Lori Ostlund - After the Parade

“I’m calling to say that you saved my life,” Aaron said. “And to say thank you.”

Gloria was right — people did what they wanted to do. Walter had wanted to help him because helping him had also helped Walter. That morning, Aaron had opened an unpacked box and found his journal of grievances inside. He had thrown it away because that was what he wanted to do, because forgiving Walter was forgiving himself. He stood up and looked out the window of his new studio. He thought about Walter on the other end of the line, looking at the familiar walls of their house with no idea that Aaron was looking at the ocean. Even when they were together, he saw now, they had always been looking at different things.

“Call you next week?” Aaron said, and Walter said, “I’ll be here.”

* * *

Maybe George had stopped going to the café after Aaron stood him up, or maybe he had not been a regular there to begin with. Maybe his presence that day had been a fluke. After two weeks of eating pie and waiting for George to reappear, Aaron got on Muni one afternoon, thinking he would ride the N all the way to the ocean and walk home from there. He got on, and there was George, wearing his Muni uniform and asking to see his ticket. Aaron showed him his ticket and said, “I’m sorry. I got scared. What time do you get off? Do you want to take a walk?”

And George said, “At six. And yes.”

When six came, Aaron was waiting. George came up close to him as if he were going to hug him, but he did not. After Aaron had recovered from his fear that George might hug him, he realized that he was disappointed George had not, so he reached out and hugged George. George hugged him back, and Aaron blurted out, “I’m not really much of a hugger” because they were two strangers after all, which meant that everything they did would lay the groundwork for how each came to understand the other. He did not want George to think he went around hugging people, that he crossed over into intimacy with such ease. Except now George would think he was so attracted to him that he could not help himself, that he had felt compelled to hug him.

But George just smiled and said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself,” and Aaron smiled back and said, “I am large. I contain multitudes.”

“Actually, I’m not much of a Whitman fan,” said George.

“Me neither,” said Aaron. Even agreeing made him feel shy. “Anyway,” he said, “while I was waiting for you, it occurred to me that you’ve been on your feet all day, so it’s okay if you’re not up for a walk.”

“Are you standing me up again?” said George.

Aaron looked down. “It was the poem,” he said at last. “The Richard Hugo poem. It reminded me of someone, a man I met years ago, when I was just a boy. He introduced me to that poem, to poetry, to so many things.” How strange it felt to be discussing his life in such general terms, to be referring to Walter as “someone.” He took a breath. “I loved him very much.”

“Okay,” George said. “Good. It’s important to have been in love.”

If he and George began walking now, where would it end? Would a day come when they would say, “Do you realize how many miles we’ve walked together?” They would try to calculate it. At least ten thousand they would decide. By then, they would know everything about the other. He would know that George always needed to be on his right when they walked because as a boy he had gone to the post office each day with his father, who could not hear from his left ear, so George had always walked on his right. Now George could not walk any other way. They would have had lots of sex. They would have talked and read poetry because poetry was not only who he was with Walter, it was who he was.

Or maybe none of that would happen. Maybe years from now, while eating a piece of pie, he would think to himself, What was the name of that man I met over pie? He worked for Muni, I recall. We took a walk together once.

He did not know what would happen because that was the way life worked. You went to a parade, and your father fell from a float and died. You got into bed, thinking about the map of Canada, and woke up the next day to find your mother gone. You went out fishing one night, and met the man who would change your life. You fell asleep at the wheel of the U-Haul in which you were leaving the man you’d met fishing, checked into a seedy motel, and saved a life.

“So, should we walk?” said George.

“Yes,” said Aaron, and they started walking.

I would like to thank the following:

The organizations and individuals who offered crucial support in the early stages of this book, especially Nancy Zafris, who got my publishing ball rolling and has continued to offer friendship and guidance; The Rona Jaffe Foundation, which provided me with the financial means to reduce my teaching load in 2009–10; the Creative Writing Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I was the Kenan Visiting Writer from 2010 to 2012 and was fortunate to have wonderful students and colleagues; Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference; and all the hardworking editors at various literary journals who have supported my work, especially New England Review , as well as those who published early parts of this novel: The Iowa Review, Bluestem, Beloit Fiction Journal, Nashville Review , and the Northwest Review .

My agent, Terra Chalberg, who is pragmatic and supportive and knows when to set deadlines;

Liese Mayer, my editor, who has been an enthusiastic friend to this book, saving me from myself countless times with her thoughtful, gentle, and judicious edits; as well as Nan Graham, Kate Lloyd, Alexsis Johnson, Rita Madrigal, Mia Crowley-Hald, and the rest of the team at Scribner, all of whom have made me feel continuously grateful to have found a home for my book with them.

My students, who make me feel both useful and hopeful. I’m not sure how much I would write if I didn’t feel both of these at least some of the time;

My dear friends, who understand that when I complete a day of writing, I rarely want to talk about it, and who have shown their support in countless ways;

Anne Raeff, my first reader, with whom I have spent nearly two-and-a-half decades of my life.

© DENNIS HEARNE

LORI OSTLUND’s collection of stories, The Bigness of the World , received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the California Book Award for First Fiction, and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. It was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and was named a Notable Book by The Story Prize. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories , among other places. In 2009, Lori received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. She lives in San Francisco.

MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

SimonandSchuster.com

authors.simonandschuster.com/Lori-Ostlund