Page 4 of Spread Your Wings

Mustafa angled toward Sammy as he buckled his seatbelt. “I will take you to a clinic near the baths. The doctor does the blood test. Takes more than he needs, but he’s thorough.” Mustafa rubbed the inside of his left elbow absently, as though he knew from experience.

“Thank you,” Sammy said.

Mustafa flipped the ignition and gripped the pommel of the manual shifter. “It’s nothing.”

Sammy didn’t expect Mustafa to hold his hand.

He didn’t know what he expected, but this was not it.

Once they reached their destination, Mustafa pointed him toward a green storefront to the left of the Turkish bath.

At least, Sammy assumed it was the Turkish bath.

The open door exuded a steaming mist. He walked to the other door Mustafa indicated beneath the green canopy and checked the door handle, unlocked.

He tiptoed inside, feeling tiny and alone in a room of hard-eyed strangers.

Fifteen minutes and a band-aid later, he reemerged. The blue sedan sat where he’d left it, but empty. He could wait inside the unlocked car until Mustafa returned. He hit his head on the ceiling when the shadow under the dashboard moved.

“Jesus fuck! What the hell are you doing?”

“No one can see me here,” Mustafa whispered. “This car belongs to Uncle Vasily. They expect to see him. If they see me without him, they will use me to send a message.”

Sometimes, Mustafa’s choice of words made Sammy wonder if he’d learned English by watching movies.

The words, “send a message” could have been as harmless as handing Mustafa a piece of paper.

Sammy had a feeling it was more like bruises and broken bones.

“Give me the keys,” Sammy said. “I’ll drive back to the hotel. ”

Mustafa handed him the keys. “Drive to the fountain. I will show you around.”

“I don’t know how to get there.”

“I will tell you. Just get us out of here.”

“Not until you tell me why you’re scrunched under the dash like a dog afraid of thunder.”

“I saw one of Vasily’s friends before he saw me.” Mustafa’s haunted tone said there was more to the story, but Sammy didn’t know him well enough to push. “It wouldn’t look right, me in his car without him.”

The few passersby on the quiet street kept to themselves. No one made eye contact. The one perfect hiding spot, the alley beside the bathhouse, was empty. “So you hid?”

Mustafa shrugged, bumping his shoulders against the dashboard. “I hid.”

Sammy walked around to the driver’s side, thankfully the same as in the States.

He took his time, so Mustafa could crawl over the center console and tuck himself under the passenger-side dash.

He’d seen Mustafa do it twice, now. He still had no idea how someone that tall — Mustafa had to be close to six feet, he had at least three inches on Sammy — could squeeze into such a tiny space.

It took Sammy a moment to adjust to the manual transmission.

His Firebird was an automatic, a gift from his mom when he’d graduated from Yale.

He started the BMW without stalling it and pulled away from the curb with only one bucking motion.

He passed two intersections before Mustafa unfolded himself from the floor.

Another block, and Mustafa was seated and buckled, as though he’d been there the entire car ride.

“Turn right at the next block,” Mustafa said as the first wet snowflakes hit the windshield.

Sammy down-shifted to make the turn before the clutch was fully engaged. The car made a terrible grinding noise.

“Pull over. It should be safe now.”

Sammy obliged, happy to hop out of the car and hold the door open for Mustafa. Then he darted around and slid into the passenger seat.

“Thank you,” Mustafa said as he took the wheel. “Uncle Vasily always tells me I need to think before I act, or it will get me killed. You saved my life today.”

“It was my fault,” Sammy said. “I asked you to help me. Why is that part of town so dangerous?”

“The Serbs see the bathhouse as part of the Muslim corruption. They cannot touch Uncle Vasily and his friends, so they come after the younger generation. One of my friends was dragged to a car and beaten after leaving the bathhouse on New Year’s Eve.

He’s still in hospital. I haven’t been back since. ”

“Why was he beaten?” Sammy asked, still not understanding.

“ Peder .”

One of the few Bosnian words Sammy recognized. “Gay? You’re gay?” He tried to sound disinterested as he gazed out the window. Storefronts and houses zipped past his window to the beat of his heart.

Mustafa didn’t answer. He bowed his head as he swerved onto a side street and backed into the first available parking spot.

“It upsets you I am gay, after you needed an HIV test?” Mustafa sighed. “Are you just some drug addict?” Mustafa yanked the parking brake and switched the car off.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why are you so worried about HIV?”

“Gay as the day is long,” he said, returning Mustafa’s fake smile. “Where are we?”

“Sebilj.”

Sammy had heard of the wooden fountain, its pseudo-Ottoman style a must-see attraction. Mustafa pirouetted from the car, slamming his door. The car shook from the impact. Sammy had to hustle to catch up.

People milled around the fountain, peering into the basin.

The falling snow thickened into a gauze curtain around him.

Sammy admired the fountain from all angles.

He followed at a safe distance from Mustafa until his legs felt numb from the cold.

He brushed the thin layer of snow from a bench that wrapped around a nearby tree and sat.

He watched Mustafa pace around the fountain.

With each full turn, their eyes met. Finally, after the tenth lap around the steps at the base, Mustafa joined him on the bench.

They sat in silence for a full minute before Sammy couldn’t take it anymore. “My boyfriend, ahem, ex-boyfriend, was the drug addict,” Sammy confessed. He leaned in toward Mustafa so the people taking photos of the fountain wouldn’t overhear him. “I was willing to look past it.”

Mustafa nodded. “I do not even smoke. My friends all call me a pussy. I don’t like how it tastes, and I don’t want that shit in my lungs.”

“My mom caught me smoking once and threatened to send me to military school if I ever smoked again.” Sammy laughed. “Now that I think about it, I bet all the military school kids smoke, too.”

Mustafa chuckled. The sound warmed Sammy’s gut, despite the chill wind swirling snow around and between them.

“I like cocaine,” Sammy said, choosing complete honesty. “It’s expensive, though. I can’t afford it often, and I sure as hell don’t want a habit. I don’t inject heroin, or anything like that.”

“Good,” Mustafa said. “One of my friends died from heroin. I found him on the floor of the bath house. I don’t have the words in English to explain it to you. So horrible.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I’m sorry about your boyfriend. Bad break-up before you left?”

“Dear Sammy letter this morning.”

“Dear Sammy?” Mustafa frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“We call it a ‘Dear John’ letter when someone dumps you through the mail, or post.”

“Except you are Sammy,” Mustafa said with another chuckle. “Now I understand.”

“The letter was postmarked the tenth, so he sent it before I even left, saying he was moving in with someone else.”

Mustafa nodded. “So, you needed the test. How long for the results?”

“Next Friday, the twenty-eighth.” A full ten days, the doctor had said. The wait seemed impossible.

“Uncle Vasily will bring you the results.” Mustafa patted his knee. “No questions asked.”

“What if I need a doctor?” Sammy leaned back against the bench.

The snow swirled around the fountain in the afternoon light.

Growing up in Georgia, Sammy had never seen snow until his first winter at Yale.

He still didn’t care for the cold, but he enjoyed the quiet beauty.

He hoped this wouldn’t be his last winter.

“Then he will bring the doctor. He is the best with these things. He will know what to do.”

Sammy needed someone who knew what to do. He was halfway around the world from his mom, his only support. Even if he called her, he had no way to explain how he’d gotten himself into this mess.

The ride back to the hotel was warmer, but still quiet. Mustafa shifted and steered on auto-pilot. His eyes were unfocused. Sammy watched the city lights come on one by one as they drove through the twilight.

Mustafa dropped him at the front of the hotel with a smile and a wave. “Try not to think about it,” he said.

“Easier said than done.”

Mustafa nodded. “I bartend tomorrow night. If nothing else, I can give you a special drink to help you sleep.”

“There’s a special drink?”

“Tell me your favorite drink, and I’ll make it for you until you pass out.”

“If you do that, I’ll lose my job.”

Mustafa laughed. “Well. We will find out tomorrow.”

Sammy wanted to feel happy about his new friendship, but all he felt was numb. He zipped his jacket to his chin and walked toward the main entrance through the accumulating snow. The air felt colder, now that he was alone.

If nothing else, Mustafa gave Sammy a reason to get out of bed while he waited for his test results.

Granted, Mustafa gave him ample cause to stay in bed, too.

Every time Sammy tried to jack off, he remembered Gavin, and the looming uncertainty of death.

Despite half-hearted attempts, he couldn’t come.

He took the elevator to the main floor the next night, exhausted from lack of sleep. It had been another haggard day of interviewing people on the streets. Nicole had gotten on his last nerve. She’d asked a Catholic woman why she was helping her Muslim neighbor with her groceries.

“She is my friend, my neighbor.”

“But she’s Muslim. Aren’t you worried?”

“I am worried. She has no family nearby. I’m helping her.”

“But…”

“Nicole, shut up already,” Sammy had said, his fists balled at his sides.