anyway. Resume walking.
He's cute in a funny kind of way. If I liked boys, he'd be the kind of boy I liked. If this were the world I wanted to live in, he'd be my little brother. I'd make him hot chocolate. I'd read him bedtime stories and tuck him in at night. And I'd beat up anybody who made fun of him at school.
But this isn't that world -this is the world where men don't stand too close to men because… men don't do that.
'Mike?'
'Yeah?'
'Can I take a shower at your place?'
'Of course.'
'Just enough to blow the stink off me.'
'When did your dad throw you out?'
'Two days ago.'
'You've been out here on the street two days?'
'Yeah.'
'What a shit.'
'No, he's all right.'
'No, he isn't. Anyone who throws their kid out isn't all right.'
Matt doesn't answer. He's torn between a misguided sense of loyalty and gratefulness that someone's trying to understand. He's afraid to disagree.
We reach the bottom of the stairs. I hesitate. Why am I doing this? In annoyance, I snap back. 'Because that's the kind of person I am.'
'Huh?' Matt looks at me curiously.
'Sorry. Arguing with myself. That's the answer that ends the argument.'
'Oh.' He follows me up the stairs.
He looks around the apartment, looks at the charts on the walls. I'm glad I pulled the pictures down. He would have freaked to have seen his yearbook picture here.
'Are you a cop?'
'No. I'm a -researcher.'
'These look like something a detective would do. What are you researching?'
'Traffic patterns. It's -urn, sociology. We're studying the gay community.'
'Never heard it called that. 'Gay community.''
'Well, no, it isn't much of one.' Not yet, anyway. 'But nobody's ever studied how it all works, and so - '
'You're not gay, are you?'
No easy answer to that. I don't even know myself. The night goes on forever here. Daytime is just an unpleasant interruption. 'Look, I'm not anything right now. Okay?'
'Okay.'
I feed him. We talk for a while. Nothing in particular. Mostly food. Cafeteria food. Restaurant food. Army food. Mess halls. C-rations. Fast food. Real food. Places we've been. Hawaii. Disneyland. San Francisco. Las Vegas. His family traveled more than mine. He's seen more of the surrounding countryside than me.
Eventually, we both realize it's late. He steps into the shower, I toss him a pair of pajamas, too big for him, but it's all I've got, and take his clothes downstairs to the laundry room. T-shirt, blue jeans, white gym socks, pink panties, soft nylon, a little bit of lace. So what.
He's a sweet kid. Too sweet really. Fuckit. He's entitled to a quirk. Who knows? Maybe he'll make lieutenant. When I come back up, he's already curled up on the couch.
The other bedroom is set up as an office. A wooden desk, an IBM Selectric typewriter, a chair, a lockable filing cabinet. I'll be up for a while, typing my notes for Georgia. God knows what she'll think of this. But I'll have his stuff into the dryer and laid out on a chair in less than an hour, long before I'm ready to collapse into my own bed.
Georgia taught me how to write a report. First list all the facts. Just what happened, nothing else. Don't add any opinions. The first few weeks, she'd hand me back my reports with all my opinions crossed out in thick red stripes. Pretty soon, I learned what was fact, what was story. After you've listed the facts, you don't need anything else. The facts speak for themselves. They tell you everything. So I learned to enjoy writing reports, the satisfying clickety-clickety-click of the typewriter keys, and the infuriated golf ball of the Selectric whirling back and forth across the page, leaving crisp insect-like impressions on the clean white paper. One page, two. Rarely more. But it always works. Typing calms me, helps me organize my thoughts.
Only thing is, if you don't have all the facts, if you don't have enough facts, if you don't have any facts, you stay stuck in the unknown. That's the problem.
Later, much later, as I'm staring at the dark ceiling, waiting for sleep to come, I listen for the sound of vampires on the street below. But most of them have found their partners and crept off to their coffins. So the war zone is silent. For now, anyway.
Somewhere, out there, Mr. Death is churning. And I still know nothing about him.
Sunday morning. I wake up late. Still tired. My back hurts. I smell coffee. Wearing only boxers, I pad into the kitchen. Matt is wearing my pajama tops. They're too big on him. He's obviously given up on the bottoms, too long, and they won't stay up. He looks like the little boy version of a Doris Day movie. He's cooking eggs with onions and potatoes. And toast with strawberry jam. And a fresh pot of coffee. It's almost like being married.
'Is this okay?' he asks uncertainly. 'I thought-I mean, I wanted to do something to say thank you.'
'You did good,' I say, around a mouthful. 'Very good. You can cook for me anytime.' Why did I say that? 'Oh, your clothes are on the chair by the door. I washed them last night.'
'Yeah, I saw. Thanks. I have to go to work at noon.' He hesitates. 'Urn, I'm going to try calling my dad today. Um. If it doesn't work out-you said something about- a couple days…?'
'No problem. I'll leave a key under the mat. If I'm not here, just let yourself in.'
'You trust me?'
'You're not a thief.'
'How do you know?'
'I know.' I added, 'People who cook like this, don't steal.'
He's silent for a moment. 'My mom used to say I'd make someone a wonderful wife someday. My dad would get really pissed off.'
'Well, hey, your dad doesn't get it.'
Matt looks over at me, waiting for an explanation.
'It's simple. You take care of other people, they take care of you. The best thing you can do for someone else is cook for them, feed them, serve them a wonderful meal. That's how you tell someone that you-well, you know-that you care.'
He blushes, covers it by looking at the clock. 'I gotta get to work-' And he rushes to leave.
Sunday. There's no such thing as an afternoon off, but I cut myself some personal time anyway. Took a drive out to Burbank. Shouldn't have. Wasn't supposed to. It was part of the contract. Your old life is dead. Hands off. But I did it anyway. I owed it to them. No. I owed it to myself.
The place was pretty much as I remembered it. The tree in front was bigger, the house a little smaller, the paint a little more faded. I parked in front. Rang the bell and waited. Inside, Shotgun barked excitedly.
Behind the screen door, the front door opened. Like the house, he looked smaller. And like the house, a little more faded.
'Yes?' he squinted.
'Dad. It's me -Michael.'
'Mickey?' He was already pushing open the screen door. Shotgun scrambled out. Even with his bad hip, that dog was still a force to be reckoned with. Dad fell into my arms, and Shotgun leapt at us both, with frenzied yowps of impatience. 'Down you stupid son of a bitch, down!' That worked for half a second.
Dad held me at arm's length. 'You look different. But how-? They said you were lost in the timequake.'
'I was. I am. I found my way back-it's a long story.'
He hugged me again, and I felt his shoulders shaking. Sobbing? I held him tight. He felt frail. Then abruptly, he broke away, and turned toward the house. 'Come on in. I'll make some tea. We'll talk. I think I have some coffee
