Free Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde Page A

temper of yours make you do something you can’t ever take back. Please, Benny.”
    Nobody says nothing for a long time. I’m sorry to hear the man with the gun has a temper.
    â€œGo wait in the car why don’t you?” Benny says.
    â€œBenny—”
    â€œGo wait in the car. I mean it. Stay out of this for a minute.”
    â€œJesus,” he says again. But he goes and waits in the car. I was hoping he wouldn’t.
    I look up at one of the stars. A big one hanging over that big slope. That star looks strange. A ray of its light seems to come out in my direction. That’s how I know I am crying, too. The way the tears bend that light. Make it do something I don’t think it otherwise would.
    â€œOne.”
    I think it’s sweet and sad and maybe kind of strange, too, that we are crying, both of us, together, like this is something we can share. Like as far apart as two people can get, there is still something they can share.
    I’m still pretty sure he isn’t going to do it. That he’s just so sure I’ll give up and say what he wants when he gets to three. But I won’t. And I think we might be getting close up to this line where he’s so mad that even
he
doesn’t know what he’ll do when I don’t. I can feel him come up to that line. I can hear it in his voice. And even in the silence. I can hear something important in the silence. As he comes up to that line. His temper is bigger than he is. It gets big and then he can’t tell it what to do.
    Then I think I should have told Doc all about Leonard’s health stuff. How will anyone know about his eyes? Twice every year he is supposed to have screenings for his eyes, on account of this condition he has because of being borned too soon. There could be problems later on, and someone needs to know to check. Who will know this? I wonder. While I’m in jail. Or whatever.
    â€œTwo.”
    I think about that song we used to sing, me and Leonard, that little nonsense song, and I sing it again. But loud now, not under my breath. I really fill up my lungs now and sing it nearly loud enough for him to hear. Except I know it’s really not loud enough for him to hear. I am only pretending that. But I bet the blond man in the car can hear me. I wonder if it makes him cry.
    â€œThree.”
    The light from that star reaches out like it wants to touch me. And I know that in just a second I will be able to jump out and meet it halfway.
    I hear the hammer click back on the gun.
    The first thing I will do when I get out of here is head on back to my boy.

MITCH,
age
25: breathe
    â€œIt’s raining again,” she said. “Why is Leonard still here?”
    She was standing in that narrow space between my bed and the window, trying to get her dress unzipped. I could smell the rain and her perfume, or so I thought. She seemed slightly disheveled, her hairstyle flattened by the moisture, which suited me just fine. The more disheveled the better. When fully dressed and made up, she seemed a little too…I can never find the word I’m searching for. Conservative? Feminine in that very traditional sense? Old?
    Goddamn me. Bite my tongue.
    The most exciting image I ever held and nursed was a moment I spent in the shower with her, the hot water rushing over our faces, running into our mouths when they came together or apart, her hair plastered onto her face, makeup down the drain. All that other crap I was just trying to find the words for, down the drain. I nursed that one for months, but it faded. In time they all do.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “Some kind of emergency with Pearl.”
    She was taking off her panty hose standing up. She could do that without falling down or looking the least bit undignified. Good thing I was not born a woman. There are skills involved. I’m not sure I could handle them.
    â€œWhat if she comes back now?”
    â€œShe won’t come