Nathan Greene
Short Fiction
A long bus ride, Boston to Camden. Towns from the past passing. Brunswick, Bath, Wiscasset, and Waldoboro. Their rivers, too. Rusted bridges. Wide cobalt stretches. Wind foaming waves orthogonal to the current. I am lost in image. Find me. These frames are yours, too. Rocks, forest channels, autumn maple on the eddy-etched water. Fisherman wading in streams. Kids will kiss under these willows next summer. Not in this cold. October in Maine.
Paul waits ahead. A gray lot. A hand.
“Lor-rie.”
That syllable. College nights.
“Pawl.”
Wrap me close. A heavy work jacket. His black beard tight trimmed—eyes bluer than daylight. Capture every shade.
“Made it up all right?”
Goosebumps in the car. The heat.
“Cold day.”
“Boston, too.”
“I’ll show you Camden.”
The same white-trim brick buildings as the coast. Pumpkins on wooden balconies. Smoke, chimneys. The center of town. What can we capture from this? What will hold us? Here’s an old colonial. Here’s Paul, childhood. Orange lights in the windows—panes fogged by poultry. The women inside. We are all slaves to butter. Is it not enough?
A sloop in the harbor, open doors. Smell the algae. Brine. Wires snap against masts.
“Adit has been dating—so you know,” says Paul. “Some, you know.”
Didn’t. Don’t.
“Are we sailing?”
“Mine’s there. In the middle… Not this year.”
“Well thanks for telling me, Paul.”
The road leading again. Heavy granite promontories. Forests burning with pigment. It all passes through us. Inspect any one slide, one slice, and it is replaced. Here’s Paul beneath. A woman and his job. She’s waitressing after college; he teaches. America—could these be our lives? Are they so small? He tells me he loves her. What is there to know in love. Fuck love, maybe. Love is a body. There is no good reply.
Now entering: Belfast on a green sign. Stands of white birch flicker past. The somber sky is fading. A town, incandescent bulbs. Narrow streets aglow. The boutique stores. What holds a place together? What separates. A crowd. The Three Tides bar, a festival. Orange flyers.
Pass it all for the harbor.
Paul parks, the truck keys.
“Up there,” he says, his tone. Abrupt. You hardly talked. Now you notice, of course.
A long cement dock, a wooden prow. Speedboats. Adit and Graham—whiskey tumblers on the back deck. Fingers on a boat rail. Is lust a cure for boredom? Or a source. The air gone to charcoal. Running lights in pale circles on the dock. Graham first. His big head.
“The documentarist!”
“I’m not—”
“It’s just Lorrie” from Paul.
Adit watching him, the water. Anything but me. Anything but the high curve of his brow. What do you see when you look away? Hugs, empty hugs.
Inside, a cabin. Plastic covers on the furniture. Cherry detailing, windows. Adit dusts the couch. Graham and Paul, the banter, their banter. ‘Hows em rocks. Gone up north we did. Head’s up North. Hers is. Still dreaming, eh Lorrie.’ The boys stare. All to me, expectantly…
“That’s it,” Graham says.
“Right there,” Paul agrees. “She knows.”
I don’t. Red flash. Eyes blurry in the heat.
Adit smiling. One uneven tooth. Whiskey? He’s gone before I say. Paul and Graham. Everything to discuss. Winds, reels, lawnmower blades, karaoke, fermenting. Nothing to mean. These are men. These are their epics, now. What is there to want? But you do. Leave.
A small mess, square. Round windows. A ship’s clock in the corner. Clean appliances.
“How are you, Lor?”
Adit mixing. Forearms.
“I’m good. It’s been good. Boston. Lots of bright people. I like the town. It’s been good. How are you, Adit?”
“Here’s a beautiful place this time of year.”
Hereza. Local poetry, if you can believe it. I believe it. Adit, the top shelf. A wiry stretch. The weightlessness. How sudden a movement, his long curls trailing.
“Paul showed me Camden.”
“Beautiful there, too.”
“Seen him much?”
“Oh Paul?”
Hereza whiskey. Slow hands. A clean tumbler.
“Sure. Some. We climbed…”
“I saw pictures.”
Paul laughing. Graham nearby. Loud voices, fading, rising. Stupid, lovely youth.
Adit, too. He had been talking.
“On the bus?” he prompts.
Stall.
“I was editing film.”
“Oh… Is all that going well? Down in Boston?”
“Filming?”
“All of it?”
“Not really,” I say.
“Oh… Sure. I’m sure.”
A smile, lips. Goodbye. Goodbye uneasiness. Sip whiskey. My family? Ma and da out west. My names. Try these. Ma. Ma bought a new dog. Learn it from the old one before it dies. Da. Da and the independent newspaper. Nobody reads it. Ma by the window. Da in bed. These are where they work. These are them. They’re happy. What the hell else to say?
Graham from the other room:
“Better get on out soon.”
Not yet. Drink. Whiskey at any speed. It happens.
The sky again. The air from brisk to sharp. Frost on pipe railings. Misting windows. The Passagassawakeag river. Old water here. Cold as bones. No boats out.
The festival is calling.
Do we even want to go? Do we ever…
Three Tides, large tents, canvas glowing. A white cloth sky. This is why, etcetera. Live these. A bearded man. An Ale-Ien ale burns, thrills. The boys break and reform. Here’s a girlfriend. Mom is drunk. Lift this guy up off the floor. A loneliness in bars that you never remember. Not till you’re on the back deck. It’s all so fun, you know. A tall black stove. Fire. Warm fingers, dry eyes. Who’s crying? Sparks near the moon.
There’s Paul. Did you know a whole body can move while it talks? This is sailing. A vertical arm, the mast. A horizontal, water.
Wish you could talk like me, his eyes say. Can’t. To wish is to be. There’s hardly time.
“Lor-rie.”
“Pawl.”
Here are lazy flames, embers.
“Where are we all going?”
I gaze at the fire, the ground.
“Thanks for picking me up.”
The stars. The boredom of the universe.
“Listen, want to dance?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet, no. Just tell me when.”
Never. There is never a when for tragedy. Music at the bar.
Adit’s palm—sweaty on the groove beneath the knuckles. An invitation. What terrible timing. It’s permanent. We live in time. The people twist and smile. Loose torsos, arms, shoulders. The banjo, the atmosphere. Can you trust it to keep the body moving?
Freedom is loose circles. Contradiction, guilt. The senses. An amber-lit stage, the pale tent. Galaxies above. Stretches and clicks; the swish of my hair. Adit was here once, too.
I swear he wasn’t. See. I’m alone.
Upstairs, Paul. Eyes in his beer. Ask the bar for water.
“How’s the dancing?” he asks.
“Good. The guys’re good.”
“The band?”
“Yeah.”
A pinky, the rim of his glass.
“How’s Adit?”
The band, again, through the floor. Drums.
“So this new girl?” I ask.
Paul:
“Anything but her.”
What to say.
“Anything but this, Lorrie.”
Try to listen. He’s still talking.
“Everyone here is just… They don’t really care like you’d want them to. I mean they try but they’re just a bunch of kids that want to have fun, mostly.”
“She’s like that?”
“No, Charlotte—that’s her name—Charlotte’s great, but yeah, a little. Like I care about her but for how long? You’d want it to be real, not just fun. But I wouldn’t say that to her. So then I wait. Like I’m waiting, and she’s waiting, and it’s just a big wait.”
No solutions. Except:
“You know before all this—when we were friends—you and I. What about all of that?”
“Paul.”
“Please?”
“Anything but this, Paul.”
The bartender, my water.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Not really.”
He finishes his beer.
“Lor-rie,” he says.
What an attempt.
“Pawl.”
“I’m gonna dance.”
“Save one,” I say.
“Can’t.”
The lines, his eyes. Check these uneven shoulders. Summer fading, tiredness, like creaking trees. Snow. There are still leaves to rake this autumn. The past. It’s all shit to say.
Better to sit. The present is a circle of crowded bars. Pick one. Weave the future. Tomorrow, a decade. We are fingerprints on a water glass. Condensation dripping.
A hand on my back. Adit. Heat, the fabric of my clothing this night.
“Where’re Paul and Graham?”
“Cigarettes.”
“Oh.”
We leave. Everyone is leaving.
“See them?”
“Should we check the boat?”
“We would have seen them.”
“I’ll call.”
An orange quarter card, the breeze.
“You look cold.”
“I am cold.”
Ten steps. An arm through mine. The moon—more white than sex. The emptiness of eyelids. Rows of masts above dark water. More clicks, more jingles.
“So, I’m curious…”
Footsteps on pavement.
“How do you so enchant all the boys, Lorrie?”
My cheeks. Air too cold to blush.
“Do you know why?” he continues.
“I don’t even know what you’re asking.”
The gate by the dock, the ramp. Puddles already frozen.
“They like me because I don’t stop them. I don’t fight illusion.”
The angle of the moon. A long shadow on his nose. It is the creaking hour—flags snap, ropes stretch, pylons rub. The river, here. Adit’s face, straight and calm. No one night. They are all matter. Ugly and perfect. Here are my lashes. The smell of tar. Then it’s hickory and salt. The dark ahead, the warmth. If you live for yourself, you can always tell at least one truth. But what if I want two. Or three. Live for bitterness then. A taste that knows its own end. Paul will tonight. Bless him. Because who can hear air? Who can hear the fall? And with my lips I answer.
It’s too hot for blankets, after all.
Nathan Greene also wrote recently in Bitter Oleander Review, In Parentheses, and Watershed Review. Find more of their work at www.readvoices.com.
Photo Credit: Annie Drake is a writer and artist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For her, photography feels like play. She goes with what feels good and tries not to think too hard about it. Her process is obstinate. Her style is rebellious. She’s happy to be alive.
L'Esprit Literary Review 