Saints of Augustine

by P. E. Ryan

  He shoved his feet into his sneakers as he heard a dull thud, like a kettle drum being struck. His father’s bedroom door was closed. Charlie ran down the hall to the front of the house. He yanked open the front door and all but spilled out onto the porch.

  Derrick and Wade were climbing back into the Eclipse. He started running toward them, but he wasn’t halfway there before the Eclipse started to move. And it moved fast. Seconds later, it was squealing around the corner and out of sight.

  He ran over to the Volkswagen. In the blue light of the street lamps he saw that both the taillights had been smashed out. There was a long scrape—made with a key, no doubt—along the driver’s side, an uneven line that went all the way from the back fender to the side mirror. One of the headlights had been pulverized so that it was just an empty silver ring. And right in the middle of the hood was an angry-looking dent, deep enough to be a birdbath.

  He unlocked the driver’s door and sank behind the wheel. But what was he going to do? Chase them? He had no hope of catching up with them; the VW just wasn’t fast enough. And what would happen if he did? There were two of them, and they had bats. The only other thing he could think to do was drive over to Derrick’s apartment complex after Derrick got home and inflict some damage on the Eclipse. But where would that lead? He’d wake up a couple of mornings from now, at most, and find his car in ruins. It was a wonder they hadn’t smashed out the windshield.

  He sat there fuming, his hands squeezing the steering wheel. Then he spotted the piece of paper stuck beneath one of the windshield wipers.

  On one side was the note he’d folded around the money he’d left for Derrick. On the other, the words So much for friendship, Perrin.

  12.

  (In the words of Hannibal Lecter, quid pro quo.)

  Sam and Justin stood in the sun-baked courtyard of the Castillo de San Marcos fort, gazing into a narrow room with a single, tiny window cut into the far wall, high up near the ceiling. The room had been used as a prison cell, the pamphlet told them. Prisoners had escaped once by starving themselves until they were thin enough to fit through the window. “It’s like the Count of Monte Cristo meets the South Beach diet,” Justin said, making Sam laugh.

  They walked the lower level of the fort, then climbed to the upper level and looked out over St. Augustine and the Atlantic from each of the four bastions. The entire fort, they read, was made from a rock called coquina. It was nothing but tiny shells and lime, and when the British fired their cannons in 1702, the walls didn’t shatter but just sucked up the cannonballs “like chips in a chocolate chip cookie,” Sam read aloud.

  Justin hung his head over the wall, looking for cannonballs. “I love it when they illustrate history with dessert metaphors. Does it say anything in there about the cannon smoke swirling like frozen yogurt?”

  “Please don’t mention yogurt. It’s my day off.”

  “That’s right. You’re the cone-head hat guy.”

  Sam grimaced. “Oh, no. You saw me in that stupid thing?”

  “Who could miss it? But don’t worry. I thought it was cute, in a twisted kind of way.”

  “Cute as in ‘look at that cute little dork’?”

  Justin shrugged, grinning. “More like cute as in ‘look at that cute guy wearing the goofy hat.’ But I’ve always had a thing for men in uniform.”

  It was the first really gay thing Justin had said all day. They’d been having so much fun that for whole minutes at a time Sam had stopped wondering if what they were on was a date, or if Justin thought Sam was gay, or if Justin even cared. As for Sam, he’d reached a surprisingly comfortable place in his mind where he was admitting—to himself, anyway—that he cared. He liked Justin. And not just in a you’re-cool-let’s-hang-out kind of way. He liked Justin a lot. And, most surprisingly, he found himself not caring whether or not anyone looking at them saw them as a “couple.”

  When Sam had opened the front door at noon, he’d immediately started laughing, because there was Justin, come to do the cheesy tourist thing and dressed exactly like a cheesy tourist. He wore Bermuda shorts, a T-shirt that said FLORIDA NUT (next to a little picture of a walnut on a beach towel), a sun visor, and a pair of cheap-looking, bright-yellow sunglasses. He even had a swipe of sunblock on the bridge of his nose. “I thought I’d dress the part,” he’d said. Then he’d peered at Sam over the top of the sunglasses. “If anyone asks, we’re from Hackensack.”

  Sam had worn a plain T-shirt and jeans, along with his running shoes (he wanted Justin to know he was a runner; the journalist/jock thing seemed like it might be an impressive combo). But now his outfit felt boring. To make up for it, he ducked into a souvenir shop after they left the fort and bought a ridiculous orange hat that was shaped like a thimble. He put it on and pulled it halfway down his nose, until he was looking through two circles of clear green plastic that had been cut into the brim.

  “That’s so sick!” Justin said, grinning. “It’s perfect!”

  “Where to next?”

  “Lunch. I’m starving.”

  They climbed back into Justin’s car—a dinged-up white Mustang he called the Chalkmobile—and drove to a fish place in the heart of Old Town that had a walk-up window and cement tables outside.

  “I’ve never eaten a soft-shell crab,” Sam said, squinting at the menu board through the hat’s green eyeholes. “Isn’t that crazy? I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never had one.”

  “Don’t! I watched my dad make them once, and it was horrible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because do you know what you have to do to prepare them? You have to cut their faces off. Then you roll them in flour. Then you throw them into a pan of scalding oil, and when they start to cook, all covered in flour, they’re still moving,” Justin said, scrunching up his face.

  “Eeww.”

  “I couldn’t eat them. I probably wouldn’t eat anything but vegetables if I had to watch the slaughter.”

  “Melissa told me plants cry when they’re pulled out of the ground, but the human ear can’t hear it,” Sam said.

  “Shut up!”

  “I swear! She’s always looking for new things to be depressed about, and she found this article and read it to me over the phone.”

  “I really didn’t need to know that. And don’t you wonder how long it takes for a raw oyster to die in your stomach?”

  “What are you talking about? They’re dead when you eat them.”

  “Sorry, grasshopper. They’re alive. They only die when you chew them, or when you swallow them and your stomach acid starts churning.”

  “No way! That can’t be true! They’re not moving around when they get to your table.”

  “Because they’re oysters,” Justin said. “What are they supposed to do, walk down San Marco Avenue?” He slipped into a pantomime of an oyster, walking in place and waving his right hand, then his left, a worried expression on his face. Sam tipped his hat back on his head and started laughing.

  The woman behind the counter said, “If you’re gonna order, order. People are waiting.”

  They both turned around and saw a man and a woman staring at them, unamused. Justin pushed his yellow sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “Oh, hi!” he said. And then, “Sorry—we’re from Hackensack.”

  Sam burst out laughing all over again.

  They ate fish sandwiches at one of the concrete tables, beneath the shade of a canvas umbrella.

  “So,” Sam said, feeling suddenly brave, “tell me about Tommy.”

  “Tommy? I mentioned him, didn’t I? When we were online?”

  Sam nodded.

  “His name’s like a burp after a bad meal.”

  “Oh, well, we don’t have to talk about him. I was just…curious.”

  “No, it’s fine. Be curious. Tommy Tattenbaum. Quite a name, huh? I used to think it was cute. And to be honest, he was cute. Probably still is. He gave me this.” Justin pointed to the thin black rope bracelet around his wrist.

  S
am felt a faint stab of jealousy; he was already sorry he’d brought up the subject.

  “But he wasn’t a nice guy,” Justin clarified. “He seemed nice, for a while. We were boyfriends for about a year.”

  “A year. Wow.”

  “Yeah. It’s the longest I’ve ever dated anyone. We scandalized the high school.”

  “You were…out?”

  “Well,” Justin said, and took a sip of soda, “if out means showing up hand in hand at the junior prom, then yeah, we were out. He was a year older than me; I was only a sophomore. We had matching tuxes and we slow danced right alongside the class president and her date. Tommy really took a lot of flack for that, too. And I was dumb enough to think that if he took me to the prom, he must really love me. What a stupid deduction that was.”

  Sam was astounded. He felt like he’d just been born two seconds ago. Like he didn’t know anything at all about the world. He said, “Wow” again, around a bite of sandwich.

  “He actually looked me right in the eye during a football game one night and told me he’d realized he liked girls, not guys. Can you believe that? I just wanted to say, okay, so explain what’s been going on in your room after school every Wednesday when we’re supposed to be studying algebra.”

  “Did you say that?”

  “No. I wimped out. It immediately became one of those moments I started replaying in my head, thinking of all the things I should have said. But then I thought, you know? Follow your bliss, Tommy. See where it leads you. Ten years from now, you’ll be sitting there with a wife and a baby and you’ll be saying to yourself, I wonder where that guy Justin is? Anyway, if you look up whatever in an online dictionary and click on the link, it’ll take you to a picture of me and Tommy, standing in the bleachers at that football game.”

  Sam wanted to move on from the topic of Tommy. “Do you have other exes?”

  Justin smiled. “In the words of Hannibal Lecter, quid pro quo.”

  Sam had almost half his sandwich left. He stared at it, stalling, then wolfed it down in two bites. After he’d chewed and swallowed, he said, “I haven’t really…dated…anyone. Yet.”

  “Really? Not even a girl?”

  And there it was, tossed out onto the concrete table between them. Make-or-break time, Sam thought. This is the moment when you clarify what you are—and you’ve brought it on yourself, so don’t even pretend that you didn’t want it to happen—or the moment when, once again, you lie through your teeth. He’d been getting pretty good at that, lately.

  “Not even a girl,” he said, staring down at the napkin he’d wadded up in his hands.

  Justin was somehow right there with him, as if he were reading Sam’s thoughts. “And if you could have?”

  “Could have what?”

  “Dated either one, which would it have been?”

  “Oh. You mean…”

  The silence was loud. It was deafening. It contained the rustling of his napkin. The car noises. The shriek of a seagull overhead, probably hoping one of them would toss a piece of fish sandwich out from under the umbrella.

  “Yeah,” Justin said gently. “That’s what I meant—but we don’t have to go there. Quid pro nothing, okay? This is a zero-stress day.” He reached out and tapped Sam’s hat so that it dropped over his eyes. “Let’s go to the Ripley Museum.”

  It was crowded. They had to park at the far end of the parking lot and then wait in line to get inside the castle. But it was worth it. Justin said, “Oh, my god!” in a voice that sounded genuinely surprised when they saw the floating water spigot, which made everyone in the immediate vicinity laugh. Then Justin and Sam started playing off each other like a comedy duo, feigning amazement when they saw Beauregard the six-legged cow, the miniature replica of Big Ben made out of matchsticks, the statue of the man who’d turned his body into a candlestick holder. By the time they teetered through the revolving tunnel, the people around them were sick of their act, but they still made each other laugh.

  They went from there to the Fountain of Youth. Then they drove back downtown and walked around the City Gate and the Spanish Quarter. They rode the trolley. They toured the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse and Potter’s Wax Museum.

  It was getting dark and they were both out of money by the time they reached Gatorland, but Justin wanted to at least go inside and see the gift shop. With his sunglasses still perched over his nose and his visor pulled down low over his forehead, he said to the man who sold the tickets, “We’re from Hackensack. We love parrots. Do you have parrots in your show—the kind that ride little motorcycles around and wear helmets?”

  “No,” the man said. “We don’t.”

  “You don’t?” He turned to Sam. “They don’t have the parrots.”

  “I, for one, am shocked,” Sam said, looking through the green plastic disks of his hat.

  “‘I, for one,’” Justin repeated when they were back in the Mustang. “That was hysterical.” He started the car and slid a CD into the stereo.

  “What’s this?” Sam asked when the music started.

  “Scissor Sisters. Do you know them?”

  “No.”

  “They’re great,” Justin said. “They’re Elton John meets the Bee Gees meets…Little Richard.” He reached over and took hold of Sam’s hand, twisting it playfully as he sang, “Take your ma-ma out all night!” A full verse of the song played before he let go of Sam’s hand. They drove onto A1A and headed back toward Old Town.

  As they turned into Sam’s neighborhood, a pair of headlights splashed across the Mustang’s windshield, and the oncoming car sped around them in a blur of silver, its tires squealing against the road. “Stop sign much?” Justin asked, frowning into his rearview mirror.

  He reached Sam’s house and pulled into the driveway. They idled for a moment. Then Justin killed the lights and shut off the engine.

  “So,” he said, “that was a lot of fun.”

  “Yeah, it was great.”

  “Do you want to do this again sometime? Not the tourist thing—I think I’ve had my fill of the Old World for a while—but, you know, just hang out or something?”

  “Definitely,” Sam said.

  Justin had already taken off his sunglasses. He reached up now and removed his visor. Sam pulled the thimble-shaped cap off his head and held it in his lap. “Good,” Justin said. “I’m glad to hear it.” He fell quiet for a few moments. He stared forward at the steering wheel. “So, this is the kind of thing that used to get me into trouble back in Dayton, but I can’t help it, I’m a forward guy.”

  “What is it?” Sam asked.

  “Well, today has sort of felt like a…date.” He glanced quickly at Sam. “And I know you haven’t really committed to going to my church or anything, but—”

  “What church do you go to?”

  “Never mind. It’s an expression. What I mean is, I’d kind of like to kiss you right now. Like, a good-night kiss. Would that be okay?”

  Sam felt his heart thumping hard. He glanced toward the house. Teddy’s car wasn’t in the driveway, thankfully (though, as Sam had learned, that didn’t necessarily mean Teddy wasn’t there), and all the windows were dark. “Sure,” he said, his voice trembling around this one syllable.

  There would be more talk at this point, he thought. You’re really sure? Yeah, I’m sure. Because if you’re not—but Justin was already leaning across the gap between the bucket seats, his eyes focused on Sam’s mouth. Sam hesitated, then eased his head forward.

  This is the part of the movie where the audience screams, “Faggots!” he thought. But he didn’t care. His lips were jumping around clumsily, but then Justin’s started guiding them, until their mouths were moving easily against each other. He felt Justin’s hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

  A few moments later, Justin pulled back. Here came the talk Sam had expected earlier. “Is this okay with you?” Justin asked. “I want you to tell me if it isn’t. We have to both want to do this.”

  Sam couldn’t think of wha
t to say to convey how very much he wanted to do this. So he reached up and put a hand on the back of Justin’s neck and pulled him forward. This time, when their lips opened, their tongues slid against each other. Sam felt the kiss all the way down to his feet. It was like his entire body was having a conversation with Justin’s body, though they were barely even touching.

  When they parted, maybe a minute later, he glanced at the house.

  The curtains were drawn back on one side of the living-room window. A figure wearing a long ROOF-SMART T-shirt was standing there, staring at them. Hannah! Shit! How in the world was he going to explain this to her? And how was he going to keep her quiet?

  But an instant later he realized it was worse. Because it wasn’t Hannah standing at the window. It wasn’t even Teddy (which would have been bad enough). It was his mom.

  “Oh, no,” he heard himself say weakly.

  “Oh, no, what?” Justin asked, reaching up to brush a strand of hair from Sam’s forehead.

  Sam knocked his hand away. “Don’t!” He wanted to duck down beneath the dashboard. He wanted to vanish from the face of the Earth. She was no longer standing at the window, or at least couldn’t be seen there. Justin’s other hand was resting on his chest. Sam knocked this away, too. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he managed to say, barely noticing the confused expression that had taken over Justin’s face.

  “What are you talking about?” Justin asked.

  Sam opened the passenger door—but what was he going to do now? Go into the house? Not likely. He looked down at his feet, at the running shoes he’d worn because he’d wanted to impress Justin. Well, Justin was certainly going to see Sam as a runner now. Without another word, and without looking back, he got out and walked quickly away from both the car and the house.

  When he reached the foot of the driveway, he started to run.