Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

the bus in from Bakersfield, and we’re flying out together.”
    “He was … what? … going door to door?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I guess it’s easier in Bakersfield. Than here, I mean.”
    “Word,” said Jonah. “Prop 8 passed in Bakersfield.”
    “Sorry we’ve been so hard on you.” Jake’s lip curled just enough for Jonah to catch his meaning. “Listen, Jonah, you’re gonna hafta take cold showers from now on.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Just … I won’t be available for therapy tomorrow. I’ve got a big gardening job, and I won’t be home until late.”
    “Oh.”
    “So don’t plan on any emergency boners.”
    The kid sighed. “I never plan on it, dude.”
    “Funny how that works.” Jake rocked him for a while. “Almost like it’s natural, huh? Like it’s who you are, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And it’s not just about your dick, either. It’s about who you are inside, and what you need to be happy.”
    Twisting his head to look at Jake, Jonah frowned.
    “You know what I think?” He coaxed the kid’s head back into his hands. “I think you’re gonna go back to Snowflake and have a nice reunion with Becky, and the next day you’re gonna go to your therapist and climb on his lap, and tell him all about me.”
    Jonah wrenched himself free from Jake’s embrace, rising to his knees on the bed.
    His face was contorted and completely aflame, like he was some other person entirely. Jake braced himself for the jolt of a fist across his jaw.
    “You fucker,” Jonah murmured, before leaning down to kiss Jake on the mouth.
    They stayed that way for a while, Jonah’s soft lips nestling in Jake’s beard while his tongue foraged for something he seemed to have wanted for a long time. Jake gave it to him, too—not because he required anything more, but because he wouldn’t settle for anything less. It was a turning point for both of them, and it deserved recognition.
    Afterward, as Jonah lay in his arms, Jake asked: “Was that your first kiss with a guy?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    He tousled the kid’s hair. “It’s been an honor, then.”

Chapter 23
Beauty Sleep
    O tto, still panting from the bike ride through the Mission, set the box on Shawna’s kitchen table. He had ended up taking his two-wheeler, though he’d argued compellingly for the unicycle, claiming it would lend an air of whimsy to the proceedings and make the whole thing more of a celebration. The idea had actually appealed to her, for a moment or two, until she made herself picture a unicycle arriving at a crematorium, or—worse yet—leaving. It might have seemed a tad indecorous.
    Otto used both his hands to rake his unruly hair. “Did you know they call them cremains?” he said, sitting down at the table. “Whatever happened to ‘ashes’? ‘Ashes’ is poetic. ‘Cremains’ sounds like some sorta powdered shit you put in your coffee.”
    Shawna smiled at him. “You want some?”
    “Sure.”
    She rose and poured him a cup of coffee, bringing it back to the table. “I didn’t do any better at the coroner’s office. I had to fill out something called a Homeless Death Form. I’m not sure which word is less depressing: Homeless, Death, or Form.”
    “That’s cold, all right.”
    “They just wanted it filled out. It didn’t seem to matter much if it was the truth. They told me to write ‘unknown’ when I didn’t know the answer, and I must’ve written it a dozen times. It felt like I was erasing her life.”
    Otto held the coffee cup under his nose and sniffed it. This was one of his funny rituals around food, something he called Active Appreciation. “Any luck with that?” he asked, meaning Alexandra’s lunch box, which was next to her ashes on the table.
    Shawna shook her head. “Too bad a picture isn’t really worth a thousand words.” She’d hoped to find something in the photos that might lead her to one of Alexandra’s survivors, if such a person existed. There had been those parents, of course, the ones who’d rented their child to strangers, and that creepy Mr. Williams, who may or may not have been a client, but Shawna had no illusions about bringing them to justice thirty years after the fact. All she was hoping was that someone, at some point in Alexandra’s short, miserable life, had loved her enough to wonder what had happened to her.
    “How many pictures are there?” asked Otto.
    “Not many. The young one at Barbary Lane and maybe a dozen others that were