Page 48 of Jacob Michaels is Not Here

Chapter 11

There is a peninsula out by Cullen Park on the north side of Toledo. It’s more like a skeletal finger of land that juts out from the Cullen Park and Docks area, pointing into the Maumee Mooring Basin towards Grassy Island. It isn’t big enough or stable enough to allow vehicles to drive onto it, but it has an excellent birding trail—which is essentially just a trail for walkers or joggers. I suppose it is good for spotting birds during the warmer months, but as far as I was aware, most people used it as a simple walking trail to get in a bit of exercise. Of course, I didn’t know of anyone who would venture out onto the trail late at night, other than Lucas and me. Of course, everything about our lives was strange, so taking a moonlit walk along an unlit path on an unnamed road on an unnamed finger of land was not that unusual.

As I had suspected it would happen, Carlita put on a show worth every bit of the cover charge at Lounge. Of course, Carlita had given mine and Lucas’ names to the manager (Rob Wagner, not Jacob Michaels, thank goodness), so we didn’t have to pay the cover. It would have been worth it if we had, though. For nearly thirty minutes, Carlita treated the audience to one of the funniest comedic monologues I’d ever heard. She interacted with the audience (luckily, sparing Lucas and me, although we were sat up front and center), made quips, told jokes, and had everyone roaring with laughter from her off-color jokes.

Of course, then we were treated to a few songs, the least of which was not All That Jizz. Carlita exited stage left to a thunderous standing ovation, which I am pretty sure that Lucas and I initiated when we leaped from our seats. After the show, I expected Carlita to come out into the crowd to mingle or say “hello” to people, but she never did. I was a little disappointed that I did not get to introduce her to Lucas, though it was probably for the best. Lucas knew things, so he probably would have known that she was no ordinary drag queen immediately upon meeting her. In fact, he probably knew it just from watching the show, but he kept that observation to himself. Obviously, he knew a lot of things in my life were not quite what they seemed, so I’m sure he took all of his observations in stride. Besides, it wasn’t like his life was “normal.”

As we slowly strolled along the pathway along the skeletal finger of land, I held Lucas’ hand in mine, our fingers interlocked, as I used my other hand to try and pull my coat even more tightly around myself. The cold didn’t seem to bother Lucas as much, but he had lived in Ohio and New York his entire life. A decade in Los Angeles and other warmer climates had left me unaccustomed to the fact that even Springtime in Upper Ohio was still essentially winter. Luckily, Lucas’ hand was warm, and the wind wasn’t blowing too hard. However, when I thought of what I had planned, even Lucas’ warm hand made me feel chilled.

Carlita’s show was great, and she had set me up to have a reason to bring Lucas out to the Maumee so that he would not be suspicious of my intentions. Not that Lucas would have been completely put off by what I had planned, but I didn’t want him to think about it too much. I wanted to present him with his options and then just go with the one he chose. I did not want another decade to go by where we were left in limbo. We needed to either “piss or get off the pot” as Oma would say. The only way to get Lucas to quickly make a decision would be to present it to him at the Maumee. If I asked him in bed at night, and he chose, the next morning, his answer might be different. He might change his mind. I didn’t want him to waffle.

Maybe that was selfish of me.

At least impatient.

But, like Lucas, there were some things I just knew.

I knew that a storm was brewing.

We didn’t have time to fret over relatively simple decisions.

“You’d think they’d put at least a few lights out here, right?” Lucas asked, cutting the stillness of the dark night around us. “I mean, if we had a new moon tonight, I might not even be able to see you.”

He chuckled

“Hey,” I nudged him with my shoulder, “it’s romantic.”

“And a little creepy.” He added. “There’s a reason there are no other people out here on moonlit strolls, babe.”

“How do you know that?” I asked ominously. “There could be someone right behind us, and you’d never know.”

“Stop it.” He chuckled nervously.

“There could be lots of people just hiding beyond the trees, waiting for us to drop our guard, babe,” I added. “Maybe if we look closely, we can see their eyes shining in the moonlight, watching us walk along like a perfect little snacky-snack.”

“Are you thinking of people or zombies?” Lucas nudged me this time. “And stop trying to scare me.”

“I didn’t know you were so easily unnerved.” I leaned into him, pulling my hand away from his to wrap my arms around his middle.

It made walking along the path a little awkward, but neither of us really cared all that much.

“I don’t even watch horror movies.” Lucas sighed. “That movie you did, Eyes in the Darkness? I nearly shit my pants in the movie theater.”

I laughed loudly.

“Mrs. Wagner loved it.”

“I can imagine,” I replied cheerfully. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’ll never have to watch another one of my movies ever. Especially a scary one.”

“Was it scary to do that movie?” He asked.

“Let’s not talk about that.”

“Why not?” Lucas asked. “My memories are jumbled about the past, and I have no idea what you’ve really done for the last decade. Humor me.”

“It wasn’t scary,” I stated simply. “The movie looks all dark and spooky, but most of the time I was on a soundstage that was fully lit. Post-production does all that creepy shadowy lighting stuff you see in the theater. All of the reactionary stuff I was in front of a green screen. I didn’t even know what the things I was reacting to looked like.”

Lucas turned his head to look at me in the dark as we walked.