Robin takes a deep breath, his nose to the sky. He catches a faint scent, something charred and sweet, like sulfur and burning wood. “I think it’s a campfire,” he says.
How did I get here? Charlie thinks when the cage is shut around him. It begins its ascent and he tightens his grip on the handholds and screws his eyes shut extra tightly.
Robin’s voice breaks into his safe mental cocoon.
“This is gonna be so fun.”
Robin.
Right.
That’s how you got here, you complete moron.
Big, blue eyes and adorable dimples and “please, Charlie, I can’t go by myself.”
God, I’m pathetic.
“Ooh,” Robin says. He must lean to look at the ground, because the cage rocks forward and Charlie almost loses his breath.
Don’t open your eyes. Just don’t open your eyes and you’ll be fine.
“You can see the lighthouse on the point from here.” Robin nudges Charlie. “Open your eyes, silly.”
“I don’t think that’s the best—”
And Charlie’s stomach drops into his knees.
The Ferris Wheel probably isn’t going fast, but it feels like a damn race car to Charlie. A race car that’s zooming hundreds of feet off the ground and there is nothing to catch them if it breaks apart. Just the stupid greasy cage that rocks back and forth with every move of the wheel.
“Oh God, oh God, Oh God,” Charlie chants.
Robin clings to his side. His breath is hot on the side of Charlie’s face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought you were exaggerating.” He strokes the back of Charlie’s hand with his fingertips. “Just hold onto me. It’ll be okay.”
But Charlie can’t move. Robin must realize this, because just as they fall from the top again, his arm wraps around Charlie’s torso and pulls him against his body. The cage rocks wildly with Robin’s movement.
“Sorry,” Robin says in Charlie’s ear.
They fly past the Tilt-A-Whirl. Britney Spears is singing about being a slave for someone. Charlie barks a laugh at the irony. He nearly chokes on it when they round the top yet again.
Somewhere in the distance, he can hear a girl screaming. She’s probably dying from another of these contraptions falling to pieces. They transport them from town to town on trucks and God knows who assembles them. Are they technicians? Are there extra pieces laying around like the ones Charlie had to hide from Robin after helping him build his IKEA bed? The hinges, they’re so creaky. That can’t be normal. Something smells like it’s burning.
“Why, why, why.”
Warm, soft lips press tenderly against his cheek.
Right, he thinks again. Right.
That’s why.
Miraculously, Charlie doesn’t die. He doesn’t die, but he does lose the ability to talk, or to walk in a straight line, for several minutes.
Robin laughs and says something about sea legs. If Charlie didn’t love him so much, God he would hate him.
When his heart no longer feels like it’s about to explode and he can focus on anything but the solid ground under his feet, Charlie finds Robin smiling down at him. His dimples are deep and there is a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He taps a finger against Charlie’s chin. “So…how do you feel about spinning?”
“That depends on how you feel about hotdogs. With hot sauce and relish and raw onions and—”
Robin stretches out a hand to stop him. He looks like he’s about to gag. “I guess that makes us even.”
“Nah. Now, maybe if I got to watch you actually eat one…”
Robin really does gag this time, and Charlie takes pity on him. “Come on, Birdie. Let’s go find something that spins. As long as it stays on the ground.”
I would like to introduce you to Robin and Charlie, the main protagonists of Lodestones with this short story. It takes place three years before Lodestones, not long after Robin and Charlie first met.
*****
“Robin?”
Robin looks up from his anthropology reading to find Charlie Katz on the opposite side of the third floor common area.
Charlie hefts an overstuffed backpack off his shoulders. “I thought that was you.”
Robin smiles at him. “On your way to the library?”
“No?” Charlie’s light eyebrows are creased in the centre.
Robin points at the books bursting out of the top of Charlie’s bag.
“Oh,” Charlie says, “that.” He heaves a sigh and makes his way over to sink onto the common room sectional next to Robin. His bag of books stays across the room against the wall. Charlie eyes it with irritation plain on his face. He looks exhausted. His normally bright eyes are shadowed and his hair a mess.
“Where will you sleep?” Robin shifts closer and lifts a hand to Charlie’s shoulder. “Are you going to go back there?”
Charlie shrugs. “Not for a while. I’m tired of his dirty looks. I wish I’d never come out to the guy.”
“Ah.” Robin knows all about those sorts of looks. “A dick of the homophobic variety. My favourite kind of dick.”
Charlie laughs a little, then sits back with another louder sigh and runs a hand through his tousled hair. “I don’t know what he thinks— Wait, of course I do. And honestly, I’d love to enlighten him to the fact that he’s repulsive and I wouldn’t touch him wearing an entire Costco-sized box of latex gloves if he were the only guy within a ten-thousand-mile radius. And also that he smells like corn chips and wet dog.”
Robin sets aside his book and curls his legs up under him. He turns his body in Charlie’s direction. “Roommates suck. I don’t think mine is a homophobe, though. Just a regular dick. On the plus side, he’s probably gonna flunk out soon. He never leaves our room. All he does is eat Doritos and have Skype sex with his girlfriend.” Robin nods at Charlie’s disgusted face. “I know. If I walk in on him jerking off one more time I’m gonna lose it. I’m serious,” he adds when Charlie laughs again.
“No one needs to see that. So gross.”
“Right? And it’s unsanitary to boot. Can you imagine what’s lurking on his laptop keyboard? It honestly keeps me awake at night… Do you think he’d know it was me if he were gifted with a crate of antibacterial wipes? You mentioned Costco and I thought, maybe… Too obvious?”
Charlie is really laughing now, which secretly pleases Robin. He pretends to be offended by Charlie’s laughter and slaps him on the thigh. “What? He needs a case, or five. If I took a black light to his side of the room, can you imagine? Ugh. Better just be his side of the room…”
Robin can’t help but grin in the wake of Charlie’s laughter. His mood has made a complete turnaround. “Anyway,” Robin continues. He squeezes Charlie’s knee. “Maybe if he does flunk out you can get a transfer into my room.”
Charlie lifts his gaze from Robin’s hand on his knee. “And deprive you of a single? I’m not that cruel.”
Charlie’s eyes are bright and his face is flushed. The freckles on the bridge of his nose are vivid. Gorgeous. He bites his full, red bottom lip.
Robin looks away toward his anthropology text on the arm of the couch. He straightens it and smooths down the tear in the couch’s faded maroon upholstery.
“I don’t like being alone at night anyway,” Robin says. Especially not when he’s been up watching old horror films, but Charlie doesn’t need to know that ridiculous fact about him this soon in their friendship. “Speaking of… My friend Christa’s roommate left the first week. You can probably stay in her room tonight. She’s up on fifth. Want to go ask her? She’s working on a paper, so she’s in her room.”
When Robin turns back toward him, Charlie is watching him closely. “The elevator’s out of order,” Charlie says.
Which seems like a strange thing to say. “Um…there are stairs.”
Charlie washes pink. He fiddles with the buttons of his cardigan. “They’re open in the backs. The stairs.” His long fingers on the cardigan buttons are shaking the slightest bit.
Maybe Robin could have revealed his childish fear of horror movie villains without judgement after all.
“Oh.” Robin nods. The last thing he wants is to have Charlie feel as though he’s being judged for a fear similar to Robin’s own. “Yeah. I’ve had that weird feeling, too. Like someone is gonna shove their hand through the open back of the stair and grab my ankle.” He acts out the scenario, his hand snaking down to grab his own ankle. But Charlie doesn’t laugh, so he stops. “When I’m alone, I run down as fast as I can.”
Charlie shakes his head. “Not that, um…more like it makes me feel like I’m going to fall? And I get really dizzy when I’m up high. Stairs are usually fine. As long as the walls and the stairs are all solid. If I can see how high up I am…” He shrugs and laughs self-deprecatingly. “I have a phobia—heights, you know? And a touch of vertigo for good measure.”
“Oh, like the Hitchcock film?”
“I guess, maybe. I’ve never actually—”
Robin leans into Charlie’s space and grasps his shoulder. “You’ve never seen it? That’s not allowed. It’s one of the best films ever made! And that’s not just my very informed opinion, which is never something to be taken lightly, by the way. It’s on all kinds of ‘best movie’ lists.” Robin is babbling. He knows he is. He’s noticed that this babbling is a common occurrence when he’s alone with Charlie. And yet, he’s not uncomfortable around Charlie. He feels almost excitable when they get to spend time together.
He jumps up from the couch. His quick motion knocks his text book onto the ratty carpet, where it lands with a thud. He eyes it for a second. He has to fight the impulse to bend over and retrieve it and set it neatly back on the couch arm. It’s a game he plays with himself: Can I make a mess and leave it there? For how long this time? Two minutes? Five minutes? It never lasts for long. It’s a game he always loses.
He shakes his head at himself and reaches for Charlie’s hand instead. “Come on. I’ve got it on my laptop. Let’s go get it.”
They’re a whole five steps away before Robin has to turn around and pick up his anthropology book. He sets it on the low coffee table, lining the edge of the book up with the corner of the table.
He gives Charlie an embarrassed smile before he leads the way to his dorm room.
At the door of his room, Robin digs a packet of tissues from his pocket and pulls out two, then strategically folds them in order to cover his entire hand before he reaches for the door knob.
“What?” he whispers at Charlie’s weird look. “He touched it. Black light, Charlie. Black. Light.”
“I thought you said he never leaves the room.”
“Well, I’m assuming he goes to the bathroom on occasion. I mean, I’ve never seen him do it, but he must. The alternative is just too vile to contemplate.”
The door creaks when Robin pushes it open, as doors are wont to do when someone is attempting to be stealthy.
“The lights are off,” Charlie says in a hushed voice.
Robin nods, although Charlie probably can’t see him in the dark of the room. “Let’s just hope the chronic masturbator hasn’t got his junk out.”
Charlie tries to stifle his laughter and chokes. Robin snorts and slaps him on the back. His eyes have adjusted enough that he can make out the shape of the twin beds and desks and even the small mini-fridge under the window.
Robin’s roommate Bryan—or maybe it’s Ryan, Robin always forgets—is a prone lump on the bed to the left. His breathing is deep and even, so Robin assumes he is asleep. Lights would be nice, but Robin much prefers finding his roommate asleep rather than in the middle of some weird role play sex game with his long-distance girlfriend. The last time he’d entered the room without knocking first he’d overheard baaing and something about Little Bo Peep that he wishes he could erase from his brain forever.
Just as Robin reaches his desk, Charlie must lose his hold on the door because it slams shut. Losing what little light there was to see by, Robin walks directly into his desk chair. He shouts a curse and grabs for his foot. The pain shoots upwards from his ankle bone.
“Shit, sorry!” Charlie’s whispered apology sounds loud in the room, even after the chaos of half a second before. He reopens the door and Robin catches sight of his roommate, who now sits up in his bed.
“The fuck, man! Tryin’ ta sleep!”
“Sorry, Bryan,” Robin says. And then under his breath so that only Charlie can hear, “Or Ryan, or whatever your name is.”
Robin grabs his laptop and power cord and they stumble toward the half-open door, toward the band of light that streams in from the bright hallway. Charlie is laughing, his hand pressed flat against Robin’s back as he urges him on.
They get thrown weird looks by the students they pass in the hall. Robin is practically bent in two laughing, and Charlie behind him, his head bouncing against Robin’s shoulder. Charlie’s laughter vibrates Robin’s body and starts him going all over again.
“I’ll have whatever you guys are having,” says a guy in a tie-dyed t-shirt. He gets up from the tattered armchair in the common area. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“O…Kay?” Charlie waves at the guy, who salutes them and whistles all the way to the elevator.
Robin throws himself onto the couch and pats the space next to him. “Come on, acrophobe. Let’s watch us some Hitchcock.”
They get as far as the letter writing scene that Hitchcock wanted removed from the film before Charlie slumps down next to Robin on the couch. His breathing has been growing steadily deeper for a while, and his yawns getting closer and closer together. Robin would be offended that one of his favourites films isn’t interesting enough to keep Charlie awake, if not for the fact that Charlie’s head lands softly on his shoulder. His hair tickles the side of Robin’s face. Robin turns down the volume of the movie and curls in closer to Charlie.
Robin doesn’t make it to the denouement or see the shocking ending. He wakes hours later, his laptop on the floor and Charlie’s head in his lap. He watches the gentle up and down of Charlie’s chest for a while before he closes his eyes and gets more comfortable amongst the couch cushions. He tells himself he doesn’t want to deal with Ryan-Bryan anyway. That, after all, is the safest reasoning.
