Fic (Due South): Look For America (Fraser/ Kowalski, NC-17)
Look For America
Due South (Fraser/ Kowalski, NC-17)
Author's Notes: I wrote this months ago but it's raining like the end of the world outside tonight so I finally got to finish it. My apologies to Canadians and people from Tennessee, Chicago, and anywhere else I've managed to get horribly wrong.
Let us be lovers, we’ll marry out fortunes together - Simon and Garfunkel
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, Fraser tells himself, and he pauses to reflect on where he’s heard that expression before and what exactly it means. It sounds like something his grandmother would say and she wasn’t a woman to spout rhetoric for no good reason so it must be important somehow, even if doesn’t remember why.
“It’s an ill wind,” he says, trying it out loud and feeling kind of ridiculous as he does so. He glances over at Ray to see if he’s listening but Ray is bent over the engine of the GTO, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands covered in grease. He doesn’t look up.
Fraser is standing on the edge of the I-57, shielding his eyes from the sun as he watches Diefenbaker chase a whirlwind in the dust further up the road. Diefenbaker is traffic trained but the interstate highway isn’t so obedient and the close proximity of the road to Dief’s play is making Fraser nervous. No amount of training will prepare Dief for an out of control semi-trailer bearing down on him.
The wind is picking up, and Fraser holds his hat down to prevent it from blowing off his head. They volunteered to take a prisoner to Memphis because Ray said he’d never been to Graceland and Fraser thought it would be a pleasant change of pace to get out of the city and see the American country side. He’d hoped for a great, wide land out there beyond the city limits, but it’s mostly highways and road houses and agriculture stretching as far as the eye can see. Ray says next time they’ll go to the Grand Canyon, and Fraser adds this to his mental list of things to do before he goes home. Whenever that is.
Ray said he preferred urban landscapes anyway and he didn’t like being anywhere he couldn’t get a signal on his cell phone, which he reminded Fraser of when the GTO broke down some 60 kilometres after they turned off the I-55 and onto the I-57. Not that Ray has called anyone but Fraser thinks perhaps he takes comfort in knowing he can if the need arises.
Not that Ray looks comfortable at the moment as he wipes his forehead against the back of his arm and frowns at his uncooperative engine. Ray’s been oddly reserved the whole trip and not even a tour of Mr Presley’s home seems to have inspired him to conversation. Fraser puts it down to the stresses of being a police officer and while Ray’s silence is unsettling Fraser knows a man with much on his mind needs peace to work through his thoughts sometimes. Fraser appreciates peace and quiet at times too.
And a good relationship is about enduring the silences, which, Fraser thinks, is probably something his father said (dead or alive) but Fraser’s not had any long term relationships that weren’t in an official capacity so he really doesn’t know if that’s something that extends to his relationship with Ray. If only people came with a manual, they’d be so much easier to read. He thinks his father might have said that too.
It’s not an official errand so Fraser’s out of uniform but the hat is a permanent fixture and useful in the Tennessee sun. Ray wears sunglasses and a short leather jacket and generally looks like a Chicago police officer, while Fraser with his wide brimmed hat and flannel could probably pass for a local. It makes for an unusual twist on their relationship. Ray stands out here while Fraser slides easily into southern hospitality and cordiality. If only his father’s killers had gone further south. Who knows where Fraser might have ended up? Or who he’d be with.
Ray curses and Fraser considers offering assistance despite Ray’s refusal of previous offers which, given Fraser’s inability to do more than hand over tools when asked, is probably justifiable. Ray suggested Fraser keep an eye on Diefenbaker instead which was Ray’s way of saying, get out of my way and for god’s sake don’t hover, because the only thing worse than being useless is standing awkwardly by and being a constant reminder of one’s uselessness. This is something else Fraser knows about relationships: sometimes you’re a partner and sometimes you’re excess baggage. Fraser likes to think he knows a little something about everything, so his uselessness sits uncomfortably with him. Unfortunately, being brought up with skis and a sled means he’s at a loss when it comes to automobiles. He read about car mechanics in the same way he read about Hindu philosophy and topiary gardening because there were books on every subject in his grandparent’s library and god knows he liked to read, but Ray would say there are some things you can’t learn in a book and when it comes to the GTO, Fraser is inclined to agree with him.
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Maybe that’s just one way of saying there’s something in the air? There’s certainly something ominous about the reddening sun and the way the wind dies suddenly and picks up again. The evening feels vaguely profound, like this might be an auspicious occasion, something momentous. Fraser’s not prone to superstition or speculation and he doesn’t believe in omens but some cultures see meaning in the world around them, a way of ordering the chaos into complex narratives and even if it doesn’t stand up to reason it has a poetry about it that’s compelling. He thinks of himself as open minded after all.
“Fuck,” Ray says. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Ray’s cursing is becoming less imaginative which can only mean their situation is more dire than previously thought. There’s a town not far back and by Fraser’s reckoning it couldn’t be more than a ten kilometre walk. They’ll try to hitch a ride, of course, but the presence of Diefenbaker could be off-putting. Unlike the last time he waved down a vehicle on an open road, Fraser does not expect to encounter Canadians this far south.
“Ray?” he says, turning away from the wind. “Ray?”
“Yeah?” Ray looks up from underneath the hood.
“It’s getting dark.”
Ray looks up at the sky and his collar is caught in the wind, turning up against his neck. He looks thin and small against the vast backdrop of the long highway and the endless fields behind him, like he could blow away in the next gust of wind. “It’s going to rain,” Ray says, looking in the opposite direction of the now set sun.
Fraser follows Ray’s look and sees dark clouds getting darker now the sun has gone down. He sniffs the air and it smells heavy with moisture. “We passed a town further back,” Fraser says, indicating the direction with a nod of his head.
Ray nods, closes the hood of the car and goes around to the trunk, taking out of towel and wiping his hands and forearms. He’s got grease on his jaw and grease near his temple which makes him look dark and dangerous and not someone you’d pull over to the side of the road for. Fraser would point this out only it doesn’t seem polite and ten kilometres is just that after all, not something worth risking Ray’s ire over. Fraser calls Diefenbaker to him and they cross to the other side of the highway, Ray following behind and narrowly avoiding being run over by an SUV.
“We’ll never get a ride,” Ray says, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket and turning around briefly to glare at the SUV. The air is heavy with the threat of rain and they’re not dressed for inclement weather.
“It isn’t far,” Fraser says.
“Terrific,” Ray says. “Nothing like a good walk in the middle of nowhere at the end of a long day.”
Much of what Ray says isn’t what he means. Fraser knows this, and it’s not like Ray Vecchio didn’t employ sarcasm, so Fraser should be used to it by now, but he chooses to take words at their face value anyway. It’s safer that way. More reliable.
“Nothing like it indeed,” Fraser says, and he sets the pace by starting forward at a formidable speed. A brisk walk has the added advantage of keeping them warm whilst getting them to their destination quicker and Fraser thinks he should mention that if Ray complains. Ray’s got his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground, keeping up with Fraser out of what seems like mimicry rather than deliberate effort on Ray’s part. Sometimes they fall into step with one another without even trying and it feels strangely comforting, like synchronicity. If only it could be like this all the time.
It starts to rain; slow at first, big heavy drops landing intermittently on Fraser’s hat and on the ground in front of him. Fraser wonders whether they might be so fortunate as to suffer only light rain on their walk but all hope is lost when a few drops turn into a downpour and even Diefenbaker whines in protest.
Fraser turns around to face the oncoming traffic, waves both hands at a vehicle coming toward them. Canadians or not, surely no one likes to see their fellow man (and wolf) slouching along the side of a highway in the pouring rain.
Two cars go past and then a motorcyclist who gives Fraser a supportive thumbs up. Fraser waves in appreciation. Eventually, an eighteen-wheeled semi-trailer pulls over to the side of the road ahead and they run to catch up with it. Fraser gets their first, opens the front door and says, “Thank you kindly,” before stepping back to let Diefenbaker and Ray in.
“Good looking dog,” the driver says, eyeing Diefenbaker as he climbs into the back with Ray.
“He’s -“ Fraser goes to say, but then Ray coughs and Fraser remembers not everyone appreciates a domesticated wild animal in their backseat. Today is probably not a good day to change preconceptions either, however misguided they may be. “He’s deaf,” Fraser says.
“Really? Too bad,” the driver says. “Guess he’s not a working dog then.”
“He has his uses,” Ray says.
“Looks kind of like a wolf,” the driver says.
“You think so?” Ray says. He pats Diefenbaker on the back of his neck.
The driver asks what they were doing on the side of the road in the rain and Fraser gives him the short version of their road trip to Memphis leaving out his history with the Chicago Police Department for a change. In the rear view mirror he can see Ray staring out the window and apparently not about to contribute to the conversation, so Fraser tells the driver about the problems with Ray’s car and hopes he’s managed to convey something of their predicament, or at least enough to elicit a helpful response.
“There’s a garage in Ullin,” the driver says. “I can take you there.”
“That sounds --,” Fraser turns around to check for Ray’s response and Ray nods. Fraser turns back toward the driver. “-Perfect,” he says.
It’s a short journey and, save for one or two instances where Fraser has to reprimand Diefenbaker for waving his (wet) tail in Ray’s face, it’s also a relatively uneventful one. The driver sets them down at the garage in Ullin just as the owner is closing the doors and Ray is quickly out of the semi-trailer, waving and yelling. “Hey!” he says, taking out his badge and holding it up so the owner can see. “Chicago PD!”
The owner keeps the door open long enough to tell Ray that despite his willingness to assist an officer of the law, the best he can do for them right now is to point them in the direction of the nearest motel. Apparently in Ullin it’s impossible to hire a tow truck after hours and even if they could, the owner couldn’t obtain parts until the morning.
“Shoot,” Ray says. He turns away from the owner of the garage and scowls at the sky, as if the rain is to blame. Fraser asks about overnight accommodation and the owner points out a motel further down the street. It’s close enough for Fraser to read the red neon “vacancy” sign but far enough away for the rest of the signage to be obscured by rain and a distinctly out of place palm tree.
Ray pulls the back of his jacket over his head in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to shield himself from the rain and nods toward the motel. “Come on,” he says to Fraser. “We’re just getting wet here.”
On closer inspection the sign says, “The Palms.”
“The Palms,” Ray says, like he’s reading Fraser’s mind. “Who the fuck calls a motel in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Illinois, the Palms?”
“Perhaps there were once two palms?” Fraser says, only it sounds ridiculous. Clearly, the motel came before the palms.
Ray doesn’t answer, choosing to open to the door to the reception instead. “Nice,” he says, when they’re inside. The décor is mostly oranges and browns and there’s a large stain on the wall above the reception desk, partially obscured by a poster advertising TAB which, if Fraser’s memory serves, is a diet cola once popular in the 1970s. Ray is being sarcastic again but this time there’s no danger of misinterpretation.
“I suppose it will have to do,” Fraser says.
“Do for what?” Ray says. “A porno?”
Fraser rings the bell for the desk clerk and he appears with a cigarette in one hand and a paperback in the other. “Only one room available,” he tells them. “Hope you don’t mind sharing a queen.”
“You have one room?” Ray says. “On a Wednesday? Is there a parade in town or are you just big with tourists?”
“I got eight rooms,” the desk clerk says, unfazed by Ray’s rant. “And it’s raining”
Fraser takes the key from the desk clerk. “One room will do nicely,” he says. “Thank you kindly.”
“You’d better not snore,” Ray says, reluctantly following Fraser to their room. He turns to glare at Diefenbaker. “And that goes for you too.”
*
Somewhat ironically the rain eases as Fraser opens the door to their room. Ray looks up at the sky briefly before shrugging his shoulders and going inside.
“Figures,” he says.
He sits on the edge of the bed and starts shedding clothes; jacket first, then boots and sweater. He runs a hand through his wet hair and Fraser thinks the room will be too cold for Ray in his t-shirt and socks and perhaps he should do something about the heating. Fraser puts his hat on the table in the corner and crouches down to inspect the gas appliance against the far wall. It looks old and dusty and Fraser knows to be wary of gas heaters in less than pristine condition, but given a lack of alternatives he turns the switch to “on” and hopes for the best. It hisses for a moment and then is quiet, marred only by the sound of the occasional valve opening. Fraser sniffs the air for gas and frowns when he doesn’t like what he smells.
“I don’t think the heater is working,” Fraser says.
“No shit,” Ray says.
“It’s the principle of the thing, Ray,” Fraser says. For some reason the heater is unduly irritating. He’s usually a make-do kind of person. When life gives you lemons and so on, as his grandmother would say but now all he can think of doing is kicking something. It’s been a difficult day. “It should at least be operational.”
“You get what you pay for,” Ray says, leaning over to take the remote control from the top of the television. He turns the television on and it’s loud, a wall of sound filling the room like a wave crashing around them. Fraser grimaces and Ray immediately turns the sound down to a dull roar in the background. “Ouch,” Ray says understatedly.
Fraser turns the heater to off. “Are you cold?” he says.
“Yeah,” Ray says, like he’s just noticed. “I should - get a towel or something.” He goes into the bathroom and returns moments later with a towel over his shoulders and his hair sticking out at all angles, like he’s given his hair a cursory rub and not paid much attention to the result. “I could eat,” he says. “Do you think they have delivery in this town?”
There are brochures on the desk, mostly advertising escort services, but there also seems to be more than one pizza establishment in Ullin. Fraser doesn’t know how to choose so he hand the brochures to Ray. “Pizza,” he says. “Hardly a nutritious option.”
Diefenbaker whines and Fraser gives him a disapproving look. This from an animal that used to hunt caribou.
“I’m with Dief,” Ray says. “It’s not like they deliver granola bars.”
Fraser hands Ray the flier and tells him to order. Three years in the US and he still can’t remember whether “the lot” comes with anchovies or pineapple. There are times when he thinks there truly may be a language barrier between Canada and America.
He leaves Ray to make the order and takes their jackets into the bathroom to dry. There’s a faint odour of bleach in the bathroom contrasting with the smell of rising damp coming from the bedroom and it makes Fraser somewhat nostalgic for his days in the academy. They lived in modest conditions there too, but always clean, and in the days before environmental awareness entered the popular consciousness bleach was standard issue in the bathroom.
Things are different now, of course. These days it’s all lemon juice, vinegar and baking soda and undoubtedly a good thing too, but Fraser’s always liked the smell of bleach. It reminds him of simpler times.
If the odour offends Ray, he doesn’t mention it. He’s sitting on the bed when Fraser returns from the bathroom, a pillow propped between his back and the bed head. He uses the remote control to change intermittently between channels, seemingly dissatisfied with every new program he encounters. Or maybe he just likes change? In truth, Fraser notes, Ray doesn’t really seem to be paying attention.
Fraser puts it down to the odd mood that’s been plaguing Ray since they embarked on the trip. Ray isn’t a complicated man. Nor is he an island. Barely days into their partnership and he was already giving Fraser the details of his failed marriage and the effect of its breakdown on his personality. One year with Ray Vecchio and Fraser didn’t even know he was married let alone troubled by a prior relationship. To date Fraser still doesn’t know how long Ray Vecchio’s marriage lasted or how it ended. He supposes Frannie could have told him but at the time it was Ray Vecchio’s silence that was curious. It seemed like he was always talking and yet in a lot of ways, he was a quiet man. Fraser thought of him as a mass of contradictions.
Ray Kowalski on the other hand is open and demanding and always saying what he thinks, even if he changes his mind two minutes later. It would scare the pants off Fraser if he didn’t find it compelling at the same time. Of course, it also leaves him bewildered when Ray clamps up and insists he has nothing to say. This silence, the way Ray watches the television without really watching, is unsettling.
With nothing else to do, Fraser sits on the opposite side of the bed to Ray, mimics his position with a pillow behind his back and his feet crossed in front of him. He watches Ray change channels without protest and when it begins to annoy him he watches the way Ray’s thumb rhythmically stabs at the remote control every three, four or five seconds. He wonders if there’s a pattern in it, something telling? He’s about to mention it to Ray when the channel switching stops and Fraser looks up to see Ray has settled on The Philadelphia Story. They say you learn something new every day about your partner but Fraser never would have imagined Ray to be a fan of black and white romantic comedies.
“Do you think Cary Grant is an attractive man?” Ray says.
“My grandmother thought so.”
“Objectively speaking,” Ray says. “I mean, I think he is. Your grandmother thinks he is. My mom thinks he is too - which makes you wonder, why is such a good looking guy going to so much trouble to get the girl? You’d think he wouldn’t have to try.”
Fraser wants to say something about romantic comedy and the progression of the story from boy-meets-girl to boy-loses-girl to boy-finds-girl-again that has proven popular amongst the genre, but instead he says, “It’s a love story, Ray,” thinking it might be something Ray understands better than waffle about narrative. Fraser knows he can go on sometimes.
“It looks like hard work to me,” Ray says. “You have to ask yourself whether it’s worth it, don’t you Fraser? I mean, she has to be worth it, right?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Fraser says. He really doesn’t. Sometimes talking to Ray is about working out where the conversation is headed before Ray spells it out. The advantage of doing so is not being taken by surprise or accused of being intentionally obtuse. And despite Fraser’s intentions, Ray accuses Fraser of being obtuse all the time.
“You ever been in love, Fraser?” Ray turns a little so that he’s facing Fraser, watching him expectantly, like there’s something he’s supposed to understand in the Ray’s look. Fraser’s grandmother would call it a “loaded” look, heavy with significance.
“I was,” Fraser says, and it occurs to him he never told Ray about Victoria. He wonders if Ray resents that omission. “Her name was Victoria.”
“Yeah,” Ray says, nodding. “Yeah, I read something about her.”
“It was a challenging time,” Fraser says. He’s not sure what Ray knows. It possible he knows that Victoria was a diamond thief and that the outcome of the situation was that Ray Vecchio (unintentionally) shot Fraser in the back but there were elements to that story that Fraser barely admitted to himself and even if Ray Vecchio knew that Fraser had been thinking about leaping onto that train and leaving everything behind, Fraser doubts it was something he would have discussed with anyone.
Strangely, it seems like a long time ago, whereas in reality it was only a few years. Not even enough time to forget names and dates and it’s not like he forgets details anyway but it seems that after all this time, little things, like the way her hair smelled or how cold her hand was when she pulled him onto the train, should have been forgotten by now. It just seems distant, like something belonging to a dream.
“She used you, Fraser,” Ray says. He picks up the remote control and mutes the television. Fraser can hear the wind whistling through the telegraph wires outside. “You got set up, you got shot, and you got used. Happens to the best of us. I read the report, you know: Fraser’s big stuff up. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Neither did I.”
“Yeah?” Ray says. “Well, I guess it’s true what they say; no one is perfect.”
“I never claimed to be perfect, Ray.” Ray Vecchio once called him perfect and he intently dislikes the label. Being held to a standard he never devised or elected seems grossly unfair.
“Here’s what gets me,” Ray says. “Vecchio was aiming for Victoria - but somehow you got in the way. She was on the train, at least three feet higher than you, so you must have been on the train to take that bullet for her. Unless Vecchio is a lousy shot, but I’m guessing he wouldn’t have fired if he thought you would get in the way, am I right?”
Fraser remembers waking up in hospital, the slow realization of being alive, of having failed so dismally to hold on to Victoria and to retain his integrity. It was a dark time. The depth of his ruin seemed so vast, unending. He thought he’d never get over it.
“I’m sorry,” Fraser says. “What was the question?”
There’s a knock on the door. “Pizza,” Ray says, getting up to answer it, and Fraser contemplates how sometimes fate is on his side and sometimes it just seems out to get him. He’s not sure which this is.
They eat pizza sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the end of The Philadelphia Story. Ray doesn’t eat much, just a slice or two and then he’s feeding the rest to Diefenbaker when he thinks Fraser isn’t watching. When they’re done Fraser puts the empty boxes by the trash can in the corner and leaves Diefenbaker to lick up the crumbs. Fraser is reluctant to indulge Diefenbaker’s appalling diet but it’s better than waking up to the smell of day old pizza.
On the television, Cary Grant gets the girl and the music swells with a kind of finality that’s been long gone from the motion picture industry since the practice of putting credits at the end. Fraser’s grandmother used to say they don’t make movies like they used to and Fraser thinks that’s true but people get tired of the same old endings and what good is a hero who doesn’t lose once in a while? Triumph over adversity is the real measure of a man and these days sometimes the woman gets the girl too. It’s a different world from the one his grandmother knew.
“Should have bought beer,” Ray says, apropos of nothing. He takes up the remote control and starts flipping through channels again. Fraser catches a western briefly before Ray moves on to a sitcom and then cartoons.
“I don’t drink,” Fraser says redundantly. He wonders why he always feels the need to state the obvious.
“Well, you could watch me,” Ray says.
“That doesn’t sound like much fun,” Fraser says. “I think I’ll turn in.” He takes off his shirt, folds it over his arm and places it on the chair, starts stripping down to his underwear.
“It’s not even 10 o’clock,” Ray says.
“I’m an early riser,” Fraser says. “Feel free to watch television, Ray, I wouldn’t want to impose on your viewing.”
Ray switches the television off. “It’s been a long day,” he says. “An early night wouldn’t kill me.”
“Quite the contrary, Ray -“
“It’s a figure of speech, Fraser.” Ray takes of his clothes, leaving them on the floor in piles and Fraser finds himself once again strangely irritated by details. Of course, slovenliness never sits well with Fraser, it’s just that he’s developed a practice of live and let live and it hardly seems the time to comment on Ray’s domestic habits.
Ray once said they were getting stale. It’s true there are times when Fraser thinks he’s saying the same things over and over and maybe that’s where it all goes wrong? He wonders why they are like this, so tense all the time. They’re not going anywhere; they’re not leaving each other. It doesn’t make a sense.
The bed is large, big enough for the two of them to keep a respectful distance between them and no danger of rolling into the other should either one of them be a restless sleeper. They’ve slept together before, of course, albeit in separate sleeping bags, but Fraser remembers sleeping on the ground in the park and Ray tossing and turning until eventually he pressed up against Fraser’s back and was still for the rest of the night.
Fraser pulls the covers back on his side, experiencing a whiff of hospital grade bleach as he does so and there’s that nostalgic feeling again. He remembers he once shared a bed with a boy in the academy too, although it’s not something he’s about to tell Ray and it certainly wasn’t regulation. Much like his liaison with Victoria, it has a dreamlike quality, and it was a much longer time ago. If he wanted to, he could swear it never happened.
“Christ,” Ray says, as he climbs into the opposite side of the bed. “Do you smell that? Someone must have killed someone in here.”
“They seem unusually concerned with hygiene,” Fraser says.
“Yeah, well, I hope you weren’t planning on having children, Fraser,” Ray says. “That stuff will kill your little guys.”
“Little guys?”
“Your sperm count, Fraser.”
Fraser doesn’t know how to respond to that. “I think prolonged exposure is a more relevant factor, Ray,” he says finally.
“Prolonged as in how long?” Ray says.
“Longer than eight hours.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ray says, seemingly placated. He rolls over onto his side, facing away from Fraser. “Can you get the light?”
Fraser turns the bedside lamp off and the room turns grey-black with light shining through the window from outside and falling across the floor in shards. He puts his head back on the pillow and looks at the ceiling for a moment, wondering if some kind of goodnight ritual is in order, but then he closes his eyes, breathes out and feels his limbs sinking into sleep. Ray is right. It’s been a long, long day and that’s to say nothing of the energy Fraser expends trying to placate Ray when he’s in a difficult mood. Fraser is tired. He’s so very tired.
“Fraser,” Ray says. “Fraser?”
Fraser slowly lifts himself out of his sleep-stirred state and back to wakefulness again. “Yes?”
“Were you asleep?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He wasn’t really asleep. It’s as true as anything else he could say. “Is everything all right, Ray?”
“It’s fine, I’m just wondering-“ Ray pauses and Fraser can hear cars pass by on the road outside. They’re less than two hundred metres from the highway but it’s generally a quiet night. Maybe it’s true what the desk clerk said about the rain? “Did you ever think about what would have happened if you’d left it all behind?”
“You mean if I’d gone with Victoria?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I -“ If only he’d been thinking about it at the time, then maybe he’d have an answer for Ray. Or for himself. “It’s difficult to imagine.”
“It’s not like you,” Ray says.
“No,” Fraser says. He frowns at the ceiling. Nearly two years together and Ray has only now become interested in Victoria? It doesn’t add up. Ray’s line of questioning is vague but there has to be a truth in there somewhere, something Ray isn’t telling him. “The incident with Victoria,” Fraser says eventually. “Does it bother you?”
“No,” Ray says. “Why should it bother me?”
“You seem unusually curious.”
“It’s just a question, Fraser,” Ray says. “You know, something you ask your partner because you want to know what makes him tick.”
“I see,” Fraser says.
“No, it’s - it doesn’t matter, Fraser, forget I said anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, just go to sleep.”
Fraser has no desire to push the issue and instead he goes back to staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about the many 'what ifs’ that come to mind every time he remembers Victoria. He’s mostly unsuccessful. Somewhere - it could be anywhere - there’s Victoria; wanted in two states and no doubt up to her old habits. He’s never really stopped thinking about her, always kept her in mind wherever he went, knowing she might be around the next corner or coming through the next door, suddenly appearing in his life like she did last time. He carries her around like the ghost of his father only she hides in the shadows while his father faces him head on. She’s there. She’s always there.
And if she came back? He answers this question the same way he’s answered it for the last two years. She’s not coming back; he’s never going to see her again. She’s gone and he can safely say that chapter of his life is over and he’s lived through it, to a fashion.
But what if she came back? He closes his eyes and imagines her on the street, outside the consulate or across the street from the station, just walking past like she did the last time, another face in the crowd. He would run after her, of course. He’d chase her down, put his hand on her shoulder, turn her around to face him and say -
He has no idea what he’d say but hopefully it would be something along the lines of, "I’m taking you to the nearest police station to face charges of murder and robbery," and if that proved too difficult he’d call Ray and ask him to place her under arrest.
Things are different now. There’s time and there’s distance between them and, when it all boils down, there’s also Ray. This isn’t Ray Vecchio who was born on this side of town, who went to school with the mob, stood up to them and told them this was his town. And it’s not that Ray Kowalski can’t take care of himself but Fraser feels the need to place himself in front of bullets for Ray Kowalski because Ray Vecchio can take a hit but Ray Kowalski is fragile and if Fraser lets him go, he’ll fall to pieces.
“I won’t abandon you, Ray,” Fraser says out loud, without really knowing why except that he thinks maybe it’s something Ray needs to hear, and even as he’s saying it Fraser knows it’s true. For reasons he can’t explain, he won’t leave Ray behind.
“Good to know,” Ray says.
“Ray?” He reaches out to touch Ray’s shoulder, his fingers finding the bone of the clavicle jutting out against Ray’s too thin frame. Ray turns into Fraser’s hand, rolls over onto his back so that Fraser’s hand falls down Ray’s arm, just above the bicep.
Ray doesn’t say anything and they stay like that for a while: still, like a tableau. Fraser can make out Ray’s breath quickening slightly, an air of nervous energy about him, expectant.
It means something, Fraser knows. The moment is charged with possibilities and he admits that wherever it’s going, he might not be in control. As much as he’d like to think he has a plan and a goal and everything is in the execution, if experience has taught him anything it’s that he’s just as susceptible to impulse as anyone.
Maybe that’s why he’s so bold? He’s been shot in the back; what’s the worst that could happen? He slides his hand across Ray’s chest, over his pectorals and down his ribcage, feeling every bone beneath Ray’s t-shirt. Ray’s breath hitches and Fraser’s thumb finds the last rib, glides over it, tracing its outline beneath a fine layer of skin. Fraser understands what it’s like to forget to breathe. The last time he did something this fraught with complications he wound up in a wheelchair. There’s a lesson in that somewhere but he most likely failed to learn it.
And then Ray’s hand covers his, urges Fraser lower until, hand in hand, they cover Ray’s groin, Ray’s gradually building erection clearly evident beneath his undershorts. Fraser presses a little and Ray groans, quietly and shortly, almost unnoticeable.
Fraser moves his hand slowly upward until he reaches the waistband of Ray’s shorts and hooks fingers inside. He’s following an impulse, without a clue where it’s going or what he’s doing. He wants to do things to Ray, barely comprehensible things that he can neither name nor articulate, as if he’s being guided by a nebulous idea, the echoes of a memory he once thought buried. He edges closer until he’s nudging Ray’s shoulder with his chin, his lips just brushing Ray’s skin. Ray smells like leather and rain and he tastes like salt. Fraser pulls Ray’s shorts down around his hips and takes Ray in his hand.
“I want to -“ He speaks into Ray’s shoulder. “I want you to -“
“Yeah, I know,” Ray says, and he shifts his arm out from under Fraser and hooks it around Fraser’s neck so that his hand rests at the back of Fraser’s head, his fingers threading through Fraser’s hair. “Do it.”
Fraser’s thumb sweeps across the head of Ray’s cock, using the seepage to slick his palm and make a fist around the shaft. He jerks Ray off steadily, feeling the length of him, memorising the way his skin feels, warm, wet and unyieldingly smooth.
He presses himself against Ray’s side, his groin against Ray’s hip, his thigh so close to Ray’s he can feel the elastic of Ray’s shorts through his cotton boxers. He thinks he’d like to see Ray naked, to know what he looks like as his hips buck upward into Fraser’s hand. In the grey light he can make out Ray’s face, his eyelashes fluttering, his lips partly open and his forehead shining with sweat. He’s not looking at Fraser and he seems distant, somewhere else.
Fraser wants him to be here. He wants Ray to say his name. He tightens his grip, moves fast, more roughly. Ray’s breath catches again and this time it’s kind of high pitched, halting and childlike, like it all he can do to stop himself from crying out. His hand shoots down to cover Fraser’s and he holds Fraser in position, doesn’t pull him away. And then he tightens his grip around Fraser’s fingers and thrusts his hips upward, once, and then once again, and then bucking back and forth in a rhythm growing faster until he’s fucking Fraser’s hand with abandon.
It’s no use after that. Fraser loses all pretence of control and he grinds his groin against Ray’s hip, jarring almost painfully against the bone each time Ray pushes up. He bites Ray’s shoulder, tastes salt and iron as blood rises to the surface and Ray twists his fingers in Fraser’s hair, pulling hard as Fraser licks at his skin. He thrusts upward again, hard, breathes out and says, “Fraser -“ and he comes in Fraser’s hand, spiling warm and sticky and wet between their intertwined fingers.
Fraser doesn’t bother to wipe his hand. He shoves his boxers down around his hips, uses Ray’s semen to slick his own erection and works himself fast and rough in his hand. He comes quickly, moaning a little as the last of the shocks wrests themselves from him and then he’s breathing hard in tandem with Ray’s ragged breath.
They may as well be eighteen again with their pants down around their thighs and come all over the sheets and their underwear. It seems like nothing ever changes and Fraser’s still groping in the dark between unzipped sleeping bags and humping against a thigh, a leg, his own hand. Maybe it’s the memories that make him feel awkward, like he should be apologising or insisting he’s not usually like this.
If actions speak louder than words, then Ray’s silence on the matter is practically screaming. Ray swings his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m going to take a shower,” he says.
“Perhaps you could pass me a towel?” Fraser says and Ray throws him a towel from the bathroom.
The sound of water running is familiar; it reminds him of Victoria exiting his bathroom with wet hair and a towel around her chest. It bothers him that he thinks of her in a situation like this but then every liaison he has will most likely remind him of Victoria in some way and if survival is remembering your mistakes so you don’t make them twice, then he should be grateful she plagues him when he’s most vulnerable. Still, he tries to push her out of his mind, replaces her image with thoughts of Ray in the shower, water running down his chest, over his hips and down his groin. For a while at least, she’s gone, returned to the shadows where he only need retrieve her if he wants to.
*
The sun is in his eyes when he wakes up. Fraser blinks himself awake, raises his arm and shields himself against the light. It’s bright, shining directly into the window which means it’s probably around seven-thirty and he’s overslept.
He looks over to where Ray is sleeping on his stomach, face turned toward Fraser, one arm stretched out across the middle of the bed. Diefenbaker is on the floor, similarly stretched out. He’s a lot like Ray, in that he shifts in his sleep and is never satisfied with one position or placement. He was on the other side of the bed when Fraser went to sleep last night.
There’s no need to wake either of them, so Fraser gets out of bed quietly, goes into the bathroom and takes a shower. When he’s done he asks the clerk at reception if he can use the phone and organizes a tow truck for Ray’s car. He also asks about coffee and the desk clerk directs him to a diner not far from the motel. It takes him ten minutes to walk there and ten minutes back and while there’s not much in the way of sightseeing he takes the walk slow, appreciating the time to come to terms with his headspace and the slightly unsteady feeling that’s been hovering at the edges of his consciousness since he woke up this morning. The cold of the morning and the smell of earth damp with rain seems to sweep his unease to the far corners of his mind and by the time he’s back in the motel room he’s feeling partly himself again, back in control, focused and ready to organize the less alert members of his party.
He nudges Ray’s shoulder with the edge of the coffee cup, hoping the smell at least will entice him awake.
“Uh,” Ray says, lifting his head off the pillow and squinting at Fraser. “What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock,” Fraser says. He goes over to the still sleeping Diefenbaker and pats his head. Diefenbaker looks up, yawns and whines a protest. ”Ten minutes past actually."
“God,” Ray says, his face falling down onto the pillow again. “We need to get my car.”
“Done,” Fraser says. “It’s being towed as we speak.”
“Yeah?” Ray lifts his head again. “You’re way too efficient, Fraser, you know that?”
“Thank you,” Fraser says, knowing it’s probably not a compliment. He sits on the edge of the bed, holding out the coffee cup towards Ray while Ray rolls over onto his back to take it. They sit there in silence for a while, Ray drinking coffee and Fraser taking in the now sunlit room. In the daylight it looks kind of garish and much like something out of an adult entertainment film, as Ray suggested. Then again, Fraser’s experience is based on illicit viewings in his youth some twenty years ago when he was still an RCMP cadet. Surely the pornographic entertainment industry has evolved since then.
The check out of the motel and head down to hear the mechanic’s diagnosis of Ray’s car.
“It’s the starter motor,” the mechanic tells Ray. “It’s fried.” He says he can order one from Chicago but it will take less time for Ray to drive there himself and bring the parts back.
“Are you sure?” Ray says, and then he’s under the hood with the mechanic offering up other less complicated and expensive causes for the car’s malfunction. The mechanic doesn’t seem to appreciate Ray’s input and they argue for a while using terminology unfamiliar to Fraser. He listens anyway because the tone of Ray’s voice is curious. He sounds tired and frustrated but not unyielding. It shouldn’t be a long argument.
Eventually, Ray gives up and shakes his head in despair. “We’ll need to get a rental,” he says to Fraser. “Unbelievable.”
“I’m sorry,” Fraser says.
Ray runs his hands through his hair and looks just as disheveled and haphazard as he did when he woke up. The sight causes Fraser to blush. He doesn’t know why.
“Come on,” Ray says, inclining his head toward the town. “The mechanic knows a guy who’ll do me a deal.”
*
The deal is a Falcon station wagon that isn’t old but looks like it’s seen better days.
“Will it get me to Chicago?” Ray says. “Because lately I’m not feeling so lucky.”
“It will get you to Chicago and back,” the rental clerk says.
They take it because the other option is a Taurus and Ray refuses to drive anything with less than 4 litres, which apparently includes all the smaller and more fuel efficient cars. American men are very attached to their cars, Fraser has come to understand, and while he understands the sentiment involved, it seems ludicrous to get a “deal” which will only be abrogated by the cost of fuel.
“I don’t trust those small cars,” Ray says, when they’re out on the highway again. “Sure they look all colourful and compact but you crash into a truck in one of those things and you’ll fold like a piano accordion.”
Fraser frowns. “How fast would we be going in this scenario?”
Ray raises his eyes to the roof of the car. “Fast enough, Fraser,” he says.
Ray passes an SUV and the children wave at Diefenbaker as they go by. Fraser remembers he bought a book on American idioms once, not long after his posting to Chicago. He thought it might help with some of the more baffling phrases Ray Vecchio used, but really it just confused the issue even more as the phrases that were included seemed unused by the population he encountered and the words they did use, never quite matched the meaning in the guide. Lately, he’s been turning to Inspector Thatcher for guidance because she seems to read a person’s tone better than he does, but Fraser takes some comfort in knowing Turnbull is even more clueless than he is.
He’s gotten better at reading Ray and, in the end, it’s Ray who counts. This feeling Fraser has, these alarm bells ringing intermittently in the back of his mind like there’s smoke somewhere and he’s not seeing the fire, it doesn’t happen around anyone else except Ray.
And it’s happening now. Maybe it’s Ray’s silence that makes it easier to hear the ringing, but Fraser glances in Ray’s direction and it’s like a fire station going off in his head.
People are generally not partial to change, and they’re particularly not partial to lifestyle changes, which might be what Ray is going through right now, although it’s difficult to tell because it’s not like they had that conversation last night, or any conversation remotely relevant to what was happening. It’s all conjecture really because while Ray’s silence is cause for concern, he was silent yesterday too and for all Fraser knows Ray could be meditating on something important and doesn’t appreciate interruptions.
This part is a little like the academy too. Whatever they did in the night, they certainly didn’t talk about in the morning, if only because they were barely more than children and they didn’t have words for how they felt let alone the sensitivity and insight required to navigate such exchanges.
Fraser’s older now though. He should know better. And ostensibly he does because he can proffer plausible theories on matters of human relationships and even tell a story that may provide insight into the situation. But then, 35 years old and what does Fraser really know about intimacy? His personal history of relationships reads like a “how to” manual: be courteous, be considerate and for god’s sake choose your partner wisely or you’ll wind up on your back on a railway station platform, bleeding profusely and speaking nonsense just to hear yourself talk.
If he’s learned anything at all, the only way to truly learn is to make mistakes.
“Ray,” he says. “If something were wrong - with us, with you - you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”
“Wrong?” Ray takes his eyes off the road long enough to glance in Fraser’s direction. “What could possibly be wrong?”
“Well,” Fraser says. He pauses, measuring his words. “I understand people who have been intimate with each other may experience a regret, which they find difficult to express.”
“Regret,” Ray says.
“Yes,” Fraser says. “And I want you to know, that you can be frank with me, Ray. I mean -“ His throat feels dry and cloying, and he tries to swallow. He didn’t know it could feel like this, anxiety welling in his stomach and rising up through his chest and windpipe. He doesn’t want Ray to say he regrets last night. God help him, he doesn’t want Ray to say anything of the kind.
Thankfully, Ray doesn’t respond and instead pulls the car over to the side of the road and turns the ignition off.
“You want me to be frank with you, Fraser?” Ray says. His hand is still on the steering wheel, like he’s using it for support. He’s still not looking at Fraser. “When I heard about Victoria, you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to hunt her down and kill the bitch.” He shakes his head, looks ahead, out toward the road. “Do you have any idea how uncomfortable that made me feel?”
“I can imagine,” Fraser says. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Fraser,” Ray says. “Well it is - but I don’t blame you.”
“Okay,” Fraser says, not really understanding.
“It’s just - you scare me sometimes.” In the back seat, Diefenbaker is changing position, moving from one side of the car to the other, like he can’t decide on which view he likes best. Ray glances at him in the rear view mirror, and half-smiles. “That dog never is satisfied.”
The thing is, Ray’s been unsettling from the start, always a blur of emotion and hunger and plain old want. Fraser’s not been on edge since he met him. “You scare me too, Ray,” Fraser says.
Ray nods, and opens the door, gets out of the car and comes around to Fraser’s side to stand against the back seat passenger door and stare out at the empty field. Fraser follows suit, closing his own door and opening the back to let Diefenbaker out. He leans back against the car mimicking Ray’s position, his elbow no more than twenty centimetres from Ray’s.
He looks at Ray, wonders if he has anything to say, and then he looks out toward the field, following Ray’s stare. There are hills in the distance, covered in forest in some parts and patches of trees in the others. Fraser can just make out cattle at the base, and a thin line of trees indicating a road or railway line. They crossed over tracks a while back.
It’s a clear and the sun is high but the wind has picked up and Fraser pulls at the brim of his hat, pressing it low on his forehead. When that doesn’t offer much resistance, he takes it off and holds it in his hands.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” he says, and he gives a short laugh. It seems yesterday’s mysteries haven’t been solved today.
“You said that yesterday,” Ray says. “What does it mean?”
“I didn’t think you heard me,” Fraser says.
Ray shrugs. “I heard you,” he says. “I didn’t think you were looking for a response.”
“No, probably not,” Fraser says. He gives up and takes his hat off, puts it on the back seat. “I guess it means something good always comes out of an ill wind. As if to say, not all misfortune has a deleterious effect.”
“Is that what it means?” Rays says. He frowns. “It doesn’t sound like what it means.”
Fraser agrees. It’s an odd phrase and one that’s slipping from the popular consciousness. Like many colourful idioms and sayings it will one day disappear. Even now it’s intangible, fading. “I guess it’s better understood in context.”
“So what are we?” Ray says.
“We’re good,” Fraser says. “We’re definitely good.”
“How do you know?”
He moves along the edge of the car until his shoulder meets Ray’s. Ray glances at the point where they meet and doesn’t react, just lets them sit there, shoulder to shoulder.
“It’s just a feeling,” Fraser says.
“A feeling,” Ray says.
“Yes.”
Ray presses his lips together, frowning a little and scratching a spot above his eye with his index finger. “Okay,” he says, and he nods shortly, like he’s agreeing with himself. “Okay.”
Diefenbaker chases airborne bark along the side of the road, catching it just as the wind dies and it falls to the ground at his feet.
End.
Due South (Fraser/ Kowalski, NC-17)
Author's Notes: I wrote this months ago but it's raining like the end of the world outside tonight so I finally got to finish it. My apologies to Canadians and people from Tennessee, Chicago, and anywhere else I've managed to get horribly wrong.
Let us be lovers, we’ll marry out fortunes together - Simon and Garfunkel
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, Fraser tells himself, and he pauses to reflect on where he’s heard that expression before and what exactly it means. It sounds like something his grandmother would say and she wasn’t a woman to spout rhetoric for no good reason so it must be important somehow, even if doesn’t remember why.
“It’s an ill wind,” he says, trying it out loud and feeling kind of ridiculous as he does so. He glances over at Ray to see if he’s listening but Ray is bent over the engine of the GTO, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands covered in grease. He doesn’t look up.
Fraser is standing on the edge of the I-57, shielding his eyes from the sun as he watches Diefenbaker chase a whirlwind in the dust further up the road. Diefenbaker is traffic trained but the interstate highway isn’t so obedient and the close proximity of the road to Dief’s play is making Fraser nervous. No amount of training will prepare Dief for an out of control semi-trailer bearing down on him.
The wind is picking up, and Fraser holds his hat down to prevent it from blowing off his head. They volunteered to take a prisoner to Memphis because Ray said he’d never been to Graceland and Fraser thought it would be a pleasant change of pace to get out of the city and see the American country side. He’d hoped for a great, wide land out there beyond the city limits, but it’s mostly highways and road houses and agriculture stretching as far as the eye can see. Ray says next time they’ll go to the Grand Canyon, and Fraser adds this to his mental list of things to do before he goes home. Whenever that is.
Ray said he preferred urban landscapes anyway and he didn’t like being anywhere he couldn’t get a signal on his cell phone, which he reminded Fraser of when the GTO broke down some 60 kilometres after they turned off the I-55 and onto the I-57. Not that Ray has called anyone but Fraser thinks perhaps he takes comfort in knowing he can if the need arises.
Not that Ray looks comfortable at the moment as he wipes his forehead against the back of his arm and frowns at his uncooperative engine. Ray’s been oddly reserved the whole trip and not even a tour of Mr Presley’s home seems to have inspired him to conversation. Fraser puts it down to the stresses of being a police officer and while Ray’s silence is unsettling Fraser knows a man with much on his mind needs peace to work through his thoughts sometimes. Fraser appreciates peace and quiet at times too.
And a good relationship is about enduring the silences, which, Fraser thinks, is probably something his father said (dead or alive) but Fraser’s not had any long term relationships that weren’t in an official capacity so he really doesn’t know if that’s something that extends to his relationship with Ray. If only people came with a manual, they’d be so much easier to read. He thinks his father might have said that too.
It’s not an official errand so Fraser’s out of uniform but the hat is a permanent fixture and useful in the Tennessee sun. Ray wears sunglasses and a short leather jacket and generally looks like a Chicago police officer, while Fraser with his wide brimmed hat and flannel could probably pass for a local. It makes for an unusual twist on their relationship. Ray stands out here while Fraser slides easily into southern hospitality and cordiality. If only his father’s killers had gone further south. Who knows where Fraser might have ended up? Or who he’d be with.
Ray curses and Fraser considers offering assistance despite Ray’s refusal of previous offers which, given Fraser’s inability to do more than hand over tools when asked, is probably justifiable. Ray suggested Fraser keep an eye on Diefenbaker instead which was Ray’s way of saying, get out of my way and for god’s sake don’t hover, because the only thing worse than being useless is standing awkwardly by and being a constant reminder of one’s uselessness. This is something else Fraser knows about relationships: sometimes you’re a partner and sometimes you’re excess baggage. Fraser likes to think he knows a little something about everything, so his uselessness sits uncomfortably with him. Unfortunately, being brought up with skis and a sled means he’s at a loss when it comes to automobiles. He read about car mechanics in the same way he read about Hindu philosophy and topiary gardening because there were books on every subject in his grandparent’s library and god knows he liked to read, but Ray would say there are some things you can’t learn in a book and when it comes to the GTO, Fraser is inclined to agree with him.
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Maybe that’s just one way of saying there’s something in the air? There’s certainly something ominous about the reddening sun and the way the wind dies suddenly and picks up again. The evening feels vaguely profound, like this might be an auspicious occasion, something momentous. Fraser’s not prone to superstition or speculation and he doesn’t believe in omens but some cultures see meaning in the world around them, a way of ordering the chaos into complex narratives and even if it doesn’t stand up to reason it has a poetry about it that’s compelling. He thinks of himself as open minded after all.
“Fuck,” Ray says. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Ray’s cursing is becoming less imaginative which can only mean their situation is more dire than previously thought. There’s a town not far back and by Fraser’s reckoning it couldn’t be more than a ten kilometre walk. They’ll try to hitch a ride, of course, but the presence of Diefenbaker could be off-putting. Unlike the last time he waved down a vehicle on an open road, Fraser does not expect to encounter Canadians this far south.
“Ray?” he says, turning away from the wind. “Ray?”
“Yeah?” Ray looks up from underneath the hood.
“It’s getting dark.”
Ray looks up at the sky and his collar is caught in the wind, turning up against his neck. He looks thin and small against the vast backdrop of the long highway and the endless fields behind him, like he could blow away in the next gust of wind. “It’s going to rain,” Ray says, looking in the opposite direction of the now set sun.
Fraser follows Ray’s look and sees dark clouds getting darker now the sun has gone down. He sniffs the air and it smells heavy with moisture. “We passed a town further back,” Fraser says, indicating the direction with a nod of his head.
Ray nods, closes the hood of the car and goes around to the trunk, taking out of towel and wiping his hands and forearms. He’s got grease on his jaw and grease near his temple which makes him look dark and dangerous and not someone you’d pull over to the side of the road for. Fraser would point this out only it doesn’t seem polite and ten kilometres is just that after all, not something worth risking Ray’s ire over. Fraser calls Diefenbaker to him and they cross to the other side of the highway, Ray following behind and narrowly avoiding being run over by an SUV.
“We’ll never get a ride,” Ray says, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket and turning around briefly to glare at the SUV. The air is heavy with the threat of rain and they’re not dressed for inclement weather.
“It isn’t far,” Fraser says.
“Terrific,” Ray says. “Nothing like a good walk in the middle of nowhere at the end of a long day.”
Much of what Ray says isn’t what he means. Fraser knows this, and it’s not like Ray Vecchio didn’t employ sarcasm, so Fraser should be used to it by now, but he chooses to take words at their face value anyway. It’s safer that way. More reliable.
“Nothing like it indeed,” Fraser says, and he sets the pace by starting forward at a formidable speed. A brisk walk has the added advantage of keeping them warm whilst getting them to their destination quicker and Fraser thinks he should mention that if Ray complains. Ray’s got his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground, keeping up with Fraser out of what seems like mimicry rather than deliberate effort on Ray’s part. Sometimes they fall into step with one another without even trying and it feels strangely comforting, like synchronicity. If only it could be like this all the time.
It starts to rain; slow at first, big heavy drops landing intermittently on Fraser’s hat and on the ground in front of him. Fraser wonders whether they might be so fortunate as to suffer only light rain on their walk but all hope is lost when a few drops turn into a downpour and even Diefenbaker whines in protest.
Fraser turns around to face the oncoming traffic, waves both hands at a vehicle coming toward them. Canadians or not, surely no one likes to see their fellow man (and wolf) slouching along the side of a highway in the pouring rain.
Two cars go past and then a motorcyclist who gives Fraser a supportive thumbs up. Fraser waves in appreciation. Eventually, an eighteen-wheeled semi-trailer pulls over to the side of the road ahead and they run to catch up with it. Fraser gets their first, opens the front door and says, “Thank you kindly,” before stepping back to let Diefenbaker and Ray in.
“Good looking dog,” the driver says, eyeing Diefenbaker as he climbs into the back with Ray.
“He’s -“ Fraser goes to say, but then Ray coughs and Fraser remembers not everyone appreciates a domesticated wild animal in their backseat. Today is probably not a good day to change preconceptions either, however misguided they may be. “He’s deaf,” Fraser says.
“Really? Too bad,” the driver says. “Guess he’s not a working dog then.”
“He has his uses,” Ray says.
“Looks kind of like a wolf,” the driver says.
“You think so?” Ray says. He pats Diefenbaker on the back of his neck.
The driver asks what they were doing on the side of the road in the rain and Fraser gives him the short version of their road trip to Memphis leaving out his history with the Chicago Police Department for a change. In the rear view mirror he can see Ray staring out the window and apparently not about to contribute to the conversation, so Fraser tells the driver about the problems with Ray’s car and hopes he’s managed to convey something of their predicament, or at least enough to elicit a helpful response.
“There’s a garage in Ullin,” the driver says. “I can take you there.”
“That sounds --,” Fraser turns around to check for Ray’s response and Ray nods. Fraser turns back toward the driver. “-Perfect,” he says.
It’s a short journey and, save for one or two instances where Fraser has to reprimand Diefenbaker for waving his (wet) tail in Ray’s face, it’s also a relatively uneventful one. The driver sets them down at the garage in Ullin just as the owner is closing the doors and Ray is quickly out of the semi-trailer, waving and yelling. “Hey!” he says, taking out his badge and holding it up so the owner can see. “Chicago PD!”
The owner keeps the door open long enough to tell Ray that despite his willingness to assist an officer of the law, the best he can do for them right now is to point them in the direction of the nearest motel. Apparently in Ullin it’s impossible to hire a tow truck after hours and even if they could, the owner couldn’t obtain parts until the morning.
“Shoot,” Ray says. He turns away from the owner of the garage and scowls at the sky, as if the rain is to blame. Fraser asks about overnight accommodation and the owner points out a motel further down the street. It’s close enough for Fraser to read the red neon “vacancy” sign but far enough away for the rest of the signage to be obscured by rain and a distinctly out of place palm tree.
Ray pulls the back of his jacket over his head in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to shield himself from the rain and nods toward the motel. “Come on,” he says to Fraser. “We’re just getting wet here.”
On closer inspection the sign says, “The Palms.”
“The Palms,” Ray says, like he’s reading Fraser’s mind. “Who the fuck calls a motel in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Illinois, the Palms?”
“Perhaps there were once two palms?” Fraser says, only it sounds ridiculous. Clearly, the motel came before the palms.
Ray doesn’t answer, choosing to open to the door to the reception instead. “Nice,” he says, when they’re inside. The décor is mostly oranges and browns and there’s a large stain on the wall above the reception desk, partially obscured by a poster advertising TAB which, if Fraser’s memory serves, is a diet cola once popular in the 1970s. Ray is being sarcastic again but this time there’s no danger of misinterpretation.
“I suppose it will have to do,” Fraser says.
“Do for what?” Ray says. “A porno?”
Fraser rings the bell for the desk clerk and he appears with a cigarette in one hand and a paperback in the other. “Only one room available,” he tells them. “Hope you don’t mind sharing a queen.”
“You have one room?” Ray says. “On a Wednesday? Is there a parade in town or are you just big with tourists?”
“I got eight rooms,” the desk clerk says, unfazed by Ray’s rant. “And it’s raining”
Fraser takes the key from the desk clerk. “One room will do nicely,” he says. “Thank you kindly.”
“You’d better not snore,” Ray says, reluctantly following Fraser to their room. He turns to glare at Diefenbaker. “And that goes for you too.”
*
Somewhat ironically the rain eases as Fraser opens the door to their room. Ray looks up at the sky briefly before shrugging his shoulders and going inside.
“Figures,” he says.
He sits on the edge of the bed and starts shedding clothes; jacket first, then boots and sweater. He runs a hand through his wet hair and Fraser thinks the room will be too cold for Ray in his t-shirt and socks and perhaps he should do something about the heating. Fraser puts his hat on the table in the corner and crouches down to inspect the gas appliance against the far wall. It looks old and dusty and Fraser knows to be wary of gas heaters in less than pristine condition, but given a lack of alternatives he turns the switch to “on” and hopes for the best. It hisses for a moment and then is quiet, marred only by the sound of the occasional valve opening. Fraser sniffs the air for gas and frowns when he doesn’t like what he smells.
“I don’t think the heater is working,” Fraser says.
“No shit,” Ray says.
“It’s the principle of the thing, Ray,” Fraser says. For some reason the heater is unduly irritating. He’s usually a make-do kind of person. When life gives you lemons and so on, as his grandmother would say but now all he can think of doing is kicking something. It’s been a difficult day. “It should at least be operational.”
“You get what you pay for,” Ray says, leaning over to take the remote control from the top of the television. He turns the television on and it’s loud, a wall of sound filling the room like a wave crashing around them. Fraser grimaces and Ray immediately turns the sound down to a dull roar in the background. “Ouch,” Ray says understatedly.
Fraser turns the heater to off. “Are you cold?” he says.
“Yeah,” Ray says, like he’s just noticed. “I should - get a towel or something.” He goes into the bathroom and returns moments later with a towel over his shoulders and his hair sticking out at all angles, like he’s given his hair a cursory rub and not paid much attention to the result. “I could eat,” he says. “Do you think they have delivery in this town?”
There are brochures on the desk, mostly advertising escort services, but there also seems to be more than one pizza establishment in Ullin. Fraser doesn’t know how to choose so he hand the brochures to Ray. “Pizza,” he says. “Hardly a nutritious option.”
Diefenbaker whines and Fraser gives him a disapproving look. This from an animal that used to hunt caribou.
“I’m with Dief,” Ray says. “It’s not like they deliver granola bars.”
Fraser hands Ray the flier and tells him to order. Three years in the US and he still can’t remember whether “the lot” comes with anchovies or pineapple. There are times when he thinks there truly may be a language barrier between Canada and America.
He leaves Ray to make the order and takes their jackets into the bathroom to dry. There’s a faint odour of bleach in the bathroom contrasting with the smell of rising damp coming from the bedroom and it makes Fraser somewhat nostalgic for his days in the academy. They lived in modest conditions there too, but always clean, and in the days before environmental awareness entered the popular consciousness bleach was standard issue in the bathroom.
Things are different now, of course. These days it’s all lemon juice, vinegar and baking soda and undoubtedly a good thing too, but Fraser’s always liked the smell of bleach. It reminds him of simpler times.
If the odour offends Ray, he doesn’t mention it. He’s sitting on the bed when Fraser returns from the bathroom, a pillow propped between his back and the bed head. He uses the remote control to change intermittently between channels, seemingly dissatisfied with every new program he encounters. Or maybe he just likes change? In truth, Fraser notes, Ray doesn’t really seem to be paying attention.
Fraser puts it down to the odd mood that’s been plaguing Ray since they embarked on the trip. Ray isn’t a complicated man. Nor is he an island. Barely days into their partnership and he was already giving Fraser the details of his failed marriage and the effect of its breakdown on his personality. One year with Ray Vecchio and Fraser didn’t even know he was married let alone troubled by a prior relationship. To date Fraser still doesn’t know how long Ray Vecchio’s marriage lasted or how it ended. He supposes Frannie could have told him but at the time it was Ray Vecchio’s silence that was curious. It seemed like he was always talking and yet in a lot of ways, he was a quiet man. Fraser thought of him as a mass of contradictions.
Ray Kowalski on the other hand is open and demanding and always saying what he thinks, even if he changes his mind two minutes later. It would scare the pants off Fraser if he didn’t find it compelling at the same time. Of course, it also leaves him bewildered when Ray clamps up and insists he has nothing to say. This silence, the way Ray watches the television without really watching, is unsettling.
With nothing else to do, Fraser sits on the opposite side of the bed to Ray, mimics his position with a pillow behind his back and his feet crossed in front of him. He watches Ray change channels without protest and when it begins to annoy him he watches the way Ray’s thumb rhythmically stabs at the remote control every three, four or five seconds. He wonders if there’s a pattern in it, something telling? He’s about to mention it to Ray when the channel switching stops and Fraser looks up to see Ray has settled on The Philadelphia Story. They say you learn something new every day about your partner but Fraser never would have imagined Ray to be a fan of black and white romantic comedies.
“Do you think Cary Grant is an attractive man?” Ray says.
“My grandmother thought so.”
“Objectively speaking,” Ray says. “I mean, I think he is. Your grandmother thinks he is. My mom thinks he is too - which makes you wonder, why is such a good looking guy going to so much trouble to get the girl? You’d think he wouldn’t have to try.”
Fraser wants to say something about romantic comedy and the progression of the story from boy-meets-girl to boy-loses-girl to boy-finds-girl-again that has proven popular amongst the genre, but instead he says, “It’s a love story, Ray,” thinking it might be something Ray understands better than waffle about narrative. Fraser knows he can go on sometimes.
“It looks like hard work to me,” Ray says. “You have to ask yourself whether it’s worth it, don’t you Fraser? I mean, she has to be worth it, right?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Fraser says. He really doesn’t. Sometimes talking to Ray is about working out where the conversation is headed before Ray spells it out. The advantage of doing so is not being taken by surprise or accused of being intentionally obtuse. And despite Fraser’s intentions, Ray accuses Fraser of being obtuse all the time.
“You ever been in love, Fraser?” Ray turns a little so that he’s facing Fraser, watching him expectantly, like there’s something he’s supposed to understand in the Ray’s look. Fraser’s grandmother would call it a “loaded” look, heavy with significance.
“I was,” Fraser says, and it occurs to him he never told Ray about Victoria. He wonders if Ray resents that omission. “Her name was Victoria.”
“Yeah,” Ray says, nodding. “Yeah, I read something about her.”
“It was a challenging time,” Fraser says. He’s not sure what Ray knows. It possible he knows that Victoria was a diamond thief and that the outcome of the situation was that Ray Vecchio (unintentionally) shot Fraser in the back but there were elements to that story that Fraser barely admitted to himself and even if Ray Vecchio knew that Fraser had been thinking about leaping onto that train and leaving everything behind, Fraser doubts it was something he would have discussed with anyone.
Strangely, it seems like a long time ago, whereas in reality it was only a few years. Not even enough time to forget names and dates and it’s not like he forgets details anyway but it seems that after all this time, little things, like the way her hair smelled or how cold her hand was when she pulled him onto the train, should have been forgotten by now. It just seems distant, like something belonging to a dream.
“She used you, Fraser,” Ray says. He picks up the remote control and mutes the television. Fraser can hear the wind whistling through the telegraph wires outside. “You got set up, you got shot, and you got used. Happens to the best of us. I read the report, you know: Fraser’s big stuff up. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Neither did I.”
“Yeah?” Ray says. “Well, I guess it’s true what they say; no one is perfect.”
“I never claimed to be perfect, Ray.” Ray Vecchio once called him perfect and he intently dislikes the label. Being held to a standard he never devised or elected seems grossly unfair.
“Here’s what gets me,” Ray says. “Vecchio was aiming for Victoria - but somehow you got in the way. She was on the train, at least three feet higher than you, so you must have been on the train to take that bullet for her. Unless Vecchio is a lousy shot, but I’m guessing he wouldn’t have fired if he thought you would get in the way, am I right?”
Fraser remembers waking up in hospital, the slow realization of being alive, of having failed so dismally to hold on to Victoria and to retain his integrity. It was a dark time. The depth of his ruin seemed so vast, unending. He thought he’d never get over it.
“I’m sorry,” Fraser says. “What was the question?”
There’s a knock on the door. “Pizza,” Ray says, getting up to answer it, and Fraser contemplates how sometimes fate is on his side and sometimes it just seems out to get him. He’s not sure which this is.
They eat pizza sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the end of The Philadelphia Story. Ray doesn’t eat much, just a slice or two and then he’s feeding the rest to Diefenbaker when he thinks Fraser isn’t watching. When they’re done Fraser puts the empty boxes by the trash can in the corner and leaves Diefenbaker to lick up the crumbs. Fraser is reluctant to indulge Diefenbaker’s appalling diet but it’s better than waking up to the smell of day old pizza.
On the television, Cary Grant gets the girl and the music swells with a kind of finality that’s been long gone from the motion picture industry since the practice of putting credits at the end. Fraser’s grandmother used to say they don’t make movies like they used to and Fraser thinks that’s true but people get tired of the same old endings and what good is a hero who doesn’t lose once in a while? Triumph over adversity is the real measure of a man and these days sometimes the woman gets the girl too. It’s a different world from the one his grandmother knew.
“Should have bought beer,” Ray says, apropos of nothing. He takes up the remote control and starts flipping through channels again. Fraser catches a western briefly before Ray moves on to a sitcom and then cartoons.
“I don’t drink,” Fraser says redundantly. He wonders why he always feels the need to state the obvious.
“Well, you could watch me,” Ray says.
“That doesn’t sound like much fun,” Fraser says. “I think I’ll turn in.” He takes off his shirt, folds it over his arm and places it on the chair, starts stripping down to his underwear.
“It’s not even 10 o’clock,” Ray says.
“I’m an early riser,” Fraser says. “Feel free to watch television, Ray, I wouldn’t want to impose on your viewing.”
Ray switches the television off. “It’s been a long day,” he says. “An early night wouldn’t kill me.”
“Quite the contrary, Ray -“
“It’s a figure of speech, Fraser.” Ray takes of his clothes, leaving them on the floor in piles and Fraser finds himself once again strangely irritated by details. Of course, slovenliness never sits well with Fraser, it’s just that he’s developed a practice of live and let live and it hardly seems the time to comment on Ray’s domestic habits.
Ray once said they were getting stale. It’s true there are times when Fraser thinks he’s saying the same things over and over and maybe that’s where it all goes wrong? He wonders why they are like this, so tense all the time. They’re not going anywhere; they’re not leaving each other. It doesn’t make a sense.
The bed is large, big enough for the two of them to keep a respectful distance between them and no danger of rolling into the other should either one of them be a restless sleeper. They’ve slept together before, of course, albeit in separate sleeping bags, but Fraser remembers sleeping on the ground in the park and Ray tossing and turning until eventually he pressed up against Fraser’s back and was still for the rest of the night.
Fraser pulls the covers back on his side, experiencing a whiff of hospital grade bleach as he does so and there’s that nostalgic feeling again. He remembers he once shared a bed with a boy in the academy too, although it’s not something he’s about to tell Ray and it certainly wasn’t regulation. Much like his liaison with Victoria, it has a dreamlike quality, and it was a much longer time ago. If he wanted to, he could swear it never happened.
“Christ,” Ray says, as he climbs into the opposite side of the bed. “Do you smell that? Someone must have killed someone in here.”
“They seem unusually concerned with hygiene,” Fraser says.
“Yeah, well, I hope you weren’t planning on having children, Fraser,” Ray says. “That stuff will kill your little guys.”
“Little guys?”
“Your sperm count, Fraser.”
Fraser doesn’t know how to respond to that. “I think prolonged exposure is a more relevant factor, Ray,” he says finally.
“Prolonged as in how long?” Ray says.
“Longer than eight hours.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ray says, seemingly placated. He rolls over onto his side, facing away from Fraser. “Can you get the light?”
Fraser turns the bedside lamp off and the room turns grey-black with light shining through the window from outside and falling across the floor in shards. He puts his head back on the pillow and looks at the ceiling for a moment, wondering if some kind of goodnight ritual is in order, but then he closes his eyes, breathes out and feels his limbs sinking into sleep. Ray is right. It’s been a long, long day and that’s to say nothing of the energy Fraser expends trying to placate Ray when he’s in a difficult mood. Fraser is tired. He’s so very tired.
“Fraser,” Ray says. “Fraser?”
Fraser slowly lifts himself out of his sleep-stirred state and back to wakefulness again. “Yes?”
“Were you asleep?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He wasn’t really asleep. It’s as true as anything else he could say. “Is everything all right, Ray?”
“It’s fine, I’m just wondering-“ Ray pauses and Fraser can hear cars pass by on the road outside. They’re less than two hundred metres from the highway but it’s generally a quiet night. Maybe it’s true what the desk clerk said about the rain? “Did you ever think about what would have happened if you’d left it all behind?”
“You mean if I’d gone with Victoria?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I -“ If only he’d been thinking about it at the time, then maybe he’d have an answer for Ray. Or for himself. “It’s difficult to imagine.”
“It’s not like you,” Ray says.
“No,” Fraser says. He frowns at the ceiling. Nearly two years together and Ray has only now become interested in Victoria? It doesn’t add up. Ray’s line of questioning is vague but there has to be a truth in there somewhere, something Ray isn’t telling him. “The incident with Victoria,” Fraser says eventually. “Does it bother you?”
“No,” Ray says. “Why should it bother me?”
“You seem unusually curious.”
“It’s just a question, Fraser,” Ray says. “You know, something you ask your partner because you want to know what makes him tick.”
“I see,” Fraser says.
“No, it’s - it doesn’t matter, Fraser, forget I said anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, just go to sleep.”
Fraser has no desire to push the issue and instead he goes back to staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about the many 'what ifs’ that come to mind every time he remembers Victoria. He’s mostly unsuccessful. Somewhere - it could be anywhere - there’s Victoria; wanted in two states and no doubt up to her old habits. He’s never really stopped thinking about her, always kept her in mind wherever he went, knowing she might be around the next corner or coming through the next door, suddenly appearing in his life like she did last time. He carries her around like the ghost of his father only she hides in the shadows while his father faces him head on. She’s there. She’s always there.
And if she came back? He answers this question the same way he’s answered it for the last two years. She’s not coming back; he’s never going to see her again. She’s gone and he can safely say that chapter of his life is over and he’s lived through it, to a fashion.
But what if she came back? He closes his eyes and imagines her on the street, outside the consulate or across the street from the station, just walking past like she did the last time, another face in the crowd. He would run after her, of course. He’d chase her down, put his hand on her shoulder, turn her around to face him and say -
He has no idea what he’d say but hopefully it would be something along the lines of, "I’m taking you to the nearest police station to face charges of murder and robbery," and if that proved too difficult he’d call Ray and ask him to place her under arrest.
Things are different now. There’s time and there’s distance between them and, when it all boils down, there’s also Ray. This isn’t Ray Vecchio who was born on this side of town, who went to school with the mob, stood up to them and told them this was his town. And it’s not that Ray Kowalski can’t take care of himself but Fraser feels the need to place himself in front of bullets for Ray Kowalski because Ray Vecchio can take a hit but Ray Kowalski is fragile and if Fraser lets him go, he’ll fall to pieces.
“I won’t abandon you, Ray,” Fraser says out loud, without really knowing why except that he thinks maybe it’s something Ray needs to hear, and even as he’s saying it Fraser knows it’s true. For reasons he can’t explain, he won’t leave Ray behind.
“Good to know,” Ray says.
“Ray?” He reaches out to touch Ray’s shoulder, his fingers finding the bone of the clavicle jutting out against Ray’s too thin frame. Ray turns into Fraser’s hand, rolls over onto his back so that Fraser’s hand falls down Ray’s arm, just above the bicep.
Ray doesn’t say anything and they stay like that for a while: still, like a tableau. Fraser can make out Ray’s breath quickening slightly, an air of nervous energy about him, expectant.
It means something, Fraser knows. The moment is charged with possibilities and he admits that wherever it’s going, he might not be in control. As much as he’d like to think he has a plan and a goal and everything is in the execution, if experience has taught him anything it’s that he’s just as susceptible to impulse as anyone.
Maybe that’s why he’s so bold? He’s been shot in the back; what’s the worst that could happen? He slides his hand across Ray’s chest, over his pectorals and down his ribcage, feeling every bone beneath Ray’s t-shirt. Ray’s breath hitches and Fraser’s thumb finds the last rib, glides over it, tracing its outline beneath a fine layer of skin. Fraser understands what it’s like to forget to breathe. The last time he did something this fraught with complications he wound up in a wheelchair. There’s a lesson in that somewhere but he most likely failed to learn it.
And then Ray’s hand covers his, urges Fraser lower until, hand in hand, they cover Ray’s groin, Ray’s gradually building erection clearly evident beneath his undershorts. Fraser presses a little and Ray groans, quietly and shortly, almost unnoticeable.
Fraser moves his hand slowly upward until he reaches the waistband of Ray’s shorts and hooks fingers inside. He’s following an impulse, without a clue where it’s going or what he’s doing. He wants to do things to Ray, barely comprehensible things that he can neither name nor articulate, as if he’s being guided by a nebulous idea, the echoes of a memory he once thought buried. He edges closer until he’s nudging Ray’s shoulder with his chin, his lips just brushing Ray’s skin. Ray smells like leather and rain and he tastes like salt. Fraser pulls Ray’s shorts down around his hips and takes Ray in his hand.
“I want to -“ He speaks into Ray’s shoulder. “I want you to -“
“Yeah, I know,” Ray says, and he shifts his arm out from under Fraser and hooks it around Fraser’s neck so that his hand rests at the back of Fraser’s head, his fingers threading through Fraser’s hair. “Do it.”
Fraser’s thumb sweeps across the head of Ray’s cock, using the seepage to slick his palm and make a fist around the shaft. He jerks Ray off steadily, feeling the length of him, memorising the way his skin feels, warm, wet and unyieldingly smooth.
He presses himself against Ray’s side, his groin against Ray’s hip, his thigh so close to Ray’s he can feel the elastic of Ray’s shorts through his cotton boxers. He thinks he’d like to see Ray naked, to know what he looks like as his hips buck upward into Fraser’s hand. In the grey light he can make out Ray’s face, his eyelashes fluttering, his lips partly open and his forehead shining with sweat. He’s not looking at Fraser and he seems distant, somewhere else.
Fraser wants him to be here. He wants Ray to say his name. He tightens his grip, moves fast, more roughly. Ray’s breath catches again and this time it’s kind of high pitched, halting and childlike, like it all he can do to stop himself from crying out. His hand shoots down to cover Fraser’s and he holds Fraser in position, doesn’t pull him away. And then he tightens his grip around Fraser’s fingers and thrusts his hips upward, once, and then once again, and then bucking back and forth in a rhythm growing faster until he’s fucking Fraser’s hand with abandon.
It’s no use after that. Fraser loses all pretence of control and he grinds his groin against Ray’s hip, jarring almost painfully against the bone each time Ray pushes up. He bites Ray’s shoulder, tastes salt and iron as blood rises to the surface and Ray twists his fingers in Fraser’s hair, pulling hard as Fraser licks at his skin. He thrusts upward again, hard, breathes out and says, “Fraser -“ and he comes in Fraser’s hand, spiling warm and sticky and wet between their intertwined fingers.
Fraser doesn’t bother to wipe his hand. He shoves his boxers down around his hips, uses Ray’s semen to slick his own erection and works himself fast and rough in his hand. He comes quickly, moaning a little as the last of the shocks wrests themselves from him and then he’s breathing hard in tandem with Ray’s ragged breath.
They may as well be eighteen again with their pants down around their thighs and come all over the sheets and their underwear. It seems like nothing ever changes and Fraser’s still groping in the dark between unzipped sleeping bags and humping against a thigh, a leg, his own hand. Maybe it’s the memories that make him feel awkward, like he should be apologising or insisting he’s not usually like this.
If actions speak louder than words, then Ray’s silence on the matter is practically screaming. Ray swings his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m going to take a shower,” he says.
“Perhaps you could pass me a towel?” Fraser says and Ray throws him a towel from the bathroom.
The sound of water running is familiar; it reminds him of Victoria exiting his bathroom with wet hair and a towel around her chest. It bothers him that he thinks of her in a situation like this but then every liaison he has will most likely remind him of Victoria in some way and if survival is remembering your mistakes so you don’t make them twice, then he should be grateful she plagues him when he’s most vulnerable. Still, he tries to push her out of his mind, replaces her image with thoughts of Ray in the shower, water running down his chest, over his hips and down his groin. For a while at least, she’s gone, returned to the shadows where he only need retrieve her if he wants to.
*
The sun is in his eyes when he wakes up. Fraser blinks himself awake, raises his arm and shields himself against the light. It’s bright, shining directly into the window which means it’s probably around seven-thirty and he’s overslept.
He looks over to where Ray is sleeping on his stomach, face turned toward Fraser, one arm stretched out across the middle of the bed. Diefenbaker is on the floor, similarly stretched out. He’s a lot like Ray, in that he shifts in his sleep and is never satisfied with one position or placement. He was on the other side of the bed when Fraser went to sleep last night.
There’s no need to wake either of them, so Fraser gets out of bed quietly, goes into the bathroom and takes a shower. When he’s done he asks the clerk at reception if he can use the phone and organizes a tow truck for Ray’s car. He also asks about coffee and the desk clerk directs him to a diner not far from the motel. It takes him ten minutes to walk there and ten minutes back and while there’s not much in the way of sightseeing he takes the walk slow, appreciating the time to come to terms with his headspace and the slightly unsteady feeling that’s been hovering at the edges of his consciousness since he woke up this morning. The cold of the morning and the smell of earth damp with rain seems to sweep his unease to the far corners of his mind and by the time he’s back in the motel room he’s feeling partly himself again, back in control, focused and ready to organize the less alert members of his party.
He nudges Ray’s shoulder with the edge of the coffee cup, hoping the smell at least will entice him awake.
“Uh,” Ray says, lifting his head off the pillow and squinting at Fraser. “What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock,” Fraser says. He goes over to the still sleeping Diefenbaker and pats his head. Diefenbaker looks up, yawns and whines a protest. ”Ten minutes past actually."
“God,” Ray says, his face falling down onto the pillow again. “We need to get my car.”
“Done,” Fraser says. “It’s being towed as we speak.”
“Yeah?” Ray lifts his head again. “You’re way too efficient, Fraser, you know that?”
“Thank you,” Fraser says, knowing it’s probably not a compliment. He sits on the edge of the bed, holding out the coffee cup towards Ray while Ray rolls over onto his back to take it. They sit there in silence for a while, Ray drinking coffee and Fraser taking in the now sunlit room. In the daylight it looks kind of garish and much like something out of an adult entertainment film, as Ray suggested. Then again, Fraser’s experience is based on illicit viewings in his youth some twenty years ago when he was still an RCMP cadet. Surely the pornographic entertainment industry has evolved since then.
The check out of the motel and head down to hear the mechanic’s diagnosis of Ray’s car.
“It’s the starter motor,” the mechanic tells Ray. “It’s fried.” He says he can order one from Chicago but it will take less time for Ray to drive there himself and bring the parts back.
“Are you sure?” Ray says, and then he’s under the hood with the mechanic offering up other less complicated and expensive causes for the car’s malfunction. The mechanic doesn’t seem to appreciate Ray’s input and they argue for a while using terminology unfamiliar to Fraser. He listens anyway because the tone of Ray’s voice is curious. He sounds tired and frustrated but not unyielding. It shouldn’t be a long argument.
Eventually, Ray gives up and shakes his head in despair. “We’ll need to get a rental,” he says to Fraser. “Unbelievable.”
“I’m sorry,” Fraser says.
Ray runs his hands through his hair and looks just as disheveled and haphazard as he did when he woke up. The sight causes Fraser to blush. He doesn’t know why.
“Come on,” Ray says, inclining his head toward the town. “The mechanic knows a guy who’ll do me a deal.”
*
The deal is a Falcon station wagon that isn’t old but looks like it’s seen better days.
“Will it get me to Chicago?” Ray says. “Because lately I’m not feeling so lucky.”
“It will get you to Chicago and back,” the rental clerk says.
They take it because the other option is a Taurus and Ray refuses to drive anything with less than 4 litres, which apparently includes all the smaller and more fuel efficient cars. American men are very attached to their cars, Fraser has come to understand, and while he understands the sentiment involved, it seems ludicrous to get a “deal” which will only be abrogated by the cost of fuel.
“I don’t trust those small cars,” Ray says, when they’re out on the highway again. “Sure they look all colourful and compact but you crash into a truck in one of those things and you’ll fold like a piano accordion.”
Fraser frowns. “How fast would we be going in this scenario?”
Ray raises his eyes to the roof of the car. “Fast enough, Fraser,” he says.
Ray passes an SUV and the children wave at Diefenbaker as they go by. Fraser remembers he bought a book on American idioms once, not long after his posting to Chicago. He thought it might help with some of the more baffling phrases Ray Vecchio used, but really it just confused the issue even more as the phrases that were included seemed unused by the population he encountered and the words they did use, never quite matched the meaning in the guide. Lately, he’s been turning to Inspector Thatcher for guidance because she seems to read a person’s tone better than he does, but Fraser takes some comfort in knowing Turnbull is even more clueless than he is.
He’s gotten better at reading Ray and, in the end, it’s Ray who counts. This feeling Fraser has, these alarm bells ringing intermittently in the back of his mind like there’s smoke somewhere and he’s not seeing the fire, it doesn’t happen around anyone else except Ray.
And it’s happening now. Maybe it’s Ray’s silence that makes it easier to hear the ringing, but Fraser glances in Ray’s direction and it’s like a fire station going off in his head.
People are generally not partial to change, and they’re particularly not partial to lifestyle changes, which might be what Ray is going through right now, although it’s difficult to tell because it’s not like they had that conversation last night, or any conversation remotely relevant to what was happening. It’s all conjecture really because while Ray’s silence is cause for concern, he was silent yesterday too and for all Fraser knows Ray could be meditating on something important and doesn’t appreciate interruptions.
This part is a little like the academy too. Whatever they did in the night, they certainly didn’t talk about in the morning, if only because they were barely more than children and they didn’t have words for how they felt let alone the sensitivity and insight required to navigate such exchanges.
Fraser’s older now though. He should know better. And ostensibly he does because he can proffer plausible theories on matters of human relationships and even tell a story that may provide insight into the situation. But then, 35 years old and what does Fraser really know about intimacy? His personal history of relationships reads like a “how to” manual: be courteous, be considerate and for god’s sake choose your partner wisely or you’ll wind up on your back on a railway station platform, bleeding profusely and speaking nonsense just to hear yourself talk.
If he’s learned anything at all, the only way to truly learn is to make mistakes.
“Ray,” he says. “If something were wrong - with us, with you - you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”
“Wrong?” Ray takes his eyes off the road long enough to glance in Fraser’s direction. “What could possibly be wrong?”
“Well,” Fraser says. He pauses, measuring his words. “I understand people who have been intimate with each other may experience a regret, which they find difficult to express.”
“Regret,” Ray says.
“Yes,” Fraser says. “And I want you to know, that you can be frank with me, Ray. I mean -“ His throat feels dry and cloying, and he tries to swallow. He didn’t know it could feel like this, anxiety welling in his stomach and rising up through his chest and windpipe. He doesn’t want Ray to say he regrets last night. God help him, he doesn’t want Ray to say anything of the kind.
Thankfully, Ray doesn’t respond and instead pulls the car over to the side of the road and turns the ignition off.
“You want me to be frank with you, Fraser?” Ray says. His hand is still on the steering wheel, like he’s using it for support. He’s still not looking at Fraser. “When I heard about Victoria, you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to hunt her down and kill the bitch.” He shakes his head, looks ahead, out toward the road. “Do you have any idea how uncomfortable that made me feel?”
“I can imagine,” Fraser says. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Fraser,” Ray says. “Well it is - but I don’t blame you.”
“Okay,” Fraser says, not really understanding.
“It’s just - you scare me sometimes.” In the back seat, Diefenbaker is changing position, moving from one side of the car to the other, like he can’t decide on which view he likes best. Ray glances at him in the rear view mirror, and half-smiles. “That dog never is satisfied.”
The thing is, Ray’s been unsettling from the start, always a blur of emotion and hunger and plain old want. Fraser’s not been on edge since he met him. “You scare me too, Ray,” Fraser says.
Ray nods, and opens the door, gets out of the car and comes around to Fraser’s side to stand against the back seat passenger door and stare out at the empty field. Fraser follows suit, closing his own door and opening the back to let Diefenbaker out. He leans back against the car mimicking Ray’s position, his elbow no more than twenty centimetres from Ray’s.
He looks at Ray, wonders if he has anything to say, and then he looks out toward the field, following Ray’s stare. There are hills in the distance, covered in forest in some parts and patches of trees in the others. Fraser can just make out cattle at the base, and a thin line of trees indicating a road or railway line. They crossed over tracks a while back.
It’s a clear and the sun is high but the wind has picked up and Fraser pulls at the brim of his hat, pressing it low on his forehead. When that doesn’t offer much resistance, he takes it off and holds it in his hands.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” he says, and he gives a short laugh. It seems yesterday’s mysteries haven’t been solved today.
“You said that yesterday,” Ray says. “What does it mean?”
“I didn’t think you heard me,” Fraser says.
Ray shrugs. “I heard you,” he says. “I didn’t think you were looking for a response.”
“No, probably not,” Fraser says. He gives up and takes his hat off, puts it on the back seat. “I guess it means something good always comes out of an ill wind. As if to say, not all misfortune has a deleterious effect.”
“Is that what it means?” Rays says. He frowns. “It doesn’t sound like what it means.”
Fraser agrees. It’s an odd phrase and one that’s slipping from the popular consciousness. Like many colourful idioms and sayings it will one day disappear. Even now it’s intangible, fading. “I guess it’s better understood in context.”
“So what are we?” Ray says.
“We’re good,” Fraser says. “We’re definitely good.”
“How do you know?”
He moves along the edge of the car until his shoulder meets Ray’s. Ray glances at the point where they meet and doesn’t react, just lets them sit there, shoulder to shoulder.
“It’s just a feeling,” Fraser says.
“A feeling,” Ray says.
“Yes.”
Ray presses his lips together, frowning a little and scratching a spot above his eye with his index finger. “Okay,” he says, and he nods shortly, like he’s agreeing with himself. “Okay.”
Diefenbaker chases airborne bark along the side of the road, catching it just as the wind dies and it falls to the ground at his feet.
End.