After the service ended, they drove back to Spencer’s apartment. As soon as they walked in the door, Sal collapsed facedown on the bed and began to snore. Spencer sat at his kitchen table for a few minutes, then left Sal sleeping and headed over to the library. About an hour after he arrived, Spencer felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He dug it out and saw a text from Sal. All it said was: “Gotta go.”
“Hold on a minute” Spencer texted back.
Sal didn’t respond, so Spencer hurried back to his place. As he approached, he saw Sal on the sidewalk, pacing back and forth in front of his building. As Spencer got closer, he saw that Sal’s brown eyes were bloodshot, his face streaked with tears.
“What happened?” Spencer asked.
Sal’s voice was thick. “It’s Clancy, man. I guess he was doing coke last night. And… they found him this morning.” His voice began to tremble. “He never woke up. They think the coke was cut with fent.” Then Sal’s entire body seemed to crumple. He buried his eyes in the crook of his elbow as if to hide his tears, but Spencer could see his mouth convulsing in grief.
Spencer put his hand on Sal’s shoulder, as if to comfort his friend. He said, “I’m sorry to hear it, man.” But he could feel the insincerity in his voice and hated himself for it. He again tried to picture Clancy. The kid with the mullet, right? The Dirty Kid? Spencer thought back to last summer—he probably saw him at a party or two, or maybe hooped with him a few times. But then Spencer wondered: was it Clancy he was thinking of, or was it that other Dirty Kid, that kid named John?
Sal took his hands away from his eyes, and then ran them back through his dark ringlets of hair. He looked at Spencer, eyes wide and frightened. “Fuck, man, it was because of us. We…we…defiled the church… The sacrament… we… Blasphemed.” Then he began sobbing again.
Spencer felt a twinge of guilt and fear, which quickly gave way to anger. He grabbed Sal hard, by both shoulders, and said, “That’s crazy talk, man. You can’t think that way.” Then, louder, just short of a shout: “Don’t lay that shit on me.”
Sal’s head bowed forward, gently shaking, as tears rolled down his cheeks. Then he abruptly embraced Spencer and held him tight. Spencer, embarrassed, stared down at the sidewalk behind Sal and felt his friend’s chest heave with sobs.
Sal suddenly grabbed the back of Spencer’s head with both of his strong hands and stared into Spencer’s eyes. “Make it work,” he said, his eyes clouded with pain. “Don’t fuck this semester up. Make it work.”
Sal released Spencer, then dabbed at his eyes as he shuffled over to his beat-to-shit Ford.
Spencer watched him for a moment, searching for something to say, for some comfort to give his friend. He thought about telling Sal what he’d learned that night—that there was no vengeful God, that Clancy had just been another light winking out amidst a vast and implacable darkness. But, Spencer thought, he would never lay such a heavy trip on a friend.
Then he remembered their times on the cross-town bus, when they first became friends. And the lie came to him with surprising ease.
He called out to Sal, who stopped in his tracks and looked back at Spencer, face still clouded with grief.
“If you’d been there, you’d be gone, too.”
They stood there staring at each other for a moment.
Spencer continued. “Maybe someone was looking out for you.”
Sal stared quizzically at Spencer for a moment. He nodded, hesitant at first, then with more conviction. He wordlessly got into his car and drove away.
Spencer watched Sal drive off, then went inside and collapsed on his bed into a dark and dreamless sleep.
Six hours later he woke up. It was almost night again. He dug through piles of unpaid bills until he found the syllabi for his classes. He sat down at the kitchen table and for the first time in a month opened his brick-sized volume of the Norton Anthology of English Literature and began to read William Blake. The eternal void may be waiting for him, Spencer thought, but he might have enough time to salvage the semester.
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