In the City by the Lake

by Taylor Saracen

  Blood. I was scarred by seeing Rosie in the tub. Though I tried to purge the images from my mind, he was there every time I closed my eyes, a claret crane with clipped wings. I was haunted by the songs he’d sing. There was no moving past his pain, as it permeated every fold of my brain. I should have treated him better. There was no way to allay the regret. It was just another dark feeling I would have to clench in my chest. I wondered how many more I could hold before my ribs cracked.

  My internal struggles should have numbed me to the shit going on in the papers, but the noxious news continued to report stories of “sexual morons” committing crimes. While I’m sure a small faction of the perpetrators were pansies, mostly they weren’t, a fact that didn’t stop journalists from purporting they were. Not only did the articles contain the unsubstantiated claims that the assholes were queers, most of the incidents hadn’t even happened in Chicago. The papers were running stories from other cities. The result was horrible headlines nearly every day and increased issues for ethels on the streets. Police surveillance of queer cruising spots soared. It was as though the coppers had nothing better to do than to stop homos from having sex.

  The articles did a number on Cal, so much so that I began to make a conscious effort to keep newspapers out of our apartment. When he’d get his hands on one, he’d shake his head in disgust at each line.

  “Did you hear about this little girl, Antoinette Tiritilli?” he asked.

  “She was the ‘gorilla man’s’ victim, right? Murdered in November?”

  “Yes,” he tsked. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

  “It happened, like, two weeks after Rosie. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I thought we should discuss.”

  Cal nodded sadly. “He took her right from the schoolyard, all he had to do was wave a candy bar and that was that. Why would he slit a child’s throat? I can’t comprehend how anyone could do such a horrific thing.”

  “It’s awful,” I agreed. “Some people are born evil.”

  “I don’t believe that. I think they grow up hurt and the hatred in this world makes it worse.” He bit his lip. “Did you know they’re claiming this ‘gorilla man,’ Andrew Capoldi, is a sexual moron?”

  “Yes.”

  “They put him in the same category as us,” Cal sighed. “They think of us in the same way they think of vicious murderers like Capoldi, people who murder children.”

  “I know,” I nodded, placing my hand on his thigh. “It’s bananas.”

  “It’s rotten bananas,” he sighed as he laid his head on my shoulder. “Rosie was the sweetest person to live, and he died with that same label attached to him.”

  “He didn’t die with a label. You don’t die with labels, you live with them,” I contended.

  “He died because of his.”

  I felt his body jerk in my arms as he began to cry. It was a marvel that he had any tears left considering he wept so often.

  “It’s not fair,” he whimpered. “He had an awful life.”

  “You did everything you could to make it better.”

  “Not everything,” Cal disagreed.

  I read between the lines and knew it was only a matter of time before Cal realized Rosie probably would have been alive if it weren’t for me. I had stood in the way of them getting out the city and making a life in a better place.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling as though the words were too light to express the depth of my regret.

  “It’s not your fault,” Cal chided. “I should have had the strength to go, to do what was right for him instead of thinking about what I wanted.”

  The statement stabbed me in the heart. It was as though he was uttering the words that I should have told him, words he had needed to hear, and words I had been too selfish to say. While I doubted I would ever have the capacity to encourage him to go, I knew I could not live with the guilt of holding him back. As far as California was concerned, I had already caused enough damage.

  “Do you have the strength to go now?” I asked, my palms beginning to sweat as I awaited his answer.

  “Do you?” he questioned, sitting up to look me in my face.

  “I have the strength to tell you to go.” I could hear the warbling in my voice as my weakness wrapped its hand around my throat and choked. But I don’t want you to go. Please don’t leave me. I’ll say it because I should, but I’m begging you not to believe I would be okay. I don’t want to live without you.

  “I think I have the strength to listen,” Cal whispered.

  We let that be the last conversation we had on the matter. We had agreed long before on how we would handle it when the day came. Every day before I left the apartment to do my rounds, I gave Cal a lingering kiss, hoping it would not be our last. And when I arrived home to find he was still there, I breathed a sigh of relief, happy for one more day, for one more night. Seven times. I left the apartment and came back to Cal seven times before I left the apartment and came back to a note.

  * * *

  My Dearest Viktor,

  You told me I couldn’t say goodbye, so I decided to write it instead. I loved many men before you, but I’ll never love another after. You’re shimmering nights in Towertown and “I love you” by the sea. My best batch of moonshine and the Cubs winning the series in three (fuck you for rolling your eyes right now. I know they need four to win, but I liked the way it sounded). You're my everything.

  I can’t pretend to understand what it is that’s keeping you there, but you’re allowed to be happy. You weren’t made to suffer. You were made to be perfect... for me.

  I’ll wait for you and if you never come, I hope it’s because you didn’t want to and not because you were afraid. There are so many things in this world to fear, but freedom isn’t one of them. Come be free with me.

  I love you.

  Yours,

  Cal

  * * *

  I held the paper until my fat teardrops compromised the fibers and soaked it full of holes. Tommy guns and termites could not hollow a core as brutally as a lost love.

  We two have run about the slopes and picked the daisies fine; but we’ve wandered many a weary foot since auld lang syne. We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine; but seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.

  29

  February 1937

  I didn’t know emptiness could be overwhelming until Cal left. With him gone, silence ceased to be a lack of sound, defined instead by the absence of his voice. I waded through white noise, appliances buzzing as my mind whispered endlessly about the enormity of my regret. If our landlord hadn’t required advanced payments, I would have found a new place to rent. I was too tormented by the memories of him to find any solace in the Cal-saturated space. Though I was alone, I moved like he was beside me, shifting in the bed to make room for his form, and fanning my fingers as if he would reach from California to intertwine his with mine. He was the warmth in every blanket and the softness in the sheets, the sweetness in a Snickers bar and laughter on the streets.

  I was consumed by thoughts of him, just as I had been years before, but the mystery surrounding him that had existed then wasn’t present anymore. I knew the placement of his veins and the threads of his DNA, the pattern of his freckles and every word he would say. For so long, I had wanted to learn him, to be educated in his psychology and research his philosophies. Becoming a scholar in Cal had made me a student in myself. While I was average at best, it was an achievement to care enough to open the book. Still, I lacked the motivation to focus on myself as much as I examined him. He was by far a more interesting subject. With Cal graduating to bigger and better things, all that was left to study was me, a course I was failing.

  Why when I surveyed myself did I always find my father? Why did collections containing each of his lectures line the bookshelves of my mind? Why had he written me in his image only to revise the rules for himself? Why didn’t I have the courage to edit my own story?

 
Everyone was moving forward while I remained behind, holding onto the pain of my past to protect myself from the promise of my future. I understood loss, I had been born into the immensity of it, but I didn’t understand why I felt compelled to continue to live within it. Perhaps I was a better fit for the fruitcake factory than Rosie had been. Shocked until I was numb, I would revisit the stasis I had existed in prior to loving Cal. The doctors would drain me of emotions, and I could function like I had when every day was gray, and life was simple. I would wake up, read a book, run a racket, drink some Club and turn in for the night. My greatest worries would be the Cubs, Vlad and survival, external variables that were easier to cope with than the internal maelstrom of feelings that had stirred in my system. Therapists would spend hours scrubbing my brain until I was more disgusted by thoughts of Cal than I was with myself for not following him. I would come home to pace the floor and perch on the foot of my bed. Rosie would be alive with Cal, and I would take his place instead.

  Sliding my wallet and cigarettes into the pockets of my pants, I responded to the knock on the door. For so long, I refrained from telling Maks where I lived, not wanting him to see evidence of our cohabitation and assume relations. Weeks after Cal left, I realized there was nothing keeping me from having my cousin come to my apartment, and though I would never admit it, I liked when Maks was around. He quieted the walls’ cries for Cal.

  “Are you going to go meet your nephew?” Maksim asked, patting me proudly on the back.

  “You act like I popped the kid out rather than Millie,” I groused, shaking his affectionate hand off.

  “Oh, be happy for once,” he chided as I followed him down the stairwell. I was happy once. “We’ll coo at the baby, smoke some cigars and get pissed on Smirnoff in celebration.”

  “I don’t coo.”

  “I’ll coo for you,” Maks offered. “I love babies.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I can’t wait to have eight of my own,” he added, “maybe ten if we start right after the wedding.”

  “Ingrid’s going to have to let you stick it in soon or you’ll be shit out of luck,” I taunted, lighting a fag while we plodded on snow-covered sidewalks toward the L.

  “Lovemaking will commence on the fourteenth of June, my cousin,” he reminded me excitedly.

  “Lovemaking,” I gagged. “Ugh. You’re off the cob.”

  “When’s the last time you relished in the touch of a woman? I can tell from your crankier-than-usual attitude that’s it’s been too long.” Maks had no idea.

  “Fuck off.”

  “I’m not going to call it ‘making whoopee’ when it’s making love to my future wife,” Maks continued, “and hopefully making a baby. I don’t want my baby made with whoopee, I want him made with love.”

  “Your non-existent child is already a boy?”

  “I think so. It feels that way to me. I’ve been working on trying to listen to my inner voice and trust what it says.”

  “Did it tell you that you’re a dingbat too? I think unless you can fact check its statements with shit you already know, you may not want to trust it completely.”

  “It tells me you’re a jerk, so I think we can consider it trustworthy,” he laughed, giving my scarf a tug.

  We rode the train the few stops to Igor and Millie’s Lakeshore Drive apartment. It was astounding how much Igor had changed over the last several years. I barely recognized my brother with his well-bred wife and corporate career. He’d gone from being a dingy tail-chaser to a husband and father right in front of my eyes, and I wondered how I had missed the signs that he’d been on the path to a traditional life for a very long time. Perhaps Igor never bought into my father’s motto the way I had because my brother hadn’t been looking for an excuse to shun women. Maybe my adherence to my father’s words was self-preservation rather than an attempt to please my old man. When it came down to it, I was the only idiot functioning under the ruse of not needing someone.

  As soon as we entered Igor’s apartment, we were greeted by Millie. She was three days postpartum, bright-eyed as ever and offering us a platter of deviled eggs. Sometimes I liked to imagine the perpetually poised woman losing her shit. I wanted to believe there were days when she threw vases against the wall of the living room and ranted like a banshee. Nobody could keep it together all the time, even if they were a professional at pretending.

  “My mother made them. They’re delicious,” Millie said as she waited for us to take a piece. “I also have ham wheels and potato puffs.”

  “Shouldn’t you be resting?” Maks asked as he grabbed an egg.

  “Rest is for the lazy,” she grinned. “How about a drink?”

  “We’re doing celebratory shots of Smirnoff,” Igor said as he walked into the foyer of their expansive apartment, son in hand.

  “I’ll go ahead and get them then,” Millie said. “Take a seat in the living room. I’ll bring them in.”

  We did as we were told and while Maks gazed at the baby, I glanced around the room, still finding it bananas that my brother lived in such a snazzy place. The windows were dressed with lace sheers to display the lake beyond their panes, and every other detail in the decor seemed to be chosen with a similar purpose; from the baby blue hue of the walls to the wave-like chrome sconces that adorned them, the apartment was serene.

  “Here you go,” Millie said, handing out shot glasses and receiving the baby from Igor.

  “To Paul,” Igor proposed.

  “And his mother,” Maks added, ever the charmer.

  “Na Zdorovie.”

  We clinked glasses and threw back the shots. I was tempted to ask for another but sank into the plush sofa instead.

  “You haven’t looked at him yet,” Igor admonished as I watched Maks fuss over Paul.

  “I did,” I lied. “You were too busy staring at him to see.”

  “Bushwa,” Igor tsked. “He doesn’t have teeth. He’s not going to bite.”

  I had never held a baby, and I didn’t intend to, but it seemed my sister-in-law had other ideas.

  “You should hold him, Viktor,” Millie suggested, walking over to me. “You are his godfather after all.” The new mother was regarding me more softly than she had in the past, which was unnerving in an indescribable way.

  “Godfather?” I scoffed, nudging my knuckle against my nostril uncomfortably. “What are we Italian now?”

  “Catholic,” Igor corrected. “At least Paul will be, once he’s baptized.”

  “A Catholic? His last name disagrees,” I joked, much to Millie and Igor’s chagrin.

  “Because it’s made us such good Orthodox Christians? Jews?” My brother laughed wryly. “People are who they’re raised to be. You should know that better than anyone.”

  “I know it,” I grunted, stiffening when Millie finally put the bundle of baby boy into my arms. “I don’t know what the fuck to do with him.”

  “Just sit there and look at him. Say he’s cute or something like that. Compliment him. You can pretend he actually knows what you’re saying, that’s what we do,” Igor suggested. “And don’t curse, he won’t know what a curse word is now, but we’re trying to set a precedent in our home that we’d like you to comply with.”

  Clearing my throat, I peered down at the little alien in my arms. Paul’s cheeks took up more than half his head and he had a smattering of blond hair on his dome. I could not relate to him in the least. Though I knew where babies came from, it was unbelievable that the one I was holding came from my brother.

  As I looked at my nephew’s peaceful face, I didn’t think about what most people probably would while watching a baby sleep. I wasn’t entranced by how sweet he was or how good he smelled, how cute or how small. The only thing I could focus on was the sorrow I felt for him that eclipsed it all. His parents had selfishly brought him into a world full of hatred and pain. His future would be full of heartbreak, loss, frustration, and disapproval and that was only the start. Maybe if he was really unlucky, Pa
ul would grow to be like me. He’d live his life afraid to be who he was, allowing people’s opinions to shape his opinion of himself. I’d always believed some humans were born bad, like the “gorilla man,” but suddenly, holding my nephew, I related more to Cal’s school of thought. Paul was born good and pure, I could feel it in my bones. It was the cruel world that would eventually shatter his susceptible soul, making him a monster, or worse yet, a victim.

  Without thought, I started to hum. The haunting melody, having been imprinted in my memory, easily seeped through my lips. Whispering the words my father sang to me, “Proschai-proschai, proschai-proschai i poskoree umirai, utrom podmorozit i ti otpravishsya na kladbische. Dedushka pridet i prineset grob. Babushka pridet i prineset pohoronnuyu odezhdu. Mat pridet i prochtet molitvu. Otec pridet i otneset tebya na kladbische,” all the while translating to English in my mind:

  Bye-bye, bye-bye, quickly die, on the morning will be frost. And you’ll go to the graveyard. Grandfather will come and will bring the coffin. Grandmother will come and will bring the grave clothes. Mother will come and will sing the prayer song. Father will come and will take you to the graveyard.

  “Viktor,” Igor barked, the harshness of his tone rousing the baby from his sleep. My brother ripped the wailing boy from my arms and growled, “Get out.”

  “What happened?” Millie cried, her face painted with panic. “What happened?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Igor hushed, shushing Paul as he bounced him, and attempting to console his wife.

  “You just screamed,” she shrieked. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing. You screamed at your brother. What did he do?” Millie turned to me. “What did you do, Viktor?”

  “I didn’t …” I began as Maks grasped my arm and yanked me hard. I hadn’t realized I had been doing anything more than breathing the sentiment, but from my family’s reaction I had been louder than expected.