The Rest Is Illusion

by Eric Arvin

  He remembered the night in the noisy bar. Wilder had pulled him into the small, cramped bathroom with a flirtatious come-on. Dash thought Wilder locked the door, even as they began to kiss. The bathroom was not a romantic place, but Wilder was whispering nice and naughty, so it didn’t matter. Dash heard pounding on the door but paid little attention to it as Wilder undressed him, turning him round and round until Dash realized the kisses had stopped, and he was naked with his back to an open door of sneering and laughing drunks. Wilder was by the bar, his arms crossed and suddenly not at all the person he had claimed to be.

  “He’s a charmer,” Sarah agreed. “I don’t see it, but for some people, there’s a weird vibe about him. You’re not the only one he’s succeeded in getting his hooks into. He knows how to use tools of manipulation is all. Don’t beat yourself up.” She still held his hand across the table.

  “He uses people just like his dad, I guess. Except Wilder’s another style of politician. Deadlier, I think,” Dash said as he turned his embarrassed stare back to Sarah. “I never had a problem with being gay until that night, Sarah. Until….” His voice took on a pleading quality, as if he was asking if she could fix things. “I had heard all the rumors about him, but I thought if they were true, I could be the one to change him. Instead, he changed me.”

  “He’s a sickness. He’s a gorgeous virus,” she said, shooting a lethal glare across the empty room at Wilder. “Looks like he’s found somebody new to go after.”

  “I want to warn him. I’ve tried. But every time I try to say something to Tony…. I don’t know. It’s strange. I hate to say this, but I almost want Wilder to do something to him so I don’t have to be alone in the way I feel.” Dash looked back out the window so he couldn’t feel Sarah’s stare. He shook his head. “I’m a terrible person,” he said in that frightened, fragile voice again.

  “No, you’re not, babe,” Sarah said softly. “Just confused. It’s allowed.”

  “I should tell him. Give him a heads-up. It’s the right thing to do.” He took on the look of certainty. “Wilder’s a predator. He’ll lull Tony into a secure place, then pounce.”

  “Maybe. But then maybe you don’t have anything to worry about. I mean, Tony’s straight, right? What can Wilder do to him?”

  “Plenty,” Dash said as he spotted his roommate Ashley crossing the quad on his way back to their room at Sigma Gamma. Ashley was so at ease, so ever-pleasant. He was a pure soul, Dash thought. So pure that at birth, a physical manifestation of love had permeated his flesh, making him forever bright and ethereal. He was otherworldly in every discernible way. Ashley disappeared out of the frame of the window, and Dash took a collected breath to signify he was ready to go.

  Sarah let loose of Dash’s hand, and they got up and dumped their trays. As they passed the long table seating Wilder, Tony, Gabriel, and the other ballplayers, Dash shuddered. He could feel their eyes. He didn’t look at them, but he could feel their eyes.

  It seemed even colder outside than it had been when Dash first set foot outdoors that morning. Sarah once again huddled against his frame. It comforted him. She comforted him, in her often motherly way.

  Yet even as he pondered Sarah’s reassuring closeness, a slicing pain ripped through his abdomen. He doubled over, letting forth a guttural howl. His cheek met the icy hardness of the concrete with a sudden smack.

  “Dash!” Sarah cried out with panic. She dropped to her knees beside him and clutched at him, unable to keep him from slipping to the ground. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

  For a moment, he couldn’t speak. She was getting more and more agitated, looking around for help. “Dash!” she said louder as her eyes welled up with tears.

  “Just get me to my room,” Dash finally gasped. The cold had disappeared for him. He was no longer concerned with freezing wind or ice-cold sidewalks. Other students stopped and stared as Sarah put her arms around him and helped him upright. They walked slowly to the fraternity. Dash felt as if his stomach was being hollowed out by dirty, angry fingers.

  That was how it would come. He knew it. There were going to be more and more days like this. Soon he would have to tell everyone. Soon, but not this day.

  ASHLEY OWEN Walterhouse III had come from a long line of “lucky bastards.” Luck had been the seed of his family’s fortune. In his long ancestral line of fortunate sons and daughters were one of the most winning riverboat gamblers in history, a survivor of the Titanic, a Revolutionary War hero, and a great uncle who invented the milk strainer among other indispensable items.

  He had been expected to die when he was born so early in his mother’s pregnancy, but he didn’t. He had been expected to be slow and witless by doctors, but he wasn’t. He had been expected to hide in the shadows away from society by his concerned parents, but he didn’t. Instead, he shone brightly.

  Ashley was successful and accomplished at everything he did, and his heart, far from being weak and frail, was strong and big and encompassed every pleasant face and thoughtful gesture he had ever seen. The fact that he was an albino, devoid of any pigment in his skin, hair, and eyes, was fuel for a life devoted to higher pursuits than simply getting the girl. The world was bigger than anyone else’s expectations or limits.

  Ashley took off his coat and welcomed the warmth of his room in the fraternity. He ran his fingers through his dyed green hair. The truth was he rather enjoyed colder days, even in the spring. On the chilliest winter mornings, he could almost feel his blood course through his veins. It made him feel that much more alive, conscious and alert to the world, so he might more easily traverse its dangers and mine for its hidden beauties. On those days, he even enjoyed his early classes. He could more readily pay attention and allow thought to awaken the desire to learn.

  “Jesus, Dash!” Ashley quietly exclaimed at the sight of Dashel’s desk, piled with the research he had been chained to all year.

  There was no real organization to it. Dash’s thoughts and penned ramblings were simply thrown about and stacked and compiled everywhere. The floor, the chair, the bar. Ashley had even seen Dashel napping in his bed on top of papers and books on several occasions. He smiled, wondering how Dash would ever bring order to it.

  Ashley adored Dash. He loved his little quirks and his big blunders. But then, it was easy to love Dash. Dash and Ashley had been good friends since freshman year when they met before classes started. All sports players arrived on campus a few weeks before the other students. They were in cross-country and track and had paired up out of necessity at first. At the outset, it seemed they would be loners in the college environment. A young gay athlete and his albino chum who liked to dye his hair and wear colored contacts. But after a few weeks and a few wins, they had developed an enthusiastic following of friends and admirers. Ashley’s humor and friendliness made everyone feel at ease, and Dashel’s good looks and charm made every girl he met think she might be able to “straighten” him out.

  Ashley and Dash roomed together, ate dinner together, and ran together. They comforted each other when they were down and grounded one another when they were too far up. By the time Pledge Week came around during their first year, they had become very well liked. It was easy enough for them to be accepted into the same frat, though some paused when considering Dash. He was gay, after all, and Verona was a very small school still anchored to old ways of thinking. In the end, they both joined Sigma Gamma, the cleanest house on campus both in physical appearance and reputation.

  He slipped Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris into the CD player, still thinking about his friend.

  As seniors, Ashley was the Sigma Gamma president and Dash remained his roommate and constant companion. Of course people whispered rumors about a sexual relationship between the two of them. Ashley was aware of the rumors, but they never affected him. Who better to be involved in a nonexistent gay love affair with than his best pal?

  A commotion in the hall drew him back from his thoughts, and he peered out. Sarah Coheen struggled to h
elp Dash down the hall toward the room. Ashley ran to them.

  “What the hell happened?” he demanded, taking Dash’s other arm. It was featherlight, and Dash was breathing hard. Pain passed in waves on his face.

  “It’s nothing,” Dash groaned. “Just a stomach flu.” They made it to their room and lay Dash on his bed. His body seemed to glide toward the sheets and pillow. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “He just doubled over,” Sarah said in a subdued voice between heavy breaths. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “I told you it’s nothing.” Dash opened the drawer of the nightstand beside his bed. The nightstand was covered by inches of notepads. An alarm clock with large red numbers sat atop it.

  “You look awful, Dash. Like shit. Maybe we should get somebody to take a look,” Ashley objected. He stood beside Sarah, looking down at Dash with brotherly concern.

  “No,” Dash shot back. “Look at your hair,” he teased. “You’re telling me I look like shit?” He had taken a pill bottle from the drawer and spilled two green capsules into the palm of his hand. He jerked his head back and swallowed the pills without water.

  “Dash, what was that? What did you just take?” Sarah queried, reaching for the bottle. Dash jerked it away with a look that said I’m a grown-up. Leave me alone.

  “Medicine. That’s all. It’s not illegal. These are prescribed.” Ashley and Sarah looked at him in confusion.

  “Dash, is there something you want to tell us?” Ashley inquired. He was wearing his yellow contacts, which gave him a freakish air.

  “Yeah,” Dash said. “You look like an insane leprechaun.”

  Ashley only stared at him with his hands positioned on his hips, the question still on his face.

  Dashel sighed as he looked at them, then at the bottle in his hands. The pain was subsiding, becoming bearable.

  Ashley could see the look of distress leaving Dash’s face. “What are you hiding, Dash?” Ashley pressed.

  “Not now, Ash,” Dashel sighed, weary. “I don’t want to talk about it now. I’m going to rest for a bit, okay? I’ll tell you everything later. I promise I will.”

  Ashley nodded hesitantly. “Okay, man,” he said. His yellow eyes were still wide with confusion. He looked at Sarah as a way of ushering her out of the room.

  “Call me if you need anything,” Sarah said. She left the room with Ashley’s hand on her shoulder.

  Ashley closed the door, and they stood out in the quiet hall. The frat house was still, no one else was there. Ashley and Sarah held separate conversations in their own heads as they stared at each other without actually seeing the person in front of them.

  “What do you think…?” Sarah jolted them both back to reality, not expecting an answer.

  “I’m not sure,” Ashley said. “But he’s sick. Very sick. That’s no stomach flu. Did you see the way he was shaking?” Ashley decided he would ask more about it later. Illness was never an easy subject to broach, but he would see Dash through it. It disturbed him immensely to see his friend so troubled. He could remember only one other time Dash had been so shaken. That one night after Wilder had….

  But that was a different circumstance altogether. A different sort of pain. A different cause.

  “LATER, GUYS.” Tony rose from his seat to discard the remnants of his breakfast. All eyes followed his broad-shouldered ascension. “See you, Wilder,” he said with a little less effort.

  “Later,” Wilder nodded as he remained seated with the rest of the group. He watched as Tony walked away, chin up and chest out. He didn’t like the way Tony was looking in Dash’s direction, not one bit, or the way Tony had shrugged off the tales of Dash he was so eager to tell.

  Wilder rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek and looked at the other guys at the table with false interest. He smiled every so often, but he wasn’t listening. Not really. They were boring. All of them were followers who could be easily manipulated and discarded once their usefulness had run its course. They were jabbering on about some game or another. It really didn’t matter. Wilder’s thoughts were centered on Tony. Did I make a mistake in thinking Tony would be easy? Did my character-bashing of Dashel hurt my chances with my desired objective? The two were fraternity brothers and lived in the same hall, but Wilder didn’t think they were particularly close. Yet when Tony’s eyes were on Dash, there was something… irritating, there.

  Dash had been easy. Too easy. His weakness was laughable. A young blond beauty so readily accepting of what befell him, he was too naive to think it was anything but love. Such unswerving gullibility should never go unpunished, Wilder thought.

  Wilder’s father had always taught him to take the advantage when dealing with people like Dash. That’s what they’re for. That was their function. They were the feed in the trough and then the refuse in the gutter. Nothing more. There was nothing redemptive about “nice.” Being nice, being truthful, was for the kind who were not willing to accept the plain obviousness of life. There isn’t anything more. One should take what he can. Giving without hope of getting was for scared Christians trying to save their souls and weak-minded faggots like Dashel Yarnsbrook. Dash was just a scared little gay boy in search of true love. A stupid impossibility. A malalignment, a weakness, an illness. And Wilder hated illness above everything else. Letting frailty take over. Wilder sometimes wished Dash hadn’t been so easy to take. That there might have been a chase.

  And too, there was Ashley, that overprotective freak of a roommate. It took a while to get Dash out of Ashley’s grasp. Ashley scared Wilder. He could see through him, saw things others could not. He gave Wilder chills. Ashley was the only one who could have that effect on him.

  Every single time Wilder caught a glimpse of the albino going to or coming from class, he would take another route to avoid him, to avoid those terrifying eyes. Ashley was easier to look at when he wore contacts. But on the days when he didn’t, his eyes were reddish and even more abnormal than fake black lenses. Wilder felt ill just thinking of Ashley, and that was a detriment to his self-image. Sometimes he wanted to kill Ashley, to choke him with his bare hands, leaving a black and blue mark around that angelic white neck. Wilder would never be scared or unnerved by Dash, but Ashley put the fear into him. He was too much of an unknown, too abnormal.

  Wilder noticed Maggie Parma look at him as she passed by the long table to throw out her tray. She’d been his most recent female victim. She had wanted it; she had deserved what she got. She still looked at him with shame, yet he knew if he cornered her, he could have her once again. Like Dash, she was one of the easy ones. The trusting fools he could completely control because their own shame would never allow them to speak up, and their own weakness got them in trouble to begin with.

  He grinned at her, showing his teeth intentionally. He rested his elbows on the table, and he leaned forward to leer at her as she walked by. She looked away too quickly. It was easy work, and he knew he could use Maggie for other things as well. She was a journalism major and had access to the photo labs. Old-fashioned pictures were always much better than anything digital. With digital there were no negatives, and Wilder liked negatives. Negatives meant proof positive.

  “Are you coming tonight, Wilder?” Gabriel asked as they all rose from their seats. A large reverberating ruckus ensued from the sliding chairs.

  “Big part-ay at Sigma Gamma. Should be fun,” another chimed in. A heftier fellow whose name Wilder forgot. Or maybe never bothered to learn.

  “You bet,” Wilder smiled innocently. His eyes went gentle and friendly. A young collegiate ready to party with his newfound friends.

  “Great! See you there, buddy,” Gabe spoke as they left the table. “It’s gonna be a BLAAAAST!” he sang out loudly.

  A party will be the perfect chance, Wilder thought. A chance to get hold of Tony on his own turf, in the place where he felt most comfortable. An opportunity to really get things going. His father would be so proud.

  But first, Maggie. Wilder lo
oked over his shoulder as she came closer, trying to escape his glance. He could see her fear and ate it up. She would definitely satisfy him until later tonight.

  Chapter Two

  Tony walked into Sigma Gamma, relieved to be free of Wilder’s presence. There was really nothing wrong with Wilder that he knew of, but Wilder gave him a strange feeling, an undefined awkwardness of character. The feeling had a menacing quality to it, as if Wilder were a creeping shadow, hovering over wherever Tony walked lately. It was as if he blotted out the sun.

  The house was getting busier; guys were either coming back from classes or waking up. Most would put off any course work they had until later. There was, after all, a party to prepare for, and Sigma Gamma parties could start very early.

  Tony passed Dash and Ashley’s room. The door was shut. He thought of the look on Wilder’s face at breakfast when he had wanted to drag some supposed secret about Dash out into the light, some tale that might smudge Tony’s perception of him. As he thought through the discussion again, uneasiness crept over him. He felt a sudden urge to wash his hands, and he headed for the washroom.

  “Antonio!” a raucous group of brothers yelled as they passed Tony in the hallway on their way downstairs. They were as noisy as a herd of wild somethings as they shuffled and pushed their way past, shoulder to shoulder holding up the walls. They hit and shoved one another in playful disorderliness.

  Tony smiled at their loud acknowledgment and continued into the restroom. They were most likely already buzzing, starting the party at ten in the morning. He heard a bedroom door open behind him.

  “Dashel!” the group shouted again in unison as they passed the newly opened door. Tony slipped into the washroom as the group made their way down the concrete stairs, their voices and footfalls echoing.

  The warm water soaked into his skin. He could have held his hands under the faucet forever, relishing the warmth and the soothing comfort. He kept his eyes closed and cleared his head of everything except the sound of the faucet, the feel of the water, and the smell of liquid soap. He rested his chin on his chest. For a few pleasant minutes, he stood in his mini-bliss and drifted through crystal seconds of splendid calm, lost in an inner world without intrusion. When he finally opened his eyes and looked up into the mirror, Dash stood motionless behind him, staring with a look of apprehension and concern.