I'm up on the tightrope;
one side's hate and one is hope.
It's a circus game with you and me.
JUNE 1990
Shane tells Rick he doesn't have to apologize for not knowing what to say when Mrs. Walsh told him his daddy bit a bad bullet. It's a quiet funeral, not due to solemn reverence, but because of the lack of words to say. It complies with tradition: the American flag, the tearful stories from men who could only be assumed to have known him far off wherever he'd been stationed. Pale, hot, unfamiliar faces line the pews like placeholder-people — people he's never seen before and will never see again. Shane stands still, casting his eyes into the open casket. It's odd to witness, Rick thinks. He wasn't expecting Shane to cry, but then again, he didn't know what Shane would do otherwise. Shane isn't unaffected; maybe startled. Maybe spooked. But Rick doesn't see grief there.
People toss wildflowers into the grave before they cover the casket. Isabelle subtly steps on the white flowers on Henry's grave as she walks away. An old, black button-up dress hangs like a flag from her bones, and her eyes are dark, cold; shaped like Shane's, but stormier. The next time Rick looks into Shane's eyes real close, he sees Isabelle Walsh grinding her heel into snowy rose petals.
JULY 1990
The house is full of broad windows: spacious, bright. Blue bricks the color the sky should be - spun sugar and late-March breeze — with each stone colored a different shade to bring dimension. It's a staggered kind of variance that almost looks like scales on a sleeping dragon. Wood floors the color of sandalwood, cleanly polished and turning the violent July sun into a clean and gorgeous glitter. Fresh marble countertops, slanted grey roof, vibrant red garage door, a Jetsons kind of style. Rick thinks it looks like what Mrs. Walsh wanted more than anything. For as long as he's known her, she's seemed like the type who spends a lot of time wishing she could keep up with the Joneses.
Even from the living room behind him, the sun attacks Rick's shirtless back with the promise of a burn. Though he isn't particularly grateful either way, the sweat on his skin cools him down just fine: it threatens to drip off of his eyebrows — has a few times.
It's been the three of them all morning and 'noon — Rick, Shane, and Mrs. Walsh, cashing in on life insurance money before the body's cold. True as it was, Rick hated to think that because of Henry Walsh pushing daisies, Shane and his momma finally got a real break from living like sardines in an apartment that was only getting worse.
The living room's littered with box-towers and furniture that was pushed in just to get it inside. Rick unwraps old kitchen plates and tosses the newspaper; Shane sets down a box or two across the way, eager to finish the job. They've all been a montage of workhorses, milling about their tasks: classic Home Depot Doers.
For what they are to each-other, they're unusually silent. Rick knows it wouldn't be so quiet if Mrs. Walsh couldn't hear them. Any conversation, and she'd want it to be related to the task; any time she heard a chuckle, she'd ask Shane if he'd gotten all the boxes inside yet. They've been settling for making faces and trading codewords all day, until the sun got higher and hotter and didn't relent. Then, it was occasional half-grins. Rick would send one out and Shane would return it flatter than it'd come. Rick's come to notice that pattern when they're around Mrs. Walsh — he always has, really. He supposes nowadays, he's come to understand it's something about Shane that won't go away.
Mrs. Walsh comes out of the hall in her oversized work tee and rolled shorts, wearing her staple brown lipstick like she'd be naked without it. A hand on her hip, she reaches behind her for a red pack of cigarettes that Rick's been seeing draw lines into her skin. With a shaky hand, she flicks a lighter; bends her head real quick over the flame and takes a drag. It's a moment of silence before, just like that, she's got her eyes on her son like darts on a board. Rick sees her throw her head back like she's exasperated. "You almost done, Shane?"
Shane's been getting better at hiding how he bristles when she talks to him. It's easier to see it, though, when there isn't a shirt to cover the sudden stiffness of his shoulder blades. Rick wonders if Mrs. Walsh can see it too; wonders if she just ignores it.
Shane casts her a quick glance and keeps digging into the box in front of him. "Got all the boxes out of the SUV," Shane says. "Still got the mattresses back at the apartment. That's about it, I think."
"Good." Smoke billows from Mrs. Walsh's mouth with just the word. She looks at Rick with calm eyes as she walks past him to open the refrigerator. The light casts bright color onto her dark skin. "Figure we can break into Ramona's sandwiches before we get started on the painting," she tells him. There's no such hardness in her voice as when she talks to Shane. "Thanks so much, Rick, by the way. Probably wouldn't be this far along without you at the pace we were going."
Rick isn't sure that's entirely true. He's been mostly doing the unfolding and unpacking; he struggled not to drop every box that he and Shane brought down the stairs and into their cars. Truth be told, it was all mostly finished by the time his own momma made him help. Shane had declined it every time he offered before then, so it'd been Shane and Mrs. Walsh working on their own, doing just fine without him. Rick takes three plates out of the cabinet when Mrs. Walsh pulls out the box of turkey-mayo-cheese.
"No problem, Mrs. Walsh. I'm always happy to help," Rick says.
Mrs. Walsh takes the plates, sets two on the dining table and one on the bar, and loads each one with two sandwiches. She leans against the marble bar and looks at Rick past a cloud of smoke as he sits at the table. "I kept tellin' Shane to ask you to help us; I don't know why he didn't."
"I didn't wanna bother him," Shane says across the room.
"He says he was happy to help." Mrs. Walsh glares at him with dark eyes; flicks ash onto the counter. "Y'should've asked sooner, Shane."
Rick sits a little straighter. "I actually was pretty busy doing somethin' with Jess. She needed some help with a theater thing — some summer play that they did down at the library."
Mrs. Walsh's eyes brighten just a shade. "How'd it go? Did she do good?"
Rick hears Shane's snort across from the room and forces himself not to give him a sharp glance. "Yeah. Yeah, it was … it was good. I didn't make a very good Lysander, but all she needed was to run the lines."
Mrs. Walsh smiles. It looks genuine. He sees Shane's dimples in her face. "Y'all should've told us. Wouldn't want to miss something like that. Shane and I could've put aside a day." She blows her cigarette smoke away from Rick this time, voice still light and airy. "I didn't even know Jess did theater."
"Jess has always liked that theatrical stuff," Rick says. He over-gestures with his hands. He's always been worse at this than Shane. "I knew y'all were busy; didn't wanna put something else on your schedule." Shane's looking at him from near the boxes; Rick takes a bite of his sandwich just to shut himself up. Too much mayo. Momma didn't make these, Jess did.
"Couldn't've anticipated this move if you'd told me to," Mrs. Walsh says. "Been in that apartment so long, didn't think we'd ever have the chance to get a house like this ." She casts her eyes up at the surroundings: the high ceilings, the polished floor, the living room, the windows — all pointed out in a swift little gesture with her burning cigarette dropping ashes as she waves it. Bought with the bounty of a dead man. "There was no way we were gonna be gettin' one livin' on just Shane's money," she says.
It's true, but Rick wouldn't've said it. Before Shane's SUV, Rick saw him walking to and from his shitty job every day after school, even in the rain when Rick couldn't drive him. Rick had to convince him to get it — the good one, not the crappy, decade-old used clunker that would cost him a dime now and a fortune in gas immediately after. Rick didn't want him sitting in a vehicle that wasn't worth the work he put in to keep him and his momma eating.
Rick hears Shane slam the flap down on the box a little too hard; hears his boots grind a little too rough into the wood as he comes to the table. He can't help but think that if Mrs. Walsh wanted a house so badly, she should've helped Shane. The thought is so sudden, he's almost alarmed by it. It's rude. It's true. He comes too close to opening his big mouth for comfort; stuffs it with his sandwich and doesn't say a word. His momma taught him better than that.
Rick doesn't think Mrs. Walsh notices the silence: the isolated sound of eating, cicadas buzzing, the mechanical hum of the ventilation. She stands laid back into the marble almost as if seated. The counter digs like a knife into her back, and she's still turned facing the living room, away from either of them. She didn't watch Shane walk; she just looked through him, like a clairvoyant seeing just another ghost. She pulls the cigarette from her lips. Her lipstick has created a ring of brown around it.
"You know, Shane, I think we really did need it," she says to nobody. "Henry gettin' killed. We needed it. It got us a house. We're closer to work. Closer to the Grimes. Forty thousand dollars," she breathes. Her cigarette is burned down to a stub. "He didn't leave anything to us in the will, you know. Sorry I didn't tell you, but I thought you should know that. And here I was, worrying myself to death about money ."
Rick watches her put her cigarette out in the palm of her own hand; watches her grind it into her skin on top of a myriad of other burns, black and red and ugly. It looks like it doesn't hurt her anymore. She gathers her hair into a bun it can barely fit in; has to wrap it about a thousand times, eyes brown and flat and empty. "I thought all he'd leave us was alone."
When Shane drives off of the course to the old apartment, Rick doesn't ask him any questions; doesn't think it's a good idea. He takes them off-road into a clearing — their spot — surrounded by the trees, bracketed by the river, the tires kicking up gravel and soil and stopping harsh beside the water they'd swam in countless times. No music, no talking, just the two of them and a lie that they were picking up the mattresses. Shane grips the wheel hard enough to turn his palms and fingers white.
Rick releases a breath that's been hurting his lungs. "Shane—"
Shane holds up a hand, tic in his jaw, breaths hard and shallow. Gulping past a lump, Rick adjusts himself in his seat to look at him straight. He observes as red rims develop on Shane's eyes; watches gentle wells of tears begin brimming the lashes. He can't keep himself quiet. "Shane, I'm so sorry she —"
"I hate that bitch," Shane spits. It's all teeth, it's a deep and angry furrow of brows, it's a hateful twist in his jaw.
The car engine putters, purring and gently rocking them. Rick shifts it into park. "I know."
"You always wonder why I never talk to her, always saying I should — you and Ramona. Y'all just don't fucking get it. " He strikes the wheel with each syllable; Rick flinches with the recoil. Tears bead precariously on his lashes, threatening to fall; to touch his red skin. "I try, Rick."
"I know."
"I do everything," Shane hiccups. A hot bead strikes his cheek. "It's like she doesn't see it. It's like I'm snapping in her face, yellin' at it, screaming at it, talking to a wall. I keep the lights on, I keep the rent paid, I keep the food on the table, do all that shit at my age every day — that's all the shit that dad doesn't do."
Didn't do. Shane's dad is dead. Rick had heard it through his landline. 'Shane, have Rick bring you back home. It's about your dad.'
Shane meets Rick's eyes, hard brown on gentle blue. "You think she thinks I'm like him ?" There's something dark that crosses Shane's face, brings a flicker to his eyes, heavier than worry. Rick doesn't know it when he first witnesses it, but it comes to him all the same. Something reminiscent of grief. Loss. A preemptive acquiescence to something truly horrible. It's what Rick didn't see that afternoon in June when Shane had his hands in his pockets and stared down into his daddy's coffin, face dry as a bone.
"Of course not," Rick says, but he truly doesn't know. He just wants to stop that, that flicker, that cruel wind against Shane's flame, because he almost saw the fire die, he swears it. "Your momma loves you, same as any momma. Maybe she's depressed; maybe she ain't seein' things straight, Shane. You can't just jump —"
"Nah, that's where I think you're wrong, Rick. She didn't love him. She thought he was selfish, thought he wasn't there. She thought he didn't do nothing for us. You seen what she said — how I wasn't enough. That's what she thought of him." Rick thinks back to the funeral; thinks back to Isabelle Walsh's heel on Henry's roses, and sees Shane's mother in his eyes. "If she didn't love him, she doesn't love—"
"She loves you, Shane," Rick tells him. White petals, black heels, digging, killing.
Shane makes a noise and Rick can't tell what it is. It might have been a scoff if Shane's voice weren't so wet, so rough, dragging like a broken leg over that thick sadness and failing to catch its balance. "No, Rick. She doesn't. I know you know that. I know you know that somewhere inside you — I'm not the only one, brother."
Shane says it like he's begging. Rick realizes he hasn't seen him cry over anything that wasn't an injury. He's forced to look it in the face now: red eyes, weepy voice, frowning pull of lips — those lips — that aren't supposed to do anything but grin and talk shit and maybe kiss him.
"It doesn't matter," says Rick. He doesn't know if Shane's right. "Jess loves you. Momma loves you. Dad loves you. I love you."
It might be that the last part is the only part that matters. Might be it's the only part that matters to Shane. That's fine with Rick, because it's true. It's true, and Rick isn't sure why he's never said it.
It isn't the first time it's happened like this — here, in this place, near this river, with the wind stirring the water and giving him chills. Last time, they'd come by to swim. It was a picture that was never taken: Rick's Civic parked on the same gravel, water clear as glass and Shane having manhandled Rick into facing him as they leaned into the backseat. Rick's mouth being ravenously kissed, Shane's hand beneath his swim trunks, the dense cover of the Georgia trees enough to shadow them.
It isn't the first time, but it might as well be. Backseat, belts loose, jeans down, kissing, holding, "I love you." Sappy shit.
JUNE 1991
Graduation. Long, black gowns, "we're so proud," and decorations in the gym that make it look less like a death sentence and more like a classical theater. Shrill cheers from a thicket of family members as Rick accepts his diploma. Wild hollering from the same family as Shane accepts his. There's a loud song about the 'next chapter,' and then everyone throws their caps into the air followed by dodges and giggles and shrieks as gravity plays its inevitable role. Rick tosses his cap with the rest of them. He's chasing the golden tassel with his eyes when he sees — too late — Shane toss his own cap straight at his face like a frisbee.
Somewhere in the middle of fake fistfighting, a loose headlock turns into a hug that lasts too long; curses turn into Shane telling him "I love you" and Rick saying it back. Rick smells his momma's stocking-stuffer staple on Shane's skin as he embraces him. Old Spice — of course he wore it.
JULY 1991
It's different this time. This time, it's just them.
They move into a third-floor apartment in an old, cheap complex that borders the city, their first day into a two-year lease long enough to get them through college. The streets are more crowded than they're used to, so they use the SUV and Rick's dad's truck to move their boxes. It's easier like this: just the two of them shit-talking in a talking new city that isn't hotter, but sunnier. They've got the windows pushed open and Jess' old portable radio playing at half volume, its two-foot antennae only picking up the city stations clearest. It's New Kids on the Block and Madonna all afternoon — it's too hot and there are too many staircases to fret over music they only hear when they zip in and out.
They pass the college both times they drive back to King County for the rest of their things. Rick's used to their squat high school with its handful of students and small football field. The college campus is nothing like it from what he saw when they enrolled. Vaulted ceilings, large windows, two floors, and an indoor fountain. Truth be told, Rick thinks it's a little much for a school predominantly known for its police administration courses, but it's likely run-of-the-mill to the city folk who live around it.
The police academy itself is much less flashy, much more familiar to his senses. Maroon brick and a cement yard; a cardio track and just enough space for lecture rooms. It's almost like a building he'd see somewhere on the side of the road back home; something that was cookie-cut and transplanted into the city. When they shook hands with the staff and got their paperwork, he felt like he's always known it, even down to its mildewy old-building scent. Somehow, the intimidation it fosters is worse.
The windows are still open, the sky is dark, the radio is off, and the TV sits unplugged, waiting. Every station that plays Merle Haggard sounds like it's been run through a meat processor, so it's the song of crickets, the kitchen vent, and two ground beef patties sizzling quietly on his daddy's skillet. Rick flips a burger and turns to the living room holding his spatula like a pointer stick. Through the smoke of the burgers, Shane lays on the couch in boxer shorts rifling through paperwork — domestic. The way he's laying with one leg bent, Rick can see straight up it, like looking up a skirt in a lewd magazine — nothing on under it, clean and shaven. He almost forgets what he was going to say until he clears his throat.
"Shane, you know what I'm thinking?" Rick asks.
Shane doesn't look at him, but grins. "Can't remember a time I ever thought I did and was right," he says on a chuckle, "but I'll bite. Were you thinking we ain't gotta worry about being loud anymore when we fuck? Wait, nevermind — that's what I was thinking."
Rick barks a laugh; turns and flips the other burger. Maybe a year earlier, it would have brought pink to his cheeks, but the relationship they occupy now is comfortable, familiar.
"No, but the thought crossed my mind. You get half points," Rick says, gesturing with the spatula. A drop of grease flicks into the sink, and he thinks about Mrs. Walsh flicking her cigarette ashes. Something eats his smile away. "I was thinking about this thing we're getting into. We're gonna be holding guns, being around people with guns. People will trust us to protect them. It's a lot. It's a lot to think on."
Shane flicks him an enigmatic look over the paper. He clicks a pen; makes to write something on it using his thigh as a table. "You nervous?"
"You could say that," Rick says. The meat's getting brown. He places hamburger buns on two paper plates and adds the cheese; turns off the stove and places the patties. No lettuce, no tomato, no onions — they forgot those when they went to the store. He shakes out some chips on the side and tosses Shane a colorful beer from the pack Jess had snuck him because they were 'grown-ups now.' Shane looks up and catches it on a flinch — some bright blue, girly coconut flavor Jess probably picked just to mess with them.
Rick walks the plates to the living room; sits next to Shane, cracks a blue beer. "Sure, we won't be working in Atlanta, but King County still isn't entirely safe. You remember when—"
"'Course I remember," Shane says, wiping beer off of his lips. "Cost me a whole damn paycheck all 'cause the asshole wanted the goddamn radio."
Rick remembers it well. Ironically, it's what had him wanting a career in police work. It was midnight, slushy with snow. Slick streets, so everyone was indoors. Shane's SUV endured a busted window when it was broken into. The alarm went off, so it was a quick arrest — the radio was fine because the jackass couldn't remove it. All on the last paycheck before Christmas. Rick still remembers the look on Shane's face when he gave Rick the first in the series and not the box set. It was hardcover, leather-bound with a bookmark — so pretty, Rick hardly felt he could touch it — bought with what Shane had left. Rick probably still has it somewhere in one of these boxes.
"It's gonna be our job to take care of that stuff," Rick says. "Mom told me the guy had a gun on him, Shane. It was serious."
Shane throws a shoulder like it's irrelevant. "Bastard had the thing taken away from him as soon as they caught him. Didn't hurt anybody. He was a coward; the alarm scared him off."
"You sure about that, Shane?" Rick says. Shane's eyes are mirroring his: bitter, cold, just this side of a glare. "He had a firearm on him; he was ready. You don't carry a gun if you don't think you're gonna use it."
"But he didn't use it, Rick. He didn't get the chance to." Shane looks him hard in the eye. "Officers are taught to quick-draw and de-escalate. They know how to take care of those things. You think we ain't gonna know how to do that?"
Rick shakes his head. "Something could go wrong, Shane, you can't ignore that."
"I'm not ignoring shit," Shane says, a little too defensive.
Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, Rick drags his fingers through his sweaty hair and stands to pace, groaning over Shane's words.
"I'm saying there's training, there's precautions behind it. Even if he did shoot—"
"Say we're partners, Shane," Rick whirls. "Say I get you killed 'cause I fuck up. Say I'm not looking and you get shot — say that happens. Then that's your blood on my hands because of me."
The papers are somewhere else; the food sits steaming in front of Shane. "Rick, if that happens, it was gonna happen anyway."
Rick shakes his head. "What—"
"What I know," Shane interrupts, level and slow, "is when we get our badges and our guns, there ain't gonna be no-one else I'll trust to watch my back besides you — in King County or Atlanta. If something happens, it'll have been inevitable. It ain't gonna be because of you. If anything, it'll be despite you. Okay? I trust you, Rick. I have faith in that. You wanted this and I want it too. So we're gonna do it."
A pause floats between their bodies, Rick on his feet in front of him, his tense muscles finding reprieve in the words without intending to. Rick realizes he's nodding in acceptance of the words, and then he's sitting on the couch again, suburban husband and wife over a dinner tense-turned-warm.
Shane's hand lays on his thigh, palm damp from his beer bottle and colder than the warm press of their thighs, not an inch between them. Fingers trace shapes into his flesh and draw goosebumps. Rick doesn't find a lie in Shane's eyes, so he tries to weigh the gold he sees swimming in the brown. It's easy this way, looking at him directly, the light just overhead illuminating every shade and color. He doesn't know he wants it until it's his — the gentle, languid slide of tongue in his mouth, on his cock, coconut-and-alcohol sweet. Rick chose this for them, all of it. It was Rick planning the path, setting the rules, digging their graves.
And here is Shane. On him, in him, evidently fully in the belief that Rick chose correctly. Rick hears his own name murmured baritone into his slick neck, spoken like worship. He has to believe him.