SULLIVAN #2
I’m doing the thing I do when I’m learning a new instrument—playing a song on my phone that I attempt to replicate with my mouth and hands on the oboe.
I start simple, then gradually progress as I get more comfortable with how to make the instrument do what I want it to.
The battle for me with most new instruments isn’t the sounds that I make come out of it.
That’s the easy part. For me, it’s learning how to hold it comfortably.
Adjusting my body to the thing. Once I have that figured out, I’m generally at a moderate difficulty level in terms of the songs I’m able to play.
Today, I achieve that level in the late afternoon.
I’m in the zone, finding my way through a Wagner piece when my skin prickles with a bizarre awareness. My spine stiffens. I lower the mouthpiece and glance over my shoulder, nearly pissing myself at the sight of the large man leaning against the doorframe.
Of course, I recognize him instantly, and the fear of being caught quickly goes from a chill to a melting heat that clings to my skin like hot wax. “Hi.”
Knight Winters is in a black t-shirt, long black gym shorts, and white sneakers. He’s got a gun in his hand, resting against his thigh, one long finger on the barrel, not the trigger.
“Wow,” he says, his voice flat, his face blank.
I lick my lips. They’re still vibrating from the oboe. Picking up my phone, I stop the music, plunging the room into near silence.
This guy hasn’t looked at me for more than half a second since last September, but he’s staring now.
Staring so hard that I want to shrink even more than I already have.
Quite literally. I know down to the ounce how much weight I’ve lost. I know skinny doesn’t look good on me.
I know my hair is long and my tattoos are strange.
I know how large my eyes have gotten and how my face has sunken in beneath my cheekbones.
How my features look harsh and almost clownish now.
I know what he’s staring at—this in between thing I’ve become.
“Is the gun necessary?” I ask to draw his attention away from me while I try to make myself not care what he thinks about me again. I got pretty good at it last fall. It should feel like flexing a muscle, which I still have a few of.
He does something to the weapon that makes a light clicking noise, then he puts it in his shorts pocket. His gaze doesn’t leave me, though. “So, this is your place?”
“Not mine…” I say quickly.
“Oh, no. I know. My mom’s company owns the property, but the place you mentioned, right?”
“You remember that?” I barely remember telling him that.
His voice comes out deeper. More knowing. “Well…yeah.”
“I’ll go. It might take me a few minutes but—”
“Why?”
“Why?” I repeat, already disassembling the oboe. “You show up with a gun, I’m trespassing, I assume that involves a call to the police or something.”
He huffs. “I’m not gonna call the police. And you don’t need to go.”
“Well, I can’t stay.”
“I’m alone,” he says, his hands up to signal his harmlessness. “It’s just me. You don’t have to go anywhere.”
I don’t know what the fuck he expects me to do. Keep butchering the oboe while he does what? Checks on the property? Yeah…no. “Just give me a few minutes.”
“I think about you, you know?”
Those words stop me cold. I freeze halfway to the oboe case and fight the urge to look at him. When I come up with nothing to say, I unstick myself and crouch down to put away my instrument.
When I don’t speak, he does. “I wasn’t intending to go no contact with you. But I wondered, did you mean to do that with me?”
I frown, but my face is hidden by my hair. “What did you intend?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lack of intention tends to lead to lack of action, so that makes sense, I guess. There’s no hard feelings on the off chance you’re worried about that.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Oh. Well. Don’t sweat it.” I close the oboe case and start pulling the papers I’ve got strewn everywhere into a messy pile.
Dust floats up from the floor, the motes catching the light.
The dance of them snags my attention. It’s almost like they’re forming notes.
Jesus. I blink and try to remember what I’m doing.
Welcome to my brain. Ninety-nine percent music and one percent everything else.
I get caught trespassing, and my mind wants to write a fucking étude about it.
“What was that?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“That horn or whatever you were playing.”
“Oh. An oboe.”
“What’s an oboe?”
“The instrument.” I’m flustered. I don’t understand the question. It’s a fucking oboe. I don’t know what else to say about it. “It’s a reed instrument. A woodwind. It tunes an orchestra.”
“It sounded cool. A little creepy.”
“I’m still learning it.”
With all the papers gathered and my backpack open, I move to shove them inside.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
“I should really get back. I don’t even know what time it is. It’s gonna get dark soon, and I don’t wanna be thrashing through the woods with all my shit.”
“Sullivan. Please?”
I don’t know why that gets me. In the last nine months I’ve developed a sort of story about Knight Winters in my head, I guess.
I figure he’s gay and needed to somehow pop his gay cherry.
I was in the right place at the right time, but I figure once he did it, he’s been doing it all the time.
He can’t be the only gay dude on the football team.
I imagine all it would take would be noticing another guy on the team checking him out in the locker room, and they’d be jerking each other off whatever chance they got.
One thing Knight never looked like on campus was repressed. He carried himself like he’s already captain of the team with the swagger of a confident leader, and, frankly, someone who was getting his dick wet on the regular.
I don’t see any of that right now, though. His voice sounds exactly like it did at The Front. Quiet and uncertain, like we could get caught at any moment but there’s something he still needs to say.
“I have my car if you need help getting any of your stuff out of here,” he adds.
I sigh. I don’t want to talk to him. Nothing to do with him, but it’s embarrassing being caught like this—lost in my own world while also breaking the law. “Wait—what are you doing here?”
“My mom’s company owns the—”
“You said that already. And it’s a great explanation for why your mom would be here, but…”
“Right. Well, she lets me check on the properties and keep them looking nice for sellers.”
I know all that. He told me. “But she sent you here?”
“Sort of. When she told me about it, I was interested.”
“Is there some reason they haven’t condemned it?” I ask.
“Maybe it’s got good bones.”
I look around at the peeling paint and the beat up floor, the boarded up window, and the thick layer of dust. “Seems like it’d be easier to tear down and start over than restore.”
“I thought you liked it,” he says.
“It’s falling apart.”
“If it were yours, what would you do? Tear it down?”
“Maybe,” I mumble. “Probably.”
“So, can we talk?”
Right. That. Turning slightly, I plant my ass on the couch cushion I dragged in here. Another puff of dust rises.
“Let me…” he looks toward the living room. “I’ll be right back.”
“Lose the gun, okay?” I call after him.
I hear his short laugh echo in the hall.
He returns a few seconds later with another couch cushion.
The gun is no longer weighing down his nylon pocket.
He drops his cushion in front of mine and sits.
I draw up my legs and wrap my arms around them.
He sits crisscross applesauce, hunching over to rest his elbows on his knees.
He looks good. Really good. Healthy, like he’s been enjoying the summer sun.
More freckles dot his nose and upper cheekbones than I remember. Have I missed him?
“What’s up?” I ask.
“So, you really are from here.”
“Ha. Yeah. I guess you are, too.”
“You gonna be here all summer?”
I swallow, looking down at my hands. “Some of it.”