The Aqua Alligator

A Short Story

Do you dream in color?

I do.

**********

Even when we sleep, we sleep like old lovers, him to one side, me to the other. Our bodies try frantically to find some space, acting is if they are barely aware of one another; but still they are drawn together. Several times throughout the night our legs touch then reflexively draw back. Once, I wake up long enough to feel his skin against mine. He is sweaty, almost sticky from the unusual humidity that hangs in the air. For a brief moment I can almost taste him.

I glance at the alarm clock; it’s 3:00 A.M. and soon, within the hour, we will be up and frantically rushing to meet the airport shuttle.

Looking at him still asleep, thinking about the pizza we ordered the night before and the awful movie we watched and the way he fell asleep right at the end, his head against my shoulder, has made me hard. If I jack off it will settle me down. Still, in spite of the urge, I desperately want to close my eyes and get some more sleep. Even fifteen minutes is a luxury to me these days.

**********

I always pack the night before, obsessing about what combo I will wear and for what occasion the pale blue linen shirt and white pants might come into play. I count out the days and pack a pair of socks for each, plus an extra pair just in case; same with the underwear.

“We’re going to Hawaii,” Mike says jokingly, watching so closely as I pack that I fear he may be taking notes for a performance review. He grabs a pair of neatly folded socks from my hands.

“People wear sandals in Hawaii and only the — ”

“For the gym,” I cut him off. “Our hotel, I mean resort, has a day spa and state-of-the-art workout facilities.”

“Jesus Christ, you sound just like the fucking brochure.”

And so it goes. The gentle mocking continues until I join him in the bed that we’ve decided to share for the night. Friends do that, you know, share beds that is; especially when they need to be at the airport at 4:00 A.M. the next day. As we settle unnaturally into the 1000 count sheets I just happened to have made the bed with this morning, he makes a few more jokes at my expense, and without evening noticing that I am re-checking the itinerary for our flight, reaches over and turns off the bedside light.

I like the attention when he kids me, that much must be obvious by now. But sometimes, when I need the attention the most, he suddenly becomes silent, almost moody. He must know how much the silence hurts me. My face doesn’t lie about things like that.

He will wait for the morning to pack, literally throwing whatever clothes are in his pathway into a duffel bag that’s been around the world and back. What takes me over an hour, and that’s not counting the mental preparation or the several packing lists I’ve penned throughout the past couple of weeks, will take him seven minutes, tops.

The alarm clock buzzes.

*************

“Got everything?” he asks, standing by the door, his duffel bag slung over his right shoulder, a beat-up backpack over his left. It’s his way of saying hurry up you stupid shit, the ride is here and you’re still not ready!

Beads of perspiration are forming around my forehead as I rush around making sure the coffee maker is unplugged, the instructions on feeding the fish are updated and placed neatly next to the aquarium, the timers for the lights are set, and the thermostat is off.

I’m forgetting something, I know I am, but everything on my Hawaii “to-do” list is checked-off, some are even hi-lighted for added effect. I’ve never taken a vacation for ten days, unless you count that time my parents made us drive cross-country in their “Discover America Tour 1980,” and the thought of being gone for so long has completely unnerved me.

Long weekends are one thing, but putting my life on hold for two weeks makes me feel like every loose-end needs to be tied-up before leaving. I want to relax on this trip, I want desperately to relax, but my mind is so full of the details of life that it seems almost impossible.

As I make one final mental sweep and grab a bottled water from the fridge, I find myself wanting to give Mike a long, hard kiss on the lips, grab his ass, and say seductively, “Our flight for Hawaii is now departing, gate 17A. Your flight attendant, tour guide and totally humpy sex slave is ready to take you to paradise and back. So buckle up you swarthy little fucker, ’cause there’s no turning back now.”

Instead, I smile, raise my eyebrows in an apologetic fashion and say simply, “Okay, I’m ready.”

The driver, a constipated looking white guy in his late sixties looks annoyed. He might have once been a serious corporate climber before suffering a nervous breakdown and complete estrangement from his wife and kids. I can read his mind, something about always having to wait for the faggots, and I get into a mental battle with him; first telling him to piss off, then writing a letter to the company and finally filing a formal complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

“You were five minutes early,” Mike says to the driver. “Usually you guys are late.”

The driver, not sure of where Mike is coming from, grabs our luggage and throws it — actually heaves it like he were tossing a bag full of rotting garbage into the bay — in the back of the van with the other bags. Inside, four people are waiting patiently, unaware that their luggage has just been crushed by an overstuffed 50-pound Louis Vuitton duffel. Damn, I think to myself, these bastards had to get up even earlier than we did.

We climb into the vacant back seat and instinctively begin looking for our seat belts. Mike, playing his highway patrol role to perfection, is always on my ass about wearing seat belts. He likes to tell the gory stories of responding to accident scenes and how the faces of people thrown from the wreckage are often skinned to the bone, their flesh ground down from the friction of the pavement, completely unrecognizable to their loved ones. My guess is that he only saw that once, and it was probably some kind of freak occurrence with the way the person’s head slid along the asphalt; but still, the story made such an impression on my two nieces that neither could sleep and the six-year-old actually refused to even ride in the car unless we allowed her to wear a bicycle helmet.

Like my father, and my uncle, and, for the record, me, my sister is also a cop. And to make matters worse, she even married one. She and Ed met as rookies, fell madly in love and … blah, blah, blah. Personally, I always thought Ed was a loser, the kind of asshole who knew all the answers and only became a cop as a way to bully people who were smarter than he was. As a matter of fact, Ed’s only redeeming feature was that he was the one who introduced me to Mike. They had become friends while playing in some charity softball game, San Francisco’s finest versus the California highway patrol. Jesus, talk about a bunch of adolescent, testosterone-fueled freaks…

Ed came from the belief that there were very few good queers in the world — Mike and I were classified as the good, “normal ones” — and that we should be grateful to him for setting us up. Funny thing is, I was grateful.

For me, it was love at first sight.

For Mike, it was “fuck buddy” at first sight.

After that brief phase ended, it was just “buddy.”

When the sex stopped I was actually relieved. As much as I wanted it, and as much as I still crave it to this day, I could never separate the act of making love from love itself. When I fell in love with Mike, I stayed in love with Mike. And the sorry bastard sitting next to me on this crappie airport shuttle, struggling to get his broken seat belt to fasten, heading to Hawaii to swim and surf and sun and fuck as many guys as possible, really has no idea that I love him with every fiber of my twisted little soul.

I am his best friend, and for Mike that is as good as it gets.

For me, it’s only second best.

“Fuck…” he says, as his seat belt keeps popping out of the fastener. “This is illegal, you know. I could write him up for this.”

“Quit being on duty, officer Mike,” I say. He hates it when I call him Officer Mike. “If you want we can trade places…”

“Never mind,” he says, pulling his baseball cap down and over his forehead, his emerald green eyes closing. “Wake me when we get to the airport.”

I just look straight through him until, sensing me staring, he opens his eyes. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say and look away.

At 3:38 in the morning there’s very little incentive to be social to the strangers seated next to you on a shuttle bus to the airport. But suddenly I am in a strange mood, more awake and aware than I have been in months. I smile at the elderly woman who is now glancing at the boys in the back row. I can tell she is an inquisitive old bird, and for some reason, I feel like indulging her.

“Good morning,” I mumble, keeping my voice low enough so as not to disturb the other passengers, a bored looking business man on his way to make yet another meaningless sales pitch and a middle-aged woman nervously chewing her fingernails and thinking, almost out loud, how it will feel when the plane she is about to board bursts into flames and plummets to the ground.

The old lady — my guess is that she must be at least 85 — smiles back, then glances at her nearly comatose companion to see if he is still awake. Judging from the relieved look that quickly spreads across her face, I assume he is fast asleep. Husband … that is the obvious guess. Still, he could be a brother, even a weather-beaten son, or simply a “fuck buddy” rescued from the clutches of all the widows and divorcees at the bingo hall.

I can tell she wants to ask me something or, most likely, a million things. And as strange as this may sound, somehow I don’t think they are the usual polite questions you ask of strangers to acknowledge an awkward silence or fill an uncomfortable void.

“I don’t know how they can sleep,” I say, pointing to our respective companions, one of whom has his lips parted, unaware that drool is slowly creeping out of the corner of his mouth.

“You and I, we’re not like that,” she acknowledges, sounding clear and lucid, not the way one expects an old lady to sound.

“We don’t sleep … too much to see out there. There’s plenty of time to sleep when you’re old.”

“You’re right,” I say, thinking how much I enjoy sleep and wondering, in my jaded little way, what Mike could possibly be missing by sleeping on the drive to the airport, anyway?

“Where are you boys off to,” she asks, betraying me with one of those routine questions I’ve come to find as unnecessary. I want to say something clever and slightly sarcastic, but instead I tell her the truth.

“Never been to Hawaii,” she says. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never even been on an airplane before.”

“Really?” I don’t mean to sound condescending, but still, I am surprised.

“Amazing, isn’t it. Spent my whole life living in San Francisco and never once felt the urge to get out.”

“So why now?” I ask.

“For Eunice,” she says, pointing to her companion.

“Eunice?”

“Near death, can’t you tell?”

“Yes, I mean … no, I mean, I’m sorry I’m just a little surprised.”

“Yep. Of course, we all are you know, near death that is …” she laughs to herself. “She’s been my neighbor for nearly forty years. Even then, I’ve only seen her a handful of times. She’s what you call one of those reclusive types. Don’t think she’s been out of her house in over 15 years.”

“So why now?”

“I told you — she’s near death. I’m taking her home to be buried.”

“But she’s still alive,” I say, aware that I’m sounding almost defensive.

“Well she won’t be for long.”

“So you’re taking her home?”

“Home.” She repeats the word, savors it as if it were a piece of especially tender Salisbury steak. “It’s a little place, kind of in the middle of nowhere, about fifty miles outside of Chicago. But it’s where she wants to be buried. Next to a woman she hasn’t seen in over sixty years.”

“Sixty years,” I think to myself, almost twice my age, “that’s a long time to miss someone.”

“They were lovers, way back when. Of course she’d never use that word. That’s an expression younger people use. Still, doesn’t matter what you call it, they were in love.”

“In love, and yet they haven’t seen each other in sixty years? That’s very sad.”

The old lady just stares at me then instinctively turns to her companion, Eunice, and pats her hand gently. There is no response.

I feel embarrassed, like I’m suddenly witnessing a private moment at which I have no business being. I sit back in my seat and glance at Mike, grateful for the subtle sound of his breathing.

“Do you like it, Ben?” she asks me, never looking away as she gently folds back the lapel of Eunice’s dark brown suit jacket.

It is relatively dark in the van, so at first I’m not sure just what it is I’m looking at.

It’s definitely jewelry, some kind of a pin.

Looks like something you’d buy on the way out of Wal-Mart when you’re the secret Santa for some chick in records whom you’ve never met. It is only with the light from a passing car that I am eventually able to make out the details.

The pin, so carefully placed under the left lapel and out of sight, is in the shape of an alligator.

It’s a little aqua alligator and it sparkles when the light from a stray street lamp hits it just so.

“What a beautiful piece,” I say, surprising myself.

The old lady, still looking lovingly at Eunice, answers back. “It was a gift.”

“From her lover?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Wants to make sure she’s buried with it on. That’s not so much to ask, is it?”

“No. That’s not so much to ask,” I answer anyway.

There is another flash of light, another passing car, only this time it doesn’t go away. The impact, it comes from the side, is so deafening and sharp that my eardrum explodes in a sensation of pure pain. My head snaps back, my torso twists painfully to the right, and glass shards soar through the air in slow motion. I can see Mike’s body as it flies like a rag doll through the twisted metal and onto the cold pavement outside. I try frantically to capture every detail, I want to remember everything, but soon there is only blackness.

The alarm clock buzzes.

*******

“Got everything?” he asks, standing by the door, his duffel bag slung over his right shoulder, a beat-up backpack over his left. It’s his way of saying hurry up you stupid shit, the shuttle is here and you’re still not ready!

“You’re a swarthy little fucker, you know that?” I say as I lock the door of my apartment behind us.

The shuttle driver, a constipated looking Asian guy in his late sixties who might have once been a serious corporate climber before suffering a nervous breakdown and complete estrangement from his wife and kids, is calmly waiting for us. He takes our luggage and motions for us to get into the van. Inside, three people are waiting patiently.

I make Mike go first as we crawl into the vacant backseat. I hear the familiar sound of his seat belt buckling as I struggle to make mine work.

“This is illegal, you know.” He points to my broken seat belt. “I could write him up for this.”

“Quit being on duty, Officer Mike,” I say. He hates it when I call him Officer Mike. “It’s a twenty-minute ride. I’ll be fine.”

“Never mind,” he says, pulling his baseball cap down and over his forehead, his emerald green eyes closing. “Wake me when we get to the airport.”

I just look straight through him until, sensing me staring, he opens his eyes. “What?”

“I love you,” I say. Only this time I don’t look away. Mike says nothing as the airport shuttle pulls away from the curb and onto the road before us.

Using the back of her hand, Eunice brushes the wrinkles out of her dark brown suit jacket, glances sadly at the empty seat next to her, then looks at the boys in the back row.

It’s hard to see at first, placed as it is so covertly underneath her left lapel. But if you look closely you can catch a glimpse of a tiny pin in the shape of an alligator. And if you happen to be looking at it as the light from a stray street lamp hits it just so, for a moment, but only for a moment, the Aqua Alligator actually sparkles.

*******

Do you dream in color?

I did.