If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

BRIGHAM STREET BRIDGE

PART TWO

Lynn cried out. She always cried out when he was fucking her. She always begged for it harder. She always clung to him and the clinging was hard to maintain because of the sweat down his shoulders, sweat budding on his back. Bill could hear in his own ear, in that part of him a little separated from the rest of himself, his own ragged breathing, could feel the pleasure point in the tip of his cock. Sometimes it was lovemaking, but sometimes it was this... and the catching of breath and the almost folding in on himself before the explosion. Sometimes he bit the pillow or turned his face into Lynn’s shoulder. Sometimes he let himself scream.

Sometimes like now.

The day had been far longer than she’d planned, and Anigel went to bed early, fully intending to wake up later. It was, after all, the Friday before Christmas and she had yet to put in an appearance at Noble Red. It was the lights of a truck roaring down Curtain Street that woke her, its lights blazing across her bed. Even as she was waking, Anigel realized there could be no such truck on this little street, and while the light died down, it did not go away.

She sat up in bed a little and was about to shout and then she stopped.

On the other side of the room the black woman seated in the window regarded Anigel with mild amusement. She was wearing what Anigel considered a really quality white dress and she loosely wrapped in veil.

“I left the snake at home,” she said, reaching for one of Anigel’s cigarettes, which she had left on the little table beneath the window.

“You got a light?” she asked. Then. “Never mind.”

She put the cigarette to her lips, inhaled. It glowed orange.

“The snake?” Anigel croaked, cleared her throat and was about to repeat when the woman said:

“You know the snake you always see around my feet. That scares the hell out of some people.”

She leaned back her head an exhaled.

Anigel Reyes sat in amazement, wanting to swear.

“I just came to tell you, you’re a good girl is all. You’re one of the ones he likes. We all do. He loves everyone. Has to. But... likes?... Now that’s something.”

The woman exhaled the last of the smoke in a gush from her nostrils. She placed the cigarette back down and Anigel observd it was long, white, unsmoked.

“Try to get some rest,” the woman said.

As she was turning around to go—yes—out of the window, Anigel finally found her voice.

“Is that it? Aren’t you going to say something grand?”

“Is that it she says!

`    “I tell you he likes you! He’s on your side. He is. He’s in love with you. And you say… Is that it? Well, if you want the usual message,” she stretched out her hands and began to… glow… just a bit.

“Pray. Pray. Pray!” she announced in an airy voice, and then added, “But you already have. And by the way, say hey to Ross and Russell. Peace.”

And then she was gone.

Anigel sat in the dark.

“It was just a dream,” she muttered to herself. She repeated it.

The only problem was that right now Anigel Reyes couldn’t help but notice she was wide awake.

There would be no going out tonight. She might have to go down and talk to Chayne and Rob when she felt more like herself again.

M—the Woman—had certainly had the right idea. It was time for a cigarette.

“You alright?” Ralph asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Russell shook his head as a barge passed beneath them

“It’s just I had things on my mind.”

After a moment Ralph said, “You could tell me. You know? If I uou wanted.”

“.Oh!” Russell was grateful. “Yes. I would, but it’s not really my stuff to tell. I was just worried for someone.”

Ralph nodded. A nosier person, a girl maybe, would ask more questions.

“You’re a good friend,” Russell said.

That made Ralph emotional for a moment, but he kept it to himself. What Russell said mattered to him more than he understood.

“This is pretty awesome,” Russell decided, leaning his elbows on the old parapet.

“Yeah it is,” Ralph said, though he wasn’t quite sure what was awesome. Being with Russell was awesome. Being at peace with Russell was awesome. The way he felt was awesome.

“We’re in Geschichte Falls,” Russell said, “looking at Geschichte Falls.”

“Aw yeah,” Ralph chuckled. “Yeah, that is pretty rad.”

He wasn’t wearing his hat. Ralph was vain about his hair. He took an ungloved hand through it.

“I guess I’m used to it. But I do come up here to think.”

They were on the Brigham Street Bridge, the long expansion bridge that crossed from the majority of town to Little Poland, and its outliers, the part of Geschichte Falls that stuck out like a southern tongue and was bordered to the south and the east by East Sequoya. Russell could look south and see Brigham Street dotted with lights leaning down into an area that reminded him of his grandparents home on the Southside of Chicago, the same area where his cousin Macy lived, old two stories, factories, the slender clapboarded houses with their wooden back porches connecting one floor to the other, Saint Celestine’s rising up not far from the store Ralph’s family owned.

“I always wondered,” Russell said, looking away from Little Poland and onto the expanse of blue water where orangish factory lights and the little lights of two downtowns looked on it, “why it’s called Saint Celestine’s.”

“Huh?”

“He’s not Polish. I don’t think.”

“Naw,” Ralph said. He was about to spit, because he liked to spit, but he also liked sleeping with Russell and he felt suddenly self conscious.

“That all used to be Irish, and then we came in. Us and the Mexicans. The Irish built that church and he’s one of theirs. One of yours.”

“Oh,” Russell rolled his eyes and laughed.

“What?”

“My Irish doesn’t come from around here, so whatever.”

“No, I think they got all bougie like you and moved to Breckinridge.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Only sort of.”

“But I think you’re right, so I’m not going to say anything.”

“Yeah, I’m just going to say Celestine’s is pretty and old and everything, but if it had been built by us, it would be better.”

“Oh.”

“No one ever says, that’s a great Irish church! But Polish churches are…. They’re fucking amazing.”

Russell turned to look at the sparkle in Ralph’s eyes while he chewed his gum.

“I had no idea you cared that much about religion.”

“I think I care more about being Polish, actually.”

“Gilead would say it’s all white folks, and shrug.”

Ralph grinned, jammed his hands in his pockets, and then he did shrug.

Somewhere in the darkness, where the river bottlenecked and there were very few lights to be seen was Riverview Drive, the street that the whole Riverview district got its name from. Gilead was on that street, maybe with Mark Young right now, in his mom’s house. A few blocks north Nehru was doing something fascinating and still, a little further in that same neighborhood, Brad and Marissa were settling into their new lives.

“You’re right,” Ralph said. “It is pretty awesome.”

And Cody…. Where was he? What was he up to now?

Ralph was chewing his gum slowly and giving Russell a strange, considering look.

“What?” Russell laughed, nervously.

“Did we make any kind of decision about how we were gonna be?”

“I… I don’t think so.”

“I can’t be your boyfriend.”

“Cause you’re with Vanessa, and we’re in high school, and it would be a lot of—”

“I can’t do this to Vanessa. I’m not as dumb as you think.”

“I don’t—”

“I’ve cheated on her three times. Twice with guys. I’m seventeen. We’re seventeen, Russ. Why do shit like that? I’m just going to end it with her.”

Russell did not stop to say that he, in fact, was still sixteen.

Ralph said, “I can’t date you because I’m a terrible boyfriend and you just had a terrible boyfriend. I don’t want to be Number Two.”

“And yet…?”

“I want to kiss you.”

He had never felt like this about Jason. He had not known he felt this way about Ralph, that his whole body would go hot and weak, his knees melt, his penis stiffen when Ralph said that.

“Then fucking do it, already.”

Ralph barked out a laugh and then quickly he did.

A very few cars were coming up the bridge, but no one was looking at them in the dark, and below a freight boat passed, headed east. Ralph, who had been gross, creepy, irritating, was the handsome football player with bronze colored hair, strong and holding his face as he kissed him deeply. He never wanted to stop, but:

“Damn, a bastard has to breathe!” Ralph said, chuckling.

After a moment he said, “I don’t have a right to ask this, and I’ll drive you home. But…I’d love it if you stayed with me tonight.”

Russell was embarrassed to be so easy, embarrassed that when Ralph grinned at him he thought of the first time, and the last time just last night when they’d taken their clothes off so easily and made love for such a long time. That Ralph could make love to him as skillfully as Flipper…. Flipper… made Russell hot. That in the dark Ralph morphed into Flipper and back to himself… That Ralph made love with his hands, his mouth, his eyes, and was in no hurry, that the whole night would be the two of them touching, murmuring, taking each other to sensations and emotions they hadn’t felt before… that he could not finish his sentences.

Russell swallowed and looked at the river, letting his cheeks turn cold again.

“Let’s go back your place,” he said.

He felt it when he came in the house. When Bill pulled into the parking lot and then walked up to the kitchen door, opened it and slid inside the house he could feel the sadness. He couldn’t sleep beside Dena tonight. And he knew he wasn’t wanted anyway. It was only nine o’clock on a Friday night, but all the lights in the house were out except for in the kitchen.

Bill went upstairs to get blankets and a pillow from the cedar smelling linen closet. As he tiptoed back down to the den, flicked the television on and made a pallet for himself to its  blue-grey light, his eyes welled up and his heart felt very heavy because there was just no denying how sad this house was. He hoped that maybe by some magic—he had forfeited the right to pray for a miracle—something might happen tomorrow in Idlewile to change everything.