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Steve felt something inside him squirm and move, like an extra organ obtained from a reverse body harvest. The foreign object was pressing at his inner lining, trying to burrow its way out. He knew where he needed to go. He knew he had to keep fighting. He brought the nail bat down and knocked a demo bat out of the red sky. He crushed it under foot like a cigarette butt.
“Swu-ing, batter, batter, batter,” Steve said, twirling his bat. He pivoted– swung. Smashed another one. “Come on, baby, come on.”
He waited, shifting his feet, tapping the ground twice with his bat. Nothing else came.
“Done for today, huh?” Steve said. He stowed the bat on his back and collapsed behind a rock covered in a cling of gray evil vines. He made camp, and the vines hissed and retreated under the heat from the leering fire. In the smoky ever-dark, the fire was a pristine white smile. Steve rinsed his mouth with warm water and spit. There was gunk in his saliva. He sighed.
“Man, you owe me one, Eds,” Steve laughed. “Can I call you Eds? You owe me big-time. Actually, you show up right now, we get the fuck out of here, and we’ll call it even.”
There was a tug in his gut. “I know, I know,” he muttered, eyes closing. “Keep moving.”
But he couldn’t. It hurt to breathe. The vines were getting courageous now that the fire had stopped dancing, cooled to embers. They snuck up his thighs, entwined his arms. They wrapped his ears and he could hear whispers as tiny capillary fingers coiled up in his cochlear. They raced along his face, hooking the corners of his mouth, up his nose, sliding along his eyelids. Steve couldn’t move. But that was okay because the tug in his stomach was disappearing. Two disparate parts of him were becoming one. Everything was alright.
###
In the Right-Side Up…
Steve woke up before the phone even rang. He was already out of bed and creeping towards the hallway with his nail bat in hand before the phone dutifully sounded its alarm. He caught it on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Steve-O! How goes it at the Harrington household?” Eddie said. He sounded wide awake, unlike Steve.
“It's late, Eddie. Is everything good?” Steve asked.
“Is it?” Eddie said, surprised. Steve heard a muffled thump as though Eddie had dropped the phone to go check the time. “My bad, wow. I really thought it was ten and not two.”
Steve leaned against the wall, propping one elbow up with his bat. “It’s fine. What’s up?”
“I need you to hear a song, man. I’ve been working on it all day. Wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important. How about it?”
“Why don’t you come over?” Steve said. “I want to– you know– hear it in person.”
Eddie said he was on his way and Steve got ready for his guest, putting on a sweatshirt and pants. He stowed the nail bat back under his bed. Ten minutes later, Eddie was at the door with his guitar and his amp.
“Parents gone?” Eddie asked.
“Yeah, for the weekend,” Steve said. “We got the place to ourselves. You want to chill by the pool? There’s better acoustics out there.”
Eddie smiled. “That’s not how acoustics works.”
“Sound quality. Whatever.”
The pool lights were set to green. The water rippled like dreams. Eddie was lit by the haunted circus green lights. There was neon pooling in his dimples and face folds. He set up his guitar while Steve sat on a lawn chair. Eddie played his guitar and sang about demons and hellscapes and monsters and the darkness in everybody. His hands strangled the guitar, his neck muscles stood out, his head tilted back, and he played as though willing something into existence, as though casting a magic spell over the land, as though chasing something unattainable. When he was done, he was grinning and sweating. “How about that?”
Steve gave a slow clap and whistled. “Beautiful, man.”
“Thanks.” Eddie stripped his vest and took off his shirt. On his stomach lay the scars of monsters and on his chest were the scars of men. Steve watched the way he moved as he undid his sneakers. It was like watching the water.
“See something you like?” Eddie teased. In response, Steve pushed him in the pool and Eddie grabbed onto Steve and they both fell in. Steve surfaced. Eddie splashed him. Eddie’s hair shrouded his eyes. Steve moved towards the shallow end but Eddie grabbed him from behind and wrestled him back. Steve kicked, keeping them both afloat, and Eddie was facing him with his arms around Steve’s neck. Time was kept with the erratic thump of Steve’s heart. Eddie’s head was tilted slightly, a smile gracing his lips. “You good?”
Steve swallowed. “Yeah. All good here.” He grabbed Eddie by the waist and threw him in the deep end. Eddie laughed, spitting a jet of water at him.
Eddie stayed in the water long after Steve had got out and dried himself with a towel. Steve watched his body float, supine, to the surface and it was like Eddie was being born.
“Hey,” Eddie said, floating on his back. “You ever think about going back to that place?”
“Nah,” Steve lied.
“Sometimes it feels like I left a part of me there, y’know? Feels like unfinished business.”
“I get that,” Steve said. He had parts of himself lying everywhere and couldn’t be bothered to pick up every single one.
“I really didn’t think I’d make it out. I thought… well, I thought that I had to commit myself fully to that place. Like I could somehow survive if I did that. Became a part of it.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Steve asked.
So Eddie got out of the pool and they talked about his song until they didn’t need to talk anymore and sat silently in each other’s company until morning.
###
When Steve woke, his tongue had been replaced. When he yawned, a thick tentacle, covered in a gray sleeve of vines unfurled from his mouth like a curling sunflower petal. It sprouted centipede feelers, tickling the bottom of his gums, reaching. The vines were everywhere else, burrowed into his pores.
As he scrambled to get up, they screamed. They held him firmly in place, rooting him to the ground. He brought the nail bat down on them over and over but they were still embedded in his skin. His new tongue searched in his mouth, coiling and twisting testingly.
“Oh fuck,” Steve moaned.
He got out his lighter. He flicked it open. He stuck out his tongue. The vines streaming from his skin hissed. He held the open flame under his tongue…
After the cauterization, Steve kept moving. There was a red dust Mars storm in the sky and he knew that was his destination. He hoped he made it before he became a part of this place.
###
In the Middle, the In-between, and the Wayward Sideways…
This is not what happened. Eddie did not play a different song, a song about lost love, forgotten youth, first kisses, and magic in everyday places. After he was done, Steve did not say: “I really felt that last one.”
“Thanks,” Eddie said, sitting on a deck chair and watching Steve strip his shirt.
When Steve sat on the edge to dip his toes in, Eddie pushed him in. A spell came over Steve, freezing him in the deep end, his eyes wild and frantic with the memories of a monster with a flower for its head. Eddie jumped in, and floated him over to the shallow end.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay, breathe, can you breathe for me, sweetheart, please–” and slowly, sitting on the steps, Eddie’s arm around his shoulder, Steve learned how to breathe again.
“I’m so sorry,” Eddie said. “Completely my fault.”
“I hate this place,” Steve gasped. “I hate this fucking house.”
“Let’s go somewhere else then, yeah?” Eddie said.
They went to Eddie’s van, where Eddie rolled a joint and Steve pinched in between his fingers. A towel draped his back. He smelled of chlorine. The cracked seats of Eddie’s van squeaked. Even with the windows up, they could hear the droning cicadas in the woods. Steve inhaled smoke until he could think again and then exhaled until he didn’t have to think anymore.
“Thank you,” Steve said.
“I should be thanking you, King Steve, for gracing this lowly peasant with your royal presence,” Eddie said.
“Somehow, it’s okay when you call me that,” Steve said.
Eddie’s smile flickered. “You sure? I can call you something else, sweetheart, darling.”
“Those are nice too.”
Eddie was draped over the van seats. His arms were pale and long like milky rivers. The van ceiling had its own smoky atmosphere. “Have you ever shotgunned before?”
“No,” Steve said.
“Do you want to?”
??? Is this what you want ???
yes
then it's yours
“Yeah, okay,” Steve said, swallowing. Eddie leaned in, put his warm mouth on Steve’s and blew gently, and there was a shrinking feeling, like Steve was diminishing to smoke and being inhaled by Eddie. Eddie’s tongue moved, meeting Steve’s in a wet clash. Then Eddie moved away. Steve exhaled.
“Oh fuck,” Steve sighed.
It felt good, but this is not what happened.