Homo Superiors

by L. A. Fields

  “What the hell happened to you guys?” Ray asks. He’s smiling wide because he knows the answer. They think he’s smiling because he doesn’t.

  “Looks like you had fun,” Schwartz says. “We were robbed.”

  “No way,” Ray says with a drawl. Does his ecstasy sound like a normal person’s disbelief?

  “Yes way,” Lebowitz says spitefully. “I’m already so sick of talking about it.”

  “Then someone else tell me,” Ray says, looking at the new kid—what’s his name, Todd or Tim or some shit?—hoping that he’ll get to hear the saddest story in the room. To think, half of that money’s in his own pocket, and that watch is on Noah’s wrist . . . Ray has all the thrill of being a spy in enemy territory.

  The guys try to ruin his fun, they see no beauty in tragedy, and they don’t want to tell their stories more than once, nobody but Lebowitz and Tim Tam over there even reported their losses to the campus police. They don’t want to even speculate on the mystery of who the thief could be, everyone agrees it was ‘some asshole’ and that’s as far a depth as they want to plumb.

  “Did you ever consider it might have been a girl? Some siren bitch one of you thought you had a chance with, huh?”

  No one is in the mood to be teased, and after that comment, people start to leave the common area or scowl at Ray, so he calls out a platitudinous “sorry for everyone’s loss,” and unpacks his car. After making sure the car is totally empty and moving it from the unloading spot, Ray pulls out his phone and takes a walk.

  This is what he needs Noah for, why he insists on dragging him along on crimes, and why he remembers to humor the guy’s proclivities. Ray’s putting off that thing Noah wants to do until his next trip home—they were too sick of each other after the drive back to Chicago, even Noah wanted some time apart—but with the thrill of what he’s done returned to Ray’s heart today, he has to explode his good vibes towards somebody, otherwise they’ll shake him apart.

  “What?” is how Noah answers the phone, but at least he answers it.

  “Did I apologize yet for my demeanor Saturday night? Because I’m over it.”

  “Back in Michigan?” Noah asks. “Happy again?”

  “Noah, really, they’re such idiots, and you know none of them wants to take any responsibility for leaving doors unlocked and valuables unattended. Like, who would you and me be the angriest with if we got robbed?”

  “Ourselves, of course. That quality of self-awareness and personal responsibility is a part of what makes us so superior to everyone else.”

  “And it gives us the right to take their shit, isn’t that your Nietzschean thinking?”

  “What right? If they deserved to keep their possessions, they would have guarded them better. If you want to think of it charitably, you might say we’ve taught them a valuable life lesson. They’ll be locking doors for the rest of college at least, don’t you think?”

  Listening to Noah reason like this is music to Ray’s ears, he’s got his head tipped to the phone at his ear like there’s a lullaby coming through it. He can take Ray’s thoughts and translate them into poetry sometimes.

  “Yeah, I do think,” he agrees amiably. “So, Michigan’s fall break is in October, so I’ll be back in Chicago then for sure, if not earlier.”

  “I’ve looked it up, your school’s break is the second week of October, mine is the third. We have an overlapping weekend.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Ray says instead of goodbye. A deal’s a deal.

  8

  NOAH DIDN’T KNOW WHICH WEEKEND he desired Ray’s return from Michigan to occur on. Was the sooner the better? Or Halloween weekend, since they have such fond memories of that holiday together? Or Noah’s birthday, in late November? Could he stand to wait so long for his reward? Or would the dread of what he wanted to try make putting it off for a while all the easier to stomach?

  Ray was the only one who could decide when he would come home, Noah knows he worried about it for nothing. He scolded himself whenever his mind wandered off his books and started to woolgather so pathetically, but still he

  did it.

  When the date is finally set in mid-October, Noah can’t help but give over to the Humanities in himself. As the day approaches, he sets himself to reading and even memorizing poetry, and he’s jotting some down while he awaits Ray’s autumnal arrival, writing the lines in their own native English, just because he feels that it was said right the first time. He has been ruminating particularly on a snippet of a James Baldwin poem called “Munich, Winter 1973,” which is more on-the-nose regarding Noah’s current situation than he’s even comfortable exploring:

  The streets, I observe,

  are wintry.

  It feels like snow.

  Starlings circle in the sky,

  conspiring,

  together, and alone,

  unspeakable journeys

  into and out of the light.

  I know

  I will see you tonight.

  And snow

  may fall

  enough to freeze our tongues

  and scald our eyes.

  We may never be found again!

  Just as the birds above our heads

  circling

  are singing,

  knowing

  that, in what lies before them,

  the always unknown passage,

  wind, water, air,

  the failing light

  the falling night

  the blinding sun

  they must get the journey done.

  Listen.

  They have wings and voices

  are making choices

  are using what they have.

  They are aware

  that, on long journeys,

  each bears the other,

  whirring,

  stirring

  love occurring

  in the middle of the terrifying air.

  Ray comes over on this chilly evening wearing a spring coat instead of a fall one because he didn’t pack right for the weekend back home. Noah sees him from the living room window where he’s been monitoring the street for half an hour, just waiting on Ray to skip on over from his house. Ray sees Noah through the window, sloppily salutes him through the glass, then walks to the front door and lets himself in. He joins Noah in the living room, sits on the windowsill as near to Noah as he can get without sitting in his lap. He gets straight to logistics.

  “Who’s home?”

  “Nobody before eight o’clock.” His father is working, and his brothers are working—everyone has jobs except the baby of the family.

  “Your room, I assume?” Ray’s arms are crossed, his back against what must be a very cold window pane. He hasn’t looked directly at Noah since walking inside, but Noah’s been scrutinizing him.

  “It has to be.”

  “Should we do this first and see if we can stand each other after?”

  “Who says I can stand you now?” Noah asks, standing up and leading

  the way.

  It’s awkward before it even commences, this act of which they already stand accused and convicted. If only the procedural defense of double jeopardy could exempt them from having to experience this for the first time, but alas: autrefois convict, though they are not yet guilty.

  With the door locked and Ray unzipped and tossed upon the bed with his arm across his eyes, Noah gives it a try. His problems: too many teeth, too many taste buds, and the unceasing necessity to breathe. Ray’s problems: he’s a windsock and not a weathervane, and there’s a grumbling noise in his throat that can’t be anything if it’s not partially disgust, and he’s not limp anywhere except the one spot where he shouldn’t be. His body is tense, his lips pressed tightly together, and the cords in his neck are standing in what (given the circumstances) should not be called relief.

  Noah can’t be sure who quits first, whether it’s his gag reflex or Ray’s that makes them separate, that makes Ray pull back while Noah sticks out hi
s tongue in the same way he used to push chewed vegetables out of his mouth as a child. Ray sits against Noah’s bedroom wall, he buttons up, and he knuckles his forehead with a mirrored swiping motion to the one Noah uses to wipe his mouth.

  Noah sits beside Ray, knows better than to try and touch him at all, and scoffs out a small laugh. He’s just as displeased as Ray was when he got what he wanted the night of the burglary! They make quite a pair of Agapornis, don’t they?

  “That was no better than when that girl tried it, was it?”

  “No,” Ray says. “You didn’t seem happy about it either.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  Ray grimaces and shrugs. “Never again, right?”

  “Not that, no thank you.”

  The politeness of Noah’s response catches Ray by surprise, and once it gets him laughing, Noah starts to smile too.

  “Maybe what we have is more of a folie à deux sort of thing, purer than all this sort of basal activity.”

  “That’s French, what you just said? It doesn’t mean love, does it?”

  Noah shakes his head and finally gets enough eye contact from Ray to give him a sardonic look. “Madness,” he informs his friend.

  “That I agree with!” Ray says, jumping from the bed and striding toward the door. Sex or not, whatever this was, he still wants a cigarette after it.

  They are standing out on the lanai next, Noah keeping Ray company while he smokes, and keeping him standing when the smoke and possibly the excitement of the evening cause him to slump against the back door.

  “Feeling weak?” Noah teases.

  “All I had for breakfast was scotch. I can’t recommend trying that”—he gestures towards the second floor of the house—“on an empty stomach. It’s like trying to donate blood without having breakfast first.”

  “If you say so. I think for some people, what I was doing would work just fine on an empty stomach.”

  “You’re revolting,” Ray says, amused though he is at the dirty talk, and still using Noah’s shoulder to brace himself.

  “That makes me a revolutionary,” Noah says, happy to watch Ray’s swirling mind try to figure out what he’s talking about. “Think about it,” he says, flapping Ray’s spring coat at the lapels in the hopes that the chill air will continue to restore him. “Don’t revolutionaries revolt?”

  When Ray rolls his eyes without toppling over, Noah knows that he, and they, are fine.

  9

  FOR SOME REASON, RAY’S BEST friend gets a birthday party no nineteen-year-old boy would ever want. Noah’s father and his three brothers and literally the whole neighborhood gather at the Kaplan family home for this shindig. It’s less about Noah getting older and more about this being the first celebrated festive occasion since his mother died. Ray’s parents are invited before he himself is, technically, and they actually walk over to the Kaplan’s with their son, dressed nice and holding wine and flowers and a covered dish made by their cook.

  Mother and Father don’t speak on the entire stroll. Mother is holding the wine and flowers because she is worried about the food spilling onto or steaming her blouse, at least that was what she lectured to her husband about before leaving the house.

  The Kleins arrive with the same fake smile spreading across three faces. Their neighbors from their north side (the ones who occasionally snitch on Ray for coming and going at all hours) are standing in the same corner with their southern-side neighbors, a couple of Jewish Christians who look as uncomfortable as they must feel everywhere. Mrs. Rosen and her extremely rare husband are talking to Noah Senior, probably paying their respects. The grandson they’re babysitting for the weekend is the only life at the party, he’s jumping around the room soaking up a lot of attention. Ray’s mother asks the boy how he likes school, trying to be polite. Robbie says he doesn’t like school.

  “Nobody likes school,” Ray murmurs at her before going to find the birthday boy, the only person he knows who actually does seem to like school, or at least learning.

  Ray spots Noah shaking hands with people in the study. It takes five minutes for Noah to extricate himself, and Ray watches him for the duration; Noah’s all puffed up and stiff and proper, like an inflated bullfrog. When he finally comes over to shake Ray’s hand (weird), Ray asks him, “Is there any bird that looks like a frog? Because you’d be that one.”

  “Birds eat frogs, they don’t resemble them,” Noah says before he’s pulled away again.

  The so-called party clears out within an hour. Noah’s father prepares a weak hot toddy for each of his sons, plus one for Ray, who stays after his parents go home. They all toast to Noah’s last year as a teenager.

  “Finally,” Noah says before he takes a tiny sip of what Ray swallows whole without thinking of how it must look. “I’ve been a teenager for years, I’m sick of it by now.”

  Noah’s father laughs, and his two older brothers smile and check the time before getting back to their own lives.

  Mr. Kaplan sighs contentedly. He glances at Ray before saying to Noah, “I know your mother’s proud of who you’ve become.”

  “I know that too,” Noah says with a small flinch in the corner of his mouth. His father hugs him and departs.

  Noah sets his forehead on Ray’s shoulder. Ray walks out from under that familiarity to pour himself a real helping of whiskey.

  “It’s my birthday,” Noah says, like that will convince Ray to walk back over and continue to get touched.

  “It is. That’s why I have something for you.” The whiskey warms its way into Ray’s muscles, and he sits down in front of the study’s fireplace, where a small flame is dying out.

  “A present?”

  “A proposition. I think we should kill someone.”

  “Really?” Noah says pleasantly. He doesn’t realize how serious Ray is about this. Ray leaps to close the door, then returns to the fireside where Noah has sat down and is helping himself to a sip of Ray’s drink.

  “I’ve been thinking about it; murder is the ultimate crime, isn’t it? If I can commit a perfect murder, I don’t have to do any of this small time shit anymore. No more insecurity, no more playing pattycakes, a real crime makes me a real criminal forever.”

  “That’s sort of a strange ambition, don’t you think? Why don’t you get a graduate degree instead? You know if you’re the right kind of lawyer you can murder people publically, on behalf of the state.”

  “That wouldn’t be the same.”

  “Become the executioner then.”

  “And spend all that time working in a prison just hoping they’ll pick me to flip the switch someday? I might as well kill someone the old fashioned way if I’m willing to go through all that, I don’t see much of a difference there.”

  “Everyone else does. Don’t you want the respect of your peers?”

  “What peers? I thought you and me were Übermensch?”

  “Übermenschen,” Noah corrects, but he raises his eyebrows and nods once, his way of ceding the point. He makes a summoning gesture to Ray’s drink, and Ray gives it to him; let him have the whole thing! There’s no drug yet invented that can make Ray feel as good as this idea does.

  “And you want me involved in this?” Noah asks.

  “Yes,” Ray says, leaning closer, his forearms on his knees. “I need you involved with this. It’s kind of a serious task, I want my best people on it.”

  Noah lets out a hum, a sound very near a laugh.

  “And before you say no, just keep in mind our system of trade. This is the only crime I want to perpetrate from now on, so it’s this or nothing.”

  Noah sighs. “Understood. Although if I agree to this, I bet you’ll be sorry you made such a deal when the time comes for me to collect.”

  Ray grins, sure that it’s just a matter of time until he has everything he wants.

  “I’ll live,” he says.

  10

  NOAH SPENDS ABOUT A WEEK thinking about this, and he writes at least a thousand and one lists about th
e pros and cons of even humoring Ray’s plan, regardless of whether or not Noah would actually participate in it. Encouraging him could be dangerous in itself, you can’t promise Ray something and not deliver; his parents did that to him once by not letting him go to Europe, and he’ll spend the rest of his life making them sorry for it. Another con about that, if Noah lies to him deliberately, he and Ray won’t be friends ever again. And killer or not, Ray’s still the best friend he’s ever had, and Noah won’t throw that away lightly.

  But it isn’t just Ray to consider. Noah and his brothers get an all-family dinner at the bar mitzvah restaurant, a completely unprecedented occasion, all because Noah got into graduate school. Harvard. Harvard Law. Not a joke.

  “Our little genius,” Mike the oldest calls him. “The baby is always the favorite; I don’t see what you could do to screw that up now.”

  “I bet I could find a way to ruin it,” Noah says, his head having been full of the perfect way to destroy a life for weeks. “Or don’t you give me any credit for creativity?”

  The table laughs, his father hardest of all, because they truly believe Noah’s kidding.

  The dinner isn’t Noah’s real reward for this accomplishment either, it’s just a fancy way to announce a Kaplan family trip . . . to Europe.

  “All my children are adults now, and you make me proud,” his father says. “And your mother would’ve loved the thought of us all abroad for the first time, together.”

  Invoking Faye is the way to solidify that plan: this summer everyone agrees to take three weeks off to travel together. Paris and Rome, maybe not in that order, they’ll decide later. Either way, Ray’s going to hate it.

  So Noah gets into the law school, and he gets the trip to Europe that Ray was robbed of the last time he graduated, and he’s going to demur about one measly murder? The one thing Ray really wants, for which he’d happily give up everything that Noah has, if only he could achieve it? Could Noah really say no with any sound logical reasoning? Could he do that to his only friend?

  By Thanksgiving, Noah knows what he’s going to say. He tells himself, If anyone could get away with it, it’s the teenager who got into Harvard Law School, and if you believe that then you should prove it. He tells himself, There’s a very good chance Ray will plan and scheme and yet never get around to an actual murder, and all you have to do is put it off until Europe, because there won’t be any time for it after that, ever. He tells Ray during a very brief phone call, “Meet me at Rosehill Cemetery tomorrow at noon, you know which spot.”