Chapter Text
I went to dinner last night, Jim writes. With whom, Will wonders.
I had the best salmon I’ve ever had, tasted fresher even than what comes straight out of the river. Where were you, Will wonders.
He can't put his finger on what he's missing, quite, but it's in there somewhere. Or rather isn't.
Jim has been writing Will letters since he left for the city, meandering things, long and stream of consciousness and terribly honest. Full of loneliness and excitement, despair and hope. Extreme as Jim ever was, maybe more so for being shone through the prism of glass and cement, then again through pen and paper. Jim’s been doing well, earning money, meeting people. But his letters describe loneliness, too, sharp and distinct. He says it explicitly at times—Wish you were here. I miss you. I don’t know anybody here the way I know you—and implicitly at others: the colors of his letters were bright and easy to read.
Now, though, the letters are more muted. Not quite so shiny, not so fresh. Like dead autumn leaves blowing in from the East.
What Will is missing, he has the sense of it sometimes. A new thing in Jim’s life, something big. Something scary, maybe; definitely something that can’t be described in writing. Something Jim wants to tell him, and isn't. Something Jim is writing around and over, a hollowness to the words and stories, to the very paper of the letters. Like a box Will could shake, and from which nothing would fall out.
Will thinks of nothing else for weeks. Thinks of nothing but this nothingness between the words of Jim’s letters. He already missed Jim terribly, and it's worse, now, knowing Jim has a secret.
Jim is still urging him to visit at the end of each letter. Before September he would end every letter: Come visit when you can. Chicago’s great, Will. You’ll love it.
Now he still writes this, but with new urgency. He says: When are you coming to visit? You can stay with me for as long as you want. One day he adds: How about the end of the month? Let's do Halloween in town.
And before Will can think about it too hard he's picked up his pen and written: Yes, I’ll come. For Halloween.
— —
Jim meets him off the train in Chicago and when they hug, Will breathes him in sharply.
“Jim,” he says, and smiles into his shoulder. “You smell the same.”
“No shit?” Jim says, and laughs. When he pulls back, his eyes are clear, dancing. “Same soap. Get it sent here special.”
“That explains it. No soap like hometown soap.”
“Best that Green Town has to offer.” They smile at each other idiotically, babbling nonsense until it peters out, happy just to look at each other’s faces. “I missed you, Will Halloway,” Jim says finally, hand on his shoulder. “Like—like hell.”
“I know,” Will says. “You said as much.” It’s not the right answer; he tries again. “I missed you, too, Jim Nightshade. You and all your mischievous ways.”
And Jim laughs into the sky—a colorful peal into the grey-storm blur.
Jim’s apartment is small, but they don’t stay long. “Put your stuff down, Will,” Jim urges. “I’m gonna show you some sights.”
Jim takes Will to the Lake and they walk along the shore, Will marveling at the expanse of water he can’t see across. Jim takes him to Astor Street and then to State Street; they hop in a taxi and cross the river three times, for fun. On Maxwell Street there’s a man playing the accordion with a chicken on his head. Jim and Will buy a bag of peanuts and watch him play for an hour, chatting all the while.
They’ve said so much by letter over the months, and somehow they find they’ve said nothing at all. They talk and talk and talk, filling each other up with stories. Will talks about his classes at Lake Forest College, and the student teaching he’s doing in town. Jim talks about his English classes, the writing he’s doing. Story ideas and advice he’s been given. He tells Will about his teachers, about the other students.
He doesn’t use the word ‘friends.’ He doesn’t say what he does, when he’s not at school. Will waits for it.
He’s good at waiting.
As the sun is setting, Jim claps salt off his hands and gets to his feet. “Time for supper,” he says, and a mysterious glint settles like a cat behind his expression. “Thought we could meet a friend of mine.”
Here’s the thing he hasn’t told me, Will thinks. “Friend?” he says aloud. “School friend?”
Jim shakes his head. “No,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate. They wave down another taxi—Will thinks with some worry about the money in his pocket, dwindling, but Jim shrugs him off when he tries to pay—and speed off towards downtown.
— —
They meet Murray outside a restaurant on Dearborn Street, at a somber-hued entrance with no visible signage and a doorman who looks both bored and angry, depending on the angle. In the taxi next to Will, Jim straightens at the sight of the man standing there with a cigarette in one lazy hand—”That’s Murray,” he says, and points. “My friend.”
Will doesn’t have time to ask anything before Jim is throwing bills at the driver and they’re sliding out of the car; Jim is already halfway to the restaurant entrance as Will is slamming the door shut. Jim shakes Murray’s hand, clapping his shoulder with easy familiarity, and says something Will can’t make out, nodding to Will.
Murray’s eyes slide towards him as he walks up, and Will feels a jolt go through him. Eyes like a cat in the night. Predatory, hungry.
“Will Halloway,” Murray says, and holds out a hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Will says, and then realizes his rudeness. He takes the proffered hand and shakes it. “Pleased to meet you. Any friend of Jim’s is a friend of mine.”
Murray smiles a flickering smile, taut and white and testing. “I’ve brought some others, Jim,” he says, still looking at Will. “They’re inside. Sandra and Bobbi, and a few others. The good sort.” He’s got the slightest of accents, Will notes: ‘good sort’ with a Londoner’s open R. “We’ve got table nine—room for two more, of course.”
Jim laughs, “Of course.” He looks at Will, an eyebrow raised. “Come on, Will. Let’s get a drink, huh? And then Murray wants to hear about Green Town, too.”
What if I don’t want to tell him, Will thinks, but doesn’t say.
Sandra and Bobbi are sweet and smart—both writers, of fiction and nonfiction, respectively—and both of them talk eloquently, dryly, and with insight about their work, and about the university. Sandra is Southern (Southern Sandra, Will thinks, to cement-stick the name in his head) and her hair is blonde, wavy in a way that suggests beauty pageants and sunny days. Bobbi is small, dark, handsome. Her hair is straight as twigs and sharply bobbed. (Bobbed Bobbi, Will thinks, and smiles to himself.)
“See, he's already having fun,” Murray says, to Jim but meant to be overheard. “He’ll fit right in, Jim, don't you worry.”
Will looks at Jim, who only has eyes for Murray. Was Jim worried Will wouldn't fit in? The thought makes him embarrassed, and annoyed.
The others at the table—three other men who Will thinks are named Tom, Dick, and Harry, although it seems too ridiculous to be true—are nice enough, talkative, each of them from the art world in some way that Will can't quite keep straight. A photographer, a painter, and an actor, although which is which he couldn't say. They share stories with little prompting, joke easily; the conversation around the booth flows like water. Even Will finds himself sticking an oar in: adding to a story Jim is telling about a mangy cat that had lived two doors down, the same cat that had given Will a scar above his eyebrow and Jim three long scratches up his forearm. They make the table laugh, the two of them: their dialogue is, by long practice, seamless and collaborative. The others ask Jim questions and Will answers, and vice versa, both of them well aware of which of them tells which parts best.
Will has missed this—not quite as much as he’d missed talking with Jim alone, but still. He’d missed how easy it is to shine in Jim’s presence. And to watch Jim shine in kind, shining like a mirror against the sun.
But for all that, the conversation revolves around Murray throughout the meal. Murray as the focal point, the one to whom they’re all talking. All of their eyes flick-flicking to Murray’s face as they speak ostensibly to the table, gauging his reaction, waiting for a word of encouragement or a response. He sits at the head of the table, even if the booth is round.
Will doesn't like him but can't figure out why; he's charming and slyly funny and handsome but Will smells the shit under the glitter, a whiff of it every time Murray gets near. He sits too close to Jim, his arm over Jim's shoulder and his hand hanging down wind-chime mobile: Will watches as he gestures loosely, lazily, and wants to slap it away. When he smiles he shows the gums above his teeth, bubbling pink. He says something quiet into Jim's ear and Jim flushes the same color. "Sure," he answers, then looks at Will: "We're going to head to the next place. You'll love it."
Will feels sick to his stomach, a churning nausea that starts where the drink splashed into his gut. "This place is nice," he says quietly, as if by protesting he could keep them from wheeling any further into what he was sure would be dangerous, which he knew by the bite of Murray's smile and the tentative tilt of Jim's mouth would be—danger already peering in through the window like the fairytale wolf, claws glinting in the slanting sun.
"Next place is nicer," Jim says with a wink, his old Jim coming back, the wink and the smile and the conspiracy under the quiet promise. Next place is nicer and Will believes it because he always believes Jim, even when he knows he shouldn't. Next place is nicer and Will feels himself turn towards the future like a yellowing plant to sun. Next place, next place. Always Jim taking him to the next place.
They file out, Murray in the lead. Jim puts an arm around Will’s shoulders as they leave, leans close. “I promise you’ll like it,” he says, quiet and assured. “It’s like nothing you’ve seen. It’s Murray’s club—or, maybe not his, but he’s involved somehow.”
“It’s a night club, then? With music and—and things?”
Jim hesitates. “Yeah. Kind of. Yeah, a club.” He glances ahead, to where Murray has an arm around Sandra, and one around Bobbi. “Better to see it than for me to explain it.”
Which doesn’t seem to bode well to Will, but Jim is smiling still and pulling him forward, and there’s no turning back now.
They walk two blocks in the frigid October air. The wind comes sharp between the buildings, and people on the streets are wearing peacoats pulled tight, scarves pulled high to their chins. The air, cold even with the sun, is ice now. Jim pulls away to catch up to Murray and Will shivers without the warmth of his arm.
When they stop, it’s down a dark side street, the crowds suddenly thin and furtive-moving. Murray pulls them up short at a doorway lit weakly by a neon sign Will can’t read from this side, and claps his hands together. Somewhere between the restaurant and here they’ve lost Tom and Dick, or Dick and Harry, or maybe Tom and Harry. One of the men is left, anyway, Will can’t tell who.
“Come on in, folks,” Murray says, in a voice like a snake under a basket. Hissing, ominous. “Night of your life. Love and music. Lights and mirrors, step right up, step on in.”
They all look enchanted, Will thinks, looking around at the knot of four other people: Jim and Sandra and Bobbi and maybe-Tom. They all look hypnotized, drunk. Jim with his green eyes, wide and glazed. Sandra with a finger in her hair, twirling, twirling. Bobbi with her hand clutching a necklace Will hadn’t noticed before. Maybe-Tom, looking like he’s been punched, or kissed. They all walk in through the door, one after the other, Jim last with a quick glance at Will before he disappears into the murk beyond the doorstep.
Will moves to follow him, and Murray steps in front of him.
“Following our young Nightshade, eh, Halloway.” They’re at a stand-off. Murray isn’t touching him, let alone pushing him, but he is, nonetheless, in the way. His arm is still holding the door, halfway closed now. “We like our Nightshade here. But you already know that, I suppose. Liking him just as much.”
Will doesn’t know what Murray means, so he doesn’t say anything.
“Jim fits in here,” Murray continues, low and sultry. “Knows his way around. Knows the ropes .” A curious emphasis placed on the last word, like Will is supposed to know something he doesn’t. “Nothing like it, you know. Finding your way home.”
Jim has a home, Will thinks to himself fiercely. I am Jim’s home. But even as he thinks it, he knows it isn’t necessarily true anymore. As if Murray is reading his thoughts, he watches Will’s face hungrily, avidly. Will stays silent, unwilling to speak. Desperate to follow Jim inside, unwilling to push past Murray’s slim arm.
They look at each other for a moment, silent. Then Murray smiles and says: “Come inside, Will. Come see what Jim’s world is now.”
He slips inside, letting the door close behind him. Will is left in the cold, fists clenched tight. His stomach is all acid and heat. He’s scared, he realizes. Oh, Jim, Jim, he thinks wildly. What is this place, Jim.
The neon buzzes over his head, and he looks up at the sign for the club, the only light in the alley. He can’t read the words; he’s on the wrong side of the metal. For a moment he just stares upwards, at the way the neon sizzles coldly against the doorframes and the dirty window glass. Then he takes four steps forward, and looks up at the word shining wasp-yellow against black.
DARK, says the sign.
