“She does need help,” said Pastor Huyck sadly.
“You take her home in your own car,” said Tabitha. “Kirk should be there to sign for her. I’ve had enough of this old lady for one day. I’ll walk.”
27
“I KNOW IT’S going to be cold,” said Irene Menengest. “I just want to have a little sense of the place. Surely you have a key to the church building itself? You gatekeeper of the faith, you?”
“I do,” said Jeremy. “But can’t we do this another time? I was hoping to keep this brief tonight. I have a friend who’s under the weather and I promised to look in on him.”
“This won’t take long. Let me run through one or two things from where I’ll be standing. It comforts the afflicted, Mr. Catholic Hot Pants. I once had to sing for a high school awards ceremony and they had the microphone set up in a bank of ferns. I looked like the Warbling Ficus of Malone, New York.”
“We’ve got three weeks yet. I just can’t do it today, Irene. Give me a break.”
“Fine. Leave me to suffer in my anxiety. Men. So to speak.”
From the parlor in the parish house, Father Mike Sheehy gave them a weary nod over the top of his Sunday New York Times of several weeks ago. “Sounds divine,” he called.
“Too, too kind, Father,” said Irene. “I sound like a whale on steroids.”
“If you insist,” he murmured, turning a page. “But a divine whale.”
They were angling their keys into the doors of their cars when a third car pulled into the parking lot. “Expecting anyone?” Jeremy said to Irene. “Oh. It’s Willem.”
“Imagine that.” Irene waited for her brother-in-law to roll down his window. But instead Willem Handelaers cut the engine and got out.
“Irene—just in time. I hoped I’d catch you. Francesca said you’d be rehearsing in the church, so she couldn’t phone.”
“No such luck,” said Irene. “Your mean old buddy denied me sanctuary.”
“Francesca’s over at that fancy store in Aberton—you know the place? Pepperdine’s? Pappadum’s?”
“I forget the name, but I know the one you mean. Popsicle’s, maybe. Potpourri’s.”
“She’s found something to wear to Polly’s wedding and she wants you to come over and look at it. Someone else put a deposit down but hasn’t come back, and they’re willing to sell it to Francesca if she buys it tonight, so she needs your opinion. They’re open till nine on Wednesdays, luckily.”
“I’ve got other things to do myself, but hell, clothes come first. Where’re the kids, anyway?”
“My mom is visiting. She’s reading them Curious George or something.”
“Essential reading for future anarchists. Where do you think that monkey got his curiosity from? His mother. She was Fay Wray, did you know that? His father was King Kong. His autobiography is I am Curious, George.” Irene got in her car. “Well, thanks a lot, Willem.” She turned the ignition key and waited a moment, as if to let the car warm up. Probably snooping to make sure Willem took off now that he’d delivered his message. But Jeremy didn’t really care what Irene thought anymore.
“So you’re going to this wedding of Polly’s?” he said. Pointless and floundering as usual.
“Couldn’t let Francesca go alone. Who knows what trouble she might get up to. I don’t have the need for new clothes, though. I have the one good jacket I wear all winter. It’s a kind of forest-green corduroy with faggy styling. Sets off my jewel-like eyes.” He batted his lashes and grinned.
“Don’t forget your visit to the sick, Jeremy,” Irene called as she circled out of the parking lot and disappeared.
“Who’s sick?” said Willem. The temperature hovered near freezing, and snow was predicted, but he leaned against his car and folded his arms as if it were summer and he was about to jump into a lake. Jeremy felt warmer, or said to himself he did. He could linger a moment before taking refuge in the car.
“Sean. Sean Riley? Chesty thing.”
“He’s, uh, HIV—?”
“Very. I’ve told you that. His viral load is pretty hefty.”
“Not sure what that means. Sounds bad?”
“He’s been up and down with this respiratory stuff for months. The side effects of the treatment are a whole category of punishment in themselves. He’s staying with Marty Rothbard—do you know Marty?—who has a really small place, and Marty works in the evenings over at the Craftique, so I’ve been stopping by and having a sandwich or some soup with Sean, who gets pretty bored.”
“Sorry to hear about it.” Willem cracked his knuckles. “So how are you doing?”
Behind Willem, the light in the parlor of the rectory went out. Even if Father Mike was standing there in the dark, looking out, he would only see two guys chatting, and Father Mike wasn’t nosy. He was probably on his way to bed. Then the light in the parking lot dimmed, which meant Father Mike had flipped the switch, not realizing that Jeremy was still there. The shadows rushed in, warm purples and bluish grays; the more distant sodium streetlights down the block filtered the frosty background with a urinesque yellow. “How am I doing? Do you mean, am I infected? Or do you mean, like, have I gotten involved with Sean? Or am I oblivious? No, no, no.”
Willem waited without speaking, just looking at him.
Those four songs Jeremy’d been rehearsing with the guys this month, a full twenty-minute set; the songs came rushing up into the back of Jeremy’s mind all in tatters and interwoven like a corrupted music file. In some way everything he wrote was about Willem, and had been ever since. A crime and a punishment both, except to sing about it helped, sometimes. But Willem wasn’t standing there in the December darkness waiting for Jeremy to sing. He didn’t even speak the same language as Jeremy. That had always been their problem. They were of two different species entirely. You might as well fall in love with a porn star in a stroke magazine, or a painting of a nymph cavorting as Daylight or Melody. When the real Willem shows up again you can hardly see him for the trash in your eyes.
“How am I doing?” Jeremy said again. “I’m doing okay. It’s been a hard year.”
“You look like it. What’s up.” Willem rested his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder; the palm’s furnace burned through fibers and skin and scorched Jeremy’s clavicle. “Boyfriend trouble?”
“Who, me? What’s a boyfriend?”
“Your health—?”
“I’ve told you. It’s okay. I wish I could say the same about Sean, but I can’t rework his wiring or his history.” As much to escape scrutiny as to know the answer, he continued, “How about you?”
“Oh,” said Willem. “Kids. Well, they do crawl all over you.”
“Tell me about it. I live part-time in an elementary school, remember. Francesca’s fine?”
“Of course. Are you playing this wedding of Polly’s, or just doing the rehearsal for Irene?”
“Irene. Now there’s a piece of work.” Jeremy slid a sidelong look. “Better not go there, verboten family territory. Yeah, well, I’m trying to work it out. I have a trip planned to New York that week but I’ll probably be able to arrange to leave after the wedding.” He’d just tossed it off in the middle of a line—to New York—to see if Willem would flinch, even a little, would guess at Jeremy’s motivation.
“Come to the reception, it’ll be fun,” said Willem. “You wouldn’t come to my wedding.”
“Right, I was supposed to dance with the groom? Please. This isn’t Provincetown. Or Amsterdam. Or Greenwich Village.”
“Or Larch Lake. Don’t I know.” Willem’s head went down and his eyes looked out from beneath bangs that were unnaturally flattened due to the ski cap. Made of some sort of priceless Peruvian wool, no doubt, from an original Design by Francesca. “I remember. Didn’t we dance naked on that balcony? To the music from down the lake. You held my waist and I held your—”
“Hey, you gotta remember something. You got a good head on your shoulders.” This was the thing Willem wasn’t supposed to do. Jeremy twitched out
from under Willem’s hand.
“Isn’t it good to have that there?” said Willem, looking a little doubtful for perhaps the first time in his thirty-some years. “I mean to have that between us, in the past? Aren’t you glad? Isn’t it better than—not to have it?”
Jeremy had to wait to answer. “Hard to respond to that.”
“How hard?” Willem came in closer.
“Hard enough.”
They stood near for a few minutes, almost touching, looking over one another’s shoulders. Despite the combustion it began to snow. “Do you want to dance?” Willem half whispered. Then there was a cough, in the shadows, and Willem pulled away, and Jeremy was fussing with the music that, he was surprised to remember, he was still holding. Father Mike? Not likely. A pair of thugs, or more, going to pulverize them for being faggots in a church parking lot? “Get in your car,” said Jeremy quietly, evenly.
“You jump in too,” said Willem. “We’ll split—”
“Who’s there?” Jeremy wheeled away from Willem. We’ll split. They had already done that, hadn’t they? Willem had jerked himself apart out of fear of discovery, which was hateful and legitimate, too. Willem had kids and a wife. Let him leave. “Just go,” said Jeremy, and then louder again, “I said, who is it?”
“Oh, sorry.” A figure came stumbling out from behind the corner of the Cliffs of Zion. “I was just out walking—”
“Oh, it’s you,” said Jeremy. “Great.”
“You know him?” said Willem.
“Yes. Look, it’s okay. Just go. Just go, will you?” You’ve split already. Act your age.
Willem looked Kirk Scales up and down, an appraising if neutral expression taking hold. “I’ve interrupted your evening. See you at the wedding, then. And look, Jeremy, take it easy, will you?”
Jeremy waited for Willem’s car to leave. Then he turned to face Kirk Scales, who was sloping across the parking lot with an expression that looked askew.
“I know you’re in Drama 101 and believe me, your timing couldn’t be more theatrical. Have you been drinking? Is that it?”
“Oh, a drop. Found a little drop somewhere and had a little drink. What’s the big deal?”
“Liquoring yourself up so you can spy around the church? Waiting for me? Hanging out in the shadows here? That’s just not going to do any good, you. Come on. You need to sit down? You look pretty bad.”
“Oh I look better than I am—”
“You’re wobbling. Sit down here.” Jeremy led Kirk to a freestanding air-conditioning unit mounted on a concrete slab at the edge of the parking lot. He gripped Kirk’s shoulders and made him sit. Jeremy perched next to him, a good nine inches away, far as he could get. “You’re not dressed for this weather. Where’s your hat? You need me to take you home?”
“I need you—” Kirk began to inhale gustily as if a sneeze was inevitable.
“You don’t need me. Christ. You don’t even know me. I’m old enough to be your—your older brother. You’re just having a bad time with your mother so wacko. You’ll get over it. Don’t embarrass yourself—”
“There’s nothing in me to embarrass, I’m nothing, I’m worth nothing.” He began to sob.
“You know this is very upsetting but frankly I have to be someplace else … Stop, this is crazy. Isn’t your sister any help?”
“She’s a bitch—”
“Well, so?”
“And Hog calls me names. Everyone calls me names—”
“Look, we all go through this. It gets better,” he lied. But Kirk turned and threw himself against Jeremy’s chest. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” said Jeremy. “Come on, it’s okay. Get a hold of yourself.” Leave me alone, he wanted to say. What do I want with a frail teenage Adonis in a slightly smelly quilted vest, probably from the Salvation Army, sobbing in my arms? If this was a temptation, the Powers that Be had better work harder. But he was conscious of the backbone beneath Kirk’s rocking, the cheek so soft it could be a woman’s. Kirk was letting himself go; he rolled from the pelvis up in sinuous contortions as if he were in extremis. His sobbing voice, thought Jeremy a bit guiltily, actually has a nice airy quality, as if his sinuses are generous; he might be a capable singer if he has any control of pitch.
“Come on, thataboy,” said Jeremy when the worst seemed to have passed. “You need a handkerchief? Ah, come on. It breaks my heart. There must be a counselor at the high school, isn’t there? How about your pastor? Not sure what the Cliffs of Zion Pentecostals think about the hormonally homo. Is he cool about things like that?”
Kirk clenched Jeremy more tightly around the waist and mumbled something into his neck.
“What?” said Jeremy.
“I said, I’m not gay.”
“Oh, God. Is that so. Then why are you just about sitting in my lap?”
Kirk pulled back a half an inch. “You don’t understand.”
“Of course I don’t. Sure I do. Why are you drunk then?”
“You didn’t come to help me with my singing. You said you would.”
“I said I might. I had a crisis to attend to. Kirk, let go. Come on, you’re okay now. Pay attention. This isn’t about singing. Look, it’s not my business to talk you into anything or out of anything. How old are you? Fifteen?”
“Almost sixteen.” The sullenness was proof fiercer than an ID.
“Great. Well, you’re too young to know who you are yet, especially in this town. What with the year you’re having. Just give it a rest, will you? Relax a little. Wait till you go away to college. It’s safer. And there’s plenty of time to figure out if you’re gay. Have you ever dated girls?”
“I don’t want to go on dates, I want to learn how to sing ‘Hey Nonny Nonny!’ I haven’t come here to be molested by some queer old guy, you jerk, I need your help!” He bunched up Jeremy’s anorak, and he drilled Jeremy with a wide-eyed look, and kissed him, briefly but very wetly.
“Look.” Jeremy pulled away, falling off the side of the housing. “I don’t know that song. You have to talk to someone else, not me. You need to lie down and get over this. You’ll feel better in the morning. I’ll bring you home—”
“You’re not bringing him anywhere,” said another voice. Jeremy thought wearily: What—now it’s Father Mike? How embarrassing. I’m going to get fired before I can even quit. “Get your fucking hands off him.” Not Father Mike, then.
“What is with everyone tonight? It’s like a Buster Keaton film,” cried Jeremy. “Doesn’t anyone notice it’s freezing out?”
Kirk’s brother Hogan came walking through the snow carrying a wrench that looked like fifteen pounds of Kryptonite. “I catch you near my brother again, you butt-surfer, I’ll beat the crap outa you.”
“Oh god oh god. Hog, what’re you doing here?” said Kirk. “You never come to church.”
“You steal two beers from my room and leave the cans on the kitchen counter? You want me to think Mom has taken up drinking now? You’re outa here, Kirk. In the car before you get hurt. Now. It’s out on the street. Tabitha said you were going to church. Their church, right? His church.” Hogan’s face through the snow looked like some sort of puppet mask; he was glowering with excitement and menace. His hand was rigid on the wrench and he took three little hops like a javelin thrower, focusing on Jeremy.
“You have got this so wrong,” said Jeremy. “I don’t have the slightest interest in your brother—”
“Bringing him home?” Hogan began to swell, his arm to wind up. “You’re not getting your mitts on him, you cocksucking bastard—”
“Don’t, Hogan, you’re ruining everything,” shouted Kirk, “as per usual!” He headed for his brother but slid in the snow and landed on one knee. “Ow, that’s—I said major OW.”
“Let’s calm down—” said Jeremy.
“You sniff around for boy pussy, you come right into our house to hunt for an innocent kid, pretending to be kind—”
“That’ll do now,” said Father Mike Sheehy, in the bright light of the open d
oor to the rectory. He was wearing a bathrobe and he had a baseball bat in his hand. “We can’t have language like this in the church parking lot, fellows. Just won’t do. Anyone want to come in here and sort this out like gentlemen?” He advanced, and cracked his bat hard on the top of the concrete steps. “Or not?”
28
BY THE TIME Jeremy got there, Marty was already home. He met Jeremy at the door. “Sean’s asleep, first time in twenty-four hours, so let’s go sit in your car and chat.”
“It’s freezing out there, no way,” said Jeremy, as Marty pushed him down the stairs. “You won’t believe the evening I just had. A night of temptations and punishments and humiliations. I don’t deserve any of it.”
“You’re that kind of sick individual that life likes to abuse. It’s your own fault for never saying Fuck you to anyone. Can we manage not to talk about you for just this once?”
“Nothing would give me greater joy.”
“The thing is,” said Marty, when they settled in the front seat, “I think Sean is going downhill. The last twenty-four hours have been really bad. You don’t want to see the gunk he’s bringing up.”
“No and I don’t want to hear about it either. You shouldn’t be dealing with this, Marty.”
“Tell me about it. I don’t know what the hell to do. Mrs. Riley has called several times wanting to talk to Sean. He won’t get on the phone with her. Everyone’s getting jittery, and Sean’s got us in this bind. But the time has come to get unstuck, because he needs medical treatment. He’s not well enough for you to bring him back to Syracuse, Germy.”
“And you’re thinking we should just bundle him into my car and dump him home?”
“Or to the clinic on Morse Hill Road.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” said Jeremy at last. “If he’s finally sleeping now, he might feel more himself when he wakes up. And anyway, even if he doesn’t, morning’s a better time to show up at the clinic. Less scary. Also his parents won’t be so frantic.”