Utah Saints (pt 10).

I’m looking out the window into the parking lot where the sky’s pink and snow’s still falling, and everything really pretty. It’s near midnight, and I can’t sleep. Carl Lee sure can, Christ, listen to that fucker saw logs, his face all blue from the TV picture that rolls over every once in awhile. His hair is messed up good now. A couple times I sat by the bed and smoothed it back down. It’s real soft.

The Army was gonna make a man outta me. I didn’t have to join, I coulda worked on cars like my uncles. But you live in the same place your whole life and people know about you. That’s just the way it is. There were already more’n a couple stories about ol’ Ham Sandwich running around town and marrying Bobbie Celetti hadn’t done a god damned thing to shut people up – and she’s probably burning up the white pages right this very second telling everybody about those mags she found under the tub.

She never could get pregnant, though we tried all the time. I always hated that, ‘cause I think I could have been a real good dad, and maybe if there was somebody besides just me and her, things might have been different. All I know is that I wouldn’t ever have dropped all that on my kid like my old man did to me about being a man and winning all the time and sticking up for yourself and not being a pansy. And Bobbie ended up getting all of her inside took out on account of some bad plumbing – I used to think that the whole reason I had trouble fucking her was ‘cause I could feel how empty it was in there. Except for this one time when we was both drunk and I put it in her ass – she cried the whole time and said it hurt, but I was real hard that time and got off like a fucking rocket. After that, she didn’t want me to fuck her at all, which was fine with me.

Carl Lee moves a little and says something in his sleep, but I can’t tell what.

It’s too quiet. I get down on the floor and start doing my push-ups. I do them faster and faster, knocking them out, looking right in front of me. But it ain’t working – all I can do is think. Think, think, think is what he’d say.

There’s a bar down the block; I get a draft and sit on a stool, listening to the people talk. Seems like everybody’s good and fucked up, everybody laughing and spitting on each other when they talk. A guy next to me says his name’s Dan, and Dan used to be in the Air Force, and he got out ‘cause of a fucked up knee. We have a good time trading stories; he works at a slaughterhouse now and the stuff he tells me about killing cows is awful as hell. Me and Dan start slapping each other on the back after each story, and one time Dan’s hand slips down my back a little and I look up quick and catch him kind of winking, maybe, could have been that kind of look that most people wouldn’t know what it was, but I got the powers, and I know what the fuck it was all right.

I slide off the stool, standing up, dizzy as shit. Don’t touch me, I say, and Dan thinks I’m just fucking around so he pokes me, laughing, and I pick up a beer glass and throw it at him and it bounces off his head but don’t break and he grabs me and a couple other guys jump in, and there’s lots of hands and faces pushing me down and I start to yell, really howl ‘cause I think that they’re going to kill me.

They toss me out into the snow. I barely hit the ground before I’m back up and running fast as I can across the street, falling a couple times, slamming the door to the room when I get inside and locking it.

Carl Lee sits up, rubbing his eyes. I pull off my clothes, breathing hard. It’s just me.

I’m naked and freezing and blue from the TV. I look like I’m fucking dead, but I’m not. I swear to God, I’m not.

I get under the sheet. He’s naked too, and I get on top of him.

Shush, I say. I’m rubbing on him, back and forth, and he just looks at me. I’m hard and he’s not, but I don’t give a fuck, I hug him tight, and he hugs me back and pats me on the back, and I hump him harder and harder, saying oh fuck, oh fuck, holding him as tight as I can when I’m popping off.

I can’t breathe, Carl Lee says. I let go; I get out of bed and stand up.

Yuck, he says. He’s got my cum all over him.

You clean that shit up, I say. I go get in the shower, turning it all the way to hot and standing under ‘til I can take no more, saying fuck you to the wall. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Carl Lee’s asleep when I come back out. I turn off the TV and get into bed and put a pillow between me and him.