Stories Beneath Our Skin (19 page)

"
He was a good man," they told him over and over again as if he had never met Gene, as if he needed the reassurance.
I know
, he almost told them a dozen times,
I know
. Instead he just repeated empty thank you's until he thought he might go mad with it.

The minister called everyone to attention.

"We are gathered here today on the sad occasion..."

Liam tuned him out. He stared at the casket, black gloss baking in the heat. The metal details gleamed ostentatiously. It had looked fine in the catalog, but it turned Liam
's stomach now. Gene hadn't owned anything flashy. He'd preferred simplicity, a quiet life, even when he could afford other things. Maybe they should have chosen something plainer. What did it matter anyway? It was only a container that would never be seen again, sealed under the press of dirt and grass. Whatever made Gene himself had departed, been wiped from existence. Interring his flesh shouldn't make a difference one way or another.

"
Liam, would you like to say a few words?" the minister prompted.

"
Yes. Sorry." He stood, pulled the folded pages from his pocket and stared down at them. They didn't make sense laid out that way, jumbled tick marks. He looked up, running his eyes over the crowd to a buy a little time.

Ace stood at attention in the back, black jeans, black button down
, and dark sunglasses. Beside him, there was Goose, ragged and rangy in a long black coat, Deb in a smart tailored dress, and Frankie in full goth regalia down to a pair of black fingerless lace gloves. She waved a little at him, just two fingers, and the blood red line of her mouth looked unbearably solemn.

"
I don't know what I can tell you about Gene that you don't already know," Liam began, papers trembling in his hands, nearly forgotten. "He was funny, kind, and the best father that I could have asked for. He taught me a lot of things. How to ride a bike, how to tell a story, and more importantly how to listen to one. But I think the best thing he taught me, taught so many people, was that family is so much more than the people who share your DNA.

"
We weren't related, me and him, except by the most tenuous definition. But he made me his son. He told me from the first day that I came to live with him that we'd been put together for a reason, and maybe it was God or fate or whatever, it didn't matter. We had to honor that. Respect it, even if no one else would.

"
I'll honor it for the rest of my life."

After the coffin was lowered, other people
's grief crashed over him in waves. He withstood it, anchored with one hand on a stranger's tombstone, thanking them for their words even though all he wanted was silence.

"
Hey." Ace cupped his elbow. "Come on."

"
I have to--"

"
You don't. Come on."

He let Ace lead him away from the grave, from the milling crowd and into his car. They drove, not toward home but down the cluttered route towards the shop. Liam rested his forehead against the glass, neon flashing by. When the car stopped, he blindly followed Ace out into the late afternoon. They went into the darkened shop, closed sign flipped, traveled down the photo
-strewn hall and up onto the roof.

The cluster of deck chairs had sprouted a new white plastic arrival with Frankie tucked neatly in its arms and a rusted wrought iron coffee table supporting a mountain of food. Deb kicked out a metal chair.

"Sit," she ordered, and Liam sat.

"
Eat," said Frankie, and handed him a plate full of creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, and a thick slab of meatloaf. It was too hot for the warmth of the day especially with his suit jacket still tight around his shoulders, but Liam ate every single bite and silently held his plate out for seconds.

"
A toast." Goose handed around bottles of beer, cracking off the caps with a quick snap of his wrist. "To Gene."

"
To Gene," they chorused, and Liam lifted his bottle up to join them.

"
When I was growing up," Frankie said, her voice gone soft and the creep of Louisiana slowing her vowels, "my grandmother would take me in the summers. I was already a strange sort of kid, but she never questioned anything. Let me wear her frilly aprons while we cooked. We'd spend hot afternoons like this at the community pool. She'd never swim, only sit in the sun with a romance book and talk with all the other women doing the same thing. They'd trade those books back and forth until the covers fell off, swear to God."

"
I have some of those." Deb picked at the label on her bottle until the edge furled up. "My sister likes them. When I knew I was going to be deployed, she wrapped me up a whole bunch to take with me. They were comforting, you know? Good reading when you were done with thinking. When we could get a phone call in, I'd read her the worst parts. The really terrible stuff. Make her laugh, and that made me laugh because she sounds like a goddamn braying donkey."

"
I've heard her do that." Goose took a long swallow from his bottle. "Best fucking thing. A good laugh is a sexy thing."

"
Yeah?" Frankie arched an eyebrow.

"
Sure." Goose smiled, loose and wide at her. "You know, that's how I wound up married. Olivia laughed with her whole body. I'd keep her up nights sometimes when I got her going good. It's the only thing I still miss about her. Used to think I'd carry that ache with me forever."

"
I remember when you two were nuts about each other." Ace rolled his eyes. "Back when you weighed a buck ten and wore those baggie rainbow pants to school every day."

"
Yeah, well, I remember a shrimpy guy with more anger than sense and an acoustic guitar hidden under his bed." Goose tossed a grape at Ace, whooping when Ace caught it neatly in his mouth. "Used to write those terrible songs."

"
What songs?" Liam had to ask, scooting his chair closer.

"
They were really very, very terrible." Ace snorted. "I only knew two chords and thought rhyming was the only way you could write anything. I think I traumatized our music teacher for life."

They went on like that, telling each other stories and refreshing old memories. Liam listened, leaning in closer and closer until he slipped out of his chair altogether. He couldn
't say how he wound up sitting on the ground, bracketed by Ace's legs. It was good though, his head rested on Ace's thigh and a hand stroking mindlessly through his hair.

Somewhere along the way, his tie came undone and his suit jacket wound up around Frankie
's shoulders when she began to shiver. Beer kept getting passed down to him until the line of empty bottles started at his hip and ended at the knee. For each one though, Ace forced some water onto him, saving him the hangover.

The circle huddled closer as the last of the day
's warmth fled. A gust of wind brought a dried leaf skittering across the roof. Liam closed his eyes and listened to the tangle of their voices. They talked long after the moon went up and the stars pushed through the haze.

Chapter Thirteen

Liam made the calls alone, in the dark. He waited until he was sure Ace was gone for the night and Cole was asleep, then tucked himself up on the couch under an afghan despite the last raw heat of the summer pounding at the windows.

After a lot of hemming and hawing, he called his father first. It would take longer to get him on the phone, but the conversation would be far shorter. He listened to tinny distant hold music for a long time.

"
Hello?" His father sounded exhausted. Always did. Even before prison, as if constant pressure of wearing masks for others had worn thin the man beneath them.

"
Hi, Dad." Liam tucked his chin over his knee.

"
Hi," his father repeated, and silence hung between them.

"
So. Gene died," Liam said softly.

"
Sorry to hear it." His father sighed, a feathery sound over the handset. "He had a good set of golf clubs. You put those aside for me, okay?"

"
Yeah, okay." He almost laughed. "When do you picture playing that next game?"

"
Could be soon, could be." His father's voice wandered off. "Got an appeal coming down the line. Good behavior."

"
You stabbed a guy six months ago."

"
Self-defense," came the scoffing reply. "Be out soon, kiddo. Promise."

"
You always do." He tried to keep the bitterness out. He didn't want his father out, anyway. The man who had gone into prison had a rot in him that had only spread behind bars. Better he stay there. Safer for him and safer for the world at large. "Be careful."

"
You, too. You, too." The phone clicked off without a goodbye.

"
Right." Liam did laugh then, let himself get it out. It sounded too raw to his ears, stuttering to a ragged stop just before it turned hysterical.

His mother was housed in a minimum
-security prison. While they weren't gleeful about an off-hour phone call, no one took him to task. They didn't have a hold list, just a droning repeating message about regular call hours and visitation days. Liam phased it out. He hadn't visited since he'd left for college, despite Gene's encouragements.

"
Liam, baby?" His mother sounded breathless. Had she been sleeping? Had she run to the phone? He could picture her in the starched blue jumpsuit, her hair in its usual tight bun, holding the handset of the phone with white knuckles. "What's wrong?"

"
Hi, Mom." His eyes closed on their own accord. "It's... well. Gene passed on this week. And he wanted me to tell you."

"
Oh." She coughed once. "I'm sorry to hear that. I know he meant a lot to you."

"
He did."

"
Do you... will you be all right? Is there enough money? Can you stay in school?"

"
I'll be fine. There's some money, and I've got a bit from the scholarship. I'll have some debt, but nothing I can't work off in a few years."

"
That's good. That's... good. I wish--" She started then stopped. The silence of too many years fell between them.

"
Me, too," he said at last. "I wish that, too."

"
When I get out...can I visit you? I know you don't want to see me here, and I don't... well. But I'd like to see you, baby. You've got to be all grown now."

"
I guess I am." He wondered what she'd think of his shaggy hair, the ragged tears of his nails. Would she fuss over him? Or would they meet, as he'd always pictured, at some cafe and have an awkward cup of coffee together like forgotten friends with too much damage between them to repair? "Six-three. Hope I'm done."

"
Your grandfather was tall. Your uncle, too. The real one. Dad's brother."

"
Gene was my real uncle," Liam said flatly. "Henry never even checked on me after. Don't even know where he is."

"
Liam, honestly. I was just making conversation."

"
Right. Sorry." He swallowed hard.

"
Henry had other things to do. Or maybe he's dead," she said dismissively. "Anyway, you should call more often, baby. I miss you."

"
Yeah." He rubbed the line between his eyebrows. "I know you do."

"
Well, don't you miss me?"

"
Sometimes."

"
What does that mean?" she snapped.

"
It means that I miss some things. I remember when you'd put your hand on my forehead when I had a fever or when we'd sing together in the kitchen. I remember you reading me Shakespeare instead of bedtime stories. So I miss you when I'm sick or when I read something in school that makes me think of you. That's what I mean."

"
What about the rest of the time?"

"
What do you want me to say?" The rage he usually held back so tightly poured out all at once. "What do you want from me, Mom? You left me on my own with nothing. No one. I was a kid, and I was scared, and my family disappeared all at once. I still have nightmares about the world disappearing from under my feet and just... fucking falling forever. The first time I visited, you told me it was my fault that you'd gotten caught, do you remember that? I was eight for God's sake. I thought everything... everything was on me. So no. I don't miss you every waking minute or whatever. If it's a good month, I don't think about you at all."

"
Liam," she panted out in one pained breath.

"
I'm not sorry." He went limp against the arm of the couch. "Because it wasn't my fault you did what you did. It's not my fault you went to jail, and I'm not fucking sorry about it. I won't take responsibility anymore."

"
We gave you a good life. Better than ours ever was." He couldn't tell if she was angry, she sounded flat and detached as if commenting on the weather. "We made the decisions we felt we had to. We did it for you."

"
For me," he repeated dully. "Is that what you tell yourself?"

"
It's true."

"
I'm going to go now, Mom."

"
Oh. If you have to..."

"
Yeah. I think I do." He hung up before she could get out a goodbye.

The house creaked around him, an ancient cradle. The sofa sagged under him. He idled his fingers over the keys of his phone and at last tapped out,

Done. Sucked. How's your night going?

Fixing someone else
's shit work. Need company?
Ace texted back almost immediately.

Not now. Talk to you when you get home.

K.

He picked a bent paperback
up off the coffee table. Reading for a few hours seemed like just the thing, but the novel was too familiar to him and not nearly distracting enough. He needed something new. There was a stack of books in Ace's room, collected there from some stray errand to the apartment. Liam hadn't looked through them. Hadn't had the right.

Can I borrow a book?
he texted.

Yep. Won't even charge you fines.

Permission granted, he unstuck himself from the couch and cast the phone away. The air conditioner shivered over his skin where the afghan had slid away. He tiptoed down the hall, conscious of Cole's open door and the spill of the nightlight. The books were where Liam remembered them, stacked haphazardly on the floor next to the dresser. He flicked on the lamp and knelt down beside them.

There were a few junky mysteries that he set aside and then a dog
-eared copy of
Fight Club
. Beneath that was
World War Z
, which surprised him, and
Hell's Angels
by Hunter S. Thompson that didn't. At the bottom was a worn copy of
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
, the book that had persuaded Liam to give Nietzsche a chance. The very book that Ace had claimed ignorance of all those weeks ago.

"
Really?" He asked the open air, folding up his legs to sit on the floor.

If Ace had just gone out and bought it after their conversation then that was sort of sweet, actually. Liam cracked it open, the faint used bookstore musk greeting him.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
There was an inscription in bubbly handwriting on the inside cover,

Hey Big Bro,

Twenty! Wow! You're getting old! Found a good one this year. Think you'll like it. Can't wait for you to come home!

Hugs,

Joy

2/23/02

Ace had read the book before they'd talked that day in the diner. Or had it at least. Bemused, Liam sat on the floor, opening the pages that had gone tender with age. The words were familiar, so he breezed by them, stopping here and there to take in a phrase.

There was only one underline, done in the same pen as Joy
's inscription:

Suffering and taking sin upon himself might have been right for that preacher of small people. But I rejoice in great sin as my great solace.

Next to it, Joy had drawn a winky face with its tongue sticking out. 2002 meant Afghanistan, the little book travelling over oceans to reach its destination, a small raft of Nietzsche's nihilism decorated in girlish handwriting. It meant it had been read years before the shop had opened, bearing the now suspiciously familiar name. Liam traced the words over with the tip of his finger. He'd quoted the lines right to Ace that day and seen no reaction. Was Ace that good an actor, or had Liam been so nervous that he'd missed whatever Ace might have betrayed?

Why had he lied about it in the first place? If it had been Liam in his place, he would have been pleased that someone recognized the quote. It was hardly the kind of thing most people would pick up on.

Left with too many questions, Liam picked up one of the mysteries and settled himself against the headboard. He preoccupied himself with words just as he'd always done, following the detective into the labyrinthine mind of a very strange serial killer. When the front door opened though, all his attention returned to a much more immediate mystery. He listened as Ace took off his boots and sent his keys clattering into the dish in the kitchen. The socked thump of footsteps to the bathroom and the toilet's flush rattling through the floor.

Ace paused in the bedroom doorway, leaning against the doorframe,

"You don't look traumatized."

"
Don't feel it either." Liam set the book down.

"
Want to talk about it?"

"
Not really."

Ace crossed to him, taking Liam
's face and touching the tips of their noses together.

"
You have no idea how good you look right now," Ace told him.

"
What? In my pajamas?"

"
In anything." Ace laughed, low and promising. "But much better in nothing at all."

They hadn
't done much since Gene had died, though they'd continued to share the bed. Liam had gotten used to the warm comma curve of Ace's body around his. Only now though did his libido stir back to life. He weighed the mystery of Nietzsche against the demands of the body. Philosophy lost hands down.

"
Nothing is an easy outfit to change into." He settled his hands on Ace's waist and tilted his face up for a hungry kiss.

They made a tangled mess of the bed. The paperback wound up somewhere on the floor with a soft crack that had sent them both into a terrified pause. When Cole didn
't wake, they went on with only slightly more caution before collapsing against the pillows. The afterglow settled over them, and Liam decided to savor it rather than bring it all up. He'd had enough fighting for the night.

"
I'm going to miss this," Ace confided as they settled in to sleep. His hand rested over Liam's heart, his lips grazing Liam's shoulder.

"
What? Why?" Liam asked.

"
When you go back to college," Ace said carefully. "I mean, you are still... you're going back."

"
I hadn't thought about it. Not since... but." Liam set his hand over Ace's. "Yeah. I'll miss this, too. It's only a semester though. Four months, and I'll be back."

"
You shouldn't make decisions now." Ace drew the covers over them. "Grief confuses everything."

"
I'm not confused," he protested. "Unless, you don't want to wait, I'd get that. It's far, and long distance is really hard."

"
No. I mean. Yes. I want to wait. I don't care about that. But you shouldn't be tied to coming back here. You could go wherever you wanted. Be whatever you want."

"
Exactly." Liam closed his eyes. "Want to be here. With you and Deb and Goose and Frankie. Want to be home."