Work Text
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
—W.S. Merwin, Separation
“How did it happen?”“Would I know? I wasn’t there.” He’s wearing a suit, a nice one, and he holds a white felt hat on his lap, ankle propped over a knee. Joe keeps trying to find a name for the face, trying to remember where he’s seen him before. But the more he tries, the blurrier his memory feels. Maybe they haven’t met before. Maybe they met just now on this train.The man in the suit goes on, “You’re not here and then you are. Millions of you. That’s all I know.” He watches Joe with this look about him, like he expects something from Joe, some demand or some question. But Joe doesn’t have any. So he turns to look out the window, instead. There’s a river running the length of the tracks, quiet and green with algae and grass, shadowed by low-boughed trees. It’s there and it’s beautiful and then it’s gone. Black, like they’re passing through a mountain. The overhead lights flicker behind Joe’s reflection and his companion gives them a tired look. “No one gives a damn about this train.” He complains, “I keep telling them they oughta invest a little into fixing it up. You know, first impressions go a long way. Used to be that meant something.” When they clear the underground tunnel, he appears different somehow; though, Joe can’t place it. Maybe a little pinker in the cheeks, his lips a little less waxy. The sun is setting now, strands of goldenrod blooming in Joe’s eyes, and he’s still trying to remember.“I think I was with him…” he says to the man in the suit, “It was summer. It’s summer.”The man in the suit scoffs, but not unkindly, “Summer, huh?” His smile is gap-toothed, “That’s nice.”His suit is blue. Was it always blue? Before Joe’s eyes, it seems to change. A midnight blue, then a navy. Then something like the sky, like water, color rippling like the sea, frothing white like foaming bubbles. And what is Joe wearing, then? Looking down, he’s disappointed to find his work clothes, dingy and drab and sweat-limp, and is unable to fight the urge to fix his muddied collar. “Hey, don’t worry about that,” the man says. His suit turns again, now the same green as sea glass. “We’re almost there now, and then it ain’t gonna matter much what you look like.”“Where is that?”“C’mon, Joe,” the man in the suit says, “Take a guess.” ••• You’re there when it happens. That’s the worst part. You think back to less than twenty minutes ago: he was kissing you with his hands in your hair, his body made light in the water, his lips warm even through the chilled wet. Your flutter-kick away from him was just a tease; you wanted him to chase after you. Maybe he tried, you don’t know.You only know that you turned back around—and he was gone. By the time you found him tangled in the lily pads and finally dragged him onto the muddy beach, he’d gone still. Eyelids half-closed, mouth open. You look at his sternum, at the place where you tried to expel the water from his lungs. If he were alive it would bruise. He isn’t; it doesn’t. You’re there when it happens and you don’t save him. That’s the worst part. ••• The train comes to a slow halt, its wheels screaming against the tracks, and while Joe remains seated, the man in the suit stands, oddly unbothered by the train’s swaying momentum. His wiry body takes up most of the doorway to the compartment, posture easy, white hat in his hand. He speaks over his shoulder toward Joe, “Line ends here. Follow me, okay?”In the sudden still, it’s like the train had never moved at all, and now Joe finds he can’t remember if it did. But he follows along anyway, standing slowly, feeling like his body hasn’t moved in a long time. Before they step off the train, he asks, “Where are we?”“Give it time,” the man says, replacing his hat on his head, “it’ll come to you.” He leads Joe onto the platform and takes post beside a lone wooden bench, gesturing for Joe to take a seat and saying, “We’ll be here a while.”He lights up a smoke and distantly, Joe is surprised to realize he doesn’t want one of his own. But the scent is still a welcome familiarity amidst this… wherever they are. Here, the man in the suit seems less inclined to talk to him but Joe can’t say he minds it. He’s had a headache pressing in behind his eyes for what feels like hours, and suddenly it’s edging on unbearable. When he bends at the waist and pinches at the bridge of his nose, the man in the suit lays a hand on his back and says, “It’s gonna be alright, you know.”“Yeah,” Joe replies; although, he doesn’t believe him. Joe grunts; the black behind his eyelids is broken with flashing rings of white light. Stars are pinpricks of red and green and yellow and blue, exploding inside his head. And when he finally blinks his eyes open, the world has changed.The train is gone. But that’s not it; no, the train was never here. It’s a river. A new one or the same? This river moves—with green and blue water, with churning, foaming oxygen. Its peaking waves metallic, reflective, like the sun shines against it so brightly it doesn’t appear to be water at all—looks like mercury, instead. But there is no sun here, and Joe doesn’t know why, but he is suddenly struck by the cutting feeling that time is passing him by more quickly than he can understand.“Goddamn it,” the man in the suit cusses, “he’s always fucking late, isn’t he?”Now the train platform is a dock, long rows of rotting wood. And at its end is a lantern that blinks and flickers in the dark, swaying back-and-forth with no wind to carry it. Joe watches from his far place on the bench as its flame winks in and out of life, and grows surer and surer in the knowledge that the light grows brighter with each passing moment, that the black times between its glowing warmth grow shorter and less frequent. He’s closer, now. He could reach out and touch the lantern if he’d like. It’s bright enough to illuminate the cavern walls that now surround him.The man in the suit sighs, drawing back Joe’s attention. With a hum, he tosses his cigarette into the river, whose water is swirling faster now, splashing at Joe’s ankles, and he mutters, “That’ll be him.”Joe follows his outstretched arm, past the lantern, down the river, and suddenly sees it there. A figure floating toward them on the water. ••• You don’t want to leave him. You feel like maybe, if you stay beside him and wait long enough, he’ll get up and walk it off. Maybe he’ll be mad at you for not saving him in time, for giving up, but it’d be better than this. Anything in the world would be better than this. But the longer you watch him, the angrier he looks, and the more you want to beg his forgiveness. Your regret, misplaced and otherwise, comes flooding up, a roiling sick you can’t control, and you turn away from him when it becomes unbearable. Losing your stomach on your hands and knees.There, curled over your own body like a dying animal, is the place you realize you’re fucked. You don’t know what to do. Joe never introduced you to his family, you don’t even know where his parents live. Even if you did, how do you tell them this?
“Your son is dead, Mr. and Mrs. Toye. He’s dead because I was the one with him. I was the one who promised to look after him, even after he told me he was afraid of the water.”
You think about putting stones in your pockets. But then no one would know where to look for Joe, and you can’t stomach the idea of him waiting here, rotting—even if someone stumbled upon him, they wouldn’t know to look for you under the water. And what would they tell Frank? Or Joanie and Lonnie?You’re strong enough to carry him, just barely, so you do. You wrap him in the blanket you both sunbathed on earlier that day and lay him in the back of his truck. You crawl up to lie beside him. You can’t bring yourself to take him anywhere just yet. ••• A boat arrives at the dock with a man standing at its center. With a long, wooden pole, he holds himself steady against the riverbed, and with it’s one end, curved and hooked like a shepherd’s staff, he scoops up the lantern and it’s light, setting them both on top of the water. There, the pole remains impossibly upright, like some invisible servant holds it still.The man in the suit huffs a laugh and the man in the boat looks to him sharply, eyebrows furrowed and severe. “Don’t give me that look, alright, I find this whole get-up very funny and I’m more than certain that’s the point.”The man in the boat blinks and says, “What, you don’t like the suit? It’s new.” He spreads his arms and steps up onto the dock, makes a show of turning around and kicking out a polished shoe.“The suit is lovely,” and it is. Three-piece, and trimmed with fine gold thread. And such a dark black, Joe has trouble distinguishing its finer details. “It’s the cloak I find to be a bit much.”“It’s not a cloak,” he rolls his eyes, “it’s a topcoat and it’s very much in fashion, you should know.” He pulls it tighter around his middle and adds, “And it’s always fucking freezing down here.”They regard each other for a moment longer, as if measuring the worth of any further bickering, but then begin to chuckle and embrace. They affectionately cuff shoulders and one kisses the other’s cheek. The man from the boat parts from his companion with a smile and a squeeze to the elbow.“How’re you doing, Herm? It’s been too long since I’ve last seen you here.”Herm shrugs easily and replies, “You know how it is, the way they can be on the mount.” He waves a hand, “I’m always needed somewhere.”“Always here, too,” the man from the boat says.Joe doesn’t understand what he means, but Herm says, “Yeah, I’m always here, too.” And then, looking to Joe, he adds, “Your newest passenger is here. You oughta take care of him.” The man from the boat extends his greeting toward Joe, saying, “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he grins when Joe hesitantly takes his hand in a shake, “my name is Charon. This here is Herm, though I bet the bastard never told you that.”Joe has that familiar feeling again, trying to remember something that hasn’t happened. He tilts his head and asks, “Have we met before?”Charon laughs a little, “Me? Not unless you’ve been down the river. Herm, maybe. But not like this.” As if he senses Joe’s confusion, he admits, “It feels that way, sometimes, even when you first get here. This place gets under your skin.” ••• He’s still warm when you kiss his lips. His hair is still wet. By the time it’s dry, the skin you kiss feels like river water. ••• “Okay, then,” the boatman says, “with me, watch your step.”Without much choice, Joe accepts Charon’s offered hand and descends into his skiff. Once he’s seated, Charon takes his pole from its place atop the water and pushes off the dock. He’s unnaturally still against the boat’s swaying, a black shadow looming over Joe. Plunging the pole into the river, over one side of the boat and then the other, he pushes them along. And with the lantern hanging off the pole’s end, the light swings widely with it, casting long shadows to the left, then the right, warping Charon’s face and their surroundings with each pass. It seems to Joe that in such a dark place, and with a river so volatile to change, Charon ought to pay more attention. But he’s entirely unconcerned with the boat itself, with the water it rolls along. Save for the easy rhythm of his paddling, he devotes all his attention to Joe, watching him with an interest no stranger ought to have.“You think you’re still up there, don’t you?” he asks.Joe glances up to meet his eyes. He wants to feel angry, wants to tell everybody to stop talking to him like… like that. But instead, he finds himself tired, more tired than he’s ever been, and he only murmurs, “I… I don’t think I know what you mean.”“No, huh?” Charon sighs, “I guess you wouldn’t. See, I can’t tell you, that’s not how this works”—“How what works?”—“but I’ll say this: you don’t need to be afraid. Really, I mean it.” He studies Joe’s face a while, then sighs again as he lifts the pole from the water. He takes the lantern from its hook and hands it to Joe, then sits down, face-to-face with him. “Look,” he says, “you’re not the first one to come here, fuck knows you won’t be the last. And this story has happened—is happening—over and over again.”“What story?”“Yours.” Charon says, leaning closer, “It’s happening now, a million times over. And it always starts where it ends. Do you understand?”There’s a pit of dread opening in Joe’s chest. There’s a barking in the back of his mind, on the edge of his world, warning him: he’s about to fall off.But he’s still trying to remember. “It’s summer,” he croaks.“I know, Joe.” Charon says, “I know.” He fishes underneath his topcoat and pulls out a metal flask. Unscrewing its cap, he says, “It’s hard to remember here. It hurts, I know. But you need to try.” He takes a deep pull of his drink and winces, then takes another. He offers it to Joe, but Joe refuses.Tears are pricking at his eyes now, and Joe looks up, trying to blink them away, but he’s met with the blackness of this cavern the river runs through, of the earth that’s swallowed him up. And the tears spill over anyway. With every moment, Joe knows he’s falling farther away from him, and he just wants to go back. God, please let him go back.He swipes a hand over his wet cheeks and mutters, “We were swimming,” because it’s true and because it’s the last thing he remembers.“Who? Who were you swimming with?” Charon presses.Joe opens his mouth to answer, but catches something in Charon’s eye as he does. His mouth clicks shut and suddenly he knows, as if he’d known it all along, that he can’t speak George’s name. He must keep it inside himself or lose it forever.Grinning, Charon says, “Good. That’s exactly right.” He takes another sip from his flask, “Around here, memories are more precious than you’d think.” •••
And let me ask you this: the dead,
where aren’t they?
—Franz Wright, God’s Silence
July 1934
Lonnie and Joanie launch themselves into George’s arms before he makes it halfway up the drive. He stumbles back a pace as they crash into him, Lonnie’s arms wrapping around his neck, Joanie hugging him so hard around the middle he can’t hardly breathe.“Aw, geez, guys,” George lets out a soft ‘oof’ when Lonnie’s knee gets him in the side as he scrambles onto George’s back. “I missed you, too.”Joanie squeezes him harder, demands George hug her back, and he tries to walk with her, but she just plants her feet, leans all her weight backward. Won’t budge.“Alright,” he puts a hand on her head, “c’mon, Joan.” And when she still doesn’t move, he picks her up, now saddled with one sibling on his back and one on his front. He walks them forward, leaves abandoned his suitcase and guitar in the middle of the driveway. He nearly makes it to the porch before the front door opens, where he expects to find his mother waiting for him. But instead, it’s Frank standing there—all three feet of him—with his arms crossed and his face downturned in apparent disapproval.“What is this?” Frank demands, “Who is this schlub? Lonnie, you know this guy?”Lonnie, delighted to be in on the joke, exclaims, “Wha—No-o-o!” but can’t help laughing as George tilts forward to try and throw him off his back. “No, George!”“I’m serious,” Frank says, as if Lonnie isn’t hanging onto George’s shirt for dear life, bursting with uncontrollable laughter, “I don’t know this guy, he looks no good to me.”And Joanie, bless her, is saying, “This is George!”“Is this George?” Frank asks, “Do I know a George?”“Frank!” Joanie releases her caterpillar hold of George and runs up to him, hugging him around the waist like he might understand better, if only she pulls on him hard enough.George’s grin is starting to hurt his cheeks. He asks his brother, “What about you, Lonnie, you know me?” He has him by the arms now, holding him a foot or more above the ground.“No, I—George!” He shouts as George fakes a drop.“Oh, so you do know me?”Lonnie’s laughter has gone irregular, giggling so hard he has to gulp air down by the mouthful to get any at all. And Joanie is still pulling at Frank’s middle, trying to yank him down the porch stairs.Finally, Frank’s face breaks into a smile. Giving up the joke, he lets Joanie tug him forward until he and George are standing face to face, and George lets Lonnie down so he can scuttle away. So George can hold Frank for a minute.He pats his back and says over his shoulder, “I missed you, too, Perco.”“Where the hell have you been?” Frank asks. But he knows; George has been everywhere. Frank waits until the evening to ask, when they are alone and walking the familiar trail between their houses. When he does, George drops his cigarette in the grass. Frank says, “When we were in high school, y’know, when we did track and field, Theo Walker always won the 100 meter. Do you remember him? It was… the way you watched him. Like you were pretending not to.”“Jesus,” George’s voice cracks in the middle, “we were 15.”“Then I guess I knew since we were 15.”Inexplicably, George’s eyes begin to water. He takes out his pack to find a second cigarette but his hands are shaking too hard, so Frank takes it and lights one for him.With his lighter held to George’s mouth, he asks again, “Why do you love him? Not—I ain’t asking because he’s a man.” He’s quick to clarify when he sees George’s brow wobble intensely, “What is it about him?”George can’t get his eyes to stop, so he looks like a fool walking beside Frank, smoking his cigarette with tears flowing freely down his face. With enough time, he finds his answer, “You’re my best friend.” He says, “You’re my brother but—no one has ever understood me like he does. And I have never known someone who cares as much as him—the way he cares, not just for me, for everybody, nobody seems to see it.”“But you do.”“Yeah. It sounds stupid. But it’s hard to explain.”Stopping at the tree line, Frank takes George by the arm and squeezes gently, “Hey. It’s alright,” he says. For a while, they stay there and smoke their cigarettes. The sun is setting somewhere on the other side of the trees, somewhere George can’t see, but it still makes him cold. “He looked back, you know.” Frank says.“Who?”“Theo.” He answers, “I always saw him looking back at you.”“Huh,” George scoffs a little mournfully, “ain’t that funny.” He sucks on his smoke, sighs in blue, and says, “I wrote him once, year after we graduated. Never heard back, of course. I wonder what he’s doing these days.”“George.” Frank sighs.“What?” But somehow, George knows before Frank answers. In a way that comes from outside of himself, he already knows what happened.“Theo was murdered.” Frank says “Last year, they found him dead in the quarry.” ••• The sun has fallen past the tree line and soon it’ll be cold. That couldn’t bother you now; you don’t feel it, anyway. And you’ve finally found the courage to sit in the driver’s seat of the truck and turn the engine over, your mouth and hands still trembling, your eyes still leaking tears. As the car rumbles to life, you look in the rear view mirror—and see a man standing in the bed of the truck.“Christ!” You shout, and fumble with the door. You’re sputtering, incensed, terrified, and you’re cussing this guy out before you’ve got the full look of him. “What the fuck are you doing? Who the fuck are you?” You call, “Get the fuck out of my fucking truck!”The man just blinks at you, inscrutably calm. He glances to the pond, then toward the sun, and says, “George”—“What, George?” You spit, “Who the fuck are you to me? Get away from him, what are you doing?”“We only have until morning,” he says, “I need you to listen to me.”You round the truck and hop the tailgate. You know you’re crying, you’ve been crying for hours and can’t seem to stop, but it doesn’t matter as you grab this man by the lapels and shove him into the back window. “Answer my question! Who are you?”“Lachesis.”“Lac—what?”“My name is Lachesis. I can help you.” He lays his hands over your fists and grips you warmly. He tells you, “You can save him, but you need my help to do it.”Shaking him once, hard, you demand, “What are you saying? I…” your breath starts to stick in your lungs, thick like mucus. You look down at Joe’s body, “He…”“George,” Lachesis says your name again. Says your name like he knows you. He takes your hands from his jacket and holds them, “Do you love him?” His gaze grabs onto you and won’t let you go, pulling on you with eyes so clear you could almost mistake them for colorless in this evening light. You shake your head; you don’t understand.He takes ahold of your face and he asks you again, “Do you love him?”Your tears spill into his hands.“Yes.”“What would you do for him? What would you do to bring him back?”“Anything.”Lachesis nods, grips you tighter. “Good. That’s what I needed to hear.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.
-Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
How can Joe be cold, yet not feel cold? And how does he know it’s so?When Charon looks at him, he sighs with a pity Joe doesn’t want, but he still thanks him when he shrugs off his topcoat to put around Joe’s shoulders. Without the coat, Joe can better see Charon’s suit, still dark and fine, and now deeper, more complex than any color black he’s seen before. It draws into light how beautiful Charon is. Herm was beautiful, too, bright and buoyant. What is Joe doing in a place like this?“Joe,” Charon says, right as the little boat comes to a sharp narrowing of the river. “Are you paying attention?”“To what?”“To the river.” He says, “Look,” and removes his hand from his staff in the water. Slowly, it sinks straight down until it is entirely engulfed, then he lifts his hand and the staff reemerges, its light unextinguished. Charon says, “The river is deep here, and very fast.” Which hardly makes sense to Joe, as the boat still slowly floats along its surface, but then, nothing makes sense here. “When it widens again you could probably wade across. But here if you tried to swim you would certainly drown.” “Okay,” is all Joe says. But then, “Why are you telling me this?”“Because you need to know. I’ve seen this fuck-up before.” He guides them through the narrow neck of the water and to the other side with relative ease. He says, “Before we arrive, there are some things I need you to know.” Joe looks up at him. His suit looks like the night sky; his eyes look even deeper.Charon says, “What you’re thinking—all of it—you’re right. And I want to help you, kid, I really do. I always want to help you.”
Have we met before? He says it like we’ve met before.
“But I have to ask you first, what do you have to pay with?”“What?” Joe’s voice is rough and quiet, even to himself.“I can’t help you from here, I’ve tried that, too.” Charon explains, and he takes out his flask again, “And rules are rules, I’m afraid. Getting to this side of the river requires payment.”Joe stumbles, his brain turning around something just out of reach. He doesn’t understand. “Uh—well, no. I can’t pay you.”“Sure you can.”“I didn’t, I mean,” with a frustrated sound, Joe pats his clothes, turns out his pockets, “I don’t have any money.”“Lucky for you, money isn’t worth a lot down here.”“What is?”Charon sways where he stands, pursing his lips and clicking his tongue in thought, then saying, “Ah, well. It’s the little things. Like, the humid air during a sun-shower, or champagne at a wedding, or your girl’s favorite color rouge. Holding someone you love, a younger sibling’s admiration.”“What?” Joe still doesn’t understand. There’s so much here that doesn’t make any fucking sense, “What do you want? How… how can I give it to you?”Sitting across from Joe again, Charon answers, “Tell me a story. A happy one, about you. We’ll see what it’s worth.” ••• Lachesis holds your head in hands. “Look at me,” he says, though you already are. “Look at me. It gets harder from here. But you can do it, you can.” His fingers are digging into your skull, “You have to do exactly as I say.”“Okay,” you try to nod but his hold on you tightens, “okay. Tell me what to do.”He does. You will bring your guitar (how does he know you have it? Doesn’t matter, the fact is he does and you do) and you will enter the cave on the South side of the pond. You will walk along the train tracks there until they come to their end. You will walk beside the river you find. You will not touch its waters. “Cross the river at the place where it narrows, no more than four feet across.” You will not touch its waters. You will walk beside the river for another mile. You will find the path to Hades there and follow it down.“Listen to me carefully: do not, under any circumstances, step foot in the river.” He takes you by the shoulder, “If you fall in, you’ll never make it back to the surface.”“Okay.”“Okay?” He shakes you.“Yeah, yeah, okay.”He lets you go.You ask, “What do I do then?”“Find him,” Lachesis answers, “and bring him back.”You look at Joe, cold, the blanket you wrapped him in falling open at his chest. He doesn’t look himself anymore, and what do you do without him?A few things before you go: do not fear the shades, do not fear the stones.“And this,” Lachesis says, placing a silk handkerchief in your hand, embroidered in a language you can’t read, “is for the ferryman.”“What is it?”“A token.” He says, “Charon can’t help the living along the river, but if he finds you, give him this. He may be persuaded in your case.”You ask, “If I need you, how do I find you?”And sighing, Lachesis shakes his head, “This is all I can do for you.” He says, “Good luck, George.”Then he is gone and you are alone. For the last time, you sit beside Joe and you want to kiss every inch of him, but you settle for this. You kiss his eyelids (not his lips, you can’t bear to feel them unmoving) and you kiss the tops of his feet, like they’ll see you off on your journey. Leaving the truck behind you, you set yourself across the pond and look for the door to the Underworld. •••
[Hermes]
Remember how it used to be.
Their love that made the world go ‘round.
[Orpheus]
Yeah, I remember now,
but that was long ago.
[Hermes]
Tell it again, though.
-Anaïs Mitchell, Hadestown
Lounging on the bed, Joe watches George sit at his tiny writing desk, naked and still flushed in his face and chest. He smokes a cigarette, writing something with his fountain-tip pen—the one Joe bought him, he’s pleased to note—and his leg bounces on the ball of his foot. He’s got that look to him, a little manic and very beautiful, when he needs to get what’s in his brain out before he loses it completely. It makes Joe laugh. Even in the afterglow, George is brilliant.
“And just what,” George asks him, “is so goddamn funny, Mr. Toye?” He twists to glance at him, ashes flaking off his cigarette, eyes bright.
Joe shrugs, turning onto his side, “You’re just funny, is all,” he says. He listens for a while longer to the scratch of George’s pen, the pattern of its scrawling nearly lulling him into sleep. Sweat and worse is drying on his stomach but he doesn’t really mind, his head is pillowed comfortably on his arm, and the sheets and blankets are twisted around his ankles. He searches his mind to find a happier time, something better than this, but he keeps coming up empty.
George starts to hum—it feels like he’s always humming, and when he’s not humming he’s singing. Never the same melody twice. Joe doubts he even knows he’s doing it, but he won’t point it out for fear he’ll stop.
Blindly, Joe reaches toward their clothes on the floor, where his trousers are crumpled in a pile with his belt still attached. He takes his carton of smokes out of his pocket and finds his Zippo, sits up to light himself a cigarette. “You writing your sister?” he asks, coming to stand beside George.
“Aw, Joe,” George winces and lets down his pen, “don’t make me think of my sister now, with you standing there all…” he gestures vaguely toward him.
“All what?”
“All—you know.” George smacks his naked hip in admonishment, but the message is lost when he turns his hand to stroke up Joe’s side. Leaning over, he takes Joe’s hips in both hands and starts to lay kisses across his stomach, mess be damned.
It’s too soon to go again, but Joe’s body reacts like it’s up for trying. “George,” he groans.
George smiles, presses it there into his skin. He kisses Joe one more time, then tells him, “I was writing a song.”
“Don’t tell me you’re working now. If you can think about work so soon after sex, then I’m clearly doing something wrong.”
“No, not for work,” George laughs, “for you.”
Joe steps back, surprised, “Me?”
Oh, George is radiant when he’s this happy. He stands from his chair, body so close it drags against Joe’s, and Joe can’t resist pulling him in for a kiss.
George says, “Maybe you inspire me.”
With his forehead pressed to George’s, and selfishly basking in the warmth of his body, in the golden tilt of his smile, Joe kisses him again and says into his mouth, “Sing it for me?”
“Alright,” Charon says, “that’s enough.”“What is?”Charon gives him that sorry look again and for a minute Joe hates him. Why does he keep looking at him like that?“Now,” Charon says, pushing them along again, “when we get to the other side of the river, you’ll have to talk to the boss. He looks like a mean son of a bitch but he’s a good man.” Joe watches the pole swing over his head, one side of the boat and then the other. “You need to ask him for work, okay? He’ll say no at first but you must get him to agree.”“But”—“Get him to like you, if you can get his husband to like you, even better. Hades will do anything that man asks.” Charon smacks Joe’s shoulder with his pole, “Do you understand me?”“I—yes.” Joe swallows hard. At least, he thinks he understands.“Good, it’ll be easier for him to find you if Hades doesn’t send you any further.”“Easier for who?” Joe asks. There’s a hole in the side of his head where the memories keep pouring out—drip, drip, drip.But Charon continues, “Hell is too big for him to search the whole damn place so try your hardest to stay close to the surface. Stay close to Hades.” He guides the boat to a stop at the shore, grounding it against the shallow bank of the river. With a tilt of his head, he motions for Joe to stand and exit, and he says, “One last thing.” From his trouser pockets, he produces a silver pocket watch and a very fine gold chain. “These are for Hades and Persephone. Tell them they’re a gift from Charon,” he shrugs, “I figure it can’t hurt to have you deliver them for me.” Joe takes them and places them in his pocket. With the hooked end of the pole, Charon takes the lantern from the boat and passes it to Joe. “Take it,” he says, “you’ll need it to find your way.”Joe accepts it with a nod. He looks Charon over just a second more, and says, “Can I just ask, why are you doing this? Why are you trying to help me?”“Because I want this to be the last time.”“What do you mean?”“Good luck, Joe.” And with that, he pushes off the shore, his dark form receding from view. It isn’t until he’s gone that Joe realizes he’s still wearing his topcoat. ••• You find the tracks exactly as Lachesis said you would. Ferns grown up thick around them, rhododendrons and bleeding hearts growing wide around, too. You don’t know if a train still runs here—could be, but the tracks feel soft with rot beneath your boots and anyway, you’ll hear the train coming before you see it. You picture Joe beside you, more sensibly walking outside of the tracks, grinning at your recklessness. It’s daylight still. Was it so when you entered the cave? The world has opened up, either that or the sun has followed you inside of it. It hangs above you, swinging like a tetherball around your head as your wristwatch ticks the hours away. And the tracks continue on.Beside you, your Phantom Joe regards you warmly and asks, Tell me a story, Georgie?“What story?”One about us. “Don’t you know all of those?”Tell me again. Tell me anyway.“Well,” George begins, “we met on a road outside Baltimore.”
It’s midmorning—George meant to leave earlier than this, really. Within the hour, it’ll be too hot to make any real progress, but fuck him, George overslept and if he’s honest, the headache he woke with is making its way to a real goddamn hangover. There’s a stone in his shoe and every time he picks up his right foot, it shifts beneath the arch of his sole, lancing pain through him all the way up to his head. He’s too tired to bother shaking it out.
As he walks beside the road, the sun rises, and he wilts. Dust is clings to his clothes and hair, and he floats a hand through the tall grasses growing on his left-hand side, humming as he goes.
“Hey, buddy, you need a ride?” a truck rolls to a stop beside Geogre, gravel and dirt crunching beneath its tires. The driver leans out his window to be heard over the engine. “Where you headed?”
George chews on his lip, suitcase heavy in his hand, guitar strap rubbing a pink line into his neck. “North,” he says, “That work for you?” When the driver hesitates, George pipes, “or anywhere, really. Just not here.”
“Hop in.”
George stows his things behind the seat before he slides in, pulling the car door shut as he does. “Thanks,” he says, holding out his hand to shake, “I’m George.”
“Joe.”
“Whats, uh, anywhere for you, then?”
Joe glances at George, pulling on the gearshift and gaining speed, and he says, “I got work in Pittsburgh.”
“Ah. Alright.”
For miles there’s nothing much to say. George watches green field after yellow field after green field pass them by, and he starts to tap a beat against his leg and against the outside of the car, where his arm rests through the window. The air is pleasantly warm as it breezes by and the sun hasn’t yet reached its fulcrum, plenty of daylight left to go.
But Joe’s company is inexplicably pleasant. There’s an easy warmth to him, relaxed and confident from the outside. George quietly admires the hard lines of his profile, the triangle of his adam’s apple, the tendons across his knuckles. Joe doesn’t say a thing and for once, that feels alright with George.
When they pass a painted billboard, George reads it aloud in his best radioman’s voice: “Powers’ Soap! For a rich lather and lasting scent! It’s what Mother recommends!”
He looks to Joe, hoping to catch a reaction, and he isn’t disappointed. Joe’s smile is small, like he’s trying to hide it, but it’s there. In the taut corner of his mouth, in the crinkle of his eye. George could hardly be that subtle. He beams.
“You know, I wrote the jingle for that.” he tells him.
“What, you did?”
“Yeah,” George says, leaning a little closer to the driver’s seat, “It’s what I was doing in Baltimore, writing music for advertisements.”
“Oh, you work in advertising?”
He tilts his head, mouth twisting, “No, I—well, I’m a musician. I write all kinds of things. Jingles, songs, poems, I write them and sell them to be recorded at radio stations.” He looks at Joe, “You heard that Powers’ Soap advertisement?”
Joe shakes his head, eyes scanning the road, “Can’t say I have.”
“Well, you will,” George grins, “and when you do you can think of me.”
••• At the mouth of Hades—a canyon in his eyes—Joe’s mouth begins to burn. His skin is hot all of a sudden, dry, and stretched thin. Joe’s eyes start to water. He’s so fucking tired, he thinks, he would do anything just to sleep. But now he finds himself surrounded. Pulled along into the city by a rushing current of people, of dead men.Other dead men, he realizes with a twist in his gut. How can there be so many of us?In the city, which is itself unexpected—Hades is not a cavern or a fortress of stone, just a city like any other Joe has seen—he walks down street after street. They are filled with automobiles and trolleys and business men and laborers. There are public buildings, apartments, family homes. Parks with statues and fountains and benches where people congregate and children play. And at the city’s center is a cluster of enormous buildings, skyscrapers twenty stories high or more and lit from within by a living, yellow light. The entire world moves around Joe. It shifts like a kaleidoscope as the river of souls drenches him and urges him forward, unstoppable and overwhelming. The windows of the passing buildings wink sweetly at him, gray bricks lay themselves at Joe’s feet, and faceless man after faceless man walks past him, all singing their workers’ song. Sad and lonely. The city is sprawling, unending; and where does he go?Charon’s lantern flares hot in Joe’s hand. It buzzes to life, like the brightest lightbulb Joe’s ever seen; and when it does, a hand takes him by the shoulder. Turning, Joe finds himself face-to-face with a man; young, easy and thoughtful in his gaze, full lips and deep, unguarded eyes. And he’s watching Joe with an undisguised curiosity. “Where’d you get that?” he asks, pointing to the lantern in Joe’s hand.Joe wonders a moment if he should answer truthfully; but then, he has no other recourse. He tells him, “Charon gave it to me. Told me I would need it.”“Charon, huh?” The man pulls on his bottom lip in thought. “Charon gave you his lantern?”“Yes.”A flicker of recognition passes across the man’s face, and he gives Joe a sour sort of smirk. He crosses his arms over his chest, his legs widening his stance, and he nods, “Huh. You’re him.”“Him—what? Who am I to you?”“Nobody. Nobody, look,” he claps an arm around Joe’s shoulder and walks with him down the street, “You need to see Hades, right?”Some sharp flash of irritation lights in Joe, uneasy with this man’s sudden familiarity, but the fact is he does need help and he doubts he’ll find it elsewhere. “Yes,” he allows, “Charon told me to find Hades.”“Right. Let me take you there.” •••
& it’s so sad, you know? You’re the only warm thing for miles
& the only thing that can’t shine.
-Danez Smith, I’m Going Back to Minnesota Where Sadness Makes Sense
August 1935
George has made a simple dinner for himself, Joe, and Bill by the time both come lumbering through the door, damp with sweat and smelling like paving tar. The screen door bangs closed behind them as they continue whatever conversation they seem to have started on their walk home, only interrupted by Joe when he comes behind George to kiss his hair, saying, “Hey there, dove.” His skin is overheated, flushed even down to this exposed forearms, his fingers each a penny of pink warmth on George’s shoulder.Bill continues on, now complaining to Joe about some coworker as he walks into the house as if it’s his, and Joe follows after with his own occasional comment, disappearing beyond the kitchen to change and wash. When George turns from the stove to set the table for three, he finds a parcel wrapped in brown paper. Attached is a letter stamped in Rhode Island.“Joe?” He calls, “Where did this package come from?”“Huh?” Joe returns from the other room, shirt removed to expose the singlet underneath, suspenders loose around his hips, “Oh, found that on the porch. Looks like it’s for you.”George slips the letter from underneath the parcel’s twine. It’s from Frank.
Dear George,
I got to admit, last year when you said you weren’t coming back home, I didn’t want to believe you. But it’s August now and the summer is ending, Joanie and Lonnie will be back to school soon, and I guess you really meant it. I’m not mad, I swear, but I miss you.
The kids are doing good. They ask about you sometimes but I just tell them you’re working hard at the radio. Joan is getting real good with numbers, almost better than me sometimes! And Lonnie has started working on the boat with my dad. He says he’s got a real talent for it. If you want, next time I’ll ask if they want to write something to you and I can send their messages along, too.
How are you? How is your Joe? I still want to meet him, you know. I’d like to get a handle on his character for myself. In the mean time, write when you can. I’ve sent along some gifts for you both. The Faulkner is for you and the Curtis is for Joe. (You told me he once won money fighting.) The photo I took a few weeks ago at the dock.
I hope you’re well.
Yours truly,
Frank Perconte
Tearing apart the wrapping paper, George finds two books. The first, a dark green, is titled Absalom! Absalom!; the other is thick, with a red cover, decorated with little illustrated boxing gloves, and is called There Ain’t No Justice. From between them falls a photograph, somewhat blurry but unmistakable. Joanie and Lonnie stand with their arms around each other, squinting hard against the sun and smiling. On the backside is written, “Donald and Joan July ‘35.” George’s heart leaps into his throat to see Lonnie some inches taller than his sister. He may be older than Joanie, but she’s always grown like a weed and had overtaken him in height by six or seven years old. The last time George saw the two of them, Lonnie and Joanie were close enough in size to wrestle without any guarantee of who would come out on top. Lonnie was still a little boy. But here he’s suddenly a young man with a baby sister. And where was George when it happened? Joe and Bill return from the other room and Joe comes to look over George’s shoulder. He asks, “That your brother and sister?”“Yeah, Frank sent it.”Joe hums, hand absently stroking down George’s side, and he says, “He looks like you.” It’s true, but George doesn’t know what to do with it.Bill asks, “What are these, then?” picking up one of the books from the table.“He said they’re gifts.” George turns to place the photograph in the corner of the window above the kitchen sink, “The red one is for you, Joe.”Mouth turned down at the corners, one eyebrow raised, Bill admits, “Nice friend, there,” in that taciturn way of his, and hands the book to Joe, who takes both to the living room and returns to help George set the table. While they eat, Joe keeps a hand on George’s knee; he stays hip-to-hip with George as they clean the dishes; even when they retire to the family room to listen to the radio with Bill, his hand remains wherever he can reach. Thigh, hip, waist, shoulder. “Come to bed?” He whispers low in George’s ear when they’re finally alone, and they go. Joe says George’s name so sweetly with his hand wrapped around him, and George tries to lose himself in it, to find a rhythm, to feel only Joe, he really does—but his gut won’t unclench and his head won’t stop its swimming. He sits up and swings his feet over the side of the bed, sighing when Joe resignedly rests his cheek on his back.“I love you,” George says, taking Joe’s hand where it rubs up the center of his chest, “but sometimes I wonder if I’m doing this wrong.”Joe kisses his shoulder. “You miss them,” he says.“I’m missing them. I mean,” a grunt breaks from chest, “is this it? Do I go home once a year? Miss their birthdays and Christmases? Avoid questions about not having a wife and kids?”Joe sighs, and George feels like it’s his breath, too. “It would be okay if, if you wanted to visit more often. I think we could afford it.”“That’s not it, Joe,” George twitches to stand from the bed, but Joe’s arm holds him tight, so he turns his head toward his voice, “it’s the lying. It’s the fact that they will never know me, never know you.”“It ain’t lying.” Joe says, “It’s just surviving.”Right, he’s right. George knows that. He just doesn’t know how to square that the two might be one and the same.“I feel so lonely for them.” For all of them, for his whole family.“I know, dove. I know.” ••• Hades doesn’t sit on a throne and he doesn’t much look like a king, either, Joe thinks. His home, though modest in size, oozes heavy comfort and warmth, with plush carpets and dark oak walls. He sits by a fireplace in a well-worn armchair, drinking from a cut crystal glass, appearing more like a father than a monarch, and he regards Joe mildly, his gaze both penetrating and distant. He asks, “How can I help you, Joe?”“How do you know my name?” Joe asks, “Everyone here seems to know something about me.”Hades shrugs a shoulder, a smirk disguised behind his drink, “I make it a point to know all your names. As for the others, Joe,” his mouth tips down a moment in faux-consideration, “you’re a favorite.”Well, what the hell does that mean?Hades’ smirk makes it’s way into a full smile, and Joe finds he preferred him without; it seems genuine enough, but something about the perfection of his straight teeth, lips split even over top, is unnatural, foreign to Joe. And though he finds himself unsettled, it’s impossible to deny the beauty of Hades’ fine features, with his dark hair, eyes green like the river Joe crossed. Then, as Joe watches, these features suddenly soften and warm. Hades lightens entirely as another man walks into the room.This man comes to Joe first, shaking his hand and addressing him by name, “Joe, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Persephone.”Bewildered, Joe says only, “Pleasure.”Persephone crosses in front of him to greet Hades with a kiss. Broadly muscled and golden all-around, Persephone looks like a man familiar with labor; and if he is familiar with labor then he strikes Joe as a man who also understands the worth of leisure. He wears soft-looking clothing: a ribbed sweater, dark trousers, and black oxfords. He holds a newspaper beneath his arm while a little gray dog trots at his feet. He’s relaxed, happy, and he kisses Hades a second time, maybe just because he can.If you can get his husband to like you, even better, Charon told him. Huh, so Hell really is ruled by queers. Who knew?Persephone sits in an armchair across from Hades, sets his newspaper in his lap and asks, “How can we help you?”“I…” Joe swallows once, “I need work, sir.”Hades shifts sharply in his seat, looking from Persephone to Joe with his raised brow. “Work?” He asks, and refills his glass, “What makes you think I have work for you?”Joe opens his mouth to answer: how could there not be? Hell seems to be a city like any other. Is there not a growing list of things which need done? But when Hades raises an eyebrow, Joe pauses.What could he really know about this place? Who is he to challenge the one man with power over Joe’s soul?“I don’t know.” He admits, rough and quiet, “I only know I gotta ask.”And flatly, unsurprisingly, Hades answers, “No.”“Please, sir, I need to work.” “I said no.” With an unthoughtful toss of his hand, Hades expels Joe backward five, six—ten feet, his work boots sliding soundlessly across the floor. Hades no longer looks at him, his face now lit by the fire, “Get out of my home.”“Hades,” his husband gently chastises.But he goes on, “You’re a shade. You have no right to ask anything of me.” His eyes return to scrape across Joe’s body, suddenly hot with irritation, “Now go.”But there is no place for Joe to go. There is no house to live in, no home to dream about, no George. No George. No George. Oh, Christ, his George.Joe begs, “Please.”“Ask me again.” Hades challenges.The fire in the wall burns brighter for a moment, reflecting that simmering heat in Hades’ eyes. Joe looks between him and Persephone, who watches Joe with a careful expression.“What?”“I said,” Hades slowly blinks at him, “ask me again.”“Please, sir.” Joe breathes in deep, steeling himself, “Will you let me work for you?”Hades grins like a shark. He looks to his husband, whose face has gone brilliant with happiness, though Joe can’t guess why.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I have grieved! Is it so impossible
To believe? he pleaded.
My friend who went through everything with me
Is dead!
No one grieves that much, she said.
Your friend is gone. Forget him.
No one remembers him. He is dead.
Enkidu. Enkidu. Gilgamesh called out:
Help me. They do not know you
As I know you.
-Epic of Gilgamesh
If the sun had followed you into the earth, then this is as far as it will go. You spiral further underground as the train tracks give way to soft, loamy dirt and a cavern opens up to swallow you whole—inside it, near too dark to see. But you can hear water rushing across slated stone, the damp drip of earth-wetted clay; you can hear your Phantom Joe as he appears at your side.He says, You’re halfway there, dove.Dove…dove…dove… his endearment echoes in your head, sticks inside your brain. You were the only one, he told you once, the only dove.“I can’t see the river.” You say, “How do I know where to step?” Follow me.“I’m afraid.” You’ve never been more afraid in your life. I know. It’s alright.You take a step forward, the earth barely keeping steady beneath your feet, and you find it in yourself to take another. “Joe?” your voice warbles with trepidation. If the river takes you now, you’ll never see him again.He doesn’t respond; it’s just the rush of your breath in your ears. You take another step—the ground slips slick beneath you like ice, pulling your feet forward as your head falls back.“Joe!” You call again, and a hand grasps you by the arm just before you hit the ground. For a moment, you think it’s him holding you up.But it’s a strange voice that falls over you, “Oh, look! Is this him, Hyp?”“Yeah, think so,” another voice answers.“You made it a long way this time.” The First pulls you to your feet.It’s the cavern walls talking to you, the floor, the riverbed. The voices are the stones around you, and the stones are two men, eagerly dragging you forward into the darkness as your eyes finally begin to adjust.“What was it this time?” the First asks, “Something bad, I bet. You’re a mess, look at you.”“Wasn’t in his sleep.” The other says.The First scoffs, “No, I would’ve seen him, then.”Baffled, you demand, “Who are you?” “Oh, no, that’s not the question.” The First Stone puts an arm around you. “The question is: who are you? Every time, George,” he sighs, affectionately exasperated, shaking you a little, “Every time it’s the same. Why should you get to bring him back? Of all people!”The Second stops walking, touching your arm and drawing your attention. With his face so close to yours, you can easily make out his pondering smile through the pitch. “You were there this time,” he says, “I can see it in your eyes.”This time. You imagine a million other deaths for Joe. An accident at the steel mill. Wrapped around you in his sleep. Mangled in automobile crash. Beaten in an alley, bleeding out and alone. Which is worse? To watch him die and be helpless to stop it, or to find him later and know he died calling out for you?“Ah,” the First Stone nods, “Well, if you were there, why is he dead?” He asks, “You saw him dying and you did nothing?”“No. No, I did. I tried to help.”“Oh, but was he dead when you touched him?”“I pulled him out of the water.”“Not fast enough,” the Second Stone interjects.The First Stone stops you with a hand to your chest. You’ve come to that place Lachesis told you of, the narrowing in the river. You and the Stones peer into its emerald waters. “He fought you, didn’t he?” the First says like he was there, “He was dying and he tried to get away from you.”“Drowning men do that.” says the Second Stone.You flinch away and back yourself into the cavern wall. You hit your head on the rock and hardly feel it. “How do you know that?” you ask. Your lungs burn; your stomach flips. “How do you know he drowned?”The First Stone tuts at you in pity and says, “You ask that as if your heart isn’t soaking wet.” ••• [a phone call from Joan Luz to her brother George Luz, 548 miles apart, 13:42 hours December 2, 1935][recording starts]LUZ, GEORGE: Hello?LUZ, JOAN: Hi, George?LUZ, G.: Yeah, this is George. Joanie?LUZ, J.: Hey, I finally caught you! George, I miss you.LUZ, G.: I miss you, too… Joanie, does Ma know you’re using the phone?LUZ, J.: When are you coming home?LUZ, G.: What do you mean?LUZ, J.: What are you doing there? You’re gonna come home soon, right?LUZ, G.: No, I—I live here now. You know I live in Pittsburgh. LUZ, J.: When you left the first time you said you were traveling! You were going to come back!LUZ, G.: I did! I traveled and I came back, but I can’t stay there, honey. Maybe [indistinguishable] when you’re older, maybe Ma will let you visit sometimes.LUZ, J.: I don’t want to visit you! I want my brother back!LUZ, G.: I’m right here, Joan.LUZ, J.: George, [indistinguishable, voices in background draw near and then recede] your family is important. It’s the most important thing you have.LUZ, G.: I love you, and I love Lonnie and Ma, but I have work here, I have a life—LUZ, J.: You picked him over us.LUZ, G.: No—what?LUZ, J.: I know what he is to you. I know.LUZ, G.: Joan. Joan, please, you don’t know what—LUZ, J.: When you visited that summer. You wrote him a letter. I found a draft of it in your writing desk.LUZ, G.: What? How…LUZ, J.: I’m sorry I went snooping. But I did and I found your letter.LUZ, G.: I never even sent it [concerned voice in background, deep, unintelligible] I never even sent it.[recording ends] ••• The days in Hell are centuries or seconds. The dead don’t sleep, and Joe walks around all hours with a hole in his chest the size of a fist. The right side of him fibrous with exposed nerves, like a baseball torn open on its seam—the exact silhouette of the place his love was once attached. Joe repeats his name inside his head, every day, every day, until the sound is devoid of all meaning. Just the most precious shape his lips can make. ••• “Thanatos! Hypnos!” Someone calls—a man, standing down river in a narrow skiff. “What have you found now?” He floats toward them against the rushing of the water, now churning with anxiety, splitting across the boat’s bow like tearing silk.“He’s alive!” one Stone shouts, maybe Thanatos.“Hardly!” tags on the other. The boat crunches to a stop against the riverbank and the man inside regards you with open curiosity. Dark eyes flashing with intelligence as they pick you apart. “You came quickly,” he says. You ask, “You know me?”“I knew another you,” he answers easily, as if that means a damn thing. The Stones are eager to prop you forward; their cold hands spread fingers over your shoulders like dread.“You gonna take him this time?” Hypnos asks.“Yeah, Charon, do a friend a favor.”The boatman’s eyes alight on one Stone and then the other, “I can’t take on a living soul,” he denies, “you both know that.”“He’s hardly living as it is.” Thanatos says, “I have half his heart in my hand.”Do you look alive? Charon watches you like you’re anything but. Your heart beats, your throat is full of dark, damp air, but these things mean nothing, suddenly. If you were dead, at least you’d be with your Joe.“I have a gift,” you remember now, “I have a favor for you.”“For me?” Charon asks. The river nudges his boat further up the bank, its water splashing dangerously close to your feet. You pull the embroidered handkerchief from your trouser pocket and hold it out to Charon. “From Lachesis,” you say and watch, fascinated, as his face falls from something casually aloof into a soft, golden affection.He takes it from your hand, bright eyes roaming over it’s fine threads, devouring them like a sailor reads a letter from shore. And you realize that’s what it is: it’s a love letter. Charon’s smile breaks over his face like a wave and when he looks at you, he rolls his eyes good-naturedly. He scoffs and says, “Get in the damn boat.” ••• As it happens, there is much work to do in Hades. Toye stays close to their home, going wherever he is needed, and there is always something that needs mending, always something that needs building. Toye finds work inside and out, takes pains to learn the place, which is somehow both a house and a maze; he learns the names of every servant, every pet, learns the secret places they hide whenever they are unneeded. And the more he learns, the easier things become. He stays in Hell, not living, a week, or a month, or a year—time has no name here. And Joe waits. He waits for someone, he thinks. And of all the time he spends working, Joe finds Persephone often there as well. He brings Joe water and food, and laughs when he finds Joe wary of his offered friendship. “I’ve known you many times, Joe,” he says, “I wouldn’t hurt you.”In the evenings, he sometimes shares with Joe dark wine and poppy seeds. They sit together in the dim comfort of Hades’ home; mostly, Persephone talks and mostly, Joe listens. “You know, I’ve met your George,” he says one night, sat in front of the fireplace, and Joe’s body flinches at the sound, trying to place it in his memory. “I’m always fond of him. Once, when he came to find you here, he brought flowers to mourn you.” Persephone sighs and sips his wine, “When he died I planted them where the Styx meets the mouth of the cave. I go to my mother’s once a year and I visit them when I do.” “Can you…” Joe coughs, wine blooming in his throat, “say his name again. Who? Who are you talking about?”“Your George?” Persephone asks, “you know him, Joe. I know you do.”In an instant, Joe’s heart flashes beneath his ribs, and he finds himself full of a chest-bursting sorrow. Because he doesn’t, he doesn’t know, but he’s sure that he should.Persephone puts an arm around his shoulders as he begins to cry. “I don’t understand,” Joe murmurs and leans further into his broad chest, “Why, why do I keep forgetting?”“That’s just the way it is here.” Persephone brushes a hand over Joe’s hair like a mother with her child, “It gets easier.” Joe sobs, “I don’t want it to get easier! I don’t want to forget.” Sighing, Persephone reaches forward, careful of Joe’s head, and takes the bowl of poppy seeds from the floor and offers it to Joe who accepts but doesn’t eat. “If you want—if you’re quiet about it—I’ll help you remember.” he says, “You can tell me about him.” And when Joe hesitates, he promises, “I won’t take him from you.”
“Wait!” Joe calls, bursting through the back door. The warm glow of the party spills past him and into the backyard as he follows after George, who’s now standing just below the kitchen window with his shoulders braced against the cold.
George’s cigarette flares orange in the night. It carves the curve of his lip out of the dark, the sandpaper shadow of his stubble, casts his brow severe as he tosses a glare at Joe and mumbles around his smoke, “Fuck off, Toye”—then, “Would you get the hell back inside? You’re gonna freeze your balls off.”
“I’m fine,” Joe shirks. It’s 10 p.m. and has been snowing since before sunset besides, but Joe’s body is burning. “Look,” he starts haltingly, “I’ve been an ass.”
“Yeah?” Smoke puffs past George’s lips, “I’m surprised you noticed.”
“I didn’t mean what I said in there.”
“You didn’t mean for me to hear it,” George snaps, “you don’t have to spare my feelings now.”
Joe steps closer, quickly saying, “No, look,” the wind scrapes its ice against his back, but George is so goddamn warm in front of him. A ribbon of snow falls between their bodies, melting on Joe’s bare wrist where he reaches toward him, “You are,” he swallows, watching the way George’s deep eyes bounce between both of his, “you are important to me. And I feel like I haven’t known you long enough to—to feel the way that I’m feeling.”
“Joe”—
“And it scares me.”
Above them is a perfect square of yellow light, and on the ground beside them, its mottled twin lies beneath the long shadows of their bodies. Here, alone, they’re perfectly hidden in the long drift of snow. Joe feels desperate, feels the way George’s breath comes in deep, rattling pulls; he’s close enough to catch George’s damp voice on the skin of his neck as he whispers, “Joe.”
“I feel”—brave, he thinks, and very, very afraid. Joe inches forward and says, “If you don’t want—I need you to tell me to go.”
“No,” George grabs Joe’s wrist. He’s so warm. “Don’t go,” he says.
“Tell me to go,” Joe whispers, George’s breath a ghost against his mouth.
George takes him by the face, his cigarette falling into the frosted grass. “Don’t go,” he murmurs against Joe’s lips, and he pulls him down to bring their mouths together, the rush of cold air extinguished between their bodies.
Grabbing George by the hips, Joe pushes him against the siding of the house—beneath the perfect yellow square, a halo on George’s precious head. Their kiss bursts with its sweetness, heavy like vine-ripe fruit. Like the best thing Joe’s ever tasted.
George opens his mouth and opens his arms—and Joe falls into him. He’s warm like the sun, warm despite the winter, and Joe’s heart kicks in his chest so hard he’s sure George can feel it, too. He hopes he can.
“Joe.” George whispers, a little prayer between them.
“See?” He laughs breathlessly; their foreheads bump together, “You drive me crazy.”
George kisses him again. He won’t stop kissing him. Joe thinks, I’ll never have to breathe again.
Wrapping his arms around George’s waist, Joe cherishes the line of his body against his, and as he digs his fingers into what clothes he can grasp, he starts to chuckle.
“What?” George asks. He kisses Joe again before he can answer, then asks again, “What?” while Joe’s laughter breaks adoringly between them.
“Nothing,” he says, “Nothing, it’s just. You’re wearing my coat.”
•••
February 1933
Frances Peca is the most beautiful woman in Philadelphia, says Bill Guarnere. And George is inclined to believe him. She floats from room to room in her little house, her skirt floating around her—iridescent blue like butterfly wings—the golden buckles on her shoes flashing in the lamplight, her dark curls coming undone around her face and somehow serving to make her all the more enchanting. She hosts her guests with a glass of red wine in her hand; it’s an evening to pretend, to forget that half of their friends have been laid off, that the price of a dozen eggs has risen to 31 cents, or that George had to save up a month’s wages to restring his guitar. They’re all dressed in their nicest clothes, drinking wine that’s been gathering dust in the cellar for a couple years, and George is seated on the arm of the sofa, playing dance music on his guitar and watching the other guests twirl around him like the snowflakes falling outside.A girl he’s never met kisses his cheek while George laughs and keeps his rhythm with his heel; her man refills George’s drink with an understanding nod. When he finishes his song, George flips the record player to an easy Cole Porter track and leaves his guitar on the sofa to retreat for a moment into the kitchen. Some man calls his name as he walks, it seems just to see George raise his glass to him. Another cheers when he does, and George is flushed with their flattery. He almost strolls straight into the kitchen, but stops at the sound of his name, peering beyond the doorway to find Joe, Bill, and Fran moving about the room.“Why did you have to invite him?” Joe is asking Bill as he leans back against the kitchen counter. His arms cross over his chest, his legs at the ankles, and his gaze follows Bill as he moves from one side of the kitchen to the other.“I didn’t invite nobody,” Bill’s back pauses briefly in front of the kitchen door. He jabs a thumb sideways, “you need to take it up with the boss lady.”“I’m just sayin’, what gave you guys the idea?” Joe asks as Fran passes between them, Bill now ambling out of view, “You know how I feel about him.”George hears the sound of the icebox opening and closing, catches sight of Fran’s flowing skirt as she bends and straightens. She says, “George has been a wonderful guest,” and cocks a hip and points at Joe, “and you happen to be the one who introduced us.”George stares blindly at the perfect seam running down the back of her stockings. It curves with the muscle of her calf.“I also told you that he drives me fucking crazy.” Joe protests.Bill laughs, just out of view now. His disembodied hand claps Joe on the shoulder, “Buddy, it’s obvious to everyone but him.”Like a lament, Joe begs, “Don’t say that.”“Not everyone,” Fran corrects gently, “just us. And maybe Babe.”“I can’t fucking stand to be around him anymore.” Joe looks to Bill as he crosses between him and the kitchen door, “I feel”—his eyes flicker past, lighting on George and going still, “—shit.”But George is already striding away. He walks toward the back door, grabbing his coat and hardly getting it around his shoulders before stepping outside into the gathered inches of snow. He digs in his pocket for his Zippo and Luckies; his thumb skips stupidly against the wheel—one, two, three, four—times before it finally lights and catches. He sucks away half of his cigarette by the time the backdoor slams open so hard it nearly bounces against the exterior wall.“Wait!”Joe is falling out of the house, haloed by the overflowing warmth of the party. And George can’t stand to look at him, practically naked against the snowfall. ••• You fall into Hell like you fall into sleep. Down into the dark, you take one step and then another, and there is no shimmering veil, no shadowed plane to cross. You are in the land of the living and then you are not. You knock on Hades’ front door and try to remember all that Lachesis told you: do not fear the shades.You knock again and think of Charon’s one word of advice: you must believe he is a good man. •••
He’s a poet.
He’s a real rough and tumble. He’s got the bloom of
desert peach inside his open mouth & a good amount
of crooning to do. Kiss like a snapped guitar string.
I dream of his shoulders & a full moon.
-julykings, GAY COWBOY LOVE POEM
Joe falls to his knees in Hades’ parlor. His eyes and mouth bleed their crying heat into George’s thigh where he presses his face desperately against him, his fingers clutching at the back of his knees, his heart gushing sour across his tongue. George’s hand comes down onto the crown of his head, so heavy and real Joe almost can’t stand it. “It’s you,” he chokes. It’s like coming back to life.Kneeling down, George takes Joe’s face in his hands. “It’s you,” he says back like he can’t believe it, “It’s really you.” His thumb traces reverently over the arch of Joe’s cheekbone, his eyes frantically flit about Joe’s eyes, nose, mouth. “Oh, angel.” he breathes.With his hands fisted in George’s shirt, Joe pulls on him hard, demanding to be kissed. George does, opening to him easily, trustingly, and that mouth which would normally stoke Joe’s desire instead cools a blue flame in him. I love you, I love you, he thinks. Prove to me you’re real.He is real. He tastes like his George—citrus-sweet. He smells like his George—white resin, Lucky Strikes, wood polish. The oils of his skin and hair, the near-invisible scar above his eye, the minute overbite of his teeth. Every piece of him precious. How could Joe ever forget?“I’m so sorry,” George says into his mouth. It breaks Joe’s heart to feel him start to cry. “You’re here because of me. I’m so sorry.”Joe doesn’t know why he’s here (it was summer; George loved him) but he knows it isn’t because of George. “Shut up,” he grips him hard by the nape of his neck—even here he is familiar, with his downy hairs that bleach in the summer sunlight. “Shut the fuck up. You’re here now.”They hold each other tightly, chest-to-chest, and tucking his face into George’s collar, Joe breathes him in. For a second they could be on the rug in the family room, or in the guest room at Bill and Fran’s. Joe kept forgetting, he never wants to forget again—that there are so many people who love him and who love his George. They hold each other tightly until a voice pulls them apart.“Get up off my floor.”They do, though through no volition of their own, their bodies strung up by a swift compulsion. Standing before them, Hades looms tall and sharp with his husband waiting behind him, and he looks at George like a hunter regards a bleeding doe.He says, “You don’t belong here.”“I don’t,” George agrees, “I came to take him home.”Hades rolls his eyes—and his stoic facade seems to crack; he is suddenly more of a man than a god. Tired. Strung out. Sighing, he sits in his armchair and brings a hand to his face. He says, “You want to bring him back. You always want to bring him back and I always deny you.” He shakes his head, “It’s amazing to watch you try.”Joe asks, “Sir?” “Why should I let him leave?” Hades holds up a hand to silence Joe.And Joe can see the thought as it turns behind George’s eyes. Because we love each other, he’s thinking. Why else?Instead, George asks, “Is this a test?”“It’s just a question.”George stops and he thinks, that beautiful wrinkle coming to nest between his brows, and he opens his mouth to say, “What would you do if it was him?” and gestures toward Persephone.“I’d burn the world,” Hades says easily, like to do so would be nothing. “But I’m a god,” he shrugs, “and you’re a man.”Shaking his head, George puts his arm around Joe. It’s such a relief to feel him there, stitching up his side. Joe can feel him trembling wherever they touch. “Then you understand!” he begs, “You know that when he died, I died too!”“Then it’s just selfishness, isn’t it!” Hades hand smacks down on the arm of his chair and his husband calls his name, “Everything must die! Who are you to demand an exception? For what? Your heart?”“He’s everything!” George steps forward, and some stave around them snaps across his chest, holding him back, “And it’s my fault that he’s here. I was with him!” George begins to cry again, angry and heartbroken. But Joe is just afraid. “I was with him and I didn’t save him! Let me try again.”Joe lays his hand on George’s shoulder, takes him by the wrist and says his name. Watching them for a moment, Hades sighs again. With his chin balanced on his fist, he says, “My answer is no.”When George tries to step forward again, Joe grabs him around the waist, holding onto him tightly and pressing his forehead against his shoulder. “Georgie.”“I’m not leaving.”Hades doesn’t respond; it seems he won’t hear George now that he has issued a verdict. He stands and takes his husband by the arm but as he turns to leave them, Persephone stops and tugs gently on his elbow. “Let them say goodbye, at least.” He says, “Joe has been good to me.”Glancing between Persephone and the two shivering humans crumpled together there over his carpet, that cool shroud of indifference descends again onto Hades and he allows, “Fine. Say whatever it is you think you need to say, then go back home.” Hades and Persephone leave them both to fall weakly to the floor, and for a very long time neither speaks, because that will be the beginning of the end. But Joe digs his face into George’s neck to breathe him in, and he wanders the earth inside his skin. He smells the tall grasses along their pond, the forest of trees that hide it from the rest of the world; there’s the bland, white bloom of the soap he prefers beneath motor oil from the truck, the rust that’s eating at the front right wheel well; and the sharp smell of the steel mill, the musty green and blue of the booth George records his music in, the sawdust scent of the chairs Bill made them, something like a wedding present, he’d said.“There’s something here,” Joe tells him, voice muffled in George’s shirt, “there’s something that makes you forget.”“Joe”—“I wasn’t… I was never afraid to be forgotten when I was alive, but I was never afraid to die either.” He scoffs, “Look how that turned out.”“I couldn’t forget you, angel, not ever.” George kisses the side of his head, cranes his neck to kiss his mouth. Joe turns in his arms, asking to be held one last time, and he feels George’s lips at the knob at the top of his spine. Planting seeds on his skin to bloom in the coming days. Ludicrously, Joe wishes they were naked, just so he could feel all of George against him, like maybe if he does, his body will remember him even when his mind can’t. The memories that left him come back in a drip. Like George is the memory, like Joe can absorb them through his touch alone. He remembers George’s hands, clever, deft, and musical, the miracle of them as they hold Joe now. He remembers the shine of George’s fingernails, the pink tips of his ears, the exact impression his lips leave on his skin. He remembers George’s voice. He remembers, George is the only man who ever named Joe. Angel. Angel, angel, angel.And suddenly, Joe recalls, “Sometimes I call you dove.”“Yeah,” George laughs a little, “yeah, you do. I’m your dove.” His voice pinches closed around a sob at the end, high in his throat, and the punch of his chest moves Joe like a wave.“You brought your guitar,” he says—just to keep speaking, to hear George’s voice in reply.“Yeah, Lachesis said I would need it.”“Who’s that?”“A friend, I guess,” George sniffles, kisses Joe’s neck again, “He told me how to get here.”“You wrote a song for me once, didn’t you?”“Yeah, I did. I probably wrote you a million songs—but I never was any good at writing things down.”Joe squirms a little deeper into George’s embrace and asks, “Will you play it for me?”
A SONG:
Do you remember the moment you knew? That time you looked at him—now, this was before everything else, when he was just a man you knew and sometimes talked to—that time you looked at him and found him looking back. A crackling electricity wound its way through you, like your spine was a lightning rod, and you turned away because your chest was turning into a bursting transformer up on a pole. Magnesium bright and nearly unbearable.Joe’s eyes were still on your back, pulling on you. Turn around, turn around, turn back around.
He looked back, you know.
Who?
Do you remember the first kiss, beneath the window? Yes, of course. Of course. You remember his hands were cold, and his breath was warm, and there was the halo of the kitchen light, catching the edges of his curls. It was snowing, and you melted.Do you remember the first time you met? No, not Baltimore, after that. When you saw him at a dance hall in Pittsburgh maybe a month later; he was flush-faced and smiling with a girl hanging off his arm, his hair overgrown and curling with sweat. And you thought, clear as a song: I’m gonna sink my teeth into him.You remember. Of course.And that girl. She kept looking up at him, with her eyes all starry and wet, and you almost felt sorry for her, because once he looked at you, it was like he couldn’t stop.What about the first time he took you to bed? You remember that spring in 1933, when the truck broke down on the way to Philly and you had to call Fran from a pay phone to apologize.“I told you I heard it ticking,” you said.Joe didn’t say anything, just grunted and sighed over the smoking engine.You checked into a motel room with two twins beds—back then you’d never touched him, only his hands now and again, and even then, only in the dark. You remember that he asked, even after you had kissed him a million times, even after you crawled into his bed that night. “Can I kiss you?”Yes. Of course.He asked, “Can I touch you here?” Your arms.Yes. Of course.He asked, “Can I touch you here?” Your chest.Yes, please.“Can I touch you here?” Your thighs. “Can I touch you here?” Your hips.Yes. Please, yes.Can I touch you here, Georgie? And here, and here?But he was shy about being touched by you, in a way you hadn’t expected, and you said, “But you go with girls all the time.”“Not since the party,” he shook his head, “not since you.”Remember the time you forgave him. Go back, will you? Walk all the way from your home to 17th street, take the corner and round the lot behind the pharmacy. Wade into the thinning crowd of spectators and find him there, sat on a crate and heaving with his breath. His knuckles are busted open and his left eye is swollen shut, but he’s smiling so brightly, you can almost overlook the blood in his teeth.Wait inside the pharmacy for 30 minutes, for an hour, for however long it takes the lot to empty and him to come to you. And when he does, take a cloth soaked in hot water and wash the blood from his body; cradle his face in your hands and hear him say your name.Ask him, “Well, did you win?”And hear him laugh, “Baby,” he says, “I won us $500.”Remember you forgave him because he asked you to, and you forgave him because you loved him.
Then you kissed me—I felt
hot wax on my forehead.
I wanted it to leave a mark:
that’s how I knew I loved you.
-Louis Gluck, The Triumph of Achilles
[a letter written to a lover, edited, unsent, from three states away, July 10, 1934]Dear Joe, AngelWhy should I write this letter? I will only be gone a month. You will laugh at me—today is Saturday, four days since I’ve seen you, and I’ve hardly thought of anything other than you. Your face Your voice Frank asks for you. I wish I had a picture of us for him to see. For me.Would you take a dirty of yourself picture for me? I’d keep it under my clothes wherever I went. Like a lovesick soldier. I am sick over you, you know. Frank said he could see it all over me the moment I came into the house. What have you done to me, Joe?I think of you here I wish you were here, to pick up Joanie, to scrap with LonnieFor my mother to feed you because she loves you so much and she can’t say it any other way My mind is everywhere. My mind is with you.Come swimming with me, angel. Come to the lake or to the shore with me, so I can see you there with your skin sparkling with the salt and the sand, so I can feel the slide of you beneath my fingers in the water You have a fight while I’m gone. When you win, will Bill take care of you the way I do? Who will stitch the cut above your eye? Who will wash your bloody feet?
Who will kiss you until you until you forget about all the rest?
[on an accompanying page, folded with the first, hastily crossed through but legible]
Darling, would you marry me if I asked? Darling, marry me.
marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me