Work Text:
The song on the radio was sad, although Casey couldn’t hear the words. It was the melody, and the singer’s voice that made him sad. Brown leaves were skittering across the diner’s parking lot.
October. October now, he thought, and suddenly felt like crying, without knowing why. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand.
“Headache?” Zeke asked from across the table. His voice seemed to come from across the room.
“No,” Casey said. “Tired. Sad.” He wanted to leave the diner, with its sad music and dead leaves. He wanted to get back in the car. He wanted to sit next to Zeke and fall asleep while Zeke drove and this place receded into the distance.
“You’re not going to eat?” Zeke asked. Casey looked down. He’d forgotten that there was food in front of him.
“I want to go,” Casey said. He wished that he could crack his head open and show Zeke what was inside, and then Zeke would see and fix it. “Please, can we just go now, Zeke?”
Casey heard Zeke tell the waitress to wrap up his uneaten lunch. He put his forehead on the window. There were more leaves in the parking lot now and the sky was dark blue clouds with the sun behind them like a fractured eye. Casey was afraid. He felt like a bug on a white wall, exposed. Stokely’s apartment was nice and small. He wished they had stayed there. Out in the open, the wind was just going to scatter him one day. Maybe today. Scatter his bones like the brown leaves, all over the parking lot. All over.
Zeke was counting out change on the table. Suddenly Casey felt sick, sick at the sight of Zeke counting out change on the table of some diner at the end of the world where dead leaves would always be filling up the parking lot, blowing away, filling it up again. There was a brown bag on the table, presumably with Casey’s lunch in it, soon to be Casey’s dinner, as if there was ever any point in eating. Casey wanted to smash his head against the window. What are we doing here? he thought hopelessly. He was falling to pieces. He bit his lip savagely to bring himself back together.
They finally left. It was cold out, it was always cold. Casey wished that Zeke would put an arm around him, but was ashamed to ask. He hadn’t always felt like this, had he? He hugged himself and stumbled along behind Zeke. Zeke was the only solid thing in the world. Everything else was just dead leaves and wind and bruised sky. He tripped and steadied himself. His legs weren’t working right. Nothing on him worked right. Had it ever?
The floor of the car was covered in garbage—road maps and toll tickets and fast-food wrappers and napkins. There was a Dunkin Donuts cup in the cupholder, with a cigarette butt floating in it. Zeke put the lunch bag on the dashboard. More garbage. A skeletal leaf smacked up against the windshield. Casey jumped. He didn’t want to be in the car at all. He didn’t want Zeke to be in the car, either. He wanted to crawl into Zeke and hide. Both of them, hide, hide, hide.
“You all right, Casey?” Zeke asked.
“Yeah,” Casey said, thinking no . He mustered a shaky smile. His hands were clenched into fists. He could feel his stubby nails digging to his palms.
“Casey,” Zeke said. He put his hand on the back of Casey’s neck. It was so warm. “We’re okay, you know? We’ll be okay.”
Casey closed his eyes and nodded. He felt Zeke’s warmth on the back of his neck, even after Zeke had taken his hand away. He put his own hands where Zeke’s had been. Warm.
_____
Casey was afraid to go in the house, but was more afraid to stay in the car by himself. It was getting dark, the failing sun burned on the horizon, orange as a jack-o’-lantern. Soon it would be completely dark. Zeke could go in the house and never come out. Or something terrible could happen to Casey in the car, before Zeke came back. Or Casey could just go mad listening to the wind whisper through the gap where the passenger window didn’t go all the way up. Zeke asked him if he was okay enough to go in the house. Casey nodded, afraid to be left behind.
There was a black woodstove in the house, radiating heat. Zeke told him to sit beside it and warm up while he talked to the old man. Casey tried to listen to the conversation but couldn’t follow it. He watched Zeke instead, knowing all of Zeke’s gestures—the way he clasped his hands and nodded when he was listening, the way he smiled, the way he would glance at Casey now and then. Casey’s back was warm and Zeke was there, and his whole awareness narrowed to those two things.
Someone touched his shoulder and Casey twitched. An old woman was beside him.
“You look so cold, do you want something hot to drink? I have coffee…or cocoa…”
Casey suddenly thought of his mother. Where was his mother? His mind fumbled about, like someone trying to find a lightswitch in the dark, but touching things that felt so awful he was glad the lights were out. He looked frantically towards Zeke, terrified that he wouldn’t be there anymore.
“He’s fine, ma’am,” Zeke said, and gave Casey that look, the one that told him to hold it together, at least for a little while longer.
Zeke stood up. He shook hands with the man, and the man handed him something shiny. Casey wanted to go, go now, go before anyone asked him anything else, before his brain could start searching around again, before Zeke disappeared before his very eyes.
“Nice to meet you, Casey,” the old man said, but it was a like a voice coming out of a tunnel, and Casey turned away.
In the car, Zeke hung the shiny thing from the rearview mirror. It was a key on a piece of red yarn.
“Almost home, Casey,” Zeke said. Casey watched the key twist and glitter, picking up the porchlight. He didn’t ask Zeke what he meant.
_____
October now, Casey thought and felt like screaming. Zeke was driving and it was dark and Casey was scared, and so tired. When had he last slept? He didn’t sleep anymore, he was afraid to sleep. He was sinking, sinking, and he wanted to clutch at Zeke to save himself, but couldn’t. He twisted his hands in his lap.
Zeke pulled into another parking lot. It was too dark now to see if there were dead leaves blowing through it, but there was a squat red building with a sign, Blue Ox Mini-Mart under two white spotlights. The letters looked like Lincoln Logs. In the window, a string of white skeletons danced.
“What are those?” Casey asked. “What are those doing there?”
“Halloween lights,” Zeke said, and told Casey he could stay in the car if he wanted. Casey didn’t. He opened the door and it seemed twenty degrees colder out now that it was night. Arctic. Casey couldn’t go out there without his hat. He knew he had one somewhere. He bent over and fumbled through the mess on the floor.
Zeke leaned through the door. “What are you looking for?” he asked.
“My hat,” Casey mumbled. “My hat, I have a hat.”
“Put your hood up,” Zeke said.
“My hat,” was all Casey could answer, and Zeke got down on his knees and helped him look.
They found it in the glove compartment. Casey pulled it on and held onto the brim. He felt a little better with his head covered. A little. He got out of the car. The mini-mart was lit up but everything else was black. Casey ran to catch up with Zeke.
In the mini-mart were low shelves of groceries under fluorescent lights. It was too bright. Casey’s head ached. He passed a wall of refrigerators, endless rows of cola and beer behind glass doors. Casey stopped and stared at his reflection, lost, not recognizing himself.
“Zeke?” he asked…and no one answered. Zeke wasn’t in front of him anymore. He wasn’t in the aisle. Casey looked around. What’s happening? he thought frantically. What’s happening? Zeke was gone. The wind had blown him away, like the dead leaves. Casey started to run.
He collided with Zeke in the next aisle and almost wept with relief. He clutched at Zeke’s coat and pressed his face into it, making sure Zeke was really there. He could hear himself panting, his breath hitching in his throat. Zeke put a hand on the back of Casey’s head.
“You need to get some sleep, buddy,” Zeke said. Casey nodded, wishing he could sleep. Lie down next to Zeke in some warm, quiet place and sleep .
Zeke paid for the groceries. The sign beside the cash register ordered, Leave a penny—Take a penny! Behind the counter, another sign said, Three Day Rental on Video’s!
Back in the car, Casey watched the skeletons grow small in the sideview mirror.
“Halloween,” Casey said.
“Almost,” Zeke answered.
“October,” Casey said, and shuddered. Zeke turned on the heat.
Casey couldn’t see anything outside the window, it was pitch black. He turned away from it. There was just enough light from the dashboard to see Zeke, and Casey stared at him.
Zeke lit a cigarette and handed it to Casey. Casey smoked and watched Zeke smoke and drive. He tried to calm down. Zeke slipped his cigarette butt out through the top of the window and it disappeared into the blackness, trailing orange sparks. He wished Zeke hadn’t done that, it was awful to see how quickly that little piece of Zeke could be blown away. Casey put his own cigarette in the Dunkin Donuts cup. It hissed minutely.
Casey felt the car turning. Zeke stopped and turned off the engine.
“Where are we?” Casey asked.
“Home sweet home,” Zeke said, and pointed. In the headlights, Casey could see a low building in the darkness, a white box with black windows. Zeke turned off the headlights and then Casey saw nothing.
“I don’t want to go in there,” Casey said. Zeke sighed and got out of the car.
Casey didn’t want to stay in the car either, so he got out and followed Zeke. Zeke had a flashlight, and Casey could see the white box in its wavering beam. He felt dirt under his feet.
“Watch it, there’s steps,” Zeke said, and shone the flashlight onto two cinderblocks that led up to a patched screen door. It squealed when Zeke opened it.
Zeke turned on the lights. “Not so bad,” he said.
Casey saw a living room with an orange carpet and a plaid sofa. Wood-paneled walls. A TV on a spidery cart. To the left, a kitchen. Between those two rooms, a short hall leading into darkness. It was cold. It reeked of pine cleaner. Casey felt like gagging.
Zeke was fiddling with the thermostat.
“I want to go back to Chicago,” Casey said.
Zeke didn’t look at him. “We can’t, Casey. Not right now.”
Casey started pacing around the living room on shaky legs. He chewed his lip. He wrung his hands. He thought about the music in the diner and the dead leaves. The skeletons in the window and the fluorescent lights and the woman in the other house and her cocoa and his mother and it was October, October now and didn’t that mean something, didn’t it, didn’t it…
“Zeke,” he said, but Zeke couldn’t hear him, he was putting things in the refrigerator. “Zeke,” he said again, desperately.
Zeke looked up at him, over the top of the refrigerator door.
“What…what’s wrong?”
Casey looked away. He looked back at Zeke imploringly.
It’s dark out and I don’t want to be here. It’s dark out and you’re all the way over there and I don’t want to be here and why are we here? Why don’t you…why don’t you see, don’t you see, don’t you know? I can’t…my head is…I’m scared and why aren’t you scared, there’s so much to be afraid of. It’s October and didn’t you see the leaves in the parking lot and don’t you hear the wind blowing and didn’t you see the sky and it’s October and I can’t tell you, you know I can’t tell you but please, Zeke, please please, look at me and don’t leave me over here, please, Zeke, I’m going to blow away into pieces, I’m in pieces already, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Zeke, do something please, let’s go let’s get away from here please please please, something’s wrong everything’s wrong everything’s been wrong always always please please Zeke please help me help me help me…
“I don’t know,” Casey said. “I don’t know.” He started crying. He put his hands up and tugged on the brim of his hat. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Zeke was coming over. Zeke was making him sit down on the couch. Casey put his hands over his face and Zeke was trying to take Casey’s hat off but he held onto it.
“You need to go lie down, okay, Casey? You’ll feel better when you get some sleep.”
Casey shook his head. He was never going to feel better, it was never going to get better, it was always going to be like this, he would always be…be…
Casey looked up sharply. He’d heard something, something outside.
“Someone’s coming,” he said.
Zeke looked towards the door. He’d heard it too.
“No one knows we’re here,” Zeke said, but he looked wary, alert, and Casey was frightened. Outside, a noise like a car door slamming.
“Hide,” Casey said. He tugged on Zeke’s sleeve. “Hide now, we have to hide.”
Zeke shook his head. He was saying something about the landlord, that Casey could go sit in the bedroom, that he didn’t have to talk to him. Casey shook his head furiously.
“No, no, we should hide, Zeke, please…”
Footsteps were crunching on the dirt outside, the way his and Zeke’s had. Zeke was lifting him up off the couch. Zeke was guiding him down the little hallway. Zeke was sitting him down on the edge of a bed with a brown plaid blanket.
“I’ll see what he wants,” Zeke said.
Someone knocked on the door.
Casey whimpered and clutched at Zeke. “Don’t, don’t Zeke!”
Someone knocked again.
Zeke said, “Shit,” under his breath and looked around the room. There was a closet in the wall, with a plastic folding door over it, like an accordion. Zeke folded the door open and lifted Casey up by his shoulders.
“Hide in the closet, Casey. Just hide until I come back. You’ll be all right. Casey?”
Casey didn’t answer. His thoughts were folding in on themselves, like the plastic door. They were scattering like the leaves in the parking lot. They were darkening like the failed day. Zeke put him in the closet and closed the door halfway. He left. Casey drew himself up into a tiny ball in the corner of the shallow closet. It was cramped and smelled like dust, but Casey barely noticed. Doors were closing in his mind, one after the other, shutting down, lights out, goodbye, goodbye. Then it was dark.
_____
Zeke came back. Zeke said something. Zeke took off Casey’s hat. Zeke took off Casey’s coat. Zeke rubbed Casey’s back. Zeke put a pillow between Casey and the wall. Zeke wrapped a blanket around Casey. Casey knew these things, but he didn’t move. He said nothing.
Safe now, his mind whispered. Safe now, stay here, safe now. To move would break the spell. It was unthinkable. Terrible things would happen to both of them if he did. So he stayed. He heard voices. He saw things in his head. But he stayed.
_____
Zeke wanted him to come out. Casey shook his head.
“You’ve been in here for two days, Casey, come on. Come outside, just for a minute. I want you to see this. You’ll like it…Casey?”
Casey looked over his shoulder cautiously. His neck was stiff. The light hurt his eyes.
Zeke smiled. “Just for a minute.”
“Is it…is anyone else here?”
“No, buddy, just you and me.”
Casey let Zeke pull him to his feet. Casey looked around the room. There was the bed with the brown plaid blanket. He remembered sitting on that, a long time ago. Now it looked slept in. Casey was wrapped up in a blanket, too, a different color. Zeke was trying to take it off.
“No,” Casey muttered, and hugged the blanket around himself.
“Okay, keep the blanket, we’ll just be out for a minute.”
Zeke put an arm around Casey and walked him to the front door. Casey’s legs ached from being curled up for so long. He looked up at Zeke.
“Where are we going?”
“Just outside. You’ll see.”
Zeke opened the door and they went out. It was dark outside, cold, but it felt good on Casey’s face. Clean.
“Look up,” Zeke said, and Casey did.
The sky was not dark, it was bright, and filled with colors. Blue and green. Red and violet. They shimmered and shifted around each other, from the horizon to the darkness above them.
The memory of distant knowledge from someone he had once been surfaced in Casey’s mind. “Northern lights,” he said softly.
“That’s right,” Zeke said behind him. “It’s something else, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Casey breathed. He took a step forward. Neither of them spoke.
A thought came to Casey, that he would like to take a picture of this. He didn’t know where the thought had come from, but a sudden wave of sadness came over him, and a terrible sense of loss, and shame, and beneath it all, a great, helpless rage. He didn’t want to look at the lights anymore.
Casey turned and went up the cinderblock steps. He found his own way to the bedroom and crawled back into the closet. A moment later, Zeke was there.
”Casey? What is it?”
“Sad,” he said, unable to say anything more. “Just…sad.”
“I’m sorry,” Zeke said. “I thought you would have liked it.”
“I did. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Zeke said. He rubbed Casey’s head, the back of his neck. “Maybe you want to sleep in the bed tonight?”
Casey shook his head, but he turned at looked at Zeke. “Can you stay with me a little bit?”
“Yeah,” Zeke said. “Sure.”
Zeke sat down on the closet floor behind Casey and put his arms around him. Casey turned towards Zeke. Sorrow washed over him. He laid his head on Zeke’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and sank.
_____
Casey looked up. He was by himself. The closet door was open and the light in the room beyond it was pale gray. Dawn.
Cautiously, Casey stood up. He let the blanket fall to the floor and stepped out of the closet. Zeke was asleep in the bed, his back to Casey. The clock beside the bed said it was almost six a.m.
Where are we? Casey wondered, then realized he didn’t care. Zeke was here, and that was all that mattered. Outside, Casey knew the wind was still blowing, there were still dead leaves in the parking lot, terrible things had happened and would happen and it would never get better. He would never get better. But inside, in here, it was quiet, it was warm, and Zeke was with him. That was enough.
Casey sat down on the edge of the bed, opposite from Zeke. A window faced him, with white mini-blinds, tilted open. Beyond the blinds, Casey could see brown fields, tipped with frost. In the distance, a line of trees, dark firs. Two birds flew across the pale, early-morning sky. Casey heard crows.
This is Minnesota, he remembered, and it sounded good. He turned from the window and crept under the blankets. Casey curled up close behind Zeke, resting his forehead against Zeke’s neck. He heard another crow in the distance. It was so quiet.
Minnesota, Casey thought again. He let go of everything else and fell asleep.