A Certain Slant of Light

  The Rusty Nail was a large, barnlike building with a huge neon sign blazing the name in red light on the outside and an infestation of cowboy and mining antiques floor to ceiling on the inside. A butter churn, cracked and useless, hung mounted high on one wall—a relic from my forgotten days as outdated as a Roman chariot.

  The bar was veiled in smoke and the dining room clashed with noise. Mitch and James found Rayna, the young woman from the night before, sitting in the bar with her pirate by her side. Apparently his name was Jack. Others were with them: Chris, a muscular man with a shaved head and a tattoo of a shark on the back of his hand; his sweetheart, Dawn, who had short black hair and wore a short black dress; Libby, Dawn’s sister, a buxom girl with black curls and a red shirt with a green dragon on it. They were already drinking.

  “Who’s this?” asked Libby, giving Chris a push.

  “You met Mitch before,” he said.

  “No, this one,” she said, watching James.

  “That’s his brother, Billy,” said Rayna. “Too young for you,” she warned.

  “Hell, no such thing,” said Libby.

  I hovered away from them, staying in the corner beside a buffalo head that hung on the wall, as they slid into a large booth. James, who sat on the end, scanned the room until he’d located me. I had been to many restaurants with my hosts, especially Mr. Brown, but with James it was different. He was so conscious of me.

  Libby sat between Mitch and James, her hand on James’s thigh, the shiny nails, like little crimson beetles, hopping on his knee. He lifted the hand and placed it on her own lap, as if it were a dead rat. She smiled at him and gave him a playful swat on the wrist as if he had been the one flirting.

  The others ate and laughed and smoked cigarettes. James sat as far from Libby as he could without falling out of the booth.

  Libby stretched, the dragon on her shirt expanding in a mute roar over her breasts. “Are we going dancing?” she asked. “I wanna have fun.”

  Then there was a discussion about movies, and finally they were moving toward the door and putting their coats back on.

  “We got five in our car,” Rayna told Mitch. “Can you two take Libby?”

  I followed them at a distance as they split into two groups in the parking lot. The older men went to inspect Jack’s new truck while the women cornered James against the rusty car.

  “Is Mitch okay about Jill dumping him?” asked Dawn.

  “I guess,” said James.

  “Who’s Jill?” Libby asked.

  “Ex-girlfriend.”

  “What’s this bruise?” asked Rayna, tilting James’s face toward the streetlight.

  “Nothing.”

  Libby stood with the other girls but stared across the parking lot at Mitch like a carnival gypsy about to guess his weight.

  As they left for the movies, Libby sat in the front with Mitch. James got into the back seat. I joined him. He was so relieved, he slumped back as if exhausted.

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked Mitch, watching him in the rearview mirror. “Never mind. I’m sorry I asked.”

  “Want me to sit back there with you?” Libby offered, turning around in her seat and winking at him.

  “No!” said James. “No, thank you.”

  As we drove under the flashing street lamps, James had his hand resting on the door handle. He fingered a tear in the upholstery. He looked at it closer and pulled on the corner of something. It looked like a square of paper. James slid it out. It said Trojans on it. James laughed and felt in the tear again. This time what he pulled out was a tiny envelope. He went white.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He opened the envelope and looked in, then closed his eyes in pain. He glanced quickly in the rearview mirror. Mitch had his eyes on the road.

  “You seem tense,” said Libby, putting a hand on the back of Mitch’s neck. “I give great back rubs.” Then she leaned toward his ear and her hand slid down his arm and out of view. “I give great all kinds of rubs.”

  The car swerved and Libby giggled.

  “Christ,” said Mitch. “What’re you doing?”

  James tried to push the envelope back into the hole in the lining of the door, but it wouldn’t go in far enough. Next came the sound of a siren. Lights began to flash in the opposing lane.

  “Oh, God,” Mitch moaned, slowing and letting his head drop to the back of the seat.

  “No,” James whispered.

  “Is that for us?” Libby sounded shocked.

  Mitch parked by the curb and put his head in his hands.

  “Don’t worry, sugar,” said Libby. “I’ll talk to him. I can be very persuasive.”

  The police car parked, facing Mitch’s vehicle, pointed the wrong way, lights blazing in through the windshield like a lighthouse warning.

  “Do not mess with him,” Mitch warned Libby, rolling down his window.

  “Good evening,” said the police officer. James ducked down behind the seat. “Is everything all right with you folks?” the policeman asked.

  “Sure,” said Mitch. “Was I speeding?”

  “No, sir. Could you please show me your license and registration?”

  James motioned me closer and whispered, “Tell me when the other one looks away from our car.”

  I passed through the door and found that a second man was sitting in the police car.

  “Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle?” said the first officer.

  “What did I do?” asked Mitch.

  “Just step out.”

  I moved to the patrol car, watching the second officer, who sat inside, chewing gum and filling out a form on a clipboard. Mitch got out of the car, and the first officer shone a small flashlight in his eyes.

  “Have you been drinking tonight?”

  “One beer,” said Mitch.

  “Who’s with you, sir?”

  “Just a friend and my kid brother.”

  I watched the second officer lean down to take a plastic bag out of a box on the floor. I called to James, “Now!”

  James’s car door opened. He dropped the tiny envelope down the sewer drain.

  “Is that your brother?” asked the first officer. He shone the flashlight in the back seat. “Please step out of the vehicle, sir.”

  James climbed out of the car. The second officer joined his partner, and they looked at everyone’s ID, searched the car with flashlights, gave Mitch and James breath tests to see whether they were intoxicated. Neither was.

  “Why didn’t you give me a test?” Libby asked, as if insulted.

  “Well, ma’am, it seemed quite likely that you had been indeed drinking but that you were not under age and that you had a designated driver.”

  “Guess what?” she said, as if bragging. “I was the one that made him swerve.” She laughed. The officers just stared at her.

  “You know what I mean,” she said, coyly. “I was getting a little friendly.”

  “In my opinion,” said the first officer, not even inspecting her dragon, “that would seem like a very bad idea.” He tore off a ticket from the pad he held and handed it to Mitch.

  “Please stay in your own lane in the future,” he told Mitch. “And please respect your driver,” he said to Libby. Then he squinted at James. “You look familiar.”

  “He has one of those faces,” said Mitch. “Thanks.”

  Mitch made Libby sit in the back seat alone. I waited beside the car, and when James glanced up through the window and motioned to me, I passed through the car door and sat on his lap. This was a very strange sensation. I could feel a tingle drum up and down my body everywhere we were touching. I wasn’t sure what it felt like to him, but he held the door handle and the back of the car seat tightly. At the theater parking lot, when the others got out of the car, I stood by his door, but James didn’t get out.

  “Now what?” asked Mitch.

  “I’m coming,” he answered. He opened the door and stood up slowly. I walked beside him, the others far
ahead. He didn’t look at me.

  “Was that Billy’s treasure you found in the car?”

  James sighed. “It’s frightening not knowing what the boy might have done that’ll come back to bite me.” His voice was low, but Mitch turned and looked back at him. James shrugged as if he didn’t know what he wanted. I admired his mastery of twenty-first-century body language.

  In the theater, Dawn and Chris sat together, Jack and Rayna sat together, Libby sat down, and Mitch looked around for James.

  “I gotta take a leak,” James said. Mitch gave him a wary glance but sat next to Libby when he left. I stayed behind, lingering in the aisle. Rayna offered everyone thin strings of red candy. Libby ate some, chewing with her mouth open, watching Mitch.

  “Did anyone ever tell you you look like a movie star?” Libby asked him.

  “No.”

  “That guy from—what’s the name of that movie? No, wait, not him.” Libby furrowed her brow. “You look like that other guy.”

  “Who’s that actress you look like?” said Mitch with unnoticed sarcasm.

  “From the Levis commercial?” she said, delighted.

  “No, that other chick,” said Mitch. “Ask Rayna.”

  James returned but stepped into the nearly empty row behind Mitch and the others. He sat one seat in from the aisle and I took the empty seat beside him. When the lights went dim, he leaned back, looking over at me.

  Mitch turned around and glared at him. “What’s with you?” he whispered.

  “Shh,” Libby hushed him.

  James watched the screen now, but he put his hand on the armrest and I pressed my fingers into his. He had taken off his jacket and I watched the brown shirt rise and fall as he breathed, the movie light shifting shadows over the shape of his arm. The two couples cuddled together, Chris and Dawn head to head, Rayna held a string of candy in her teeth and let Jack nibble it until they were kissing, Libby turned to look at Mitch every few seconds, but Mitch never moved. And James sat still as well, except during a scene in which the man and woman who had been robbing banks and running from policemen were nude, making love to loud music. I dropped my gaze, choosing to look down at James’s hand.

  I missed silent movies. The music was more integral, like a sound painting. Emotions were not lost but heightened because of the muteness. When you read the actors’ eyes, a secret language formed in your mind. If truth be told, more often than not, I watched the audience instead of the screen while attending silent pictures with my Knight. As the light dappled across the forest of faces, I could watch them create inside their hearts each a different story from the same images. It was a shame the way modern movies smothered their stories with songs and loaded every moment with noises and words. Little was left to the imagination.

  James watched the screen but shifted uncomfortably to the sounds of moans and cries. Libby whispered something in Mitch’s ear, and when she looked back at the screen, Mitch turned and watched her for a long moment.

  Libby went with her sister, three of them crammed in the back of Rayna’s car. She rolled down the window as they were about to pull away and waved. “Call me some time,” she yelled. She grinned with white baby-sized teeth, her black curls bobbing.

  Mitch just watched her, looking ill.

  “That Libby is a trip,” said James as we stood beside the rusty car.

  “No kidding.” Then he looked at James. “When we got pulled over, why the hell were you hiding in the back seat, for Christ’s sake?”

  “I wasn’t hiding,” said James.

  “You can’t lie worth shit,” said his brother. “Don’t ever play poker for money.”

  We drove back to Amelia Street, me in the back seat, James with his arm on the open window.

  “Thanks,” said James.

  “What for?”

  “For buying me dinner and stuff.”

  “Well, when I get you that great job, you can start taking me out.”

  “Okay.”

  There was silence again.

  “So, what did Libby do to make you swerve?” asked James.

  “Not another fuckin’ word about her,” Mitch groaned.

  James laughed.

  When I had followed them into the house, Mitch went off to bed and I sat at James’s desk. Amid the monster cartoons, there was a new drawing now. It looked nothing like the snarling creatures around it. It was a light pencil sketch of a pair of eyes. An itching pleasure curled into me when I realized who the model must have been. James took a white undershirt and shorts with him to the bathroom and came back wearing them. He sat on his bed.

  “So you slept last night,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He lay down on his blanket close to the wall, leaving a space for me. I sat with him.

  “Did you have a wife when you were James?” I tried to pretend I didn’t care one way or the other.

  He hesitated. “I don’t think so.” Then he asked, “Did you have a True Love?”

  “No,” I said. “Just a husband.”

  “I’m sorry.” He didn’t ask me for details, and I wouldn’t have been able to provide many even if he had.

  “I wonder why you didn’t get all your memories back when you went into Billy’s body,” I said.

  “Maybe it takes time.”

  I knew I didn’t want to remember everything. “What was the very first thing you remembered when you became Billy?”

  He smiled. “How the knothole in our porch steps looked like a cat’s eye.”

  “I don’t think I’ll know how to take a body,” I confessed. But I wanted with a full-moon fever to touch James.

  “Tomorrow we’ll look for someone who needs saving,” he said quietly.

  I reclined, facing him.

  “You’ll love it,” he told me. “When you step into the flesh, you can smell grass again. And drink water. You can grip a stone and throw it. Everything will be fine.”

  He sounded so sure, I couldn’t help but believe him. I had my arm at my side, and now I lifted my hand to his, where it rested on the blanket. Without intending to, my hand passed through him from the thighs up to his heart before I pulled away, tingling. He gasped and his eyes widened in amazement.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, worried that I had inadvertently stopped his heart. Then I saw his hand move to his shorts and press the hardness under his clothes against his body. His face flushed. I leapt out of the bed to the corner of the room.

  “I’m sorry,” he echoed. “It’s all right.” He took the pillow and covered himself with it.

  “It’s my fault,” I stammered. I wanted to fly away.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” said James. “You surprised me.”

  “I’ll be back in the morning,” I told him.

  “No, no,” he whispered. “Rest in the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  I shook my head. “Please,” said James. “Otherwise I won’t be able to sleep.”

  He stood, still holding the pillow in front of him. I moved to the bed and lay down, both embarrassed and secretly flattered. A flitting memory of warm skin under a cool sheet made me blush. I lay there and watched him, glad to be in his bed rather than alone on the roof. He turned out the light and stretched out on the floor, tucking the pillow under his head now.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” he whispered, “you’ll taste an apple.”

  Seven

  AS THE TWILIGHT before dawn began to form objects out of what had been invisible, the window frame cast a cross on the wall, turning the little room into a chapel. On the floor beside the bed, James sat up with a start, like a dog that hears gunfire. He looked at me where I sat on his mattress. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said.

  While he showered, I wandered through the house. Passing the bathroom door, I heard the echoed hiss of water running, and, as I passed Mitch’s room, I heard a voice. I couldn’t understand the words, but there was a kind of anguish in the tone. I moved through the wall and found Mitch sleeping with a sheet over him up
to his bare chest. I could see his tattoos better now: around his left arm, a Celtic braid; around his right, a chain of thorns; and over his heart, a single sword no bigger than a butterfly. He seemed deeply asleep, but then he spoke.

  “You bastard.” His face, eyes shut hard, went from anger to pain in one instant. A sob shook him, and he swung his right arm over his body as if trying to free it from something. Then he sat up with a cry and opened his eyes.

  “Shit,” he muttered. He rubbed his face where tears had not had time to run and shook himself. Looking at the clock, he sighed.

  “I hate Third Sunday.”

  James found me waiting in his room. He appeared in his towel and took clothes from his drawer and closet. He smiled at me. “Close your eyes now.”

  I sat facing the windows, watching him in the reflection there. I didn’t realize he knew I was peeking until he’d buttoned his pants and then pantomimed a strong-man pose looking at the window before he put on his shirt. I turned to him, unable to truly feel ashamed.

  We came into the kitchen and found Mitch drinking a cup of coffee. “You ready?” he said to James.

  “What for?”

  “Third Sunday,” said Mitch. “Just ’cause you didn’t go last month doesn’t mean you get to blow it off. I’m not hanging out with Verna by myself.”

  James paused. “Verna. Okay.” Obviously he didn’t remember this monthly ritual. “You get off work okay?”

  Mitch frowned at him. “What?”

  “You work on Sunday mornings.”

  Mitch gave him an odd look. “They know about Mom,” he said. “I’ve had Third Sunday half-day for four fucking years. What’s the matter with you?”

  “My name is Billy, and I’m a recovering drug addict.”

  This made Mitch laugh, almost spitting his coffee on his shirt. James seemed pleased. They made breakfast together, not speaking much. As they ate toast and eggs, Mitch began to wind down, like an abandoned clock, his eyes fixed at a distance. By the time they were getting in the car, Mitch was so pale, James asked, “You okay?”

  “I hate Third Sunday,” was all Mitch would say.

  We drove for several minutes in silence, past the business district and toward the suburbs. As we were entering the next town, Mitch pulled into a small shopping center.