"Remind me again where you're going and why?" Jim channel-surfed with the television on mute.
I looked up from the email I was writing to Naomi. She'd given me a whole song and dance about how email fostered miscommunication because the auras of the correspondents didn't translate into digital, but when I pointed out it was the only way we were going to stay in anything like touch, she caved.
"All-night study session to celebrate the revelation of the Torah at Sinai."
Without looking in my direction, Jim snorted. "Didn't you get enough of that shit when you were teaching?"
"Nah, man, this is totally different." I saved the draft email: I could finish it tomorrow. "It's nothing like pulling an all-nighter to grade papers. This is meditation, this is focus—this is study with intent."
"Sounds too Sandburg to be true."
"Jim, no, you're so wrong." I closed the laptop and set it down on the coffee table. "There's this whole system of textual study on the eve of Shavuot. The Kabbalists of Tzfat believed it effected union between the transcendent part of God and the immanent divine presence exiled in creation." I was working up a head of steam, and it felt good. "There's actually something erotic about the connection with the texts, not in the sense you're probably thinking, but there's a profound desire for—"
"Chief. Hang on." The skepticism was all in Jim's tone, not his face, as usual. "Lemme get this straight. You're staying up all night."
"Mm-hm." I could see where this was going, but I like being needled. When it's Jim. In that particular slow, methodical drawl that in anyone else might sound humorless, but not to me, not from him.
"For Bible study."
"Well, not exactly, but—" On second thought, trying to explain the distinctions between Torah, Talmud, and midrash, especially given that some denominations regard Talmud as part-and-parcel with the written Torah and some don't, was way too much work. "Close enough for government work."
"Making out with the texts," his voice a pretty good mimicry of mine on that one word, "with a bunch of strangers."
"I know the rabbi, and I think somebody from my old yoga class is going to be there, but otherwise, yeah."
Jim shook his head, lips pursed. He settled on a Mavericks game and unmuted the television. Over the crowd noise and televised Jumbotron sounds, I heard, "You're nuts, but you're harmless."
I'm not an anthropologist anymore, and I've never been a sociologist except in an armchair way, but sometimes it's hard to turn the brain off. The crowd was skewed toward women: eleven women and four men, not including Barry, the rabbi. And most of the women had their own customized kippot, but most of the men wore cheesy satin ones from the box at the synagogue door.
After the evening service, we settled ourselves around a big table in the social hall, poured plastic cups of generic soda, and started studying.
Well, kind of studying. The first "lesson" was taught by an older woman, fiftyish maybe, who was heavy into midrash. She gave a pretty standard intro—textual exegesis through storytelling, loopholes and missing scenes, perspectives of non-standard characters, giving the text a myriad of voices—and then we turned to our notebooks to voice the Book of Ruth.
"Wherever you go, I will go; your people will be my people, your God will be my God." I got stuck on that verse.
What must it have been like for Ruth, husband dead and social standing shattered, to decide to follow Naomi? What does it mean to leave the world that you know, to seek a sense of rootedness in a companion rather than a place?
Maybe I was projecting. Definitely I was projecting. In that moment it seemed perfectly clear to me that leaving academia to follow Jim had been the same kind of choice. The same kind of wrenching. And, in the end—at least this is my hope—the same kind of redemption.
Of course, Ruth got herself a new husband from Naomi's tribe. Ruth got herself a home and a family. Ruth got herself laid, on sweet-smelling hay in the threshing barn. I got a spare room and a badge.
Jim was my Naomi and my Boaz rolled into one, except he didn't know it. Or maybe he knew, but he didn't want to admit that he knew, didn't want to accept it. Because he didn't want to feel responsible for my career choice. Because he didn't want to deal with the complications of being a cop and being queer.
I've always told myself he'd get there eventually. I wasn't going anywhere. The sexual tension wasn't going anywhere. Jim's smarter than people give him credit for: he knows the tension's there. He's just not ready to deal with it yet.
Generally I've assumed I'm content to wait.
But writing as Ruth, I wondered whether it really would be okay with me if he never caught a clue.
I wondered which one of us had it easier, Ruth or me. I wondered whether she, too, had felt the choice wasn't really a choice but the unquestioned and unquestionable path of her heart.
The interruption came just after two a.m. Before the door swung open I heard the familiar skkkht sounds of police radios. I was already pushing my chair back when the door opened and the boys in blue appeared: Grady and Hennessy. I knew them both. Grady's a rookie, Hennessy's been around a couple of years.
"Excuse me, folks," Grady started.
"Is everything all right?" Barry looked concerned. He kept one finger on the book in front of him, marking his place.
"Sure, no problem," Grady again, quickly. "Just checking to make sure everything's okay here."
"Lights aren't usually on quite this late," Hennessy added.
Barry opened his mouth to explain, but before he could get a word out, Grady noticed me at the table. The look on his face was pretty comical, like he thought he'd just stumbled on an undercover officer and wasn't sure whether he'd just blown my cover.
"Hey, guys," I said.
"Sandburg! What're you doing—" The question was half out of Grady's mouth before he apparently realized how it sounded. I knew what he meant; it's weird the first time you see somebody from work in an unfamiliar context.
Weird, too, to think he knew me only as a police officer, had no real idea who or what I'd been before. Hennessy was around when all that went down, but I had no idea whether he'd told Grady about any of it. I'd guess not: he's not a gossiping kind of guy, and anyway nobody really wants to fuck with Jim. Plus they seem to respect me okay, which helps. Between liking me, and the Fear of Jim, nobody gives me shit.
"All-night study session. It's a Jewish-holiday thing." I liked saying the words. I mean, I'm not a practicing Jew by any stretch, but I love that my tradition's idea of a good time is geeking out with a bunch of texts spread on a seminar table.
"Sorry to have disturbed you folks." Hennessy stepping in smoothly, ushering his partner out the door. "Have a good night, everyone." It closed soundlessly.
There was a pause.
"Returning to Rabbi Yochanan," Barry said, finally, and we all blinked and shifted in our seats and cleared our throats and resettled our attention on the words in front of us again.
It was weird to be driving home when the sun was up.
Shouldn't have been, I guess; should've felt just like coming home after a stakeout. Or after an all-nighter grading papers, though it's been long enough since academia was a part of my life that those memories are starting to fray around the edges.
But it felt weird. I felt weird. Electric.
The study wasn't ecstatic, not all night long. You can't sustain that, and we were a motley bunch who didn't entirely know each other anyway. A few of the people who'd brought lessons had clearly never taught before, and their inexperience showed. I caught myself wanting to snatch their notes and do it for them: direct people through the handouts, get up and start gesturing, the whole nine yards.
I fought the impulse. It seemed churlish. I wanted to be accepting the whole community-taught thing, and instead my ego kept insisting I could've done a better job. I guess old habits die hard.
The fluorescent lights got overpowering around three. The characters on the page wobbled a little in the faint oscillations of the bulb: would've driven Jim crazy. Not that he would've stayed up all night anyway. Not like he reads Hebrew, either, for that matter. And the chairs, even padded as they were, started to hurt my butt midway through the night.
But we crested the hill around five. The second pot of coffee was on by then. The sky wasn't lightening yet, exactly, but you could see where the light would be coming from, when it came.
And at dawn we davvened the morning blessings. Barry chants them half-in Hebrew and half-in English: "Baruch Atah, Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, who has made me in Your image." The melody was easy. We caught on pretty quick.
And yeah, there was something cool about studying all night and capping it with prayer. I don't miss religious ritual on a regular basis, but now and then it's good to dip back in. In my sleep-deprived state, I couldn't help thinking Incacha would have approved. Not his brand of mysticism, by a long shot, but I'm guessing wherever he is now, he's got access to some extra insight about the Source of all magic, all religion.
And then I was in the car, barely aware of what roads I was taking, heading—on auto-pilot—home.
I tried to unlock the door quietly, although I don't know who I thought I was fooling. I would've woken Jim anyway, just from my footsteps and heartbeat.
Plus he was up already. Sitting in his robe at the kitchen table, hair wet from the shower, nursing an enormous mug of Sumatra French Roast.
It smelled fantastic, but my stomach gurgled. Too much late-night coffee, not enough food.
"There's bagels," Jim said, gesturing to the counter. Hallelujah: he wasn't kidding. A big white paper bag spilling beautiful rounds onto the counter.
"What'd you do, go to the deli at dawn?" The bagels were still faintly warm.
"Yeah."
I couldn't help grinning as I sliced my sourdough siesel-rye and slid it into the toaster. He acts gruff, but Jim's a softie. He went out and got breakfast because he knew I'd be hungry.
That's devotion for you, man. At that instant I didn't care if the tension between us ever overflowed into sex, if the romance ever became manifest. Because I've found my place in the world, and it's Cascade. I've found my work, and it's police work, unlikely as that would have sounded to me even a year ago. And I've found my life-partner, and he's Jim Ellison, no matter what.
Though he is a fine sight in a bathrobe. Those calves disappearing beneath terrycloth, smooth chest with just a hint of shadow—but I know better than to get caught staring, so I let my eyes wander. A couple of living room lamps were on, even though the sun was already up. The book on the kitchen table was the one he'd started two days ago, some James Michener thing, a good three inches thick. Oddly, the bookmark was sticking out surprisingly close to the end. Had Jim stayed up all night reading? Had he been keeping some kind of vigil, waiting for me to come home?
Maybe he'd been thinking about some of the same things I had. About where we were headed. About wanting to be headed there. Or maybe I was just spinning sleep-deprived fantasies...
I reached for the kettle to fill it for tea, and found it already heavy. My happiness seemed to double. I turned the stove on, turned around, and Jim was sitting back, watching me. Smiling a hidden Jim-smile that maybe nobody else would've seen.
Maybe they weren't sleep-deprived fantasies after all.
"So how was it, Einstein?"
"It was great."
He waited. "What—that's it? No details?"
"Like you really want to know." The toaster popped. I busied myself with bagel and cream cheese and, wonder of wonders, smoked salmon sealed tight in the fridge.
Jim got up to slice and toast his own bagel. "Actually, I do," he said, standing so close we were almost touching.
I was lost, breathing in Old Spice overlaid with coffee, and had to forcibly call my attention back to his words. "Huh?"
"Want to know." Jim leaned back on the counter and crossed his long elegant feet at the ankle. "If you want to tell me."
His eyes were warm, his gaze poured over me like honey, but there was no urgency. Like he was on the bus, fucking finally, but it didn't have to take off right this second. Because we have rhythms together. Because we actually like talking to each other. Because it would be better for the wait. Because I was hungry. Because he really did want to know.
"Nothing would make me happier," I said.
And it was true.
The End