They had been bickering since they woke up. Stan wouldn't budge. "Just tell 'em I'm hungover," he said.
"What about tomorrow?" Kyle asked. "Or when we have to go to the farm?"
Stan groaned. "I don't know! Tell them the real reason then, I don't care."
Kyle wanted to say, "What's the real reason? That you're paranoid?" but he held back and just said, "Fine." There wasn't any convincing Stan, so Kyle wasn't going to try anymore. But it didn't mean he had to stay cooped up in their room all day, too. So he left.
Hack and Mole were waiting outside the inn. "Where's Swarm?" was the first thing Hack said.
"I couldn't get him to leave," Kyle had to say.
Hack took his cigarette out of his mouth and frowned. "'Cuz of all the cops?"
"Well, yes," Kyle admitted, shifting. He didn't want Hack to go up and talk to Stan. He didn't want it to be Hack who was able to convince Stan to leave.
Hack sighed and said, "Mole, go get your own breakfast today. I gotta talk to Handle about somethin'."
Mole looked like he'd been slapped. He opened his mouth to say something, but was apparently speechless. Then he turned to glare at Kyle with such hatred that Kyle had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
"Quit that," Hack said to Mole. "Christ."
Mole slumped a little and mumbled something about an omelet.
Hack handed over the potato sack to him. "Can I trust you with this?" he asked.
"Yeah," Mole replied, low and sad.
"Just go to the jungle," Hack said, putting his hand on his shoulder. "I'll be around later."
As he was leaving, Mole muttered, "Wanted an omelet," and Kyle almost felt bad for him. Almost.
Hack and Kyle went down to Milo's. Kyle realized that this was the first time he had ever been alone with Hack. It put him on edge somewhat, especially when he thought about the very premise of the situation, that there was something Hack wanted to tell him in private, something about Stan, most likely.
When they got to Milo's, Hack told the man at the counter that they'd be getting their breakfast to-go. They sat at the counter and waited. "That guy never gives me a break," Hack said.
At first Kyle thought Hack was talking about Stan. "Who, Mole?" he asked.
"Who else?" Hack said.
Out of politeness, Kyle sought to supply something else to the exchange, but this was difficult, as he made it a point to avoid thinking about what went on between Hack and Mole. So he asked, "Isn't he like twenty-something though?" believing the question benign enough.
"He's older than me actually," Hack said.
"Wait, what? Really?"
"Well, just by a few months. He's gonna be twenty-four in August."
Kyle gaped at Hack. It was mindboggling to him that a twenty-three year old man should be so childishly dependent, especially on the rails, where independence was integral. "Is he … mentally-deficient or something?"
Hack tilted his head and seemed to consider this, as if for the first time. "No, I don't think so," he said, though he didn't sound sure. Kyle would have asked him why not, but just then, the man behind the counter put their breakfasts in front of them then, two sytrofoam containers with one yellow check on top. Hack handed over a nickel before Kyle even realized that their meals had been rung up together.
"Why'd you do that?" Kyle rasped, watching helplessly as the man deposited the coin in the cash register. "Mine was more expensive!" He felt bad; there was no reason for Hack to treat him.
"Me and Mole made some money the other day," Hack replied, unfazed by Kyle's reaction.
Kyle couldn't get Hack to let him pay him back. So he gave up, making a mental note to reciprocate at some point in the future, with candy or cigarettes or something. Not booze, even though Kyle was beginning to realize that Hack drank as much as any hobo; it was just that he and Stan drank comparatively less.
They left Milo's to eat their breakfast a little outside of town, to the west, in a shallow patch of woods. There were cigarette butts lying around, Kyle noticed, some squashed into the bark of an old log. Hack plopped down on the ground, his back to the fallen tree; Kyle did the same, and then they ate their breakfasts: Hack, an egg sandwich, and Kyle, one of his two pancakes.
After eating, Hack dug out a dinged-up metal flask from his jacket. He took a swig of it, then stared ahead, in the direction of town, then said, "I'm guessin' Stan's told you 'bout what happened Idaho."
"Yeah. A while ago," Kyle said. The entirety of his attention was on Hack's words, ready to hang on them.
"That's good. Good that he has somebody like you he can trust." Hack was silent for a moment, pensive, more serious than Kyle had ever seen him. "I thought he was gettin' better. Over the winter he was doin' pretty good. You came along and he's been better than I've seen him in years. He even wanted to stay in that inn with you, knowin' the place'd be swamped with town clowns." Hack sighed and shook his head. "I just don't wanna think he took one step forward two steps back."
Kyle felt like a rag being rung out, still damp but unable to drip any more water. "It's not just because of all the cops in town. Something happened yesterday," he said, and then, he confessed: "This librarian called the cops on us. We weren't even doing anything, she was just a bitchy old hag, she had a cop come and she lied to him, she said we'd been there all morning, that we wouldn't leave. We left – he let us leave – and Stan was –" Kyle paused; he took in a breath of hot dense air that did nothing. "I've never seen him like that before."
Hack nodded and Kyle perceived in this gesture an acute understanding. Hack didn't blame him. "He alright now?" Hack asked.
"Yeah. I mean – I guess. He won't leave the inn though… as you know," Kyle said, mumbling the last part. He remembered that bad night in New Orleans, Hack saying that Stan was okay, but only depending on the definition of the word. "He thinks all these cops know. That they're just waiting 'til they find that gun."
Hack was listening, his fingers twisting the cap of the flask open and closed. "He's got bull horrors. 'Course he had reason to four, five years ago. I was scared too then, catchin' out with somebody who was hot. I'd always be tellin' him we had to keep an eye out for road bulls, that we couldn't stay in one place for too long." Jaw jutting out, he licked his lower lip, brow crumpled as he shook his head. "It wears on ya. But s'not like I coulda left him." A pause, and then, "'Course everybody thought I was just some pervert jocker takin' advantage of this kid, that kinda shit –" He cut himself off and glanced at Kyle, albeit briefly, then cleared his throat before continuing. "Well. Anyway. Two years ago we were catchin' outta Jackson and I fucked up and got us all sloughed – he tell you about that?"
"Um, sort of. Not really." Stan had mentioned it back in Milan, but hadn't gone into detail.
"Well that night, I was drunk outta my mind, not bein' quiet, not listenin' when he's tellin' me to shut the fuck up. Then this bull fucker catches us – us bein' me, Stan and that Pearly guy – drags us outta the damn car and brings us to the station. I'm thinkin' shit, what've the fuck've I done, now we're all goin' to the jug 'cuz I'm an alkee stiff bastard." Hack squeezed his eyes shut; he looked so much older than twenty-three. "Stan couldn't even talk. He just shook. We sat all night in that cell. I thought that was it, that in the mornin' the Chief would come back and say, 'We been lookin a long time for this cop-killer.' But, thing is, he just let us go. So we high tail it outta there, me thankin' my lucky stars. Stan was mad as hell, a'course, wouldn't stop givin' me grief about it. That was when I started thinkin'… Maybe he ain't really wanted by the law. Maybe nobody's lookin' for him. I never saw any posters, never even heard about the case. More I thought about this, more sense it made. So. I told him."
"What? You did? What did he say?"
"Well," Hack said, "he got mad. Real mad. That's when he started tellin' me about that crazy gun stuff. I told him – y'know, nicely – that none of it made any damn sense. He straight-up ignored me for a couple days there. Pearly'd gone back to Tennessee, and first thing Stan says when he decides to talk to me again is how come I didn't go with him."
"Well what did you say?" Kyle asked, pained by the anecdote.
Hack frowned and said, "I told him I wouldn't do that to him. So then a'course he goes on about how dumb I am for that, 'cuz now they're closin' in on us, and I thought, good Lord, I've messed up this kid's head. He believes all this crazy stuff 'cuz of me."
"And you haven't tried to fix it?" Kyle said, his voice rising, unable to stop it. "You've had two years to undo the damage and you haven't done anything?"
"I've tried!" Hack said, the blue of his eyes clear and emphatic. "I've tried hundreds of times," he said, defeated by the very truth of his words. "He won't have any of it. He just gets mad." Hack's nostrils whistled as he inhaled; it even sounded sad, like a broken weathervane. When he spoke again, it was even sadder: "All I ever wanted to do was help him."
Although Kyle wanted to, he couldn't manage any anger towards Hack. He couldn't possibly denounce him for nurturing Stan's paranoia, because Hack had only wanted to keep Stan safe; he had never anticipated the consequences. He looked so forlorn, too, so clearly tormented by what he had unknowingly done, hunched over with his back to the long, his face the face of a man who had seen failure in the last place he wanted to find it, within the very person he had meant to protect. It was the face of inconsolable guilt, guilt with no hope of retribution, and it made Kyle bitter; he couldn't stand to believe there was no way of reversing the damage.
"There must be something we can do," Kyle said, detaining his frustration. "Something other than telling him he's wrong."
"Like what?" Hack said, and he seemed so skeptical that Kyle took it personally, both for Stan's sake and the sake of his own intelligence. His offense was stamped out when he realized he had no response, no example or suggestion to propose. He wasn't going to endorse the idea that some problems had no solutions by conceding with a pathetic "I don't know", so the only thing he could do then was sit back and try to untangle some marginally plausible answer from the heap of impossible ones.
Hack spoke up, interrupting his thoughts: "Only thing that seems to work is keepin' him as far away from the police as possible."
"That's not always practical," Kyle pointed out. "And besides, it's just avoidance."
"I didn't say it was practical," Hack said. He took his flask, shook it and frowned, then poured its emptiness out over the dirt. "Maybe he just needs more time."
Time. In a quarter of an hour, Kyle was back at the inn and Stan was at the windowsill, smoking, his head out the window as puffs of smoke wafted their way back into the room. He hungrily ate the other pancake and Kyle fought back tears at the sheer normalcy of watching the boy he loved eat breakfast. When his tears inevitably did begin to fall, Stan asked him, perplexed, what was wrong, and Kyle told a different truth, blubbering that he'd missed him lately, that he hated all the fighting. They had intercourse, and Kyle cried more, because it was absurd how perfectly they could understand each other now whereas other times they could hardly understand each other at all.
In two days, they left the inn before dawn and did not come back. They slept near the farm and had intercourse anyway, out in the open, usually without speaking, because the days were long and exhausting again.
In two weeks, they left Longview for Talco, where there were no streetcars, no fancy diners, and no armies of black-hatted policemen. Stan was fine, and things between them were fine, good even, but never again as they were in Milan or New Orleans or even Ogden, when Kyle was ignorant and things were perfect. Stan still had nightmares, and Kyle still doubted what Hack had said. Stan was suffering, and it seemed unjust to leave his betterment to the idle passage of time. So, as Kyle held Stan beneath starry night skies, rocking away the lingering traces of vicious dreams, he began to devise a realer solution, one he could see and plan and perhaps one day implement.
But he knew this plan would only ever be practical in an ideal world. Furthermore, it would require him to alter the circumstances of his life, meaning he would lose, at least for a little while, the very person he wished to help. Thus, Kyle fell back on time again, acknowledging that it was barely any more satisfying. He held onto the minutes and hours and days, surviving on the hope that they would abolish the fear that dwelled in Stan's mind. Despite this desperation for rationale, or perhaps because of it, Kyle sometimes had a disturbing amount of success in tricking himself into believing that Stan was indeed getting better. He would have to look at Stan and force himself to remember why his left eye was hidden, blinking and functioning in blackness, only ever allowing him to see half of the world. In that unseen half, Kyle would look up at the blazing blue sky and wonder if God still existed for them. He would conclude that he probably didn't, for they had broken so many rules, both alone and together.
July melted into August and the summer beat on. Kyle started smoking, and he and Stan began to drink more, a lot more, nearly to the point of regular hobo standards. They had careless and sloppy intercourse, drunk in each other's arms in outlying fields choked with undergrowth, in tangled groves littered with rotted fruit, in the thin shadow of an adolescent tree, in Oklahoma, in Kansas, in Nebraska, in the Dakotas, in loneliness, in fear, in habitude, in desperation, and once, in aggression.
That was when Kyle had the horrible thought that he didn't really know Stan, and that was the deeper pain. He let out a sob and Stan pulled out as abruptly as he had gone in, leaving Kyle only with the ache of the lesser pain, because he did know the Stan who stared at him in shock of himself, horrified by the awareness that he had stepped outside the lines of what was appropriate. In the dim red of the night, Kyle saw the tears running down his face.
Stan's jaw was shaking when he choked out a crumpled, broken, "I'm sorry." It would be the first of hundreds of apologies, though Kyle forgave him, immediately, with this one. "I – Kyle –" he began to say, but then he covered his face with his hands and dropped to the earth, sobbing brokenly. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry," he said again and again, wailing the words out with a drunken slur.
Kyle was calm as he stood up. He pulled his slacks up and walked over to Stan, then knelt before him and draped his arms over his back. "Shh, it's alright," he said. "I'm fine, it's okay."
Stan stopped sobbing for a moment, then took his hands away, the wetness of his face meeting Kyle's neck. "How can you forgive me?" he asked weakly. It was a sincere question, torn with incredulity.
The answer was simple. "Because I love you," Kyle said, and Stan broke out bawling.
After that, Kyle decided they would stop drinking, and Stan agreed. Inevitably, the alcohol was replaced with more cigarettes. Stan was despondent for a few days after the incident, inconsolable and refusing to participate in any activity that was remotely sexual, kissing included. Wildly irritated with him, but mostly insane with frustrated desire, Kyle demanded, shouting, that Stan forget about that night entirely, even going as far as to say, "It didn't hurt any more than the first time we tried it," though that wasn't entirely true. Regardless, Stan conceded, and Kyle was satisfied.
They continued north with the man who could never in a million years give up his alcohol and the animal man who longed for the dead master that the former could not replace. Kyle's doubts floated back to the looser and less important spaces of his mind, for he and Stan seemed to exist on similar planes again. Both of them felt certain they had been strengthened by their problems and that they now knew each other more completely. They would spend the dragging days between jobs discussing Socrates like he was an old friend, talking about memories from school, the disaster that was Kyle's bar mitzvah, the single stone that marked the grave of a dog that Stan had so dearly loved…
That summer seemed to belong to a different time. There were simply no similar terms under which Kyle could consider both his past and his present. Thus, calling his mother would have been impossible, not because the call was too far to ever connect, which was true, but because it would be like calling someone from a different dimension. This separateness remained unquestionable in Kyle's mind even as he shocked the last American wheat of the season and even as he crossed an invisible line beyond which there were few jobs left. It was September, and he was unaware that with the end of summer would come the threat of convergence.
They were in Ste. Agathe, Manitoba, at the local jungle, doing laundry after the last day of the season's last harvest. The air was lukewarm, palatable and too kind, missing something. No one had spoken in a while when Hack said, "Man, I can't wait to get back to Hobohemia."
Mole grunted in affirmation. Stan said nothing. "Hobohemia?" Kyle asked. Then, carefully, and with suspicion, he added, "Where?"
Hack looked at him strangely and replied, "Uh. Chicago?"
"What? Why?" Kyle asked. He looked to Stan for answers, his anxiety burgeoning when Stan avoided his eyes. So he grabbed his arm and hissed, "I can't go back to Chicago!"
Stan seemed concerned, at least. He ran his tongue over his lower lip. Then he said, "Well, maybe we could go somewhere else this year."
"What!" Hack exclaimed. "Where the hell else would we go!?"
"I don't know," Stan said. "Pittsburgh?"
"Are you two kidding me with this shit?" Hack said, and that was all it took for Kyle to blow up on him: "Go to fucking Chicago then, Hack!" he shouted. "It's not like you have family there who'd drag you back home if they saw you!"
Hack was visibly taken aback. Kyle braced himself for the anger to be volleyed back at him, but Hack just nodded slowly and said, "So that's it," which was somehow more infuriating than outright hostility. Kyle was fuming now, ready to throw punches.
"They got almost everything in Pittsburgh that they do in Chicago," Stan said quickly. Kyle saw that he was pleading with Hack, that even now, he still wouldn't part ways with him.
Hack stared at Stan, his arms crossed, expression unreadable. Kyle wished he would say no, that they all had to go back to Chicago, in which case Kyle would say he was going to Pittsburgh, alone, and surely – surely – Stan would follow him. But Hack gave in. "Fine. We'll go to Pitsy then."
Kyle wasn't as grateful as he knew he should have been. While he had heard that West Madison Street was a hobo's paradise, the main stem of any large city had to be comparable. Thus, Mole's complaints to Hack on the way to St. Paul seemed so petty, so unnecessary. They were talking quietly, their voices vague but discernible over the sound of the wheels thundering over the rails. Stan was dozing off, slumped against Kyle's side, though not yet snoring.
"I hate Pittsburgh," Mole said.
"Well that's too bad 'cuz that's where we're goin'."
"Why can't me 'n you just go to Chicago."
"You know that's not how it works."
Mole grunted, then asked, "What are we even gonna do there?"
"Same thing we do in the Big Town. Work, drink, get through the winter."
"I ain't workin' in no steel mill."
"There's other job's there." Hack sounded like a tired parent.
"Like what kinda jobs."
"Pickin' lemon drop trees on Big Rock Candy Mountain, whatever the hell you want," Hack muttered.
An unusual silence followed.
"Sorry," Hack eventually said.
If Mole said anything in response, Kyle didn't hear it.
A few moments later, Hack spoke again: "Don't worry. We'll find somethin'."
Kyle would rather they not, actually. He had eighty dollars in his wallet, more than enough for room and board throughout the winter, so why should they have to find some crummy job in the city? He had just worked all summer; he was tired of working.
Stan was snoring now.
Besides, for the first time, he and Stan would be able to live without the constant shuffling of picking up and catching out to the next town. They'd be able to breathe for once. They could work on their relationship (not that it needed mending) and become closer. Then, maybe around the holidays, they could look into finding jobs. If they felt like it.
Maybe, Kyle thought, he could be a floorwalker at Marshall Field's. Stan could work at the newsstand down the street selling newspapers, magazines, cigars, candy. During their breaks they could meet up somewhere discrete, maybe in the alleyway behind the newsstand, in the far back, shielded by a dumpster, his prim blue slacks pulled down to his knees, Stan's breath on his neck, hot and fast, tinged with a hint of black licorice, but unsatiated…
Of course, he was hard now, sporting an erection that threatened to tear the inseam of his pants. Despite this discomfort, he continued to fantasize about those on-the-clock rendezvouses, thinking that maybe if he concentrated hard enough, he'd be able to transfer the scene to Stan's unconscious mind. Then he'd be able to dream of something nice for once.
The night went on. Kyle was just on the verge of sleep when they arrived in St. Paul. En route to Chicago, he struggled to reclaim that sleepiness. This was difficult, for he was very aware of the fact that once they got there, they'd be on the final leg of the trip to Pittsburgh.
"You okay?" Stan asked.
"What?"
"You seem nervous."
Kyle immediately stopped strumming his fingertips across the floor of the car, unaware that he'd been doing it. "Oh. No. I'm not." He said it casually; he'd been very diligent lately about minimizing his concerns to Stan. While his problems might serve as temporary distractions for him, they would also supplement his anxiety. Stan hadn't said anything too crazy lately about cops and Kyle needed it to stay this way, especially now that they wouldn't be heading to a new town every few weeks. But then again, Hack had said something about Stan doing well over the past winter, when they were in Chicago. Maybe it was just easier to keep a low profile in a big city. Pittsburgh was smaller than Chicago, probably, but it had to be big enough.
Stan fell asleep again, this time on Kyle's thigh. Kyle pet his hair, watching the strip of pale night cut through the darkness of the car, seeing it illuminate his knuckles and highlight the blue-black of Stan's hair. The moon was only a crescent, but its light was bright, the sky cloudless. The geography, bathed in blue, changed slowly but continuously, and the wheels beneath them tore through the distance as fast as always, climbing towards their destination.
For some sleepless hours, Kyle battled with his thoughts ("What if I see someone I know?" "Why would you?" "I don't know, but what if I do?"). He didn't remember falling asleep.
Stan woke him up when they arrived in Chicago. It was still night, but barely, dawn threatening to bloom.
They crept through the yard to the PRR freight station, slipping between boxcars, looking beneath them for well-polished shoes, taking advantage of the shadows. This was all second-nature to Kyle now; he couldn't believe that only a few months ago he had strolled through here so carelessly, only barely evading discovery by a road bull. He had left home a seventeen-year-old boy, and in one short summer, became an eighteen-year-old man. He climbed up into the boxcar, feeling in his muscles the whole season's worth of labor. He offered his hand to Stan and pulled him up into the car.
Kyle slept most of the way to Pittsburgh. He woke up unrested, but uninclined to sleep more. Besides, it was light out now, around dawn or a little after. He extracted himself from Stan's body and crawled over to the door. They were traveling parallel to a river. On the opposite side were houses wedged into the hills, clustered into orderly little neighborhoods where stately looking churches and schoolhouses marked the street corners. But as the train moved forward, the buildings became bigger and grayer. Kyle looked as far to the right as he could, and the city itself came into view. Squashed into a V-shape by two rivers, the urban landscape was overrun with thick smog. The skyscrapers seemed to be gasping for breath, struggling to reach higher, beyond the polluted air. Steel bridges reached out from the urban interior like spider limbs, connecting the city to the outside hills.
Farther in the distance, along the right river, tall iron pillars dotted the banks, blasting steady streams of smoke and fire and into the air. It was a nightmarish sight, and Kyle couldn't pull his eyes away. Only when he heard Stan approaching did he back away from the door.
"Kyle? What are you doing?"
Kyle swallowed; his mouth suddenly tasted terrible, like stale cigarettes, or that thick black smoke. "I think we're here," he said, then backed away from the door, feeling lightheaded.
"Oh, good," Stan said. His expression remained neutral as he studied the dark metropolis.
"Why did you want to come here?" Kyle asked.
Stan looked at him. "What do you mean?"
"'What do I mean?' Look at this place!"
"It can't be as bad as it looks," Stan said.
Kyle could have laughed, but he was suddenly furious. "How can it not be as bad as it looks?" he hissed, and though he didn't mean to spit in Stan's face, he wasn't about to apologize for it, either.
Stan's expression hardened, his nostrils flaring. But the voice that broke the silence wasn't Stan's, it was Hack's. "We there yet?" he said, yawning, lumbering over to them sleepily, invasively. "Eesh, they don't call it the Big Smoke for nothin', huh?"
Hack tried to stick his face between them so he could look outside. Kyle, disgusted with Hack's inferior odor and etiquette, muttered a revolted "Ugh" and brusquely shoved his way out of the 'bo-odor pit so he could go stew in the corner.
"Sheesh, what's his problem?" Hack asked Stan.
"I don't have a fucking problem, you simp," Kyle spat out. He felt a lot better as soon as he said this, and subsequently victorious when Hack didn't make some half-assed attempt to call him on the carpet for his very justified antagonism. Furthermore, Stan, having been quiet for a while now, did not contribute some wisecrack such as, "See, he says he doesn't have a problem." Instead, he maintained his embittered silence, keeping his arms crossed and stare hard, looking at nothing with the utmost of gravity. Kyle ate up Stan's defeat like coconut macaroons, not knowing or caring that his "triumph" was as useless as it would be ephemeral.
The train pulled into the station. After checking to make sure the coast was clear, Hack dragged the door open. The yard was hazy with patches of smog, a dirty early-morning dream world. The poor visibility allowed them to easily exit the yard without being spotted. Once on the street, Kyle took in the city from ground level: people sped by on the sidewalks, automobiles and trolleys zipped down the brick road. Massive buildings, stained with black streaks, hovered over the commotion. But what differentiated it from Chicago, or any other city Kyle had ever been to, was the overwhelming presence of smog, the sheer pervasiveness of filth. You couldn't even see all the way down the street. It was shockingly inescapable.
Stan and Hack were walking ahead, apparently having some sort of stupid secret powwow, both of them callously ignorant to Kyle's anguish. Mole was behind Hack, following him at what looked like an intentional distance (how polite). Kyle was at the tail end of the procession, feeling chained to the excursion, irritated that Stan and Hack's exclusion of him meant he had zero say in the agenda. Although he knew they were most likely going to some ratty flophouse somewhere, it was nevertheless infuriating to be left out of the loop, and fury mixed with the dirty air made him feel insane, like his brain was melting. His only recourse was to bite his tongue to keep from bursting out with a demanding inquiry of their plans, knowing it would give Stan a huge amount of satisfaction and Hack a huge amount of amusement. Thus, miserable, cranky and hateful, Kyle silently fumed inside his dirty clothes, hating this city, hating Stan, hating Hack, and hating Mole, too, if only because he was present and he was repulsive.
The river was coming into view ahead. Murky and crowded with barges, it was an industrialized Cocytus, more or less. Kyle imagined himself jumping down the bank, into the dirty water, and onto one of the boats lugging coal barges. He could float all the way down the Mississippi that way. But even thinking this was pathetic, so devoid of logic that it resonated with the rationale of children and lunatics, Kyle thought, eyeing Stan.
Two blocks before reaching the riverbank, they turned left onto Second Ave. Shortly thereafter, Hack pointed to a building on the right and said, "There it is." Located on the corner of Second and Smithfield, 405 Second Avenue was a decently maintained residential-style building. Most notably, its façade toted three large signs, one above the front doors and two on either side. They read, "PROVIDENCE MISSION," "GOSPEL MEETING EVERY NIGHT," and "YOU ARE WELCOME". That is, provided you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ Our Savior, or at the very least, are willing pretend you do for the privilege of paying fifteen cents a night for a place to sleep in a tiny room with three other people.
On the way up the steps, Kyle failed to resist the urge grab Stan's arm and to look at him pleadingly for sympathy or reassurance, even if it were only an unconvincing "It'll be alright."
Stan just looked at him and said, "What?"
Kyle muttered, "Nothing," through gritted teeth.
Their room was practically a closet, with two rickety bunk beds somehow squeezed inside. Between the beds was a single window, which looked out into an alley and was no bigger than the size of a standard sheet of paper. Other than that, the room was entirely bare; no dresser, no desk, no armoire, no nothing. The gravity of the situation was quickly surmounting catastrophic levels and Kyle felt his sanity and self-control hanging on very delicate threads. He wanted to break down and sob. He wanted to scream. Worse yet, he was apparently the only one who felt this way. Hack was speaking to Mole about some happy-go-lucky idiot nonsense, and in turn, Mole was pitifully gleeful in light of such undivided attention. Stan was rifling through his bag for who-cared-what, evidently unfazed. It was maddening. Did they not think? Did they not care?
"I'm going to take a piss," Kyle announced, making sure to sound as crass as possible. He stomped past Stan and into the hallway, then realized he didn't know where the bathroom was. The door at one end of the hallway was the stairwell, and as he walked to the opposite end, Kyle was certain he would just die if it weren't the bathroom. He wasn't about to go back to their room and ask for help and he definitely wasn't about to hunt down that shady manager and ask him where it was. But the door at the other end of the hallway was indeed the bathroom, thank fucking God.
He hadn't peed in seven or eight hours, and emptying his bladder was a strange experience, almost like becoming a different person. Standing before the toilet with his penis still in his hand, he took a moment to scrutinize the poorly illuminated surfaces of the bathroom, judging them and finding himself disgusted by them.
Then someone knocked on the door. "One second!" Kyle yelped, pulling his pants up. Just before he went to open it, he realized he hadn't flushed. He lunged for the string and meanwhile, the person had the nerve to knock again.
It was Mole. This imbecile.
"Christ, were you about to piss your pants or something?" Kyle hissed, bolstered by irritation on top of torment. Of course, Mole snarled, baring his teeth. Oh, how feral, what an animal, how scary, Kyle thought mockingly, even if perhaps he was a tiny bit scared. Snorting, Kyle brushed past Mole with the explicit intent of egging him on. Maybe he'd come after him. Maybe he'd lunge at him and sink his teeth into his neck and Kyle would bleed out here in the corridor of this miserable Mission House. But, like a dumb dog, Mole bowed down to the superior species and did absolutely nothing in retaliation.
Stan was alone in their room, lying on a top bunk.
"Where's Hack?" Kyle demanded to know.
Stan didn't answer. Kyle just knew he was only pretending to be asleep. So he rammed the poster of the bed, making it shake violently. "Hey!"
Stan immediately bolted upright, then banged his head on the ceiling. He hissed in pain, and the glare he shot Kyle stung like a slap.
"What?" Stan said, practically growling.
Kyle stared at him, ready for a fight. But Stan just shook his head and rolled over, his back to Kyle. As if he had the luxury of washing his hands of this! Boiling over, Kyle tore one of his boots off and chucked it at Stan.
"What the fuck is your fuckin' problem?" Stan barked, shoe in hand. Kyle was afraid he would throw the boot back at him, but Stan just knocked it off his bed. Then, very gravely, very slowly, as if was talking to a poorly behaved child, he said, "Quit havin' a fuckin' temper tantrum and lemme sleep."
A temper tantrum! A temper tantrum! He'd show him what a temper tantrum looked like! He scanned the room for the most breakable thing, then grabbed one of Stan's boots and flung it at the window as hard as he could. Amazingly, it missed by a good six inches, then fell stupidly to the floor.
Stan jerked his head around. "What did you just do?"
"Nothing," Kyle snapped.
The sheer bewilderment in Stan's eyes felt surprisingly shameful and a swift coat of humiliation cooled any traces of anger left in Kyle. He looked down at Stan's abused boot and felt sick. Living in filth had turned him into filth: by now, his self-control had degenerated to the point that he was throwing things with the intent of causing damage. Stan's stare was still boring into him, driven by one presumed but unspoken thought: "What the hell is wrong with you?" Finally defeated, Kyle climbed into the lower bunk as if it were his deathbed.
"I didn't do anything," he said uselessly, cringing upon hearing the pathetic sentence leave his pathetic mouth.
Either Stan didn't hear, or he didn't care.
Kyle slept like a rock: leadenly unconscious, with no dreams. Centuries later, he awoke to an empty, sunset-bleached room. He didn't know where he was at first, and while this was not an unusual occurrence, the subsequent realization of his whereabouts was uniquely disturbing, for two reasons: one, he was in the wretched city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and two, he was alone. There was no bulge in the thin mattress above him, no familiar presence in arm's reach, no comfort in the eerie late afternoon stillness.
Nor was there a note, of course. Kyle had never experienced this kind of abandonment before, and he was naturally very indignant about it. How dare Stan not leave him a note, or wake him up and tell them they were going, or, hell, even wait around for him to wake up! Any of those options would have been the right thing to do. Instead, apparently, Stan had decided to just up and leave, demonstrating a complete lack of consideration and regard for the most important person in his life.
Essentially, Stan had ditched him in the middle of a desert without even the slightest hint as to the location of the nearest oasis. Then, after Kyle had crossed miles of hostile sands and finally found the damn place, Stan and Hack and Mole would have already been there for ages sipping on coconut milk and dipping their dirty toes in a pool of sparkling water. Feigning innocence, Stan would say, "Oh, Kyle! Wherever have you been, darling?" and then, Kyle would spontaneously combust under the hot desert sun.
But, at the end of the day, Kyle was more or less capable of fending for himself. He was, after all, an adult. He had money in his wallet and he could navigate a city as well as anybody. This is not to say that he was at all inclined to ignore Stan's wrongs – he was still determined to make sure he got what was coming for him. However, there was little point in staying here, stewing and waiting. To do so would be to demonstrate that he was indeed completely dependent on Stan for basic needs, like a child to its mother, which was so profoundly embarrassing that Kyle grabbed his satchel and left the room without entertaining another morbid thought.
It was chilly outside, though it was still technically summer, the Autumnal Equinox hanging like a still pendulum on the following Tuesday. Gusts of cool air tore through Kyle's worn jacket like the warnings of a long winter to come. He didn't have an overcoat. His first thought was to tell Stan that they should find the local Salvation Army. At once, he was repulsed with himself for such an instinct, as it was so telling of his dependency upon Stan. What would be next? Would he need Stan to hand feed him, too? Thusly, a disturbing and graphic image of himself suckling on Stan's teats splayed across his mind, the abject perversity of which had him reeling with horror and kicking an empty glass of Coca-Cola down the sidewalk.
No, he definitely did not need Stan. He had $80 in his wallet and he could – he would – get himself a damn coat. But first, he would get himself something to eat – no, no dinner, he would get himself some dinner at a nice restaurant somewhere, formal attire be damned. Besides, his clothes were mostly clean, just rather worn. Now quite resolute in this plan, the idea of scouting out some crummy café or lunch room was completely out of the question. He had an $80 stake, he was in hell, and for all the wretched days he had toiled under the hot sun, he was damn well entitled to a meal that hadn't been cooked in a jungle pot.
After making a left onto Diamond Street, he soon came across the perfect place: The Royal Restaurant. The building was brilliant in the growing twilight, as if carved from ivory, like a miniature Versailles, out of place in a city like this, but nonetheless very beautiful. Beyond tall glass windows, the dining room looked just as luxurious, in a plush, comforting way: bathed in deep burgundies and gold accents, the dim lighting and the bell-like clang of silverware offered a heavy, dream-like sort of ambience. Its patrons were well-dressed and well-to-do city people, the type of crowd that Kyle had once resented but now rather missed.
Standing up very tall, he marched into the Royal Restaurant, ready to speak in the haughtiest manner necessary to make up for his somewhat shoddy appearance. However, the host's skepticism as he eyed him over was apparent, as if he surmised him some delusional bum with the impudence to walk out on the check at a four-star restaurant. As such, the only thing for Kyle to do was to order an entire bottle of Bordeaux wine. This way, he could articulate his true status not only in his selection of a 1907 bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild wine, but also in his perfect pronunciation of the estate's name, which was likely the best French this dumb waiter had ever heard. If only they knew who he was, who his father was! Appearances were deceiving, didn't they know?
Embittered, he ordered dinner: two lobster cocktails, chicken soufflé, roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, potatoes au gratin and French string beans. By now, he was essentially drunk on a single glass of wine. As such, he neglected to exercise any polite restraint and instead devoured the cocktails and soufflé like a starving vagabond. The lamb arrived shortly thereafter, and it was so good he could have gone on eating it forever. Then for dessert, he somehow had enough room for a serving of chocolate ice cream bon bons. By the end of it all, he was so stuffed he could barely move, but he was nevertheless enormously blotto, having finished the entire bottle of wine.
The bill came to a whopping $4.50, mostly because of the wine, and he tipped a generous 75 cents on top of that, feeling very smug about it. Then, his mouth full of after dinner mints, he stumbled his way to the exit. Just before leaving through the double glass doors, he remembered the second item on his itinerary. So, rather dramatically in his inebriated state, he spun back around and very loudly asked the snobby host, "Say, you got a Marshall Field's department store somewhere in this sorry excuse for a city?"
As if both repulsed and amused by the question, the host raised a sharp black eyebrow and, smirking, he replied, "There's a Kaufmann's at the corner of the Diamond and Smithfield, the first block to your right. But perhaps Boggs & Buhl is more your… style."
Having never heard of either of these stores, Kyle was not sure how this was meant to be offensive, but the host's smirking and scoffing left him with no question that it was. However, in his drunken and satiated euphoria, he only found the host's attempt to insult him hilarious. As such, he proclaimed his gratitude to the Royal Restaurant by exclaiming, "Thanks for the help, you miserable son of a bitch!"
It was dark out now, the yellow glow of streetlights and the sharp colors of neon signs illuminating the city. Kyle felt like he was on top of the world, unafraid and unfettered. He found himself back at the intersection of Diamond and Smithfield by pure happenstance, having neglected to keep in mind the host's directions. At the diagonal corner, he noticed the bright display windows of the aforementioned "Kaufmann's." It was a modern colossus of a building, its sheer size suggesting that it housed unquantifiable magnificence, like a gigantic Pandora's box. But there was nothing particularly novel or interesting about the interior, with its low ceilings and unimpressive décor, nothing akin to Marshall Field's open balconies and gorgeous Tiffany ceiling. All in all, Kaufmann's was a standard department store, and that was about it. Kyle took the elevator up to the men's department feeling as if he had been promised cake but given crackers.
Buying new clothes was something he had always enjoyed, from the ritualistic exercise of perusing the styles, colors, and patterns, to the materialistic ecstasy of imagining himself donned in an impressive new outfit. He ended up spending quite a while shopping and was even drunk enough to accept the assistance of a floorwalker, something he never did, but it seemed necessary now, perhaps due to the absence of his usual shopping companion. The floorwalker, a pointy man named George, employed such tactics as, "We just got this in this week" and "This'll give you a sleek English look," which inevitably contributed to the breadth of Kyle's purchases. In sum, he bought a gray double-breasted Hart Schaffner & Marx overcoat; a three-piece navy Kuppenheimer lounge suit (the jacket and trousers were navy, the waistcoat was striped tan and orange); a navy necktie to match; a pair of Interwoven socks; and a pair of brown spat boots. Refusing to think about the fact that he just spent forty-eight dollars, he went to the restroom to change into his new clothes.
By the time he left Kaufmann's, it was almost 9 o'clock. There were few people out on the streets now; the city's nocturnal activity was mostly mechanical: trolleys, automobiles, whirring cables, and stoplights' changing colors. It was an uncomfortable, alienating atmosphere and Kyle wanted to go home. But now "home" was the Providence Mission at 405 Second Ave. In light of this inevitable destination, his lingering drunkenness didn't feel nearly potent enough. He needed to be drunker, he thought. He definitely needed at least one more drink. Then he would go back to that horrible place.
It was not difficult to find a bar in Pittsburgh. In fact, Kyle only had to cross the street to reach one. Olmstead's Saloon, located across from Kaufmann's side entrance, was not an upscale establishment by any means, despite its Diamond Street address. It was dim and excessively wooden inside, seemingly unchanged since the seventies, with the exception of the colorful and tacky beer advertisements taped to the walls. Kyle sat down at the bar and ordered a whiskey.
There was a large Coca-Cola mirror on the wall behind the bar, littered with script in chipped paint lauding the "most refreshing drink in the world." As the bartender poured his whiskey, Kyle stared at his reflection in the old mirror, finding himself offended by the falsity it postured as truthfulness, as actuality clouded by filth and obscured behind the broken letters "W-O-R-L-D." Ultimately, however, what mattered most to Kyle was that he looked good, yet this dingy mirror in this dingy bar was trying to tell him otherwise, like some sort of trick. On a broader, generalized scale, he began to wonder if his self-perception was distorted, or perhaps at some point became distorted and that he was in fact wrong about everything real and right about everything unreal. Was insanity contagious…?
These sort of questions eluded him now, so many months since he had stepped foot in a classroom. Yes, that was it – his mind was just underworked, growing bland with inactivity. He downed the whiskey and then asked for another, delaying the inevitable. This one he drank slowly, deliberating abstract doubts and assuring himself that he was still a rational being by virtue of being able to do so. He was drunk as hell, but he was rational. Armed with certainty of his own enlightenment, he paid his tab and left the bar, knowing that it was impossible for the irrationality waiting in the darkness of a tiny room to ever objectively trump him.
Kyle arrived back at 405 Second Ave. at around 10 o'clock, just as the nightly gospel meeting was finishing up. Rather sloppily, he meandered through the throng of men exiting the building, indifferent to the scoffs of the middle-aged Bible-thumpers. He staggered up the stairs to their room, where Stan was lying on his side in the lower bunk, though not entirely in the dark: there was a red candle on the windowsill, burning tiredly in its holder.
For a few moments, Kyle stood with his back to the door, caught somewhere between actual bemusement and phony bewilderment, between bracing himself and bursting out in laughter.
"Where have you been?" Stan asked. His voice was dry, calm, like dead bark.
Mockingly, Kyle replied, "Where have I been? Where have I been? Where were you is the better question, don't you think?" He leaned up against the bedframe, and Stan jerked his head to stare straight at him. His eye was blue fire, the setting sun on a restless ocean, and it thrilled Kyle immensely.
"What the fuck're you talkin' 'bout?" Stan said. "When?"
Kyle didn't respond, knowing that for each moment he didn't, Stan would get angrier. Besides, what good were explanations, details and facts? What good was anything anymore?
"Kyle!" Stan shouted, and then he got out of bed and stood before him.
Looking up defiantly, Kyle spat out, "What?"
Slowly, Stan made the realization: "You're drunk."
"Yes? So? You part of the temperance movement now?"
"I can't believe you," Stan said. "We had a rule." The incredulous disappointment in his voice was like swallowing castor oil: disgusting, effective, and against Kyle's volition.
"That rule was for you, not me! You're the one who – who did that!" He was shouting now, becoming increasingly more upset.
"Oh, right," Stan said, and it was just sarcastic enough to push Kyle over the edge. With all his strength, he punched Stan square in the shoulder. He barely had a moment to comprehend what he had done when Stan grabbed his wrist, holding it impossibly tight, high up in the air.
Struggling to free himself, Kyle yelled, "Ow! Fuck! Lemme go!"
"Are you gonna hit me again?"
"No! Christ!"
Stan freed him, and then, as if in a haze, walked over to the window. Almost calmly, he got out the pack of ready-mades he'd bought the other day and lit one by the candle. Then he sat down on the unmade bed, holding onto the butt like it was the only certain thing he knew. Kyle was breathing hard, watching the scene unfold and feeling like he wasn't part of it, like he was a member of the audience.
"So," Stan began, exhaling, "you leave without sayin' a word, then come back plastered outta your damn mind and start throwin' punches at me. And I'm the crazy one."
"You are the crazy one," Kyle said airily, but with conviction. "I don't know if there's so much as a single shred of logic in your whole brain, actually!"
"Yeah, Kyle? You're the one who left your rich-ass prissy life in Chicago on a fuckin' whim, thinkin' you were gonna have yourself a fun lil' train-hoppin' adventure. And now 'cuz of you, we're here in Shitsburgh, Pennsylvania and you're cryin' 'cuz it ain't good enough for your pretty princess sensibilities. Real fuckin' rational."
That stung, and Kyle naturally flung it back. "Yeah, like it's sooo reasonable thinking that every single cop in the country is after you for a crime you committed four years ago ten fucking states away!"
Stan jumped to his feet and hissed under his breath, "Would you shut your fuckin' trap? What the fuck's gotten into you?!" He seemed legitimately panicked. A small part of Kyle wanted to take it back and apologize. But that part of him wasn't big enough, nor justified enough in light of the hell Stan had served him by bring him here.
"Nothing has gotten 'into me,' thank you very much," Kyle said, taking a step back. "I've just been thinking about catching out on my own. Considering how enamored you are with Hack, I'm sure you won't even notice I'm gone."
"Oh, yeah right, Kyle. Yeah fucking right, you're gonna catch out on your own."
"Fucking watch me!" Kyle shouted in Stan's face, and with that, he marched out of the room and slammed the door behind him, making the whole hallway shake with the tremendousness of his sudden resolve.
He knew though, that despite the implications of his claim, he would only be catching out to one place.
