Real Life(11)

Wallace glanced around looking for Miller. He hadn’t been far behind him as they’d left the stairs that came up from the concrete path below. The hallways in the union were visible to Wallace because they were lined with glass, and glowed with soft, yellow lighting. The floors were made of a kind of marble that Wallace associated most often with banks. Under the wide, dark cloak of the oak tree at the center of the pavilion, some people had gotten up to dance. He watched as they snapped and swung their hips in a stiff, jerky little dance. Two of the old men were trying their best to get the women to dance, but they only shook their heads and smiled in embarrassment. At the next table were a few younger women, students. They had the boxy musculature of athletes, and large square heads. Their laughter was deep and serene. Two of them got up to dance with the old men, and their friends clapped for them, and it was like a wave, suddenly, everyone at every table turning to look at them and clapping, and the band began to play more vigorously, the music scraping through the air like a shovel through gravel. It wasn’t pretty. It could scarcely be called music, Wallace thought, but the pairs went on dancing, and soon they were joined by others, and two frat boys got up and did a parody of the dance, but then they seemed to get shy and to turn away from each other and let their thick arms fall by their sides. But then Wallace came back to himself. A shadow fell on him through the glass, and he saw Miller walking down the hall, to the bathroom. They passed each other on opposite sides of the glass, him outside, Miller inside, but Miller didn’t see him or pretended not to, as if in a dream.



* * *



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WALLACE FOUND MILLER at the sink, splashing water up into his eye, getting it all over his shirt and chin in the process. He winced and cursed softly under his breath the whole time. They were alone.

“Hey, let me help,” Wallace said.

“I’m so stupid,” he said. “I completely forgot that I hadn’t washed my hands.”

“Happens,” Wallace said, setting the bottle of milk aside. It was cool from the ice. He rinsed his hands under the tap. The bathroom smelled like beer and antiseptic. It didn’t smell at all like piss. The lighting was dim. It felt too clean to be a bathroom, which made Wallace uneasy. The countertop was some sort of cheap black stone. The plastic bottle was sweating. Miller regarded it through narrowed eyes. The mirror was tall and concave. Wallace had to look away from their reflection. “Can you crouch a little, bend down?”

Miller didn’t move at first. Wallace thought he’d done it again, exposed himself. But slowly, Miller did begin to move, like he’d made up his mind about something, and he bent his knees and turned just a little so that his face hovered over the sink. He was perfectly vulnerable. Wallace twisted the cap from the milk bottle and held it over Miller’s eyes. His hands shook. A drop of milk fell from the lip of the bottle and landed on Miller’s cheek, just below his eyelashes. Wallace swallowed. He watched Miller breathe. He watched Miller wet the corner of his mouth. Water dripped from the tap.

“Here we go,” Wallace said. He poured just a little of the milk into Miller’s eyes, watched it run in a white stream across the bridge of his nose into the sink. Miller closed his eyes. “You can’t do that. You have to keep them open.” Miller grunted. He opened his eyes. The milk struck the inside of the sink with a soft tapping sound. He poured half the bottle into Miller’s eyes, and then thoroughly wet two paper towels. He squeezed the water into Miller’s eyes, which were brown with little blue rims on the outside. The whites of his eyes were already starting to redden. The water ran into Miller’s eyes, and he again closed them instinctively, but then he opened them after a moment. Wallace blotted Miller’s thick eyelashes with the paper towels, filled them with more water, rinsed, blotted again.

“Okay,” Wallace said, “there, there.”

“Come on. Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not,” he said. He tried to be gentle as he washed Miller’s eyes, reapplying water each time, rinsing, dabbing. “I did this to myself one time. I picked peppers with my grandparents and rubbed my eyes when I got sleepy,” Wallace said, laughing a little at himself, at how miserable he’d felt, his eyes swollen like grapefruits and so tender. He looked down at Miller, saw his sun-bleached hair, his long eyelashes. Wallace felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. Miller was staring at him; of course he was. Where else would he look except up, and who was there but Wallace to intercept his gaze? Of course he was staring. “All done,” Wallace said. He dropped the bottle into the trash under the sink.

“Thank you,” Miller said. “It’s not so bad. Just hurt like hell.”

“It’s like that. It always hurts worse than you expect, even if it doesn’t do any real harm.”

They stood at the sink, the faucet dripping little bit by little bit. Wallace’s hands were damp and cool. Miller’s eyes were puffy and red, as if he’d been crying. Miller leaned away from him, against the wall, which had the effect of making him seem shorter. The music coming through from the outside was soft and nonthreatening, like the caress of wind through the trees. Wallace twisted the damp paper towels in his hands. Miller reached for them, his large hands opening and then closing around Wallace’s fingers.

“Are you really thinking about leaving?” Miller asked.