The Reaches

[Near]

Amusement, suddenly, that semi-smile crinkling the thoughtful composition of his features into something softer.  Near didn’t think he made any very entertaining observations, but there was the parallel conversation factor to consider, and with it an appreciation that low laughter was preferable to high anything else.  Fine, then.  The chuckle got an answer of yet another shrug, default stand-in for words of significance.  The movement recalled the towel on his shoulder, and he dragged it off and tossed it onto the floor, where it lay limp and bunched up like a dead animal.

It’s too long a conversation inside was slow in arriving at the terminus of his tongue, the opportunity to use it gracefully swallowed up by the question that followed.  It was pithier (he thought) than it was true anyway, if he was being honest with himself: the interaction was weird thus far, yes, and inappropriate, but also weirdly and inappropriately compelling, in the way a shitty movie might have compelled him to keep watching to see where the plot ended up.  It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, either, to have someone other than the dog to talk to; a voice in the room other than a DJ.

“Day before yesterday?” he ventured instead, tone betraying the fact that he had already managed to lose track of the time he had spent there.  “The bar’s stocked well enough I figured it would keep me for a couple more days before I had to go foraging.  More booze than food, that’s for sure.  You know, if you’re just going to stand there holding it, you can give it back.”

[Jude]

"Mmmmm," he said, "Not long at all." Jude had been almost a week in traveling here, his destination as fixed as a star, certain that Near would be here. For a moment, he felt strange. He could not help it, even though it was just one small, strange thing atop a pile of much larger, much stranger things. He felt sudden relief, that there was no one there except the two of them, that he was saved both from loneliness and from the numerous, spider-like eyes of an audience. He wanted to be what Near had decided he was - just some weirdo, some loser, wandering through the woods and babbling mysterious things that meant nothing. Jude thought about how easy it would, to pretend that. It wouldn't take very much pretending.

How long could he make it last? A month, a few months? Even longer, if they moved around. Did Near have any friends? Jude entertained the whole thing in his mind, a dream with warm hues and soft lighting, as he handed the bottle back. "Can you show me what else there is? At the bar?"

It was a nice dream. Perhaps one day, or one night. Just not tonight.

[Near]

That the kid could march through The Reaches' halls like he would know his way blindfolded but wanted a guided tour through the contents of the bar felt dubious. It felt like something that could stand to be addressed, only Near wasn’t sure from what angle, and there was the wine bottle hanging there like bait so he concerned himself with that instead.

“Not a fan?” he asked, tugging it away from the outstretched hand by the shoulder. He lifted it up to peer at the label -- a weird image, really, pink sky and blue rolling hillsides and a little child’s-drawing farmer lolling in the foreground -- and swung it back and forth a couple of times in front of his face, slow like a dirge bell so that the contents sloshed up audibly against the sides, before he took another swallow and confessed, “Me either. Actually. You have to take a test.” He had worked for a guy who had blown thousands to fail the CMS exam three or four times. “It’s some bullshit.

“I just thought, you know, inherit a house and some wine: better drink some wine. You get that he’s dead, right? You’re not just killing time waiting for him to come down the stairs and say hello?” He wasn’t sure if he had announced Courtland’s passing yet or not; certainly Jude being unaware of that development injected a little more sense into this scenario. After he had said it, it occurred to him that it was a pretty shitty way to break the news if that was what was going on, but oh well. It was pretty shitty to barge into a stranger's living room and refuse to tell them why, too.

[Jude]

It was dubious, and Near was right to be suspicious, but... Jude sighed internally. he wondered now how the family had been so clever, so patient. Everything had always come together by the time Jude arrived, and so it had seemed to him that there were a limited range of outcomes, as opposed to the myriad dead-ends and false starts that Near presented. There was no use in protesting, because whatever Near wanted - and what did Near want? - was going to trump whatever it was Jude wanted, until somehow the two could sync. Jude felt like he was trying to orchestrate an eclipse, only Near, the Earth, sped up or slowed down when Jude approached alignment.

"What kind of test?" he asked politely. How strange, that someone would have to pass a test to drink something. He smiled as he spoke, but it fell when Near reminded him of Courtland's death. He looked grim, maybe even a little lost, when he said, "Yes, I know." Courtland would not have needed everything explained to him.

"Well, are you going to show me or not?" He straightened from leaning on the couch, and looked towards one of the thresholds. He was going to tell Near why he was here, even though Near vacillated between wanting to know and wanting Jude to stop being weird. Unfortunately, in this case, knowledge and weirdness were mutually inclusive.

[Near]

He inhaled, deep; held the reminder of how unfamiliar the air still tasted at the bottom of his lungs while he mulled the question; and then let it escape in the form of an elongated, resigned heave chased by an elongated, resigned, “Shiiit.” The towel on the floor received a petulant kick halfway halfway across the room.

“Fine.” Punchier in the follow-up. He took a wide curve around the couch, carrying the bottle but abandoning the towel, the gun, whatever else he had carted in and forgotten at Jude’s appearance, where it lay. Straight(ish) down the paneled hallway without looking back to confirm the assumption that he was being followed -- he was still pretty sure the kid didn’t really need sherpa service -- and into the room at the front of the house whose proper nomenclature he wasn’t so sure of. He was a one-bedroom apartment kind of guy. Studio, when times were tough. Not knowing the commonly-accepted word to refer to where he was standing had emerged as a running theme throughout his explorations.

Whatever this was, it was significantly larger than the space he had been drinking in (drinking room, sitting room, living room, den?), and more formal: polished parquet floors, cathedral ceiling, arches, ridiculous curving staircase, and a built-in bar in the back that eclipsed anything he had ever stood behind. He had dragged dust sheets off of a few pieces of furniture to reveal heavy carved legs and cream upholstery; more remained covered. These formed a ghostly populace, reflecting the meager light that stole in through a gap in the curtains that hid a massive window that looked out toward the driveway, the front lawn, Near’s car -- assuming it hadn’t been hotwired by an accomplice of Jude’s. It was toward this he continued, with the intention of widening the gap: there were probably switches that controlled the lights somewhere, but he didn’t know where.

Lew was curled up on one of the phantom sofas. She glanced up as Near passed by and flopped her tail back and forth a few times.

[Jude]

The sound of the rain could be heard throughout the house, though the finer details shifted with the acoustics of the rooms they passed through. It would rain all night, at this rate, and maybe all day tomorrow. After that, who knew? Days of identical weather altered the passage of time, when one could not discern yesterday from today. In a loop of yesterday-today-tomorrow, the two of them could live here forever, Near kicking towels across the floor like a soccer player, Jude never giving a straight answer to any question about his arrival, and always, between them, the rain.

He followed Near at a short distance, his head swiveling left and right as they walked, remembering, recataloguing. It was so different, this house, when it was empty and dark. It reminded him of a person. When dressed-up and well-lit, it was a happy house, expansive, luxurious, inviting, full of fun. Now, it was like the house had gone home alone and taken off its make-up; the house itself was mourning. Jude paused in the middle of the room, running his hand along the shrouded spine of one couch. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the voices of long-gone guests, their laughter, their warmth.

Jude took himself to the bar. Behind it was rows of various liquors in a glass cabinet. Even in low light, the glass bottles winked at him, some full to the brim with promise, others already half-empty, their promises half-broken. If it was locked, the cabinet forgot itself at Jude's touch, the door swinging open with ease. He picked the first thing he could reach - a gin bottle with a monkey on it, stamped in Victorian style.

"Do you like gin?" Jude sighed at the bottle, turning it in his hands. This was it. Now or never.

[Near]

The curtain ran smoothly along its track, more smoothly than it looked like it was going to, rewarding the extra heft behind his tug with a wider exposure than intended: picture window view of the front (car right where he had left it), distorted slightly by a filter of rain trails.  He turned to pick out Jude drifting past the furniture with a sleepwalker’s gait.

Any prospect of tending bar off the clock had a way of ruffling his feathers.  Not that he was ever too obstinate to crack open a beer for a visitor, but that was about the extent of it: hell if anything was getting poured in a mug.  You wouldn’t ask an accountant to do your taxes after 5.  (Unless you would -- he didn’t actually know much about accountants, although the lawyer had implied that he was going to have to find out, thanks to this damn inheritance.)

It wasn’t as if Jude knew anything more about Near than Near did the after-hours existence of CPAs; certainly not enough to flirt with the casual, too-easy suggestion that Near start with the shaking up of sexes on the beach (or whatever amusingly-named drink the requester didn’t have the wherewithal or patience to mix on his own), but knowing that didn’t prevent him from preparing himself to protest right up until, in defiance of expectation, the kid himself slid behind the bar and began opening cabinets.  Of course, rather than being a relief, that invited a spike of a territorial rancor.  Who did he think he was, futzing with things that a notarized piece of paper in a folder in Tacoma said were legally Near’s?  Noted, but easily brushed away.  He drew up to the other side of the counter, leaning across, ready to make assumptions based on what bottled was extracted first: dark, with a label he couldn’t place until the mention of gin.

“Gin?  Sometimes,” he said.  Noncommittal.  “Takes a certain mood.  And the hipster brewers ruined it, made it all small batch, artisanal, flowers and herbs, right?  Killed the bite.  What’s the point if you can’t taste it?  Me, I’m drinking a G and T, it’s Beefeater, Seagrams.  One thing it’s got going for it, though -- not that I know from personal experience, but there’s a whole cult of guys that swear they can drink gin all night without affecting their performance.”

[Jude]

No, they weren't friends, and Jude wasn't a real guest, merely an intruder who had not yet been thrown out. Near was all the way near the window, too far to hear that the cabinet had been locked, too far to hear the tumblers lift themselves with the boost of a ghostly key, too far to hear the gasp of the cabinet door, as if it knew all that was to transpire. Jude would have ignored Near if he had protested. Jude needed to tell him why he was here. More than that, he needed Near to believe him. Jude needed to be understood.

He heard it, for the first time, Courtland's voice through Near's mouth, when Near began to talk of gin. Not exactly Courtland's voice, but a loquacious stance of the wealthy, a position that could only be adopted through expensive excessive consumption, through education, through delicate antennae that sensed what was the current and correct opinion to have. If he had not already, Near would become familiar with the look on Jude's face. It was an expression of humility and obedience; the listener was aware that he was ill-informed by comparison, and it was best to simply concede to Near's facts. Not visible on Jude's face was a throb of jealousy, not only for what Near knew of the world, but his animation on such a banal subject. Near knew, and he cared to know. Jude envied that. He looked down again to the gin bottle, to the monkey clutching a sprig of lavender.

"I'm sorry." Jude looked up, and met Near's eyes across the bar. "About your father. And about bothering you." For a moment, it seemed like they were talking past each other again, that Jude was saying something irrelevant or that Near could not hear. Once more, Jude's words were divorced from any context.

Three things occurred in rapid succession.

Jude took the gin bottle by the neck and swung it an arc, from left to right.

He smashed the bottle on the edge of the bar.

He pointed the remains of the bottle - its jagged neck, its hungry teeth - across the bar, at Near's throat.

"Don't move. And don't talk. And if your dog moves, that counts."

[Near]

There it was.

The very first thought to emerge with coherence from the flurry, after the crash of glass against the counter (louder than it should have been in the too-resonant space) and the swift motion that brought what was left of the bottle into his line of sight extinguished whatever he had been about to say regarding his estrangement from Daddy: a smug little told-you-so from the part of him that knew something like this was bound to go down, that had been waiting for it, to the part of him that had opened the door and invited it to happen.  Before panic, before anger, “Well, you were pretty much asking for it, and wouldn’t it serve you right if everything ended here in this room you barely remember.”  Or something like that.

Sober, he might have been tempted to obey instructions and shut up, but the same anodyne state of mild inebriation that had influenced him to let Jude in then managed to convince him now that this wasn't as serious a situation as it would have appeared to an observer -- or, closer, that it was as dead serious as it looked, but who cared: he had brought this on himself, so if the kid had any follow-through, in a few days maybe somebody would show up, and they’d find the stolen dog licking Near’s blood off the floor, and with that image came an absurd amusement that rippled across his face in the form of a semi-smirk.

“For chrisssake, kid,” adrenaline left his voice tight, trembling a little as he straightened, abandoning the wine bottle on the bartop so he could raise empty palms, “you think nobody ever threatened me from across a bar before?  You want something, take it.  Hell if I’m going to stop you.”

[Jude]

Jude's expression did not change with the weapon in his hand. His mouth did not turn up or down at the corners; his eyes did not widen or narrow. The diameter of his pupils remained stable. If this was to be an execution, it was utterly joyless.

Why this room though? Why hadn't Jude hit Near over the head with the wine bottle in the living room? Why hadn't he simply vanished into the depths when he went to dry his hair, returning with a more reliable weapon, like a knife from the kitchen? If this was a movie, or a book, those sorts of plot holes wouldn't need answers. Everything was tied together by the red thread of fate, and by the self-satisfied immediacy of Now. But why? Why this way? Why? Why?

Well.

"Pay attention." Jude extended his left hand, and brought it to one jagged edge of the bottleneck. He blinked once, and then, with one deft motion, sliced his skin open the point. With his right hand, he spun the bottle, tapping the teeth against the blood running down his palm. Drops of it pooled on the bar, blending with the dark wood.


"O̶̡̯̤̠͙̼̲̊̈́ͫ͛ͧͦ̚l͗ͬͩ͢͏͖̩͈̰͉̳̻̤ą̴͇͚̜̾͊ͮ̑̃́ͅ ̵̛̘̜̫͕̈́̋͢m̶̱̭̦̹̙̰̈́ͣ͆͊͗ͩ̿̆͘e͌̾̀ͭ̚҉̹͇̼̹̣̪͔ã̴̩͚̗̘͖̻̂̅͢ ̱͓̤̤͉̠ͫͬͩ͂ͬ͝͞ẖ̯̐̀̽̉͟a̐̑ͣ̅͋͑ͩ͏̢̬͕̱̞̮̘ͅd̢̼̟̤̖̻͆͂͘͡u̬̪̻̯̮͔̮̜̓ͭ̌͊o̴̢̹̝̞̒ͫͩ͘ͅ.̷̿̀̍͊̈́͌̔̀̚͏̶̫̜̙̬̰"


Jude opened his mouth, but what came out was not a word. To call it a sound even felt improper. In a handful of seconds, it was the air thickening with humidity, the choking smell of something rotten, the heavy heat of a sunburn, the reddish darkness on the inside of your eyes when you closed them tight. The ear registered a vibration in concordance with Jude opening his mouth, but the sensorial flash dwarfed it, made the 'word' itself almost unhearable.

Then it was quiet, and the air was clean and empty, and the thunder purred against the roof.

The glass scattered along the floor floated up, gathering in a sparkling, swirling cloud like a school of fish. The shards swam through the air and rearranged themselves along the neck of the bottle, one at a time, flaring red with heat before settling into place. As the bottle came back together, Jude withdrew it from Near's throat.

Jude set the bottle, whole again, in front of Near. The process of reassembly had taken less than two minutes. The gin itself remained in pungent puddles on the floor.

Along the bottleneck, where it had been broken, were lines of red, pressed into the glass.

"Your father knew."