A Kiss in Time

by Pat Henshaw

From the time I knew the difference between spray paint and a soda can, I've wanted to be a muralist. When I was a kid, my mom and I would walk back to our apartment through the dingy streets of downtown, past monumental brick walls painted with gateways to better places.

On 12th Street, a group of stylized children beckoned me to a pristine playground where everyone was happy and smiling. The painted paradise was signed Mo'e. One day, I promised myself, I'd be Mo'e and give other kids a dream like the one he'd given me.

After my mom died, I began my career as a tagger, got caught, went to juvie, got out, tagged again, went back to juvie, and got out. At seventeen I recognized the revolving door, so got a job selling stuff to tourists in Old Town.

Ten years later, I was still selling crap, but I saw an ad saying the local Arts Commission was looking for area artists. I was stoked until I read that only artists with college degrees or a "significant body of juried work" were even eligible to apply. Talk about a bummer.

With a juvie record, but no recent tagging, and no "significant body of juried work," I was feeling hopeless.

Yeah, I was living the life. Selling stuff by day, tending bar or partying, drinking, fucking by night. But it was like a hamster wheel. I wasn't getting anywhere on my dream. I was just marking time like I'd done in juvie. Something had to give.

A coworker, a cute little preppy named Monika, told me about the City College art program.

"Eric, you can make contacts there and work on your art." She bounced from foot to foot, making me a little more hyper.

"Moni, I'm too old. I've almost gunned down thirty."

"Naw, you look like you're eighteen," she said with a giggle. "You get carded all the time."

True. At twenty-one I'd gotten a DMV ID to prove I was of age. Now I worked for a club and felt sorry for the guys like me who looked like perpetual kids.

"Besides, who cares?" she asked. "You could suck up some classes for your dream job, right?"

When I remembered myself as a little boy who wanted to step through the brick walls and live in another world, I realized she was right. So what if I was the oldest guy in my classes? If I could push through the wall and touch my dream, it was worth it, right?

That night I took the Light Rail to the City College campus, filled out the forms, and enrolled in art, English, and math. Two cores and one love.

I felt fairly confident about the math and art classes. I'd managed my money and lived on my own for years and even had a little savings account. I had a small studio apartment downtown, didn't own a car, and ate regularly. What more could a high school dropout ask?

But English? Not so sure. I hadn't written anything since high school, and I wasn't doing so good in English then. Besides, my handwriting was really hand printing and looked like a second grader had done it. I was fucked on all sides. The only thing that might save me was I read a lot. I mean a whole lot.

I was apprehensive as I walked down the hallway to the English class. At one end of the crowded space two people stood nearly toe to toe, one yelling at the other. A tiny blond girl in what appeared to be half a ballerina outfit was screaming at a stud. She was rip-roaring mad. He kept looking around him like he needed help.

"You're not a freaking homo!" she yelled at him. "I don't believe it."

He tried to step away, but she was having none of his cutting her off. Around them nobody seemed to be paying attention. Those who didn't have a piece of paper in front of their faces had their cell phones glued to their eyes. People were bumping into people, but nobody seemed to notice anyone else and bounced from body to body like balls on an old pinball machine.

The guy who was being harassed for being gay gave me such a helpless look I couldn't do anything but wade to his salvation. If he wanted to be gay, I could give him gay.

"Hey! Miss me?" I said, grabbing him around the waist and giving him a quick kiss on the lips.

"I never thought you'd get here," he sighed.

The girl stood next to him stunned into silence.

I'd never seen him before in my life but he was definitely my type. He was tall and slender with nice musculature showing through his tight tee shirt. I figured by his elbows that he was about my age. They weren't teenage elbows, and elbows never lie.

"We better get in there." He pointed to the classroom where I was headed.

He'd put his arm around my waist, so I turned, and we took a step toward the door.

"You fucking fairy," the girl muttered, sliding away after she punched him in the arm.

"Thanks," he said to me as we quickly unhooked and found seats across the aisle from each other. We both squeezed into desks not made for men over six feet tall.

"Joel," he whispered, pointing to himself.

"Uh, Eric." I was trying to figure out what had just happened.

The instructor walked in and class started. I winced every time I had to turn around to pass back papers to the tiny Asian girl sitting behind me. As I glanced up at Joel, his eyes laughed at me. I had to grin myself. Nobody'd ever called me small.

Unpeeling from the desk as the class ended, I found myself face to face with him.

"Look, I'd like to thank you for saving me back there," he said as I lifted my backpack and started for the door. "You want to get some coffee?"

He was cute, and I was attracted. Another time, I'd have jumped at his offer, but I had to stay focused. If I got distracted by some random hook-up, I could screw up my plans and be back in the hamster wheel without even noticing.

"Naw, I've got to get to my next class." I stepped to the side, ready to go around him. "It was great meeting you. Nice kiss, by the way."

His lips were just the kind of wonderful that would play in my fantasies and dreams for months to come. I kinda wished I hadn't had a life plan needing my eyes-front attention.

"See you Wednesday." I turned and walked away quickly.

After work I nearly ran home. I drew him four or five times in charcoal, then started a painting. If nothing else, I'd have these reminders of him if he dropped the class and I never saw him again. Then I went to bed and jacked off remembering the kiss. Damn.

Wednesday was crappy. Rain, rain, and more cold rain. The English class was crowded and wet, a bunch of people pushing into the room, sitting along the walls when all the desks were filled. I'd gotten one of the last seats and didn't bother taking off my jacket when I squeezed myself into the desk.

The instructor came in, told those waiting that the class was filled and it was useless to hang around trying to add. She held up the add list with its names from Monday. Then she took role.

Joel was a no show. Figured. Oh, well, at least I had the sketches, right?

My love life which could more accurately be called a love death held more caskets than roses. I'd had four relationships and countless hook-ups over the years, mostly with short, spry guys who thought they could boss me around. One of them called me "Beanpole," a nickname he said fit me.

The relationships were bogus, me looking for love in all the wrong places and with the wrong head. The longest together time lasted six months, and only because of an apartment lease we shared.

I guess you could say my heart had been broken and mended a number of times, but only if you were a romantic sap, which I'm not. What I usually tell people is when whatever's going to happen happens, well, I'll be here for it.

After class, I'd just gotten myself extricated from the desk and my homework assignment stashed in my ratty excuse for a backpack when one of the other students rushed toward me.

"Where's Joel? How come he wasn't in class today?" he asked, eyeing me like I was stashing Joel in my backpack.

I was about to answer "How should I know?" when I remembered we were supposed to be together kind of.

"That's what I was wondering too," I shrugged. "Buying the books?"

The maybe twenty-year-old gave me a suspicious look, but finally nodded, turned and left. What had Joel gotten himself into?

None of my business, I reminded myself. I'd done him an unexpected favor. I'd been a saint, hadn't I? My part in his drama was over.

Friday was a replay of Wednesday with Joel as a no show. This time another guy, a little older and lot bigger and meaner looking asked me where Joel was. If I weren't tall and sometimes mean looking myself, I would have been intimidated.

"Don't know. Said he'd be here," I answered zipping my backpack.

"You give him a message from me." The big guy pointed a stubby, calloused finger at my chest. I eyed it and then him. His stance adjusted, lightened, and the finger came down.

"What?" I raised an eyebrow.

"You tell him that Ian said the stuff better be there tonight."

"Ian who?" I added a frown for effect. "You threatening Joel?"

The guy looked a little scared, but stuck to his attitude.

"You just tell him." Then he turned quickly and stomped out of the room, almost at a run.

Weird.

I was tending bar that night at Long Point, an unsubtly named gay bar frequented by older men and women who like to listen to jazz and not club music. One of my favorite tapes was playing with Ahmad Jamal and Dave Brubeck, the classics, when who should walk in but Joel with an older buttoned-down type.

They were both in suits and ties, not uncommon for the Point. The older guy had his hand on Joel's shoulder and was saying something Joel obviously didn't agree with.

"Oh, shit," Stevie, who was working the bar with me, murmured as he placed a drink in front of one of our regulars. "Look who just arrived."

"Yeah? And?" I answered. How did Stevie know Joel?

"It's William Greenbriar, and I'll bet the other guy's his stepson, the heir apparent," Stevie said, looking at me as if I was stupid.

"Greenbriar of the pro soccer team? The owner?" I asked.

Stevie sighed as he always did when I was slow to catch on to something he thought was important.

"Yes, meathead. That Greenbriar."

"Huh." I was used to his slams.

He and I'd had a thing a couple years before, so I knew where his attitude was coming from. He resented the fact I'd called him a dyspeptic diva when I'd broken up with him. I'd gotten tired of him hitting on my friends and borrowing my clothes, trashing them, and then complaining I was stingy because I didn't want to "share" them with him.

He was a hustler, and I wasn't into being hustled.

So the guy I'd kissed in the middle of the hallway at City College might be the heir to the Greenbriar soccer franchise. Huh. What else could I say or think?

Not only did this news make me more curious and deeper in the dark about what had been going on, but it made me back off. I definitely didn't need a new diva in my life, no matter how much I wanted him below the belt.

I didn't think he and his old man had seen me yet, and I was wondering how and why they'd wandered into the Point when Charlie, our boss, came out to give me a break. As he tied one of the bar aprons on, he tossed me his keys and said he'd left me a sandwich on his desk.

"Take your whole break, kid," he added. "Do some of your homework. We're fine out here."

I grinned at him, then looked up to see Joel staring at me. The older man, his maybe stepfather, was talking a mile a minute, staring off at the foyer, not noticing he'd completely lost his maybe stepson.

I nodded at Joel, then at Charlie, and hurried to the back, not knowing what to think. Why were they here? Far as I knew they'd never been in the Point before.

True, the Point was a respectable gay bar, not a dive or dump. But still, really rich people didn't usually drink here. So what was up?

I hadn't gotten the wrapper off the sandwich when there was a soft knock on the door, and it eased open. Joel stood in the doorway, looking a lot more grim and older than he did the one day at school.

"Hey, can I come in a minute and talk?" He slid inside and closed the door.

He sat down in Charlie's visitor chair. I was behind the desk in the more comfortable office chair, the one I used when I helped Charlie with the books.

"What do you want?" I asked. Sure, curiosity had bitten me, but his showing up where I work? A little too much.

"I wanted to thank you for when you saved my ass." He was staring at me which put me off my PBJ Charlie-style. Charlie thought the B was for banana, so he put peanuts, banana slices, and jelly together in sourdough bread. It was great actually, something I looked forward to eating whenever he made them.

Now? I wasn't so hungry.

"Okay. You're welcome. What did I do?"

"Your kiss kept me from blowing my cover. Now I've got a huge favor to ask." He was grinning the entire time he said all of this, so I wasn't sure how much was truth.

"You're an undercover what?" I figured I was probably going to get the whole story piece by piece and would have to pry it out of him.

"Narcotics."

Yup, I was right. Piece by piece it would be.

The gist of the story after I'd asked all my questions was there was a group selling drugs at the three City College campuses, North, South and East. Because the Light Rail now made it easier for students to take classes at all the campuses, it was easier for the dealers to move around.

The narcotics cops had been closing down parts of the group over the years, but when they closed one arm, another would spring up with the new semester. They were after the kingpin and thought he was someone close to the college, maybe a faculty or staff member.

Joel, or whoever he really was, had been taking classes for a couple of years and felt he was closing in on the number one guy.

I relayed the message from Ian and told him about the other one who'd stopped me after class.

He told me the girl who'd been yelling at him was some sort of go-between and had accused him of being a cop. He'd told her he couldn't be a cop because he was gay and the force didn't have gay cops. She wasn't buying his story until I came up and kissed him. Now she was convinced Joel was gay, I was his boyfriend, and maybe she and her contacts could trust him for real.

"So I'm looking for a relationship with someone I can trust, someone who attends City East." He rolled his shoulders and massaged his eyes.

He gave a short grunt of a laugh. "I'm thirty-two years old, for God's sake."

Okay, he was going to ask what I thought he was leading up to. Time to negotiate, right? The kiss had been stellar, but I wasn't completely a saint. I was finally an art student. I'd worked hard to get here. I didn't need to get roughed up or killed so he could catch some drug dealers. I just wanted to paint, dammit.

"Could you see your way to be my relationship until we catch who we're looking for?" he asked, his eyes not on me. "We'd be together at school and the department would rent us a place. I'd try to stay out of your life as much as possible, but I'd be there at night, all night, and in the morning. And weekends."

"How much do you know about me?" I countered. "You obviously found me."

He sighed and looked pained.

"All the juvie stuff, if that's what you're asking. What you're majoring in, where you're working, you know, the regular shit. On paper you're totally believable." He still wasn't looking at me and seemed to be squirming in his chair. "Oh, yeah, and there was the kiss."

Yeah, there was that.

"So how do you know Greenbriar? How's he involved?" Might as well cover all the bases before I commit myself or at least make my counter-offer.

Joel's face turned slightly red and he rubbed at his eyes again.

"Uh, we had a thing. We're just friends now. He came here with me tonight to see you." He shrugged. Still no eye contact. What was up with that?

"Uh huh," I grunted.

His eyes found mine finally.

"Really. It's over between us."

"Don't really care unless it turns into a problem for me," I assured him. "I don't need any more problems from power."

He thought about what I said for a minute.

"Yeah, okay, I get it. He won't be a problem."

I remembered the guy's hand on Joel's shoulder as they walked in and the rapt way he was talking to Joel. I wasn't convinced there wasn't or at least wouldn't be a problem. Who'd broken off with whom? How much shouting had there been?

"I'll think about it," I said. "Of course, I'll want something in return."

Now his focus was totally on me.

"Yeah? What?"

"A wall," I answered.

"A wall?"

"Somewhere public. A big wall," I repeated.

"A big wall somewhere public. I don't get it."

"My life's dream is to be a muralist. A muralist needs a wall. Simple tit for tat," I explained.

He shook his head.

"The department doesn't have walls," he started to explain.

"Got it. But Greenbriar does have a wall. Hundreds of them all over the city. Talk it over with him since he probably knows why you’re here talking to me. See what he says." I looked at my sandwich, at the brown banana, at the soggy bread. So much for my break.

"I gotta get back to work," I told him. "Let's talk tomorrow, maybe go for coffee or something. What do you think?"

"I think you're being nicer than I expected." He stood and headed for the door. "I'll text you in the morning."

"I'm sure you have my number," I nodded.

His somber smile and nod said it all.

As he went to open the door, I waylaid him.

"One other thing."

He stopped and looked back at me. "Yeah?"

"What's your real name? It's not Joel is it? Are you really gay? Or is it just your cover?"

He shook his head and gave a little laugh.

"Of all the things to ask." He sighed. "No, it's Randy Yarrow. You can call the department and check. And, yeah, I'm really gay. One other thing. You're really hot."

Then he left.

Right. I was hot? News to me. And was he randy Joel? I certainly hoped so.

I accepted the offer. I told myself it was because of the free room and board the department gave me and the possibility of my own wall, not the hot body I'd be living with. We all have to tell ourselves little lies in order to get through the day, and that was my lie at the moment.

The next class we walked in together talking about the assigned reading. Well, arguing really. We'd read Murray Ross' "Football Red, Baseball Green." Ross compares football to ancient gladiator battles and baseball to epic quests to get home. Far as I was concerned, it was a bunch a bull.

Joel thought it was poetic and went on and on about how both represented America and our always striving for something, to get ahead and to make a home for ourselves. We were deep into our conversation, okay, argument when the student who'd stopped me on Wednesday sidled up to us as we squeezed into side by side desks and continued arguing.

"I agree with Joel," the guy said. He turned to Joel and whispered loudly, "I got a little surprise for you, baby."

I may have smirked, but I held back from rolling my eyes.

Joel, however, looked interested.

"Yeah?" Then he turned to me. "Tommy, Eric. Eric, Tommy."

"My main man asked me to bring you round," Tommy said, running a finger down Joel's arm and ignoring me.

"I don't know." Joel turned to me with a questioning look on his face.

"No, he's definitely not invited." Tommy slapped the arm he'd just been petting.

"What? Why not?" I asked. "Don't you like me?"

I grinned at him, but he turned around, flouncing off back to his desk. I guess I wasn't his type.

The instructor walked in and plopped down a bunch of books and papers. Class had started and Tommy's invite to my pseudo-boyfriend hung dead in the air. I figured Joel'd follow up on it after class. Really, I didn't care. He had a job to do, just like I did.

Joel and I were given one of the downtown lofts right off the Light Rail near the Central Library. It was great. Tall floor to ceiling windows along the wall facing the street with three other brick walls encasing a huge space.

At one end there was a sleeping platform with a couple of closets tucked into the corner. An open stairway led to the platform.

A kitchen was tucked under the sleeping platform with the rest of the loft left empty.

I figured with a few really good mats and some equipment, we could have our own private gym. Fortunately, Joel agreed, and we scrounged second hand sports stores to find a weight set and other essentials. We even made a mini climbing wall the shorter brick face with some screw-in hand holds.

It was a perfect setup for study breaks and for those nights I came home from work at the bar disgusted with people when John Q. Public was not only queer but quarrelsome too.

We'd gotten the attraction part of our arrangement settled pretty quickly. We'd kissed, fucked, and then decided we'd hit a crossroads.

Either we could fixate on sex and to hell with the world, or we could become friends with benefits. If we'd been in our late teens or early twenties, the first would have been our choice.

But I was nearly thirty while he was thirty-two. We'd been working too hard for too long to get where we wanted to be in life, and we both had goals that were important to us, so we chose door number two.

My bonus besides a great place and great pseudo-boyfriend was he gave me my wall.

"I got some walls for you," Joel announced one night after dinner.

He said it like it was nothing, but my heart started beating like I was a teenager and going into my first bar.

"Oh, yeah?"

"An old pumping station in the middle of Greenbriar Park."

"Sweet."

I knew the park, named for the soccer team owner's grandfather's grandfather or whoever had settled the area back in the day. It was a nice little patch of grass and trees with a jogging path and a small play area for kids along the side of the river.

The old pumping station building, a one-story brick cube at one end of the park, used to house equipment for bringing river water to the city. It'd been closed for as long as I could remember, but it still looked solid and the ground around it kept up. It was perfect for murals.

"Thanks," I added casually as if I didn't want to run to my desk, clear off all the damn schoolwork, and start designing my masterpiece.

"No problem. You can have all the sides and Bill Greenbriar'll pay for the paint and materials," he answered just as casually.

Overcome, I went to the weight bench and started doing sit-ups as I pictured the site.

The next morning I went over there and took pictures of all four sides of the building with my phone, downloaded them onto a school library computer, and printed them out, one side each on 8 1/2 by 11 paper. Then I photocopied the pictures a couple of times. I repeated the process around noon, in the afternoon, and in the evening. Now I knew what my canvas looked like at this time of year.

I'd have preferred to see what the changing seasons would do to it, but knew if I didn't come up with a design and get it down quickly, my chance at legitimate public art would be gone. Diego Rivera and Robert Wyland, here I come, I thought as I taped the photocopies to the smallest loft wall. The longest, biggest wall was my exercise space, so I couldn’t clutter it up.

Joel came in taking off his tie and looking like hell. He stopped and stared at the photos, then grinned.

Above one of the photos I'd written "All MINE!" with a big arrow pointing to the side of the building. I'd meant to take the photo down before he came home.

"So what are you going to put there?" he asked.

I shrugged.

"No idea. It'll come to me." I gestured toward the rumpled tie in his fist. "Bad day?"

"Yeah. Fist of steel to the chest. C'mere and give me a hug. I need to hold somebody."

If anybody wanted to know what kind of friendship with benefits we'd established, me holding him in the middle of our loft and him hugging me as if the ship were going down around us would pretty much answer the question.

The next day after helping Joel relax through the night, I started sketching my murals. So far in the loft, I'd made footprints walking over one of the walls, a footprint rainbow arching on the longer side like a multi-colored bridge.

It looked okay, but didn't have the pizzazz I was going for. Joel loved it and made me switch sides of the table when we ate so he could look at it.

"I mean, it's clever without being too much," he said around toast one morning.

"Huh?" I wasn't awake, not being a morning person.

"The rainbow." He pointed with the toast, the jam sliding down onto his arm. He licked his wrist, and I pushed his head away. I licked his wrist clean.

His eyes lit up as I licked some more, his eyes slowly closed, his head went back, and his wrist came closer.

"Ah, baby." He sighed when I was done. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"Back at ya," I answered with my own sigh.

I really, really didn't want to go to class today.

"Wanna stay home and play sick?" I asked.

With both elbows on the table, the toast on his plate, and his head in his hands, he studied me.

"God, you're tempting." Another sigh. "If only."

We sat staring at each other like a couple of loons, then he gave the last sigh.

"We should be wrapping up the case today. I can't wait to get out of it. The only thing, and I mean the only thing making City College tolerable is you."

"What happens when the case is closed?" A shiver of doom had slithered up my spine and settled near my heart. It was hard to breathe.

He stared at me for a couple more seconds, but I couldn't read his face. Five minutes ago I'd thought we were in love. Now I was looking at a cop. Shit. I really was doomed.

"Let's talk about it when this is all over," he said softly.

What could I do? I nodded.

Class was a bitch with him so close and Tommy so excited, talking a mile a minute about stuff I had no context to understand. Tommy smirked and acted out the entire time before class started, then smirked again as he bore Joel off after the hour ended.

I'd gotten a "See me" at the top of my essay. The instructor asked me to type my essays and use spellcheck religiously from now on. When I asked what my grade was on the first essay, she said I'd find out when she could read it.

I carried the essay to work with me and keyed it into Charlie's computer on my break. I sent it to the instructor's dropbox like she'd requested. I guess I'd missed her instructions before.

Most of all I was feeling like a failure. Maybe I was just wasting my money at City and should be working on the mural fulltime, especially if this whole idyll was about to end.

Charlie bitched at me for only having half a mind as I worked. When I apologized, he backed off.

"You never apologize, Eric. What's up?" he asked. "Is that bum Joel not treating you right?"

Now I felt even worse since I couldn't talk about why Joel and I were really together and how it was about to come to an end.

Whether he was Joel or Randy, I'd fallen for him. I knew it was stupid. But no one had ever called me an overly bright guy.

The day finally over, I trudged up the stairs, trying not to dwell on a worse case scenario for our talk. In my heart of hearts, I knew whatever he had to say wasn't going to be good news.

I wanted to believe in a happy ending. Maybe he'd figured out a way we could be together after this was all over. I couldn't see why not. It wasn't like I'd be holding him back professionally or anything. Of course, I wasn't an asset like Greenbriar was either.

I'd let myself in and thrown my keys on the table by the door before it registered that everything wasn't all right.

Joel was duct taped to a chair in the middle of the room. Standing in front of him was a guy holding a gun.

"What the fuck?" The gloved man with the gun turned the gun on me.

Rather than echo him, I slowly raised my hands. What the fuck?

As he gestured for me to walk toward him, I started to take off my backpack.

"I wouldn't do it if I were you," he said. "I'll shoot."

Again, what the fuck?

"Just taking off my backpack."

"Okay, nice and easy. Just drop it right there."

I nodded. He was walking toward me, pointing to the wall.

I suppressed my grin. All right. I'd been practicing here and was ready for a scene just like this. If I was going to die, I was prepared to go out in style.

"Okay, up against the wall. Put your hands behind your back."

I took a little curved step and then headed for the wall. One foot up and flipped. I didn't stick the landing, but ended up rolling into the gunman. He was standing with his mouth hanging open, the gun hanging loosely in his hand.

I kicked the gun away and zapped him with one sneaker in his abdomen and the other in his junk, rolling away from him when we both went down.

I heard something of his crack, his skull, maybe, on the concrete floor.

I stood, backed up, and watched him a moment. He was out, but not gone.

Joel was making little noises around the tape over his mouth.

"What?" I asked as the gunman moved like he was about to get up.

I wasn't sure what to do at that point, so I picked up the gun and shot out one of our tall, floor-to-ceiling windows. Probably a stupid thing to do, but I figured our neighbors would call the cops. Besides, I was the one holding the gun now. The gunman looked dazed and confused on the floor.

He was struggling to stand, so I aimed for his foot and fired. Okay, a gunman I'm not, but I did manage to wing the side of his knee. He went down heavy, yelling and groaning.

I looked at Joel who was all but levitating from the chair he was taped to.

"What?" I asked again.

The gunman was bleeding all over the floor. I could faintly hear sirens in the distance, and I could tell by his panicked look he could too.

I went into the kitchen, putting the gun in the refrigerator thinking he'd have to do some extra work to get to it if he managed to quit bleeding and stand up before the cops arrived. I grabbed the kitchen scissors, ran over to Joel, and cut his arms and legs free.

In a real act of bravery, he ripped the tape from his mouth.

"What the hell?" he shouted.

He sounded like he was talking through a tin can. My ears were ringing so loud he was all but drown out.

"What?" I asked as I handed him the scissors.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Huh?"

He gestured to the wall and his hand rolled over.

"Yeah, well, not the best wall flip I've ever done. But it did surprise him." All I could hear were the ringing in my ears and the gunman's curses. "Jeez, he's really bleeding."

Joel took over, telling me to sit on the couch and stay out of the way. As the night turned to dawn, the gunman hauled away, and the statements taken, my adrenalin faded as fast as I did.

"Then Eric walks in and does this ninja thing on the wall," I hear him say for the hundredth time.

"Parkour, Joel. I did a parkour wall flip. No big deal," I muttered as I plumped one of the couch pillows and lay down. "I've been practicing them since we moved in here. This is a great place for wall flips."

I was nearly asleep when I felt his hand over my head.

"You're either the bravest motherfucker I know or the luckiest one," he said as I slipped into a doze then a rock hard sleep.

Joel wasn't there when I woke, but there was a note on the table.

Eric, we've got to talk. You working tonight? See you later. Randy

Okay, the Randy part took me a minute, but I got it. He was now another guy, not the guy I knew and was falling for. Fair enough.

I walked by the sketches of my walls, looking at the different pictures I'd drawn. None of them caught or held me. I had one more set of photos and one more idea.

School was a slow motion horror film with only a single shining moment. I got an A- on my first essay with the notation, "I knew you could do it." Ego boost with sleep deprivation equals out of body experience.

Studying didn't happen. I slept through it in the library. Fortunately, nobody threw me out, so I must not have been snoring.

Groggy, I headed to work where Charlie's initial comment was "You look like shit, boy."

Shit happens, I almost answered, but why bother?

At break time, Charlie asked, "Someone steal your dog? Kill your cat? What's going on?"

"Joel said we need to talk."

Charlie's face closed up with maybe a little anger peeping through.

"I'm sorry, kid." He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

"Yeah, thanks. Me too." I turned to draw a beer for a regular. Zombie work doesn't make for a fast night, but it helps get you through the hours.

Charlie finally let me go early.

"Get some sleep, and don't let him kick you in the balls" was his advice. "See you tomorrow."

Joel was sitting on the couch flipping through the Ikea catalogue we'd gotten in the mail the week before. We'd been talking about getting furniture. Now he looked like he was just flipping pages to have something to do.

"Okay, I'm here." I dropped my keys on the table next to the door just like the night before. The blood stains were still there, and I was really hoping my heartbreak wasn't going to add more blood to the floor.

"How was school? Work?" Joel, no, Randy asked.

He just looked and sounded so much like Joel that he made my head and heart ache. Couldn't he at least change into another person when the case was over?

"I want to thank you for last night," he said when he seemed to realize I wasn't going to answer his questions. "You saved my life. I thought the guy you parked all over was a friendly informant, not the guy I was after. I let him in, and he jumped me."

"No problem," I answered when it seemed the ball was in my court.

"Can we do one last thing?" he asked. "Just one more time for me?"

I must have looked as puzzled as I felt. What did he want from me?

He stood and walked slowly over as if I was going to attack him. He held out his arms.

"Please. Just hug me," he whispered.

I hurt. All the parts of my body that were supposed to be invincible—my heart, my mind, my soul—hurt.

I hugged him. What were we doing? How could I let him go?

I felt him shaking. Then I felt his tears on my tee shirt.

"Please stay. I think we can make this work. I care. I care too much," he whispered.

Now we were both blubbering and hugging. I was so relieved I felt like I would float if he didn't hang onto me.

Then he laughed, more of gulp and giggle, but I wasn't counting.

"If for no other reason, you've got to teach me the wall flip thing," he added.

We pulled back and grinned at each other.

"How about the wall walk?" I pointed to the bottom row of arcing footprints. "You wanna know how to do it too?"

"Wow. You're kidding, right?"

"Nope."

"Fucking A." He took a deep breath. "And you've got to tell me what you decided about your walls. What are you going to do with them?"

"I don't know yet. I'm still working on it. I'm counting on you for inspiration."

I kissed him. Yup. I’d found my fount of inspiration.