St. Nacho's (8 page)

I’d seen the Balboa Pier and Santa Monica Pier and knew they were tourist destinations with restaurants and fishing and bait stands. This one appeared to have no other use than simply to jut out over the water.

Shawn made his way under it, to the cool damp sand there and set out his blanket. The tide was well out. He lit a little battery-operated camping lantern and brought out chips and salsa from Nacho’s, and a bowl with some of the fruit that I’d cut up for the bar. He took out cups and saucers and poured coffee, giving me creamer and sugar. He’d thought of everything, including those little sticks to stir with. He looked up at me and smiled, but it looked a little…different somehow. Sad, maybe.

I leaned over and kissed him. “Thank you.”

“You’re not off the hook,” he said. “Tell me about cars.” I took out my phone again, waving it around until he got his. Then I typed the words I had hoped not to have to share with him. I was in an accident, I sent, beginning a new text message, breaking it up so I didn’t have to shoot it out all at once. I was too drunk and I gave my keys to my lover.

Shawn frowned. “Was he killed?”

St. Nacho’s

39

No, someone else. I couldn’t close my eyes like I wanted to because I had to fucking type. I had thought about that moment maybe forty-two thousand times every day, but who’s counting. A child.

Shawn furrowed his brow thoughtfully, but said nothing. As I watched his expressive face, I felt like I was hanging over a precipice. I picked up a piece of orange and ate it just for something to do while he made up his mind if he was going to say something. Finally, he put his hand on mine and said, “Shit, Cooper.”

I remember trying to trot out some sort of a wry smile, going for resigned. “Yeah, well…”

“You still blame yourself?”

“Yes.” I nodded. He had to see that I wouldn’t dodge responsibility.

“I see.” He sipped his coffee.

It was my fault. I gave him the keys, I texted. It was me.

“He could have given someone else the keys. He could have chosen not to accept them,” he pointed out. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t understand!” I threw down the phone, feeling explosive. “No one could understand unless they’d done it. No one could know what it’s like unless…”

“Hey.” He laid a big hand on my shoulder. “Type what you said, and then let me finish.”

I pinched my lips together. “Sorry,” I said. I typed as much as I could remember of my outburst.

“I don’t understand why that made you afraid of cars.” My thumbs hovered over the keys. I just can’t get into one anymore. That’s all. I still couldn’t talk about the chaos in the aftermath of the accident -- Bobby’s mother screaming, the sirens wailing. How I locked myself in the truck cab and refused to come out. Police.

Firefighters and EMTs. How revolting I must have seemed at that moment, standing there, pierced and tattooed, shaking and scared sober. Worthless, yet taking up space while the world reviled me and wished me dead.

No one held me responsible; I hadn’t broken any laws. It wasn’t even my truck, it was his, except we shared it, and I gave him the keys that day. I gave him the keys. The next day, with my parents’ blessing both monetary and spiritual, I took the bike to Hazelden in Center City, Minnesota, and never looked back.

Through long practice I’d learned to keep my face impassive. I used that now as I continued to drink my coffee and eat slivers of fruit that tasted like sawdust in my mouth.

“How old were you when you started drinking?” Shawn changed the subject. I was surprised, but not sorry. I began to breathe again.

40 Z. A. Maxfield

“Fourteen,” I replied, using my hands to show him. I had fond memories of alcohol leading to unexpected physical encounters, reducing my inhibitions, making it possible for me to step outside my rigid upbringing. Giving me an excuse for having sex with guys at a time when I still needed one. “My best friend Jordan and I started drinking around middle school. We thought we were such hot shit.”

Shawn smiled. “I’m trying to imagine what fourteen-year-old Cooper was like.” He popped a piece of apple into my mouth and took a maraschino cherry for himself. “I can do that trick with the stem. Watch.” He held up a finger and with the other hand slowly lowered the cherry into his open mouth.

I watched and he chewed, and sure enough, the red stem came out tied. I shivered a little, remembering that tongue on my dick.

“Well?” he asked.

I had no idea what he was talking about. “Well, what?”

“What was the fourteen-year-old Cooper like?”

“I don’t know.” I hated stuff like this. I typed, Maybe just an orchestra geek?

“Nobody’s ‘just’ an anything.”

I was the first chair violin, I admitted with my thumbs, sending it in dispatches like a telegram. I went to music camp and music lessons. I liked video games. Most of the time I was angry or horny or scared; one, both, or some exotic combination of all three.

Shawn grinned. “You say that like it’s in the past.” What? I sent. It is in the past; he’s long gone. I think I drowned him in beer.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Shawn smiled. He lay on his back on the blanket, biting his lip a little as if he had a private joke. “I think I may be looking at him right now.” St. Nacho’s

41

Chapter Seven

“It’s time,” said Shawn, changing the subject completely, “that you learned some sign language.” All business, he sat up straight on the blanket, facing me with his legs crossed. He urged me to do likewise. “Boy,” he said, pinching the air in front of his forehead. “Boy. You do it.”

“Okay,” I said. I felt like an utter ass, but as I was pretty sure he had worked tirelessly for years to be able to speak, I felt it incumbent on me to try signing.

“Good. Girl,” he said, brushing his cheek. This went on for a while, mother, father, boy, girl, hello. I didn’t see that these would be that useful for me, but I dutifully learned them and got them right when he tested me at intervals. It wasn’t until he came to kiss that I began to see actual possibilities.

“Kiss,” he said, gesturing to his mouth and then his cheek. I did it. “Kiss me,” he signed, following “kiss” up with a finger on his chest. “Kiss me.”

“Kiss me,” I signed. He smiled and leaned in, catching my jaw in his hand. I wanted to keep my eyes open. Tried to. But at the last moment something overcame me and they closed. I felt his lips brush mine, the barest whisper of contact, and then I felt them smile a moment before he indicated with his tongue that he wouldn’t be satisfied with just a brush.

It went on and on. Gentle and undemanding. I reached for his belt buckle but he caught my hand, breaking off the kiss.

“You sign well,” he said, and took the last bit of apple, biting it and sharing it with me.

“Gay,” he said, tapping his thumb and forefinger on his chin. “Gay, try it.” I made the sign, “Gay.” I got out my phone and typed. That looks like a beard; do you just use that for men?

He waited patiently and looked at my text. “Yes, this is G and is for gay. For lesbian, you use the L in front of the chin, like this.” 42 Z. A. Maxfield

I tried it. It was going to be like learning kanji, which I’d done a bit of in high school, when I’d studied Japanese. There’s a sign for everything. I probably even typed whiny. How am I ever going to learn to do this?

He gave me an exaggeratedly patient look. “You learned to play the violin. This will be hard; you have to practice. After a while, it becomes second nature.” How do you say lie down

t

and shu the fuck up? I typed, a reasonable request, given my relationship skills.

“You don’t.” He glared at me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, looking down.

“I do,” he said. He proceeded to sign, “Lie down and shut the fuck up.” Or whatever its equivalent was.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have that yet,” I said, “Do it again slowly, so I can learn it.”

“You don’t need to learn it.” He pushed me over onto my back. “You just need to do it.” He bit me on the lower lip.

I fought him a little because I didn’t want sand in those hard-to-reach places, so he and I picked up the blanket and started the walk back to Nacho’s in silence. At that moment, there was nothing I wanted more than the easy companionship I’d glimpsed with him and the ability to talk to him freely in whatever language or fashion made the most sense.

I dropped the lantern and had to backtrack to pick it up. When I looked up, he was still striding away across the beach, his strong legs fighting the sucking of the sand as he moved.

The breeze whipped his hair around a little; it was long, below his collar, a little wavy, and wild. As I stared at him, he realized I wasn’t with him and turned back to find me. He quirked a finger at me and said, “Come on.” I ran after him like an eager dog. I knew I was getting in deep here in Santo Ignacio, drowning in hope, expectation, safety, and peace. I wondered how long it would be until I realized that drowning was drowning anywhere you did it, and the end result was probably the same.

* * * * *

The following morning when I saw Jim I broached the subject of finding a computer to use to study sign language. Shawn wasn’t there at the table -- he was probably at school --

but I expected he’d hear about this just the same. I took a lot of good-natured teasing.

“So, I guess we can expect you to be here for a while,” said Jim, smiling. “It’s the cayenne in the cocoa. It’s a known aphrodisiac, of course, but it’s also a powerful romantic love potion.”

“I guess,” I murmured, feeling a little strange.

“Nah, it’s m’hijo’s cooking. No one can resist a guy who cooks,” said Oscar, grinning at Tomas. Everyone agreed.

St. Nacho’s

43

“You can use the computer in the office,” said Jim. “I’ll set you up with your own password. Alfred does the official Nacho’s Bar business work on it, but that’s really all we use it for, and he’s rarely here in the mornings. What are you going to look up first?” He grinned.

“I can think of a few things I’d want to know how to say.”

“Uh,” I said, thinking this could get out of hand fast. “I just want to learn the basics.

You know. Conversation.”

“Oh,” he said. “How disappointing.” I know I was blushing, thinking about the previous night and wondering whether the first thing I’d do would be to establish a signed safe word.

“Well, thank you,” I said, probably a little stiffly. “You just let me know when it’s free and I’ll use it then.” I finished my breakfast and went to the kitchen.

There’s a certain geographical area of safety around prepping onions. There were other kitchen helpers, three busboys besides Shawn, and four waiters. For various reasons, I hadn’t made friends with them yet. We’d exchanged tentative smiles and nodded at one another, but the other kitchen guys spoke only broken English, and my second language, sketchy as it was, was Japanese.

I was aware that I’d landed in Santo Ignacio behind all kinds of language barriers. I was beginning to learn a little Spanish, and the guys were warming up to me. None of them were gay, and they had mixed feelings about me, I could tell, and about Oscar and Tomas, who were ambiguous in a teasing way but still completely undemonstrative.

On the one hand, Nacho’s was definitely a gay bar, and mostly patronized by men at night. Yet on the other hand, because of Shawn, it seemed to be where the local deaf kids hung out, regardless of gender, and it had the number one family brunch and drew people from all over. Because of that sometimes it felt like purgatory, like we were all at some kind of way station, a place for nourishing the spirit and reflecting until we were ready to move on. The lifers, as I liked to call Jim and Alfred, never moved on at all.

Shawn showed up at five or so, and as he was throwing on his work apron I hit him with my new skill, asking him in sign language, “How was your day?” This had taken me most of the morning to perfect.

He stared at me for a while with something nice in his eyes. “Fine, how was yours?” Well. Shit. I had nothing. He grinned and pulled me into the employee bathroom to kiss me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Your hands smell like onions and garlic,” he said, holding one up to his nose. He pushed me against the door.

“I’ve been prepping veg,” I said. I made the sign for kiss me, and he did. I felt for his belt buckle, and he caught my hand.

44 Z. A. Maxfield

“No,” he said. He sucked up a mark on my neck, under my tattoo. I could feel the heat from his mouth, his breath. It was becoming a habit with him, starting things and not following through.

“What the hell?” I spoke into his mouth.

“What?” he asked, perplexed.

I gestured to his hands and his buckle.

“I’m working; so are you.” He stared at me. “I just wanted a kiss.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid.

“I could fuck you every time we kiss, but I’d have to kiss you less.”

“Or fuck me more.” I grinned. I think he read my lips, based on the sparkle in his eyes.

“Later, it’s a promise.” He left the bathroom and I waited a few minutes until I had myself under better control. I looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognize myself for a second. Of course, regular sleep and showers made a difference, but I thought I looked altered somehow in other ways. My eyes were the same green as always but there was less tightness about them. I wasn’t holding my jaw as though any minute someone would break it. I felt like my shoulders were looser, and my breathing was deeper and more relaxed.

Maybe more oxygen was getting to my brain. I looked…younger.

I left the bathroom feeling a spring in my step I hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Hey, m’hijo,” said Oscar. “My sister gave me a box of mangoes from the club store.

You want one?”

“Yeah,” I said, catching it when he tossed it to me. I cut it up and flipped it inside out before slicing off the cubes. I was eating it when Shawn came back into the kitchen with a tub full of dirty dishes. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, he leaned over and I fed him some mango bits off my fork. His hand came up and he played with my hair, pushing it back behind my ear. We shared a sticky mango kiss, and he moved on. Oscar and Tomas were staring at me.