You don’t know what to think, Pan said.
You’re the one who said there’s more in the world than we can see. Why can’t the Judge see something you don’t?
He sees plenty I don’t see, said Pan. Fact.
Max opened the cupboard above Pan and found a sack of powdered sugar. Exactly what he needed. He uncinched the bag and poured a stream of sugar into his mouth. He swallowed it. Calmness came.
Pan kept talking.
You know their ancestors kept slaves as if it was normal, said Pan. He pointed at Max as if he needed a talking-to, as if Max were the one who owned the slaves. That kind of evil does something to a gene pool. You know what I think? I think we got a poisoned energy down here. It’s afflicted us. I taste it in the air. We’re just breathing in the violence. It doesn’t go anywhere. The evil stays in the air, and we steep in it.
Pan waved the air toward him, as if he were smelling the evil.
Max knew a thing or two about an evil legacy, but he preferred not to think about it. In Germany, he’d hated visiting concentration camps on school field trips. It seemed like an unnecessary reminder. It had given him nightmares that made it tough for him to go on long runs alone. He would close his eyes and see his grandfather’s face against the back of his lids. A person was capable of many things at once.
Bad stuff happens everywhere, said Max. He shrugged as though it didn’t bother him, but it did. Doesn’t mean it damages the energy of a place, he said.
Wrong, Pan said.
Pan set his nail file on his thigh. Nail dust on his dark jeans. White as sugar.
You feel it, don’t you? The wrongness here? The badness. You feel that, right?
Pan titled his chin and placed it on an invisible ledge. He studied Max carefully as if daring him to disagree.
Max nodded, but truthfully, he didn’t feel the badness. Not here. He saw something else when he looked around. Outside the kitchen window, forsythia bloomed into feverish yellow blossoms and behind that was the slick red mud of a creek bed. If he were to walk onto the back stoop and inhale, Max would smell the wisteria. Once you got far enough past the strip malls and the run-down BBQ shops and the gas stations and the trailer parks, beauty let her hair down. How could that be bad?
So, said Pan. Do you want to know a secret of mine? A history lesson? Insight into your not-evil Judge.
Max shrugged. He was tired of secrets. He wanted Pan to tell a joke.
It’s got to do with Lorne, said Pan.
Max leaned back against the counter as if to say Go on.
Pan explained how Lorne used to ask Pan to dress up in his mother’s clothes. And Lorne would dress up like his dad. Put on a tie and that belt buckle with the cowboy and the cross. One night, Lorne’s big ranch house stood quiet and unguarded in the woods. The Judge and his wife were going to a cotillion party for a girl at church. Lorne and Pan had lobbied to stay home and play a biblical video game. Lorne had taken Pan into his parents’ bathroom. He had wanted to pretend they were getting married, so they could be honored under God. So that their love could be honored under God. They had faced each other in front of the sink like they were at an altar. Lorne had been terrified to sin, so he pretended it was their wedding night and that God had blessed them, and that Pan was his bride. Lorne had worn his daddy’s cowboy hat. Black Stetson. His hair had peeked through on the temples. It had looked like Satan was in him, coming out all hot and red in his hair. Then Lorne made Pan parade into the bedroom in this too big evening dress of his mother’s, shimmering, a waterfall of sequins. Lorne had arranged Pan on the bed, sprayed him with Estée Lauder Pleasures, his mother’s scent, and flipped Pan over. He had slid the dress over the moon of Pan’s butt. Pan’s bare back had touched the air. Lorne had glided the thick tips of his fingers up and down his sides. He had stuck one finger inside of Pan. Then Lorne had pushed all of himself in. Pan felt like he’d stepped foot on the sun. That’s how he said it.
Max combed his mind for something to say. He didn’t want the image of Lorne’s freckled hands on Pan’s body. Inside Pan’s body. He held the scene to his chest. The ghost of Lorne stepped into the room with them, and he knew that ghost wasn’t ever going to leave. Max wanted to say something that revealed nothing about how he felt, which was jealous and small. He searched for a response that might sound detached and interested at the same time but all he could come up with was a toothless smile that felt more like a leer.
And it happened only this one time? asked Max.
To this Pan laughed.
Oh, honey, he said. Oh, honey.
Lots of times, okay, said Max. I see.
Until the Judge found out, said Pan.
What, said Max.
The wages for sin is death.
You ready for the good news, son?
Well. Yeah. Well not found-out, found-out. But he suspected and that was enough. He never caught us. But one day, he stormed in yelling at Lorne that he was a sin creature. He tied Lorne to a tree outside, in their backyard. Tied him with ropes so tight his ankles and wrists bruised and bled. It looked like some kind of crazy stigmata something, that bleeding right there where Jesus bled. The Judge pierced his ribs with a hot metal cane, too, so his side would drip blood like Jesus. The Judge said it was about repentance and getting Lorne to work for his forgiveness. He needed to touch death in order to find life. He said he read on Lorne’s soul his depraved desire. Said he saw what we had done in a dream. The vision came straight from God. The Judge wiped Lorne’s tied-up body with a hot cloth. Got all his blood on this cloth and then burned the cloth in a pile with his clothes and spread the ashes of the bloody rag and soiled clothes across the lake. He said the past was burned up and the future would be clean and pure. You can burn the past down. So says the Judge.
What do you mean, the Judge just saw it on his soul?
Must be intuition, said Pan. But then, well, it was over. There’s your history lesson. That’s the kind of evil I mean. The Judge. He thinks life and death are connected by a fine thread. And I guess he isn’t wrong. He thinks if you walk right to the edge of life, just like he did, like he did when he fell off that cliff and drank down a jug of poison, he thinks that can bring a person to God. He thinks it brings you right there into the light.
Max didn’t know what to say. Pan and the Judge weren’t so different. They both needed to believe in something. To have a purpose higher than themselves. Max wanted a purpose, too. He wanted to believe life wasn’t for nothing. Maybe that’s why he was drawn to them, to both of them. He wanted whatever it was they had found. Or whatever it was they wanted to find. Max felt the void open up around him again. The void was a huge black mouth with purple teeth. The void sounded like a shell to the ear.
Lorne couldn’t take being two separate things. So, he chose one, said Pan. Wouldn’t you? If your daddy tied you to a tree and left you out there all night in the dark, just howling at the moon like a crucified cub? If your daddy tried to bring you to the edge of life, put poison to your lips and hot metal to your side?
Max blinked.
He fed him the poison? he asked.
He was my first husband, said Pan. And I was his first wife.
Max let the void widen to the edges of the kitchen. He watched the void eat the fridge.
First husband, Max repeated. Okay.
You know, said Pan. Lorne was so embarrassed when he started to grow armpit hair.
Pan chuckled, like he was touched.
He wouldn’t lift his arms above his head. He got bashful. I told him. I told him, they’re just little whispers. Little spider hairs. They’re cute!
Max ran his hand over the counter to clear off some Cheeto Puff crumbs. Pan was trying to get him jealous, he knew that, and it worked. He saw Pan’s face in Lorne’s armpit. Red spiders sprouted under the hinge of his arm.
You know, Pan said. I’m really wondering whose side you’re on. Actually, I’ve been wondering that.
Whose side am I on?
Mine or theirs?
The question twisted in the air.
I can be both sides, Max said. I don’t have to pick.
I don’t think you can, said Pan.
Yes I think, said Max.
I want to tell you something else, but I shouldn’t, cause it is secret, said Pan. But I really, really want to tell you. I need you to know.
Max tried to care about the secret, but he’d heard too much already. He rubbed his arms like he was cold, but he wasn’t, not a normal cold. It was that tap-water feeling. He tried to focus on Pan’s lips instead, chapped the right way, rough like how he’d grown to like. He felt so tired.
Never mind, said Pan. Later. I’ll tell you later.
As if an afterthought, Pan said, Do you know how powerful we could be if we joined our forces together? Your healing and my psychospiritual capabilities? I think we could make shit levitate!
That made Max laugh. Pan’s optimism had such charm. The laughter felt good. Who could explain how everything worked? The world had a mystery to it. The moon glowing into the night. The stars bunched into the black. Was that science? The ocean spilling onto the shores. Was that God?
Pan slid off the counter and swayed to his room. Max heard him turn up Nirvana and scream along to it.
Are you coming or what? he yelled to Max.
Max followed him in with a few fruit leathers and said, Want one?
Pan didn’t, so Max had two. Max imagined binding Pan’s wrists and ankles to the bedposts with fruit leathers and then eating through the candy to set him free. He pushed down the guilt that this was wrong, that the Judge could find him by reading his brain. Skin him alive. He thought of Lorne marrying Pan in the Judge’s house. He thought of his first bride.
Pan curled up on the bed and pouted.
Aren’t you going to come here? he said. I’m lonely with you all the way across the room.
Max flipped Pan onto his stomach and climbed onto his back. He wanted to love Pan until Pan got so used to his love, he could never live without it. Fuck, thought Max.
Are you afraid to get skinned alive? Max whispered into Pan’s ear. To be a tree tied?
Me? said Pan. No. I’m going to get out of here too fast for that. No tree tying for moi.
Max didn’t ask how he’d get out. He saw Pan lurching down the highway in a dress, lost as a scream in the wind, his thumb stuck out to the road.
Max slid off of Pan and onto the bed next to him.
Come here, baby, Pan said. What’s wrong?
Max shook his head, Nothing.
Max spotted a dead spider, a clump of knotted leg in the sheets. Without even thinking, he reached out and grabbed it. He did that so easy now. Too easy. His mouth filled with a cloud of pink cotton. He felt the spider’s legs move in his hand. It crawled up his arm with its pin-thin legs. Pan watched the bug walk. Then came the headache like a drum that started in the air just outside of Max’s temple and traveled down the tunnel of his ear into the great open of his skull.
Beautiful, said Pan. Just beautiful. Now let’s move him to the window so he don’t bite you.
Do you ever think what we’re doing is wrong? Max swallowed. Like do you ever think it might be sin?
The word had a bitter taste, like a penny rusted over and green. He wanted to take it back but taking back was impossible.
Sin, said Pan. He shoved Max almost playfully, almost-not.
IN THE LOCKER ROOM, the boys stood side by side beneath a row of shower heads and washed the stench from their pits and pissed into the open grates. Steam rose from their shoulders as they drew circles in the mirror’s fog. They admired their faces of freckled skin and hamburger-shaped moles and smooth squares of abdomen. They spiked up their golden hair.
Coach let the team eat doughnuts to celebrate a recent win, even though he preferred they cut down on their sugar during the season. The boys raised the doughnuts to their mouths. Wes, whom Max had observed moving food around his plate at lunch and not touching it, consumed zero doughnut. He dressed himself slowly.
Max took one doughnut. Licked the sugar from his thumb. Wanted more.
Davis stood near the lockers, jeans splayed open at the hip. His zipper dangled. He talked with Graham about how Renata the Experimenter had taken to trailing him like a dog. Renata’s last name was Sledgeworth, but everyone called her the Slutworth behind her back.
Renata.
Max held her real name in his mind as if that meant something.
Graham said he knew the feeling. The Slutworth’s friend trailed him, too.
Davis and Graham assessed their relationships with their experimenters, whose big lips they liked.
She might be too skinny, said Davis. No cushion for the pushing. I need a lady with the curves.
Her jeans got those stupid rhinestones on them, said Graham.
Yeah, she put those on herself, like she wants us to know she’s crafty.
The harsh lighting settled in the hollow places beneath the boys’ eyes.
Watch out or she’ll knit you a sweater.
Don’t knit me a thing, said Davis. Or draw me another dumb picture.
The boys thought this was hilarious. They laughed so their gums showed. They said what the Slutworth and her friend liked and how they liked it, but Max got the feeling from the way Graham repeated the details Davis provided that he was lying.
I heard the Slutworth let the whole baseball team line up outside her daddy’s pickup and do her one at a time, said Boone. Begged for more even after she’d had them all.
Watch this, said Graham.
He ruffled the palm of his hand through his hair until dandruff snowed down on his shoulders and shoes.
Nasty, said Davis.
Girls liked Davis, no matter how bad he talked about them when they weren’t around. Davis winked at Max.
Don’t worry, Germany. We’ll get you a girl, too.
Oh, Max said, I do not worry.
Yeah, I bet you don’t. You got a girl in Germany? What are those German tits like anyway?
The other boys chuckled. Davis’s naked chest was flushed red from the shower. Max resisted the urge to reach out and place a hand on the heat of his rinsed skin.
They’re beautiful, said Max, trying to conjure up an image of a girl in Germany. Any girl. But all girls receded from his mind. In that moment, the only thing he could see was Davis. Then Nils. And Nils, it was true, had been beautiful.
What’s up with Billie anyway, Davis said. She cute. She’s all right. And I’ve heard she likes you.
She likes me? Max said.
Aw, said Davis. Check out Germany blushing over here.
Billie? said Max, again.
Top choice for an experimenter if you ask me, said Davis.
Max left the steam of the locker room. He held two doughnuts in his hand. The chocolate sheen looked hopeful. It tasted like relief. Outside, the first cold pressed its palm into the air. It was subtle, sure, but it was there. Max tried to imagine taking Billie’s hand, lifting her chin toward his.
LONG-DISTANCE CALL BETWEEN HIS mother and aunt, overheard on speakerphone.
AUNT: Maybe you’re the one who’s having trouble.
MOTHER: I wish. I mean yes. I hate it here. But it’s more than that.
AUNT: More what?
MOTHER: Did I do something wrong? Was I a bad mother? I thought taking him here would be good after all he went through with Nils. I thought it would be, um, an adventure. Something that expanded him.
AUNT: He’ll be fine! Let loose the apron strings.
MOTHER: This is different. The man manipulates people with religion. And Max has literally been making phone calls to get people to vote for him.
AUNT: You’re sounding controlling, like Mom.
MOTHER: Max! Hello? Did you just get home?
AUNT: Max, is that you?!
ON FAST FOOD FRIDAY, the lunch ladies lined up bags of fried food in the cafeteria under signs that said CHICKEN FINGERS, FRIES, BURGER, CHEESEBURGE
R, CHICKEN SANDWICH.
So, you’re a fingers guy, said a voice. Max looked and saw Glory behind him. I see you.
Max held his sack of fingers.
Glory reached toward the burger, then the cheeseburger. She selected cheese.
It is my favorite, he said. Chicken.
I see you’ve made it through the first few games unscathed. Even played, huh? Do you feel fully initiated now?
Yes, he said.
Glory focused on Max like all that mattered was him in front of her. She had a way of making him feel seen. She fiddled with the top button of her uniform. She had adhered a patch over the God’s Way embroidery on her chest. The patch said PMS.org.
Max remembered the advice he’d been given: ask others how they are doing; they will know you care. He opened his mouth to ask but stopped short because the lunch prayer began.
A boy climbed onto the stage at the far end of the cafeteria. A portrait of Jesus hung above him. In the scene, Jesus raised a hand that seemed to pinion the crowd in place.
Oh Lord Jesus, our prince to be, the boy began. The cafeteria spoke the memorized prayer in unison. Bless this food you’ve placed into our hungry hands. Let us be filled with nourishment in body but also in spirit. Let our hunger for you never fill. Let our gratitude for you never cease.
Collectively, they said, Amen.
When the prayer ended, Glory was not beside Max.
He made his way to a table, and finished his fingers. He saw Pan appear, kicking his way through the swinging double doors. He barreled straight toward Max.
How is your animal flesh? Pan asked.
Max stared into the empty, shiny carton of once-chicken in his hand. Swallowed already. Gone.
Pan stood with his hands on his hips. His stubble was growing in on his chin and instead of shaving the shadow, he’d slathered foundation over it. Pan’s fries scattered out across the tray he’d set in front of Max. He took a cold fry in the hand that said REAL and pointed it at Max.
You who brings the animals back. How can you masticate on the flesh body?
Not even whispering.
Boys of Alabama Page 15
