Between Enzo and the Universe Read online

  Between Enzo

  & the Universe

  Chase Connor

  Chase Connor Books

  The Lion Fish Press

  www.chaseconnor.com

  www.thelionfishpress.com

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters feature in the book.

  Cover models are not intended to illustrate specific people and the content does not refer to models' actual acts, identity, history, beliefs or behavior. No characters depicted in this ebook are intended to represent real people. Models are used for illustrative purposes only.

  Book Cover Designed By: Allen T. St. Clair, ©2019, 2020 Chase Connor

  CHASE CONNOR BOOKS are published by

  The Lion Fish Press

  539 W. Commerce St #227

  Dallas, TX 75208

  © Copyright 2019, 2020 by Chase Connor

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  AUTHORS’ NOTE:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. None of this is real.

  ENZO takes place in a fictionalized version of Montreal, Québec, Canada. Some geographical details and information have been changed to work better with the story. This is all fiction.

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-951860-00-4

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-951860-02-8

  Hardback ISBN 978-1-951860-01-1

  As always:

  To my beta-readers and “feedback crew”: I am so glad you are all here. And I am so glad you are all so blunt with me—even if I do what I want most of the time.

  To all of the readers: It has been quite a journey. I’ve loved every second of it. Let’s get to the end together, shall we?

  Also by Chase Connor

  Just a Dumb Surfer Dude: A Gay Coming-of-Age Tale

  Just a Dumb Surfer Dude 2: For the Love of Logan

  Just a Dumb Surfer Dude 3: Summer Hearts

  Gavin’s Big Gay Checklist

  A Surplus of Light

  The Guy Gets Teddy

  GINJUH

  A Tremendous Amount of Normal

  The Gravity of Nothing

  A Point Worth LGBTQ Paranormal Romances

  Jacob Michaels Is Tired (Book 1)

  Jacob Michaels Is Not Crazy (Book 2)

  Jacob Michaels Is Not Jacob Michaels (Book 3)

  Jacob Michaels Is Not Here (Book 4)

  Jacob Michaels Is Trouble (Book 5)

  CARNAVAL (A Point Worth LGBTQ Paranormal Romance Story)

  Jacob Michaels Is Dead (Book 6)

  Erotica

  Bully

  Audiobooks

  A Surplus of Light (narrated by Brian Lore Evans)

  For my best friend.

  Within my heart lives a love no romance could ever fathom.

  Between Enzo

  & the Universe

  Chapters

  The Coat Made of Sugar and Blue Clouds

  Five is Better Than Four

  Red is the Color of Atonement

  A Cross and Guilt to Bear

  An Unaffordable Coat

  My Oldest Friend

  Le Canard Paresseux

  No Hands to Hold

  The Things We Cannot Abide

  God Loves Dirty Feet

  The Kindness of Not Being So Polite

  The Things We Are Forced to Forgive

  Basilique Notre-Dame de Montreal

  Reasons to Keep Moving

  It’s Not the Disease, It’s the Treatment

  Do You Want to Live or Exist?

  Love Is Not Conditional

  Life’s Simple Pleasures

  Quicker Is Better

  Fury

  A Lifetime of Perfect Sundays

  Where A Heart Belongs

  We All Want More

  A First and Final Christmas

  A Horrible, Awful, Happy Time

  How One Comes to Own a Coat

  Between the Universe and Me

  About the Author

  The Coat Made of Sugar and Blue Clouds

  Sugar was what my brother’s coat always smelled like because his favorite activity was going to the bakery to watch the donuts being fried in the giant vats of grease and then being glazed while they were still piping hot. The bakers used long sticks—almost like giant chopsticks—to flip the puffed-up circles of dough when one side had been fried through. After both sides of the donuts were fried thoroughly, they were systematically and uniformly flipped onto a draining rack and immediately smothered in a sugary waterfall of nearly translucent liquid that would eventually dry to a shiny white. The process of watching the bakers work, systematically frying, flipping, removing, and icing was what made the bakery a magical place for my brother. Watching the donuts being fried was not a quick process, so the smell of warm sugar that permeated the relatively small shop’s interior had ample opportunity to affix itself to his coat. His coat getting a dose of the sugary scent was all that we usually left the donut shop with since I often could not afford to buy any actual donuts. The show was free, so the budget was forgiving of each viewing. What little money I had in my pocket was often used for bus fare to and from the shop. Sometimes, if it was a good day for my brother, we would walk to the shop, and I would use half of the money to take us home from the shop. I would use the other half for a few donuts for him. He would eat them on the bus ride home. Under normal circumstances, we could have walked the 8 kilometers comprising the round trip from our apartment to the shop, and used all of the money for an entire box of donuts. Still, even one way was often too much for him.

  My brother, Noe, never complained about walking since he knew that donuts would be his reward, but I had to be cognizant of whether or not any given day was a good day or bad day. Regularly, I was correct in determining if Noe could make it to the shop on foot or not, whether or not we were having a good or bad day, so we rarely encountered any difficulty. Walks to the donut shop were the best days. Days of exercise and warm sun on our faces or blustery wind at our backs, and warm sugary icing that always ended up smeared across his chin and cheeks as he sat, content and presenting his version of a smile, on the bus ride home. Those days he didn’t mind when I used a napkin and the bottle of water I always carried on our trip to wash his face while he sat there in his sugary, splendid stupor. The flick of his eyes to glance at my face, the half-smile he gave when he was happy and full of fried dough, as I gently cleaned him off and strangers watched on with bewilderment, made me happy. It didn’t always, as strangers on a bus could often make things uncomfortable for Noe and me, but that was rare since most people on a bus in the early morning just want to get home or to work without unnecessary human contact.

  Noe was always proud of his bright blue puffy coat, believing that it made him look like a cloud, even though clouds are white. There was no point in reminding him of this because Noe wasn’t stupid, he just saw things differently than others. Whether we walked to the shop or rode the bus, he was proud to be bundled tightly in his coat when it was cold. He would walk proudly in his coat made of clouds the color of the sky, and I would walk proudly alongside him, pulling my sweater tightly around myself, making do with
what I had.

  It hadn’t always been like that, one brother in a sufficient coat and the other hoping that the budget would soon allow for the purchase of a coat for himself. For many years, none of us had gone without coats, nor had we had to endure walks in the snow with nothing more than a bulky sweater to chase away the icy wind. We hadn’t eaten boxed pasta, boiled and served with only butter as a sauce for dinner five nights a week. When butter was a luxury the budget allowed us to purchase. Times had not always dictated that we choose between Noe’s inhalers and a winter coat for the oldest of us kids. We hadn’t always found ourselves choosing between having a sofa and paying rent, or sitting on the floor and having a warm place to call home. It wasn’t common in our past for me to have to wash clothes in our sink and dry them on a rack in the corner of our nearly barren living room. Money and time fluctuate with the health and abilities of the members of a family, though.

  October in the city is often cool during the day, bordering on bitter at night, so I was glad to have that warm sugary smell wrapped around me as I walked Saint Urbain Street. The cloying sweetness of the sugar had been fading from the coat over time, though I had not washed it in the two months that it had belonged to me. Washing the coat was out of the question until the smell had dissipated completely, not just because I had no washing machine or money to visit a laverie, but because I did not want to forget the smell. There had always been the option of walking to the bakery on a morning when I had nothing to do, which was more often than not, but, like a laverie, the bakery seemed a luxury that I could not afford.

  While the coat kept me mostly warm, the thin canvas of the sneakers I had found in a thrift shop worked to counteract that warmth. Luckily, I had warm winter socks, one luxury I did not have to do without, though they had been darned many times, so the thin canvas was not as awful as it could have been. Of course, wool-lined boots would have been preferable to sneakers as we approached the coldest months of the year in the city, but that was a dream I didn’t bother dreaming. My head stayed down in an attempt to keep my ears inside the collar of the coat, though it was an impossible task to complete gracefully while walking down a busy city street. When I accidentally bumped into the man, obviously better prepared in the clothing department than I, it was motivation to give up my attempt at keeping my ears warm.

  “Désolé, monsieur.”

  I had responded automatically to gloss over my clumsiness. The man barely glanced at me before he spat.

  “Putain étrangers.”

  I didn’t bother saying anything further since the man had accurately pegged me as non-Canadian by birth. Many Québécois easily singled me out as being foreign by birth, though I was never able to determine if this was the slight differences in the pronunciations in our shared language, or maybe it was my eyes. Possibly a combination of the two informed the decision on their part, but being meek and often terrified of the people in my foreign home, I didn’t have the skills to figure out how to ask this of someone. Not that I knew of many people who would be willing to answer such a question. When people are approached with questions about why many people in their homeland are biased against foreigners, one is often met with, at the very least, resistance. Expletives spat at the ground, and insults, if not outright aggression and violence, are not out of the question.

  So, I allowed myself to be a fucking foreigner. At least I had said “sorry” for my clumsiness, so I was a polite fucking foreigner.

  ESL classes—English as a Second Language—can be expensive. In Québec, the official language could be considered French, thanks to The Official Language Act of 1974. French Loi sur la langue officielle—or Loi sur la langue officielle française, depending upon whom is speaking. It was replaced by the Charter of the French Language in 1977. However, due to objections about the act, also known as Bill 22, and to the charter, English is also an official language. So, French is taught as a primary language in schools from Grade 1 upwards, with English as a second language. Because of this, Québécois are expected to know and use both languages as becomes appropriate; thus, ESL classes are often seen as redundant or a waste of time. ESL classes for people whom English is actually their third language is even more uncommon. Many who may disagree that ESL classes, or English language classes in general, are affordable and immersive have the privilege of having hundreds of dollars to spend for things besides absolute necessities.

  My budget afforded very little besides the roof over my head, the clothes on my back (though the articles I possessed were few), and the meager meals I managed zero to three times a day, depending upon the day. Language classes were beyond my reach, so finding a way to pay for them got increasingly creative on my part. In fact, actual, certified ESL classes were so expensive that my creativity was not enough, which was why I took English classes in a room above a dumpling restaurant in the Red-Light District. While this may not seem ideal, and I would be the first to admit that the classes were not of the quality one would expect from a language class a person actually paid money to attend, it was not far from Notre-Dame Basilica, which I enjoyed walking past at least once a day if I could manage it. From there, I could walk to a much smaller chapel to do my daily prayers, though I was steadfastly against visiting the confessional unless I had experienced a particularly trying day. Confession hours did not fit within my schedule anyway, so I felt justified in ignoring that particular custom of my religion.

  My prayers never changed, though they rarely strayed into traditional Catholic prayer, instead taking the form of a personal conversation with my Lord and Savior, though I often felt he chose not to listen. God had bigger problems than the dilemmas of Enzo, so I did not take it personally when I rose from the kneeler or stone floor after prayer each time. My prayers became predetermined and reiterative after going to church following a visit to see my mother in the hospital one evening and learning a lesson about prayer the hard way. As the sun had sunk past the horizon that evening, the stained glass in the few windows of the chapel turning blue, red, and purple, I had asked for help with our financial hardships.

  PleaseGodgivemeawaytogetmoremoneyformyfamily.

  The thought entered my brain like a tsunami before I could stop myself, and I immediately felt guilty, as though I had brought shame upon myself in my sinful ways there in the chapel.

  As I had left the church, walking in the near darkness along the street, a man standing in the alcove of a closed shop had suggested that certain activities would lead to money in my pocket. As though Satan, instead of God, had heard my prayers. “You only have to stand there,” he had explained quickly as a follow-up.

  Tapette!

  He had screamed after me when I hurried away, my head lowered in panic. Unsure if I spoke French, apparently, he screamed at me once again in English in that increasing distance between us.

  Faggot!

  I had never asked for material things again.

  And my prayers became much more refined.

  Simple.

  Focused.

  In the moments following that incident, I couldn’t help but feel that my meager clothing and meek manner, as well as my selfish prayers, had caused the problem. Obviously, I looked like a homeless teenager—hungry, downtrodden, willing to do anything—even allow a strange man to put his mouth on me—for something as simple as a hot meal or a warm coat. I cursed myself for having a problem that I did not have money to fix. I cursed myself further for considering whether or not I could force myself do such a thing with a stranger for my family if necessary, though circumstances changed before I had to definitively face that question.

  Monsieur Paquette wasn’t a bad teacher, all things considered. Let me rephrase. Mr. Paquette was a perfectly serviceable teacher. He did teach his ESL class over a dumpling restaurant in the Red-Light District, but he spoke English very well, especially for a fellow immigrant. At least, it sounded as though he spoke it well, and my fellow students seemed quite pleased with the way he spoke it. Since they all spoke English well,
I had to assume that my fellow students were a good barometer for the quality of the class. It never occurred to me at the time that my fellow students were probably attending an ESL class in the small room over a dumpling restaurant because, like me, they had no other choice. Their barometers were perhaps not the best instruments by which to judge the weather.

  Entering the restaurant, the cooks and waitstaff in the often-desolate interior, looked up, hopeful at first, then utterly disappointed. I waved awkwardly and bounded up the stairs at the side of the heavenly warm room that was always thick with sticky, humid air permeated with the smell of garlic and onion and exotic spices, to attend my class. Mr. Paquette had already begun, all of my fellow students in uncomfortable folding chairs in a half-circle around him as he pointed and poked at a dry erase board full of words that still sometimes looked like nonsense to me. Understanding English as spoken, compared to written, was much easier for me then. A stern look met me as Mr. Paquette paused only briefly, then a bony finger turned into a half-hook and jabbed in the direction of the open seat on his left. Lowering my head in apology, I quickly took off my coat, hung it on the only free hook by the door, and scurried to the seat. Mr. Paquette continued his lesson, firing off words in French and pointing at a student to translate it into English, then use it in a full sentence en Anglais, s’il vous plait.

  It was not lost on me that most, if not all, of my fellow students were given much more difficult words than I, though I tried not to be embarrassed. None of my fellow students ever said anything, but there were often exchanged glances and snickers if I struggled with the most basic of English words. It was not that I did not speak English well, I just did not speak it well enough and fast enough, so my confidence in speaking it around my fellow students caused me to fuck up sometimes. That’s what I thought to myself often, though, if asked to explain by Mr. Paquette, I would say, in my slow, measured English: “I struggle to think quickly enough to say the words in the right sequence to be correct.”