THE SEA
CONCLUSION
It was an old grey bungalow in East Chatham, in a neighborhood that wasn’t the worst and wasn’t the best, where not far off the rattle of the Red Line could be heard, and the there was a hedge and little gate and then a small yard, and they went up to the porch and Rulon said, “This house is amazing.”
“At first it doesn’t look like much, and then you realize…” Alexis began.
“Yeah,” Rulon said.
He was a craftsman and he noticed the old wood, the intricate painting, that this bungalow was at least a hundred years old. This was an old street, even the shabby houses had survived much. The heavy wooden door was full of expensive cut glass, and a lace curtain shielded the house on the other side of it from view. When Alexis rang the doorbell, a doleful sounded tolled from inside, and it was only a few moments later someone a thin, barefoot man in pajama shorts, a ragged tee shirt and white bandanna opened the door.
“You’re late,” was his only greeting, and as he walked down the dark hallway, Alexis said, “I didn’t even say I was…”
Rulon shut the door behind him and stood, courteous and shy like in his missionary days.
“Coming,” Alexis finished, going down the hall and turning the corner into what must have been the living room, and which was still filled with afternoon sunlight
“Whaddid you want?” the man asked them.
“It’s good to see you too.”
“You don’t come to see me,” he said. “What do you want?”
“Adonijah, this is my friend, Rulon.”
“You fuck each other,” Adonijah said.
“What?”
“You fuck each other,” Adonijah repeated. “Not all the time, but you do fuck each other,”
“what?”
“You fuck each other,” Adonijah repeated. “Not all the time, but you do fuck each other.”
Alexis stood with his mouth almost open, and Adonijah continued, “I only ask because sometimes it makes the magic stronger.”
Rulon was caught up in the beauty of this little old house Everything, the old sofas and chairs, the mirror over the brick hearth, the woven rugs on the floor, looked very old and not like someone in their thirties, as Adonijah appeared to be, would live here. His eyes landed on an old alabaster colored globe, a set of Tarot cards laid on a long table filled with curious objects, then a great, floor length mirror, and Rulon’s eyes widened to see that the mirror reflected the endless ripples of the blue sea, so that he looked away to make sure there was no sea in this room, and then looked again and saw the waves in the mirror, but Adonijah said, “Look away from that.”
Rulon obeyed, and he was back in the comfortable living room. A soughing sound came, followed by the chug of the air conditioner.
“You’re pilgrims,” Adonijah said, “pilgrims.”
“Well, sort of—”Alexis began.
“Yes, I am, sir,” Rulon said.
“Don’t call me sir. I’m not dead yet. Sit on down. I’ll bring you something to drink.”
Adonijah returned with a round, perspiring pitcher full of translucent yellow lemonade, ice cube chinking in it, and Rulon followed him to bring back glasses.
“A most helpful friend, a most helpful friend,” Adonijah told Alexis who said, “He is,” and Adonijah said, “Help yourself,” while he went to the table and brought back cards.
For just a moment a car passed by, thumping bass, then was gone, and Adonijah put the large cards into Rulon’s hands and said, “Turn them.”
Rulon obeyed, and when he was done he handed them back ot Adonijah who said, “No, take three out for yourself. Without turning them over to see their faces. The three that feel right.”
When he did so, Adonijah nodded. He took out a small pipe and lit it and they smelled marijuana while he puffed and then put the pipe down. He smiled, and his eyes half closed. He picked up the first one and smiled again as it revealed a young man in motley with a dog at his feet, carrying his life in a bag on a stick over his shoulder and marching happily off a cliff.
“The Fool. The Zero Card.”
“Am I a fool?” Rulon asked, trying to make a joke of it.
“Did you need to ask?” Adonijah said, and then he said, while Rulon was trying to figure out if he’d been insulted, “Turn the next card.”
Rulon obeyed, and there was a young, redheaded knight racing forward on a brown charger as he brandished a flaming club.
“The Knight of Wands. Now the last.”
Rulon turned it over to reveal five cups.
“Well, that explains itself,” Adonijah said.
A man in a black cloak stood weeping, and three cups were cast on the ground while two remained upright. Beyond, the sky was dull and grey.
“You’re at the beginning of a journey,” Adonijah said, “or at least you wish you were. You don’t even know what path to take. The beginning is one, but the Fool is Zero. Zero is beyond the number of the Tarot. It is past the end of one thing and before the beginning of the other. The journey of the Fool is, as it were, through limbo. It is the journey to the beginning, but it is not the beginning. At his moment you don’t know quite know where to go.”
“That’s exactly right—”
“But it doesn’t take one of great skill to know that,” Adonijah said, waving his pipe over the cards as he lit it again, and inhaled. “After all, why else would you be here.”
“The Knight of Wands is full of excitement and passion, ready to be off, but may be galloping in the wrong direction without the proper knowledge. The Knight is newly made and young. He is in confusion.”
“Does the Knight always mean confusion?” Rulon asked.
“No, but with you, right now, it does.”
Adonijah pointed to the Five of Cups.
“Five is the middle of the journey. It is never half empty half full, it is always half empty, and this is the card of regret. Regret in water, one being mired down, one’s fire being snuffed out, one being stuck in the cycle of what has been, and unable to move forward. That is where you are.”
“That’s exactly where I am,” Rulon said, almost standing up and overthrowing the table. “That’s exactly where I am. Now what do I do about it?”
“That’s where we all are,” Alexis said.
“I know that’s where you are,” Adonijah said.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why be offended? You said it yourself.”
Alexis sank into his chair.
“Well, I guess I did.”
“Tartaria,” Adonijah said.
“What?” Rulon sat up immediately.
“Tartaria. You’ve heard of it?”
“It’s real!” Rulon said. “I knew it—”
“No, it’s complete bullshit,” Adonijah said, “and anyone in his right mind could easily see that. Only you aren’t in your right mind, and I suspect you haven’t been for a long time. Shit like that speaks to certain people. You probably doubt every legitimate fact and fall for every conspiracy theory in the world.”
“Well, he read you,” Alexis said.
“Why is he like that?” Adonijah asked Alexis as if Rulon wasn’t there.
“I think because he’s a Mormon.”
“Really?” Rulon looked at him.
“He was brought up to believe in crazy shit. When someone tells you unbelievable stuff and then tells you people will call you crazy for believing it, but they’re wrong and they don’t understand, and you’re chosen, you believe it. And then when that fades away and someone else says the same thing, a conspiracy theorist, suddenly makes you feel special again.”
“But had you considered,” Adonijah went on, “that every Mormon doesn’t do that? And many Catholics do? Many people who don’t believe in anything believe in silly shit. So,” Adonijah looked to Rulon, “it’s not Mormonism that’s not your problem.”
“Okay,” Rulon said, “well then what is my problem? Tell me, I really want to—”
“Then shut up and listen. Your problem is what people call narcissism, but they’re wrong. That boy who turned into a flower saw himself and was enchanted by his own beauty. He died looking at his own reflection he loved it so much. You haven’t even seen your reflection. That’s not what’s happening with you at all.
“You want to be special. You want to feel special. You think you are special. You want to tell other people you’re special, only why can’t they see it? Why can’t they see how different you are? You’ve done nothing special, and aren’t doing anything special, but you want people to know that you are. You’ve never had a vision in your life, but you want people to know you’re visionary. That’s you.”
While Rulon sat silent, Adonijah leaned down and put more weed in his pipe.
“Here,” Adonijah said to Alexis, passing him the pipe and the lighter, “have some of this.”
Adonijah said to Rulon, “In your desire to believe you were meant to see wonders that are not there, take care you do not miss the gift of seeing the things that are.”
Then Adonijah said to Alexis did, “Go over there, to that mirror. What do you see?”
Alexis got up, feeling foolish, and not high enough, and to him it was only a mirror, which is what he said.
“Fine then,” Adonijah said, sounding a little irritated.
But when Alexis turned from it, from the corner of his eye he saw lightning flash over choppy water, and when he turned back to look at it again, it was only the mirror reflecting the room.
“What was that?” Alexis wondered.
“I don’t know,” Adonijah said with an elaborate shrug. “What was that?”
But Rulon got up, and he went to the mirror again, and again he saw waves and waves, blue waves and the more he stared at it, the more it changed to brown and red desert, to big sky, and it all ended in the small face of a dark haired girl who scrunched up her mouth and grinned, and Rulon cried out like he’d been burned, and then the mirror was simply a mirror, reflecting the afternoon.
“What is this place?” Rulon wondered.
“Just a house,” Adonijah said.
“No,” Rulon said.
“Yes,” Adonijah insisted.
Then he said. “You have a lot to think about. Are you staying for dinner?”
“Did you want us to?”
“No,” Adonijah said.
“Well,” said Alexis.
“You have dinner of your own,” Adonijah said.
He got up and left for a moment, and then he came back with what Rulon thought was a bag of herbs and a jar candle.
“You always have dinner of your own,” Adonijah said, lighting his pipe again, and inhaling. “you just don’t remember it.”
On their way out into the shocking heat of the summer day, Adonijah leaned against the porch as he escorted them out.
“You can do this for yourself, Alexis,” he said. “When you finally learn that, that’s what will change you.”
Rulon was headed toward his truck when Adonijah said, “See you, Knight of Wands. May you get from Zero to One and get there soon.”
Rulon nodded awkwardly, but by then Adonijah had shut the door. Beyond them they heard the El charging toward downtown, and Rulon wondered, “But how do you get from Zero to One?”
He figured Adonijah wasn’t the kind of person who would answer this, and Alexis agreed.
“He’s right, you know,” Rulon said as they sped up Outer Drive and the sun sank orange over the high rises to the west.
“Do you want to go to the beach?” Alexis asked.
He said, “You know, Adonijah wasn’t always this way. He was, but he wasn’t. I would say he gets more and more strange, but he just gets more and more unlike the rest of the world. It’s the world that’s strange and homeless. It’s us. You know?”
“I think I do want to go the beach,” Rulon said. “Can we go up north, way up north?”
“Evanston?”
“No, the beach before it. With the pier… that ugly pier with the bicycles tied up to it.”
“Yes,” Alexis said.
“We kept seeing the water. The water’s where we need to go.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“I think you’d better.”
“We haven’t talked about… it. You know?”
“Know what?”
“Don’t make this difficult.”
“Make what difficult?”
Rulon sighed.
“Fine, you’re going to make it difficult.”
“I hope you get around to saying whatever it is you want to say to me.”
“Fine. When we get home… When we get back to your place. Do you… Can we…?”
Rulon’s brow knotted as they came to the end of Outer Drive, as they headed toward Bryn Mawr and the enormous old pink building that marked Sheridan Road.
“Can we fuck? Do you want to fuck?”
Alexis’s asshole throbbed when Rulon asked it. He wanted to put his hand between Rulon’s legs and squeeze him.
“Yes,” he said.
The sun would take forever to set, caught up in the net of trees that shielded the beach from the old apartments of Rogers Park, and the sky with its reflected light was growing bluer and bluer as they walked across the grass and past the tennis courts and then down to the flat beach and, at last, went up the concrete pier ending in its wreck of a watchtower. Tonight the water was flat as glass, and the beach was empty. It was like they were the only two people on earth, and now they came to the end of the pier, rounding the watch tower, and they looked into the water and Alexis’s eyes widened.
“What?” Rulon began, and then he took the railing and looked down as well. He looked through the green water, water becoming less green and more transparent, revealing what lay beneath, and as he did, it was Alexis who shook his head and said, “My God…. My God…”
“A whole….”
“When I was little I heard that China was at the bottom of the world, I though it was at the bottom of Lake Michigan. A whole country under the water,” Alexis said.
“And… This… This is…”
Rulon said, “If we don’t stop looking, I’m going to jump in.”
Alexis thought the same thing, and realized that Rulon’s love had saved him many times, and last night, the love they had made had saved them both. The thought of what would happen when they went back was saving them now, saving them from the desire to jump into the water and meet what they had never seen before and might never see again.
Rulon’s hands were on the rails over the deep green lake, and he looked poised to jump in and so, almost by instinct, Alexis grabbed at this basketball shorts and grasped his penis, tugging it, feeling it grow firm in his hands and Rulon’s muscles subside, his calves untense. As he penis hardened, the rest of his body softened, and Alexis released him, sighing, his own body now tingling.
Turning his face away from the water, and pulling Rulon by his large, rough hand, Alexis said, “Come on, let’s go home.”
THE END
