Marvin is in a deer stand with his head next to a gun, and he is thinking that...

[Angela]

…it was at the base of this very ladder that marvin first pressed his face into frank’s shirt and rubbed it back and forth so slow and hard and felt frank’s coat zipper scrape his right cheek sweetly again and again and then as he grasped solid handfuls of frank’s shirt, frank spun him around and pushed him into the tree they had been standing under, and as he did, marvin lost his balance slightly.

that was when frank kissed him, frank waited to kiss marvin until he made him lose his balance, and there was nothing marvin could do but hold onto frank’s arm until he regained himself a bit and then, as he reached one arm around frank’s waist and one around his neck, he saw something new in frank’s eyes that he did not recognize, and he wondered if frank recognized anything himself, and marvin was suddenly so hungry he could have eaten an entire apple pie; he was overwhelmed by his desire to do nothing more than to sit on the ground and eat a gigantic apple pie with frank, laughing and being greedy like obnoxious randy boys.

but instead, marvin’s cool smooth hand slipped under frank’s teeshirt and with the pads of his fingers he lightly touched the scar on Frank’s ribs that was the result of a bicycle incident which happened when they were children and which marvin had seen every summer at the lake, wanting to touch it but not being able to, with Frank’s splashing antics making their wives squeal.

now, as things have become, marvin cannot put on his coat without remembering the feel of frank’s zipper on his face, nor fasten his own shirt without wanting to remove it and press the buttons into his mouth, nor take off his teeshirt without touching frank’s scar in his mind, nor imagine another summer at the lake, knowing Frank had so very easily chosen to stay with his wife, and knowing he, himself, felt an unnamable soft emotion for his Elizabeth.

it was right at the base of this ladder that so much began.

marvin knew that if he went down the steps, he would have to put his feet in that exact spot, on that same ground, which he felt they had claimed as theirs alone, by nothing other than the power of what he thought they felt.

[Gita]

"what he thought they felt."   There it is. Perfect.