Message of Love

by Jim Provenzano

  The three of us slept in a tangle of limbs until late the next morning, ordered breakfast in, and tried a few more variations in the bathroom, but our laughter and exhaustion from the previous night made it more playful than plow-ful.

  Nick rented a car, and we spent the next two days enjoying his guided tour of the Everglades, or at least the areas where the parkway cut through them.

  “No, take your shirts off, both of you!” Everett insisted as he aimed the camera. Nick and I complied, arms around each others’ shoulder, and smiled.

  Standing in front of a rather un-photogenic expanse of swamp by the side of the road, it didn’t matter. We were having fun.

  We kept hoping to spot an alligator, but saw mostly herons and other innocuous wildlife. While driving, Everett sat in front as I lounged in the back seat, enjoying their conversation and the radio music. While I was fascinated to be in a part of the country that resembled a prehistoric marshland, Everett made his restlessness clear.

  We spent another night together. Our passion was a bit more measured, and Everett ended up more watching Nick and I hump, rather than joining in, but I thought Everett was enjoying it. It was cool, or so I thought.

  At one point, while driving inland the next day, Nick offered to take us all the way to Key Largo for a day trip.

  “How far is it?”

  “About ninety miles.”

  Everett turned to me in the back seat, and for a moment, saw me staring almost lovingly at Nick, until I turned to him, as if caught. His face, already tanned from our days in the sun, seemed more serious.

  He then countered, somewhat abruptly, “I think Reid and I need to just spend some time together.”

  “Oh, sure. No problem,” Nick said casually.

  But after that, a silence followed, until Nick turned on the radio.

  That was the last day we spent with Nick, who was leaving in two days.

  Whether it was a royal palm or a silver palm I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to know, and getting samples of the leaves was easy enough. Everett sneered at my bagged collection as we packed at his insistence, even though it would be almost an hour before our taxi ride to the airport.

  “Really, you’re bringing palm tree samples.”

  “Extra credit on southern foliage,” I defended.

  “I mean, you could actually buy a few souvenirs. If you’re low, I could spot you.”

  “I don’t need another T-shirt.”

  We were both a little exhausted, and not just from the sun.

  Our hurried packing and the bumpy cab ride to the airport were mostly spent in silence.

  It wasn’t until we had settled into our seats on the plane that his resentment began to creep out.

  “Go ahead; order a drink. They’re not going to check your ID.”

  “No, thank you.” I shook my head at the stewardess after Everett ordered a cocktail. On our flight to Fort Lauderdale, Everett had instructed me on the basics of air flight with a bemused yet condescending tone. The fact that I’d never been on a plane amused him.

  But on our return trip, everything seemed to annoy him, particularly the flight staff’s insistence that he check his own wheelchair and board with one of their antiquated models.

  But the drink comment was a dig at my inability to count. I’d overspent during our first few days, and had to ask Everett to pay for our last few days’ meals and drinks.

  His snippy attitude sparked when we’d met Nick again, and he was understandably friendly. But when he hinted about a return engagement while patting my shoulder, my enthusiasm put Everett off. He declined abruptly, leaving me to apologize to Nick and bid him a confused farewell.

  “You might as well have jumped into his lap,” he’d griped.

  As Everett downed his drink, the plane veered higher into the clouds. We didn’t talk through the safety instructions or the beginning of the in-flight movie. It wasn’t until his earphone got tangled up in my armrest that he audibly stewed.

  “What?” I stared at him.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing. I’m sorry about the money, but you said you were going to–”

  “It isn’t about the money,” he snipped in a sort of growling whisper.

  “Then what is it?”

  He stared up at the small screen, then down, then at me. “You really enjoyed yourself.”

  “Yes, for the most part, until you–”

  “With Nick.”

  “Didn’t you? Remember, you were the one who–”

  “Fucking him. You never did it like that with me.”

  “You… you’re different. I thought we… You need a little more…preparation.”

  “Even before; those first few times, before the accident. You were never like that… I mean, wow, Reid. You were just slamming into him. You nearly knocked me off the bed.”

  “I’m sorry. He was just so…”

  “What? We used to fuck.”

  “I didn’t even know how back then, Ev. You might remember, I barely knew how to kiss you.”

  “But why…? Why can’t you be like that with me?”

  I blushed, looked to see if the people seated across from us were listening; headphones on all of them. I turned back to him, still keeping my voice low.

  “I’m afraid of hurting you. You can’t… You can’t feel it. It’s...”

  I couldn’t tell him what he already knew. For so long, what I thought had been his persistent preference, doing things to me, was fine; enough, it seemed. But when he was completely naked with me, I felt different, cautious, caring and loving. We had to be careful with positions, and his butt, once curved and inviting, was half gone.

  And the scar; that inverted, elongated T along his spine, took me back to his accident; holding his hand in a hospital room, his drowsy drugged smile, and later, his angry dismissal, which had kept us apart for months.

  “Fine. I get it.” He shoved his headphones back on and pretended to watch the movie.

  I should have ordered that drink.

  “Where are you going?”

  “For a drive; maybe back to scenic Amish country.”

  I sat stunned, watching him pluck summer shirts out of, then winter clothes into his backpack as his chair bumped into the opened drawer, then fumble as he attached it to the back of his chair.

  Exhausted from our trip, confused by his continued resentment, I hardly protested. “You can’t just–”

  “Just what? Go somewhere without your approval? Maybe I need a vacation after our vacation.”

  And then he took off. I heard the van outside rumbling to a start, and he was gone.

  The next few hours passed in a strange hollow silence. I didn’t eat, read or put on any music. Sitting on the bed, waiting, brushing my fingers over that damn green quilt, seemed enough, for a while.

  Then I grew restless, and wandered about the house. While the wood cabinets and furniture in the living room portrayed a feeling of comfort, I felt alien, reminded that we were merely temporary visitors in Mrs. Kukka’s home.

  While not exactly hungry, I glanced inside the refrigerator, as if waiting for some delicious meal to surprise me; a bag of carrots, a jar of mayonnaise, a nearly empty carton of milk. I thought to make a list of groceries, then wondered if I had enough money, or if I should even leave. What if Everett came back?

  Then I noticed the month’s rent check still attached to the fridge door by a magnet. Mrs. Kukka had once again forgotten to deposit it. Thinking that placing it someplace where she would see it as a good idea, I took it and crept up the stairs. I’d only briefly visited the upstairs a few times, and had merely stood in the hallway to ask her a question or have a brief chat about raked leaves and garbage cans.

  Creaking floorboards heightened the feeling of emptiness. But when I walked cautiously into the main room, I saw more small stacks of books, magazines and newspapers. Shelves full of trinkets from her and her deceased husband’s world travels intrigued me. I lightly touched a sm
all African sculpture.

  The closed office door to the room above our bedroom tempted me. Mrs. Kukka had never said we couldn’t go in there, and Everett had dismissed my offer to carry him upstairs for a peek when she had once invited us upstairs.

  It wasn’t locked, which calmed me. Inside the small room, at the center, a large cluttered desk sat amid more bookshelves. At each side were waist-high stacked cardboard boxes. I lifted the lid of one of them; files and papers, thick clusters of them, filled each box. The remnants of her husband’s teaching career, I wondered why she had kept them, then realized, why wouldn’t she? Was this what it would be like, to spend a life with a partner, then, after he died, salvage the scraps?

  Retreating downstairs, it seemed better to just remind her of the rent check later. I returned to our room and, in darkness, fell into a dense slow sleep.

  “H’lo..?”

  I dropped the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Reid.”

  “Ev?”

  “You need to come get me.”

  His voice cracked, almost pleading.

  “Ev? Where are you?”

  “The van broke down.”

  “Where are you?” I pressed.

  “On the expressway near...” His voice called out. I heard another man’s voice say it, then Everett repeat, “Exton. I’m at a gas station with an auto shop.”

  “What happened?”

  “I told you! The van broke down and somebody stopped and drove ahead to get a tow truck and…” Near tears over a spill he took getting out of the van, and some nasty exchange with the tow truck driver, he said he had money, but it would be hours before the van could be fixed.

  “Okay, just… Give me the number and the address. I’ll figure something out. I’ll call you back.”

  Mrs. Kukka had long since come home. I didn’t want to wake her, since she didn’t even have a car. Could I rent a car at night? Did I have enough money? I didn’t have a credit card. Who among our friends even had a car?

  And then I remembered. The only person we knew who wasn’t hundreds of miles away, and who had a car, was the last person I wanted involved in anything this personal, anything that proved we’d had a fight and this had been the result.

  “Hello?”

  “Gerard?”

  He had tried to convince me to just take his little VW Bug, even though I had no idea how to work a manual gearshift. When I explained to Gerard that the van would hopefully be repaired by the time we got to the garage, and that it would better that I just drive the van back separately, he sighed, coughed, yet agreed.

  “I really want to thank you for doing this.”

  “Please, forget it. Just take over the wheel if I pass out.” Gerard was just getting over the flu, and when his sputtering Volkswagon pulled up in front of our house, I was already outside, impatiently sitting on the tree stump at the curb.

  “Just let me drive back with Everett,” he said as we drove in the darkness against the string of headlights in the opposite lane.

  “Why?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not planning any ‘I told you so’ speeches. I just need someone with me so I stay awake.”

  “Okay.”

  I could drive back alone. I pored over the scribbled directions, frustrated that our road maps were all in the glove compartment of the van. But Gerard seemed to know where we were going, even in the dark.

  He didn’t ask, but after a long silence, I just spilled it out.

  “We had a little… Stuff happened in Florida. It was totally unexpected, and it got all intense, and I think Ev just got upset, like, after it, and he just took off.”

  Gerard nodded his head, then offered, “You’ll work it out.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You’d better.”

  The nervous hug I offered Everett led to some whispered apologies, which were interrupted by the mechanic telling us he had the parts he’d need, so it would be a few hours, but not overnight. He recommended a Denny’s across the intersection.

  Keeping a wary eye on Everett, I searched for that panicked tone from his voice on the phone, but he laughed it off in Gerard’s presence.

  “The stupid tow truck guy could not comprehend that ‘a crippled guy’ like me could drive a van,” Everett said. “He kept trying to blame the adjustment gears, but the garage mechanic told him that wasn’t the problem.” He shook his head, still astounded by such ignorance. I knew he’d been hurt by the man’s comments, but brushed it off in front of Gerard.

  Once we’d gotten our food, we all cheered up. Gerard started off telling some French joke, until Everett replied, but then waved off Gerard’s reply.

  “I’m switching to Spanish.”

  “Pourquoi, mon coeur?”

  “Well,” he perked up, or impersonated perking up quite well. “Since it’ll be a while before I’m a dashing worldly diplomat, I figured I’ll probably start off in social services, and maybe… an urban version of the camps where we worked?”

  “That is a swingin’ idea, Monkey,” I joked.

  Gerard faux-sulked. “Well, I guess I must oublier sons lessiones.” He shifted to a play-by-play account of his near front row view of a recent Todd Rundgren concert.

  From behind his milkshake and cheeseburger, I caught a sheepish grin and Everett’s glance at me, a moment when his cheerful mask slipped, and his eyes softened under a bashful eyebrow furl.

  ‘Thank you,’ he silently said.

  We finally got home around two in the morning. Gerard’s VW pulled in a few minutes before I did in the van.

  “So,” I said after we’d bid Gerard an exhausted and thankful goodnight, and we settled under our heavy quilt. “What was all that?”

  “What was what?”

  “Come on. Why you took off. Were you upset? It was Nick, right?”

  “It wasn’t just him.” Everett fussed with the quilt, gazed down, almost ashamed. “It was… I thought we could just have fun.”

  “Well, it was fun.”

  “No, I mean, fun without … without caring. And I felt like you were getting too close.”

  “Yeah, it was pretty intense.”

  “And I just got afraid.”

  “Well, don’t be. Nick’s back on Lone Guyland,” I joked. “And I’m here. And you’re here.”

  I wrapped him in my arms, dotted his face with smooches, and we held each other, and finally settled to a quiet exhausted sleep. It became unspoken, our fight, and by proxy, the entire incident. We told no one else about it, and Gerard promised to keep it entre nous.

  Chapter 28

  April 1982

  Although he said it would be part of some special project for one of his classes, I knew the reason why Everett had invited so many of his and my friends to participate in an accessibility protest. He had experienced discrimination firsthand, and it hurt.

  Mrs. Kukka delighted in welcoming our guests into her home. Devon, Marlene, and three of Everett’s basketball teammates were those who used wheelchairs, and Mrs. Kukka supervised as I moved some furniture out of the way, then prepared a tray of sandwiches and sodas.

  “We should sneak a ramp up Independence Hall,” suggested Gary, who had been part of a few demonstrations years earlier. Arranged in a loose circle, we listened to his experiences, and others made suggestions. Although the Penn campus was a worthy target, the fact that Everett, Jacob and his new girlfriend were the only students there, and Everett the only disabled student, made it a moot point.

  “What if we get arrested?” asked Marlene in a somewhat fretful tone.

  “Then we should get lawyers,” Everett countered. “Let’s think local. Campus cops are slower. They wouldn’t attack us, would they?”

  “Isn’t the mall part of the Parks Department?” Jacob stood, leaning against a wall, his girlfriend nearby.

  “What, no police?” asked Devon.

  “No, just park rangers and tour guides.”

  “Park rangers?” Gary said in a m
ocking tone.

  Somebody snorted. A few others laughed. I turned beet red, but said nothing. The debate took place around me.

  Everett looked up and saw my silent glare. Mrs. Kukka’s living room amazingly fit everyone. It was as if the room felt larger. But the laughter echoed.

  I gestured to him with a shrug. “I’m gonna step outside.”

  But no. He had to do it, play peacemaker. He had to defend me while getting us wrapped up in his most heroic dare yet.

  “Let me tell them.”

  “No.

  “Please.”

  “Whatever.” I stood back.

  “Excuse me. Everyone? I think you’ve met Reid. He’s… he’s my boyfriend, and he’s worked as a park ranger, and they are the most wonderful people.” He sniffed. “And they will give us trouble if we don’t think this through. So don’t laugh, okay?”

  “Sorry ‘bout that,” Gary said.

  I nodded.

  There was a pause after Everett’s thanks. I was certainly touched, but his emotion felt a bit polished. This trait would become clearer as I attended the public functions where he, his mother, his professors, everyone at Penn, it seemed, who connected him to an opportunity, provided a situation where he needed to perform.

  Yet here he was, ringleader-apparent for a half dozen people, mostly in chairs, ready to bite a slothful bureaucracy on the ass with an accessibility protest.

  The agenda seemed to have been forgotten, some other announcements were made, but in a pause, Jacob said to me, loud enough for others to hear, “So, Reid. You still have a uniform?”

  That time, I was the one laughing.

  The decided target became an administration branch of City Hall. I held off my concerns until everyone had left.

  “Ev. I could lose my summer job, get banned or something.”

  “Look; technically you were an employee, so you’re not impersonating an officer, or ranger. You were on the payroll.”