He made good time, pushing himself, driving like he was on convoy, moving at a constant speed and stopping only when necessary. Finding his way through downtown to Grant Park, where Wexler’s sister lived, was easy. Barely a month had elapsed since he and Ines drove to Atlanta to visit her nephew Sammy the Stargazer, but the city seemed taller, surging skyward in a frenzy of construction. Cranes perched over skeletal skyscrapers, their pulleys lost in the mist. Downtown, a web of repaved roads: slick, black tongues of tar studded with orange barrels. In the rain, expansive concrete foundations gleamed like giant slabs of melting ice. Even in Wexler’s neighborhood, new brick homes with antique touches dwarfed historic clapboard duplexes, and mere blocks away a glassy new midrise condominium sparkled like a gem. The city was shedding its skin.
Wexler lived with his sister in a craftsman-style bungalow in Grant Park, a historic neighborhood, according to the sign. The house was old but well maintained, a row of potted sunflowers standing sentinel over the porch. Even at night, the mustard trim around the windows and the violet balusters lent the house a warm, feminine air. Achilles parked in the driveway behind a fancy four-door sedan. Before he had extinguished the headlights, Wexler was clomping across the porch like those G.I. Joe action figures Achilles played with as a child, articulated only at the hips and shoulders. A thick scar ran across the side of Wexler’s neck where the landmine had lodged a children’s toy, one of the die-cast ambulances passed out to establish rapport with the local kids. Achilles had expected that by now, over a year later, Wexler’s movements would be natural. Watching him lumber down the stairs, gripping the handrails and almost imperceptibly feeling his way with his feet, step by step, Achilles told himself, again, that there was a difference between bravery and stupidity, and that running into a minefield was stupidity. He quickly grabbed his bag, wanting to meet his friend halfway.
Wexler was slight, shorter than Achilles, and his skin was much lighter, almost the color of pale cedar, like Troy’s. Before their tans had set in, people had thought Wexler and Troy were brothers. Wexler had the light step and braided muscles of a runner, which he was, but he looked thinner, if that was possible. His face was drawn, cheekbones sharpened as if by hunger, and when he raised his arms to give Achilles a hug, his shirt rode the waves of his ribs. But when Achilles felt Wexler’s forearms press against his shoulder blades, he knew that his friend’s strength had not faded one bit. Wexler squeezed even tighter, and Achilles’s eyes began to swell, so he dug his chin into Wexler’s shoulder until Wexler pushed him away.
Wexler clapped him on the shoulder. “Ape arms.”
Achilles pointed to the fancy black sedan. “You’re coming up in the world.”
Flashing his Love-Sexy grin, Wexler said, “My cousin’s. It’s in the witness protection program.”
Achilles was puzzled until Wexler explained, “He’s hiding it from the repo man.”
The laughter felt like a release valve, felt like the good old days when they would drink down a weekend of R&R without sleeping, felt good enough to ignore the shallow creeks running across Wexler’s cheeks, and Achilles’s new habit of averting his eyes.
“Where’s Chief?” asked Achilles, surprised that Naomi’s beagle wasn’t yapping at their heels.
“He’s gone.”
A knot pulled tight in Achilles’s stomach.
“Just old age. He was up there, you know.” Wexler winked and pointed up, his voice light. “Hey, you brought the rain.”
“Eee-yeah, baby. Here comes the thunder!” said Achilles, mimicking the battle cry that announced air support. They hunched their shoulders and peered up at the sky and listened attentively, nostrils flared, Wexler bent back at the waist as if leaning against an invisible wall. They saw the three flickering red lights on the belly of a jumbo jet, a squadron itself, and heard the engine, a low, distant rumble scraping the sky. Antennae atop skyscrapers blinked their secret, stuttering code through the clouds. A swarm of gnats snapped around their necks. The smell of jasmine mixed with the scent of fresh-cut grass mixed with lingering exhaust. Though a few feet from the car, the warmth radiating from the engine pressed against their thighs. A dog barked, another answered. In the house across the street, a light blinked on, yellow behind the faded curtain, followed by whimpering, the rattle of a chain, the clattering of a glass pane in a slamming door. Soon the jet had passed, that sound funneling into a distant point. They strained, but all that remained to be heard was the rain and humming gnats and breath. And though it was a bright night, the raindrops materialized only inches from their face, always too late and too close and too fast to blink in defense, but blink they did, catching the rain in their eyes until lightning sliced the night, illuminating Wexler’s eyes, round and burning, as when Troy had carried him out of that minefield. Achilles plucked Wexler on the back of the head where the cross on his Trojan would have been and said, as they’d always said after a touchdown, “They shoulda punted.”
Wexler shrugged, his eyebrows knitted. Achilles pressed his tongue behind his lower lip, poking it out, doing Troy’s impression of a drunken camel, coaxing his friend into thin laughter, and promising himself to never again utter, “Here comes the thunder.” As he searched for something reassuring to say, something Ines would say when she caught him intently watching the lines at the shelters, the burden of the unmentionable set in, and he remained silent as Wexler stepped aside to usher him up the porch stairs.
The living room, painted sage, was as orderly as a footlocker. The magazines were stacked in neat pyramids: Essence on the bottom, Jet and TV Guide on top. At Achilles’s house, that pile would have contained People, TV Guide, and Readers’ Digest. His mom had ordered a subscription to Jet when they were in middle school. Smaller than a comic book, it seemed appropriate for children. After she discovered that each issue included a weekly swimsuit centerfold, each little glossy mag appeared on their desk sans pinup. “Jet” became their code for “porn.” They later found the missing centerfolds in their father’s winter chest. It was funny to see that magazine here, nestled innocently between the other publications. Beside the magazines, the remote controls on the black lacquer entertainment center were arranged in squad formation, the bottom of each one flush with the front of the television. Wexler had remained fastidious, as they had all been once, believing that to have an item out of place was to be out of place was to invite disaster; they would sooner stand downwind during target practice. But Achilles knew it wasn’t Wexler’s home by the row of potted sunflowers lining the porch, the embroidered placemats, the burnt-orange bathroom walls, the smell of sage, and most importantly, the open blinds in every room. He recognized Naomi’s touch, earthy and open.