The Boy

by Paul Heatley

  Jake steps into the bathroom, stands in the doorway. The bathroom is very clean. It doesn’t smell like the rest of the motel room. It smells of bleach.

  Joanie spares him a glance. “You’re still here?”

  He swallows. “Yeah.”

  She raises an eyebrow, turns, blows smoke and looks him up and down. She offers him a cigarette. “Smoke?”

  He takes one, puts it between his lips and she lights it for him. He coughs.

  “Do you smoke?”

  “Regularly.” He blows a ring. Opening his mouth, talking to her, it seems so easy now, like there is nothing to it, like there has never been any need to be afraid and shamed and nervous and scared, he opens his mouth and the words come, his voice is heard.

  “You don’t really work with him, do you? With – him outside, I forget his name.”

  “Carlson.”

  “What is he, your dad?”

  “No. He’s a friend of my dad.”

  “How old are you really?”

  “Sixteen.”

  She laughs. “Shit.” She takes a long draw from the cigarette. “Why didn’t your dad bring you along?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “You’ve got a strange situation, sweetie.”

  “I know.”

  “At least you’re talking now.”

  “It’s a breakthrough.”

  She smiles. “What happened to your face?”

  “I got hit.”

  “How’d the other guy come off?”

  “There ain’t a mark on him.”

  “You have it coming?”

  He shrugs. “Probably.”

  “Everybody does, right?”

  Jake steps to the window and looks down. In the dark he sees movement, a man and a dog, two silhouettes passing through the night. Joanie finishes her cigarette and drops what is left out the window. She presses her hand to Jake’s cheek and he looks at her, looks her in the eye. “Next time try and find a girl your own age, huh? You’re not always gonna have a Carlson round to pay for you, and trust me, you don’t wanna start payin for it. You’ll never stop.”

  Jake sucks on the cigarette then throws it out the window, nods at her.

  She smiles at him, lets her hand fall from his face. “You better get goin,” she says. “You stay in here any longer he’s gonna get jealous, start thinkin you’re some kind of marathon man.”

  “Okay.”

  When he is nearly at the door she speaks again. “Remember what I said, sweetie.”

  Outside, as the door closes, Carlson turns from the railing, looks him over. “There’s a change,” he says. “A definite change. I can see it. Look at you, chest all puffed out, shoulders all square.” He grins, leans a little closer. “And what’s that I smell – a post-coitus cigarette? Tasted good, didn’t it?” He laughs, slaps Jake on the arm. “You did good, kid. You wanna tell me about it?”

  Jake is tongue-tied again, that earlier ease of conversation he’d shared with Joanie gone.

  “Ah, that’s okay. Keep it to yourself. You feel good?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

  Carlson smiles. He looks like a proud parent. He reaches out, squeezes Jake’s shoulder. “That’s great. Come on. Let’s go back.”

  15

  Jake stands at the back of the trailer, smokes. It is night and Carlson is at work. Jake could leave the park, go into town, find Ray and Glenn, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to be stuck inside the trailer, but nor does he want to be with his friends. His mind is preoccupied. Being with them would fill him with an impatient giddiness, make him jittery until he’d feel as if he was about to explode.

  Instead, he thinks about Joanie. About the sex.

  He’d expected the loss of his virginity to bring on a noticeable change, but it has not. The horniness, the desperation for sex, has not faded. If anything, it has increased. Joanie infests his thoughts, possesses him, she is in his dreams and his blood and she will not go away. It is a need that must be satisfied, but it is a need that requires money. He does not have any money.

  Dead cigarettes pile at his feet as he chain smokes, works his way through the pack. There are only a few left. He looks into the woods, into the gap between the trees. Sees shadows move. Animals or men, he can’t tell. He can feel eyes. Can see two pinpoints of glinting light peering at him from behind a tree. He stares back and flicks another smoked cigarette and thinks about Joanie on top, the way she bounced, the way her skin pressed against his. She was not young, she looked worn and tired, but she felt so soft and smooth against him. He feels the blood pool in his crotch.

  “Hey.”

  He gives a start, straightens up and looks to the right. Feels his face flush. It is Luann. He nods but says nothing.

  She smiles weakly, looks sheepish. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Then why’re you here?”

  She frowns, jerks her thumb back at her trailer. “Folks are home,” she says. “I didn’t feel like bein round them.”

  Jake blows smoke.

  “How’re you doing?” she says.

  “Fine.”

  She takes a tentative step closer. “Your face looks good,” she says. “Last time I saw you…there was a lotta blood.”

  “Mm.”

  She bites her lip. “Got one spare?” She indicates the cigarette between his lips.

  He takes it from his mouth and hands it to her. It is new, barely smoked. He gets himself another, lights it.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” she says. She trails off, looks at his face and bites her lip again but can’t hold his gaze and looks away, towards the trees.

  Jake smokes and says nothing. Seeing her reminds him of Ricky, of the attack. The blows rain down on him again, their impact fresh in his mind. His head aches and his eyes feel as though they are swelling closed. He can taste blood.

  His cheeks burn, remembering. It angers him. She, here, right now, trying to talk to him, angers him. “Where’s Ricky?” he says. He tries not to spit it.

  “We broke up,” she says. “After…after what he did to you.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Should I be grateful?”

  “You can be whatever you want. He went too far.”

  “Why’d you want to talk to me?”

  “To say sorry. For what he did.” Her voice hardens at his belligerence. “But he said you were looking in.”

  Jake shakes his head, looks her in the eye. “I wasn’t looking.”

  “You were the only one there.”

  “No, I wasn’t. But it doesn’t matter what I say, because I was there. The other guy got away. That’s why no one saw him. Your boyfriend was too busy beating on me.”

  Luann blows smoke. Despite the cold she wears denim cut-offs and a grey vest, the sleeves of her jacket are knotted around her waist. Her hair is tied back but a few loose strands hang down her face. “I said sorry.”

  “You didn’t do it.”

  “Where were you going?”

  He lies. “I was just passing. Truth be told, I was hopin you were outside, like the last time.” But it is not a complete lie. There is truth in that. Deep down, more than looking in on her he’d wanted nothing more than for her to be sat outside, exiled by her parents’ noise. “Remember that? I was hopin to talk to you again. I liked it. I liked talkin with you.” He wants her to feel bad.

  Her face drops a little and he sees he has been successful. “Why didn’t you say anythin, about the other guy?” Her voice is softer.

  Jake shrugs. “What difference would it make. It’s done now.”

  There is movement in the bushes amongst the trees. A bird takes flight, caws loudly as it goes. Luann looks but Jake does not. He inhales deeply on his cigarette, looks Luann up and down while she is distracted, and feels nothing. He looks at her and his face hurts with the memory of another’s fists. The desire for her, the need, it is gone. In its place, his blood boils.

  He straightens up, steps away, dumps the ci
garette down with the rest of them. “I’ve gotta get goin,” he says.

  Luann looks back. “Oh,” she says. “Okay.”

  The thought crosses his mind that he could invite her to walk with him, and they could go somewhere else together rather than the place he has in mind, but he quashes it. He clings to his anger. “Goodbye,” he says, and he says it like this is the last time they’ll see each other.

  “Bye,” she says, and does not move as he passes.

  He walks fast, rounds trailers until he is out of view of her, then he starts to run. He runs until he is off the trailer park and heading toward the town, toward its lights, and his legs burn and his chest burns and he’s breathing hard, wheezing, and the cold gets in his eyes so they start to water and he reaches town and keeps running, keeps running until he reaches his mother’s street and then he stops and he hides in shadows and bends over to catch his breath but his eyes are fixed on her house, on the lights that burn brightly in the upstairs windows.

  He spits hard and waits until he doesn’t feel like he’s going to throw up anymore then he searches the ground until he finds a stone large enough to do some real damage, to make more than a few scratches on the side of her car, then goes up to the house and notices with satisfaction that her car is still scarred, it hasn’t been repaired yet, and he goes down the side of the house and he stands in the middle of her back yard and he throws the stone through a dark downstairs window, he doesn’t know which room, maybe the kitchen or maybe the family room, and the glass shatters inwards and before they inside can register what has happened he is running, he runs back through the town and out of the town and back towards the waiting darkness of the trailer park.

  16

  Room sixteen. He watches the door, standing in the shadows out of the glow of the streetlamps where he could be seen. Whenever a car pulls in he conceals himself behind a column, pokes his head out from around it to continue his vigil.

  He watches the men that go up the stairs and make that short walk to her room. To room sixteen. They knock. Sometimes they have to wait. Usually they don’t. They are never in for very long. Jake doesn’t recognise any of the men. Some of them look drunk. They sway from side to side, stumble up the steps.

  He grits his teeth. He has no money. He wishes he did.

  The notion crosses his mind to go to her door anyway, expectant of the look on her face when she opens it and sees him standing there. Surprise at first, then it will turn into a smile. She will invite him inside. They don’t have to fuck. They can just talk. Turn out the lights and sit cross-legged on the floor beside her bed where no one can see them through the windows, and ignore the men that come and knock, make sure to have locked the door so it doesn’t open when they try the handle after they receive no response. They just have to talk. She can make him feel good again, the way she did last time.

  He doesn’t go knock. The fear of the reality crushes him. He cannot knock upon her door without money in his pocket.

  He steps back, deeper into the shadows, presses himself against the wall, unsure why he can’t leave, what he is waiting for, what he expects to happen.

  He thinks about his mother. He can’t remember much about her. Doesn’t even know why she left, and Harry won’t talk about it.

  She was always so secretive, always in another room. As a child he sat upon Harry’s knee and they watched old war movies and cowboy movies and laughed together and pointed finger guns at the screen but she never joined them. She was reading, maybe. Or packing her things to leave.

  She crept out in the early morning. Jake missed school that day. She never woke him. He went into her room, yawning, and saw the bed was empty. Harry had already left for work. She must have waited until he was gone, then gathered up her things and fled. Jake didn’t understand what was happening. He sat and watched television and waited for someone to come back. He got hungry. He ate cereal.

  Harry returned late. He smelled of beer. He looked at Jake with narrowed eyes, said “Where’s your mother?”

  He stormed round the trailer like it was five times bigger than it was, like there was somewhere in it she could feasibly hide, kept shouting “Patti! Patti!” until his throat was raw and he couldn’t talk for a few days after.

  She’d left no note. She didn’t try to make contact. She never came back. Anything she hadn’t taken with her that day she left behind. Harry didn’t keep any of it. Clothes, mostly. He took them outside and burned them.

  Jake thinks about her new husband, and her new children. Wonders if she was having an affair.

  A truck pulls into the forecourt. Three men get out. They talk loudly, like they’ve been drinking, but they don’t look drunk. They go up the stairs. Jake holds his breath. They go to room sixteen. They have to take turns. One at a time. The other two wait outside, joke and laugh, until the door opens and they can rotate. Jake feels sick.

  “Who are you?”

  Jake starts, but he forces himself to turn casually. A dark face peers at him from the shadows, two unblinking eyeballs trained upon him, the whites incredibly bright.

  “I don’t know your face.” The voice is deep and measured.

  Jake clears his throat. “I have a room.”

  “Which one?”

  He nods his head at the nearest door. “This one.”

  The face comes closer, looks into his eyes then studies the rest of his features, then sniffs him. The face smiles, teeth as white as the eyes. “Are you waiting for the woman?”

  “No.”

  The smile broadens. “Then what are you waiting for?”

  “I’m not waiting for anything. I’m just gettin some air.”

  “Of course.” The face, the eyes and the mouth, stay where they are for a long moment, the smile never fading until it begins to make Jake nervous. “You will be waiting a long time if you don’t get in the queue.” Then the man turns and leaves without another word, makes his way down past the rooms and disappears.

  Jake frowns, watches him go, shrugs him off as a resident motel oddity, then turns back to room sixteen to see that the three men have returned to their truck, they are pulling out, driving off. As they go, a man enters the motel’s lights. He makes his way towards the steps. Jake grits his teeth, clenches his fists. It is Carlson. He goes up to room sixteen. He knocks twice, then goes inside.

  Jake spits, punches the column but this does not satisfy him so be punches it again and feels his knuckles split and blood begin to flow from between his fingers. He stares at the door to room sixteen like he could tear it off its hinges, set fire to everything inside.

  Before he leaves he looks into the reception. The pale man with long hair is there, he stands at the glass. He is looking at Jake. Watching him.

  17

  Jake takes a detour back to the trailer park. He goes via his mother’s street. It is so late there are no lights on in the windows. He wants to go round the back and inspect the damage to the window but he does not.

  He knows that one day they will install a security camera, to catch their phantom vandal, but he doesn’t care.

  On the way up the path leading to their front door he unzips himself, pulls out his penis, and when he gets to the door he pisses on it, makes sure to get plenty on the door handle, then he puts himself away and goes back to Carlson’s trailer.

  18

  The man on the screen wipes at his eyes behind his spectacles after every question. He is short, balding, sports a weak, patchy beard. He wears a paisley shirt and the armpits are wet, and spreading.

  Jake eats a sandwich and watches. The couple are winning. The couples always win.

  They are young. The guy looks like a clean-cut realtor straight out of a football scholarship sponsored trip to college; the girl looks like a clean-cut homemaker fresh out of a head-cheerleader, prom queen, straight-A journey through high school. The both of them are all blonde hair and blue eyes and big white pearly smiles. The presenter mocks the singleton, and the couple laugh heartily.

/>   “It’s looking like a runaway victory!” the presenter says. “Are you going to put up any kind of fight?”

  The singleton mumbles.

  “Can’t hear you, pal! You really need to work on your lines – no wonder you’re here playing solo!”

  The man on the television, the singleton, keeps coughing, he clears his throat. He speaks. His voice is very quiet, barely audible. “You’re all horrible people,” he says.

  “Oh, come on, don’t be like that!” the presenter says.

  The singleton puts his hand in his pocket. “You’re bullies,” he says.

  “It’s just a game, pal! It’s just a bit of fun! Hey, you could still turn it all round!” He winks at the screen.

  “No.” The man takes his hand from his pocket. “I can’t.” He holds scissors. He jams them into his neck. Blood sprays.

  The presenter panics. “Shit!”

  The young couple scream.

  The camera cuts away to the audience, shows them jumping to their feet, some of them flee up the aisles, most of them lean closer to get a better look.

  The camera cuts off, the screen goes black. It cuts to commercials. Jake eats his sandwich. Indecent Proposals does not return. A Mexican soap opera begins. He watches it.

  19

  Jake knocks on his mother’s door. It is daytime, before twelve. Her husband has gone to work – Jake watched him leave, watched his car pull out and drive off – and her replacement children are at a friend’s house.

  It takes her a long time to answer, probably caught off guard, not expecting any visitors. When she finally does get to the door he doesn’t wait for her to look him up and down, doesn’t wait for her to remember who he is.

  “Do you recognise me?”

  His voice is hard. His mother looks thrown.

  Patti. Patti. Her name is Patti.