The River in Winter

by Matt Dean

  I felt drunk. How many glasses of Guinness had I had?

  No, the Guinness had nothing to do with it.

  I said, "If on the third day the Christ rolled away the stone and rose from the tomb, surely he will lift this burden from my shoulders, and I shall rise from the stinking grave, the prison of my sinful nature. I shall be of a holy heart and a pure mind. I shall be the beautiful thing I was meant to be." And here the tears rolled freezing down my cheeks. "I shall be like Christ."

  A hand caught mine. I looked down. It was Tigger. "Are you crazy?" he said through lips stretched tight across his teeth. "Are you completely bug-fuck insane?"

  Smiling, I squatted on the edge of the table. I clasped both his hands in both of mine. "Brother, I have never been more sane."

  "You have to come with me," he said. He tugged on my hands, and I leapt off the table.

  My feet plunged into soft sand. I knew, somehow, that my shoes were ruined.

  Suddenly Tigger's knit brow smoothed itself. His worry collapsed into laughter, and for a second I thought he was laughing at my ruined shoes. "You're in serious danger here, man. You're about to be reverse-bashed."

  Laughing still, hanging an arm over my shoulder, Tigger led me to the concrete ramp. At the plateau, Tigger steered me toward the pink stain of light at the top of the hill. As we climbed, I felt that eyes were on us, hostile eyes. The idea was oppressive at first, but by the time we emerged onto the sidewalk above the park, I was laughing again.

  I looked at Tigger. Here, under the bright streetlight, I saw for the first time the outlandish proportions of the jewelry he wore in his septum piercing. A five-gauge-or perhaps four-gauge-bent barbell. The two beads nearly touched his upper lip.

  We stood on the sidewalk, panting from the climb. Neither of us was laughing now.

  "Thank you," I said. "I don't exactly know what came over me down there-." I glanced down the path. Waving shadows filled the chasm.

  Tigger touched my hand. I looked at him. In this light his blue eyes paled nearly to whiteness. "If you don't know, I'm sure I don't know."

  "Will you come back?"

  He shook his head. "I can't." Shivering, shifting his weight from one booted foot to the other, he hugged his arms to his body. He stared into the sky. "I do feel kind of lost, but I can't come back. I can't see Eliot."

  "Did something happen? Did he-?"

  Tigger looked at me, stared at me. His eyes were fierce. I hadn't noticed, before this, that pale stray hairs stood up from his eyebrows, curly and wild.

  "You're some kind of special case, you know. Eliot's favorite. You've never seen how he can get."

  "What do you-?"

  He interrupted me. "Every one of us, except you-. When someone's not doing what Eliot thinks they should do, he's-. He's fucking mean, man. Mean as shit."

  I flinched. Mean as shit. "What-what does he-?"

  "It's all just talking. But fuck. Holy shit. You've never heard anything like it. He can make you feel-."

  "Like nothing?"

  He nodded, chewing his thumbnail. "I can't see Eliot again."

  "I just can't believe-."

  "You haven't seen it happen. He's done it in group. He made Mason cry one time. And this one time, with Charlie-." He threw up his hands. He turned his head, squinted into the distance as if the striped fa?ade of the Shriners Hospital suddenly fascinated him.

  "It's cold out here," I said. "Let's go-." I nodded toward my car.

  He walked with me to the Chevette. We both climbed in. The air inside was cold, but when I started the engine, the heater still blew warm air.

  Eliot. Mean as shit. He could be stern, yes, as a father could be stern. But mean as shit? I thought-I could only think-that Tigger must be hypersensitive. Perhaps his father had been abusive, perhaps Eliot's sternness triggered some kind of overreaction. Of all of us, Tigger had always seemed the most fragile. Even Mason, in his quiet way, was stronger than Tigger.

  And how long had it been since Tigger had come to group? November? December? Maybe Eliot had mellowed since, and Tigger had washed out too soon, had missed a gentler Eliot.

  "If you ever need to talk," I said, "if you ever find yourself headed here, you can call me. Please? Three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the afternoon, call me."

  I fumbled around for a pen, for something to write on. I took a pen from the ashtray and a dollar bill from my wallet. I wrote my name and both my phone numbers-work and home-on the single. I handed it to Tigger.

  "I might take you up on this," he said. He stared at the dollar. "I need to stop coming here. I'm sick of it, but it's like an addiction. I can't help myself."

  "We have to help each other," I said, "or we're doomed to fail."

  * * *

  26 - Assisted Living

  Early in the morning on Thursday, just before seven, the phone rang. Eliot. "We have to talk," he said. "Meet me at my office in an hour? Eight o'clock? Can you make it?"

  "Okay," I said. I was barely awake. I might have said anything.

  "Eight o'clock," he said again. "My office."

  "Okay."

  Only after he'd hung up did it occur to me to ask why I was meeting him.

  If I didn't get out of bed, I knew, I would roll over and go back to sleep and miss our appointment. I climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom.

  I lathered for a shave. When I'd finished, a mask of white foam covered me from the neck up, everything but my eyes and nose.

  The warmth of the lather, the scrape of the blade. I couldn't help thinking of Tory, his hand on my head-on the top of my head as he'd complimented me, on the back of my head as he'd danced with me. I ignored my growing erection.

  I showered, but only long enough to rinse away the soap. Anything more, I felt, and I would be on my knees again, my slick hand moving swiftly.

  Dressed in my work clothes, carrying my leather jacket, I hurried for the door. Under skies of deep blue, the wind whispered a promise of warmth in the crisp air. Swift clouds, moving east, covered the sun. Crocus dotted my lawn with lavender and yellow.

  By the time I reached the Midview Center, though, clouds had slumped in from the west. Rain fell in gallon drops that exploded against my windshield.

  I pulled into a parking space near Eliot's door. An Acura Vigor, the color of a new-minted penny, glided into the space next to mine. A blotch of grayish salt spray darkened the passenger's-side fender. From the driver's seat Charlie looked at me, a long look, a longing look. Leaning sideways, he unlatched the passenger's side door and shoved it open. I dodged raindrops-or tried to-and dashed from my car to his. With the flats of my hands I swept chilly water off my scalp.

  Over a T-shirt of mottled gray cotton, Charlie wore a rumpled shirt, unbuttoned, tails free. Over that, a navy blue Helly Hansen jacket-brand new, it looked like. The jacket-the white logo, the two side-by-side H's near the zippered breast pocket-reminded me of the bearded man at the beach. Charlie's black jeans and blue sneakers had frayed and frazzled themselves at the edges. Mousse or gel darkened and stiffened his hair. The short hairs behind his ear stood on end. A musk of sweat and tobacco filled the close air of the car.

  "What's going on?" I asked him. "Eliot called me-."

  "I called him, asked him if we could all get together. We need to talk."

  "About what?"

  "If it's okay, I'd rather wait till-." He looked down at his gloved hands. They lay limp in his lap. He didn't seem inclined to say more.

  His eyes darted briefly toward me. Then, seeming all at once to sink into himself, he turned his head. For a long moment he looked at me, his eyes gray in the cloudy morning light. He blinked, looked down at his hands, said again, "If it's okay, I'd rather wait-."

  I nodded. "Sure. Okay."

  * * *

  Eliot's office was muggy and close. Throwing off our jackets and gloves, Charlie and I sat in the armchairs. Eliot sat behind the desk, his back bearing-wall straight.

  "Charlie has s
omething he needs to tell you," Eliot said.

  I looked at Charlie. Mournful, disconsolate, he stared at Eliot.

  "Charlie?" Eliot said.

  Again as in the car, Charlie looked at his hands. Mumbling, he said, "I have feelings for you."

  "Feelings?" I said.

  "He thinks he's in love with you," Eliot said.

  "In love with-?"

  Charlie said, "I don't know how it happened. Something about the new-." He touched the top of his head.

  I looked at Eliot, at Charlie, at Eliot again. "Something about the shaved head?" I said.

  We'd spent so little time together, Charlie and I, and so little of it alone. In group, at the end of the session, yes, we'd talked sometimes. In something akin to privacy-if it could be called privacy, with the rest of the group on the opposite end of the room-yes, we'd exchanged a few words. But-. But for something like love to be built on that-. How-?

  "I don't know how it happened," Charlie said again.

  "It doesn't matter how it happened," Eliot said. "These things happen. It's a danger we all face. I don't think you two should see each other any more."

  I looked at Charlie. He was already looking at me, his eyes deep and watery.

  "Never? Not for a minute?" he said.

  "What would you do with a minute?" Eliot said. His voice was hard and coarse. "Lust after each other?" He blew into his fist, shook his hand. "Kiss?"

  I wanted to say that I was in no danger of lusting for Charlie, not if I had a minute or an hour or a year. I wanted to say that I was in love with Tory-that Charlie was in no danger from me, that he posed no danger to me. But of course, it wasn't true. I had lusted after Charlie, after all. When we'd first met, I'd imagined us living together with two cats and a pair of matching Hondas. Since then I'd watched him in group, had longed to touch him, hold him, kiss him. More than once, and not so very long ago, as I'd stroked myself in the shower, I'd called up an image of him-the sheer hairy bulk of him.

  What difference did it make, really? Charlie or Tory-or Spike or Jose or Jaime or the plucked and tanned model from Playgirl. What difference did it make? Lust was lust.

  "You have to decide," Eliot said, looking back and forth between us. "I'm only advising."

  Again, I looked at Charlie. Already he was looking at me. He nodded, a small motion. "We have to," he said. "I can't look at you without-." He stopped, shot a furtive, guilty glance across the desk. He looked at Eliot as though Eliot had caught him jacking off. "You know what I mean."

  Now he stared at the floor beyond his feet, at the leg of the desk, and I wasn't sure who he'd meant. Eliot knew what he meant, or I did? I wasn't sure.

  "What about group?" I said. "We shouldn't even see each other at group?"

  Tucking his hands into his armpits, Eliot said, "Again, I'm advising against it. One of you will have to leave group. I'll supplement with another private session."

  Head bowed, Charlie clasped his gloved hands together.

  Eliot said, "Again, this is just my advice, but it seems to me that Charlie should stay in group." He looked at Charlie. "You have a longer history, and until now you've served as something of an example to the others."

  Without looking up, Charlie nodded.

  To me, Eliot said, "Jonah, I don't think group ever clicked for you. Am I right?"

  I was ashamed of the relief I felt. I tried not to smile as I said, "I won't miss it."

  "Then it's settled." He slapped his hands together. "Shall we pray?"

  The prayer was all about lust and shame, forgiveness and purity of heart. I sat stiffly in my chair, trying hard to shake the notion that I'd been unjustly accused. In truth, I was guilty of lust-I did feel the shame of it. But still-in the past few days, at least-Tory had been the object of my lust, not Charlie.

  After the prayer, we all stood. I felt hollow, shell-shocked, numb. For a moment Charlie and I stood looking at each other. In twenty minutes, it seemed, he had aged twenty years. Back hunched, eyes sunken, lips moving soundlessly, he made to pass me. He stopped, looked at me again, looked me up and down. "Bye," he said at last.

  I started to say that I was sorry-sorry that I'd shaved my head and caused him trouble, sorry that he would have to find another spotter at the gym. But I said nothing.

  "I'll miss you," he whispered.

  And so Charlie had gone. Smiling at me, Eliot arranged the papers on his desk. "It's for the best," he said. "It's for the best."

  He stood over his desk, paging through his calendar. "I have Fridays free. Six o'clock? For your second weekly session?"

  "Sure, sure," I said.

  Leading me from the office, Eliot switched off the light.

  We stood together at the front door. Light streaming through the blinds cast bars of shadow across the floor and desk. When Eliot opened the door, the pure yellow glow of sunlight streamed through the gap. The rain had passed.

  Charlie plodded away toward his car, hunched over in the chill air, Atlas shouldering the planet's whole mass and weight.

  * * *

  I drove to work with the third movement of the C-sharp minor quartet singing in my ear. Not yet nine o'clock, and already it had been an odd, odd day.

  Strange, how the heart worked. All the while I was busy falling in love with Christa's husband, Charlie had been falling in love with me.

  Or no-not love. Lust.

  Lust, of course-for what could have made Charlie love me-really, truly love me? He barely knew me. His so-called love seemed to be based more on the workings of my electric shaver and my disposable razor than on any particular aspect of my personality.

  And what, really, could have made me love Tory? The certainty that he was off limits, out of bounds? Before that, to be sure, I'd had no great affection for him. As a friend, perhaps-yes, I'd come to think of him as a friend. Yes, that was true. But as a lover? Only after he'd committed himself to Christa, had become unapproachable, had I come to believe I loved him.

  It hardly mattered. I might never see Charlie again-or, more to the point, he might never see me again. And by now Christa and Tory were on a plane, on their way to Hawaii. Three weeks in Hawaii, a week in Phoenix. In four weeks' time, who knew? I might have fallen in love with someone else-anyone else.

  I craved the Great Fugue, the goblin march. Its sharp edges and precipitous leaps would be well-suited to my mood. But I'd never dubbed the Great Fugue to cassette. Weeks and weeks ago, after my crazy night with Spike and Jose, I'd sworn off it.

  * * *

  All morning, in Christa's absence, her twittering phone destroyed my concentration. Martin had decreed that it should never go unanswered. If we failed to answer the phone, if we scrimped on rudimentary office procedure, he'd said, a legislator might decide that we cared little for our jobs and that we might as well be abolished.

  Fine for Martin. When the phone rang, he sat in the bunker of his office and ignored it.

  By one o'clock, I could stand it no longer. I knocked on Martin's door. He sat at his desk, staring over the top rim of his glasses at his poster of Ravi Shankar. He had the Pioneer Press spread out across his desk.

  "I need to go to lunch," I told him.

  He waved toward the paper. "Did you write in to the Bulletin Board?"

  "Bulletin Board? What? No. Why?"

  He leaned over his desk. His finger flitted up and down the page, fell on a column in the upper right-hand corner. "Where have you gone, Mrs. Malaprop?" he read. He cleared his throat. "'Red' of Saint Paul writes: Anders Thorstensen, Minority Leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives, is Mrs. Malaprop. In a recent committee meeting, Thorstensen referred to the DFL's long-standing habit of championing entitlement over meretriciousness." He looked at me over his glasses. "That happened in our forum. He said that in our forum."

  I shrugged. "I didn't do it. It's nothing to do with me."

  "Who would it have been? You were the only redhead, if I remember rightly."

  "The forum was a while ago
, and you just read that it was a recent committee meeting. A committee meeting, not a forum. Maybe he said the same thing again."

  "I suppose it's possible."

  "I didn't do it. He's said much dumber things. I wouldn't have picked that one." It occurred to me that I wasn't helping my case.

  He picked up the paper, rattled it, folded it. "Hm," he said.

  "I need to go to lunch," I said again. "Can you handle the phones?"

  I didn't exactly wait for an answer. I fled to the cave.

  * * *

  Session must already have adjourned for the day. A line of staffers and legislators, all in suits, stretched from the cashier stand to the main entrance. I waited in line for twenty minutes for a chef's salad that I didn't really want.

  I roamed the cafeteria, searching for an empty table. In the far corner, Thorstensen sat munching a sandwich, reading a book. He looked lonely, somehow, and smaller of stature than I remembered.

  His vest, though-the color of a robin's breast or a cockscomb-that was entirely familiar. The buttons bulged as always, enough to put a hand through each gap.

  I steeled myself, approached his table.

  "Representative Thorstensen?" I said. "I wondered if I might join you?"

  Grunting, he closed his book. Love and Discipline-in hardcover, surprisingly. A new edition?

  "Have a seat," he said. "What can I do you for?"

  I did not sit. I nodded toward the book. It was a new edition, I saw. Near the bottom edge of the front cover, in stark sans-serif type, there was a slug that read, "Newly Revised and Updated-The Resource for the Modern Parent."

  I said, "I haven't read that one."

  He raised his eyebrows. "I wouldn't have thought you would."

  "Hope and Healing, though," I said. "That's an awfully good book."

  Leaning back in his chair, he dropped a crust of bread-all that remained of his sandwich-onto his plate. He brushed crumbs from his fingers. With a paper napkin he dabbed daintily the corners of his mouth.

  "Do you know that book?" I asked him. "Are you aware of its subject matter?"

  He frowned. Slowly, in eight or so syllables, he said, "Yes." The last syllable-call it the ninth-transformed the word into a question.