Real Life(79)

“I’m here,” Wallace says. “I’m here in the world.” Miller laughs at him, but Wallace can only think about how true this is, that he is in the world. He is both here in his body with Miller and elsewhere, beyond; that all the moments in his life are gathered up in this moment, that all of it has been for this. He is in the world, everywhere he has ever been and everywhere he will go, simultaneously. Yes, he thinks, yes.

Miller gets down from the counter, too, and comes up behind him, wraps his arms around Wallace. His stomach presses against the middle of Wallace’s back. Wallace can feel him, all of him.

“I’m in the world too,” Miller says.

“Despite your best efforts,” Wallace says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just something to say, I guess.”

“Do you think I want to die?”

“No, I don’t. Well, maybe you do. But I don’t think it.”

“Then why would you say that?”

Wallace thinks about this. He’s running the hot water over his fingers, its temperature rising steeply, burning his palms. Miller presses him forward so that Wallace can feel the edge of the sink bite into him.

“Why would you say that?” he asks again, his voice lowering, settling deep in his chest. He’s got his fingers hard around Wallace’s shoulders, has him wrapped up again. Fear, molten, slow, climbs inch by inch in Wallace like rising water. His hands are burning now, stinging, raw.

“I don’t know,” Wallace says, and Miller puts more pressure on his throat. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t like that very much,” Miller says, and the hard stubble on his jaw rasps against Wallace’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” Wallace says.

“I try to be in the world,” Miller says. “I try to be. I am trying to be. It’s not fair for you to say that.”

“It’s not,” Wallace agrees. He turns off the water. His hands are pulsing and damp. His palms have gone completely red. Miller puts more weight on Wallace’s back, digs hard with his chin into the space between Wallace’s shoulders, a tender place that gives in easily. Wallace lets out a startled yelp of pain.

“Tomorrow is Monday,” Miller says.

“Today is Monday,” Wallace says, swimming around beneath his skin. “It’s Monday already.”

“So it is,” Miller says, and he lets go of Wallace, who feels he can breathe again. “Do you want to come with me somewhere?”

“Where?” Wallace asks, drying his fingers, breathing slowly, deeply.

“To the lake.”

“It’s the middle of the night. It’ll be morning soon.”

“If you don’t want to go, then say so.”

“It’s fine, I’ll go.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s fine,” Wallace says.



* * *



? ? ?

THEY PUT ON their shoes and go out into the cool, humid night. There is a ridge of gray light along the horizon, like a second world emerging from the first. The air hangs close. Wallace has on a sweater and shorts and floppy, soft shoes. Miller is wearing his thick boots and shorts, miles of leg flashing with each step. They plod along the street, then head along the houses that sit huddled near the shore, until they reach the stone steps.

“Come on,” Miller says when Wallace lingers at the top of the concrete. He’s on the first step, looking up at Wallace. “Come on.”

“What are we going to do in the lake?” Wallace asks. “I can’t swim.”

“You can’t swim?” Miller asks. “You’re from the Gulf Coast. You’re from a state with real beaches.”

“I can’t swim,” Wallace repeats. His mother never let him try. There was a neighborhood pool near his preschool that offered free lessons to every child under the age of seven. He begged her to let him go, to let him try. She told him not to beg, that begging made a person ugly.

A memory dislodges from some dark inner continent and rises to the surface of his thoughts: Miller sitting on the edge of the pier in blue swimming shorts. His skin a little burned. His muscular back, long torso. His hair dark, his mouth wide and red. A sly smile. Rub it in. The scent of aloe, wet and clear. The sunscreen cool in his palm. The lapping lake, the laughter of other people ascending, climbing into the air. Clouds on the horizon, white and fluffy, the peninsula green and lush in the distance. Miller, turning toward him, a drop of water caught in the hollow of this throat. That smile broadening. Rub it in.

“I’ll teach you,” Miller says, grabbing Wallace’s fingers. “Come on, I’ll teach you to swim.”

Wallace looks out over the gray shifting water and at the undulating darkness below its surface. The peninsula is in the distance, and he can see just around its bend, the water already gleaming. The row of dark hedges that comprise its body flutter as if they were a murmuration of birds, a mass action cascading.

“All right,” Wallace says, Miller’s fingers rough around his. Miller pulls on him, and they go down the smooth, slick concrete stairs. The lake rises up the length of Wallace’s body as he marches down the steps and eventually into open water. Miller has an easy stroke, pulls them evenly, smoothly along. His limbs slice through the water.