Fly Past the Sun
The arena is cool. The atmosphere fills with the aroma of ice, sweat, concrete, and coffee. The building hums, breathing, alive. Daniel heads down the corridor to the change room. He will be seventeen soon and he is still short, barely five-foot-six, and stocky. You would think that would be good for hockey, but he knows he is only good because he works at it.
Lucas is already there. Daniel pauses for a moment to soak in Lucas’s tall lean body. Lucas is already geared up. He laces up his skates with long elegant fingers that maneuver the laces with the same intensity he brings to his art and to hockey. His long dark hair falls beside his face in a mass of unkempt waves. Beside him on the bench, a sketchbook is open to his newest creation, a figure with wings.
This is the fun practice, kids vs parents, that marks the last time the team will be on the ice together this season. After playing, they will head to the community center for pizza and the awards. Lucas is up for best player again this year.
“Hey, you’re early,” Daniel calls out to him.
“Nope dude, you be late.” Lucas looks up, brushes the mass of dark hair from his face, and captures Daniel with intense brown eyes.
Daniel feels his heart beat faster. Lucas is his best friend.
“So, what’s up for the summer?” Daniel asks, “you going to camp or what?”
Lucas shakes his head. “Not this year, dude. Dad’s tapped out.”
They head out onto the ice. Lucas’s dad, Mike, is on the ice already yelling incoherent instructions to the other players on the parent’s team. His face is red, his breathing hard. Daniel’s mom, Jackie, watches from the bleachers with the other parents who don’t play.
Daniel and Lucas fall into an easy rhythm, passing, skating, laughing. They feel good being on the ice. They dare each other to do tricks, jump, backwards somersault, score on the net from improbable locations. Wing, center, score! The more ridiculous the shot, the more they get lost in the game. Mike’s face turns from red to purple. He holds onto the boards to catch his breath as Lucas skates around him.
At the end, coach Randy gathers them around and congratulates everyone on a good season. They have done well for a team of almost all new players. Coach reminds them about the end of season party, dates for tryouts and gives a plug for the summer hockey camp he helped organize. Randy is a new coach, but they know each other from years of competitive hockey. On the same team or different teams, it’s one community. Tryouts will start soon, and players could possibly be selected to different teams.
Jackie has gone ahead to the community center to help set up. Daniel gets a ride with Lucas and Mike in his old Ford pickup truck.
“So, we gonna see you round this summer?” Mike asks Daniel.
“For sure,” Daniel replies.
Lucas and Daniel look at each other, grin, and bump shoulders.
“I got an old junker to fix up for Lucas.” Mike smiles at the boys in the rearview mirror. “You should come, help fix’er up.”
“Thanks.” Daniel glances over at Lucas, who is looking out the window.
“You two make a good team. I’m gonna make sure you get picked together for next year.”
“For real?” Daniel asks. He’s pretty sure that’s not how it works.
“Yup.” Mike pulls the truck into a parking lot. “I just have to make a quick stop.”
#
When they arrive at the community center, the lot is full. They are the last to arrive.
“You’re here!” Jackie comes over, puts her arm around Daniel, and gives him a squeeze. “The pizza’s here, too. You must be starved.” Daniel pulls away. He can smell the wine on her breath.
“Mike.” She nods at Mike, taking note of the six pack of beer he is holding.
“Jackie.”
Mike’s hand rests on Lucas’s shoulder.
Plates fill, and they sit with the other kids laughing and recounting the memorable moments of the season. They poke fun at Holy the Goalie, real name Johnny, for every shot he let in and praise every goal he saved. The stories get wilder with each version, and Johnny takes it all with a big smile and a laugh. He is one of the best, but even the best can let one sneak by. Everyone knows he’ll be at camp that summer. His dad has already planned his future straight to the NHL.
The parents’ chatter gains volume as boxes of beer and wine are emptied. At the end of the evening, after the awards are handed out, Lucas leaves with his dad and his MVP trophy. Mike has one arm around his shoulder and the four remaining cans of beer dangle from their plastic rings in his other hand.
Daniel says his goodbyes and follows his mother to her car. He can smell the wine mingled with spearmint gum. Her energy fills the car and vibrates with a dark edge. Daniel sits still and quiet. It won’t take much, he knows.
#
Hockey season ends. School ends. Summer begins. Real estate sales are going well, and Jackie sells two houses before the end of June. She starts talking about another move. Daniel rubs the scar on his forehead, a reminder from a previous move, the sharp edge of a box falling from a shelf. When he turns eighteen, he can move out.
#
Mike has seniority at his factory as the day supervisor. With hockey over, he takes advantage of overtime hours. He is hardly home, but when he is, they work on the faded green Pontiac GT he managed to get for a few old but rare car parts. He is a self-proclaimed connoisseur of vintage car parts and other random pieces of metal. When the car is ready, Mike teaches Lucas how to drive.
Lucas loves the car. He caresses the steering wheel and carefully wipes bird excrement from the hood. He revels in every moment he is allowed to drive alone around the block, avoids potholes, and flinches at the sound of gravel hitting the side of the car. Lucas soaks in the freedom, the wind rushing past his face through the open window, the glow his sunglasses give the world around him. At home, he hoses off the dirt and inspects every inch of the car for damage.
“You have to let’er get dirty sometime kid,” Mike teases, before spending hours showing him how to fix the rust spots and touch up the paint.
#
Once school is out, Daniel rides his bike out to Lucas’s first thing in the morning. His mom comes home late and sleeps late. He has a cell phone for emergencies and stays out of her way as much as possible. It takes Daniel about twenty minutes of cross-country biking to get from his brand-new condo building on the edge of town to Lucas’s bungalow in the country.
Unobserved, the boys follow an overgrown path in the forest behind Lucas’s house to their cave by the river in the ravine. Daniel remembers the first time Lucas showed it to him. The path, overgrown Lucas finds his way by instinct, fingers lingering on tree trunks, silent footfalls, branches scraping his face, the incessant buzzing of mosquitos. Deep in his soul, Daniel retains the memory of his momentary fear of becoming lost overcome by his invisible bond to Lucas. Their intuitive affinity was born on the ice the first time they played hockey together. He longs for it, for Lucas.
#
Lucas sketches out the design for a large metal sculpture. It is a man with metal wings. A more detailed sketch than the one Daniel saw in the changing room at the hockey rink. Like his drawing, Lucas wants to fly, to be free.
Lucas shows the sketch to Daniel. It is amazing. Strong, lithe, wings reach out to the sky, to somewhere beyond. Lucas wants to build it in the forest by their cave. He has already built a wagon with large wheels they can use to drag the materials out to the ravine. Daniel feels a twinge in his heart—how long has Lucas been working on this? He knows about Lucas’s other metal sculptures, the birds, lizards, and little iron people, but he didn’t know about this idea. Lucas envisions something larger than anything he has done before with wings that can fly. That’s how he explains it to Daniel.
They spend the first week cutting out a path in the underbrush to pull the wagon through. Lucas assembles the smaller parts of the sculpture at the house before loading them on the cart. Daniel helps Lucas, mesmerized by his friend. It’s a part of Lucas he feels separate from even though they work together so closely that their heads touch, fingers intertwine, sending waves of joy and excitement through Daniel. He surrenders himself to Lucas. They merge into each other, work as one mind and body, rendering speech unnecessary.
After an intense day of constructing the sculpture, they collapse in the cave, both exhausted and exhilarated by their progress. Lying side by side, the cool rock below their backs, they hang their heads over the edge to change their point of view. Upside down, the sculpture takes on life, ready for the wings that will pull it toward the deep blue space between the leaves and the sun beyond. Daniel feels his hand brush Lucas’s. His breath catches, the tentative touch of Lucas’s hand turns his world a brilliant white. Speechless, taking slow, shallow breaths, Daniel traces the back of Lucas’s hand, his long, slender fingers, and up his arm, his shoulder. He feels Lucas’s weight shift toward him as their fingers find each other and their lips meet in soft, tentative, gentle kisses. The quiet rustle of leaves surrounds them.
They never talk about it, holding this close to their hearts. Protected, it belongs to them and to the forest, woven into the rocks and the leaves and the stream. They throw their energy into the metal sculpture.
#
Building the platform is trickier than either of them expected, and it requires continuous modification to support the sculpture that grows before their eyes. They bang old metal bars and cogs into shape, weld them together, and at times, resort to duct tape and wire. It is an intense process of trial and error.
By midsummer, they are camping in the cave. It is a gradual evolution—both parents appear oblivious, unconcerned.
In the evenings, their explorations of each other become increasingly natural. The touch of a hand on a shoulder, a quick kiss on the cheek, arm in arm by the fire. Encompassed by a sphere of their own creation.
#
And then, Mike is laid off.
“Temporary,” he tells Lucas. “If you wanna keep that car, you’re gonna have to find the money to fix’er up yourself. No more handouts.”
For the first few days, Mike spends all his time with Lucas and the car, and they work on it for hours. Construction on the sculpture grinds to a halt. Daniel and Lucas have the legs built for the sculpture, but the torso, arms, and head lay around in various stages of construction.
Mike starts drinking, first in the evening and then the afternoon, until his day starts with a beer and ends with him passed out beside a whiskey bottle. Lucas does his best to avoid him, sneaks out early in the morning, camps by the stream. Daniel doesn’t meet him at the house anymore.
#
Daniel doesn’t see much of Jackie all summer, but when he does, she’s happy and apologetic for being so busy.
“Make hay while the sun shines, baby,” she says to him with a wink.
Daniel likes seeing her this way. It’s been a long time. When she’s happy, she’s amazing. But when she’s down, he’s learned to stay out of the way.
#
Daniel gets the idea to sell Lucas’s smaller sculptures online. He takes photos of the sculptures, and together they go to the library where there is free Wi-Fi, and no one bothers them. They set up a website, find books on making iron art, and figure out why certain elements of the metal sculpture are not working. Lucas begins sketching more designs and Daniel adds the sketches to the website under the headings, “coming soon,” or “under construction.”
Work on the car stops and Mike won’t let Lucas drive. Late at night, Lucas sits in the car, grips the steering wheel, and wonders where Mike has hidden the key. Other nights, he carefully searches the garage and the house without luck.
#
The summer passes quickly, and Mike doesn’t get called back to work. One morning, Daniel meets Lucas at their spot by the river. Lucas has a black eye and a swollen lip.
“Lucas, what happened?” Daniel asks.
Lucas shrugs. He’s sitting on a log facing the river and wipes a tear away with the back of his hand. “Dad sold the car.”
“Are you kidding me? You love that car!”
Lucas nods. “Then we got in a fight about it.” Lucas stifles a sob. “He had no right . . . he gave it to me!”
Lucas wipes another tear away with his hand, his breathing rapid and ragged. “I was getting the money . . . we were getting the money . . .”
Daniel feels the anger well up inside Lucas and sees it on his face that has become dark and focused. He sits beside Lucas, puts his arm around Lucas’s shoulders, and kisses his cheek.
Lucas pulls away. “Don’t.”
He gets up from the log and starts throwing rocks at the river.
Daniel has never seen Lucas like this. Something feels broken, wrong. His stomach turns, and he feels like he’s going to puke. Daniel wants to hold Lucas, to make everything the way it was, but he can’t make himself get up and do it. Instead, he starts to work on the sculpture.
Lucas throws himself at Daniel. “Don’t touch it!”
He tackles Daniel to the ground.
Daniel feels the hard smack of Lucas’s fist on his cheek and struggles to push him away. He digs his heels into the dirt, trying to get some space. They embrace in combat. Lucas’s aggression is released by a sudden, uncontrollable rage. Daniel defends himself blindly until somehow, they are kissing.
Lucas begins to sob. Daniel pulls him close and feels Lucas’s heart beat against his chest as though it were his own. He is overcome with desire for Lucas, confused. He doesn’t want to see Lucas like this, hurt and defeated. Daniel’s body betrays him. He can feel himself grow hard and wishes his body would stop. But the closeness of Lucas and the musky odor of his body mixed with dirt is overwhelming.
Daniel feels Lucas lean into him. They have never had sex, never gone past the innocence of a stolen kiss, the brush of skin. But now they both surrender to each other. It is confusing and awkward. Daniel loses himself to his body’s desire, his mind no longer present.
When it is over, they both lay on the ground panting, confused. A late summer breeze blows through the trees. The sound of birds calling and answering. The sound of their own breath in and out. Daniel reaches out to Lucas who pulls away and turns on to his side, his back to Daniel.
“I think you should go,” Lucas says.
“But . . .” Daniel thinks of what to say. “Tomorrow? We can work on the sculpture.”
Lucas shakes his head. He sits up and puts his clothes on. “I don’t, I can’t . . . my dad—”
“But I thought it was—” Daniel hesitates. Was what? “I thought you felt the same way about me?” He feels his heart pound in his chest. Was he wrong?
“I’m sorry.” Lucas starts sobbing.
“I mean . . . Lucas . . . I love you.” Daniel’s voice cracks as he fights off tears.
“I can’t, my dad . . . I just can’t.” Lucas buries his face in his hands. “It’s just . . . I need to be alone . . . to think.”
Anger grows inside Daniel. Just like his mother, he thinks, they make you feel like they care and then they don’t.
“Fine, whatever.” Daniel tries to sound confident, like it doesn’t matter. He clenches his teeth and takes one last look at Lucas before he leaves.
#
At the end of the summer, Daniel’s mom sells their condo and Daniel moves schools again. He gives up hockey. He doesn’t want to play anymore—with Lucas or without him. He doesn’t see or hear from Lucas that year or the next.
In his last year of high school, Daniel hears rumors of Mike beating up Lucas when he finds out he’s gay. Daniel, confused, never asks.
After a week of missing school, Lucas’s body is found hanging from the rusty metal arm of the winged sculpture. There is no note.
Daniel goes to the funeral with the guys from their former hockey team and their parents. Everyone laments the loss of such talent. Mike is sober and solemn. Daniel tries to talk to him, but his voice catches in his throat. He is eighteen. Next year he leaves for college. Daniel holds the memory of Lucas deep in his heart. He begs for his friend’s forgiveness and hopes Lucas’s soul is free at last to fly past the sun.
Denisha Naidoo is a South African born BIPOC Canadian poet, writer and physician psychotherapist living in Guelph, Ontario with her dog Maverick. Her work has appeared in PRISM International, Passager Books, Prairie Fire, Open Minds Quarterly, Braided Way Magazine, Outpost Magazine, and Ladies Briefs: A Short Anthology. She also published a podcast of her novella, The Amazing Adventures of Wig Girl.
