Dusky coastal sky like well-oiled fingers, huh? Oil and fingers, dusk and sky, regular versus salt water, the tang of tears on his tongue. Dear lord, how to undusk it all. How to rend his head from his shoulders. And there was the smoke clearing again, the clouds moving on. And there was Jack's hand on his back, thumbing his spinal column, suggesting that he lean back into his touch, and he did. Bill reached over the appetizers-Maurice's cheese curds steeping in bacon grease, Sam's leaning tower of onion rings, and Jack's whatever-the-fuck he ordered, looking like slit-bellied worms on the skidmarked white plate-to crank the blinds shut against the dying light.
"I can't barely look at it," he explained sheepishly. "The ocean at sunset, I mean."
"You fly all the way out here to complain," said Jack, rolling his eyes.
"Nah. Just to see you awful fucks. But the complainin's part of the fun."
Ralph guessed it was true. At the very least, complaining was a large part of any of their reunions. He didn't know whether or not he considered the boys' downerisms fun. Oh, well. Let it go. Turn of the head. Flick of the sun. Coastal sky. Tears on tongue.
He repeated these images in the silent back of his throat, adjusting his teeth to mimic the sounds. It calmed him down.
They met every year, at first, at the behest of concerned parents who somehow conferred with teachers and peers and figured out their children no longer bore common resemblance to their classmates. Stunted social development, bursts of rage, failure to adhere to standard hygiene policies and, in one case, taking a first-grader's ear off during a friendly game of hide-and-seek at recess. His bad, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry really ma'am, and one hundred strikes on the knuckles and a lifetime of therapy. Ralph repeated his manta to clear the sensation of blood and peeling flesh from his mind. Tears on tongue tears on tongue tears on tongue. And a lifetime of therapy.
Eventually they met every five years, and then Bill moved to the States, and this was the first time anybody had come in seven years. Two years ago, it was just Jack and Ralph in the largest booth at Red Robin, and they stayed an hour without taking off their wet rain coats, both ordered lemon-lime sodas, made up a game where they had to time their kisses so the waitress didn't see, but she did see, and then they paid and left a large tip and ran home. They were sitting at this same table, underneath the fake LED Elvis photos.
"So," said Bill, a slow drawl, showing off his ex-pat cred. Clearly. Ralph placed his tongue flush against the roof of his mouth, concentrating hard on the deep angel's bow above Bill's lip, below his newfangled mustache, poorly groomed. He tried to imagine how the drawl might feel if he stole it. Bill met his stare warily. "So," he said again. He picked a cheese curd between his nails. "Ah. Might as well clear the air."
"We're all gay," said Sam, raising his hand. "Bill's trying to come out. Right?"
"Fuck, man," said Bill, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know about that."
"Are you or aren't you?"
"Are you or aren't you?" Ralph repeated to himself. Jack elbowed him.
"Hey," he whispered. "You're doing it again."
"I guess, sure," said Bill, looking like he'd pulled the revelation himself from his Iron Maiden's chest. He shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Weird."
Sam pointed to each man in turn. To Bill: "You, gay." To Maurice: "You, gay." To himself: "Me, yes, gay." To Ralph: "You, creepy gay." And to Jack: "You, especially gay. It just took us a while to catch up."
"Wow, how flattering," said Jack.
"I mean, who else can say they were so gay they facilitated the death of several people?" teased Sam.
"Can we not talk about this?" asked Jack.
"Seconded," Bill put in.
"Thirded," Maurice put in. "Also, I have a girlfriend. Not gay."
Sam goggled at him. "Wha-at? What happened to you?"
Maurice spun a fork on the center of his plate. It careened to the side-Bill narrowly dodged as it skittered underneath someone else's table, lost to time. Time lost. Ralph stared and fought the urge to introduce himself to the dining strangers, retrieve the fork. Be the hero. Stop being the hero. Whatever. Maurice said, "I invited her. She's running late."
"What happened to Roger?" asked Jack. Ralph wondered the same thing-the dark boy had active social media accounts all through junior high and high school. He mainly posted racist 9Gag reposts and youtube rants about standing in line at the gas station market and unflattering cellphone photos of himself in profile. Eventually Ralph went offline, and then Jack cracked one day and stopped talking to him. It was nearly a decade ago, in undergrad university, and Ralph hadn't moved in yet. They were strictly "hooking up" those days. Nothing committal.
Jack paced the narrow thoroughfare between his bare twin mattress and the dresser he'd inherited from the previous tenant of his dorm room. "God fucking dammit, R." He spoke fast and husky into his phone. R, as in Roger. R, as in Ralph. Jack used the nickname interchangeably on occasion, but lately Ralph had been Ra-Ra-Ralphie, or Phie, or just Ralph, and Roger wasn't mentioned at all. But, when he was mentioned, so rarely, it was by the first letter of his name. Ralph crossed his ankles and watched the phone call from his stomach on the bed. The waffle pattern on Jack's cheap mattress pressed into his pale navel. "I mean, what are you fucking thinking, man? You can't put stuff like that on the internet. This isn't 2002, R! This is going to ruin your life if you keep going. Really. Can you just take me-stop that-can you take me fucking seriously for once, man? You are not-stop!-you are not your own island." Silence. Ralph pressed his forehead against the mattress, too. It was cooler than the air in the room, cool as cubes, and Ralph felt the sweat pooling in the small of his back, in the creases of his toes, the canals of his clavicles. Jack groaned loud as Roger argued something to him on the other end. He pushed a knick-knack off the dresser. A crystal Yorkshire Terrier he and Ralph bought at the secondhand shop for gags. It hit a rumpled pillow without cracking.
"Take 'em down then, see what happens!" Jack shouted.
Roger on the other end, mumbling something along the lines of: Maybe I will, maybe I won't.
"Fine! I don't care anymore, R. I don't want tagged in this. I don't want to be involved. Unfriend me. I'm blocking you. Get some help and leave me alone." He hung up and flung himself backward onto the mattress, laying his head on Ralph's left buttcheek. He groaned again, then pretended to ball up his cell phone and throw it in the trashcan. "Talk about troubled youths. Roger. Why is it always Roger these days? Why can't we just pretend we're-"
"Normal?" finished Ralph.
"I was going to say something like that."
"Roger killed people and was never convicted. I don't think he can be normal, Jack."
"But I'm fine. Look at me. Fine. Look at you. Well, you're working on it."
"I appreciate that. But look at us, really."
"What do you mean?"
"What is even going on here, Jack? I mean, this started out as, like, a therapeutic thing. Sort of. I don't know. I feel like you keep oscillating. Do you hate me or like me? What's happening-" He gestured broadly at Jack's naked body reclining against his own naked body, like parenthesis around something thought but not said. "-here."
Jack frowned. "Right now, nothing. We already finished. Me, then you."
"Very funny. I'm serious, Jack."
"You want me to put a label on us."
"Yes."
Jack Merridew smiled, his ruddy features expanding like a newly-formed sun. "Sure, okay, Ra-Ra-Ralphie. Can I at least complain about being tagged in Roger's nudes for a few more minutes?"
"Just a few minutes."
"Thanks, boyfriend-Ralph."
"Thanks, boyfriend-Jack."
And that was the end of that.
And what else had happened in the intermission years? Bill moved for a job in financing, or something. He dressed all the time like he wrestled cattle at the drop of a hat, like maybe if Ralph got him in a car and drove long enough in one direction, Bill might climb out the window and rope a Pepsi out of a passing vehicle's cupholder with a makeshift lasso. This made Ralph nervous in a way he couldn't quite name, and had never felt before. Intimidated, maybe. Sam worked for the postal service. He liked feeling like a cog in the machine. His words, not Ralph's. He liked when little old men invited him to share a beer in their front yard. He received a lot of love letters and coffee-related gift cards during holidays. His twin, Eric, had some sort of accident on a motorbike which made it impossible for him to get around anymore. He lived with their Ma in Bristol. Jack passed the bar a while ago and fought regularly in courts on behalf of housewives and their children-domestic cases. He had a thing about never taking clients he didn't get along with, which meant steering clear of middle-aged men. And Roger was AWOL, probably in the looney bin, and Maurice was the last person to have seen him. They lived together for a number of years. They dated out of high school and through college. It was weird and nobody ever knew what to say about it until now.
"Well," said Sam, "Since you've switched sides, you backstabber, Mo, what's pussy like?"
"Man, what the fuck are you talking about?"
"Shut the fuck up, Sam," Jack agreed.
"Just kidding, just kidding," Sam insisted, which was what he said to get people off his case when he wasn't just kidding. They let it go. Ralph let his hackles lower. Bill picked his teeth with a steak knife. Maurice popped his inner cheek with his thumb over and over again.
"I wouldn't be the one to tell you," Maurice finally said. "I don't give up trade secrets."
The teenage waitress came around, took their orders on her crumpled steno pad. Her lips were creamsicle-orange and her hair was tied up in a rock-shaped bun on the peak of her head. Ralph watched her hands as she shorthanded their requests-no pickle, no onion, gluten allergy for Jack, sauce on the side, please, ma'am-her hands deft and large and grease-marked. And then she clicked her pen curtly and nodded her head and disappeared once more down the aisle into the busy kitchen.
"Ain't your girl gonna be pissed you didn't wait up?" asked Bill. Nobody knew how girls worked, what set them off. Ralph had a sister, but they didn't speak. Jack had a little cousin they watched every other weekend, but she wasn't done growing yet, and couldn't really speak for womankind. Maurice grinned doggishly.
"She can't eat tonight. She works, and she'll eat after. Want to come?"
Jack narrowed his eyes. "Come?"
The secret word, often whispered. Coarse in the broad light of the faux-vintage light fixture bobbing over their sticky fourtop table. Ralph leaned closer. The men got quiet and waited for Maurice to respond.
"She's a dancer."
Of course. "Let me get this straight," said Jack pointedly. "You suck cock for nearly two decades and all of a sudden you're all about strippers?"
"People change," Maurice said, open-handing his shocked audience. Like, calm down, calm down. Nothing to see here. "I encourage you all to keep that in mind, yeah? People change, and we should all just-" He stopped to wave. "Oh, hey."
A guest stood at the end of the table, adjusting her silky black purse on an exposed bony shoulder. She wore a backless silk dress underneath a lacy shawl, kitten heels, her calves like taut bows standing ready in a field of deer. She looked dangerous in her sparing blue eyeshadow and perfect, mirror-thin highlighter.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, glancing between the faces opening up to her around the table, her look falling finally to no one at all: the curds sinking to the bottom of their bacon grease sea. "Long time no see, guys."
It was-used to be-Roger.
Bill made way so she and Maurice could sit together. She moved her purse into her lap. "Hey, babe," she said, and kissed Maurice lightly on the cheek. "Thanks, Bill," she said right as Bill sat down again, nodding politely. "I think I owe you all an apology."
"Yeah," said Jack. Ralph elbowed him under the table. "Ow!"
Sam leaned his chin into his palm. "Yeah," he seconded.
"Yeah?" said Bill.
"Yeah," said Maurice apologetically.
She sucked in a quick breath. "I'm really sorry for being an ass. And being a dick. Literally."
"Okay," said Jack.
"Okay," said Bill.
"Good," said Maurice.
"And?" asked Sam.
"And I'm sorry for trying to poison you with Rat-X in eighth grade," she added for Sam. "And, Jack, I'm sorry for tagging you on my left thigh in those nudes. Those were tasteless. I'm really sorry for jeopardizing your career. I wasn't thinking, and it wasn't fair to you-any of you. Bill, I'm sorry for coming onto you at that party in college and I'm even more sorry about that one time I put you in the hospital-the shot glass, remember?" She bit her lower lip, leaving a wet tooth-shaped impression in the dark lipstick. "Ralph, I'm sorry for trying to kill you on the island. I had issues. And Maurice, I'm sorry for running late. I couldn't find my shoes."
Maurice waved it off. "No prob, no prob."
"I forgive you," said Ralph, without thinking. Jack shot him a sharp look. They'd talk about it later. Ralph was glad he wouldn't have to hear about it now. He hoped it might be forgotten in the next few hours, somewhere between now and the strip club. His therapist kept telling him to let things like this go. He planned on following through.
Sam burst into cackling laughter. "Oh my god, this is rich!" he crooned. He actually slapped his knee, or something, under the table. The plates rattled as they jumped. "Oh, fuck, man! Oh, fuck! What is wrong with me?"
Maurice was still grinning like a neon sign. His girlfriend gave up a small, crooked smile. Still had the gap between the two front teeth, the snaggled canine that Ralph, at one point, thought quite handsome. She saw Ralph staring and winked. Ralph looked away. It wasn't his fault he zoned out like this. It wasn't. He didn't mean anything, anything, anything by it.
"So," Bill said. How many times would he resort to that tonight? Ralph saw Jack roll his eyes. "So, uh-"
"Rowen," she said, offering her palm. They shook hands. You again? A re-up on first impressions.
"Rowen," said Bill. "I hope you don't mind my asking what the hell happened to you."
She shrugged and smiled again. "Oh, you know," she said. "Mood stabilizers."
A/N: Hey, kids. If you're new to the LotF fandom in the last, I don't know, 6 years. Welcome! I don't expect many of the oldheads to still be active. I don't mean to sound like a geezer.
Recently, I got into a great grad program. Like, one of the best. This led me to dig up some of my beginnings as a writer and, wow, was I ever cringe on here back in the early days. I really didn't understand myself-I was cloistered in my parents' home, attending Christian high school, and in those days things weren't as acceptable as they're getting to be now. I used to pray every night, trying to keep "gay thoughts" away, but every night they'd come, and here I am. It's weird that my coming to terms with my identity manifested in some of my earliest works as jokiness-I pretended not to take it seriously. Well, look at me now. I'm an adult, about to move across the country to attend the school of my dreams. I'm allowed to think and write whatever I want (without risking my door or laptop being forcibly removed from my possession). And, if you're not there yet, and you're struggling, I want you all to know you'll get to a better place one day, too.
If you are an oldhead, returning because you got this weird notification that I've updated or posted a new thing: Hey! I've missed you. My friends on this site really encouraged me to continue writing, and now I'm published, and I get paid for it, and wow! I couldn't have ever done it without writing here first, uninhibited, and sharing in weird niche fandoms with really passionate people like you! Reach out if you haven't talked in years, and I'd love to hear where you are now.
Lastly, I plan on this fic lasting about three chapters long. Just like the boys, this story represents me getting back together, a changed person, with the community I came from before moving on to a new chapter in my life. This represents my growth as a person, and the new ways I live in the world. It will be the last fic I post to my account. After that, I'll pop in to respond to any (lol) reviews and messages, but I don't plan on updating anything left over here. Sorry, Barton Hollow fans. Sorry fans of that really cringy youtuber fanfiction I unfortunately decided to write (I actually plan on deleting that one. Fuck pewdiepie).
Well. Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.
-K