A Quarter Past Midnight

          No one could figure out what had happened to the cigarette lighter. They were an hour removed from the I-5 freeway by the time they realized it was gone. Paso Robles twinkled in the rearview mirror and the sky was a deep purple. Sean fumbled in the backseat, cursing, while Eric and Nate drank Coors Light up front. 

          “We just had it,” Sean had said. “You sure it’s not up there?”

          “Don’t think so,” Eric responded, one hand on the steering wheel. The road ahead was getting dark. He switched on the high beams.

          At Nate’s feet were empty chip bags and Coors Light cans. He gave them a perfunctory prod with his toe and then reached a hand in the glove compartment. Then the center console. “No sé, señior,” he said.

          “Then how the hell did you light up, dumbass?” Sean said, gesturing to the cigarette in Nate’s hand.

          Nate contemplated this for a moment, looking from his Coors Light to his cigarette, like he just realized he was holding both. “Good question.”

          “Dipshit,” Sean mumbled.

          “Guess we’re using the campfire,” Eric said.

          Sean scoffed at that. “I don’t feel like getting my eyelashes singed off, thank you very much.” 

          “We’re monkey fucking tonight, cabróns!” Nate said, thrusting his arms in the air. Beer spilled down his hand. At Sean’s look he added, “it’s either that or you don’t get a smoke, princess. Pucker up.”

          Sean took a cigarette from of his pack, set it between his lips, and inhaled the tip of Nate’s crimson cigarette, then Nate said to Eric, “I didn’t forget about you, sweetcakes,” and slipped a cigarette between Eric’s lips, lit it with his own, and planted a wet one on the side of his forehead. Eric shoved him away.

         “I’m driving, dip shit.” He wiped the slobber off his temple. “Jess lets you kiss her with that mouth?”

          “The wetter the better,” Nate said.

          That had been four hours ago. Now Eric stood by the edge of the cliff, counting stars off the face of the lake, wondering if he, Sean, and Nate would ever come back here again. For years, on every third Friday of every month, the three of them packed their bags, drove four hours up the I-5 freeway, and spent the weekend at Lake Nacimiento, a dragon-shaped lagoon near the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Eric’s lake, as he liked to call it; a thing handed down to him by his uncle, along with a sports boat, five life vests, and a preference for Coors Light. A place where he learned to swim as a kid, where he learned to kiss a girl properly, and where he drank his first beer. Where the Milky Way shone freely, and owls hooted, and you lit campfires to stay warm and let them blaze all night long because they were your only source of light, save the moon. A place later in life where he, Sean, and Nate got drunk together for the first time, all three of them, and woke up miraculously without a hangover, and spent every sunrise on the water, coming up with excuses not to go back to work on Monday. Their place now, not just his. But now, after what happened, Eric feared this would be their last trip. He contemplated the night’s events with painful accuracy.

           They had pulled into the campground with the high beams still on. The stereo was wailing at full volume and the smoke from their cigarettes plumed through the open windows. Nate had his head out the window like a dog, Sean was hollering from the back seat, and Eric was drumming his fists against the steering wheel like Rick Allen. The three of them, in harmony with Def Leppard, had poured some sugar all over the campground at the top of their lungs.

          Nate stumbled out of the car and a dozen empty cans of Coors Light fell out with him. Eric reached across the center console for a flashlight in the glove compartment. He inspected the large boat hitched to the back of the truck while Nate hollered at the moon like a wolf. Sean wobbled too, hopping out of the backseat in a cloud of smoke. Nate helped him light another cigarette. They hooted and hollered until all the food was unpacked and three tents were pitched in a semi-circle around the fire pit.

          Eric drenched the fire pit in lighter fluid. In his lap, he worked a double 9V battery across a clump of steel wool. He blew on the sparks. After a few minutes, he tossed the wool into the fire pit and they watched it erupt in a volcano of orange-red flames. “Thanks, Uncle Albert,” he said.

          Nate gestured to Sean. “Go ahead, stick your face in that, you chain-smoker.” Sean flipped him the middle finger. 

          Eric wrapped an arm around Sean’s shoulder. “Let him smoke however much he wants,” he said to Nate. “They’re his lungs.” Eric hadn’t noticed the way Sean tensed at his touch.

          “Here, cabrón,” Nate said, standing and handing Sean his lit cigarette. “These things make me dizzy. I’m going to get the food.” And then he left, and Eric heard rummaging from behind.

          “This is the best,” Eric said. He shook Sean’s shoulders furiously. Sean was about to say something but then Eric plucked the cigarette out of Sean’s lips and placed it between his own. Sean swiped at it. “Come and get it cabrona,” Eric said, and leaned further back. Sean swiped at it again, missed, then sat back, silently took another cigarette out of his pack, and with humorless eyes said in a straightforward voice, “Then give me a light,” to which Eric responded with jovial enthusiasm, “You have to come and get it if you want a light.” And because his head was spinning so furiously now (how many beers had he had?) he failed to notice Sean’s hand on his waist or the strength Sean used to pull him in, or how he himself had set a hand on Sean’s thigh to keep from falling over, or how their eyes locked for several beats. Or how, for just a moment, the molecules in the air mutated into some kind of magnet that made Eric lean in further, further, like his body was thanking him for finally listening to what it wanted. For the briefest of seconds, he imagined dropping the cigarette, giving in to the impulse, feeling Sean’s breath on his skin, but then out of nowhere, a gunshot broke the silence. Eric fell backward onto the ground, sending a cloud of dust mushrooming in the air, and realized the gunshot had been Nate’s voice saying, “All right fuckers, we have Kirkland dogs and Angus beef dogs, pick your poison.”

          That had been an hour ago. Eric stood by the edge of the cliff now with the campground glowing in the firelight behind him, still counting stars off the face of the lake. The moon was a little more than a crescent tonight, first quarter or second quarter he couldn’t tell; a scythe hanging over his head. He raked the sky with his eyes. The Milky Way cut it in half, blue and purple, surrounded by white lights of various amplitudes. From its center emanated an even brighter white light. Stars everywhere; not an inch untouched. “Enough to bring you to your knees,” his Uncle Albert used to say.

          When Eric was younger, his uncle used to say you were either a moon person or a star person, like you could only appreciate one or the other, much like you could only be good at either math or English, never both. Eric said if he had to choose, he would pick stars. “Good choice,” his uncle had said. “See that over there? That’s the North Star. Make sure you never forget it. It’ll guide you anywhere you need to go. And that one’s Orion. Orion always carries a sword and a shield. Over there is The Big Dipper and below that is The Little Dipper.”

          Since his death, Eric told himself every twinkling star was a nod from his uncle. Like his uncle knew he was here, looking up, saying hello. What would his uncle say about the incident with Sean? Would he think differently of Eric? Would he reconsider his decision to leave Eric the boat if he knew the things stirring inside his nephew? Would he want to keep those tainted thoughts away from this sacred lake?

          It had been a Saturday morning when Eric’s mother’s attorney called. Over the phone, the guy called it a sailboat, said his Uncle Albert hadn’t left much, just a few keepsakes and the sailboat. All Eric had to do was sign a couple dotted lines and it was his. Sean had been there, sitting at the other end of the apartment, pretending not to see the air get punched out of Eric, or the tears threatening to break the surface. He let Eric retreat to his room in peace, then listened without comment when Eric told him about the boat. He sat next to Eric at the funeral and let Eric cry into his shoulder when they were back on the lake; he put a hand on Eric’s back while Eric sobbed, and said over and over again, “it’s alright man, sometimes you just got to let it out.” They never talked about that night again.

          Sean had been present for so many of his milestones: His college graduation, his first car, his first job, his first breakdown by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere when he called Nate to pick him up and Sean came too, and all three of them got drunk on wine coolers because that was all the local liquor store had in stock. And the first time he got pulled over for driving under the influence, but he was too ashamed to tell Nate, so he told Sean. Sean drove him to every Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, not because he was an alcoholic but because it was mandatory, and how Sean pretended he hadn’t known when Eric finally broke it to Nate. And then tonight, when they unloaded the car and Eric found the cigarette lighter under his seat and slipped it into his back pocket without telling Sean because somewhere, deep down, he hadn’t wanted to.

          It was enough to make him dizzy. The edges of his life that had always seemed blurry were coming into focus, like he’d put on a pair of prescription glasses, and the juxtaposition between the past and the present was making his head spin. He removed the silver cigarette lighter from his pocket. It throbbed in his hand like a heartbeat.

          Footsteps approached from behind. “Where’d you find it?”

          Nate held a Coors Light in his hand. He wore his glasses now and changed into sweats. Briefly, Eric thought about thrusting the lighter back inside his pocket, but he handed it to Nate instead.

          “Under my seat, when we got out,” he said.

          Nate turned it over in his palm. “When we got here?”

          “Yeah,” Eric said. His reply hung in the air like humidity. He crossed his arms and looked out over the water. He wanted to disappear.

          “Shit, no wonder he’s pissed at you,” Nate said.

          “Who’s pissed at me?” Eric said.

          “Who else?” Nate laughed and took a sip of his beer.

          “Why’s he pissed at me?” Eric asked.

          “Because he’s a freakin’ chimney who can’t take a prank. Nate laughed again, took another sip, and nodded at the lighter. “Why do you still have it?”

          “Because,” Eric said, but then he couldn’t find the words, so after several beats Nate said, “All right, cabrón, I’m confused as shit. What the fuck happened? You two are acting like a bunch of pussies.”

          Eric told him everything. He wanted to curl up in a ball and roll down the cliff, but God help him, he told Nate everything. Anger he hadn’t known he possessed escaped in a flurry of sharp, clipped sentences. His cheeks burned, but the night concealed them. A tinge of sadness coated his words. He weaved between the past and present, trying to make Nate feel what he felt – the time he cried into Sean’s shoulder and Sean rubbed his back; the few times he brought a girl home and felt the air in the apartment shift, like Sean was pissed; the way they didn’t talk about the same things he and Nate did; and then tonight – tonight! ­– when he found the lighter and didn’t tell Sean because, well because “You know…” he said to Nate; and then how Sean had pulled him in (Eric didn’t mention the hand on the waist – that felt too intimate.), and how he then put his hand on Sean’s thigh (he was drunk!), and how the molecules in the air reconfigured or something, like magnets, and pulled Eric closer. He was talking so fast, everything spilling out like a broken water pipe. The pent-up emotions, the anger, the confusion – it made him faint. He wanted to sit down. He wanted never to look at Nate again. He wanted not to lose his best friend.

          “Do you remember how we met?” Nate said after several beats of torturous silence.

          “Yeah,” Eric said. “We were neighbors.”

          Nate’s eyes glazed over, like he was seeing something far away. “345 and 346,” he said.

          The mention of their old apartment units recalled memories of running up and down the hallway with a soccer ball and creating make-believe goal posts; doing laundry in the laundry room together, and riding bikes to school together, always stopping at the Ride Aid for Pringles.

          “Those were some kick-ass times,” Nate said. “If any other kid moved in next door our childhoods would’ve been completely different, huh?”

          “Yeah,” Eric said.

          “My mom helped your mom get a job at the salon, remember that?” Nate said. Eric said he did. “You told me she did hair, so I told my mom and she got her a job at the salon and then they forced us to go with them every day during the summer, remember? That place had shitty air conditioning. Remember the theatre room in the back? Like, what salon has a theatre room in the back? Those were some good times, huh?”

          “Yeah,” Eric said.

          “That was twenty years ago, man. We’re getting old. How did we get so old?”

          “We just did,” Eric said.

          “Remember high school? How you were always the cool one? I tried to be cool but it’s not the same as actually being cool. Everyone loved you.”

          “Everyone loves you now,” Eric said.

          “Now. But that’s because I’m the shit. I wasn’t the shit in high school. Remember those nerdy years?” Nate elbowed Eric jokingly. His grin was goofy, his lips lopsided; they got that way when he smiled honestly. Nate took a sip of beer. “You had my back when those fuckers picked on me, remember?”

          He was referring to the high school football team. Eric said he remembered.

          “You could’ve lost your popularity, standing up for me like that,” Nate said. “But you didn’t care. You stood up for me. I was the puny brown kid, and you had my back.”

          Eric nodded and kept his arms crossed. His eyes were fixed on the Milky Way reflected on the face of the water.

          “Sure, yeah, I was worried about Sean when you guys became roommates,” Nate said. “But that was because I saw how you guys hit it off and I didn’t want that cabrón to steal my best man, you know? But then all three of us hit it off, and I was like, okay, sick, we can be a trio.”

          Eric was afraid of where this was going.

          “You would say we’re brothers, right?” Nate asked.

          “Yeah, man, we’re brothers,” Eric said.

          “Damn right. We’ve been brothers since third grade. Jess told me she wants you to be my best man, you know that? If I ever get around to proposing, that is. I said there wasn’t anyone else I wanted. When it’s your turn I’ll be your best man too, huh?”

          Eric said yes. 

          “Brother’s for life,” Nate said. He took another sip of beer. “But that doesn’t mean you and Sean have to be, too.” 

          Now Eric looked at him. After a few beats, Nate elbowed him, gesturing for him to open his hand. Eric looked down and Nate placed the cigarette lighter in his palm.

          “I don’t care, fool,” he said. “We’re cool. So, go give that cabrón a light and tell him everything you just told me.”

          Eric was about to argue, but Nate’s look stopped him. He tried to say okay, or thank you, or nothing at all and just walk away, but instead he said, “You don’t care?”

          “Why the fuck would I care, pendejo? Go talk to him before he throws himself in the fire. If he doesn’t get a cigarette every twenty minutes, he gets pissy.”

          Nate handed him the rest of his beer. It was warm but it felt good going down. Eric handed it back and Nate slapped his ass as he walked away. 

          A memory came to Eric as he walked to the fire pit. It descended on him suddenly and swiftly, like a gush of wind. It was of Uncle Albert meeting Sean for the first time. “He’s a good guy,” his uncle had said. At the time Eric hadn’t registered the sideways look his uncle had given him, but he saw it for what it was now: testing the waters. When Eric said, “Yeah, he’s chill,” Uncle Albert said, “How’d you guys meet?” Eric remembered feeling confused because that wasn’t the kind of question you asked about friends. “We’re in the same fraternity,” he said. Uncle Albert nodded approvingly, then said something Eric completely forgot until right now. Uncle Albert had put a hand on Eric’s shoulder and said, “I approve of your friend.”

          Sean sat solemnly in front of the fire pit, working two sticks together. As Eric approached, he saw a single cigarette tucked behind Sean’s left ear. Overhead, a star twinkled.

          “What are you doing?” Eric asked.

          Sean looked up and the firelight threw a shadow across his face that made him look sick. The two sticks in his hand were rubbed raw. He held them up. “Trying to make a fire,” he said. “I couldn’t remember how you did it.”

          Eric sat down beside him and pulled a clump of steel wool out of his pocket. He pulled the lighter out too and Sean reached for it reflexively.

          “You found it,” he said. “Where was it?”

          “Under my seat when we got out,” Eric said.

          Sean’s expression tilted, like he was doing math. “When we got here?” he asked.

          That magnetic feeling returned, and Eric fought the urge to lean in. “Yeah,” he said. 

          “Look, about earlier,” Sean started. “I’m sorry for doing that. I shouldn’t have…” he trailed off. “I don’t want you to think… It wasn’t what it looked like.”

          “It wasn’t?” Eric said.

          “No,” Sean said incredulously. “It wasn’t. It was just… I don’t know what it was. Stupid, I guess. Don’t worry.”

          Eric chose his next words carefully. He felt off-kilter, like he needed to tip over. He said in a steady, straightforward voice. 

          “This thing happened when you put your hand on my side. I don’t know how to explain it, but –”

          “Let’s just forget about it, man,” Sean said. “It’s not a big deal. We were joking around because we drank too much. Can we let it go? Just pretend it never happened?”

          “Are you sure you want to let it go?” Eric said, staring at him without moving or blinking.

          “Yes,” Sean said. He took the cigarette from behind his ear and stuck it between his lips, then lit it with the lighter.

          “Well… I don’t,” Eric said.   

          Sean stopped mid-light. “I’m sorry okay? It was stupid and I wasn’t thinking. If you want to be pissed fine, be pissed, but then let’s forget about it, okay? It won’t happen again, you don’t have to worry. It wasn’t like I meant anything by it. I was just drunk.”

          “I was drunk too,” Eric said. He watched Sean light his cigarette, watched him take a huge puff and blow it up. “When you put your hand on my waist,” he continued. “It was like this thing, this magnet or something pulled me toward you. I sort of blacked out.” Eric laughed at himself and said, “Maybe it was the alcohol.”

          “Probably,” Sean said, looking somewhere in the distance.

          “What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t mind what you did. I’m not mad about it.”

          “Good,” Sean said. “Because it didn’t mean anything.”

          “Sean,” Eric snapped. “Just shut up for a second and let me talk. What I’m trying to say is that there’s this thing, a magnet I guess, I don’t know how else to explain it, that pulls me toward you when we’re together. I guess it’s always been there, but I didn’t notice it until tonight. That’s why I didn’t tell you about the lighter. Because I wanted – When you put your hand on my waist, I almost threw up – yeah, that was probably the alcohol, but it was also because if the cigarette hadn’t been in your mouth, and if Nate hadn’t shown up, I would’ve…” he stopped, took a breath. He hadn’t even admitted this to himself yet. “I would’ve kissed you,” he said.

          Eric steadied himself with both hands on the log. His teeth were chattering. Slowly, Sean spoke. Smoke escaped his lips and nostrils as he did.

          “Then you should’ve done it,” he said.

          Eric looked at Sean, and Sean looked at Eric. 

          “Noted,” Eric said, laughing. He reached in his pocket and removed his own cigarette pack. “Give me a light?” he asked.

          Sean flicked the lighter open and an orange flame appeared. Eric placed the cigarette between his lips and Sean brought the lighter to it. Eric caught his wrist. Their eyes connected. Slowly, Eric brought the lighter down. With his other hand, he gripped Sean’s waist and pulled him in. Sean gasped.

          “Nate,” Sean hissed, frantically scanning the campground for their friend. A shadow moved inside Nate’s tent.

          “It’s fine,” Eric said. “I promise.”

          Overhead, a star twinkled again, but Eric wasn’t looking up so he didn’t notice. It was a quarter past midnight.

THE END