The Gospel of Winter (15 page)

It wasn't too long before we made it to the coast. Mark cut the lights and pulled into the shadows of a parking lot down the road. We walked quickly along a path that ran
beside a few dark and quiet houses and emerged onto the beach. The surf roared, and a freezing wind shot along the shore. The moon had been full the night before, and even though it was high and distant in the sky, it still cast a pale luminescence over the beach. Milky waves tumbled up the sand, and we walked only a few feet above the tide line, in order to not draw attention from the road. The noise drowned out any conversation, and we were too cold to talk anyway. Josie took my arm and huddled against me. Her thin arm squeezed mine through the jackets and guided me across the hard-packed sand. I was half-blind and listing back and forth between pain and delirium, and her support didn't correct my steps as much as lift me from within.

We were heading to the lifeguard station, and when we got there, Mark ducked under a ramp that led to the short porch. I peered into the window. The room was big enough to hold a couple of chairs, a narrow table, and a row of floating tubes and boards. When Mark reemerged and let us in, we were grateful to get out of the cold. It blocked the wind at least. Once we had all stamped our feet a few times and gotten the blood flowing again, I pulled a small bottle of Midori from my inside pocket and passed it around. Its sticky sweetness tasted awful, but the heat that came with it made it worth it.

The wind found its way through a few cracks in the flimsy house and whistled in the corners. “The house is creaking,” Sophie said. “I feel like I'm on a boat.”

Mark lit a joint and passed it to Sophie. She took a hit and beckoned Josie closer. They kissed and recycled. Josie took a hit and leaned toward me. Her tongue moved gently into my mouth, and though my jaw throbbed, I didn't pull away. The smoke leaked out, and we kissed for what I thought seemed a long time, though I only realized that when we'd finished. Sophie grinned, and Josie's eyes sparkled back at me. I was a little embarrassed. I took a big hit, and with it all down in my lungs I leaned toward Mark. I kissed him and exhaled as quickly as I could. He took it in and worked his cheeks like bellows on the other end. His lips weren't all that much different from Josie's, a little thinner and tighter, but he worked back against mine as Josie had. He pulled away and exhaled the recycled smoke in a thin stream through the corner of his mouth. He smiled and looked away. Sophie and Josie giggled.

“Yeah!” Sophie said.

“Can't leave anybody out, dude,” I said.

“Left out?” Mark laughed. “Thanks, man, for caring.” He reached for me, and we gripped hands. He laughed harder and pulled me into a one-armed hug. “Seriously. Thanks, man. I should be the one with a black eye tomorrow.” He kept smiling, and I wasn't sure, but I thought he was going to kiss me again. The room tilted around me, and I held on to him for balance. “You okay?” he asked me.

“Yeah. I could use some water, though. My throat kind of burns.” I took another sip of Midori, which didn't help,
then wobbled over to the table by the wall and scrambled onto it so I could lie down and look out the window. The moon was high enough that some stars were visible too. “I'm okay,” I told them. “Don't worry.”

Josie followed me. “You talking to yourself?” she teased.

“No. I don't know. Maybe. I think it runs in the family.”

She hopped up next to me. She sat crossed-legged, lifted my head, and scooted closer. I put my head back down on her thigh and smiled up at her. She took the bottle from me, sipped again, and we stared out the window in silence for a while. She put her hand down through my open coat to my chest and rubbed gently.

“Are you in a lot of pain?” she eventually asked.

“Not a lot,” I lied.

“Another painkiller?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I don't have any idea how much of all this stuff I've had tonight. I guess not too much.”

“Maybe I'll have one too—just 'cause. I feel like I'm floating. I don't want it to end.”

“Don't take too much. You've been drinking.”

“Wow.” She laughed. “You sound like you care or something.”

“I do. I mean, it's like sliding over ice. It's hilarious and fun until it suddenly isn't and you crash down into the water.”

“And you might die.”

“Don't do that,” I said. “We're just getting to know each other.”

She leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. “You're going to look like a monster tomorrow. You realize that? Like, really bad.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But if you kiss me again, I won't care.”

“Oh my God,” Sophie whined. She was across the room, standing next to the other window. “I can hear you from over here. Please.”

“Seriously, dude,” Mark said. He broke into a cough. Sophie patted him on the back. “Seriously, dude,” he wheezed again. She laughed and took another hit.

Josie smiled. “Don't mind them.”

“I don't,” I said. “This is perfect.”

“Yes,” she said. She looked up toward the darker waves farther out to sea. “We could stay out here forever, except we'd freeze to death.”

“Not if we stayed this close together,” I said. I enjoyed saying it and liked the sound of my voice with hers, but I began to have the strange feeling that it was someone else speaking, that I was, in fact, hiding under the table, listening to this other puppet talk, because the me that was under the table had a premonition of things to come, as though somewhere, just beyond where I could see, something or someone was waiting for me, coming to take this all away from me, and it was inevitable.

I lit a cigarette. We shared it and listened to the surf thump and hiss along the shoreline. I wondered if I could somehow erase all the events of my life so far, as though
I could call in a flood, wash it all away, and begin anew. I imagined the ocean rushing up the beach, surrounding the little house, submerging the neighborhoods and towns behind us, the water level rising and lifting us up above the tumult. I'd save two of the important things: two joints, two martinis, two girls, two boys. We'd stare out the window, watching the dark water slog and gurgle, our boat creaking and groaning above it, moaning, writhing over the water with a slap and a splash in the crests of the waves. We'd purge all the junk overboard, the shelves loaded with bullshit trinkets at home, our computers, sheets of practice music, our clothes and uniforms, the whole Latin language, our worst memories. What else was necessary other than the glow of Mark's skin, the hum in Josie's lips, and the way Sophie squinted when she laughed? When it all subsided, everything else would be washed away and we could emerge from the muck and bloom. And something new might grow.

But there wasn't any flood, and we didn't even stay for the sunrise. At a certain point, Josie slipped out from underneath me. She kissed me on the forehead and went over to the others. I dozed off while they talked, and soon I found myself dragged out into the freezing wind and marched along the beach to the road. Mark staggered like the rest of us. I thought he was only having trouble in the sand, but I noticed his steps were heavy on the sidewalk, too. I smoked a cigarette to wake up, and I finished it before we got to the car. On the way home the girls fell asleep, and Mark and I
talked about Feingold a little. He was sure nobody else had fucked with him for the rest of the night, but he was worried for the state of the house. “Nobody was in charge,” he kept saying. “It was total fucking chaos.”

Mark took his corners too widely, and my nerves kept me awake. Twice I rolled down the window to blast my face with cold air, and Mark did the same. He dropped Josie and Sophie at Josie's, and they stumbled up the rest of the driveway after barely saying good night. Mark and I didn't say much as he turned out of her neighborhood and headed back to our side of town. As he came around the corner at the bottom of the hill we found ourselves on the wrong side of the road. Another pair of headlights blinded us. I yelled, and Mark jerked the wheel just in time, but we swung into the shoulder of the road and bounced up into the wooded patch beyond the sidewalk.

Mark still clutched the wheel. “Oh shit, oh shit,” he repeated. We got out and surveyed the car and found that we were lucky. He had been going slowly, and there wasn't much damage we could see other than a few scratches and dings that could be explained away easily. Still, he leaned back against the car and held his head in his hands for a moment. “I swear, one of these days it's all going to catch up with me. I fucking feel it, and they are going to be standing there with those fucking grim pouts, all disappointment, and shaking their heads like they're saying,
Yup, we knew he wasn't going to turn out the way we hoped, we just knew it
.”

“Who?”

“My parents.”

“Hey, man,” I said, pointing to my face, “at least you don't look like this.” He laughed with a sniff. “Seriously,” I continued, “don't they want you to have a little fun? I mean, I'm going to have to come up with something about this busted face, but my mother will hear I had a fun time with friends and be relieved.”

“I'm not even talking about fun,” he said. “That's not even a part of it. Fun is something you earn, like fucking paradise at the end of your life, and I haven't earned it yet. I have to become a senator or something first.”

“They know how to have fun,” I said.

“Hah,” Mark said flatly. “Anyway, we don't have any of those in the family yet—it's all business. My father thinks it's time the Kowolskis moved into politics.”

“Why doesn't he do it, then? Why does he have to put it all on you? Do you want any of it?”

“I don't know what I want. I just don't want to disappoint anybody while I'm still trying to figure the rest of it out.”

“I know how you feel,” I said, but as I did I wasn't thinking about Mark. I thought about how often I'd heard that line before and what it meant to me now. It felt like one of those things you intend to be a truth but that can't be anything but a lie. I wanted to offer more than bullshit.

Mark cupped his chin with one hand and hugged himself with the other. He stared at the ground by our feet. I
had nothing else I could say to reassure him. I was better at taking a punch in the face than trying to impart a sense of hope.
What the fuck, man
,
I wanted to say.
Just get a grip—fucking learn to cope
.

“Let's get out of here,” I said instead. “But don't drive me home. Let's make sure you get home.”

He was grateful, and even more so when we pulled back onto the road and he realized the wheel alignment was off. It was still drivable, and he decided he could get it fixed without his parents knowing, but the details were piling up, and Mark was beginning to worry he couldn't remember them all. We pulled up the long slope of his driveway and around to the side of the house. The car rolled onto the lawn, but he didn't notice. He cut the engine.

“Where do I say we went again tonight?”

“You came to my house.” I opened my coat and fished out the baggie. “Listen, do you want a sleeping pill? Something to calm you down so you're not up all night like a madman?”

“You do a lot of these,” he said, taking two pills from my palm.

Mark knocked one back and put the other in his pocket. He sat there waiting for it to take effect, like he'd just taken a hit from his bowl. I smiled and leaned back too. I wanted an ice pack, but all I had was another Vicodin, which I swallowed. I thought about saying good-bye, but I didn't want to go home yet, so I stayed there with Mark in silence for a while.

“You should go inside,” I said eventually, but he didn't move.

“Hey? Do you like Josie?” he asked, lifting his head slightly. “I think she likes you.”

“Jesus, I don't know, man. And there's her boyfriend.”

“Yeah, right.” Mark laughed sleepily, and I began to worry, but I couldn't move either. My body was slowing down too quickly. “Bet he's out of the picture now,” Mark said, slurring. “Watch.”

“I don't know.”

“I thought maybe you were gay?” His voice rose at the end, as if he had asked a question, but I didn't answer right away, because I didn't know how. I knew I wanted Josie, but I couldn't trust what I'd wanted. All that time with Father Greg, I'd never considered it sex. My body had worked on command. But it was different with Josie.

Mark dropped back and to the side, against the headrest. He smiled at me dreamily, moved his hand over the gearshift, and it fell on the seat beside me. His eyelids drooped and bounced. He fought to stay awake. “Are you?” he asked. He looked younger, less sophisticated and jaded than I'd ever seen him. Maybe the drugs had stripped him down, or it was because he was on the brink of sleep, or maybe it was an act of courage it had taken him all night to muster, or for me to notice, but I thought Mark might have looked at me with something close to hope.

“Didn't you see us?” I finally asked. “Me and Josie?”

He didn't respond. He let out a puff of air. His cheek sagged into the headrest, his shoulders sank. His lips remained slightly parted, his breath moist against the leather of the car seat. I'd never watched a person fall asleep before, never witnessed such vulnerability.

I wanted to crash as well, and I could have, even in that cold, but I lifted myself heavily and climbed out of the car. It would have been easy to abandon him, but I couldn't. His parents weren't expected home until the next day, but I couldn't let them find him out in the car in case he slept through until they arrived. I took the keys from the ignition, pulled him out, and tried to wake him. He mumbled with his eyes closed. I wrapped his arms over my shoulders and lugged him to the side door of the house, with his feet dragging behind us.