Fall (17 page)

I saw my first coyote that year, when Julius was gated and we found ourselves in the room together. One of the Masters had reported seeing a coyote on campus. We were told to be careful. The Head Master’s terrier went missing. I imagined an indiscriminate carnivore and was eager to see it. I read about coyotes in the library and learned how their territory had expanded across all of North America. The decline of wolves, I read, meant the clever coyote could thrive.

I clearly remember their appeal. It had nothing to do with a boyish love of beasties. It was a fascination with adaptability and a realization that human boundaries didn’t have to be respected. Here was an animal that would eat anything, from a berry to a dog, in order to survive. It loped across important borders and was finding a feeding ground in a space we thought was a campus.

When I walked outside I not only imagined the coyote watching me, I imagined everything I saw as a habitat instead of a neighbourhood.

Perhaps that was a death in itself, looking at this world uncoloured by certain illusions. But I certainly didn’t feel at the time like anything had died; I felt energized.

“There’s a coyote outside,” I said, one night in the dark. I didn’t know whether Julius was awake or not.

I imagined it every night before I slept.

And one quiet Saturday morning I was sitting at my desk while Julius lay on his bunk. “There it is,” he said above me, and I turned and he was pointing out the window. The coyote was on the front lawn.

I stood by the window and wondered why Julius remained in bed. I supposed he had a good view.

I had imagined some sort of noble predator, or at least a crafty scavenger, and all I saw was a smallish dog. Its tail was the only unusual feature, but I found myself saying things like “it looks pretty strong” and “it’s really well camouflaged”—searching for remarkable traits because I knew it was supposed to be extraordinary. I had wanted to be awed.

Julius said nothing. I assumed he had seen coyotes in the past. Would we ever have the same reactions?

The coyote pranced away, ragged and light, and I remember wishing for some sort of noise to mark the passage of experience. “It’s gone,” I said, and I wondered why I had learned about that timid little thing.

I passed more notes back and forth. I felt less and less invisible. Fall became jocular about it—still apologetic and respectful, but more lighthearted.

I remained fairly quiet around her, but I seemed to dream about her and Julius a lot, and it felt like communication. Julius and I were both active sleepers. I found him standing by my bed sometimes; once he touched my arm affectionately and said, “I love you.” I couldn’t believe that I didn’t reach out. When he awoke he was mortified and said he had been dreaming about Fall.

I encouraged Julius to write more notes. “I really don’t mind,” I said. Sometimes she would open them in front of me, sometimes she would wait.

I know that they were able to see each other occasionally because Julius would mention it. I nonetheless passed notes between them at least once a day.

The three of us were together outside the dining hall once and Fall asked Julius a question. He didn’t answer orally, he wrote a note and passed it to me, laughing. Fall had a look that shared amusement with Julius and pity with me.

Things began to grow sour after that. Even though I wanted an excuse to see her, I was less eager to be their Pandarus.

I learned that minimized contact was the strongest fuel of forbidden love. Knowing that I would have less opportunity to see her, I thought of her all the more, and when I did see her I could feel my want at the roots of my teeth—that pure desire for desire which I had felt around her before.

I made excuses for a few days to Julius, pretending for various reasons that I couldn’t deliver notes. Then I found myself missing my involvement in their lives so much and thinking about them more than ever. Julius got stuck with cleaning another Master’s apartment, and I told him I would be happy to swing by Fall’s place after school to let her know it.

He wrote a note and I brought it to the Girls’ Flats. Another girl was leaving as I arrived and I instinctively put my foot in the door. I went into the hallway. There was a bulletin board and a bag of sheets beneath it, and things seemed just as untidy as the Boys’ Flats. It was the last note I delivered for him.

A few years ago I was walking through the market and passed a convenience store. I was about to go in to buy some wine gums—I have a weakness for wine gums—and as I held the handle I looked through the glass of the door. Behind the cash register stood Fall’s roommate, Sarah. I recognized her but couldn’t place her; I retreated from the door instinctively because I never like to meet anyone I know in uncontrolled circumstances. She was a large woman, and I wondered whether she had perhaps been one of the cleaning staff in my apartment building or possibly a waitress at some sort of diner I might have been to once. But as I discreetly looked through the store window I gradually realized it was Sarah.

Unimaginable disappointments had filled her body like water from a hose, and there she was, looking swollen and red behind the register of a store selling cigarettes and unnecessary treats. I must admit that blowing over the surface of my shock was the slightest breeze of a smile. I toyed with the idea of going in and talking to her. I liked the idea that simply by standing on the other
side of the counter I could confirm my superiority to her. But I didn’t like being reminded so vividly that we can never ultimately avoid the pugilism of life, the dumb constant blows of unpredictable moment that—fat, thin, one-eyed, or beautiful—make us all, ultimately, revolting to strangers passing our windows. They don’t see us getting hit, they only see the aftermath. I didn’t want the slightest knowledge of what put Sarah in that state.

Julius’s gating ended. I felt such a fear of things reverting to what they were.

All that week, all Julius could talk about was their upcoming anniversary. My breathlessness became simple impatience. I trained myself not to listen to any of his plans, and I never really learned what they did.

I missed the daily contact. I suppose I wondered why she wouldn’t come and find me anymore. I suppose I was somewhat hurt. She was friendly enough to me in the halls between classes.

Julius signed out that weekend. Their anniversary was on the Saturday.

There was a letter on our floor which I picked up and read that Friday night. Fall must have slipped it under our door. It was in an envelope, more elaborately presented than her usual notes; her J on the outside. It was a letter of such simplicity, vanity, vacuity, and obscenity. I never could have imagined those things being said by one real person to another.

She talked of meeting by the tree on Sunday before dinner. By then, she said, they would have had their anniversary. She loved the idea of looking ahead, she said. And she would have a little present.

I assumed, quite rightly I believe, that everyone was different depending on the company they kept, and if she were with me she would be a little less simplistic. Everything gathered that weekend to make me realize that now was my time to have her. I had to play a greater role in their lives; he had been enough of a prelude.

I spent Saturday and Sunday planning. I determined that I would keep her note hidden from Julius and meet her myself by the tree on Sunday evening. I was going to declare myself to her.

I smelled shirts that Julius had worn while with her. I trimmed my hair and immersed myself in the idea of love.
So are you to my thoughts as food to life
. I tried to think of my own words to say, and I smelled her enough that I loved the idea of her smell and could pay no attention to the fact that our bodies ever existed. I wandered the halls, forming phrases and coercions, with the one consistent premise that the world did not have to be as it was. And in the shower on Sunday afternoon I cleaned and chastened myself so my formal shirt would be white on white and my skin was alive to beginning.

I took one of Julius’s coats and avoided the room until five o’clock, when she was expecting him. I hoped that nothing had changed during their night together, that no other arrangements had been made since she left the note on Friday. In his coat I would appear like him and possibly ease the transition. I looked better in it than he did.

It was dark, and snowflakes landed in my eyes as I looked for her. She was there by the tree in her black coat, not red, and leaning on a pair of crutches. Her smile changed when she realized it was me.

“What happened?” I said.

“Where’s Julius?”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“I twisted my ankle on the dance floor.”

I thought about her dancing and felt a little sick.

“Where’s Julius?”

Plans were changing slightly in my head because I hadn’t expected the force of my nervousness.

“He sent me,” I said.

I wanted to be alone with her and the lights of the school behind me were insisting that I couldn’t. I just wanted to walk with her so I could have the time to figure out exactly what I wanted to say.

“He said we should meet him by the river. He bought us presents.”

“Presents?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He just took off in my coat a little while ago. He told me to meet you by the tree and take you to the river.”

“Weird.”

“He meant
go with her
, not
take her
.”

“Weird. I can’t get all the way there on crutches.”

“It’s not too far.”

I tried to say it casually. It was a twenty-minute walk in the best conditions. It was the only place I could think of where we could feel properly alone, and I knew that I would do anything to achieve that. I would get angry if I couldn’t.

“I can help you,” I said. “It’s not that far.”

“I guess,” she said.

We started walking, and I was resolved not to do it in silence.

“Julius and I hang out by the river sometimes,” I said.

“Do you?”

“There’s a great sheltered sort of a grove down there. We got high there a couple of times.”

“He never told me,” she said.

“It’s where he wants to meet.”

I didn’t want to fill the time with lies. I watched her crutches make targets in the snow.

People in the neighbourhood were warming in their private lights and as we moved along slowly I had one of my first true feelings of bone-coloured bleakness. I felt that I needed to find our own golden living room, somewhere down the road.

“I hope it’s not too hard,” I said. “Walking.”

“It’s okay,” she said.

“Pretty thoughtless of Julius,” I said.

“He didn’t know. I didn’t have crutches when I saw him this morning.”

I didn’t want to hear about their night.

“Still, he must have known you were hurting. I’ll give him hell when we see him.”

The houses and lights were thinning. I thought of her hands on the crutches—her weight on the crosspieces I somehow felt in my gums.

“I had a girlfriend in Australia,” I said. “A girl named Meg. She wasn’t very thoughtful.”

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend. That’s nice.”

“It was a while ago,” I said.

The more the school and neighbourhood receded, the more I felt like I could be myself. There was a trail through woods which we would have to find and travel, and a steep descent to the river where I had sometimes secluded myself over the years.

“I used to go to that grove to think,” I said. “I was the one who showed it to Julius.”

“He’s never told me,” she said.

“Do you want to know what I thought about?”

“So what ever happened to Meg?” she said.

I moved a little closer to her, solicitously. “Are you managing?”

“I’m good.”

“Your perfume is lovely. I’ve smelled it on Julius’s shirts.”

She smiled.

“This is so freakin’ weird,” she said. “You’re kidding me, right. Julius is waiting for us.”

“Of course he is. It is weird. I bet it will be worth it. Something funny. He’s such a funny guy. Meg was beautiful,” I said. “Not as beautiful as you are, but I really loved her.”

“Good,” she said.

“Long brown hair, slightly bleached by the sun.”

“Okay.”

“She was unique, in some ways. Not extraordinary. She used to make fun of my words.”

“Your words are pretty long,” she said.

“She was cruel to me,” I said. “I’ve really hated her for a while.”

“Why do you hate her?”

“You know how it is,” I said. “She just never really had nice things to say about me. You’re probably nice to all the guys you
break up with. You’re so nice to Julius. Meg just didn’t have those silken kindnesses, and I hated the way she chewed.”

“I hope Julius plans to carry me back,” she said. “We’re gonna be late for dinner.”

“I think the perfect person exists,” I said. “Meg wasn’t the perfect person. It makes me mad sometimes, imagining what she thought of me. I’d say you know me better than she does.”

I was finally going to have her.

“Where’s my stupid boyfriend?” she said.

“It’s not too far,” I said. “I can carry you.”

“No thanks.”

“It’s down a little hill. Just over there.”

“Where are his footprints?”

“I don’t think we’d see footprints. Anyway, he might not be there. I guess he might come after. I was just thinking of how you and Julius have to sneak around to be close. Meg and I kind of had to do the same. We had a special night on the beach once. She admired my body.”

“We don’t sneak around.”

“Do you want me to run ahead?”

“No. Okay. Maybe you should.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yeah. You should.”

She held up her crutches to show me it was the obviously chivalrous thing to do.

“I’ll go see what he’s up to.”

We had come quite far. I jogged ahead down the trail through the trees, knowing I had to keep planning but feeling an inexorable momentum which made plans seem irrelevant.