by Amy Lane
But something horrible, horrible and angry, had blocked up in his chest when it had been time to do just that. He’d been… God. He’d been in the man’s bed, and Joe had been hard and wanting, and he’d just… just….
Adults don’t sneak into someone else’s bed, Casey…. Don’t you see? That’s what I’ve been trying not to do to you for the last three years?
Oh fuck. Holy mother of fuck. Could a grown person really die of shame? Whatever it had been, Casey hadn’t been able to face it. He’d counted—as he’d so often counted—on Joe to be the better man. And Joe had been, and that had just made it harder.
Casey took three deep breaths and closed his eyes. In the dark he saw Joe playing with the dogs, working on the chicken coop, digging in the garden. Saw him in the morning, bare-chested, sleepy and unaware of how shy his smile was when he wasn’t wide awake. Saw that curtain of hair, long and glossy and well cared for, coming over what was really a thin face, thin and… oh God. Young. Casey had been to bars in the past months—hadn’t brought anyone home, really, because even a pocket full of condoms didn’t make him want to take that risk for someone he’d just met—but he’d seen fortysomethings hitting on twentysomethings, the eyes of the older men hard and greedy, their sneers barely hidden in masks of carefully groomed pretty. Joe would never look like that. Joe would only always be plain and honest, as simple as oatmeal, or squash and tomatoes and cheese. A big Rottweiler of a man, but sweeter, more trusting, more hopeful of a bone or a pet or a hug coming his way than even Rufus, because Joe would never, had never, bitten, even when, Casey had to admit, he’d been in pain.
He took another breath and opened up the door.
“Hi,” he said, his face hot and uncomfortable, even in the humid, frigid air coming from the doorway. “What’s up?”
Joe had been standing at the porch, staring out into the fairly constant late November rain. Last week had been Thanksgiving, and Joe had left a small precooked turkey breast and stuffing. Alvin had fixed it up for the two of them, and Casey had been grateful.
But it hadn’t been the big turkey and potatoes that Joe had done for him for the past five years. Not by a long shot.
Joe turned when he heard Casey at the door, and gave a weak smile. “You’re thinner,” he said critically. He swallowed. “Starving college student. It ain’t just an expression, right?”
Casey shook his head, thinking that he’d been starving more for the sight of Joe than for food. “I, uhm… do you want to come in?”
Joe nodded. “Thanks. You, uhm… you may want to sit down. I’ve got some news.”
“How’s Lynnie?” Casey blurted, closing the door behind Joe as he came in. He smelled like wet leather, wet man—Joe. And Casey really didn’t want to hear bad news. Right now, he’d rather actually hear about Joe’s girlfriend than something that would suck.
“Pregnant,” Joe said. Then, before Casey’s heart could fail, he added, “It’s not mine. I, uhm, broke up with her pretty much after you left.”
Casey had to put his hand up against the wall, because there were spots dancing in front of his eyes. “Why?” he asked, not even trying to be subtle.
“Casey, we can’t do this right now,” Joe said softly, and Casey blinked and tried to put his head on right. Bad news. That was what had brought Joe to his doorstep, but still, God, there were some things he had to know.
“Where is she now?” he asked deliberately, and Joe looked at him from the middle of their crappy living room and sighed.
“The guest bedroom. Are you happy?”
“I think I could be,” he answered with utmost sincerity. Stupid and juvenile, maybe, but Joe sounded like he was still up for grabs.
Then Casey sobered. Joe looked really uncomfortable—and he also looked cold. He used to come inside from riding his motorcycle when it was raining or snowy outside, and wear his leathers until the chills stopped. Casey walked over to him and handed him an afghan.
“If you give me your jacket, this’ll keep you warmer,” he said quietly, and Joe shook his head and worked hard at keeping his teeth from chattering.
“Kid—I mean, Casey, just sit down, okay?”
Joe sat carefully on an orange plaid, stuffed corner chair that Alvin had found on the side of the freeway, so Casey took their other piece of furniture, a red velour love seat that someone had left in front of their house for the trash pickup to get. The love seat was broken—anyone who sat on the far left ended up falling into a hole made not just by the broken bottom but also by the arm of the love seat, which had detached from the rest of the body. Hugging the afghan to himself, Casey sat in the love seat, looking anxiously at Joe, who looked tired, and thin, and sad.
“Your mom called this morning,” Joe said quietly. “Your dad passed away—I didn’t ask how, but I looked up his obituary, and….” Joe grimaced. “I think it was something he did himself.”
Casey just gaped at him, opening and closing his mouth, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with this information.
Joe looked at him and nodded like that was about what he’d expected, and added, “The service is tomorrow.”
Casey blinked. “My car can’t make it,” he said nakedly. “I… I blew a gasket because I changed my own oil and I added too much.” He grimaced again. “I’m sorry, Joe. It barely makes it to school and back.”
Joe’s smile was dry. “You were trying. Forget about it. I’ll take you, if you like.”
Casey closed his eyes. “You don’t have to,” he said, wanting so badly to be in the car with Joe, just to talk, just to make things right, that he was almost glad his dad was dead.
“Of course I do.” Casey felt a hand—cold and still shivering—on his knee.
“I’m sorry.” Casey shuddered and covered that hand with his own, trying to warm it up while it warmed him. “I’m sorry you’re always cleaning up their messes. You haven’t even met them and they’ve fucked up your life—”
“Bullshit,” Joe said firmly, and Casey looked up into his eyes.
“Bullshit?”
“Yeah. Bullshit. In fact, I owe them, kid—don’t ever think I don’t.”
“Yeah, for fuckin’ what?”
“For you.”
Casey managed a smile, and his grip on Joe’s hand tightened. He kept searching himself inside, wondering at the open blank spot where his father used to be. He couldn’t find anything else—no strings, no nerves, no tender places. Was that normal?
Joe opened his mouth to say something, and at that moment, Alvin came in, his short-sleeved button-up shirt untucked from his corduroys and his mullet (seriously, a mullet? Like in high school?) in total disarray at the back.
“Casey, we’ve got school in, like, forty-five minutes. Are you coming? Because your car is the only one that works!”
“Yeah, in a minute,” Casey called, and when Joe tried to pull his hand away, he held it tighter. “Do you work today?” he asked quietly, and Joe shook his head.
“No, but I’ve got to go in anyway so I can get the next couple of days off.”
“Why the next couple of days?”
Joe’s look from those dark-brown eyes was inscrutable. “Because I think it’s going to take that long.”
Casey nodded. “I’ll… I guess I’ll be ready tomorrow.” Oh God. Laundry?
“Service is at two, so let’s leave at seven thirty so we can stop and eat. Do you need me to do some laundry for you?”
Casey grimaced. Joe had always been so good at anticipating every need. Casey was tempted to say no, but, God. As much as he had his pride in front of Joe, he thought maybe his pride not to make Joe look bad might be just a little bit stronger.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I’ve got some slacks and shit, and I think they need to be dry-cleaned, and I don’t really have any clean underwear.” He didn’t add that he’d been washing his hair with dish soap and hoping like hell he didn’t get any in his eyes, because that shit stung in the eyes, and it wasn’t much fun in the
privates, either. Well, at least he didn’t have lice, right?
“Great,” said Joe, one corner of his mouth turned up like he was hearing the subtext. “I’ll be here at six thirty, then, with your clothes.”
Casey’s hand convulsed in Joe’s. “I wanted to see you when I was perfect,” he admitted. “I wanted to see you when I was a grown-up.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and now Joe’s hand tightened in his.
“Hell, Casey, do you think you’re the only college student who recycled his underwear?”
Casey looked up and saw that reassuring grin splitting between the mustache and the soul patch, and he swallowed and nodded. Joe always saw the best in him. These last six months, missing this man like a hole in his soul, how could he have forgotten that Joe saw the best in him?
“I’ll—”
“Casey!”
Casey took a deep breath for patience and rolled his eyes. “I’ll be ready tomorrow,” he said quietly, and Joe smiled and stood up. He started fishing his motorcycle gloves out of his pocket, and Casey winced. “God, Joe—it’s still pouring outside. Are you sure you don’t want to stay?”
Joe grimaced. “Kid, I stay here much longer and I’ll be tempted to clean, and you would never fucking forgive me. Now get me your clothes in a duffel or something so I can strap them to the back of the bike.”
He was gone in a few minutes, and Casey’s chest ached as he watched him drive off in the rain. He’d managed to put on some passable jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, but he felt… unkempt, rank, and young. Of course, he thought bitterly, nothing near as young as the night he’d climbed into the man’s bed and tried to seduce him as he slept.
“So that was him?” Alvin asked, coming up behind Casey with Casey’s backpack and the keys to the car. “The guy you were afraid to talk to because you were too humiliated for words?”
In spite of their poverty, Alvin was maybe one of the most decent things about Casey’s living situation so far. He was hopelessly geeky, decidedly straight, and willing to stay up until the dark hours of the night eating pizza and talking about anything at all. Of course, Casey was never sure if the resulting crankiness was because he didn’t get enough sleep or he didn’t get enough time to beat off, but, well, it didn’t seem to matter. Alvin was good people, and after Robbie had bailed, he’d taken the roommate opportunity quickly and without fuss, even though he was as perpetually broke as Casey.
“I didn’t say it was rational,” Casey said wistfully.
“God. He’s like… like terminally laid-back. You said he’s a nurse?”
Casey laughed a little, remembering his few glimpses of Joe at work: competent, low-key, talking quietly with the patients, that surprising smile always at the ready.
“He’s really good at it.” God, his throat ached, and his chest too. Every time he thought it was from seeing Joe, he remembered that his father was dead and that there were larger things to think about, but that was not what his body was telling him. His body was telling him that there was only one thing that mattered, and he’d just motored away with Casey’s dry-cleaning strapped on the bitch seat.
“Casey,” Alvin said tentatively, “should I start looking for another roommate?”
Casey looked at him and smiled reassuringly. “If it comes to that, buddy, I’ll give you time, okay? I swear, no bailing.”
Alvin nodded equably, and they went to school. Casey sat through his classes, took notes on his lectures, and reviewed his homework. Sometimes, a vague sort of gunshot would startle his thoughts, and he’d think My father is dead, but that part of him was still sitting on the couch at home, trying to decide how it felt about that.
Most of the time, though, while he struggled to concentrate on his physics class and his advanced trig and his graphic art, what was thrumming under his skin was Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe….
JOE was there a little before six thirty, which meant he had with him a new razor, some shaving cream, baby shampoo, a clean washcloth, and a whole brand-new package of socks and underwear, because the whole point of him arriving early was to take care of Casey.
It meant Casey could shower like a human being and his underwear wouldn’t chafe either. Joe was looking good in a dark suit and a trench coat that Casey didn’t even know he had, and he surprised Casey with a trench coat to go with the newly pressed slacks, shirt, and tie that Joe had given him to wear when he graduated from junior college.
Casey got out of the bathroom smelling like real body soap and feeling all soft and pretty, and found everything laid out on his bed, as well as three new clothes baskets in the corner with his laundry sorted into dark, light, and towels. He chuckled a little as he got dressed. Joe. Joe would probably have done all this for him if Casey had moved in sanely, like a grown-up, and he would have done it just this unobtrusively, with just as much quiet competence, the same way he’d brought Casey into his home.
Casey put on his clothes thoughtfully, suddenly wondering at his hubris. This whole time he’d been humiliated but angry too, because he thought that Joe was just denying everything he felt because of some stupid mind block about their ages, about Joe’s role in his life.
It suddenly occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, Joe really was this nice to everyone. Maybe Casey had been young, and stupid, and arrogant. Maybe he’d made assumptions based on things he knew about Joe’s sexuality, about Joe’s desire for children—oh Jesus, all of those horrible things he’d said to Joe, and really, how wrong could he have been?
But that didn’t matter, he realized as he came out of his room to where Joe waited. Joe’s hair was back in a braid, and he hadn’t taken off his trench coat. He was standing, quiet and still, in the front room, looking outside the dusty, colorless curtains into another day the color of wet concrete. It didn’t matter, because Joe was here, in whatever capacity, and what he felt for Casey—whatever he felt for Casey—hadn’t gone away.
Joe looked up at him as he walked out into the living room, and smiled. “Don’t you look pretty,” he teased, and Casey blushed.
“You clean up pretty good yourself.”
Joe nodded decisively. “Well then, let’s get this show on the road.”
“Whose car is this?” It was a little Ford Escort sedan, and Joe grimaced.
“Lynnie lent hers to me, since the truck just guzzles gas. I hope it’s okay.”
Casey looked at him and rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who’s going to get his legs cramped. It’s fine with me.”
Joe grinned. “Yeah, well, after we stop for lunch, you can drive.”
Casey was suddenly reassured. Whatever it was, however he felt, Joe was still his. Six months of living without had maybe done their job and taught Casey that any Joe was better than none.
Lynnie had a cassette player in her car, so as soon as they passed Sacramento’s range for radio, they put in one of the cassettes from the box Joe had brought. Journey started playing, sounding sentimental and old, and definitely not enough to cover the space between them. They could either actually talk to each other or listen to the car bump over the music. Looking out the window was a whole lot of flat gray-green nothin’ but cows, so they chose to talk. It was pretty easy, especially when Casey broke the ice.
“So, Lynnie’s living in your guest room?”
He heard about it then, about Joe’s breakup, about Lynnie’s shitty choice in rebound guys and Joe taking her in with a split lip, a black eye, and a baby in her belly.
“Is she just gonna stay there?” Casey asked, and Joe looked sad.
“Naw. Her parents live in Oregon. In about two months, she’s going to fly up there and have the baby and get a new start.” Joe sighed, and Casey felt the weight of the thing Joe was giving up.
“You offered to marry her, didn’t you?” he asked, knowing it would hurt but needing to know anyway.
“No,” Joe said quietly, and then he smiled a little anyway. “But I did offer to keep the baby.”
Casey looked at him, surprised. “Why didn�
�t you marry her? You wouldn’t have cared, would you?”
Joe shook his head. No. Of course not. Not Joe. “No. No, I wouldn’t have. But….” He swallowed. “I didn’t love her enough for forever. You were right about that. You just were.”
Casey looked out the window at the gray expanse of cows, cow shit, and mud, and sighed. For the first time in his life, he felt enough outside of himself to realize that sometimes it sucked to be right, even if it meant you got the thing you most wanted in the world.
“I’m sorry about the baby,” he said quietly, and he meant it.
Joe shrugged. “Yeah, well, so am I. But my life ain’t over yet, is it? Still got time.”
“I’d like to see that,” Casey said softly, thinking about big Joe with a tiny, helpless pink thing in his massive arms. “That baby would feel so safe with you. You’d hold it, and love it, and you’d never hurt it or throw it out on its ass because….” Casey’s voice trailed off, and he looked out into the shitty day.
“I guess I can’t hate him anymore for that,” Casey said, hearing that gunshot again.
“Sure you can,” Joe said grimly. “But it might be better off if you forgave him for it instead.”
“How did he die?”
Joe sighed heavily. “I, uhm, called your mother again after reading the paper,” he said apologetically. “I asked so I could tell you myself.”
“He shot himself, didn’t he?”
Joe’s eyes flickered from the nightmare ruler that was Interstate 5. “How’d you know that?”
Casey shook his head. “Just did. It was quick, it would work, and he wouldn’t be there to clean up the mess. Let’s just say it was sort of how he did things. No time to smoke weed, let’s do blow instead, right?”
Joe grunted. “That right there makes the man a damned fool.”
Casey laughed a little, thinking of the two times he and Joe had floated together. No, weed was not really something you wanted to do a lot of, but if you were going to get all drifty and floaty, wanted to be out of your body and be somebody else, Joe was the person to do it with, because he’d accept you no matter who you were.
