Free Will

The air was as crisp as a dragon fly’s wings and Lancington Lake dutifully reflected all the surrounding lights in the spring air. It gave a yawn of forgiveness for the encroaching darkness, swallowing its memories of so many people who now found it warm enough during the day to swim in its fold. Too cold to swim in now, there were people in all manner of laissez-faire out fittings sitting idly and wistfully at its edges.

Sanjo and Connor sat together by the lake under a cottonwood tree on a Mexican falsa blanket that was just large enough for them both. Sanjo had just finished smoking a cigarette and asked Connor what he should do with the butt. “Throw it in that trashcan over there,” he pointed. Sanjo sighed and obliged. When he returned, he pulled the blanket taut to remove its folds and sat down again. Then he took a switchblade out of his cargo shorts and began fidgeting with it.

“Do you believe in free will?” he asked Connor.

The boys had only known each other for a few weeks. Sanjo was transferred to Connor’s high school because his father thought it had a more prestigious debate program. With Sanjo’s aspirations to go to law school after graduation, he felt even a few more months at a better school might lead to some prosperity. Sanjo didn’t mind. He was outperforming all the other debate kids at his school, and he had no sentimental attachments to anyone or anything, except for his debate coach who made homemade quiche and strong coffee to warm up her competitors at speech meets. She was a retired drama teacher and didn’t teach him much, but she didn’t have to. Sanjo always went home with a trophy, having self-taught himself the art of Lincoln-Douglas debate.

“I don’t know,” Connor replied. He knew Sanjo loved discussing philosophical matters, but Connor was a speech competitor, winning frequently for his dramatic interpretation of a monologue from Torch Song Trilogy, a story about a drag queen who loses and wins in all aspects of gay love in the late 1970’s. He was blithely unaware of anything that went on in the debate events. “I’m pretty sure we do,” he continued. “I mean, we are conscious of some things. Maybe the things we’re conscious of we can make decisions about.”

“Yeah,” Sanjo returned. “But we’re only conscious about a tiny fraction of the information our brains process in each moment. It just isn’t all coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes, and we are not responsible for them, or they are a product of chance and, of course, then we can’t be responsible for them. I mean, what if our brains have already determined what will happen before it even happens?”

Connor smiled at Sanjo and then stared at some passersby walking a poodle on the lake’s path. He thought of why he came to the lake with Sanjo and suddenly straightened his back, then let it go slack again, wishing that he smoked cigarettes like Sanjo.

“You think too much, you know,” he told Sanjo, giggling slightly. “For me, my soul tells me what to do. That’s why I haven’t murdered anyone.”

“Okay,” Sanjo conceded. “You are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from in the first place?”

Connor began to think about desire. He reached over the blanket and started picking at the grass and throwing blades into the wind. “My desires come from my soul. I told you. The soul knows everything, and it can make decisions. It’s inscrutable that I can’t choose to come with you to this park to get to know you more for instance. Know what I mean?”

“Kind of. So, you really believe we have souls?” Sanjo nudgingly asked. Connor tilted his head to the right and grimaced.

“Of course we do.”

“Okay, so if someone chopped off your head right now, you’d still technically be alive for a few seconds. And so where would the soul be? In your head, heart, where?”

Leaning back and laughing at the air, Connor squeaked, “Oh my God, ha! I’ve never thought of it that way. He then righted himself and placed his head in hands. After a few seconds he soberly responded, “Do I have to answer that? Because I really don’t know.”

“You don’t have to know,” Sanjo said. “It was just a thought experiment.”

Sanjo put his switchblade back in his pocket and stretched his legs out. He mused, “This has got me thinking of that movie we watched in our film class the other day. Sophie’s Choice. When that Nazi officer forces the mother to choose which of her two children will live and which one will go to the gas chambers. And if she doesn’t choose, both the children will die. And she chose her son over her daughter! How in the world did she do that? I guess I can’t imagine either that she was predetermined to choose that. I guess she might have consulted with her soul. But her soul was ruined anyway. But how could she even explain it? Could she have changed her mind or could her mind have only changed her?”

“I almost cried during that movie,” Connor admitted. “If the mind changes us and not the other way around, what’s the point in living? What’s the point in doing anything our hearts desire?”

Sanjo didn’t answer. He began taking off his shoes, and Connor asked him why he was doing that. “Because I feel relaxed,” he said. “I’m enjoying our conversation. Were you wanting to go someplace right now?

“No. I guess not.” Connor’s face turned red, and he felt his heart beating to an internal kind of music. He cleared his throat and laid down on the blanket. He put both of his hands on his chest and closed his eyes.

“I see you’re getting comfortable, too,” Sanjo said. Then he too laid down on the blanket and started to laugh. “Do you remember when Coach Metzger introduced you to me in competitive speech class and told you to show me the ropes? You were so funny. You looked stricken with panic and started acting like someone just gave you a present you didn’t know what to do with.”

“I know,” Connor said with an embarrassed snicker. “I had no idea what she meant. I did show you around and sat down with you though. I told you about how good our team was and why we’re considered one of the best speech teams in the state. Then, of course, I tried to gossip about some of the students, and you just stared at me without comment as if I was speaking to you in French.”

“I was admiring you. I was listening to every word you were saying. Honest. I know you’re gay though, and the country I come from doesn’t have any gay people in theory, and I haven’t met any since moving her four years ago. I didn’t know what a gay person sounds like.” He tittered again and sat up straight as if someone had called his name.

“What’s up?” Connor asked. “Are you afraid of me or something?” Connor sat back up and sat crisscross applesauce, as he called it. He looked up and saw the moon was covered by some moving, impatient clouds.

“No, I’m not afraid of you. I have a question for you though. How many boys have you kissed?”

Connor’s neck stiffened. He had the sensation he experienced whenever he was on an airplane that first leaves the ground during takeoff. He grabbed at his knees and breathed in deeply, replying, “I can’t believe you’re asking me that. But I’ll tell you. Probably about ten guys. I’m a virgin though if you want to know that too. How many girls have you kissed?”

Sanjo squinted his eyes while maintaining eye contact with Connor. “I don’t know. Maybe ten as well. I bet you want to ask me now whether I’ve ever kissed a boy.”

“No,” Connor replied reflexively. He began to lose control over his thinking and bowed his head; he shook it intensely and continued, “I wasn’t thinking of that. I wouldn’t presume you used your quote-on-quote free will to do something straight guys normally don’t do.” Lifting his head again, he stared back into Sanjo’s eyes and noticed that they were more watery than usual.

No more words emerged, and they both just faced each other with the stillness of a photo. A chilly wind encircled them and only sounds of passing cars could be heard by them both. The surrounding trees remained firm and open-armed. Connor looked away from Sanjo, then his eyes surreptitiously went back to looking at him with a confliction coupled with elation.

For some reason, there was an instant agreement made between them before they knew what it was.

Sanjo broke the silence. “Can I kiss you?” he asked.

Connor took a swallow and glanced to the left of Sanjo again. When he looked him again in the eyes, he asked, “Would it be your free will if you did?”

“I don’t know,” he replied instantly. “But it doesn’t matter to me or my soul at the moment. I just want to kiss you.”

Connor turned his bashful attention to the lake and then looked the opposite way, surveying people from afar. From his vantage point, nobody seemed to be watching them. Then, with a tightness felt throughout his entire body, he moved in and laid his lips upon Sanjo’s. The warmth he felt on Sanjo’s lips surprised him, and he felt more warmth in his groin before gently pulling back.

Sanjo was beaming and asked Connor to kiss him again. This time Connor kissed him more passionately, opening his mouth more and inhaling Sanjo’s sweet breath. When he finished, Sanjo asked him if he wanted to go to his parent’s house. Connor felt like he was involuntarily shaking his head before the question was even asked. It was not what he wanted, and he didn’t give himself reason to wonder why. So, silently, he laid back down on the blanket and closed his eyes. He felt Sanjo do the same next to him.

Time seemed to have no grievances, and the lake’s placidness gave rise to nothing for the night to respond to.

About two minutes went by, and Connor moved his body closer to Sanjo. He then raised his head and placed it haphazardly on Sanjo’s chest. Connor wanted to ask him. He wanted to ask him but couldn’t. So, he didn’t.

Sanjo quietly asked him, “Are you glad you made the choice to kiss me?”

Connor snuggled his head deeper into Sanjo’s chest and answered without saying anything.

A last chance of will.