First flight, p.4
First Flight, page 4
“I’m just looking out for you, Jesse.”
“I don’t need that! I don’t need you!”
“Yes you do, Jesse. You need me like I need you. I’ll forgive you, this time, but never do it again.”
“Don’t fucking follow me!” Jesse ended the call and headed home. He pulled into the driveway and watched Kevin’s car pass by, then went inside.
The twenty-first day:
Chris set out breakfast. Today, it was cinnamon toast, coffee, cereal, no eggs (they were out), muffins from the Market’s bakery, and a scrap of a Mylar balloon. It was bright green on one side, silver on the other, and each surface was creased where it had gotten wadded up in the bottom of his pocket.
“What’s that?” Chris pointed at the fuzzy brown thing on the front porch.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said, putting his car in park and unbuckling his seatbelt. “I’ll go see.” It was a stuffed bear, about ten inches tall, holding a red satin heart with “I luv u” embroidered on it in white. There was a folded piece of paper tucked between the bear’s arms, behind the heart, and Jesse’s stomach went sour as he pulled it free.
i know ur sorry for lying to me
i 4give u
i know we’ll b 2gether again soon
“Jesus,” he said, grabbing the bear. He stalked down the path toward the driveway, pausing to shove the toy and the note into the garbage can that sat at the front corner of the garage before returning to his car.
“What was it?” Chris said as Jesse dropped into his seat.
“Kevin! He’s completely lost his mind. And why did I never notice that he doesn’t use real words when he writes?” Not that Jesse really knew why that of all things should bother him.
“Do you think we should help him look for his mind? How did he lose it?” The few things that went missing around the Swanson household tended to be keys, socks, and the remotes.
“No. No, he lost it when I told him that I didn’t want to see him anymore. Don’t worry about it, okay?” Jesse fastened his seatbelt and put his car into reverse again. “Let’s just go to work.”
The twenty-second day:
There. Everything was perfectly arranged, just as the water gurgled through the pipes overhead. Breakfast was ready, Jesse was awake, and Chris had found the perfect shiny hex nut for him.
The twenty-third day:
Jesse looked into his locker, pinched the bridge of his nose, then bent down and picked up the piece of pink construction paper that had been cut into the shape of a heart.
roses r red
violets r blu
ur my jesse
and i luv u
—k
“A note from a secret admirer?” Betsy said, nodding at the heart.
“No. A note from a pest,” Jesse said, wadding it up. He pushed up on his toes and tossed the ball toward the trash can, raising his hands over his head as it went in. “Two points!”
Chapter Six
The twenty-fourth day:
Jesse shook his head. Almost a full month of breakfasts accompanied by little bits of junk and he simply had to know.
“Hey, Chris?”
“Yes?”
“Sit down, okay?” He pointed at the chair next to his own. “I wanna talk to you.”
“Okay.” Chris, holding his favorite spoon, went over and sat.
“I don’t get this,” Jesse said, holding up the bottle cap that had been sitting by his favorite coffee cup. “I don’t collect bottle caps or keys or any of the other stuff. You fix me breakfast, so you have to know where these things are coming from. Can you, y’know, explain?”
Chris shrugged. “It is right.”
“Right?” That made no sense, even for this time of the morning.
“It is what I am supposed to do.” Chris frowned, looking up from his spoon. “Something tells me to give you things.”
“That’s not funny, Chris,” Jesse said, giving him a sharp look. “Are you hearing things?”
“Hearing what?”
“Voices? Demons?” Jesse got up, moving toward the phone. “’Cause if you are, then we gotta get you some help.”
Jesse was afraid of him? The idea was painful to think about, and he shook his head. “No! I just know it. As I know…. As I know eggs are good. To tell you that you are important, that I chose you, I give you things. And I feed you.”
“You just know?” Jesse crossed his arms but stayed where he was. “How do you know about eggs? I mean, you didn’t even know about silverware or names or clothes when I met you.” He pushed the bits about being important and chosen aside, for the moment.
“Eggs…. It is something inside,” Chris said, trying to find the words for it. He touched his chest. “Here. Eggs are food, and eggs are… eggs are alive. Living. I remember, before, knowing that. As I know how to fly.” That was what dancing was like, his little voice said.
Oh, well, that was different. That was more like—“Instinct?” Jesse had known that Chris wasn’t quite right, but it was another thing altogether to have it made plain. On the other hand, the look on Chris’s face seemed to speak to feelings that ran deeper than merely confusing fantasy and reality. “Uh, fly?”
He hadn’t really thought about it until just that moment, had been too busy learning words and how to dress himself and about fruits and vegetables and how to tell if something was okay to eat to think about it. Now, though, it was as if something had fallen on him, heavy and inescapable. “I miss my wings,” Chris said, touching his face as his throat closed up and his eyes began to sting. “Hate listening to them, hate hearing them laugh about it. I want to fly again.”
“Listening to who?” Jesse stepped sideways, toward the phone.
“The ravens and magpies,” Chris managed, before he fled kitchen and house alike through the back door.
Jesse bolted after him, the memory of Chris naked and silent in the back of his car flashing through his mind. It didn’t really matter if Chris was delusional or crazy or… or anything, he wasn’t going to let him go off on his own. “Chris!”
He turned to his left as a harsh sound caught his attention, surprised by the ferocity of his relief. “Chris.” He knelt beside the other young man, who was scrunched up in the same corner he’d retreated to that disastrous first day he’d lived with the Swansons.
Chris shuddered, another rough noise escaping him. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t look at Jesse, could hardly breathe.
“Chris, it’s….” Okay would have been a lie. Whether Chris was imagining things or not, it was clearly affecting him. “Hey. I’m gonna go call Betsy and let her know we’re gonna be late or something. Do not go anywhere. I’ll be right back. Okay?”
He nodded, though he stayed tucked into the corner.
“Okay. I’ll be right back.” Jesse returned within two minutes, his phone held to his ear. “Uh-huh, I’ll let him know. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, if we can, we will, and I’ll definitely be in today, I swear to God. Yeah, thanks, Betsy. Bye.” He sat down beside Chris, leaning against him. “Betsy says she hopes you feel better,” he said.
Jesse was warm, and it felt good to have him so close. It didn’t take away the press of sorrow, though; it didn’t make him feel any less alone.
“I don’t understand, you know?” Jesse copied Chris’s pose, knees drawn up and arms around them, though he kept his head up. “I still don’t know how you got into the back of my car, but there you were. I brought you home, even though I didn’t know anything about you except that you weren’t on drugs and you needed help.
“I still don’t really know anything about you, Chris, even after all this time. You don’t talk about anything. Your mom and dad, your friends, nothing before I met you. If you don’t know, you don’t know.” He shrugged.
“Mother and father….” Chris could only remember red mouths and warmth, raucous mornings and quiet nights. It was the same with friends, with anything from before, it was all a jumble of pictures and feelings. He tried to remember names, but there were none like Jesse or Christopher or Ellen or Betsy. It was all just feelings. He felt that they were things like feeds-and-straightens and feeds-and-laughs and plays-with-stones and fell-from-tree. And other than the red mouths, there was nothing but black—blue-black, green-black, gray-black, brown-black; glossy and matte and leathery.
“You don’t even talk about where you came from. And like I said, if you don’t know, then there’s no way you can, so it’s not a big deal.”
“I fell,” Chris said, turning his face toward the porch rail. “There was light and dark, and I fell and then…. Then I was awake. And my wings were gone. And I have stupid feet, and I’m not doing things right.”
“Who said you were doing things wrong?” Having stupid feet was weird, but what else was new? Jesse leaned his head on his hand and propped his elbow on his knee, looking at the back of Chris’s head.
“No one said. I see it,” Chris said, and a fresh wave of misery broke over him. Again, he hadn’t really thought about it, but now it was obvious. “I found things, and I make food, but—and I can’t fly and I’m all wrong. And you….” How could he have fooled himself into thinking that Jesse would want him?
Jesse was torn between putting his arm around Chris and calling his mom to ask her for advice. Instead of doing either, he decided to start with the thing he knew the most about and work toward the rest. “People can’t fly, not without an airplane or a hang glider or something. I can’t fly either, you know? And what about me?” I chose you. The idea was distracting, so he ignored it again.
“I don’t know!” Chris’s voice cracked on the last word, and he buried his face in his arms, fighting for breath. Each exhalation hurt, the air forced out in a choked sob.
Jesse gave up and put his arm around Chris’s shoulders. By the time he’d calmed down, Jesse’s backside had started to go numb, but he could live with it. “Better, now?”
“Don’t know,” Chris said and took a shuddery breath.
“Uh, you started to say something, about me, earlier. You said ‘And you’, but then you stopped. Was it, uh, important?” Jesse hoped the question wouldn’t upset him again.
“Don’t know,” Chris said. He felt muffled, empty; the thought of facing the public made him want to hide for a while. There was only one other place he could think of, besides the corner. “Want to go back to bed.”
“Yeah, I bet you do. Come on.” Jesse got to his feet, then leaned over and helped him up. “Do you want to be by yourself for a while?”
“I think so.” He must be doing something wrong, if Jesse wasn’t interested in his offerings. In him. Maybe if he thought about it, he could figure out the right thing to do.
“Okay. Will you be okay if I go to the store?”
“Wait,” Chris said, as he stepped into the house. “You have to finish breakfast.”
“I’ll take the muffin with me, I promise,” he said, and gently pushed Chris in the direction of the stairs. “I gotta get some clothes on, anyhow. If I show up in my jammies, Betsy will have a fit.”
Chris let himself be jostled, remembering the night he’d been carried into the bathroom and bumped into Jesse and the stranger. They’d been kissing, that was the word for it. But then they’d stopped, Jesse had dragged him outside and…. He sighed and climbed the stairs. “Okay.”
Upstairs, Jesse pulled back the covers on his bed. “I know you like sleeping in my bed, so in you go.”
It wasn’t so much the bed itself as it was being wrapped up in the scent that was Jesse, but it was one more thing he wasn’t sure he could explain. “Thank you,” Chris said solemnly, and crawled in. He caught Jesse’s hand as he pulled the blankets up to his chin. “I would tell you.”
“I know you would,” Jesse said and ruffled his hair. “Get some rest. If you want to come in for the afternoon shift, Betsy wouldn’t mind, but you don’t have to. I’m gonna be a little late, maybe as late as after dinner, so don’t worry if I’m not home before then, okay?”
“Okay.” Chris turned onto his side and wriggled around until he was curled up in the corner, watching Jesse dress through mostly closed eyes. “Have a good day.”
“I’ll try,” Jesse said, buttoning his shirt. “You too.”
Chris closed his eyes and everything faded away.
The world was spread out below him, a lumpy carpet of greens and browns and grays, shot through with silvery flashes of water and human-made things. The sun shone on him, warm and comforting. The cool fresh air held him up and brought him little bits of information. This way, it said, there is food this way.
He ignored it in favor of looking at the familiar shape that hung just off to his right. A bird, black, with the sun bringing out blue and green and even violet glints in its feathers. “What is your name?”
“Sings-like-water. What is yours?”
“My name is— I am— I don’t know.”
“How do you not know your own name?”
“I don’t know anything except your name. I have lost everything. Even flying, even my wings.”
“That cannot be.”
“It is! I have lost everything!”
“Then this is impossible.” Sings-like-water’s claws locked with his and they wheeled in the sky, falling for one long heart-stopping instant before parting and soaring joyously upward again. There was a cloud before them, just a small puff of gray-white vapor. The two of them scythed into it, but when he emerged on the other side, he was alone.
“Hello, little one.”
Not alone, after all. He looked up and up and up. He was standing at the feet of the largest raven he’d ever seen. It was larger than an eagle, than a tree, than the buildings in the city. “Hello,” he said, softly.
“You watched that man for a very long time.” The big bird tipped its head and he could see the man, smiling, his mouth open and moving—Jesse.
“Yes. He’s interesting! He makes unusual sounds that I like.”
“You gave up food to watch and listen.”
“Yes.” How did he know that? He had, and he’d do it again.
The big raven was suddenly much, much smaller, just a little larger than himself. It carefully straightened some of its feathers, then said, “You wanted something you could not find in the sky.”
“Yes,” he said, only mildly surprised by the statement. “Yes, I wanted to know more. About the man. About the sounds.”
“Ah,” the raven said, straightening a few more feathers, “and have you learned about them?”
“Yes.”
“Has the price been worth it?”
“Price?”
“The cost. You are as a hatchling: hungry and knowing not what you hunger for, flightless and wanting flight. Aren’t you?”
“Yes. I am. Who am I? Why am I like this?”
“You wanted what could not be had in the sky, and you gave up all you knew to have it.”
“Who are you?”
“I held you close until your mother joined with your father; I whispered to you as you pipped. I know the names of your hatchlings, and I know the names of your hatchling’s hatchlings.” The bird stepped toward him and put a wing around him, tucking him close to its body like a mother. “I gave you what you wanted. Is it worth it?”
“I don’t know. I am missing parts. He wants to know, and I can’t tell him.”
“You gave up all you knew for something you could not find in the sky.”
Chris woke up enough to turn over, wondering vaguely if the dream meant anything. He certainly didn’t feel like he’d found anything except unhappiness, and if he couldn’t find that in the sky…. If he couldn’t find that in the sky, then why had he wanted it in the first place? Nonsense, as most dreams were. He closed his eyes and drifted off once again.
Chapter Seven
Chris was putting the last of the dinner dishes in the dishwasher when Jesse came in. “Hello.”
“Hey.” Jesse held up the bag he carried. “I, uh, brought you something.”
“A gift? For me?” Uncertainty nibbled at the edge of his delight, and he didn’t smile.
“Yeah,” he said, a corner of his mouth turning up at the seriousness on Chris’s face.
“Thank you.” Chris closed the dishwasher, washed and dried his hands, then gave Jesse an expectant look.
“Here you go,” Jesse said, handing him the bag.
