C O D A
“I could kill Jack for just letting you guys go out like that and get lost in the woods!”
Chris stood up. He was the worst shade of white and green Doug had ever seen, and he said, more like an old man than a twelve year old, “I think you’d better sit down.”
“Doug was great,” Mike said. “He was like, follow the moon, follow the sun, this is east. He caught a rabbit, then he was like, give me your knife. But I couldn’t eat a rabbit, so he let it go, then I felt stupid because I didn’t know if we’d find food again. But he found a rabbit, just like people on wildlife shows. And then he said… say it again.”
“Say what again?”
“The way you said it when you found the Mc.Donalds.”
“I don’t remember.”
“He said, ‘Well could you eat that?’ And I was like wow! And then we went in there, and Doug demanded, like he was a grown up or something, he demanded a phone and he had them give us Big Macs and fires and shakes, and then I made a real mess by throwing everything up—”
“Are you alright, Mike?” Chris looked at him, worried.
“I’m awesome!” Mike crowed.
Mike looked at Doug, smiling, and Doug wondered if they would kiss again. They didn’t.
“It was awesome,” Mike declared. “The whole thing was awesome.”
“I’ll take Swann the phone,” Doug said when he answered Swann’s phone.
“Thanks. How you guys doing?”
“It’s Good Friday. Everybody’s fasting. Everybody’s hungry, but evrybody’s fine,” Doug said as he went down the hall.
“Jill and Jim, Brad and Annette came with us.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, they just headed back to Indiana an hour ago. You all go to church at Saint Francis?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Uh, cause you all live there.”
Doug handed the phone to Swann, who was in the kitchen.
“It’s Chris.”
Swann nodded and took the phone.
While Donald liked young Jasper well enough, he was insistent that young people with babies would sleep on the top floor. Pam only ever let Swann or Doug stay in her apartment so that wasn’t an option. Jim and Jill took the back room while Brad and Annette took the front, and Swann and Doug stayed in the library, on the sofas, talking till they were tired, and then in the middle of the night, both of them went down, Swann to his usual room in Donald’s place and Doug to his front room in his grandmother’s. They were both up and making a light breakfast and coffee—so not a total fast—before either of the couples woke.
Now Swann got off the phone and he said, “I’ve gotten so used to having people around. We aren’t really just going to stay here all week, are we?”
“I’m going to go visit my mother,” Doug said. “Now that we’re talking. You might want to do the same.”
“Sure,” Swann shrugged. “But I can’t just sit around and talk to Rose for the next week.”
“I was going to drive up there pretty soon. Did you wanna come with?”
Swann sighed.
“I was going to go to the Good Friday service at three. It’s a while off, but I can’t see us getting back in time if we leave now.”
“I will do this,” Doug said. “I will go with you all to that, and then we can drive up together. But I want to make a stop.”
“Mr. Buren?”
“How did you know?”
“Does he know? Is he still going to be there?”
“He doesn’t leave till Saturday.”
“Do you want me with you?” Swann asked. “I feel like three’s a crowd. If you drop me off on Fullerton, I’ll just take the El.”
Doug nodded.
“You might be right. How was Chris?”
“Fine. He and Sal and Joe stayed at his place last night. He wanted me to know that nothing happened between them. I said it wasn’t my business, but thanks.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that you don’t think it’s your business?”
“I think society tells us to be jealous of things we shouldn’t be.”
“Maybe,” Doug said. “But I think maybe you say it’s not your business because if, say, Joe and Chris and Sal have a threesome, it means you can do whatever you want to do.”
Swann thought about that a moment, twisting the ring on his finger and looking down, surprised to remember it was Sal’s class ring, champagne colored, thick with that red jewel.
“It’s not that,” Swann said. “Not quite. It’s that in the end I will do whatever I want, so they might as well too.”
The days were lengthening, and after Saint Agatha’s they headed north, sailing over the twisted path of Lake Shore Drive. The trip was long and beautiful, the lake glistening as it came out of winter, and the sun beyond them tinted it yellow and orange. They turned off on Fullerton, heading into the descending day, and Swann went to take the El while Doug drove to Mike’s apartment.
When Mike opened the door, Doug said, “I thought I should have called first.”
“No, man,” Mike hugged him fiercely, “I’m glad to see you. This is a surprise. I mean, I guess it shouldn’t be a total surprise, but—”
“I wanted to catch you before you left .”
“Excellent.”
“I just dropped Swann off, and he’s taking the El up to Evanston, and I said I’d join him later.”
“You got time for dinner?” Mike asked, already going to grab his hoodie and his coat.
“I guess I do. I guess we’re gonna.”
“Great. I’m starving.”
“Did you fast?”
Mike frowned.
“Are you serious?”
“I never knew how deep your Catholicism went.”
“I think it went as deep as trying to act like everyone I was around. And now I’m not trying to act like anybody.”
Doug admitted to himself that he liked Mike in a pea coat with the hood of his sweatshirt hanging out and a ball cap on his head. It was very… maybe
Chicago was the word he was looking for.
“There are so many restaurants. So just don’t point to what you want. I’m taking you.”
“That’s nuts,” Doug said as Mike pulled the door close.
“Because of what I used to do?” Mike said. “Cause I’m not broke now?”
“You’re not broke, and I don’t care what you used to. It’s just one of us has a trust fund, and the other of us is you, so how about you point to the restaurant and I’ll be the one to pay?”
“This is so much better than Mc.Donalds,” Mike said.
“As long as you don’t throw up.”
Mike burst out laughing.
“How did you put up with me! I was such a nerd.”
“You’re still a nerd,” Doug said, sipping from his drink as he looked about the restaurant. It was trendy, with party lights and university students, and broad windows looking onto the night where people walked up and down Fullerton. Beside his large tea, Doug had plateful of shawarma he was eating with the aid of thing scraps of pita.
“You’re not wrong,” Mike said.
“You know what?” Doug began, “I was wrong, though.”
“Huh?”
“I was thinking, you’ve spent so much time apologizing to me, and I owe you an apology.”
“For what?” Mike frowned in the middle of his falafel.
“For poisoning you.”
“Ha!”
“It wasn’t funny.”
“It kind of was.”
“And for…. For the night of the dance. The whole…”
“Luring me into sex and then telling me to get lost?”
“Uh…. Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Mike gave a comical frown, “we never talk about that.”
“Should we?”
“No,” Mike said without much thought. “I really want to pretend that whenever you finally choose to spend the night with me it’s our first time.”
A surge pulsed from Doug’s asshole to his heart and back to his balls, and while love filled his loins, he simply shrugged, pushing away the thought of going to bed with Mike tonight.
Mike returned the shrug.
“Then it kind of seems like we’ve covered what we need to cover,” he said.
“If you say so.”
