If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

OUTSIDE IT WAS JUST DARK enough for the snow to shine like rhinestones when it fell. Anigel Reyes put on her parka, went out onto the swath of grass in front of Balusik’s and watched. By March and the last storms of early April, it would be common and grey and irksome, but right now, when its visitation had been waited for so long, on a night still as a hushed breath and blue as cobalt, those first shining crystals of snow, drifting to the cold concrete and old grass were welcome guests, missed friends.

Anigel had never given up on trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue. And she had never really succeeded, or at least, she didn’t think she had. Head tilted back, mouth wide open on an early winter night that the calendar said was still fall, Anigel remembered. Memory was like a pool sometimes, and sometimes it was so salty with tears it was like the ocean and an unwelcome thing to fall into. But tonight it was gentle as the snow. Her first snow, her first Christmas Pageant, her first boyfriend, cocoa around the hearth at their old place on Lebanon Street, how pretty her mother had been at one of the few family dinners the Reyes’ had ever managed. Anigel sat at the table between Bobby and Caroline and wished it would always be this way, this warm, this comfortable and safe and yet it had not been and yet here she was and still she was alright.

Anigel remembered she had a phone call to make. A tradition never broken for nearly seven years.

Thom and Patti had not noticed, and Russell Lewis suspected that as the middle years set in, these things became less important. Or maybe snow just didn’t matter to his parents. After all, Aunt Jackie would run out for the first snow and probably, so would Grandma—both Grandmas. Russell could not imagine Ralph Balusik getting excited about the first snow. And why would he, and why would he think of Ralph Balusik of all people?

For the first and one of the last times in his life, when Russell willed himself to stop thinking about someone it worked. He put on the heavy, ugly beige colored parka he’d bought at the Salvation Army, the one with the orange lining and the furry hood. He wrapped his large, long, hand knit mustard colored muffler about his throat and went outside. At first he was just going to stand in the front yard, but presently he decided to walk about the block.

He took his cigarettes with him, and Russell went down Breckinridge. At the end of this quiet block, he could see the street lights and hear the minor noises of Delauro and after that was the busy corner of Market Street.

He was paying no attention to the wide gray cement streets or the houses set far back on their yards with unwelcoming yellow lights behind curtains, nor was he paying attention to the naked trees over head or the occasional car that passed by, but to the cold which was not occasional, and to the crystals of snow that came down to the ground, full of grace because they knew they had the next three months to fall and so they could afford to be graceful and they knew, unlike people who cling to things, that after those three months were gone, after three more seasons, their time would come again.

And Russell paid attention to the velvet grey of the sky and was entranced by the whiteness of his breath and the gray gauziness of his cigarette smoke, and the smell of a burning Marlboro Red.

He had a brief urge to walk beyond to the huge apartment complex where Strogue Mominee lived with Bobby Reyes and past that to Shadybrook where Jack Kearn, Andy Dyko, Brad Long and Jeremy Bentham lived. Mark Young lived out there too, and Russell knew Gilead was with him tonight. That made Russell curious. It wasn’t that Gilead hid the truth. He was just quiet and private and kept things in his heart, and he knew Mark wasn’t a friend in the same way he and Gilead were friends. But was Mark a friend the way he and…

But here was Jason’s house.

“Hello,” Ross Allan picked up the phone in his room at 301 Abelard Hall.

“Ross?”

“Anigel.”

“Do you know what night it is, my friend?”

“It’s Sunday night.”

“No.”

“I assure you it is,” said Ross.

“Well, fine, but aside from Sunday night. Do you know what night it is?”

“The next to the last Sunday of the semester before the Sunday you come up to Saint Alban’s.”

“Well that too.”

“The Sunday you finally dye your hair pink?”

“Ross!”

“Oh, I give—oh!”

“You know now.”

“Yes,” Ross said to the knock at his open door. Jimmy came in. Ross waved at his friend who mouthed, “I’ll come back later,” and Ross said. “I know what night it must be there, but we haven’t had that night here in Walter.”

“Well,” Anigel said. “We’re having it here.”

“The first snow.”

“The first snow.”

Like most good traditions this one had started by accident. Ross had been sixteen when his family had moved back to Ohio from Michigan. One night he had called Anigel in December and she had said it was the day of the first snow. So no matter what had happened, where one or the other had been, or how much time had passed without a phone call, or whose turn it should have been to call, over a series of accidents and years the pattern had emerged:  with the first green bud, Ross called his friend, with the first day over ninety degrees, Anigel called Ross to complain. She hated heat. With the first fallen red leaf on dark green grass, Ross called Anigel, and with the first snow Anigel called Ross.

“Are you still coming next Sunday?” Ross asked.

“Is Lisbon still the capital of Spain?”

“No,” said Ross. “It never was. It’s the capital of Portugal.”

“Did someone say Portugal?” Jimmy shouted from his room across the hall.

Ross ignored him.

“That’s what I meant,” she said. “Well, I mean yes, I’ll be there.”

“Are you bringing anyone?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“Bring Russell Lewis. His cousin’ll want to see him.”

“Good idea. How is Jimmy?”

“Annoying.”

“Well, slap him around a little bit. I love you.”

“I love you more,” Ross said and hung up.

Jimmy heard Ross exchange goodbyes and was in his friend’s room a moment later.  “What’s that about Portugal?”

“Nothing.”

“Because you know I’m Portuguese.”

“I know, you’re always telling us like it’s something special.”

“It is,” said James Nespres. “So how ‘bout you shut the fuck up.”

Jimmy started to dance across the limited space of Ross’s room, taking shots at Ross;s stomach and singing, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

“What the hell’s gotten into you, Jimmy?”

“Come on, Ross,” he said. “I just looked out of my window. It’s snowing!”

In the dark, as the window was open to thickly falling snow, the blue white light barely shone on them, the exhaled inhaled sounds of breath, sounds of pounding almost of punching and the rapid striving of bodies that always found its climax in a deep and always surprised groan.

There were whispers in the dark, shuffling on the bed. It was too solid to creak, but now it moved gently, quicker now with an accelerated rhythm followed by a more surprised, more tenor cry, a pure one, as pure as the snow settling on the ground. And now there was the settling of the bed.

Silence.

He had been waiting for him. When Russell had knocked on his high window, the one you nearly had to stand on your toes to look into or out of, the curtain had parted and he’d seen Jason’s eager face. Tonight they didn’t study. They didn’t talk. They just immediately began making out and undressing as if the first snow was a sign they had to.

Now they lay tangled and naked and satisfied, and Russell always thought he should chew gum or do something to get the cigarette off of him, but Jason liked it and murmured, “Can I get one?”

“You never smoke.”

“Cept when I take one of yours,” Jason grinned.

Russell rolled over in bed while Jason rubbed his hand over his back, over his ass, began kissing him so intensely Russell almost forgot what he was doing.

A moment later they were both sharing a cigarette and Russell lay on his side, watching smoke exhale from Jason’s nostrils.

“Stay with me tonight,” Jason said.

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

Jason handed him the cigarette.

Russell pulled his knees up to his chest and sat naked beside Jason, leaning back so that smoke went to the ceiling and his red hair fell from his face.

“You think Gilead is dating Mark Young?”

“I…. I dunno.” Jason waved off the cigarette and let Russell finish. “I hadn’t thought of it. They are close and all. Are you all not?”

“Close? No, we are. It’s not like I don’t see him all the time, and it’s not like I’m jealous, but Mark takes him places. Sort of like a boyfriend.”

“Am I your boyfriend?”

“I’m here.”

“You’re here,” Jason tapped the bed, looking up at Russell from where he reclined on one elbow, “but I don’t take you places. No one says, Are Russell and Jason together?”

“Do you want them to?” Russell laughed. “At a school where they say faggot more than fuck?”

“Are you embarrassed by me?”

“No!” Russell said. “And I don’t give a fuck about anyone’s opinion either.”

“Then why don’t we start going places?”

Russell wanted to say, “Well, shit, you were at my house when Jackie and Kristin had their babies.” Or, “We see each other all the time.”

Whatever Gilead had with Mark, it was clear to see they… as Chayne would say about Rob… answered something in each other. There was such a clear delight that one had found in the other something he’d always been looking for. As much as he liked Jason, this was something he could not say about him

But when Jason said, “Let’s start going out places,” and “You should stay here tonight, cause next weekend, you’re leaving town,” to both things, Russell said, “Yes.”

He compromised. He told Jason his parents needed to see him at home and in bed come morning, and Jason smiled and said, “Then that leaves us most of the night. And I’ll drive you home.”

“I can walk.”

“I,” Jason said in a voice that was gentle, but didn’t bear argument, “will drive you home.”

And  when he smiled Russell realized that, though Jason was nothing like his other half or his soulmate, he loved Jason and liked him and desired him and the things that happened when they made love in his bed were so amazing that already his skin was tingling, and his penis was stretching again. He was reaching up to turn off the lamp and pulling the covers over the two of them so that once again they were taken into the darkness of a snowy night and all the pleasure it promised.