Chapter 4

"You're awake," the voice he knew so well murmured beside him. The crash still rang in his memory. As always when he remembered it, and when did he not? there was the bitter thought that anywhere else on that road, he'd've had time to grab the wheel and kick Steve awake.

Cold air brushed his cheeks. A truck roared overhead. He felt a wave of bitter anger and loss and futility. A hand found his thigh and slid around to his cunt. "Let's fuck," the voice drawled lazily, "I'm tired of watching and throwing pebbles was getting old."

It didn't feel like a dream.

Fingers found his cunt and cupped it. A face loomed over him. He felt drained and uninterested, totally exhausted from the wild moments just before, when he'd been so full of need and desperate hope and'd had his cock deep within himself and'd gripped that cock so firmly as it stretched deep within him and he'd felt all two bodies worth of nerves flame.

"Surely," he thought, "I am dreaming."

He thought, "Why didn't that wild moment wake me up?" He remembered that sex the night before hadn't either.

He looked up at Steve. He found that his orientation had rotated with his situation. He found the unformed boyish face looking down at him, caught by time in its first instant of adult bloom, quite attractive. He saw with fresh eyes why all the girls had been so desperate for him.

He thought, "Well, why not."

Steve pushed forward and he felt Steve's hard cock blunder along his sex. It inadvertently brushed his clit. He felt the nerves, outlining it's sweet tiny little flesh, tingle. His breath caught at the sensation. He shifted his thighs against Steve. Steve began pushing and he put his fingers down and spread his sex lips, reveling in the merged sensations from fingers and his so sweet flesh. He placed Steve. It felt great as he was parted and he felt himself automatically tighten around the cock, clutching Steve with his hips.

I'm getting fucked he thought, this is what it's like.

Steve began to work in and out, banging against his pelvis. His ass bottomed out on the concrete beneath the thin abused mattress. He frowned. It felt nice, but lacking.

He looked up at Steve. Steve's face was clinched, his eyes closed, his lips parted. Steve's weight was supported on his arms. He felt Steve's wrists pressed against either shoulder. He sighed and relaxed, he shifted his legs, letting one stretch lazily, the other cocked, foot on the mattress, knee up against the sleeping bag. That leg rocked idly left and right as Steve pushed against it in his efforts. With a spasm of amusement, he realized he was just doing what his wife'd done under him, so many times.

If Steve minded, he showed no sign.

His mind, he found, was awash in voices and sights, some current, some old, all crisp like new, all strange yet not strange to him. Somewhere running through and around everything was a high drunken voice, singing if that was the word for it, over and over, "When I am gone, I am gone".

He heard his Mom saying, "Look there, that's a smile all right" and his sister replying, "Mom, that baby's only a month and a half old. That's gas." and his Mom saying, "Sue, what do you think," and he heard his niece say, "That's malignant glee. She's gonna start screaming."

The voice wails, "I am gone."

There's a memory of when he'd first gotten to sing with the adult choir, when he was thirteen. His mom sat next to him looking happy. His Dad was at the piano, starting the choir in on an anthem called, "What Sweeter Music".

The voice wails, "I am gone."

There's a memory of himself. He has to laugh. There he is in the back of the canoe, his two amazingly young boys clutching the sides, their faces twisted with fear and excitement, his wife in the front paddling and shouting helpful instructions, there's the roar of the highway overhead and there in the creek, bouncing and shaking the canoe for all he's worth, grinning, is Steve. He hears himself shout, "I'm getting out. I'll tow us!" He watches himself step out, the creek is only knee deep, the flow is not so much fast as steady, splashing about his knees. He watches himself grab the rope in front. There's a tug of war between himself and the grinning Steve. His wife shouts, "Stop it! Tom! It isn't funny!"

He hears his own clear alto voice from the bank drawl, "Asshole, let them go by!" and Steve gives the canoe a big push which sends him flying over backwards with a splash.

He heard Steve's happy laugh. "Just having some fun, honey. Let's fuck."

The voice wails, "I am gone."

There's a memory of his sister on the phone the day before: "Yeah," she said, "I know Sue's taking advantage of me, but you know, I have the time and I do like babies... Yeah... Yeah... You know I think I might've met someone. He was walking his dog in the cemetery." He felt a ping of happiness hearing this. She went on, "I had the baby Trudy. His son was a year behind Sue. They even went out once... No I didn't know him then. I called up Dana Lynch who Sue says is the mother of his son's best friend. Dana said his wife left him this June. Their younger son finished high school and went off to work in a summer camp in the Upper Peninsula and she left herself. She's started in the Dental Hygiene program at OSU... I don't know much about him... Well, you know, he has a nice dog... No of course he hasn't shown any interest, when do they ever? I'll think of something."

The voice wails, "I am gone."

He hears his sister again and he knows she is actually speaking and that her words are getting lodged in his ghastly memory to be replayed over and over. She is on the phone again: "I was never been so shocked in my life. I'm sure it was him. That guy I told you I was maybe interested in? He was there in the cemetery necking with a girl college age at best. My God! It's so perverted! I keep thinking about it. I'm almost positive it was him. It was quite a ways away and getting dark... No, he didn't have his dog with him, but that doesn't prove anything, I don't think that dog is like glued to him."

The voice wails, "I am gone."

He forces his mind away and is rewarded with a memory of his Dad, shouting at his Mom two days after the accident. "It is your fault, Maud, if you'd only let me I'd've locked her in."

"Dan, please."

"She'd've been mad, she'd've hated us, but she'd be alive."

The voice wails, "I am gone."

He remembers the sounds of weeping, locked behind bedroom doors.

The voice wails, "I am gone."

He remembers sitting on the grass in the little oak grove, watching his funeral, there's his mother and father, standing stiff and separate. There's his older sister standing stiffly apart from the guy who's going to soon enough be her first husband.

Steve is right their on the grass beside him. Steve's hand kneads his thigh. He slaps it angrily.

"Ah honey," Steve pleads, "Let's fuck. What else is there to do?"

The thought of it makes him sick. Every time Steve touches him he slugs him.

They look across at the silent party. Even her friends look quiet and stiff, standing to one side. There seems to be none of the guys, Steve's pals. She watches the casket being lowered. She especially watches her Dad and Mom. So still and stiff and unfeeling.

"Shit," says Steve, "I'm going back and I'm never coming here again." Steve stands, runs a hand through his hair, which draws another slug.

"Ouch," he says, his elbow'd hit Steve's knee. "Asshole."

The voice wails, "I am gone."

He remembers Steve's burial, the afternoon after his, Steve's plot was on the other side of the cemetery, as far away from his as you could get. Steve lay back under the bridge, indifferent, sleeping. That funeral'd been so different. Steve's folks'd wept and clung to each other. Steve's younger brother and sister'd hugged his parents and his aunts and uncles. It looked like half the high school was there. Everyone hugged and wept. They threw flowers and shit onto his casket as the dirt was piled on.

He remembers walking back and sitting on the bank by the creek and looking at the crushed mess of charred cattails where the car had tumbled and smashed and burned.

He went back to Steve's grave that evening. Waited while the last pair of kids stood by it and then at last got in their car and drove off. Flowers, white and yellow and red, covered the grave, piled waist high against the stone. They covered the ground, overflowing the graves on either side in fact. It took him two hours to carry them all to the edge of the cemetary and throw them down into the flood plain.

The voice wails, "I am gone."

He remembers the workmen dragging that car out and up the bank and onto a flat bed truck. He and Steve'd watched from under the bridge.

Half way through the process, he'd realized that Steve was no longer by his side. Just then the chain slipped and the crushed yellow Mustang'd sprung to life one last time and'd lurched back down into the brown stinking water. Steve stood up by the truck, grinning as the guys rushed about, trying to figure out what'd happened.

He'd been so mad, he'd rushed over and tackled Steve. They'd rolled down the bank, oblivious of thorns, and'd splashed into the creek. The water then was really foul, one step from sewage. He sat on Steve while the crew winched the car out and away, and Steve'd laughed, saying, "Honey where were you when we played Jordon last fall? You should've been a linebacker."

"Asshole," he'd said and let Steve up. Steve just laughed and said, "Let's fuck." He'd kicked him and stomped off.

The voice wails, "I am gone."

All through his mind runs his Dad's thin drunken voice. It seems to stretch from the moment his Dad retired to the moment he died. Forsaking his normal decent baritone, for a wild falsetto, his Dad sings hymns while his Mom watches TV or cleans or works in the kitchen.

"Death, like an overflowing stream, Sweeps us away; our life's a dream, An empty tale, a morning flow'r, Cut down and withered in an hour. Our age to sev'nty years is set; How short the time! How frail the state And if to eighty we arrive, We'd rather sigh and groan than live."

His Dad's voice wails, "I am gone."

He hears his sister saying, "Mom, you have to do something about Dad's drinking!"

And his mother saying stiffly, "Mind your own business."

His Dad's voice wails, "I am gone."

And his mother saying bitterly to their doctor, "Do you think I don't know what he's doing? And you're wrong, he's not out of control. He was sober at our daughter's wedding a month ago, he's sober when he drives."

His Dad's voice wails, "I am gone."

And his Dad, when they cut him off, whining, "No wine? Not even a little glass of wine? Not even one little teensy drop? How about a taste with dinner? I would never be so cruel to you Maud. Never."

His Dad's voice wails, "I am gone."

And his mother's tired drained voice, "I can't chain him down. I can't find all his hiding places. I'm doing what I can."

His Dad's voice wails, "I am gone."

He remembers his Dad's funeral. He sat on the same rise under the oaks, he watched the backhoe dig, rumbling and tottering forward and back. He watched them lay plywood over it so some stupid kid wouldn't tumble in. He watched them set the stone. He watched them remove the plywood and arrange bright flowers. He watched his mother and his sister and her second husband. His Mom weeping when she hadn't shed a tear at his funeral. A smattering of the older members of the congregation attended, those who'd been in the choir before his Dad'd given up being music director, had given up going to church at all. A couple of his Dad's fellow teachers from 10 years before stood awkwardly about as well.

He had hoped his Dad would appear next to him, but no such luck. His Dad was gone forever.

His Dad's voice wails, "I am gone."

He had to stop that mental cacophony, that labyrinth of insanity. He would've done anything to purge those memories.