by Sarah Black
He gave a low wolf whistle. “Robert Mapplethorpe is crawling out of his grave right now, slouching toward Marathon on zombie hands and knees.” He studied me. “Okay, put your arms out to the sides, like you’re hanging from a cross. Palms out.”
I listened to the flash, stared up at the rafters. I was going to kick his ass for this. He came closer, adjusted the rawhide so the end of the whip dangled down next to my cock. “Now put your arms up behind your head, like Saint Sebastian, waiting for the arrows.” More clicks and flashes. “Okay, now spread your legs. I want to get the boots.”
This went on for a lot longer than I was interested in putting up with, and I finally pulled off the hat and rested it down over my groin. “Enough.” He got one last picture of the hat, resting between my legs, and then he put the camera down and picked up my boxers.
“Here you go, zo-zo.” He was suddenly contrite, like any boy who had eaten all the strawberries, then talked somebody into nude photographs.
“You,” I said, pointing at his chest, “are the most spoiled brat of a man in the history of Marathon, Texas, and San Francisco, California. I have a good mind to turn you over my knee and paddle your butt, but I think you’d enjoy it too much.”
“Santana today,” he said, and cranked up the volume on the CD player. “Supernatural!”
I love Carlos as much as most hot-blooded American men, but after four hours I had to go into the house and shove some cotton balls in my ears. It was too hot to work, anyway. I was falling into a pattern down here: run early, get to work, and break off about two. Sleep in the heat of the afternoon, with a nice fan blowing on me, then get up and work again in the evening. The Original woke me up about six for supper. “I’m having a hard time with the girl,” I told him.
“How come? You must have worked with lots of girls in the corps.”
“Yeah, but they were mostly support staff. I mean, combat infantry units are still pretty gender-specific, no matter what Congress says we should be doing.”
“Better just leave ’em support, then. It won’t work if you try and force somebody into your company.”
“That might be a good narrative thread, though. What happens if they put a girl in the unit against the wishes of the platoon leader. Bound to cause lots of interesting conflict.”
He yelled for Jesse out the back door, then went out and banged on the studio door. Jesse came in the house five minutes later. “Sorry, Granddad. I wanted to get the paper taped up over the painting. It looks like we’re gonna have a storm tonight.”
The Original had made a blueberry pie for dessert, and Jesse looked at it for a long moment, the beautiful purple juice bubbling up through the crust. “What happened?”
The old man sighed, lifted slices with an old-fashioned silver pie server. He looked at me. “An old family tradition. We fix a good pie so we can share bad news.”
Jesse pulled his piece over to him and waited until I had mine before he took a bite.
“Sadie checked herself out of that rehab. They don’t know where she is. She must have got a ride, but they don’t really know.”
“Aren’t they supposed to watch her? I mean, she just leaves, nobody knows….”
“She’s twenty-three, Jesse. They didn’t have any reason to have her committed, so she could go if she wanted.”
“But they don’t even know who picked her up?”
“I suspect you know that better than anyone else. You were the only person Sadie would talk to about this boyfriend of hers.”
Jesse shoved a piece of pie into his mouth. “I can’t talk about it, Granddad.”
“All right, son. You just remember I’m here, you need some help. Make sure Sadie knows too, that I would never judge her. She can always come home.”
After the old man had left the kitchen, Jesse slung a cup towel over his shoulder. “I’ll dry. Fuck. That is bad news, and I had such a good day today.”
“You don’t think she’s in any danger, do you?” I filled the dishpan, squirted lemon soap in the hot water.
“He tried to get her to make a porn film a couple of months ago. I sent her down here, then I came down, thinking I could keep an eye on her.” He took a plate from me, dried it off. “Oh, I came to paint too, but I just thought it would be better if we got out of Dodge, you know? She’s getting a little bit erratic.”
It seemed to me Sadie was a lot erratic and plenty old enough now to be running her own life, and not letting her big, strong cousin tell her where to go. But what did I know. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.
“You play the guitar, Mary?”
“Nope. I’ve never been musical. I like music, though.”
“I played when I was younger. I listened to Carlos Santana and Yo-Yo Ma play ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ today. Made me want to sit on the porch after supper and sing.”
“I’ll sit with you.”
We looked at each other across the kitchen, the smell of blueberry pie and lemon bubbles in the sink, washing dishes together. I liked him. I liked his company. I wanted to sit on the porch with him after supper and listen to him play the guitar for the rest of my days. What was I going to do when he went back to San Francisco? What was I going to do if he didn’t invite me to go along?
He hung the dishcloth over the handle on the oven to dry, went back to his bedroom and came out with the guitar. He sat on the top porch step, and I took one of the rocking chairs. He played an old classical guitar with nylon strings, and the sound was muted and gentle, old Spanish songs and slow fingerpicking. After an hour, The Original came out and brought us coffee, and we sat together, watching the stars, rocking, listening to Jesse play, and watching the storm blow in.
When the wind picked up and the coffee got cold, The Original stood up, stretched his back, and said, “I believe I’ll leave you boys to it.” He went into the house, and after a few minutes, the light in his bedroom went out.
Jesse handed me the guitar, and I set it back in the case, sat next to him on the top step. He leaned against me, and my arm moved around him to hold him close against my shoulder like it had been made for only this, my whole life. There was a time my hands could fieldstrip an M-16 in their sleep. Now they could draw cartoons in their sleep, but this close to Jesse, they were learning a new skill.
“Come sleep with me. My bed’s big enough for both of us to sleep together, and the old man already knows what I’m up to with you. He warned me I was in over my head.”
“Are you?” He smiled up at me, honey-silk hair messy, a piece blowing across his face in the wind that was kicking up.
“I’ve never been in over my head. Does it always do this to you, your painting?” I ran my fingers across the gray under his eyes. His eyes were the dreamy fuzzy blue of real exhaustion, so tired even focusing was too much.
“The good stuff. That’s when I know I’m on the right track, when the work tries to suck the life right out of me.”
“Then let’s just sleep together. Let our legs tangle in the sheets, and you can put your head on my shoulder and I’ll wrap you up and watch over you, all night.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you came strolling up through the desert, walking right out of some sweet, old Western movie. But it’s real with you, the cowboy thing.”
“I came via a fight in a cowboy bar in Alpine, Texas, and the USMC. Oh, I talked to the bar owner when I was up there getting groceries. I told him how sorry we both were. And we’re going to make it up to him.”
“How?”
“As soon as I figure that out, I’ll let you know.”
“I never slept with anyone in The Original’s house before. It was like a bridge I wasn’t ready to cross. This huge, deep, wide, bridge.”
“If I’m not a person you plan on taking home to your granddad, and saying, this is my partner, Lorenzo Maryboy, then you better let me know pretty damn quick. Because while I am the sort of man you can fuck around with out in the studio, I’m also the kind of man you sleep with in your gra
nddad’s house. So cross that bridge and come on in, Jesse. This storm’s getting ready to break.”
He looked up at me, a heartbreaking uncertainty in his eyes, a bit of helpless confusion, then I stood up and held my hand out to him, and he took it. “You’re such a Marine. If I’m not sure about something, Mary, can I count on you to tell me what I need to do?” He was laughing now, and I pulled him close and kissed his pretty smiling mouth.
“You can count on it.”
Chapter Ten
THE wind screamed and battered against the little house, and Jesse and I fell into each other’s arms in the big bed, crawled together and wrapped our arms and legs around each other and held on. I’d never slept with anyone like that, like we were clinging to each other, lost but for the feel of the other’s hands and skin. I slept with Jesse’s hair against my face, and something changed in me, through the long night. When I woke up, I thought I was never going to rest easy again, unless I had that silky hair against my cheek.
It was early, not quite six, but Jesse was already up. I pulled on my shorts and T-shirt and carried my shoes into the kitchen. He was on the phone, and he was upset. Looking for Sadie, I thought.
“Look, just go over there, okay? Drive by and see if you can see her or see his truck.” He listened for a moment. “No, I don’t know what time it is. Do I sound like I give a shit? You can’t do this for me, Sammy? It’s important or I wouldn’t have called.” He sighed, closed his eyes, and rubbed across his forehead. “Yeah, the first one’s almost done. Another couple of days. No, don’t. Just let me work.” I tied my shoestrings, stood up, and touched his cheek on my way out the door. He didn’t need me listening in. “It’s complicated, okay? I can’t explain right now. Just go check, and call me back.”
There was a lot complicated in JC3’s life right now.
I thought about Devil Dogs at War on my run. I’d save the girl problem for a later narrative. I needed to get my characters established first. I had an idea about the first thread, and it was going to be a bit controversial. I had to get my platoon off to war, through all the good-byes and weeping and hugs from the kids. Then I wanted to show how they all relaxed a bit, once they’d left their families behind. It was a kind of unspoken thing, how men going off to war sort of liked it. Looked forward to it. Not everybody, of course, and you didn’t want to kiss the little missus good-bye and then kick up your heels and pump your fist in the air too obviously, but there you go. That’s what my boys were going to do. It was telling the truth, and it wasn’t going to be popular. I felt myself grinning at the crisp, cool air, the sky as clear as a piece of blue ice after the storm. Yeah, I was going to make myself real unpopular. But the devil dogs would love it.
I cooked breakfast, bacon and fried egg sandwiches, and then I walked out to the studio with Jesse. “What are you going to listen to today?”
“Huh?” He looked like he was a million miles away. I had my cotton balls all ready. “Oh, nothing. Carlos finished us off, and now I’ve got to get all the fussy little detail work done. You can pick the music.”
“I’m okay with the peaceful sound of a West Texas wind.”
“That storm was something, wasn’t it? Did you see anybody’s roof off when you went out on your run?”
“No, but there was a big branch off that pecan tree down by the gas station.”
“What are you going to do today?”
“I thought I would draw the first strip and make lots of women mad.”
“Sounds like fun.”
WE WORKED without speaking through the day. The Original called us to come eat supper, and we both looked up, surprised at how late it was. I had finished nearly a month of cartoons, and my brain felt like it was an old sponge, squeezed out and left in the sun to dry. After supper, Jesse and I did the dishes, and I staggered off down the hall and went to bed. I could hear him talking to his granddad, and a couple of hours later he crawled into bed with me, let me pull him into my arms.
“I love you.”
He curled up against me. “You really mean it, don’t you?”
“I love you,” I said again, “for all your life. For all my life.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Thank you, Mary. I think… I’m going to try and be worthy of you.”
“Not something you have to earn, Jesse.”
“Yeah. It is. Listen, I need to talk to you. About the Grievous Angel. I want to make sure you understand.”
“Can we do it in the morning? It makes me tired, trying to keep up with you when you talk, and I think I pulled a muscle in my brain.”
His hand slid down, wrapped a warm hand around my cock. “As long as this muscle is okay.” And we were laughing when we fell asleep.
I woke up early and went for a long run. Marathon still had the crisp cool air left by the storm passing through, and the dogs got up from their porches and joined me as I went through town. Dawn was still an hour away, but there was an early train going through town, and its lonely whistle was followed by bedroom lights coming on. The bread was baking, and I ran by the tiny bakery just to smell it. It was a small town, isolated and insular like all small towns, but I was starting to feel at home here. I loved the desert, the strange smells and stranger plants, the smell of desert air. I was also finding that I really enjoyed The Original’s company, the quiet hour we spent on the porch after supper, the careful way he thought about what he was going to say, like he had to pay a penny every time he used an extraneous word.
And Jesse was like some gorgeous desert flower, filling my sight with rare beauty. I couldn’t get enough of looking at him.
I was moving faster than he was, I knew that. He wasn’t the sort of man to play me for what he could get, then move on, not unless we were both clear at the outset that was the game. We were both clear now that we weren’t playing tag. Maybe I wasn’t what he wanted or needed. I got the feeling he was a bit startled to find himself sleeping in my bed, my arms around him, me whispering I love you in his ear.
I hadn’t come here looking for that, either. But things happened, and you just had to turn and run or incorporate them into your reality pretty damn fast. I had a picture in my head—walking with the guys on patrol through a small village, coming to the mud brick square, and there was a bomb, sitting in the middle, with Jesse’s face painted on the side, smiling at me. He was so beautiful, and I walked right up to it, picked it up and gave it a kiss, even though my boys were shouting and trying to pull me away. The scar on my chest ached a little, and I rubbed it, made a loop in the road and headed toward home. There was no way I could ignore the fact that things could end badly. I couldn’t imagine my beautiful new boots walking the streets of San Francisco.
When I got back to the house, Jesse was sitting on the porch in his bare feet, eating a pastry out of a white bakery bag. I sat down next to him on the steps. “How’d you get Eden to open up early and give you that? I’ve been running by there and smiling every morning, and all she’ll give me is a wave.”
His face was sticky with strawberry and sugar, and I leaned forward, got a taste off his smiling mouth.
“Well, Eden and me, we go way back.” He put the bag on my lap. “I got you lemon. When we were fifteen, we kissed each other, first kiss for us both. We’d been saving it up for her birthday. She was my first girlfriend. Actually, my last too.”
The pastry was warm and sweet, and Eden had been generous with the butter. “I want her to be my girlfriend too.”
“I changed the title of the painting. I’m calling it Death of a Grievous Angel.”
I sat there for a moment, wondering what I was supposed to say. “Okay.”
“Mary,”—he turned to me, gave my knee a little shake—“you do understand….” He tried to say something but just looked at me, his eyes uncertain. I looked back, loving those blue eyes. “Will you tell me you love me again?”
“I love you again.”
“I ought to just let the great world turn, see what we look like at the end
of the day, but I’m starting to feel like this is something precious. You and me, I mean. I don’t want to break it.”
I stuffed the last of the pastry in my mouth. “What are you talking about, Jesse?”
“Sammy’s on his way. He called from the airport. He’s bringing Sadie home. And he’s going to take the painting back with him.”
I didn’t say anything. I wondered if he really thought Sadie was going to stay put this time any better than she did last time. And I wondered how many times the old boyfriend was going to use her to crawl back into Jesse’s bed.
“The thing is, I am not sure you’re going to understand what I did with the painting. I wanted to sort of ease you into it. Because it’s really good, zo-zo. It’s really, really good, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and you’re going to be so pissed off at me.”
“Um, and why is that?”
“I want to show you before Sam gets here. Because he just texted me that MOMA is bidding on it.” He looked at my face. “That’s the Museum of Modern Art. I sent him an image, though it isn’t done yet. So this painting, it’s about to blast out of here, and I’m not going to have time to explain. And I won’t change it, even if you’re really pissed. Because once you calm down, you’re going to understand.”
I stood up. “Let’s go look.”
“You want some coffee first?”
I just gave him a look, walked down the steps. The screen door opened, and The Original came out on the porch. “I was wondering where you boys had gotten to.”
“Come on to the studio,” I said. “Jesse’s gonna show us his Grievous Angel.” I was watching Jesse’s face, saw him flinch and close his eyes. Good God.
I opened the door to the studio, stood back, and let Jesse and The Original pass in before me. Jesse noticed the ironic gesture, gave me a look out of those beautiful eyes. Then I heard The Original take in a sharp breath, shout, “Sweet Jesus, Jesse!” I walked in behind him and took a look.
“Jesse, did you ask Lorenzo if you could paint him buck naked? Ten feet tall? Jesus, son, what have you done?”