The Curse of Flight

by R. G. Hendrickson

  Steve patted him on the shoulder. He pulled into a parking lot. It was a neighborhood casino. “They have a twenty-four hour café. You’re acting funny. I think you should eat something.”

  It was almost dawn before Steve brought him home and said goodnight with a kiss. It had been late Wednesday when they started the evening. Now it was early Thursday, and after that, only four more days to go.

  Before bed, he greeted the rising sun from his backyard. Mike hung over the fence as usual. They watched the sky turn orange and pink over Sunrise Mountain.

  Josh’s eyes soaked up the color. “Steve understood.”

  Mike smiled. “I had a feeling he would.”

  Chapter 19

  Josh woke as usual to the four P.M. alarm on his phone. Eight texts awaited him from Steve.

  10:42 A.M.: You up?

  11:12 A.M.: Up yet? I am.

  12:18 P.M.: Still asleep?

  12:46 P.M.: Up? I’m stoked!

  1:23 P.M.: What are you doing for dinner/breakfast?

  2:08 P.M.: Can I come over?

  3:45 P.M.: Awake? Getting ready to leave. Okay?

  4:00 P.M.: I’m on the way. I brought my bike.

  Today was like any other day for Josh. A Thursday, he had to perform that night and couldn’t afford to lose his focus. His mind shielded him from distraction. The body concurred. Thoughts repressed. Feelings clung to bone. This was his way. The coming Tuesday and all these messages made no difference to the moment.

  He didn’t reply and needn’t interrupt Steve’s conversation, because Steve carried it on with himself. Then the doorbell rang. It gave Josh reservations, but one should answer, he supposed. When the door opened, Steve sat on the dirt bike.

  “Can I park it next to yours?” he asked. “Want to go for a ride?”

  Though the heat wave abated that day, it was still warm. Steve wore shorts and T-shirt, no helmet. How he survived all those childhood years was beyond Josh’s understanding. Maybe Steve had hit his head. That explained a lot. He still acted like a kid sometimes, but Steve wasn’t a child. On the contrary, he was a full-grown man and in exceptional shape.

  While appraising the curves in Steve’s shirt, the delight in Josh’s own chest swelled and almost escaped before he reined it back. “I have to get ready for work.”

  “Okay, I brought breakfast, those burritos you like.” Steve lifted a white paper bag.

  “Oh! Come in.” There was nothing to start the day like a warm breakfast burrito.

  Steve got off the bike and rolled it inside. Josh went to the kitchen to make coffee, and Steve followed him. Josh pointed to the table in the nook, and Steve sat, where he took a burrito out of the bag, stripped the tinfoil wrapper, and took a bite from the steaming tortilla.

  “Let me get you a plate.” Josh pulled two out of the cabinet and put them on the table. “Want orange juice with your coffee?”

  “I had coffee this morning. Juice, please. Thanks.”

  “When did you get up?” Josh asked.

  “I didn’t sleep much. The usual time though, around eleven. I’d stay up all night and sleep all day like you, but I usually have some work in the afternoon.” Steve took another bite. “Let’s go biking.”

  “Now?” This puzzled Josh. He got two glasses of orange juice and sat next to Steve in the nook. The burrito revealed itself to Josh behind its foil wrap, and he bit. His favorite, scrambled egg and chorizo with roasted potato. “Thanks. It’s good.”

  Steve replied with a smile. “How about Red Rock? Great trails there.” His eyebrows raised.

  Josh’s chair creaked as he leaned back. “It takes almost an hour to get there and another to get home. We both have shows tonight. I don’t know about you, but I need some time to warm up for mine. Maybe we should just have breakfast and call it a day?”

  The hope fell from Steve’s face. “But when are we going to go? Dan and I went all summer. Back when we were kids, those were the days. Remember those summers?”

  “I was busy traveling in the circus. Last time, I went at sunrise on my day off. There’s not much traffic then, and it’s cool.”

  “Sunrise? I’m asleep. Let’s go later.”

  “When?” Josh asked.

  “Tuesday afternoon.” Steve got a big smile.

  The coffee aroma caught Josh’s attention, and he got up for a cup. “Didn’t we have something planned for Tuesday?”

  “Did we? What’s that?” Steve finished the last bite of his burrito. He turned and reached over his shoulder to grab a banana from the bunch on the counter.

  Josh returned to the table with a cup of coffee. “If we don’t remember, it’s not important.” He sat.

  “I don’t know when we’re going to go,” Steve threw his hands in the air. “I’m asleep by four A.M. and you go to bed at eight in the morning. That’s twelve hours out of the day shot, four to four. Then we have the shows at night.”

  Steve’s phone rang. “Hi, Dad. Can I put you on speaker? I’m eating.”

  “We had a complaint from the association at the new property in Summerlin,” his father said.

  “What happened?” Steve peeled the banana.

  “Backyard noise, the police came.”

  On its way to his lips, Josh put down the coffee and listened.

  “Wow, what do you know?” Steve bit the banana. “In that neighborhood? Nothing ever happens there. Too quiet.”

  “I wonder who it was,” his father said like he already knew.

  “Yeah, what were they doing back there?” Steve performed fellatio on the banana. This wasn’t Josh’s kind of humor.

  “I was hoping you would tell me,” Steve’s father said.

  Steve took a bite. “What did the association say?”

  “Enough.” It sounded like plenty.

  “Like what?” Steve put down the peel.

  “Oh, just about everything in the police report.”

  “Oh shit.” Steve’s nervous laugh turned to a moan. “I have to work with these people. I can hear it now.”

  “I’ve said it once, and I’m going to say it again. You need to grow up, stop fooling around, settle down. You should know better. You’re worrying your mother, and don’t tell me it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Dad, it’s not a big deal.”

  “Who’s this Josh Dalenzo?”

  “My boyfriend. He’s here. Do you want to say hello to him? Say hello, Josh.”

  “Uh, hi, Mr. Jones.”

  “Let’s hear it from you.” Steve’s father’s voice came over the phone very loud and rather intimidating. “What happened?”

  Josh’s hesitation resolved itself with the help of the smirk on Steve’s face. “He was jumping in the pool and yelling.”

  “Yeah, okay.” No surprise in the man’s tone.

  “Then he did a cannonball and landed right next to me when I was swimming.” Josh gave Steve dagger eyes.

  “Sounds familiar.” His father’s words stung from the look on Steve’s face.

  Adding salt to the wound, Josh glared. “I swallowed some water and choked. I would have drowned if he hadn’t pulled me out.” Steve saved him, so Josh gave credit where due.

  Steve sat up and stuck out his chin.

  “If he’d acted more responsible in the first place, he wouldn’t need to pull you out.”

  Steve slapped his hand on the table with a whack.

  “I heard that,” his father said.

  “Then I was coughing for a while. Then the police came.” He told it just like it was.

  “You left out a couple details, but that’s close enough. Steve, what happened to the last one? What was his name, Chris?”

  “Yeah. Chris. I got a new one.” Steve said this a little too casual, from Josh’s point of view.

  Steve’s father’s voice boomed. “It’s like I said. You need to grow up, stop fooling around, settle down. You’re gay, I get it, but it’s no excuse to act like a kid at this point.”

  “Okay, Pop.”
/>   “Talk to you later.” His father hung up.

  “I think I like your dad.” Josh sipped his coffee.

  Chapter 20

  Josh arrived at The Saltshaker after the show as planned. He drove one pass around the open lot and looked for Steve’s car, not there yet. The Diavel took an empty spot. He hopped off and put the helmet in its compartment.

  The single-story building stood alone in its parking lot. Surrounding towers on The Strip dwarfed it. Mike had told him The Saltshaker went way back. Long before the high-rises, this stretch was a desert getaway, literally surrounded by sand. Josh had seen the pictures. With empty lots between them, low-scale resorts and motor inns lined the two-lane street without a curb. Who walked, anyway, with so much convenient parking right in front of each establishment and little traffic.

  The Saltshaker stayed open twenty-four hours, just like the old days. Mike liked to reminisce.

  On the way to the door, some uncertain sound or scent caught Josh’s attention from behind and made him turn around. It was Steve right in back of him. Why hadn’t he said anything on approach? “Did you sneak up on me?”

  “Sneak? Me? Have we met? Bond, James Bond.” Steve’s hand extended from his realtor suit. He’d warned Josh earlier: Steve wore it on cool nights and when he pretended to be a spy.

  When Josh extended a hand, Steve didn’t shake it but instead pinched him on the belly. It left a crease in Josh’s purple shirt, which he’d worn to match the violet lighting in The Saltshaker.

  On the way through the door, when Steve struck again, Josh’s backside bucked out of reach. The lounge glowed with neon. In the center by the bar, a circular hearth served as a table for drinks below a copper chimney hood, and in the fireplace, gaslit flames flickered orange in blue crushed glass. A banquette with purple cushions surrounded it. Steve gestured to an empty seat by the fire.

  Josh sat by a woman in a white gown. She held a tall glass with bubbles. In the dim light, he could tell the drink was clear and the dress white, though shades of pink and purple lit them up from neon strips along the baseboard and the ceiling. It wasn’t cold out, but the atmosphere here was cozy next to the flames and Steve’s shoulder. Josh leaned against it, arm against arm and hand on hand.

  A cocktail waitress came by. Josh asked her for a Cuba libre, which he’d identified some time ago as rum and coke, delicious. For Steve it was a vodka martini, shaken not stirred, which made the waitress smile and roll her eyes.

  When she returned, Steve gave her cash. Nice, though Josh liked to pay his own way, he didn’t complain this time. He said nothing, and Steve was silent, too, as he looked in Josh’s eyes. Josh returned the gesture and took in Steve’s eyes in between sips until the cocktails emptied.

  Then a tilt of Steve’s head signaled toward the dining room. He got up and Josh followed him. The hostess led them to a booth among bowers of fabric flowers and neon trees. The air was purple and pink. Old-school and quirky, the place was a favorite late-night go-to.

  Something was different. It felt like a first date, though Josh had never really had one, with Steve or anyone else for that matter. He picked up the menu, simple fare but good, and looked for something easy to eat, not too messy.

  Steve held a menu with both hands, arms stiff. This wasn’t his usual relaxed self, and he hardly said a word. Josh wanted to break the silence, but nothing came to mind besides the Tuesday approaching. He didn’t want to think about it now.

  Finally, Steve said something. “Nice shirt.”

  “Does it clash with the lighting?”

  “No.” Steve gestured to Josh’s cuff. “It’s purple. How could it clash?”

  “Wrong shade maybe?”

  Steve took off the suit jacket and lined up the starched white sleeve with Josh’s arm. “My shirt looks purple too.”

  Though white, it did look purplish to Josh. “Everything looks purple in here.”

  “Even the food sometimes.” Steve laughed. “I don’t recommend the coleslaw.”

  Steve’s shoulder touched his, and Josh’s chest swelled in the purple shirt. “I’ve never worn it before. It caught my eye in the closet. Must have been the color.”

  “It’s nice on you.” Steve’s fingers brushed his neck as they straightened the collar.

  Josh’s stomach growled. He hadn’t decided what to eat when the server came. Two more times, Steve wasn’t ready either. It didn’t matter. The place never closed, short of a gas leak or power outage. It was Josh’s time to go to the gym, but he could spend a lifetime here talking in the violet light. Once he got going, his soul poured out to Steve, who smiled contently and listened into the night as the story unfolded. The gold ring glimmered.

  Chapter 21

  After The Saltshaker, Steve parked at the gym and waited for Josh. The lot was almost empty. It surrounded the big boxy building, sparse on windows. Lampposts and floodlights lit the flat façade.

  This was late for Steve, early Friday. Josh hadn’t invited him and didn’t seem so hot about him coming along. Maybe he shouldn’t have, but when Josh had opened up to him and drawn him in, Steve’s lips couldn’t form the word goodbye, no more than his ears could hear it. So, he invited himself.

  Technically for Steve, it was his gym as well as Josh’s. Steve was a member, though he seldom used the card he kept in the car. At one point, he belonged to several gyms besides the one he frequented most. Every time he got a new boyfriend, he joined a new gym to work out together, unless he already had a membership. Splitting up always came easier than breaking the contract. He should have known better.

  At Steve’s half-open window, Josh rolled up on the bike. “I don’t have a guest pass for you.”

  “No problem.” Steve grabbed his bag, got out of the car, and followed a few steps behind. Josh didn’t seem to want to walk with him and hurried to the door. What was the rush? After all that time he spent listening to Josh at The Saltshaker, now the guy ignored him. Was this an intrusion on Josh’s me-time or something? Why? Steve’s membership was as good as his.

  Working out with Josh in the middle of the night could become a new routine for him. Steve didn’t mind getting left behind in the parking lot. Coming up in the rear had its benefits, nice view. Josh pulled open the door and entered the lobby without waiting. That was kind of rude. No problem, when he caught up, Steve would just open the door for himself.

  His usual time at the gym was before his show because the workout accentuated his muscles. He didn’t like exercising alone. It was nice having company. He had some friends at his regular gym, but they were mostly goofballs over there.

  Inside, some chick behind the counter gave him the eye. He flashed the card. The cavernous space spread out before him with every type of weight and machine. High up the walls, people on large television screens stretched to lively music. More worked out on the TV than in the gym below, which was nearly deserted. Most people slept this hour, even in Las Vegas. Josh disappeared through the locker room door.

  Steve followed him and found him stopped by the first row, not very private. A shower ran around the corner, and an old guy clanged a locker across the room. It wasn’t being seen that concerned Steve, but what he might see and couldn’t unsee. He liked the far corners and back rows with more cover.

  Those old guys didn’t give a damn. He never knew when he’d run into one. They liked to go buck naked, just hanging around with their balls to their knees. He tried to avoid that sight if he could and went to the last row in the back.

  He picked a locker, opened his bag, and took off his shoes. Then from down the row, Josh turned the corner and kind of smiled at him. A little attention, it was about time. “Hi, babe.”

  “I’m going out front.” Josh was in his sweats already and carried his street cloths and his gym bag. He hung that stuff in the next locker.

  This was Steve’s chance. “Okay. Give me a minute?” He unbuttoned his shirt as his act kicked in. By now, he could do it in his sleep, the bedroom eyes, the cocky ges
tures with the chin and hips, the slow reveal. Zip. If he had anything to say about it, Josh wasn’t going anywhere.

  Poor Josh looked like a deer in headlights and sprinted off with a trail of words behind him. “I’ll see you out front.”

  “Shit.” He finished undressing. Hey, it was worth a shot. He was still getting used to this curse thing. What a bitch that was. With Josh on his mind, he hadn’t hooked up in weeks, not since that crazy night they met. It was going to be a long time until Tuesday.

  When Steve hit the weights, he didn’t have anyone to spot him. Josh looked busy over there stretching and didn’t respond to Steve’s wave. On the mats and rails Josh’s limbs and back bent this way and that at unbelievable angles. So, that was how he got so limber.

  Without a spotter, the machines would have to do. Starting with the bench press, he set the weight to the heaviest he could handle. The bar lifted over his head. Knees bent and feet pressed against the floor as his stomach tightened and arched. Shoulders strained. His face pursed, and he felt his eyes bulge. He didn’t know why that happened, but it always did. Three repetitions, then he moved to another machine.

  After a few more reps, Josh turned up by the dumbbells. He must have finished stretching. It took him forever.

  A dumbbell came off the rack. Odd he didn’t pick the heaviest, nowhere near it. He was doing a lot of repetitions though, at least fifteen, maybe more.

  Josh might have said something about it at The Saltshaker. He’d talked so much it was hard to take it all in. Large muscles got in the way on the trapeze, but strength was essential along with flexibility and endurance. That must be what this dumbbell routine was for.

  When Steve finished lifting, he went to the ellipticals. The people on TV were cycling. He preferred standing to sitting when he worked out. In a little bit, Josh showed up on the machine next to him.

  “Do you like this place?” Josh sniffed the air.

  Josh did that sometimes. Steve’s mental note confirmed it. Maybe it was allergies. “It’s okay. I’m usually not up this late, but I could get used to it.”