Never Turn Away

THE CONCRETE SKY

Chapters 1 – 3

Originally published:

Binghamton, NY: Southern Tier Editions (Haworth Press), 2003

PART ONE

Chapter One

Friday night.

Stranded at the sort of party where he’d have been happier investigating the titles on the bookshelves than talking to the other guests, Chad Sobran took another sip of wine and considered his options for escape. Conversations careened around him like bumper cars. He held himself in place on the sofa. He didn’t know anybody the room and wasn’t sure he wanted to. There were about ten people left, now that Dalton and that guy he’d been talking to had vanished into thin air. Chad gave up trying to achieve oneness with the overstuffed cushions on the sofa. Next to him, to a busty blonde girl named Reese had spent 15 minutes babbling as soon as they were introduced: You’re gay, that’s like so totally cool with me, so is my brother Julian, and like his boyfriend is this black guy named Dennis and they’re so cute together. Julian says Dennis is a total top. So what is this top thing, anyway? I just don’t get that. I mean, is it like one of you is the woman and the other is the man? Dennis, you know, he must be really big. Whatever. Have you ever done it with a black guy? Reese looked 20 and talked like a woman half her age. Braces fenced her lower row of teeth, and she smelled like a strange cross between Juicy Fruit, cigarette smoke, and the red wine she was drinking. Irritated, Chad shocked Reese into a troubled silence by telling her he had just gotten out of jail the day before yesterday. He hadn’t, but after three glasses of cheap Merlot he didn’t care enough about Truth, Honor, and Good Social Graces to listen to another word in that breathy helium voice of hers.

I was only in for a week, but… you know. It was rough. The other inmates. Chad drew a deep sigh and visualized the shower-room gang rapes, hoping a shadow of residual trauma would cross his face. Really rough. He lowered his voice to a whisper: "I dropped the soap."

Reese’s lower lip trembled. She couldn’t have looked much younger without splitting into an egg cell and a puddle of sperm. She slurped the remaining Merlot in her glass, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand, never taking her eyes off him. Chad refilled her glass from the bottle on the coffee table, careful not to burn his sleeve on any of the votive candles, then refilled his own. He looked at her with what he hoped was a criminal glare. Someone turned up the volume on the stereo loud enough to make Chad’s eardrums pulsate to the beat, and his annoyance enhanced what he hoped was a sinister aura.

What were you in for? Movie lingo from Reese. Cute. Next time she went to a party, she’d pin some hapless person’s ears to the wall with endless talk about her brush with the underworld. She’d cast herself as the heroine and stage a dramatic escape. Just what Chad was trying to accomplish.

I’d rather not say. You might get the wrong idea about me. I’m trying to put it behind me, you know? So anyway, my point is, all those things that supposedly happen to young slim white guys in jail? They’re all true. Chad fidgeted in his seat as if his ass hadn’t quite recovered from the various uses to which it had been put.

Reese beeped. Chad couldn’t think of any other word to describe the sound she made. He looked down at his hands. Tonight he had put on three silver rings – middle finger and thumb of his left hand, index finger of the right. He twisted the thumb ring, then turned the hoop in his left ear. Left the right one alone. He stared off into space for a second, letting a nobody’s-home look settle across his face like a layer of dust, and crossed his eyes. Would that make her think he was shiftier?

Oh my God.

Reese inched away from him. Now and then she’d dart a nervous glance his way. She fumbled around in her Gucci purse, withdrew a crumpled pack of Virginia Slims, lit one with a pink Bic lighter to which she had affixed a glittery red heart-shaped sticker, and alternated between sips of wine and drags on her menthol cigarette. Her hands were shaking.

Chad basked in mild surprise. In the dim light of the party, he knew Reese wouldn’t see him blush. Strawberry blond himself, he was prone to turning deep scarlet at the slightest provocation. He excused himself to go to the bathroom and stayed in there a few minutes after he had vanished, watching his reflection in the mirror. He met his own gaze, giggled at what he had just pulled off, looked away, looked back.

Cheers. He raised his glass to his reflection. You hardened criminal, you.

Dalton, not exactly a friend from work but the kind of guy you have a beer with now and then, had convinced Chad to come. Just a few people, couple of bottles of wine, really mellow, you’ll like the crowd. Everyone Chad knew had left Washington for the summer: Jerry Glint, his closest friend, had gone to visit his parents in Augusta, Maine. A novelty, the Glint clan. They liked each other. Chad couldn’t imagine what that must be like. Teresa and Audrey, the lesbians down the street, had rented a villa in Montenegro, somewhere on the Adriatic coast. It’s the new Tuscany, Audrey had babbled. He had known her longer than her girlfriend -- since his abortive attempt at college, in fact. It’s hilly and gorgeous, and the tourists haven’t discovered it yet! The war and the economic sanctions are still too recent! There’s such energy there! Energy, yes, but was there electricity? His friend Roger was on an internship in Atlanta and had e-mailed ominous hints about transferring to Emory. Too much fun down there, he said. Roger’s tall tales about beer, boys, and bacchanalia made DC seem like the hidebound conservative fishbowl it, now that Chad gave the matter some thought, was. And Greg, his only friend acquired outside of his brief interlude at George Washington U., before a drunk SUV driver had sent Chad’s life on a strange detour, had moved to Missoula, Montana, on a trial basis. To see if he’d like it. Maybe he’d move. Or not. With Greg, you could never tell. All of which left Chad somewhat socially bereft. His roommate Rose was travelling, somewhere in the Mediterranean, last he’d heard. Dalton, he liked well enough, cute in his earnest straight-boy-manqué All my friends are gay way, but this wasn’t Chad’s choice of Friday nights.

Dalton drove them from the bookstore to this place in one of the apartment towers in Rosslyn, just across the Potomac River from Washington. Chad’s car had enough gas to get to the Chevron station at the end of the block, but his wallet was running on fumes until payday, still a few days away. Dalton worked at Borders part-time to meet people. Chad worked there full-time in addition to working full-time as a temp, a professional juggler of administrivia from 8 to 5 in various federal agencies and law firms downtown. He held down a second job to slow his financial hemorrhage, not to meet people.

And now Dalton had vanished, leaving Chad in this hopeless party full of people who were too young, too drunk, and too loud. He had been talking to some guy. Some hot, obviously interested, no doubt gay guy. (Damn him.) Dalton thought he was straight? He didn’t have that femmy vibe some guys gave off, but he sort of lit up when you paid attention to him. He looked at men. Men looked back. Dalton was tall and rangy, rather well-built, and had intriguing dark red hair. Handsome. The cute Latino he’d been talking to clearly thought so. Neither one was anywhere in sight. Hadn’t been for at least half an hour. Chad had checked both bedrooms. He didn’t need an electric sign flashing the headlines off the side of the Goodyear Blimp to guess what they were up to.

In the background, he overheard Reese. She must have been standing just outside the bathroom door. That guy, Chad? The one who came with Dalton? Kind of blond hair, wearing the rings? Oh come on, Jane, you know who I’m talking about. I think he’s in the bathroom. A giggle. You were talking to him when they arrived. He’s wearing a denim shirt. Yeah, he’s cute, I know, but listen: he’s like a criminal or something. He said he was in jail. Another giggle. I think he was, like, abused in there. And he might have liked it.

Another voice, a bit deeper: I thought he was fucking weird. Guess I was right. He’s a fag, isn’t he?

Chad tried to remember who Jane was. He remembered speaking to a brown-haired girl when he and Dalton had arrived. Twenty-five or so (his own age), with plain features, nothing especially memorable about her. She lived here. This was her apartment.

The potpourri in the metal urn by the sink smelled fresh, floral. Rose petals, cloves, bits of citrus rind. The kind of thing large chain drugstores sell next to the cash registers, in shrink-wrapped packets. Chad emptied the mixture into the toilet bowl, flushed, waited for the tank to refill, flushed again.

I am lost. How did I get here? Why am I still here? I am going to kick Dalton’s ass tomorrow at work. I hope he shows up tomorrow with a sore ass and a bitch of a hangover.

Chad opened the door, smiled at Reese, who jumped. Startled, she stammered a greeting and took a step back. Jane, the same woman he’d met in the kitchen with Dalton, regained her balance sooner.

Your name is Chad, isn’t it? she asked. She spoke in the disinterested tone of a woman who has thrown too many parties.

He nodded.

I was kidding about jail, Chad said. The only place I’ve spent the last week was shuttling between home and my two jobs.

I saw you in Borders on Wednesday night. You were working at the information counter. I asked you a question about a Barbara Kingsolver novel, Jane said.

Did I answer it? Chad wondered what she was implicitly accusing him of.

After spending five minutes looking into your computer. She held her beer in front of her like a garlic bulb to ward off an advancing vampire. Through her T-shirt, Chad could see the sideways-8-shaped bulge of a pierced nipple.

It was broken, if I remember. Chad drained the rest of his Merlot. He already needed the bathroom again, but this exchange – he couldn’t call it a conversation – had a weird, compelling appeal. Once you have given up on playing by the rules you can have quite a lot of fun.

You didn’t have the book I was looking for.

Popular book. Chad looked around. Your bookcases are overflowing. Are you sure you don’t already have a copy or two stashed away somewhere?

I’d know. So why did you tell Reese you went to jail?

Chad shrugged. The voices in my head commanded me to.

Right, said Jane. "Next you’re going to tell me the CIA beams microwaves into your brain, because you’re part of a conspiracy. And everything on The X-Files is true."

I sleep with a foil-wrapped colander over my head, Chad said. Cross my heart. He twisted his thumb ring.

You’re nuts. Against my better judgment, I think I like you. Let’s open another bottle of wine and go out on the balcony for a cigarette, Jane said. Come on, Reese. To Chad, she continued: "So this guy Dalton you came with. Were you, like, with him, or did you just come together?"

We work at Borders together. I don’t know him well. Supposedly he’s not gay, he says he’s not, but I’ve think that’s because he hasn’t clued into reality yet. I think he’s hooking up with the Latin guy I saw him talking to. Who is that?

Nobody could accuse Dalton of having bad taste, Jane said. Enrique is a friend of mine from work, and as we speak, they’re up on the roof deck licking each other’s tonsils.

Chad had a flashback: his own hand releasing citrus potpourri into the blue swirl of the toilet bowl. Would he get out of here without Jane knowing what he’d done? She struck him as the sort of woman who might appreciate his attempts at sabotage and terrorism. Maybe the stuff had been a gift from an aunt she hated, and he had done her a favor.

You’re not seeing anybody, are you? Jane, now motherly, led him to the kitchen. She opened a cupboard and surveyed her diminishing stock of wine. Rosemount Shiraz, a Cab – Merlot blend, or this bottle of Penfolds.

Like Australian wine, do you?

Jane nodded. It’s one of my cleverer affectations. French wine is so… I don’t know. French. Let’s go with the Shiraz. I’ve been hiding cheese in the fridge, and there’s a box of pepper crackers from Fresh Fields in that cabinet, if you’ll look behind the boxes of cereal. Reese, would you get a couple of apples out of that bowl?

Jane poured.

Do you still think I’m weird? Chad asked.

Oh, definitely. You work at Borders like 90 hours a week, Jane said. I’ve seen you in there. You obviously hate it. I don’t see why you don’t quit. And you never did tell me if you’re seeing anybody. All of that makes you a very weird boy.

Chad shook his head No. I was seeing someone, he admitted. For a few months, kind of casually. It fizzled out at the beginning of summer.

You like Dalton.

"Platonically. I don’t want to get mixed up with some guy who’s coming