Bird Came Down

Scott had not wanted to start college. He actually waited two years. He was working at Media Play when he finally decided to go to City College.

“Oh, we’re so glad,” his mother said.

“I’d thought you’d be wearing that blue shirt forever,” his father added.

He did stay at Media Play. In fact he was at Media Play more than school, which he slept through for the most part. Somewhere along the line be became a history major.

“I’m worried about you, Scott,” Professor O’Connor said to him, frankly, as she returned a paper to him. City College was a community school, but professors never understood that. Being here was the second, sometimes the third most important thing. There wasn’t much he stayed awake for. He wanted to pay attention. He stayed awake for his friend Mallory. He stayed awake for Felix.

He had never seen Felix before, but Felix was in two classes, and laughter was always happening around him. After a while Scott started eavesdropping. When he laughed out loud, Felix turned and looked at him, and then he smiled. And that’s how Scott learned that if he laughed loudly from the other side of the room Felix would look at him. Felix was smart. Scott knew this, and could explain with a joke a very long moment in history. But in the end Professor O’Connor called them both to her desk and Scott, several inches taller, kept looking at Felix, wondering what was up, and Felix gave him a wry look that made him grin.

“Scott, you’re a terrible student,” Professor O’Connor said simply. Scott grimaced and Felix burst out laughing. This made Scott want to laugh for some reason, even though he should have been indignant. Instead he bit the inside of his lip.

“And Felix is a very good one. So would you tutor him?” Professor O’Connor asked.

“Sure,” Felix shrugged.

“Forget about doing the next paper then,” she said.

“Right on!” Felix put his hands together.

“And if he actually does well on the next paper, well then…” Professor O’Connor shook her head, “We’ll talk.”

“Are you free?” Felix said.

“I need to be at work by four.”

“Then you’re free,” Felix said. “We’ll work out a schedule.”

In the courtyard Felix lit a cigarette, inhaled and said, “So what are your hours like?”

“I work full time?”

“Um,” Felix said. Then, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get around that.”

“I guess weekends?” Scott said, glumly.

“I don’t like weekends. Those are mine.”

“Right?” Scott nodded in agreement.

“Do you work nights?”

“Yeah. But no one’s there but me after ten o’clock. Oh, and Thursday mornings.”

“I guess I’ll just have to teach you at the store.”

Scott blinked at him.

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t want to write that paper.”

When Felix answered the door that night, Scott said, “Sorry I look so skuzzy.”

Felix shook his head and laughed, “You look like you did when I met you.”

Scott came in wearing a ball cap and hooded sweatshirt.

“I rushed right over here and my hair looks crazy is all. I swear I’m not trying to be a frat boy.”

“Are you thirsty?” Felix asked him.

“I could drink. Maybe just water. So,” Scott followed him into the kitchen, “you talk to that Ben?”

“I think he’s gone.”

“Good.” Then Scott said, “It’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have a right to speak,” Scott said as Felix poured the water into a plastic tumbler.

“I didn’t know all about that. I must have put you through some shit. I see that now.”

“You didn’t put me through any shit,” Felix said, handing him the water, but Scott wondered if he had said it too quickly.

“I thought about you,” Scott said. Felix gestured for him to leave the kitchen, and they went to the couch. “A lot.”

“I never heard from you, though.”

“You said,” Scott began. He looked at his water. He turned to Felix again.

“You said I was like everybody else. And then I was pretty sure you were done with me.”

“You said,” Felix said, his voice a little hard, “that you wanted to be just like everybody else.”

Scott didn’t speak right away, and then he said, “I know.”

Then he said, “Do you remember the first time you came to Media Play and we didn’t learn anything? I mean, I didn’t. We just talked and talked and you told me about how you had dropped out of the graduate school program to study history for the year.”

“And you told me you didn’t like school.”

“And then later on you told me about Ben. You didn’t tell me his name, just that he didn’t work out. You didn’t tell all the details.”

“And you told me about Matt. About kissing him.”

“That was embarrassing.”

“I still think Matt wanted it. I still think he fucked you over.”

Scott nodded.

“I got two A’s and finished that class out with a B,” Scott said. He waited a moment and then he said, “We were together. You and me. Nothing happened, but we were together. Weren’t we?”

“I know what you want,” Scott told him while they sat together in the stock room.

“What I want?” Felix looked at him.

“I want it too,” Scott said, “Sort of.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about us. I’m talking about me being… what Ben was to you.”

“A boyfriend. Or a pain in the ass?”

Scott tried to laugh, “A boyfriend. But…” he became quiet, “I can’t do that, Felix.”

Felix had been around several men before and after Ben, and now he was impervious to bullshit. He just shrugged and said, “All right.”

“It’s…” Scott sound frustrated. “I want a normal life. I want a wife and kids. I’m not you. I’m not all avant garde. I just want to be like everybody else.”

“Oh,” Felix said. And then he said, “Well, then you are like everybody else.”

It took a long time for the pain to sink in. By the time he heard that Scott was married to a girl named Kim and there were babies on the way, there wasn’t even a pain anymore, just something like a loose tooth. It hurt when he touched it. He couldn’t stop touching it for a while, and then he moved on. With Ben, the further he came away from that relationship, the more he felt he’d dodged a bullet. With Scott he felt like he’d missed his chance at happiness.

“We were together. Nothing happened, but we were together. Weren’t we?” Scott asked him.

Felix nodded.

“I guess that’s why I always felt like you cheated on me.”

“Things were not supposed to happen the way they did,” Scott said while Felix offered the beer and Scott waved it off.

Kim was just a girl he was seeing. She was pretty, and her friends knew his friends. They had a good time and everything. They went places and laughed and danced and partied with all the other twenty somethings. Matt was in law school, and Scott felt like a little bit of a loser for still being an undergrad.

“I’ve got this great fucking job I could get you set up with,” Matt told him. “They’ll love you. Especially you’re work ethic.”

Things were good and then, one day, Kim brought up moving in together. This was right around graduation.

“That’s a bit early,” he suggested, but Kim said, “We’ve been together eighteen months. Where is this thing going?”

“Whaddo you mean?” Scott said, shrugging. “We’re together.”

“Yeah, but…”

“We went to Cancun!” he exclaimed, and she couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, but she laughed and so did he. And then around Easter, Kim called and said, “We need to talk.”

“About moving in together?” Scott humored her. He was looking at the picture of the two of them smiling, him in vest, white shirt and tie with his hair grown out and golden, smiling furiously while she leaned on him.

“No,” Kim said nervous. “About something more important.”

After the first obstetrician appointment Scott came back home very quiet. He had said nothing to his parents, and Joey followed him upstairs then, like a dog, climbed onto the bed and lay on the foot of it waiting for his brother, who was staring up at the ceiling, to say something.

“Kim’s pregnant,” Scott said, simply.

Joey turned to him, raising an eyebrow.

Scott added: “With twins.”

Joey, bless him, only blinked. His little brother whispered, “Whaddo you wanna do?”

“I want her to have an abortion.”

“Oh,” Scott could tell his brother was trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.

“Don’t worry,” Scott said. “She’s not going to, and I’d feel like an asshole offering to pay for it.”

“Then what?”

“I’m going to do the thing I was brought up to do.”

When Scott got up to use the restroom, Felix reached for his wallet and opened it up again to the picture Scott had shown him. Again, his hair was moussed and combed till it was extra golden. He had that almost terrified smile while he stood under before the lattice holding Kim, and she reached up and kissed him. There was the other picture where he grinned and fed her wedding cake.

I wanted to die that day…. Felix, have you ever had a day where you wanted to die?

The toilet flushed and Felix quickly shut the wallet, putting it back down and folding his legs under him, waiting for Scott to come out. He listened to the sound of the water as Scott washed his hands, and then came out, still looking twenty two and said, “You’re still here.”

“It’s my apartment, Scott.”

“I know,” Scott leapt onto the couch and it groaned under his one hundred eighty pounds. “But I keep feeling like it can’t be real. You, and me.”

“Well…” Felix dropped it. He was about to say, “Since you’re thirty something with two kids and a wife you hate, it is pretty believable.”

“It’s getting late,” Scott said, looking at his wrist even though it bore no watch.

“Do you turn into a pumpkin?”

“No, but… I should go.”

“You’re just saying that.”

Scott grinned and nodded, taking his tumbler.

“You’re right,” he said. “I am.”

“Do you want to stay the night?”

Scott looked at him.

“Like the other night, I mean. Not like do you want to fuck me. Just…”

“I know,” Scott brushed it away. “No, no. That’s fine. I’d like that. I’d like to just sleep next to you. We could hold each other and… you know? I’d like that. Just like kids.”

“I don’t know what kids you grew up with, but...”

“Well then just like something innocent,” Scott said. “I could use something innocent in my life.”

“You and me both.”

“Oh?” Scott looked at him. “You do stuff you regret?”

“No,” Felix shook his head. “But all the same, innocence is nice.”

Scott wasn’t looking at him. He swallowed nervously and quickly reached for Felix’s hand.

Felix squeezed Scott’s hand and Scott squeezed back.

“What’s your biggest fantasy?”

“What?” Felix said.

“Your biggest fantasy.

Without thinking, Felix said:

“That someone would care enough to lie to me.”

“Huh?”

“Truth is overrated. Someone who loves me enough, cares enough about what I think of them, about my feelings, that they don’t dump all of their stuff on me, that they…. Don’t tell me everything. I don’t know… I think there’s something to be said for that.

“Sometimes truth is a weapon and… Sometimes when I hear about the person who was cheated on and never knew about it or… never knew about a lot of stuff, I think, I wish someone loved me enough to lie to me.”

“I can’t promise to lie to you,” Scott said, “but you wanna go on a late night walk again?”

“Yes,” Felix said. “Eventually. I kind of want to just sit here for a moment.”

Scott nodded, and then he said, “I have to go to Fort Atkins the day after tomorrow, but…when I get back do you want to go on a real date?”

“Huh?”

“Me,” Scott turned to him, pointing to his chest. “Wearing a suit and a tie, with hair actually styled, picking you up, and taking you someplace.”

“Uh…” Felix began. “Yeah… You can do that.”