Smoke and Mirrors

by Lillian T. MacGowan

  “Of course it’s okay. I know how married you are to both of those things.” Naim’s grin softened to a gentle smile.

  Deck knew what he was thinking. “That was awesome. We should do that—Hey. Ya know what we should do?”

  Naim shook his head and smiled wider.

  “We should go sledding. There’s a park with this giant hill, like three blocks from the firehouse. That’d be awesome. When can you go?” He was a big, beautiful kid, and Naim laughed.

  “I know the park.” Naim chuckled. “I’ve seen the kids there a million times. But I’m not…” He cringed slightly.

  “What?” Deck looked alarmed. After last night and the dark hollows still under Naim’s eyes, his laughter delighted Deck, and Deck wanted him to do it again.

  “Deck, I don’t think you’re quite ready for sledding yet.”

  Deck breathed, relieved.

  “You hit a rock the wrong way and capsize…” Naim shook his head. “It’s not a good idea.”

  Deck thought about that for a minute. “Okay. That’s okay. I can live with that. As long as you…”

  Naim cocked his head.

  “I…I just wanted you to want to go,” Deck admitted.

  “I do.” Naim smiled again. “I do want to go. But I don’t want you to get hurt more.” Naim took his hand, and Deck squeezed tightly.

  “Okay. What about… Do you wanna maybe…” This was hard. How did you balance I-want-to-spend-every-waking-minute-and-sleeping-too-actually-with-you with but-I’m-not-pushing? Naim squeezed his hand back, and Deck thought of something. “Do you wanna meet my cat? Maybe—maybe after you leave here?”

  Naim rubbed his ankle against Deck’s jeaned calf just a tiny bit. “I… That would be good. I’ve never met a boy named Sue before.” His eyes were shining again, and the waiter brought their food.

  Naim stayed the night, and this time they slept in Tshirts and shorts and held each other tightly. Naim loved the cat, and Sue slept on his butt. Deck tried not to be jealous. Sue was neutered after all.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Keller asked from about a foot over Deck’s head where he was lounging on the hose bed of the engine truck.

  “Yeah, why aren’t you locked in your apartment with the curtains shut doing things to your doctor?” Peyton leered from his perch next to Keller where they were playing cards.

  “Things that we never, ever want to know anything about.”

  “I wanna know.” Freya frowned, scraping mud off her bunker boots.

  “I’ll show you, babe.” Spellacy leaned forward and kissed her neck while Freya grinned.

  “You guys are all assholes, ya know that? Mind your own goddamn business.” Deck growled as Mac and Bosko came sauntering in from the kitchen, both in blue aprons.

  “Hey! Deck. Why the hell aren’t you home doing—”

  “SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.” Deck roared, startling the shit out of Mac. The others chuckled at Deck or Mac—it didn’t matter which—and with a scowl Deck dropped into the middle of the floor the cases of Guinness and Yuengling he’d been carrying. “Can you guys act like fucking grown-ups for even three minutes?”

  They looked at him for a beat. Then they roared with laughter. “Fucking fuckbags.” Deck curled his lip. “Here’s your beer, fuckos!” he shouted at Peyton and Bosko. “Where’s Lieb?”

  “He’s upstairs. He waited in line for three hours in the middle of the night to get the new Call of Duty yesterday.” Keller snorted.

  Deck headed toward the stairs, grumbling. “Assholes didn’t even ask if I was supposed to be carrying shit.”

  He wandered into the lounge upstairs where Liebgott was violently engrossed in his new video game. He plunked down on the couch, picked up a set of controls, and added a player. After about fifteen minutes during which Deck died four times, he deleted out of the game and threw the controls down in a snit. “Can’t fucking believe you waited in line for that shit. Game sucks.” He was flexing his left hand, mentally cursing its weakness.

  “YOLO, man. YOLO.” Liebgott’s eyes never left the screen.

  Deck did an actual double take and then looked at Liebgott like he’d just morphed into a turtle before his eyes. “The…fuck?” He blinked.

  Liebgott lost his game groove, was killed instantly, and glanced sheepishly at Deck. “Sorry, man.” He chuckled, setting the game control on the table. “The kids were around this morning.”

  The crew made a point to encourage the neighborhood kids to come around and hang out at the house. The crew would them help with their homework, teach them about engines or cooking, or just play ball in the little court attached to the side of the firehouse—anything to keep the kids from stupid shit.

  “That’s no excuse, dude. No fucking excuse.” Deck shook his head sadly. “YOLO, Lieb? I’m embarrassed for you.”

  Liebgott ignored him. “Kiara was asking about you.” He grinned and almost giggled. Kiara was a thirteen-year-old girl with two hearing aids and an epic crush on Deck. “She asked if she could go visit you at home.”

  “The fuck?” Deck started and turned a little pale. “You can’t… She can’t… What the fuck.”

  “Don’t be a douche. Of course not.” Liebgott laughed. “Besides, no one, especially a little girl, wants to walk in on you and Naim—”

  “Oh, mother of fucks.” Deck smacked his head against the back of the couch. “The shit is with you people and your fucking obsession with my sex life.”

  Liebgott howled. Deck had a sex life since Adam’s death, but no one knew anything about it since it consisted of three years of one-night stands. Now that he was involved with someone and trying to build a relationship, the crew had three years’ worth of teasing and tormenting to get out of their systems. “You make it too easy man, you really do.” Liebgott stood, smacked Deck on his good shoulder, and headed downstairs.

  Deck made a face and followed him to the kitchen where Mac and Bosko were working on dinner. Liebgott grabbed two Cokes from the fridge and tossed one to Deck, who applauded himself for catching it with his left.

  “So what’s up? You bored?” Liebgott asked, putting his feet up on the kitchen table, only to have them knocked off by a scowling Bosko.

  “Yeah. I actually went to the school—YOLO—to see if any of the kids wanted to play some ball, but I forgot it was winter break.” Deck was tapping his fingers on the table.

  Mac dumped a bowl of potatoes in front of him. “Peel.”

  Deck got up and grabbed some newspaper and the potato peeler from a drawer. “How the fuck do people do this? The whole world is doing shit and at work. I’m bored out of my mind.”

  Liebgott reached across the table for a bowl of green beans to string. “Well, you’re supposed to be healing and resting, right? And taking some time to think about what you’ve done.” His eyes twinkled, referring to Deck’s suspension.

  “Fuck you, Lieutenant.”

  “Ever think about reading a book?” Mac suggested.

  “Ever think about shutting the fuck up?” Deck replied, and Mac giggled.

  “Leave him alone, Ginger.” Bosko was hacking at several chickens with a butcher’s knife. “You are married too long. You are not remembering what it is at the beginning. When life is only annoying time wasted on things not important, getting in the way of when you get to be with sweetheart again. When love is new, the whole world must stop for new love. Swarthy Doc must put patients away and be with new love for now—FUCKING CHICKEN.”

  They all stopped what they were doing for a second and stared as Bosko proceeded to curse the chicken’s respective body parts.

  Liebgott looked at Bosko for a second and turned back to Deck, his mouth twitching. “I take it Naim is at work?”

  “Yeah. Apparently doctors are like, really busy.” Deck gave the potato in his hand a rude look.

  “You have fucked the doc?” Bosko gritted his teeth, sawing at a chicken with his giant knife. “You must fuck the doc.”

  “What the
shit, Bosko.” Deck threw a potato at his head, but Bosko ducked over his chicken, and the potato fell into the sink.

  “Really, Bosko. That’s not appropriate.” Liebgott cringed.

  “Fucking is appropriate.” Bosko turned, wagging his knife at them. “Fucking is good. Fucking is bonding. Fucking makes new love better. Stronger.”

  “Bosko.” Liebgott warned.

  “NO.” Bosko insisted and turned to Deck, pointing the knife at him. “You fuck that doc good. The doc is a good man. Smart man, and his heart is big. He deserves many good fucks. All the time. You understand.”

  Deck sat speechless, unable to do anything but stare wide-eyed at Bosko and nod.

  Bosko threw the knife in the sink and turned back to the chicken, tearing at it with his bare hands.

  They were in Naim’s kitchen making breakfast. Snow came down in a flurry, and the city was quiet for the holidays. Deck tuned the TV to a channel showing nothing but a fireplace cheerfully burning away.

  Naim finished slicing the potatoes and grabbed a frying pan and a bottle of olive oil from a cupboard.

  “Wait. The fuck are you doing?” Deck gaped from his skittle of bacon.

  “What?”

  “That. What the hell is that?” Deck pointed at the bottle like it was a poo.

  “It’s…oil. Fried potatoes…” He cocked his head. “One needs it to…fry…” He was still convinced that Deck was deranged.

  “Not… No. Gimme that.” Deck abandoned his bacon and snatched the bottle from Naim’s hand, shoving it back into the cupboard as he huffed. “It’s breakfast, Naim. The hell do you use freakin’ olive oil to fry potatoes for breakfast.” He turned back to his bacon, muttering and shaking his head.

  “Am I supposed to use spit?” Naim asked, confused.

  “Holy shit. Bacon grease, man. Bacon grease.” Deck carefully turned the slices. “The hell do you think the bacon is for?”

  Naim leaned against the counter, sipped his coffee, and grinned. God, he was cute as hell. “I thought it was for eating?”

  Deck growled. “Yeah but… Ya’know what? Just get out. Get out of my kitchen.”

  “It’s my kitchen.”

  “Let me cook.”

  Naim laughed, leaned over to kiss Deck on the neck, and padded to the table in front of the balcony as he opened his laptop.

  “The hell do they teach you to cook in France?” Deck grumbled.

  Naim laughed again, harder this time, and Deck smiled, loving that sound more than anything.

  They walked toward the park hand in hand, snuggled against a chilly wind. “Hey, do you ever think it’s kinda weird that we never ran into each other before?” Deck asked, leaning over and kissing the top of Naim’s head.

  Naim thought. “I guess now that you mention it.” He tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice. The head kissing was getting old. Well, not old, but Naim was starting to feel frustrated and disheartened by the lack of more than that.

  “I mean, think about it. The firehouse is only, like a mile from the hospital. We both live right here. You had the clinic, and I’m pretty sure we know all the same kids.”

  Deck had told Naim about Kiara, and Naim cackled as he realized he knew the girl well. Her asthma and hearing problems brought her and her mother to the clinic frequently. She was about four-and-a-half feet tall, weighed eighty pounds with rocks in her pockets, and Naim declared that her crush was based primarily on the fact that her partial deafness meant Deck was the only person she could hear on a regular basis. That and she could only see up to his knees.

  Deck stuck his tongue out at Naim, and Naim immediately slipped it into his own mouth, causing Deck no end of sexual frustration and confusion. He really didn’t want to push, but Naim wasn’t helping.

  Naim, for his part, took Deck’s hesitation as discomfort and regretted his lewdness with a sense of humiliation.

  “Plus we both know Jen and Keller,” Naim added, shaking off the awkward incident from earlier and trying to enjoy the closeness of the moment.

  “Yeah. Weird.” Deck stopped and looked at Naim. He smiled. “Who cares.” He leaned down and kissed Naim’s cold lips, warming them and pulling him close. But not too close.

  “Ew, yuck. Get a room, yo.”

  They pulled apart to see two boys in their early teens striding toward them from the same direction they’d come.

  “Aw, piss off,” Deck yelled. “You’re just jealous ’cause you two losers can’t get any.”

  Naim laughed but thought how he couldn’t either. The boys approached them, and Deck was right. They did know the same kids. “Tyron, Darnell. How are you boys?” Naim greeted them.

  “Hey, Doc. Why you with this fool, yo? He ain’t no player.” Darnell scrunched his face.

  “Shut up, Darnell. I got game, you little shit.” Deck glared at him as they all started walking again.

  “Ain’t what I heard, Deck.” Tyron shook his head. “We heard you got jumped fer real, bruh.”

  “Jumped? The hell are you talking about?”

  “Yeah, we heard, like five big bulls jumped the shit outta you, and you was laid out all this time,” Darnell added with far more enthusiasm than the story warranted.

  “Gentlemen.” Naim eyed the boys. “Mr. Dekker was severely injured saving my life in the fire at the clinic.” He gave them a hard look as they walked. “The same fire that laid your sister out with the baby for three weeks, Tyron.”

  “Hold up. You really got hurt, Deck?” Tyron asked.

  “Yeah, I got hurt, you buttheads. Wanna see the scar?”

  They both grimaced and looked horrified.

  “Deck.” Naim tried not to laugh and shook his head.

  “So wha’s up with this?” Darnell skipped in front of them and danced backward as they walked. “You two goin’ together?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, we are. So?” Deck gave the kid a looming look.

  “Doc.” Darnell turned to Naim, dancing backward down the street. “Doc, you just feel sorry for him, right? ’Cause, bruh. C’mon, bruh. You can do better than this jawhn. I gotta cousin, remember. I told you, Malik. He be in college and everything.”

  “Dag, Deck, Kiara gonna be pissed.” Tyron shook his head.

  “What the hell, you guys,” Deck snapped. “Shut up!”

  Naim laughed. “Thanks, Darnell, but I’m okay.”

  Deck ignored Tyron, a little scared of Kiara. “Why didn’t you ever try to set me up with your cousin, you little douche?”

  “You? You ain’t got no game. Doc’s all class, bruh. Class.”

  Naim couldn’t keep his laughter in at the wounded look on Deck’s face, and the boys ran off toward the park.

  “I GOT GAME, DARNELL. YOU SHIT HEAD.”

  Naim howled as more kids appeared the closer they got to the park.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” Deck hesitated, bitchfacing at the kids.

  Naim pulled his hand. “I think they miss seeing you.” He still chortled. “And I know I miss seeing them. Besides, it’s too nice to sit inside.” It was cold and gray and snowy, and they both loved it.

  Deck sighed dramatically. “I can deny you nothing.”

  Naim shook his head as they strolled on. They could hear the squeals and shouting and general mayhem as they approached, and more and more kids greeted one or both of them.

  Several kids had stripped out of their coats and rocked a game of basketball on the court that they’d shoveled clear. More were sledding down the high hill on the far side of the park using anything they could get their hands on, including the strip of an old blown out tire, a plastic shovel scoop, and one kid looked to be rolling down the hill in a plastic trash can.

  “Well. I think they all have a future as firefighters,” Naim pronounced, grinning.

  “Wha?”

  “Resourceful. They’re very resourceful.” Naim nodded, thinking of the many different uses for latex exam gloves that he’d learned over Deck’s time in the hospital.

>   “Hey, if you’re gonna go there, they can be doctors, Mr. Bedpan Soccer.”

  “Footie.”

  “Mr. Bedpan Footie,” Deck corrected without a blink.

  “Deck!”

  “Oh shit,” Deck mumbled as Kiara threw herself off a moving swing and vaulted in his direction. Naim snickered.

  A chorus of “Deck” and “Doc” came from different directions, and a few kids began to run over to them.

  Kiara got there first and threw her skinny arms around Deck, burying her face—much to Naim’s tremendous alarm—quite low on his belly just where she reached. Deck pushed her off gently and plastered a smile on his face. “Hey there, Kiara. Take it easy. Just out of the hospital, right?”

  “Oh my God, Deck. I’m sorry. You okay? You better? You goin’ back to work soon? When you playin’ ball again? YO, YOU PUNKS BE DRAWLIN’ YO.” She screamed back at a group of boys that were cackling and mimicking her.

  “I’m—I was just trying to get a little exercise. Maybe I’ll sit down, okay? Go…swing. That looked like fun.” He gave Naim a pleading look, and Naim did everything he could not to laugh. Deck worked the pitiful quite well.

  “How’ve you been, Kiara? How’s your mother?” Naim tried distracting her.

  “Dr. Naim. I din’ see you. What’re you doin’ here?” She seemed pleased to see Naim but was also looking at him suspiciously.

  Tyron came running from out of nowhere, being chased by two other boys. He hid behind a voluptuous girl whom Naim remembered as India.

  “Deck goin’ with Doc now, Ki. We told you he di’n’t like girls,” Darnell announced, strolling toward Tyron and the other boys.

  “I’m really gonna go sit down now,” Deck said, trying not to notice the pathetic turn on Kiara’s face. Three of her girlfriends immediately surrounded her while India punched Tyron in the head for copping a feel.

  Naim followed him as they both tried to respond to a thousand questions and statements from ten early teens hopped up on holiday sugar and winter break from school.

  “Did it hurt?

  “Did you cut ’im up?”

  “We hear one of them corner boys cut you.”