by Rick R. Reed
Cole sighed. Whatever. “Sure. I get off at six.”
“Good man. We’ll see you at my place sometime before seven, then.”
“Before seven,” Cole responded. And before she could ask him how he was, he hurriedly said goodbye and hung up.
He didn’t want to dwell on the truth—that how he was, was miserable.
DESPITE FEELING wrung out and depressed, Cole had to admit the steaming bowl of chili his sister had just placed before him smelled awesome, almost transformative. Wafting up in the steam, he detected notes of cumin, chili powder, and Elaine’s secret weapons—coffee and cinnamon. Elaine was a good cook. And chili was one of her showpieces. She made it without beans. She’d told him chili with beans wasn’t “real chili.” Hers was rich with tomatoes, peppers (jalapenos and banana), mushrooms, black olives, and chunks of braised chuck.
She busied herself setting out the accompaniments, her dark hair swinging in her face as she laid out bowls of avocado, shredded sharp cheddar, oyster crackers, and sour cream. There was also a cast-iron skillet with corn bread in it, to which Elaine always added sun-dried tomatoes and chili powder.
WXRT played in the background. Suzanne Vega was singing about Tom’s Diner.
“This looks amazing,” Cole said, feeling both obliged to be grateful to his sister and for the tiniest frisson of happiness the prospect of the food brought to him. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt even remotely happy. No, what he experienced most days of late was… nothing. It was like everything about him—brain, body, emotions—was simply numb. He moved through his days like a zombie as they fell, one upon the next, like dominoes.
“What do you want to drink?” Elaine asked as she headed back into the kitchen. Out of sight, she called, “I have a red—Syrah—or you can have beer, it’s Stella. Or you can have Coke, but I only have diet.”
“What do you think, sis?” It was all Cole could do to restrain himself from tucking into the meal before Elaine sat down. He clutched his spoon tightly in his right hand in anticipation.
Elaine returned with two glasses of foam-topped beer and joined him at the table. She raised her glass, clinked his, and said, “To new beginnings.”
Cole let that pass, or at least he let it pass for now. He wasn’t ready for the “line” Elaine had been feeding him for the last week—that it was time to move on with his life. That he couldn’t remain in this stasis, as she called it. He was only hurting himself, she told him. There was nothing Cole could do to make Rory return or not return, and it wasn’t right that he was sacrificing his own life right along with Rory. There didn’t need to be the loss of two lives!
So Cole changed the subject, sort of. “Yeah, I need a new beginning. As in a new job.”
Elaine cocked her head, staring him down with her dark brown eyes. They were only a few years apart, and people often asked them if they were twins because they were so similar in appearance, even though Cole always reminded himself that fraternal twins needn’t look anything alike.
“Well, you are working below your potential. Way below. You know that. I know that. The wall behind me knows it.” She snorted and took a bite of her chili. She moaned “Oh my God” and continued, “There’s an opening at my firm for a clerk. It’s entry level, but you could go to night school and one day be a paralegal like me, or even an attorney. God knows you’re smart enough.”
“I don’t want to work in a law office,” Cole said sullenly.
“Well, what do you want to do? I know you didn’t dream of pushing throw pillows and place mats when you grew up.”
Cole sighed and ate some more. “I don’t know. Seems I never know. I just need to find something else so I can pay the rent.”
Elaine looked concerned. She was a straight arrow when it came to finances. Only in her late twenties, she already had a mortgage on the Ravenswood condo they were sitting in, a paid-off used Mitsubishi Galant, and no credit card debt. Cole’s Visa, on the other hand, was growing every month. He now owed somewhere around three thousand on it. But what else could he do? He’d made different plans not that long ago, plans where bills were to be divided in two.
“You’re having trouble paying your rent?” She covered his hand with hers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. I’m a big boy. I should be able to take care of myself.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’ve been through an awful time. And you didn’t budget for one hundred percent of expenses when you took those expenses on. Can you get out of your lease?”
“That never occurred to me.” The idea of moving seemed daunting. For one, the sheer effort it would take was akin to rolling a boulder up the side of a mountain. For another, and this was the big one, what if Rory came home and Cole wasn’t there?
“Well, it should have!” Elaine sipped her beer. “You don’t need that expense. And the landlord, I presume, knows your troubles. They might be willing to let you out of the lease, especially if you can’t afford it anymore. Or at least maybe they’d allow you to sublet until the lease was up. People in Chicago do that all the time.”
“Where would I go? Back to Mom and Dad?”
“You don’t have to be that drastic.” She took a sip of her beer, belched, and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. God, he loved his big sister. “You’ll move in with me. I have a second bedroom sitting empty.”
Cole stared down into his bowl. The food suddenly didn’t look as appetizing. He grabbed his beer and stood. He wanted to say something to Elaine, to thank her for her generosity maybe, but there were no words willing to come out through his lips right now. It seemed, in one way or another, his big sister had always been there for him. She refereed fights when he was little, staving off the ire of neighborhood bullies. She was the first person he came out to, and she even went to bat for him in that area. She was the one who sat Mom and Dad down to tell them their only son was gay, while he waited nervously in the shadows outside their pine-paneled family room, eavesdropping. It was Elaine, not him, who reminded them that he was still their beloved son and nothing, really, had changed.
He turned and went into the living room, sat in one of the chairs at either end of the coffee table, and drained his beer. Immediately he wanted another one.
Elaine followed. “You okay? I was just trying to help.”
“You can help by getting me another beer.” He held up his empty glass. “Please?”
She didn’t say anything. She simply turned and went to the kitchen to fetch another Stella. She didn’t bother with a glass this time. She handed him the green bottle before taking a seat on the couch.
“If you don’t, or can’t, move in here until you get on your feet, at least let me give you some money.”
Cole didn’t want to tell her how much he’d need—and that was just to get out of debt before starting the cycle all over again.
Cole didn’t say anything for the entire length of time it took him to down the new beer. And then he set the bottle on the coffee table and looked at his sister. “Okay.”
Elaine put a coaster under the bottle. “Okay what? You want a loan, or you want to move in?”
“I’ll move in.” And just like that, it was done. Cole stared down at the ivory rug at his feet, thinking how he was betraying Rory yet again. An image arose in his mind, Rory coming to the front door, trying to get in, but his key no longer worked. For some reason he imagined an Indian woman opening their door, a quizzical, slightly frightened expression on her face as she looked out at him, wondering who this stranger was, trying to get into her apartment.
He needed to move. He knew that. And life with Elaine wouldn’t be so bad. They’d always gotten along just fine, probably because she babied him. So he’d move and chance Rory finding him when he came back, because he would come back—one day. Living with his sister right now made sense for so many reasons. Really, what else could he do?
COLE WAS surprised, as the days turned to weeks and the weeks into months, how easily
he slipped into being his sister’s roommate. He couldn’t pay her, so he was super careful about taking care of everything—he cleaned the whole place once a week, vacuumed daily, never left a dirty dish in the sink. He even washed, dried, and folded her laundry. He didn’t iron it, though. That was too much. Cole didn’t iron. If one of his garments got wrinkled, he never wore it again. Rory thought this quirk was amusing and would iron for him. Now Cole had a closet full of wrinkled clothes.
He didn’t cook for Elaine, because she was even better at it. Plus, it seemed to relax her. When she came home from work at night and they were both home, she’d slip into some sweats and an oversized T-shirt, pad barefoot into the kitchen, and turn on a classical music station. She’d pour herself some wine and start cooking. She didn’t even need to know what she was going to make when she walked into the kitchen. It was always delicious, even when it was something as simple as what she called clean-out-the-pantry-and-the-fridge soup.
Cole always insisted, though, on clearing and cleaning up after every meal.
His days and nights blended one into the other as they headed into Chicago’s cold and unforgiving winter. Work, home, TV, bed—that was the sum of his life these days. Well, save for the little “entertainment” he’d found for himself when he was home during the day when Elaine was at work downtown. He also indulged in this entertainment—or was it an addiction?—when he knew Elaine would be gone for an extended period on a date, which she had more often than he’d realized. That fact shouldn’t have been surprising. His sister was a catch, pretty, funny, and smart, and of course the men came buzzing around, courting her hand and other body parts, Cole was certain, farther south. He didn’t like to think about the latter, but it was hard not to when she left her diaphragm case lying around, not only in logical places like her nightstand or the edge of the bathroom sink, but he’d once found it on the living room windowsill and even atop the refrigerator. He didn’t want to know….
Elaine was entitled to her secrets.
And so was he. His entertainment was his only one. And he tried not to think too much about it, except when he was actively engaged in it. It brought him temporary pleasure, a release of sorts, but then after, the guilt and shame would rise up and he’d make the same promise once again. “That was the last time, honest. I’m better than this.” He might as well have that saying tattooed somewhere on his body, since it had become his litany over the end of fall and into winter.
Things would get better, he told himself. And then he’d shake his head and allow himself to engage once again in the behavior he hated himself for.
He got fired from his job at Pier One at some point in November, even though the holiday rush was building. But he’d been late so many times after moving in with Elaine that his boss could no longer ignore his tardiness, even when Cole explained desperately how he was now taking three “L” train lines to get to work.
He’d gotten on as a stocker, nights, at Toys“R”Us in Skokie. The commute wasn’t any easier—involving a train and a bus—but at least his new hours meant he didn’t have to travel when public transportation was at its height of business.
He liked the solitude of working in the store when it was closed. And he thought he was doing a great job. It wasn’t exactly rocket science, so it was easy to accomplish his tasks in way less than the time allotted. And he’d been punctual. And cheerful to his boss and the few other folks with whom he worked.
It didn’t matter. After the holidays they laid him off, telling him he’d be first in line for a position once something opened up. Yay. Something to look forward to.
The layoff, at the beginning of 1998, was really the beginning of his true downfall. He was able to get unemployment, which meant he could indulge his misery and his addiction even more. He added another addiction to the first—weed, which he purchased weekly from a former Toys“R”Us coworker, even though he couldn’t afford it.
But the drug made it easier to cocoon. So did the snow, heavy that winter. He’d lose whole days indulging himself, even though he knew he should have been looking for work. But the unemployment checks kept coming, and those enabled him to be a sloth, especially since he could throw in a bag of groceries now and then or pay the cable bill.
And then came that early Saturday morning in February when Elaine marched into the living room and plopped down across from him in a hard-backed chair. He was stretched out on the couch, watching a rerun of The Golden Girls. She was in a quilted teal bathrobe, like something his mother would wear.
Elaine sighed. She groped into the pocket of the robe and brought out his bag of weed and threw it on the coffee table. The bag contained mostly seeds and stems, but Cole figured he could get one more bowl out of it.
He switched off the TV and looked at his sister with what he hoped were contrite eyes. He managed to sit up.
“Really, Cole?” His contrite eyes obviously weren’t contrite enough. “This is how you’re spending your time when I’m not here? Time you should be looking for work?”
“I told you, sis, it’s rough out there. I’ve been looking, but—”
She held up her hand to cut him off. “But ‘nobody’s hiring.’ I know.” She got up and disappeared into her bedroom for a minute. When she came back, she held a section of the Chicago Tribune in her hand. She put it down in front of him and opened it up to the retail section of the want ads, where she’d circled in red dozens of help-wanted ads. “I think you need to check again, little brother. Apparently somebody’s hiring.” She tapped the paper. “Quite a few somebodies, actually.” She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “I hate to be a bitch, Cole. But I can’t let you do this. I can’t sit back and watch you let yourself go.”
Cole wanted to shrink into the upholstery. He knew what was coming, and it made heat rise to his cheeks. The words Elaine started to speak had been simmering in the tension-filled air around them for weeks.
“I don’t want to be what they call an enabler. But I look at you and think—when’s he gonna get his hair cut? Shave? How much weight has he gained? I never thought I’d see you with a gut, but now you have one.” She lifted the bag of pot and set it back down. “Munchies, much? You might not think I notice, but I do—the chips bags, the beer bottles in the trash—and this is late afternoon, when I come home from work.”
She sighed. “What are you thinking, Cole?”
He stared down. “I don’t know.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Well, you need to figure it out. When I offered you a place to stay, I meant for it to be a temporary thing, until you could get on your feet again, until you could maybe find a job that would allow you to get your own place. Be it ever so humble. I thought you wanted the same. The Cole I know has never been a well of ambition, but he’s always been hard-working, he’s always taken care of himself.” She looked hard at him, leaning forward. “He’s never been a leech.”
Cole wanted to, but he couldn’t look away from her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this embarrassed. And the thought that really kept digging at him began with… if she only knew. “I’m sorry. You want me to move out?”
“Where would you go?” she asked. “I know you don’t want to go back home. I don’t blame you. What I want is for you to take care of yourself.” Her lips kept moving a bit, like she wanted to say something else but couldn’t. Her eyes brightened with unshed tears. “I know. I know. Losing Rory was hard. I loved him too, Cole. But he’s gone. And as much as I hate to say it, we both know he’s not coming back. Not after all this time.”
The statement hung heavy in the air, like a monstrous thing, dark and wispy. Neither of them spoke for several moments.
Cole barely got out, “I know.” And he did. Right then, he did. The probability—the truth—expanded and contracted before his eyes. It was the blackest thing he’d ever seen, smudging his soul. He matured at least ten years in that moment.
Sure, it still felt like Rory was out there somewhere
. He could tell himself that, maybe even feel it a little bit, but Cole knew he’d have to accept in his heart that such notions were only wishful thinking. More than likely, Rory was dead. He was rotting in a shallow grave, who knew where?
He hiccupped out a sob and wiped angrily at his eyes.
Elaine was next to him, on the edge of the couch, touching his face and staring down at him with her own pain, a hurt so intense and piercing it only made Cole want to cry all the harder. “I was gonna be all hardass this morning, but I can’t.”
“You can.” Cole smiled through his tears. “I need it. I know it.”
“I was going to tell you I’m going away this weekend, up to Door County with Rob.” Rob was the latest beau, an attorney from the office where Elaine worked and a guy who looked like he might have the potential to stick around. “But maybe I should cancel. You and I can hole up here, rent some movies—”
Cole stopped her. “No. I won’t let you do that. You go. Enjoy yourself.”
Elaine moved back to her chair. “Are you sure?”
Cole nodded.
She smiled. “I was also going to tell you to use my computer while I’m gone. And I think I should stick with that.”
Cole forced himself to sit up. He sniffled a bit, took a deep breath, tried to calm himself. “And you were going to tell me to use it to answer some of those ads.”
She nodded. “You need to get on with your life, Cole.”
“I know. And I will.”
“There’s more than retail too, Cole. There are inside sales, customer service, administrative stuff that you’re more than qualified for. And they’ll pay enough so you can get your own place, even if it’s just a studio in Rogers Park. You want that, right?”
He surprised himself by laughing. “Yeah. I need to get out of your hair.”
She touched his hand. “My home is always your home. You know that. It’s been nice—mostly—having you here.”
“And I need to get out of your hair.”