Ross’s first or second week at school he had walked down Patterson Drive, passing Gallyhoo to where it met with the country road on the border of campus where Justin Hall sat. Across from Justin was a great field with a high tree, and beyond that the highway, and in the night, Ross had taken out wrapped candles and held them in his fist while he whispered prayers and waved them tapers about his head, about his chest, about his legs and then dropped them. He went to the next corner and did the same and then to the last corner and did it all again, and at the final corner he stood quiet so that the only noise was the wind, and then he sharply turned around, started walking back home and walked almost directly into Flipper who was in a track suit with goatee and bandana tied around his head.
“What are you doing?”
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to watch, but I thought I couldn’t interrupt.”
Ross said nothing.
“Was it witchcraft?” Flipper asked excitedly.
“Not exactly.”
“Was it voodoo?”
As they continued walking back to campus, Ross said, “Well, yes. Sort of.”
And then he said, “Technically it was Santeria. It was something my grandmother taught me.”
Flipper thought about this. He was a reader, He had read more than he had actually experienced, but wanted to experience everything.
“Your grandmother is Cuban?”
“It’s complicated.”
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Flipper said. “It was nosey of me.”
“It’s fine.”
“You wanna hang out?”
“Yes,” Ross said.
On one hand it seemed like absolutely nothing, but Ross listened to all of Flipper’s stories. At the end of that night, the very first time they hung out, Flipper said, “Well, that was odd.”
“Huh?”
“All the stuff I told you. I didn’t even remember half of that.”
Ross, who was always serious and always scribbling into something said, “Memory is the most important thing we have. I was going to say stories are the most important thing we have. That’s what English teachers say, and that’s what I’ll probably be. But it’s memory. The shape of the memory is the story. Until we can tell it, it’s like we don’t exist.”
Flipper wanted to say something stupid like, “Gosh, you’re smart.” But instead he just nodded his head.
“It’s almost like, if you don’t tell your story to someone, you haven’t happened,” Ross said.
Flipper felt that keenly. What he was trying to say finally made sense.
“I feel like when I’m around you, I’ve actually happened,” Flipper said. “It’s like, most of the time I think I’m this silly thing, like there’s nothing to me. But sometimes I feel like there is so much in me that I can’t get to. And maybe that’s… dumb. Self involved. But I think you’re a great person.”
“Thanks,” Ross said doubtfully.
“No. Like, you’re a great person. There’s something great about you. Really, and when I’m with you I feel like maybe I’m great too. Maybe I am as big as I think I am. With all my dreams and… stuff.”
Ross nodded and stopped himself from asking reporter questions: what dreams? What do you mean? How big? He sipped his shake. It was chocolate, real chocolate, not just that vanilla with some malted powder thrown in.
“It’s like sometimes I don’t even know what I’m looking for, and I remember reading this poem in class, once, back in high school, and I just wanted to never leave the class. Our teacher, she was really into it, and she would go on and on and I just loved it so much. And I tried to write poems, but they were crap. And I tried to be someone, but there was no one else to be someone with. So…” he shrugged. “I just stuck to rugby and football.”
“What poems?”
“What?”
“I said,” Ross said, “what poems. The ones that you loved?”
“I wandered lonely as a cloud,” Flipper began. “And then….”
Ross said:
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”
“That’s it!”
“I know.”
“What’s the rest of it?” Flipper asked.
“I don’t remember,” said Ross. “It’s Wordsworth. There’s Wordsworth in the library. Or I’m taking British lit next semester, so I’m sure it’s in there.”
Ross suddenly had something to say and he said, “You know, if you want to do great things and have great thoughts, sometimes there isn’t anyone to do them with. If you want to be more than you’ve been, sometimes you just have to be. You know. Sometimes you just have to strike out and do something different.”
“And see if the things I’m afraid of losing matter?”
“I guess.”
“That’s what you said.”
“I did? I say a lot of things,” Ross said. “Well, at any road, it sounds right.”
“Can I ask you something?”
Ross took a very long pull on his shake and then said, “Sure.”
“If I wrote something would you read it?”
“If I told you it was bad, would you be mad?”
“No, but thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Confidence has nothing to do with it,” Ross said. “If you don’t write poems, or even if you do, they might not be great. So… I’m just asking.”
“You can tell me they’re absolute shite if you think they are.”
“Be careful, man,” Ross said. “Cause I will.”
Ross and Macy had been well asleep since near five and gotten up at nine, which was a reasonable length sleep time for twenty somethings in college. Neither one of them cared much for breakfast in the caf and ate some raw pop tarts and swigged down orange juice and milk before Macy went to her first class. Ross had one class at ten, one in the afternoon and one at night, and so he took time for a cigarette break and a cup of coffee before heading there and now it was eleven and he found himself in the lounge above the caf along with Flip, who held out his hand for a cigarette and then crashed beside Ross.
“You’re awfully dressed for today,” Ross noted.
“A little,” Flipper agreed and shrugged while Ross lit his cigarette for him.
“I’m going to get healthy one day,” Flipper said, exhaling smoke, “and get back to sports and shit.”
“And play football again?”
“No, fuck that.”
“You are actually very healthy. I mean, you run.”
“All fags do track,” Flipper said.
“Ouch.”
Flipper shrugged.
“I mean, I’ve said I’m bi, and some people respect it, but… some people don’t, and shit, I came to a Catholic college in the middle of nowhere, so who’s to blame for that?”
“In all fairness, people kind of look on you and Jimmy the same,” Ross shrugged. “I think it’s just about not doing what you’re supposed to do. No one expects you to be a virgin. Have a little sex, feel kind of bad about it. And neither of you really seems to.”
“Seems to,” Flipper exhaled, sitting back beside his friend. “Fuck all of these people who think they know what I think.”
“I am suddenly very hungry,” Ross said.
“We could start early, then if you want, I’ll do a watch out for Jimmy and the girls.”
“I’ll take you up on that.”
“Hey!” Flipper slapped his wrist. “I got something to tell you later on.”
“You could tell me now.”
Flipper shook his head, looking distracted. “I’m not quite ready. And we need some time. I mean, I need to be private.”
Ross looked around. The circular lounge was big, but empty, however Flipper said he wasn’t ready, so Ross nodded.
“Is it something big?”
Flipper nodded.
“It’s a little big.”
“Wow,” Ross said.
“Yeah.”
“Wow,” Ross said again.
He reached for his cigarettes, then shook his head.
“I need to stop that. I’ll have emphysema before I’m thirty.”
He reached into his fridge and pulled out a liter bottle of apricot juice. He opened the bottle and drank straight from it.
“You want some.”
Flipper waved it off then said, “Maybe I will.”
Ross passed it to his friend.
“I’m trying not to act stupid,” Ross said.
Flipper guzzled from the bottle and put it down, wiping his mouth.
“That was great.”
“It was.”
“Lately all I’ve had is beer and soda.”
Ross put the juice back in the fridge and Flipper said, “You could never sound stupid. It’s me. That’s a lot to put on you. And I know Jimmy wouldn’t tell you. I just… I’m going to keep it to myself. I’m not going to talk about it with anyone except maybe him, but I couldn’t not tell you.”
Ross nodded.
Flipper looked mildly nervous.
“You have any… questions or anything?”
“Probably, but I can’t think of them.”
Flipper nodded.
“Are you… okay?”
“Yeah,” Flipper laughed. “It was sex. Not getting shot.”
“It was sex with one of our friends,” Ross said. “It was sex between two of my best friends.”
“Then the real question is are you alright?”
“That’s a silly question.”
“Not really.”
Ross shrugged, and then he said, “I mean, I guess. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Maybe it does, if like… if we’re all best friends...”
“I just don’t want anything to fuck up the three of us. And I really don’t want anything to fuck up the two of you.”
“It won’t.”
“Like…. What’s going to happen? Between you and Jimmy?”
“I don’t think anything’s going to happen,” Flipper shrugged.
“You all… You’re…. I know I sound naïve and stupid and like a virgin—”
“You are a virgin,” Flipper said.
“True. But, like… you all aren’t in love or anything? You’re not going to start…No, you know what? That sounded dumb before it was even out of my mouth.”
“Jimmy’s my friend, and we were both feeling some stuff, and I don’t even think we knew we were feeling it. And truthfully, I’m not sorry. I mean, it was powerful. I’m not sorry for it at all, but I think we’re just going to keep being friends.”
“That’s odd to me,” Ross said. “I mean, I know nothing about sex, not really. But I know me, and I feel like once I’d done it, I’d want to do it again.”
“If Jimmy wanted to I’d do it again,” Flipper said. He shrugged. “Like, not tonight or maybe not even the next night. But I’d do it.”
Ross frowned thoughtfully and nodded.
“You think,” Flipper started, then he said, “You’re all like you’re this innocent virgin that doesn’t understand things, but I don’t understand stuff either. Like, I like girls, or I used to. And boys are new to me, or they used to be. This is all sort of strange for me. Not as strange as for Jimmy, but it’s all strange. And can I tell you something that’s a little different being with Jimmy… or like any of the two guys I was with before?”
“Huh?”
“It’s scary. Being with guys is always scary.”
“You’re the bravest person I know.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are,” Ross said. “I’ve always thought that.”
“And you’re sure you’re not gay?” Flipper said. “Or anything?”
“I’m not really sure of anything,” Ross said. “Yet. I mean, I definitely, definitely don’t think I’m straight, and I have no real interest in women. I thought I wanted the priesthood. Then I thought I wanted spiritual things, the things in the forest, the dark Jesus, the magic. And I still do. But I don’t imagine that would always be enough.”
Ross thought for a while and he said, “For a while I lived like the angels, like it says in the Bible, where Jesus says the angels are not married and not given in marriage. But the older I get, the more I settle into this body, and this body wants, but what it wants I barely understand.”
“That’s fine,” Flipper nodded. “That’s fine. The whole world shouldn’t be throwing their clothes off and climbing into bed with people. Look at me. I hardly understand what my body wants either, and yet here I am, still fucking around.
Ross didn’t laugh.
“Can I tell you something?”
“We say that a lot,” Ross said.
“There are times when I want to kiss you. Not like passionately. Just, I dunno. There’s like friendship and family kisses and… passion kisses.”
“What was it like with Jimmy? Did you kiss him?”
Flipper went red, and this surprised Ross.
“That was a passion kiss. It was a sex kiss” Flipper said.
“And me?”
Flipper looked funny, like he didn’t understand his own answer.
“Somewhere between more than family and less than sex.”
Ross stood up and deliberately, frankly, kissed Flipper on his lips and then sat down.
Flipper’s eyes were closed and he opened them and smiled.
“Well,” he said.
“Well,” Ross said.
