Redirection

by Gregory Ashe

  “My dick does not have a—no.” North shook his head. “I’m not doing this.”

  “Prove it,” Truck said.

  North’s eyes narrowed.

  “It would be pretty easy to prove,” Shaw said.

  “You’re supposed to be watching the grill,” North snapped, “not encouraging my Peeping Tom employees who keep trying to walk in on me when I’m taking a shower.”

  “Right,” Shaw said, eyeing the grill, which seemed smokier than he remembered. “The grill.”

  “God damn it,” North said as he marched toward the Weber kettle, fanning the air in front of him.

  “He might have been casing the place,” Zion said. He had a voice like someone stirring honey into scotch. “That kid.”

  “He wasn’t,” Pari said. “He just needed to use the bathroom, and since Shaw’s going to fire me for offering him the milk of human kindness—”

  “You gave him my yak’s milk? Pari, I was saving that.”

  Pari rolled her eyes, leaned into Truck’s chest, and whispered something in hir ear that made Truck laugh.

  “You’d be such a great mom, and I could definitely put a baby in you,” Truck said when hir laughter had faded. Pari blushed and hid her face against Truck’s neck. “I’ll put the best baby in you.”

  Jethro Tull was singing about sandcastle virtues. At the edge of the fairy lights, the deep blue haze of dusk swallowed up the last of the day’s long shadows.

  “Are you really thinking about kids?” Jadon asked in the same tone he had used when he had asked Shaw if he was really planning on building a Mayan pyramid out of shoeboxes.

  “Not seriously,” Pari said, blushing even darker.

  “Yes,” Truck said at the same time.

  “I mean, maybe,” Pari said. She stroked Truck’s chest. “When it feels right.”

  “We are,” Breezi announced from the deck. Nita said something quiet, and Breezi shrugged and repeated, “We are. We’re just looking for the right donor.”

  Shaw’s gaze slid to Nita, who brushed something invisible from her shoulder and said, “We’re talking seriously about children, yes.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Shaw said. “I’m going to do their natal charts, and I’ll get them warding crystals, and if they’re boys all teach them all sorts of manly things like how to shave and be feminists and chop firewood.”

  At the grill, North made a noise.

  “Do you have something to say?”

  “Just thinking about that apology shrine to a dead tree branch that took up all the walkable space in our bedroom for a month.”

  “What the hell is an apology shrine?” Breezi asked.

  “What does it sound like?”

  “It’s not an apology shrine to the branch,” Shaw clarified. “It’s an apology shrine to the boxwood whose branch I broke. The branch is the memorial part, that’s all.”

  “I came home, and he was curled up on the couch with the branch, crying. He’d gone through an entire box of tissues. So if that’s the guy you want teaching your kids to chop firewood, good fucking luck.”

  “North!”

  North shrugged and flipped a burger. He looked up for an instant, a smile in his ice-rim eyes, and his lips quirked into a kiss before he went back to the grill.

  “I think we should all take a moment,” Shaw announced, “to share with North how his toxic masculinity has affected us personally. I’ll go first: sometimes I can’t put my shoes on the shoe tray because his boots take up all the room.”

  “That was your opening move,” Jadon muttered. “The shoe tray.”

  “My boots aren’t the problem,” North said. “The problem is that you have nine pairs of ladies’ saddle shoes piled up on the tray because you were determined to perfect what you called your ‘one-man, intersectional retelling’ of Grease, only for some fucking reason, you think it actually involves grease, so you kept ruining new shoes and piling them up, and you keep telling yourself that Sandy wears saddle shoes, which she definitely does not.”

  “I keep telling you that Danny Zuko should have worn saddle shoes, but you don’t listen.”

  “He’s coveting my tool chest,” Breezi shouted. When everyone looked at her, she turned redder than usual and mumbled, “Nita said Shaw said he’s having sex dreams about it.”

  “What in the name of fuck—” North began.

  “Hello?” The woman stood at the gate. She had light brown skin, glossy hair that spilled to her shoulders, and burnt-sugar eyes. Her blush-colored wrap dress was pinned right below her breasts. Her substantial breasts. Her mostly exposed, substantial breasts.

  “Cassidy didn’t have a sex dream about your tool chest,” Shaw said. “He had a dream about your tool chest and definitely some morning wood, but I can’t prove they were related.”

  “Who’s Cassidy?” Jadon asked.

  Zion laughed so hard he had to clutch Jadon’s arm to hold himself up.

  “Thin ice, motherfucker,” North said, leveling the barbeque turner at Shaw.

  “What’s the joke?” Jadon was grinning at Zion. “Why’s he calling North Cassidy?”

  “Oh my God,” Zion wheezed. “Oh my God.”

  “Don’t worry about it, dumbass,” North said.

  “Hello? I’m sorry. Hi? Hello?” The woman had taken a few more steps into the backyard.

  “Go on and laugh about it,” North said, waving the turner ferociously at Shaw. “I hope you’re enjoying this, because that was the last time I tell you anything about myself. Ever.”

  “North, no,” Shaw wailed, “you still haven’t finished telling me about your first kiss when you frenched your neighbor’s Schnauzer.”

  “That’s it,” North said, “everybody go home. Party’s over. I’m going to murder my boyfriend and spend the rest of my life happy and alone.”

  “Alone with your tool chests,” Nita murmured, and Breezi burst into fresh laughter.

  “Bunch of treacherous, ungrateful, backstabbing—”

  “I’m looking for North McKinney,” the woman shouted.

  “Jesus Christ, lady. Can’t you see what I’m fucking dealing with here?”

  “You’re Mr. McKinney?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Belia Lopez, Channel 6 News Team. I’d like to talk to you about your husband. He said you’d want to comment on the story I’m interviewing him for.”

  North stared at her for a minute. Then he slammed the lid on the Weber and marched into the house. Ash and cinders spun up in a cloud, red, then black, then gone. The kettle’s metallic clang reverberated for a moment, competing with Jethro Tull, who was asking one more time to be spun back down the years. Then the music on the Bluetooth speaker cut off. Inside the house, a door slammed shut. The puppy leaped out of Pari’s arms and began barking wildly.

  “I think we should probably call it a night,” Shaw said quietly.

  Chapter 2

  “DO YOU WANT me to tell her to go away?”

  Their bedroom was dark, and it smelled like sweet smoke and North’s sweat, still with the tang of sex from the afternoon, when North had braced him against the wall after his shower. The puppy squirmed in Shaw’s arms, eager to get down. North’s breathing was rapid and slightly frayed, but his laugh was solid, and his voice passed for steady when he said, “Pretty good coping skills, right? I run away as soon as someone brings up Tucker. God, teenagers handle their shit better than this.”

  “If you need time alone, you know that’s always fine. Knowing when you need time to gather yourself is an important skill, North. She barged in, wanting to talk about some of the worst stuff in your life; there’s no reason you shouldn’t have needed some time to process that.”

  Nothing more than shadows on the bed, North brought a hand up to his eyes.

  “Do you want me to tell her—”

  “No, I’ll do it.”

  Neither of them moved. The puppy scrambled down
from Shaw’s arms and clicked across the boards, and North rolled onto his side and swept the little Löwchen up onto the mattress. Shaw moved to sit at the foot of the bed. His hand found North’s leg, the calf muscle hot and tight under his touch. He ran his fingers through the coarse blond hair.

  “Why can’t he leave me the fuck alone?”

  Shaw knew why. Some of it, anyway. He knew it in that place inside himself, the green-black waters under the frozen crust of consciousness, but not in a way he could put into words. All he could do was stroke North’s leg and say, “I’ll tell her to leave.”

  “No.” North sat up, kissed the puppy, kissed Shaw, and repeated, “I’ll do it.”

  “You taste like that when I come home sometimes. Do you kiss the dog all day while I’m gone?”

  North swung his legs off the mattress.

  “If I’ve got a competitor, I have a right to know.”

  North made a disgusted noise.

  “If you get a furball from licking him too much, I’m not taking you to the vet.”

  The middle finger waved a lazy goodbye as North padded toward the door.

  She was in the living room, pulling her hair over one shoulder, head turned to study the pictures on the wall. A thin layer of sweat glistened on her nape. The blush-colored wrap was darker where it was glued to the small of her back.

  “How the fuck did you get in here?” North asked.

  “The door was open.” She was still studying the pictures. North and Shaw at the Lake of the Ozarks. Swimsuits, sunscreen, Shaw leaning into the plumb line of North’s body. North and Shaw at Gulf Shores, the waters tropically blue, the sand white and crusted with salt, the palmetto-thatch hut where they served drinks so cold that Shaw’s hand had ached around them. North and Shaw when they were kids, really barely more than kids, sitting on the quad of Chouteau College at dusk, North’s arm loose across Shaw’s shoulders. The picture had been taking from behind, at an angle, capturing them in profile. Whatever they were looking at was lost. Who had taken that picture? Percy? Rufus? Tucker seemed like an oddly strong possibility.

  Turning, the woman took them in with an avid gaze. “I came in because the alternative was stand outside by myself. Your friends left. The Indian girl would have clawed my eyes out if her boyfriend hadn’t carried her off.”

  “Datemate,” North said flatly.

  Belia gave a one-shouldered shrug and a smile that didn’t touch the hunger in her eyes.

  “You know, you really shouldn’t go inside someone else’s house without being invited,” Shaw said. “North is always telling me that. One time, he made me dress up in this really awful disguise, and I had to go door to door, and then I met Lola, and she wanted me to come in for tea because I looked like her grandson, and I said, ‘Really? He dresses like a clown too?’ and Lola and I really got into the weeds about that because she didn’t think there was anything wrong with the clothes, and—”

  “A polo and khakis are not clown clothes,” North said. “Have you ever even seen a clown?”

  “Once, when I had that psychic transmigration to the Chicago World’s Fair, and—”

  “And that old lady tried to push you down a flight of stairs because you immediately ruined your cover. She was going to club you to death and bury you in the flower beds.”

  “She took advantage of me!” Shaw flashed a reassuring smile at Belia. “Not of my body, I mean.”

  “Yes, of your body. She pushed you down a fucking flight of stairs.”

  “But I want her to know that it wasn’t sexual. She didn’t take advantage of me sexually.”

  “She didn’t think Lola took advantage of you sexually. Nobody thought that. Nobody would ever think that. That was back when you were a dried-up virgin, anyway. God. Better times.”

  “Ok, now that’s really rude, because just this afternoon when someone came out of the shower with his wang like a flagpole—”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have all night,” Belia said.

  “It’s not a long story,” Shaw said. “Actually, that’s a separate issue. Staying power isn’t exactly his strong suit. Sure, there’s a whole Mount Vesuvius situation at the end, but sometimes a guy likes the buildup to last longer than just being bitten on the back of the neck—”

  “Will you shut up?” North gritted out.

  “She asked to hear my story about Lola.”

  “No. She didn’t.”

  “Oh.” Shaw rubbed his nose. “Then why am I telling it?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody fucking knows.”

  “Because Lola invited me inside!” A triumphant finger in the air, Shaw added, “And you should never go inside a stranger’s house without being invited.”

  “Do you need him at the newsroom?” North asked. “He can be your coffee bitch. Or if the guys are horny, he can be their butt bitch. Or any kind of bitch, really, as long as he’s no longer under this roof and driving me out of my fucking mind.”

  “First of all, bitch is an offensive word. Unless it’s been reclaimed? Has it been reclaimed, Belia?”

  Belia stared at them.

  “And second of all, you know I wrote seventeen pages of field notes on the ethology of the coffee bitch, so I’d be really good at that job. And third of all, it wouldn’t be just the guys, North. Pegging is an empowering sexual experience that dozens of women every year—”

  “Who the fuck are you, lady? And why the fuck haven’t you gotten out of my house yet?”

  “Belia Lopez. Channel Six News Team.” She handed him a card.

  “You already said that. If that’s all you’ve got, then get the fuck out. Next time, I’ll call the police on you for trespassing.”

  “As I said, I’ve been talking to your husband for a story that I’m working on. He suggested that you would like to comment on it.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “I would,” Shaw offered.

  “And Tucker’s not my husband. He’s my ex-husband. Get your fucking facts straight.”

  “My apologies,” she murmured coolly. She eyed them for a moment. The air conditioner kicked on again, stirring the muggy air. “I’d love to do a joint interview.”

  “Oh, we’re really good at those,” Shaw said. “One time the guy interviewing us got so excited he ran out of the room.”

  “He ran out of the room at minute twenty-nine of Dong Bait, subtitle, The Shaw Aldrich Story, sub-subtitle The Virgin Years.”

  “I meant you and your husband.” Another cool smile. “Ex-husband.”

  North’s laugh was jagged. “You’re kidding.”

  “He’s telling an exceptional story.”

  “He was always good at that. I believed the golf ones until I started finding other guys’ underwear in our bed.”

  “He says he’s been framed for the assault on Mr. Aldrich. He claims that there’s a criminal syndicate in the city and that you, your father, and your agency, even the reclusive and fabulously wealthy Aldrich family are all tied up in it.”

  After a few slow, deep breaths, North said, “Get out of our house.”

  “My credentials are excellent. I’d handle your story fairly. If you’re not familiar with my work, watch Channel Six tonight. You’ll see my piece about the alleged cop killer, Darold Smith. I’m the only one who found where he’d been hiding, and we’re doing an exclusive.” Belia smiled. She had perfect, television teeth. “Watch tonight and see. I bet I’ll find the gun he used before the police do.”

  “No.”

  “I’m doing this story with or without you.”

  “And you’ll get a fucking slander suit slapped on you so hard you won’t know your tits from your ass.”

  “Don’t say tits,” Shaw whispered.

  “No, I don’t think I will.” The eagerness in her eyes sharpened. “I have at least one piece of evidence that corroborates the story.”

  “The story is bullshit. I watched my piece of shit husband try to murder Sha
w. Shaw was in a cast for weeks, he still gets terrible headaches, he had internal bleeding, and my only regret is that I didn’t cut that son of a bitch’s throat when I had the chance.”

  “So you deny that members of a criminal organization influenced members of a jury at the request of you and your father?”

  Nostrils flaring, North was silent for a moment. Then he said, “We’re done.”

  “You want me on your side. I can help—”

  “Get out.”

  With a tiny smirk, Belia drew her hair over her shoulder again. She cast Shaw an interested look, and then she sauntered toward the front door. She took her time opening it, and when she stepped outside, she turned on the porch. “Think about—”

  North slammed the door so hard it rattled in its frame. A framed papyrus scroll, on which Shaw had written a prayer to Hestia, fell. It hit the floor, and glass shattered and sprayed across the dark-stained boards.

  “God damn it,” North shouted, kicking shards of glass.

  “I’ll clean it up.”

  “Why the fuck did you have to put that fucking piece of shit up in the first place?”

  “I said I’ll clean it up.”

  “God fucking damn it,” North shouted, and then he snatched up the puppy and stalked toward the back door.

  Chapter 3

  NORTH LEFT THE PUPPY in the fenced yard and cut through the garage at the back of the lot and into the alley. He was still holding that woman’s card, and he thought about tearing it up. Instead, he tucked it into his wallet. So he wouldn’t forget her name. On his way through the garage, he liberated the pack of American Spirits that he’d taped to the bottom of the GTO’s driver’s seat. He smoked down two and was halfway through the third when the rage washed out of him. For a while, he slumped against the cinderblock garage, eyes closed, the heat of the cigarette’s ember crawling toward his fingers. When it burned him, he dropped it and toed it out. Mosquitos whined at his ear.

  He cut through the garage again, replacing the pack of cigarettes on his way, and examined the backyard. One of the folding chairs lay on its side. The kettle grill leaked a few final wisps of smoke. The puppy was investigating the climbing roses that the last owner had planted along one side of the privacy fence. Under the twinkle of the fairy lights, the place looked like the aftermath of the Rapture—everything good snatched up and gone, and North McKinney left behind with all the pieces of shit.