I Loved You More

by Tom Spanbauer

“I think it was Nietzsche,” Sal says.

  Then Hank’s next to me. My big brother, my little brother, my father, my son. Such a consolation to see him. His hand on my shoulder, those wonderful black eyes of his so full of being so ecstatically stoned.

  “Hey buddy,” Hank says. “Thanks again. Yet another place I’ve never been to. Life is beautiful, no?”

  “This fucking water in these porcelain pans,” I say, “is fucking great.”

  “You think that water’s great?” Gary says.

  “Let’s go to the hot springs!” Sal sings out.

  “I’m ready!” Reuben says.

  “Hot springs?” Hank says.

  I stand up. Under my feet and all around me the lawn is soggy, wet, and green. My Manhattan-white feet are a deep rose-brown. The hairs on my legs are wet, too, blonde in the sun, and the skin of my legs is rose-brown too. My cutoffs are wet, and my T-shirt. Hank’s hand moves down my arm and holds my hand at the wrist. Between the top of Hank’s shoulder and the straw of his cowboy hat, past his ear, two or three steps beyond, is the corner post of the back porch that holds up the purple tin of the shed roof. Above the shed roof, the brick chimney stacks up to a crown. Above us all around up there the sky is royal blue.

  The sun isn’t high anymore, it’s going west. Still it’s so bright. I put my hand above my eyes.

  Everything is touched by a slow warm wind. The hops growing against the side of the house, the lilac bush by the back door, the grasses of the lawn, the apple tree, quake just enough to play the light. Something about the way the air smells. Mile-high, mountain-air fresh. But something in the fresh. Pine sap and dirt, river rocks. Granite, if granite has a smell. Wood smoke. Rust. And another smell. As if fresh oregano or borage has been pinched into your nose – the outhouse with lace curtains in its windows. All around me, around me and Hank holding onto my arm at the wrist, porcelain pans of water, vessels of light, reflecting sun.

  The rock. In Alturas Bar the rock as big as my head bounces down and down and down the centuries. Into the air it falls. The deep pool of blue-green water. A tiny splash in the afternoon.

  Hank’s hand drops away. I pull back the wet hair from my face. Under my T-shirt, slow water drips down my back.

  “Lithium hot springs, man,” I say. “Let’s get going!”

  FROM THE SIDE of a hill, hot water rushes out of rust-brown gravel and splashes down mossy rocks. Sunlight on the water, thousands of tiny bright flashes. Boils of steam rise knee-high into the late afternoon, sunlight on the steam, thousands of tiny rainbows. The sound I’m not sure at first is really outside my ears or is a sudden high-altitude pop. Thousands of tiny pops. In between the gurgles and the ripples there are whispers. At the bottom of the hill, the waterfall funnels over the edge and drops the length of a man into a pool.

  The shored-up pool is clear, but blue-green clear the way water looks. The pool is the size of the Wagoneer but not as deep. From where my rose-brown feet are standing, on a solid smooth wet blue-gray rock, all around me it’s miraculous. The river and the sun are behind me and the trees along the river, poplars, cottonwoods, ancient pines, are pushing their shadows at my back. Upriver and down, the solid world is melting, gone totally liquid, and floating down the valley.

  I don’t stop to think. My T-shirt is off and my cutoffs, my shorts on top of my towel on a dry rock. Naked like that in the day, a lick of wind finds my ass, my balls, that quick. A quick whip up my back around my shoulders into my hair and around my ears.

  Hot water up to my ankles, my knees, I’m cupping my balls as I sit down into the water. A flinty smell and a taste on my tongue, lithium. At the bottom of the pool, my ass against smooth slick pebbles. Clear hot water up to my chin.

  The lithium, the hot water, the psilocybin.

  All around me in the blue-green waters I can feel it bubbling up. Old dark river, centuries slow and underground, infernal heat, compression. Underwater, I keep my eyes open. Out and through the tiny blue-green rocks, smooth pebbles, the river surges against me. Above me, the waterfall crashes down, water into water. I stay below until I can’t. A deep breath pulls me up, out. I come up behind the waterfall, the rusty gravel hillside against my back. The hot water spills out into the air in front of me, a liquid wall of wavy glass.

  Tumbled down from above, rolling over rocks, thick black moss, filling up into pools, then down again, down, free, the waters chattering I am free I am free. Hot water on my head, coursing past my ears, the sunlight through the water, I am free too.

  Finally, what I’ve been waiting for forever.

  As if I were never the pope’s, my father’s son, my mother’s child, or my sister’s little brother. A sterling moment so clear the glimpse I have. And something unlooses inside me, my thumb moves from one place to another, an old rock tumbles down, and I am different, new.

  I’m stoned, I know and this new free place may only be in me for moments.

  I bring my hands up through the waterfall, my hands as if water is flowing out in fins from my hands, and look close. I breathe deep, look hard at my hands, making my body remember. I’m praying but I don’t know who to, to whatever is miraculous, to whatever it is that pulled back the veil so I could dwell in a place I never knew existed.

  “WATCH OUT FOR the chiggers!” Gary says. “They stay close to the ground around your ankles.”

  “What’re chiggers?” Hank asks.

  “No-see-ums,” Gary says.

  “Itch like hell,” Reuben says. “The secret’s to never start scratching.”

  Outside the waterfall, it’s naked men. Reuben pulls down his Ralph Lauren white boxers, picks them up between his toes and catches them with his hand. The sun in the pool near his feet reflects a shine across his face. He’s thin and wiry, a line of black hair across his chest. Then down, the hair spreads out black at his crotch. His cock is hiding, it bounces heavy when he walks. If a man is his cock, or the cock is the man, then Reuben is, Reuben’s cock is a fox or a coyote, something that wiles you, beguiles you, a dazzle and in one quick trick you’re lunch so fast you don’t even know it.

  Sal. Never trust a man that beautiful. At least I can’t. That’s my fault not his. Look at him squatted down naked at the edge of the pool. Always in the shade, or under a hat. Skin like marble statues. One of those southern white flowers that bloom in the night. He’s got that Sal look on his face. The one that says I know I’m beautiful but isn’t beauty ridiculous. If a man is his cock or a cock is the man, then Sal is, Sal’s cock is Vivien Leigh. A little crazy, too much acid and way too much chocolate. Scarlett O’Hara swinging down there in all that red velvet.

  Gary’s watching for chiggers, so he doesn’t stay long out of the pool. He’s just in his overalls, so when he takes them off he’s standing there in the altogether. Two big steps and he’s a hot splash in the pool. A big body a bit like mine only thicker in his shoulders and arms. Freckles. He’s another white guy should stay out of the sun, but he’s always in the sun, peeling. If a man is his cock and the cock is the man then Gary is, Gary’s cock is Gary Cooper in Friendly Persuasion. Only with freckles, a high voice and a gay attitude.

  Hank. Well you know all about Hank. Today though, the way he walks on the rocks, his tender feet pearly white, there seems something crustacean about him. A hard outer shell that’s hard because inside is so soft. The way the muscle of him is in his trunk and arms. His butt and gams a footballer’s, too, but his calves and his ankles and his feet. Fragile, not made out of mud and rock like the rest of him. Glass. Easily shattered. Atlas standing on Achilles’ heels.

  The only straight guy here and he suddenly knows it and his face is doing that Ecce Homo thing, that him-presenting-himself thing but not like back at the main spread when everyone was pretending to be themselves. It’s just that Hank is nervous. Makes me love him more.

  Full on in the sun Apollo. Greek gods just falling out of the sky. His olive skin soaking up the sun. A very full and languid Mussolini hanging down. If a man is h
is cock and a cock is the man, then Hank’s not a man, he’s a legend.

  That’s what we were for each other, Hank and me, and that’s where we failed.

  Legends.

  No human can dwell in such exaltation forever.

  And somebody else.

  Me, Ben, only a head and wet hair bobbing in the sun above the pool’s crystal waters. If a man is his cock and the cock is the man then I am, my cock is Dorothy and the Tin Man and the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. I am the man who followed the yellow brick road and got himself out of hell. At least for a while.

  In that place most miserable, somehow there is hope.

  ATLANTA FUCKING IDAHO. Something magic. Half-dressed and wiped down, we’re heading back to the Main Spread. On a winding dirt road in a World War II Jeep, on each side of us pines and spruce and Doug-fir and trees and trees and trees. The late summer air just at dusk against my face, my chest, my arms. The sun in the west full in our faces. Warm, hot almost. The mushroom rushes have passed and what’s left is an ever-expanding moment. My body is a gestalt of my body. Not just a head with arms and legs that do things and a cock that just hides out down there. I’m one big warm fleshy thing with blood beating and sperm and breath. My towel is around my neck. It’s still wet and smells of lithium. My hands hold the towel at each end. I’m in the back in the middle, jammed between Reuben and Hank. Sometimes when I look down I can’t tell whose legs are whose. Reuben’s shoulder, Hank’s, against my shoulders. Skin stuck to skin with sweat. I look over at Reuben, then at Hank. Their smiles are my smile, content, aware, full of wonder.

  A strange sensation in that space between the crack my arms make with my chest and just above my nipples, underneath in there, where I might have wings, the spirit in me starts to rise up and out, and when I lift my arms, that spirit soars up high to the heavens. For a moment there’s a heaven above. It’s so clear there’s a heaven above, because what’s coming out from under my arms is connected to it.

  Gary shifts down and turns the Jeep. Suddenly, we dip into the shadow of Greylock and below us is a mountain meadow. Cool, smooth green, the river, rusty, rocky earth. A mule deer does a slow lope into the trees. We all make the same sound, the gasp of air in our throats. Above us, the sunset clouds are dramatic. Gold and pink. Just above Greylock, the beginnings of a dark gray sky.

  “Looks like we’re in for a storm,” Gary says.

  IN THE KITCHEN at the Main Spread, our five bodies, the high-backed Mormon chairs, the oak table, the stove, the cupboards, the tall wooden bookcase full of cookbooks, there isn’t room to move. The transistor radio is playing Patsy Cline.

  Reuben’s in his white apron in front of the blazing Majestic. Pots and pans boil and sizzle. Gary and Hank and Sal sit around the table. The fancy kerosene lamp on the table is lit. There’s another kerosene lamp on top of the pie safe, one on the bookcase, and another on the warmer above the stove. The light on the room makes it feel like Christmas.

  Outside it’s started to rain, light at first and then the rain pours down. Gary checks the kitchen ceiling for leaks.

  My chair, number five, is by the kitchen window. The lace curtain smells like dust. Steam on the window, rain drops running down. The four legs of my chair wobble on the dark wood planks of the floor. My rose-brown bare feet. The back door is open and the planks shine with what’s left of the light of the day. The rain against the tin roof, the roar and noise above us, we are covered with it. The rain on the lawn in the backyard. High splashes of rain on the porcelain pans of water.

  Reuben’s cooking tamales and Spanish rice and red beans. On the table, next to the fancy kerosene lamp, is the green bowl of dark red salsa, a plate of cheese and a basket of tortilla chips. Cold Dos Equis. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry, so thirsty. All of us, we’re starving farm hands the way we eat. Aware of our hunger, the delicious satisfaction of eating. We can’t help but make fun.

  When dinner is finally served, my big white plate full of tamales, cheese, red beans, salsa, and rice disappears in a heartbeat. Then a second. On the table, the green bowl of salsa is empty first, then the bowl of rice, then the bowl of beans. Hank goes for the last tamale. One more round of beers.

  Outside the windows it is night. No stars. No moon. Only light rain. Inside it’s a steamy room, cozy, warm, Christmas light on a room full of dirty dishes, pots and pans. On the back porch, I put on my socks and shoes, then fill the big kettle with water from the hose. Simple actions like these, my body moving through them, are full of enjoyment and wonder. When I set the kettle on the wrought iron of the Majestic stove, there’s a high snap and sizzle.

  Reuben pulls out a pack of Nat Shermans. I can’t resist.

  I inhale on the cigarette so deep I inhale every aspect of the night, the place, that moment: the kerosene light, the heat from the stove, the draft from the back door, the drizzle of rain on the tin roof, the smell of the rain and the smell of tamales and boiled beans, the smack of hot sauce on my tongue, the tang of beer. Close the door, light the light on the transistor. Sal with his Levi ass and white shirt-back to us, scraping plates into the compost bucket, singing along, you don’t have to worry anymore. Gary, kerosene lamplight on his shaved head, just in his OshKosh overalls, the straps against the freckles of his shoulders. He’s taking a long pull on his beer. Reuben’s finally sitting down, his legs crossed, his zip-up black Prada boots, one arm hooked at the elbow on the back of the high chair, exhaling from his Sherman. Hank, his hair pulled back from his face, Hank’s beautiful face in the kerosene light, his black eyes still the psilocybin twinkle – all of it, everything.

  “All we need now,” Hank says, “Is a chocolate cake.”

  Sal stops scraping plates, washes his hands in the pot of hot water on the stove, wipes his hands. He steps across Gary and me, walks down the hallway that Hank’s got his back to. Nobody thinks much about Sal leaving. Minutes later, though, Sal walks in with a pink box and stands behind Hank. Reuben picks up Hank’s plate. Out of the pink box, Sal pulls out the biggest chocolate cake I’ve ever seen. Sets it down in front of Hank. The look on Hank’s face, my God, it is Christmas and Hank’s a four-year-old.

  “Bye bye, Mr. Chocolate Cake,” Reuben says.

  And the day ends. The way it began. Laughing.

  AFTER THE ASSEMBLY line of washing and drying is finished and every knife and fork and spoon is put away into drawers. After every plate and cup and glass is back into the cupboard. The counters, the table wiped down. When the fire in the Majestic is only coals, after Gary turns the damper down. When there is only the one flame of the fancy kerosene lamp on the table, and the room is back to shadows, to spirits. We all embrace and thank each other for the day.

  It was a great day, a day like no other, and I look into Gary’s eyes, Reuben’s, and Sal’s, hold onto their hands as I tell them goodnight. They listen as I touch them and praise the day, the marvels of it, the deep understanding, the importance of their friendship. But the more I talk the more they laugh. How I’m still way stoned.

  I am still stoned. When I open the wine-velvet curtains and walk down the three steep steps into the bedroom, Hank is standing in the middle of the room holding up a kerosene lamp, just in his undershorts. Next to his feet, Gary’s bucket is catching the drips of rain through the hole in the roof. The wedding ring bed right there. The way George Washington looks at me, the way Hank looks at me, I know I am, I know Hank is, still way stoned.

  Hank moves the kerosene lamp so we can see inside the bucket. The drips from the roof are constant and fast, almost a steady stream. There’s maybe two inches of water in the bucket. Hank and I stand and stare at the water in the bucket, stare up at the roof for a long time and listen to the sound of the drips. It’s something so odd we just have to witness it.

  A big gust of wind. In the corners on each side of the room at the ceiling, the triangular chinks in the wall, the wood is dark brown wet and dripping down water. Hank and I feel it about the same time. It’s fucking cold.<
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  I open up the steamer trunk, pull out extra blankets, lay them on the bed. In no time at all, I’ve got my clothes off, keep my shorts and socks on, and I’m under the covers. Hank blows out the flame in the kerosene lamp. The springs bounce and creak when he gets in bed. For the longest time we lie there with the covers pulled up, shivering. It is so dark. I’m still high all right, the way my head floats on the pillow. I want to talk and talk and catch up with Hank. So much to say, but I keep quiet. I think probably I’ve said enough that day. When I start to warm up, I just can’t help it. I keep my voice low when I speak.

  “Is that door closed tight?” I ask.

  “Yeah I checked it,” Hank’s voice is a whisper.

  “Bears,” I say.

  “Wolves,” Hank says.

  Hank says, “Gruney, holy fuck!”

  “I know! I know!” I say, “Holy fuck!”

  “What is this place?” Hank says.

  “Fucking psilocybin mushrooms!” I say.

  “A ghost town,” Hank says.

  “Have you ever been in a place so pitch dark?” I say.

  “What a journey!” Hank says. “Where the fuck are we?”

  “Alturas Bar,” I say. “The hot springs.”

  “The chocolate cake,” Hanks says.

  “The rain dripping in the fucking bucket,” I say.

  “Fuckin A,” I say.

  “Fuck!” Hanks says.

  “The wedding ring bed,” I say.

  Hank lets go one of his farts. It’s so loud. Through the heavy wine-velvet curtains, on the other side of the solid wood wall we hear Reuben say:

  “He gambled and he lost.”

  Way across the house, Gary says: “She was a poor dog, but a good one.”

  Christ the way we laugh. I plug my nose and laugh and laugh and laugh until I am asleep.

  WHEN I OPEN my eyes, the drip from the rough cut boards of the roof is an icicle about a foot long. The triangular chinks in the wall in the corners at the ceiling are knuckles of ice. Now and then, little drifts of snow are spirits across the room. In the oval mirror, I can see that outside it is snowing. Hank’s curly head is on my chest, my chin on his head. His body right next to mine, not an inch of space between. Our arms and legs, I’m still getting them confused. As far as I can figure, his legs straddle my right leg and my left leg is over his leg. Only an inch out away from our bodies, the bedsheets are freezing. It takes me a while to figure it out that the hard thing against my thigh is too high for a knee and his other hand is on my ribs. And a very strange miraculous feeling. My cock is hard too. The full hopeful feeling of that. But it’s the one part of me, besides the top of my head and back, that’s not touching Hank.