Five Plus One

When the cashier looked at Cole with something like recognition, a warning flare shot through his body. It had been so long since someone had looked at him like that— in a way that made Cole feel like a solid presence in the world, rather than the out-of-focus extra that he normally embodied. He couldn’t tell what was behind the cashier’s stare: desire? fear? It had been an age since Cole had been on the other side of anyone’s desire other than Alonzo’s or Fannie’s or sometimes Olu’s, when he was in a particular mood. But his friends all viewed each other as components of a whole. Any mystery, any ability to be surprised by each other had long faded. A stranger’s desire, on the other hand: uncertainty all the way down. It was an intoxicating feeling. And deeply dangerous.  

Cole’s hands shook as he picked up the books he’d paid for— a few old sci-fi novels for him, and a gardening treatise for Alonzo— but he managed to give the cashier a shaky smile. The required pleasantries slipped out of him as he left the store, trying to calculate the fastest speed he could get in the car without making it look like he was running away. Once inside, he tried to calm his jackrabbit pulse. Sania had just swapped the plates on the car for the week. He was miles away from home, and he never had to come back here. He was safe. 

But on his two hour drive back to the Vane, he couldn’t help replaying the cashier’s stare. Had he recognized Cole? The cashier, all soft-boned and fisherman sweater, on his shift at the small town’s queer bookstore, his precise handwriting recommending books on political theory on little cards all over the shelves, was exactly the kind of person who would have followed the story of the Saltwater Six. Perhaps even looked up the names, stared at the photos that came up. Shocked by how normal they looked, how they could’ve been his own friends. Maybe he’d even defended their actions in heated arguments. In another world, Cole would have been someone more like the cashier than whatever he’d become now. This creature his friends had made him. 

*

“The Saltwater Six.” They’d all hated that name when the papers had coined it. “You know those Times assholes are so proud of it, too,” Olu had said, rolling his eyes. The moniker came from the freshman dorm in which they’d met, which in turn had the name of some faceless investment banker who had given the college an ungodly sum. The name had irked them all because it revealed nothing about them— not the political principles that had motivated them, not the new form of friendship they had forged with each other, not the feat they’d pulled off. “Not even how hot we all are,” Sania had moaned. So when they arrived at the compound that was their hideout and their new home, they had been intentional in naming it The Vane, an unsubtle reference to the Weather Underground. They were not just some freshman orientation group with a hazing ritual gone wrong. They had principles. They had acted deliberately, methodically. They had accomplished their goal. And they had gotten away with it. 

*

The idea had sprung from Fannie’s rage, as most of their convictions had. 

“Can you believe they’re bringing Brian Reed to campus?” She had stormed into the living room of the house they’d all rented together their senior year and thrown down the student newspaper with righteous zeal. 

“Well, yes?” Demetria had responded— always cynical, unsurprised by the worst. 

“Right now, though? After that whole exposé about how pivotal his company’s technology is to every war crime in the past thirty years? After the Sun calculated his body count in the hundreds of thousands?” Fannie shot back.

“Well, then, it seems like this is the perfect time to bring him to campus— he’s at the height of his influence,” Olu said dryly. Olu was good at hiding his unending rage, rival only to Fannie’s, behind irony. 

“It’s disgusting,” Alonzo had chimed in quietly. Alonzo always looked etched in sorrow, but his eyes had gone particularly hard and haunted as he scanned the newspaper Fannie had brought in. “They’re only inviting a ‘select few high-achieving students’ to the event.” Alonzo’s central California farmhand background drew subtle condescension from those very types of students, a kind of unspoken dismissal that drove him crazy— both because he didn’t know if he was imagining it, and because he was sure he wasn’t. 

“High achievers in what? War crimes? You know that everyone in that room is going on to ruin the world in ways we have yet to even dream,” Sania said. 

Until that point, the conversation had taken a familiar course. It was the kind of issue that had drawn them all together freshman year, as the most outspoken political voices in their dorm. The only— or perhaps just the loudest— six “radicals” in Saltwater, who drew together in the relief of finally not having to be the only one. Or perhaps— five loud radicals, and Cole. Cole, who had been dazzled by the strength of the others’ senses of selves, of the way they knew what they believed and articulated it so clearly. Cole, who would do what it took to make sure he belonged. 

“So what should we do about it?” Cole finally chimed in. They fell silent. They turned to Fannie. The fire in her eyes had taken on a new quality.

*

After Fannie had given them the idea, everything had come together quickly. It was as though the past four years had been mere practice for their final act as students. They had spent all their time together: sharpening their beliefs, pushing each other's limits, convincing themselves that their future could not lie within the confines of the ordinary. They had dreamed of communal living. They had been arrested for protesting; they had waited outside jailhouses for each other with a pack of cigarettes and fresh donuts. They had become solidly convinced by the necessity of political violence. 

Olu had made the plan, diligent and methodical as ever. Demetria did the research. Sania handled the technical and mechanical necessities. Alonzo concocted the biochemical compound. And Cole? Cole did the dirty work. 

By the time campus security broke down the door to Schafer Hall to find the rapidly cooling bodies of Brian Reed and his acolytes slumped over in their chairs, the six of them were already long gone. Their house was empty, with only a letter— their manifesto— left. The Vane was waiting. 

*

That had been three years ago. For three years, the six of them had lived off the grid under new names. Multiple state lines separated their college from the Vane, a run-down but massive house in a county that boasted less than 1,000 people. They’d bought it with Olu’s inheritance, a sum so staggering that the others would tease him about being a Nigerian prince. “That’s so racist, you guys,” Olu would scowl, which would send them all into a fresh wave of laughter. Sania had gradually made improvements to the Vane, transforming the ramshackle structure into a beautiful home. She had also developed a reputation in the surrounding town as a trustworthy mechanic and repairwoman who charged extremely fair prices. While they mostly lived off of Olu’s inheritance— “We’re trust fund kids,” Fannie loved to joke— the extra stream of income was a boon. Fannie wrote incredibly controversial yet eloquent articles under a pen name on a freelance basis for political magazines, which also brought in some money. Demetria relished in her ability to live an academic life outside the confines of academia, spending her time researching and writing scholarly articles about land redistribution in communist Kerala and the worker cooperatives of the American 19th century. Olu managed their finances and made sure the labor that the house needed to run smoothly was fairly divided. Alonzo turned the surrounding land into fruitful gardens, allowing them to be mostly self-sustaining for their produce. Cole helped whoever needed him the most: finding books for Demetria, reading articles aloud to Fannie to see what got her riled up, pulling up weeds in Alonzo’s garden. They gave away everything that they grew but didn’t need, a practice which, along with Sania’s skills, had earned them the loyalty of the townspeople. Their neighbors spread no stories of the six strange, secretive inhabitants of the beautiful house on the outskirts of town. 

Somehow, they had found a way to live their dreams— to escape from the world without being disconnected from it entirely. To be fulfilled, to be useful, while spending their nights around their table, lit up by taper candles and wine, endless conversation and laughter. They had killed for this. They held this life tightly. As such, they operated under a strict set of guidelines meant to keep them from the federal prison sentence that awaited them if they were ever recognized. Each person only left the Vane or neighboring town once a month. They made sure their tattoos were covered on outings. They never made the same trips twice. They never went out with all six of them together. They did not make new friends. They did not draw attention.  

It was these rules that thrummed through Cole’s head on repeat as he returned to the Vane from his monthly outing. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had done something wrong. He parked the Subaru in the back— a five-seater, because they never went out as a six. He walked over to Alonzo, who was turning up dirt in the garden.

“Hey, you’re back,” Alonzo smiled, gave him a kiss. Then he registered Cole’s expression. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Or— I think it’s nothing. I don’t know. I was out at this bookstore in Tuscawanna. I think— I felt like the guy working there recognized me.” Cole couldn’t look Alonzo in the eye. Alonzo sighed. 

“My love, you’re always worried that you’ve been recognized,” Alonzo said, “and it’s always been fine. Is this time any different?”

“No? I don’t know? It was the way he looked at me,” Cole mumbled, suddenly embarrassed by how much he was affected by the possibility of being desired by a stranger, “Like, he was really looking at me.” Alonzo just looked at Cole, someone he had grown to love so immensely, with sorrow in his eyes. Alonzo had long suspected that this life they lived was not good for Cole. The anxiety of living as a fugitive wore on Cole in a way that did not seem to affect the others. 

“Don’t tell anyone,” Cole pleaded, “It’s probably nothing.” 

“I won’t,” Alonzo said. But he wouldn’t meet Cole’s eyes, and Cole felt his heart sink. The web of loyalties that bound his friends was complicated. The six of them were not in one giant polycule, despite the claims of the more salacious newspapers when they first became infamous (Orgies and Organic Chemistry: The Saltwater Six in School was clipped and framed on their kitchen wall). However, they were far from monogamous, and the lines between platonic, romantic, and sexual connection between them were blurry. Cole and Alonzo had been sleeping together since freshman year, but Alonzo and Sania were friends in a platonic-soulmate kind of way, existing in a private world that none of the rest could access. Sania and Fannie had been dating since high school. Olu resisted coupling up with anyone, but he had slept with them all— except Sania, who wasn’t into men, and Demetria, who felt an intense fondness for them all that did not come anywhere close to attraction. They had no labels for each other— there was no need, because they didn’t have to explain themselves to anyone. But their incestuous connections meant that there were no secrets between them. 

*

“Cole’s nervous that he got recognized,” Alonzo told Fannie while they were washing dishes later that night. The other four were curled up around the TV. Fannie rolled her eyes.

“Cole’s always nervous,” Fannie said. While she loved Cole, he had an anxious streak that she could not help seeing as cowardice, and she respected him less for it. 

“This time was different. I’ve never seen him this shaken up.” 

“You think he’s going to do something stupid?”

“I— don’t know.” Alonzo paused. “Do you ever think…”

“What?”

“That this—” Alonzo gestured to the house, “isn’t good for him? That this isn’t the life that he was meant to live?” Fannie considered this. 

“I haven’t thought about it before, but I think you’re right,” Fannie said quietly, “I was surprised that he agreed to the plan in the first place. He’s been pretty jumpy these past three years. I feel like it’s only gotten worse.” 

“What are you guys talking about?” Alonzo and Fannie jumped. They turned around to Olu’s stare. Alonzo and Fannie swapped glances.

“Cole thinks he got caught out,” Fannie said, after a moment.

“Again?” Olu pinched the bridge of his nose. “That boy is a liability.”

“He wouldn’t snitch,” Alonzo said, a bit indignant. Olu met his gaze coolly. 

“I don’t know what he would do. The other day when we went out for supplies, I saw him staring at the landline in town,” Olu said, “I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was thinking about his mom.”

Alonzo and Fannie looked at each other again. Out of all of them, Cole had had the best relationship with his parents before they dropped off the map. He’d had the hardest time adjusting to the lack of family. 

“I don’t think this kind of life is right for him,” Alonzo admitted to Olu. They all just looked at each other for a moment. 

“So what do we do?” Fannie asked. 

“I’ll talk to him,” Alonzo pleaded, “Let me talk to him.”

*

So the next time Alonzo and Cole were out in the garden together, Alonzo asked,

“Are you feeling okay?” 

“Why do you ask?” Cole looked up at Alonzo, startled. 

“You just seemed pretty distraught the other day, when you came back.” Cole looked away from him then. 

“Right. Yeah. I’m okay. I’m over it.”

“You don’t seem over it,” Alonzo pressed gently. Cole stayed silent for a moment, and then sighed. He could never resist Alonzo.

“I just— I don’t know. Don’t you ever get tired, Alo? Of being a ghost in the real world?”

“This is the real world to me,” Alonzo said quietly. 

“I know! I know. And I would never leave. I would never leave you guys. But,” Cole scrunched up his face, “I miss it. I miss not waking up anxious. I miss meeting strangers. I miss knowing that I was a good person.”

“You don’t think we’re good people?” Alonzo looked stricken. Cole looked at the dirt. 

“I just don’t know anymore.” They stood in silence. Alonzo felt dread drop through his body. 

“So then what?” Cole looked at Alonzo head on.

“I don’t know, Alo. I can’t leave. I know I can’t leave. But I—” Cole’s voice broke.

“I know, my love. I know.” Alonzo placed a soft hand on his back, dropped a kiss to his forehead. Then Alonzo turned away before Cole could see his tears. 

*

“Let’s go out and do something fun!” Fannie waltzed into the living room, where the rest of them were sprawled out drinking tea. 

“Who, me?” Cole asked. 

“No, all of us!” 

“All of us?” Cole was perplexed. 

“Come on, it’s been three years. There hasn’t been a headline about us in ages. We can have one night out together!” Fannie turned on that exuberance that had made her the life of the party in college. 

“I think it would be fun,” Olu said. This took Cole aback. Olu was by far the most cautious of all of them. 

“Okay,” Alonzo said. Cole looked over. There was something behind Alonzo’s expression that Cole couldn’t place. He’d been distant since their last conversation. 

“Why not? I could use a break,” Demetria chimed in. And just like that, they all piled into the Subaru, with Cole, as the smallest of them, relegated to the trunk. He didn’t mind. He was feeling rather sleepy. 

*

In the end, it had not been a fear that Cole would turn traitor that had sealed his fate. They all knew how loyal he was to the group, how he would do anything for them. It was the guilt he had been carrying for the past three years. Guilt meant there was something for which to atone. The rest of them had no qualms about the choices they had made. They did not worry about spiritual judgment, in this life or the next. But Cole’s guilt? It was infectious and unsettling. It reminded them of the world they had left behind. It betrayed his political differences, the way he had strayed from-- or never really believed in-- the code by which they operated. It made him an outsider. There was no room for outsiders at the Vane. 

Olu had brought the idea to the group. Alonzo concocted the sleeping potion that could be stirred into tea and last a drive across international borders. Demetria found the refugee shelters. Sania packed the bags. Fannie cried. 

And Cole? They cut him loose. 

*

On the drive back, they were all silent. The trunk was empty. They had become inhabitants of a different world. There was no line they wouldn’t cross.