Day 2 #2
The waiter continued undaunted, much to Jesse’s obvious horror. “Otter. You know, young hairy guy. Oslo. Orion. What was his name?”
“Orson,” Jesse said, looking at the floor like he hoped it would swallow him.
Norman made a note of the name Orson but decided not to press—for now.
“Congratulations,” Jesse said when they had their drinks and he raised his michelada; Lally toasted with water.
“For what?” Norman asked.
Jesse sheepishly explained. Every boy of their generation had watched the 1983 miniseries V, in which carnivorous aliens wore synthetic skins, peeling back their human faces and revealing their true reptilian selves to feast on live, squirming rodents.
Jesse didn’t exactly think that Norman had somehow been replaced by an extraterrestrial, at least if you took him at his word.
But there had been some lingering doubt.
“Congratulations on not being a reptile,” Norman confirmed before picking up his menu. “Got it.” Feasting on live rodents. Preposterous. And then he made a joke about inquiring to the chef about their roasted shrew.
After they ordered, Lally excused herself to the restroom. She waved at the bartenders, as apparently she and Jesse were regulars now. Once they were alone, Norman wasted no time. “Orson?” he asked, not meaning to.
“At least I didn’t fuck the waiter.”
“Oh, I’m so relieved,” Norman said, trying to decide if that was true. But then he was genuinely curious. “I was gone. What stopped you?”
Jesse thought about it for a moment and said it didn’t seem right. “He was ours to fuck together. It wouldn’t have been any fun without you.”
Norman forced a weak smile. “What a lovely sentiment.”
“Norman.”
“No, seriously, they should put that on a Hallmark card. ‘I didn’t fuck the waiter.’ ” Norman mimed opening a card. “ ‘It would not have been as fun without you.’ ”
“You said it yourself. You were gone.”
“I was taken.”
Jesse challenged him with a look.
“Well, you certainly got over it.”
Jesse feigned horror. “The best way to get over someone…”
…was to get under someone else. Norman was familiar. “Okay, clearly I don’t remember what happened, so you tell me what you saw.”
Jesse looked over his shoulder at the restrooms to look for signs of Lally. “I told you all this last night.”
Norman was undaunted. “Tell me again.”
Jesse told the full story in as much detail as he could recall.
Norman listened intently, not breaking focus even when Lally reappeared; she saw them deep in conversation and continued outside to take a call.
This time, he couldn’t get over Jesse’s description of the light.
He didn’t remember seeing it so much as feeling it.
Enough to know there was some validity to what Jesse had seen.
“And then you looked at me and stepped directly into it.”
This was new information. In processing the story the night before, he understood the light had taken him. “I stepped into it.”
“You stepped into it, Norman. What else do you want me to say? You chose it. You chose the light over me.”
If that was truly how Jesse felt, that Norman chose to leave, he could understand his running hot and cold, and some of his decisions since Norman was gone. Depleting their savings on a pool? Maybe not that one so much, but this wasn’t about the pool.
Lally returned to her seat at the table, awkwardly lowering herself into her chair. Norman sprang up to help, but Jesse was already there. He was on the outside still.
“Everything okay?” Norman asked.
Lally set her phone on the table. Norman couldn’t believe she was worried about contamination from him but not from the germs her phone picked up in a restaurant.
“Oh, yes. That was Harlan. I told him I had some big updates for him, which I guess is true.” She looked at Norman and smiled.
“You two don’t need me around, so I thought I would go to L.A. to give you some space.”
“Space,” Jesse muttered.
“For a few days. I can see my ob-gyn. And some old flight attendant friends.”
Norman wanted to know what Lally was doing for money, but he didn’t need anyone else getting defensive. Instead he focused on this Harlan person. Norman didn’t like having a character in their lives that he did not yet know. “What’s he like?”
“Who,” Lally asked. “Harlan?”
Harlan. What a name.
“Straight,” Jesse answered, which sounded dismissive but made perfect sense. Norman had an immediate image of the kind of grizzled character from every cop movie, the one you suspected was soft on the inside.
“Now that I’m back, your case can be officially closed.” Norman didn’t know how these things worked exactly, maybe there was some paperwork needed to complete his file.
“Even if there’s a new mystery before us?” Jesse speculated. He seemed to think there wasn’t much to do until Norman’s memory came back. If it ever did.
“Harlan’s good with these things,” Lally reminded them. “Maybe he can suggest a few tricks of the trade we might try.”
Norman quietly agreed. There were things they could try: memory exercises, hypnosis, psychedelic mushrooms. And maybe it would come to that.
Or maybe he should hire his own private eye.
He’d find someone better than this Harlan character.
“I stepped into the light?” he asked again, and Jesse nodded.
“I don’t know what I was thinking.” Norman cupped his drink in both hands, even though it might warm the glass and melt the ice.
But he did know what he was thinking, at least in the days and weeks before. “I was in a state. We were in a state.”
“California,” Jesse observed.
Stuck, Noman thought. “I don’t know. You must have felt it, too.
I thought the move to Joshua Tree would solve that, but it seemed to make it worse.
I didn’t want to divorce you, I didn’t want to die.
I didn’t want to harm myself, but also I didn’t want things to continue.
I was tired. Oh god, was I tired. Tired of fighting, for us, for our rights, for the permits to redo the house.
I was tired of America. Of people being so afraid of everything that’s even a little different from them.
I was tired of society failing the simplest of moral tests.
I was tired of politics. I was tired of wealth disparity.
Of a nation that chooses not to have nice things.
I was tired of people telling others what bathrooms to use.
I was tired of our tax system, our health care system, of everything being the dumbest way to do anything.
Here’s your insurance card, don’t forget that eyeballs and teeth are add-ons!
I was tired of everyone being so angry all the time.
It used to be fun to be angry, remember?
It used to be so productive! But now people are so angry when they get angry, and about the most innocuous things!
I was tired of guns and reading about schoolchildren shot to death.
I was tired of fights that had been settled fifty years ago being fought anew.
I was tired of our rights being rolled back on purpose, by design.
Remember when we came out? Men were dying.
So many beautiful men. I never expected to be this old.
Did you? I was exhausted. I think the light offered…
something else. Something I thought moving here might hold.
Meaning. Connection. It was warm. Even now, I can feel it on my skin. It was welcoming.”
Jesse finally spoke. “Two things that I am not.”
Lally placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him.
Norman smiled weakly. “Two things the world is not. I know you won’t ever believe me, but the light was…home.”
“Funny,” Jesse said. “I used to think I was home.”
“Norman, I’m so sorry,” Lally said, ignoring Jesse to process this on her own terms.
Norman closed his eyes tight. He was reminded of the movie Contact; he and Jesse had once seen it together before Jodie Foster officially came out and before James Woods lost his goddamn mind.
Jodie Foster traveled to space and experienced wondrous things, while on Earth it appeared she’d gone nowhere.
Even though the circumstances were reversed, on Earth his absence was long, whereas he felt he was gone but a minute if at all; Carl Sagan knew what was up.
When he opened his eyes, food was being placed on their table.
“Well, I can understand all that,” Lally continued, trying to keep the peace. “I’m exhausted. And famished.” She picked up the pickle spear from her wild boar sloppy joe and took a big bite.
Norman pointed to Jesse’s dinner. “You’re eating your smash patties without a bun?”
Jesse stared at his plate, confused. Was that not how he usually ate them?
“And you didn’t get the fries? You always get the fries.”
Jesse looked at him defiantly. “I think you’ll find a lot of things have changed.”