Crown Vic to a Parallel World

6

Turkey and Bourbon Whiskey

Shawn and I explored the suite.  In the corners of the sitting room, where the partition walls met the outside wall, there were two more doors, one on each side of the room.  These led to identical bedrooms with relaxing lavender walls.  The bedroom furniture amounted to a massive bed with a lavender spread and no headboard or footboard, two glossy-white hard-surface nightstands, a long, white bureau with a frameless mirror on top, and a wardrobe cabinet the size of a side-by-side refrigerator.  The outside wall of each bedroom had two more double-wide windows guarded by heavy white drapes and another door to the balcony between them.

We found that each bedroom had its own bathroom that was accessible from a door next to the bureau.  Each bathroom was a big square room, about half the size of the bedroom, with an octagonal clear-glass shower stall in the middle.  The stall was big enough to be a gang shower for a football team and had about nine adjustable heads on semi-rigid tubes that hung down from the ceiling.  These could be extended and positioned individually like the shade of a goose-neck lamp.

Behind and to the left of the shower stall were dull black walls over a dull black floor.  The opposite walls were floor to ceiling mirrors.  The room looked like a movie set, but I had no idea what kind of movie that would be.  In one of the black walls was another black door that led to a very small white room, like a powder room, with just a toilet and sink.

Our exploration of the bathroom had left me scratching my head, but I didn’t ask Shawn for an explanation.  I’d already had enough weirdness for one day and I was hungry.  “Do you think this place has room service?”  I asked.

“They should,” Shawn reasoned, “it’s a good hotel.  I’ll call down.  What do you want to eat?”  He asked as he moved towards the sitting room.  Shawn stopped at one of the desks near the window and picked up a shining-black rectangular plate, which sat on which sat another, larger shining-black rectangular plate.  He held it in the flat of his hand like one would a smart-phone and directed a cocked-head questioning look at me.

I assumed the plate was a phone and that Shawn wanted my meal order.  I gave it to him. “See if they have a Thanksgiving platter.  If they do, just have them send the largest size and a bottle of whiskey.”

“Thanksgiving?” Shawn asked with the question on his face still firmly in place.

I rubbed the back of my neck in frustration and rattled off what I wanted.  “Turkey, cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans, tons of gravy, dinner rolls, butter, salt, pepper, pumpkin pie, whipped cream, black coffee.  If they have that, or any portion of that, I’ll take it…a lot of it…and whiskey, a lot of that too.  I prefer bourbon, but anything brown and eighty-proof that comes in a bottle will do.”

Shawn didn’t address my obvious irritation and asked a sensible question that I found frustrating in spite of, or perhaps because of, how sensible it was.  “How much is ‘a lot’ of food?”

I rubbed my neck again and forced myself to make a suggestion that I thought he could make use of. “Order as much as you would eat, then order it again.  That oughta be close.”

Shawn set about calling the order in.  I went onto the balcony and lit a smoke.  Our suite was on the back of the hotel, facing another of the vast parks that I’d seen so many of.  I leaned on a railing made of gold metal tubing to smoke and watch people stroll in the deepening twilight.

The door behind me opened just far enough for Shawn to announce that dinner would be up in five minutes, then it closed again.  The idea that it was possible to get dinner anywhere in five minutes seemed optimistic to me, but I didn’t bother to voice my disbelief.  I remembered that breakfast that morning had been ‘five minutes’ fast and rethought my mental objection.  I shrugged a shrug that no one could see and didn’t bother to think about the issue anymore.  ‘What the fuck does it matter?’ I asked myself.

I smoked my cigarette, mashed the butt to dust against the railing, and returned to the sitting room to find Shawn hovering over a white cart that hadn’t been there before.  The cart was covered with plates of food under glass domes with a blue-labeled bottle standing sentry among them.

“That was fast.” I commented.

Shawn didn’t say anything.  He didn’t say anything for quite a while.  He took his plate from the cart and sat on the couch with his meal in his lap.  I assumed that meant the four remaining plates on the cart were mine.

I turned one of the desk chairs to face the room and pulled the cart to me like it was my personal dining room table.  I took all the glass domes from the plates so I could inspect the food I’d been sent.  I was surprised to see that everything I’d rattled off to Shawn was present, and it was all present in double portions.  The cart contained a Thanksgiving feast worthy of the most extravagant instant-stuffing commercial.  I dug into the meal and ate with ravenous hunger.

The food was delicious, like everything was cooked at the instant it was ordered.  None of it tasted overly salty or processed.  The turkey was freshly carved white meat, juicy and tender.  The gravy tasted like it had spent hours simmering on the stovetop.  Even the green beans had the garden-fresh snap that I loved. ‘Where did they get this food?’ I wondered.

I started to ask Shawn about it, but when I glanced up to address him, I swallowed my question with a mouthful of turkey.  Shawn sat with his regular perfect posture, but I could tell from the way he was eating that he felt utterly defeated.  He ate a bite of meat, a bite of vegetables, and a bite of starch, one after the other while his unfocused eyes stared at the blank wall opposite him.  I watched him for a few seconds, then lowered my head to finish my own meal.

I stuffed myself silly and only stopped eating when the cart was devoid of anything to eat.  I set my bottle aside along with a smallish water glass from the cart, then put all the glass domes over my empty plates.  Shawn noticed that I was finished and brought his own empty plate to the cart.  He pushed the cart into the hallway and came back to sit on the sofa and look at the wall.

The way Shawn had withdrawn further and further into himself since we’d left his uncle’s office earlier that evening, made me think that he needed some time to process what we’d learned about the world potentially coming to an end.  I didn’t want to disturb his thinking and it was time for me to have a cigarette and a drink.  I took my bottle, my glass, and my cigarettes out to the balcony.

It was full dark outside, and lights were lit on every floor of the hotel.  I moved to the gold railing at the edge of the balcony and cast my eyes toward the park below.  The light-column streetlights along the paved paths were lit and a few stragglers strolled around.  A couple necked on park bench that was tucked under some low hanging branches and protected from the brightest of the lamplight.

I watched the necking couple with more than passing interest.  The romantic gesture the couple was engaged in was the most human thing I’d seen in a while.  It reminded me that even if I was on another world, the people in it were still people.

I kept my eye on the couple while I dragged an armless chaise lounge chair to the railing and sat.  I raised the back of the chair enough that I could see the necking couple, but that I would still be more-or-less reclined, and I arranged myself to relax.  I filled my glass from the blue-labeled bottle and had a deep drink to sample the whiskey.  The amber fluid tasted like young bourbon.  I liked young bourbon, so I had another drink from the glass, then another, then I drained the glass and lit a cigarette.

I breathed in the cigarette smoke and enjoyed the night air.  The weather was perfectly warm with just enough humidity to be comfortable.  A moonless sky filled with winking stars stretched its darkness over the land.  A soft breeze stirred the air and carried my smoke away.  The whiskey lapped at my senses and soothed my mind.  I set my glass down next to the bottle and rested my head on the back of the chair.

The door from the sitting room opened, and Shawn joined me in the dark.  He pulled a chair near mine and sat.  “It’s nice here.” I greeted him with a smokey exhale.  “Back home, it’s grey and cold.  Here it’s warm and fine.”  I drew on my cigarette and pointed it toward the necking couple.  “Look down there, you see those two on the bench?”

Shawn looked through the railing and nodded but didn’t speak.  I fell silent to match his silence and smoked peacefully.  Shawn leaned back in his chair, folded his hands in his lap, and said something I didn’t hear.

“What?”

“I don’t want to die.”  He breathed to the darkness.  “I don’t want this world to end.  I’m so scared.”

I thought about that while I refilled my glass and drained half of it.  Like Shawn’s uncle, I refused to tell him that everything would be alright.  I didn’t know it would be, and I hate empty platitudes.  I’d hated empty platitudes since I was a kid.  The very thought of them reminded me of my father.

Prick that the old man was, he would have said that the world coming to an end was God’s will and instead of fighting against it, we should wear sackcloth and ashes and prepare our souls to meet the Lord.  Memories of the old man soured the mellow buzz I was working toward and darkened my thoughts.  I knocked off the rest of my drink and set the glass down to leave my hand free to stretch my watchband.  I reminded myself that my father wasn’t the issue.  Shawn had just exposed a piece of himself to me and I needed to say something, though there wasn’t much for me to say.

I took a stab at a response.  “I don’t have the answers.  I know these things always look worse at night than they do in the day.  It will seem easier tomorrow.  Daylight makes things seem possible; darkness makes them hopeless.  As for tonight, I don’t know.  The bottle they sent is big enough for both of us.  Do you want to get fucked up?”

Shawn croaked and sniffed and whispered a question that showed his good sense.  “Does it help?”

I refilled my glass and had a long swallow from it.  I held the remaining amber between Shawn and me, almost like a visual aid to illustrate the point I’d planned to make. “You ever hear the saying ‘nothing is there in the dark that isn’t there in the light?’  The same is true about getting drunk.  All your misery is there whether you’re drunk or sober.  Being drunk is like turning the lights out for a little while.  That’s why I do it anyway.”

Shawn looked at me with his frozen blue eyes.  They were beautiful eyes.  They were eyes that cared.  I wished that they were eyes that could care for me, but I knew that was impossible.  Shawn was like his eyes, a beautiful, tender, caring young man.  I was a fucking gargoyle compared to him.  Even though I was a gargoyle, Shawn still looked upon me with his beautiful frozen eyes and asked a question that cared. “Are you sad?”

I almost denied one of the basic truths of my life, but I didn’t bother.  Something about sitting in the dark with Shawn made me want to be honest with him. “Yes, Shawn.” I stubbed my cigarette out on the leg of the chair and lit another. “I’m a sad, miserable human being, so every night, I drink, and I chain smoke, and I say a little prayer to a god I don’t believe in that the morning never comes.”

Shawn sat up straight and turned his whole body to face me.  His eyes flashed in the muted light that filtered through the living room curtains.  “That sounds terrible.”

I drew on my cigarette and nodded in agreement.  “It is terrible…but…but that’s not the point.  I’ve given you my answer.  Do you want to get fucked up or not?  I won’t judge you either way.  I long ago abandoned the right to judge anyone.”

Shawn hesitated, then he leaned back in his chair.  “No, I don’t think I will.  Maybe I need to be afraid for a while.”

“Your choice.” I said with another mental shrug.

The truth was that I didn’t want Shawn to get drunk.  I never wanted anyone to get drunk.  I’d learned that it didn’t solve anything, but I’d also long ago surrendered my nights to the liquor.  A part of me had hoped that Shawn would have accepted a drink.  That same part of me had hoped for it, without wanting him to do it.  It was a strange dichotomy.

I hated the idea that a man as young and attractive as Shawn would have something…some fear or pain that he would need to drown in alcohol.  On the other hand, since I lived in misery that I nightly tried to drown in alcohol, a piece of me had hoped that Shawn would have agreed to join me.  It would have made me feel less isolated with my pain.

Since he refused, to his own credit, I emptied my glass down my throat and refilled it.  Shawn and I sat in silence and looked out into the night.  Some movement below called my attention and focused my vision.  I saw that the necking couple had finished necking and was walking toward the hotel.

The man’s arm slid around the woman’s waist.  He whispered in her ear as they walked.  She laughed like the tinkling of fine chimes.  The sound of her laugh followed the couple as they disappeared around the edge of the building.  It faded and became memory before Shawn spoke again.

“Would you tell me why you’re sad?”  A tentative, small version of his voice asked.

I sipped my whiskey and let the amber fill my mouth with its liquid flame before I swallowed it down.  It was doing its job well.  I was approaching the place I wanted to be.  I was approaching a place of temporary peace.  It was a place that I searched for every night but found only rarely.

I refused Shawn’s request for my story. “No, I won’t.  We’re strangers and I don’t tell my troubles to people I don’t know.  I don’t tell them to my friends either.  A man who burdens his friends, soon will not have any.” I said to repeat what was either a half-remembered moral from a fable or a half-remembered paper strip from a fortune cookie. “My demons are my own and I don’t share them.  Besides, letting you into my personal hell will not make yours any easier to deal with.”

“What is ‘hell?’”

Shawn’s question surprised me, and then it didn’t.  He and I hadn’t discussed the religion of Solum.  I didn’t know if there was one.  The idea that they wouldn’t have the concept of heaven and hell wasn’t any more far-fetched than anything else I’d learned that day.  I gave Shawn the minimum explanation he needed to understand my words.  “It’s a fictional place where bad people go when they die.  In hell, they spend eternity in fire and torment for the evil they committed when they were alive.”

“You think I have a personal hell?” Shawn asked in a voice that was laced with quiet surprise.

The question that Shawn asked, it was a question that I didn’t think should be answered from a reclined position.  It was a serious question, one that needed to be answered standing.  I hauled myself out of my lounge chair, stretched my arms over my head and yawned with the combined exhaustion of a busy and stressful day.  I moved to stand between Shawn and his view of the park, and I leaned my hips against the gold railing.

I gazed down at him with eyes that took a while to focus.  Shawn looked up at me like a frightened child might.  A voice in the back of my mind told me that, in many respects, that’s what he was. “Everyone lives in a hell of their own making.” I explained. “Some are deeper and blacker than others, some deal with it better than others, but every adult has dark, terrible things locked inside them.  I do, your uncle does, you do.  Regret, doubt, fear, and hate are part of what makes us human.  A young lion kills the old, and he doesn’t feel anything.  A man kills another man and that act marks him, changes him, becomes part of him.”

I looked down to see that the cigarette between my fingers had gone out.  I flicked it over the railing and lit another.  I inhaled the smoke and sighed it from my lungs.  As I did, I replayed what I’d said inside my mind.  I decided that I sounded like a know-it-all giving a speech, and I apologized for it. “I’m sorry, Shawn.  I guess the stress of the day has been too much for me.  I drank too fast, and the whiskey climbed on top of me.  When I start pontificating, I know it’s time for bed.  I think I’ll have this cigarette and say goodnight.”

I finished the smoke and drained my glass again.  I picked the bottle up and pointed it at Shawn.  “Last chance.”  I offered.  Shawn shook his head.  “Fair enough, goodnight then.” I said and gathered myself for the short walk to the bedroom.

I made the journey without incident, got inside the room, shut the door, and leaned against it.  The huge bed looked inviting.  Mental fatigue and bourbon weighed me down.  I leaned on the wall, stripped to my new briefs, and tossed the clothes in a technicolor pile.  I climbed between the sheets and had almost drifted off when a barely audible tapping called me back from the nothingness of drunken sleep.  “Yeah, what?”  I said too loudly and sat up.

The door opened just far enough for Shawn to stick his head into the room.  “Can I…uh…can I talk to you for a second?”  Shawn asked as the fingers of his right hand appeared around the door and gripped the edge of it hard.

“As long as you don’t expect anything coherent.”  I muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” I beckoned Shawn into the room with a welcoming wave of my right hand. “Just come in.  What do you want?”

Shawn crept into the room like he was afraid of waking me and stopped at the foot of my bed.  I saw that he’d changed his clothes.  Instead of his former bright colors, he wore a form-fitting black, crew-neck t-shirt and snug black shorts, like boxer-briefs.  The view of his fit body stirred my desire and captured my attention.

Shawn started to ask me a question but didn’t seem able to finish a thought. “Church…can I…uh…I’d like to…if it’s OK…uhmm…” he stammered.

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.  Even with so much of Shawn on display, I was fading fast and needed him to get to the point. “I’m begging you, just spit it out.”

“I don’t want to be alone.” He blurted in an urgent whisper. “Can I sleep here…with you?  I’m not asking you for sex.  If it makes you uncomfortable, say so, but I…I…I’m so scared and so lonely.  I really need…I just need to be near someone.  Please…please, I can sleep on top of the sheet if that makes a difference.”

His request scared me.  It scared me because of how much I wanted to agree to it.  I found Shawn incredibly attractive, and I liked who he was personally.  I didn’t know if he was into guys, and even if he was, there would be no way that he would be attracted to me.  He sounded so pitiful as he asked to sleep with me.  For that reason alone, I wanted to do as he asked.  I was afraid though, afraid of embarrassing myself.  I was afraid of what might happen.

All kinds of scenarios flooded into my whiskey-soaked brain.  I saw myself rolling on top of him and him having to fight me off, or waking up and having to explain an embarrassing morning erection, or that one of my hands would drift to his body in my sleep and having to explain that.  I hated to refuse what sounded like a desperate request, but I didn’t think I had a choice.  My watch found its way between my fingers where I stretched it to the limit.  I tried to say ‘no’ without sounding harsh.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?” He pleaded. “Is it because you find me attractive?”

I looked at Shawn as hard as I could.  I tried to judge his expression in the dark, but I couldn’t see his face well enough to do it.  It was pointless to deny how I felt, he was right.  He was either very perceptive or I was very transparent.  Either way, I had no choice but to admit something to Shawn that, in all my years as a closeted homosexual, I’d never admitted to anyone.  I’d barely admitted it to myself.  “Yes, I think you’re attractive.  Does that bother you?”

Shawn shook his head hard enough to set his long hair swinging.  It fell over his face.  “No,” he brushed the hair back, “it’s a nice compliment.  I…since you did what you did…yesterday…I’ve been thinking about it.  You’re a good man.  I know I would be safe in your bed.  That’s…that’s what I want…to feel safe…with you.”

I couldn’t argue with that, even though I was a little irritated that Shawn saw me as non-threatening to his virtue.  I wanted to consider his request some more, and maybe talk about it before I made my decision, but I was too tired and too drunk.  I did what I’d done the previous night when I’d agreed to let him drive my car to Baltimore.  I made a quick and irresponsible decision and flipped the covers down on the empty right-hand side of the wide bed.  “Come on.  Don’t worry about sleeping on top.  Just hop in.”

Shawn leapt into the bed, pulled the covers up, and settled immediately.  “Thank you.”  He whispered.  His voice sounded relieved, which was hysterical because I was close to panic.

I tried to calm myself.  I laid down and shut my eyes like everything was fine.  Shawn tossed around, then tossed around some more.  “Church, can I…”

“Whatever you need.” I said without opening my eyes.  I expected that Shawn wanted a larger share of the covers, and I was willing to agree to anything if it would settle him down, so I could get back to pretending that everything was fine.  It turned out that Shawn didn’t want more blanket, he wanted more closeness.  He lifted my right arm, put it around him, then snuggled to my side and used my bicep as a pillow.  I had an internal freak-out at the closeness, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to renege on my assertion that he could have anything he needed.

“Is this OK?” Shawn breathed from right against my side.

“Sure,” I said with all the calm I could force into my voice, “get some sleep.”

Shawn felt incredible pressed against me.  I’d never been that close to a man before, close enough to feel his heat and to breath the musky, masculine scent of his body.  The body contact was erotic as hell but also wonderfully comfortable.

I wanted to fantasize about him.  I wanted to savor the only closeness I ever thought I’d be allowed to have with a man that I found so very attractive, but I didn’t have the mental capacity to do so.  The stress of the day, the anxiety of the end of the world, the whiskey, and the closeness of Shawn conspired to fry my circuits beyond being able to function.  Plus, for me to fantasize about him, after he’d given me his complete trust like that, felt like a betrayal of that trust.

I was still thinking about that when the sound of steady, rhythmic breathing told me that Shawn was asleep.  I couldn’t believe it.  He didn’t know me from Adam, but after a day’s acquaintance, he was sleeping next to me, completely vulnerable.  I wondered what I’d done to put him so at ease.  I gave up wondering anything.  I let my overwrought mind shut down, and I drifted into oblivion.