The River in Winter by Matt Dean
The River in Winter
A novel by Matt Dean
? 2009 Matt Dean
ISBN: 978-0-9825552-2-4
* * *
To Todd
Mein unsterblicher Geliebter
* * *
Who is now reading this?
May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision,
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.
As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience struck! O self-convicted!)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers! (O tenderly, a long time, and never avow it;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in myself, the stuff of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.
Walt Whitman
Calamus #16
Leaves of Grass (1860)
* * *
Part One
1 - Port Forward, Starboard Back
On the river the air was sharp and cold, smelling of mud and peat. The current drew me southward, downstream. The oars pulled easily. Brown water swirled away from the blades and, whispering, fell in on itself. Ahead of me, pennants of mist waved skyward; behind me, above my small wake, they scattered toward the riverbanks.
A pocked buttress of concrete-the Lake Street Bridge-stretched high above me. Traffic between Minneapolis and Saint Paul-light traffic, this early on a Sunday-whirred and thumped across the bridge.
I lifted and dipped the oars, port forward, starboard back, guiding my new shell in a quarter turn. Pulling harder now, I rowed diagonally across the current. A few yards from the river's eastern shore, I spun another quarter turn and settled into the rigorous upstream cadence.
The effort of rowing upstream warmed me; my sweatshirt-and under it my unisuit-clung to my back. Feeling muscular, loose, strong, I pulled the oars harder, rowing at full pressure.
As I drew even with the square of sand where the entrance to the beach-Bare Ass Beach, as I knew it-met the water, I slacked off. At the foot of the asphalt switchback to the street, two boys in ragged black denim sat side by side on a picnic table. One passed a cigarette to the other. Both glowered at me, as if I'd caught them at something illicit. One of them pulled the last drag off the butt and flicked it toward the water. It spun toward me in an angry arc.
* * *
Toward the end, during the gloomy months when nothing had pleased him, Tom had taken up smoking. He'd hidden cigarettes and lighters everywhere. Cigarette packs in the closet, one in each mate of a pair of fraying, grass-stained running shoes. Lighters in jacket pockets, at the back of the sock drawer, behind a row of books-why so many lighters? He'd come home every night with the stink of smoke in his hair and on his clothes. A carton of Marlboro Reds had appeared in the freezer. Again, just as it had on the day I'd found the carton, my gut seethed. My cheeks burned.
Fixing on a patch of brown water ahead, I pulled hard and regained my rhythm. Shafts of sunlight slanted now through the nude-limbed trees on the riverbank. I passed the section of beach where, in the few warm weeks of summer, men sunbathed and cruised among reddening sumacs. Decades of footprints cut the upward-sloping strand into countless switchbacks and risers.
Tom and I had come here almost every weekend in summer, had driven the other men crazy with our aloofness, our conspicuous togetherness. Now I would be free to come alone-as if I wanted to be free. I could try my luck unencumbered-as if I wanted to be unencumbered. But Tom's and my customary place among the sumacs would be one of the numberless commonplace things that would remind me of him and make my heart swell and thrum in my chest.
Just south of the Franklin Avenue Bridge, a complicated stair of wood and steel rose to the street. I passed the stair, passed through the icy shadow of the bridge. Against cliffs of crumbling rock, an asphalt path walked on fat stilts above the surface of the river. A skeletal birch marked the path's sharp inward turning. Beyond, in a little inlet, the boathouse, a homely A-frame of dark wood and multiform shingles, huddled beneath a pair of ailing ash trees.
Shallow waves lapped and silvered the low T-shaped dock. With a flick of the port oar, I nosed the shell toward the longest stretch of planking, the post of the T. Where the dock met the shore, a man in a sheepskin coat stood with his brown-booted feet planted far apart, his arms folded across his chest.
Except for the denim-clad boys, I hadn't seen anyone all morning. Seeing the man-all the lean length of him-standing there, where I had not expected to see anyone, startled me so much that I nearly tipped the little boat.
The man strode out onto the decking. His boots thumped; the planks sang and squealed. He did not seem to mind the water darkening the round toes of his boots.
Careful now, I drew alongside, pulled to, nudged the port side of the rigger onto the dock. Snatching off his glove, the man stretched out a raw-knuckled paw, his left. I took it. It was warm and damp, the grip strong. He lifted me off the shell and snagged my feet out of the shoes. In his scarred boots he stood inches taller than I was in my sock feet.
"John," he said. "John Peterson. My friends call me Spike." He yanked away the other glove. Tucking both gloves under his arm, he enclosed my one hand in both of his. A rough spot on the heel of his right hand chafed the matching place on my hand. It set me on edge, like a crackle of static electricity. "You must be Mike?"
Michael Walton, he must mean, one of the Saint Paul coxswains. I knew him a little-Michael, never Mike-from rowing club meetings where he and his eight rallied like a drove of fraternity boys in matching US Rowing jackets. I never saw them on the water; they rowed before dawn, because the river is never so calm after sunrise as it is before.
I shook my head. "Afraid not," I said. "I'm Jonah." Spike didn't reply. To fill the silence, I said, "My name is Jonah." I added, "Jonah Murray," as if my last name explained why my first name was not Michael. At any moment my mouth might disengage from my brain altogether, and I would repeat last night's weather report.
Frowning, he said, "Not Mike?"
"Michael Walton?"
He shrugged. "Mike something."
"You were meeting him here? Today?" It was-plainly, manifestly, unequivocally-too late in the season to be on the water. I had a reason, if not an excuse. My boat had taken longer than I'd expected to build, and then I'd run short of cash and it had taken much longer than I'd expected to pay for it. This was the first chance I'd had to row in it. If Michael Walton had intended to row today, then-. Then-plainly, manifestly, unequivocally-Michael Walton must be out of his mind.
Spike nodded. "He was supposed to be here."
"I guess you've been stood up."
"Were you supposed to meet him as well?" he said.
"No, just getting out on the river. Trying out the boat. Why were you meeting him here, of all places?"
I had a sense of the boat bobbing in the water, drifting. I glanced down at our hands, my right hand still folded in both of his. Dipping as much as I could to my left knee, I hooked the toes of my right foot in the boat's rigging.
Color bloomed slowly in the hollows of his cheeks. He released my hand. "I'm not sure Mike would want me to tell you about that."
His eyes were fierce, a glittering Wedgwood blue. Ridiculously, supernaturally blue. I couldn't look into them for long. I looked instead at his mouth, at the square tuft of black whiskers below his lower lip.
He ruffled that knot, that upside-down mustache below his lip. He squinted into the distance beyond my shoulder. I was not Michael Walton. The hugger-muggery of thei
I dropped literally as well: my foot, wet and cramping, was just losing its grip on the oarlock. Squatting at the edge of the deck, I reached for it, caught it just in time. As I pulled it to, ready to lift it by the gunwales, I felt Spike beside me, his long body hunched parallel to mine. He fumbled for a grip on the crescent moon of the rigging. Abandoning that, he reached around it for the foot stretchers. For a second, I thought he might slip his hand into one of the shoes.
He said, "How the hell do you lift this thing?"
"I can get it. It only weighs about thirty-five pounds." When I lifted the shell from the water, the effort pulled from me a humiliating, constipated grunt. "Besides, this is the only safe way to hold it." I wanted to keep talking, to show how effortless it was to hold and carry the boat, but the tightness of my voice belied me.
My socks were sopping and muddy. I hustled the shell along the length of the dock and up a hill of hard-packed earth. Under the steep eaves of the boathouse, I tipped the shell into the cradle of a drying sling.
The western clouds had slouched closer. They hemmed in the left bank, drove clammy wind before them. My body ached from cold. I had to get my socks off, along with my sweat-soaked uni and sweatshirt. The sweatshirt clung to me, chilled me, and I could wait no longer to peel it away. I laid it flat over the shell's upturned hull.
My cap had somehow gotten knocked to the ground. I fetched it and laid it, too, on top of the shell, until I pictured my hair-damp, wild, and as bright as flame. Every redheaded boy has heard himself called "red" and "carrot top" and "orange crush"-every redheaded boy who has ever been in the company of other boys, at least. In seventh grade health class, during a lecture on sports nutrition, Mr. Burns had patted my carrot-orange hair. Look for this color, he'd told us, if you're trying to get beta carotene in your diet. Good for the eyesight. Cures acne. Fights the flu. Carrots, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, he'd said. Look for this shade of orange. For years after that, my nickname had been Beta Carotene, until Mr. Burns himself had taken to calling me Beta. Sometimes even my mother still called me Beta.
I pulled the wool cap down tight again.
When I moved toward the door to the boathouse, Spike was already there. Inside, we stood looking at each other in the narrow space between the racked boats. He unbuttoned his jacket. Underneath, he wore a shirt of blue and green plaid flannel. The top three buttons were open, showing the white of his undershirt.
I craved the warmth of dry clothes, but he stood between me and my duffel bag. "I don't really know Michael that well," I said.
"I'll see him tonight." A smile warmed his face. His front teeth were crooked, one overlapping the other. "There's a beer bash at the Gay Nineties. In the Men's Room? The back bar?"
"I know it. I've been there."
"How long have you been rowing, Jonah Murray?" he said. His voice, low in pitch, contained a promise of thunder. His other hand lifted my cap from my head, dropped it to the floor. His eyes dipped. "How long to get thighs like those?"
"Since high school." I blinked. "Rowing since high school. Six years. No. Seven. Yes, seven years."
"And is rowing the only thing that brings you to the river, Jonah Murray?"
Between us lay a space not quite as long as his booted foot. The warmth of his body crossed the gap first, followed by one ham-pink hand. He laid his thumb in the hollow at the base of my throat. The tips of his fingers were hot and rough on the back of my neck.
"Not always," I said, or meant to say, or would have said, if my throat had not suddenly filled with cotton. I felt my mouth noiselessly working, and then Spike's left hand joined his right around my throat. His thumbs and fingers met, intertwined. He kissed me.
I plunged my frigid hands into the humid gap between Spike's jacket and his body. Beneath layers of cloth-flannel, waffle-weave cotton, jersey-I felt the workings of muscle and bone.
"Red hair," he said, his mouth close to mine. He stroked the back of my head, where my hair was cut almost skin-tight. "I have a weakness for red hair."
Strange, that a compliment can seem cruel. I drew away, but Spike pulled me closer. He kissed the cool place on my neck where his warm hand had just been. His lips and unshaven cheeks were dry and rough. My fingers, warming swiftly, touched the planes and margins of his shoulder blades. My eyes lolled shut.
His right hand was still around my neck. Driving his tongue against mine, with the fingers of his other hand digging deeply into the muscle of my buttocks, he pulled me against him.
But as suddenly as he had drawn me in, he released me. I stood before him, blinking and bereft. Now parted from him, I felt so cold and so naked that my gray unisuit with its racy vermilion stripes might never have existed. He touched the fabric at my shoulder. With an effortless clutching motion of his fingers, he could have torn the uni from my body. A sense of his power over me crackled like lightning.
"I like what I see, Jonah Murray," he whispered. "I like it very much."
"I like you, too," I said, or thought I said. The moment stretched. "You're a really handsome man."
The corners of his mouth turned upward. He drew my body against him. "I want you in a bed." He kissed me again. "Come with me to my hotel."
I told him I would go anywhere he chose.
* * *
Bulbous clouds hung low, as if a burden dragged them toward earth. The river, lean and silver, carried crumpled reflections of the sky southward toward the bridge. Spike stood at the edge of the dock, balancing on his heels, watching the water pass underneath the toes of his boots.
Only when my own footfalls rattled on the planks did he look up. "You look even better in real clothes," he said.
I had changed into jeans and a T-shirt, and a thick sweater that made me feel itchy and hot. Lifting my duffel bag from my shoulder, he slung it over his own.
Until we reached the top of the wood-and-steel stairs, we walked in silence. "Where's your car? You must have a car," he said. "Do you want to follow me or ride together?"
"Why not come to my place? We'll be more comfortable there than in a hotel. It's not all that far. I can drive." All these words emerged in a rush.
He smiled, nodded.
I'd parked half a block away. Side by side, we walked along the curving sidewalk. Across the street, amid a thicket of Bush-Quayle signs-a dozen or more lined up along the curb like a fence, dozens more scattered across the sparse and sloping lawn all the way up to the house, a white saltbox with black shutters-a gray-haired man stooped over a silver-headed cane, watching us. He appeared to have no other purpose in mind. Cars passed, and he crossed toward us.
Doors unlocked, opened, we sank into the houndstooth seats of my tan Chevette. Our weight shook the car on its ancient springs. Spike tossed my duffel bag lightly into the back seat. Somehow, in the same motion, he let his hand come to rest on my thigh.
The old man, the gray-hair from across the street, appeared suddenly behind Spike. Mouth open, hair streaming, he knocked the head of his cane against the window. Spike lurched in his seat, but when he saw the old man-a mere caricature of violence-he laughed and waved me on. "Guess we wore out our welcome," he said.
In some of the neighboring lawns there were Clinton-Gore signs. I saw no other Bush-Quayle signs, but it was difficult to believe that, after the little gray-haired man had taken his share of signs, there were any left for the rest of the seven-county metropolitan area. "I wonder what the neighbors think of him," Spike said with a laugh. His hand still rested on my thigh.
* * *
As I turned onto my street, I rehearsed concessions and vindications. The house wasn't much to look at, one story of often-patched stucco, no off-street parking. Yet it stood on a roomy corner lot, the rent was reasonable, and my landlords loved me like family. But I said nothing. As I drew the Chevette even with the front walk, Spike tumbled from the car and stood in the yard. Arms akimbo, he scrutinized the house as if calculating
"It's home," I said, walking backwards toward the front porch. "A house of my own. A brick residence, adjoining royal palace."
He cocked his head. "Royal palace?" he said. "Brick?" he said. "It looks like stucco to me."
"Sorry. I was listening to The King and I earlier. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."
If he had any idea what I meant, he hid it well.
Inside, I hung his jacket and my sweater in the closet. With a wave of my hand, I conducted a grand tour: a square, low-ceilinged living room with walls the color of warm sand, a curtained window set in a shallow bay, a dark green sofa, an easy chair upholstered in beige tweed worn smooth, in places, from use. No pictures or mirrors or posters on the walls, no plants in the window.
The other rooms were the same: square, warm, beige, dull, full of used and useful things.
I invited Spike to sit in the easy chair. Under the table next to it lay a brown vinyl case containing Tom's cassette collection, one of the many things he'd left behind. Sometimes I stood in the middle of the floor and stared at the cassette case, or sat in the chair petting its hinges, helpless until the phone rang or a record ended or something shook me out of my stupefaction. The reminders that he'd lived with me-the clothes bunched on his side of the closet, the cheesy 'eighties porn stacked up on the bedroom floor, the unopened packs of Marlboros in the freezer, the cassettes-somehow, these pained me more, even, than his absence.
"Can I get you something?" I said to Spike. "I don't have any beer or anything, but I think I might have some iced tea." Very old iced tea, I remembered, probably as ripe as cheese by now. "Or Diet Coke. I always have Diet Coke around."
Still standing in the entryway, Spike stepped out of his boots. "Water'll do." Bracing himself against the closet door, he tugged at his gray wool socks, straightening the red toes and heels.
When I returned from the kitchen, he was bent over, squinting at the stereo. He punched a couple of buttons, and Karen Holmes leapt mid-syllable into "This Is Love." "-Ate of confusion that makes you see everything plain," she sang.
He took the glass of water from me. Ice cubes cracked and rattled. He didn't drink. "Who's singing?" he said.