Ann Beattie - Burning House

Now he’s coming into the bedroom, and I’m trying again to think what to say. Or ask. Or do.

“Be glad you’re not in Key West,” he says. He climbs into bed.

I raise myself up on one elbow and stare at him.

“There’s a hurricane about to hit,” he says.

“What?” I say. “Where did you hear that?”

“When Reddy Fox and I were putting the dishes away. We had the radio on.” He doubles up his pillow, pushes it under his neck. “Boom goes everything,” he says. “Bam. Crash. Poof.” He looks at me. “You look shocked.” He closes his eyes. Then, after a minute or two, he murmurs, “Hurricanes upset you? I’ll try to think of something nice.”

He is quiet for so long that I think he has fallen asleep. Then he says, “Cars that run on water. A field of flowers, none alike. A shooting star that goes slow enough for you to watch. Your life to do over again.” He has been whispering in my ear, and when he takes his mouth away I shiver. He slides lower in the bed for sleep. “I’ll tell you something really amazing,” he says. “Tucker told me he went into a travel agency on Park Avenue last week and asked the travel agent where he should go to pan for gold, and she told him.”

“Where did she tell him to go?”

“I think somewhere in Peru. The banks of some river in Peru.”

“Did you decide what you’re going to do after Mark’s birthday?” I say.

He doesn’t answer me. I touch him on the side, finally.

“It’s two o’clock in the morning. Let’s talk about it another time.

“You picked the house, Frank. They’re your friends downstairs. I used to be what you wanted me to be.”

“They’re your friends, too,” he says. “Don’t be paranoid.”

“I want to know if you’re staying or going.”

He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and continues to lie very still.

“Everything you’ve done is commendable,” he says. “You did the right thing to go back to school. You tried to do the right thing by finding yourself a normal friend like Marilyn. But your whole life you’ve made one mistake — you’ve surrounded yourself with men. Let me tell you something. All men — if they’re crazy, like Tucker, if they’re gay as the Queen of the May, like Reddy Fox, even if they’re just six years old — I’m going to tell you something about them. Men think they’re Spider-Man and Buck Rogers and Superman. You know what we all feel inside that you don’t feel? That we’re going to the stars.”

He takes my hand. “I’m looking down on all of this from space,” he whispers. “I’m already gone.”