by L. A. Fields
“It’s only the third confirmed finding of a nesting ground in the records, and it’s the most recent one for years, scholars thought the birds were dying out because they weren’t breeding anywhere. Dr. Woodrow is going to help me get a paper published in a journal somewhere, it’s actually a real discovery.”
Ray is listening to all this across the table from Noah at a diner staffed with improv actors whose job it is to insult you inoffensively as they seat and serve you. He and Ray were supposed to meet a third party here, but their friend bailed at the last minute, and so now they’re on what their waitress characterizes as, “Wow, one of you must be a cheap date.” Noah hoped that Ray’s policy of never being seen alone in public together wouldn’t follow them home, that what happened in Michigan would stay in Michigan, but Ray insists on keeping it going in Chicago too.
And yet, here they are! Their friend Ricky, someone they both knew the year before the transfer to Michigan by virtue of having the same law-ish pre-requisites to take, cancelled on them for some reason attached to his new girlfriend. That is awkward enough, especially after the way their waitress teased them, but now Noah’s been jabbering incessantly about a birding trip that Ray has never shown interest in. He admits that to Ray, in an attempt to segue into a more mutual conversation.
“I’ve been talking a blue streak, haven’t I?” Noah asks. Ray probably wishes they had more food on the table, since Noah won’t talk and chew at the same time (he was raised with manners).
“What’s the origin of the phrase ‘blue streak,’ is it a speed trail thing?” Ray asks. He’s attempting a better conversation too, if he’s asking Noah about his other obsessive hobby.
“I feel like it’s got to do with lightning? I don’t know,” Noah says.
Ray pulls out his phone to look it up, and that’s when the waitress reapproaches, leans her elbows on the table in an overly ingratiating manner, and says to Noah, “I’d ask if you two wanted a dessert, but with the way he’s ignoring you, it must not be going so well. You want an Ed Debevic’s paper hat to color like we give to the kids?”
That makes Ray yelp a laugh without looking up from his phone. “How about one banana split with two spoons so I can make it up to him?”
“You got it, Toots,” she says, shooting two fake finger guns at them both like she’s doing a Yosemite Sam impression.
Noah thinks about asking, What happened to the no couple’s behavior policy? But he doesn’t have the training to tease without affronting like the waitress does, and he doesn’t want to question something that pleases him so much anyway.
“I can’t find any answer for sure,” Ray says, finally dropping the phone from his face. “It’s an Americanism though.”
“That makes sense, we’re a very clever and inventive people when it comes to language.”
“So what about executing that frat project the night of the homecoming game? The guys get extra sloppy on nights like that. Stuff’s unlocked, strangers are coming and going, and everyone’s too drunk to keep track of their valuables.”
“Whatever you want,” Noah says, hoping Ray gets bored of the idea or can’t schedule it right. Noah doesn’t want to rob that frat house, there’s nothing worth having in there except for Ray, whom he’s already regained. Ray assumed that Noah was in for really doing it when he answered him flippantly about the idea at the bus stop, and if Noah tries to take that assurance away from Ray, he’ll spoil the good bond they have going again.
“I want way more than that,” Ray says as their banana split arrives with two spoons spooning bowls in the middle.
“Enjoy or don’t, I don’t give a flip,” the waitress says as she sets it down.
“You eat it, I don’t like fruit on my ice cream,” Ray says, getting up. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom.”
Noah watches him very closely as he goes, free to stare as long as Ray’s back is to him, because otherwise Ray’s taken to scolding Noah a bit about how long he looks, and how intensely. Ray still thinks Noah’s the only reason there are rumors about them, like it doesn’t take two to tango.
It would be a lot more annoying for Noah to be condescended to like that if he didn’t catch himself snapping in and out of trances while watching Ray. Noah can’t really argue with what’s true, regardless of whether or not he likes it.
Noah waves down the waitress.
“Hey, we have to go, and we didn’t touch this,” Noah says about their dessert. “Obviously we’ll still pay for it, but maybe you’ve got another table that’ll want it.”
“Maybe,” she says. “One check or two?”
So she really can’t tell if they’re together or not, that’s funny; neither can Noah half the time.
5
THE PLAN IS THIS: RAY has engineered it so his frat brothers aren’t expecting him until after homecoming weekend. Ray’s taking only classes that meet one day a week, and he’s already starting this school year off with the right foot forward by skipping the first day (nothing vital is ever covered on the first day). That means he’ll have to sneak onto his own campus, and into his own house, late at night after the game and the libations have put everyone’s lights out. This will present Ray as the only one with a totally unassailable alibi, which means he will get to be the detective when he officially returns the following Monday and the boys all tell him the wild news: we’ve been robbed.
“Are you excited?” Ray asks Noah as he hops into the passenger seat just around sunset. It’s at least a four hour drive, they’ll do it in shifts, take their time, arrive on campus in Noah’s car (one that won’t be recognized as associated with Ray to ensure that he remains above suspicion), and stake out the frat houses, maybe find another candidate for robbery as they lurk and wait. Noah got rejected by at least one frat house, surely he wouldn’t mind injuring them back.
“Stoked,” Noah says grumpily. Ray has given him every incentive in the world to actually go through with this. (1) Noah can keep literally anything they take, money especially, no matter the amount. (2) Should anything go wrong they’ve already thought of an escape hatch—Noah will say he is in Michigan to stop Ray from a fake theft prank, and Ray will admit to that, he’s promised. (3) That whole cocksucker rumor got started because of Ray’s transition into Greek life, and Ray has told Noah (as even more payment for accompanying him) that they can actually give it a try if he wants to. And he does seem to want to, so that’s another upcoming adventure. Maybe he’ll have more skill at it than what’s-her-face did, and Ray will actually enjoy himself. Weirder things have happened.
The setting sun, though it’s no brilliant tropical Technicolor sheet, looks pretty impressive to Ray. The sky is only pink for a minute before that autumnal gray sky snuffs it out, but Ray’s akindle with anticipation, he feels like he’s crackling with electricity.
“Can you stop bouncing around over there?” Noah asks him at the state line between Illinois and Indiana. “Your foot’s been jumping constantly for like an hour, it’s driving me fucking crackers.”
Ray laughs, steps on one foot with the other, and then starts drumming his fingers. The energy has to go somewhere so it doesn’t burst him open. Noah rolls his big eyes and presses his left temple like he’s trying to quash a headache.
“Pull over and let me drive for a while,” Ray says. “That’ll keep me busy.”
“No, you’ll just speed and then I’ll get a ticket.”
“You don’t have to be so nervous. We planned for every contingency, you said so yourself, you said that this is a perfect crime.”
“Everyone in prison right now probably said the same thing at some point.”
“Oh, calm down, this isn’t even a prison sort of crime. It’s a prank, remember? If we get caught, we were just kidding.”
“Yeah, you know, just because we’re doing it, that doesn’t mean we have to talk about it.”
And so Ray stops talking about it. Sourpuss over there is starting to ruin the magic that Ray can’t come by as easily as h
e used to. This trip took weeks of cajoling, months of planning, and can’t ever happen again—it’s a one shot only opportunity, and he can’t let Noah taint it.
When they cross into Michigan, Noah is still driving, he wouldn’t let go of control long enough for Ray to take a turn. No matter to Ray; he can just take the wheel for the return trip, as if it matters. They park on a dark visitor’s lot full of cars and plastic party cups and the detritus of sporting hoopla: cigarette butts and cheap streamers and torn support signs and dropped food.
Ray leaps out like he’s come home to a kingdom and a parade, he’s so happy they’ve finally arrived. He drags Noah on at least an hour of fast-paced walking and prowling through the fraternity streets. It’s another hour before any of the houses even start to go quiet, and 2 AM before Noah will let Ray head for the door.
Ray wants to break in through a window, but the front door’s ajar, it would just be stupid not to use it. Everyone sleeps on the second floor, so Noah and Ray trawl through the ground level: three wallets, one Hermes wristwatch, Ray grabs a beer, and Noah takes a laptop. That’s going to hurt whoever left it downstairs, but maybe not so badly. Depending on who the owner is, he might be grateful for the excuse to get an extension on his homework. Ray will be sure to tell whomever it is to look on the bright side when he returns on Monday.
They stash their loot in Noah’s car and take one more stroll through the Greek row part of the neighborhood.
“Okay, that wasn’t so bad,” Noah says.
“What about that house that dissed you, let’s check to see if they leave their doors open!”
“We don’t know the layout of that house,” Noah says, but Ray remembers which one it was, and he remembers that he once thought it was too close to him when Noah mentioned it back during their rough patch.
“Come on, look,” Ray says, his voice a thrilled whisper even though they’re on an empty street with no one in hearing distance at all. “That’s an open window, just go snag something out of it, you’ll be happy you did once you’re back in Chicago, please? Don’t you think it’s always better to regret something done than something left undone—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Noah grumbles as he veers suddenly into the yard of the house, reaches to pluck something out of the window, and returns immediately to Ray’s side. “If you’re going to get so philosophical, here, happy?”
He hands Ray a TV’s remote control, and Ray almost reaches full hysteria just looking at it, just imagining those guys never being able to find the remote again, blaming each other, never even once considering they were robbed of such a small, insignificant item.
“You always make me happy,” he says through laughing gasps, wiping at his leaking eyes.
And through the blear Ray sees that this comment finally gets Noah to smile. It’s the first time he’s smiled all night.
6
NOAH WISHES HE COULD TAKE a picture of this whole ride home from Michigan, from this most recent felony. If all of Ray’s simpering, shallow friends could see the boy like this, they’d understand why he has only one close friend, and why that friend is so strange. Even Noah’s brothers might understand, for though they want the best for their youngest baby bro, they still think that Ray’s somehow too good for him. Nobody ever sees Ray under the full crush of a desire achieved, and thus gone forever.
Ray is still in the passenger seat, slumped so far down he’d be on the floor if a seatbelt wasn’t holding him up. Noah wouldn’t let him drive during the approach because his jittery form of quickness—so charming in small doses, like the way he bounds into rooms or drums with his silverware—was on the dangerous end of the scale: shaky hands that couldn’t hold a cigarette even if Noah would let him smoke one in the car, and a tapping foot so fast and violent it made parts of the car vibrate out of tune with the engine. That excitement Ray has is easy for him to contain within normal societal parameters most of the time, but the downswing of that height is this: he looks like a puppet with no tension in his strings.
Noah reaches for the radio, but Ray heaves up enough energy to swat Noah away from the dashboard. Noah feels his lips purse, tries not to hold it against the boy because these sorts of slumps happen to all the greatest men, real and fictional. Noah tries to amuse Ray with an anecdote about one character he particularly likes.
“You know, maybe you are more like Sherlock Holmes than I am, he was the same way after he solved a case, manic to the point of self-destruction, and then bottomlessly empty, incommunicado.”
Ray looks over at him, and becomes communicado enough to pull out the cigarettes he was begging Noah to smoke on the first side of the trip, and lights one even though he knows he’s not allowed.
Noah sighs, and sneezes hazardously at the wheel of a long drive, which just makes him more frustrated with Ray’s weakness. For being the most remarkable person Noah has ever met, he’s still far from perfect.
“If you’re going to be an asshole after I’ve done everything you wanted all night, at least open a window.” Noah uses the driver’s side controls to put down the passenger and back seat windows, then flips the switch that locks out the passenger side’s controls so Ray can’t change the configuration.
“Don’t pretend you did it out of the goodness of your heart, you expect payment.”
“You agreed to an exchange, the same as I did. We’re both over eighteen now, we’re finally adults all over the world, I expect both of us to be able to act as such.”
“The way you talk is unbelievably pompous. Are you so afraid people won’t believe you’re studying law that you have to talk like you’re in front of a judge?”
Ray tries to blow smoke into Noah’s face, even though the wind through the car is strong enough to carry it away. It’s just a sign of disrespect. Eighteen or not, he looks more like a child than ever; a resentful sneer on his face and moonlight bleaching his hair to the point that he has a crown like a Long-Tailed Tyrant. He’s dipping his head in and out of the open window, probably enjoying the feel of the breeze on a great night for him, all while Noah chauffeurs him around with a cough now, another reaction to the smoke.
“No wonder your mother can’t stand you,” Noah tells him, sad more than angry at this point. “You get everything you want and still act like a brat.”
“So why did your mother like me so much? What was she, stupid?”
“She liked you because I like you. And she didn’t know you like I do, she never met you like this.”
Ray snorts out the last puff of his cigarette like a raging bull and returns to a properly seated position. After about a mile of silence, hopefully some reflective time where Ray is appreciating that even during a fight Noah manages to like him at his worst, Ray snaps slightly out of it.
“Unlock the passenger controls, let me roll up the windows, it’s fucking cold.”
Noah does this, and Ray seals the car back up. Then he turns on the heat and the radio in apology.
“I just don’t know what I can do after this,” Ray confesses. “Arson and robbery and burglary: done. So now what? Kidnapping, rape, murder? Where do I go from here?” This is what’s bothering him, Noah knows. He’s got the same problem on his side of the deal—after what Noah wants to try on Ray for this crime, another step further would be pretty extreme. It’s a problem they warn every new law student about, in fact: never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to. It’s a rule that serves one well in a courtroom, but out here in the wilds of life? It’s not even what Ray says to avoid telling Noah how lackluster his other sexual exploits are: If you have to ask, you’ll never know. Noah should have called bullshit on that tired line, because that’s never been true between the two of them. You have to ask, and risk embarrassment and refusal, otherwise you’ll never know how disappointing even getting what you want can be.
And yet even on this unsatisfactory ride home, Noah would rather regret the things he’s done than regret never even trying, Ray was right with that cliché tonight.
Ray believes in that too, he has that same sort of courage, and that’s why they still put up with each other.
7
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, RAY RETURNS to Michigan. He drives the four hours alone, with his own car full of clothes and technology, chain-smoking with the reckless abandon of being able to set his own limits, which is why he overdoes it, and arrives back at the ZBT house feeling sort of faint and sick. On a normal day, at least two people would have told him he’s looking green around the gills, especially since he actually did fall into a faint on initiation day, mostly due to nerves, and because the others shocked him by bagging his head and tackling him to the floor. Naturally no one wants to let Ray forget that, but the house is still in a tizzy after being robbed. That fact (and a cold soda) perk Ray up again.
It was Lebowitz who left his computer downstairs, who is sitting at the coffee table now cussing at his old leftover laptop, trying to load his last backup from a hard drive onto an antique. There is an air of dampened spirit in the room, just about everyone lost something, even if it was only a wallet that was empty of money but still full of plastic that must be replaced. The kid who lost his watch is the saddest—he’s a new member, and it was his high school graduation present, and his parents are giving him a royally hard time about it. His upperclassman mentor isn’t helping him feel better at all, mostly because Schwartz over there has been robbed too, and he has two other little fledglings (‘pledglings’ is how Ray and Noah think of them), and he has so many to ignore because they didn’t trust Ray as a mentor. His age was the least of it; between his erratic grades, and more than one official sanction against him for the drinking, and the probable assumption that he cheats at cards (no one can be that lucky), they didn’t trust him with a young, impressionable mind. So be it then: serves everybody right to suffer for not being better friends to Ray.
