ON THE FIRST FRIDAY OF November, Dante and I went out to the desert in my pickup. It was a little chilly. I think I was a little peopled out. I needed some quiet. And I needed to be with Dante. Just me and him. It had been a while since we’d gone out there, to that spot where I kissed him for the first time. I’d put some sleeping bags in the back of the truck. Dante was singing as we drove, Christmas carols he was practicing for the concert. He had a good voice. Strong.
“I like to hear you sing,” I said, “but what I really enjoy doing is kissing.”
“Really? Where’d you learn? Who taught you?”
“Some guy. It wasn’t that hard to learn.”
“Some random guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you meet him?”
“I met him at the swimming pool one summer day. He taught me about the physics of water. He taught me that our bodies are mostly water and that the Earth is seventy-one percent water. He said if I didn’t understand the beauty and the dangers of water, then I would never understand the planet I lived on. He told me once that swimming was an intimate thing and that it was like making love to the Earth.”
“Your random friend said that?”
“He did.”
“How do you remember all those things I said to you, Ari?”
“Because you taught me how to listen to people who have something to say.”
“I didn’t teach you that. You learned that all by yourself.” He kissed me. “Come and swim all the waters of the world with me.”
I nodded. And all I could think was, God, Dante, I wish I could. If only that were possible. If only we could become cartographers of the waters of the world.
Just to hold him.
Just to kiss him.
Just to feel his body next to mine.
And feel that thing we call life running through me—that thing we call love. That thing we call “want” or “yearning” or “desire.” And I looked up at the heavens as my breathing returned to normal. And the stars were as brilliant that night as I’d ever known them to be.
I heard Dante whispering a poem: “ ‘Ah, love, let us be true to one another…’ ”
Sometimes it was so unnecessary to whisper the words “I love you.”