Secrets; I Tried To Keep Us Together, You Were Busy Keeping Secrets

Fall North

'It is the real thing, and the best. I have a friend in Barcelona, you would like him, he dresses like you. He sends this to me for the holidays.' Kurt poured them each a second small glass of absinthe. 'Your business, it does not happen tonight?'

'Not after this glass. I will take care of it tomorrow.'

'Then back to New York?'

'The plan is by Sunday.'

'Then lunch. We will go to the beach and have the thin beef.'

< 5 >

'Oh, god. I almost forgot. Of course.'

'Yes. The real thing. There has sprung up many imitators in and around the city. It is ridiculous. One cannot hope to duplicate the taste. The setting is part of it. The sea, the birds. The sea salt, it gets into the beef.'

More guests began to arrive. Ed could hear them outside the study door. Bruiser was lying on his friend's feet.

'How are your kids?'

'Morons. I do not know where we get them. It is worse than even in your years, Edward. They are morons, adrift in their idiocy. I try to keep them in the yard; out in the Square they will be hit by cars, or fall into the river.'

'There must be a few, though.'

'You were always my star. You know this, you were my favorite, my hope. A genuine sense for what is right and what is wrong. That, paired with a realistic knowledge of how the world works. In your years, Edward, it was not the intention that was lacking. All young people want to bring about a thousand years of peace and grass - you just thought you could do it by deciding it was the right thing to do. Marches.'

Kurt sipped at his green drink, letting it seep into his blood and color his memories. Ed was warm and happy from his first glass.

'Ach. The world is a clawed serpent, my son. It is a mechanism for rending flesh and grinding love to powder. We are little bags of jelly, created for some reason that must be humorous on a level beyond ours, created and then thrown into this machine. Without us to mash and grind, there can be no machine - take heart! At least we are necessary, and that is something. But without this process, this torture, we are nothing. The most we can do is to harden ourselves, to use any means, even the basest, to carve out whatever temporary peace we can for ourselves. To postpone the rending. The pain.'

< 6 >

Kurt seemed to drift off, and then came back.

'You. You always understood this. You, at nineteen, knew the claws and the cold. You had a halo of blood on your head, my son. The other Cambridge kiddies walked through the Square and peered at each other from inside clouds. They saw the cobblestones as soft, guiding hands - you saw them as they are. Bloody rocks.'

'Bloody rocks.'

They drank.

Kurt gave in for a moment. 'Oh, why did you not go to change the world? You were one of the only ones who knew how.'

'Who says I'm not?'

'Did you lose that part, half of the essential mix? Did you lose the urge to try to create peace? Or have you found a new way to see how the world works?'

'No, professor. I still see how the world works.'

Kurt was soon deep in absinthe, too hard to find behind those old glasses. They joined the larger party in the living room. A few people were dancing. Ed left after being introduced to the first two couples, Kurt trailing after him 'This was Edward! This was my one final hope! He is now a shadow in New York! Look on my failure! He is in politics!'