Stray Fears - Gregory Ashe Page 0,86

and we ran outside. The other guy set the fire and ran.”

Biting his lip, Elien nodded again. Then he said, “Will they believe that?”

“No, it’s total bullshit, and they’ll know it. But they’ll need some way of explaining what happened here, and when they find those bodies, and neither of them is human, I think they’ll want all the help they can get.”

“You think they’ll just . . . they’ll just pretend it didn’t happen?”

I didn’t answer; I was having a hard time standing on my own, and I realized distantly that Elien was supporting most of my weight.

“You’re stronger than you look,” I mumbled.

“Shit, Dag, you do not look good. Let’s get you down.”

He helped me lie on my side. I was staring out at the road as the first DuPage Parish Sheriff’s car sped down the drive, lights whirling, siren blaring. A vinyl pumpkin decal clung to the side of the car. I started to laugh.

“Are you ok?” Elien asked, touching the side of my face.

I kissed his hand and said, “Happy Halloween.”

ELIEN (9)

Dag was in Bragg Memorial Hospital almost a week, and I was there too: half the time, as a patient myself, and the other half sitting in his room and picking at my bandages. We watched game shows, and Dag beat me at Jeopardy! every afternoon. At lunch and at dinner, I’d go out and get decent food for us, Dag issuing lengthy requests that included po’boys, beignets, a crawfish boil, and once, smoked alligator. I reminded him that there was no call for him to be a stereotype. He reminded me that he’d gotten stabbed through the lung. I brought him all the smoked alligator he wanted; a guy sold it out of a stand in the Quartier, making a killing off tourists who couldn’t wait to try the local delicacy.

The first night I was released, I slept in the chair at the hospital. The next morning, Dag was so furious that he actually yelled at me.

“You got hurt,” he shouted. “You need to sleep in a real bed.”

“You probably shouldn’t shout,” I said. “Hole in your lung, remember?”

“You are either going to a hotel or going to my parents’ house right now, and you’re going to get some good sleep, and you’re going to get some real food, and you’re going to get better.”

I raised an eyebrow.

After a moment, he winced and pressed on his chest, and he shrank back against the pillows.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Just so we’re clear,” I said, “I don’t like people yelling at me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“For some reason, you’re the exception.”

His eyebrows drew together.

“It’s just so cute,” I said.

“Oh God.”

“It’s like a puppy barking. You know how their little legs get all stiff and they think they’re so fierce.”

Groaning, Dag pulled one of the pillows over his face.

But after that, I slept at his parents’ house, in his bed, smelling that woodsy aftershave on his pillow and floating in the rippling blue light. I would lie there, thinking about a man who loved whales and oceans, who was gentle and giving and wild when he made love, and who cried after his first domestic callout. I slept deep and dreamless every night.

The days at the hospital had their own challenges. Dag’s parents liked to visit, and his mom was always passing me folded-up magazine pages and giving exaggerated winks. The first time it happened, I thought Gloria might be having a stroke. She stopped me when I went to open the page, winking again, and I realized I was supposed to wait until they’d left. The world’s most doting and supportive parents liked to spend time with Dag, though, and their visits could stretch out for three or four hours. At first, I expected it to be awkward, but they were so . . . doting and supportive that I couldn’t help but find the whole thing endearing. It also helped that they had decided to be doting and supportive of me.

“You look very sharp today,” Gloria told me.

I hooked a finger under the collar of Dag’s Blackfish t-shirt, which had been washed so many times it was gray instead of black, and said, “This?”

“I think you might be the most beautiful man in the world,” Gloria said. “Don’t you think, Hubert?”

Hubert was reading the Times-Picayune, but he looked up and said, “Oh yes, perfect ten. Right, Dag?”

“I do not discuss boys with my dad. Or with my mom.”

“What about your son?” I asked.

“What?”

“Well, he’s your son, so shouldn’t