I could stay sixteen for ever.
'Oh, Michael,' his father breathed out, and shivered and went still.
They lolled in each other's presence as if they were warm waves. Michael had finally obtained his ends. He slept.
For a while. He woke up when the Oceanside train went past, at 2.30 am.
His mind was clear. He touched his chest, and it was covered with hair. He looked down and saw the slightly greying fur and his plumper stomach. His father still slept beside him, only two years older than he was. Latin, big-dicked, as handsome as Brendan Fraser, and Michael did not want him in the least.
But this was still Oceanside in 1976.
Michael was terrified. He threw off the sheet and stood up, and looked out the window. There over the wall was the vacant lot next to the train tracks. The lot was now a multi-screen cinema, and there was a new train station.
My God, what have I done?
Michael still had to pee. He turned and walked out of the room and there was a sensation as if he were parting shower curtains. Reality billowed and separated and closed shut behind him.
In the dark, he felt his way straight along the landing, next to the stairs.
Michael pulled open the bathroom door in Sheffield. His mother had a 1960s colour sense and the walls were lavender and the door lintel was mauve. And on the toilet, naked, sat himself at sixteen. He was wiping his butt and looked up. His face was thicker and more obstreperous. He looked, curiously, more like his mother.
'Close the door, willya. Get the fuck outa here.' The accent was pure American. He was beefier; the strength concentrated in his shoulders and arms. He can throw, Michael thought. He plays football.
'We need to talk,' said Michael, his arms thinner, hairier, his stomach softer.
'I'll be with you in a second.'
'You're straight, aren't you?' Michael demanded.
'What's it got to do with you, fruit fly?'
Another self, another fantasy.
Michael sat on the edge of the bathtub.
'What happened?'
'Whatja mean?'
'To us. You were straight, what happened to you?'
This other self flushed the toilet. 'I dunno.'
'Go back to that moment in Oceanside when he pulls the car over and starts to cry because he's so happy you want to live with him for a while. So you go and study in San Diego. You play on the football team and you get your degree. What happens after that?'
This other self circled gum round and round in his mouth and looked confrontational, but curiously, he had Henry's puppy-dog eyes. He was bronzed and had a terrible seventies haircut: compromised Beatle with sideburns. He looked Latin.
'I met this girl, you know, in school. So we got married. I got my degree in veterinarian medicine, we moved north to Ventura, where her folks are.' This was still in his future but he knew his future because he was timeless.
'What happened to Dad?'
'He lost his job at forty-eight, but with an NCO's payoff and stuff. I'll help him set up in a window repair business. There's a real call for that in Oceanside. All that salt air on those aluminium French windows. He'll show up looking cool, and all those divorced women, man. He'll get a lot of ass.' This Michael chuckled.
'He doesn't drink?'
'Well, that Latin blood. He knows he suffers for it in the morning, so he'll take it easy.' His head jerked backwards; his face was impassive. This was how a tough guy laughed. 'Man, you look so English.'
'I am so English.'
'You really gay?'
'Yup.'
'What's that like?'
'No different from being straight… except you lead a different life.'
'Did you, like, really make a pass at Dad?'
'Yes.'
'Jeesh. You're really sick.' He was amused. Michael thought he was going to say something like Gross-out City. Instead he said, 'Do you like me too?'
'Up to a point.'
The teenager's grin was steady. 'Jeez. What don't you like about me?'
Michael stirred. 'Your attitude. I know what's inside and I know what you're hiding. Remember, I never saw Dad when we were kids. So, whenever I did see him, he didn't feel like my father. When I did see him, he was my ideal man.'
There was a glimmer of understanding. The voice went softer. 'Mine too. He sees my kids a lot. He comes up that driveway and they go running out. 'Grandpa Blasco! Grandpa Blasco.' 'Cause he always brings them little presents and stuff, you know.'
Tell him I love him.'
Michael Blasco sighed. 'Where I am, you don't exist. And him and me, we don't have to tell each other that shit. We just know.'
'Cool,' said Michael, smiling.
'Cool,' agreed Michael the Angel. He looked around him at the walls and his face screwed up with distaste. 'Are all English bathrooms this colour?'
'Only Mum's.'
'I keep thinking I'll go and visit. I remember my English half too. Keep an eye open, you might even see me in London, England.'
They didn't really have much to say to each other. The other Michael narrowed his eyes. 'So. I guess I'll be on my way. It's been really… weird.'
'I'll go,' said Michael.
He stepped out of the bathroom. And looked down the corridor past both bedrooms to the sitting room. Somebody was watching the TV. He could hear sobbing music, and a breathy, posed woman's voice whisper a scripted lament. He padded down the corridor. The carpet and the walls were white.
In the Oceanside living room, another Michael was watching a movie at 3.00 am. He was crying, and hugging and chewing a pillow at the same time. He was practically bald, with long hair in wisps, and just above the ears, a line of black scabs.
Michael sat down on the sofa next to him, gently, fearful of disturbing or even breaking him. 'Hiya,' he said gently.
'Hiya,' this Michael replied, miserable, and with a quick jab wiped his face.
'Howya doin'?'
'Oh,' this one sighed. 'Not so chipper.' He had lost even more weight than our Michael had.
'Where have you spent the last twenty years?'
This Michael didn't want to talk. He wanted to watch his movie. It was Gene Tierney. Who, these days, was a Gene Tierney fan?
'Are you gay?'
Long pause. 'Uh-huh.' An American yes.
'Did you marry Dad?'
Longer pause. 'I divorced him.' With a shiver of irritation, curdled anger, this Michael suddenly roused himself and snapped off the television from the remote control. He turned and faced Michael, looking like death. 'So what exactly do you want to know?'
'What happened?'
'What the hell do you think happened?'
Michael's voice went soothing. 'I don't know.'
