossed of the bus in the middle of Kansas, and then have to hitchhike to Missouri on the back of a tractor. Yeah, sounds good.”
“And then we can thumb a ride to Saint Louie -- where we’ll meet--”
“Judy Garland.”
“Exactly, and she and her friends can get us back to Indiana--
“By us going over the rainbow.”
Justin broke into a little girl’s voice and said, “And you were there, and you were there, and oh…. You were there. Only you were a scarecrow!”
They did all of this with straight faces and Delorian said, “No one would guess we were forty.”
“Speak for yourself, old man. I’m thirty-nine. That’s what I’m sticking too.”
“And next year?
“I’ll be thirty-eight. I’m perfecting a special magic charm which will make me get only younger. But I’ll stop at twenty-one, and then age up again to thirty-nine.’
“Perpetually evading forty.”
“That’s the plan.
“Forty’s not so bad.”
“Well, maybe I’ll stop at forty-five. Till I get to be Fred and Monty’s age.”
“How do you think Fred’ll feel when we come back and tell him Nate’s off in New Mexico.
“Oh…” Justin thought for a moment. He decided, “He’ll be cool about it. He’ll be glad his only son’s out adventuring.”
“Well, now, my father might feel that way, but I don’t know. Fred’s always been very protective of Nate.”
“Well,” Justin said, “I guess it really won’t matter. We don’t have him and that’s that. Let go, Freddy.”
I can’t wait to tell him that,” Delorian said.
“I know you can.”
“Well, then I can’t wait to hear you tell him that.
“Funny,” Delorian mused. “To think of Fred with children, being the protective father type.”
“Yeah,” Justin agreed. “Almost as funny as me being that way. I mean, you’d think Nate and Emily just popped up yesterday. Still have a time imagining Fred as their dad.”
“Eat all your vegetables, they’re good for you,” said Delorian.
“A doobie a day keeps the bad vibes away!” chimed in Justin.
Delorian noted: “That is the difference between the Fred we grew up with and the Fred Nate and Emily grew up with.”
Waverly Blake woke up at around eleven o’clock the next morning, lying on his pallet with his hands folded over his chest like a dead man.
“Eleven o’clock,” he muttered. But there was really nothing to get up for. So he went to sleep again until his stomach began to rumble.
It was about this time that Fred Wehlan and Shawn Camden both entered the houseboat, Fred in his rolled up sleeves and white pants. Shawn, home from the office for lunch in black slacks and blue shirt, tie knotted perfectly.
“We thought that you needed to eat something,” Shawn told him.
“We got you Burger King.”
“I suggested Wendy’s,” Shawn told him.
“The line was forever.”
“But the food is better,” Shawn said, shaking his head and putting out their bags. “I’ll go get glasses. Where do Cass and Rush keep all their things? How do they live on this boat?”
Fred looked after Shawn, and half smiled, half frowned.
“What can you do?” he said quietly. “I hope it’s what you like.”
“I’m starving,” Waverly sat up. “I’ll eat anything. I look awful.”
“And your breath is bad,” Fred reminded him as Shawn came back with paper plates.
“It’s always easier to eat on paper plates,” Shawn noted. “I hate eating out of a bag. Unless you absolutely have to.”
On a complete non-sequitor, Fred said, “You have to bathe, Waverly. You have to bathe and talk to your father. But more important than talking to him, you have to bathe.” The last word was lost in the first bite of his burger, and while Fred munched he said, “I used to get really bad depressions. And then when Laila died that was the worst of them all. See, all my life before I had allowed myself this luxury, to just feel down and feel down really easily, not knowing what to do with it. And then when something really awful happened I couldn’t manage it. I almost went over the edge, did all sorts of stupid things. I wanted to die. But I had children and,” he looked around at them, “friends and family. So I had to pull myself together.”
Waverly sighed and said, “Fred. It’s not as bad as all that. I just lost a job... And it was a shitty one anyway.”
“Well, that’s true,” said Fred. “It’s not bad as all that. Yet. But the key to every depression is the same. The first step is to wash yourself.”
Shawn looked at him skeptically.
“What?” said Fred. “It is. Laying around in bed all day, smelling yourself is not a good thing. It is not conducive to help.”
“I always say the best thing to do is sleep,” Shawn said.
Waverly looked at both of the older men. Now he waited for Shawn to explain.
“Sleep because depression is just that. It’s tiredness, you don’t know what to do. So just sleep until you have the strength to do something.”
“And that’s when you bathe,” Fred added.
“And then what?” said Waverly.
Both of the older men looked at each other and then mutually sighed.
“Then,” Fred said, “you need to sleep again and bathe again and it wouldn’t hurt to go to Saint Alphonsus and light a few candles because you might want to start praying again. Then you get strength and insight.”
“And then,” Shawn said, picking up a French fry and making a sage gesture with it, “you can make a decision and plot the next step.”
“Are you sure getting a Tarot reading by Franny is the next step?” Fred asked as they crowded into the back room of Scarborough Fair.
“Well,” Waverly allowed, now that he was dressed and washed and had a little cologne on. “I’ve never been much for it, but we’re all here.“ The all being Phoebe and Fred and Shawn and himself along with Franny and Emily. “And it could prove interesting.”
‘I just don’t know,” Fred continued. “I mean it is Franny reading the cards.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Frances said, taking out a cardboard box that read EMERGENCY CANDLES, and pulling out a stack of cards with pictures on the front and a starry pattern against a blue background on the back.
“Well, for one,“ Fred said, bored, “you keep Tarot cards in an emergency candle box--”
“Or whatever’s handy,” said Frances.
“And for another, you’re too damn close to everyone’s situations. You could just read whatever you want to.”
“Look,” said Frances. “Here you come, bringing your fat ass into my shop, insulting everything I do. And I’m about to start my period--”:
“Geez, I’m sorry Franny!”
“You’re ruining my fucking chi. Get out.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
“No, I’m settled. Go to the next room I can’t have you, Fred. You’ve killed my goddamned chi. Get the fuck out.”
Fred, got the fuck out and paced around the store while Franny breathed in breathed, out prayed a Hail Mary, shuffled cards and then handed the deck to Waverly.
“First you. Then Phoebe. Shuffle till you’re finished, then give the cards back to me.”
Waverly felt like a fool sitting in the back of Scarborough Fair shuffling Tarot cards with his eyes closed, searching for the right moment to stop. But he still searched, and when he got to it he handed the deck back to her.
Franny began laying them out. Only five. Five starry backs looking at him, and she said, “We start here.” And then began turning them over.
“The Fool, The Nine of Swords, The Six of Cups, The Hermit, the Magician.”
Waverly raised an eyebrow, looking at the intricate cards and now, for the first time, willing to believe in Frances.
“This is not really magic or anything hokey,” Frances said. “I mean it can be. But anything can be. Going to Mass on Sunday can be. It’s a way, if the mind and heart are open, to examine your life, how it was, how it is, what it’s going to be.” Her voice had become much gentler now, and her eyes went from blue to green to an almost transparent as she spoke.
“This is why Fred said I might not be the best reader. It’s best to have someone impartial. So most people say. I’m not sure I agree, and at any rate, I’m the only one here who can read cards. And other people would charge you money and confuse you.
“Now the Fool is just that, but he is the fool the way most people in this world look on fools. He is the zero card, the place of beginning and also the palce of endings. For every beginning is an end and... vice versa. Your benefit comes from trying to identify yourself as the Fool, and not clinging to being respected and liked. The Fool is setting out on a journey. See? None of us can set out on our necessary journey until we shake off all the....”
“Shit?” suggested Emily.
Frances nodded, and continued. “And allow ourselves to be the Fool.”
Waverly nodded, because now it made sense.
“The Nine of Swords, this woman up at night, on her bed, crying while nine swords go across her... this is regret and sorrow and all the things that haunt you when no one is around. Men are good at hiding this part of themselves. Nowadays we all are. But you won’t be able to make your journey and do what you need to do until you go here. Everyone is afraid to look their grief in the face and cry. They think, ‘I’ll lose my power.’ You won’t,” Frances insisted. “You’ll gain your power if you are willing to face this grief.”
“And the Six of Cups?”
“Remembering and forgetting. Accurately,” said Frances. “It is the Cup of nostalgia and it is the cup of regret of not knowing when to let go. All three of these cards will happen at once and point to different sides of the same thing. The journey may not be physical, though it may be. But it won’t mean anything if you don’t look inside, face grief, and remember accurately.
“The Hermit-- solitude. In connection with the others, you must journey alone, inside yourself alone. When you remember it must be you doing the remembering--”
“Wait, I’m confused.”
“Waverly,” Frances said. “Think, about most people. How no one can really remember anything. So they get the details of stories confused, or they look at their lives and believe what other people tell them. If you’re going to get anywhere, learning anything it will be by your being awake and you putting together the truth for yourself. Not what you’ve been told, but what you yourself know and experience. You’ll have to be your own guide. Not asking someone else how they feel or if they agree, but finding that... Guide... in you. That will require you knowing yourself. You alone.”
“And the last card. The Magician?”
“Holds all four of the ancient symbols of power,” Frances said, touching it with the tip of her finger. “ The dish, the sword, staff and the chalice, north, south, east and west. He is full power. He is young and renewed. There is gold light all around him. He is the intuition. He is your spirit when your spirit knows what to do. He is... your magic.”
When Waverly didn’t speak, Francis said, “What?”
“Magic....” Waverly began, “isn’t real.” He sounded like a child.
Frances explained in a voice that sounded a little tired, like an old woman’s, “Magic is your power. It is your ability to know where to go and what to do, to move through the universe on the sixth, seventh and eighth sense, to appear, to many who don’t have that sort of thing, supernatural. And this power is very real.”
Rush was gone. Well, he was there -- in the flesh, but he was what Cassidy called “gone.” He was kneeling before the altar with his palms upturned. They were in a deep cavern, cool but filled with the lights of hundreds and of little wax candles. In niches were statues of saints, worn away, all surrounding an altar, cut into the stone. Who knew how old it was? There was a crucifix, but Cassidy thought that this place must have been a temple long before these people heard the name of Jesus.
Cassidy had once dated, unsuccessfully, a Mormon. He didn’t believe in the Book of Mormon or anything the girl told her. As he put it they were “worse than Catholics” with their rules. At least Catholic rules simply seemed to accrue like barnacles on a very old boat, none of them scraped off over time, but many of them ignored. He had thumbed through and read parts of the book of Mormon that he found it enjoyable. While Cass found the literal truth of the resurrected Jesus Christ getting up and coming to preach the gospel to the Indians implausible, the idea that in some way God made himself present all over the world long before missionaries appeared to talk for him was something he had always believed in. Surely this place had been a church for centuries and centuries, Cassidy thought, arching his head to look at the darkness above, trying to make out a stone ceiling, unable to. Whatever names whatever people had used, surely God was here.
Nathan came running into the cavern and immediately slackened his pace upon entering. He was amazed that so few people were here. This ought to have been a tourist spot. Lots of people had to come here, look at all the candles, but apparently not at the same time.
Cassidy turned around to see Nathan, who gestured for him to follow. Cassidy got up, stretching his legs, and went out of the cave.
The land was flat and brown before him. A tiny village was in the distance, and the red cliffs followed each other and jutted higher and higher into an air that looked as if it had been painted, the sky was such a different blue than back home. How could this be America? How could this possibly be the same world he lived in most of the time.
Maybe it wasn’t.
But Nathan was pointing up to one of the lower cliffs, still quite high, and on it they saw a woman in gold earrings, sitting in a sort of half lotus position, looking out at the sun. There was a bit of wind that blew back some of her hair. She looked like a priestess or a goddess or someone’s mother, everybody’s mother. A shudder went through Cassidy. He had a weird wish to go up to her and ask for her blessing. Then she wrapped the Navajo shawl around her, and in that gesture he blinked and realized, “That’s Ara!”
“I know,” Nathan’s voice was till quiet. “I... it wasn’t like our Ara at all.”
“I don’t think anything is like our anything right here,” Cassidy said. “I don’t feel the same. Maybe our Ara was not really Ara. Maybe...” and the Cassidy frowned and stopped talking.
Nathan only looked at his friend and said, stalwartly, “I know what you mean.”
When Rush came out noiselessly, and placed his hands on their backs, neither one of them was startled. Cassidy turned around and gave him a simple, dignified smile.
“I had a dream,” Rush said. “In the chapel or in the cave or whatever it is. Only I wasn’t asleep. But I wasn’t really wake either.”
“A trance?” said Nate Wehlan, willing to believe in anything today.
“No,” Rush shook his head. “Maybe. It was more like I was looking, really looking until I saw. And then I saw a woman, redheaded. Red brown hair.”
“Like yours.” Cassidy said,
And Rush blinked, pushing his spectacles up his nose.
“Yes, I guess so,” he said. “I guess so,” his voice changed and grew lighter. “And she was walking on water and all these flower petals were around her feet and she was looking down at me and I said, ‘Lady, who are you?’ And she said, ‘I am your mother. I am the one who brought you into this world.’”
Cassidy looked alarmed and happy all at once.
Nathan said, “The Virgin Mary.”
“Maybe,” Rush said, “but if she was, she was a hundred other people too. And I don’t think she was much of a virgin.”
Cassidy looked up to the cliff top where Ara was. His voice was a sort of half awake whisper as he spoke, “I don’t get it.... Much of anything. I feel like somewhere between yesterday and today, after we said goodbye to Dory and Justin.... we stepped off of the edge of the world. Or maybe it’s surface. And now we’re walking in some place completely different. I don’t get it at all,” he repeated. “But I don’t mind it either.”
3.
THE FOURTH OF JULY WAS NEVER BIG IN THE MATTHEWS HOUSE. It was not that they were unpatriotic so much as not quite-patriotic- combined with the fact that, while they were growing up, Cecil had always hated to cook, even if cooking took the form of barbecuing. Especially if it took the form of barbecue. He’d never had the patience for that. And then there had always been someone else’s family, and as the Dragonflies had grown up, most of them either had a father who could fire up a grill, or they learned to do it themselves. With the exception of the frightening concoctions Delorian threw together there was not a single Matthews man who would cook.
It was the third of July that was the matter of great importance, for it was the feast day of Saint Thomas the Apostle, Cecil’s saint by confirmation, and the saint whose feast Delorian had been baptized upon. One of the greatest causes for upset in the Matthews house had been the gradual changes in the Roman missal, switching around, amalgamating or just snuffing out whole feast and seasons. At one point in time Thomas’s feast had been a few days before Christmas. Now the poor saint was dragged out into the heat of July. For a while Cecil had observed both feast days.
But now, when the sun began to go down on July the second, Cecil Matthews lit votive candles, and then the old tradition that had died out when his children had reached adulthood was revived and they, and Rush and whoever happened to be in the house at the time, had to pray night time rosary in the little oratory in the study.
Cecil did not believe in suits, but he did believe in looking presentable, so Monterey and Phoebe had to look presentable. It was a small matter of pique that Delorian was not here for his saint’s day, but then he’d been born in December, right around the old Saint Thomas day, so how could he help missing this new one jiggled together by Rome?
Monterey squeezed out of work, Phoebe squeezed into a dress that did not quite fit, and they headed to Saint Alphonsus.
On their way home from Mass, Cecil sat shotgun to Monterey and fiddled with his fedora.
“I didn’t like the sermon,” he said at last. “I tried to ignore it.”
“I thought you were saying your rosary,” Phoebe said from the back.
“I was,” Cecil told her. “That’s how I ignore the sermon. Anyway, I tried to ignore it, but bits and pieces came through to me, and I thought -- this dumb, probably closeted gay bastard, he doesn’t understand... He doesn’t get it.”
Monterey waited for his father to continue while Cecil did just that.
“Honestly, sitting there-- or standing there at the pulpit trying to tell us that poor old Thomas was very silly, and why didn’t he believe in Jesus, and why don’t we believe in Jesus and it’s just so simple. Let’s do it today. Jesus invites us to believe in him. As if Jesus is ... some seven year old throwing a party and saying—‘Come in! Come in!’ ”
“Well, don’t you think he is?” said Monterey.
“Yes and no,” Cecil said.
Phoebe, who had thought her father was joking, who had been raised away from lively religious debates, paid closer attention.
“But I also think that one has to approach faith with real respect, Monterey. To be glib and act as if it’s natural to believe in Jesus and resurrection and impossibility is.... just that. Well, it’s glib. It’s silly. In reality there is no real reason Thomas should have believed, and no real reason most of us do. Thomas had a great deal of sense, not just doubt. He was really being very wise. He was living in his world. He knew how the world works. Dead people, no matter how nice they are, do not come back.
But God was good enough to get past Thomas’s reason and sense and his.... perception of the world, Monty.”.
Cecil turned around to include Phoebe in the discussion.
“See, when Jesus appears and opens up his side to Thomas, he’s showing that man a whole new world. He’s opening his eyes to possibility and wonder and.... the fact that God is infinite. Thomas got faith because God gave it to him, came and showed it to him. Can you imagine what a revelation that must have been, what faith he must have had after he saw Jesus? And think. He wasn’t willing to take someone else’s word on it. He wanted to see him for himself. That was the only real way he could have faith. Or that any of us can.”
Cecil sighed as if he were spent, turned around and fiddled with his hat as Monterey crossed Ardmore Street.
Phoebe remained silent. She was twenty-two and modern and far removed from the world of daily Mass and nighttime rosary.... or Tarot card readings in the back of Scarborough Fair for that matter. She did not say that if you had to see Jesus to believe in him no wonder no one believed and how in the heck could she? Or any of the Matthews? She held her tongue.
It seemed like the end of the ride was longer than the beginning. The stopover in Gary had been as long as it had been uninvited. If Justin and Delorian had not had each other for company, it would have been dreadful. As if was, arriving in Gary, Indiana at two a.m. was not completely without its amusements provided they watched each other’s backs. And at five a.m. they were ready to go. There wasn’t another stop until Fort Wayne, but this was only a twenty minute delay, and then they were heading south for Izmir.
“Did you forget what day it is?” Justin asked him.
“No,” said Delorian. “But I’m surprised you remembered.”
“Why Delorian Jude Matthews, of course I remembered your saint’s day! How can I forget days of an otherwise perfectly normal summer spent on my knees in the oratory at your house praying to the Mother of God?”
“I’m so sorry my old man put you through it.”
Justin cocked his friend a grin.
“It was sort of nice. God knows my family didn’t do anything. And it was the Nineteen Seventies. I felt like I was going back in the past, doing it the way real Catholics did. I almost wished we prayed in Latin.”
“We used to,” Delorian murmured. “Father felt that the English Hail Mary wasn’t worthy of us. Ave Maria gratia plena,” Delorian murmured.
“I think I remember that now,” said Justin.
“Can you say a Hail Mary in Latin?”
“Not on your life. Can you?”
“Yes,” Delorian admitted. “But not right now.”
When they entered the house Phoebe was there which was a surprise, if a welcome one, and so were Fred and Shawn with Frances and Emily.
“Waverly’s in the boat house,” Monterey said, and then told them about the boy losing his job.
“Oh,” Justin caught his breath.
“Why are you back?” said Cecil sharply. “And where’s the car. And where’s everyone else.”
“Yeah,” Fred started. Now that he was allowed to speak he pushed himself up on the tips of his toes as if he might see Nate behind them.
“One,” Justin said raising a first finger, “I’m back because I felt I needed to come back,”
“Damn!” Monterey and Cecil both said to each other, sucking their breaths in.
“What?” said Justin.
“Monty was just saying he felt the same way,” Cecil said, and with a movement of his hand indicated Justin should just continue.
“Two: I sold the car and swapped it for a Volkswagon bus somewhere in Iowa.”
“Hallelujah!” murmured Frances with considerable approval.
“And three:” Justin concluded, “everyone else is in New Mexico or Arizona or some place like that--”
“Maybe Death Valley,” chimed in Delorian.
“With the bus. We took Greyhound back.”
“My son,” started Fred, “is our in the middle of Death Valley, in a beat up Volkswagon.”
“With my son,” Monterey said. “So just relax.”
“Wave’s in the boathouse, right?” said Justin, and Cecil nodded.
“I’d better go to him,” Justin said, though he still looked tired from his ride. He thumped Delorian on the shoulder, and was out the front door.
“When did you get in?” Delorian said, kissing his niece and then going to the ice maker on the refrigerator to get a glass of water.
“About two nights ago,” she said. And then, “Dory?”
“Yes, Phoebe?”
“I’ve been having this dream, and Dad said maybe you could help me with it.”
Delorian raised an eyebrow at his older brother, then sipped from his water glass.
“A’right,” he said.
And she told him about the woman and the water and flowers and he looked at Cecil and Monterey, scandalized.
“Are you both stupid?” he said to his father and brother, and then turned to Phoebe who looked as if she had just been reproached.
“But she is your mother,” Delorian said. “And mine too. And Monterey’s. That was our mother.”
And suddenly Cecil’s mouth fell a little open and Monterey felt as if the air was being let out of him. Shawn, Fred, the rest of them looked at the small family.
“Dora,” Cecil said gently. “Laying in the water like she was asleep. With the flowers all swirling around her, all in her hair, and her red hair fanned out.”
“I always said she looked like Ophelia,” Monterey said. “But I forgot Mama. How could I forget? Dory, how could you remember?”
“Dreams,” he said simply
“I remember you telling me,” Fred said to Monterey, but he didn’t look to Monterey, he sounded as if he himself were half asleep. “I remember it.”
“But she didn’t look like Ophelia,” said Monterey. “She looked like a queen.”
In the sudden quiet, they could hear the bells from Sainte Terre ringing Angelus, and Cecil began to murmur,
“The Angel declared unto Mary--”
And in his mind Delorian heard the old responses…
“And she conceived of the Holy Spirit:
Ave maria gratia plena,
Dominus tecum: benedicta tu inmulieribus...
“We’ll be in Arizona! In the morning!” Ara sang as they drove down the lonely road.
Beside her, Nate Wehlan looked out the window, humming long strands of Brahmns and Mahler in his head. If all this flat land with the buttes and cliffs in the distance, the deep blue painted sky stretching over head had a sound, it would be that of a long, mellow symphony with occasional explosions of magnificent violence. The sun touched the road stretching grey and endless covered in gold.
“You’re right, Cass,” Nathan said. “It is like we’ve stepped off the edge of the world.”
Cassidy did not answer, but Nathan knew he had been heard.
“I’ve been toying,” Rush said, later on, as the sky deepened into night, and Ara could see more stars than she’d ever witnessed in her life, “with going to an Indian reservation. But I keep on thinking that it is better to leave them to themselves instead of being a tourist.”
That night they built a fire in the cliffs near a pool. Cassidy roasted hot dogs and Ara jumped every time she heard a coyote.
“When we get finished cooking we can eat inside the bus if you want?” Cassidy said.
“No,” said Ara. “I like it out here. I’m a little scared,” she wrapped the shawl tighter around herself, “and a little chilly. But this is better. I like it.”
“You know what I’d like?” Rush began.
“A bath,” concluded Cassidy.
“You know me so well,”
“What about roughing it?” this from Nathan.
“Roughing it’s fine, but two days without bathing is not.”
“Well, as for me,” Nathan said, “after we eat there is that watering hole, and we’ve got soap and towels and I’m going to take a change of clothes and make myself purty.”
“Well, you just do that,” Rush told him. “As for me-- it’s a little bit cold for all that.”
But after dinner, Nathan did just do it. Cassidy cleaned up, and then he pulled out a guitar and sang a song or too while evading the sparks from the fire that the wind blew up. After a while, he put down the guitar, frowned and said, “Where the hell is Nate?”
Rush, who had been waiting for someone to say it, stood up and said, “Let’s go get him.”
“I hope we don’t find him naked,” said Cassidy.
“If we do,” Ara rose up, “it’s his own damn fault for taking so long.”
They went along the rock ledge and quickened their pace when coyotes called. But a few moments later, they found Nathan, looking into the pool of water that was silver white in the light of a huge moon in the black night.
They came to him quietly, not wanting to interrupt anything.
He had put on clean baggy jeans and a black tee shirt and his red, shoulder length hair was stringy and wet in his face as he bent to look in the water.
They looked in the water too for a while, and then he looked up at them, and back down to the pool.
“I got undressed,” his voice was stripped of tone. “And I stood here in front of the water. And then I climbed in and it wasn’t as cold as I thought it was. But it was cold, and I took the soap out and I started to scrub and wash myself and dip my head in and out and I heard this coyote howl and then I didn’t hear anything.
“I felt like I was far away from anyone and anything. I was just by myself. Not like the by myself in high school, where I made myself a loner. But the by myself like everyone is. When you are you and--no,” Nate shook his head suddenly sounding more a live, “that’s not it. That’s not it at all. It was like being by your self, right next to you.”
He looked up at them for a moment before looking back at the water.
“Have you ever had that moment when you think of all the people, all the characters in your life and then, all of a sudden, you realize you are one of them. You’re a real person, and the same way that maybe you’re a part of everyone and they’re a part of you, but you are distinctly... your own man, it is the same with you. There is a you that stands alone from you, that you have to get to know and look at and live with.”
Cassidy nodded, Rush did not move. But Ara said, honestly, “No.”
“Well, I did,” said Nathan, “and I kept on washing, and washing and I started to look at me, at my body, at myself at who I had been and started to remember things I wanted to forget. And that’s why I had to stay here so long. I might not have ever come back if you hadn’t looked for me.”
Now Rush squatted beside him and said, “Nathan, I need to understand what you’re talking about.”
“Sophomore year, I have this teacher. She tells me what a promising student I am. She is the first person I’ve trusted or had a link to since my mom died. I really like her. She invites me to her house. I go a lot. There’s always milk or cookies or...” Nate shrugs, “something.
“So one day we’re sitting on the couch and she touches my hair and says, ‘Nate, you ever been with a woman?’ And I don’t really get it, but then I do get it. And I don’t really understand anything anymore because for one second I felt so totally safe and now I’m completely confused. But I tell her, no, that I’m a virgin. And then there on the couch, she tells me how much she likes me, and I can feel my body reacting, and she pulls down my pants and... everything. And.... she puts the condom on me and we move around a little until she’s under me. And I don’t really know what’s going on, but we’re doing it on her couch.
“When it’s over, I don’t really think too much about it. I’m so confused. And then she sends me home and... Mom’s dead, and dad’s not himself. And if I think about it that’s where a lot of crap began. And I never thought about it until now. And I didn’t want to. And I still don’t want to. But there it is.”
Rush, whom believed silence was the best way to receive another person’s wounds, had stilled himself when the thrill of horror and anger went through him. Cassidy, who conversely became more innocent the older he grew let out a stifled murmur of protest and shook his head, his brow going into that famous knit.
But it was Ara who nodded and said, “There it is.”
Justin Blake came back into his father’s bedroom and said, “I can’t get a hold of Wave. He’s out.”
Gregory Blake shrugged in bed.
“Dad, you sleeping in bed all the time, now?”
“If you ever came home you’d know that,” he said. Gregory Blake looked like a pile of pale wrinkles.
“I’ll have to tell you without telling him because...” Gregory shrugged, “I can’t keep it in any longer. I just can’t. Monterey Matthews...”
“What?” Justin said, raising an eyebrow. “Monterey Matthews is your big secret?”
Gregory had enough energy to turn a reproachful look on his oldest son.
“No,” he said, “Monterey Matthews is not. Well, yes, he is.”
“I’m confused. Dad, you’re gonna make me light up in here.”
“It doesn’t matter if you do,” Gregory Blake said. “You see, Monterey is my hospice nurse.”
“Your--” Justin stopped, and then he shook his head and his heart started to race. “No, Dad! Jesus Christ, what are you saying? What are you--?”
And then Justin caught himself. He needed to walk out and smoke. Or something. He knew he’d better not.
“Justin, I have cancer of the throat. P.S., you might want to smoke a little bit less-- and I am dying. I’ve been dying. I’ve only got a very little while left.”
Justin let out one very long breath, and then a series of breaths. It seemed he was dying and there would never be enough air.
“How.... long?” he said.
Gregory shrugged, looking bored. “Three months. Maybe.”
Justin sat down heavily in the chair on the other side of the room. The room hadn’t changed much since his mother died. It was still richly appointed. Sarah, the maid, kept the house immaculate.
“You should call Delorian,” Gregory said, though he had never really bothered to acknowledge the Matthews. Or any of Justin’s friends. “You will probably need him. Once... I thought you should have married, been more normal, been the way Waverly is now--”
“Waverly lost his job,” Justin found himself saying.
“Oh?”
“And his girlfriend.”
“Cindy?”
“Weeks ago. A lot’s happened to Wave.”
“He hasn’t been around here,” Gregory said. “He doesn’t....Tell me anything.”
“He tells you what he thinks you want to hear, Dad. He thinks... he’s disappointed you. He--”
“Is not happy, and hasn’t been. I....” Gregory looked at the ceiling. “I think I tried to make him the opposite of you. I put it in his head. I... have never understood you.” The old man sounded exasperated now. “Ever. I didn’t think anything you did had a point to it. I thought, why doesn’t he marry? Friends won’t be enough. Why won’t he get a real job and....”
“Quit living off of you?”
Gregory did not answer.
“I.... worried about you.”
“I think,” Justin said, “that you didn’t.”
Gregory looked up at him.
Gregory Blake was dying. Justin was turning forty. He was confronting what he had come back to confront and, what was more, everything he looked at or sat on was his now. Every deed, every share in every company. This man’s day was over. Justin’s was really just beginning. And honesty is best for beginnings.
“You never had a nurturing bone in your body. It’s late to have one now,” Justin said. “You just didn’t want to be responsible for me or anyone else. You did a very good job of shirking that responsibility. I handled it in my way and Wave in his. You tried to start over with Wave and make him someone he’s not and now just look at him.... That’s exactly what he is. Someone he’s not.”
“Don’t you--” Gregory sat up, sharply, “tell ME about the responsibilities of fatherhood.”
Suddenly Justin’s eyes flashed, and all of his muscles tensed.
“If you are trying to imply anything.... Anything... You… You old corpse!” the words struggled out of his mouth, “Remember-- I was your son in the day when I thought that meant something, when I thought you and mom knew what the.... what the fuck you were doing--”
“Don’t you swear at me,” Gregory made to turn away as if closing a meeting.
Justin repeated, louder, “What the FUCK you were doing! But you didn’t. And neither did I. But I was just following orders. By the time I had the sense not to follow orders... It was all too late. All the damage was already done.”
“Well, now it’s left for you to repair, isn’t it?” Gregory said.
“Yes, it is.” Justin said. “That it is indeed.”
And then he blew out his cheeks, got up and left.
“Where are you going?” his father’s voice croaked after him.
Justin was on his way down the stairs when he bellowed, “Out!”
It was just like being a teenager again. But maybe that was appropriate. Heading down the wide staircase of the large house he felt like a kid. Angry? Yes. But young and starting all over.
4.
To complicate matters, Justin had already dealt with Waverly. And it was dealing with him. All of his life Justin had known Rush, and thought that his best friend’s nephew was incredibly cool. When Cassidy had shown up in the picture, he’d thought the guy was the best thing sense peanut butter. How could they be friends with Wave? He knew people liked Waverly. He knew there was a good side to Waverly. But it was a side he’d ever seen. Since the end of high school, Justin had never been able to talk to Waverly. He’d thought it was a stage, but this stage had been going on for over half a decade. He loved his brother. He wanted to help him out, but he had a hard time liking Waverly. Especially when he went to the houseboat and wanted to talk to him, ask him how he was holding up, and Waverly had dodged all of his questions, finally snapped at him, and then, when the phone call came, picked it up quickly, talking a long time and acting as if Justin were not in the room.
“I have to go,” he said as he hung up. Justin thought he was talking to the whoever was on the phone, then realized he was talking to him.
“What?””
“I’ve got to go, Judd,” Waverly told him. “Thanks for coming.”
Justin had not told his father any of this. He had not told his father about standing up and saying to his brother, “You are such an awful little shit. No wonder you can’t keep a job. No wonder your goddamn girlfriend gave you syphilis. I’m not going anywhere you piece of crap! This is my friend’s place. Not yours.”
Waverly looked at him, weirdly, and then said, “Well, I’ve got to go.”
“Well, then you can go.... little… Lord Fonteroy, or who ever the hell you think you are.”
And Waverly had dressed, and left, leaving Justin on the houseboat.
This is what Waverly remembers. He also remembers that he’d forgotten this house did not belong to Rush and Cassidy. The boat was Delorian’s. Depending upon how you looked at things the Matthews were either enlightened or mad. While Waverly’s own father was blowing a gasket over Justin’ inability to settle down, Cecil had simply realized Delorian never would. But he wanted him to have his own place, and so he’d bought the little house down the street for him and Frances. Until then they had been living on the boat.
When Rush had graduated from college, and had one of those famous Matthews men early twenties crisis, Monterey and Delorian got together, like good parents, and decided that Rush should have the boat until the end of his twenty-fifth year. On his twenty-sixth birthday -- or earlier (which probably also meant later) he would emerge with his generation’s plan for saving the world. That was just the way they had said it, or Delorian had said it, “I don’t want you just telling me how you’re going to make a living, because... well, hell, we’re not broke and that doesn’t matter. I want to know how you’re going to save the world.”
But all of this was in the periphery of Waverly’s mind as he drove to Mirrormere Street. The phone call he’d gotten had been from Cynthia Neary, and she wanted to see him.
I love him, I really do, Waverly was thinking to himself. I don’t understand it. I think I’m a good friend. I know I’m a good friend. I know I have love in my heart. I know I don’t always get it right, but I try. But with Judd why do I screw up? He’s a good guy, isn’t he? Yes. He’s good, and I’m good. Why can’t we get on? Why are we always fighting? Why is he that way around me?
No.… It’s me. Or at least it’s me too. I’ve got some of the blame. It’s not just Judd. I respond in a different way. I don’t know how.... Or why, but I do. I take everything he says the wrong way. I take everything he does the wrong way. Anything! I don’t know why I am that way. Maybe... maybe I’ll make it up to Judd.
Waverly’s hands were tight on the steering wheel.
“I will. I will make it up to Judd,” he said. “And I need him now. He’s really the only one who can help me do whatever I have to do now.”
Justin could not really help him get settled into a good job and live a secure life. Justin couldn’t possibly give Waverly much financial advice, but Justin could help Waverly learn how to jump. Waverly needed there to be a safety net. He needed someone who believed there really was one.
“Or who says that if there isn’t.... It doesn’t matter.”
Waverly parked in front of the house, reading the address. This was 1861 Mirrormere Street. He had rarely been out here in Laurel Hill, but he knew it was the place to live. People in Willowfield and Slaterfield derided it. But other people who had no access to the old neighborhoods and their quiet streets, large trees and comfortable old houses looked east and dreamed of having a piece of Laurel Hill or Maple Forest, or one of the new subdivisions out west in Evan Park.
Stepping out of his car, Waverly noted with the snobbery of a Willowfielder that here were the pointless winding streets it was easy to get lost in, the very large all too new homes set on lots with tiny trees and hardly any privacy in the backyard. Homes that looked like bungalows or colonials on steroids, or -- in the very worse cases-- trailer homes on growth hormones. He really couldn’t see why anyone would want to pay so much money to live in houses that were, yes, large. But hardly grand.
The house whose doorbell he buzzed, his old boss’s house, had a large pseudo-oak door. Waverly not it was essentially a glorified split level with misplaced dormers and a pretentious chandelier in the foyer. Waverly’s chest tightened a little even though he knew Ross wasn’t home. He knew Ross’s hours and that Cynthia would not ask him to come over if that man were here.
“Oh, Waverly,” she said, sympathetically, opening the door and pulling him in by the hand.
“When that son of a bitch told me what he did,” Cynthia said, not allowing anytime for uncomfortable chit chat, “I was so angry and I thought – ‘It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t call Waverly and tell him I’m sorry.”
“Cynthia, it’s alright,” Waverly said. He felt relieved. He had no idea what he thought Cynthia wanted, but he was relieved that it was just to rant.
“No, it really isn’t,” she disagreed and brought him into a large kitchen. They must have had a maid. It was inconceivable to think of Cynthia cleaning anything let alone a house this massive. “And I’ve been thinking. I’ve got a brother and some girlfriends and, hell, me. I can get you any job you want,” she said.
“What?”
“I promise you, Wave.”
She opened up the refrigerator and said, “Kool-Aid or beer.”
“I’m a Kool-Aid man,” Waverly rubbed his stomach. “On the road, you know.”
Cynthia nodded.
“Wise choice.” she got a tumbler.
“You know, Cynthia,” he said, as she poured two glasses and put one on the table in front of him, one in front of her. “I think I’d rather earn my job. Ross said I didn’t even earn this one. That my father got it for me.”
“Oh, fuck that,” Cynthia said. She waved her hand around the kitchen, “You think I earned this? Or Ross did? You think the world really works like that? It’s connections, Wave. And quite frankly your old man didn’t connect you very well, clicking away at that computer all day long for Ross who had it out for you.”
“But that’s just it,” Waverly said. “Why did he have it out for me? He talked about how I was just Joe College and had my education and friends and ideals and no work ethic and-- “
“But don’t you see?” Cynthia laid a hand on him. Her voice sounded desperate. “That’s exactly why he had it out for you. You’re young, Wave! And have opportunity and light and... people like Ross hate that. You can get up and go anywhere you want. I promise you that.”
Waverly blew out his cheeks, “This is,... so much. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say, yes.” said Cynthia. “Say you’ll help me help you. You’ve been a good friend. A really good friend. I want to help you.”
“I feel like you’re a sugar mama.” And then Wave caught himself, but Cynthia laughed.
“Well, so what? What’s wrong with a sugar mama? Especially if she’s pretty and young and I am and I am. Especially if she feels trapped sometimes and thinks—‘I’m going to get the hell out of this trap.’ I’m going to leave Ross. Very soon,” and then she looked up at Waverly.
He didn’t say anything.
“If not for you for someone else,” she said. And then she said, “For myself, damn it. I’m leaving him. This is.... No life.”
Cynthia took a breath and said, “Waverly, if you would stay tonight--”
“Waverly’s eyes shot out and he was up in an instant.
“Stop that!” Cynthia commanded. “You don’t have to be a prude, Waverly Blake. I’m not making you. I’m your friend and quite frankly regardless of what you say I’ll help you anyway you can. I wish you’d stay the night with me. Ross won’t be back until tomorrow. If you did I would love you and cherish you and if you didn’t I would respect you and help you. It’s you call.”
Cynthia was terribly matter of fact about the whole thing.
Waverly could breathe again. He took a few breaths to still himself, to keep the world from turning.
Then he said, “If it’s all the same to you; I’d better go then. If you respect that.”
“I do. Call me in the morning.”
Waverly nodded. Then he kissed her on the cheek and she touched him on the back of his head.
“Good night, Cynthia.”
“Good night, Wave.”
When he winds his way out of Laurel Hills and Mirrormere to meets Tangerine, Waverly has a revelation that is like the world tilting, and then going upside down and then crashing to the floor of the universe, and suddenly nothing is left. Mirrormere is a broad inside street with no traffic, leading to a busy street where the lights of cars whiz by in the night. He needs to idle the car. He needs to turn it off and think before another moment passes.
All of it is one vast lie. This is the lesson he has learned. His parents taught it to him, everyone has taught it to him, even his most cherished friends, even the nuns and priests at Catholic school, his devout mother. Waverly knows that he had better pounce on this moment because, quite frankly, the insight won’t last for long.
All the laws of decency are bullshit, really. All the rules of fair play for nice guys. These things do not work. Nice guys really do finish last and that’s why the Buddha dies in a tattered yellow robe and Saint Francis ends his life in rags. This is why martyrs are martyrs, why Indian nations are exterminated, why they say history is written by the victors. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
It was the trouble at Sainte Terre. Jesus-- a manifestly nice guy -- ends up nailed to a piece of wood, naked. Whatever you believe came after that, and Waverly now admits to himself he doesn’t really believe much came after it, everyone can agree that this did happen. And all the time he was in school all of his professors training him to be a schizophrenic. Be like Jesus only be successful. Love like that only make sure you are very cautious, get a very good job, always remain secure and never face disgrace. Be a Christian, but make sure that you are respected and do well in the world.
Everyone’s advice has been wrong until now. The bullshit from school, where the rules dictated that a crucifix had to be on every wall, but a crucifix was an embarrassment and no one really wanted to risk their life for anything. His father who could never be a father, his boss who said that nothing but work mattered. It was all a lie. The only people who didn’t seem misguided were the people who didn’t have any law at all. What law did Rush have? Or Cass? Or Delorian? Or Monterey?
Or Justin?
They just did what they would do.
So Waverly turned the car on and turned around. Every time Cynthia talked to him about what she wanted, about her need he was repulsed. He admitted that now. He was self righteous. How could she show her scars? And then he was embarrassed because of her scars. All this time he had been feeling sorry for her. That sad thing, locked in that big house with no love. But really she had seen that he was no different. There was no way out of the prison, none at all, except for loneliness to reach out and there was no God in heaven to judge them, there was no committee of nice guys in the sky who would say, “Oh, how could you do that?”.
Waverly knew that now.
So he thumped on the door after he parked the car, and she opened the door and his mouth landed on Cynthia’s and she pulled him into the house and to the kitchen. Neither one of them said a word. They just clung to each other. Waverly felt himself opening like a dam, his body quivering. He was shaking so bad he stamped his foot like a horse.
Cynthia was muttering his name and he was sucking on her throat and on her mouth. And then he was putting her up on the kitchen table, and she was unbuckling his trousers and pulling down his underwear, caressing his ass. And he was working with her jeans and her panties and she kept on muttering, “Wave,” over and over again.
They worked their bodies together. He fitted himself inside her and then began to move slowly in and out. Cynthia’s thighs tightened around his hips, the backs of her thighs rested on the cup of his ass and she reached into his shirt, stroking his back, running her hands over his stomach, up to his chest. She placed one hand over his breast where his heart beat steadily and another on the edge of the table.
“Waverly!” She urged through clenched teeth. “Harder!” she was shocked, as if someone burnt her.
“Harder. Harder!”
And he heard himself muttering things like, “You like that? You… like… that?”
“Fuck me! Fuck me. Please fuck me.”
“I’ll fuck you. I promise. I’ll fuck you like you deserve. I will fuck you!”
With every word he went harder in her, slammed her against the table, they both shouted together, then went to the floor, pulling off each others clothing, tasting each other’s skin caressing breasts and buttocks, touching secret places. Waverly moving his mouth over her nipples and stomach, eating from the secret place. Then moving to the living room where he lay on his back and gasped while she ran her hands over his hair, kissed his ears, his eyes, his mouth his chin. She sucked on his nipples, went down on him, placed her mouth in the private places between his thighs. He turned her over and placed Cynthia on her back. He set to fucking her until they both groaned and cried and swore and sweat on the floor and came in the dark of the living room. Strangled shouting.
When it was over, they lay in the dark, wet and hot, gasping for breath. Waverly’s sex was still hard, wet. Semen still dropped from the tip of his penis onto the carpet. They lay side by side and then Cynthia turned over on her side and said, “Waverly, let’s go to bed.”
And he nodded and lifted up a hand so that she could help him up.
In the future, and not the very distant future, Waverly would reflect that everyone could probably look back on their lives and see that they had at least one moment of doing something truly regrettable. Not everyone. That would be cynical and it would lessen the appropriate sting that comes from being foolish. Some people did stupid things over and over again. If it had to happen it was best that you have your moment of stupidity, the moment you would only share with a closest friend, but would not want to share with a closest friend, but would have to share with a closet friend… You should have that moment only once.
This was Waverly’s.
Regret did not come immediately. They went to bed that night and it was good, he always remembers this. They made love all night. They did need each other. There wasn’t any shame in any of the event. He needed to be touched. He needed it so badly and so did she and they both knew it and they were there for each other, in another mans’ bed, body and soul. They cried out in pleasure and offered no resistance and they wept in sorrow and confided everything. It was the strongest love Waverly had ever made. They slept in each other’s arms, protecting one another. Waverly slept well that night. Every time they woke up again, even if it was just to kiss a little, they were making love. Waverly wanted to protect Cynthia, to give himself over and over again to her, to hold her like this. And now that he was being cherished, now that he felt beautiful and worthy and not dumped on for the first time in a long time he wondered how the hell he could have ever thought he’d been experiencing anything real when he was with Cindy.
So later on that was the worse thing about it: he did not feel unequivocally bad about that night. It was not an ugly night. In many ways it was a beautiful night. It was a textbook sin, yes, but it was also a sort of remedy. He didn’t know how he felt. He didn’t know what he was.
But when daylight came, the things that he had put away from himself on the corner of Mirrormere and Tangerine came back to him. The truth was he did believe in right and wrong and fair play, that there were things more important than the need of the moment. He did believe in God. That was what made him him. He lay on his back and tears started to roll down his cheeks though he made no noise because he also believed that he had needed last night. His heart hurt so badly. He wanted to die, but this was also the first time in a long time he had wanted... anything. And that felt good. He had been so dead.
The tears kept rolling down his cheeks and he realized that if there was anything wrong about what had happened it was that things could not happen in isolation. He was not wholly good. Part of him had wanted to get back at Ross for firing him, and this was an excellent and evil way to do it. Part of him was elated that he had screwed his boss’s wife in his boss’s bed, that when Ross went to bed, Waverly’s body and Waverly’s smell and sweat and semen would be in those bed sheets. And this part of him was ugly. This part of him should never have been fed. But he fed it. He fed it all last night.
And the truth that Cynthia was a married woman and a woman he really couldn’t help and a woman who really wouldn’t leave Ross, that he had no desire and no energy to be an adulterer; this was part of what ruined the whole thing. And that he would have to tell his friends. And somehow they were part of this too. And that one day he really did want a free relationship. This night was not helping that. Whatever became of Ara, there was no future for them if he kept this to himself.
All of these things were going through him when Cynthia woke up and looked at him naked beside her, his long feet and long body, his long sideburns and spiky brown hair, his eyes blinking up at the ceiling, his porcelain face, sticky with the residue of tears.
“This is never going to happen again, is it?” she whispered to Waverly.
“No,” he said sadly. “I don’t think so.”
The sun was bright that morning and the world was so lovely it hurt. Waverly stood at the threshold of the house on Mirrormere and embraced Cynthia. They held each other very tightly and she said, “Thank you, Waverly Blake.”
“For ruining your life.”
She held him at arms’ length and touched his cheeks, and then she kissed him gently on the forehead and said, fiercely, “No, Waverly. No.”
They held each other very tightly for a second and he thought that he might cry again, so he let her go.
This time when he came to Tangerine Street, he turned into the traffic, heading west, toward Willowfield.
He was right, his whole world had turned upside down and shattered on the floor of the universe. But his conclusion had been incomplete. Now he understood. He was still crying, which annoyed him at the same time it released him.
“I gotta start all over,” Waverly murmured to himself. “I gotta start all over.”
5.
Everything was in varying shades of blue and white and grey with traces of black. They slept outside on a butte last night. Ara and Nathan refused and went into the bus. Cassidy’s fingertips drummed on Rush’s chest and he said, “I bet it looked like this in the very beginning. You know, when God made the world.”
Rush chuckled and said, “What if this is the very beginning? And nothing else that happened before matters?”
“Where to today?” said Cassidy.
“I don’t know. We’ll just wait until Ara and Nate get up. I need to wash--”
“Yes, you do.”
“And you too, and I’m not going to that watering hole.”
“I think we should.”
“I think it’ll be cold, Cass.”
“I think it’ll be fun.”
“You thing surfing and bungee cord jumping is fun.”
“It is.”
“For white people.”
“For your information,” Cassidy propped himself on an elbow, “plenty of Black people surf and bungee cord jump.”
“No they don’t,” Rush said in a tone that meant there would be no arguing that pronouncement.
Cassidy settled down and murmured, indecisively, “I’m sure some do.... Somewhere.”
“I was thinking,” said Rush, “that it’s almost my twenty-sixth birthday.”
“Yes,”
“That’s when we’re supposed to move out of the boat and decide what we want to do next.”
‘I hardly think that’s fair. I think we should be able to wait until I’m twenty-six. That’ll be like another three years on the boat.”
“Yes, but I want to make another move. I mean,” Rush sat up, “I applaud my dad for this. He took me aside and said and instead of just rushing me to college after high school and then just rushing me to my first bad job after college and going through grinds, that when something needed to happen then it would happen. He said, ‘We’ve got money, so that’s not a problem.’”
Cassidy wondered for the first time, “Rush, how much money do you all have?”
“Let’s see? We have that house and we own the barbershop, the boat, Delorian’s house. And there’s some apartment that gets rented out, I believe. Granddad bought it or something. I don’t know. I think that really we don’t have that much. I know that Phoebe’s mom made more than we ever did and she grew up richer.... But poorer. I’m pretty sure your family has more money than us. But it’s not the money... I think it’s what you do with it. None of us worries too much about it or spends too much of it on what we don’t need so... it just feels like we’re richer than we are.”
“Could we live like that?”
“We do live like that.”
“No. I mean, for keeps. Let’s live like that. Let’s let that be the next step. Just take the boat out to... Lake Michigan, and live on the water like....”
“Water people?”
Cassidy laughed and then put on a dumb face and said, “Yeah!”
Rush wrapped himself around Cassidy.
“I love you. I don’t know how I found you.”
Cassidy kissed him, and then they parted a little and Cass said, “We both really, smell bad, don’t we?”
“Yes.”
Cassidy looked at him for awhile, his blue eyes patient until they elicited the answer from Rush they wanted.
“Alright, Damn it!” he cried, pulling himself up out of the sleeping bag. “Let’s go to the damn watering hole!”
WHEN WAVERLY ENTERED THE HOUSE, HE WAS STARTLED TO SEE JUSTIN, LONG LEGS APART, SITTING IN A CHAIR FACING THE FRONT DOOR, AS IF HE’D WAITED FOR HIM ALL NIGHT.
“My God, Judd. You look....”
“Like shit?” Justin was unshaven and smoke tendriled from the end of the cigarette that hung from his hand. A glass ashtray in front of him was filled with stubs.
Waverly nodded.
Justin cackled and said, “Well, it must be in the gene pool because you don’t look much better.”
Waverly turned to the mirror that hung in the living room and said, “Shit, you’re right.” And they both laughed a little, sounding a little broken.
“What’s up?” Justin’s voice was scratchy. “Or should I ask?”
“I’ll ask you first,” Waverly said.
“I... went over to dad’s last night. I cussed him out. Real bad. I mean, like I hadn’t done in years. I just walked out of the fucking house. I understand why you avoid him... God...” Justin took a last drag on his cigarette and let out a gush of smoke, “What an asshole.”
Waverly nodded his head, and then Justin said. “He’s dying, Wave.”
Waverly looked up.
“He told me last night. It’s not bullshit. Monterey’s his hospice nurse--”
“Why didn’t Monterey--?”
“Confidentiality,” Justin reminded him. “That’s what they have to do. No exceptions and thank God. But---”
Waverly looked stunned and Justin stood up and put his arms around his brother.
Waverly held onto Justin. He felt like he was falling.
He said, “I need a cigarette.”
“I need to get high,” Justin whispered into his brother’s ear before parting from him. “I need to get high and laid and.… Everything else.”
“I need a bath,” Waverly decided, looking like he was about to faint, looking the way he had back in childhood when he would forget to eat. “I need to... rest.”
Waverly went into the bathroom and a moment later Justin heard the sound of hot water rushing into the tub.
Waverly came out and smoked two cigarettes while the water ran, and then he stripped to his boxers and went into the bathroom. Justin heard the sound of his brother slipping into the water.
A few moments later, Justin tapped on the door and came in. The bathroom was hot as hell, drops of sweat immediately pricked up on Justin’s skin, through his dirty tee shirt. The screen of bubbles from the dishwashing detergent was thin, and Wave’s knees popped out of the water. His face looked tired and was covered in sweat.
“Hand me a wash cloth would you?” Waverly said to Justin, who did. And he wiped his face slowly and turned to him.
Waverly said, “I fucked my boss’s wife last night.”
“Oh,” said Justin.
Waverly turned away and closed his eyes again. He dunked his head in the water once and then came back up, wiping his face again.
“Well?” Waverly said, though his eyes were still closed.
“It.... isn’t like you, Wave.”
“I know,” Waverly said. “But last night I thought it was.”
The two brothers sat in silence in the bathroom a few moments longer and then Justin said, “Shit, Wave. Shit... on all of this.”
“Exactly,” Waverly agreed wearily. And then he said, “Hand me an ashtray and my cigarettes, Judd? Alright?”
And silently, Justin reached for those and a lighter, put a cigarette between his lips, lit it, took the first inhale and passed it to his brother who took a long drag, and then took a long time to force the smoke out of his nostrils.
“Thanks,” said Waverly.
“Sure thing,” said Justin.