by Jerry Cole
It was something he’d heard in a podcast. Nothing real.
Isaac began to drop various items into the suitcase. Marcus muttered to himself in French becoming the back soundtrack of Isaac’s great retreat.
“It’s perfect timing, really,” Isaac suddenly blurted, his heart bursting in his throat. “What with the end of the semester already next week. I can have the students send me their shitty drafts via email. I won’t have to see their needy faces again.”
“Come off it. You love those kids,” Marcus scoffed.
“Perhaps they’re the only things I truly like about New York, right now,” Isaac said, tucking yet another book into the suitcase. He felt that every item he put inside the suitcase latched him to an alternate world, one that would cast him into the south for much longer than a week or so—until the end of the funeral. He’d begun to peer into the future of summer with a bit of tunnel vision. He couldn’t imagine returning.
“Isaac.”
Marcus marched up to the side of him. Isaac could feel his breath, hot, upon his neck. Isaac was a few inches taller than Marcus, something that Marcus had always adored about him. “Just look at his neck!” he’d cooed. “He’s tall and lean, like a tall drink of water. That’s what you cowboys say, don’t you?” Marcus had been in the habit, in the early days, of telling his French friends that he was dating a Texas cowboy.
Frequently, Isaac had wondered if he’d been ultimately sellable to Marcus’ image at the time. Now, were they just together for what? For the good times? For the apartment?
“Maybe I won’t come back right away,” Isaac murmured, speaking into the belly of his suitcase.
Marcus let out a little gasp. Isaac had been dumped a few times—not frequently—and could sense a similar air in the room, the stomach clenching, the panic. It all permeated from Marcus’ stomach, like waves swiftly churning toward the beach.
“What the hell are you saying?” Marcus asked, seemingly wading through the fear and sadness and latching onto the only thing that mattered: anger.
“I’m saying that I don’t give a fuck what you think about what I need to do down in Texas. But that I fucking have to do it,” Isaac blared. He reached for a final few items and lodged them into the suitcase, his nostrils flared. “Marcus, we’ve been falling apart for a long, long time. But you’ve known me almost my entire adult life. And the fact that you can’t comprehend what it means to me to say goodbye to my father…”
“That’s not it!” Marcus blared. “It’s only that I DO understand it, Isaac. The man destroyed your inner psyche. He made you feel you shouldn’t be alive.”
Isaac ducked around Marcus, gripping the suitcase. He rushed to the kitchen, dropping his hands on either side of the sink and then churning the faucet open, making water rush to the cereal bowl below. He threw his head beneath it, gulping at the water. Could it be that this was happening? Could it be he was finally dumping the man he’d thought to be the love of his life?
“I just need to find something else,” Isaac offered, drawing back from the sink. Water dribbled down his chin. He felt no older than he’d been at eighteen, abandoned by his father, told by his mother and sisters that he was the reason for the unrest, for the terror that would ultimately befall them.
Marcus remained in the other room, seemingly unwilling to be in the same vicinity of Isaac, in the midst of their breakup. Isaac knew that the words had reached him. Marcus let out a little gasp, a dramatic one, before Isaac lugged up his suitcase, grabbed his laptop case, ensured his keys jangled in his pocket. He took a final glance around—at the decorative plates they’d purchased in Barcelona, the rug they’d haggled for in Mexico, the little bits and pieces of the life they’d constructed together—and then darted out the door.
It felt akin to tugging off a jacket on a hot summer day.
He inhaled sharply the moment his feet hit the sidewalk. He blinked several times, making a strange resolution to himself. He would never return to this place, to this block. He would never be in his and Marcus’ space—as it was now his past, and he had to have the strength to press forward.
It was the reason he’d created this new reality. It was the reason he’d been allowed so many beautiful, reckless, wild years in New York.
But now, he had to return to his roots, to the place where he’d become the messy, egotistical, gay “cowboy” writer – the introspective, anxious man who’d allowed himself to be in a wretched, rather poisonous relationship with Marcus for years.
He had to return to his father, to comprehend the weight of everything. He had to say goodbye, in order to become anything else.
Chapter Two
Wyatt Masters
It was one of those journalistic pursuits that hadn’t panned out.
Wyatt’s editor had cast him over to New Mexico, explaining that the food and dining scene was all-but exploding out there, and that the Los Angeles Foodsters magazine wanted to be the first to write about it. At least, the first in Los Angeles. Several New Mexico bloggers had scoured the various restaurants, bars, and cafes, typing up little ditties about this scrumptious Angel Food Cake or this craft beer scene – the classic stuff the local internet culture glommed on to.
Wyatt was relatively new in journalism, having spent the better part of his twenties hungry for an acting gig. He’d lived in an eight-hundred-dollar hole in the wall in Los Feliz, taking horrific headshots, which he still had in a folder somewhere, and driving his little Buick around from audition to audition, aching for a bite. The only two gigs he’d ever gotten were commercials—one, a cereal commercial, another for something called the “EZ Rider 3000,” which was apparently a seat for better comfort while mowing the lawn. However, the title of the thing had been a total embarrassment to him, perhaps the very thing that had cast him from the whole acting thing, in the end.
He hadn’t had to go back to school or anything like that. A friend of a friend, of a friend had mentioned that he was starting up a little blog, which Wyatt began to write for—just little things here and there about local bands, mostly. The DIY music scene was vibrant and alive, perhaps the only thing that kept Wyatt captivated with Los Angeles. After preparing a few samples, he’d sent out a resume to Foodsters, and had gotten an interview.
In part due to his writing talents, and in part because he was willing to take the very, very low amount of money they were offering, Wyatt had gotten the position of staff writer—plus the position as the “sassy” guy who managed the Twitter. At just twenty-eight years old, he felt well on his way to something. He wasn’t entirely sure what. Regardless, he was grateful to be able to call his mother up, all the way back in Oregon, and tell her – that he at least could pay his bills, without fail. For a while.
This had assured her, despite its lack of romance. It was regretful, certainly, that he hadn’t gotten the “whole acting thing” to pan out. “But you’ll still try, Wyatt. I know you will.”
Truthfully, Wyatt had been far too exhausted to attend another audition. And he was surprised to find himself a rather successful, quasi-journalist, moving up the ranks at the office, and ultimately covering some of the more vibrant arenas of Los Angeles eateries. He was listed as the “most valuable writer” at the office, and Stacey, the secretary, had made him a cake with a little outline of his face on the top. He had a hunch that Stacey actually had a bit of a crush on him, which pleased him, despite his homosexuality. She KNEW, apparently, that he was gay. But she still “liked” him, in this little, flirty, girlish way that made his stomach tingle with excitement.
It was simply always nice to be liked.
Stacey had been the one to inform him of this new writing opportunity. She’d sauntered up to his desk and flashed the paper onto the wood, splaying five provocative fingers across the top. Her red hair danced across her shoulders as she leaned forward. “Have you ever been to New Mexico?”
“No,” Wyatt answered.
Her eyes sparkled as she flirted.
“You wo
uld absolutely love it. It’s this daydream of deserts and weirdo people. We need someone to go there, write about the food scene. I told them at the top that you’d be perfect for the role. What do you think?”
Wyatt blinked at her. He turned back to his computer, flashing his calendar up on the screen. He analyzed the dates she was speaking about – of course, noting that he hadn’t a single plan, a single thing lined up. Sure, it was his friend of a friend’s birthday – Cameron. But Cameron was his ex-boyfriend’s friend, first, and thus, he sensed an awkwardness, pulsing behind the invitation. He couldn’t possibly go without armoring himself in various drinks, in vodka.
“I suppose I can make that happen,” he offered, teasing her with a big, awkward smile.
Stacey looked as though she might faint back. It seemed strange that she didn’t receive male attention frequently, but throughout the office, Wyatt had heard that she was a bit of a strange one – spending her nights alone, unsure of herself, unwilling to “get out there” and “date.” As one was meant to do in Los Angeles, apparently.
Not that Wyatt had dated much in the months after he and Cameron had broken up.
“So, you’ll go?” Stacey asked, sounding breathless. “My brother lived out there for a bit, before he went home to Kansas. I visited him once. Gosh, I should have stayed. Become one of those hippie dippie people who just live on ranches out there, tending to cacti.”
Wyatt chuckled, grateful for her strangeness. “Maybe I’ll join them.”
“I’ll come out and find you, if you do,” Stacey said, spinning round and casting her ass to the side, seemingly trying to attract him.
Wyatt was a bit accustomed to this, this flirtation, especially in Los Angeles. He was handsome – blond, tall, almost Scandinavian-like. At least, that’s what he’d been told. As far as he knew, his mother said they came from Germany – the most boring of all the mother countries, at least in his eyes. But he didn’t look it. He looked like he was meant for something.
Well, that’s what he’d always thought, at least.
Anyway, that was what Wyatt thought of just now, standing at a lackluster, steaming corner in the center of New Mexico, his stomach aching after a particularly ruthless taco and margarita dinner. He thought of his home in Los Angeles, and about how little that truly felt like home, frequently. And he thought about how he’d been scouring the New Mexican food scene for the previous two weeks, hunting for stories, and really hadn’t come up with much sans article titles like, “This Mexican Woman Makes Killer Tacos!” or “Refry Your Brains Out! With This New Mexican Woman’s Refried Beans Recipe.” It all felt strange and boring and void of any meaning and Wyatt was beginning to question why on earth he’d ever done any of it. Namely, why he’d become a journalist. Why he’d moved to Los Angeles. Why, why, why.
He was a bit of a purist and had decided to utilize a proper map for much of his journey. Now, he snapped up the map, folding it in precise places, and searching the horizon line of the tiny town. He was a few miles from the center of Albuquerque, in a suburb where he’d been told he would have some of the best food of his life.
It hadn’t been.
But as he stood there, he watched a large RV yank up next to the stop sign across the way. He blinked at it several times, feeling as though something was about to happen. Normally, his instinct was correct.
Suddenly a girl – dressed almost in hippie clothing – rushed out of the door, her skirt flailing behind her. A hippie-like man rushed after her, seemingly hunting for her. She let out a wild shriek. He reached for the edge of her long, flowing shirt, trying to yank her back. But she squealed again.
“Kenny! You can’t!” she cried. “I won’t go. Not this time.”
“Marney, you know it’s now or never!” the man called.
Kenny. What a name. Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest, wondering if he was meant to get in there, to shift this seeming domestic dispute. Marney wasn’t crying and seemed to be performing for Kenny. Frankly, it was the most excitement Wyatt had seen in the previous week in New Mexico, and he craved it, feeling as though he was camped in front of his mother’s television at home. His fingers flickered a bit, watching as Kenny gripped Marney’s shoulders, leaning toward her as though he was about to whisper the last lines of a film to her.
“Marney, you know that I can’t go to Texas without you. You know that I’m terrified. Fuck, we all are.”
Pretty decent lines, Wyatt thought now.
There was a creaking from the RV. Another couple darted out from the door, similarly dressed – the girl with wild red curls that snaked down her back. Her accent was a bit more south-eastern, as though she came from Louisiana or Alabama.
“Marney, come off it! You’re the one who told us about all this. And now you’re turning your back?”
Marney knelt forward, dropping her forehead against Kenny’s chest. The new girl spun her eyes toward Wyatt, taking stock of him. He maintained his stance at the corner. Since he’d hardly spoken to a single soul since he’d arrived in New Mexico. No one but the occasional waitress, on his strange, unvaried food tour. He was unaccustomed to being looked at in this manner. He wasn’t sure where his eyes were meant to go. He blinked at her several times. The sun steamed overhead, far hotter than anything he’d grown accustomed to in Los Angeles.
But when the new girl spoke, she directed her words entirely to him.
“Sir, can I ask you a question?” she asked, drawling it out.
Wyatt glanced to the right and the left, before returning his gaze to her.
“No, to you, sir,” she said, taking a little step forward. This showed her feet, bare beneath the skirt. Her toes were surprisingly clean, for not having anything beneath them.
“I suppose so,” Wyatt offered.
Again, she snuck a bit closer. She was upon the pavement of the road between them now. Wyatt imagined it was insanely hot, blisteringly so. He waited, watching as she took tidy, delicate steps toward him. Her skirt swirled back. Her boyfriend – at least, who Wyatt assumed was her boyfriend – took a single step onto the pavement before drawing back, clenching up his face with pain.
“I want to ask you something,” the girl said again.
“You said that,” Wyatt returned.
She delivered him an overzealous, sarcastic smile. Two of her teeth were crooked in a way that looked almost fresh, as though someone had recently hit her. Wyatt again turned his eyes toward the boyfriend, who was analyzing the bottom of the foot he’d tapped on the heat of the blacktop. Idiot.
Could he have been the one to smack her?
“I wanted to know if you’ve prepared yourself,” the girl offered, her smile growing wider.
“Prepared myself? Fr what?” Wyatt asked, arching his brow. He was accustomed to stumbling into weirdos in Los Feliz, but there was a far different air to this, as though she’d stepped directly from 1977, to deliver some sort of prophecy.
“You haven’t heard about it, then? You’re just like the others,” the girl murmured. She took several quicker steps toward him, until her nose was only a few inches from his chest. She was perhaps five feet tall, a full foot lower than he was, and gaped up at him, looking almost child-like.
Wyatt imagined she was perhaps twenty-three, twenty-four years old.
“Where did you come from?” he asked, nodding his head toward the RV. “You aren’t from New Mexico, are you? Just passing through?”
“You’re not from here, either,” the girl whispered, her voice growing raspy. “I can tell.”
“No. I’m not,” Wyatt said. He was growing bored of the conversation. His eyes turned back toward Marney and Kenny, who’d latched their hands together and were now gazing at him, their eyes almost black with intensity.
What the hell was going on?
“I have a good feeling about him,” Marney called from the other side of the road. She turned her shoulder into Kenny’s stomach, rubbing into him. “I think we should tell him our secret. It’s up to
us, you know. To share it. It’s up to us to save as many as we can.”
Wyatt’s nostrils flared. He was beginning to crave his trip back to Los Angeles, yearning for that juice shop on the corner, the comfort of his own goddamn bed.
“The end of the world is coming,” the girl said to him now.
They were words he should have expected the entire time. Words that carried a false weight. They’d been spoken, and spoken, again and again, for thousands of years. Why was its humans got off on expecting their own extinction?
“Oh. Is it?” Wyatt asked, his eyebrows high.
“In fact, it is,” Marney called.
Marney ducked down onto the pavement, unwrapping from Kenny and leaping across the smearing-hot black tar. Her eyes glittered. “The men and women and other, ungendered creatures on the planet Venus have received our calls, and they’re coming soon,” Marney whispered. She swept her arm across the other girl’s shoulder, holding her against her. “You can’t imagine what it means to us that you’re listening. Other people have regarded us as absolutely insane. They’ve told us that this story means nothing to them. But my God, can’t you see? Can’t you FEEL it.”
Wyatt blinked at her several times.
“You can. Can’t you? The way the world has shifted lately. It’s been as though we’re unable to balance it all out. Every conversation is about something that doesn’t matter. Every man and woman is chasing some sort of dream, without realizing that we should all be holding one another close and preparing for the end…” Marney continued.
Wyatt glanced back at the RV. His journalistic impulses flickered behind his eyes.
“Where are you coming from, and where are you going?” he asked, feeling like a sort of broken record, or like the father coming to break up the party.
“We’re coming from Kansas,” Marney said, her words articulate and pure. Wyatt imagined that in a different life, she was the captain of the speech team; a tennis star; the one everyone turned to for homework help. But now, she was the leader of a troupe heading – where? And why? Where had it all come from?
