FSE

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There are two ways people wake up: ready, or not. We've all had days, I think, where we want to stay in bed because the world seems too hard to live in the way we're supposed to. And maybe most of us get a day or two of the other kind, at least, where we can roll out from our blankets and skip the coffee, because that strength is already inside us—assuming coffee really does all that.

But I've never woken up in between those feelings before.

Sun hasn't peeked through the glass yet, but I see Harley's face resting peaceful on the pillow next to mine in a glow. I can see her freckles like they light up the dark, those pale fireflies in her skin crossing themselves down her nape, a slow bobbing in her breaths nursing every one of them gentle and alive. I see her tangled locks of hair drifted all over the pillow like a pool of fire she floats upon, and it does not burn her. Nothing can.

She is the in between. I'm ready to face this world, but I don't ever want to get up.

Her lips are parted soft, too, guiding that softest motion in her body, and I feel the need in me to taste them again because the last time is never enough.

Then she snorts. Still asleep, but she puts her whole face into it. That's what puts me into a smile. I press closer over the pillow, watch her just a second more, and kiss her for it.

Harley's chest rises before she opens her eyes, bleary at first, then rustling a hand out from the blanket and rubbing them clear. Then she lays her hand under her cheek as she smiles back at me, whispering, “Good morning, Sir."

It's been a month or two now since these sorts of activities between us haven't been a secret. Used to be that before either of us started our frisky endeavor, we'd listen for downstairs making sure that no one else was up yet. Even nowadays we're still quiet for politeness sake.

But today, I just push closer under the blanket. I just rest my head against hers, breathe in, let it be. She takes me in by wrapping her fingers up in my paw.

“Big day," she whispers. “You goin' miss this place at least a little now?"

I suck in my bottom lip and roll my eyes into that thinking posture, humming throaty as Harley holds back her smirk. Then I sign to her with a big pretend shrug. She giggles. Her hand pulls my paw tighter.

“Dorm won't get us much privacy, y'know," she says. “I'm just thinking—who knows next chance we'll get all by ourselves."

She looks me in the eye with that slim smile, that twinkle in her eye darkness can't hide.

“I'm just wondering if you want to make love, or you want to fuck me."

I picture my growl, her laugh, that sort of wide-angle view on television where we'd roll over and have some private fun thumping under the covers before a scene change.

But today, I hold her hand close and kiss her in the open. Our eyes close together like the romantics deep inside the both of us. We let ourselves tangle up naturally, let my tongue find someplace lower to nest, let her hush her own shivers.

The few minutes we have to ourselves—you know how it goes. We've got work and more work later, but this—we make it last.

Harley and Apollo. I just never pictured them like that before.

First time Harley's allowed me in her room, and she's packing half of it up now. I have no more shame enough to admit I always pictured this bed being where she screamed my name, Oh, Lewis, but now I know better. Now I know I really wasn't smart enough for her to trust all these years.

I cross my ankles over the edge of their bed. I prefer spending my time over here lately, past month or so, but I don't hardly pause Harley and Apollo from picking what but the furniture they're bringing with us. I'm long since packed. The little guy—her little man, she calls him, keeps making these sorts of signals with his paws for words, talking privately with her out in the open. I see her giggling to him like she's happy.

“What's that one mean?" I say.

They both look back at me like they near already forgot I'm here. Harley takes another book from their shelf, sets it in their box, and says, “That one was private."

I give them a nod, just a little one, like I get it. They just take some more books they've chosen, and Harley says, “You sure you brought all you need, Lewis?"

My own boxes sit packed in the back of her family's truck, loaded up this morning for a joint sort of trip my folks had no objection to.

“Oh, yeah," I say. “Already had my shit figured out about a week now. It don't, uh, take long to pack after the first time you done it."

“Oh. Guess it wouldn't," Harley says.

Now I just keep sitting by while Harley kneels a little lower for the bottom shelf, scooping out whatever she grabs or Apollo next to her points for, or else just asking each other if they think something or another should get brought.

“Hey, Apollo," I interrupt. “You never liked me any, huh?"

He glances over his shoulder toward me, but there's hardly any ill will on his expression that I can read as he signs something even less legible to me.

Harley reads him, then looks to me a second. “He's sayin', 'Maybe I can now.'"

And to that, Apollo nods at me. Almost looks like he's got a truce in his eyes, but for what, I can only suppose the wrongs I've ever said or done. Never thought I acted that bad. Used to think I was enough of a gentleman to everybody.

At the risk of ruining that chance already, I kind of say, “Do you two ever feel—you know, mismatched? Not in that wrong way, just… some way or another."

Neither of them offer me some harsh look or snarl. Apollo turns away with that same look, but Harley says, “Used to. Ain't everybody?"

I give them a nod, just a little one.

“I can introduce you to some folks I met last semester, some, uh—might be your speed, what I got to know about them," I say. “I don't think it'll be that bad for you two there. Some of the folks I met, I think you might be their idol."

Harley scrunches her brow and brushes the softest lock of them all off her face, I imagine. That lock that falls every littler motion she makes, like her own body caressing itself before her fingers ever reach back up to contain it behind her ear.

“We ain't need to be anybody's idol," she tells me. “The both of us rather live normal as we can."

And there she is, witty without even knowing it. I give a chuckle maybe she knows nothing about for once. Maybe I'm the one who could use some secrets to keep.

“You think Ronnie's goin' be doing okay on her own for now? 'Sides your folks," Harley says.

“She's fine," I say, watching my feet. “Ronnie gets better quick. She's been doing fine without me the whole time. Without them, too."

I start as some book sails into my lap, thick and heavy and thudding dangerously close over my jewels, and Harley's hands are still full as I look back to her. Apollo, he's the one already looking straight to me in his pitcher's pose. He makes a whole new fuss with his paws under a wider kind of grin.

“He's telling you to quit looking so mopey," Harley giggles again.

This absolute tome he tossed me, the biggest book I've ever seen outside of school—it's a sign language dictionary.

“We'll help you learn if you really want to," Harley says, looking back to their shelves already. “Marked a bunch of new signs in that one already. It really is kind of geared toward using fingers a lot, so we just kind of worked around those ones."

Flipping through just the first few pages, every letter in the alphabet it shows is already marked in pencil with weird little notes about which height to use your hands at and how to lift your elbows.

I shut it, lifting the thing's cover forward.

“I can keep this?" I say.

“All yours," Harley says. “Maybe you'll make some new friends with it, or sumpin."

Apollo shuffles his paws around each other once more toward me, but Harley doesn't translate that one. She grins, but she keeps it private again.

I flip these pages open and leave them to their business. Lower than what they might hear, I kind of say, “I'd like that."

I do hope they'll both miss me like I'll miss them, even if I haven't earned it. The way Harley hugs our Miltanks goodbye and Apollo pats them on the flank after she's done, holding back any kind of smile, pretending he's tagging along on this part for Harley's sake—I hope they've got some larger feeling than that for their aunt, even if one or both of them won't show it just yet.

“Bessy-Sue, you're next, c'mere!"

Harley nearly skips over the trodden grass away from Bessy-Jane to the next one grazing in our yard. None of the bessies have wandered far yet, so Harley's practically bouncing in circles to put her arms around each of our girls. She squeezes Bessy-Sue around the shoulders, and Bessy-Sue pulls her down a foot while taking another hoof-ful of something to munch. Harley nearly rolls into the grass beneath them as she still holds on, Apollo catching her balance for her, and she just giggles.

I keep my distance, just tilting my hat something easier over my brow as the sun keeps peeking higher over us. It's my Joshua giving them and Lewis a ride to their new school. I'm the one staying here.

“I see you, Bessy-Poe, don't you get away from me! I'm comin'!"

About eleven years old is when Harley and her true best friend came to live with us. She didn't get to help milk them for some time yet, but as soon as the bessies came out the barn every morning, this is where she was, bouncing around their legs, grabbing as wide as she could reach, heaving Apollo up on top of their heads and then failing to climb up after him. I remember the smiles he had for that, too.

“Oh, you want summis, Bessy-Anne? You goin' miss us too? Come on in."

Harley's got two of them in her grasp now, one around each arm, tugging them in for a hug Bessy-Anne nuzzles her back for. Bessy-Poe's just half asleep already. My girl's hair is a mess right now. Look at that. She hardly ever lets it get that bad before she puts it up.

Apollo stands another foot from all three of them with that face he uses to pretend he's too grown up for this, but Harley tugs her girls closer and says to him, “You too, beau, get up here."

I see that grin slip through the cracks of his silly young stoicism even before he moves closer. He takes his paws up the side of Bessy-Anne and pulls himself up over her shoulders, wrestling himself up around her until he's leaning forward and kissing my niece right in front of me.

I don't look away. I just pray they'll persevere.

Harley doesn't hold them in it this time, letting their kiss fall away just about as quickly as it started. She lets the bessies go and leads Apollo to the next one as he slides off behind her.

“C'mere, Bessy-Nim! Yeah, I see you!"

Behind me, Joshua's packing the last of our girl's boxes into the truck. He insisted he'd contribute that much. He's not comfortable with what's going on, not with any of this, but my husband's love for his family remains as strong as mine. I hope Harley sees that, too.

But I'm the one she nearly tackles next, a bit sudden for my knees to hold against, but she holds me fast and upright, her head at my shoulder.

“You too, Auntie."

She hides her face from me, but I wrap my arms around her no matter much that might embarrass her.

“Oh, God, Harley. I'll miss you."

“I'll miss you, too, Auntie. Love you."

“I love you, too, Harley. You keep your grades up, understand?"

“I will."

She pulls away, wiping her face before I can see. Apollo stands next to her, nodding solemnly up at me like that's a decent enough goodbye. I push my knees down anyway.

“No, boy," I grunt. “You're part of this now, too."

I pull him in close before he can get away, drawing his cheek against my shoulder. He holds stiff for the moment he's thinking about squirming away, but he pats one paw around me a second later.

“Please stay strong," I whisper.

Bessy-Anne nudges up against us both the second after that, tugging her hoof right between us for more grass at the same time she nuzzles herself against us. I rustle her back as I let Apollo go, and he pulls away toward Harley again.

“All fixed up here," my Joshua says behind us, thumping the side of the truck. “Ready to go."

Good timing, others might claim. I don't think so.

“You two be safe," I tell them, staying beside Bessy-Anne. “Call me when you get there."

“We will," Harley says.

They all load up, Joshua and Lewis in the front, Harley and Apollo in the back. They go. Harley waves out the window as Joshua pulls back and rolls them down toward the road, and Bessy-Anne tugs out of my tightening grip as I wave back.

I'm not scared. I know I'll see them again. I just wish it would be sooner.

It's a two and a half hour ride to this school Harley's learnin at. Lewis's school. Fore now, I just assumed they'd be the ones endin up together for who else they could meet round here.

I'm the Goddamn idiot here, ain't I. That's what I think.

“You mind the radio, Mister O'Pine?"

Lewis already got his hand on the dial like he just needs my permission to figger it out.

“Just none of that tweeny screeching," I tell him.

“Rock it is," he says, tuning us in to some sort of electric guitar shit hardly any better than the syn-the-sized children on every other station. I let him have that much. We all need sumpin in times like these.

My niece—she's makin those signs in the back to her pokie, and he's makin em back. Don't want us to know what they mean. Think we'd even want to. And now with his music, Lewis just opens some book of that same shit she's doin and reads that like he already forget he wanted the radio.

Me—I take a left right here.

“Pit stop already, Uncuh Josh-ya?" Harley says.

I don't tell her nothin back. Just roll on up to the pavement and park us the only decent place I know fore we get on the highway.

“Uh," Harley says next. “It's a li'l early for, um—you think it's a good idea stopping for this now?"

She sees the liquor store beside us. Got the look in her eyes where she don't want to say everything that's running through her mind, don't want to admit what she thinks I'm thinkin. Lewis ain't even say that much.

I just lean over, get my wallet, and check my cash. Nobody takes no checks round here. It's fine. I got enough for this and gas.

“Stay put," I tell the kids, shoving my door open fore I shove myself out. “I'll just take a minute."

I stuff my wallet back and feel like I could be twenty years younger, regrettin what I plan fore I carry it out, like I can't stop my decision no more. The kind of thinkin I've long grown out of, so I figgered.

So I step up to the pavement, swing open the door, and say, “Mornin' there, Bobby-Lou."

Bobby's just hardly restocked today, all them piles of kibble bags stacked neat but missing some on the top as I walk by em. Got his bottle of sumpin I'd sure like some of sittin next to his morning paper, and he takes his gaze from that to looking straight to me, to past me just a second there. He don't smile so much as he used to at me, fore bout a month or two ago, as he says, “Well, welcome back, Oh-Pine. Y'all need an early refill this week, is it?"

I rest myself right by his paper, settlin my elbow as comfortable as his on the other side of the counter. I take a good sigh.

“Bobby, we got to cut the shit today."

Bobby lets the corner of his paper out from between his fingers, restin his arms one over the other at mine. He says, “Well then, Joshua, what would you like to discuss?"

“That little shit touching my niece indecent," I say. “That little motherfucker I can't tear away from her if I ever want her to talk to me or Doreen again."

Bobby purses his lips, nodding silent toward the anger getting away from me.

“That fuckin' pokie she care about as much as me or her aunt or anybody," I say. “That fuckin' little thing makin' her happier than we ever did."

I look Bobby square in the eyes, and my fist still clenches beneath us like I need something to strangle in it right now.

“That pokie, only lookin' happy when she's lookin' at it," I say. “Lookin' happier than what both of us ever seen in one of those things. Lookin' happier than any we tried to treat right, no matter how hard we tried to do right by 'em. You remember my Growlithe, Bobby-Lou?"

Bobby's arms come closer round each other, folding together as he pulls off the counter from me. He says, “I remember."

“My best friend growing up, Bobby," I say. “Best friend. Nobody closer. I did fuckin' right by him."

I shake my head, but my fist catches just empty air as I release it. I take a look behind Bobby toward that little table he keeps back there behind that filing cabinet. Not that I really want to, but I nod my head thataway.

“She happy anymore, Bobby-Lou?"

Apparently we have no time for proper introductions as I leave in Joshua's arms without any collar around my neck. First of all, firstly—I never pictured him carrying me out of here at all, but now that he is, I never pictured any kind of man like him carrying me like a baby, swaddling me without a blanket.

But I'm never going to see that other man again.

This is acceptable.

Joshua, the new old geezer and fogey and bastard in general wrapping me in his arms, carries me to the filthiest old truck in all the world and creaks the door wide open, sliding in over one of the front seats without bumping me. He settles his own wide frame into the cushioning and leans me past the front seats, passing me toward the only faces I know in this surely expired deathtrap. With the same creak in his voice as that door when he slams it shut again, Joshua grunts, “Your responsibility, Harley. You're the one got us into this shit."

Harley, the girl with the severe fetishes, takes me with a stare like she thought I was dead. Like the horse. Like she was comfortable seeing me behind the counter, but how that we're face to face, she doesn't really know me.

And soon as she sets me down, Apollo, the boy who stayed with her, knocks his paws into me from the other direction in a hug big enough to make up for it all.

“Hi," the boy in the front seat adds, reaching his hand back toward me. “Um, I'm Lewis. We never met."

Strangeness abounds. Even this stranger is being serious to me, despite looking the same as Harley. All those gossiping customers in the store weren't, as those with looser tongues might say, shitting around.

While Apollo keeps his emotional hold on me, I squirm my paw out for the boy's hand and shake with him.

“Uh," Lewis says quieter through our shake, glancing up to Harley, “she is a girl, right?"

I yank away. Harley just giggles, “Yeah."

Apollo, letting me go just as quickly, turns me roughly around to himself and signs something giddy and completely unknown in my direction. Now behind me, Harley explains his meaning with, “Oh, shit—Lewis, gimme that."

She reaches for a book in Lewis's possession, which he gives her through our shared lack of understanding. She flips open past the first few pages, then holds the book open toward me, showing several pictograms of hands and fingers and—letters. Harley grins at me like someone much younger.

“So, what's your name?"

Ah. Finally someone thinks to ask.

I paw toward a further page, then back, then forward again, all in a row until I've pointed out each letter in the sequence of who I really am. It is not a simple task without the human appendages this dead wood was designed for.

“Ulysses," Harley says. “Then it's great to finally meet you, Ulysses."

Joshua pitches the vehicle's gear and squints behind us, watching the road as he pulls us back and mutters, “Boy's name."

Apollo signs something further obscured from my own knowledge, but Harley says for him, “Not anymore."

To that, I nod.

This horrible old truck rolls and knocks us over the speed bump in the parking lot before turning out of it, before we hit the open road, they call it, and the every scrape jutting into my body from the poor suspension beneath us I no longer mind. It is an experience I'm now a part of. It's something I get to savor for myself, what else lies ahead of me. Of us! Of Ulysses and company, the story would go.

“How's she know the alphabet, anyway?" Lewis mutters back at us.

I hiss at the brat. He's probably not even older than me. What is he, sixteen? Probably twelve. Yes, that's a good insult.

“Seriously," Lewis mutters. “Doesn't make sense."

We rattle out of the lot, onto the real road, me between Harley and Apollo, who I'm glad won't get the chance to practice their sex while I'm in any position to witness it. I always thought I'd have to make a run for it down this road—I planned on it, constantly. Now we're driving faster away than I could have managed alone. It seems so… something appropriate.

I'll learn a word for that someday. For now, I simply don't even wonder where we're going.

Because we're going down the open road.

That's my motif now. I'm taking it.

Am I dreaming? I think I am, except really. There's a floating sort of sense in me where I know I ain't really here, but I ain't really there. That I know where I am, except I'm nowhere.

I'm in the back of the truck, maybe the very back out with the boxes. The breeze is running through my hair and the trees are rushing by us like they're in some hurry I can't feel.

Apollo's by my side. Isn't he always? Head resting quiet and content in my lap because I'm the greatest cushion of them all. The sun grazes on his whole coat, every fiber brushing by themselves like rolling plains in the wind spread out over my horizon. My home. I see him like this any time I close my eyes. The fire sleeping warm in his belly kindles mine wherever we go.

I wonder how the others will see him. I wonder what they'll say when he introduces himself. I wonder who they are. I wonder if we'll get more friends than each other.

The truck rattles. Pothole. That feeling I know.

I open my eyes, and that blurry filter over them tells me I still don't know what's really in front of me. Radio's still on. Nobody's talking. Clouds passing us by overhead, I can tell as much.

But looking down anyway, I find a new friend curling her cheek over my lap and snoozing, her little bob of hair bouncing and swaying with the truck. All her little tails are curled up by her nose, all but one of her paws tucked in, the last hanging over the edge of the seat.

Apollo's beside her. He's laid half over her, really, head resting on her back and the rest of him clutched snug by the seat belt. But his paw reaches all the way around her toward me, given up grasping semiconscious at my hand just another inch out of reach from him. I take it for him.

Uncle Joshua—I can't tell if he's still peeking back here through the rearview mirror, but I can hear the little thumping over the steering wheel of his fingers matching some old tune on the radio. Oh—he's the only one of us still awake. Lewis, I can tell this much, is just rattling along every which way with the truck with himself pressed back over the headrest.

I'll let that be.

I lay my hand and Apollo's paw in the space between us, and he tugs me tighter. And with one friend squeezed in the middle, the both of us drift away with this feeling. The rest will come later.