Hide Fox, and All After

by Rafael Yglesias

  "What number?" Raul asked.

  "The door number!" she said, surprised he didn't know. "Where were you? What the fuck were you doing?"

  "We were just listening to music. We must have had it on too loud," Alec said.

  "Oh," she said, and fell silent.

  Neither Alec nor Raul responded to anything. Raul was lost in another world and looked blankly on this one. Alec was deep in thought; troubled, his face looked severe. Barbara was slowly calming after feeling paranoid and lost. They walked the rest of the way in silence, remaining so until they reached the apartment.

  Alec turned the stereo on, lighting another joint. Barbara did not wish to smoke, saying she didn't like grass. Alec sat apart, by his desk. Raul sat on the bed in front of the lava lamp. Barbara sat near him. She slowly began to weave a story. Depressed, anguished, she spoke of how she had overheard, when she was young, her father saying, "I don't love her." Beginning to cry, she repeated the phrase over and over. Echoing deep within Raul was the thought that this was bullshit; but he felt a great compassion for her.

  "I think," he said quietly, "that you are reveling in dramatic self-pity."

  "Yes," Alec agreed.

  She quieted after that, grew suddenly very calm. Alec continued to be distant. Barbara, more and more, was speaking to Raul, who was moved by what she said.

  Because of the mescaline, she explained, her fingers were hurting her. They were cramped. She complained of them more than once. She said she wanted something to hold onto. Raul had been thinking about her story. It would make a good short story, he thought. This whole evening would—it's been strange. Rather absently and very stoned, he made his left hand into a fist, offering it to her. She put her right hand out, Raul placing his fist in it.

  He was thinking intensely, lost in a maze of plots and counterplots. The warm flesh yielded to him. It seemed to be merging with his own. Suddenly, except for his left arm, his body went numb. An abstract was flowing throughout that arm, concentrating in his hand, and flowing to hers. His fist moved, slowly, back and forth. She was responding to it. The room was totally silent. "Flesh into flesh," Raul murmured. He realized its sexuality. He withdrew his hand.

  "No," Raul said quietly to no one.

  Barbara looked up at him with wondering eyes.

  "What was that?" she asked.

  Alec leaned forward. "Yes. What was that?"

  "I believe," Raul said coldly, "that it was symbolic of the sexual act."

  Barbara sat forward attentively. "Yes, but what did it mean?"

  Raul stared into Alec's eyes as he spoke. "Nothing. It merely involved translating an emotion into a symbolic act. Not an emotion toward a specific person, just an abstract generalization of one. One might say," he smiled thinly, "that it was concentrated sexual frustration."

  "But, Raul," Alec said, "that means, within, you do want to go to bed with someone."

  Raul laughed frankly. "Of course I do! Of course." He chuckled to himself. "But that's not the point. It was just an experiment. I was testing whether my theories on grass are correct or not."

  Alec and Raul stared at each other. The world centered, for them, between their eyes, the earth fast disappearing beneath them.

  Barbara broke this by getting up and leaving. She seemed, her head bowed, a light, running step, to be weeping.

  They deflated, shocked. "What'd we do?" Alec asked, with a child's look.

  "I believe," Raul said quietly, "that my cold speech, refuting something strange and beautiful, was painful to hear."

  They talked the rest of the night, sleeping toward dawn. Carefully Raul had babied Alec through it: assuring him that it was nothing, saving his ego. It's settled, Raul thought, finally sleeping. Thank God it's over. We'll never see her again.

  Danger had been averted only slightly—how could you have slipped like that? Raul chided himself. How silly of you.

  He was sleeping on the floor, as he usually did. Fully clothed, he looked uncomfortable. Alec kicked him. Raul woke and looked up. Barbara and Alec were sitting on the bed.

  Surprised, he reached for a cigarette, mumbled good morning, and asked, "What are you doing here?"

  She smiled pleasantly. "I was staying nearby, so I came back." She bowed her head. "I was upset last night."

  Raul stood up. Alec moved toward the door, asking, in an unfamiliar voice, "Raul, Barbara, would you like some coffee?"

  "I would," Raul said.

  "No, thank you," Barbara said.

  Like a weird dream, Raul invited her to his house, lying to Alec about his motives. But they were unclear —vaguely, this was a chance to lose his virginity. Why? Later, it seemed as if, madly, he had set this up. Against every logical consequence, something or someone in him acted to his and Alec's worst interest.

  He wasn't himself. Smiling boyishly, he led the characters about. Alec off, suspiciously, to work on the stage crew, Barbara going to his house. He watched himself: the silly grin, the boyish glee as he led events on.

  Why? Again, against every personal rule, he didn't question her motives. She was functioning as a symbol —the personification of an abstract.

  Stupidly, foolishly, he placed some measure of trust in her. Why? Why had he given up his power? How far he fell, how easily he became the frightened virgin.

  He pleaded with her, miserably, using all his tricks of language, to fuck, never asking outright. Cringing fool, whining worm. She looked complacently at him while he said all this. A pouting, fat face, he thought, a benign moronic expression. He hated her for allowing his humiliation.

  They necked—as a consolation, he thought. His body, soul, whined like a crushed, dying insect. Alec called. Where was he? He said he'd be at the theater. Was Barbara there? Yes.

  He was his friend, Alec said, hanging up. How could he be so treacherous?

  After Barbara left, Raul looked fearfully at his capricious acts. He'd lose Alec for an uncomfortable bitch without even the promise of fucking.

  He felt lost in a maze of possibilities. How to exploit them? How to act? No, he wouldn't be willing to give up the chance of sex, despite the animalistic overtones. Yet beyond that, over something so foolish, he would not abandon the glory of art with Alec. The two, it seemed to him, had to be resolved. Alec would surely not be so obstinate: there were hundreds he could fuck.

  10

  For four days Alec successfully and impossibly avoided meeting Raul. Raid repeatedly phoned his house, searched for him about the theater, watched with nervous and anguished eyes out of Mike & Gino's, but he was nowhere to be found.

  Alec was staying with Richard, therefore he couldn't be caught at home. He left the theater early, before Raul was let out of class, and ran past Mike & Gino's, taking care never to go in. His ego was outraged. He's on my hunting ground, he thought, and cannot win.

  Raul was bewildered and lost. Deserted, he felt wounded and looked about the world with pitiful eyes. It seemed to scorn him as frivolous, as if he had capriciously toyed with a sacred idol.

  His feelings toward Barbara grew in anxiety. He hadn't digested her character: she could be playing any number of games. To allow an invasion of his solitude that would ridicule him made him writhe with the strangest, twisted hate. He had never trusted any human: if they were not false to themselves, they were false to another. He didn't love her, like her, or even gently admire her: she was repulsive to him.

  But the promise of a body, of a release from his icy, frail virginity, was too inviting. He paused, filled with self-disgust, writing his notes. All he could record, his pen limply poised, were two sentences: lose the actor to the minor cunt; intellectualism reels, drunk, to carnal games. .

  He mentally saw himself as jester, pitiably trying to amuse this fat, pouting queen's face. Alone, he was riddled with disgust, and he surrounded himself with media, to drown with mindlessness his castigating thoughts.

  She couldn't go to bed with him, she said, while she was having her period. In any case, she had no pills.
It would be silly for him to use a prophylactic: it wasn't a real fuck.

  Transparent lies, but his mind blocked them out. His knowledge of human nature turned against him: he tempted what others mildly disliked in him, heightening their distaste. Routine caution with lies was dropped as he made himself more vulnerable.

  He returned home on the fourth day, frightened that he really might not see Alec again. The dreary, exhausting day of school, Barbara, Alec, and his self-hate overcame him. He fell on his bed, weeping; clawing in witless, impotent fury at his pillow.

  "Galvanize yourself," he whispered. He tried calling Alec, knowing it to be futile. But Alec answered.

  "Ah," Raul said, "so I have finally reached you."

  "I was staying at Richard's."

  "I see. Your mother didn't give you my messages?"

  "No, no. She didn't."

  Raul laughed mildly. "Don't be angry, Alec."

  "I shouldn't, eh?"

  "No."

  "You want forgiveness? I can't. I will never forgive you for this."

  "Forgive me for what?" Raul shrieked. "For what? What the fuck did I do wrong?"

  "Come on, Raul, you know what you did."

  "What? You think I intentionally took her away from you?"

  "Something like that, yes."

  Raul sighed. "All right. Look, I don't wanna talk about it over the phone. Can you meet me at the Castle before rehearsal?"

  Pause. "I'll meet you in front of the theater after school."

  "However you want to say it."

  Raul arranged to meet Barbara at five, so he had an hour, if he talked Alec into being late for rehearsal, to speak to him. This day passed more quickly, more painlessly, than others: the preoccupation of his mind blurred the boredom.

  It was a beautiful, mild spring day, the kind of weather that suited the campus. The calm in the air and the tension within him contrasted sweetly. That fundamental knowledge he always had, but that seemed lost lately, returned. There was a consciousness in the light breezes and in the sorrow he felt that above all this something more precious was to be sought. Often he ironically called this the knowledge of his destiny.

  His perspective returned. Alec's anger was a furious little boy's; Raul indulged in a terribly human desire. He laughed at him for being childish. How far off he, Raul, had strayed: all that had happened was off the point. The afternoon was only a matter of appeasement.

  His quiet smiles came back; the whimsical, confident Raul gave him his objectivity, and his security returned. His camera hovered above him, and like a movie four o'clock came. The great mouth of the school opened and poured out its students; Raul filtered out with this loud mass. He was up the steps, and the rhythm of movement that carried him there halted abruptly as his and Alec's eyes met.

  The world centered between them, as students hurried about, hollering trivia. They said nothing but turned aside, walking away from the school. They walked silently until the noise of the school receded to nothing behind them.

  The low whispering of the leaves, the clear, gentle air made Raul content to say nothing. They lit cigarettes, Alec offering his lighter to Raul. Alec asked, "Okay. What is it?"

  Raul sighed. "Look. Let me speak. Don't interrupt. I want to explain."

  "Okay."

  "I was very stoned that night, and all that nonsense Barbara told me about her father moved me. I don't know if it was pity or compassion—that doesn't matter, though." He paused. "And when she complained about her fingers, it just seemed natural, you know…"

  Alec hissed in dissatisfaction. Raul looked at him, surprised. "What?"

  "I don't wanna hear that you were stoned. That's a lousy excuse."

  "What d'ya mean that's a lousy excuse? Come on, man, weren't you stoned?"

  "I'm not saying you weren't stoned. I'm saying… Raul, you and I both know that being stoned doesn't eliminate knowing right from wrong."

  Raul smiled at Alec's sarcasm. "I can't plead not guilty because of insanity, is that it?" Raul asked, laughing.

  Alec said nothing. His face tightened because of his annoyance at Raul's laughter.

  Raul quieted under Alec's displeasure. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to laugh." They walked on. "So what is it you intend to do?" Raul asked finally. "Not see me any more?"

  "No, not that," Alec said softly. "I'll see you, but it will never be the same. I trusted you. I trusted you more than any other person, and you've betrayed me. There's a wall between us from this, and it will never come down."

  Raul blanched at the clichés but was confused by the sincerity of his tone. Could he be serious with that nonsense? Suddenly Raul became amazingly annoyed; he was surprised at the rush of emotion. Is Alec seriously going to break this relationship with a pack of clichés? If one were to drop all pretense of modesty, this relationship is based on Art and Immortality. And this is what he's sacrificing it to?

  They walked on, Raul thinking. The silence that followed Alec's speech gave it more weight. The air was heavy, and Raul discovered a mounting anger at the soap-opera tone. Suddenly he turned, facing Alec, and said, "What a bunch of bullshit! That's real wholesome crap."

  The incongruity struck them both. The scene was hilarious: Alec speaking solemnly, Raul, apparently moved, walks on thinking, turns suddenly and screams it's bullshit. Viewed peripherally, it was hysterical. And their eyes began to laugh, but Alec's quickly changed. I will not be seduced, they said.

  "Okay," Alec said quietly. "Fine."

  Raul sighed. "Look, it's crazy. What the hell are you angry about?"

  Alec's eyes met Raul's with equanimity. "All right, I'll tell you," he said calmly. "I don't like your using my house, my grass, pretending to be doing it for me, for a seduction."

  "What!" Raul shrieked. "Do you think I intentionally invited her there to seduce her?"

  Alec nodded.

  "You're outta your fuckin' mind, do you know that?" he yelled. "You're sick!"

  "That's possible."

  "That's possible," Raul mimicked. "That's possible. Your sarcasm's really cute. I appreciate it."

  "So is yours."

  "Look, Alec, it just happened. Really, it just happened. I don't care whether or not you believe I was too stoned to know better, but I didn't, I swear to hell I didn't, invite her there for me."

  "Okay."

  "You don't believe me?"

  "It doesn't matter whether I do or not, what you did was still wrong."

  Raul sighed again.

  "Look," Alec said, "at least you didn't have to do it while I was there."

  "Alec, I didn't know what I was doing."

  "And then did you have to lie like that? I mean, you must have thought I was an idiot. You wanted material for a short story, that's why you wanted to take her to your house."

  Raul blushed to his soul. "I kinda thought it was." He laughed. "Believe it or not."

  Alec looked Raul full in the face. "Why did you lie like that?"

  Raul looked away from him. "I don't know why," he said. "I was embarrassed or something. I don't know. I was confused. I really didn't know what I was doing."

  Alec looked away.

  Raul strained under the futility of his words. In any argument between two people who are close, an unlikely explanation is enough. One acts as if one is terribly weak, receives a lecture and forgiveness. Somehow he couldn't do it; he wasn't organizing his words correctly. How could he? He really had acted unconsciously, and what he had done was not that awful.

  "What do you want from me, Alec? I'm sorry, I really am. It happened, what can I say? I'm sorry, but what could I do? And what are you so angry about? I mean, I didn't plan it. So you can't be angry about that. Look, I'm sorry, Alec. It was silly of me, but it happened."

  "That's not enough," Alec said.

  Raul pleaded, yelled, reasoned, with no result. Alec's opposition was unreasonable; it seemed that he wished the relationship over. Could it have meant so little to him? Slowly Raul lost his confidence. He was
frightened: it would really end. He was running scared now, his hysterical pleading only making Alec more distant. He knew that his haste was working against him. He had to stop and think.

  They were both late for their appointments. They began walking back. There's only one way, Raul thought. Find out his real anger. Only ego commands such outrage, he thought.

  It dawned on him.

  His confidence returned as it became clear. Why hadn't he thought of it before? Incredible as it was, Alec didn't like Raul, that virgin, winning from him, number one seducer, a girl.

  Raul could barely contain his laughter. It was all so clear now. He was on top of it. What he had to do was obvious.

  "You know," he said to Alec, "we didn't go to bed."

  Alec's head jerked slightly. "You didn't?"

  "No, I'm too much of a clutz." He laughed. "It's so funny. Here I am losing you, for what? For what?"

  "Exactly the way I feel. Was it worth it, Raul?"

  "No."

  They walked on in silence. Then Raul said, "What you've been saying to me is that it's either her or you right?"

  Alec looked at him, surprised. "Well, I can't see you if you're seeing her, I…"

  "I understand." Raul felt in control now, knowing what Alec wanted. "Alec or Barbara, Raul has to choose."

  "It's crazy for you to give her up, Raul. I just can't keep seeing you…"

  "Why is it crazy for me to give her up? What the hell good is she doing me?" Raul roared with laughter. He exulted with victory. His mistake wouldn't cost him after all.

  They stopped by a high wall that looked down into the theater's courtyard. Alec watched Raul, considering. Both of them were breaking out into smiles. They knew what each was doing, and the consciousness made them play the farce with more glee. .

  They looked at one another, smiling. They captured themselves with the joy their faces expressed. Barbara, Raul being late, drove by in her car. She stopped a hundred yards away. Raul pointed to her, laughing. Alec turned around, looking at Raul to see what he would do. Raul didn't move, and Barbara drove away.