The Son of Every Man

Chapter 4.2

"Never mind." He propped himself up on his arms. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm lying on your bed like this."

Miguel laughed. "Do what you want."

"It's just...you're embarrassing me...just standing there."

Miguel went to the bed and lay down on his side, facing Gabe, their heads cradled by separate pillows. "There, now we're equals."

Gabe smiled faintly, looked down at the pillow. "I have a secret to tell you. I don't think you'll judge me for it, because of what you said at the pub."

"I won't judge."

The kid closed his eyes. "I'm like you."

"You're like me how?"

Gabe's eyes were still closed. He looked like an angel. "You know."

Miguel did know. But he hadn't suspected the kid one bit until now. Wasn't that true? He'd never had any reason to assume... "You're brave for telling me that."

"I don't feel brave at all."

"Yeah, well, take a number."

"But you stopped. How did you stop it? No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to stop."

"Stop what?"

"Those feelings."

"Gabe, I never—why would I want it to stop?"

Gabe's eyes opened. Ten different emotions tumbled across his fragile dark features. "I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know why I thought you—"

"It's all right." Miguel felt the kid's pain deeply, as if it were his own—and at one point, a lifetime ago now, it had been. "Do you want your feelings to stop?"

"Well I..." He paused, looked Miguel in the eyes.

Miguel tried to hold him there, coveting his gaze as if something huge were at stake if he allowed it to drift away yet again.

"I don't know."

"That's okay."

Gabe said nothing, but his arm moved away from his body. His fingertips probed curiously at Miguel's hands, one of which lay cupped in the other. Miguel's reached out in earnest, but Gabe had already withdrawn. The kid looked sleepy, confused.

"Maybe I should get ready for bed," Miguel said quietly. "You'll be okay tonight? I'll just be out in the living room."

"Aren't you going to stay here?"

"Wasn't planning on it. Do you want me to?"

Gabe looked all around himself. "I've never slept in a bed this big before."

Part of him wanted to laugh at such a statement, but the other part understood exactly what Gabe meant. "If you want me to stay, I will. Otherwise I'll sleep on the couch. It's very comfortable."

"Please don't sleep on the fucking couch."

Miguel put up his hands, surrendering. "The bed it is. I have to go wash my face, but I'll be back."

Gabe made a strange murmur of approval, and Miguel was sure that when he returned, the kid would be asleep.

As Miguel's head sank into the down pillow five minutes later, Gabe mumbled, "I'm not going to the bathroom anymore." His eyes were closed.

Miguel looked over. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The kid said nothing more and his breathing grew heavy. Miguel knew he must already be dreaming.

Of course it had been panic that consumed Gabe down by the elevator. It should have come as no surprise at all to Miguel. Gabe's father was dead for only a year, his mother, for only weeks. Through it all he had gradually acquired knowledge, in staggering detail, about the nature of his father's work.

Miguel knew how it must have been. One moment, you're just a driver, doing what you're told, urging a car along through the violet night. Before long, you've begun the process of accepting it...different classes, different weights, all amounting to the same gorgeous, glittering white substance. If it had not been clear to Gabe when he started, it most certainly was now. A year was plenty of time to get acquainted with the unambiguous reality of what he had become—a trafficker.

Miguel would know. He sat at the helm of quite possibly the largest single concentration of class-A and class-B snow dox in the entire city. They called it the warehouse, but it was really just a large garage, clad in steel just like many others surrounding it. The others served as marine engine shops and buoy overflow, grease traps and storage houses, among countless other functions. One was filled front to back with huge spools of chain and rope. Many had windows, but of course theirs did not. It sat unassuming, tidier than most but not out of place, locked tight through the heat of the day under the thrum of its rooftop air conditioner—the only suggestion to daytime workers that it was used at all.

He had been proud the night he first took sole control, and his pride had only grown since then. There were only two keys that would open the side door: One was with Eddie; the other stayed with Miguel at all times (it now lay on the floor between the bed and the wall, stuffed deep in the pocket of his jeans).

Miguel felt himself fading. He lolled his head over to look at Gabe. The kid had gotten himself almost naked while Miguel was in the bathroom. His black pants and gray t-shirt lay fused together on the carpet. The blanket rose up above his waist, so Miguel couldn't see anything. Miguel removed his own shirt in one slow, exhausted motion and let it fall on top of his pants.

He looked down at himself, examining the cluster of dark brown hairs that had recently sprouted from the pit of his sternum. He looked then at Gabe's chest, where, he was fairly certain in the dim light, there was no hair at all.

Miguel's attraction to his boss had been difficult to manage at first. Marco had a sturdy appearance and was very handsome. What few wrinkles his face divulged only heightened his allure. And, physical qualities aside, Marco was nothing less than Miguel's savior. Miguel felt an incredible sense of gratitude to him, and an even stronger resulting affection—but he had nowhere to place it. If Miguel had known one thing for certain, his boss did not return his affection and never would. Over time, he had learned to keep his secret wish packed away. And then Marco died, and there had been no more wishing after that.

Miguel looked over again. He couldn't believe it. All that time, all those moments together, and Marco had kept a beautiful secret the whole time: a son. One who was, as it happened, not much younger than Miguel. A son who—was it actually true?—hosted the same relegating trait that to this day caused Miguel occasional twinges of shame. He still couldn't accept the situation as reality; it was as if the blurriness of the night sustained a fantasy, and tomorrow it could all be gone. He reached over and brushed his fingertips along Gabe's smooth, tan arm, hopeful that this boy was as real as he seemed.

;-;