The Blood of Kings

by John Michael Curlovich

  Finally, cold and shivering, trying not to cry, I made it back to the dorm. Tim would be there, I told myself. He had been sick, too ill to come to the recital. He had twisted his ankle, or…

  I was being foolish. The room was empty.

  I should have called Justin right away, I knew that. But the night had been so awful. Talking to him, telling him about Grant… it would have been too much. I crawled into bed and cried for a while and fell asleep.

  That night for the first time I had a dream, one I was to have again and again. All the swimmers I knew were corpses, pale and mutilated; they stared unseeing into a night sky lit by a full moon. All the other athletes lay ringed around them, equally cold, equally dead. I sat in the center of it all, playing mournful Chopin nocturnes on a concert grand piano. And there with me was Danilo. Not visibly so; I couldn’t see him. But I could feel his presence, the way you can sometimes do in dreams.

  Chapter Two

  Late in the night, so late the sky was already beginning to lighten, Tim came back to my room. He switched on the light and stood looking at me. I stared at him groggily. “Go back to your own place.”

  “I… I can’t. Scott has his girlfriend with him. He asked me to… ” He was drunk. Very.

  “I don’t care. Go anyway. I don’t want you here.”

  “Jamie, I’m sorry.”

  “Will you please go?”

  He moved to the side of my bed and got down on one knee. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t let you… I couldn’t let you do what you wanted to do to me, announce my name like that.”

  “So it’s you that this was done to?”

  “I don’t mean it like that. But I can’t have people knowing about us. I can’t.”

  “Then go home.”

  He grabbed me rather violently and kissed me. I resisted, but he kissed me again and again. “I’m so sorry, Jamie, I really am so sorry. I’ll never do it again.”

  “You won’t have the chance.”

  “Jamie, please.” He pressed his face into my chest and started to cry.

  I pulled away from him. “Grant’s dead.”

  He looked up, not seeming to understand.

  “The gymnast. Justin’s—” I almost choked on the word—“friend.”

  “No.”

  “I found him. Like the others. Dead, naked, cut lengthwise, nearly in half.”

  “God. It must have been… ”

  “It was.”

  For a moment we both went quiet. Tim paced a few steps. “What a mess I’ve made of us, Jamie. I never wanted that. I only want… ”

  “What?”

  “I want you. I want us, together.”

  The night had been so long and so awful. That dream had left me shaken. I needed someone to hold me. Even Tim. I stretched out a hand to him and he got into bed beside me and we cuddled till the next morning. I slept on and off; he did too. But we never let go of one another.

  * * *

  Next morning he left to do some laps at the pool. I told him I’d join him later. Somewhat to my surprise, after our intimacy, I didn’t mind having him go. It was a relief.

  Justin had gone home for the holidays. Knowing how he’d react, dreading it, I called him. He was of course surprised to hear my voice. When I gave him the news he cried, not loudly but I could tell.

  “Jamie, no.”

  “It was him. I saw him.”

  “No.”

  I couldn’t say anything.

  “He was supposed to come home with me for Christmas to meet my parents, Jamie.”

  “Then you really were—”

  “I told them he was my best friend.”

  “Oh.”

  We talked for a few more minutes but of course nothing I said helped him. It was absurd to expect otherwise. I told him he could call me if he needed to talk, and we said goodbye. Feeling more lost and alone than I ever had, I got undressed and crawled into bed again. I needed sleep. The room was cold, or I was; I took an extra blanket off Norm’s bed.

  * * *

  I heard more rumors. Two guys from the Political Science department had run off together. The student who was expected to be valedictorian in International Affairs was gone. And more. The campus was so big, no one knew everyone, there was no way to, so we all listened for rumors and wondered if they were right. And wondered what was behind them. It was impossible to know what to believe.

  For the next few months things between Tim and me continued the way they had been. I love you, stay away from me. I need you so deeply, keep your distance. Your love matters to me more than anything else, but I could never tell anyone about it.

  I was so torn. Part of me still loved him, still remembered all the reasons I had fallen in love with him in the first place. Part of me wanted him gone. I kept telling myself it wasn’t his fault, there were too many pressures on him. But in the last analysis he was the one in charge of our relationship, and that was what he wanted.

  It was doing horrible things to me. My playing suffered. Roland asked me about it. “You were so promising at the recital. Now your heart just isn’t in it.”

  “My heart isn’t in much of anything these days.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I can’t.”

  And my swimming was off, too. I was still competing passably but nowhere near the level I was capable of. Coach Zielinski called me on it. I told him a story about family problems. “It’ll pass.” I don’t think he believed me but there wasn’t much he could do.

  When I saw Tim, when he touched me… we felt so perfect together. His body was so beautiful, he tasted so delicious, he made me feel so full. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians, I knew, believed that physical love was what gives us the spark of the divine. With Tim, I could almost believe it. I tried half a dozen times to end it, knowing what it was doing to me. When he told me how deeply he loved me I relented.

  A month before the end of the semester we were having lunch at the sandwich shop Tim liked. It was a bright early spring day, there was actually some green in the world, and we were both in good spirits. Things had been going well between us lately. I had convinced myself that if I only loved him enough he’d love me in return, and that was the way things had gone. We made small talk about finals and the coming end of the semester.

  “I’m not looking forward to moving, Tim. I hate it. I have so much junk.”

  He bit into his sandwich. “You’re getting a place?”

  I went slightly numb. Nervously I reminded him he had invited me to move in with him.

  “Oh. Jamie, I’m sorry. You can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m… I didn’t want to tell you this way. Someone else is moving in. I’m… ” He looked away from me. “I’m marrying Glinda.”

  Of course I was hurt. Of course I was not surprised. “You didn’t want to tell me this way. So, how did you want to tell me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “The wedding’s going to be back in Ebensburg. My family loves her.”

  Ebensburg. “You’re not going to have the bad taste to invite me, are you?” Before he could say another word I got up and walked away. The bright sun outside hurt my eyes.

  He ran after me and caught my arm. “Jamie.”

  I pulled free of him.

  “Jamie, you have to understand. I can’t live like that. I can’t have people know. This isn’t a good time to be… ”

  “No, of course not. It never is. Goodbye.”

  “Jamie, please!”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Jamie, you have to understand. If people knew… the school, the coaches, my family… ”

  “I don’t care about them.”

  “I do.”

  “Then be happy with them.” I kept walking.

  “Stop, god damn it!”

  I walked.

  There was no way I could avoid seeing him, of course. We were on the same team. I’d be seeing
his body in the locker room, in the shower, in the pool, and I knew I still wanted it, but I couldn’t let him do this to me anymore..

  * * *

  Justin had a hard time recovering from the way Grant had died. We spent a lot of time together, crying on each other’s shoulders, not always metaphorically. I had gone with him to Grant’s memorial service. It was mostly jocks—dull speakers saying the obvious things. Justin wasn’t asked to speak and didn’t make an issue of it.

  Over pizza I told him about Tim and Glinda.

  “Are you surprised, Jamie?”

  “No, I guess not. Something like it was bound to happen, sooner or later.”

  “Do you think he really loves her?”

  “I don’t know or care. He’s her problem now. I’d like to think she deserves him.”

  He laughed. “That’s an awful thing to say about anybody.”

  “Probably.” I laughed too. “What women put up with.”

  “And the things they never know.”

  He mentioned that he didn’t want to live in the dorms anymore; two years were enough for him. We decided to get a place together.

  “If you don’t mind my practicing, that is. How do you like Chopin?”

  “Is he that center on the hockey team?”

  “God, you sound like Norm.”

  “Bitch.”

  “You staying in town for the summer?”

  “Yeah. I have to take a geology course over.”

  Next day, after a long night of avoiding Norm’s obtuse prying—“Chick trouble, huh?”—I met Justin and we visited the campus housing office. With unusual good luck we found a good-sized two-bedroom place right way, in Shadyside, the same neighborhood as Tim. I didn’t know the area all that well; I hoped my place wasn’t too close to his. His and his wife’s.

  It was a huge apartment, two enormous bedrooms, a dining room and a living room on the second floor of an older woman’s house. She lived alone on the first floor. I thought she might have been a widow but of course I didn’t ask.

  * * *

  The semester ended. I did okay on my finals; Roland’s review said I was one of the most promising students he’d ever had. And I finally managed to tie that school butterfly record I had been chasing. So my scholarships were intact.

  Tim tried to congratulate me. I didn’t want to talk to him.

  “Please, Jamie. Can’t we be friends?”

  “Good gosh, no. Somebody might find out.”

  “You’re being a shit.”

  “I learned from a master.”

  He tried a few more times but finally got the message and left me alone. We were civil but distant, and that was the way I wanted it.

  It was a bright, glorious spring day when Justin and I moved our things into the apartment, first his, then mine. The landlady, Mrs. Kolarik, fussed and tried to help arrange things. We were fairly exhausted by mid-afternoon.

  But I made Justin get up and take a quick shower. “There’s one more thing we have to do.”

  He looked around. “What?”

  We got into fresh clothes and I led him a few blocks to the neighborhood animal shelter. We stopped outside the front door. “Here. We need a cat. It’ll make the apartment into a home.”

  He grinned at me. “That’s a great idea, Jamie.”

  There was a whole wall of them to choose from, in little cages that must have been uncomfortable for them. One singled us out and started clamoring for our attention. A little long-haired black-and-white thing, a female. We stood back and watched for a while, and she ignored everyone else. But when she saw either one of us she went frantic trying to get our attention.

  “That, Justin, is the cat for us.”

  We got her home, set up a box for her and let her explore the place. She seemed to like it.

  “We need a name for her, Jamie.”

  “Let’s wait. When we find the right one, she’ll let us know.”

  * * *

  Justin and I had a brief affair. Desultory sex, words of love neither of us meant and neither of us believed, strictly a rebound thing for both of us. We actually cried in each other’s arms once or twice. It never went anywhere serious, because I think neither of us really wanted it to. Mutual sympathy, not much more. He was a nice man, but… At least it cemented our friendship.

  There had been a letter from my cousin Millie asking if I could come home and help with the farm. They’d had a rough year and could use another hand. But there was no way I could face that. Ebensburg seemed a thousand years behind me.

  I needed to stay on campus. To bury myself in work, in music, in anything to occupy my mind. It was technically too late to register for the summer term, but there had to be a few courses still open. Roland would be on campus that summer, and he promised to give me as much of his time as he could.

  “Here. I want you to work on this.”

  It was the Schubert d major sonata. I had never heard it; I barely knew Schubert’s music at all. “Why this?”

  “I think you might find something good in it, that’s all.”

  I looked through it. There were some difficult passages, and there were some deceptively simple ones. “I’ll start on it tonight.”

  Every morning I swam like a fiend, like a madman, trying to work off all the horrible feelings I had had. It worked, a bit. Coach Zielinski was happy with me, and the sonata helped. Under its easy surface it was dark, turbulent, full of passion, almost like Chopin.

  But I needed more. The registrar’s office gave me a list of summer courses that were still open. One listing jumped out at me:

  ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CIV. MSM 401 M-F 1:00-2:00 SEMENKARU

  It was what I needed. I don’t know how I knew, but it was what I needed. I registered, paid the late fee, went to the bookstore and bought the required texts. It was Friday; the course would start the following Monday. I couldn’t wait. It would be different enough from anything I knew to engage me; it would be challenging enough to occupy my mind a bit, or at least I hoped so.

  Browsing through my textbook I happened across the name of the ancient Egyptian cat goddess: Bubastis. Not thinking, I said it aloud, and our kitten purred happily. I had found her name.

  That night I had that dream again: Me, playing passionate music in the midst of a field of dead men, and Danilo somehow there beside me.

  This time I did not find the dream disturbing.

  * * *

  The weekend seemed to take forever. Justin and I were getting used to each other, and getting to know each other in ways we hadn’t before. He was from a small town called Zelienople, north of the city. It sounded a lot like Ebensburg.

  We compared notes about our backgrounds, our families, our hopes. He asked me about Ebensburg. “What’s the big attraction there?”

  I had to think for a moment. “Um… we have a Motel Six.”

  Bubastis was always clamoring for our attention. When I sat down to browse my new textbook she curled up in my lap and purred herself to sleep. I took it as a good sign. At night I dreamed of Egypt and Danilo. The dreams were sexual. We made love in the shadow of the Pyramids. When I woke, I felt a bit embarrassed. A crush on my teacher. How juvenile.

  Then Monday came. First, practice at the fine arts building. Then a few laps. Tim was just arriving when I left. I smiled at him, an exaggerated, artificial smile, knowing it would bother him.

  Our class was in the museum, on the fourth floor. For a time I stood outside. I could see Danilo in the Egyptian gallery; I couldn’t really tell what he was doing. He noticed me, smiled and waved.

  He was even better looking than I remembered. But this was the first time I had seen him in the daytime. He seemed to be in his mid-thirties; I had taken him for older. I waved back.

  “Jamie! Hello!” He pushed a window open.

  I returned his greeting.

  “It’s good to see you. Come on in.”

  I did. He was arranging a new display, some ancient jewelry.

  “I saw your nam
e on the class list.” His accent had a lilt that was almost musical.

  I shrugged. “I guess that tour you gave me stuck.”

  “Good. We need some bright, young blood around here. Most of the people in these departments breed dust.”

  There was an awkward moment of silence. I felt attracted to him again, instantly. In daylight his eyes were such a deep green. It was every bit as strong as what I always felt for Tim.

  I groped for something to say. “Thanks again for coming to my recital.”

  “It was my pleasure. Hearing Chopin played that way… It was the way he meant it.”

  Odd comment. “Having someone I know in the audience was nice.” I quickly added, “Not that I know you all that well, but you know what I mean.”

  “A familiar face.”

  “Right.”

  “What about your family?”

  “Oh, they never had much interest in my music.” Without even realizing it, I began telling him about my parents’ deaths, about Millie, about Ebensburg. Talking to him that way, opening myself up to him, seemed perfectly natural, like something I ought to be doing as a matter of course.

  “And what about Tim?” He asked the question pointedly.

  It startled me. I didn’t remember ever mentioning Tim to him. Suddenly, for the first time, I felt self-conscious. “Tim?”

  “Your friend.” The way he said the word made it clear he meant more.

  I must have mentioned him—us—without remembering it. “We’re not as close as we were.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad.” He looked at his watch. “We should be getting upstairs. It’s almost time to start.”

  How could he have known? I felt vaguely uncomfortable, not with him, with myself. “I’ll be right up.”

  “I’ll see you in class, then.” He smiled at me and looked directly into my eyes. “I’m glad you’ll be with me for the summer. I think there’s a great deal for you to learn.” He headed up the stairs.