Even before he got through the door, the heavy bass beat rocked Mateo’s insides. Strings of lights looped along the walls and a rotating mirror ball high above the rink cast shards of color in dizzying streams onto the bottomless blue floor and the bodies of skaters.
He must be crazy to try this after so many years. Sure, he did OK when he was like fifteen, but that was twenty years ago. This was adult night, “beginners welcome” but everyone seemed to know what they were doing, flowing around like racehorses in slow motion. Buck up man, this is the perfect combo for what you need, exercise and friends.
He stepped onto the rink but hung onto the low hockey wall till his feet remembered what to do. Over the speaker a voice announced the next number was a jam, so join or stay out of the way. A string of guys formed, like segments of some enormous caterpillar. They leaned into the center on the turns, every step a lunge forward on the beat to “Move It” led by this amazing looking guy in Rasta dreads, shiny green shirt, and jeans plastered on.
When the lights came up for an “all skate,” they peeled off, and the leader swooshed over to him. Had he felt Mateo’s radar eyes on him?
“Hey man, welcome to High Roller, good to see a new face.” He held out his hand and Mateo took it, but that threw him off balance and he hung on to stay on his feet.
“Jeez sorry, haven’t been on these things for a while.”
“No prob, you’ll pick up on it. C’mon, let’s go around a few. I’m Terence by the way.”
A radiologist at Gundersen? No way, he looked more like a rock star. He slowed down so Mateo could keep up and offered a hand when he stumbled.
“It’s a kind of side-to-side thing, you push off with the inside of your foot.”
It was coming back, but crossovers tripped him up time after time, till Terence told him to keep his weight on the inside foot longer, before transferring to the crossing over foot.
This guy must be the greeter for newbies, that’s all it was.
Terence swooped off to weave in and out of the crowd, skate backwards, do some wild turns, but then right back to his side. “You thirsty? They’ve got huge slushy things, like you can’t get anywhere else in town.”
They sat with some of the caterpillar segments eating pop and popcorn. Their talk loud to hear above the music, yet deferential to Terence, their Bernardo.
One of them a guy with a wide face and a smile to match said, “I’m Delroy, and these fuckers are Georgie and Mike. We’re not in a gang but wish we were.”
They punched each other, faked injury. “Actually, we’re mostly too damn respectable for our own good,” Georgie said.
He was a banker, Mike a lawyer. Delroy into some construction company. They grew up together, swore never to stop skating. Mateo felt out of his league, except when he thought about it, his job running a business installing solar panels wasn’t half bad.
On the rink they chided him into joining a jam line, slo-mo so he could keep up at the tail end. Hard to keep the beat, but when he managed to match his stroke to theirs, he fit into place as though some switch made it happen, and now he shared the breath and heart of the beast.
But that only lasted one circuit around because his feet got tangled when he leaned too far in and wiped out. Terence circled back but didn’t help him up. Mateo appreciated that.
“We’re all proud of our bruises,” he said as they skated along side by side.
When the music changed, Georgie and Delroy did their own moves in the center, where they stayed in place and their feet flashed in and out like they were going to fall.
“Crazy legs,” said Terence, “Not as easy as it looks.”
Like those clowns in ice shows, always on the cliff of a spill. “I believe it. But nothing here looks easy to me.”
A cutie in a short skirt was watching and Georgie went over to give her a lesson.
Mike skated over, “Hey Terence, double crazies.”
Terence joined him in the center and facing each other grabbed shoulders and leaned in while their feet did the in and out thing as they slowly circled one another. Then they flew apart, and Terence did a spin while Mike skidded backwards to land on his hands with one leg kicking up. Half a dozen teen boys gathered to imitate them, with lots of wiping out and running into each other. Someone in the light booth shot sharp beams of every color across them all, like moving Mission Impossible laser detectors. Mateo joined the kids trying to do crazy legs. Mike grabbed Terence around the waist and lifted him off the ground into a high kick. Pretty spectacular. But it didn’t match Mike’s shit-eating grin at Mateo. Ah, so that’s how it was. He’d better watch it. Stay away from Terence and ask Mike to teach him something.
So, when they broke up, Mateo asked Mike to show him how to do an easy move. Mike did a sideways grapevine, but too fast for Mateo to catch on, especially when Mike put all those twists into it. Mateo’s toe stop caught on the floor and Mike put his foot out like those slobs in middle school, and Mateo’s foot shot out into a wild splits.
“Sorry man, didn’t expect you to do that fancy move,” Mike said.
Yeah right. Mike put out his hand to help him up.
“I’m good Mike, thanks.”
Probably should have taken it. Instead, he skated off on his own, and Mike found Terence again.
The other gang members flew by once in a while, but mostly he skated on his own the rest of the night. At the end of the session Terence came along side, “Say Mateo, what say, come join us for something a little more adult than pink slushies.”
Of course. Did this dude have any idea how hot he was? All except Georgie, who had left with the short skirt long ago, clustered around the bar at one of the Third Street joints. Just as loud as the rink but blues now, instead of the canned rock at the rink. Mike went straight to the juke box. Heads limned in light from the mirrored bar, Terence and Delroy chatted like it wasn’t really necessary, because each already knew what the other would say.
They looked so comfortable with each other Mateo said, “You guys brothers or something?”
“Ha, we look that much alike?” Terence put his face next to Delroy’s so Mateo could compare.
Delroy was wide in face and body, Terence narrow in both. Delroy’s features rounded where Terence’s turned sharp corners.
“Pretty different. But the way you talk. I never had a bro.”
“This dude’s more than a bro to me, right D?” Terence punched his shoulder, which threw Delroy off balance, so he spilled off the stool, laughing.
Delroy motioned to his stool and Mateo took it over, so now Delroy stood a little away from the bar. “There’s one thing you’ll find out about this guy, and I know you get the gay thing, since you are too, so it’s something else.”
“What you going to say about me, oh trusted friend?” Terence flicked his head in a way Mateo hadn’t seen yet, to imitate a femmy gay, and then hunched over the bar like some redneck with his can of Bud waiting for the Packs to score.
“That this guy is a stitch.” Delroy gestured to Terence as if to say, see? “But very deep.” He took a long swig, then tipped his cap at the two of them and slid down the bar to talk to a woman in a red dress.
Mateo and Terence turned to the bar now, side by side. A strut of the bridge that was the three of them, left with Delroy, and it felt like a test for the remaining two. Mateo expected Terence to jump in, like he had up until now, but he sat quietly. So, it was up to Mateo.
He made his voice go deep. “So, you come here often?” He’d never really tried the line before and hated cliches, but for some reason it felt perfect here.
Terence swiveled his stool to face Mateo. “As often as I like.”
Mike came back, jazzing his shoulders to a blues beat, and pulled Terence off his stool to dance, leaving Mateo at the bar like some cast off. He didn’t really want to watch them but couldn’t turn away and felt like a voyeur as the two of them twined together like a couple of snakes in heat.
After the number Terence returned to his stool, but Mike kept on dancing by himself.
He and Mateo chatted about their work like nothing had happened on that dance floor, and Mateo found out Terence was a real energy freak, wanted to get panels for his house, buy an electric car. So, go skating and maybe get a new customer. Mateo asked Terence if it was hard when he found bad news on an X-ray.
“It’s part of the story, mass in the right inferior lobe of the lungs. Then there’s the biopsy and the doctor gets to tell the patient the news, benign or cancer. I never have to.”
“You look sad about that.”
Terence fingered his beer glass in both hands. “It’s funny, who would want to tell someone they have cancer? But these people are never more than X-rays or MRI’s to me. It’s like I’m missing out on something.”
“Half a story. But that’s what we all are to each other really.” He felt his temples pumping, like they did in the jam.
“You’re right, but I don’t even know half yet, so we have a ways to go,” Terence stood up, all grins.
Mateo couldn’t think what to say, so much for being brave.
“What are you afraid of man, you’re beautiful, I’m beautiful, why not enjoy each other?”
He twisted on the stool, looked down at his beer. “Same thing you are, that that’s might be all it is.”
“Aw Mat, you sound like my little sister in high school. C’mon we’re men, we can take it, wherever it goes, right?”
Mateo thought of how Terence looked on the skating floor, Rasta hair like a wild mane at the head of the jamming line, legs stretching out again and again behind him. He wanted to see them again, but tonight?
He twisted the stool to face him. “Sure, why not.”
He needed this, even if it didn’t take hold. Terence could handle Mike, not really his prob.
So Terence danced another song with Mike, then parted. Mike stood there, arms down at his sides palms forward, like a statue of Jesus asking why. And they left.
They didn’t go to the bedroom right away but started to explore each other over wine in the living room of Terence’s house. Plush sofa, Rufus the cat weaving in and around, tasting the salt, smelling the heat, Terence’s dreads grazing Mateo’s chest hair. With a preamble like that, Mateo thought it would get heavy in the bedroom, but Terence shied away when Mateo’s hand slid down to his groin, and instead of feeling hurt, Mateo relaxed. What luck they both wanted to put on the brakes. At dawn he kissed him on the forehead and said goodbye. Terence mumbled and smiled and went back to sleep.
What was that, cowardice? He didn’t even leave his number. All week he kicked himself for being crazy, but he didn’t try to fix it. There was always Friday when he could go skating again, be just friends if he wanted to. But then his secretary told him about a new inquiry, and the address matched Terence’s. Well, he did say he wanted solar. OK Mateo, man up. He picked up his phone.
“Hi there, Terence?”
“Mateo, missed you man, what was the hurry?”
“Nothing to do with you, me being a sissy or something. Anyway, you called about solar, right?”
“Yeah sure, I do want panels. Can you come out to look at the place?”
So they added business to whatever the hell they already had. Terence took off work early so they could meet mid-afternoon while it was still light in these short December days, and Mateo found out how he dealt with his dreads during the week. A turban. God, why did that turn him on? A business suit, but no tie.
Mateo took notes on the pitch and direction of the roof and estimated how many kilowatt hours he could expect with a dozen panels. It was good to still be in touch, but at a more everyday level. Terence must have sensed that and put on a persona Mateo hadn’t seen yet, professional, engaged, sticking to the project at hand. This guy had class.
And then came Friday again. Terence hadn’t even mentioned it. He probably knew Mateo couldn’t stay away. It was like their restraint introduced the exciting idea of lifting it.
When Mateo got there, Terence was nowhere in sight. Delroy was though, sipping slushies through a straw across the table from a woman whose long hair fell forward as she leaned in towards him.
Aw, teen love, he’d wait. But Delroy saw him and called him over.
“Hey man, you’re back, good on that! Come have a seat. This is Lana.” With a smile even wider than last week.
He squeezed into the booth next to Delroy, and they talked skating, her job in the DNR keeping track of invasive plants on the flood plain, Delroy’s great interest in nature. When she got up to go to the bathroom, Mateo said, “Alright Delroy, nice going.”
Delroy teased him by saying nothing about Terence.
Fine. “Well, I’d better try going around a few,” he said and headed for the rink.
Skating felt better this time, but he kept looking towards the entrance, fearing Mike, hoping for Terence. Georgie pulled him into a jam, and he managed the beat OK, but struggled with the speed.
Mateo found himself relaxing more, laughing, suggesting a slush break, and he, Delroy and Georgie grabbed a booth.
“How’s girl hunting going G?” Delroy asked.
“You should ask, how about that long haired woman?’
“She had to go, but she’s in here.” Delroy held up his phone, then pocketed it. “So, who you got tonight?”
“No Janice of the short skirt tonight, but I found a nurse who brought her knitting in case skating didn’t work out.”
“Don’t tell me she’s knitting now?” Mateo laughed.
“I’m giving her a little break, sometimes it works better that way.” He looked over Mateo’s shoulder towards the benches at the far corner of the rink. “She’s still here.”
And then Mike came through the door and walked over. “Ran late at the office, case as tangled as a ball of mating snakes.”
The knot in his neck from the day’s work came back. A lawyer, oh yeah. Mike scooted into the booth next to Delroy, sipped some of his pink slush, said, “Glad to see you Mateo, guess you had a good enough time last week to come back.”
“What sort of case was it?” Delroy crunched on some orangey things in a bag.
“Zoning for solar up in Onalaska, seems panels have gone in where they shouldn’t have.” Mike lifted an eyebrow at Mateo. “But I’m sure you’re on top of permitting, any customers up there?”
The knot traveled down his spine. Weren’t there easier ways of bringing down a rival in love, than trying to destroy his business? But why worry, all his permits were in order. He didn’t take the bait, smiled, said he had plenty of business all over town.
Mike was antsy to skate, so he didn’t stay long at the booth and zoomed back to the rink.
Delroy said, “Don’t let him get to you, he’s good at bluffing.” He waved at someone coming in, Terence. “And he doesn’t own Terence.”
“That’s right man, we love Mike, but he’s a lawyer, right?” Georgie got up and skated to that far corner.
“Jeez man, you almost didn’t make it, only half an hour to go,” Delroy said.
Terence plopped his skate bag on the floor next to Delroy and straddled the stool at the end of the booth. “Had to finish up some reports for orthopedics before the weekend. Lots of people slipping on the ice. They should wear these.” He pulled wrist guards out of his bag, then his skates.
“You and Mike both, such dedicated professionals.” Delroy studied the wrist guards. “These are kind of threadbare, better get new ones or you could be your own patient.”
Terence looked up from lacing his skates. “Hi Mateo, I was hoping you’d come.”
What was he going to say, “Me too?” It must be pretty obvious.
Terence jumped up and raced off. “Only a little time left, c’mon.” It was said to the both of them. But when Mateo got onto the rink Mike had already glommed onto Terence. Delroy skated along side Mateo. “It’s always hot and cold with those two.”
Mateo looked at Delroy. “So, what the hell am I doing?”
Delroy skated backwards in front of him, needing to look behind him, but making eye contact too. “Breaking it up I hope.” He worked up a swift back crossover and left Mateo in the dust, with that little tidbit to sink in.
When the music went to some big bass hip hop beat, Mike and Terence did a break dance thing where they balanced on their hands behind them and kicked their legs out in long strokes on the back wheels. Then there was another all skate, the last number of the night. If Mateo was going to sneak out, this was the moment. He was about to step off the rink when Terence hockey stopped next to him.
“Hey man, don’t go yet.”
They skated side by side, not touching, not like Terence did with Mike in some plastered at the hip kind of hold. The music slowed down, and the lights dimmed too. Mateo couldn’t see Mike anywhere. Was he just a substitute?
“Look man, I don’t want to get between you and Mike.”
“We’re not a couple Mateo, we’re each free, you know.”
“Great, but maybe that’s not my style.” If he’d been able to, Mateo would have raced off ahead and left Terence behind, but he stayed when Terence swung his arm around Mateo’s waist, and they skated off with Terence on the outside making long leaning crossovers. The lights came up, and Terence raced to the center for one last spin, along with the others doing their own tricks.
Changing their skates, Terence said, “Hey Mateo, come for a drink, but I’ll beg off early, and you stay. That’ll calm Mike down. When you leave, come over to my place.”
Mateo couldn’t get his skates off fast enough. “I’m not into the kind of off and on thing like you have with Mike.”
He walked to the door without looking back, but outside Terence caught up to him, and touched him on the shoulder. “No game, man. I hope you come.”
Mateo stopped, let out a deep breath and swung around to face him. “Look, I was into you until it got complicated, and I’m not sure I need this.”
“But you do need friends, I can read that much, and we’re not a bad bunch.”
Was it that obvious?
The others came tumbling out into the parking lot, scuffling through a fresh new layer of snow.
Mike said, “Hey you two lovebirds, come swill with us.”
At the bar they found a big table this time, ordered beers, chomped on peanuts. Mike shoe skated on the floor, slippery with peanut shells, and shoved in next to Terence. Mateo kept his distance, between Georgie and Delroy. He asked Georgie if he was in loans at the bank.
“Yup. How much money do you want?” He slung his arm over Mateo and drank from a big mug with the other.
Delroy said, “He’s a very generous guy, probably loses millions for that bank of his.” Between them he felt like they were keeping Mike at bay across the table where he and Terence cradled their beers.
After twenty minutes Terence stood up, said he had an early morning, yes, he had to work Saturdays sometimes, and said goodnight.
Mike got another beer and came back to sit next to Delroy. Looking at Mateo he said. “D man here is our philosopher, right Del? He gets human nature and all that crap.”
Georgie said, “Gets us better than we get ourselves, since he was like ten.”
Delroy made patterns with peanuts on the table but his frown changed to a grin when Georgie shoved him shoulder to shoulder. “Yeah fine, if you think I’m the wise one, then you have to listen to me.”
Mike said, “Well that’s going a little too far.” He jumped up and leaned against a wooden column right behind Mateo. “Because you’re going to tell me to make nice with the newbie as usual.”
Mateo said, “No need. And I won’t pretend either.” He scraped his chair back and stood nose to nose with Mike. He could take him. “Maybe I can’t do crazy legs, but I can do facial damage when I have to.”
Georgie got up and tried pushing them apart, but it didn’t work.
Delroy just kept on moving peanuts around on the table. “Let them be, Georgie.”
Georgie stood back.
Mateo flushed, what was he doing taking the bait like that? He sat back down and sipped his beer.
“Fine, I’m out of here,” Mike slugged down the rest of his beer and made for the door, unsteady on his feet.
“I’ve got him,” Georgie followed him, but they only got as far as the pool room.
“I feel like a real fool,” Mateo said to Delroy.
Delroy placed three peanuts in a triangle. “Here’s T, here’s Mike, and here’s you. Of course there will be tension.”
“So what am I, one in a long string of beads on Terence’s necklace?” Mateo said.
“There’ve been a few, you can understand that.”
“Just want to know where I stand.”
“He’s not looking for flings anymore, or not as much. The way he looks at you is different.”
“Well, what about Mike?”
“They’re stuck in a rut; both need to get out.” He pushed the peanuts apart. “T’s not as sure of himself as he seems. He wanted like sin to be a doctor. Feels like he’s a fake.”
“Ah because he’s only a radiologist.” A sip went down the wrong way in a sputter laugh.
“He’s got this cool B type going, but there’s a lot of A angst too. Interesting combo.”
“Sounds like you’re in love.”
“We grew up together, buds like that.” Delroy put his arm around Mateo and looked at him. “Give T a chance, you two might be great for each other.” He let go and grabbed another handful of peanuts. “In any case, you’re getting better at skating, and you can be part of the gang out there.”
“Don’t think Mike would agree.”
“He’s a big boy.”
“Not so sure.”
“You’ll get to know him, not so bad when he gets the green monster off his shoulders.”
When they left, Delroy didn’t ask him what he was going to do. He wasn’t sure himself, but when he started the car, he heard Delroy’s voice as though he was sitting in the passenger seat. “Give T a chance.”
Why let his own uncertainty get in the way, even if he did blame it on Mike? His car drove towards Terence’s house and he made up his mind that if the lights were still on, he’d go in. When he got there the porch light was on, but as he turned off the engine, it went out. Maybe he gave up on Mateo or changed his mind. Screw it, there were still lights on in the bedroom. Mateo walked to the door and knocked.
*****
Photography Credit: Jason Rice
Mary Lewis has published stories and essays in journals including Superstition Review, The Woven Tale Press, r.kv.r.y. quarterly, Persimmon Tree, The Spadina Literary Review, Toasted Cheese, RiverSedge, Lost Lake Folk Opera Magazine, Trapeze, Valley Voice, Wapsipinicon Almanac, and a story collection, Frank Walsh’s Kitchen and Other Stories. She has an MFA in creative writing from Augsburg University. She also has an MS in Ecology from the University of Minnesota, and taught for many years in the Biology Department of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
