If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls
“You know what I hate?” Faye Mathisson asked her friend.
“Everything.” said Chayne.
“Well, aside from that.”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
They were sitting on top of 1421 Curtain, watching the sun set, Chayne in jeans and a tee shirt, Faye, her hair in a bun, pearls around her neck, wearing a black dress, burgundy pumps sitting beside her pack of cigarettes.
“I hate the school year,” she said. “And I’ve been in a position to be out of school for over a decade now. I’m going back to Chicago and I hate it.”
“I almost forgot it’s time for things to start back up,”
“I forgot,” Faye mimicked Chayne. “I wish I could forget.”
“Have you ever thought of taking a sabbatical, getting a change of scenery?”
“I have,” Faye admitted. “A little bit.”
There was a honk down below. Carefully, Chayne stood up to look down.
Chuck Shrader was shouting up.
“Hey, beautiful. Not you, Chayne! The other beautiful.”
She slipped on her shoes and with Chayne’s support Faye stood up, looked down and waved.
“Come on, Lady! I got a great table at Paris House.”
“Be right down!” Faye shouted and then, trying to move on the slated tiled surface, failed and caught hold of Chayne again.
“Whatever possessed you to wear those pumps up here?”
“You know,” said Faye. “For shits and giggles.”
“I bet you don’t bring a girl here everyday,” Faye said, opening the menu.
“That looks good,” she murmured. “And so does that.... That… seems divine. And this… Now, that looks especially good. Um… the choices.”
“You can’t read French can you?” guessed Chuck.
“Not a lick. And I don’t want to eat snails.”
So Chuck gave her a quick survey of what was good and how to pronounce it, and then the waiter came, elegant and slim, clothed in sable and snobbery and Chuck ordered. The waiter turned to Faye.
“I’ll have what he’s having,” she said.
Chuck whispered into her ear, and she said, “Well, I guess it would be nicer if we got two different things, but…”
He whispered in her ear again, and she smiled.
“Well, that settles it,” Faye declared. “I can’t pronounce it, but if you order it, I’ll eat it.”
While the waiter gazed on her, Chuck ordered, and Faye’s gazed at the waiter, feeling quite judged. As he was collecting menus she said, “That’s right up my alley.”
“Come again?” the waiter looked at her.
“That’s right up my alley.”
And then Faye asked: “What did the whore say to the john who sodomized her?”
“Madame, I—”
“No, that’s not it. What she said was, ‘That’s right up my alley.”
The waiter cleared his throat and walked away.
“Where the hell does he think he is?” she muttered. “This is East Sequoya, Michigan. The nice part, but still East Sequoya.”
It was a long while before dinner came, and Faye told Chuck. “You’ve never taken me to any place this fancy, before. Come to think of it, you’ve never taken me any place.”
“You’re here for a few days,” Chuck said. “I wanted to make this special.”
“You succeeded.”
“I like having you here.” Chuck said.
Faye was already nervous.
“I like... you having me. I mean. I like being here for you—with you. You know.”
Chuck smiled.
“I know.”
“Did you want to say something?” Faye said, at last.
Chuck looked quiet. Then he made himself cough and said. “I like you.”
“I like you too, Charles. We’ve sort of established this.”
He leaned forward and touched her hand, gauging Faye with his green eyes.
“Faye, I really like you.”
“I really like you too.”
Then she started looked around the restaurant.
“What are you looking for?”
“The cafeteria lady, I feel like I’m back in junior high.”
Chuck looked frustrated. “I was just trying to say that I don’t know what you are to me. What you’re going to be to me. Are you my girlfriend, and if you are—”
“Yes,” Faye said seriously. “Yes. I am your... girlfriend. There’s got to be a better term for the thirty-five and overs—”
“Lover?”
“That’s two French.”
“Girlfriend.” Chuck shook his head.
“Playmate, love-interest, whatever. Anyway... if you are, then what’s going to happen to us?”
When Faye looked confounded, Chuck said. “I’m thirty-five, and you’re—”
“Watch yourself.”
“Mature. What kind of a relationship is a part-time relationship?”
“You mean that whole bit about me teaching at a university three hundred miles away for nine months out of the year is becoming a problem?”
Chuck grimaced. “You might say that.”
Faye took a breadstick and smiled sadly.
“Who woulda thought?”
Marissa loved it when Brad casually strummed the guitar while she talked. It was like having background music, and he seemed to strum to the rhythm of her speech. She’d tested this a few times, When she would stop, he would stop, and when she would start again, so would he. When her voice became excited, his fingers made deep dramatic riffs, and he didn’t even know he was doing it.
“I try to be patient. I mean, I more than try. And are you sure you don’t want to work at the front desk?”
“I’m sure I don’t,” Brad said, “but I’m sure I will if you need me to.”
“I may need you to, just to save my sanity. Maybe I can shelve for a day or two.”
“It’s very relaxing,” Brad assured her.
“This woman came up to me and said, ‘There’s this book. It’s a pink book.’ And I looked at her as kindly as possible, but I was thinking I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. And then she’s like, ‘Well, there’s a kitten on the front. It’s a white kitten. Or maybe a grey kitten. No, it’s a white kitten. Does that sound familiar.?’ And I have to tell her, without being a complete bitch that, no, that doesn’t sound familiar at all, but I could direct her to books about cats.
“Well, she doesn’t seem to be very interested in that at all, so we go on about is it fiction, is it non fiction, a children’s book, maybe? And she actually looks angry at me. I tell her I have to help other people and I’ll be back, which is too bad because then she goes to Lakreasha who tells me that the woman eventually says, ‘Oh, no! It’s not about cat’s at all. And there’s actually a chocolate Sundae on the front, and she thought about cats because her sister had a cat who ate a chocolate Sunday and got sick all over the place afterward and oh, holy hell!”
Brad put the guitar on his knees and was laughing so hard his eyes were wet.
“See what I go through?” Marissa demanded. “See!”
“You win!” Brad declared. “I’ll do front desk with you.”
“Just so you can experience the bullshit.”
They laughed together a little while and Marissa said, “You’re staying here, tonight? Right?”
“If you’ll have me.”
“What was that you were playing?”
“When?”
“A little while ago, before I started bitching about my day.”
“Oh,” Brad started.
“Yeah.”
He began to strum again, the words coming back to him.
“This is what I’ve been looking for
This
Is what I’ve been looking for.
This is what I’ve been looking for.
This
Is what I….”
There were no other words, and Marissa knew enough about Brad to know that’s how songs were, and that very often it was the genius of Nehru that finished them off, or even wrote them entirely. She wasn’t that age where she would ask: What’s it about, am I what you’ve been waiting for? And what was more, without any feeling of hurt, just the feeling that people needed more than romance, she did not think the song had anything to do with her.
“I like,” Marissa said with consideration, “the covers you all do. But I like the stuff you and Nehru make better. That’s stuff that comes from you. When I met you, you seemed like someone who was looking for something. It’s different now.”
Brad was about to say, “Maybe it’s you,” but it instantly felt insincere, and Marissa even said, “It’s not me.”
Brad’s fingers fell loose on the guitar strings remembering exactly where the words had come from. Over a month ago, that midday transgression, making love to Nehru all afternoon, the end of the fuck, the shuttling thrust ended in the stillness of orgasmic revelation, his face turned to the window and the heat of the day on his face, his shoulders, his back, his naked ass. Opening his eyes to see the new sun through the new green leaves while, for the very first time all of him jizzed like a geyser into Nehru and his tight grasp weakened on the shoulders of the one he loved, his body had sang to him …
“This is what I’ve been looking for…. This is what I’ve been looking for…”
“This is what I’ve been looking for!” Rob had said, smiling brightly. He had convinced Chayne to come away from his writing and go with him to Kirkland Street to walk through the old antique jewelry stores. Now he held out the silver ring of twisted metal with the round turquoise and slipped it onto his finger.
“I don’t think I want to pretend to be something I’m not anymore,” Rob said. “It takes too much energy.”
They walked through the shop and Rob slipped his arm around Chayne’s waist. He’d been doing it a while, picking out bracelets and necklaces before he said, “Do you mind?”
“Mind what? Mind oh…”
He looked around the shop, the tables spread with old lamps, statuettes, books, the glass cabinets filled with old treasures, the two or three people in the shop, the old owner who was watching TV.
“I don’t think anyone minds. Truth is I miss it.”
“Do you miss Ted?” Rob asked frankly.
“Ted’s gone,” Chayne said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, and the answer doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“I know,” Rob said, “I just wondered. Will you help me get this on.”
Rob held out the silver necklace with the flat medallion on it and Chayne clipped it close. The chain hung over the opening of Rob’s paisley watery silky shirt, and though it fit loose, it clung to him.
“How do I look?”
“Young,” Chayne said.
Rob grinned and said, “You’re young. And you look younger now than when I met you.”
Now, Rob grabbed Chayne’s hand.
“ I’m thinking about some black shades and a fedora, with a feather, like in the seventies.”
Chayne had to admit that the thought excited him. Rob was in white linen trousers and sandals, and Chayne, who had stopped wearing sandals after catching his foot in a door summers ago, wore them today too. He did not know if he looked younger with Rob at his side, but he knew he felt it.
“Perfect,” Rob smiled and took another silver bracelet, this one studded with turquoise.
“My aesthetic,” Rob pronounced to Chayne, “is to look like a gay pimp.”
Chayne laughed at his cockiness, no, his confidence. He held Rob by his hips.
“I love your aesthetic.”
“That too, good Mr. Kandzierski, is my aim. To be someone women wonder about and men want, the primary man being you.”
Rob looked around. He had no shame, but this was a small town in Michigan and he also didn’t want to offend. He kissed Chayne on the mouth quick and hard, slipped in his tongue.
“Whaddo you think I’d look like with eyeliner?”
“I feel….” Chayne thought about it. “I actually feel like you could fuck the shit out of me if you wore eyeliner.”
Rob looked more embarrassed and thrilled than sexy, and he did a quick step, and then said, “So, I’m paying for this. And then we’re going to buy eyeliner…”
They did not hurry home because they had all day and all that night. From the first night when Rob had come to him, there had been no doubt in either of their minds that they were now together. Today, when Rob shut the door and Chayne pulled back the covers, they stripped and clicked together like magnets. Somewhere in the late day of gentle lovemaking, the sun burned amber through the pulled shade, and as Rob’s tender lips kissed him over and over again, Chayne heard him murmur, “I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours,” and he knew he’d said it too.
So often, Chayne had been the master. Young boys and older men were timid. But Rob kissed him firmly, kissed Chayne up and down, sucked his sex, licked the inside of his thighs, entered him tenderly, murmuring, baby, baby, baby, moved through him like the Holy Ghost, came out, came in again, made love to his thighs, kissed his feet all of his toes, made him shudder, burned with desire, and of Chayne’s desire was unafraid. When Rob came, he came laughing and rejoicing, irrigating the bed sheets like a watering can and, unexhausted, he brought Chayne to shuddering a orgasm that made him smile like a boy.
They almost glowed in the dark, rejoicing in their love, chests heaving. Rob laughed, sat up in bed, reached into his drawer and while Chayne watched his back, the room took on the pungent fragrance of marijuana as Rob lit the joint he’d just made, took a puff and then turned around and put the joint to Chayne’s lip. It went red, and Rob took a long hit again.
“We haven’t told anyone,” Chayne realized, smoke leaving his nose.
Rob tittered.
“Do you tell people? Don’t they just figure it out? Making an announcement seems so… Dramatic.”
“Russell knows.”
“Well, Russell, should know. And is he banging that Indian dude?”
“Damn, Rob, really?”
Rob shrugged, and passed back the joint.
“Isn’t he a bit young for that?”
“We’re not talking about Russell.”
“Cool,” Rob waited for Chayne to inhale.
“Mind if I go down on you before we pass out.”
Chayne sighed and opened his legs and Rob pulled down the sheets.
“As long,” Chayne inhaled tight on the joint, “as you don’t fall asleep down there.”
“Has that happened before?” Rob wondered, casually lifting Chayne’s dick to his mouth, and then he gave an almost drunken laugh and said, “Yeah, it’s happened.”
Chayne tilted his head back in delight as he sucked hard on the joint and Rob sucked hard on him.