To Bring Him Home and Other Tales

Chapter 1: The Boys-2

* * * *

Tuesday, October 20

Six o’clock to Sam’s house to eat pizza and for the observation of Sam’s native habitat. Fletcher wrote it down in his appointment book in red and underlined each word. Then, he outlined the words in blue and yellow and purple, using his Crayola Markers, Bold Colors. None of which helped the day go any faster. Spanish at 9:30 (eight and a half hours), then his First-Year Seminar on Utopia (seven more hours)—thank God they had finally gotten through the 19th century attempts in the US—the Mormons, Oneida, Amana, boring!—and to the science fiction novels the professor clearly loved. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed was the first, and Fletcher found himself dreaming of the dry, dusty world of Anarres, being there with Sam, like Shevek and Bedap, beneath that orange blanket, touching in the close darkness, in a room in which mobiles turned and twisted, catching the light. For once Fletcher was grateful for his Spanish homework, but eventually that, too, was finished and he had already read the chapter on Buddhism for Religious Studies 101.

By four o’clock he was done with everything. Two more hours. He turned on the TV to CNN. Some commentator was going on about what the end of federal prosecution for medical m*******a meant. Not much to him. Fletcher had yet to try the stuff. He paced around the house. Usually Fletcher relished being home alone and having his mother and Paul thousands of miles away, but today he would have welcomed almost any distraction. Two more hours for his imagination to run riot and fantasize about Sam and regret he hadn’t invited Sam over yesterday, after their portrait interviews. Two more hours to go over his list of conversation topics. He added end of federal prosecution of medical m*******a to the list, which included same-s*x marriage, pros and cons, school shootings, and utopia. He closed his eyes to make sure he could recall all the topics, figuring it would be dumb to actually pull out a three-by-five card and pick one.

Sam hadn’t mentioned any significant others. Most guys would’ve, if they were dating a girl, right? If he had liked girls, he would have said so, right? But not mentioning didn’t necessarily mean Sam liked boys, either. Fisher knew all about gaydar but so far it hadn’t been too reliable for him.

All that was left was to go walking. Fletcher could usually count on that to release some tension. Down Edgar Alley first, the little dirt street that ran parallel to Tate Street, hidden from view between trees and houses, to McGee Street to stare at Sam’s house, third on the right, a wraparound front porch, two stories, big oaks, to Mendenhall and back down Carr and Tate. Walk into campus, past the kilns and onto the green lawn facing the library, past Walter Hines Jackson’s portrait, into the tunnel to the Elliot Center, then repeat.

The reality of Sam made Fletcher think in a way he had tried to avoid since his early teens. Optical illusions, tricks of the light, refrangibles, shadows—his mental gymnastics couldn’t be contorted again. Fletcher knew he hadn’t been dreaming. He had been wide awake. He had seen lights in Sam’s face, under his skin, lights that had flickered on and off. Did that mean he was crazy? Was he hallucinating? Did Fletcher want his fairy stories to be true so much that he was seeing what he had dreamed of back in August: the light, the dark-golden hair, those eyes? That, coupled with what his heart and his body was telling him? Once he had dreamed of going to Narnia, had knocked on the back walls of closets, looking for “one of the c****s and chasms between the worlds,” had earnest conversations with cats and dogs, wondering if he had just spoken earlier or later, if they would have talked back. He had prayed to Aslan but the great Lion had never answered. Galadriel hadn’t answered his prayers, either.

No answers could be found anywhere on Fletcher’s long walk. Finally, at 5:50 P.M., he stood just inside the MacTorain front yard, knowing all he could do was wait for what was going to happen next. The rust-colored leaves of the two big oaks guarding the house, littered the yard, hiding the lush green grass. Boxwoods stood guard with the oaks, up against the porch, along with what looked like azaleas. Delicate chimes hung on one side of the porch, among bright pansies and ferns. Fletcher could just hear the chimes in the slight breeze: light, airy, a song without words from faraway. They shone silver and copper in the last of the afternoon light. A wooden porch swing hung on the other side. The yard felt safe and good. Which was ridiculous, but Fletcher knew he was past ridiculous, past rationalization. His leather sandals slapped on the faded red-brick walk. Lights shone through gauzy curtains but no Sam.

* * * *

Samuel macLiban MacTorain ran down Tate Street. He should have gone straight home after his first-year seminar and not stopped at Tate Street Coffeehouse for a hazelnut latté. Fletcher was going to be there at six—in less than two hours. At least he had done some straightening up last night. If only Clarice Montgomery from his first-year seminar on feminist science fiction hadn’t seen him. She had a question about a scene in The Handmaid’s Tale; did he have a minute?

“No, I don’t, I’m sorry, somebody’s coming over, I gotta go.”

“It won’t take but a minute…”

It was weird. Something had shifted the summer before his senior year in high school—as if something had switched on. Girls and boys had started to notice him. Before, Sam might as well have been invisible. He had dated a girl at Grimsley in the summer and she had been a lot of fun, but it had been Alex, the first boy ever he had gone out with, during first-year Orientation that he had really noticed. Fooling around with Alex had confirmed Sam liked boys.

Then Fletcher had seen him and he had seen Fletcher. Sam had tried to ignore how he felt, and had even gone out with and fooled around with another guy, Festus.

That hadn’t worked either, and now, finally, Fletcher was coming over. Sam knew whatever was going to happen with Fletcher would be different from the two boys he had traded hand jobs and made out with. That had been mostly fun, and it sort of counted as having s*x, and how he felt about Fletcher did include desire but it was more than that. Fletcher made his heart turn over.

Clarice had been determined.

He wondered if he should tell Clarice he liked guys so she could stop manufacturing reasons to keep this conversation going.

“Give me your cell number, I’ll call you later.”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

Clarice stared at him. “You don’t have a cell phone?”

Sam shook his head, mumbled he was sorry, and took off. I should have told her I’m gay. I like guys.

When Dr. Crawford had called the roll the first day of English 101, and she had called out Samuel MacTorain and Fletcher had turned and looked, and looked, and Sam’s heart had turned over. Today—today—he was coming to dinner. They would sit on the back porch, on the swing back there and…and they would see what happened next. Sam just knew this was different, Fletcher was different. If Alex was coming over, or Festus, he knew he would be way less nervous. He wouldn’t care as much that everything looked good, was in the right place, but Sam really, really liked Fletcher. He was funny and sort of sweetly awkward. That amazing red hair and those green, green eyes. No, not really, really liked. Sam loved him. He had loved Fletcher from the first time he saw him. The other guys had been practice.

This was a new country.

Sam ran down McGee Street. After deciding on vegetable stew last night ,he had had a round of frenetic cleaning and straightening. His mother made great veggie stew. But he had told Fletcher pizza. Everybody loved pizza. Definitely the safer choice. Veggie pizza. Please let him like it. Why didn’t I ask him what he liked?

Another mad round of cleaning and straightening. Less than an hour left. Trash to the curb. Damn. How did he miss that spill on the steps and that the coffee pot needed emptying? He took a deep breath. Thirty-five minutes. He called New York Pizza. Vegetarian Delight. Then he ran for the shower.

* * * *

Fletcher eased the front door open and stuck his head in, and looked around. “Sam?” There he was, coming down the stairs, hair dripping, barefoot, and pulling a T-shirt over his head. Just like in the movies.

“Hey, sorry, I was running late, straightening up, not my room—never mind. New York Pizza said the pizza should be here in about half an hour and that was ten minutes ago—you want to do the observation first? My room is upstairs, turn left, end of the hall. You can ask your questions while we eat.”

Fletcher nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“Go on up. I’ll get the plates and stuff.”

Fletcher looked at the living room first. The room was brown. Brown sofa, brown arm chairs, with beige pillows. Lamps on end tables, an empty fireplace. A rug in shades of brown on the wood floor. A vase here and there. It was almost as if someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make everything look as ordinary and as forgettable as possible. Except for the picture over the mantel, of a dragon ship sailing into the wind—a ship, as Lucy had said about the ship in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, was such a Narnian ship.

Sam’s bedroom, at first glance, seemed just as ordinary. A jumble of underwear, socks, and T-shirts spilling out of an old dresser, a work table, a computer, shelves with too many books, and a rumpled bed, a closet, door half-open, another jumble of clothes, a tangle of jeans, running shoes, sandals. Posters of what looked like various places in the British Isles: castles, rolling green lawns, thatched cottages, covered the walls. A tiny collection of geodes covered one corner of the dresser. The geodes, the posters—at least Sam’s room looked something like the boy who slept there. The room smelled of boy. Fletcher wanted to roll in the smell on the bed; instead he just stroked the sheets, the spread, and when he had checked and double-checked to be sure Sam was downstairs, Fletcher pressed his face into the pillow and inhaled.

* * * *

As Sam set out the plates, napkins, and forks on the dining room table, he tried to imagine just what Fletcher was seeing and what he was thinking about what he was seeing. Maybe I should use the dinner napkins, the nice ones.

Fletcher was special.

The doorbell. He grabbed the needed cash and then brought the warm box into the dining room and eased the pizza out on to the pizza stand, and thanked God the pizza came cut. He had looked and looked for the pizza cutter, no luck.

After putting out the nice napkins, Sam sat down to wait, counting down and inhaling, exhaling, to find a calm space fragrant with hot cheese and oregano and garlic and cilantro, and a garden of vegetables: onions, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini…

* * * *

“That’s it for the pizza. Good thing you liked veggies, I’m so used to vegetarian stuff all the time, I forgot to ask,” Sam said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

They sat on the back-porch swing, looking into a yard of dark green shadows and dogwoods, another oak, a thicket of crape myrtles against the back fence. The night air was cool. The swing, hung on ropes, moved slowly as Sam pushed off with his feet. Behind them, the soft yellow light in the living room, muted by the curtains, made more shadows on the porch.