Evening was falling by the time Arius and Gabriel walked back out onto the street. They were on the edge of downtown Tulippi. Traffic was heavy on the congested gridways as they passed numerous run-down houses, thrift stores on every corner, and rag-dressed strangers panhandling from the shade of rooftop overhangs. Gabriel wasn’t sure what he was looking for. A bus stop, maybe. Though he had nothing to pay for tickets with. A place to sleep, perhaps. But the farther they walked, the less safe their surroundings looked. Food. But again, Gabriel had no money.
When Arius looked like his last ounce of energy was about to give out, and a homeless shelter appeared on the block ahead, Gabriel did not give it a second calculation.
The building looked little different from the thrift shops Gabriel and Arius had passed. A line ran outside the door, comprised completely of men, waiting to check in for the night. When Gabriel and Arius reached the front of the line, they were given no more than a brief glance by the man running the check-in. “Men’ only shelter. She got’ go somewer elt.”
“What?” Gabriel frowned, glancing over his shoulder, unsure if the employee was talking to someone in line behind him. All he saw were men.
The guy looked up from the sheet of paper he had been writing on. “You stayin’?” He was looking at Gabriel.
“Y-Yes—” Gabriel began.
“A’ight, well she got’ go somewer elt,” the employee repeated. He lifted his pen in the air, making a gesture to the left. “I dunno if da women’ shelter got space le’t, bu’ it’ down der on Holster Avenu’, she kin—” He broke off, eyes straying almost absently toward Arius. Then, like it was nothing out of the ordinary, “Ah, nah, you a du’, you good, den. Y’all two new, yeh?”
“What?” Gabriel repeated.
“You new, huh?” The man took greater care in pronouncing each word.
“Yes,” Gabriel confirmed.
The man immediately proceeded to rattle off an entire list of what he introduced to be “Da rooz.” Gabriel caught something about cellphones, something about a curfew, many mentions of ninety days, and one last thing about meals.
“You serve food here?” Gabriel asked hopefully.
“Yuh. Now I needja names.”
“Gabriel and—” Gabriel broke off, gesturing to Arius. Taking Gabriel’s pause as a hint to speak up for himself, Arius stepped forward slightly. But before he could answer, Gabriel quickly finished, “Steven. Gabriel and Steven.”
The shelter was far larger than it looked on the outside—at least, by the efficiency with which space was used. Supper was apparently being served already. Smells from behind the soup kitchen set-up made Gabriel’s mouth water. The off-putting nature of the unclean atmosphere, long gray tables, and old metal chairs didn’t stand a chance against the empty pit in his gut.
“You want everything?” the guy behind the counter asked them, a Styrofoam tray in hand, serving utensil at the ready.
“Yes, please,” Gabriel responded easily. Then, glancing at Arius, “He has food allergies and needs to eat gluten and lactose free. Do you—” But Gabriel had not even finished his question before the man across from him was shaking his head.
“What you see is what you get. I don’t even know what half of this stuff is. We serve what we get donated, that’s all.”
“Shit,” Gabriel cursed under his breath. He glanced again at Arius, watching as those dark oval eyes met his. Then, turning back to the man behind the counter, “Everything for him, too, please. We’ll figure out what he can eat.”
“Figure it out?” Arius asked as they started toward an empty table. They sat down.
For a long moment, Gabriel stared at the food in front of him. The beef strips were probably more charcoal and sauce than meat. The carrot and green bean vegetables were soft enough for someone with no teeth to eat. The corn bread was sopping wet, and the mashed potatoes were a pale brown. But he was hungry. Hungry enough that it hardly mattered what anything in front of him tasted like.
“How are you going to figure out what’s in this food if they don’t know what’s in it?” Arius’s voice was hushed and anxious.
He was right. There was nothing on either of their trays that Arius could safely eat. Gluten intolerance ruled out the cornbread. Lactose and gluten doubly ruled out the gravy soaking the mashed potatoes. Worse yet, the man behind the counter had served out everything with the same utensil. If even one menu item had any of the things Arius was seriously allergic to, he could go into anaphylactic shock. “How…How hungry are you?” Gabriel asked carefully.
Arius gave him a look like Gabriel had asked if he wanted to be shot in the head. “Are you serious right now?”
“Arius, I don’t have an epi pen.” Gabriel shifted his plastic fork through the vegetable concoction. “There’s obviously spice on this stuff. Italian seasoning is so common—”
“Right, then I’ll just eat the corn bread.”
“You’re gluten-intolerant.”
“I won’t die.”
“You might.”
Their eyes met. “What the fuck, Gabriel?”
“If there’s Italian seasoning in the vegetables, then there’s basil in the vegetables,” Gabriel spelled out. “If you go into anaphylaxis, the only thing these people are going to be able to do for you is call 911. You’d suffocate before the ambulance got here.”
Arius’s hands retracted from the table. “Whatever,” he whispered.
Silence fell between them for a long moment. Gabriel found himself absently scanning the space around them, almost in procrastination of the problem facing him. The room with the tables was one wide space, complete with bare brick walls and basement tile floor. The atmosphere was oddly hushed for the number of people sitting around the tables. Gabriel’s attention fell on a wiry old man. At first, he thought the stranger was staring back at him as he slowly chewed his supper. But a moment later, Gabriel realized he was looking more toward Arius—if, that is, he was looking anywhere at all.
“I’ll go without, too, if you want,” Gabriel sighed finally. He looked over at Arius.
The pretty Asian boy was slumped in his seat, shoulders leaned forward like he wanted to put his head down on the table. “No,” came Arius’s answer, the reply no livelier than one from a corpse.
Gabriel waited for an elaboration, but Arius seemed to be done after the single word. Shrugging lightly to himself, Gabriel lifted his fork and began eating. That boy had grown up a bit, maybe. Or maybe it was Gabriel who had matured. Matured out of the ten-year-old devil who had made seven-year-old Arius cry on the way to one of his appointments by waving his lunch in the younger boy’s face. “Are you hungry? Are you hungry? Too bad, you can’t eat!”
No, maybe it was only Arius who had matured. “Shit, Arius, I’ll find you something to eat tomorrow, I promise. Tonight, if you want.”
“It’s fine.” Arius did not lift his face. He had closed his eyes, head hanging a little closer to the table.
The room with the beds was not very different from the one with the tables. Simply made cots lined the walls in rows, a scarce two feet between them. The corner beds had been snapped up before Arius and Gabriel even laid eyes on the room. Gabriel picked out two beds in the middle of the room, giving up a position by the wall in favor of spaces next to each other. Then, forgoing the option of showers in a dingy bathroom with no doors, Gabriel and Arius went to bed.
Lights-out came not fifteen minutes after they lay down. The sounds of beds creaking continued off and on, the only privacy granted to the sleepers being that of the shadow left untouched by the illuminated bathroom doorway. The person on the other side of Arius seemed unable to get comfortable. But Gabriel heard no sound from the teenager himself. Maybe he had fallen asleep quickly.
Finally, the person on the other side of Arius stopped moving around, and a monotone quiet settled in. In the darkness, Gabriel was left with his thoughts.
He had promised Arius he would figure this out. His impulse was to go home. He and Arius could take a bus back to Cincinnati. If nobody was home, Gabriel could go to a college friend’s house. At the very least, that would be food, shelter, phone service…
But a bus to Cincinnati could not be paid for with pennies found on the street. Gabriel could panhandle like everyone else around here. Preferably, he could find some kind of short-term work. But was it safe to stay in Tulippi that long? Was it safe to go home? Was Gabriel really going to believe everything that cop had said? It seemed so…unreal.
There were other, more reckless ideas that seeped into Gabriel’s mind. Thoughts of going back to the clinic, demanding what had happened, where his family was, what in the world was going on. He didn’t have to take Arius with him, if Arius was the one they wanted to harm. But they could keep Gabriel from leaving. Maybe they would demand where Arius was. Maybe they would try to use Gabriel as bait. Would Arius come for him? Or worse, would Arius live the rest of his life alone?
That didn’t even make any sense.
Gabriel rolled over and drew his sheet over his face. No, all complications and decisions aside, the priority was finding something for Arius to eat tomorrow. Why was that boy allergic to everything? And still, he chose roller blading. Like a bird with broken wings that still wanted to fly.
Gabriel had been like a child in search of magic when he started out as a pharmaceuticals major. But medicine was not a charmed potion. There was no medicine that could fix a bird wing that had always been deformed.
Would Arius die without his treatment? He would lose mobility, first. His immune system would go unchecked in its mindless attack on his body. His bones, muscles, circulatory, digestive, and respiratory systems would gradually deteriorate. He may develop intolerance to more foods.
No. Not before he had a chance to live. Fly. Fly?
Gabriel raised a hand to his forehead and let out a slow breath. He was so tired…so completely exhausted…
I have to undo all the shit I put him through, Gabriel thought faintly. I should set him up with that girl I told him not to date. He needs to see what love is like. Kiss somebody.
“No! Because last time you found out about someone I liked, you made me feel bad! Like I would never be good enough for anyone! How do you fucking expect me to tell you about my dating life when all you want to do is step all over it!”
“Geez,” Gabriel had replied. “You’re so sensitive. It was literally one comment. One stupid girl.”
“Get out of my room, Gabriel.”
Never mind, maybe Arius had already kissed, already experienced love. Already slept with someone, even. It wasn’t like he would tell Gabriel. It wasn’t like Gabriel would ever know. Joshua Mickelson, from Arius’s eleventh grade. If that had happened…
Gabriel immediately brushed the thought aside with a coolly familiar heap of excuses and denials. But in the void of other thoughts, his mind wandered to something unexpected.
That moment. That moment trying to revive Arius. It had swept past him so fast. Gabriel’s mouth had touched Arius’s. He must have felt the softness, the moisture. But he had been so panicked, he hadn’t even noticed. All he had thought about was getting Arius’s chest to rise, his heart to beat again.
What am I thinking? Gabriel ran his hand stiffly through his hair and turned over again. He was exhausted. So exhausted, he couldn’t think straight. The last thing he saw in his mind’s eye as he drifted off to sleep was that impassible cinderblock wall bordering the research section of the Arouras Clinic.
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