Daddy [mxm]

14

"So, what're ya writin' 'bout these days?" Rudy queries, the both of us lying on our backs on the grass in his backyard and watching the stars.

"Same thing everyone writes about," I murmur sleepily. "Love."

Rudy gives a soft huff.

"Bit young to be an expert on that, ain't ya?"

"I'm no expert, but I think I know enough," I mutter, indignant. After all, I love you, don't I?

There's a long pause as the concept marinates in Rudy's mind.

"What is love, Evan? Is it walkin' the dog so the other can sleep in, doin' taxes, makin' their coffee every mornin'? Or is it a feelin' like bein' struck by lightenin', like in all them songs 'n' books? Is it in the heart or the brain?"

I stare hopelessly up at the sky. Maybe they're two sides of the same coin. Safety, comfort, boredom, faithfulness, warmth, steadiness on the one side. Passion, folly, intensity, and thrill on the other side.

"Rudy, I honestly don't know."

Rudy scoffs softly. He is far more advanced than me when it comes to the art of love. He's a magician, a masterful manipulator of love, testing to see how elastic it can be, juggling two people at once and seeing how long he can cheat before his marriage snaps and Chelsea is no longer there for him.

"'Course ya don't. Yer too young to know."

For some reason that pisses me off, and I sit up on one elbow, facing him.

"I guess the question is this. Is love a spark, or a steadily burning fire? Maybe it's both. Love ignites a spark; love keeps the fire burning."

Rudy ponders this for a long moment.

"I reckon yer probably right."

Another long moment passes between us in silence. The more I think about it, the more I doubt my hypothesis. It's pretty clear that I represent one kind of love to him, and Chelsea the other.

"If I hadn't touched you in your sleep, would you ever have made a move?"

Rudy scoffs again, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

"Naw. Never."

Damn. So much of life is made by random chance. The foaling, Bret not joining us that night, just the right blend of exhaustion and lucidity making me curious to see how he would feel. I still remember that curiosity. The memory of it is fading; I wish I could bottle up that naive, innocent, yearning burn of curiosity, back when he hadn't touched me yet. Any man, viewed day after day, loses his mysterious charm. After seeing him up close so often, even I've grown used to him.

Moonlight illuminates the little white hairs in his beard. They make me feel inconceivably sad. I'm suddenly crushed to realize I'll never see him in his thirties or twenties or younger. It's impossible to travel back in time and look at him, touch him, talk to him, when he was my age.

Inexplicably, I long to keep him this age forever, or at least until I can catch up. I don't want him to have a heart attack or a stroke and die, leaving me emotionally bereft and crippled, a cardboard sign in the wind. The terror of every couple with an age gap. I picture him in a hospital bed, one side of his face sagging, looking into my eyes and finally mumbling, "ah luv ya, boy. Always did. Sorry ah never told ya." Except I won't be a boy anymore. And I'll cry and cry and cry. Oh, mah poor boy, don't cry. You were such a beautiful spark. Thanks for everythang.

•••

Bret and I join some firefighter recruits on a training run, all of us wearing matching navy t-shirts and making the pedestrian population swoon. I suppose we do look pretty hot.