Page 49 of Angel of Thursdays

The car was warm. His father drove unhurriedly, using the turn signal on residential streets where it didn’t matter. The turntable box sat across Cassiel’s and May’s laps in the backseat, weight distributed between them. May’s knee pressed against his under the cardboard.

At the station, his father pulled to the curb. The shoulder grip landed—Cassiel first, then May through the open rear door.

“Drive safe,” he said.

“We’re taking BART,” Cassiel answered.

His father smiled and corrected himself. “Be safe.”

The taillights disappeared down the dark street. Cassiel stood on the sidewalk holding the box and May stood beside him holding the food. The cold was sharp, drier than the avenues, and sharper.

“Can we go to your place?” Cassiel asked. His throat caught on the last word but he carried on. “Together. Set it up tonight.”

The station’s fluorescent light was worse than the bulkhead on the porch, worse than 4000K, and May’s face in it was pale and real and close.

“Yeah,” May said. “Let’s go.”

He shifted the containers to one arm and found Cassiel’s sleeve with his free hand—fabric, not skin, the heat of his hand practically there—and they went down the escalator into the station where the last holiday train was already arriving.

* * *

The train carried them back across the Bay in near-silence, and the turntable box bridged the gap between their seats, kraft paper crinkling through the curves. The Transbay Tube screamed, the rail frequency burrowing into Cassiel’s molars. He gritted his teeth. His headphones were in his bag, but he didn’t reach for them.

May’s head was against the window, his eyes closed, and Cassiel watched the tunnel lights stripe across his face—yellow, dark, yellow—and stayed silent.

Two transfers and a bus that ran on holiday time. By the time they emerged into the Outer Richmond, the fog had come in and the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees from Fremont. May hunched into his corduroy jacket—too thin, both the jacket and May—as they walked.

“That one,” May said, pointing at a building half a block away. A two-story stucco row house, Spanish-style roof tiles dark with moisture, the mint green color faded under the streetlight. It looked grey in the orange sodium wash. The upper unit had arched windows, and the streetlight caught them. He could imagine May standing in the window, looking out into the street while writing in his notebook.

He shifted the box and walked toward the stairs. May walked past the stairs.

Cassiel followed him around the side of the building, down a short concrete path where the stucco met the foundation, to a ground-level door—around, below, behind the main entrance. An in-law unit. The entrance sat where the arched windows ended and the foundation began—the thing the building rested on.

May shifted the containers to one arm, turned the key, and put his shoulder into the door. The frame must have swollen with the fog. He shouldered it again. On the third try, it opened.

May’s living room was small. Cassiel’s first thought was that it was the size of his bathroom. That was uncharitable; the actual footprint was closer to his bathroom plus approximately one additional bathroom. The couch occupied most of the room, plush with navy upholstery, a throw blanket folded over one arm. Then a water-stained low table and an old television. A single calendar, about to be out of date, was the only thing on the wall. The overhead light was a cool-white LED, flat and uniform. Cassiel’s eyes adjusted reluctantly.

By virtue of it being the same room, the kitchen was open plan. The counter contained a pile of mail that had been shoved out of the way for space, a collection of mugs, a pill organizer and a stack of notebooks. There was an electric kettle with a brand Cassiel had never seen before, in Chinese, in a shade of mint green. Cassiel looked away from it and had to stop himself from touching the mail.

The containers went straight to the fridge.

“The pile on the left is important,” May said, gesturing at a stack of miscellany near the couch. “The pile on the right is a beautiful mystery. Together they form a vision.”

The floors were hardwood, probably original, scuffed in the path between couch and kitchen. The fog dampened the street noise to the level where May lived.

The apartment itself was not dirty, just unmanaged in a way that made sense for May. Things accumulated on surfaces, landed where they landed. The space confirmed every piece of arithmetic Cassiel had been carrying since September, and being right was not satisfying.

He set the box down on the hardwood.

“Where do you want it?”

“Are you going to tell me what ‘it’ is?”

Cassiel shook his head. May shrugged and pointed to the low table.

Cassiel considered the table. Then he brought the box over and got on the floor beside it, which was not something he had planned to do in these trousers.

“Open it,” he said.