If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls
TWENTY
THREE
THAT
SAME
SILLY GRIN
“And if you see me walking by
head turned up into the sky
don’t come to me,
you know why
you know I’m over you
and if my head seems in a cloud
it’s cause you are not allowed
the devil’s in the details
the devil’s in you and
you
are not
coming in!”
“You all sound great tonight,” Anigel said, inhaling a Marlboro. “It’s like a new sound. It is new,” she declared, pushing a hand through her black hair.
“We’re doing Brad New Songs tonight,” said Nehru.
“Brad New?”
“Like Brand, but Brad because Brad wrote them. He wrote this for me and we practiced it together before the band saw it.”
“So you all are serious?” Cody said, bumming one of Anigel’s cigarettes and lighting his off of hers. “About the whole album thing?”
Nehru nodded.
“Cool,” Cody’s dark eyes smoldered, and a sullen trail of smoke snaked out of his mouth. “I’m trying to get this radio job in East Sequoya. If I do, I’ll play us.”
“Can you do stuff like that?” Anigel asked.
“It’s not a real radio station,” said Cody. “It’s one of those free stations. I forget what you call ‘em. No playlists.” He grinned ruefully. “No real pay check either.”
“You gotta do it for the love,” Rob said.
“Or what is there?” Cody agreed.
Under the table, Nehru’s hand found Cody’s knee. It went up and squeezed him slowly between his legs. His eyes lit just a flicker and turned to Nehru.
“There are other rewards,” Nehru said.
Shane was adjusting the sheet music on his keyboard and he came down to receive Jill’s kiss.
“How much do you love me?” Jill demanded.
“Uh oh,” Cody said, looking at Nehru with laughing eyes.
“Uh oh, what?” Shane said.
“She’s gonna ask you for something,” Cody said, and Jill just scowled.
“Um,” Anigel commented, “You’re going to meet the mama.”
“I’ve already met her,” Shane said.
“But dinner...”
“Last time she told me I had a nice ass. I can only imagine what she’ll fit into a whole evening.”
“Oh, God, me too,” Jill said burying her face in her hands. “Say, Ani, can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Do you think you could come over on Saturday too?”
Anigel stared at her.
“You know, make it a sort of party?”
Anigel shrugged and said, “I don’t know if that’s what your mother wanted... but I guess I can be a friend. Nehru can come too... We’ll tell him as soon as he and Bradley come back.”
“I miss you!”
“I miss you too,” Nehru said. They were in the men’s room and Nehru thought it smelled like urinal cakes and wished to be someplace else.
“Things have changed though.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna be a dad.”
Nehru said to his friend, “You’re gonna get married, aren’t you?”
Brad stopped and cocked his head.
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“You don’t have to look so miserable about it.”
“But I am miserable about it.”
“Well, then…. Do something else.”
“Do what?” Brad said. “Do what because we were going to be together and you were the one who told me that I needed to be with her.”
“Marissa.”
“Yes, Marissa. You sent me back twice. So… what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Nehru said. “When did you know you loved me?”
“That day. The day here. On that stage.”
“The day you slept with Marissa for the first time.”
“Yes.”
“And when did you know you weren’t really in love with her?”
When Brad said nothing, Nehru answered for him.
“The same day.”
And Brad echoed:
“The same day.”
“But it didn’t stop you from fucking her. And it didn’t stop you from doing it enough to get her knocked up.”
Nehru turned away and Brad said, “Nehru, that’s a lie.”
Prepared to be offended, Nehru began, “What’s a lie?”
“That I knew that day. At the piano. This summer. I think I’ve always known.”
Nehru’s face changed.
“So…. During that whole business with Debbie Baynes? Stupid Debbie? You knew?”
“Yeah,” Brad said. “On one level.”
Nehru took a very deep breath, then he shook his head.
“Well, shit,” he said, “then I really can’t have this discussion right now.”
“Then when?” Brad asked as Nehru opened the bathroom door.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Nehru said. “Figure it out.”
“I need you to leave him alone,” Rob said.
Brad blinked at him.
“What?”
At the table where there was no one but the two of them for the moment, Rob repeated, “I need you to leave Nehru the fuck alone. You’ve put him through enough.”
“Who are you?” Brad began, “to tell me what to do?”
“I’m what you were supposed to be,” Rob said, reaching for his cigarettes.
“I’m a friend, and probably the only one who knows what’s been going on and how much you’ve put him through so let him find someone else and be happy.”
“Are you fucking him?”
Rob looked at Brad, disgusted.
Rob was boy band sexy in a snug, watery pink silk shirt with rings on every finger, and his blond hair was spiked and frosted. He had come in that night in a puffy, hooded fur coat and it was easy to not take someone who looked like that seriously. But despite the question Brad had just asked, this was Chayne Kandzierski’s boyfriend, and he saw in the hard look in Rob’s face, the same strength as Chayne’s. The clothes, the hair, were an act. This was real.
“You’re right,” Brad said, looking away, looking, in fact, to Nehru who was in the corner talking to Cody.
“You’re right.”
He is the fall of heavy fur like the pelt of a bear as he comes in. He is the jingle of bracelets as he pushes open the door and closes it behind him. He is pink silk shirt and distress jeans slipping off. Boy Jockeys on his beautiful white boy body. He is slipping under the covers like an eel, like a love fish.
“You’re back,” Chayne murmurs. “I thought you’d be gone longer.”
Rob ignores this, traces the line between breast to stomach with his tongue.
“You just bathed. You smell so clean. You smell like babies in bathwater,” Rob murmurs. “I’m gonna make love to you.”
Chayne is not nearly old enough to be over desire. He thought he’d sleep till midnight, get up and work and Rob would come in. He didn’t know before midnight Rob would wake him with kisses, with his tongue, with expert hands, pushing the thick comforter away. He didn’t know how hard and ready Rob would make him. No one did this to him but Rob who was making him laugh. They were laughing and kissing, touching tongues like serpents, lips pressing together.
Mouth to cock and down the devil’s road to oh my god, Chayne closes his eyes and grips the pillow while Rob’s tongue darts inside him, while Rob’s hands knead his back. Now they lay together, back to front, like snakes writing, now Chayne’s fingers run along Rob’s sides, delight his nipples massage his groin, stroke the penis into deeper life. Now his mouth does what hands do. Now the room is filled with the low sounds of love.
The back of Rob’s hand along his shoulder, down Chayne’s arm. His penis, bobbing in the night, arched and solid.
“Baby, baby, baby,” Rob murmurs like a soul singer from the time when people still remembered how to love. “Tell me what you want. Show me.”
Chayne has spent his life saying the same thing, being with so many men who barely knew how to give or even receive pleasure. In such a fluid move, he takes Rob inside of him and now they move like a merry go round, up and down, up and down, Rob’s hands massaging his shoulders, Rob’s mouth, like his own, open in the pleasure of the fuck, eyes closed in the bliss of the fuck.
“This is for you,” Rob murmurs as he presses inside of Chayne, “This is for you.”
When Nehru came, he came like an oil derrick, pumping up and down, his legs wrapped about Cody’s waist. In the small room on Colum Street, amidst discarded clothes and piles of books, Cody had sat on the old chair, and then Nehru had sat on him, and in silence they pumped up and down, Nehru running his hands through Cody’s hair, smelling his patchouli cologne, and kissing him deeply. When Nehru came it was in a honey spurt between the walls of his stomach and Cody’s. Cody gave a cry and lifted Nehru, and Nehru could still feel the bruise of his thick cock when it was before them both, shooting clear arcs before them, Cody trembling, almost laughing, Nehru trembling and actually laughing from his unsteady perch on Cody’s lap.
It was when they had wiped down and lay side by side, the light of the room orange from the orange shirt tossed over the lamp, that Cody said, “You know…. If you went back to Brad, I would understand. I mean, I know what this is.”
“It’s love,” Nehru said, stretching comfortably.
Cody looked reflective.
“You can have all sorts of love,” Cody said. “People are so afraid. I mean, you can love someone you’re making love to. You can love everyone if you’re willing and they’re willing. And your heart is open.”
“What about Russell?”
“I shouldn’t have even said anything about that.”
“But you did say something about it.”
“He’s a kid. I’m a grown man.”
“And yet?”
“Russell’s off the table.”
“But what if he weren’t?”
“Fuck you, Nehru.” Cody sighed.
“You don’t have to hide your feelings,” Nehru said, wrapping an arm about him. “Not from me.”
“Do you blame me? Am I wrong for feeling that way?” Cody asked.
“You’re never wrong for feeling,” he sighed. “And we feel so many things.”
“I tell myself that the difference in years between me and Russell is the same as between Chayne and Rob, you and Brad. Less. But… There is the obvious.”
Nehru sighed, and he pulled his knees to his chest and reached for one of Cody’s Camels.
“My feelings are… you shouldn’t tell too many people about this. But Russell’s older than he seems, and the feelings aren’t all on one side, and…. Msybe I’m wrong now, but I’m rooting for you. I’m rooting for all of us.”
“You’re a…” Cody started. Nehru passed him the cigarette and as he inhaled he thought.
“You’re something else,” Cody said, passing him back the cigarette and the smoke making a faint trail in the orange lit air.
“Whatever happens,” he told Nehru, “whoever else happens… I’m glad we have each other.”
“God, yes,” Nehru agreed, running his hand over Cody’s hip bone, and looking with tenderness on his dark penis, the darker scrotum, the chocolate cloud of hair and drawing closer to him in absolute love.
“I’m so glad we have each other too.”