Flesh and Blood

by Michael Cunningham

  “Come on,” Ben whispered. “They can't see us.”

  Jamal remained standing. His shirt stretched tightly over his chest and belly as Ben pulled at it. The tips of the feathers starchily tickled Ben's hair.

  “Come on,” he said. He wanted to hold Jamal, to feel his defiant head against his chest. He wanted to win him, to comfort him and own his affections. He was lost to lightness, he couldn't make it matter.

  “No,” Jamal said.

  Ben knelt in the dirt, breathing. He didn't say anything. He didn't let go of Jamal's shirt.

  “I don't want to do it anymore,” Jamal said. “I'm sorry.”

  “I don't, either,” Ben answered.

  “Let go.”

  Ben didn't let go. He didn't speak.

  “I have a girlfriend,” Jamal said.

  “So do I.”

  “We should stop, okay?”

  “This'll be the last time.”

  “No.”

  “Please,” Ben said.

  Jamal looked down at him. The lower half of his face was raggedly framed by the wing.

  “Man,” he said. “I'm not gay.”

  Ben didn't speak.

  “It's not because I don't love you,” Jamal said.

  “I don't love you, either. What do you think I am? Your boyfriend or something?”

  “No,” Jamal said. His eyes were black and opaque as coffee. “I don't think you're my boyfriend.”

  Ben unsnapped the fly of Jamal's jeans. He would lose himself, he would make Jamal stop talking. He would go somewhere else. He wanted only to be lost. “Ben,” Jamal said. Ben had Jamal's cock out. He'd never done this before. With a queasy sense of release, like diving from a great height, he took Jamal's cock into his mouth.

  It had a slightly salty non-taste. It was Jamal; it was the most secret part of his gentle but decisive beauty. Ben put his hands on Jamal's skinny butt, holding him firmly, and he let himself be lost. He could feel it happening. The golden innocent part was leaving him but he didn't care, he wanted only to be alive in this way, as a vast unreasoning hunger that adored.

  “Stop,” Jamal said.

  Ben didn't stop. He only wanted. He didn't stop until Jamal pulled his hair and looked down hard at him. “I think I hear somebody coming,” Jamal said.

  Ben listened. He didn't hear anything. He was surprised to feel a single tear sliding down the side of his face. He was lost. He was only desire. He reached again for Jamal but Jamal pulled away and tucked himself back into his pants. Ben throbbed with shame and ardor. He got to his feet. He had just stood up when his grandfather parted the bushes and said, in a voice loud as cracking wood, “Hey, guys, what's holding us up here?”

  Ben turned to his grandfather before he remembered the tear. He swiped impatiently at it, as he would at a fly, but he knew his grandfather had seen. Ben's face burned. He said, “Hi, Grandpa,” and it came out in his small voice, the one that wanted girlish pleasures.

  His grandfather could see the remnants of what had happened. Ben felt certain of it. His grandfather might have become a photograph of himself taken at the precise moment of his death, when the soul had begun its first infinitesimal rise but was still too mired in the cooling flesh to know anything beyond the fact that it was rising, either to glory or torments or just the frigid unthinking fire of the stars.

  He knew. He might not yet know that he knew, but the fact had entered him. He had seen Ben in his other condition, red-faced, guilty, stained with a tear.

  When Ben's grandfather said, “Let's go, boys,” his voice had given up its cheerful, vigorous roll.

  Jamal came and stood beside Ben. He slipped his arm over Ben's shoulders. Ben could feel the heave of his own breathing, the pressure of Jamal's arm.

  He knocked Jamal's arm away.

  “Get away from me,” he hissed.

  Jamal hesitated, blinking, uncertain.

  Ben said, “Get out of here. You fucking little fairy.” He said it loud enough for his grandfather to hear.

  Jamal appeared to grow smaller and darker, as if a measure of air had seeped out of him. His eyes shrank.

  “Leave me alone,” Ben said. “Get out of here.”

  Jamal turned, slowly, and walked back to the beach. Ben watched him go. If Jamal had run, Ben might have felt some scrap of vindication. If he'd shouted or wept or called Ben any of the obvious names. But he only walked, without speaking, as if he had the rest of his life to digest what had happened. He returned, it seemed, to the same spot Ben had found him. He started picking up rocks and throwing them into the water again as if it were his true, fathomless work.

  He had left the wing on the ground. It lay curled like a bow, its dry articulate tip and circle of bone pointing up.

  Ben turned to his grandfather. There was silence stitched by the distant sound of a bell. There was the smell of pine sap.

  His grandfather said, “What's going on?”

  “Nothing,” Ben answered.

  He knew his grandfather would not believe him. The secret hung in the air like gunpowder.

  “Jamal isn't coming?” his grandfather said. His voice was measured, illegible.

  “No. I don't want him to come.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Let's just you and me go for a sail.”

  “Okay.”

  They crossed the field of dune grass together in silence. Sun still picked out each blade, threw its infinitude of sketchy shadows. The house still glowed, its stucco slightly pink, irradiated-looking, in the full light of the ocean. Birds still clattered raucously among the pines.

  On the terrace, Aunt Zoe sat between Ben's mother and Uncle Will. She smiled at Ben and his grandfather as if she'd never seen them before.

  “Where's Jamal?” Uncle Will asked.

  His grandfather said, “Couldn't tear him away from the beach.”

  Ben took a breath. His grandfather meant to keep the secret, at least for a while. He would respect Aunt Zoe's craziness, her death.

  He would tell Ben's mother later, in private. He would tell her something was wrong, and they'd begin the long process of finding out.

  “So, I guess it's just Ben and me,” his grandfather said. “Unless anybody else wants to come.”

  “Not me,” Ben's mother said. “I'm a land mammal, you know that.”

  “I'll stick around here, too,” Uncle Will said. “The three of us can start dinner.”

  Aunt Zoe smiled. She looked straight ahead.

  There was a watery green light. There was the ordinary business of living and dying, but trees had no words in their language for that. It wasn't something a tree would understand. She would have herself put under a tree, so its roots could wrap themselves around her, enter her body. She wouldn't disappear. She would go up into the branches.

  Ben and his grandfather drove to the marina in his grandfather's Mercedes. They did not speak. The day was littered with brightness. As they pulled into the marina's parking lot, sun sparked coolly on the asphalt and on the white masts of the boats. Colored flags snapped. Ben sat in the front seat of his grandfather's car so deeply sunk in misery and shame he knew he would never return.

  He was tainted by shame, so marked by it he thought he might be leaving a shadow behind on the upholstery, something dark that would not wash out.

  His grandfather turned off the ignition but remained seated at the wheel. Neither of them moved. Presently his grandfather said, “You having some problems with your cousin?”

  “I don't know,” Ben answered.

  “That boy,” his grandfather said. The word boy caught in his throat like a sliver of bone. “That boy”—he coughed the word up—”has had a lot of problems, he's grown up with a bunch of screwballs.”

  Ben didn't speak. A pressure was growing inside his head, like a fist of hot ice, pushing at his eyes and his ears from inside. What he saw through the windshield—the parked cars, the flags, the masts bobbing with the waves—looked inspired and desolate, like a distant
corner of heaven that could not be visited.

  “That boy,” his grandfather said, “is a little screwy himself. I worry about him.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ben said.

  “Did you two have a fight or something?”

  “Not really.”

  His grandfather nodded. He continued to hold the wheel and look straight ahead, as if he were still driving.

  Ben understood. He could blame Jamal. He could accuse Jamal of seducing him, and be saved.

  “I can straighten a few people out,” his grandfather said. “If Jamal is bothering you, I can help take care of it.”

  Ben nodded.

  “I'm not going to let you get screwed up. Not by anybody, not even certain members of your own family. Got that?”

  “I've got it.”

  Ben would accuse Jamal, if he needed to. He would let Jamal be the stranger.

  “Let's go for that sail,” his grandfather said.

  “Okay.”

  The boat waited for them, serene in its costly perfection, sleek and cool as marble. Ben rigged the mainsail and the jib and thought of Jamal carrying the severed wing. The mainsail, when Ben raised it, was full of a clean, accusatory light.

  His grandfather was too large for him. His mother and father were too large. He would allow them to understand that Jamal had tried for sex, and that he had refused. He would let the lie take wind and light the way the mainsail did, and he would be believed.

  He would ruin Jamal. He would save himself.

  He helped his grandfather into the boat. He cast off, and seated himself at the tiller.

  Zoe looked up and saw that Jamal was sitting with her, holding her hand. He was going into time. She had made him and loved him and here he was, the living boy. Here was everything that would still happen. Zoe's lungs filled with fire and she reached for him. She was burning, she was not afraid. She would stay here, watching from the branches of a tree.

  Ben's grandfather sat at the prow, solid as an emperor, full of an emperor's massive resolve. Ben piloted the boat easily out of the marina and into the bay. It was a windy day, more of a blow than he was used to but nothing he couldn't handle. He was surprised to find a bitter comfort in his talent for sailing.

  “Windy day,” his grandfather said. His sparse hair fluttered. It was a good boat, a fast one, and for a moment Ben felt better. A little better. The wind and the boat held each other in a fat luxurious tension Ben commanded. He was able to feel better because here, on the water, he knew exactly what to do. He could pilot his grandfather safely through a slightly difficult afternoon's sailing and he could, if he wanted to, run hard into the wind and dump both of them in the water. It was strong enough today, fifteen or twenty knots, the kind of wind that could capsize you if you didn't treat it with respect. A chop had risen. The swells brewed frothy topknots that sent drops up into the air. Ben took the boat straight out, toward the horizon, toward the deep water. It was a good, fast sailing day. He turned the boat firmly into the wind, looking for as much speed as he could find.

  “We'll just make it a short one,” his grandfather said. “Half an hour or so, and we'll go home.”

  Ben lost his small, precarious happiness at the sound of the word home. Jamal's strangeness would soon be confirmed, his dangerousness. He would receive no love or comfort after his mother died.

  Ben would ruin him.

  Water slapped the sides of the boat. A strand of kelp snaked past, its rubbery amber-colored pods floating like a string of miniature bowling pins. Ben turned the boat more directly into the wind, and it heeled so hard to port that his grandfather grabbed the railing for balance.

  “We're going pretty fast,” his grandfather said.

  “Yes, sir,” Ben answered.

  “You're in charge, buddy. You're the sailor.”

  “I know.”

  Ben steered straight out, away from shore. Behind him, windowpanes flashed from rows of diminishing houses. His own hair whipped at his face and it seemed as if his compromised spirit was lashing him, irritating and weak. He brushed the hair angrily out of his face. The wind was getting stronger. It was probably time to take down the jib but Ben left it up, he wanted more wind and more speed. He wanted to lose himself, to sail so hard and fast he would be nothing but that, a claw cleaving the water. He turned more squarely into the wind. The mainsail and the jib had gone taut as balloons, the boat was heeling so far to port that water splashed up over the side. His grandfather looked back at him. Ben could see the fear on his old, weary face. For now, for a little while, his grandfather had left his world and entered another, a world Ben commanded. The boat was clipping along so fast the wind half blinded him, and he turned still another degree into it. His grandfather said, “Son, aren't we going a little fast?” Son, he'd called Ben son. He couldn't bear it, the love or the shame, and in a last spasm of love and shame he turned the boat too far and it capsized. Ben saw that it was happening. He saw water boil up over the side and he saw his grandfather's face, the pale confused rising of his soul from his body, and then the boat flipped over and spilled them both into the water.

  She saw time passing. She saw that fear would be foolish, like wearing an extravagant hat on a windy day and cursing at the wind. Jamal spoke to her in a language she had once known. She was on fire and she felt fine.

  The water felt wonderful. It was cold and utterly clean, alive with froth and the sting of salt. Ben lingered underwater, looking from the brightly wrinkled skin of the surface down into the green darkness below him. When he finally surfaced he saw his grand-father's sputtering head less than ten feet away.

  “Are you okay?” his grandfather asked.

  “Yeah. Are you?”

  “What in the hell happened?”

  “We capsized.”

  “I know that.”

  “We're okay,” Ben said. “We're not in any trouble.”

  “How could this happen?”

  “It happened.”

  “Can we tip the boat up again?”

  The boat lay on its side, its hull rising like the back of a small white whale, its sails floating gracefully. Ben looked at the boat and he looked at his grandfather's angry head.

  This was the end of the little journey. Now it was time to right the boat, get in, and return to everything that waited on shore.

  “It may be hard to do,” Ben said.

  He wanted only to stay in the water, to join the cold nowhere of it.

  “Salesman told me it wouldn't be a problem,” his grandfather said, paddling with his strong, thick arms and breathing heavily.

  He was right. It would be easy to take hold of the gunnel and bring the boat back up out of the water.

  Ben said, “I better go get help.”

  “What are you talking about, get help? We don't need help.”

  But Ben started swimming away. He wasn't ready to go yet, so he swam away. His grandfather shouted, “Where are you going?” Ben had no answer beyond the fact that he was swimming away. He wasn't going toward another boat. He wasn't going toward shore. He was going away and with each stroke of his arms he felt freer. Salt water slapped his face and he swam as hard and fast as he could. Ahead there was only more water, water and the blaze of the sky. He swam away from the boat and his grandfather. He only swam. He didn't think. He heard his grandfather calling his name but he was swimming away from that, too. He didn't stop. He didn't slow down.

  Zoe laughed at the strangeness of it, the strangeness and the unexpected simplicity. She heard the sound of her own laughter. It was easy, after all Who'd ever expected it to be easy? She knew how to die; she'd known how all her life. It was as strange and ordinary, as perfect, as a naked man singing a hymn on a fire escape at dawn. You gave it your name. It didn't give back. She remembered the joke she'd told herself, years ago: Other tenants could look out across the cemetery at the source of the music and think, well, shit, it's judgment day, guess I don't have to go to work. Here it is, immaculate music and a hard-on in the new light
. Funny to think that the naked angels were as lost as their mortal sisters and brothers, searching the hours in fear and wonder. Nobody knew, and everybody knew. After light there was another light, and another. Only that. She held her son's hand. She dreamed that he gave her a wing to hold.

  Ben swam for a long time before he allowed himself to pause and look back. His grandfather and the boat were gone. There was only water and, surprisingly, a paper cup floating some distance away. Dixie cup, he said to himself. Sunlight bounced on the water like an enormous school of jumping, electrified fish. He was afraid but the fear felt solid in his blood, a large sensation that was not entirely bad. As long as he stayed in the water, as long as he kept swimming, nothing had to happen. He couldn't swim forever but he could swim a little longer. He swam toward the line where the water met the serene, fiery sky. He swam for a long while. He was strong. It did not seem possible that no one would find him. Helicopters would come for him soon, Coast Guard cutters, competent sunburned men with life jackets and bullhorns, whose job it was to know and to rescue. He let himself swim until they found him. He swam hard, to exhaust himself, to drain off the wrongness of his being. When he began to be seriously tired he stopped swimming but when he stopped swimming he returned to himself. He was not tired enough yet; he was not gone. A swell rose behind him, broke over his head, and he sucked water in through his mouth and nose. He coughed. He heard how small the sound of his coughing was in the middle of all this brilliant, restless silence. He became aware of something in the water, something huge, and he lived through a paralyzing terror at the thought of sharks. Then the terror moved beyond him and he knew there were no sharks here. It wasn't that kind of hunger. It was bigger than that. He was alone with something enormous that lived in the water, something patient that heaved and murmured under the daylight sky and watched as the lights appeared on shore at night, unmoved even by their minor beauty. He could feel it, the spirit of the water, though spirit wasn't quite right. He could feel the vast, slumbering being of the water itself. Here, in the water, time was generous, flat, featureless. He saw that the constellations were present in the afternoon sky. He saw that water lived in another way.