them, and finally the wind was light and full of rain smell and he became less aware of the world and the ground and it was all good, but then he started thinking about Talia and how she looked, how she smelled, how her body looked in the tight clothes and about what Joey had said—
“Stop it,” Tad said.
Harry opened his eyes. “What?”
“You’re not blending, Harry. First I thought you were, but you’re somewhere else. I can tell from the way your body is reacting. You were light starting out, arms even came down by your sides, you were so relaxed. Then they came up again, hands and fingers tense. You got to work with me here.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know. And it ain’t easy. It’ll take some time. This time we’re going to try again, and when I feel you’re relaxed, I’ll say step, and you just take a step forward. Not a conscious step that pulls you out of connection with things, but a step that is like a leaf blowing in the wind. Let the elements control you; it’s not about you controlling them.”
“If I lift my foot, aren’t I controlling that?”
“At first. You’ll be dealing with your conscious mind. But think about this: When you go somewhere, walking, it may well be your muscles doing it, but they’re responding in a way that is unconscious. Learn to drive a car, at first you think, Hands on the wheel, eyes forward, need to press the gas, and so on. But in time you get in the car and drive, and you’re not aware you’re doing it. That’s what we want here. We’re going to get past the conscious mind and into the subconscious. The one that is most tapped into the universal connection between man and nature.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. Once again, Harry. Relax. Close your eyes. Listen.”
26
Harry practiced with Tad in the yard for a week, when he wasn’t in school or at his job, which it turned out he had not lost. They wanted to fire him—he was sure of that—but workers were hard to come by, and for the most part he was pretty dependable.
He stayed with Tad at his place, so he wouldn’t be tempted in the middle of the night to take a stroll to the liquor store, and he could make sure Tad didn’t take a stroll or a ride to the store himself.
Harry discovered he wasn’t so fond of liquor that he thought about it all the time, but he did miss it some. Tad, on the other hand, paced at night and cussed and rubbed his mouth and went out into the yard and moved slowly across it, with loose steps, just doing his thing, working hard to reconnect to the universe. “It’s the way we all are right before we’re born, in the womb,” Tad told him. “Natural. Then we lose it.”
Harry would find himself watching Tad, decked out in an old T-shirt, sweatpants, and tennis shoes, admiring the simple, loose sort of steps he made across the yard and the way the moonlight painted him and the way the leaves turned and sailed about him. Sometimes they spun as if in a little tornado, Tad at their center, the calm, smooth eye of the storm, moving across the yard, his entourage of dry, crackling leaves in swirling pursuit, he and the earth, the moonlight, and the air, all the same.
And finally there were more than steps across the yard.
Tad would move in other ways. His arms would flash out, loose like a monkey moves, then the legs would move, never high and never in some kind of cocked kicking motion, just quick and easy, his hips moving with it, his body flowing across the ground, and even when Tad did this, these moves with arms, legs, and hips, he never seemed to disconnect from the fabric of the night, the fabric of time. He was all and the same, him and the big ol’ universe.
It was just too cool to see.
And there was another thing.
A very nice thing.
Harry slowly discovered, in that week, he wasn’t as afraid as before. He was still up there in the scared-as- shit department, but not quite into the scared-shitless range. This, though minor, was an improvement.
Oh, he wasn’t throwing away his well-worn paths. He stayed on those. But he wasn’t thinking about it all the time, the hidden sounds.
Even found he was moving better. Felt better as he walked to class or moved around the bookstore. Maybe, he thought, it was all in his head, but even if it was bullshit, it was better than the other thing.
The sounds, with their deep wells of memories.
27
“I didn’t mean to get your panties in a bunch,” Joey said.
“Sorry I got so mad,” Harry said. “Mostly.”
“Just didn’t want to see you hurt.”
“I’m not so sure, Joey.”
“Look. I brought a peace offering.”
Joey was standing on the little porch, lit up by the porch light. Bugs swarmed above him and around the light and made a little chitinous halo over his head. The peace offering was a sack squeezed around a bottle, the neck of which poked out of the top of the bag. Joey looked sweaty, even though the weather was cold. Harry knew he had walked a great distance—first from his place to the liquor store, then here. It’s the way he always got around—by foot. More so lately since his car had been squashed at the wrecking yard and made into a toolbox or some such thing.
Maybe that’s why he wants to be friends again, Harry thought. So he can get a ride. Be just like the cocksucker.
Joey moved toward the doorway, but there was no passage. Harry was filling it, and for just that reason, so Joey couldn’t slide by. Joey had a way of doing that. It was like when you trapped a rat against a refrigerator, only to discover it could go thin on you, slide through the grille work down there, disappear into it and come out the back way. That’s the way Joey was. He was like a rat that could go thin on you. Didn’t watch yourself, he’d be around you and inside before you knew it.
Harry figured if he had known Joey was out there, he wouldn’t have answered. Should have peeked through the window. Checked it out before opening the door.
Course, if he had, Joey would have seen him. Like a rat, he was observant. Ever ready to take advantage or scuttle for safety.
Son of a bitch surprised him, just knocked, was standing there with his sack and his lopsided grin, and now Harry didn’t know what to do. He had been caught at home. The rat was already starting to go thin on him; he could sense it.
“Look,” Joey said. “I’m an asshole. I’ve always been an asshole. But I’m your friend.”
“That’s the unfortunate part.”
“Come on.”
Shit. I’m being outratted, Harry told himself. I know it. He knows it. But I’m a creature of habit. A fucking lab rat myself. A response machine. I always forgive him. I always let him by.
Harry stepped aside.
“All right, asshole,” Harry said. “Come in.”
“That’s more like it,” Joey said.
Joey scooted in, removed the bottle, dropped the sack on the floor, clanked the bottle onto the bookshelf. He took off his coat and tossed it on a chair.
“I’ll get some glasses,” Joey said.
“Just get one. I’m not drinking.”
Joey paused, looked at Harry. “What kind of celebration is that?”
“It’s not a celebration. Shit, Joey. What are we celebrating?”
“Us still being friends.”
“I don’t know that’s such a cause for celebration.” Harry sat on the couch and studied Joey. “I’ve known you,
