Smitten

Smitten By R.W. Clinger Smitten, adj: struck by; afflicted; very much in love with. —Dictionary.com Friday, April 14, 2017 Jesse Fitzpatrick stood at the kitchen window, studied the empty driveway to the A-frame’s left, and sighed. A few scattered events rolled about his skull: his sister’s wedding was in a week, and he still needed a date to the function; it wouldn’t stop snowing, even though it just happened to be midmonth; Corralito “Carr” de Vantino was expected to pull in his ice-covered, asphalt driveway from an extended stay in Ecuador with the Armistice Coalition (AC). AC, a group similar to the Peace Corps, gained private funds from local high-end businesses in the tristate area to accomplish its worldly work. How long had Jesse’s best friend, Carr, been away from Plimpton, Pennsylvania? Almost two years. At thirty-eight, a low-paid, lead crusader for AC, Carr had spent the time away from Lake Erie, building houses and water systems for third-world Ecuadorian communities. For the last twenty-two months, Jesse had kept in contact with his best friend via handwritten letters and very few calls. Carr lived in the sss jungle, southeast of the country’s capital, Quito, and didn’t have access to Wi-Fi. Excited to see his best pal, Jesse watched the snow fall from the heavens and glaze the driveway, creating what looked like beautiful icing on a wedding cake as opposed to a blistery wonderland with springtime already one month into its term. Fortunately, Carr was taking a cab from the county airport to Jessie’s A-frame abode in the woods and next to the lake, presumably carrying the same large canvas bag he had left Plimpton with almost two years ago. Jesse had calculated the cab ride at twelve miles, which translated to forty minutes because of the unhelpful weather, maybe even fifty minutes. Jesse’s reflection appeared in the kitchen window as he looked outside: ginger hair, soft green eyes, no facial hair, freckles over his nose and cheeks, a cleft in his chin, thin chest but with some muscle, and narrow shoulders, proving he sat and watched television or read instead of working out. One-hundred and eighty pounds of muscle on a six-one frame. The reflection pegged him as physically fit, a salad-eater, nonsmoker, social drinker, and handsome, but not in a Hollywood way like Chris Hemsworth. Twenty minutes ticked by at the kitchen window. Thirty minutes. Anticipating Carr’s arrival, Jesse looked at his cellphone and saw it was almost five in the evening. The overcast caused the twilight hour to look dismal and dark. Snow started to twirl beyond the kitchen window, accumulating on the ground. He swallowed saliva down the back of his throat and eventually whispered, “You’re late for everything, buddy. Always late.” Time for a cup of coffee with just a splash of whiskey. Why not? Maybe the beverage would calm his nerves down. He fetched a ceramic mug from a cupboard, filled it three-fourths full, and added two splashes of Jack Daniels. Jesse took a sip next to his familiar window and decided it had gone done smooth. Still watching. Jesse and Carr had been best friends since middle school, when Carr’s family moved from Buffalo, New York, to Plimpton. The two had become top-notch video game players back then. Number one (and two) Goosebumps readers. Britney Spears lovers. They had done everything together inside and outside Plimpton Middle School. Thereafter, high school years followed. They tried out for track together, hung around with Martin Meltz, and went to prom during their senior year, but not together, both having the time of their lives. When the pair graduated from PHS at the top of their senior class, Carr decided to enter the AC, and Jesse attended Templeton College, located some ten miles from the house he had grown up in on Dadhi Street. As Jesse obtained a degree in finance from Templeton, Carr traveled around the world: Congo, Bolivia, Indonesia, and just about every corner of the globe. Time, as if it had no limits, and love slipped between the two friends. They saw each other on and off and throughout the next twenty years following their graduation day at Plimpton High School. Their visits together were short and sweet, always. Carr’s job had landed him in the most beautiful places of the world: Victoria West, South Africa; Meru, Kenya; or Kurna, Turkey. The two men usually had dinner together, drinks, and minimal conversation. Never had they kissed. Carr was always somewhere different in the world to save a ruined, third-world community, helping prevent suffrage among humanity, and changing underprivileged civilizations for the better. And Jesse visited him, traveling to the places where Carr worked for AC, always thrilled to see the guy. Truth told, in Jesse’s opinion, their visits were far too short when he traveled to faraway lands to see Carr. Sometimes even only hours long. Carr’s life with the AC had caused the friends to always be distant from each other, for decades now. Jesse had never gotten used to Carr’s temporary visits in Plimpton, or how they sometimes met in Berlin, Rome, Rio, or elsewhere on the planet. Life in the AC had caused such hardships for families and close friends, including Jesse’s and Carr’s friendship. Honorable, Jesse had never replaced Carr as his best friend in the last twenty years. Yes, he had a string of male boyfriends and lovers, men he bumped naked bodies with and lusted for throughout the years, but Carr’s position as a best friend had never been filled by a new man. To Jesse, Carr was irreplaceable, and no one could fill the man’s shoes. No one at all. Never. More snow started to fall to the earth, and the day darkened. Headlights didn’t pull into the driveway, filling the A-frame’s first floor with yellow-golden light. Just as disappointment started to flood Jesse’s mind amid relentless thoughts that Carr couldn’t make the trip to Plimpton, again being whisked away to another part of the world under AC’s care, or stranded in Ecuador, his cellphone chirped once, twice, three times. The cellphone lay on the kitchen table to his left. He picked it up, didn’t recognize the incoming number, and somberly said, “Hello.” “Jesse?” the voice on the other end replied, scratchy, faint, and undecipherable. “Who is this?” “Jesse, it’s me…Carr. I’m in a jam.” “Carr?” A smile formed on Jesse’s face, and his heart warmed. In fact, his entire body warmed. “Carr…Carr…Where are you? What’s going on? What kind of jam are you in?” He listened to nothing then. Dead air. Silence. No. That wasn’t true. The wind and snow picked up outside and spun in circles, forming miniature cyclones, which slapped against the kitchen window. Then Jesse heard a string of squeaks and scratchy sounds from his cellphone. Between the static, he made out three of Carr’s words: cinder…snowdrift…help. Jesse immediately placed the three words together and thought of Cinder Black Road and how it had sporadically weaved left and right along Lake Erie. Add in some snow, ice, and a cabbie who didn’t know how to handle the road during a snowstorm, and trouble would end up happening, which most likely it did. Jesse pictured a red-and-black Plimpton cab in a snowdrift or ditch, stuck there, needing a tow truck…help. Jesse threw on a winter coat and boots, snagged his keys off the kitchen counter with his cellphone. In a just a few seconds, he sat behind the steering wheel of his Ford Ranger and headed to Cinder Black Road. Snow swirled against the windshield as the day welcomed nighttime. The radio played a Bruno Mars song, and he flicked it off, concentrating on his driving. Jesse made a left on Methodist Avenue, heading toward Lake Erie and Cinder Black Road. While driving, he recalled writing back and forth with Carr while Carr was based in Ecuador for the last twenty-two months. Parts of those letters surfaced in his memory: …saw the most beautiful panther in a cluster of bamboo today…Roberto Isbar, my guide, is teaching me Spanish slang and having fun with it…Roberto has my back here…so deep in the jungle, it’s pitch black at night, freezing cold and wet…somewhere near Tundayme, a small village called Estu…lean-tos built from thick and sturdy bamboo and vines…beautiful and natural waterfalls here in the rainforest…beetles and mosquitoes the size of apples…wished you could see this place and all the amazing sunrises…nothing like Plimpton and Lake Erie…you would love the humitas here, corn pancakes, and patacones, known as plantain chips…the nights are cold, but Roberto is here…next to him, trust him, my true confident here…watches me bathe near the Rio Quimi…we’re not lovers, but maybe he wants to be…smitten with me…attracted to me…hasn’t made a move on me…protects me… Jesse’s letters to the man were less interesting regarding his life in Plimpton: …snowing, always snowing…coldest winter I can remember…you’re building great things in the jungle, changing lives, and I’m sitting on my ass transferring money from one bank account to the other for a list of my clients…not so much fun…Easter was quiet, uneventful…I keep in touch with your mother in Waco via f*******: and texting…she’s happy there in her ranch with your aunt…Trump won the election, still unbelievable…soccer team dies in plane crash, somewhere in Colombia because of no fuel in the plane…hired a high school kid to shovel my walks because I was feeling lazy…reading a great book called The Girls by Emma Cline…no vacation plans for the holidays…wished you would come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, know you can’t, though…jealous of Roberto Isbar…wished I could be your confidant in the jungle…wished I could have your back…wished I could work at your side…miss you…miss you a lot…miss you too much maybe…snowing here, always f*****g snowing…the s**t is never going to melt… * * * * Cinder Black Road. Jesse parked his truck behind a Chip’s Towing Service truck. Darkness swarmed the area. Yellow strobes swirled atop the tow truck. Red flashers illuminated the truck’s ass end. The Plimpton cab had obviously skidded off the road due to a sheet of ice and swerved into a snowdrift. Its metal hood looked like a sheet of crinkled tin foil, badly mangled. According to Chip Casteel, the tow truck driver, the cabbie was fine, as well as the passenger, Carr de Vantino. No ambulance was needed, and Plimpton police had better things to do for the community. Jesse saw the cabbie in the front seat of the tow truck. Near the back of the tow truck, to the left and out of the way, stood Carr de Vantino, hands stuffed into a Columbia jacket, Timberland boots, wool cap on his head. Next to his left leg sat the single bag he had traveled with around the world for the last dozen years, filled with his only belongings, his life concealed by thick canvas. They made eye contact with each other at the same time. Jesse moved into Carr’s opened arms, and the two men hugged. To his surprise, Carr kissed his right cheek, which threw Jesse off a bit. Carr had never kissed him before. Not once. Jesse wasn’t about to complain, enjoying the world traveler’s scruff on his clean-shaven skin and strong smell of sweat. The hug ended just as quickly as it had started. Carr gently shook Jesse, clamping hands on Jesse’s wool-covered biceps. “Good to see you, guy? How long has it been?” Jesse remembered clearly. “Last year. Memorial Day weekend in Mexico City. I flew down there to see you. We drank like Navy guys and partied our asses off.” Carr collapsed against Jesse and kissed his cheek again: warm, bristly, and a little moist. The perfect kiss from a man who doesn’t kiss men. Jesse didn’t know how to respond to the second kiss. They were best friends, not lovers. Jesse felt weak in the knees, off balance. Carr shook hands with him and sometimes hugged him after not seeing him for a string of months. Never had the guy kissed him, though. Not once. And never had they gotten naked together and…messed around. Their relationship wasn’t like that. Carr was his friend. Only his friend, and Jesse respected that, refusing to cross a questionable line with the sexy guy. Jesse wanted to kiss him back, but didn’t. Couldn’t was more like it since Carr was unromantic and uninvolved with people, both women and men. Jesse thought it was best not to make an ass out of himself or cross that line of friendship. He backed away from Carr. “Let’s get you out of here. Climb into my truck where it’s warm. I’ll toss your bag in the back.” The bag weighed heavy on Jesse’s back as he carried it to the truck and plopped it inside the Ranger’s bed. Through the truck’s back window, he watched his best bud jump inside the vehicle, closing the door. Four words surfaced in Jesse’s mind that maybe shouldn’t: I’m smitten with him.