Lydia Millet - How the Dead Dream

He turned and pulled out the full bag, tied it and carried it, bulging with sharp angles, out the back door. His mother had fallen from her attention to cleanliness, fallen far and quickly.

Glancing around for her outdoor garbage bin he saw a small shrine on a stucco wall and moved closer. The centerpiece was a photograph of Beth that must have come from one of his own packets of loose snapshots; around it, stuck to the stucco with pushpins, were snatches of poetry, rosaries draped ornamentally, prayer cards and lace and dried flowers. He saw sacred hearts, haloed angels and melancholy Marys, faded and curling and made porous by rain.

Sorrow.

The evidence was everywhere: he could not avoid it. At first he had believed only a few men were childish, and raised himself above them. Arrogant, because all men were childish, including him.

They still had their institutions and those institutions still had their beauty-less grandiose, however, than ruined. He loved them nonetheless, revered them even as they declined. But the beauty they had, did it mean something? Or was it artful like the scrawls of preschoolers-chiefly by accident?

In his relationship to Fulton he knew he had found a pastime that allowed him the twin guilty pleasures of judgment and observation: his passivity under the onslaught was that of a voyeur.

When Fulton committed infidelity, for instance, he did so as a paying customer, every Tuesday and Thursday at three. This kept him, he claimed, safe from the fear of detection and perfectly blame-free. When T. inquired as to the workings of this absolution Fulton gaped at him openly, as though T. was the world's first moron. For he, Fulton, was committing no act of betrayal; he did not love the prostitute; theirs was a business arrangement.

T. asked him then if, in fact, he actually loved his wife. He could easily believe that Fulton did not love, prostitute or wife equally. In fact the proposition that he did love had a tinge of absurdity.

"I married her," said Fulton. "Same fucking thing."

Possibly, T. reflected now and then in the wake of some particularly egregious revelation, Fulton trusted him with the confidences simply because he knew that he, Fulton, represented a primary capital stream to T., one that T. would not dare to put at risk through disloyalty. Or possibly, he suspected at other times, Fulton actually liked him.

But Fulton barely knew him. As a rule T. revealed little in the way of personal information, since Fulton did not seem to require it. For Fulton communication was a one-way street. And when, on occasion, T. chose to contribute to the conversation with a brief disclosure of his own, Fulton became bored and changed the subject.

"So my father," said T. on the way to the racquet club one Wednesday, reclining in the leather passenger seat of Fulton's Land Cruiser, "used to be an ad executive in Manhattan, but now he mixes drinks at a transvestite bar in Key West."

"He turned gay?"

"I guess so."

"Huh," said Fulton, hunching down and squinting into the side-view mirror. "Did you see that? Asian woman in the Hyundai almost rear-ended me."

"No. Didn't see."

"Asians can't drive for shit."

"Might want to keep that insight to yourself."

"It's not exactly a secret, T. Damn, you're a rube. Disoriented Orientals. Ring a bell?"

"If the poor woman had rear-ended this car she would have been killed instantly."

"You gotta watch out, T.," said Fulton, shaking his head. "That stuff's in the genes. You could turn homo too."

"You think so?"

"Watch out for it. If you feel the urge, rent a copy of Anal Alley and have a jerkoff marathon."

"That's very helpful."

"What am I saying? That's like offering smack to a guy on methadone. Better stay around the front side, T. Avoid the ass region completely."

"Good tip."

"Janet's sister's church has this deal where they deprogram them. I don't think it works though."

"No? Doesn't work?"

"It's a boot camp. They tell them man-boy love is the work of Satan. They bring in straight guys to teach them how to act straight. Like you're not allowed to smoke, it's faggy. Then they lock them up in small rooms and yell their heads off at them. `Repent, sinners! For the sake of Jesus Christ Our Lord, cast out the homo devil from your butt!' It's kind of like hardcore bondage and domination. It's supposed to scare them straight but I think it actually makes them horny. Some Christian faggots actually hook up there. Serious. It's basically a dating service for Christian homes."

"What does Janet's sister think of that?"

"She put her son in it and he came out of there with a brand-new assfriend. That's how she found out the real deal. I have a faggot nephew."

"I didn't know."

"No blood relation though. Janet's side of the family only. My genes are pure hetero. I had a great-grandfather who was a rapist."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah. The guy raped. Rapists are basically superheteros. A rapist is a hetero on steroids."

"That's quite a theory you've got there."

"I forgot to tell you, you gotta use the shit racquet today. The titanium's being restrung."

Over time, as T. had suspected he would, Fulton delivered an education.

The change came suddenly, when the two of them went back to T.'s apartment for beer once after a game. Fulton claimed he wanted to see the place. As soon as they pulled up stools to the kitchen island and sat down, lifting freshly uncapped bottles to their lips, the dog came trotting over. She stood on her rear legs and put her forepaws on Fulton's stool, tail wagging, with the slavish affection she sometimes bestowed on strangers who seemed welcome.

Fulton surprised T. by pushing her away roughly with an elbow to her face and the side of his shoe to her flank. Grimacing, he wiped his arm on his gym shorts.

"Dog spit. Disgusting."

"Spit? What spit? This dog doesn't slobber at all. Come here, girl."

The dog retreated to T.'s side, where he put a protective hand between her ears and stroked her head. He was irritated.

"I don't touch dogs."

"Why? Are you allergic?"

"I don't like to touch the things, OK? They lick their anuses. You got any chips? Crackers or something?"

T. stared at him as he tipped his head back and took a deep swallow.

"No chips," he answered. "No crackers."

"I'm starving."

Fulton jumped up and opened the refrigerator door, scouting. T. followed him with his gaze and felt a tide of revulsion rising in his bones, in his blood and muscles. Fulton's back was a wall of hostile blankness; Fulton's neck was no neck.

He got off his own stool abruptly, a cursory glance at his watch.

"Know what? Forgot. Got a meeting. Escrow thing."

"Take the brew with me, then," said Fulton without missing a beat, and turned toward the door of the kitchen with his beer bottle still in hand.

T. watched him leave without saying a word.

That night he kicked his legs in and out of the sheets, turned and punched his pillow into different shapes against his cheek. The cheek felt slack, distracting as he tried to sleep. There was no good position for the side of his face. The scissoring of his legs and pulling and twisting of the blankets kept the dog awake too, circling and circling and rearranging herself head to feet into her curved moon of sleep.

Finally he got up and went toward the bathroom, dog rising once more on the bed behind him. He leaned over the toilet with his eyes closed and saw pricks of light on the surface of his eyelids. Nothing happened beyond a head rush.

He had let him kick her. Almost a kick. His dog-but it was not whose she was that mattered, only how devoted she was, how she followed without questioning. Would follow on and on forever.