Sidecar Page 12

  Joe sighed. “No.” He sighed again. “Some of the best moments of my life have been with another man.” For a moment, Casey’s world was golden. “And some of the best moments have been with a woman too.” And the world was back to regular old color TV. “I don’t want my parents to… to label me, or what I do, or what sort of person I’m going to bring home before I know myself, okay?”

  Casey digested this in silence and then bent and pulled the casserole out, using the quilted hot pads carefully as he took it to the table. He’d chopped up lettuce for a salad and put it in their one wooden salad bowl. Joe, sensing the occasion, whether Casey would admit to one or no, got out the good glasses—cut crystal—and put them at all three settings.

  “So,” Joe said, his voice a little less defensive, “are you going to tell me what the occasion is, really?”

  Casey smiled at him, realizing that he wasn’t disappointed after all. Joe was only human. The things that made him such an outstanding refuge to people just exactly like Casey were the same things that wouldn’t want to cause a fuss about a significant other until there was a fuss to be had. “I took my placement exams at Sierra today. I see my counselor in a week, and I can register for classes.”

  Joe’s beautiful, even grin split his face, white in the dark hair of his mustache and soul patch. “That’s awesome, Casey! I’m so proud of you!”

  He stood up and gave Casey a massive hug that Casey returned, closing his eyes and sinking into Joe’s solidness with something close to desperation. God, Joe. I love you so much, and I don’t think it’s the way you want me to, and I don’t think I can change it. Joe’s arms were strong around his shoulders right then, though, and Casey wouldn’t fuck up this moment, this pride, for anything on the planet, even the raging going on in his head.

  There was a knock at the door right then, and Joe backed up and ruffled his hair, then went and opened the door for Dev.

  Derrick was right behind him.

  Joe’s smile at Derrick was… troubled, to say the least, Casey thought. But Joe had some old-world manners, in spite of the motorcycle and the facial hair and the constantly ripped jeans. He fixed his smile and reached out a hand, shaking Derrick’s hand heartily. Derrick’s rectangular, pretty face looked bemused, a reddish-brown eyebrow arched skeptically, as though this hadn’t been the greeting he’d expected, and Casey wondered meanly if he’d thought Joe would simper and kiss his cheek.

  “Come on in, man! Casey cooked up a storm—he’s sort of celebrating his entrance into junior college, you know?”

  “’Cause that’s so hard?” Dev asked, rolling his eyes and moving past them to kiss Casey on the cheek.

  Casey looked at him levelly. “My SATs were higher than yours, rich boy,” he said, his voice and face pleasant, and he was gratified when Dev flushed.

  Dev smiled, somewhat ingratiatingly, and Casey thought that he might mean well, and moved in for a kiss. Dev opened his mouth with satisfying eagerness, but that didn’t stop the unease in Casey’s gut. This relationship was nice, but it wasn’t going to be happy ever after—he’d be lucky if it was sex for the night. (They’d gotten sort of good at it, lately, and Dev had quit bitching about the condom about a month after Debbie’s funeral. Sometimes Casey thought that might be because he was cheating, but since Casey was dating him while still being in love with Joe, he figured it was only fair.) Their relationship really was that tenuous, and sometimes he wasn’t sure who couldn’t stand who the most.

  But this night—this night it didn’t matter. Casey felt proud of himself, of where his life was going, and Joe was proud of him too. They sat, they ate, Joe pulled ice cream out of the freezer, and they had dessert. They watched Terminator, although Casey was dying for Batman to come out on video.

  “We saw it in the theaters!” Joe protested good-naturedly, and Dev looked at Casey funny.

  “I asked you to see that movie. You said no!”

  Casey flushed and grabbed a handful of popcorn over Jay’s fuzzy orange head. The cats tended to sprawl out on Joe and Casey’s laps when they watched television, and the dogs slept on special pillows in the kitchen by the garage door. Casey had tuckered them out tonight, which was good, because Rufus tended to beg for popcorn. Joe had an air popper, and when you added garlic salt to the butter, it was so good. “Yeah,” Casey answered to Dev’s whine about Batman, “but that’s because Joe and I had been talking about seeing it for a month. We had a day set out special and everything. I didn’t want to blow that.”

  “I haven’t seen it yet,” Dev said, his voice pitching, and Casey pulled back on his temper.

  “It’s still at the theater in Auburn—we can go this week.”

  “Yeah, but….” Dev scowled at him. “Jesus, Casey. You made me watch Ghostbusters II—that movie sucked!”

  Casey remembered what else had sucked that night, and he grinned at Dev and arched his eyebrows wickedly. Dev blushed and grinned and the discussion was effectively tabled, but Casey had to sigh inwardly. It was true—and maybe one of those things that made their relationship so tenuous—Casey did save the best parts of himself for Joe.

  The movie ended, and Dev tugged gently on Casey’s hand. Time to go to bed. Casey stood up reluctantly. It had been an epic action-adventure movie, but at the same time it had left him vaguely unsettled. Nuclear Armageddon seemed very close sometimes. This was the sort of thing he talked to Joe about, the sort of thing Joe managed to make him not feel so stupid about. Joe would show him a Bloom County cartoon or talk about all the many ways the Bible had been misinterpreted, and Casey would manage to get to sleep without waking up in a cold sweat. He couldn’t do that with Dev there—he just couldn’t. With Dev he had to put on a face that the whole world was all okay. Joe knew that Casey had seen the world when it hadn’t been okay at all. Joe knew that, sometimes, he still saw it that way.

  But Joe was standing up and stretching, and Derrick was looking at his exposed tummy with hooded eyes, like he wanted to get him some of that. The two of them had sat at opposite ends of the couch while Casey and Dev had sat between them on the floor, and not once had they even tried to hold hands, although Casey and Dev had been practically on top of each other. Casey knew the signs, though. He remembered when Joe had dated Sharon. He knew the deferential silence, the offers to go get popcorn. There was something brewing between them.

  Casey let Dev pull him toward his bedroom, though, and Joe gave a sleepy, innocent grin as they disappeared down the hallway.

  “Good night!”

  You don’t want him, Joe. He’s sort of fast and slutty, and he just barged his way in here and—

  “Casey, you coming?” Dev asked impatiently, and Casey sighed.

  “Good night,” Casey said wistfully, turning toward Dev and what was likely to be some decent, if silent, sex.

  He never did see what Joe’s expression was. For years, he thought it was probably indifferent, but eventually, eventually, he began to suspect it might have been as reluctant as his own.

  HE SLEPT badly—bad dreams that Dev was not very patient with, usually elbowing him in the side with a “Jesus, what’s wrong!”—and therefore woke up when Joe was in the shower. They’d managed to install an upstairs shower directly above the downstairs shower, but something about the homemade plumbing job caused the pipes to groan terribly with the water pressure it took to force the water up. The sound was so bad that Joe still frequently took his showers downstairs. The fact that he didn’t on this morning told Casey way too clearly how the night had gone.

  Casey groaned and rolled over, but Dev wasn’t there. Casey blinked hard and took a breath and registered that his shower had been used recently. Dev brought his own aftershave from home when he stayed over, and it was really strong.

  Oh God. Who could shower this early in the morning? Casey needed his coffee first, and with any luck someone had made coffee when they’d gotten up.

  He rolled out of bed, pulled on some scrubs (because they still spelled comfort to
him, even after nearly two years), and made his way out his bedroom door with his eyes half-closed. He literally almost collided with Joe as Joe came down the stairs, wearing his own scrubs as pajama bottoms and still pulling a brush through the wet, tangled hair that fell halfway down his back.

  “Hey, Derrick!” he called as the two of them righted themselves and stumbled, half-laughing, around the corner of the living room. “Could you make us some coffee while you’re down… there….”

  “Are you shitting me?” Casey asked, looking blankly to the little dinette set where they’d eaten dinner the night before.

  “Oh… for fuck’s sake.” Joe’s voice was equally dispassionate, and Dev looked up from his place, bent over the table, Derrick behind him, in a reversal of the pose Casey knew intimately from the night before.

  “Dev, you said you wouldn’t bottom!”

  “For fuck’s sake, Derrick, are you even wearing a fucking condom?”

  Derrick stopped pumping his cock into Dev’s ass and caught his breath. “Joe… I’m sorry, he was totally asking for—”

  Joe hit him.

  Casey had never seen Joe move that fast, but sure enough, he lunged and threw a beauty of a haymaker in one fluid motion that had more to do with Joe being almost constantly active than with him being a born fighter.

  Derrick went over backward, smacking his back on the wall of the small dinette space, and Dev fell off the table, naked and pathetic, his erection shriveling on his thighs as he fell down hard on his elbow.

  Derrick sat down hard, rubbing his jaw gingerly and looking at Joe with an almost sheepish expression. “No second date?” he said hopefully.

  “Remember the weed you offered me?” Joe said, his voice cold and grim.

  “You want some now?” Derrick’s shock seemed misplaced somehow.

  “Leave it on the dresser when you get your shit,” Joe said. He looked at the microwave clock. “You’ve got five minutes.”

  Derrick scrambled up without looking back, pulling his jeans up and buttoning them as he went.

  “Devin?” Joe said, and Dev made an effort to push himself up. “You okay?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Did he force you?”

  Dev didn’t meet Casey’s eyes. “No, sir,” he said quietly.

  “Then I need you to leave. For pretty much fucking ever. Casey, you got a problem with that?”

  “No, sir,” Casey said grimly, shaking his head at Dev. Jesus. He’d known. He’d seen it fucking coming. But it was one thing to fuck around on Casey with his high school friends, the ones in all the academic clubs, because they were handy or because Dev had the morals of a hamster, but to do this in Joe’s house? Under Joe’s roof? Joe had been pretty fucking decent to Dev—screwing his date in the breakfast nook was pretty low.

  Dev stood up and buttoned his acid-washed 501s, then scurried for Casey’s room. “Sorry, Casey,” he said, but he kept his pretty oval-shaped face turned away.

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  Joe didn’t say anything for a moment, and Casey watched him numbly as he walked into the kitchen and checked the coffee.

  “Oh Jesus,” he muttered. “All that and the guy can’t even make a decent cup of fucking coffee.” A deep, hearty funk sank over the room, and Casey didn’t feel inclined to break it as he set one of the chairs that had been knocked over upright and then fed the cats, who, mindless of all the human fuss, were still fat and spoiled and wanted their morning kibble.

  Derrick came thundering down the stairs as Casey opened the door to the garage so he could give the dogs their food and let them out, and Casey paused long enough to hear Joe bark, “Leave the weed!” at him before they both heard the door slam.

  “Why leave the weed?” Casey asked, only semicurious. His insides were busy sorting shit out. Pain? Betrayal? Anger? Yeah… but also sort of a curious resignation. He’d seen this coming. Hell, he might have encouraged a little bit of it himself.

  “Because we don’t have any beer,” Joe said, like that made sense.

  “Why would we want—” Casey stopped, and looked at Joe, and heard the catch in his voice, and wanted to kick himself.

  Yeah, sure, Casey might have been on the verge of breaking up with Dev for months. But Joe had just opened himself up enough to sleeping with Derrick. God, in two years, that made three lovers for Joe—and one of those was the social worker. Casey had given him shit for not wanting to commit to a man because of what he’d have to say to his mother, and now, looking at the crumpled iron of Joe’s face, Casey realized that Joe had been 100 percent honest. He hadn’t wanted to commit to anyone unless he was sure. Joe might have been a player in college, but that was a different Joe. This Joe was looking for somebody, somebody special. This Joe was as earnest in looking for a lover as he was in helping the lost or the needy. This was the Joe that Casey had fallen in love with at sixteen and might possibly love for his entire life.

  “I ain’t got nothin’ doin’ today,” Casey drawled past the lump in his chest. Devin came pattering around the corner, pulling on his bright and spiffy leather boots and leather jacket. “Except maybe going to see Batman again,” Casey added, and Joe gave him a sour grin.

  “It’s a deal. Then we’ll come home and get high.”

  “Thought you didn’t get high, Casey!” Dev sneered, and Casey sneered back.

  “I thought you didn’t bottom.”

  Dev blushed and ran away. The putt-putt of his little barely street-legal motorcycle echoed through their little valley as he went.

  Casey felt an ache then, square in the middle of his chest, that said, in spite of the resignation and the feelings for Joe, in spite of Dev’s snobbery and his condescension, he was still going to leave a hole.

  “Joe,” Casey said, then swallowed hard, “you know I was lying about Batman.”

  Joe’s back shivered for a second as he started rooting through the refrigerator, like he was fighting something down inside that was threatening to let loose. “I hear you, kid. Let me fix breakfast first. We’re going to need more than potato chips to fight the munchies.”

  Casey nodded and then went out to feed the dogs. He shuffled to the shower after that and found that he was crying with the release of the hot water. In a way, he sort of wanted Joe to hold him, but as he shuddered out the last of the tears and got himself a towel, he realized that it wasn’t necessary. What mattered in the grand scheme of things was that Joe was there to catch him, and for the moment, in spite of the feelings that didn’t seem to be going anywhere, that was more than enough.

  Who Will You Run To?

  ~Joe

  1992

  JOE heard the phone ring and groaned. For a minute he hoped Casey would get it, and then he remembered that Casey didn’t live there anymore, hadn’t lived there for six months, and he groaned again. Aw, goddammit. Goddammit all to fuck. If nothing else, he should get a phone line to the upstairs room just so he wouldn’t have that god-awful realization on mornings like this, when he wasn’t quite awake enough to remember. He couldn’t even think about answering the phone without that horrible sucker punched feeling, that hole in his chest where the kid used to be but was only a vague, awful sort of loneliness now.

  The kid didn’t have to leave like that. He really didn’t.

  There was a soft voice downstairs, and Joe had a moment of relief. Lynnie had it. He’d forgotten she was staying in the guest bedroom. He rolled and yawned and stretched and tried to wake up. Hospital policy had changed once again, and he’d worked four twelves in a row, because that was his drug now. He would have resorted to weed or beer, and the day after Casey had moved out, he’d tried both. But he was thirty-three now, and he didn’t recover from that like he used to. He still loved his job, and he had the dogs and the cats and the chickens to depend on him, but that wasn’t why he didn’t drink or smoke himself to sleep every night.

  He just couldn’t believe that Casey was gone for good. It was so fucking unfair.

  “Joe?�
�� Lynnie called from downstairs. “Joe? It’s for Casey.”

  “He doesn’t live here anymore,” Joe called down, hauling himself down the stairs groggily. He and Casey had carpeted them in cream-colored short pile carpet the autumn after that horrible debacle with their respective boyfriends, and he was grateful. It felt so much less painful to stumble down carpeted stairs.

  “Yeah, but the woman says she’s his mother. She says this is the last number she has for him. She needs to get hold of him!”

  “Ask her where the fuck she’s been the last six years!” Joe snarled. God, it really was six years—it was late fall. Casey had left in early summer, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have appreciated the phone call from his mother.

  But by now, Joe was at the bottom of the stairs and to the kitchen, and Lynnie was there, wearing a flannel nightgown, clutching the bathrobe to her five-month-along belly, her long brown hair hanging, tangled, down her back. God, his life would have been so much easier if he hadn’t broken up with her right after Casey left. That baby would be his, and he could have married her and started a family, and he could pretend that some of the shit Casey had shouted at him on the way out wasn’t true.

  “Yeah?” he snapped into the phone.

  Lynnie raised her eyebrows at him, because even when she’d come to him, looking for a place to stay after her replacement-for-Joe had smacked her around, kicked her out, and then refused to admit that the kid was his, Joe hadn’t spoken to her quite so rudely.

  “I’m… uhm… are you Josiah Daniels?”

  “Yeah, lady, and I just worked four twelve-hour shifts in a row, and I’m sort of pissed off. Can we get to the point?”

  “Doesn’t Casey live there anymore?”

  “He moved out in May, right after he graduated from Sierra.”

  “He graduated?”

  “From junior college, yeah. He’s going to Sac State now, not that you care.”