Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

  From the upper benches, in her silver filigree pants, Ann Lee smiled down. Some of the students were climbing up to sit near her.

  Eric felt uncomfortable. He wished he had gone with them to talk with the senior garbage man—who did love kids, but (especially if they were “all over him”) so easily could have caressed one or the other in an inappropriate manner. For most of them, it wouldn’t have meant anything. Still, kids had parents; and with parents, you never knew—

  Shit looked about twenty-five—which meant Eric was twenty-two or twenty-three. He smiled around at them.

  Above the walls, the sky glimmered opal, its pearl misted with violets, chartreuses, cerises.

  Ann said, “Do you want to ask Mr. Haskell and Mr. Jeffers some of the questions you prepared? You’ve had a chance, now, to talk to Mr. Dynamite—Mr. Haskell’s father. But he has to get back to work.”

  Three hands shot up—from two girls on the lower benches and one boy up near Ann. (For a moment Eric felt relief; that meant they’d be joining him soon—only that didn’t feel entirely right…)

  An Asian girl blurted, “That man said he fucked a pig.” The children snickered, glanced at one another—and a boy put his hand down, as if that was what he’d wanted, daringly, to mention.

  “Well,” Ann said. “Things were different when Mr. Haskell was a little boy.”

  Shit pointed to a sun-darkened girl sitting just below Ann, who had her hand up. (Eric thought, Shit’s mama looked like that, I bet, when she was that age…) “Yeah.” Shit grinned. “Yeah, you. What you wanna know?”

  “Ms. Lee says you’ve been together a long time, probably as long as anybody in this country. How long you lived with each other?”

  “About seventy, seventy-one years.” Eric looked at Shit and thought, but he’s too young. We both are—unless they’d had some sort of regeneration treatment, like you were always reading about in Northern medical blogs. Eric frowned. Now wouldn’t it be just like him to forget they’d done something like that?

  “But you never got married…?” one of the boys asked.

  “That’s right,” Shit said. “We didn’t want to.”

  A girl frowned at them. “You didn’t know if you were going to stay together…?”

  “Both my moms are married,” another girl said. “Only not to each other.”

  “Naw.” Eric smiled. “That wasn’t it.”

  “Hell,” Shit said, “I knew I wanted him the rest of my life—” he pointed a blunt thumb at Eric—“soon as I saw the fucker—unless he turned out to be some psychotic murderer or crazy mean bastard to boot—and, hell, even if he was, I was still ready to give him a try. Only he turned out to be really nice. And wanted to hug and kiss on me and suck my dick and everything and we’d fuck each other any time we wanted. Then, about an hour later, when I learned he liked to read and everything, I thought maybe he wasn’t gonna like me that much, after all. But it turned out, ’cause he could do it, he didn’t really care if I could or not.“

  “It took me a little longer,” Eric said. “About a week of workin’ together with him and his daddy. I mean, yeah, as soon as I saw him, I thought it would be nice to have somebody like him around forever, but you never think it’s gonna work out that way. At least I didn’t.”

  One of the children on the bottom tier asked. “Why not?”

  Shit looked puzzled. “Well, I guess because my daddy never married nobody, it didn’t occur to me that maybe we should be doin’ that kind of thing.” He shrugged. “So I never thought of it.”

  “Besides, it’s more fun.” Eric chuckled. “And more interestin’—to figure out all that stuff for yourself, between you, as you go along. See, back when we got together, a lot of gay men and women didn’t get married. In a lot of places, it was still illegal, like here in Georgia.” A bemused whispering rose, settled among the children, and may have been the sea.

  One dark skinned boy (who Eric figured must have looked a lot like young Robert Kyle, III—or a young Hugh. Could he be a relative?), said, “What you mean, figure it out for yourself?”

  While he reached up to scratch his ear, Eric looked down.

  Shit had moved over next to him and, in the course of it, lost his shoes. He was standing with one wide foot across Eric’s scuffed orange boot toe.

  “Well—” Eric looked back up and put his hand on Shit’s warm shoulder—“state supported marriage comes with a whole lot of assumptions about how it’s gonna be, a history of who has to obey who, when you’re justified in callin’ it quits, all sorts of things like that. Now, you could agree with each other to change some of those things or do ’em differently, but for thousands and thousands of years gay men and women didn’t have even that—except for a few Christian monasteries here and there, where the monks were allowed to marry each other. But nobody likes to think about those. For us, decidin’ to be with someone else wasn’t a matter of acceptin’ a ready-made set of assumptions. You had to work ’em all out from the bottom up, every time—whether you was gonna be monogamous or open; and if you was gonna be open, how was you gonna do it so that it didn’t bother the other person and even helped the relationship along. Workin’ all that stuff out for yourselves was half the reason you went into a relationship with somebody else. We had some friends once—back when we lived in the Dump—that was faithful for ten months out the year, but for two months they’d go on vacation and do all their tom-cattin’ around.” He realized he was making that up; but, hell, it was plausible. “Then they’d be faithful again. But that’s how they liked to do it. Then there were guys like us that just had to make real sure that the other person was feelin’ good about things, when they did it and knew they were number one and didn’t mind. See, that’s what people who get married don’t have. Or don’t have in the same way.”

  “Damn,” Shit said. “Now I never thought about that—or thought about it like that. But that’s probably ’cause my daddy helped us out with so much of it, ’specially at the beginnin’ of it all.”

  Again, Eric felt uncomfortable. Doing the stuff he’d done with Dynamite—and Shit—had never been hard. But the prospect of having to explain it always made him feel odd—though, when it came, Shit could launch right into it and was no more bothered talking about it than he was about any of their other, odder sexual practices. (Which was why Eric left those things to Shit to talk about or not talk about more and more. But something in the art settlement seemed to make all that more and more normal, whatever “normal” had once meant—even if it were only the passage or pressure of time itself. What if he’d been raised like Shit to believe there just wasn’t no normal?) If people misunderstood, so what? But that was another thing, after all this time, Eric still envied his partner.

  “Well,” Ann said, from the upper benches, “I think we should all give Mr. Jeffers and Mr. Haskell a hand…”

  Politely the children applauded.

  Summer lightening suddenly made Eric squint—and when it dimmed, half the sunlight had gone with it. Wind swirled up the sand. Crying out, the children began to climb down the benches.

  “No, no…!” Ann Lee called out. “Don’t run—”

  Again, lightning sheeted the sky. And again. After each, it got even darker—

  Cold droplets hit Eric’s face, and he rolled his head back, blinking. Outside the room was thunder…

  Beside him in the bed, someone naked was kneeling before the window…Shit—?

  Carrying Shit’s familiar naked reflection before him and facing inward, the pane slid down between the window jambs. “There—” Shit turned on his knees in the bed, grumbling—“Jesus, I’m all fuckin’ splattered, now.”

  “Hey, lemme get on top of the covers and hug you and get you warm.”

  Shit moved over the bed. “I should get a towel and—“

  “Naw.” Eric grabbed Shit’s shoulder. The familiar flesh—and wet—moved more loosely on the bone beneath than the flesh of Shit in the dream. “Naw—you come here and lemme get
you warm. What—it started rainin’?”

  “Naw—I just nipped outside and went for swim and didn’t bother to dry myself off. Course it’s rainin’! What the fuck you think it’s doin’?” Behind him, the window flared again and droplets sounded, splattering the glass like small stones.

  Eric put his arms around Shit’s hips and rubbed his face against Shit’s belly and groin.

  Shit went still and put his hand down on Eric’s back. “Hey, your face is warm. That must mean I’m cold as a corpse.” Shit flopped over, hunkering into the folds and dells of the blanket, while Eric moved himself further up. Eric pushed his face into Shit’s neck, as Shit lifted his bearded chin. “Come on, roll on top of me.”

  “I’m afraid I’m gonna crush you.”

  “You been afraid you’re gonna crush me for fifty years, and you ain’t never done it yet.”

  “It’s more like twenty-five or thirty. It’s just since your arthritis—”

  “Hey, you know—that’s right. You used to live on top me, and I loved it. Come on, now. Get up on me again. I been takin’ my pills. I like it. You practically lived on top of me for the first twenty years. I miss it, you know?”

  “Okay.” Eric rolled. “But if I hurt you, you squeak or somethin’—”

  Shit grunted. “Oh, yeah—that feels good, now.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah I’m sure.”

  Eric took in a deep breath. “Hey, Shit…?”

  “What?”

  “Did we go visit the school yesterday?”

  It felt like Shit was half-buried in the mattress. Eric moved his head over on a pillow. “I’m doin’ that so you can breathe.”

  “I don’t wanna breathe. I wanna die under here, where I belong. The school? Yesterday? Naw—that was three days ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “We went with Ann Lee right after lunch in that social history class and the kids asked us all them questions about how long we been together and what it was like around here a hun’rd years ago and all that stuff. Smart little fuckers, too—some of ’em. And you got to talkin’ about Mex and sign language and tryin’ to teach them some of the letters, and I didn’t think you was ever gonna shut up. I mean, that’s just a kind of reading. That still makes me uncomfortable. I don’t mind your doin’ it. But I think sometimes you talk about it just to rile me up.”

  “Ah, no, Shit. No, I don’t.”

  “Yeah, well that’s what you always say.”

  “Hey, it’s comin’ back to me. In pieces. Yeah, when we went to the school. On Tuesday. I was dreamin’ about that—but in the dream we were in a schoolroom. They were in a circle and we sat on the desk in the front. In the dream, they were all wearin’ their hair like they did when we was young. In little pointy stacks on the top—you remember?”

  “Most of the ones in the class had their heads shaved,” Shit said.

  “Yeah,” Eric said. “Hey, did they ask us any questions about your daddy?”

  “Huh?” Shit chuckled. “Naw. You know as well as I do, as far as them kids is concerned, we’re too old to have no daddies—or mamas either. We just walked up out of the sea, out of the stones, the trees—all old and wrinkled like we are, like we been the same and ain’t changed forever and ever.”

  “Yeah,” Eric said. “I guess so.” He rolled to the side.

  “Hey, don’t get off me, yet!”

  “Don’t worry. We can still hold each other. Come on here and get your arm around my shoulder.”

  That’s funny, Eric thought. Dynamite gave me so much pleasure, security, learned me so much—and I’m still nervous about people finding out that Shit’s father was once my fuck buddy and his fuck buddy both. Maybe that’s something I’m still supposed to be workin’ on. Or is that something gay guys just have to learn how to live with—I mean, always havin’ someone important in your life who’s a little further out than most people would be comfortable with—for whatever reason. Maybe that’s how we grow—if we ever do.

  Soon as he let Shit get a real breath, Eric could tell…from the change in his breathing rhythm, Shit was already back asleep.

  Once more, outside the cabin window, summer lightning sizzled on the sky. The storm’s rumble rose and settled over Gilead.

  * * *

  [111] “YOU COULD GET me a little money, if you wanted,” which was about all Shit would say on finances these days, once every couple or three weeks.

  “Sure,” Eric said. “Hold on a second.” They walked slowly along the market’s edge for two, three, four steps. “Okay,” Eric said. “There you go. Your chip’s all filled up now. I got you your regular amount.”

  “Okay,” Shit said. “Thank you.”

  Eric thought: How long ago was it that I swore before I died I was gonna teach him to do that? But finally, it got so easy—since all you had to do was think through what you wanted—I gave up and just been doin’ it for ’im…how long now? And the standard way to describe it was: “Try to think at the front and top of your head, where in your mind you read at”—but that wasn’t goin’ over with Shit. Ten years? Twenty? It doesn’t feel more than three, four months. But I know it’s closer to a couple of decades.

  I used to worry: what was gonna happen if I died first—and Shit was left high and dry? But now it’s easier to do it for him—like it’s always been.

  How fast are we moving through this stuff called time, anyway…?

  * * *

  [112] EVENTUALLY, THOUGH, THERE’D been those six awful weeks, when Shit started throwing up every other day, then twice a day, then five and six times a day—and the stuff comin’ out didn’t look like puke no more—and Eric’d clean it up, while, drained, Shit would sit or lie down.

  Toward the beginning of that, there’d been the morning, when it was still dark, that he woke to see Shit’s bony back and buttocks swaying in the doorway (they still slept naked), then he was gone!

  There was an immense farting, and Eric realized Shit had fallen. As he pushed from the bed himself, the smell came to him. “Dear God…What happened? You slipped?” Awkwardly, he rushed into the doorway after him, and his heel slid on something so that he almost lost his own balance. “You okay?” He hadn’t realized what he’d slipped in, yet.

  “No—I ain’t okay!” Shit said, on the floor, face to the side. “I think I broke my damn hip! I got dizzy—and there was all this buzzin’. I can still hear it, some…”

  He’d also lost control of his bowels.

  “Here, lemme get you cleaned off…! What are you doin’? Playin’ in it?”

  “I’m tryin’ to wipe it off!”

  “Well, lemme get some rags and some paper towels—come on! Be still, will you? Keep your hands out of it.”

  “You be fuckin’ still in a puddle of goddam shit!”

  They managed to clean him up, get him into the bathroom, and gave him a good sponge down. The hip was not broken, just badly sprained.

  It happened again that evening.

  And three times the next day. You almost didn’t notice the throwing up, since most of the time Shit could get that in a pail they set out for him, with some Pine-Sol in the bottom.

  Then Ed and Holly both came by and said the same thing. This was serious. They said it when they came back two weeks later. And two weeks after that—

  Eric was sleeping on his forearms, his head on the kitchen table.

  Shit was on the kitchen floor and filthy. Had anyone compared, he probably weighed ten pounds less than Barbara had at the time of her death. “No, don’t wake ’im up! Don’t do it!” Shit protested from the floor near the table leg. His voice was hoarse, almost inaudible. “He ain’t slept at all in four, five days! I can stay down here for another couple of hours, till he gets some sleep. I’m okay—I don’t hardly feel nothin’ in my legs no more.” One of three puke pails to make it more convenient for Shit to get to had somehow overturned. “Hey, I’m okay! Please! Please! Leave ’im alone…” He was crying. “Really…come on. Leave ??
?im alone! Please let ’im get some rest. . . He been up takin’ care of me for the whole week without no sleepin’…”

  “Mr. Haskell, you got to get to the hospital!” Lucille (who had come this time) said. “Ed…?”

  The morning Eric went along with Ed to take Shit to Runcible Memorial for what would pretty certainly be his last weeks or months or days (on the ferry, Shit didn’t leave the car; so Eric only got out for two minutes—and didn’t even go to the rail but looked at some gulls, then climbed back in to sit with dozing Morgan), there’d been a day’s endlessly lost arguments with aides and social workers, which finally he’d stopped trying to win, about how it wasn’t sensible for Eric to keep him at home.

  When Ed brought him back to the cabin, Eric had a strangely lucid evening. He sat a long time at the kitchen table, listening for…the sound of Shit’s puking; the sound of his hoarse breath. Finally, he heated up the leftover half-pot of coffee that, miraculously, despite illness, from a chair sitting by the counter, Shit had made that morning. Is this, he wondered, going to be the last of Shit’s coffee I drink? Even heated up, his is better than mine. Or am I just used to it? Hell, it’s half milk anyway. Maybe that’s why neither one of us ever turned—what do they call it?—lactose intolerant? Perhaps it was the shock of being without him. Or had it just been that morning’s particularly good crap? At the table, Eric thought: Suppose someone asked Shit what he’d done with his life. Would he say something like…I put apples and cookies in a pile on the table over at the market and dished out rice and chili so hungry folks could eat. I hauled garbage so people around the mainland could live decent, and I scrubbed toilets and pushed brooms so they could have a nice place to suck a dick or get their own sucked. I fixed light switches and snaked out plugged drains. And ’cause I couldn’t do it all, I fucked Eric as much as I could to make him feel good enough to do what still needed doin’ and pissed on him and laughed while I was doin’ it—and fucked a whole lot of others besides—so people would be happier. Pissed on some of them, too.