These Dreams Which Cannot Last

by Matt Flickinger

  “Forever,” she says.

  “What are you up to, girl?”

  “Just chilling,” she says.

  “Girl” is Aiden’s word, a term claimed and earned through overuse. Aiden hugs her again and doesn’t let up. Charlotte softens in his arms. It is good to see Aiden and, as annoying as he might be at times, Charlotte respects him for making it this long. You’ve got to assume at least seventeen of his twenty years he was just as flaming as he is now, she thinks. She pictures a little four-year-old Aiden singing along to Princess Ariel, a green towel wrapped around his chunky little legs. Surviving as a gay dude in the Valley isn’t easy.

  “It’s so good to see you!” Aiden says, pulling away. The song in the living room ends and the speakers go silent.

  “You too, Aiden. What have you been up to?”

  But Aiden isn’t listening. He is standing back with an index finger extended just inches from Zain’s chest. “Guuurl,” he says, “who is this?” The breath catches in Charlotte’s throat. Before she can answer, Zain raises an arm over his head. “Zain,” he says, raising a wide palm over his head.

  Oh god, she thinks.

  Before she can think of what to say, Aiden slaps Zain’s hand.

  “Good to meet you, brother!” Zain says, nodding.

  “You too, little brother!” Aiden says, rubbing his hand on his chest.

  Charlotte opens her mouth, but there is nothing. It is the oddest, most unexpected greeting she has ever witnessed. Aiden, a big smile on his wide, sweaty face, looks skinny Zain up and down. Zain takes another drink from his cup, without cringing this time. “How do you guys know each other?” he asks.

  “We did a play together,” Aiden answers. “Two years ago?”

  Charlotte nods, taking a sip from her cup.

  The next song starts, blasting a vicious bass track from the speakers.

  “Cool!” Zain yells over the noise. He takes another drink, looking out to the living room.

  Aiden nudges Charlotte and mouths, “so cute.” His hand over his heart, he fakes melting into the floor.

  After a couple drinks, when his “jam” came on, Aiden dragged Zain and Charlotte to the middle of the living room floor to dance. Zain added “jam” to his list (though he can’t promise himself he’ll remember it means a song later). Charlotte wasn’t really into the dancing at first, not thrilled with the music selection, so Zain kept his movements small. As the second song ended, though, Charlotte walked right up to the DJ booth (further proof of her coolness) and whispered into the DJ’s ear. The DJ nodded, eyes on her ass as Charlotte reclaimed her spot on the carpet. Her requests started up right away. As her first song started playing, a happy little song about “perfect strangers” (a title Zain hopes he can remember later), Charlotte really started to move. Zain kept his eyes on the floor, mostly. Kept from looking directly at her, except whenever she was turning or looking away. She’s not graceful, but the freedom she dances with is inspiring, exciting, and totally hot. Still cool, but in a different way than when she’s talking.

  The last time he danced was the eighth grade winter formal last year, but with the way it’s going so far, Zain thinks he might be good at it. The whiskey and coke has definitely made it easier. Less to consider if you’re not worried about what you’re not considering. Or something like that, he thinks. He’s having fun. Everyone else on the little living room dance floor is having fun too. In the same not worried about any of it way. So different than the eighth grade formal. The only time he worries about his moves is when Charlotte looks at him. She doesn’t seem to all that often though, so he mostly moves like everyone else, even throwing in some of his own moves. Aiden cheers him on when Zain does a crazy turn or kicks his feet in a way that he thinks might feel or look cool. A few times, Charlotte smiles at his moves.

  Another song starts, with a deep slow bass, and Charlotte nods to the kitchen. Two things become clear as soon as they’re back under the bright fluorescents of the kitchen, standing by the bottle table. First, Zain is drunker than last weekend (a different, but not worse feeling). He wonders if this is what “buzzing” feels like or if he is actually drunk. How do you tell? he thinks. Two, the tile he is standing on is the same as in his kitchen at home. Zain laughs.

  “What’s so funny?” Charlotte asks.

  “Nothing. This is really fun.”

  “I agree,” she says. “Glad you snuck out.”

  “Definitely!” he says. “That dude Aiden is cool.”

  Charlotte smiles, adding coke to the whiskeys in their cups, “He’s okay.”

  “I didn’t know you were a theater person,” he says.

  Charlotte hands Zain his cup, “I’m not.” Some of her hair is sticking to her forehead. Zain wraps his cup in both hands to keep from running his fingers over the wet strands, and walks back over to their spot by the sink. “I did a couple plays freshman year,” she says, following him. “I had some friends in the theatre.”

  “My friend does theater,” Zain says. He’s not sure why he didn’t refer to Jackson by name or when he stopped referring to him as his best friend. Charlotte isn’t paying attention. Zain takes a drink and looks to the sink. Someone has put a cigarette out in the bottom of a cracked plastic cup. Wet black ashes gather like mud around the bent butt stump. Mount Cigarette is a dirty place, he thinks. Zain laughs and takes another drink. When he looks up again something has changed. A different energy pulses through the room, still excited but more frantic. The music from the DJ speakers stops abruptly. It is only when Charlotte grabs Zain by the wrist that he realizes what is going on. Before she pulls him away, he drops his half cup of whiskey and coke into the sink.

  “Cops!” someone yells.

  Charlotte pulls Zain toward the front door, but the entranceway is too packed to get through. She looks over the people crowding at their backs, grip still tight on his wrist, and tugs him back through the kitchen. Though the music has stopped, the lights on the DJ stand continue to throw their dancing shadows around the room. It’s strange and mesmerizing. “This way,” Charlotte says, breaking Zain from the hypnotizing lights, as she tugs open the sliding backdoor.

  As Zain and Charlotte move through the door, two figures on the dingy couch separate and stand. Red and blue reflections pulse against the white brick of the apartment wall across the desert courtyard. Zain and Charlotte stand with the couple in the middle of the porch.

  “Shit,” the guy says. Charlotte moves to the porch railing. The girl closes the sliding door and backs up, wrapping her arms around her waist.

  Charlotte leans out over the railing, looking along the wall, then down to the courtyard below. “We could make it,” she says.

  “What?” the guy says.

  “No way,” the girl says, looking from Charlotte to her make out partner.

  “It’s not that far down,” Charlotte says, swinging her legs over the metal railing. The white toes of her Chuck Taylors peak through the bottom of the railing. She bounces twice, adjusting her grip. Zain edges past the boy and girl, standing like frozen cattle watching an incoming storm. Zain leans over the edge. She’s right, he can see it. Just lower down the rails to grip the edge of the cement floor of the porch, then swing your legs out and it’s a short jump, he thinks. As he finishes his second escape plan of the night, he hears Charlotte’s feet hit the ground.

  Zain swings his legs over and takes the railing in his hands. He takes two of the rail supports in his hands and crouches back over the empty space. Nothing but empty space and the girl below. What a night, he thinks. He takes one last look past the frozen duo on the patio to the apartment inside. Someone has turned off the DJ lights. Two police officers are entering through the crowd. “Later!” Zain says. Then he jumps.

  He stumbles a bit when he hits the gravel. Then they’re running. Once out of the courtyard, they stick to the wall of the apartment, slipping along in the shadow of the building, past two cop cars pulled up over the cur
b. Laughing, they’re off, running through another night.

  19

  Dark and Still

  He stops running at the top of Rio Verde hill. Zain’s childhood street looks different. He’s never seen it like this. So late and dark and scary and peaceful. The little houses sitting in dim silence look like gravestones in a hillside cemetery. At the bottom of the hill, just as the street flattens out to continue its journey west, is his own lonely house, the smallest in so many tiny gravesites. No flowers decorate the yard under the unforgiving yellow glare of the streetlight. Just dead grass, dirt, and their paint peeled headstone house. As gloomy as it looks, Zain is relieved to see the front windows dark. His mother is either lying in wait in the dark, ready to pounce, or asleep. Only one way to find out, he thinks. He takes off jogging softly over the pavement.

  Zain takes a deep breath and squeezes his fingers into the open half inch at the bottom of the window. It slides open quietly and he steps through into his room. He reaches through the open window to slip the screen out from between the bush and front wall of the house. As he clicks the last clip into place he breathes out a long slow breath. He lowers the blinds and undresses in the dark, down to his briefs. Head swaying with the last wisps of whiskey, he sits on his bed, pulling the socks from his feet. He looks around the dark room, waiting while his eyes adjust to the darkness.

  Tucking himself deep into the covers, Zain closes his eyes. The silent room spins and buzzes with caffeine and alcohol and heartbeat and memories. The house escape seems like a thousand years ago. He tries to picture her face, but can’t fully recapture anything. Frustrated, he opens his eyes and sits up. Mouth cottony and hot, he cracks the door. The house is dark and still. Zain crosses the hallway to the bathroom. Gripping the water handle, he pulls gently, until the water trickles into the sink. He fills his cheek, gulping thirstily.

  Settling back into bed, he closes his eyes and starts again from the beginning of the night, retracing the events from the escape from his sad little house, freed and guilty. Before long his mind takes over, running piece by piece until she comes to him. The moments drop into his mind like relief packages scattered over the desert from a passing plane. With each shifting scene he unwraps she becomes clearer. Her legs turning on the dance floor, forearm grazing his elbow as she leaned next to him against the counter, her thin fingers circling his wrist, Chuck Taylor feet sliding over courtyard gravel. Then, finally, her face. Hair flipping out of her eyes and back again in the quick light bursts of red and purple on the dance floor. Her pink cheeks, half shadowed as they jogged in and out of the streetlights. The feel of her soft lips so close to his mouth, before she whispered good night. The smile she didn’t hide as she closed the door. Zain lifts the elastic band of his underwear, sliding his fingers down. He plays and replays the night, framing Charlotte in each scene. Her face and body in his mind, he moves softly, so quietly under the covers.

  Locking her bedroom door, Charlotte undresses in the dark. She flips on her bathroom light and looks over her body in the mirror. Same protruding ribs, same paperclip hips peeking out above her black panties. You need to get a grip, she thinks. He’s just an escape, just a change. But as she looks at her own body, she can’t get him out of her head. Most of it is so obvious, but not all of it, not that the obviousness matters. Those glances on the dance floor, to her, from her. He has never danced (obviously), but he looked good doing it. His face so pleased in the apartment kitchen, lit with excitement as she typed her number into his phone. The gentle way, as they crossed under the freeway, he held his hand out in front of her, looking both ways before they crossed. When he picked his shirt up to wipe his face after the run home and she watched his thin, pale stomach moving in and out. Charlotte runs her hand over her tummy down to her thigh.

  Turning off the bathroom light, she walks through her dark room to the bed. As she settles under the sheet she listens. No doors open, no cars pull into the driveway. Through the stillness she whispers his name again through the dark. Shifting her hips, running her fingers over the torn lace of her panties, she sinks into the mattress. His movements across the carpet, that smile, those long legs striding beside her through the night, his face as it is now and will be—so kind and sad and hopeful— courses through her. Tracing her fingers across the top of her panties, toward the middle, the night blends and spills as she moves under the sheet.

  20

  Dream Journal

  Charlotte has sent exactly one text in the last five days. On Tuesday, two days ago, she texted, “that was a fun night.” Zain stressed for a full ten minutes before finally responding with, “totally!” Charlotte didn’t respond, so he hasn’t texted back. Even though there is so much he wants to say, he just doesn’t know how. Everyone else is on their phones all the time, hiding them in the pages of textbooks, hunched over them in the hallways as they walk, or at the cafeteria tables, ignoring friends sitting right there, while they text other people. Everyone’s thumbs flying over screen keypads with so much to say, so many other people to text. Must be nice, he thinks, and exhausting. Even now that he does have someone (not that he has Charlotte) to text with, he doesn’t know what to type. The hardest part is figuring out what to say when he doesn’t know what she is thinking. There is a whole world of things she might be considering (or not considering) and asking with little words on a tiny screen about big deal stuff like that doesn’t feel right to Zain. How, he thinks, do you text something like “I’ve never had a better, more exciting night, even though you probably have (definitely have), and I like you a lot, even if you don’t like me that way, but maybe you do?” He couldn’t, can’t. So, he hasn’t texted anything, just checked the empty screen of his phone every half hour. Texting the wrong thing is probably worse than too little, he hopes.

  Charlotte suggested a dream journal to keep all his dreams in one place on the run home from the party. Zain didn’t tell her that all his dreams have dried up. He didn’t see the boat dream as exactly a promise of more to come since it was the result of slamming himself unconscious on a pool patio. He didn’t tell her about the doors dream or how it has left him like a marooned, bored islander with so many hours staring out over dark and inactive seas. He didn’t tell her how he missed those other continents of his nights, their lands populated with towns full of twisted violence and sex and beauty. Somewhere out there, so unreachable, so far from his island of dull doors, there was more. He just nodded and told her a dream journal was a good idea.

  His mother gave Zain the five dollars without questioning, even complimenting him on his patient attitude over the last week of being grounded. Again, he nodded, thanking her (with a slight twinge of guilt). Zain didn’t have much hope for filling the pages of the sketch pad he bought with the money. But, as it turned out, it sat empty only one day. Over the next three nights the landscape returned. Zain’s nights filled again with enough strange visuals to fill the first few pages. The doors were still there, tucked into the nights. But now they were bookended by other potential pages, often senseless, but interesting.

  Sitting on his stool at the long row of tables in Art class, as he’s putting the final touches on a scene from two nights ago, shading the face of a stranger hunched over a small body in the street, Zain feels someone at his shoulder. Even with all her clicking turquoise and fake pearl necklaces Ms. Feeney is sneaky. She leans over his shoulder as he grabs the corner of the book to close it.

  “Sorry,” Zain says, “I’ll get to work.” He slams the journal closed and slides his paint project over in its place.

  “What were you working on?” Ms. Feeney asks.

  “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

  Zain has been behind on the tempera paint project since the class started it. Each student was supposed to use a grid to sketch a magazine image onto a larger sheet and then paint it. Zain searched too long through a Best of Time issue. When he found the magazine, he spent a whole class period pouring over each article and advertisement, fascinated.
The image he finally selected is of World War II soldiers unloading for slaughter on Normandy beach. Most of the soldiers in the image are looking up toward the gunners, with a mature determination, despite their impossible task of taking the beach. But one soldier is looking straight at the camera, frightened and confused. In every other picture, from every other article and advertisement Zain looked at in the issue everyone looks so much older. Every picture, actually, of older generations he’s ever seen is the same way. Everyone looks too old for their age. But not this soldier. The D Day soldier looks like he’s in the wrong time. Like a teenage time traveler from the future who ended up on a Higgins boat as a mistake, just as the gate opened. And SNAP went the photographer. He’s staring into the camera for help, like it’s all a big god damn mistake. Most of the other students are working on the final painting touches of their boring transfers (an advertisement for skittles, a rap star pointing finger guns at the camera, a political figure standing at a podium). Zain hasn’t even finished sketching.

  “May I see what you were working on?” Ms. Feeney says. She doesn’t look mad, so Zain hands her his journal.

  She takes her time with every page, considering each before moving on to the next. When she is finished flipping through, she turns back to the page she caught him working on, the boy and man in the street. She looks over the page several times, from the top to the bottom.