The River in Winter

by Matt Dean

  After he'd gone, I looked about me, feeling foolish and bereft. Again I saw my reflection in the clouded glass of the old mirror. My face burned red.

  Now I understood. The mirror and end tables were Charlie's. The sofa and chairs were Eliot's. The room looked as if it had been cobbled together from two disparate styles, because it had been. Of course. Two households had become one.

  I feigned interest in a Terry Redlin print-Eliot's, surely, not Charlie's-hanging in a corner. I moved toward it as if to examine it in detail, as if admiring the expert depiction of pond and trees and drifting snow. When I turned away from the print, Tigger motioned with a kind of reverse nod for me to come over. Rob had moved to the hearth and sat on its ledge of flagstone, his back to the fire. I settled on the arm of Tigger's chair.

  "Doing okay?" Tigger said.

  "I'm wishing I'd gotten more sleep last night, I'll say that."

  "Were you doing something fun, I hope?"

  "Listening to Beethoven."

  Jeremy screamed. Startled, I looked over. He had both hands over his mouth, and his eyes were saucers. But then he collapsed against Fred, slapped the older man's wrist to chide him for some outrageous thing he'd said.

  Tigger said, "Beethoven?"

  "String quartets. The Great Fugue."

  He crinkled his nose. "You could have been doing more sinful things than that, I suppose."

  "Somehow, I prevailed against temptation."

  "Right on, brother."

  It was all getting a little too Baptist for my taste. I said, "Do things usually take this long to get going?"

  Tigger shrugged, shook his head.

  Rob reached over to tap my elbow. He said, "We were just talking about our plans for Thanksgiving." I looked around. Fred and Jeremy whispered together like schoolgirls. Mason stared into space, fiddling with the mother-of-pearl buttons of his cardigan. Tigger had been talking to me. Whom did Rob mean by we? He said, "I'm thinking of having a little gathering at my place. Kind of an orphans' Thanksgiving. What about you? Are you going anywhere?"

  "San Francisco. My mother lives there."

  Rob said, "San Francisco." He stretched the syllables until they sounded almost as separate words. "Very nice. Are you from there?"

  I'd been born in Ohio, in Youngstown, and that's where we'd lived until my father had gotten a job in Charleston, South Carolina. We'd stayed in Charleston for a few years, until Barbara packed us up and moved us to Minnesota-of all places. Whenever I said I'd lived in Ohio, though, people heard it as Iowa, and whenever I mentioned South Carolina, I always had to follow up with a five-minute geography lesson, explaining the relative locations of Charlotte and Charleston and-for whatever reason-Myrtle Beach. The whole thing was always more trouble than it was worth. I decided to tell the simplified version. "I grew up here. Barbara moved to California a few years ago for a job."

  "Barbara?" Tigger said. "You call your mother by her first name?"

  "She insists," I said.

  "Sounds like your mom's pretty cool," Tigger said. "Mine won't even speak to me."

  "Barbara's pretty cool as mothers go."

  "What do you have planned while you're there?" Rob said.

  "I go every year, so there isn't much in the way of sightseeing that I haven't already done."

  Fred said, "Are there any good churches there?" He and Jeremy had been silent for a while, I realized, listening in. "Around the holidays you can usually get in on some pleasant church gatherings."

  Where did that come from? "I-. I don't really know. I never paid attention."

  Mason said something. I looked at him. He said, "Good for you." He spoke softly. Everyone fell silent. "About listening to Beethoven, I mean."

  "Beethoven?"

  "Listening to the Beethoven quartets, you said. Good for you. Young people today-." I found myself cocking my head, turning one ear toward him. "I work in a library. Young people today, they-. All they seem to be interested in is pop culture."

  Speaking in a room full of people appeared to cost Mason some effort, an effort I doubted he would make in order to utter an insult, and yet I felt vaguely insulted. Had he assumed, until I mentioned Beethoven, that I was one of those "young people" who bothered librarians with requests for TV Guide and tell-all memoirs? Hadn't Beethoven been part of pop culture, when he was arranging concerts and courting the favor of patrons and a paying public?

  I feared that if I replied rashly, Mason might never speak again. While I weighed alternatives and tried to sustain a polite smile, Charlie returned, his loose sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, his hair pointing in a dozen new directions. He wiped his hands on his khakis.

  "You're all suddenly quiet," he said.

  Jeremy said, "Mason farted, and we were trying to be polite about it."

  Jeremy giggled. Mason blanched. Eyes wide, he looked up at Charlie and shook his head. "I swear I did no such thing."

  "I know, Mason, I know." He sat on the arm of Mason's chair. It was a kind gesture, I thought, a vote of confidence. "There was an incident in the kitchen. I guess a couple of two-liters of Coke burst in the freezer. Eliot'll be out in a few." Standing, he tugged the folds out of his trousers. "While we're waiting, I think I need to get some air."

  I wanted badly to go with him, and more than that I wanted him to know how badly, and more than that I wanted him to know without it being obvious to everyone else. At the front door, Charlie turned and looked at me. He cocked his head back, toward the door. I stood to follow him, patting my pockets as if looking for something I might have left outside-what, I couldn't have said-but then I stopped. Let the queens think what they might.

  * * *

  We stood shivering on the porch. A chill wind cut through the weave of my sweater. I zipped my jacket. Unrolling his sleeves, buttoning the cuffs, Charlie looked sidelong at me. "I guess this wasn't such a great idea," he said.

  "Do you want to get your jacket?" He shrugged, shook his head. I said, "Let's walk."

  "That'll help."

  The steps to the sidewalk were narrow; Charlie waved for me to go ahead. When we met at the bottom, I paused, trying to get my bearings. Everything seemed both familiar and strange. Already I had forgotten which way the cab had brought me in.

  "I always find this neighborhood incredibly bewildering."

  "You get used to it."

  "Barbara-my mother-and I once got lost driving around in this neighborhood. Back when I was a kid."

  He turned right, strolling uphill. I followed him.

  "I'll bet you were looking for the Frank Lloyd Wright house."

  I nodded. "On the snowiest day of the year. She had this Volkswagen Thing, this ridiculous Army-green rattletrap with no working heat. She plowed through drifts as high as the running boards, up and down all these streets, laughing like a maniac."

  "Did you ever find it?"

  "The whole adventure ended with me finding a pay phone so we could call Triple A."

  He laughed. "It's on Cecil, I think. Or, no, Bedford. It's a couple of blocks from here, anyway." We walked in silence to the end of the block. Charlie stopped, folded his arms. His sleeves tightened over his biceps. He said, "I feel like I should apologize for Eliot."

  "Why?"

  "He's so disorganized about these gatherings."

  "So it would seem."

  He clenched his jaw. His whiskers rippled as his cheeks tensed and slackened. "It happens every week. That's why I promised to help. But he won't let me do anything useful."

  "How did you meet him?"

  "An ad in Equal Time."

  "And how long have you been with him?"

  He looked to the clouds for his the answer. "It must be five years now?"

  Tom and I had been together for five years. I started to say as much, but before I could, Charlie spoke again. He said, "I'm finally starting to feel things are fitting together."

  "I'm glad to hear it," I said, but then I wondered, why it had taken five years for things to b
egin fitting together?

  "Eliot's just so-." Squinting at the sidewalk, he stroked his cheek. "He's so perceptive. Don't you find it helps to talk things out with him? And the group helps too. I think it was a great idea he had, to start it. We all get such benefit out of it."

  And now my heart grew impossibly light. Charlie was Eliot's client, after all, not his lover. A member of the group, not its polite host.

  In an instant I had it all planned out. A three-bedroom Tudor house in a quiet glade of Eagan, a sprawling emerald lawn, pansies in the window boxes. Low junipers filling the air with the sloe-gin scent of their berries. A copse of birch at the back of the property. Matching Honda Civics, silver with black leather upholstery. Two tomcats, an Abyssinian named Kander and an Egyptian Mau named Ebb. I said, "Pal, if I were a salad, I know I'd be splashing my dressing."

  "Were you really bad off?"

  "Getting there." He took a step toward me. He wiped a tear from the inside corner of my eye. "Windy," I said.

  "I'm glad I found Eliot when I did. I have a sense it's the same for you."

  "Are you ready to go back? I'm freezing."

  "Me too."

  As we turned, I said, "Do you want to hear something funny?"

  "What's that?"

  "When I asked you how long you've been with Eliot, I meant it a different way. I thought you were lovers."

  Charlie stopped. He stared at me for so long that I thought I must have said something unwittingly cruel. "Can you not know? Jonah, how can you not know?"

  "What? Can I not know what?"

  "This-. These men-. We're-. Eliot brought us together because we're all struggling with the same issue. He told you that?"

  "You're all gay. He told me. That's why-."

  "No, no, no, not at all. We all used to be gay."

  We stood between a birch tree on the boulevard and a stone retaining wall. I slumped against the tree. "Used to be? How-?"

  "That's Eliot's gift." In the yellow glow of the streetlights his eyes were strange. "His gift to us, his gift to the world. He's curing us."

  "Curing you?"

  "I thought you were just another-."

  "Victim? Just another victim?" Faggotry's the thing that has licked 'em, I thought. And it looks like Jonah's just another victim.

  He winced. "I know how it sounds. I probably didn't say it quite the right way. I guess I shouldn't have mentioned it at all."

  After a moment's silence we walked on. At the foot of Eliot's stair, I said, "I should go. I'm not comfortable with this at all."

  "Please don't. I'm sorry I said anything."

  "It's okay. I just-. I have to go. It was-. It was nice to have met you."

  "I'm sorry. Will you shake my hand?"

  I did. His skin was as cold and smooth as granite. All the while I walked away-down the hill, toward University Avenue, I hoped-I felt his eyes on me. After about half a block, I turned back. Charlie stood, now, at Eliot's front door. He waved. I turned and never looked back.

  * * *

  10 - Winter's Killing Frost

  At the next cross street, I waited for a traffic light. I looked around for a street sign.

  Franklin. The cross street was Franklin. That meant I'd probably gone the wrong way, away from University. I stood, now, facing a downward slope. I remembered that, as the cab had turned off University into Prospect Park, I'd caught a glimpse of some kind of tower-a bell tower, perhaps, or a shot tower-a fat column of gray stone with a pointed roof like a witch's hat. It had stood high on a hill. I didn't see a hill or a tower anywhere in front of me.

  I wanted very badly to turn. If I could see the tower behind me, then I would know how to get back to University-but I imagined the entire bastion of Christian queens standing on the sidewalk, their arms folded, their eyes narrowed, watching me, and I decided that I could not-would not-turn. I would not even look back over my shoulder.

  I looked, instead, to the left and to the right. Franklin stretched away in either direction, sloping up to the left, down to the right.

  One direction would lead toward the University of Minnesota campus. Most likely, I would have to walk many blocks before I could find a cab or a bus, or even a pay phone.

  The other direction would lead-where? Perhaps to some cross street that would get me to University Avenue, or perhaps to a cross street that led to another cross street, and another, and another. There was every chance I'd get hopelessly lost-or, worse, end up back on Seymour, in front of Eliot's concrete stairs.

  And I wasn't sure which direction was which. Left toward the campus? Right toward the campus? If Franklin sloped downward to the right, then that should mean the campus lay in that direction.

  On the other hand, the streets of this neighborhood were convoluted and perplexing. I'd never understood how everything fit together. Whenever I found myself in this maze of hilly, curving streets, it always seemed either larger or smaller than I remembered. Whichever direction I chose, I might find myself in some vast park I'd never heard of or in the midst of a tract of close-set houses that I didn't recognize.

  Ahead, at the bottom of Seymour, the street curved to the right and followed a tall grayish-white wall or fence. To the left of that, there was a narrow ramp of some kind, flanked by a chain link fence that glowed stark white in the lamplight.

  Left or right? Left or right? I couldn't make myself decide, and I couldn't stand to think about it any longer. I still felt that eyes were on me, that Eliot and his group watched me from his windows or his front walk.

  I crossed Franklin. The light may have been red or green-I scarcely noticed-and I didn't bother to look for traffic. I fixed my eyes on the bottom of the hill, and I half-ran, half-walked toward it.

  Pools of yellow light dotted the buckling sidewalks. Bony tree limbs waved and darted in a stiff, chill wind. I huddled deeper into my jacket.

  Seymour didn't, after all, curve to the right. It ended at a cross street. The grayish-white wall I'd seen from above stretched away in both directions. Rough panels of concrete alternated with smooth. A patchwork of paint in various shades of white marked the spots where graffiti had been covered up. I heard the thump and hum of freeway traffic.

  On the left there was a small park, a patch of dead grass with a jungle gym and a picnic table, and then the concrete ramp curving upward, rising above the rough-and-smooth wall. From above, from a distance, I'd thought that the fences on either side of the ramp had been painted white, but I saw now that they were constructed of bare galvanized steel.

  At the top of the ramp, I could see a structure of some kind, a series of black arches. I climbed the ramp's shallow slope and found myself on a pedestrian bridge, a narrow, deeply shadowed walkway caged in chain-link fence. Below it, I-94 ran through a channel of concrete. Beneath my feet traffic sped by in a river of light and noise. It was surprising, with all the bright lights along the freeway, how dark it was on the bridge.

  Shivering, I stood in the center of the bridge, where there was a spot of pink light. On the concrete walkway someone had painted in blue:

  KILL YOUR

  EGO

  The wind was a frozen blade. Barehanded, I clutched the fence. The cold steel numbed my fingers.

  Eliot's gift to the world, Charlie had called it. Curing us. As if they-we-were all diseased.

  In the eastbound left lane, a semi rumbled along, spouting black exhaust. As the truck passed under the bridge, the pavement trembled alarmingly under my feet. I walked on.

  Well beyond the center of the freeway, the bridge crested above some train tracks. More blue paint. I crouched to read the graffiti.

  THE

  UNIVERSE

  WANTS TO

  PLAY

  What the fuck did that mean?

  I stood. To the left, far below me, a yellow boxcar sat on the tracks, looking as if it hadn't been used or even moved in years. On the right side of the bridge, a gap in the trees offered a view of downtown Minneapolis, of gold towers and o
bsidian columns encrusted with white lights.

  At the far end of the bridge there was a stairway. I hurried down it. My feet and fingers ached with cold. At the first landing I paused and cupped my hands around my mouth and blew warm air into them.

  On either side of me, houses stretched away, their leaf-strewn lawns filled with flagstone-ringed flower beds and patio furniture and barbeques shrouded for winter. Somewhere high above me, a plane droned. Behind me, the freeway traffic moaned, loud and low-pitched.

  I looked down and saw that the stairs gave onto a sidewalk. To the right of the sidewalk, a big stucco duplex or apartment building sat mere feet from the pavement. To the left, a row of pine trees bordered a strip of lawn. Directly across the street, on the corner, a street sign read, "E River Terr."

  East River Terrace. I was near the river. The river was just ahead.

  I dashed down the stairs, flight after flight. My footsteps fell on more graffiti, illegible in the shadows.

  I ran down the sidewalk, toward the river. The boulevard was mostly clear of trees, and I could see that, yes, after the next block, the sidewalk ended at the river road.

  At the river road, I stopped and looked up and down the street, trying to get my bearings. The main entrance to the beach would be far off to the left. The stairway to the beach would be far off to the right. Heedless of traffic, I crossed and turned right along the path.

  As I walked, I realized that I would have to pass the little gray-haired man's house. I stayed as far from the street as I could, walking along the line of trees at the top of the slope. I could smell the river, could feel the chill of the water. Even bare and leafless, the trees were so thick that I could see the river only in pearly-white stripes and blotches.

  The little gray-haired man still had all his lawn signs out. From a long way away I spotted the field of red, white, and blue. A few signs had tumbled down-had loosed themselves or had been pulled loose by vandals. They flapped in the breeze.

  Fuck. There he was. The little gray-haired man himself, on this side of the street. He was in his bathrobe, leaning on his cane, waiting while his dog shat. He called out a challenge, wanted to know what the fuck I thought I was doing.

  What the fuck did he think I was doing? I was walking. Walking along a public path through a public park.