The City of Lovely Brothers (45 page)

"Not until I met Cal. After that, well, I wouldn't 'a 56wanted to change for the world."

Nick pasted Calvin Jr.'s signed confession in his diary and wrote next to it: "And when I think of me and Cal, and everything we had."

* * * *

Except for three-quarters of a page devoted to

Logan's visit, the entries in Nick's diary become very brief and far between after Caliban's death. It took him five years to fill the last fifth of the last notebook, and we cannot say if he bought others to continue it. If he did, he did not consider them important enough to store in the trunk with the record he kept of his life with Caliban, the photograph, the letters, and the anonymous lock of hair, which I am holding between my fingers and rub on my cheek to help me write these lines.

In the final pages of his diary, Nick tells us about his work, his neighbors, the things he saw or did that he found interesting, but he seems detached from all of it. The life we read there does not come to life. When he mentions Caliban, it is always as a separate entry and seldom longer than one or two sentences: "Today was Cal's birthday" or "Forty-two years ago today I carried Cal over the threshold" or "Today I bought a new faucet for the 57bathroom sink. The store had a bathtub just like the one me and Cal soaked in in Billings."

Nick's diary gives the name of the Saint Louis

cemetery where Caliban is buried. When Julia died two years after Caliban, Calhoun dug her grave a mile or so from their house. There is a small plot of ten unmarked graves surrounded by a low iron fence —one would hardly call it a cemetery— that stands alone in the middle of the prairie about fifteen miles from Caladelphia. Two of those graves must be Calhoun's and Julia's, another is probably Amanda's. The others may or may not belong to Calhoun's three oldest sons and their wives. Darcie and Hester no doubt are buried somewhere in Seattle, and Callie in Laramie. The original Caldwell cemetery, which contained the graves of Caliban's parents and grandparents and other people who play a part in this history —Calvin, Caleb, etc.— must have lain a few hundred yards southwest of Victory Park, under a cross street or what is now someone's front lawn or driveway.

I went to the cemetery in Saint Louis to see if

Caliban's gravestone is still standing. The gatekeeper found it quickly and directed me to the site. It was poorly tended, and the stone was weather worn. Behind an oval of glass above the inscription is a very faded black-and-white 57photograph of Caliban in his twenties, the head and upper torso. Had Nick not put it on Caliban's tombstone, my friend would surely have found it in that estate sale trunk.

The inscription itself is easy to read:

In Memoriam

Cal Caldwell

1875-1933

Loving soul, loyal companion, devoted friend

"Loyal companion" sounds like a dog; and Caliban would have said the words "devoted friend" better describe Nick.

A simpler stone, also with a photo, but the glass protecting it is cracked and mildew has obliterated it entirely, stands next to Caliban's final resting place:
R. Nicholas Green

b. 2 Feb. 1879 – d. 5 Sep. 1965

"Cal", but Nicholas instead of Nick.

Thanks to this inscription I both learned Nick's last name and discovered that I do not know his first.

I returned a day later and placed a red rose on each of their graves.

The End About the Author

Anel Viz, a native New Yorker transplanted with only mild success to the Midwest and who has spent much of his life in French-speaking countries, returned to his childhood passion of writing fiction and poetry a few years ago. He looks forward to devoting himself to it full time after he retires from college teaching in a couple of years. He writes in a variety of genres and enjoys pushing the envelope, both in his literary experiments and his treatment of sex.

His stories appear regularly in
Wilde Oats
online magazine.

Also by Anel Viz:

Novel:

The Memoirs of Colonel Gérard Vreilhac
(Dreamspinner Press, 2010)

Novellas:

An Island Interlude
(BENT magazine, Sept. 2007)
Val
('Night Moves vol. 2', Aspen Mountain Press, 2008)
Alma's Will
(serialized in Wilde Oats magazine, Dec. '09

and Apr. '10)

Dancing for Jonathan
(Dreamspinner Press, 2009) Short stories:

A Christmas Carol
(archived in Wilde Oats)

An Uncoventional Family
(archived in Wilde Oats)
The Stray
('Queer Wolf', Queered Fiction, 2009)
The Interrogation
(Wilde Oats, Aug. 2009)
The Fire Eaters
(Wilde Oats, Apr. 2009)
A Perfect Gift for a Voyeur
(Dreamspinner Press, 2010)
There Are Fairies in the Bottom of the Garden
(Dreamspinner Press, 2010)

A Return to Normalcy
(Wilde Oats, Aug. 2010) Prose poem cycles:

Pain
(BENT, Mar. 2007)

Our Acreage
(Doppelganger Press, 2007)

Lux Carnis
(Doppelganger Press, 2007)

Travelers and Homebodies
(archived in Wilde Oats) To be released shortly:

Moonrise Over the Nile
(short story, Wilde Oats)
The House in Birdgate Alley
(novella, Silver Publishing)
P'tit Cadeau
(novel, Silver Publishing)