Chapter 14

Joel Mendel

Are you watching the news?

Daniel paused,rereading the Facebook notification that had just popped up on his laptop screen. On any other day, he'd be doing cartwheels at a message from Joel. But the clock was ticking.

Daniel Evans

Working.

Deadline.

Turn on the news.

Seriously? Who watched the news during the day? Who watched the news, period?

Not Fox obviously.

Daniel took off his computer glasses and rubbed his face hard, fingers shuff-shuffing over the stubble. His eyes and joints needed a break after a long morning of photo editing anyhow. So instead of switching browser tabs to the Omaha World-Herald, he left his office and went into the living room.

Shit, it was afternoon already, based on the sun's angle through the apartment's big window. He'd have to bust his ass in the final stretch of the cruise project. Hyperfocus was great for perfecting details, but not so great for keeping track of time.

"This better be important." He turned on the television, then told the remote control to switch from ESPN2 to CNN.

On TV, a massive crowd was advancing down a street in what was clearly Washington, DC. The words Live and 2:18 PM flanked the top of the screen, anda chyron at the bottom read U.S. Capitol on Lockdown.

"—significant escalation in just the last few moments," a correspondent was saying. "I am watching, as we speak, throngs of protesters climbing the steps on the western side of the Capitol."

Huh.

A new camera angle appeared, with a shaky shot of an even denser crowd outside the iconic domed building. Among the sea of waving flags were the Stars and Stripes—many flown upside down for some reason—the Confederate flag, the yellow Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag, and…

Oh no. Oh hell no.

Frozen in place, he stared at the TV as it showed the inside of a Congressional chamber. A few people hurried toward a side door near the big podium thing, but most stayed where they were. Hadn't they heard what was happening? Didn't they know what kind of people were trying to get in?

His phone blooped, snapping him out of his fear haze.

Hailey

Where's Grandmom??? She won't return my texts. Scared she might be at the Capitol

Heart stuttering, he began a new message.

Daniel

Mom are you in DC?

"Come on," he whispered to the phone screen. The conversation showed a string of outgoing messages—and none incoming—stretching back to July. "Answer me."

Nothing.

He replied to Hailey:

Mine either but she's been blocking my number for months. Let's both keep trying

Then he flipped through the TV channels for more information.

"—clear line between activism and anarchy?—"

"—word that the Vice President has left the Senate chamber for security reasons. The press is being locked into the press room?—"

"—reports of a pipe bomb?—"

"An alert just went out to all Congressional staff, as well as everybody inside the Capitol building, urging them to move inside the nearest office, telling them to take emergency equipment with them, stay away from external doors and windows."

He sent another message with trembling fingers:

Mom please I won't contact you ever again if you just tell me you're ok

He hit the send button extra hard, as if that would make her notification louder.

A meow sounded from the hallway. Luna sauntered into the living room, tail high, probably noticing her human was watching TV at an odd hour, so maybe dinner might come early too.

Clutching the phone in one hand and the remote control in the other, Daniel sank onto the couch. Luna joined him and slid her silky black body against his elbow in a demand for attention.

"What normally happens in situations like this?" the anchor asked one of her guests, a woman in a maroon shirt who was either a security analyst or maybe a Congressional reporter (Daniel had lost track).

The guest hesitated. "There are not situations like this."

Great. More uncharted territory. Just what the world needed.

Daniel's phone dinged. Another Facebook message, not a text.

Joel Mendel

Had a feeling something awful would happen today but this is worse than I imagined.

Daniel fetched his laptop from his office and set it on the coffee table. It was easier to message Joel using the computer keyboard instead of his phone, especially since his hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Daniel Evans

Wish we knew what's going on. Feels like the media are just guessing.

A few journalists are still tweeting from inside the Capitol.

The link in Joel's message led to a Twitter post containing a video. In it, a Capitol Police officer was leading a group of threatening rioters up a staircase, the reporter apparently running backward ahead of him. Daniel's heart thrummed harder, as if he were under siege himself.

He checked back in with Hailey, but she'd heard nothing. Since when had Mom ignored her messages? She claimed to love her "precious only grandchild" unconditionally.

Joel Mendel

Shots fired outside House chamber. A reporter who was there tweeted it. It happened as they were being evacuated.

Daniel picked up his phone. No time for more texts.

His call went straight to voicemail. He hung up. Either Mom's phone was turned off, had a dead battery…or she was still blocking his number.

Another message from Joel appeared on his laptop screen:

Watching this, I'm ashamed to be American.

It was hard to argue with that, but he had to try.

This is NOT America. Those rioters may be chanting USA! USA! but that's not who we are.

Three dots appeared in the Facebook Messenger bubble, then disappeared, then reappeared.

I want to believe that.

They monitored coverage for the next half hour, with Daniel watching TV and Joel scrolling through Twitter, updating each other on the spiraling shitshow in the nation's capital. Hailey checked in with two more no-news updates, then they looped in Vanessa, who was having no more success at contact.

Finally there was a lull in new information.

Joel Mendel

How's your deadline going?

Pretty terrible now.

Should I let you go so you can work?

Daniel couldn't type the answer fast enough.

No!

I mean, I doubt I'll work much anyhow with this going on.

He started to add, My mom might be there today, then deleted it. Maybe he was ashamed, or maybe Joel's pity would make him feel worse. It was hard enough to hold it together for Hailey's sake.

Instead he asked Joel,

What made you contact me instead of someone else today?

I don't know…

Then,

I'm scared.

A strange ache struck Daniel's arms, and he raised them toward the screen without meaning to, as if he could wrap them around Joel. But he couldn't, so instead he reached for Luna, who had curled up beside him. She gave a sleepy Mrrup! at his touch, then purred as he offered shoulder scritchies, massaging the loose skin just behind her scruff.

Then he placed his fingertips on the laptop keys and waited for the right words to flow. All that came was the obvious.

I'm scared too.

"What are we looking at here?" asked the TV news anchor. Then she gasped. "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh."

He looked up from the computer, his eyes taking a moment to refocus on the TV screen.

A dark-haired woman lay on a stretcher, her neck covered in blood. A paramedic performed CPR on her bare chest as the gurney sped away from the camera.

Chills zigzagged down Daniel's spine. He lunged for the remote control, knocking it onto the floor. Luna sprang off the couch and scampered down the hall.

He grabbed the remote and rewound the TV. At the sight of the (mortally?) wounded woman, he pressed pause.

Not Mom. Thank God.

But she could be next.

With ice-cold hands, he picked up his phone and redialed. Again his call went straight to voicemail, but he wouldn't let her off easy this time by hanging up.

"It's me, D-Daniel." He took a moment to steady his breath. "Please call me back, or text me, or text Hailey or Vanessa, or-or anyone, anything. Just let us know you're okay. I promise I won't judge you or say that you're—" He couldn't say crazy, even by way of saying he wouldn't say crazy. "Mom, just tell me you're okay."

By nightfall,Joel's neck and shoulders ached from staring at screens for so many agitated hours. The world beneath his feet felt rickety, like a derelict bridge leading to a forsaken town.

For some reason, he'd chosen to spend this nightmare with Dan Evans. Their hours together in 1987 and 2004 had felt like trips to a fantasy world, but today they'd shared No-Shit-No-Escape-Capital-R Reality.

Just before eleven, he made himself a hot toddy with extra-strong tea and settled onto the couch in the basement rec room. Florey and Archie hopped up to flank him in their usual TV-viewing configuration, a habit born after Michael had finally walked out on him.

He brought up C-SPAN to watch Congress finish counting the electoral votes—thereby making the election 100% official—then pulled out his phone, fully charged for his and Daniel's…whatever this was. Texting date? Was that even a thing? Neither of them were in any shape for a video call.

Joel

Could be a long night

Daniel

You staying up for the whole thing?

I'm here until they pound that damn gavel, I don't care how late. Democracy almost died today, so the least I can do is watch it stagger across the finish line

Then I'm staying up too

Woo hoo party like it's 2021!

On TV, the House of Representatives chamber held the familiar hushed bustle of a vote in process—a surreal sight given that eight hours ago, the doors of that chamber had been barricaded by Capitol Police officers defending it with guns drawn.

Joel

So what have you been up to the last seventeen years?

Daniel

Bit of this, bit of that

Same

Some things were too terrible to mention over text.

Still living in Rockville?

I live in a suburb north of Baltimore. It's called--DON'T LAUGH--Cockeysville

You made that up

I'm not that subtle. If I was making up a city I'd just call it Dicktown

I got married btw

"Shit."

Florey lifted her head from his lap.

"Of course I'm not surprised," he told her. "I knew they got engaged—thanks, MySpace. I just thought…"

Thought what? That the arrangement might have collapsed? That Daniel might have drifted from one semi-gratifying relationship to another for seventeen years like he had?

Joel took off his glasses, then zoomed in on the picture attached to the last message. Daniel stood in front of the arched doorways of a sand-colored stone building that read Albany County Courthouse. Beside him, a dark-haired woman in a knee-length wedding dress—Vanessa from the photos at Turtle Rock Trail—held a bouquet of white and yellow roses.

Joel pressed his lips together. It had been stupid to get his hopes up. Life didn't offer third chances at a prize like Daniel.

Daniel

Then I got divorced

On the other hand…

The photo attached to this text showed Daniel and Vanessa, clearly several years later, standing outside the same courthouse. Their smiles were as blissful as in the first picture.

Joel

Looks amicable

It was. Vanessa and I are still best friends

She's the one with the little girl, right?

As if he didn't remember every last detail Daniel had told him about his life that night in Columbia.

That little girl is in college now

Liar! We are not that old

Anyhow then I got gay-married

The attached photo featured him in front of a different courthouse. The other groom was nearly as tall as Daniel but apart from that….

"Does this look like the old me to you?" Joel asked Florey. "Before the beard, obviously." He held the phone to her perky nose. She licked the screen.

As he wiped away the dog slobber, the next message appeared.

Then I got gay-divorced

This text lacked a photo attachment.

Not as amicably?

Not as amicably

Sorry to hear that

Florey watched him, one ear angled back in a skeptical expression.

"Humans sometimes lie to be polite," he told her. "It's part of the social contract."

Your turn

Alas I have no wedding photos due to having no weddings

You and Sam never?

Joel laughed out loud, transcribing himself with a lol reply. On impulse he added,

Can I call you or would I be disturbing your third spouse?

His phone rang, the name Daniel stretching across his screen like a sign pointing to lost treasure. He tapped to answer, but the hello stuck in his throat, so he just sort of grunted into the receiver.

"Not if I call you first." Daniel's deep voice sent a shiver over the back of Joel's shoulders.

"Hey, cowboy." He grimaced at his own dorkiness. "So there's no third spouse?"

"I never say never, but no candidates currently." Daniel gave a deep exhalation, perhaps leaning back in a recliner with a freshly opened beer. "What about you?"

"Extremely single." Time to change the subject before they talked about how it had ended between them. "So, hell of a day, huh?"

"You have no idea." Daniel sounded as bone-weary as Joel felt.

"Hang on." He plugged in earphones to keep his hands free. "Did you meet your deadline?"

"Barely, and not very well, but it turned out the client was as distracted as I was—by the same thing—so they weren't ready for my piece of the project."

Odd that he and Daniel hadn't discussed their lives this afternoon. Then again, insurrections were an awkward time to play catch-up. "Are you still a photojournalist?"

"I have a travel photography business," Daniel said. "We're hired by tourism-industry companies—hotels, cruise lines, safari outfits, that sort of thing—to provide photos for their marketing materials."

"That sounds cool." Wait. "Yikes, I guess not so cool during a pandemic."

"Yep." Daniel let out another sigh. "I had to lay off most of my staff last year. Five people, all of them friends. It's just me and my assistant now."

"God, I'm sorry." He closed his eyes. "So much has been lost by so many."

There came a blip of electronic silence. "Hang on," Daniel said, "I need to read this text."

So they'd both had a tough pandemic. At least they had something in common. It was hard to talk to people who'd remained unscathed.

Daniel came back on the line. "Sorry about that."

"Everything all right?"

"It is now. I was worried about my—about a friend earlier, and I just found out they're okay. Where were we?"

"Your company."

"Right," Daniel said. "I won't say the pandemic has been a good thing, but all this time with no travel and hardly any business…it's let me fall in love with photography again. As an art form, not just a medium for selling things. Not that commercial photography can't be artistic."

"Sure. Avoiding starvation can be very inspiring."

Daniel gave a soft laugh. "Anyhow, I've shifted my focus, so to speak, back to the Great Plains and why they're, you know…"

"‘Great'?"

"Exactly."

Joel smiled at his west-facing wall. "I'm happy for you. Sounds like you're in a good place, as they say."

"Yeah, I guess I am." Daniel sounded almost surprised at this admission. "You know, if I weren't, I don't think I could've reached out. It wouldn't have been cool to inflict on you the guy I was a year ago."

A year ago. The Joel of January 2020 hadn't been a great catch either.

"Jeez, I've been rambling," Daniel said. "What about you? Are you still teaching?"

"I am a tenured motherfucking professor, thank you very much."

"Congratulations, Dr. Mendel."

A warmth started at Joel's toes and worked its way up. That voice was rougher than in his memory, but it brought everything back, especially how it had sounded low in his ear as they'd lain together.

"I'm sorry I left you," he blurted. "That morning in Columbia."

"Ah." Daniel cleared his throat. "So we're going there already."

"Shouldn't we? I did a shitty thing."

"You were in a relationship. It was an easy choice."

He shook his head, which of course Daniel couldn't see. "I should've at least woken you up to say goodbye instead of doing it in a note. That was cruel, and I'm sorry."

Daniel stayed silent for the span of one breath, then another. "Whatever. I got a free continental breakfast out of it, so…"

So he didn't want to discuss it. He probably also didn't want to hear the full truth: that leaving his side that morning had been the hardest thing Joel had ever done.

How many times had he rewritten himself back into that moment, stayed in their bed, woken Dan with a kiss, changed their ending into a beginning?

Maybe at long last it didn't matter. He could make it up to Daniel. He wouldn't blow this second chance at a second chance.

On TV, the C-SPAN anchor was interviewing a correspondent about the day's events. The House was waiting for the Senators and Vice President to return so they could all keep counting the electoral votes together.

"Are you watching Congress?" he asked Daniel.

"In the background. I'm making steel-cut oatmeal in the slow cooker. That way when I stumble into the kitchen tomorrow morning, my breakfast is ready."

Joel looked at the stairs leading to his own kitchen. What he wouldn't give to see Daniel stumbling into that room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, hair mussed but somehow still perfect. "That's a great idea. I'm so not a morning person. If it weren't for the dogs I'd sleep until noon."

While democracy trudged on, the two of them talked about pets, then logged onto a board-game website Joel had been addicted to since July. They stayed on the phone while playing a few games each of Backgammon, Lost Cities, and Can't Stop.

The crack of a gavel from the TV broke Joel's game focus.

"What just happened?" Daniel asked. "Where are they going?"

Joel let out a groan. "Some treason-weasel Congressman just objected to his state's electoral votes. Because a Senator signed onto his objection, both chambers have to debate it for two hours before they can keep counting." He glanced at the cable-box clock, showing 12:15 a.m. "It'll be more like three hours, given how long it takes a hundred mostly elderly Senators to walk to the other end of the Capitol and get their procedural act together. Then each chamber will vote on the objection."

"Didn't they just do that?"

"That was for Arizona. This is for Pennsylvania."

Silence. Joel checked his phone screen to see if they'd been cut off.

"Daniel, did?—"

"Are you fucking kidding me?! After what went down today?" Daniel's voice rose with every word. "They could've died. That one woman did die, and for what? A bunch of goddamn lies by people who don't give a shit about her."

The back of Joel's neck prickled. Daniel's rant sounded almost…personal? Or maybe hell had no wrath like a disillusioned Republican.

Daniel went on. "What happened today should've changed everything, but for them it's changed nothing? What the fuck is wrong with these people?"

"I don't know what's wrong with them." It hadn't occurred to Joel to even wonder, not for a long time. "They don't seem to believe in anything, other than hurting people like us."

"But they're also hurting people who support them, people who swallow their bullshit. And it's tearing—" Daniel's voice broke off.

"Tearing the country apart, I know." He gently removed the dogs' paws from his lap, then got up from the couch. "I'm gonna make some coffee to keep me up."

"I think I've had enough caffeine."

Joel stayed silent as he climbed the short flight of stairs into the kitchen. His joints felt flimsy, like they'd been wrung into dust by the day's events.

Daniel said nothing more, so Joel went with a subject change:

"By the way, I subscribed to your magazine."

"Really?" Daniel's voice had brightened with one word. "Did you like it?"

"I loved it." He'd pored over the photos, imagining Dan in each location and what he might be wearing. "I was sorry to see it go under in—when was it? 2010?"

"That was the year we went online-only. The whole thing folded in late 2011."

"It must have been hard."

Daniel gave a verbal shrug. "That's publishing for you."

Joel filled a reusable pod with coffee—decaf now, because talking to Daniel was enough of an adrenaline kick. "So what brought you to Omaha?" he asked, in as un-dubious a tone as he could muster.

"Not what. Who."

"The husband?"

"Yep. Corey."

"Corey? Did he wear sunglasses at night?"

Daniel chuckled. "Aren't you a little old to be making lame name jokes?"

"Talking to you turns me into a dumbass teenager."

As his coffee brewed, they discussed Daniel's new home city. It was cool that he was one time zone closer than he used to be.

"Wanna hear something wild?" Daniel asked. "My whole life I've lived on tributaries of the Missouri River—actually, tributaries of tributaries of the Missouri River."

"Really," Joel said, as if Daniel's hometowns weren't the first places he'd scoped out upon the advent of Google Earth and Street View.

"And now I can see the actual Missouri River from my window," Daniel continued. "Feels like progress."

Joel settled back onto the couch with his coffee and a pair of Nutter Butters, which he had to hold high to keep out of Archie's reach.

"If we've got another three hours," Daniel said, "teach me some new board games before I lose my mind."

They began with a couple of lighter games, then moved on to Santorini, a pure-strategy battle requiring total concentration, which was a great excuse to mute the television. Joel won the first two matchups, then Daniel caught on, kicking his ass in the third and fourth.

As they began their fifth match, Joel checked the TV. Everyone was in the House chamber again, so he upped the volume to hear which state's votes they were counting.

"We should play chess sometime," Daniel said, "though I think I like this game even?—"

"Ooh, they're doing Wyoming!" Joel raised the volume more. "It goes in alphabetical order, so that means they're almost done."

"What happens next?"

"History, my friend." He pulled Archie onto his lap and held him so he was facing the TV. "History happens." Archie made a snuffling noise and licked his chin.

The Vice President declared the final electoral vote, then everyone stood for the chaplain's closing benediction. Joel shut his eyes to listen.

"These tragedies have reminded us that words matter," the chaplain said, "and that the power of life and death is in the tongue. We have been warned that eternal vigilance continues to be freedom's price."

Joel's gut felt full of lead. There would be no happy ending today, tomorrow, or ever. There'd never be a future when everything was okay.

But maybe there'd never been an okay past either. Maybe things had only seemed okay because he was a middle-class white dude born into a stable society. Still, how could he have forgotten the fragility of normalcy, when Dad had barely survived the Terezín concentration camp as a child, and most of Mom's cousins had been machine-gunned at Babyn Yar?

The Vice President banged his gavel and declared the session ended. Joel pressed his face against Archie's warm, smooth coat and let out what felt like the longest breath of his life.

"We made it," Daniel said.

Had they, though?

Joel turned off the TV, then ran his hands over his face, which felt like it had aged ten years in twenty-four hours.

Daniel let loose a yawn that verged on a roar. "Are we still Zoom'ing tomorrow night? I mean, tonight?"

"Honestly, as much as I'd love to see your face, I don't think my face will be presentable on so little sleep."

"You'll look wonderful to me no matter what, Joel."

He opened his mouth to say Awww, but his voice caught in his throat. Such assumptions were easy for Daniel, who'd always been gorgeous and probably still was. "How about we text tomorrow—later today—and set up a new time?"

"Sounds great. Now go to bed."

"Goodnight, Daniel."

He hung up and pressed the phone to his chest for a long moment. Then he followed Florey and Archie upstairs, through the kitchen, and out the sliding door to the backyard.

Outside, the dogs snuffled through the dried leaves and pale-brown grass for the perfect place to pee. Joel watched them from the deck steps and breathed in the cold, sharp air. Then, out of habit, he patted his sweatpants for his phone, ready to scan for the next cataclysm, because surely this nightmare wasn't over.

His pockets were empty. Right, he'd set the phone on the counter with his empty coffee cup. He turned to fetch it, then stopped, his knees suddenly shaky.

He sat down hard on the top stair and squeezed his eyes shut. All around him, the neighborhood abided in a stillness, a peace, that felt like a lie.

Alone at last, offline at last, Joel wept.