Comfort and Joy

  To find a hiding place. Close the front door and lock it, click. At the end of the driveway, Dan's luggage sat amid foliage that was still green in December. He had locked the blue door; the house beyond lay empty and silent. Now the journey was beginning, and he needed to find a hiding place. Shelter. But instead he headed to the street where a taxi was waiting. The driver, in dreadlocks and yarn hat, stepped out of the car and loaded Dan's bags into the trunk. He dipped his head politely, high hat and dreadlocks shivering. Dan slid into the back seat.

  "And where do you go?" the driver asked, settling behind the steering wheel. Dan answered and the driver shifted the taxi into gear. The house vanished, obscured first by interlaced limbs of cedar, later magnolia, a deep green veil.

  To the airport. Dan counted the bounces of the driver's hat, ballooning against the roof of the car. Dan to the airport. With suitcases. The driver had understood everything, what more to do but sing? So he sang softly, in a baritone, some snatch of tune Dan sometimes heard plainly and that at other times was lost in other sounds. Dan watched the dark column of the taxi driver's neck, hearing the low song like a purr, and answering even more softly with singing of his own, as the shadows of bridges and sweeping curves wheeled over his face and arms. They rode through Atlanta in a cocoon of glass and light, orderly traffic surrounding them on all sides, the stately proceeding of many lanes of highway south through the city. Moving away from the towers and canyons of downtown.

  "You are home for the holy days," the taxi driver said.

  "Oh, yes," Dan answered.

  The man grinned and nodded his head. "Every body is going to the airport. All day. I drive back and back."

  The car swept down the road, encountering less traffic than Dan had feared. Once the vehicle raced a commuter train moving unimpeded along its track, the train vanishing as the curve hurled it out of sight. Dan had a feeling, matching the gradient of asphalt to the graceful neck of the taxi driver, that the whole world was in motion all at the same time; that it was good to travel along slashing inclines; that it must be good, sometimes, to travel at all.

  Sometimes. But this was Christmas, and Dan was going home.

  At the airport Ford had already arrived and was waiting in the zone where automobiles let off passengers and luggage. Ford stood on the walkway, somehow calm, wrapped in his black overcoat, tall and bareheaded. Black hair shining. Already standing at the curb, already waiting, when Dan had guessed he would be late.

  Dan lay his hand on the door latch. The driver opened his door and got out. Dan opened his door and got out. The cold air chilled his face as he waited for the driver to open the trunk. The driver lifted the first of the bags and Ford reached for it; the driver looked at Dan, who said, "It's all right."

  So Ford grinned and took the luggage to the curbside baggage check, and Dan paid the taxi driver but watched Ford, moving so easily in the crowd. Ford had already tipped a porter to help him with the bags and this transaction was completed with such dispatch that he had the claim check stapled to his ticket before Dan had pocketed his taxi change. Ford folded the tickets and slipped them in his coat. He stood serenely waiting. "You didn't think I would be here, did you?"

  "No. I was sure you'd be late."

  They plunged into the airport, through the hiss of electric doors into the echo of North Terminal, where a gallery of unfortunates, who did not have Ford to arrange their travel, had still to stand in line, check their bags, and fiddle with their tickets. Ford steered Dan by the elbow through a crosscurrent of off-duty Marines who were wandering through the ticketing arena, bewildered in tight jeans. The flight was an hour away, no hurry. Ford removed his gloves. Wandering, Ford calmly surveyed the crowd, the midway of the Hartsfield aerodrome. Dan kept beside him and studied them as well.

  Ford said, as they were walking, "I liked his hair."

  "The taxi man? So did I."

  Ahead, lines were forming at the security checkpoint. Ford directed him toward one of the lines, then stopped. Dan placed his bag, flat, on the belt. He pictured his underwear, files, pens, lozenges, comb and gum wrappers under radiologic illumination. Beyond the gate Ford lifted the bag and touched Dan's elbow again. With the drone of voices and near collision of bodies on all sides, Ford guided Dan forward. Dan said, "Ford."

  "Yes?"

  Dan watched Ford's hand. Now, descending on the escalator, the fine hand gripping the black rubber railing. "Nothing," Dan said. "I said your name."

  "Did you forget who I was?"

  "No."

  The voice closer, uncurling in his ear. "Say it again."

  "Ford."

  In a plush scarlet bar they found a table overlooking the whole panorama. The bar itself was pleasantly crowded but not full. Dan slipped neatly into a silver-armed chair. Ford spoke to a waitress, then joined Dan at the table.

  Watching Dan, he stripped off his overcoat, laying it across the table's third, empty, chair. Ford wore no jacket, only the white shirt and tie. The waitress brought drinks and Ford sprawled in the chair. "Just as well you stayed home from the hospital. The place was dead today."

  Dan fingered his glass. "Always is, at Christmas."

  The two men touched glasses and sipped. Ford yawned, letting his head hang back. He closed his eyes. "I do feel like I'm getting here," he said. "Am I?"

  "You are."

  The young man smiled. The boy inside him did the same. Eyes still closed, throat still longing to be touched, there, on that pulse. Dan asked, "Did you get any sleep last night?"

  "No. But I got a shower."

  "I thought you said the place was slow."

  Ford yawned again. "Was. But I had this sick kid."

  "Bad?"

  "Yeah."Sipping. The tone said,Don't ask. "Little guy. Nine years old." Ford met his gaze, briefly. "I'm okay, just tired. The kid's going to pull through."

  The bar itself was filling up with servicemen heading home for the holidays, young couples, husbands taking a break from families to gulp a beer. Two accountants were discussing the end-of-fiscal-year procedures at their places of employment. On the television over the bar flickered the comforting images of intensive Christmas marketing.

  "You run around on me last night?" Ford was still slumped in the chair.

  "Well, no, I stayed home packing just like I said I would. Why do you always check on me?"

  "I don't always check on you." Ford lifted his empty glass. "I'm still thirsty. You think I have time?"

  "I doubt it."

  Ford rolled the empty glass on the tabletop and leaned over the table. They stood to go. Ford left money and so did Dan; Ford saying, "You could let me buy you a drink." Dan pretended not to hear, laying bills in place. They crossed the concourse as the gate attendant announced that the flight to Raleigh-Durham was ready to begin pre-boarding.

  Ford, being a McKinney, had bought first-class seats. Dan had a suspicion that the McKinneys of Savannah, Georgia, had bought first-class and only first-class tickets on every form of conveyance since the Ark, and that no McKinney had ever so much as walked through coach. In Ford's case, since he was not merely a McKinney but a McKinney the Third, and a doctor, the question had simply never come up.

  Whereas the Crells of North Carolina had only recently taken to air passage at all, and were in fact unfamiliar with most forms, and even the idea, of travel.

  Ford settled Dan by the window, himself on the aisle. The spacious first-class seat always surprised Dan at first, and he settled back with a sigh into its soft embrace. He was feeling the warm flush of liquor, a slow creeping of comfort through his arms and legs. From close by came Ford's mellow voice. "Here's your boarding pass. I'm going to call the hospital. Don't let these folks take off without me."

  Dan closed his eyes and wai
ted. Ford was gone until the last moment, the plane full, final boarding already called, Ford slipping through the cabin door and sliding into his seat, smelling of the cold wind in the jetway. "I got through," Ford said, as the flight attendant blinked. Ford rubbed his hands together. "It's getting cold outside."

  He was happy. Meaning the phone call had gone well, and the child was probably okay. Dan had learned only to ask when invited to do so. But this time, Ford leaned close again. "The kid's doing great. Just great."

  The doctor settled his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, grateful for any moment of rest. The jet lurched backward, and the flight attendants began their demonstration of seat belt function, oxygen mask protocol, and the paths to exits.

  Lights were dimmed for evening takeoff. The fasten-seatbelt sign glowed overhead. In the forward cabin, one reading lamp poured down its tinted cone of light. Beyond the windows, below on the murky tarmac, glowing lines of blue and orange paraded past the taxiing aircraft. The jet rolled forward more or less smoothly. Nearby, on the interstate highway, rivers of red and white lights traced sweeping arcs beneath the soupy clouds into which the jet would soon hurl itself. Beyond the runway, parking lots unfurled in bluish haze. The jet lumbered toward its point of departure, engines flaring and subsiding.

  The pilot turned the nose into near-darkness at the end of the runway. With some pilots there was a pause here, a moment of stillness before the jets rose to takeoff pitch. With other pilots—like the one tonight—there was no such pause; there was only the jet turning, creaking weight quickening forward, faster, down the slight incline of the early runway and then lifting. Into the sky stepped the machine, the groan of metal subsiding, wheel carriages lifting into their beds. The aircraft tested the air, found that its ungainly shape made sense at this speed, and climbed. Over the roofs of East Point into heaven.

  The jet broke into a peaceful sky above the clouds, attaining its cruising altitude of twenty-two thousand feet, a flight time of forty-odd minutes, and in Raleigh-Durham the weather was clear and cold.

  "Did you call your mom?" Ford asked.

  "She called me. Early this morning."

  "Does she believe I'm really coming?"

  "I don't even know if I believe it." Their faces, in the dim cabin light, were close. Ford's clean jaw and dark beard line, his perfect mouth with the full lower lip and strong, straight nose. He said, "You're not worried are you, old man?"

  "Don't call me old man."

  "Your mom likes me, We've talked lots of times. You don't have to worry about a thing."

  "I'm only four years older than you are." Pause. "Your mother called, too."

  "Did she?" The slight shift of Ford's expression signified his wariness. "Did she talk to you, or did she act like she didn't know who you were?"

  "She was actually rather pleasant. She asked how I was doing, that kind of thing. She's never done that."

  "But she didn't say anything about Christmas."

  Dan leaned close this time, into the circle of Ford's seat. The balding gentleman on the opposite aisle quickly averted his eyes. "She did the best she could, I think. She said she guessed I had heard you wouldn't be coming home for Christmas." Ford's stillness became frozen. Dan went on. "I said I didn't think it was quite as simple as that."

  Ford idly touched his cocktail glass to his lower lip. Dan went on. "Then she asked if I knew where you would be, and I said you were coming home with me."

  Ford set down the glass and then the weight of his hand settled onto Dan's arm. "What did she say?"

  "She didn't say anything. She pretended not to hear. She said she hoped you would at least call on Christmas. Then she wished me a Merry Christmas and said the maid was calling her, and that was it."

  The man across the aisle was watching out of the corner of his eye. Ford said, "Serves her right to know. I wonder if she'll tell my dad."

  The question did not require answer. His fingertip worried the cotton sleeve of Dan's sweater. Touching. Rarely did Ford touch him so freely in public. The boy within the man must be afraid. The boy who had always gone home to Savannah at Christmas must wonder who would take care of him now.

  But where to find the boy? Where to lay one's hands? Within so large a frame.

  Ford reclined further, listening to the monotone keening of the jet turbines. Soon the captain announced their descent to the Raleigh-Durham airport. Ford glanced at his watch and said, "We don't have to drive far tonight, do we? We can just get the car and find a hotel."

  "Whatever you want."

  "That's what I want." Ford turned on his side toward Dan. Dan thought,This is my hiding place. This wall of McKinney. But something about the thought made him uncomfortable. So he looked out the window, as the jetliner descended, and Ford said, "What was that?"

  "What?"

  "That last thought you had. I didn't like it."

  "Nothing," Dan said. "General anxiety."

  "Save it for tomorrow."

  Treetops, roofs rising toward the window.

  "Hey." Ford's voice close to his ear. Hungry. "I said, save it for tomorrow. Can't you? You don't have to be anxious tonight. Right?"

  "Okay."

  Breath on his cheek. In public. "How many of you are there? Right now?"

  "One," Dan said, and looked Ford in the eye, as the flight attendant reached round Ford's sidewise bulk to collect their glasses. She was clearly startled by their intimacy. "Just one," Dan said. And thought, Shelter. Not hiding place. This wall of Ford was, would be, shelter. That was where the thought was wrong.

  Leaning over from the passenger seat of the rental sedan, smelling new vinyl, Dan unlocked the driver-side door. Ford slid behind the steering wheel and smoothed his hair. For the moment he was all discipline, averting his exhaustion. He reached into his shirt pocket and handed Dan folded paper. "Read this. We have a room there, wherever it is. Our friend the travel agent says it's on I-40 east between here and Raleigh."

  The drive was long enough for a sleepy speechlessness to settle over both men, which lasted till Ford parked the car in the hotel lot. Ford registered with the front desk while Dan carried the luggage down a lane of young magnolias into the lobby, a large, airy cage of glass and steel, hung with wreaths, red bows, and small white lights. The whole effect was adequate, even somewhat warm with its restrained Christmas finery. To reach the registration desk, one crossed an expanse of sectioned carpet, passing a fir trimmed in more white lights and golden balls. But Ford was already turning away from the desk, and coming toward him. "This place looks like Christmas in hell," he said, hefting his share of the luggage.

  Their room was large, peach-colored, with the usual assortment of chests, chairs, functional lamps, and a bed with what seemed like an acre of mattress. Only one bed, Dan noted, and caught Ford watching him. Ford said, "I asked for what we needed. One king-size bed."

  "I see."

  "Are you proud of me?" Smiling just slightly.

  "Yes." Moving forward, setting down his suitcases. The door closed safely behind them. Dan slipped out of his overcoat and threw it across a chair. Ford touched the buttons of his own, still holding the room key, and watched while Dan hung the garment bag in the closet and opened all its straps, zippers, and snaps, unpacking what they would need for the night. Ford studied him straightening the jackets and shirts on hangers.

  "Give me your coat," Dan called from the closet. But then he walked over to Ford and unbuttoned the coat and eased it off Ford's shoulders. Ford all but held his breath. Dan's slim hands brushed his shoulders, the sides of his arms, the heavy coat slipped across his back. Ford said, "There's a restaurant downstairs, and a bar that serves sandwiches. I saw a Waffle House further up the exit ramp, if that suits you better."

  "I can find something in the restaurant, if you can."

  "That's what I thought."

  Dan slid the tie through the white collar. Ford unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

  "Do you need to call the hospital?
"

  "Not this minute," Ford said. He reached his arms to the top of the door jamb.

  Dan ran his hands along the contours of Ford's chest, knowing now that the boy was in there. To be found. Ford moved closer. "Who's this?" he asked.

  "Danny Crell."

  "Nice guy," Ford said. Then said nothing. Lowered his arms around Dan's waist. Dan had wondered whether Ford would kiss tonight—there had been nights when he seemed reluctant, even after two years—but tonight he was willing. Dan could feel the ache in Ford then, all the way to the bottom of him, pouring out of him but unrelieved. He touched Ford's face, fingertips to cheeks, along his neck.

  "I laid some clothes on the bed. So you can stop looking like a doctor."

  Ford refused, for a moment, to release Dan. He held their faces close. Then, walking to the bed, he stood over the folded sweatshirt. Turning, hands rising to the buttons of his shirt, he watched the floor, as if he had gotten lost in the turn from the bed. He unbuttoned the shirt slowly. His body was powerful, the product of much labor, the muscles of shoulder, chest, and abdomen moving beneath the white cotton T-shirt. He stretched his arms and stood there. Laughing softly, his mouth just open. His heart beating. Across the room, the sight of his body quickened Dan's pulse.

  Once, Dan had found this terrain to be terrifying, this iteration of the McKinney genetics, out of its clothing. Even now he was transfixed, touching the bare chest. Watching the movement within movement of Ford's strong arms. He felt a rush of ease; the flesh welcomed him.

  Their closeness had been a struggle from the start. Now as they stood, chest to chest, they found peace in all their territories, unexpected. To stand so near, to allow touch, to love with the fingertips, were victories. "No T-shirt," Ford whispered, "in this weather," taking off Dan's shirt. Dan's laughter blew against the soft of Ford's neck. Dan felt Ford's hands low on his back, sliding inside his pants, caressing. The two were one weight standing, one balance, and in due order, like blossoming, one face opened to the other.

  Easing off after the first long phrase, they opened their eyes. Everything said, Go slow, you are in another kind of time. "Oh," Dan said softly, breath stirring the black hair of Ford's chest, "you've been practicing that with somebody"