The Old

Remembrance

He who enters the crater also becomes chaotic matter, he melts. The formed in him dissolves and binds itself anew with the children of chaos, the powers of darkness, the ruling and the seducing, the compelling and the alluring, the divine and the devilish.

-The Red Book

“But surely Lewis agrees with me a little bit?” Laurie said as the smoke rose around them in the small apartment,

When Chris looked to him, Lewis said, “I’m not in this discussion.”

Lawrence Malone, smoke jetting out of his nostrils, declared, “But I don’t understand how you, a citizen of this nation, can sit here and tell me you don’t really give a damn what happens to it.”

Chris’s eyes were bright through the smoke as he rolled another cigarette and passed it to Laurie and then rapidly rolled two, one for Lynn and one for Lewis.

“I’m just saying that this has never felt like my country, and I don’t really understand how you can’t see things falling down all around us.”

“You mean the president? The current chucklehead in office? The way other countries look at us?”

“Yes,” Chris said. “And you can’t tell me that he’s a good thing, or that what the world thinks of us doesn’t matter.”

“I would never say that.”

“Or that we aren’t filled with so much hatred for the world and each other, and such a lack of education and that you don’t think things could be like this for a long time to come.”

“Do they always talk like this?” Lynn asked Lewis.

“A lot,” Lewis said.

“And they don’t kill each other?”

“They’re best friends,” Lewis said. “Don’t you two have conversations like this?”

“No,” Lynn said in a tone of discovery. “I don’t think men and women really do. Is that how it is with you and Chris?”

“Not like this.” Lewis gestured to Chris in his jeans and tee shirt, temples red and sweaty, and Laurie on the other side of the table in shirt and tie, elegant as ever,their legs apart, on their toes in their face off.

“I don’t doubt that,” Laurie said, “But it’s just the way things are at the moment. This isn’t who we are as a country. We’re not hateful.”

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been around… a long time. You’ve been around long enough to know this is how this place always was! Killing the Indians, enslaving Africans, making a virtual slave class out of poor white people and then galvanizing poor white people against everyone else and making them their own jailers, the biggest crime America ever did. None of this hate is new. You know it, Laurie. I mean,” he took a brief view at Lynn, “you’ve seen it. Seen how immigrants were treated and. all of that.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Laurie said. “I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong, and I’m not going to tell you it doesn’t break my heart when I see some of the things that go on, lots of the things that go on—”

“Then how in the world can you be a Republican?”

“Really?”

“Or are you talking about that compassionate conservative nonsense?”

Laurie turned to Lewis, but Lewis said, “This is between the two of you. We will talk later.”

“I just don’t know how Democrats and liberals can think they corner the market on… compassion or kindness. How did that ever become the property of one political party?”

“When being a Republican became about making money and having nice cars and making yourself richer and richer.”

“Oh, but hold on,” Laurie said, ashing, “because that’s the one place where I will call bullshit on you. The difference between me and every other conservative who thinks you should have as much of the money you make and it’s not a sin to have the good things you work for—and a Democrat—is we’re honest about it. You guys love money and money and money as much as anyone else, only you pretend to feel bad about it while you spout out nonsense about toxic masculinity and being woke, whatever the fuck that is.”

“I do that?” Chris pointed at his chest savagely, but his voice was subtle. “I drive around in beautiful cars and hoard money?” He pointed at Lewis. “We do that?”

“I didn’t mean you,” Laurie said, half desperately. “Or Lewis. We’re supposed to be talking about politics, not jumping down each other’s throats. I stand by everything I say. I mean. I’ve given my—I’ve gone to war for this country.”

“True.”

“I’d do it again,” Laurie said passionately. “Cause I love this country, and I just… the one thing Chris is: I don’t understand how you don’t.”

“I think,” Lewis said, simply, “the two of you just have different ideas of what it means to love this country. Different ideas about what this country is.”

“The real difference is you are older than this country,”Lewis said as they returned to their studio after saying goodnight to Lynn and Laurie.

“Laurie was born here, when America was up and running. His whole life is being an American. The two of you have two totally different experiences.”

“And yet we’ve spent over a century together.”

“You all almost came close to saying things like that.”

“I hope he tells her the truth soon,” Chris said. “She’s a lovely girl, Lynn, but we have to not say so many things. If he’s going to stay with her, she has to know about him.”

“I didn’t know you were a vet,”Lynn said.

Laurie grinned at her while they drove toward her apartment.

“I guess there’s lots we still don’t know about each other. I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret.”

“Afghanistan?” Lynn said. He couldn’t be old enough for anything else.

“Yes,” Laurie said, quickly.

“If you ever want to talk about it I want to listen,” Lynn said candidly. “And if you don’t that’s fine too.”

“You sure you don’t want to come home with me?”

“I need to remember I have a life outside of your apartment,” Lynn said. “Does that make any sense?”

“Yes,” Laurie said, nodding sharply “It actually does.”

“I didn’t know you were a Republican.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No,:” Lynn laughed, “It’s just, you’re a much more serious person than I thought you were, and yet, I did meet you in a church.”

Laurie burst out laughing and Lynn said, “I don’t want to go back to your place tonight, but, would you like to come to mine?”

“Do you know I’ve never stayed with you?”

“It’s not quite what you have,” Lynn said, “but…”

Laurie said, “If you’re there, that’s all that matters.”

“Every war?”

Chrisnodded.

“Not every war, but the First World War, World War Two, Korea. Vietnam.”

“Laurie fought in Vietnam?”

Chris shrugged.

“He says you can’t understand the country until you do. Maybe he’s right. He also said it’s not like he can die or anything.”

“But that’s not really true,” Lewis said. He had heard something in Chris’s voice.

“Huh?”

“It’s not really true is it? I mean, there are so many types of weapons and, you aren’t impervious to everything. You’ve even said some vampires die. So it’s not impossible for him to get killed. It’s just more unlikely.”

“Yes,” Chris said. “Yes. That was always my fear.”

“And the Gulf War?”

“The first one.”

“Afghanistan?’

“No,” Chris shook his head. “Not that one. I was relieved.”

“Because you love him.”

“Yes.” Chrissaid.

Suddenly Lewis said, “On the way back home Seth and I talked about a lot… We were lovers once. There is still an attraction between us. It is the magic between us, perhaps the family blood.”

“Laurie was my lover.”

“Yes, I thought it would be easier for you to tell me if I told you.”

“I didn’t know if you would mind knowing that.”

“Do you mind knowing about Seth?”

“Should I?”

“Seth does not compare to us, to what we are. I told him that, that our love was everything to me, and so Seth could never get in the way of that.”

“Yes,” Chris said. “That’s precisely how I feel.”