We Could Go North

With dread and anticipation, in even measure, Eli rapped the door with a heavy exhale. The door opened just a crack, and Stanley’s face was on the other side. The hour was late but his expression relaxed for a moment when he saw it was Eli. He released the chain and opened the door wide, leaning out to look down the hallway. 

“What are you doing here? Someone will see you.” He stepped back from the door, ushering him in with a quick wave. 

“I’ve written three letters.” Eli said. No pleading, no urgency, just the fact. He’d written three letters, all unanswered. 

Stanley’s shoulders slumped slightly. Not in defeat or frustration, but in the acknowledgement that he couldn’t justify his silence to him now standing in the doorway. He side stepped then to the little kitchenette table and picked up a packet of neatly folded papers. 

“Yes, I know.” He said, holding them up. Though neat, the paper was no longer crisp as when they were sealed. “Come on, close the door.” He said, and waved him in again, with more welcome now than rushing. Eli hesitated, curious if it was his skin color or the gentleman caller late in the night, or both. 

When Eli turned back from putting the chain on the door Stanley was seated in one of the two chairs at the round table. He was still holding the letters, absently turning the folded bunches in his hands. Eli’s eyes lingered on his rough hands, expecting his thick working fingers to crush his letters like something delicate in a vice. But they remained soft, treating them like something precious.

“Why didn’t you come? Or call?” He asked, wanting to maintain the wall he had forced himself to put up. But seeing this rough man with the handsome face gingerly holding onto the outpouring of his own heart chipped away at his mortar. 

“You know that I wanted to.” He reached for the half bottle of whisky on the table and poured himself a bit in the glass next to it. He held the bottle up and gave Eli a quizzical look. When Eli nodded he said with a smile, “Well, you know where the glasses are.”

Stanley reached across the table to where Eli now sat, but at a distance, and poured for him. They took a sip together, their eyes locked over the rims of the glasses. 

“I waited.” He said and put down his glass. He wanted to lean forward, to push the table out of the way, to taste the whisky on Stanley’s lips, and feel his skin under his fingers when he held his face to his. 

Stanley knew it, could read it on his face, and wished he would. 

But both men sat across from each other, glasses in hand again, regarding each other in a silence that wasn’t at all uncomfortable. 

“I wanted to come, Elijah. You know I did.” Stanley said again, pulling his chair closer to Eli. When their knees touched, Eli felt the weight of his anxiety melt away. He sighed, feeling his whole body give into that slightest of touch. 

Stanley’s hands were thick and strong from years of labor, and when they rested on Eli’s thighs there was only the reflex of leaning in for what had been hanging in the air between them. The flavor of the smoky whisky on his lips was exhilarating, his tongue searching for more, but slowly and without the aggression one would expect from men. 

Eli was tall, lean, and solid. His black skin all the more rich against the white frame of Stanley as they moved, entangled, from the table to the bed nearby. It was like this for hours as they found each other, wrapping and unwrapping limbs, clothing discarded like spent rags. They spoke with their bodies of their love in a way two men of their era never could with words. They had learned to be quiet as not to give notice to the neighbors. But when their pronouncements couldn’t be stifled any longer they were spoken into pillows and palms. 

Hours went by. Over and over they came together with no regard for the world and all the restrictions that were placed on them, with only small breaks for a cigarette or another sip of whisky. 

Only then, in the early hours when the sky began to change, and they had nothing left to give each other, did they collapse into the narrow bed. 

“We could leave here, you know?” Eli said through the fog of sleep threatening to take hold. “My car is just outside. I have a bag already. And money.” He paused. “I sold the service station. Didn’t get near what it was worth, though.”

Stanley pushed closer into his chest, a days worth of stubble dragging across Eli’s skin. “And go where? Where would we go that would be any different than it is here?” 

“North. We could go north.” He said, his eyes on the ceiling but very far away. “Chicago. Boston, maybe…” 

Silence returned. It settled heavy on them like an unwelcome blanket. Eli knew it was pointless, and he let that silence cover them as the light from the window grew ever brighter. 

As the sounds of the tenants around them began to make their muffled intrusion, Stanley sat up on the edge of the bed. “You should go, before someone see’s you leave.” He said. His eyes search around before reluctantly meeting Eli’s gaze. He looked like a puppy, who knew he was in trouble for chewing a shoe.

He couldn’t look at him or he would be overwhelmed by all the love and the anger and the disappointment that was welling in his chest. His eyes instead fell back to the neat stack of the letters he had written over the course of weeks. An edge fluttered in the draft from the ceiling fan whirring above them, a sound he had only now become aware of. 

He was sinking from the middle of his chest and he wondered if Stanley could see it, could actually see his chest caving inward? And would he care? This was all for nothing. 

Eli got up and dressed in silence. Stanley stood away, arms crossed over his bare chest. When he buttoned his last button, and reached for the door, he turned and faced him. In his full voice, looking him in the eye like the men they were, he said, “I love you.” In his voice there was no pleading, no urgency, but it welled in his eyes in such a volume that there was none left for his words. 

“Me too…” Stanley said and finally broke their gaze.

Eli left quietly, mindful of squeaking hinges and groaning floor boards. He stood next to his car for what seemed like a lifetime, knowing that if he drove away, when he drove away, it would be the last time. He took just as much time sitting behind the wheel, looking at his duffle bag on the seat beside him. 

He turned the key in the ignition. He told himself he wouldn’t look up at the window, but just as he was having the thought he realized he already was. Stanley was there, looking down at him, his hands in his pockets. Eli rolled down his window and raised his eyebrows, come. Stanley, eyes locked to his, shook his head, you know I can’t. He thought then that he saw that sinking in Stanley’s own chest.

Eli put the car in drive and slowly pulled away from the curb. 

Chicago. Or Boston, maybe…