Real Life

by Brandon Taylor

  “Your dad died?”

  “He died,” Wallace said, with a faint singsong quality.

  “Man, I am so sorry.” Thom drew him in for a hug. His skin was hot and flushed. His dark beard bristled against Wallace’s neck. He had hazel eyes that seemed brown in the evening light. “I had no idea. That’s really hard. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Wallace said.

  “No, it’s not. And that’s okay,” Thom said, patting Wallace’s back with what to Wallace seemed like self-satisfaction. Scout licked Wallace’s hand, passing her tongue over palm and knuckles. He crouched down to ruffle her ears. She jumped up and put her paws on his shoulder. She had a woody fragrance like a lime tree. Emma and Thom shared a conciliatory kiss while Scout licked the inside of Wallace’s ears.

  The three of them walked back to the table, which had grown cramped and boozy. The pitchers of beer had arrived, and a cider for Wallace.

  “I ordered it for you,” Miller said.

  “How thoughtful,” Wallace said dryly despite himself, but Miller only nodded.

  Fat hornets swam in lazy circles overhead. They occasionally dove for the sweet beer and cider, but Yngve, a conservationist at heart, had been trapping them beneath a cup and walking them to the edge of the pier to release them. By the time he came back, new hornets were buzzing nearby.

  “I hate bees,” Wallace said.

  “They’re actually not bees,” Yngve tried to interject.

  “I’m allergic to wasps,” Wallace said.

  “Bees and wasps are not—”

  “Me too,” Miller said. He yawned and stretched. He rubbed his eyes with his hand, which was salty and messy from the popcorn and nachos. He jumped up right away, nearly upending the table. Wallace saw the empty tub of nachos and knew immediately what had happened.

  “Shit,” Miller said.

  “Oh no.”

  “You okay?”

  “No, Yngve. I am not okay,” Miller said and was gone, up the stone path, away from them.

  “I’ll go,” Wallace said, before Cole could.

  * * *

  • • •

  AMONG THE CLUMPS of white people, Wallace saw: a large red man whose golden body hair was lit by the high-wattage lamps at the concession stands; two small boys with toy cars they ran around and around the smooth surface of their table and up the arms of their vaguely tired, athletic parents, whose faces were tight in the sort of mean way that fit people carry; several tables of frat boys all in tank tops, their skin so healthy in the milky dusk light under the trees that they almost glowed with possibility; and groups, here or there, of older people, their bodies and lives gone soft, here to recapture some bit of the past like coaxing fireflies into a jar. The band on the stage, the whole lake at their backs, played something that sounded to Wallace like a Caribbean swing, but as if out of time, on a delay. They wore Hawaiian shirts, and they looked to be about Wallace’s age, with shaggy blond hair and keen noses, each so like the other that they could have been siblings. Several torch lamps had been lit throughout the sitting area, but the concession stands had powerful high-wattage lights that pooled in front of them, and it was like emerging from night into day when you stepped up to order overpriced beer, or decent soft pretzels, or brats. Wallace waited in line behind the man with the golden shoulder hair, and when it was his turn at the concession stand, he asked for a small bottle of milk. It cost him $3.50, and the attendant, a scraggly bearded boy with a flat nose, looked at him skeptically as he dug around in the cooler under the counter for the bottle.

  Wallace glanced around looking for Miller. He hadn’t been far behind him as they’d left the stairs that came up from the concrete path below. The hallways in the union were visible to Wallace because they were lined with glass, and glowed with soft, yellow lighting. The floors were made of a kind of marble that Wallace associated most often with banks. Under the wide, dark cloak of the oak tree at the center of the pavilion, some people had gotten up to dance. He watched as they snapped and swung their hips in a stiff, jerky little dance. Two of the old men were trying their best to get the women to dance, but they only shook their heads and smiled in embarrassment. At the next table were a few younger women, students. They had the boxy musculature of athletes, and large square heads. Their laughter was deep and serene. Two of them got up to dance with the old men, and their friends clapped for them, and it was like a wave, suddenly, everyone at every table turning to look at them and clapping, and the band began to play more vigorously, the music scraping through the air like a shovel through gravel. It wasn’t pretty. It could scarcely be called music, Wallace thought, but the pairs went on dancing, and soon they were joined by others, and two frat boys got up and did a parody of the dance, but then they seemed to get shy and to turn away from each other and let their thick arms fall by their sides. But then Wallace came back to himself. A shadow fell on him through the glass, and he saw Miller walking down the hall, to the bathroom. They passed each other on opposite sides of the glass, him outside, Miller inside, but Miller didn’t see him or pretended not to, as if in a dream.

  * * *

  • • •

  WALLACE FOUND MILLER at the sink, splashing water up into his eye, getting it all over his shirt and chin in the process. He winced and cursed softly under his breath the whole time. They were alone.

  “Hey, let me help,” Wallace said.

  “I’m so stupid,” he said. “I completely forgot that I hadn’t washed my hands.”

  “Happens,” Wallace said, setting the bottle of milk aside. It was cool from the ice. He rinsed his hands under the tap. The bathroom smelled like beer and antiseptic. It didn’t smell at all like piss. The lighting was dim. It felt too clean to be a bathroom, which made Wallace uneasy. The countertop was some sort of cheap black stone. The plastic bottle was sweating. Miller regarded it through narrowed eyes. The mirror was tall and concave. Wallace had to look away from their reflection. “Can you crouch a little, bend down?”

  Miller didn’t move at first. Wallace thought he’d done it again, exposed himself. But slowly, Miller did begin to move, like he’d made up his mind about something, and he bent his knees and turned just a little so that his face hovered over the sink. He was perfectly vulnerable. Wallace twisted the cap from the milk bottle and held it over Miller’s eyes. His hands shook. A drop of milk fell from the lip of the bottle and landed on Miller’s cheek, just below his eyelashes. Wallace swallowed. He watched Miller breathe. He watched Miller wet the corner of his mouth. Water dripped from the tap.

  “Here we go,” Wallace said. He poured just a little of the milk into Miller’s eyes, watched it run in a white stream across the bridge of his nose into the sink. Miller closed his eyes. “You can’t do that. You have to keep them open.” Miller grunted. He opened his eyes. The milk struck the inside of the sink with a soft tapping sound. He poured half the bottle into Miller’s eyes, and then thoroughly wet two paper towels. He squeezed the water into Miller’s eyes, which were brown with little blue rims on the outside. The whites of his eyes were already starting to redden. The water ran into Miller’s eyes, and he again closed them instinctively, but then he opened them after a moment. Wallace blotted Miller’s thick eyelashes with the paper towels, filled them with more water, rinsed, blotted again.

  “Okay,” Wallace said, “there, there.”

  “Come on. Don’t make fun of me.”

  “I’m not,” he said. He tried to be gentle as he washed Miller’s eyes, reapplying water each time, rinsing, dabbing. “I did this to myself one time. I picked peppers with my grandparents and rubbed my eyes when I got sleepy,” Wallace said, laughing a little at himself, at how miserable he’d felt, his eyes swollen like grapefruits and so tender. He looked down at Miller, saw his sun-bleached hair, his long eyelashes. Wallace felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. Miller was staring at him; of course he was. Where else would
he look except up, and who was there but Wallace to intercept his gaze? Of course he was staring. “All done,” Wallace said. He dropped the bottle into the trash under the sink.

  “Thank you,” Miller said. “It’s not so bad. Just hurt like hell.”

  “It’s like that. It always hurts worse than you expect, even if it doesn’t do any real harm.”

  They stood at the sink, the faucet dripping little bit by little bit. Wallace’s hands were damp and cool. Miller’s eyes were puffy and red, as if he’d been crying. Miller leaned away from him, against the wall, which had the effect of making him seem shorter. The music coming through from the outside was soft and nonthreatening, like the caress of wind through the trees. Wallace twisted the damp paper towels in his hands. Miller reached for them, his large hands opening and then closing around Wallace’s fingers.

  “Are you really thinking about leaving?” Miller asked.

  “Oh,” Wallace said, laughing nervously because he could appreciate, in this moment, how silly, how ridiculous he had sounded before. “Who knows? I think I’m just clenched up.”

  “I think we’re always clenched,” Miller said after a minute, and he squeezed Wallace’s fingers. “I think we’re always tight until we get what we really want, and maybe even then, too. Who knows?”

  “Maybe,” Wallace said.

  Miller pulled on his hand and Wallace let himself be drawn in. They didn’t kiss or anything like that. Miller just held him until the sound of the music changed. It was time to go back out to their friends. They held hands until they reached the sliding door that opened into the night air, and then, tentatively, reluctantly, they became separate people again.

  “See you there,” Miller said to him, raising his eyebrows.

  “See you there.” Wallace made his way back through the crowd, his body buoyant but raw. Some inner surface had been agitated. When he sat back down, they all asked him where Miller was, and he could only shrug. “He said he’d be back.”

  “How is he?” Cole asked.

  “He’s better. He was too tall to reach the faucet, so you know, for once being short paid off.”

  “Poor guy,” Emma said.

  “He’s fine,” Wallace said, lifting his cup of cider. It was tart, and a little lukewarm. There was the bitter, chemical taste of the plastic. They were all looking at Wallace. Emma’s eyes were wet. Cole kept peeking at him furtively, and Vincent kept swallowing thickly. Yngve was looking at him over the surface of his beer. Scout rolled between Thom’s legs. Her collar tinkled faintly like a little bell.

  “What?” he asked. “Is there something on my face?”

  “No,” Cole said. “We just . . . Emma told us about your dad. I’m so sorry.”

  Wallace had known this would happen, and yet he felt a momentary flare of anger at Emma. Things moved through the group in this way, information sliding around as if through an invisible circulatory system, carried on veins made of text messages, emails, and whispered conversations at parties. He wet his lips, and he could still taste Emma there. The flare did not subside, but it gave way to resignation.

  “Thank you,” he said neutrally. “Thank you very much.”

  “It must be so hard,” Yngve said with a shake of his head. His sandy brown hair flashed in the light. His sharp features softened, except for the point of his chin, which always made him look boyish. Yngve had spent the summer before graduate school climbing a mountain after the death of his grandfather, a benevolent Swede.

  “Yes,” Wallace said. “But life goes on.”

  “That’s true,” Thom said from the end of the table. “Life goes on. It reminds me of my favorite novel.”

  “Oh god,” Vincent said. “Not again.”

  “‘And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves.’”

  “That’s very pretty,” Wallace said.

  “Don’t encourage him,” Emma said. “He’ll go on all night.”

  “To the Lighthouse—it’s actually a line misquoted from a poem,” Thom said proudly. “It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Changed my life in middle school.”

  Vincent and Emma and Cole all shared a look. Yngve was back studying the grain of the wood through the pale yellow of his beer.

  “I’ll have to check it out,” Wallace said. He looked up, and Miller was coming back to them. He had another pitcher of beer.

  “Here we are,” Miller said. He sat across from Wallace again, but did not look at him. Wallace felt a little hurt by that, but he understood, could understand, the awkwardness of such things.

  “I should get going,” Wallace said. “This has been wonderful.”

  “No, don’t go,” Emma said. “We just got here.”

  “I know, my love, but before that, I was marooned with these goons.”

  “So you don’t love us,” Cole said. “I see how it is.”

  “Are you okay?” Yngve asked. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

  “I live across the street. It’s a short commute. I appreciate it.”

  “I guess I’ll leave too,” Miller said, which drew a startled silence from the table. “What?”

  “Why are you leaving us?”

  “Because, Yngve, I’m tired. I’ve been in the sun all day. I’m a little drunk. I want to go home.”

  “Then let’s all go together.”

  “No, you stay,” Miller said. Wallace was already getting up from the table, hugging Emma and Cole and Vincent. They all smelled like beer and salt, sweat and good times. When they shook hands, Thom gazed into his eyes for a long time in what Wallace guessed was an attempt at solidarity. “Wait for me,” Miller said.

  “You live in the other direction,” Wallace said, pointing.

  “But we have to leave through the same entrance.”

  “Okay then,” Wallace said.

  Miller repeated Wallace’s good-byes, and they walked out to the street together. Overhead, there were a few bright stars in the sky. The music swept the air, echoing through itself into a blurry medley of indistinct sounds. People were getting into and out of cars, so there was a bit of activity. Wallace and Miller stood under an overhang, half in shadow.

  “Why did you leave like that?” Miller asked. “Was it me?”

  “No,” Wallace said. “I’m just tired.”

  Miller searched his eyes for the truth. He was worrying the corner of his lip. “I’m sorry about the bathroom.”

  “Why? It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have. I feel like I took advantage of something.”

  “Oh,” Wallace said.

  “I’m not into guys,” Miller said. “But I see how you look at me sometimes, and it’s like, does he hate me? Does he like me? And I hate the idea of you hating me. I do.”

  Wallace was silent. He could still see the water from here, the way it was lighter in the distance and darker near the shore.

  “All right.”

  “I don’t know what to do about it,” Miller said, balling his fingers into a fist. He looked like he was about to cry, but it was only the moisture from before.

  “There’s nothing to do.”

  “Is that true?”

  “It’s okay,” Wallace said again, meaning it, wishing it to be true. “We just held hands. It’s junior high.”

  “I don’t know. God,” Miller said, stepping toward Wallace and then away.

  Wallace sighed. “Do you want to come back to my place?”

  Miller regarded him suspiciously. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Well, I’m tired and I’d like to go home.”

  “I’ll walk you there.”

  “Great,” Wallace said. The desire to be at home in his bed was overpowering. They walked the block down the street, passing a large circular apar
tment building, and a small bar on the corner, which was bumping music loudly. Some white people were out front smoking. He felt their eyes follow him up the street. Miller walked close by, their elbows and then fingers brushing occasionally, which made Miller look down at him. Wallace, to his credit, did not return Miller’s gaze. What was this life, currently? What was this strange place into which he’d been thrust? He now regretted walking to the lake. He now regretted going with his friends. Not because Emma had told everyone about him, but because now something that had previously seemed simple had turned messy, difficult, complicated.

  * * *

  • • •

  HE TOOK MILLER up the stairs to his one-bedroom apartment. The window had been left open, so the apartment smelled like the lake and like summer evening. It was cool because of the fan going in the bedroom. Miller sat at the counter and watched as Wallace made them coffee in the French press, which was a minor novelty to Miller.

  When there was no avoiding the topic, Wallace climbed up onto the counter and sat with his legs crossed, coffee warm in his hands. Miller was picking at the edge of a piece of paper.

  “So what’s this all about, Miller?”

  “I feel bad,” he said. “I feel bad about the bathroom, about that thing I said in April, about all of it. I feel like a shitty friend. A bad person.”

  “You aren’t.”

  “I just wanted to be clear. I’m not into guys. I’m not gay, or whatever. I just, I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay. You were being a good friend.”

  “I’m not so sure I was. I was being stupid. I saw you kiss Emma, and I thought—well, you know.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure if I get what you mean by that,” Wallace said. He drank from the coffee. His sink was full of dishes from earlier in the day. “You saw Emma kiss me and thought—what? Well, if we’re all kissing people we’re not attracted to, maybe I can try it?”

  “No . . . yes. I guess it was something like that. And then you got up to leave, and I thought, Oh fuck, I’ve done it now.”