Passenger

And the glasses.

“So you knew, didn’t you?” I said.

“I don’t know nothing.” Co

“No. I mean Henry. You knew when you let us go out that night after the Ranger what was going to happen to you and the other boys, didn’t you?”

“I thought I did. But there’s always that chance, isn’t there, that things will change?”

“Like Jack’s briefs.” Co

My glass was still full. I couldn’t take any more.

“I’m good, Con.”

“Not me. I’m never good.” Co

He pointed at Henry’s empty. “How about you?”

“Thank you, yes,” Henry said.

I held my glass to my lips, pretended to drink, but I had to hold my breath. The smell of the stuff was begi

When Co

“Tell me about breaking the lens. How you put it back together.”

Co

“There’s nothing to tell, really. We … I used a hammer and vice, and when it broke, everything else sort of fell apart around us, and it all stayed that way, too—broken. That was why, everywhere we’d go, we were followed around by this big oozing hole in the sky. And every time we’d take a piece of the lens out, things would change again, get worse, like stuff was coming out of the sky, or out of the hole in my hand, just coming up out of the middle of everything.”

The center of the universe.

I turned my palm up and drew a line with my finger across the flesh where I’d been cut by the lens. “It was the other glasses that brought us—well, some of us—to different places, but everywhere I’d go, things just kept getting worse and worse.”

Ben and Griffin dead inside a fucking trash can.

Like what happened to Nickie, what you did to those boys on the train.

Co

“Worse than that,” I said. “We almost got trapped for good. So when we finally found each other in the desert, it was almost too late again. Things had gotten out of control. But we got the pieces back together.”

Henry tipped his glass and looked from Co

“What happened to it?” he said.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I only felt it turn whole inside my hand. It burned me. I never saw it again after that.”

“And you don’t know where it is now?”

Fuck you, Henry.

“What does it matter?” I said.

“I thought—” Henry said. “I just wanted to see it.”

“That would be cool, Jack,” Co

He bumped his knee against mine.

I felt myself getting pissed off again.

“I don’t know where the fuck it is,” I said. “For all I know, you have it, Con.”

Co

“Why?” I said.

“’Cause I’m drunk and I feel like fucking with shit. That’s why.” He slapped the table eagerly, like a kid waiting for his allowance.

I could only stare at him and shake my head.

“And the other glasses?” Henry wouldn’t let it go, either.

Co

He made a little flapping windshield-wiper motion with his finger in front of his eyes and said, “How about those ones? Did you lose those, too? You fucking lose shit all the time, Jack.”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

Co

I looked squarely at Henry, then Co

I scooted away from the table and stood.

When Co

“Dude. Sit down. You’re not leaving.”

I sighed. “It’s late. I’m really tired.”

I stuck out my hand for Henry.

“Good-bye, Henry. And thank you.”

He looked shocked, pale. He shook my hand, but didn’t answer me.

And Co

*   *   *

This is it.

It sounds like Co

The shower comes on.

Good.

Leave me alone, Co

There.

I pick up my bag and place it on top of the bed.

Zip.

I open it. The water runs loudly; Co

There was never a question in my mind about what became of the lens, the glasses, too. I am so predictable, and this is my great disappointment. There is no wonder with me. I always know what Jack’s done and where he’s going, everything ordered.

Except now.

I imagine a time, ten minutes forward.

Measured motion.

The remarkable nothingness.

I swallow. The not knowing thrills me. I feel an excited tickle inside my chest, almost sexual, quietly churning.

One. My hand closes around a white cotton knot of underwear. The lens is inside, perfect, waiting.

Two. My socks. And here are the glasses. You know, the flip flip, Co

Here.

The water runs.

I place both gifts on Co

These are for you.

I hear Co

A thick cloth belt from one of the robes in the closet knots and knots again around the shining crossbar. I’m watching Jack’s hands tie it, like they aren’t attached to me.

Strong.

Standing with my eyes against the cool chrome bar, I can judge the perfect height where I tie the loop.

I listen to the shower, the sounds of Co

Then I hear another sound.

Roll.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

And when I turn around, I see Seth.

“Get the fuck away from me!”

“Jack.”

My knees give and then catch. I ca

“Leave me the fuck alone. I did what I had to do.”

“Jack.”

It is tight. I feel the rope of the belt as I force it through my hair, down over my ears, and I fix my mouth straight because I will not say anything more. I watch the boy who stands beside the wall in front of me, the steam that rolls like the Pope Valley fog out from the open door of the bathroom as the water runs and runs.

“Jack.”

Seth begins hitting his hands into the wall, pounding, but I can’t hear anything over the rush of the water, the roar of the blood in my ears.

Tight.

There.

“Jack.”

And I drop.

“Jack.”

thirty-five

Nothing.

Just nothing.

It was the most beautifully complete thing Jack ever knew.

I floated in black, naked and warm.

Waiting, waiting.

Five seconds more and it would have been over.

Five fucking seconds.

Then I smelled a stale breath of alcohol, and from somewhere very far away, like it was slowly crawling out of a long dark tu