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Steve dreamt that he was drowning in his kitchen, unsure which way his mother’s best china plate was telling him to swim. He woke up with his lungs still burning.
“I’m fine,” he told her, over coffee as thick as paint. She’d heard him wheezing while he dressed, and kept casting him looks, down his throat and into his stomach where she thought his soul was stored.
“In that case, I’ll ignore my maternal and professional instincts. You can be the parent.” Sarah snapped her newspaper so it stood at attention. “How do we feel about strenuous activity?”
“I’ll let the rides do all the running for me.”
“Smart boy. Asthma cigarettes?”
Steve patted his breast pocket. “Right here.”
The kitchen pipe had burst a few days past, and there was a maze of precarious dishes in the sink. Steve stacked them to the side, with the chipped teacup on top. “I’m late to meet Bucky. I’ll wash these in the tub tonight.”
“Thank you, Steve. Train fare?”
“I figured we’d just hop the turnstiles.” She whipped around. He threw up his hands. “Humor! Don’t twist my arm, you know it’s liable to break.”
“Leave already,” she said, eyeing the Business section.
On his way to the door, he bent to kiss her cheek. “Don’t worry so much, ma.”
“A leanbh,” Sarah sighed, straightening his crooked collar for him; one less part of him out of order. “That’s like telling you to stay out of trouble.”
*
Bucky was leant against the station sign when Steve spotted him. His long legs were crossed at the ankle, his tie undone, a Lucky smoldering between his fingers. Steve envied him his growth spurt, how he managed to blend into every scene as if he was painted there, as if he belonged to it.
“Barnes!” Steve yelled, cutting through the crowd.
Bucky blew smoke through his nose. He craned his head, lifted his cigarette like a signal. Behind his back, a prune in a headscarf shook her bony finger at a busker. “Rogers!”
Steve waded through commuters, jostled along by elbows and knees. “Marco!”
Bucky tried to clear a path. “Pollo!”
“Mook!”
“Pill!”
“Airhead!”
“Wiseass!”
“Flirt,” Steve said, breathless and grinning, finally in front of Bucky.
“Hoodlum,” Bucky laughed. “You found me.”
“Always do. Your giant forehead makes a good lighthouse. You ready?”
Bucky flicked his cigarette butt onto the concrete. “Let’s hit it.”
*
From above, Steve couldn’t see the beach for the bodies. Sun hats blurred into the sand. The deathtrap they called a Ferris wheel flashed a warning they’d all ignore.
“Remember when you made us hop off this thing,” Steve says, eyes bright and wide as he watched the sky sway ever sickeningly closer, loving every minute of this torture, “because you dreamt it’d get stuck?”
Bucky’s response was muffled by Steve’s shoulder. His knuckles gripped the guard so hard they were white.
Steve rubbed his back. “Aw, come on, big guy, it’s not so bad. You’ve never had a flying dream? Look, you saved my life, let me buy you a corndog.”
Bucky lifted his head.
At his expression, Steve nodded sagely. “You’re right. Two corndogs.”
“Or,” Bucky said darkly, “next time we’re here, you have to ride the Cyclone.”
Steve didn’t see how a rollercoaster would benefit Bucky’s fear of heights, but he never turned down a challenge. “You’re on.”
*
“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said, tugging his best friend from the beaten path of the boardwalk, “you got any quarters left?”
Steve bit down on his corndog to free a hand. The stick made him resemble a smoker. He fished a coin from his pocket and presented it like treasure before Bucky’s bright, shit-eating grin.
Steve wriggled away from Bucky’s arm and chucked the coin at him. The corndog came out from his mouth with a pop. “What, you think I look funny, you octopus? Should I drop my lunch on the ground? Should I grow a third arm? This is why I have quarters and you don’t. No sense.”
“Cents,” said Bucky.
“Shaddup,” said Steve. “Why do you want it anyhow?”
Bucky pointed out a box with red lacquered sides. The curtain swayed in the sea breeze. “Five photos for fifty cents.”
“You see me every day. What d’you need a photo of me for?”
Bucky looked at him with a glint in his eye. “What do you need so many drawings of me for?”
Steve blushed furiously— in that he blushed, and was furious about it. “Practice.”
“Well. So. Practice for me, too, then.”
“To do what ?”
“Look at your ugly mug and keep a cool expression. Come on, Stevie, indulge me.”
Bucky pulled aside the curtain, expectant. Steve sighed, took a farewell tour of his corndog, then tossed it. They pressed into the booth like sardines, skin sticking to the seat and to each other. Bucky let the curtain fall, and they were alone.
“How does this work?” Bucky asked. His voice was soft. The space felt confessional, and even the buzz of the fairground couldn’t touch them. He searched the inside for a button. “Here. Okay, smile.”
The first flash went off before Steve was ready. “Wait, wait, your forehead blinded me,” he said, and schooled his features so their next shot would be better. They made each other laugh. They clutched imaginary pearls and tried to look as sour as Sister Angelina.
For the last photo, Bucky turned, planning to plant a sloppy kiss on Steve’s cheek. He was surprised to find Steve already there, already looking at him.
This close, and with the angle of their heights, Steve could see the childhood scar under Bucky’s chin, the freckle at the base of his neck where his shirt spilled open. His jawline had a bit of shadow, evidence that he was growing older, while Steve’s outsides seemed to stay the same.
There was a heatwave between their bodies. Smoke and salt clung to their skin. Only a breath, a choice, still separated them.
Bucky’s gaze flicked down to Steve’s mouth. He leaned in.
The flash went off.
Flustered, they jumped away from each other. Steve ran a hand through his hair, knocking his bony elbow against the inside of the booth with a bang.
“Let’s see how they came out,” Bucky said, herding them out of their sardine can and back onto the boardwalk, where everyone else kept an eye on them.
Steve slid the strip out of the dispenser and held it up to the light.
There was Bucky, with his Jewish curls pressed down by Brylcreem; there was Steve, with the nose he broke at fourteen, and the mouth that favored one side, like it was home to only half a smile. There they were again, and again, and again, progressively more comfortable in front of a camera.
But the last photo made his heart beat hard enough to scare him.
Steve hardly recognized these boys, or maybe didn’t want to. His own expression was one of awe and terror. The camera had caught Bucky with a touch of motion blur, the moment that he began to sway forward, to— Was he really going to? In broad daylight, on the boardwalk, or ever? Did he have the guts?
He’d waited a decade for Bucky to kiss him. Now that moment of longing would outlive him.
“Which half do you want?” Bucky asked. It felt like a test.
Steve tore the strip into two and three. He pocketed the pair. “I can’t even see you in that last one. I don’t need it.”
*
Thanks to Steve, they had money for the train home. As they walked under the glare of the lamps, the only people to ever exist on this street, Steve thought about the leaky pipe, the photo, the dream where he died; how no amount of effort seemed to give him enough hours.
“Night,” Bucky said when they reached Steve’s building.
Steve made a show of glancing at the sky. “At least I know your eyes work.”
“Pill,” Bucky said.
“You used that one earlier.”
“Yeah, you don’t go down easy.” Bucky grinned his movie star grin, the one now stashed in Steve’s back pocket. “Fuck, I’m gonna miss you.”
“Why, you goin’ somewhere?”
“Yeah, home.” Bucky jabbed his thumb behind them. He’d lived next door until last year, when George Barnes moved them to a better neighborhood, leaving Steve and his ma in the tenement dust. Now he was a few stops away, instead of a few steps. “I’m just gonna miss you.”
Steve discovered the other half of his smile. “You have a picture,” he pointed out. “It’ll last longer.”