First Draft of Section II: The Momentary Body, Chapterlets 1-2:

1.

Bones grabbed his hoodie off the back of his chair and stood up. He could feel the familiar masses of his iPod and his DS slap his hips as he flipped it over his back and shoved his arms in both sleeves. He folded up his Calc notes and the poems he was working on and slipped them in his back pocket, behind his wallet. He hit the light and slipped out into the hall.
He was stepping around the loose board under his Dad’s framed Masters in the hall when his cell phone beeped twice. He winced. It was quiet, but if he could still hear it through the fabric of his pants… Hurrying down the hall and across the foyer, he had just passed the threshold into the kitchen when he heard his mom call out from the den. “Deforrest?” She was high-pitched and nasal, like the whine from the TV. Drunk or getting there. If he stopped to answer, there’d be no leaving the house, Friday night or no.
Thumbing the lock on the knob, he let the door shut hard enough to rattle the plates hanging on the wall by the kitchen table. If he made enough noise, maybe she’d think he wasn’t sneaking out. Either way, if she heard him leaving, she wouldn’t come looking for him. He went down the steps from the garage into the back yard and vaulted over the fence.
He was reaching for the handlebars of Adam’s bike when he remembered the text. He fished around in his corduroys until he found his phone. Damn, it was cold. He thumbed the buttons as he straddled the bike. He let out a low whistle that was almost a sigh. The whistle turned to a stream of visible vapor lit up by the flood lights over the Dewars’ trashcans.
It was from K:

Need your help with a thing. Miss you.
Call me.
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From: Kennedy
<>
02 / 04 / 05
8 : 14 PM

“So which is it? You need my help or you miss me?” He started the bike rolling uphill, toward the street. He dialed her number as he turned out of the cul-de-sac onto the sidewalk, headed toward Lewis. More to prove he still remembered it than because it was convenient. Little rituals in the name of something dimly felt and but little remembered. He laughed. She probably had his number in her phonebook. His moral victory seemed a bit emptier each time the phone purred at him.
His hoodie was still hanging open, and the wind combined with his motion to make him regret being so lightly dressed in the Oklahoma night. It was still very much winter, no matter how mild the afternoons had been the last week and a half. His tee shirt flared brightly with each set of headlights that grabbed him only to leave him again, a dark figure of motion flitting between the telephone poles and the street signs.
Of course, she didn’t answer. His nose was starting to burn from the cold. He left a message.

2.

Kennedy called him back two hours later. He was sitting at a small table against the back wall. He thumbed open his phone and was losing the battle against being the guy who just completely answered his cellphone during a poetry reading even though he knows how rude that is when he finally zeroed in on her voice amidst all the background noise.
“Hey,” he said. Neutral enough to suit whatever he had missed by way of greeting.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“You mean metaphysically?” Ouch. Bad start.
“I mean, what’s with the noise?”
“That? I think that’s supposed to be some kind of modernism.” The poet looked at him, lips pushed forward over the pregnant pause he had just talked into. He turned slightly to face the wall and cupped the microphone of the phone with his free hand.
“I never get it when you try to be funny.” She sounded amused, though. So far, he was even, but even was better than losing.
“Neither do I. Part of my mystique.”
“Hey, listen. Can I ask a favor?” Now, she seemed worried.
“Depends on what it is. I think you ran out of indeterminate favor vouchers after a few months of not calling me.” Well, that sounded a bit bitter.
“I know. I just…. You’re right. It’s shitty of me to ask you for something, after.”
“After what?” He held his breath. Someone brought him another cream soda. He nodded over his shoulder and turned back toward the wall.
“After…so long,” she managed, finally.
“Yeah, well, forget it. What’s up?” Fine. If she wasn’t going to talk about it, then he wasn’t going to make an idiot out of himself.
“Just this thing with Tino.”
“What kind of thing?” Tino? Was she kidding?
“He was supposed to go in to meet Henry Lee.” Henry Lee. Christ, he didn’t like where this was going.
“And?”
“And he can’t go.”
“And?”
“And he was asking me if I would go, and it’s really important, but I don’t want to go alone.”
“And?” She was out of her fucking head.
“God. Now, I remember why I don’t ask you for things.” She sounded…hurt. No, he was misreading. Kennedy was never hurt. Kennedy was the absolute source of pain.
“So, you’re asking what? You want me to go with you to meet some kind of shadowy underworld figure? Why?”
“It’s because of the melodrama. Everything’s dramatic with you. Heartache and suffering forever in all directions.”
“Just tell me why, K.”
“I told you why. Tino can’t go.”
“There’s something else going on, here. Let alone the fact that you’re out of your head if you think I’m going to have a sit-down with a Triad, I still—”
“—Triad? This is Tulsa we’re talking about. Is this because I never called you after?”
“After what, K?”
“God. I knew it. It is. You’re going to turn me down, make me beg for a little favor because you—because what? I hurt your feelings in some way?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, Kennedy, you did hurt my feelings, yes. But that’s not why I’m telling you no.” He was already getting angry. 2 minutes might be a new record for their thing.
“Fine. Why, then?”
“Because you’re asking me to talk to and consort with a known criminal.”
“No, I’m asking you to go somewhere with me, you dick. Keep me company while I talk to and conwhatever with a criminal.” She was asking him to keep her company? That wasn’t so subtle. Maybe there were other reasons why Tino wasn’t going tonight. Opportunity grabbed him by the sternum and swung him in a tight orbit around the table. He was getting dizzy.
“So, this would be a date, or something like that? You said you could imagine yourself dating me, but then you said you’d never date-date me, as I recall. You said that we could be friends with, you know, privileges, but I know that I heard you say that dating me would be too—how did you put it—”
“—just shut up. Christ. Okay. Yes. A date, tonight, Denver and Brady. One hour. Just…just be there, okay?”
“Unbelievable.”
“What?” That came sharp and high. Push ahead or retreat?
“Nothing. Denver and Brady in an hour. It’s a date.”
“I hate you.”
“No, K, you want me. Again. Or maybe still. But you don’t hate me.”
“God, you’re such an ass,” she breathed, hanging up. She sounded pleased, though. He turned back toward the stage. The mike was free and nobody was headed toward it. Bones grabbed a wrinkled piece of foolscap off the table and headed to the front, his poems dripping into his throat, making it progressively harder to breathe.