The Swan of Tuonela - 6. Scherzando

White Rock Lake is on the eastern side of Dallas. It had been built around 1910 to provide water for the city, but had been eventually turned into a park, with jogging and cycling trails around its ten mile circumference and sailing and fishing on the lake itself. Recently the trails had been extended seven and a half miles up White Rock creek as well. Phillip loved the place since it was one of the few locations in the city where the trees hadn’t been planted and the water hadn’t been pumped from underground. He tried to get out to the lake four or five days a week and put in ten or twenty miles. If you rode around the lake and up and down the creek path, you could get in a good twenty five miles. Starting in the late spring once the time changed, he started training heavily for the area century rides that would be held throughout the summer.

Phillip always parked in the lot for the Bath House Cultural Center. It was a small building, built in the twenties, he assumed by looking at it, and he guessed it had been used back then by swimmers for changing or some such purpose. It was used now for small exhibits and plays.

It was a beautiful, warm, autumn day. Mark and Phillip were riding back down the creek path after having already circled the lake once. Phillip looked at the computer on his bike; they were coming up on mile 19. Phillip was pedaling along, sitting up in the saddle and peeling an orange that he had brought with him.

“You never told me exactly where you’re from,” he said. “Other than it’s somewhere in east Texas.”

“Carthage,” Mark answered.

“I’ve heard of it,” Phillip said. “I think,” he added. “Where is it again exactly?”

“It’s over near the Louisiana line. The Carthage Bulldogs. That was our football team.”

“And you were on the team, of course.”

“Wide receiver,” Mark answered. “Number eighty-four. First string my junior and senior years,” he said. “We made it to state my senior year,” he added.

“Congratulations,” Phillip said throwing away the peels, breaking off an orange section and placing it in his mouth.

“Well, it was years ago now.”

“Still, football is big in Texas. I’ll bet your parents are very proud of you.”

They were coming up on two long hills on the western side of the lake. The hills were too close to each other to be able to recover from the first before you hit the second, so you had to attack them both in the same effort. Runners at the lake affectionately called them the Dolly Partons. Phillip, who knew from previous experience what to expect, threw the rest of his orange away, stood up in his toe clips, pointed his toes down, pumped his legs, and easily sailed over Dolly’s twin peaks. He coasted down the second hill, slowed down, and spun while he waited for Mark to catch up. Mark descended breathless and panting.

“I never did football. I was a band nerd,” Phillip continued, “As soon as I could drive myself to rehearsals and concerts, my parents never darkened the door of an auditorium again.”

“Oh, I’m sure your parents were very proud of you too,” Mark said once he regained his breath.

“I didn’t say they weren’t proud. I just think they weren’t interested,” Phillip said. “And they were always both exhausted from working so hard. Anyway, after a while, I finally figured it out. Once I stopped expecting them to show up, I stopped being disappointed when they didn’t. So now I don’t even bother inviting them.”

They rode along in silence. They passed the Lizard Woman. That was what Phillip called her. He always saw her on the west side of the lake. She was a runner who must have been in her fifties. She always wore running shorts and a bikini top. She was out at the lake every day. Or at least every day that Phillip was out. She was so tan her skin looked like leather.

“So do you talk to them?” Mark asked after they had ridden through a parking lot and continued along the trail.

“Who?”

“Your parents.”

“A couple of times a month, I guess.”

“Do they know you’re, you know, gay?”

“Oh yeah. About five years ago, when my dad retired, he was bored and suddenly had all this time on his hands, so he decided that he wanted to become my good friend.” Phillip said. “After all these years,” he added. “We weren’t really close then. I was still in my estrangement phase and didn’t see them or talk to them very much anyway, so I didn’t really think coming out would be any big, threatening, life altering event. But I sat down and wrote them a long letter.” Phillip started pulling up against the toe clips to climb the hill facing them. Once over the top, they coasted down the other side and fell into an even pace. “They were pretty cool with it,” Phillip continued. “I was actually impressed.”

They rode along the trail paralleling the road that ran along the lake, around a bend and crossing a wooden bridge and through another parking lot. They were passed by a group of five cyclists dressed alike. Probably from one of the clubs. They slowed down to pass a black couple pushing a stroller along the trail.

“I probably should have given them more credit for it, I guess, but it’s not something we ever talked about a lot. I mean, what should I have done, asked my mom for dating advice? ‘Gee, mom, there’s this really hot guy,’” Phillip said, adopting his best Valley Girl accent. “’But I can’t make him pay any attention to me. What should I do?’” He paused. “Somehow I couldn’t see myself doing that. I also can’t see my mom having any realistic advice for me anyway. ”

They rounded a stand of trees and rose up and over a short bridge and then out into a big park. There were soccer goals set up at each end and crowds of people along the trail.

“Be careful going through here,” Phillip turned his head and said to Mark. “There are a lot of little kids who aren’t paying attention. They’ll step right out in front of you.”

On the weekends, the park was the site of massive soccer tournaments between multiple teams of Latin American players. Phillip looked and saw two teams. One in black shorts with blue and white striped shirts and the other with gold shorts and red tops.

“I think the ones in the blue and white are El Salvadoran,” Phillip said back to Mark. “I don’t remember where the guys in the gold are from.”

Phillip turned his head around just in time to see a four year old child toddle right in front of him. He was already going slow, but he still had to brake suddenly. A larger child, evidently the younger one’s older sister, ran out and grabbed the child’s hand are drew her back off the trail. She smiled up. Phillip smiled back at her, refusing to say what he really wanted to say.

Once they got through the crowds, they pedaled along for a while in silence. Phillip looked up and could see the traffic crossing the bridge up ahead of them. He reached down, pulled up his bottle, squirted some water into his mouth and then replaced the bottle in its cage. .

“So what instrument do you play,” Mark asked finally.

Phillip looked back. “Huh?”

“You said you were a band nerd. What instrument did you play?”

“Well, I started out on clarinet, but one afternoon, I was in the band hall and the

director pulled me into the instrument room. He opened a case, showed me this horn and said I should dig out some method books and learn how to play it so that if we needed someone to play a solo at contest, I could do it.”

“So what instrument was it?”

They were approaching the merge of the trail with a major road with a lot of traffic that passed over a bridge across the lake. Since it was Mark’s first time at the lake, and he was unfamiliar with the bike path, Phillip sprinted ahead. He looked behind to make sure Mark was following him and led him into the safe lanes to cross the bridge over the lake. Once they were across and diverted back into the park, Phillip slowed down and rode abreast of Mark again.

“Bassoon,” Phillip said.

“What?”

“A bassoon. You asked what the instrument was,” Phillip said. He looked at Mark

and realized more information was needed. “A bassoon. You know that long wooden thing with the curved piece of metal sticking out of it. They always show one at some point on ‘Evening at Pops.’”

Mark concentrated for a few moments and then brightened with recognition. ”Oh, I

know what you’re talking about,” he said. “So you really play that? Wow, that’s cool. I don’t guess we ever had anyone at my high school who did.”

“Yep, I really do,” Phillip said. They coasted down the hill from the bridge. Phillip pulled his left pedal up, put his weight on the right pedal and leaned his bike over to take the sharp left turn without having to slow down. They rode along and entered a grove of sycamore trees.

“And at some point, I realized that mediocre bassoon players were in much higher demand than good clarinet players and decided that I should specialize. So when I ended up in college as a music major, bassoon was my instrument. I still have the one I bought. Or, I should say, the one my parents bought. I play it in the band now.”

“What kind of a band are you in?”

Philip mentioned the local gay/lesbian band.

“Oh, they rehearse at our church,” Mark said brightly.

“You go to MCC? “ Phillip said.

“Yeah, I’m in the choir there.”

“You sing?” Phillip asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Like, you’re a musician, and you sing? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think it was that important.”

Phillip looked across the lake and braked to keep from descending the hill too fast. Once they arrived at the bottom, they slowed and rode along a long flat stretch through a tall stand of scrub oaks. The boat docks ran along the lake. There were a few boats tied up, but most were out sailing freely on the lake.

“I’d like to hear you sing sometime,” Phillip said.

Mark was silent for a while. “Well, I’m singing a solo in a few weeks. You could come then. I mean, if you don’t have something else going on.”

“Sure, I’ll be there,” Phillip said, calculating the date. Even though I hate churches, he thought.

“But what about you?” Mark asked. “When do I get to hear you play?”

Phillip thought about the conversation he’d had at the previous rehearsal. ‘All my boyfriends have to come to my concerts,’ Keith had said.

“Well, we have a concert the last Saturday of the month. Why don’t you come.”

“Great.”

The flat stretch was coming to a close. There was only one hill left. Phillip rose out of the saddle and pumped to sprint up the hill and into the parking lot. Mark followed slowly behind.

When they arrived back at their cars, they pulled up and dismounted. They held their water bottles high over their heads, squirting jets of water into their mouths and over their faces and shaking their heads. Phillip started placing his bike on his roof rack when he felt a splash of water against the back of his head. He turned around to see Mark laughing and aiming at him again.

“Stop!”

“I just thought you looked kinda hot,” Mark said, catching Phillip in the face with another shot. He stopped and aimed again.

“Stop it!” Phillip said and clenched an eye shut and looked away but not soon enough to not receive a splash in his ear. He reached up, grabbed his water bottle from his bike and ducked behind his car. Mark was dancing from side to side like a boxer and laughing so hard he didn’t notice that Phillip had hunched down and circled around to the front of the car.

“Come on, let’s see what you’ve got,” Mark challenged.

Phillip stood up and let go with a stream aimed directly at Mark’s crotch, drenching him. By the time he stopped, Mark’s shorts were dripping.

Mark stood still and squinted and then slowly looked down at his dripping thighs.

“Sorry,” Phillip said, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth as he laughed. “I didn’t know there was that much left.”

“That’s going to look really good when I get home,” Mark said.

“It’s going to feel really good as well,” Phillip said smiling. “That wasn’t water. It was Gatorade. Do you know how sticky that stuff gets when it starts drying?”

They continued to verbally spar as they started loading up again. Philip finished levering his bike to its rack. Mark placed his in the back of his truck.

“Here,” Phillip said. “Let’s stay for a while. It will give that stain time to dry out a little.” He walked over to a picnic table and sat down. Mark followed. They sat on the hard bench and looked out over the lake. There were a couple of sailboats on the far side. Several rowing teams were off in the distance, practicing.

“I really love this place,” Phillip said. “I come here a lot at sunset.”

“It’s beautiful,” Mark said and then coughed.

They sat close to each other on the bench, looking across the water toward the hills on the other side of the lake. Sailboats with striped sails slid slowly across the surface against the glow of the sky. The sun had already started setting. Mark coughed again and Phillip handed him his water bottle. Mark was twirling a blossom he’d broken off a mimosa tree as they’d walked from the parking lot to the table.

Phillip leaned over on the table, resting his chin on his folded hands. The sun was low in the sky. The angle was just right to set ablaze the copper skin of a tall building among the collection of downtown high rises, jutting upward like the fingers of a hand. Phillip felt a squeeze on his neck.

“Which one are you?”

“What?”

“Which one?” Mark repeated and pointed to the edge of the lake.

“What? The ducks?”

“Geese,” Mark corrected. There were two geese swimming along the edge of the lake, one with dark feathers the other white with a green head.

“I guess I must be the dark one. The one with the black feathers. You of course are the lighter one. The one with the green football helmet and the eye black under the eyes. Notice that he’s following behind the other one.”

“And just what do you mean by that?” Mark said, punching Phillip on the shoulder.

“You were behind me all the way from the other side of the lake.”

“That’s because you knew the way and I didn’t. I was holding back to come on strong at the end,” Mark said, reaching for an excuse.

“Yeah, right,” Phillip said, without looking over. Mark played at looking sullen.

Phillip lightly scratched the hollow of Mark’s back.

“You know,” Phillip said, “When I first moved here, I used to come here after work, put in a couple of laps and then just sit here and wait for the sunset. I used to watch the downtown lights brighten against the horizon and dream about how I would conquer this town.”

“And do you think you have?”

Phillip thought for a while.

“Not really, I guess” he said, watching the boats. “But I’m not sure that it’s all that important anymore.” He ran his hand up Mark’s back and squeezed the back of his neck. “Don’t you ever have big dreams?”

Mark was quiet for a while. “No, I’m not very ambitious, I guess.” Mark looked down at the concrete table in front of them. “But the things I like to do, I do well.”

“And what are these things do you do well?” Phillip was leaning on the table, but angled his head over and looked at Mark.

Mark puckered his mouth and frowned and thought. He made a circle with his thumb and ring finger. Phillip thought it looked like the hand of benediction on a Greek icon. Mark drew the mimosa blossom through the circle. The strands of the bloom merged closer and closer until they formed a deep pocket, crimson like the color of blood.

“They think I’m a pretty good mechanic at work, I guess.”

Phillip nodded, considering this. He watched Mark break into a smile.

And I guess I sing OK, too.” He added and dropped the mimosa blossom on the ground.

“Well, I’ll be the judge of that,” Phillip said and slapped Mark on the back. “You’d better be really good. I’m pretty critical.”

Mark feigned being scared.

“Look, let’s go back to my place,” Phillip said. “We can get cleaned up and go grab some dinner.”

“Sounds good.”

“Besides, you’re going to need a shower really soon once that stuff starts drying.”