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Cliff moves into the manor. Cliff doesn’t walk. Cliff takes two steps -- unlocks something as he unwinds. Cliff yearns; Larry thinks it is for the heartbeat flutter of the race, to be behind the wheel again.
So - the race track is only a natural step in the right direction. It had been Niles’ idea -- placed upon Larry’s shoulders, like he knew -- to do something nice for Cliff, to make the manor feel more like home. Larry knows that the manor does not become home in a manner of comfort; it becomes a home in the manner of last resorts, list ending, and familiarity. The manor becomes home when you find someone who makes it home; for decades that had been Rita, but now -- differently—-
Niles is the only one who ever leaves the manor. Larry hasn’t been to Cloverton since ‘82 — so many years ago, lifetimes, yet it feels like time’s golden sand has melted into yesterday. It has been so long and it hasn’t. There is always so much to do at the manor and there is nothing to do at the manor. Everything about his life is contradictory.
It had been Niles’ concept, but the idea of the race track belongs solely to Larry. It’s supposed to serve as a reminder. Not one that will make him miss what he can no longer do, but one that will make him remember he’s still the same Cliff Steele that everyone adored. That I—
Niles gives them permission. There’s a toy store in downtown Cloverton; Larry and Rita are to go acquire the race track and come directly back. Nothing more, nothing less. They’re capable of that. They are.
Racing and flying, Larry thinks on occasion, are similar activities. Both involve this: machinery to operate, to push you forward — in Larry’s case away, in Cliff’s case closer. Both involve this: fame, acknowledgement, skill. Both involve this: an inherent, wrapped-up love. Passion. Larry had found his in the arms of John Bowers. Cliff had his wife and his daughter. They both know what passion requires.
Racing and flying also involve competition. In Larry’s case, the game was a question of proving himself. He was indeed the best at the task, a golden-shining man who did his job well. The problem was inherent in his perception. The game was always changing its rules, always shifting against Larry’s favor. Who can be the best man? Who can be whole? Who is most in tune with normalcy?
He takes the track home to Cliff. Larry almost thinks Cliff is joking when he stutters, trips over his words -- “Larry, uh, my big robot fingers… can’t set this up by my fucking self. I, uh, will you help me?”
Of course. An invading thought: Anything for you.
They’re friends. Larry would do anything for his friends; some fucked up idea of atonement. It’s fine — he does not need to consider this.
He helps Cliff set up his race track. Unfolds everything, unlocks everything, opens himself up. Larry loves -- it, helping Cliff get himself back to normal. Normal. N—
“Oh, fuck.”
“Are you okay?”
Larry snaps awake, entire body melting away.
“Yeah,” Cliff says, “it’s just — fuck. I can’t get this to work, my hands are too fucking big, they keep slipping over the controls.”
He’s holding the remote control for the two mechanical racing cars that came with the set. It’s pointless, this would all be pointless if he can’t—-
“Let me help you,” Larry says, and he feels himself unravel fatal as he puts his hand on Cliff’s hand, presses Cliff’s fingers over the button, feels an unholy mixture of fear-pride when the car races down the track. He ghosts over Cliff’s hand, lingers, until Cliff’s fingers are on the control alone, and the car still continues its spin. “See? There you go.”
“Oh, hey, thanks.” A still moment. “Hey, you’re into… plants and shit, right?”
“Why?”
“I… I was thinking, this track’s great and all, but it’s a little boring like this, you know? Do you think you could…”
He acts as if he’s ashamed to ask. Anything for—
“I can grow something for you,” Larry offers. “If you’d like.”
“I’d like that a lot.”
“How do miniature trees sound?”
Cliff fist-bumps the air and Larry — it’s endearing. Everything about Cliff reigns endearing over Larry like sunlight. He’s not sure what to do about it, except smile underneath the sickening bandages and swallow down what he feels.
Cliff tells him about what he wants the track to look like “eventually” — this, they both know, could be next month or centuries from now, they have time, they will turn and spin on eternally. But it’s good to have goals, and Larry informs him of that. Having a goal -- even if it’s for decorating a toy race track -- helps here. It’s something to focus on besides your pain.
It takes several months for the trees to grow. Cliff is not this patient.
Larry planted them on the track itself, but he still visits Larry’s bus every morning — it’s a routine now, 08:00 AM sharp, as if there’s an alarm clock in his mind. He must know that Larry gets up two hours earlier, that it takes nearly an hour to get the bandages on, that the first thing he does once he gets the bandages on is tend to his plants. Cliff is oddly tuned into Larry’s personality and Larry’s movement; it’s almost uncomfortable, hope-inviting, for reasons that Larry doesn’t want to analyze.
“Hey, so if you wanted an update—”
“Another one? Really?”
“What? I just think it’s pretty freakin cool that you know how to do this shit, and I thought you’d like to know that when I measured them this morning, all of them were over an inch tall.”
“That’s nice,” Larry says — and it is nice, he’s never involved himself in growing plants for other people. He grew orchids for Rita, once, when he first picked up the hobby, but something about this instance in particular feels -- special, different, celebratory. “How are the buildings coming along?”
“Good, I guess. I just made them a grocery store, except it looks like it says ‘grobery slore’, because apparently, holding a pencil as a robot is really fucking hard.”
“I hear that a lot from you,” Larry says. He’s spraying water on his newest boat orchid; it’s absent-minded, nonchalant. Cliff, he had assumed, is just like this -- just hungry, in a pure way.
But -- Cliff sighs. “Why the fuck do you think that is?”
“Because you hate being a robot?”
“No, I mean, I do, but—”
“Then what? Because you just want someone else to do everything for you?”
“Forget it.”
Cliff turns to walk away, to storm back inside in thunder, and this is what Larry always does, he always drives people away in their hardest moments, he always originates suffering—
“I wanted to spend time with you.”
Larry asks him for clarification not because he wants Cliff to confirm his feelings — but because he knows that he did not hear Cliff correctly, because no one could ever enjoy spending time with Larry Trainor and certainly no one on this planet could ever lo—
Cliff turns back. The same anger. “Yeah, you’re right. I can do all this shit on my own. Well, not the trees, but… fuck. I just wanted to spend time with you, Larry.”
Larry steps down, out of his bus, to meet Cliff — bad idea. “Why?”
“I don’t know, why do people usually make up excuses to spend time with other people?” There’s an unspoken point. You’re not seriously this stupid, are you?
OH.
He— he can’t—
He can’t—-
He can’t be saying—
“I like you,” Cliff says. “Dumbass.”
He doesn’t ask for reciprocation — knows that Larry isn’t ready to say the words yet. He asks for nothing, merely holds his hand out to Larry. For Larry to take, for Larry to touch. Another unspoken point: whenever Larry wants, whatever Larry wants.
Larry takes his hand. He wishes that he showed some hesitation in doing so -- wishes that he didn’t feel a momentary flood of safety.
“Come on,” Cliff says. “Let me show you the trees.”