This story is a work of fiction involving two young men as they meet and form a relationship. This is part 1 of the second story I have posted on Nifty. I'm planning for the complete story to comprise 10 parts of around equal length.
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Sometimes I can feel all seven years, can remember the events separating each summer as it has come an gone since then, but most of the time I cannot. They tell me that plenty of time has passed now for them to reflect in peace, then give me a sad look and shrug and say it is completely up to me. A phrase came to me as I began taking inventory, scraping at the surface, turning completely away at times: mental exhumation. I even wrote it down. As no single phrase can, it does not blanket all of the feelings I associate with the process, but so far, it comes closest to doing so. It is an endless delight to ask them about their lives, but especially Gabe, because his immediate reaction to my questioning is reward enough--the way his backstairs smile appears out of nowhere, how he shifts his eyes around the room and pretends like he is going to keep something from me, which never ends up being the case. Gabe possesses an incredible amount of trust given what he has endured, and for all of the shyness he projects, he is not afraid to share his experiences with me. I am thankful for that. His full name is Gabriel Marcos Villanueva. He had just turned eighteen. He lived with his mother in a southern borough of Las Sombras, overlooking the markets, and not far from the ocean. His building was old and concrete crumbled at the edges of the balconies. A wall of white stone towers nearer the coastline sparkled at night in dots of yellow and white, and a thin strip of water peeked through an unlikely gap between them. On hot nights when he got home from work, he would enter his mother's room, remove a layer of blanket and wipe her face with a damp rag, then sleep above the street with nothing but an unfurled foam scroll. In order to fall asleep, he would focus on that naked scrap of ocean and bring himself to it. He says it cooled him down. In the morning, the traffic and commerce spooled up four floors below, revving, bleating, reeking of exhaust. His runs took place in the late evening. They went like this: First he would go underground and take the Emerald Line downtown in time to catch the last Orange Line east, toward the desert. His car waited at the end of the line in a park-and-ride, an endless gravel sea, where it was (in his words) all fucked up with dust. He would drive ten more miles east out of the city on a narrow, straight highway and then turn north onto an unmarked, unpaved road, the guts of his car tilling the earth as he steered through dried-out ruts. Five miles in, the checkpoint: private property. He was waved through by a man whose face he couldn't ever get a good look at, wheels still rolling; the stars sprang up over a natural granite monument to the left. The road would dip and wind through brush for another mile before circling down into an encampment no bigger than a baseball diamond, half-buried under a lonely ring of sycamore trees. There were cicadas here the size of your fist, he tells me, and loud enough to drown out the smaller sounds of the night. He liked to shut off his lights first and then the car, easing to a stop in the crunching gravel between two mobile homes. A third lay straight ahead, beyond a sharp right curve in the lane. He would pull the trunk release by his left foot and wait. His father once did the same work. In a world such as his, it was not uncommon for young men to grab hold of a passed torch once their old man became too tired to run. But Gabe retrieved his from the ground, where it had fallen and lay still in his father's blood. I tell Gabe that maybe we should start at that point in time, but he shakes his head and says, "That's too early. It's not a good place to start." Gabe never asks for sympathy from me, nor from anyone else--with the single exception, I suspect, of Miguel. But even of this, I have no proof. In fact, he looks straight at me and says in a stony voice: "Keep your sympathy away from me and offer it to the beaten child or to the hobo screaming at a garbage collector or to anyone else who hasn't been given a fighting chance in this world. Because I have, and I am grateful." --- It was a hot night in June. After Gabe pulled down into the encampment, a small, thin man who was called Whitey said in a low, clear voice through the open window, "Wait for boss man to come and talk to you." Two other men circled the car. Gabe nodded at him. Whitey walked with a limp, which was even more pronounced when he was burdened. Gabe didn't know anything else about him. But he did know a little about the leader of the encampment, Eddie Nguyen. His father had taken him in, trained him, then later worked alongside him as a partner. Eddie had fled Vietnam in his childhood--Gabe knew that, for example, and that he was more than six feet tall and his wife was a white woman named Lydia. Together they had four young children. His skin was quite dark. Eddie had never been short with Gabe, although he had been so with other workers on the encampment many times. Perhaps it was because Gabe's mother also came from Vietnam, or to honor the memory of Gabe's father. He waited for sixteen minutes until Eddie emerged from the house on the left, stepped down a creaking wooden porch fixed to it and came toward him. "Gabe, you want to come inside and meet someone?" Gabe suspected that this was closer to an order than it was to a question. "Yes, sir." He unbuckled his seatbelt. Either way, it was certainly unusual. Except for one time about a year earlier when Gabe had first been here (a few weeks before his father had died), he had never set foot from the car. He followed Eddie across the dry lawn as a hot breeze slipped between the branches of the sycamore trees. Eddie's shoulders were bare, arms big around as telephone poles, swinging at his sides. His back was immense and complicated, casting shadows on itself above the dim floodlights in the yard. The porch shrugged under each of them as they entered. There was a white man of perhaps fifty or sixty years who was sitting, left leg crossed over the right, at the end of a long white leather sofa. He was dressed in a suit and did not stand up as they came in. The room was clean but dated. Fake wood grain smothered the walls and the carpet was a deep pile of cactus-green fibers. The space was mostly empty and possessed a strange freshness--as if it had gone unused and unseen by anyone for many years. It was boiling in here; some of the day's heat soughed through the doorway and into the cooler night. He glanced toward the front window and was amazed to see that it was shut tight. Eddie went to sit down on a chair near the man, maybe, thought Gabe, so that he could be some sort of intermediary between them, but the man motioned for him to stay standing. "So, here is the son of Marco Villanueva." "Yes, sir," said Eddie, looking smaller now in a way Gabe had never seen before, and did not like at all. The man turned to Gabe. "You don't resemble your father at all, boy." He could not think of a single thing to say. A few seconds passed before Eddie jumped in. "Gabe, this is Mr. Hughes. He's my boss and is visiting the site." "Good to meet you, sir," Gabe said. The man didn't react, as if Gabe still had not spoken. "Should I get the papers, sir?" asked Eddie. "Yes, bring them to me and then I'll be going. Just wanted to get a look at him." Eddie left down a narrow, dark hallway behind him and then he was alone with the man. First Gabe stared up at a creamy popcorn ceiling for maybe ten seconds, and then straight down into the fibers of the carpet. "Are you brave, boy?" Gabe looked up at him. The man's voice and his breathing sounded unhealthy, as if there were stones rattling in his lungs. This question struck Gabe as the strangest thing he had ever heard. Was he brave? No one had ever asked him before. He had been told, though--his father would tell him sometimes, so he reported evenly to the man: "Yes, I am brave." Gabe thought he could see the man smile a little bit, but it was so dim in the room and his vision was so fuzzy with the heat that he might have been imagining it. He wanted to think that, like in movies, the man was convinced because Gabe did not falter when he answered. He did not ask the man to repeat the question, and he also did not sound hesitant in his response. Eddie came back and handed Mr. Hughes a folder. It was only then that the man stood in one lengthy, staggering, clamoring motion, as if his suit pockets were filled with lead. He took the folder and then Eddie stepped back quietly from him. "Next week," Mr. Hughes said, then headed for the door. He passed by so closely that Gabe felt the licks of hot air stirred up in the man's movement, even could smell him, his sweat. The door shut hard. His footsteps faded. "Wait a few minutes for him to leave." Gabe nodded. "Does he come here every week?" "More and more, yes. During the day." "Oh." Gabe's car hunkered down in the rear now, but it wasn't too obvious. He got in and Whitey and another man who was called Dan ran the check: headlights, brights, blinkers, brakes, reverse lights. Whitey checked the oil level and said, "Full and clear as piss." He started the engine and Dan came to his window. "Don't you think it's time to get a new car, Gabriel?" "I can't afford one." Give yourself leverage at all times, he thought--his father's advice. "Besides, you heard Whitey. Everything checks out." Dan shook his head. "It's not enough that everything checks out. This car is getting old and you don't look like a rich white boy driving it--not even close." He emitted a sudden and lurching laugh. "Anyway, put those two together. It's a bad mix. It's like putting a target on your own back." "Tell Eddie then. I can't afford a new car." "Right." He smacked the roof with his palm and Gabe drove away. There was an unsettled presence that resided in the night air of the desert. Even Gabe believed that, and he had lived all of his life very near to it. Unsettled, but not unsettling. Some in the area claimed otherwise, however, citing most often the Willow Man, whose apparition was alleged to be the most horrific of potential ends. Pray you will never come to know it, warned his shriveled and elderly neighbor. Anyone who had been around as long as she had would know, wouldn't they? Pray you will never see the way he dances before you, jangling his bony, sinewy appendages, wearing his lipless smile. Avert your gaze from the empty sockets where his eyes should be. They are bottomless voids, like black holes, and with the very same will to consume. Only a strange blue light flickers dimly, it was said, deep within those eyes. Most believers also claimed that the threat, even the existence of the Willow Man depends absolutely on one's own fear of him. Gabe had no cause for alarm. He was not afraid. If the car's engine had shut off on its own, if a sickening form had clattered in on moonlit, spindly limbs and pinned him against the base of a saguaro, perhaps Gabe would have been able to meet his father again, in whatever place he had gone to, which did not sound like a bad fate. The clock in the dash read twelve-thirty. Gabe had passed out of the checkpoint a mile or two ago. He knew he must kill time, so he picked his way off the road and into a clearing in the brush, climbed onto the roof and listened as coyotes made themselves known from scattered, far-off ridges. A brief, hot wind arrived at his face, swept up out of a large basin to the east. A supernatural hum flowed within it, metallic taste lingering on his lips. But he was alone in the desert tonight. He knew that. He was alone here with the coyotes and the scorpions and the beetles creaking in the bushes. His mother's western name was Bonnie. She had lived for the first sixteen years of her life in Vietnam, where, Gabe was certain, she had known few men of integrity. Her father was a man of none. Bonnie's mother passed away when her daughter was just seven. The death had been a suspicious one, though no investigation ever took place. Bonnie managed to run away from her father's home three times in adolescence, and each time was forcibly returned to him. She finally escaped pregnant and alone by way of a small, severely overcrowded vessel, on which she miscarried her child and nearly lost her own life before finally reaching asylum in Hong Kong. By the time she landed in California, it was 1980 and she was eighteen. She worked as a maid in a large hotel by day and took classes for english at night, where she met Marco, forming a fast bond with him as they shared their histories. His pursuit of her was an eager, flattering one, and it was also respectful--the first of its kind she had ever known. They were married three months later, and around the same time, she became pregnant again. Gabe could recall evidence of his mother's profound sadness from a very early age, though she had mostly managed to keep its effects away from him. Gabe's father never wavered in his dedication to her, offering her an endless supply of strength and optimism, as he was one of a rare kind of people who possess more than they require alone, and are pleased to share. In turn, Gabe knew, his mother felt a deep gratitude and love for Marco. Gabe hoped she had made it to bed already, and he hoped that she was sober. Increasingly in the year since his father had departed, most of her went away to be with him. This woman in his home now said and did things Gabe's mother would not have said and done. It was at least as bad, perhaps worse, that she did not always do the things his mother used to do, such as cook, take care of their home, take care of herself. So he did all he could manage for her in this regard. In moments when he was very honest with himself, he could admit that the situation was not good for his own state of mental health. In a strange way, perhaps his father's ability to rise again from the dredges of grief, evident after the passing of Gabe's paternal grandparents, had been handed down to him. Within months of Marco's death, Gabe was able to see clearly again. Of course he still mourned, but it became a conscious, controlled activity from which he derived strength to continue moving on. His mother did not have the same ability and her grief welled inside her until it spilled over. When he was at home with her he waded through it, level still rising by the day, flowing from room to room, making a mess of things and slowing his progress. He sat up and crossed his legs. The metal roof made for an unforgiving bed. Around him the night had gone quiet, hot and still. He was constantly, vigilantly aware of the payload waiting below him. What weighed on his car's suspension also weighed on him. He was told it must be this way. Even if he had never been taught it, though, he would have understood the gravity of this responsibility placed on his shoulders. It was why he was sure he could negotiate a better car for the job--because the car was nothing at all: For centuries, ships had borne unspeakable treasures across the sea, worth ten times--one thousand times--their own weight in scrap wood and metal. This was the same. Until he made the delivery, until a young man named Miguel unloaded it in the fluorescent buzz of a garage fifty miles from here, he would continue to sink with this incredible burden. And only once he had shed it would he begin to rise again. But was it so bad, that sensation of immense weight resting upon him? This was by far the biggest responsibility he had ever been handed, and it was also the first time in his life that he felt so deeply trusted by anyone. The other men, and best of all, Eddie, had faith in him that he could hold temporarily in his possession and successfully convey something that did not belong to him, something of unimaginable value. Yes, it was heavy--a source of incredible stress, and, for Gabe, of genuine power. He longed for that powerful feeling when squeezed in the grips of the off-hours, cooking, or scrubbing, or rising late in the hot morning to the wailing of his mother through a gap in the balcony door. Half an hour later he was on the highway, fast approaching the edge of town. Because much of the land to the east was part of the Indian res, the city began all at once: massive blocks of suburban housing, mountainous Eastbrook Mall, the park-and-ride (where he would later return the car) and Sunbird Boulevard in all its eight-lane glory, split down the center by the dormant, gleaming tracks of the Orange Line. Gabe's route followed, perhaps by accident, perhaps not, a pathway that cops did not patrol by night in great number. Along it, nearly everyone slept, as they did in uptown, and in the three other boroughs that slammed against the shores of the Paiute Freeway. He took it northwest with cruise set at seventy miles per hour. In that moment, he knew, police trailed their long fingers through the endless trenches of downtown, and also south, in the mix of decay and rebirth that was old town, and sometimes farther yet, into the heart of the mild southern boroughs where his mother had now surely gone to sleep. Eventually, he turned off the air conditioning and rolled down all the windows. Warm night air spiraled all around him in confused, manic gusts, whipping his black hair in and out of his vision and waking a carpet of dust from the dashboard. He slowed the car a bit, exited and then flew west over the freeway via elevated connector onto the Odinberg Expressway, straight toward the ocean. Odinberg was the last urban borough before the city fell away once again, this time to the northern suburbs. It was also one of the largest by population, even boasting its own dedicated police force. These police were a breed apart from the central and southern forces he was used to. In fact he had been stopped once for a burnt-out headlight while under load (an event which had later prompted the new nightly checks), but the cop had just smiled and offered him tips on how to change it himself, if he was up for it. Strange behavior, Gabe had thought, for a place that was still plainly inner-city. But Eddie had confirmed that it was typical; he had relatives through marriage who lived there. Tall buildings, narrow alleyways, a million places one could hide, sure, but what had he called it? A bedroom borough--that was it. Nothing ever happened in Odinberg. The drop-off lay in a warehouse district by the water. Gabe believed that Miguel did not live far away from it, because once (and only once) Miguel had arrived late to unlock and raise the overhead door which barricaded the narrow, deep garage. As the car idled and Gabe waited with mounting nervousness at its helm, Miguel had come running from the direction of an adjacent neighborhood, breathing hard, beads of sweat forming on his brow. His dark brown hair shed a drop or two, not of sweat, Gabe had realized, but of water, and he bore the mildly soapy scent of a very recent shower. Even then, hardly a word had been shared between them. As with nearly everyone else Gabe had encountered since beginning work in the trade, Miguel's outside life was a mystery. But Miguel managed to bolster his own enigma somehow. He spoke less, far less, Gabe noticed, and more softly than any of the others. His expression changed little, shifting itself along a narrower spectrum than Gabe observed in other people. Maybe it was how exchanges were meant to occur at the warehouse (Gabe had been mirroring Miguel's behavior in case this was true), or maybe it resulted from nuances in Miguel's personality which were unknown to Gabe. Whatever the case, mystery had slowly turned into mystique, and at times, Gabe found himself drawn to Miguel. This feeling was confusing and whenever it came crawling in, he would once again cast it out, banish it. It had not yet formed into any kind of recognizable shape and he would not let it; at the very least, it threatened to puncture a hole in the sterile dome he had constructed over his deliveries. And beyond that? He didn't know. He wouldn't think about it, wouldn't let it come to that. Gabe snapped the car into reverse and white light leapt into corners of the garage. As he backed through its mouth, Miguel stood by, hands in his pockets, staring blankly out into the night. Gabe backed in completely and then Miguel turned, regarded the car and raised a closed fist. Gabe shut off the engine and lights. Miguel was silhouetted before him now against the lamplit street. Gabe had come to consider Miguel, oddly, as something of a physical midway point between himself and Eddie. He was a couple inches taller than Gabe, his musculature, also, larger and more cultivated. He chinned-up to the lip of the garage door, feet leaving the ground briefly as he pulled with his entire weight. It ground noisily downward and then everything went black. He continued his routine in the dark, the noises as dependable as recorded sound: footsteps leading to the right, the metallic shriek of the first locking pin being kicked into place, footsteps from right to left, a second shriek. The lights flickered on and began their murky, fluttering sequence. In a few minutes, they shone bright. Miguel had moved a few of the larger packages out of the trunk and sorted them in the stacks; presently he returned and Gabe felt the car sway a bit as he shifted things around in the trunk. Then, from out of nowhere came a voice, muffled but clear: "You're allowed to get out of the car, you know." No one else was around to speak but Miguel. It had indeed been his voice, and he was apparently capable of stringing many words together. His Spanish was deep and singed, Gabe guessed, by the dancing flames of Rioplatense. There had been so many nights already, just the two of them, and Gabe had never noticed. Incredible. But had Miguel ever spoken Spanish to him before? He wasn't sure; Miguel rarely spoke at all. Gabe twisted around in his seat, but the open trunk lid blocked his view of Miguel entirely. Did this sudden outburst call for some kind of response? For how many nights had Miguel thought to tell him this, but remained silent? Had there been two hundred deliveries already? Jesus, he thought, it was probably closer to three hundred. Of course a response was necessary. "I don't think so. I'm not allowed out at the camp." Curiously, he had replied in English. Conversations with his father had been mostly bilingual, so the old habit must have paid a surprise visit. Better to run with it. "Not normally," he added, remembering back to earlier that night. The shuffling in the trunk stopped. "Well, we're not at the camp, are we?" Gabe waited and soon Miguel started moving again. What the hell was going on? Apparently the floodgates were open now. Again in English: "No, we're not." "What's wrong with your Spanish? Can't you speak it?" Gabe switched over. "Nothing. What's wrong with yours?" "Nothing," said Miguel. "My family comes from Argentina." "Oh." Then Gabe had heard right. "How long ago?" Silence for a few seconds, then, "Seven or eight years, I guess." "Oh." A shorter amount of time than Gabe would have guessed. "I'm just saying, you won't burn your eyes out by seeing what goes on," he said, his English surprisingly unaffected. "I know," said Gabe. Silence returned as Miguel continued to work. Steadily, almost unthinkingly (if Gabe thought about it any longer he would have talked himself out of it), he stood up out of the car, shut the door and leaned against it, facing the wall. He looked over his shoulder at Miguel, who, in a flash, glanced up at him and then away, muttering, "Thought you were taller." Gabe looked back at the wall. He listened as Miguel continued working. Tonight the load seemed to be mostly small packages, which belonged in many different corners of the garage. He turned around and pressed his stomach into the side of the car. "I'm not really supposed to be a part of the package-handling stuff." Miguel studied what was left in the trunk. "I know that." "This early in the game, they don't want be involved, besides just transporting it. Once I get more familiar, take on more responsibility, all that, I'm sure they'll let me do more." He tried out a laugh. "Maybe by then they'll even tell me what it is." Miguel looked him straight in the eyes. "You're joking." "Why would I be joking?" "You don't know what it is?" "No." Miguel said nothing more, clearly shocked (muted though his expression was), and Gabe suddenly felt very self-conscious. He wondered what was so surprising about his not knowing, and at what point, for that matter, Miguel himself had come to know. Mentally, he kicked himself. It wasn't so much the embarrassment--he could live with that--it was just that when it came to discussion of the actual task at hand, the less was said, the better. Don't talk about the trade. Don't talk about what you don't know about the trade. Small talk is best. Miguel had finally offered an invitation to make it, and Gabe had stepped right in--too far in. A minor fuck up was a fuck up just the same. Every aspect of the delivery should be kept tidy and simple, and a slip like this was a loose thread, a point from which, no matter how unlikely, things could begin to unravel. Repentant, Gabe rested his chin on the roof of the car. Miguel carried the last of the packages, two swollen yellow bubble-mailers, deep into the stacks. His voice rang out from behind a tower of wooden pallets. "Guess it's the nature of being a transporter. Best not to know what it is you're transporting. Helps keep the calm. Hadn't thought of it that way." Dear God, stop talking about it, thought Gabe. And just like that, Miguel did stop. As quickly as he had emerged, he withdrew back into himself. At most, one or two words (perhaps only nods) were exchanged before Gabe idled out of the garage and into the night, and Miguel dragged down the overhead door, disappearing into the black. Back when Gabe's father first started bringing him around, it had been determined that a trial period was suitable, one that would last for an undefined length of time. When you're ready to know more, you will know more. Those were his father's exact words, if Gabe's memory served. Eddie words nearly echoed his father's in the first week of Gabe's official training, though their tone softened, and underneath them Gabe heard: Your father is no longer with us. You take plenty of time and just do as you're told. You tell me when you feel ready. Earlier, the introduction to Mr. Hughes had torn into the procedure of Gabe's evening. Perhaps, he thought while pulling away, Miguel's change in behavior shouldn't have been so surprising, given the historical tendency of upending events in his life to cluster. The night his father died had followed the worst argument between his parents he had ever witnessed, and preceded what was to have been Gabe's first official night on the job. His mother felt (and would probably always feel) that Gabe was not ready to take on the responsibility, though his father insisted that he had been ready for some time--at least as long as he had been out of school. Gabe was not academic in an institutional sense, and had never conjured the ambition necessary to be so. Instead he had flunked repeatedly and spent his days reading a fantastic number of novels from a sprawling array of genres, making himself generally, chaotically knowledgable in a way that could never be conclusive or proven. Both of his parents had come to grasp this outcome, and his father declared that, since Gabe had not opened up any other doors for himself, this was his only way forward, and he, Marco, would guide him carefully through it. The major argument had come after Gabe's mother confronted Marco for a final time, during which Gabe turned his ear toward the doorway dividing the living room from the kitchen. His father, it became clear through his mother's growing pleas, had wanted out at various times, but had never mustered the strength to take the first steps--if they had ever really existed--toward doing so. He had feared for his life, maybe not at the moment, but several times earlier in the game. Didn't he remember how terrifying that had felt? And how dare trap his own son in the same cycle? His father had been quiet for a moment, then said that she didn't get how times had changed, that things weren't actually how he once thought they were. He hadn't felt that way in a long time--and now? It was a decent path for a young man. The fight had escalated from there. They had screamed and snarled at one another; at one point his mother climbed onto the countertop, pulled a wood-framed clock from the wall and smashed it against the linoleum floor, where it shattered. A shard of glass had come pinging through the doorway and fell to rest next to Gabe on the rug. Maybe something within his mother had, by that point, already begun to seize. Maybe a broader part of her consciousness had been swept up early into the building wave of tragedy that would soon crash over her, even as her husband stood before her then, still very much alive, breathing in and out, steaming with frustration. Looking back, it did not seem impossible to Gabe that the universe could operate in this way. Late that night, the call would come, and she would be fully trampled then, prostrate at the foot of her white bedroom vanity, her wails baring the blackened sear of someone who had forever feared this outcome, and who had been clinging with desperation to the hope that it would not come to pass. On the day of the funeral, Gabe had only recently met Eddie. But Eddie approached Gabe's mother as if he was familiar with her and offered his condolences. Gabe stood close by as Eddie said something to her in Vietnamese, but he spoke very quietly and the subject was nuanced, so Gabe had not comprehended it. After that day, his mother would fall silent over the idea of his entering the trade, and if she ever did caution him, it took the form of familiar, generic warnings about life's dangers--the warnings of any parent. Gabe did not wonder about what exactly Eddie had said to his mother; it had probably not been extraordinary, just a few genuine words combined with Eddie's impressive comportment, all from the cooling manger of her native tongue. He had come next to Gabe, now joined by his wife, Lydia, who looked small and pretty but very pale at his side. "My life will serve as a buffer for yours. I will protect you." As Eddie's words clicked into place, Gabe's surroundings had sprung to focus; the dry cemetery grass crunched under the couple's shoes as they departed from him and wind came droning through the fronds of the palms lining the edge of the grounds (where he could have sworn some odd, tall and thin figure moved around earlier, but where was this person now?). Although Gabe's first night of work had been postponed, he would soon carry out the wishes of his father, to honor him. And even apart from all of this, from everyone else, he had been deeply, personally compelled to begin real work. In the weeks that followed, it had felt like the start of a life and days that finally mattered, even as they were drenched in the wrenching pain of loss. Thirteen months later, nothing about his conviction had diminished. He now drove back inland on the expressway. It had been a strange night, but Gabe knew that he could not work forever within a vacuum. He looked inward, curious at his own ability to have maintained such simplicity of thought for so long. A variety of notions burst into his mind if he allowed them. Of course he was moving something illegal. Of course there was someone--many people likely--who worked above Eddie. It should have been obvious to him already that Miguel was not some kind of robot who would forever perform his tasks absent of personality. And perhaps most disturbingly in rare moments, like this one, when he allowed his curiosity to wander: Of course his father had not turned a gun on himself. Someone kind of entity wanted him dead; they had sought out Marco and killed him. A car's headlights stretched out laterally behind him, and then its joyriding driver darted over one lane to pass. The twin-kidney grille of a BMW flashed across his driver-side mirror, the engine roaring behind its bars, and the car leapt ahead of him. Gabe knew this was not the sort of threat to watch out for, but it disturbed the waters enough for him to reign in his thoughts. He closed up like a clam. The taillights of the speeding car became small and distant, and the night surrounded him again in its calming shroud. Look at these buildings, thought Gabe as he closed in on uptown. There are so many surrounding me now, and they are so impressively beautiful. He made out, in quick instances, a glowing living room or kitchen or bedroom which was level with the elevated freeway: hulking big-screen televisions, unfurling brass fixtures, sprawling black leather furniture...and sometimes the inhabitants themselves who were up all hours, even baring their naked bodies, categorically unconcerned with drive-by snoops such as Gabe. Thank God, he thought, for all the distractions of the world. In the early hours of the morning, the Orange Line resumed its lazy passes. For all his careful knowledge of the details pertaining to his runs, Gabe was not sure when exactly this occurred. It went down for maintenance each night, but he had never bothered to research the duration of this period. As was always the case, it had already begun making its rounds by the time he parked the car in the gravel lot, walked slowly along its dusty lanes, and came to arrive at the platform. A display listed the next train to arrive in twelve minutes, at 2:50 a.m. Sometimes he managed to catch the 2:30, but more often than not, it happened just like this. Central Station was the largest in Las Sombras, buried in the middle of downtown, incorporating two malls and serving as a hub for eleven of the city's nineteen lines. It was one of the only parts of the city in which Gabe sustained a sense of wonder, no matter how familiar its workings became to him. (The ocean was this way, too, though Gabe did not believe the ocean, its surf or even its beaches counted as part of the city.) The station had amassed slowly over more than a century, ever-ballooning to meet the demands of more and more citizens, all the while a growing monument to their toil and sacrifice. Through planning, expansion and maintenance, it had furnished the careers of countless people, and, during dark moments in its history, had claimed the lives of countless more. To Gabe, Central Station existed as a distinct and flawless reflection of the elaborate nature of its creation--if one took the time to look around. Yes, this reflection emanated from the myriad visual qualities of its structure and the convoluted, patchwork layout of its many corridors, but also in the way people passed through, how they carried themselves as they adhered to their daily movement. There were other places Gabe still considered wondrous and beautiful in their own right. Maybe a few even equaled this place, but none surpassed it. Gabe left toward a public restroom, delaying his departure from the terminus platform of the Emerald Line. It wasn't that he really needed to use the restroom; in fact, he could have made it home without any discomfort at all. It had all begun the first time nature had indeed called during his transfer. There had been an unusually long wait for more conveniently-placed toilets (especially given the hour), so he had sought and found another, a neglected, distant facility at the end of a long, dim hallway, paved with splintering yellow tiles. The shadowy tunnel had once carried passengers to and from the bustling Odin Line platform, now abandoned beyond a brick barricade, and these days, was on no one's way to anywhere. This restroom became a not-infrequent deviation for Gabe as--or perhaps, because--it had already for other boys and men. Many of them were young like him, and most not nearly as timid. He gave himself permission only as his run was technically over, and came to view it as a release, in more than one way, of the tension amassed over a day. As he neared the room's entrance, Gabe saw where at least one more quivering fluorescent tube had given out overhead, leaving just two to light the entire corridor in confined segments of meager glow. The restroom itself was well-lit. Almost exclusively, Gabe had satisfied himself with watching the actions of others, and less often, he was watched by others, which also brought him a quick, exciting satisfaction. It was rare that he had allowed himself to come into meaningful physical contact with anyone, and even during those few, exceptional encounters, he had minimized the possibility of personal harm. Usually, for the obscurity of location and hour, the restroom was tellingly busy. But at other times it was empty. Tonight it was neither: Only one person, a tall white boy, stood conspicuously at the far end of the room. He looked young, maybe even younger than Gabe. He was thin and rather lanky, his face bright, attractive. He had leaned against the wall, scribbling something in a small notepad, but when Gabe entered he put it away, freed himself. Gabe wavered for a second, then went toward him. He exposed himself as the other boy had done and silently, expertly made clear his intentions for minimal contact. The boy was respectful of this, and so after some time had passed in strict admiration, Gabe allowed the boy to take hold of him. It wouldn't be long at all now, thought Gabe, and he submitted himself. He left the restroom behind five minutes later, saddled with the queasiness of feeling lighter in one way, heavier in another. The novelty of this sensation had long faded. Gabe felt guilt for his behavior--a mysterious, particular sting of judgment cast toward him from someplace else. But it wasn't God...or a god, or anything like that. He had no romantic partner to whom he must remain faithful. Maybe it was his father, who was somehow, from some unworldly vantage, watching him in these moments, and who would be surely, sorrowfully, shaking his head. This possibility was an especially painful one for Gabe to fathom, so he tried very hard not to. And, still, maybe it wasn't his father at all. On darker nights than this one, Gabe had peered in the direction of the abandoned platform through gaps around the edges of the clumsy masonry, and the thing had stood right at its edge, taught, clear flesh pulled over bone. His back was always to Gabe. But once, he had twisted around in a flash--that awful, unalterable grin cutting straight through the brick. For an instant Gabe had wanted to run, but instead stood still, breathing in and out once before walking steadily back toward the clean light of a larger connecting hall. The Emerald Line was older, clattering and screeching its way through miles of dank tunnel. By four in the morning, after a short walk from the station, Gabe entered the condo he shared with his mother. She snored loudly, which indicated that she had drunk a lot before bed. He entered her bedroom and saw in the moonlight from her window that she was too hot again, soaked in her own sweat, so he pulled off the comforter and adjusted the sheet up to just below her shoulders. He filled a glass with water and left it on her bedside table. The sun rose a few hours later to bake the side of the building opposite the balcony, allowing Gabe to sleep in the shadows until a satisfyingly late time, usually around ten-thirty. Every so often, his mother was still in bed at such an hour, but this morning she was awake, mumbling around in the kitchen when Gabe slid open the door and stepped inside. "Gabriel," she said, looking sadly into a box of cereal, "leave the door open." "How did you sleep?" he asked. "I slept," she said. She abandoned the cereal and opened the refrigerator. "Will you go buy groceries today?" "Of course." She hobbled around as a person who was much older would, clothed in dirty, pale-blue pajamas, shoulder-length black hair mashed against one side of her head, leaping out sideways from the other. "How are you feeling, Ma?" he asked her. "I'm feeling fine, Gabriel." "You can come with me if you want." She snapped at him. "I don't want that, and you know it. Why would you ask me a thing like that?" "I'm sorry. I don't know. It's been a while since you've been out, that's all." Over the last several months, to Gabe's knowledge, she had only left home when it was absolutely required: for visits to the doctor, or to buy alcohol in secrecy. "Well, I don't want to go out." "I know." He helped settle her into a breakfast of oatmeal, then flipped through channels on the television for her until something satisfactory came up. He left her to eat and showered, returning to take her bowl and wash it in the kitchen sink. After tidying things up, he came to rest next to her on the couch. A daytime talk show was on. The audience screamed at the stage after a man admitted to sleeping with another man, and his wife began to pummel his shoulder and chest over and over with her fists. Seconds later, the other man was brought out on stage, and she then turned her angry beatings toward him. "You're like them, aren't you?" his mother demanded suddenly. "You're gay, aren't you?" Gabe said nothing until the commotion on the television had calmed down. "No, Ma, I'm not like that." "Then at least you can say the word." She kept her eyes on the television screen. "Even I said it." "I'm not gay, Ma." "Your father always said you might be. I defended you. I told him you weren't." It upset Gabe very much to hear this. The noise from the television fell away, as did the traffic down on the street. Only a cheap plastic wall clock ticked away in the kitchen. "What made him think I was?" She searched for a moment. "It's the way you move your hands when you speak--see?" She demonstrated for him. "You move them the way I do." Gabe peered sadly down in his lap where his own hands rested. "That doesn't mean anything, Ma. I said I'm not." She shook her head and clicked her tongue at the television. "I don't know, I don't know." It was unlikely, Gabe thought to himself, that she was satisfied with his answer. Was the head-shaking and the tongue-clicking meant for him or for the people on tv? Maybe it was both. In any case, she pressed him no further, and he went to pour a bowl of cold cereal, gulping it down quickly before preparing to leave. "Let me make you a list," she said, and he waited by the door as she sat hunched over the coffee table scribbling on a scrap of paper. As he was leaving, she said, "Don't stay away too long." "I won't," he said, pulling the door closed behind him. Outside, the elderly woman who owned the next unit over milled around her potted plants, some of which she presented proudly on top of the stone railing that ran the length of the open-air hallway. It was, she said, so that they got the meat of the sun at the beginning of the day, when it counted most. She smiled upon seeing him. "Hello, Gabriel. You know--it's the funniest thing--he's out today. Usually he's just out at night but I saw him creeping around this morning. Have you seen him?" Gabe shook his head. "I haven't, sorry." "Don't be sorry. It doesn't matter if you've seen him or if you haven't seen him." She turned away, once again tending to her plants. "It only matters," she added, speaking into the center of an enormous echeveria, "that we keep our distance." Over the years he had come to know what form her dismissal took (this was it), so he left her alone and headed down the concrete stairwell. He wasn't gay. Lately, his mother was so prone to these impassioned non sequiturs that, at first, he had been unmoved after hearing the word. But it was true--for the first time, she had said it, had even insisted he say it. Before this day, she had only ever gone so far as to ask him, in a kind of sad, doubtful way, if he ever met young women. He had told her yes, that he had done so one or twice, and it had been the truth. It seemed to Gabe that there wasn't anything left to talk about and yet, in his mother's most coherent moments, she was constantly bringing it up. He realized with sadness that there were very few topics she could discuss anymore with as much vitality and presence. Resentful as he was of the subject itself, today's discussion--hanging there, fresh in his mind--reminded him intensely of the way she was before, back when things were still good. On the street, mopeds and scooters sputtered past, aggressive riders threading themselves between cars and a lumbering, inbound army of produce trucks. Clotheslines spanned the gap between all but the first and second floors, bowing under the colorful weight of fabric; the stink of warm fish wafted from shop windows and up narrow streets from the water. The sidewalks were, as always, packed with people drifting from shop to shop, perusing, bartering here and there. Some were locals; others were entire families who came in from the suburbs to experience the grit of the famous inner-city markets. This is how people live here, Gabe had overheard parents tell their children. This is were they buy their food. This is how it is for them. Here--see that man on the ground over there? Take this quarter and give it to him. He didn't say thank you? Well, that's okay. No one ever taught him his manners. Gabe would buy groceries later. He headed south for two blocks before turning right on Loma, a cramped, flume-like lane between buildings that made for rapid descent to the water. If he did not visit it for many days or weeks, the ocean's calls became pained, urgent, and so there were days like this when he could not keep himself from it. At the bottom of the hill, he crossed Belmont Avenue, which ran for a few miles along the shore, stepped down from the concrete boardwalk and finally landed on the hot sand. He carried his sandals in one hand as he moved among a multicolored assortment of beachgoers, and went south, away from the pier, where the crowd began to thin. There were massive shell deposits here, which he stepped upon, feet crunching through fresh, cool batches of calcium, then thudding against hard, wet sand, repeating. He descended into the surf until it washed up to his knees. How could his father ever have known? And why would he have believed such a thing about his son without any real evidence? His mother would not lie about this, so it must have been true. Had he been ashamed of Gabe? Gabe had certainly never done anything that would have made his father proud. All Gabe had ever really achieved was to read book after book after book, romances, thrillers, historical fiction, and it had gotten him nowhere. Dismal performance in school, no interest in a trade or career path or even social activities--by themselves, these were traits that would disappoint any parent. But to be the thing his father thought he was...that was different. This suspicion (or was it certainty?) had been swirling in his father's mind, and yet he had never reacted in anger or confusion, had never even confronted Gabe with questions like, "Do you like any girls in your class?" or, "How come you never bring anyone to meet us?" Marco never spoke about Gabe's affairs in this way. It was unlikely, but not impossible, that he had accepted it about his son, had long since moved on. The notion did not console Gabe at all, because what if, he wondered with an intensity that threatened to knock him from his feet and into the brine, the thing his father had come to know and accept about him was false? Gabe watched as a disinterested gull bobbed up over the hump of a forming wave. The few people who were close by seemed to keep their distance from him, as if the dark fog of uncertainty surrounding him was not just in his head. For the rest of his life, he would never know what his father really believed, and how he actually felt about it. Gabe experienced a sharp, grieving anger toward his father for the first time in months. Their relationship had not been a distant one, and, or so Gabe wanted to believe, they had been honest with one another. This suggested a betrayal of that honesty, and now one was dead, and neither could answer for any part of it in order to make things right. How could you leave me with all this? The question had harnessed itself at the front of his mind and he could hardly see past it. It began weighing down on him so heavily that he could no longer stand, so he lay down in half a foot of water and wept. He had thought that anguish of this magnitude was now fully a part of this past, had been reserved for the weeks and months after his father was shot, but he had been wrong. A small wave came and slammed hard against his body, rolling him onto his stomach. Maybe he was no better off than his mother. Gabe stayed hunched in the pushing and tugging shallows of the seawater for a long time, crying softly to himself, before slowly crawling up onto the dry, hot shore. He had wandered to an unpopular, stony area of the beach, so he stripped down to his underwear, wrung out his clothing, checked the contents of his wallet and laid everything out to dry. He studied his mother's list, relieved that its items were still legible (though most he could have recalled from memory): bread, fish sauce, Clearly Canadian (glass bottles), lemongrass, coriander, beef, eggs, rice noodles, and a handful of other things. He sat unhappily in the sun with his elbows resting on his knees and his face in his hands. As time passed, his shadow crept out to the left of his body. He laid a small twig in the sand, marking the very edge of the darkness cast by his knee, and when it had moved satisfactorily beyond, he moved the twig once again to the edge, until he had covered many inches over the tiny dunes in this way. A sense of calm gradually settled in. He saw now that he had been faced with a problem that had no solution, and knew he must let it go. He rose up, put on his clothes and placed the warm, crispy bills (which he had pinned beneath smooth stones) back into his wallet. As he walked north along the swell's foamy reaches, he became lost again in the soothing anonymity of the crowd. He did his grocery shopping in clothing that was still damp, then trudged up the stairwell of his building, arms shackled with plastic bags. Gabe heard her moaning through the bathroom window when he was still one floor down. He started, climbed two and three steps at a time, threw open the front door and dropped the groceries in the entryway. He came to the doorway of the bathroom and saw her there on the floor, lying halfway out of the shower in only her underwear. The water beat down on her brown legs. "I can't move," she slurred. "The water hurts. It's too hot." He shut off the water and knelt down, lifting at her underarms, staggering and crying out as he brought both of them back to their feet. She could not stand on her own and clung to him as he wrapped a towel around her and brought her toward the bed. Her shoulder thudded against the doorframe as they entered the room. "Careful," he said. "You're a piece of trash," she growled, then became silent as he helped her lie down. Once her body had sunk into the cool mattress, her head into the pillow, she began to cry in long, exhausted sobs. Gabe brought her a glass of water and saw a deep red welt at her hipbone, left by the metal lip at the edge of the shower stall. He removed the towel and covered her with the bed-sheet. Then he left her there, still sobbing, to put away the groceries. A short time later, Gabe no longer could hear her. He peeked through the gap in the door to her room and confirmed that she was asleep. He made a sandwich, extended a rusty, tattered sunshade out from the edge of the balcony and set himself in the heat to read. He passed most of the afternoon and early-evening like this, sweat dripping from his face and spider-webbing into the spongy fibers of the page. His mother called for him a short time before six o'clock, and when he went to her she said, "What is wrong with you? I told you not to stay away for long." "I'm so sorry," he told her. "I was at the beach. I lost track of time." "You are just garbage." She stared up at the ceiling. "You are nothing but shit for a son." "I'm sorry," said Gabe. "I'm very, very sorry." He left her alone, and it was another half hour before she emerged. He cooked the beef and the noodles and they ate mostly in silence. He trailed her into the living room after dinner, where she froze momentarily, grabbed up an open bottle of El Jimador from the coffee table and replaced the cap. He looked away as she passed by him and left for her bedroom, where he could hear her storing it, possibly under the bed. When she came back, she fell into the recliner across from him. Gabe had propped himself against the arm of the couch and resumed reading. "You were gone a long time, so I got very lonely and felt a little scared and decided I should take a shower to cool myself down." He glanced up from his book to show her he was listening. "Then I was just so sad and lonely that I wanted to be in bed." "I brought you to bed, Ma. I found you in the shower, remember?" "Oh." She didn't say anything after this, so Gabe's focus returned to his book, but within a few minutes she was crying softly to herself. Gabe dropped the book into his lap. "Hey, what's wrong?" She quieted herself down, covered her eyes with her hand and said, "Nothing is wrong." She turned on the television. Around ten, she announced that she was getting ready for bed, and after all light had disappeared from the sky, called him to her room. He paused in the doorway. "What is it?" She sat up against the headboard with the covers pulled up to her neck. "Gabriel, you do a good job taking care of yourself, and me." "Thank you, Ma." "You're okay with taking care of yourself, aren't you?" He turned away from her and sat down at the end of the bed. "Yeah, Ma." "That's a good thing. That makes me feel very relieved." "Okay, Ma." In five minutes, he was alone out on the balcony. There it was, between high-rises, glimmering in the light of the moon--that small bit of ocean he could bring home with him. Perhaps it was the clarity of the night that lent the same quality to his thoughts, because suddenly he could see that he had been repeating the same two words over and over in his mind for months, broadcasting them out toward every acre of his life. They formed on his lips for the first time: Not yet. He said them, he realized, whenever he longed to parse the absurdity of toiling for the same organization that had permitted the death of his father. He said them knowing fully that it was time to ask questions, that Eddie would now oblige. Gabe turned back and peered through the glass into the darkened interior of the condo. It was not a pleasant place, and it contained a growing sadness that Gabe knew he would soon be unable to bear. He could see now that with each passing day, he had been repeating those same two words to the tormented ghost of his mother. ~~~~~ END OF PART 1 Email me at kidboise@gmail.com with comments, questions and/or criticisms :) ...part 2 to come soon... Thanks for reading!