Lawnboy by Paul Lisicky Page A

front window, watching for Lilo Patrick, the reporter with whom he was working on the assignment, to pull up in her yellow Toyota. He stood beside me, jittery, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He’d been anxious about the project—something about the recent decline of Key West—the incursion of national chains, the dearth of affordable housing, the dead-end alcoholic culture—none of which, William believed, established a single point of view. My pulse quickened in the core of my chest. He was to be gone for the entire week. I didn’t want him to leave, especially now that we’d finally become so comfortable with each other.
    At two past eleven—the designated time—Lilo pulled up front, her car engine purring, finely tuned as a sewing machine. I motioned to walk through the front door, until he stopped me, asked me to stay put.
    “But why?” And then I remembered that he didn’t want Lilo or anyone at the station to know about me, so much so that I was not to answer the phone, but to let the machine take the message. “It’s a high-powered job,” he’d once explained. “I mean, I don’t think I’d get fired, but you never know. I don’t want to chance it.”
    I looked downward. A vault of emptiness opened inside me. “You better go,” I said miserably.
    He kissed me, before opening the door. The dogs stepped backward in the foyer, already lonesome, already resigned. Soon enough they’d start longing for him, cocking their heads at any sound of footsteps outside. “You’ll take good care of the dogs?” he asked. “You’ll give them walks?”
    “I’ll take good care of the dogs,” I singsonged. “I’ll give them walks.”
    He looked at me curiously. “You’ll behave yourself?”
    I tried to connect with his gaze, but couldn’t. His words seemed laced with all sorts of innuendo and danger. Did he expect me to spend the entire week locked inside with cartoons and a full refrigerator?
    “I’ll miss you,” he said dully.
    “I’ll miss you, too.”
    “Call you tonight,” he said. “Take good care of yourself.”
    “You too.”
    He shrugged. “I’m off.”
    I lay on the couch, both comforted and alarmed. The house seemed oddly centered: all the various pieces of furniture in their proper place, the two Dobermans lying like sleeping Sphinxes beside me. It occurred to me, when I thought about all I’d been through, the collisions with my parents, my separation from Peter, that I was lucky. Once again I reminded myself that I could have ended up on the streets, strung out, penniless, hacked to death.
    Then, for whatever reason, I remembered something else about last night.
    “I’m not going to see you for seven days,” I’d whispered.
    We were lying in bed, in the still seconds after the lamp had been switched off. Across the street an animal—dog? raccoon?—was rooting through somebody’s trash cans.
    “Eight days,” he corrected.
    I thought about eight whole days by myself. I reached over for him, pressed my palm upon his taut stomach. I waited. Nothing. Then I waited longer.
    “I thought we could make love or something,” I said.
    My voice sounded tentative, vulnerable. I couldn’t stand the sound of it. I couldn’t stand the way I had to ask for it, begging, as if it cost him. Already, in memory, I could taste him, like blood, like steel, and now that I’d had him, it wasn’t enough. I needed more, even though I knew my wanting was going to do me in someday.
    He heaved a tired sigh. I already knew his answer.
    I turned away, moving to the farthest edge of the bed until my face pressed up against the wall.
    ***
    I plodded through the arcade in my workboots. I kept my expression remote and aloof as if to indicate that I wasn’t new at this. But I was dying inside. I wasn’t ugly. I wasn’t desperate, hopeless, dumb. Adult book stores: weren’t they meant for those who led secret lives, who hated themselves? Who else would put up with nasty attendants, filth, that