“And... there are no helmets?” Sean felt like a right sissy asking that, but old habits died hard.
“Helmets? Almost nobody wears helmets around here.” Ulrika must have overheard him, since she looked over her shoulder and gave Sean an indulgent smile.
Cycling in from the suburbs took only half an hour, yet Sean had not biked since high school. The bicycle seat, hardened by the cold, made his ass sore. The short ride felt like it took several days. As they neared the tall yellow stucco wall that surrounded the Tivoli Gardens, they all left the designated cycling strip. Sean got off his bike with a groan of relief and followed the others to a lot full of very similar models of varying quality.
Asbjorn glanced at him with amusement in his eyes. “I can tell you don’t do much biking.”
“Oh shut up.”
Asbjorn raised his eyebrows at Sean’s irritated tone, and he grinned with mischief. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I forgot you have such a tender heinie!” He almost turned away when Sean’s voice stopped him.
“Wait, Bjorn, I’ve gotta take a picture of this.”
“Of what?” Asbjorn looked around, searching for the cause of Sean’s fascination.
“The bicycle parking lot. There are hundreds of them!” Sean had never seen such a sight before. The bicycles were crowded into a long parking strip between the bike path and the pedestrian sidewalk, with not a parked car in sight. An occasional vehicle or bus passed them in either direction, but most people either walked or traveled on bikes.
Ole and Ulrika grinned at one another. “Hey, I’ll take a picture of the two of you together,” she said, shoving Asbjorn closer to Sean. She took Sean’s iPhone and aimed.
“Well, don’t just stand there. Bjorn, get closer.”
Sean cleared his throat in warning, but Asbjorn only grinned as he threw his arm around Sean’s shoulders and pulled him in.
She snapped three pictures in rapid succession. “Perfect! One of these is bound to be good. Now, if we walk another two blocks, there’s a huge shop with amber jewelry, and the prices are a lot better than farther downtown.”
Sean felt Asbjorn’s arm propel him over the wet sidewalk, past the walls of the Tivoli Garden, and down a main drag of some sort. The road had two lanes for cars and busses going each way, and a bikeway as wide as a car physically separate from vehicular traffic. They walked on the elevated sidewalk next to the bikeway, with tall stone buildings to their right. Sean kept slowing down and gawking at things like a tourist.
“What are you looking at?” Asbjorn asked as he tried to propel him toward Ole and Ulrika, who were disappearing in the crowd up ahead.
“I just want to see,” Sean said in a plaintive voice. “Like this. Check this out!” He pointed toward a small, engraved brass plaque on the wall of the building. “Look, it says ‘No bike parking.’ In English. Does that mean that everyone in Denmark speaks English, or that Danes park under buildings, or that only tourists who speak English park against the walls?” Sean stood, gazing at the official little sign and the three rusted bikes propped up under it.
“I don’t know,” Asbjorn replied. He sounded bewildered. “I guess if there was no sign, they would breed. Hey... let’s catch up with the others, okay?”
Sean dug his heels into the ground and dropped his center of gravity a little.
The Unliftable Body.
“I’ve never been here before, and I just want to see it. I want to see the little things, Asbjorn.” He called his lover by his full name because he meant business. “I might never see Copenhagen again, and it’s so... so different! It’s like no other city I’ve ever seen. Just look at all these 7-Eleven stores!”
Asbjorn followed his gaze with benevolent amusement.
“There is one on every corner. What the fuck? Do the Danes play the lottery and forget to buy milk that often?” He stepped back and tilted his head up, meeting Asbjorn’s attentive gaze. “Even the butter tastes different, the beer is different – all these things are different. And there’s no daylight. Not compared to California, anyway. The only other countries I’ve ever been to were Canada and a bunch of tropical islands. This is a lot more different than that.”
“Oh yeah?” Asbjorn crossed his arms and peered at Sean from his greater height. “What else is different?”
They stood there, blocking most of the sidewalk, while Sean tried to verbalize his impressions. “People don’t give a shit about nudity as much.”
“How do you figure?”
“Didya see that guy pissing against a wall? We passed him on the way in. You’d never see that in Boston. Or LA. Not unless he was homeless, except he was dressed like the other people.”
A small smile played on Asbjorn’s lips as he wrapped his arm over Sean’s shoulders. “Yeah. People here drink a lot, and it’s cold out. You probably never knew the US had so many free public toilets, right?”
“What do you mean, free?” Sean asked as he let Asbjorn guide him down the street.
“Here, you have to pay to use a public toilet. Usually a kroner or two, plus you tip the attendant.”
“Just to piss? That’s crazy!”
“And that’s why you saw that guy before. If you’re around when there is a good soccer match on, they will put up a big screen and have a beer truck on one side of the city square and open urinals on the other.”
“Open?” Sean raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah. They look like a gravity well in the science museum, and guys just walk up and do their business, and nobody cares.”
“And what about the women?” Sean wondered.
“They don’t care.”
“But where do they go to, you know...?”
“The pay toilets.” Asbjorn grinned.
“Wow.” Sean remained silent until they stopped before a large storefront. It glowed from within, lit like a lantern and outshining the pallid winter sun’s brave attempt to peek through the clouds.
“We’re here,” Asbjorn said. “Ulrika and Ole are already inside, probably thinking we got lost.”
WATCHING SEAN BROWSING the amber store was a gift, Asbjorn decided. It reminded him of their age difference.
Sean was almost six years younger and not as well traveled. He hadn’t seen the Indian Ocean, Japan, and the various islands in-between. This was his first time to Europe, even though his mother had been born in Ireland. And here he was, wandering from one display case to another as though he was in a museum.
Amber came in so many colors, through a progression from clear through a range of yellows and browns, to almost black. He saw pieces with a hint of red or small bits of dark, expensive green. He watched Sean eye the vitrine full of heat-treated, bright green gems set in silver, only to turn toward the honey-toned hues of clear, polished pieces to his left. The ones that matched his hair. And the dark ones would surely match his eyes. Asbjorn strolled behind Sean, peering over his shoulder occasionally, curious to see what would catch his interest.
It took almost an hour for Sean to soak up the warmth of the display and make his selection: two pairs of earrings for his sisters. Yet Asbjorn did not miss Sean’s wistful glance at the more expensive, modern pieces set aside in a prominent central display.
“Hey, Ole.” Asbjorn nodded toward his stepbrother and exchanged a few sentences in quiet Danish.
Ole nodded.
Ulrika grinned. “We’ll all go ahead and you can catch up with us. See you under the puke machine!”
Sean turned at her cryptic words, because he didn’t know what a puke machine was.
“Come on, Sean! Put those in a zipper pocket so they don’t fall out! We’ll go ahead.”
“You’re not coming?” Sean asked, turning to Asbjorn.
“I’ll catch up with you. I just figured I should get something for Nell. You didn’t think I’d forget my old karate instructor, did you?”
Sean nodded. “Oh. Good point.” His pinched expression dissolved as he smiled, and he turned to follow Ol
e and Ulrika.
As soon as the door closed, Asbjorn pointed to a striking, disc-like piece in the display case. “This one, please. And a pair of earrings.”
“DID WE STAY IN THERE for hours? It’s dark already!” Sean said in Ole’s direction, who just shrugged.
They were inside the tall walls that surrounded the Tivoli Gardens. It wasn’t what Sean had thought it would be. According to online information, the park was modeled after the Tivoli Gardens in Italy to help the city dwellers relax in a natural garden setting. He expected the trimmed evergreens and crushed rock paths and all kinds of neoclassical statuaries.
Maybe a gazebo and a fishpond with a fountain.
It had all that, but he sure didn’t figure Tivoli Gardens would also be an amusement park.
It was only three in the afternoon, yet it was pitch-dark and the whole space was lit with festive Christmas displays. Some decorated Christmas trees were live and planted, while others were elaborate sculptures made of fiberglass. Merchants sold seasonal wares from their stalls while riders squealed in glee as they braved the rides in the freezing temperatures. Sean detected the sweet scent of cinnamon-roasted almonds on the air and realized he was hungry again.
“Let’s go on the Vertigo,” Ole shouted over the din of the crowd.
They wove their way past the stalls with Christmas merchandise. A roller coaster roared overhead, and Sean flinched.
“That’s just Odin’s Express,” Ulrika said right into his ear. “Would you like to go on it?”
Sean hesitated. It looked nice, in a medium-sized, homey way. “We told Asbjorn we would meet him under the puke machine. Where’s that?”
Ulrika laughed. “That’s on the other side of the park. Past the pond.”
They wound their way through the crowd. Coffee brewed somewhere, its smell mingling with the pungent scent of pickled fish. His stomach growled. “How about some food?” He suggested. “My treat!”
“Not before the puke machine.” Ole laughed. “No way. You do that only once!”
They walked past a pond with a replica of The Little Mermaid statue in the frozen water, a carousel, and a dozen other things that vied for Sean’s attention until they ended up at the end of a very long line.
Above them rose a tall pillar with rotating arms. Sean tilted his head back to see two little biplanes spin around three axes at the ends of the long arms.
He considered the apparatus with a dubious expression.
“It’s the best! I totally love it!” Ulrika exclaimed in an effort to get him excited for a wild ride. “You can sort of control it, but not much. And it makes you move in all three directions all at once!”
“Sounds like a puke machine for real,” Sean commented. Although he had been on some fast and tall rides before, he feared “Vertigo” would live up to its name. The queue moved forward in jerky stops as people took their turns. He noted that some riders who got off were rather shaky in the knees. It occurred to him that he could come up with some kind of a lame excuse. A bathroom trip, maybe.
Then the weight of a familiar arm landed on his shoulders and the scent of Asbjorn’s aftershave cut through the crisp evening air.
“Excited?” Asbjorn asked, and there was mischief in his voice.
Sean replied with a grin. At this moment, with Asbjorn by his side, he wouldn’t back out for the world.
The line progressed with ponderous inevitability, delivering them to their untimely end. Sean spent much of his time on the ground observing the structure. He hoped it was sound. The torsional forces were bound to be immense, and the engineering involved in the design and construction of “Vertigo” was not without its challenges.
He hoped the power would go out.
It didn’t.
All too soon the four of them piled into the four-seat cabin and fastened their harness. As soon as the little plane launched upward, a wall of freezing air hit Sean’s face so hard he could barely breathe.
They flew.
They spun.
They spun again, and Sean felt his center flip upside down, his very core that he worked so hard to maintain. He thought of darkness, but the darkness didn’t come because he was spinning away from it. His body pressed into the seat as lights flashed around them.
Light was down.
Dark was up, way into the endless depth of night.
They flipped, and his harness dug into his shoulders and his legs for the briefest moment, and then he felt the acceleration press him into the hard, cold seat again. His gloved hands were freezing, fingers clutching the metal bar, and Asbjorn was howling and whooping with glee right next to him.
It felt like falling but more so, a breakfall without the hard impact of the ground against his leg and hip and shoulder. And it reset him. He recalled Ken Swift’s words – when you’re scared or off balance, just roll on the ground – and this was like that. Sean was lost in the moment of shifting gravity and there was no scared, no balance to be missed. There was only here and now, freezing air and numb cheeks and Asbjorn’s joyful exhortations in his ear.
They survived, Asbjorn with a wild grin and Sean without a firm sense of up and down. He stumbled a bit.
“Hey, you all right, sunshine?”
Sean didn’t reply, leaning against a nearby retaining wall.
“Sean?”
“Actually, I’m better than okay. I feel better than I did a few days ago. Rebooted, sort of? Like there is no Frank Pettel out there anymore.”
He felt Asbjorn search him with a careful gaze. “All right. And your stomach?”
“What stomach?” Sean laughed. “I just realized I’m not hungry anymore. Did you know I was tempted to get some of that pickled fish?”
Now it was Asbjorn’s turn to laugh. “That would’ve been brilliant. Do you get seasick on boats?”
“How did you guess?” Sean groaned. “Although it never bothers me when I surf.”
“Well then, we survived, you didn’t puke into the hood of Ulrika’s jacket, you feel ‘rebooted,’ so it’s all good. Where would you like to go next?”
Sean gave him a wistful look. “Odin’s Express? It’s not anything like the Vertigo, but the name is just too cool.” Besides, it looked narrow, and that meant they could snuggle all the way to the end.
Asbjorn looked around. Ole and Ulrika were talking with a punk kid, probably a friend. They looked very involved. Asbjorn leaned in for a quick hug, lifting Sean’s face for a brief, chaste kiss.
“Asbjorn, we’re in public!”
“It’s okay. Nobody cares.” He brushed his lips against Sean’s jaw, ending up by his ear.
“If we make out for a while, it will give Ulrika some time with her boyfriend,” Asbjorn whispered.
Sean glanced over. “That guy in the black cap?”
“Yeah. They look quite interested in one another. I bet Mom doesn’t know.” They both laughed, lost in each other and the cinnamon and coffee that scented the fresh Baltic air.
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE, Bjorn.” Sean’s fingers made quick work of the red wrapping paper. There was a box, and inside it a small velvet pouch. Sean upturned it in his palm, only to see a pierced disc of amber spill out, an intricate silver chain snaking behind it. Sean sat back on the open sleeper sofa, stunned into silence.
“Whatever it takes, sunshine,” Asbjorn whispered in his ear. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it for as long as it takes too. And now you have some of your very own.”
Sean smiled and examined that drop of ancient sunshine, feeling its warmth, its smooth surface. It slid against his fingers, opulent and rich and entirely too good for him. He loved it – absolutely adored it – and the only snag was that he didn’t even have a stick of chewing gum to trade back. “Asbjorn....”
“Let me help you with the clasp.” Asbjorn broke the silence, took the piece of jewelry from Sean’s hand, and placed it around his neck. He closed the clasp and adjusted Sean’s overgrown hair over it. He looked at Sean. The piece of glo
wing amber sat right where his button-down shirt opened. “It’s perfect.”
“I haven’t found anything good enough for you. Everything I look at seems so ordinary. I’ve been looking, but... ”
Asbjorn cleared his throat. “You’re my present, sunshine. You, being here. I don’t need anything else, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Sean fingered the smooth, flat disc, and an upwelling of wonder stirred his heart.. “Thank you.” That’s all he could say, so far away from all he knew, yet so at home in this man’s company.
“Merry Christmas, Sean.”
Feeling self-conscious didn’t prevent Sean from leaning in and brushing his lips against Asbjorn’s. He let his eyes close in an onrush of unexpected pleasure. When he opened them, he was still just a handsbreadth from Asbjorn’s face. He leaned in to kiss him again. “Merry Christmas, Asbjorn.”
CHAPTER 3
Settled in Helga’s office that was now their guest bedroom, Sean stirred in the computer chair. This was the Skype call he’d been dreading the most. This was where he would feel exposed and feeble. The man on the other side would stare him down. Eviscerate him. Perhaps even turn his face away from him forever. The sense of feeling rebooted on the Vertigo was gone, and old anxieties and insecurities came flooding back in its stead. He tried to focus on his breathing, but the raucous noise of air rushing in and out threatened to drown out the words of the man who had been his teacher for so many years.
“I never imagined this could befall you, Sean,” Burrows-sensei’s flat image commented from the computer monitor. Sean saw the shoji screen glow behind him. Sunny San Diego suffered from one of its rare cold snaps, judging from Sensei’s layers of warm attire.
“I am sorry,” Sean said.
Burrows-sensei’s gray eyes seemed startled. “This is not your fault. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“I should’ve been braver... I should’ve tried to capture him the first time. I should’ve – ”
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