Chapter Six - Asher #2
Glen never asked again. Never mentioned Jimmy’s name to our parents ever again, as far as I know, and Jimmy’s room grew stale, dusty, the air heavy with his ghost. I went in one day, completely random and for no good reason.
I opened his closet to see his clothes still hanging, smelling of mothballs and old leather, and that was when I saw the duffel.
Sergeant Holdren had been sewn into a patch on the side.
I wasn’t sure why Jimmy had it; if maybe our father had given it to him, or if he’d just found it and taken it for himself.
And so I took it for myself. I asked his ghost to forgive me, even though I didn’t deserve it. Jimmy had already given me more forgiveness than I will ever deserve, like some kind of Messiah, and I suppose I was taking advantage when I took the duffel.
I lift it with all its ghosts in my hand just as I feel Paul leaning up against me. I feel his lips graze my neck and the jab of his lingering arousal.
“Where’s your bag?” I ask.
“I don’t have one,” he says.
I look him up and down. “Just going to wear that the whole time?”
He pushes up his glasses. “I didn’t know I should bring anything.”
“Well, sure.” I grin at him. “For the weekend.”
“Oh.” He frowns.
“It’s cool.” I sit down and take out a cig. “Just go pack something up real quick. I’ll wait.”
He hesitates. “What should I bring?”
I shrug. “Clothes and stuff. Just whatever you brought when you came to your aunt’s house.”
He stiffens and his jaw hardens. “I didn’t, um…I didn’t bring anything.” He pauses. “It wasn’t, uh…planned.”
I look at him for a moment, but he avoids my gaze.
“My aunt went over,” he says, “to my par—pops’ house. Got my clothes and stuff. I couldn’t go.”
I nod like this makes sense. “It’s no problem, pal. Just bring whatever you’ll need. We’ll be coming back Sunday. So, two nights worth? Sound okay?”
He nods, blinks. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He quickly walks out the door, closing it behind him.
I wonder if this is too much, taking him somewhere. And then I wonder why he couldn’t go back home to get his things. Was it the fight? I wonder more about that, about what that could possibly mean, until I know I shouldn’t be wondering anymore. It’s absurd. Pointless. None of my business.
But why, I ask, why do I want it to be?
It doesn’t take as long as I thought.
I expected some traffic on the highway going east toward the city, but it’s practically clear as we make our way to Lake Arthur.
Paul’s arms get tighter around me as I speed along and the cars thin out.
I shouldn’t let him. For lots of reasons, but mostly because I’ve seen other fellas confronted and accosted.
I did nothing, of course, because I couldn’t be anything other than relieved that it wasn’t me.
But now that it could be me, I sincerely regret, and I pull away from him.
Just a bit, loosening the connection. If he gets it, nothing in his grip gives it away.
It’s nearing dusk when the lake comes into view. I feel him shift behind me. And the other thing is he’s closer than usual because of the duffel tied behind him and the pastel purple suitcase that is so obviously his aunt’s, but I didn’t want to say anything.
I slow the bike as I turn off on a dirt road with some gravel here and there. Dust kicks up behind us as Paul’s arms tighten and a cabin comes into view. I park along the side. I get off the bike to grab our stuff, and Paul just sits there, looking up at the cabin and then over at me.
“Where are we?” he asks.
“Lake Arthur.”
“Yeah, I know that, but like…where?”
“4-H camp is over that way.” I point across the water. “Then over that way, some government cats are trying to build some kind of preserve.” I shrug. “I’d say we’re somewhere in the middle.”
“Is this yours?”
I don’t answer him until we’re inside, and I’ve flicked the light switch to make sure it works.
It does. “The guy I rent the garage from owns this place.” I set the duffel and suitcase at the end of the bed.
“He’s trying to unload it. Been telling me for a couple years to come out and see it.
Stay anytime I want.” I hang my leather jacket carefully on a hook by the door.
“He can’t make it out here much. Wife and kids and all. ”
Paul stands there and looks around.
It isn’t half bad, but it’s definitely small for a family.
There’s only the one bed, a record player, and a tiny kitchenette.
I walk around the kitchenette to find the bathroom, a small dining table, and two armchairs positioned on either side of a window overlooking the lake.
Outside there’s a dock for a boat, a fire-pit, and a lopsided swing hanging from a tree.
It isn’t terrible. Not the Ritz. But not terrible.
Paul appears beside me and looks out at the lake.
“Seem okay to you?” I ask him.
“Nobody knows we’re here?”
“Nope.”
He moves closer to me. “Nobody can see us?”
“Nope.”
He leans in and kisses me, and I sink into it like quicksand, and I think the privacy we have here might just be the thing we need.
Or just the thing we don’t. After all, whoever heard of getting pulled out of quicksand alive?
“So…the cop guy hates the other fella…John Val…?”
“ Jean Val jean .”
I glance over at him as he watches the flames, the glow flickering off his glasses. The lawn chairs we found to sit in are the metal kind and are a little rusty and creaky. It isn’t a cool night exactly, but the fire warms me, regardless. And the beer.
And him.
“And yeah,” he says. “It’s like a love-hate thing. Or at least I think so.” He shrugs. “It’s like, you love someone so much that you hate them for it.” He takes a sip of his beer.
I give this some thought. “If you love someone so much you hate them for it, then it’s not love to begin with.”
I see him watching me in the flicker of the flames. “You think so?”
I shrug. “I guess some people get mixed up. They don’t really know and confuse themselves.”
He nods and examines his beer bottle. “Maybe.”
I sit back and take another swig. “How did you pronounce his name again?”
There’s a small smile on his lips. “Jean Valjean.”
“Hm.” I imitate his smile. “And the other guy?”
“Javert.”
“Hm.” I repeat and nod like this is some deep discussion. “That’s quite an accent you have.”
I swear his eyes twinkle. “ Merci .”
I raise my brows. “Impressive. What else you got?”
He leans over the arm of his chair, his smile sweet as pie. “ Eh bien, c'est un très gros pénis que vous avez là-bas .”
“What does that mean?”
“Why, that’s a very large cock you have there.”
I laugh. “So, all the dirty stuff, huh? What else?”
He hesitates for a second, nibbles on his bottom lip. Then he scoots closer to me, lays his fingers on my arm. His voice is almost too soft to hear above the fire. “ Votre sourire est comme le soleil le plus brillant et vos yeux le ciel le plus bleu .”
It’s probably how soft his voice is. Could be the way he’s looking at me too.
Whatever it is, it’s like something inside me tips over and breaks.
It spills, widening and soaking, and there’s no stopping it.
There are not enough towels in the world.
Not enough mops and not enough room inside me to hold it, and so I feel my eyes sting, because it’s going to leak out of me like a faucet.
I blink it back, turn my head from him, and pull my pack of smokes out of my rolled sleeve. “Man, those French ladies, always showing their tits in the movies, you know?” I give out a harsh laugh. “And the fellas all slicked back and with their berets and shit. Man, what a drag.”
I hear his chair creak and see him push up his glasses in my periphery.
“My mom took me to France,” he says. “When I was little.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I don’t really remember it. It was after the war. The Queen was there and some of the streets were all busted up real bad still. I got to see the Eiffel Tower, though.”
“It’s just a giant prick.” I look over at him, his expression unsure, and I force another laugh. “I read it in this girly magazine once. They said it about the Washington Monument too.”
“Oh. I see.”
We grow quiet for a few minutes. I smoke my cig, drink my beer, and try not to let anything else spill out.
“Have you been here before?” Paul asks.
I shake my head. “He told me all about it. Just never made it out here.”
Paul looks around. “And he wants to sell it?”
I nod and he nods too. Then he looks at me, his eyes burning like a green fire behind his glasses. I want to ignore him. I think maybe this was a mistake. And I think maybe I want to hear him speak dirty French words all day until the day I die.
He lays a pensive hand on my thigh. “You want to know what it means?”
Do I want to know? Because I think I already do.
In the way that two people together always know, always see, and always want.
It’s a mystery, isn’t it? And I could have left it that way, a mystery between us for all time.
The kid in the shrub, and I’d just be the fella on the balcony and nothing more.
Nothing to anyone. It’s a familiar place for me, the comfort of ambiguity.
I finish my cigarette and toss it in the fire. I finish my beer and set the bottle beside me. I lean over to him and search his face, so earnest and so hopeful, and a fool to waste such beautiful words on me.
I lean over and kiss his neck, right under his earlobe.
I nip at the skin with my teeth and he shivers.
I kiss down lower and bite down harder at the slope of his shoulder.
He groans and I bite him again. I take his earlobe in my teeth and tug, nip at the smooth line of his jaw, and when I put my hand over his crotch, I’m pleased I’ve got him so hard that he’s forgotten.
And I know he won’t ask me again.
I’m not sure what time it is when I put out the fire, but it feels late.