Free Either the Beginning or the End of the World by Terry Farish Page A

rhythm of the work taking on a life of its own. You’re invisible unless you forget the three sugars. I get through it by singing. I pretend Rosa is here, and I sing.
    - - -
    I drive the dark roads toward the ocean and the horseshoe of cottages. I know where they are and take the left turn just past Rye Harbor, just past the breakwater that waves crash over at high tide. It is just high tide now. I drive around the curve of cabins. It is not hard to find number five.
    He didn’t invite me.
    â€œNot a good idea,” Luke says at the door. I feel the heat of the wood fire on my frozen cheeks.
    I say, “I just got off work.” As if that explains it.
    He steps back from the door. He leaves a space, that’s all. His step is loose, his shoulders seem like one is hitched up, one down. He is a little drunk.
    â€œLast time I got off work, you were standing at my truck.” I don’t leave the door. I had changed my shirt in the bathroom at work and now stand with my boots feeling like they are pinned to the floor, my body off balance. “That’s why I came.”
    His eyes focus on me for only a second. I can’t read him. I glance around the room, unsure who he is.
    Luke has nothing. A duffel. A beat-up phone on a charger by the bed. A book, maybe from the slim shelf of books for the rental. The book is in his hand. On the Road . He is preoccupied. I see a square of cardboard and a black pen, tubes of paint. He has been painting, but he moves the picture before I can see. I continue to look around the cottage. Chipped ivory crockery, so old it has veins, is stacked on open shelves. From the next cottage we hear a baby cry.
    He lifts his hands to his hips. “You want coffee?” he says. He doesn’t look at me, but gestures toward the kitchen, which is that shelf of plates, a stove, a small humming refrigerator.
    I laugh. “I’m a coffee bean already.”
    Maybe against his will, he gives me his crooked smile. The black hair falls down his forehead.
    â€œI’ve read Kerouac,” I say. I stay by the door, but I feel my boots release from the floor and my body drawn into his room.
    Luke pours himself a cup of coffee. It smells scarred and burned. The baby next door grows more unhappy. “Somebody crossed him,” Luke says about the wails.
    â€œWe should get that kid a floppy-eared rabbit to play with.”
    Luke strides from the bed to the back door, facing the ocean, back and forth. I take in the dark and beyond, the ocean. He says, “Not sleeping. Can’t remember when I slept. Hey, you hungry?”
    Now he keeps talking.
    â€œNot hungry,” I say.
    But he searches the cupboards. He finds tubs of peanut butter and leftover condiments from takeout dinners. “What do I have? Juice. Can’t remember the kind.” He finally pauses.
    â€œJeeze,” he says. This word comes out in one long breath. “Sit down.” Besides the bed there are kitchen chairs, a small drop-leaf table. I sit on one of the chairs. He spins a chair around, mounts it backwards, and sits facing me. “I’m going to look at you a while.” He inhales, like he is breathing in my hair and my body. “Oh, Christ,” he whispers.
    The back of his chair is between us. I drop my arms. I take him in with my eyes.
    I throw my head back. Exhale. Even the baby is silent for a beat.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” he whispers.
    The answer is so simple. I don’t hesitate to say it. “I want to be with you.”
    Then he’s up, and he nearly throws the chair. “Your father won’t even let me fish with him. Let alone . . .” I don’t move. He says, “No. Besides. This place is for the walking dead.”
    I ignore this. “We can,” I say. “I can come back here. We can hang out.”
    His face is distorted with pain.
    â€œYou’re a kid,” he blasts out, but it’s as if he’s blasting