Raquel is already at the group home when I pull up. She had already helped pudgy Tom A. into his suit. It's a light blue leisure suit from when he got de-institutionalized and they gave them all new clothes, back in the late seventies. It barely fits, and he looks like some tourist guy having Hooksexup problems on vacation. He and Raquel are sitting on the couch, and Damon and Sally and Larry the big mouth are all in the living room.
I step in. Eric is in the back with Tom B.
"He's showing Tom how to shave good," Raquel says.
Larry asks, "Are we going anywhere? We're not going anywhere are we?" He's got that totally freaked-out look on his face.
"No. Just me and Raquel and Tom A. and Tom B.," I say.
"Thank the Lord. I am just so tired, Anita," he says. He was raised by two aunts in a mansion, kept a secret there with them for years, and that's his personality: old-lady stubbornness and laziness and gentility.
Sally comes over, spit dripping down onto her pink shirt. Her face has a sweet and scary emptiness to it. She is walking around without knowing anything but with her eyes wide open.
"Pop," she whispers. "Pop, candy. Pop. Candy."
She has gone into this repressed memory thing, where she is always thinking she's brushed her teeth real good and now she deserves some pop and candy. That's the way they used to get her to brush them.
"I don't have any, honey," I say.
Raquel, dressed in a long jean skirt and a beautiful orange blouse, her ratty hair pulled back into a bun, gets up and gets some Tictacs out of her purse. "Here."
Sally seems happy, and sits on the arm of Damon's lounger. He pushes her off, saying what he says: "Mona Lisa."
Sally flops down and grunts and kind of laughs.
Then Tom B. comes out with Eric, a slump-shouldered high-school dropout who wants to be a chef. He has one of those sad mustaches that is barely there. But Tom B. is perfectly clean shaven in a navy blue suit, black shoes. Handsome, I think.
Eric looks scared. "You guys, if anybody finds out."
Larry comes in. "We ain't going anywhere."
"I know, Larry. Calm down," Eric says. He starts to whisper, "I told Tom that he can't say nothing, and he agreed, right Tom?"
Tom B. nods, "Right. I won't." He shakes his head real hard, and goes over to Tom A. He gives his hand to Tom A. and Tom A. looks dumbfounded for a sec. He is realizing they are actually going somewhere to get married. It doesn't make sense to him, but still, it's exciting.
"Come on," Tom B. says, "Come on, Tommy."
They're two boys going to church. Two kids, it seems like. True love does that to you.
Raquel opens the door. They walk out. I look at Eric, who's still worried.
"God, if anybody finds out," he says.
I just go on out.
Raquel's car is bigger, so we go in hers, both Toms in back, holding hands. It's dark and chilly and the headlights shine on piles of silver gravel. I need a cigarette. I think about Archie's voice on the phone. Pathetic but rich with feeling, and I think about the way he would look coming out of the shower, naked, and anybody naked looks like they did when they were kids, even with hair and flab and all the years added on. Something about being dripping wet and shivering and clean: that's what a kid is. I remember loving Archie when he was wet and naked. Pretending not to see him, but he was showing off, even with his rotten body. Coming over to me while I was trying to read course descriptions.
"Baby," he said.
"You're getting water all over the fucking floor."
He laughed. It was all I could do not to laugh with him. Maybe he was on crack right then, for all I know, because he kept all that hidden from me. In fact, maybe the crack was buried when he saw me. Put away in the chest of drawers in his head, and this was love, without crack and without any lies and without his petty-assed, trashy ways.
Maybe, maybe not.
I see them back there in the rearview. Tom A. and Tom B. Looking straight ahead.
"Tanks, you guys," Tom B. says.
personality: old-lady stubbornness and laziness and gentility.
