by Courtney Lux
“You haven’t answered anything.”
“I’ve answered everything you’ve asked.”
“I don’t know anything new about you.”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Nathaniel.” Trip drags a hand through his hair, exasperated. “You wanna know something? You really wanna know something that fucking bad?”
Nate nods. He’s not as easily flustered by Trip’s irritation as he used to be.
“Alabama. I’m from Southern Alabama.” Trip drops his cigarette in Nate’s coffee. It goes out with a quiet sizzle and pop. “Now you’ve officially used up all your questions from now until the end of time.”
“Alabama,” Nate echoes. He’s smiling as if this small piece of information is something treasured. “Small town, right? I can see that.”
“You ask me one more fucking question, and I swear I’ll—”
“Break my goddamn neck, I know.” Nate taps one finger against Trip’s shoulder. “This is the last one, I promise.”
“I’m gonna throw you off this fire escape.”
“If you don’t ever go home, and you’re not planning on changing that anytime soon…” Nate looks nervous in a way Trip hasn’t seen on him in a long time. He clears his throat, meets Trip’s gaze. “Would you, um, maybe want to come home with me? For Thanksgiving?”
His anger forgotten in a sudden wave of confusion, Trip blinks at him. “To where?”
“To my parents’ place.” Nate’s cheeks are flushed, but Trip can’t tell if they’re colored with cold or embarrassment. “I know it’s kind of last-second, but I’ve got a ton of frequent-flyer miles saved up, and it’d only be for a few days.”
“To Minnesota.” Trip stares at the blanket draped over their laps.
“Yeah. You could meet my sister. See that porch on the house. My family does a huge dinner. We’ve got canoes and ATVs and my mom’s an even better cook than I am. You’d like it.”
Trip looks at Nate’s face. His expression is a mixture of nerves and something hopeful. “We’d fly?”
“Yeah, too far to drive.” Nate’s hand drifts from Trip’s shoulder to his side. He tickles him. “What? You scared of flying?”
“Never been on a plane.” Trip shies away from Nate’s fingers. He wishes he hadn’t put out his cigarette. “When would we go?”
“I’ve got a ticket booked for the Tuesday before, so it’ll be a quick trip.” Nate’s talking too fast, stumbling over his words. “Could probably get you different dates if you want, but I think there’s still availability on both of my flights if you can—I mean if you want to come. Do you want to go?”
Trip swallows, jigs a foot to rid himself of the sudden adrenaline in his system. “You trying to freak out your parents or something?”
“Freak them out?” Nate echoes.
Trip turns his gaze back to Nate and waves at his face. “Not exactly the best person to bring home to mom and dad.”
“Nora’s got a worse mouth than yours.” Nate looks slightly exasperated with talking about his family, but his tone is fond. “She curses like a sailor, and so does my grandma.”
Normally Trip would want to know more about Nora and this cursing grandmother he’s never heard about, but right now he’s still trying to process what he’s supposed to do with all of this. He cannot actually read anyone’s mind or see the future, but he’s good at knowing how things are going to play out and he hadn’t seen this coming.
“I meant my hair and my clothes and my eyes and all that.” He tugs at the sleeve of Nate’s cream-colored sweater.
“We can get you a couple new shirts if you’re that worried about it, but the rest of you is fine.” Nate looks from Trip’s left eye to his right. “And I love your eyes.”
Trip’s cheeks heat up and he has to look away. Trip Morgan does not blush. He doesn’t know what’s happening. “Can I think about it?”
“Sure.” Nate pinches his arm. “Don’t think too long, though? Tickets get really expensive close to the holiday. I’ve got a lot of miles, but not that many.”
“Okay.” Trip shifts under Nate’s arm. He wants to take a walk or run or get in a fight. He doesn’t know what to do with his body right now.
Nate must notice Trip’s sudden discomfort. He shifts his hand to the nape of Trip’s neck. He rubs the tight muscles there with his left hand, points with his right toward the street. “If you won’t tell me about you, tell me about them, those people down there by the eyebrow-threading place.”
Trip looks where Nate’s pointing. A group of women are standing in a close circle. “I don’t know them.”
“You can read minds and make up entire, elaborate novels about a drink receipt, but you can’t think of anything to say about a group of people right in front of you?” Nate moves closer to Trip’s side. “Come on, tell me.”
Trip relaxes. “Lenore, Keisha and Kiley.”
“Who’s who?” Nate is still massaging Trip’s neck. He steals his coffee with his free hand and takes a drink before offering the mug back.
“Dunno. You pick.” Trip lights a new cigarette. Nate doesn’t comment on it this time.
Nate’s better at this game than he had been at making stories for Trip’s things, but Trip makes up most of the story. They’re all dating each other, but Lenore was recently angry with Keisha for only inviting Kiley to her office party; they’ve since made up and are all going together to have their eyebrows threaded as a unifying activity before the party.
Trip and Nate keep playing their game with the people they can see through windows across the street and with anyone else who passes below. Trip relaxes; Nate laughs more and more as the stories get increasingly ridiculous. He tips his cheek into Trip’s hair and listens while Trip talks.
Trip finishes his cigarette and sips his coffee. It’s ice-cold, but he doesn’t mind. He’s the warmest he’s been in a long time.
v.
Pastor Welk was the one good thing in Bekket.
I’ll never know why he took an interest in me over all the other kids, but if I had to take a guess, I suppose it’s because you can get attached to a kid when you help deliver him on the steps of your own church.
From what I’ve heard, he came by the trailer sometimes with diapers and formula and that sort of thing so he could look in on us, but my mama usually just told him to go to hell. He may have been a man of God, but the only time my mama believed in God was when she was threatening us with eternal fire or citing the commandment about respecting your parents.
Anyway, we didn’t really get to know each other until I was five. It happened that I got stupid enough to get in a fight with Gideon, and I was scared out of my mind that he was going to beat me senseless for putting a nail through one of his bike tires. In my defense, he had crushed up all of my cicada shells I’d been saving up for weeks.
I ran out of the trailer park as fast as I could. I kept twisting around to check for Gid, and it made me fall a few times and bloody up my knees. I made it to town but then I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was about a hundred degrees out and I knew if I went into anyone’s store, they’d just call my parents and I’d be in even bigger trouble. I was thinking about just keeping on running, but then Pastor Welk saw me and invited me into the church.
He fixed up my knees and gave me some water and told me I could stay as long as I wanted, so I did. I laid down in one of the pews in the mezzanine and got goose bumps from the air conditioning and stayed camped out until it was time to close up.
I went back a lot, and Pastor Welk never minded. He let me do my homework on the floor and he mostly left me alone. My favorite part was Wednesdays because it was when they rehearsed whatever music they were going to play that Sunday. The choir sang, Mrs. Foley played piano and Pastor Welk played the guitar. It was nice.
He must have noticed how much I liked it because one d
ay when I was seven, he sat me down and suggested we make a deal: If I wiped down the pews every Monday and Wednesday, he’d give me lessons on the guitar every Tuesday and Thursday.
I started wiping down those damn pews so often that I smelled like Pine-Sol almost all the time.
When I got older, Pastor Welk came up with new things to keep me busy. I tended to squeaky doors, painted siding, vacuumed carpets, washed windows and kept wiping down the pews, and he just kept on going with the guitar lessons.
He didn’t like it when I started working with my brothers. Thought I was too good to be getting into that sort of thing and worried I’d get myself killed. Thought I was meant for “better things,” but I didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter and I couldn’t think of what better things there were besides maybe getting out of Bekket.
I guess he could have told me I couldn’t come around anymore if I was going to get involved in that sort of thing, but he never did. He just said he missed not having me around as much and asked me to leave my bat by the door before I came in, and I respected that.
One day after I got into it bad with a group of guys for trying to short me, Pastor Welk sat me down in his office and pulled out a notebook. He’d been marking down everything I did for him, from thawing out air conditioners to hosing down the front steps. He figured every job was worth some set amount of money outside my music lessons, so we counted it all up and it came to almost four hundred dollars. He made me a new offer: When I hit five hundred, the guitar was all mine.
Hell, I’d never wanted anything so bad in my life. I didn’t stop dealing, but he and I made a schedule to figure out how long it would take and what I’d have to do to make the extra cash, and I did my best to behave myself when I could.
It wasn’t just on account of the guitar. Pastor Welk was always so proud of me for such stupid shit, like reading a bit of sheet music or passing my science test or memorizing a Bible verse, that it made me feel shitty for all the times I came into the church with a black eye or after I’d been suspended for the day. I probably disappointed him more than I made him proud, but he never let on.
It took me another four months to make the cash and the grades. That was his other rule. I had to pass all my classes if I wanted the damn guitar, but I did it. I made the grades and did the work until one fine Sunday, that guitar was going to be mine as soon as church was over and I helped scrub down the pews.
I didn’t ever go to services because I didn’t like all the people, but Pastor Welk was okay with me stopping in right after.
“We all seek salvation in our own way,” he liked to say. I still don’t really know what that means, but if it meant not having to listen to people whisper and see them stare for a whole hour, I was fine letting him say it.
I was supposed to be making a swap out behind the elementary school, but I figured I could make my trip to the church, help out and be on my way fast enough that my guy wouldn’t have to wait around for more than a minute or two.
I remember I was humming “Amazing Grace” and dragging my bat on the sidewalk—I can still hear it, the scrape of the wood on the pavement, the plunking sound it’d make going over a crack—and I was feeling good. Real good.
There was a crowd on the steps like there always is after a service, but it seemed funny because I’d waited to go to the church just to avoid the mass exodus onto the sidewalk when everyone likes to stop and shake Pastor Welk’s hand and talk to each other about the service and one another.
I got all the way up to the first step before I realized people were screaming and crying and all in a panic. At first, I guessed maybe one of the candles had tipped over and the flame caught on a banner or something, but the crowd was too centered on one thing for it to be a fire. Next I thought maybe Pastor Welk was delivering another baby on the steps, and that got me curious, so I pushed in closer to get a better look.
There wasn’t a baby, but there was Pastor Welk.
He was stretched out on the steps, his choir robe was white, the sash green, and it was all billowed out around him like a kite that crashed too hard and snapped the support beams. His eyes were open and focused on the sky and he had one hand balled up over his chest.
I shoved my way in as close as I could get, but then I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I wish I could say I said something nice or he said something important to me, but I was too stupid with shock to speak and I think he was hurting too bad. I held his hand and kept quiet and just kept on staring.
We could hear the ambulance siren a long time before we could see it and people started getting real excited. Pastor Welk looked at the sky for a while and then looked at me, and all of a sudden he looked like he wasn’t hurting so much, and I thought—truly, honestly believed—it was a miracle and everything was going to be fine.
It was an ugly thing when his hand went loose and his eyes went empty. I’d had a lot of bad shit happen to me growing up, but that moment between thinking things were going to be okay and realizing that they weren’t was the ugliest thing that had ever happened to me. I didn’t wait to see the paramedics arrive. I didn’t hear any of the screaming anymore.
I went into the church, got that guitar and slung it over my shoulder and I don’t think anyone even saw me leave. What happened next was not something I sat down to plan out, but I think it was something that had been a long time coming.
I went back to the trailer, ignored my mama yelling about slamming the screen door and went to find a bag. I’d never left Bekket before, so packing was confusing and I kept on just putting my school things out on the bed and having to shove them out of the way again. My hands were numb and my head hurt and my ears were ringing so bad, I didn’t realize my daddy was home until he was clocking me upside the head and dragging me back out the front door.
He got a few good hits in while I was still too numb to think to cover my face, but when his belt came off, I knew I’d had enough. I wasn’t clear on what it was that had him so bent out of shape, but I didn’t care. I was tired and scared and angry. I was really fuckin’ angry, so I grabbed my baseball bat from where it was propped up beside the door and I swung. My daddy’s a big man, but I got my bat up good and high and he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
I moved fast after that. I went back inside, shoved some things in a duffel bag, dug up the coffee can of cash Gid hid under our bed, slung the guitar over my shoulder and went out the door.
I ran. I ran until I couldn’t anymore, caught a ride to Tuscaloosa and traded some of my cash for a bus ticket that got me as far as Virginia. I didn’t know what to do once I was there. I’d been cramped up on the bus for a good long time, but I had to sit down again in the bus stop and try to catch my breath and get the spinning in my head under control.
When I stuck my head down between my knees, I found the picture. It wasn’t much: just some kids on a porch looking like they’d been shoved together long enough to get the photo. There wasn’t anyone around to claim it and I liked the idea of having some other lost kids around, so I put the picture in my bag, pulled myself together and used the last of my cash to buy a ticket to New York.
I met a guy on the bus ride up. He’s real fucking tall and says he’s an artist. He’s not the first person I’d have picked to pair up with, but he’s nice enough and doesn’t ask a lot of questions, so we’re gonna stick together for a bit and see if we can figure out some place to stay that isn’t Port Authority or a park bench.
I don’t know what happens next. I just hope it’s something better than this.
eleven.
Trip doesn’t go home with Nate for Thanksgiving. It cuts too much into the playing time he needs to make enough for the next round of bills, and flight prices skyrocket by the time they discuss it again. Nate is disappointed but understanding, and Trip is slightly relieved to not have to find out what could have come of meeting Nate’s family. Even wi
thout going on the trip, things have changed between them.
Since coming back from his solo visit home for Thanksgiving, Nate has started leaving Trip alone in the apartment. It’s never for long—usually it’s just an hour or two in the mornings while he goes on his run—but some quiet sense of trust that the action implies makes it matter. Nate usually comes back to bed after with the cold still leeching off his clothes and his skin tasting like salt as he settles in over Trip and smugly mumbles how far he’s run while Trip lies in bed.
Sometimes Trip is cognizant enough to catch Nate’s wrist as he climbs out of bed and coax him back beneath the sheets so they can have sex before Nate goes for his run. If Trip isn’t awake enough, it’s no matter; Nate seems to relish waking him with kisses when he’s still panting from his workout. Sometimes, when Nate is feeling less rigid than usual, he skips his run entirely and they spend the morning in bed together.
Today, Trip had been so deeply asleep that he didn’t hear Nate leave. He doesn’t mind, though, when he discovers the cold side of the bed. He shifts to the middle where he can steal the extra pillows and nests himself farther under the covers. If it were possible, he’d be perfectly content to never do anything but remain right here in this place forever. He’s fallen hard for this bed. He adores the memory foam mattress topper, he revels in the soft cotton of the sheets and he delights in the down pillows that all smell like Nate’s cologne. He would commit to a long-term relationship with this bed if he could.
It occurs to Trip, as he drifts in and out of sleep and basks in the warmth of the covers, that today is December tenth. June will be one year old tomorrow and he will be twenty.
He’s never put much thought into his birthdays before. Seventeen had come and gone without much consideration, eighteen had been a relief, nineteen had been forgotten in the drama of the snowstorm and Scarlett’s early-morning delivery, and now he is in his twenties. It feels too old and too young to be him at the same time.