Freestyle Love

by Marcus Lopes

  There was a silence.

  “Do you remember that night at Urbane when you asked me if I thought there people in the world who were really happy? I think there are some people who are happy. Right now, I’m not one of them.”

  Cole lifted his gaze. “What would it take to make you happy?”

  “I don’t know.” Malachi spoke softly. “I still need some time to sort things out.”

  Cole’s heart raced, a wave of angst galvanizing his body. “I want you to come home.”

  The phone rang again, and when it stopped ringing, Malachi said, “You’re not hearing me, Cole.”

  Sarah rushed into the dining room, tears streaming down her face. “There’s been an accident,” she managed to get out. “Joshua’s hurt.”

  Malachi stood and went over to Sarah and cupped his hand to her shoulder. He was unexpectedly moved by her tears, and said, “Let’s get you to the hospital. I’m sure Joshua’s fine.” Malachi went up the stairs, which he took two at a time, and grabbed his wallet from his room. When Malachi came back downstairs Cole had his arm wrapped around Sarah, consoling her. Malachi had wanted to say to Cole, “Maybe we could continue this later,” but said instead, “We should go,” and looked on, distressed, as Cole stayed glued to Sarah, walking her to the car and helping her into the front seat. Malachi locked the front door and took a couple of deep breaths as Cole slammed closed the back passenger side door and fastened his seatbelt. Malachi eventually made himself comfortable behind the steering wheel of Sarah’s black Lexus, and once he had adjusted the seat and mirrors, navigated the car towards the hospital, swerving in and out of traffic.

  At the hospital, they sat in the emergency room waiting area for word on Joshua’s condition. It was unclear what had happened. All they knew was that Joshua had been driving his stepfather’s car when the accident occurred.

  “Sarah…” A tall man walked towards Sarah. “Any word on —”

  “Nothing yet,” Sarah said, whimpering.

  Malachi stood and said, “Good to see you, Mitch, despite the circumstances,” as they shook hands.

  “Likewise.” Mitch was Sarah’s second husband.

  “This is Cole.” Malachi looked on awkwardly as Cole shook hands with Mitch.

  Mitch, his light-blue eyes filled with concern, sat down next to Sarah and held her hand. Mitch then wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. Sarah rested her head on Mitch’s shoulder. Malachi, seated opposite Mitch and Sarah, studied them with curiosity. Their faces carried their concern, and the way they were connected to each other — Sarah held in Mitch’s strong, protective arms — suggested that they still held some type of affinity for each other. If love was, in fact, a saving force, why had they not been able to save themselves? Or had Joshua become the bond that managed to hold them close? Mitch, after all, had been more of a father to Joshua than Barry Preston, Joshua’s biological father. In fact, Joshua was living with him since his house was close to Saint Mary’s University, where Joshua was studying.

  Cole and Malachi sat next to each other staring straight ahead. Malachi had avoided eye contact with Cole since they arrived at the hospital. It was as though Malachi had annexed Cole from his life, and to be near Cole again was awkward, like two guilt-ridden lovers secretly rekindling an affair, unable to stop themselves. Malachi caught a glimpse of Cole’s hand slowly moving towards his, ready to grab hold, and Malachi stood and paced the waiting room area.

  “Ms. Bishop,” came the call from near the admitting desk. “Ms. Sarah Bishop.”

  Cole moved to help Sarah to stand. Sarah looped one arm through Cole’s and the other through Mitch’s, and together they followed a nurse into a room a short distance away and were told that the doctor would be with them shortly. Malachi had followed them at a distance, trying to quell his suspicion of Cole and to understand Cole’s motives. Why had Cole shown up now? If Cole really wanted Malachi to come home, as he said he did, why hadn’t Cole called, made some type of play earlier? Malachi was standing at the far end of the room when the doctor appeared to announce the good news. A broken leg and two bruised ribs were the extent of Joshua’s injuries, although the broken leg would require surgery.

  Malachi went over to Sarah and said, “I told you he’d be fine,” and squeezed her shoulder.

  Sarah placed her hand on top of Malachi’s. “Go and talk to him.” She spoke in a hushed voice. “Try and talk things through.”

  Malachi pulled his hand away. “I’ll stay until Joshua’s out of surgery.”

  Sarah pushed her chair back from the table and stood. She took Malachi by the arm and led him to the far end of the room. “Mitch is here, and I’ll be fine. You need to talk to Cole. You said you had to deal with this, so deal with it.” She sighed, looking hopelessly at her brother. “Don’t let this drag on any longer. It’s all right if it’s over, but he deserves to know that so both of you can move on with your lives. But if you want to work it out —”

  “Fine,” Malachi said, curt, and started to walk away. “Call me and I’ll come get you.”

  “I have my mother’s car,” Mitch said. “I’ll make sure she gets home.”

  Malachi stood with his lips pursed and made a sort of grunting sound that Cole seemed to understand. Malachi watched, with an unexpected sense of dread, as Sarah and Cole hugged each other. It was as though an instant and unbreakable bond had been forged between Sarah and Cole despite the fact that this was the first time they had met. They had spoken to each other briefly on the phone when Sarah called on Malachi’s birthday, but Malachi had managed to keep them separate. Were they conspiring together? Malachi left the room and waited for Cole in the corridor.

  When Cole appeared a short time later, Malachi looked at him coolly, and with disbelief. Who did Cole think he was imposing himself into this family situation? Did Cole know how impertinent that was? Malachi slowly moved off and Cole followed, keeping a few feet between him and Malachi as they made their way to Sarah’s car. Maybe I’m wasting my time. Cole fastened his seatbelt and stole a sidelong glance of Malachi, who seemed to do everything possible to avoid looking at him. Am I that reprehensible? Has Malachi lost the ability to forgive? Cole dropped his gaze, feeling a deep sense of loss.

  They returned to Sarah’s home, embalmed in silence. Was Sarah right? Could Malachi and Cole talk things through? Malachi wasn’t so sure. Wasn’t he the one playing games now? If he and Cole were damaged, as Malachi thought they were, whose fault was it really? Malachi had played a more important role there than Cole. But it was more than them being damaged. Malachi had changed, as if he had been infiltrated by some other force. Did Cole recognize him when Malachi couldn’t recognize himself? Cole stood in front of the living room sofa, and Malachi contemplated Cole from the foyer — the knee-length khaki shorts, the light-blue T-shirt that hugged Cole’s chest, the trim beard. How could Malachi want him when there wasn’t truth between them? Desire was still a powerful force that easily dominated Malachi, compelled him into submission. Malachi, wanting to speak but unsure of what to say, went into the kitchen.

  Cole, stowed away in the living room, studied the photographs hanging on the walls or on display in bookcases. There was a photo of Joshua as a baby. One of Sarah and Mitch. Another of Sarah and Joshua with Mitch. There was a newspaper clipping that featured a picture of Malachi after his Giller nomination. He stared the longest at the photo of Sarah and Malachi with their parents. Malachi was perhaps six in the photo, grinning. There was something mysterious in Malachi’s eyes that Cole could see when he looked at Malachi now.

  There was something suspicious about the photos, spread throughout the room, that unnerved Cole. Perhaps it was the fact that Cole still felt a deep local pain because of his estrangement from his own family. It was as though the photos were a charade, an illusion, that he saw straight through — that the concept of family had been lost, neutralized. Were Malachi and Sarah play-acting? Was Cole? When Cole thought about family he automatically associated it with ho
me, surrounded by the people who encouraged him, nurtured his dreams, lifted him up when he was down, stood by him when the world abandoned him, loved him unconditionally. And in home and family there was Malachi — the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle sliding into place. There was a sense of peace and calm, of absolute rightness about the world. Cole wasn’t prepared to give up, to let it all slip away.

  Malachi walked through the dining room to the living room and stared at Cole, who was fingering the photo of him with Sarah and their parents. Malachi cleared his throat. When Cole turned to look at him, he said, “Lunch is ready,” and left the room.

  Cole sighed, slid his hands into his pockets and followed Malachi, who headed for the kitchen. Malachi motioned to Cole to pick up his lunch from off the counter and Malachi, carrying a plate and a glass, made his way to the back door. Malachi went out onto the back veranda and sat down at the patio table. Cole followed.

  They sat across from each other, eyes roving, sneaking glances of the other as they ate a lunch of roast beef sandwiches and slices of cucumber in a ginger vinaigrette. Malachi fixed his eyes on Cole’s narrow blue eyes gleaming the same unremitting desire and hopeful friendship that danced in Cole’s eyes the first time they met. Malachi took a deep breath and pushed it out slowly through his nose.

  Cole cut a slice of cucumber in half, and then set his fork and knife down on the plate. He stared abstractly at Malachi. “I don’t know what’s happening between us. I don’t know what to say to prove to you just how much I love you.” He picked up his fork and popped a piece of cucumber into his mouth, and chewed slowly. “Sometimes I feel like we don’t see each other enough, and that it would be easier, easier for us, if you worked closer to home.”

  “I’m not leaving the college,” Malachi said, curt. “I love my work, and I love my students.”

  “But the commute —”

  “Two days a week I spend three hours going between the house and the college. It gives me time to think, to decompress.” Malachi leaned forward slightly. “You’re on the road a lot too, and despite the travelling we do because of our careers, we managed, for a time, to make it work.” He shrugged. “But something’s changed, Cole.”

  “I know something’s changed.” Cole’s tone was harsh. “Everything changed when you…” He sat back in his chair and held his gaze to his plate. “I’m sorry. I just think…” He lifted his gaze to Malachi. “It just makes sense for you to be closer to home.”

  Malachi looked away. Was it possible that Malachi and Cole were arrested by the illusion of the concept that they held of themselves? How long could that illusion hold them hostage? They were tittering on the brink of their own undoing, or had they already been completely undone? Neither of them knew for certain. But it was a question that weighed heavy on Malachi’s heart. Living was, after all, a lifelong task of selfing, becoming, stepping into one’s own. For them to be undone meant that Malachi had suffered a sort of unselfing that removed everything that he had worked so hard for, believed in. Malachi could not risk losing himself — not now — and he would not voluntarily surrender to such an unselfing without first performing some kind of self-redeeming act. “Self-redemption is the truest saving forceknown to man,” Malachi thought, now looking directly at Cole. Malachi rested his arms on the table. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Stop being so selfish!” Cole drove his fist into the table top. “I’m trying to find a way for this to work. My life has been on hold for the last two months and I’m really tired of that feeling. I’m tired of feeling like everything’s a test with you.”

  “I’m not testing you,” Malachi shot back and then, with emphasis, “nor am I trying to be difficult.”

  “I think you are trying to be difficult, like when we first met.”

  Malachi licked his dry lips and looked in Cole’s direction but not at him. “Love’s a bit like religion. It doesn’t matter how it’s lost just that it is lost.” He looked coolly at Cole. “You look for that saving force elsewhere.”

  Cole scratched the side of his head. “Don’t you mean love is like faith? It’s not religion that’s lost, it’s our faith.” Drumming his fingers into the table, he added in a darker tone, “But you’ve never believed in God the Father or God the Son. To you, religion is mysticism, a fabrication, unreal. Faith is the saving force. Faith is what saves.”

  Malachi smirked. “Religion and faith, they go hand in hand. It’s hard to have one without the other.”

  “You could say the same thing about love and forgiveness.” Cole leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, and then said, “You need to tell me what you want from me.”

  “I never said I wanted anything from you, Cole.”

  Cole sighed annoyance. “I like to think that love is like faith, and just like faith, love is sometimes tested. When the test is over, and we’ve overcome, we’re stronger in our faith. It proves then that faith, just like love, endures.”

  Malachi shrugged indifference. “Maybe I don’t believe in some divine being, or maybe it’s that I don’t believe in your concept of God as the great supplier of all needs. Or maybe it’s that I think about faith as the substance of things hoped for.” He stared abstractly at Cole. “But that really has nothing to do with us.” He stood and began clearing away the lunch dishes. Malachi went into the house, and Cole followed. As Malachi set the dishes in the sink Cole grabbed him by the arm and swung him around so that they were face-to-face.

  Cole ran his hands up and down Malachi’s arms. “It’s too easy to welcome the end of us without considering seriously what it means.”

  “I don’t want us to stay together because staying is easier,” Malachi said askance. “I don’t want to have to play a part.”

  “Neither do I!” Cole tightened his grip on Malachi’s arms but withdrew his hands when Malachi let out a quiet ouch. “I’m sorry.” He backed away and leaned against the counter, his arms folded across his chest, and stared at the floor. “Why did you leave like that?”

  Malachi said, “I shouldn’t have left the way I did,” with remorse, “I know that. But I —”

  “But you what?”

  Malachi dropped his gaze and breathed deeply. “I just… I didn’t…” He did not know why he could not speak, that all of a sudden he couldn’t utter a word to the man he used to speak to so easily. Malachi mistakenly thought that things had changed so drastically between them, so quickly, but deep within him he knew the change had been progressive, one they both wanted to deny. “I didn’t know how to talk to you. Like now.” He hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know when it happened but we stopped talking. We stopped doing everything together.” He pursed his lips. “Maybe I should have waited before moving in with you. Maybe I should have insisted that we get a place together. You want me to come home but it’s your house. I’m reminded of that every day.”

  Cole looked at Malachi. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. I don’t know if you’re unhappy because of what happened with Jeremy or that I asked you to consider working closer to home.”

  “You did more than ask me to consider,” Malachi said primly. “You badgered and badgered and badgered without listening to me. Then you laughed in my face when I suggested we move to Claredon.”

  “Most of my clients were in Toronto. It didn’t make sense.” Cole froze as he took in Malachi’s harsh look of disbelief. “I get it now.”

  “I don’t think you do.” Malachi rinsed the dirty lunch dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher.

  Cole moved to beside Malachi. “Then tell me what it is that I’m not getting. Don’t speak to me in code.”

  Malachi slammed closed the door to the dishwasher. “What do you want me to do? Fuck!” He turned his head away. “It’s like talking to a two-year-old.” He left the room.

  “Sometimes the things you say are so hurtful,” Cole said as Malachi walked out. Cole’s breathing was shallow, his heart racing, the anger swelling inside of him and set to explode. His hands
were shaking. He followed Malachi into the living room and pushed him down onto the fuchsia suede sofa. There was a long silence as Cole glared at Malachi. Cole looked deep into Malachi’s eyes as if trying to unearth some truth, some inkling of understanding, search out Malachi’s core. Cole wanted to kiss Malachi, taste the sweetness of his breath, but the wide-eyed look that Malachi shot at him compelled Cole to recoil, push away. Was Malachi afraid of him?

  “I’m sorry.” Cole laughed sheepishly. “It seems like the only thing I know how to say today.”

  Malachi said, “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Zach Brennan. Do you remember me telling you about him? The student who killed himself…”

  “The one you were in love with,” Cole said coolly.

  “Yes,” was Malachi’s curt response. “He saw living as ‘hell,’ and I understand now what he meant. I don’t think we see what we’re really doing here. It’s like we keep treading water without learning to swim.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what I thought happiness would be, or how long it would endure. I suppose I thought, naively, that it would last forever.”

  Cole said, “Why can’t it last forever?” and reached for Malachi’s hand. “This really doesn’t have to be an end.”

  “But it is. It’s the end of what we used to be.” Malachi stood, and once he was able to wiggle his hand free of Cole’s tight grasp, folded his arms. With his back to Cole, Malachi said, “Happiness, whatever it was, it’s been smashed. You and Jeremy —”

  “You keep blaming me for this.” Cole’s eyes narrowed. “But what about you?”

  Malachi turned around and looked nervously at Cole. Did Cole know about him and Chad? Of course not. How could Cole know? Malachi went on the offence. “I didn’t get caught fucking around.”

  “What does that mean?” There was a silence. Cole stood, and in a harsh tone, said, “I’m surprised you even noticed that we stopped doing anything together eight months ago. Sex. Dinner. Groceries. It’s like you were doing everything possible to avoid me!” He licked his lips, and added in a darker tone, “You’re always too fucking busy with your writing and teaching, and it’s like you try to squeeze me in in-between classes.” He clasped his hands behind his back, then folded them across his chest, and then shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you know what it’s like for me when we go out to dinner or a movie and people are always coming up to you and asking for an autograph? Don’t get me wrong,” he drawled, and took in a deep breath, “I’m happy for your success. I just feel like I’m second-rate, that I’ve attended faithfully to your needs, your career, while sacrificing my will to yours.” He hunched his shoulders forward. “Perhaps I haven’t been as demanding as I should have been, that I should have learned to be more independent than dependent.” Cole’s voice was shaky, unsteady. “I’ve become your silly plastic shadow.” They looked intently at each other, and both of them had tears in their eyes. Malachi took a step forward and stopped as Cole slid his hands out of his pockets and cupped them to Malachi’s smooth face. “You believe in truth. You don’t believe in the Zach Brennan concept of hell. You see happiness here, in the now.”