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  Shane, an intimidating figure with his solid football player’s frame, stood in front of the gas fireplace, daintily rocking his glass back and forth in his hand, the golden liquid swaying to and fro. Shane contemplated Malachi, who sat on the sofa. Shane carefully studied Malachi’s movements and tried to decipher their meaning. Shane was not, like Malachi or many of the students or faculty at the college, still mourning Zach Brennan. Shane had no “affinity” for Zach, and, for some reason, Shane was always suspicious of Zach. Shane often thought that Zach, during their limited exchanges, disparaged him. Shane was, however, deeply concerned about Malachi, who had retreated into a self-imposed exile. Shane’s many calls had gone unreturned, and he was never able to catch Malachi on campus in-between or after classes. Shane was not sure why Malachi had chosen to come to him now, nor did it matter. Shane was happy to see Malachi, relieved and a bit anxious. There was also that despicable rumour weaving its way around the college that had surely found its way to Malachi, and Shane wanted to assure his friend that he was not part of that very different mess. A logical man by nature, and not easily influenced by others, even Shane could not help but wonder if Zach’s death had really been an accident, or if Zach had indeed taken his own life because of what many now perceived, erroneously, of his unrequited love for Malachi.

  “Are you sleeping?” Shane asked as he sat down on the sturdy coffee table so he could face Malachi.

  Malachi’s dark sad eyes quickly moved off Shane’s round light-blue penetrating eyes. Malachi leaned back into the sofa and mumbled, “Some nights.”

  Shane went to place his hand on Malachi’s thigh, offer a gesture of reassurance, that everything would be all right, but at the last moment pulled back his hand. “It’s been a terrible scandal for the college. Enrolment will probably plummet next year.”

  “Is that really the scandal,” Malachi said, bringing his head forward, “or am I?” Malachi looked at Shane. “I know what people are saying. I tried to pretend like it wasn’t obvious.” The other professors looked at Malachi disapprovingly each time they saw Malachi and Zach having coffee together. At one of the staff meetings the senior instructor had made a vague comment about “keeping a respectable distance with students” and one of the other instructors immediately turned and glared derisively at Malachi. It was not unusual for Malachi to be seen with a student. On Thursdays, Malachi held his office hours at the Second Cup in the College Centre Building, where the main campus cafeteria and student government offices were located. Yet there was a collective consensus among students and faculty that Zach Brennan was smart and talented — the student full of promise whom everyone believed would succeed as a writer — and Malachi was trying to nurture Zach, help Zach reach his fullest potential. That was why it seemed so “unfucking believable” — to quote one of Malachi’s students — that Zach would have overdosed. Surely Zach was aware of his own potential? Malachi said ruefully, “I tried desperately to keep it spiritual, on that higher level, but when Zach stopped coming to class I had to know that he was all right. I should never have gone to his apartment.”

  Shane gave an accusatory look, of having been betrayed. “You mean, you and Zach —”

  “I know I should have been stronger, able to resist,” Malachi said, and looked away. He pushed himself off the sofa and took up the space previously occupied by Shane in front of the fireplace. It was always crucial for Malachi to assess the consequences of his actions, look beyond some momentary thrill and, with Zach, Malachi had utterly failed.

  “You can’t always take the moral high ground,” Shane said. “I’m not trying to pass judgment, but you do seem to spend more time analyzing life than living it.”

  “Moral high ground…” Malachi weighed this up, shaking his head, and spun around, his back to Shane. Malachi’s eyes were moist and he folded his arms across his chest. Unlike Shane, who lived for the moment, Malachi was easily influenced by other people’s opinions of him. And Shane’s assessment had cut through Malachi because Malachi knew the assessment bore some truth. Sometimes, Malachi thought that Shane acted “ruthlessly,” like living for the moment absolved Shane of any responsibility for his actions, which had from time to time wreaked havoc on the lives of others, even shattered relationships. It did not seem to bother Shane, either, that he had a “reputation,” and constantly stood in judgment of others. Malachi was not prepared to give others “ammunition” to judge him; judgment Malachi claimed to leave in God’s hands.

  Shane moved from the coffee table to the sofa, glancing discreetly at Malachi’s backside and broad back. Shane tried to quell the excitement racing through his body and bulging in his pants. He asked, “Did you love him?”

  Malachi turned around and said, in a whisper, “Maybe. Yes. I don’t know.” Of course Malachi did love Zach, but to admit it now — when Malachi could not admit it when it mattered, to have told Zach when he was alive and when they were together — would not have meant anything.

  Shane stood and picked up his and Malachi’s glasses and disappeared for a few minutes. He returned to the living room, handed Malachi another glass of scotch, and sat down on the sofa. Everything was different — the silence that hung in the air between them, the way Malachi looked at him, the edge in both of their voices. They used to be able to talk to each other, be each other’s confidant, but now Shane felt they had become isolated, separated, divided. Was that because of Zach Brennan? “I warned Malachi about Zach,” Shane thought, and said, “And that guy you met?”

  Malachi sat down in the armchair near the fireplace and looked blankly into the room. “Oh, well, nothing happened there. I managed to screw that up.”

  “How so?”

  Malachi sniggered. “I stood him up. I didn’t mean to, but it was the same day… when Zach…”

  “Oh.” Shane was about to finish off his scotch when he said, “But he understood, right? I mean you did call him?”

  “Darling, not everything is meant to be,” Malachi said, and let out a nervous laugh. “And really, what would I have said?”

  There was a silence. Shane loathed it when Malachi called him darling, the twang that lingered, its suggestion of simple-mindedness — and the vulgarity of the gayness Shane sought to lift himself above.

  “What do you want?” Shane said, with the insistence of a mother trying to understand the child constantly getting into trouble.

  “I really don’t know.” Malachi sipped his scotch.

  They sat there for awhile, again in silence, their eyes roving the room. Shane had got up once to go into the kitchen long enough to retrieve the bottle of scotch. After a time, they talked about their summer plans. They were planning a trip to New York City together, and Shane was eager for that time to arrive. To be alone with Malachi, and sharing a room. Just thinking of the trip excited Shane. Now, sitting across from his best friend was also perfect — just being near Malachi began to lessen the sense of isolation, and separateness, that Shane had felt earlier. They fell into silence again, Malachi’s face poised upon a heavy sadness that made him look like he was on the verge of tears.

  Shane said, “Don’t take this the wrong way,” and leaned forward slightly, “but when you let go of Zach, and the notion that you could have saved him, then you’ll start to live again.” He shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s just that Zach’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do about that. Don’t overanalyze it. Don’t let it consume you.”

  Malachi, his eyes narrowing, stared coolly at Shane. “Maybe Zach was right. We’re all living a façade, that none of this is real.” Malachi stood, downed the rest of his scotch and set the glass on the coffee table.

  “Malachi…” Shane stood and intercepted Malachi, who was heading for the door. Shane grabbed Malachi by the arm and then searched for Malachi’s hand. “You don’t believe…”

  Malachi jerked his hand out of Shane’s tight grasp and said, in a somewhat anguished tone, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” He opened the doo
r, added tersely, “Good night,” and left.

  Shane closed the door with a weighty sense of loss, and stood there for a time, with his forehead pressed against the door, his breathing heavy. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said what I said,” he thought, and worried that he had damaged their friendship. He locked the door and returned to the living room, settled into the sofa, turned on the TV to catch the news, and poured himself another stiff drink.

  Six

  Dear Malachi,

  I have wanted to write to you for some time, but it has not been easy for me, easy to write that is. Lately I’ve felt like I’ve lost access to my vocabulary. The times when I have tried to set pen to page, nothing happened. I froze. It felt as though some force had locked my hand, and I was unable to move it. In a way it felt like my life, static and not moving forward.

  I was so happy to see you the other day, to have finally been able to hold you, taste you, feel you so close to me. I have wanted that for so long, so long in fact from the very first time I saw you. Do you remember that day? It was my first day at the college, and I was standing in line at Second Cup. I had ordered a cappuccino and when I went to pay I was fifty cents short. I didn’t have my wallet on me and the next thing I saw was you handing the cashier fifty cents. When I said, “Thank you,” you looked blankly at me. You ordered an Americano, and moved to the end of the counter to wait for it. I desperately wanted to say something else to you then, but you buried your nose in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye as if to somehow scare me off. Fifteen minutes later when I walked into my English literature class and saw you writing on the blackboard, I thought, for a brief moment, that there was a God and that He was finally smiling down on me. You acted as though we had never met before, like I was just one of your many students, and that pained me for a long time.

  I wished you had stayed longer. I wanted to make love to you again, to tell you so much more about me, and to learn so much more about you. You said it was wrong for us to be together because of your position at the college and how it would be perceived if anyone found out, but you are the first person whom I have truly loved. Don’t ask me to explain it because I can’t. I just know I love you and that this is all very real to me.

  I have always felt that there has been some type of special connection between us. That’s something else that I can’t explain. I’ve had this feeling, deep in my gut, that you’ve always understood, that we’ve shared the same pain. I feel so alone in the world, so terribly alone. I don’t connect with people, like I’m constantly on the outside looking in. Have you ever felt like that? When I see people jaywalking across the street when the light is red, or when a car speeds up when the light turns yellow, I ask myself, “Why the rush?” Why is it that we’re rushing through life, barely taking the time to savour the beauty that surrounds us? Does speeding through a yellow light get us any further ahead in life? In that moment, maybe, but beyond the moment what does it do? Do we get any closer to our final destination?

  I don’t know if I’m making sense or just rambling, but I think you understand what I’m trying to say. Oh, Malachi, I don’t know why I waited for you to come to me. Now I fear that I won’t be able to hang on to you, that the other day was our moment, and that I didn’t do enough to seize it.

  I want you to know that if something happens to me it’s because…everything just feels so heavy, that I am weighted down, that I am sinking, sinking like an anchor to the seabed that no one can pull up. I’ve been fighting this for a long time, this “depression.” Maybe that’s why my writing has been, to use your terminology, macabre. My doctor has upped the dosage of my medication but that hasn’t worked. The insomnia is the worst of all. I miss your classes because I can only manage to sleep during the day. You caught me just after I had dragged myself out of bed, hence the reason for my haggard appearance. That must have been attractive!

  I say a long time, but in essence it’s only been about four years since I was diagnosed. It feels a lot longer, like an eternity. I told my older brother Greg about my diagnosis and that was when he told me about our mother. She suffered from depression as well and had not, as my father had told me when I was fifteen, run out on us. She had tried to take her own life, and afterwards my father had her committed to the Holtman Mental Health Institute in Etobicoke. Greg said our father wanted to spare us from that, and that was why he had said that she had left. I visited my mother about two years ago. She didn’t recognize me. The first thing I saw were the scars on her forearms. During the visit my mother’s psychiatrist said that she hasn’t said a word in close to seven years and that she has attempted suicide several times. I don’t want to end up like that. I don’t want to completely unravel, lose the will to live and end up like her, subsisting, wasting away. I just feel like it’s too hard. I see my mother and I see me. That scares me, scares me more than you could ever know. I still believe that this world is hell, and that there’s something else beyond it. When I find it, I wish I could tell you what it’s like but some day you’ll find out for yourself.

  Thank you for believing in me, for loving me. I will cherish forever those few hours we spent together. I would have hoped for a lifetime with you, but somehow I don’t believe that that’s in the cards, and that’s okay. I love you, Malachi. Remember that always.

  Zach

  Malachi laid the letter down on the coffee table, and wiped at the tears streaming down his face. The letter had arrived by mail the day after Zach’s funeral, and every time Malachi came into the living room he read it. It was the last connection he had to Zach, and with each word Malachi could hear Zach’s scruffy voice — the thud of each t, how Zach drawled at the end of each sentence, how Zach cleared his throat each time he went to make a point but was unsure of his position.

  Malachi felt remorse, and then guilt. Malachi had noticed in Zach’s writing that something was off, that his buoyant, heart-stopping prose and turned morbid, dry, overworked, as if it had been sucked of life. Why hadn’t Malachi said something? Was Malachi afraid of the truth? Or perhaps Malachi already knew the truth but wanted to stay clear of it. But Zach was right, they had, from the beginning, shared a special connectedness. Malachi had loved Zach from that very moment at the Second Cup. Malachi couldn’t say for certain what it was then that drew him to Zach, but it was almost as if Malachi had recognized himself at that age.

  Alone. That was the pain they shared. Malachi felt as alone in the world as Zach did. How could he not? Malachi’s parents had been stern, uncompromising, and it was that “strictness” that was supposed to keep Malachi on the straight and narrow. Malachi found out just how uncompromising his parents were when he came out at fifteen. He knew that coming out would dramatically change his relationship with his parents but the silence that had followed his announcement crippled him. It was the worst kind of sin, and had created such an irreparable rift. His mother prayed daily for his soul, that God would somehow take hold of him, renew his spirit, start his life all over again. His father stopped talking to him. And Malachi coming out was the second blow to his parents. His older sister, Sarah, had ended up a teenage mother. Sarah had a rambunctious toddler on her hands and had no time to worry about Malachi. They tried to remain connected and act like family, sending cards to each other on their birthdays and at Christmas. They had met for coffee about a year ago, just after Sarah’s last divorce, when Malachi was in Halifax for a Symposium on George Ryga. Malachi barely knew his nephew, Joshua, and had watched Joshua grow up in the photos Sarah included in her Christmas cards.

  When Malachi’s mother died a few months before he went off to university, he felt a mixture of grief and relief. Throughout his mother’s illness the iciness of their relationship remained. Malachi had wanted to make some attempt at reconciliation but he and his mother were both firmly held to their positions. He knew he had inherited his stubbornness from his mother but thought he might be able to reach out to her in some way. She died still praying for her son, who quietly begrudged her and who tried
to love her all the same.

  Malachi stared intently at the letter, and his dry eyes were once again flooded with tears. Zach Brennan was the second love of Malachi’s life that he had lost, and Malachi was not sure if this was a loss that he could survive. He picked up the letter, carefully folded it along the creases, and slipped it back in to the envelope. He sighed as he picked up the envelope and made his way to his office where he stood in front of one of the mahogany bookshelves, fingering the books until he found Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. He placed the envelope inside the front cover, slipped the book back onto the bookshelf and smiled. He held his gaze to the spine of the book for a moment before retreating to his bedroom, where he climbed onto the bed, and lay there staring abstractly at the white ceiling.

  Seven

  It was Saturday night, and Malachi was walking leisurely southward along Church Street, his hands shoved in his pockets, his shoulders knotted. The air was warm and humid, the sidewalks of Toronto’s gay village crowded with men wearing tight-fitting T-shirts that showcased their sculpted chests and hard nipples, and equally tight-fitting jeans moulded to their muscular thighs and shapely buttocks. Some guys wandered up and down the sidewalk shirtless, pleasingly displaying the chests they spent four days a week at the gym building for others to admire and drool over — as if they had been plucked straight from Genre. It was hard for Malachi not to gawk, even though the beefy, muscular jock-boy type wasn’t the sort of guy he fancied, and Malachi got caught checking out one of those muscular jock-boy types he claimed not to fancy. The handsome stranger winked. Malachi dropped his head. And when Malachi turned around to sneak another glimpse, the black-haired beauty had done the same thing and gave a little wave. Malachi waved back and then kept on walking, a smile spreading across his face.