In The Absence Of Light (16 page)

“Give it a minute.”

“Morgan…”

“C’mon, Grant, I’m trying to teach you something here.”

I relented and kept my arm up and waited. And waited some more.

“Feel anything?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should raise it higher.”

“I don’t think…”

Morgan shoved my arm up as high as it would go. “There.”

A young couple heading our way stopped. The guy turned the buggy around and steered his female companion in another direction. She peeked back at us when they rounded the corner.

My face turned hot.

A kid walked up. He couldn’t have been more than five. He stuck his hand in the air and stayed there until his mother dragged him away.

“This isn’t working.”

“Are you sure?” Morgan leaned to the side.

“Yes. I’m very sure.”

“Maybe you should stand on your toes?”

“I don’t think that’s going to help.”

Morgan rubbed his chin. “Hmmm. It worked fine when I did it.” He stood beside me and raised his finger. “Yup. Definitely feel it. It’s way up there. Practically in the stratosphere.”

“Well it’s not—”

“Wait…” He closed his eyes. “Wait…”

“My arm is really getting tired.”

“I know, just hang on.” Another long minute dragged. People actually began to bunch together over by the lettuce to watch us.

“Well that explains everything.” Morgan dropped his hand back down.

“What?”

“Seems like I got my o-meters mixed up.”

“Huh?”

“Happens sometimes. Barometer, bullshitometer, I’m sure you can understand how easily it can happen.”

Morgan left with the buggy.

I put my arm down. The crowd broke up, and a lady wearing a hairnet stopped beside me and squeezed my bicep a couple of times. Then she walked away without saying a thing.

If I’d been given a choice of standing around with my goddamned finger in the air or facing Morgan, I would have chosen the former. No matter how many little old ladies felt me up.

Morgan had already cleared the produce section and moved into the meats. I stood next to the buggy while he examined packages of pork chops.

He made a choice, then moved down to the chicken.

“Mor—”

“Do you like dumplings?” He held up a Styrofoam tray of chicken strips.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Even if you didn’t, you’d like mine. Everyone does.” He put them in the buggy.

I trailed after him like a kicked puppy. “I didn’t mean—”

“Ham?”

“What about it?”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

Morgan checked the prices. His wandering hand tossed thoughts and his shoulder jerked hard enough to yank his head to the side.

“I’m so—”

“I think I need eggs.” He dug his grocery list out of his pocket. “It’s not on the list, but I’m pretty sure…”

“I’m sorry, all right?”

Two mothers with their gaggle of children turned and looked at us. They kept staring so I tried to look busy by grabbing a package out of the cooler and tossing it in the buggy.

“Are you sure you want to buy that?” Morgan cocked his head. With his hair in the way, I couldn’t tell if he was watching me or looking in the buggy.

“I have no idea.”

He handed it back to me. Pig tails. Lovely.

“You look like more of a donkey tail person to me.”

“What’s that sup—”

Morgan walked over to the dairy section while holding his finger in the air.

I was never going to live this down. If I lived through it at all. I caught up to him at the milk cooler. “Okay, you’re right. I’m an ass.”

He shut the freezer. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you.”

“I said, I’m sorry.”

“Oh I heard that part just fine, but those last few words kinda faded out.” He held up two containers of milk. “Lactose intolerant?”

I took the bottles of milk from Morgan’s hands and put them in the buggy. As soon as his wayward one was free, it fluttered at his temple. He dropped his head and stepped away. The freezer door shut, expelling a puff of frigid air.

I cupped his face. His shoulder jerked, and I petted his cheek with my thumb. Morgan made a fist at his temple. The tendons stood out on his wrist and his entire arm trembled. I didn’t know if it was because he fought the tics or was angry.

“Please,” I said. “Please look at me.”

“Why?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“Yes.”

“Because you have beautiful eyes.”

He bit his lip.

“Because I love it when you do.”

Morgan tensed his shoulders.

“And because it’s a gift I don’t deserve, but for some reason, you’ve chosen to share it with me.”

He slowly blinked and shifted his gaze. The brown of his eyes had turned close to black under the shadows of sadness and self-doubt.

“I… Am… Sorry.” My voice trembled under the weight of the words. “I did not mean to hurt you.”

“Then why did you lie about your knee?”

I had a hundred very legitimate excuses. All of which would have been for his benefit. Lies that you told to protect people were the most believable because they were the kind of lies you bled for, so even the worst liar could weave tales of protective netting.

I didn’t like lying, but when it came to keeping the people around me safe, I had a silver tongue.

Even if Morgan never found out I’d lied to him, knowing I had would taint everything from that moment forward. And he would find out. He’d look through me like a window and read it off my soul.

Telling him the truth could also push him away, but I owed him the choice.

“Let’s finish the shopping. Then when we get back, I’ll explain everything.”

Morgan brushed his fingertips over the back of my hand and stepped away. “Would you like to stay and have pizza for dinner?” He fluttered his fingers next to his temple.

“I’d love to.”

“C’mon.”  He tugged me up beside him. “I need to keep my eye on you.”

“Why?”

“Dolores has been following us around since aisle three.”

I looked. There she was, the lady in the hairnet. Purse over her arm, yellow and blue print muumuu, and house slippers. She waved.

“I don’t know why.”

“How can you say that?” Morgan stopped at the cheese shelf.  “You’ve got good looks, nice legs, arms, and a gorgeous ass. And you do a killer Statue of Liberty impression.” He picked up a chunk of mozzarella and put it in the buggy.

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

Morgan laughed.

********

With a stomach full of homemade pizza and a fresh bottle of beer, Morgan and I sat on the top step of his front porch.

I wasn’t quite sure how we got out there. If it was my idea or his idea or it just happened. But there we were, hip to hip, beer in hand. With the porch light turned off, and only the kitchen light on in the back of the house, we were left to drown under a new moon and an ocean of stars.

There hadn’t been many things I missed when I left my home in that no-name town in the armpit of Alabama. And the few things I did miss were quickly forgotten.

Except for the stars.

For a very long time, I yearned to see those billions of glowing points. To count shooting stars or witness the rare meteor shower. But after years of looking up and seeing the moon, and the few patches of starlight burning just bright enough to survive the afterglow of the city, I succumbed to the belief something so perfect could have never existed.

I was so convinced, even after I arrived in Durstrand, I hadn’t bothered to look up. And once I did, I had no idea how I would ever be able to look away.

Occasionally a barking dog would interrupt the fading tree frogs, but otherwise it was quiet in the way only the country could be.

We sat for a very long time, saying nothing, sipping on beer, and breathing the night air.

I learned then, there are patient men in this world and then there was Morgan.

“I’m not sure where to start.” I drank some of my beer. It wasn’t anywhere as good as Toolies, but it was good enough to calm my nerves. “And a lot of what I need to tell you, I’ve never told anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was in my best interest, and the best interest of others, not to.”

The darkness was not infinite like it had been in the truck the other night in the pasture, so gray smudges highlighted Morgan’s hair and left commas on his beer bottle.

“You could always start at the beginning.”

I propped my elbows on my knees. “I guess that would make the most sense.”

“Lots more sense than standing around with your finger in the air.”

“You have a point.” A breeze shuffled past us, bringing the promise of winter with it. “When I was fifteen, I told my dad I was gay. It was Wednesday. Pot roast night. My mom always made the best damn pot roast.

“I’d been trying to come up with a way to tell him all day long and right there between ‘pass the green beans’ and ‘do you want some butter on your bread,’ it popped out.” I huffed a laugh. “My dad didn’t miss a beat. He stood, picked up my plate and glass, and carried them into the kitchen. Then he walked to the closet and took out my jacket and handed it to me. But he didn’t send me out completely empty-handed. He gave me twenty bucks and told me to never come back.”

“What did you do?”

“Not much I could do. I started walking. Clay wasn’t as small as Durstrand, but it was small enough. I slept in a cow barn the first night. Earned me the worst case of chiggers I’ve ever had. And the twenty bucks was gone in three days. After I spent the last buck twenty-five on a Waffle House grilled cheese sandwich, I sat outside next to the dumpster and cried. A woman from our local church recognized me and asked me what was wrong. I told her what my dad did and why, and she told me she’d pray for me and walked away.”

Morgan put his hand on my thigh.

“Three nights later, it turned cold and all I had was a jacket. I had no idea a person could be that tired, cold, and hungry and still walk around. I was on some dinky highway I can’t even remember the name of, when this guy pulled up and offered me a ride.

“I was scared to death he was going to expect me to have sex with him, but as long as he gave me something to eat, I decided I didn’t care.”

“Did he?”

“No. He just took me back to his hotel, let me eat myself sick on a bag of Oreos, take a shower, and crash on the other double bed. The next morning, he told me his name was Cody West and he was going to Chicago and wanted to know if I’d like to go with him. I had nothing to lose so why not.

“I think I was in love with him two weeks after he picked me up, but we didn’t have sex for almost eight months after we met. By the time it happened, I was masturbating every night to fantasies of fucking him in the back of his Impala.”

“Wow.”

“Car was the ugliest green color. I have no idea why anyone would have fantasies about anything in a car like that, except maybe to throw up.” I shook my head. “Cody was thirty-nine going on eighteen. A liar, a con artist, and always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. Cody would have sold his own grandmother, if he had a one, in a thousand to one chance at that big score. By the time I figured him out, I was in love. Or thought I was.”

When I closed my eyes, I could still see his apartment. At the time, it had been the Ritz, but looking back, I knew it was only a few steps higher than a rat-infested alleyway. But we weren’t going to be there very long. Tomorrow, next week, in a month or so, that friend, contact, or associate was going to come through and Cody was going to take me to Europe or Australia.

“I got a job doing deliveries. Sometimes along with tips, I’d bring home brownies from one of the upscale restaurants I ran packages for. Cody loved those stupid things. Made him horny as hell too.”

A car engine echoed through the darkness and a faint beam of light grew brighter. It passed the driveway and disappeared in a wink of red taillights.

“Then one day, when I came home from work, the apartment was empty.” Dirty dishes in the sink, trash full, and empty Chinese food containers on the coffee table. The usual.

“Did something happen to him?”

“Nah. All his shit was gone, and he left me a note. Said something about how he had some business in Atlanta, but he’d be back in a week.”

“He didn’t come back?”

“No. And Surviving in Chicago is a lot harder than surviving in the middle of nowhere. It’s a lot colder too. But I had the job with the delivery place, and Eugene, the guy who owned it, let me sleep in the back room. After a few years, he started to teach me the business. A few years later, I figured out what his business was really all about.”