Even though it was warm enough when we arrived in Tucumcari, the air was now almost frosty as we walked through a massive empty field beside the motel, which separated that end of town from the eerily deserted Interstate. The only thing we could hear was the whisper of the night breeze in our ears and the sound of our feet on the dry, wild grass. Above us, the moon was bright and brilliant across in the still-cloudless sky, giving us both a shadow as we walked beneath what looked to me like every star in the solar system.
Brennan stopped and looked straight up. "Could you imagine every night being like this one?"
"Very easily," I answered quietly.
"Do you think it would get boring, like seeing the Eiffel Tower on the way to work every day?"
"I'd be willing to live in Paris for a year to find that out."
"This is so beautiful." Brennan pulled one of my hands out of my jeans pocket and held it in his. "But I won't thank you for bringing me here." He stuck his tongue out at me.
I laughed. "Why not? You thank me for everything else."
"Because I'd rather thank you for being here with me, here or any place else. I'm not sure how to thank you for giving me a Christmas gift like this trip, though."
"Be my love slave until the sun comes up," I replied with a grin.
Brennan ignored my defensive humor. "As long as you're with me, I'll be happy. It's the only gift I really wanted this year, anyway."
"I never know how to respond when you say things like that."
"That's why I say them."
We concluded the night with Brennan giving me the massage of my life. I did most of the driving, so I got the rub-down, he said. We took a quick shower and started to fall asleep in a tangle of freshly-scrubbed flesh on that helicopter pad of a bed. Before he could say his usual 20 minutes worth of good nights, I held his face in my fingertips and said, “I’m with you all the time. I’m with you even when I’m not. I’m with you wherever you go, no matter who else is there.”
Brennan peeped through the dark like a Cupie Doll. “How do you figure?”
“Because you’re with me all the time, so it’s only right.”
*
Getting an early start, we swept south and west through the middle of the state. After successfully avoiding the state police near Ruidoso, we took a short detour through a tiny town called Cloudcroft. A friend of Uncle Alex's had sworn that the place looked like it belonged in the middle of Switzerland, rather than New Mexico, so I thought we'd have a look. He was right. The single, needle-thin road bisecting Cloudcroft wound like a rubber band through hills that were blanketed with coniferous, snow-covered trees and dotted with a few log cabins and A-frame houses. The outside temperature dropped to well below freezing for the few minutes it took to pass through. It was my kind of town.
We stopped at the White Sands National Monument to enjoy a pot luck picnic provided to us by a local 7-Eleven. I long ago bought into Dad's aversion to state and national ‘points of interest’, agreeing with his logic that, if the place in question had a crowd of ill-dressed tourists anywhere near it, it must not be all that special anymore. But I honored Brennan's request to at least have a look, and was glad I did.
I drove to the end of the Monument's curling path, into the spectral landscape of bleached sand dunes that the afternoon sun made dizzying to the eye. We wolfed down our sandwiches inside the car, took off our shoes and socks, and trudged even further into the rolling labyrinth of white silicon hills. Once we were surrounded by these geological anomalies and unable to see or hear anything else, we sat down on the sloping half of a sand formation. It looked like a huge, cresting wave about to envelop us.
"You should have brought your notebook. This is beyond cool, isn't it?" I nodded my head as I watched a pair of F-15s leave a vapor trail behind them as they raced upward to altitude. "It's a hell of a beach!"
"Superb beach," I agreed dryly, "but kind of bare coastline." The cool, powder-like sand felt like silk on my feet. I opened my dull white shirt, letting the sun keep my body warm.
Brennan ran the flat of his hand over my chest before pulling off his sweatshirt and moving closer to me. "We haven't been in New Mexico for twenty four hours, and I'm ready to stay here for the rest of my life."
I took off Dad's old Navy-issue sunglasses and looked at Brennan. "The rest of your life is a long time."
"That's not what I meant." He bit his lip. "I mean, for us."
"The rest of our life together?"
"You're already rewriting my sentences. Some deal this is!" He laughed. I didn't. "Okay. I'll shut up."
Something was on Brennan's mind. He didn't talk us to sleep the night before, like he always did, and said very little during the day's journey. It wasn't a hostile or selfish quiet, but, rather, a thoughtful one that just hadn't produced some epic exchange between us. Yet.
*
“Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Strip, right now.”
Brennan stood up, wide-eyed. He complied wordlessly. The wind threw his
hair in every direction while he met my gaze head-on. The setting sun cast a warm orange glow across his pastel body. The moment stretched out until it sounded as if we were inside of a sea shell.
“Don’t I get to look at you, too?”
Neither of us were hard (not fully, anyway) nor took a step closer, where
either of our hands might reach for the other’s body. We didn’t speak; it didn’t feel like we had to. We just looked and kept looking until we were shadows in the desert.
*
Morning done broke. For the first time in my life, jazz sounded good while the
sun was still up.
Uncle Alex scored another box of 8-tracks for our road trip: John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker; Art Blakey, Benny Goodman, Thelonious Monk, and Stan Getz, who I was especially excited to hear again; Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Miles Davis, and a generous serving of Duke Ellington, the master.
And boy, did the first tape we listened to sound great as we drove the Bug the way its engineers likely didn’t intend, breaking a land-speed Beetle record on our way through the splendid Black Range, in the southeastern corner of the Gila National Wilderness.
It was a good thing there wasn't much traffic on the Range's mountainous roads that day.
*
We came to a fork in the road. If we turned right, we would head further into the forbidding Gila. If we turned left, we would straddle the southern edge of the Wilderness until reaching Pinos Altos, an almost ancient dot on the map that served as the "gateway" to the Gila, and home to the Cromwell's humble ranch.
Brennan's eyes had a funny look in them when he asked if we could see more of the Gila, on our own. I shrugged and drove in. Felix had waited this long, I mused. Another hour or two would hardly change our lives, right?
Ho ho ho.
We stumbled upon a large shoulder off of a wide curve in the road that also functioned as a scenic overlook. We sat on the rounded hood of the Bug, with our backs resting on the windshield. A seemingly endless and snow-covered valley lay below us. Once again, good fortune smiled on us; we were left without the interference of passing traffic, quite alone together on the cliff.
Every place we had gone in New Mexico had some nearly chilling sense of silence about it, and not just because the place was gigantic and didn't have very many people in it, either. No, there was something more to it than that. If the smart one wasn't well into sensory overload, he would have tried to figure it out. It took his greatest friend's tears to unlock the secret.
"Why are you crying," I asked?
"I don't know," he said, between sobs.
"Yes, you do." I put my arm around him and moved his body next to mine, keeping my hand on the side of his hip. Brennan tried to smile through the tears that sounded like they had been building up for a while. "Tell me. After all, you're the honest one, right?"
He put an arm around my n
eck and pressed the side of our faces together. "I love you," he whispered. The tears began to peter out.
I kissed the top of his soft blond hair. "I hope that's not why you're crying."
"No." Brennan wiped the tear stains from his face with the sleeve of my old pea coat. "Now I understand what you used to say about crying. I feel like a dick." He let out a long breath as he cuddled his face against mine. "You were right about something else."
"I'm almost always right. Can you be more specific?"
From behind my back, Brennan snapped the elastic of my underwear. "One time, you said you wanted to leave, because you were in pain." I remembered. It seemed like a long time ago. "I said you'd take your pain with. Well, I was wrong." His voice sounded like he was going to cry again. "I've been in pain. But now that I'm away from home, I don't feel it, so much."
"Is it getting bad at school again?"
"No. I still get funny looks and smart-ass comments, people talking to me like I was from Uranus or something, ha, but nothing unusual. Ozzie almost tries to talk to me when no one else is around."
I was lucky. I had Zane and Farrah to stick by my side, in case I fell out of the closet or something. "Well, what is it, then? We're all alone, Brennan, right here, in the middle of New Mexico. We could get buck naked again, for all anyone would know. If you can't tell me a secret here, you can't tell me one anywhere."
Brennan pressed our lips together and held us still while our eyes opened and relented to the other. I felt his trust and love flood into me. He answered at once. It had to be the truth. "This is the most beautiful place on earth. I feel so free here, and I don't want to leave. I want to stay here forever, with you."
Flash.
My voice was quelled with fearful excitement. "Do you want to get married, or something?"
"I don't think we can," he joked quietly, "at least, not in the old-fashioned way."
"Brennan," I said, sitting us both up on the trunk, "do you know what you're saying?"
"You don't believe me?"
"You're the worst liar I know. Yes, I believe you, but what you're saying is - "
"Till death do us part, OK? That's what I'm saying."
I closed my eyes. I had no reference point to this. Who would, in our shoes? There wasn't anyone nearby I could ask for advice. Maybe the trees or the sky had some views.
"I didn't think I could say that, before now. That's the hurt I was moaning about."
"We still have a lot of life...left to live." My alliteration made Brennan smile. "Forever is a long time."
"Forever and a day."
I laughed out loud. "Le jour le plus long!" Brennan scowled, not knowing why I had lapsed into French or laughed. He didn't read Graham Greene like I did.
"Well?"
I got off of the hood and took Brennan by his hands with me. We stood at the edge of the overlook, encompassed by the majesty of the Gila and the hushed wonderment we felt being there together. Uncle Alex and Zora, the clever swine, they saw this coming. I heard his subtle little hints about a bunch of colleges out west. And her, starting mile-long conversations over dinner about happiness, companionship, being married, and love, real love.
"Before I give you an answer, will you hear me out?"
"I always listen to whatever you have to say. You know that."
"Fine." I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts as best I could. "I'm assuming you've thought about what you're asking."
"Since we left home. No, that's not true. When you came to the hospital to see me. Yes. I've thought about it since then."
"Brennan, we've never gone steady with anyone else. You're only the second person I've met out of three that are like me. Like us. Who knows how many others we'll both meet or where we'll meet them? College, travel, or whatever, there must be a million others out there."
His eyes didn't waver. "I don't think I care."
"For God's sake, Brennan, listen to yourself!" My voice raised, but so did the breeze of the early dusk. "Think about it! Out of everything in the world you like in people, out of all the things you want in someone, whether they're a friend or a lover, and what you know you need, deep down, can you tell me with a straight face that I'm that person?"
"Yes." He closed his eyes for a moment. Hah! He looked away first! "I'd call the person you just described perfect, but I don't think love is perfect, any more so than me or you are. Happiness and friendship aren't perfect, either."
"We're talking about the rest of our lives, Brennan."
"Which may end tomorrow, for all we know. Look what happened to your mom and dad!" I looked away. Brennan held my shoulders in place, in case the rest of me tried to make off. "Look what we let happen between us. Hell, look what happened to me, because of my big mouth! Before those kids found me, I thought I was going to die. It felt like I was going to." I saw tears begin to fill up in his eyes, but they didn't fall. "I thought I was going to die alone, sprawled out in my own blood in that alley."
Alone. My God, I dreaded to myself, alone.
Brennan touched my face with his lips for a moment. "But I didn't, and we're here, now, together."
"There'll be a lot more tomorrows before either of us die, Brennan."
"You don't know that, any more than you know how to ice skate."
"Nope," I admitted, "I sure don't."
Brennan's soft hands touched my face again. The tips of his fingers followed the lines of my cheeks, my nose, my chin, and my lips. It made me tremble. Everything was making me tremble, either from fear or excitement, I couldn't tell which. "I'll tell you what I do know."
"What's that?"
"I know I like you. I like you as a friend, and I like you as a lover." He smiled shyly. "I desire you, too. But most of all, I need you." Brennan nodded his head with confidence. "I know I need you. It took being apart to realize how badly." We stared at each other the same way we did on my porch almost a year ago, seeing and feeling the other through our eyes, as if for the first time. "I need you to love me."
"I do, bro."
Snap!
He broke the spell. Brennan broke the fucking spell by pointing at me with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Ah ha, you said 'I do'!"
My eyes narrowed with slight stage anger. He folded his hands together and put on a good look of contrition. I let him continue.
"I need you to let me love you."
"I will."
"Then marry me."
My head shook involuntarily. "Marry you...here and now," I mumbled. "You have a priest in your duffel bag?” OK, don’t laugh. “We're not even eighteen."
"Hey, it's a tradition, south of the Mason-Dixon Line."
"Forever," I said, continuing to mumble.
"Right here. Together. Till death do us part."
I scarcely believed we had come to this point. I struggled to understand what I was hearing and feeling. There wasn't much consolation in knowing I couldn't be alone, drunk from head to soul in some incarnate daze. I looked out across the valley and pictured the entire world turning upside down. What would we grab on to? One of the pinon? Or would we be swept into the stratosphere, clinging to the Bug’s dented bumper? Maybe this was what heroin is like, I thought. I kept shaking my head, but finally smiled. Our epic exchange was every bit the ringing equal of even the mightiest Shostakovich symphony.
"I, Brennan Andrew DeVere, in good health, clear mind, and pure heart, do solemnly swear, in plain sight of God, to take you, my most treasured friend and lover, into my hands forever, as one...married, married as the rest of all the jerks out there who don’t have half the love we do."
Out of the blue, a pick-up clattered down from the deeper interior of the Gila. Brennan glanced at it anxiously as he waited for me to say my bit, which was hard, because my half-opened lips were frozen, just like my heartbeat.
"If I can say it, so can you," Brennan stated quietly.
I privately appealed for sweet baby Jesus to give me the words.
"I, Miles Frederick Strasse.
..call the gods to witness...one feast, one house, one mutual happiness...with Brennan, my friend and lover, my heart and soul, who I will love, cherish, and hold, le jour le plus long, forever and a day, till death do us part."
A single tear rolled down Brennan's cheek. Hah! Game, set, and match. I may have said ‘I do’ first, but he not only blinked but cried first! "Yours sounds better."
"I'm the smart one."
"Good. Then you can think of what to tell Felix when he asks what we did up here."
Our arms brought our bodies together, for the first time, again, forever.
Epic, indeed.
* * *
X X I V
In dreaming, the clouds methought would open
and show riches, ready to drop upon me,
that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.
The Tempest
The naked olive-skinned teenager sighed. "Epic...”
Shant Nakhararian folded the portfolio against his chest with arms that were crossed as much in despair as controlled anger. He had heard Miles’ soft voice reading his own handwritten manuscript in the tiny attic room, every page, every word, while the streets of Hollywood rattled away without being seen outside the church-shaped window. Shant could still hear the voice, whispering in his ear, close enough to feel the moist on Miles’ lips, still cruelly determined not to touch him.
It was Shant’s first home-cooked meal at the decrepit old manor when Brennan had told him what happened after he and Miles married each other. They’d come down from the Gila and went back to Felix's, who burst into tears seeing the newlyweds on his doorstep. Miles didn't tell him they were coming. It was Felix's Christmas present. Shant stopped wolfing down his bratwursts to laugh at that.
Miles Page 23
