Laugh Cry Repeat

by John Inman

  “Jake!” his mother screamed out, startling various people up and down the beach and possibly a few whales at sea. “Get back here! Leave those poor men alone! Toodles, Mr. Long! Have a nice day. Jake, get over here now!”

  Deeze waved back while Jake peeked out of Chaucer’s coat to stare at Wyeth. “Nice to meetcha,” the boy said shyly, and Wyeth returned the sentiment. Jake suddenly pointed to Wyeth’s scabbed knee and said, “Did you fall down too?”

  “Yeah,” Wyeth said. “I’m clumsy.”

  Jake nodded as if he understood completely. “Yeah. Me too. So how come you didn’t get a Band-Aid?”

  “I don’t know,” Wyeth said, casting Deeze a theatrical pout.

  Deeze laughed, and a moment later he pulled another Band-Aid out of his shorts pocket. He tore it out of its wrapper, and both Wyeth and Jake watched with rapt attention as Deeze carefully placed it over Wyeth’s skinned knee.

  “Better?” Deeze asked when he was finished, and both patients grinned.

  A moment later, the kid was running back toward his parents, sand flying, little swim trunks riding low on his tiny butt.

  Deeze laughed watching him go.

  Wyeth grinned. “You’re his teacher and he actually likes you. Isn’t that a little unheard of? He’s not another cousin, is he?”

  Deeze laughed. “No. Just a student. And for your information, all my students like me. I’m a likable guy. Besides, I get them before they are turned into hateful little troglodytes by their peers and the world at large. They don’t begin dickhead training until they reach first grade. I catch them while they’re still in the purity stage.”

  Wyeth laughed. “Lucky you.”

  WYETH SLID his eyes from Deeze’s still-smiling face and gazed along the beach to where he saw Jake’s mother now smearing sun block over the squirming boy while Jake proudly showed her the bandage on his knee. The woman glanced up while Wyeth was looking and shot him a friendly wave. Surprised, Wyeth waved back, then pointed to his own knee, showing the woman he had a new bandage too. The woman gave him a hesitant thumbs-up, like maybe she was suddenly wondering if Mr. Long’s friend was running on all cylinders.

  Turning away, Wyeth let his eyes roam back to Deeze. With no little amount of wonder in his voice, he said, “I think you must be a very good teacher.”

  Deeze snorted a laugh. “Why would you assume that?”

  But Wyeth didn’t answer. He just shrugged and filed away the whole interlude with the kid on the beach, placing it on a shelf in the back of his mind to be dragged out and dissected later. He knew already, however, that the odd chance meeting he had witnessed on the beach had changed the way he thought of Deeze Long. It had, in fact, taken everything he thought he knew about the man and flipped it on its head.

  When Deeze finally turned away from the family up the beach and reclaimed Wyeth’s leg in both his strong hands, Wyeth didn’t object. And suddenly, he didn’t care what people on the beach might think about it either.

  He had almost closed his eyes to better savor the feel of Deeze’s fingers on his skin, when Deeze said, “We’d better go, or we’ll miss the train.” He released Wyeth’s leg with a final pat to the Band-Aid on Wyeth’s knee, then slipped his feet in his sandals and stood to dust the sand off his shorts.

  Wyeth quickly pulled on his sneakers and let Deeze haul him to his feet. He didn’t even try to disguise his disappointment when he said, “Are we going home, then?”

  If Deeze heard the regret in Wyeth’s voice, he didn’t let on.

  “Nope,” he said. “We’re not going home. Not yet anyway. We have to scratch another item from your bucket list of unfulfilled experiences.”

  “I don’t have a bucket list of unfulfilled experiences.”

  But Deeze wasn’t listening. He was already running up the beach, dragging a scampering Chaucer along behind him. Wyeth didn’t have much choice but to race to catch up.

  By the time they got back to the train station, puffing and panting, Wyeth’s shoes were full of sand and he was laughing like a loon. His hair was sticking straight up, his cheeks were flushed, and he stood in front of a depot window, laughing at his own reflection and trying to make himself look a little more presentable.

  “Now that’s what I like to see,” Deeze panted, dropping onto a bench by the tracks. “A happy librarian. You should smile all the time.”

  Wyeth had heard that line before. He had hated it then, and he hated it now. Still he didn’t let it wipe the smile away. He turned from the window, giving his hair a final pat, which really didn’t help it much. “If I smiled all the time I’d look like a fool.” As if to prove he was a serious-minded fellow, he tugged his glasses off and cleaned them on the tail of his shirt.

  “Fine,” Deeze answered teasingly. “Don’t smile all the time. Just try to look a little less homicidal now and then.”

  Wyeth slipped his glasses back on. “I’ll do my best.”

  Deeze patted the bench beside him, and, already laughing again, Wyeth dropped onto it. He immediately pulled off his shoes and shook the sand out. In the distance, he heard a train whistle.

  “So you’ve never been to the horse races, huh?” Deeze asked through a sneaky leer.

  Chapter Six

  WYETH STOOD at his dresser counting out the money for the fifth time. Yep. Three hundred and thirty dollars. He still couldn’t believe it, but his horse had won. Good old Bookish Betty. At forty-to-one odds. Deeze had kidded him for betting on a long shot just because the animal had the word “book” in its name, going into long detail on the best way to gamble at Del Mar by sticking with more favored horses and not falling for cutesy monikers. He himself had placed a sizable sum on the favorite of the day who, much to Deeze’s embarrassment, stumbled in the backstretch and had to be removed from the track in a horsey ambulance. Poor thing. Wyeth’s horse, on the other hand, plodded on, eventually claiming the race by a length and a half to the astonishment of about thirty thousand people, including Wyeth.

  When Wyeth screamed and jumped up and down at his good luck, Deeze jumped up and down with him. Still leaping in the bleachers, they had found themselves falling into each other’s arms and laughing like fools while Chaucer wagged his tail and sniffed around looking for something to hump. Even now, even after all the excitement was over, Wyeth remembered the feel of Deeze in his arms as they stood there in the midst of that sweating throng of cheering people, not caring one little bit what any of them thought about the two guys jumping up and down and hugging each other in Grandstand C, Aisle 12, seats F and G.

  It had been a hell of a day.

  Wyeth laid the money aside and stripped out of his clothes. Standing in front of the dresser mirror, he studied his newly tanned body naked for the first time. Aside from a sunburn here and there at various points in his life, this was the first time he could look at himself and see an honest-to-God tan line. That pale strip of flesh across his hips, surrounded by golden skin, was such a new experience for him, he turned to see what his ass looked like. His ass was still snow white, he noticed, but somehow when it was framed by a golden back and golden legs, it didn’t look quite so anemic.

  He turned back to stare at his front, and suddenly the memory of Deeze in his arms at the racetrack sent a surge of blood rushing into his cock. His burgeoning erection rose from its nest of ginger pubic hair and, in a matter of moments, stood straight up, pointing due north like a compass.

  Wyeth snorted a laugh at himself and headed for the shower. Deeze was picking him up for the final portion of their day together—dinner—which Deeze said Wyeth would be springing for since he was the one who made a killing at the track. Wyeth had laughed, but he hadn’t complained. It seemed only fair.

  He was glad his time with Deeze wasn’t over yet. Something had happened during the course of this remarkable day that Wyeth had not expected to occur. He found himself fending off emotions that hadn’t touched him for a very long time. They still frightened him, those emotions, but he had also du
ring his many hours with Deeze realized he had begun to trust the man. Maybe not with his heart. It was far too early for that. But with his time.

  With the beginning, perhaps, of friendship.

  To resurrect a highlight of the day, he only had to recall Deeze digging through his shorts pocket on the beach and pulling out a Band-Aid for the boy’s scraped knee. He recalled the trust that Jake had put in Deeze to let him treat his wound. And how Deeze had gone so self-assuredly and so caringly through the motions. Tender, competent, gentle.

  Wyeth smiled under the shower spray, remembering how Deeze had bandaged his scraped knee as well. He reached down now and pulled the Band-Aid free, taking a moment to stare at the little rockets on it before wadding it up and setting it aside. Ignoring his erection as best he could, he finished showering and quickly toweled off. He blasted his red hair with a blow dryer, admiring the way it looked so much lighter now against his newly tanned face. He brushed his teeth, gargled, dug around in his ears with a Q-tip, and gave himself a final going-over, before heading into the bedroom to dress.

  Once that chore was accomplished, he put his good watch on his wrist, slipped the race winnings in his wallet, and hurried into the kitchen, where he pulled out a fistful of dog biscuits to keep Chaucer occupied while he stole out the front door.

  He was meeting Deeze on the corner in exactly three minutes. When Wyeth hurried through the main entrance of his apartment building to find the sun-slathered day had finally morphed into cooling dusk, he spotted Deeze under a tree, steps from the front door, waiting for him.

  They laughed, because they were wearing almost the exact same clothes. Pressed jeans, dress shirts, sleeves rolled up, collars open, both now exposing a wedge of tanned chest—Wyeth’s smooth and golden and lean, Deeze’s brown and hairy and far better muscled.

  Standing speechless for a moment as pedestrians slipped past and around them, they stared at each other. It was at that moment when Wyeth first knew it was real, that feeling he had been fending off all day. The feeling that had finally hit him full force that afternoon when Deeze gently plastered that Band-Aid over his stupid knee.

  Wyeth now knew he liked this man. He liked him a lot.

  That sudden blast of awareness hit him like a ton of bricks. I’m not afraid, Wyeth said to himself. Whatever happens, happens. Let it come. I’m not afraid. I just want to spend a little time with this guy. Now. Today.

  Tonight.

  With a smile, Deeze reached out and took Wyeth’s hand. Compliant for once in his life, Wyeth allowed him to do so, causing Deeze’s face to light up.

  “You’re letting me hold your hand without an argument?” Deeze asked. “How come?”

  Wyeth refused to blush. At least he told himself he did. “Why? Do I need a reason?”

  Deeze’s face softened as he edged a little closer. “No. You don’t need a reason for anything.”

  At a casual pace, Deeze led them up Broadway. As the sun slid past the horizon, the air cooled even more while the silken darkness of a summer evening gathered around them. Streetlights blinked on. Gradually, the headlights of passing cars came to life, and in their passing flashes, Wyeth caught teeny glimpses of Deeze’s smile, Deeze’s eyes, Deeze’s white teeth gleaming in the shadows, his dark curly hair shifting in the evening breeze. Deeze’s expression seemed to change every second, and Wyeth never tired of watching it. Once, when Deeze’s eyes landed on him, Wyeth sucked in a tiny breath as if he had been impaled by the look.

  To cover his surprise, Wyeth scrambled for something mundane to say. “We haven’t touched our cars all weekend.”

  The statement brought a broader smile to Deeze’s handsome face. “I know! I love living downtown.”

  “Why do you?” Wyeth asked. “I mean, where is your school? Is it close?”

  “We’ll pass it in a few minutes. It’s a Jesuit school next to the cathedral on Lincoln Boulevard.”

  “Are you Catholic?”

  Deeze frowned, then grinned, then frowned again, as if he couldn’t quite decide what mood would best answer the question. “I’m not much of anything, as far as religion goes. Happily, proof of faith wasn’t required for the job. Just the proper teaching credentials.”

  “How many students do you have?”

  “Currently there are twenty-four in my class. The number fluctuates on how many I have to toss out the window during any given week.”

  Wyeth laughed. “If they are all like Jake, they can’t be that bad.”

  Deeze nodded. “You’re right. They aren’t. I love them to death, every one of them. Someday I’ll have you stop by and give a short lecture. You can explain to their young minds everything you know about the workings of the San Diego Library.”

  Wyeth wasn’t buying it. “I imagine they’re a little young for that. I’d bore them back to diapers.”

  Deeze gave him a long, piercing stare. “Don’t underestimate the little buggers. You’d be surprised by what they find interesting. And as you damn well know, it’s never too early to learn about books. Although I’m sure they’ll be more enthralled by how sexy their guest lecturer is. I know I will.”

  Wyeth reddened, already losing his battle not to blush. “Oh brother…,” he mumbled, causing Deeze to laugh.

  They approached a tall, ornate church, rendered in limestone, with towering rococo spires and bulging buttresses scattered here and there. High arched windows were footed with decorative balustrades carved in pink marble. The marquee on the lawn proclaimed the compound St. Luke’s Parish and Church School. A stained glass window rising high above the cathedral’s front steps and framed by Gothic stanchions depicted the good man himself, St. Luke, gazing down with welcoming arms spread wide, beckoning his flock inside.

  To the left of the majestic stone church, a flagstone pathway led around back. There, in an atrium tucked neatly inside a cool grove of pepper trees, Deeze pointed to a line of three prefab classrooms that had been erected at the edge of a playground. The first classroom, Deeze explained, was for the nursery, the second classroom housed four-year-olds in transitional kindergarten. The last classroom, for five-year-olds, which Deeze and Wyeth now stood in front of, was reserved for the true kindergarten, which prepared students for grade school. Grades one through eight were taught on the main campus at the opposite side of the cathedral grounds.

  Pulling a key from his pocket, Deeze unlocked his classroom door, and after he flicked a light switch, the interior came to life. With a proud gleam in his eyes, Deeze waved Wyeth inside.

  Deeze’s classroom was laid out like every classroom Wyeth had ever seen. Wooden desks, much smaller than any Wyeth remembered from his own years at school, sat in less than even rows. An oval play area dominated one side of the room, carpeted in interlocking blocks of rubber flooring. Rows and rows of hand-drawn pictures graced the walls. And Deeze’s own desk stood at the front of the room before a blackboard badly in need of a wash. The room was colorful and merry and breezy and chaotic, all at the same time. Wyeth thought it fit Deeze’s personality perfectly.

  “It’s wonderful,” he breathed, reaching out to trace his fingers over a crayoned rendering of what appeared to be either a griffin or a deformed chicken. The creature was perched atop what looked like a dumpster that had been welded together by a dyslexic psychopath.

  Deeze laughed. “Funny you should pick that picture to admire. The artist is none other than little Jakey Armbrewster.”

  Wyeth grinned. “Jake from the beach?”

  Deeze nodded, and the two men stood for a moment admiring the ill-conceived beast, whose head was far too big for its body, and who for some strange reason bore three wings instead of two. Their faces beamed as they stood there staring at the drawing, shoulders brushing, each man relishing the nearness of the other, although neither chose to say so out loud.

  Wyeth breathed in the pervasive scents of paste and finger paint. He stared at the handmade chains draped across the ceiling, painstakingly crafted with loops of multicolored cons
truction paper, pasted together and carefully swagged from one overhead light fixture to the other. He admired the row of brass coat hooks where the students would hang either their coats or their backpacks—or both—during class and which also brought memories flooding back from Wyeth’s own childhood back in Indiana.

  After Wyeth took it all in, he let his eyes drift to Deeze’s face. Deeze too was gazing about as if he had never seen this place before. Perhaps it was the surprising silence. With not a student in sight and the night peering in through windows that usually sifted sunlight onto young heads, the empty desks seemed sadly barren. Still, pride of ownership lit Deeze’s eyes and almost took Wyeth’s breath away.

  “You really love working here, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

  Only then did Deeze’s gaze slide back to the man beside him. “I do. If you love your own job, Wy, half as much as I love mine, then you must be a happy man too.”

  Wyeth’s glance skidded away. He pretended to study the drawings on the wall again. “I’m happy. I love the library. It’s not exciting like this must be, but it’s what I wanted, what I studied to do. I have no regrets, and that’s about the best most any of us can say about our careers, right?”

  They turned toward the sound of a shuffling footstep behind them. An old gray head poked through the doorway. Below the head, a priest’s white collar shone bright around a scrawny neck. Worried eyes above quickly turned from trepidation to delight.

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Long! I saw the light and wasn’t sure who was sneaking around.”

  Deeze laughed. “Not sneaking, Father. Just showing off my classroom to a friend.” He plucked at Wyeth’s sleeve and tugged him closer to the door. “Father Mike, I’d like you to meet Wyeth Becker. He works at the library downtown.”