by Jim Grimsley
“What did you think?” Roy asks Nathan.
“It looked like something was chasing you all the way down.”
Roy laughs a little and Randy joins him.
The sun hangs low, soon to be swallowed by the line of trees at the horizon. Randy and Burke dive from the trestle again, the low part, and Roy and Nathan sit on the rail and watch them swim. A peaceful charge crosses the space between them, and they are aware of each other with special sight. Below, Burke is pretending to drown Randy, who pushes back with fury. The game goes too far and Randy nearly fights with Burke as they leave the river. But even this commotion fails to alter the stillness between Nathan and Roy. Roy says, “I like this place.”
“I do too.”
A soft splash echoes from someplace down river. The gray of dusk swarms. “I wish I could swim.”
“I’ll teach you. In the pond at home. It’s easy.”
Nathan accepts the proposition and secretly cherishes it. He says nothing more since Burke is running toward them, lumbering along the rail, sure-footed.
“I got some beer,” Burke says, “you want to drink one?”
“I got some too.” Roy reaches for his jeans.
“It’s in the truck.” Burke gestures. “You reckon we ought to go back?”
“I’m ready. I’ve had all the swimming I need.”
Randy halts some distance from the center of the bridge. “I’m right thirsty too.”
“You going to drink a beer?” Burke asks Nathan.
“He don’t need to,” Roy says.
“I know he don’t need to. But I might ought to pour one down his throat just to see how he would act.” Laughing with an edge of meanness.
They leave the bridge and find their way along the tracks as the sun eases behind the trees. Nathan feels as if he has been away from home forever already. Every moment echoes of Roy. They walk side by side up the tracks, steady presence, as Burke and Randy weave in and out.
Burke has beer in a bucket of ice in the back of his truck. He hands one to each of the others, also offering a can to Nathan, who shakes his head no, but with respect. They drink. Glimpses of the beer and hints of the acrid smell remind Nathan. When his father swallows liquor, his throat moves in the same snakelike motion, the undulating of long, smooth muscles. Nathan shakes his head, focuses on the moon in the fender of the truck, the sound of a river, the shadowy trestle, and the closeness of the three boys. The four. He can include himself. He stands near Roy as Roy swallows, his smile a little softened by the beer, and the curl of last evening light in the sky.
Burke has draped a flannel shirt loose over his shoulders. He is lacing heavy work boots over his ankles. He sips from the beer can like a suckling. Shadows obscure his eyes.
Randy dresses watching Burke’s back. In Randy’s eyes is a round blankness.
Roy drinks. “What are you boys up to the rest of the evening?”
“Riding.” Randy buckles his belt and adjusts the silver buckle to get it properly centered. “We’ll probably run around in Hoon Holler a little while.”
“See if we can’t get us some.” Burke aims his voice into the grass. “You going out with Evelyn?”
Roy shifts uncomfortably. Nathan stares into space behind Burke’s head. “No. We ain’t going out tonight.”
“She running around on you?”
“Hell no. We ain’t going out tonight, that’s all.” His tone is meant to warn Burke off the subject.
Burke watches Nathan with cool deliberation. “She’s a hell of a good girl. Evelyn.”
This falls into silence. Nathan finds himself unable to look at Roy.
Finally Roy says, “We ought to go camping before it gets too cold.”
“You reckon?” Randy inspects his countenance in the side mirror of Burke’s truck. “Where you want to go?”
“Up toward Handle. You know where I mean? Past the Indian mound, up Old Poke’s Road.”
“My dad used to take me hunting toward Handle,” Burke says. “It gets wild around in there.”
“We ought to go,” Roy says. Lightly touching Nathan on the shoulder, casual but inclusive. “That’s where the haunted house is. Remember I told you?”
They sip beer and consider the proposition.
“You and Nathan ought to come up to Hoon Holler with us tonight.” Burke is watching Nathan again, a direct inspection, almost a challenge.
“We might. We’re going to ride around a little while too. We might see you around there later.”
“All right.”
The easy conversation continues through another beer. Randy and Roy talk about the deer-hunting season and baseball. They agree that baseball is a better game than football. Burke would be playing football except the team is mostly black and his dad won’t let him play with blacks. The night rises full of sound, cities of crickets in one long ululation. Nathan watches the beer-changes in Roy’s face, the slow relaxation of facial muscles, the heaviness of eyelids. Randy tells a story about a girl from Hoon Holler who is supposed to be pretty much of a whore, who will do it with anybody. Might as well stick your hand in a cow pussy as that, Burke says. And Roy agrees and they all laugh.
But the conversation excludes Nathan. What is curious is that the fact seems implicit in the circumstances, as if they all understand that Nathan will not participate, that Nathan has nothing to do with talk about a girl of easy virtue in Hoon Holler. He has only to add the smallest of laughs at the appropriate moment. He comes from another world than the one in which these boys live. He sometimes inhabits the same world as Roy, but right now it’s hard to tell. There follows a round of talking about girls in mechanical ways, about how to slide your hands into a brassiere, or how many fingers a girl will let you put inside her thing. There is the round of talking about cars. Randy asks if Roy’s dad still has that same John Deere tractor, and Roy says he bought a new Allis Chalmers.
So finally they all agree they might see each other later at the Holler. Burke cranks the truck and Randy climbs to the passenger side. Roy and Nathan watch them disappear down the road. Roy crushes his beer can in his hand, meticulously, till the flat ends are joined in a thin disk. He tosses the weight a long way into the woods.
“That was all right.” Peering at Nathan. “Wished I had another one.”
“I thought you had some more.”
“Naw. I’m out.” Roy leans on the car. Mumbling the words of some song, across the top of the car to Nathan. “I like to swim in that river. You’ll like it too, when I teach you how.”
“Is your girlfriend named Evelyn?”
Have the crickets ever sung so loud before? Roy seems to be asking this with his sudden astonished look of listening. Opening the car door, swinging it outward slowly, he says, “Yeah. I told you that.”
The assertion dies in the air between them. Nathan eases himself into the passenger seat. Roy’s weight settles into place behind the steering wheel.
“I was only asking.”
“It’s okay.” Roy starts the car, looking straight ahead. The car rolls forward.
They follow the course of the river along the road, tall pines looming over them. Darkness drinks the headlights. Nathan finds it hard to talk, for the first time. Roy asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not talking much.”
“I’m just quiet. That’s all.”
“Are you having a good time?”
“Yes.”
“You want to go somewhere now? You want to go to a movie? I don’t mind.”
But Roy drives instead, down Island Creek Road to Catfish Lake, then back to the millpond and along the quiet streets of Potter’s Lake, then along another road behind Riggstown. Roy parks the car at the end of a dead-end fork. Abrupt silence when the motor dies. Trees press close on all sides. Roy sits tensely, gripping the steering wheel as if the car still moves. Nathan waits. Roy’s knuckles whiten. He faces Nathan as if with much effort. “You mind?”
“What?”
“Coming out here.”
Nathan slides across the car. He can smell Roy’s sweetish breath. Their faces are close and their bodies aware of each other again.
“No, I don’t mind.”
“We can go to a movie sometime too.” Where words were easy before, they suddenly come hard. Roy blushes and seems terribly confused. Nathan wonders if he is remembering the conversation about Evelyn. “I ain’t trying to hurt anybody,” Roy says.
“You don’t hurt anybody.”
Roy is searching for something now, and Nathan waits. Finally, in a jerky motion, Roy leans forward and kisses Nathan on the mouth. The kiss is wet and cool. A sweetness fills Nathan. Roy waits. Their cheeks are almost brushing. “Touch me,” Roy says.
Nathan slides his hands around Roy’s neck. Their hearts are pounding now, they can feel the acceleration. The choruses of night insects rise around the car, high-pitched, almost frantic.
Suddenly Nathan feels older than Roy, and from within him comes some force in answer to Roy’s fear. He moves with surety, kissing Roy’s face, reaching for Roy’s shirt, making each motion easy and gentle, what he understands will answer Roy’s need. Nathan leads Roy quietly in the car. The passenger cabin offers the most protection they have ever had.
It is a gamble. Nathan must never reach for too much, he has learned better. The trick is to gain access to the knowledge he has stored inside, without remembering how it got there. To move in a way he knows will please Roy without revealing the knowledge, which has a source. The motion of their bodies becomes a balancing act. They have abandoned most of their clothes and Roy is lost in the sensation of Nathan. Nathan has been kissing Roy’s cock with his mouth but then rises over it and presses it against his buttocks. Roy groans in surprise as Nathan guides him inside and they finish in violence, straining and sour. They lie quietly on the seat and Nathan feels the difference. Then Roy’s confusion, his anger. Nathan comes back into his body. Roy watches him with a kind of horror and suspicion.
There is a deadly pause.
“Who taught you how to screw like that?”
Nathan tries to draw away, but Roy grips his arms. “Where did you learn? Answer me. Who have you been screwing like that?”
Nathan remains too stunned to answer and shakes his head. Roy takes deep breaths, a savage look in his eyes. His grip on Nathan’s arm tightens. “Nobody taught me,” Nathan says.
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
Roy raises his hand and Nathan flinches, cowers suddenly. Roy sees the hand and the recoil. He studies Nathan as if for the first time. As if he has never known Nathan before.
They dress in silence. Roy starts the car again, and they head for home. Nathan studies the stars through the window. The broken place inside him aches now. Roy will not speak to him because Roy thinks he is nasty. There can be no question of Roy’s judgment. Amidst so much turmoil the other memories are hard to contain but Nathan manages well enough, until he remembers his mother’s voice from the afternoon, Stay out of your dad’s way tonight. A little fear seizes him and he reaches for Roy again, in his mind at least. Roy who feels, even now, like protection.
Near the farms again Nathan says, “Roy.”
Roy shakes his head, refuses to speak.
“Roy. Please.”
He parks the car in its usual place under the walnut tree. In the protection afforded by the tree shade they watch each other.
Something unexpected. Roy is crying.
From Nathan’s house come sounds. A light on the back porch. The screen swings open, and a dark broad shadow waits there.
A silence like winter cools Nathan’s gut.
Whether Roy is watching now hardly matters. Whether he understands, or ever will. Nathan says good night and gets out of the car. He heads across the dark yard toward the porch light and the shadow of his father, waiting.
Chapter Six
Nathan hurries past the bruising bulk of Dad, who watches him enter but says nothing. Mom is seated at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her but refuses to meet his eye. She says her tiniest good night, aiming her voice into the cup.
Nathan tries to round the table to climb the stairs. But Dad turns and faces him. His eyes are bloodshot and his puffy cheeks are shadowed with heavy beard. “Hey Nathan.”
“Hey Dad.”
“You don’t want to speak to your dad, do you?”
“I said hey.”
Dad steps toward him and he retreats, slides past Mom and to the stairs. Dad has frozen in place. Mom is raising the coffee cup.
“Good night,” Nathan says.
“Good night,” she answers.
“Good night, Dad.”
He runs up the stairs. He tries to get his breath.
He says good night to the window across the hedges. He goes to bed with his clothes on in case he has to run. He lies in bed with blankets up to his chin.
He expects trouble falling asleep but dozes at once. He seems to sleep deeply for a long time, then wakes with a start. There is a light in the hallway. It is very late in the night.
From the hall outside the door a voice says, “Nathan.” Nathan’s heart stops, then pounds. Nausea washes through him. He lies perfectly still with his eyes closed. The shadow of his father falls through the door.
“Did you have a good time when you went out tonight, Nathan?” The sound of something sliding against the wall. The speech is slurred, but still distinct. “I’m talking to you, Nathan. I know you’re awake. I saw your eyes come open. Did you have a good time tonight?”
Still silence.
“You better answer me or I’m coming in there.”
“Yes, sir. I had a good time.” Soft.
“Your mom was the one who said it was all right for you to go out. It wasn’t me. I don’t like it.”
“Yes, sir.”
If I close my eyes. If I do not see.
Again the sound of sliding. Something against the wall. Closer this time.
“Where did you boys go?”
“Swimming. At the river.”
“Did you go swimming too?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s right. You don’t know how.”
A deep breath. The shadow moves. If I close my eyes.
“I’m glad you had a good time.” Silence. Softness of air against the window. “Open your eyes. Nathan. Look at your Dad.”
“I’m sleepy.”
“Open your eyes.”
Mom whispers from the stairs. Her voice contains a familiar high-pitched edge. Nathan remembers the sound, which he has not heard in this new house. “Harland. Harland. What are you doing up there?”
“I’m talking to Nathan.” The sliding stops.
“Come to bed. Leave Nathan alone. He’s tired.”
“Let me check on Nathan. I’ll be back down there in a little while.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t bother him.” The note of hysteria rising.
“I told you it’s all right. I’m checking on him to see if he had a good time.” In the silence there is his coarseness of breathing, the sour smell of his body. Then retreating. “You shouldn’t let him go out like that. He ought to come to church with us.”
“He can go with us to church on Sunday. Come on downstairs.”
Slowly, the sense of Dad’s presence fades. When Nathan opens his eyes the room is empty.
Beneath the blankets he shivers. Moonlight flows through the window. Nathan listens till the house is silent. He slips out of bed, creeping across the floor. Till morning he sits at the window, never closing his eyes.
Chapter Seven
As soon as the sun comes up, he hurries out of the house, stealing bread and a can of macaroni O’s from the cupboard. He heads to the Kennicutt graveyard and sits there through the long Saturday, never moving beyond the silent graves.
His sense of time alters, and the day seems eternal. He has brought some of his schoolbooks a
nd does homework in the morning, though in the chilly air he can only write for a certain length of time before he needs to warm his hands. From the high vantage of the cemetery he can see the whole shore of the pond, and he feels safe there at first. He holds his schoolbooks in his lap and scans the dark breadth of the pond. The world of Saturday morning, silent, unfurls.
Flocks of grackles descend like clouds coming down out of clouds, landing in the pecan orchard beyond the cemetery. The chorusing of their voices continues through the morning, an early flock, not much in a hurry, rooting through the leaves and branches for pecans that have fallen to the ground. The trees have begun to lose leaves, the green-draped branches of summer have thinned and are lifted lighter. Even later in the morning when the sun does a better job of warming things, even then there persists the hint of autumn deepening.
He reads about the geography of Argentina, how the gauchos ride the pampas green and wide. He reads the history of the building of the pyramids by uncountable thousands of slaves. He reads about a boy who tries out for a baseball team, finds a hidden talent for pitching, and leads his team to a state championship. This last book he borrowed from the school library because he wanted to learn something about baseball, back in the long ago when it seemed to matter that he learn more about things like that. He knows that this feeling pertains to Roy in some way but he does not examine the link too closely, he reads the book in a dreamy way through early afternoon.
The presence of Roy is strong in the graveyard. Nearby is the place of the cherub, where Roy and Nathan lay on the ground. A long time ago this happened. Even now, the memory makes Nathan feel safe. But all his thoughts move distantly, and he cannot sustain any feeling; he reads and pauses, he breathes and stares at the ground. When he reads, the boy in the story is Roy, and that makes the book, too, move distantly, images far in the background. Roy absents himself from the scene. As if he were a dream, now dissolving.
Once, in the afternoon, Nathan returns to the house, tiptoeing across the back porch and through the open door. Mom lurks in the kitchen like a shadow. Dad’s cigarette smoke curls in the motionless air, drifting from the direction of the living room. The weight of his presence drags Nathan as if toward orbit. Mom asks, silently, Where have you been? Will you come home? Nathan eats the lunch of soup and crackers, answers, silently, I won’t tell you where I am because you might tell him. The softness at the center of her face houses her pain. But she accepts the silence and turns away, and Nathan, hearing the heavy footfall of his father, hurries to the yard again.
