Matrimony Read Online Free Page B

Julian’s stories. Carter liked Julian’s stories and he liked Julian himself, and one night, drunk on beers and having smoked some pot, Carter admitted that the reason he talked so much about the West Coast was that he missed home, he missed his mother and father, and he found the East Coast daunting, the history of it, the wealth, New England especially, where he’d gone to prep school on scholarship for a couple of years before returning home and graduating from his local public school. That was why he had come to Graymont, to show himself he wasn’t intimidated by New England and by people like Julian who came from New York City and had lots of money and had been to places he’d never been to, such as Europe. And although it was true he’d lost his virginity, it hadn’t been at thirteen, and when Carter told Julian this he looked as if he were going to cry.
    Now the empty beer cans were collecting on the floor and Carter was saying, “I love you, Wainwright, I love you, man,” and he hugged Julian so hard he almost knocked the wind out of him. Really, Carter said, they were going to be writers someday. “You’re a fucking sophomoric, pusillanimous writer, both of us are, the only two talents in the class.” Carter was laughing, and then it seemed he was going to cry, and now, embarrassed, he said, “Hey, you
dork
!” and he kneed Julian hard in the leg.
             
    Then they went camping together. They were in the car, and Carter was talking about virginity again. According to him, a girl could get her virginity back.
    “Retrieve it?”
    “In a manner of speaking.”
    “How?”
    “Surgery,” Carter said. “It’s for born-agains, mostly. Doctors are reinserting the girl’s hymen. You know how on a movie set a guy gets shot and there’s blood all over the place but he’s really just bleeding ketchup? Well, it’s the same idea. A girl gets a new hymen but it’s not really a new hymen. It’s a fake new hymen.”
    “Made of ketchup?”
    “Made of who knows what. It’s mostly for born-agains, like I said. Some kind of Pentecostal medical ritual. Not that you’d have to be a born-again. But why else would you do it?”
    “Why would anyone do it?”
    “I have no idea.”
    At the campground where they pitched tent, Julian was learning new things about Carter, such as the fact that Carter could imitate a loon. Carter was so eerily adept at imitating a loon that when Julian closed his eyes he thought Carter was a loon. So did the loons themselves. Carter was leading them in a chorus of calling.
    “That’s fucking fantastic,” Julian said.
    Carter shrugged. “I’ve got perfect pitch. I was born with it, I guess.”
    “I can do this with my tongue,” Julian said. He curled up his tongue into three segments so it resembled a cauliflower.
    “That’s excellent,” Carter said.
    “It’s retarded,” said Julian.
    “Sure it’s retarded. But it’s also excellent.”
    For dinner, Julian and Carter grilled hot dogs, and they wrapped corn and potatoes in tin foil and tossed them into the fire and ate those, too. By the time he was done eating, Julian felt so full he could barely move and he beached himself on the hood of the car. He lay on his back, his arms spread to the sides, looking at the sky through a knot of branches. “The thing about hot dogs is, once they’re inside you the pieces come back together again. It’s like they’re guided by some magnetic force.”
    “Hot dogs,” Carter said, “are made entirely of cow testicles. Except for the parts made of pig testicles.”
    “I don’t doubt it,” Julian said.
    Carter handed him a stick with five roasted marshmallows on it. “You know what marshmallows are made of?”
    “Some other kind of testicles?”
    “I suspect so,” Carter said.
    In the tent that night they talked about the fact that they were two guys who weren’t half bad-looking, so why were they camping alone?
    In Carter’s opinion, it all came down to