Eden

The next day the phone rang, and Mrs. Henley was glad to hear Frey pick up. She said, “We’ve got DJ, and he’s real confused. He wants to see his daddy.”

“Mrs. Henley, Jason’s in a bad way. I’m confused too. I didn’t know he was close to Elle or... anything.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t,” Mrs. Henley confessed after a moment. “I don’t know either. That may be what it’s all about, but...”

“We’re coming to get DJ. Me and Melanie. We’ll bring him over to be with Jason. That should make them both feel better.”

“Thank you, Frey.”

“And, Mrs. Henley?”

“Um hum?”

“About DJ? Who gets custody? How are you all handling that?”

“Oh, Jason gets it. No contest or anything. He’s his father. It was all taken care of.”

Frey looked to the sofa where Jason was huddled, incapable of taking care of anything. He wanted to press further, to ask if they’d handled what would happen in the event Jason wouldn’t or couldn’t care for DJ. But he left it alone.

He returned, and the shower was on. Melanie was highlit by the sun, her hair all in fire down her back, and she turned from the desk with a notepad saying, “Listen to what I’ve done. I’m so proud of it. Bad moments make good writing. I don’t know why.”

The shower shut off and Melanie read:

I went five hundred miles
to find out that I’m terrified
over the prospect that
I can’t raise you, baby,
that you, who are this
whole universe that came
spiraling out of me are a thing
I cannot deal with.
They say the universe is expanding,
and expanding and
if that’s true you’ve already grown
past me and my unskilled hands
they say there are no accidents but
the world is full of them
and grace is granted in the accepting
you came into this world the product
of two half wits clashing, and look at you,
all a wonder of ten fingers, ten toes,
eyes, just two, a nose, the thunder
of a ‘I can’t do this’
fuck
I want so much
I want to be a poet
consistently
I want you to see
something beautiful before you
something I forgot
I forgot...
I…
need to remember
baby
be tender
to your mother
before she fucks up
forgive her

“Mel!” Frey began.

But Jason came out, dripping, towel wrapped around his waist, the soaking black hair plastered to his head and to his chest as he held a Speed Stick. Lost looking, his gaze traveled from DJ to Frey, then to Melanie.

Again he looked at DJ.

“Papa?”

“That poem was for you,” he said, touching his chest. “Even though Melanie wrote it for her son.... It’s to you. From me.”

DJ screwed up his face in confusion, and then said, “Okay?”

DJ didn’t understand. Not then.

The funeral is at Saint Stephen’s.

There, it seems as if Jason has pulled himself out of the wreck. He is that handsome man he was at the baptism, only more handsome than before because, for some reason, sadness is beautiful, and some people call it gravitas. It makes you sexier than being happy, and here he was grave and all in black, the pitiful single father at age twenty-six, or was it seven, with his eight year old, the handsome, dark haired boy who had his whole motherless life ahead of him. The choir sang:

I am the Bread of Life
You who come to me will not hunger
And you who drink of me shall not thirst
No one can come to me
Unless the Father beckons

Jason was not a pallbearer. He had been at the front, with the child, overlooking the beautiful mahogany coffin of the girl taken so tragically young from life. None of this was real. Nothing real could be said at the eulogy. This false sadness was best. Jason chose to say nothing. He did, for the sake of decency, nod his head a few times when people offered their condolences. On the other side of him was Donald, and then beside Donald were Frey and Melanie.

And I will raise you up!
And I will rai-aissse you up!
And I will rai-aissse you up
On the la-assst day!

They filed out of the church, into the black cars. Jason did not go with Elle’s family. He drove his Land Rover with Donald, Frey and Melanie, requesting that Frey sit shotgun while DJ sat between Melanie and Donald. In front of Saint Pancras’ the taillights of the hearse went red, and then pulled up Archer Avenue. Next came Jason, knowing his parents followed. The priest talked on and on, and in Frey’s memory the priest is talking while the dirt, scrabble, scrabble, thud, thud, hits the lid of the coffin. But he knows this is not so. There might have been one dirt clod, but people are buried in vaults now, a vault that the casket goes into, and then it’s sealed later, so that whoever is in there is protected from the earth, and from the cranes should there ever be a building project here. Returning to earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust: that is a lie too. So is eternal rest. It’s rest till they dig you up again. Frey thinks: better to evade desecration and costs in the five digits bullshit funerals by a quick trip to the crematorium.

Crematorium.

Jesus God, the thought of his mother or his sister, or his anything in ashes, or not alive assaults Frey quickly.

He goes back to his preferred memory of “thud thud”, and the priest talking.

One thing he remembers for sure.

Jason standing beside him when everyone has gone, when Melanie had led DJ away. Jason murmuring over the pit of the grave.

“I hated that bitch.”

“Fuck me!” he says in he dark, “Ah, God, fuck me!”

He says it so tenderly in the bed that tonight is their bed. Jason pushes his naked back to Frey’s front, lifts up his thigh, and reaches back for Frey to pull him in.

“Fuck me like you did that first time... That first year we were together... When we didn’t expect it... Ahh... God. Ah...Isaiah... Isaiiii....”

*****

In the night, Frey reaches for him.

“What’s up?”

“I miss you,” Frey says.

“I’m right here,” says Rob.

“That’s not what I meant,” Frey’s hands, reaching behind him, ran over Rob Dwyer’s tee shirt, over his shorts.

“Aren’t you… sick?”

“Not that sick—” Frey coughs. Then he says, “Well, yes. But it doesn’t change things, and I’ll probably be sick for another week. I’ll keep my face from you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not,” Rob says, turning over. “I’m worried about you not feeling well.”

Frey touched Rob’s chest.

“I miss you.” He says, simply. “I want you. Even if this is the worst sex you ever have.”

“It won’t be the worst sex I’ve ever had,:” Rob says, frankly. “You want me to shut the window?”

“What for?”

“To keep out the breeze.”

“It’s seventy degrees. I hate being sick in summer.”

Rob nods, Frey struggles out of his tee shirt and shorts, and Rob pulls down his underwear and takes off his top. Frey opens his legs for Rob, and closes his thighs about him, running his hands over his hair, the hot back of his neck, over his back and shoulders up and down his back, as they gather each other, Frey closes his thighs about Rob and runs his hands over his ass, his ass, his soft, round ass, runs his hands back up again.

All sex is the same, really. There are variations, and the body shape changes, but it is generally good in the same way or ho hum in the same way. Rarely is it bad. All men are the same when they come undone, as they want to come undone, as they need to.

But it is the journey to that place that is different. The lovemaking, the fucking, is just as much about how they got to this point as that moment itself, the two bodies together.

Nearly ten years after Elle’s funeral, when Melanie slept in the next room and Jason came to him in boxers and tee shirt not begging, just climbing into the bed, just covering him with hungry kisses and the hot warmth of his body, and awakening in Frey a passion he sure in the fuck did not know he felt, taking his penis in his mouth, naked in just a few seconds, their bodies striving together, old lovers, ever friends, closer than anything, he is in this nameless town, in the little house, getting over a sickness, and here is Robert Dwyer.

Rob Dwyer with the same need, the same swears and cusses. But it is all different because it is all Evan, and it took how long? If they were eighteen when they met, then it took almost fifteen years to get to this Evan who is still a surprise of tightness and moistness of deep, deep, shocking, electrifying, fucking abysms, hands pressing on Frey’s chest, moving down his chest to his stomach, moving to make his hips buck, Rob taking Frey’s hands in his and moving them up his own chest, white in this night, and then touching his own chest, massaging his own cock, coming down so that Frey’s hands can plant themselves in his dark hair, putting his own hands in his hair as full of his own sex and power he bucks up and down and rides him like some expert sex cowboy. He is so beautiful and skilled this way, so full of the same heat that is in Frey, both of their voices catching, arching his back, opening his mouth, planting his hands behind him, on either side of Frey, opening his mouth in swears and promises of love, whisper moaning:

“Fuuuuuccck—”

As he comes, he cuts himself off with the spurt of semen like honey or heat or the Milky Way, all up Frey’s stomach, a trail on his chest, speckles of desire under his chin.

They fitted themselves together, slowly at first, then quickly. Like that very first time, they didn’t make any noise, only the bed did. It was done quickly, with a strangled cry from Rob as his body arched up, and then they lay sighing both on their backs, and Rob turned over on his side, still breathing heavily.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” Frey said after a moment. “I… I thought my nose would run or I would cough or throw up or… whatever. But yes, I feel more alright than I have in a while.”

Rob leapt up from bed and said, “I’ll get something to clean us up. Clean you up.”

A few minutes later they lay in the dark, drifting to sleep, and Rob heard the occasional cough, cough, from Frey. No one wanted to be hugged during a cough, but no one wanted to be alone either. Rob pressed his back against him until he feel asleep.

Half asleep, Josh heard the cat scratching at the door. No, not the door. The window. But that didn’t make sense either. He stirred from bed and, yawning, he realized that pebbles were hitting his window.

He got out of bed. He opened the window and looked down.

“What?” he began, then said, “Hold on.”

A few moments later, Josh came downstairs and opened the kitchen door, leaning in the doorway. He turned on the porch light so he could see Pat Thomas better.

“What was that all about?” Pat said. “All of that in the bar?”

“Why are you here?”

“I think I just told you. Now, what was that all about?”

“I…. I have to stand up for Rob.”

“You had to chase me to a bar?”

Josh sighed, leaning against he door.

“Can I come in?” Pat said.

“You can come in, sure, but…”

“It was an awful day,” Pat said. “One of my patients died.”

“Isn’t that par for the course?”

Pat looked at him.

“Really?”

“Sorry,” Josh said. “I was being a dick.”

“Yes, you were. Are you going to let me in?

“Or do you want to come with me?”

Pat touched Josh’s arm and Josh pulled his arm away.

“Or do you want to come with me?” Pat repeated.

Josh sighed and turned his head away for a moment.

“Hold on,” Josh said, “I’ll come with you.”

“I should go,” Josh said.

“You don’t have to go,” Pat turned over in bed and touched his hip. “You can stay.”

“I…” Josh shook his head and took his hand through his springy curls. “I gotta be up in the morning to take Dad to church. I took that off of Rob’s hands.”

“I can wake you up later,” Pat told him.

Josh climbed out of bed and Pat watched his thin body as he bent to pull on his underwear and reach for his shorts.

“Are you still angry at me?” Pat sat up, planting his hand in his hair.

“What?” Josh said. Then: “No. It’s… no, I’m not.”

Josh sat on the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that at the bar. I was just…. Making up for the way I felt. For the way I should… Look, you need to talk to Rob.”

“I will,” Pat said. Then, “I would, if he ever wanted to talk to me. But… look,” Pat sat up next to Josh. “Everything between us can’t always be about Rob and…You deserve some happiness too.”

Josh was looking at his lap, not speaking, and Pat said, “And I’m not saying that I’m your happiness, but, we could be… tender with each other. I needed to be with you. I think you needed to be with me. I’m talking too much.”

“Pat, I’m sorry you lost your friend today,” Josh said. “I’m sorry. I can stay a little longer. If you want.”

“I’m not the only one with stuff. Your stuff is still on you. I see it,” Pat said. “Even if no one else does.”

They sat in the room together, in the rumpled bed.

“What time is it?”

“A little after twelve,” Pat said. “Stay.”

“You know,” Josh said. “Sometimes I still see it. Dream about it.”

“You ever talk to anyone about it?”

Josh shook his head.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Pat said. “We don’t have to have sex. We can just talk.”

Josh sighed, and put his head on Pat’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to talk. Sometimes talking isn’t enough. I want…”

“To fuck.”

“To fuck you,” Josh said, specifically, “To be with you.

“I just… I think this is why I came to the bar. I feel guilty because I like being held by you. I feel safe with you. And…”

“We don’t have to talk,” Pat said, wrapping his arm around Josh and stroking his arm.

He reached up and turned out the light.