by S. F. Henson
I take my time putting the lawnmower back in the shed. Skunky has been over plenty, but she’s never eaten with us. I have this nagging feeling that something’s up.
She’s already inside by the time I go in. She cleared off the kitchen table and is setting out real plates and silverware. I pull a clean T-shirt out of the laundry hamper and wash my hands. The smells coming from the kitchen make my stomach growl.
Skunky has laid out fried chicken, green beans, macaroni and cheese, and corn bread.
“What’s the occasion?” I ask.
Traitor plops down in one of the high-backed chairs. “I figured it’s high time we had a decent meal around here.”
I agree, but I can’t relax. Traitor and Skunky pile food on their plates, but I watch, waiting for the catch.
“Eat.” Traitor tears into a chicken thigh.
Catch or no catch, I’m not about to waste my chance at something besides bologna, and if I eat, I don’t have to talk.
Skunky and Traitor keep swapping glances over their forks, like they’re both waiting for the other to speak. Finally, Skunky makes eye contact with me. It’s the first time she’s looked me in the eye. Her irises are a muddy brown, not that different from Kelsey’s. Her expression, however, is. She doesn’t look angry, exactly, but she’s not pleased, either.
“What’s the deal with you and the Kingsley kid?” She crosses her arms, her gaze boring into me, like she can see through me, see my soul, see the beast. “And don’t give me some bullshit about being friends. I want to know the truth. What’s in it for you?”
There’s the catch. His voice rattles in my skull. Don’t let this chink talk to you like that. My muscles automatically tense. Teach her a lesson, boy. You know what to do.
Shut up, shut up, shut up! It takes a shit-ton of willpower not to press my hands to my ears to block him out.
I slowly lower my chicken thigh to the plate and push my palms against the cool, sanded wooden table, forcing my lungs to take deep breaths. “You think I have some master plan? To what? Destroy this town one minority at a time?” If I did, wouldn’t I start with you?
“Of course not,” she says. “That would be ridiculous. But it does seem strange. The first ‘friend’ you make is black.” She uses air quotes. “Why him?”
“We just think it’s odd,” Traitor says. “With your history.”
The beast growls. “My history?”
“You have to admit it’s weird,” Skunky says.
I stare at her like she’s speaking a foreign language. Does she speak another language? Where’s she from, anyway? I know even less about her than she pretends to know about me. I turn to Traitor. “Why her? Of all the people you could date, why’d you pick her?”
“We’re not talking about me,” he snaps.
“I am. Where did you find her? Why can’t you date someone your own race?”
Shock smacks both of them across the face.
“I mean, that’s what you’re asking me, isn’t it?”
“That’s not—” Skunky starts.
“Yeah, it is. Why do I have to hang out with a black guy? Why can’t I have made a white friend?” I wipe my greasy fingers on a paper towel, ball it up, and fling it on the table. “Would we be talking about this if Brandon was white? Or if I was anyone else? Would you care?” My chair legs scrape the floor as I stand. Good. I hope I gouged tracks in the wood. “What do I have to do to prove to you people that I’m not a murderous freak?”
Skunky leans across the table. “We just don’t want him to get hurt.”
“And I just want a friend.” I regret it as soon as it’s out of my mouth. They don’t deserve to know that, but it’s out now. “He’s nice to me. In fact, he’s the only person in this Godforsaken town who is.” The beast takes control of my legs. I kick the chair into the wall, knocking one of the bottom slats out.
“Nate,” Traitor says, but that’s all I hear. I’m already on the front porch by the time he finishes his sentence. It feels good to let the beast out a little. Like stretching a tight muscle. I want to let go so badly, but if I do, that’s it. I’ll never come back.
Night has fallen and everything is dark, dark, dark. I breathe it in and feel the darkness expand inside, like a brain freeze that hits my entire body. I want—no, need—to destroy something. The beast has been pent up too long.
Crisp air snakes around me. I stalk into the woods, intentionally avoiding glancing at the tree in the hole. If I see its hopeful branches right now, I might shred them out of spite.
There’s one good thing in my life and they want to strip it away. They want to leave me empty, alone, dark, and cold.
Can’t they see I’m not him? I’ve been here a couple of months without a single episode. Do they honestly think it’s some kind of trick? That my friendship with Brandon is a cover to ease everyone into a false sense of security before I strike? Can’t they see that I’m trying?
Why can’t a single damn person see the real me?
I push through the brush less carefully than normal, breaking any sticks or branches in my way. I’m hot all over. I trip over a fallen branch and barely catch myself before I go sprawling.
“Asshole branch.” I heft it off the ground and swing it at the closest tree like a baseball bat. An animal scream escapes my mouth as the branch connects with the tree. I swing it again and again and again until the branch is toothpicks and my throat is hoarse.
My knees give and I sink to the cold dirt. I cling to the button around my neck, running it back and forth along its string but, surprisingly, I don’t need to be grounded right now. The beast curls up inside me and sleeps, satisfied with its time out of its cage.
I know this isn’t healthy. It isn’t how Dr. Sterling or Ms. Erica would want me to cope, but losing control, even for a minute, felt good. Too good. But that may not be such a bad thing. Maybe it’s okay to lose control once in a while, when I know I can’t hurt anyone.
Despite the argument, I fall asleep in my clearing peacefully as a bear that’s gorged itself before hibernation.
636
I belong in the woods. I could stay there forever, away from people, living in the trees and shadows, safe from myself, the world safe from me. Because when it gets down to it, I’m a snake. Cold-blooded and venomous. Lowest of the low. At night, the outer skin slides off, and I’m bare and open, the real Nate.
That’s when the beast can show itself. I keep it hidden under that dead shell all day, but once I’m in the woods, I let it out of its cage. It snaps and destroys, opening the pressure valve a little at a time. That’s why I’ve been going to the woods every night. That release helps me keep the shell on during the day. It helps me live with the pretend Nate that Brandon thinks he’s friends with. Helps me live with the guilt.
And I’ve really been feeling the guilt lately. Brandon and I have been hanging out more and more. Pretty much every day that he doesn’t have basketball practice. Usually at the river. Thanks to him, my fishing skills have improved. I actually caught one the other day. A tiny bass, but it’s something. Brandon acted excited, but something was off. Like the light had dimmed in his smile. I worry that I’m rubbing off on him. Or maybe his friends aren’t happy he’s been hanging around with me. He’s sat with me every day at lunch this week instead of splitting time between me and his friends like normal. And today, we’ve been fishing for almost an hour and he’s hardly said a word. I keep starting to ask, but I don’t want to seem like I’m forcing him to talk. Sometimes, you just need someone to not talk to. I can’t do much, but I can be that person for Brandon.
Another twenty or so minutes pass that way, then Brandon catches a fish. Almost catches it. I hear him scuffling up the bank beside me. He lets the fish run, then jerks and reels, but the line messes up. It doubles back around the reel getting knotted and tangled. The piece of line still in the water goes slack as the fish slips the hook. “Argh, I can’t with this shit today!” Brandon throws his rod to the grass and scrubs
his hand over his hair—which I’ve learned has different textures depending on how it’s treated, and that black folks don’t like people touching it.
I reel in my own line. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m so over this place,” he says as I get close. His jaw is set and the happy crinkles have vanished from the corners of his eyes.
“The river?”
“All of it. This town. These people. They’re impossible to talk to. Unless it’s about the way Kara McElroy’s boobs bounce in a sports bra.” He picks up his rod. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, feeling like an ass for not asking earlier. I follow him back to his car and throw my rod in the backseat with his. Technically, they’re both his, but he’s been letting me use the same one for a while now. Brandon cranks the engine, but doesn’t move.
“You want to talk about it?” I ask.
“No. Yes. I don’t know. You don’t want to hear it.” He puts the car in drive and flings gravel as we pull onto the road.
The speedometer needle creeps up to sixty-five, fast for a country road, but Brandon keeps accelerating.
“Dude, you’ve been awesome to me. Least I can do is listen.”
He glances over. The speedometer drops back to sixty. “You know my brother, Henry?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s dropping out of college to be a fly-fishing guide in Tennessee. My parents are pissed.”
Brandon’s still holding the wheel like he wants to snap it off, but we’ve slowed to a reasonable fifty miles per hour.
“I’m not supposed to discuss it because my folks are trying to talk Henry out of it, and they don’t want anyone to know. Not a lot of people around here go to college. Henry is, like, the poster boy for good life decisions. Everyone tells their kids to be like Henry Kingsley. Not to mention, my dad’s a professor at West Alabama University. It’s really stressful at home and none of my friends care about anything besides Kara McElroy’s jugs.”
“I care,” I say. “About this, I mean. Not Kara’s boobs. They’re not even that great.” This is me being a friend, I guess. Kara’s boobs are amazing. Especially in that tight sports bra she wears in PE. I may not have grown up like them, but I’m still a guy.
Brandon laughs, but quickly goes quiet. “Fletch and Rainey don’t get it. Neither of them want to go to college anyway. Fletch’s dad will probably get him a job at the lumberyard and Rainey wants to work for the power company. Which is great, but they wouldn’t get it. They’d shrug this off like it’s no big deal. But it is in my family. It’s so awkward at home. And they keep dragging me into it.”
My hand rubs the fake leather console, my fingers automatically drawing 636. “If there’s one thing I totally get, it’s not wanting the same thing as your friends. Or family.” Holy shit, do I get that.
Brandon gives me a curious glance. If there was ever a time to say more … My truth is right there, balanced between us. But I can’t get the words out. Not to Brandon, and definitely not now. He needs to talk about his problem, not hear me whine about mine.
“How do you feel about it?” I ask to keep the focus on him. “About Henry leaving to teach fishing.”
Brandon sighs. “I don’t know. He’s really smart. He wants—wanted—to be an accountant. But if he doesn’t love it”—he shrugs—“I guess I think he should be happy, even if that means dropping out of school. It’s not like he can never go back.”
“Yeah,” I say, even though I know nothing about college. “Maybe he needs to do this for a while. Get it out of his system. I mean, it sounds kind of fun.”
Brandon smiles and the crinkles return around his eyes. “It does, right? The rush of the water, the thrill of the catch. I don’t blame him. Maybe that’s what my folks are so worried about.”
“Eh, they’ll get over it. I’m sure it will blow over soon.”
“You think?”
I have no idea. My family never let anything go. But the Kingsleys aren’t anything like my family. “Yeah. I do.”
“Thanks, man.”
“For what?”
“For listening when no one else would.”
“Any time,” I say, and I mean it.
Brandon’s way of dealing with things is way better than mine. Every night when I let the beast out, it’s harder and harder to put the walls back up. Like trying to squeeze toothpaste back into the tube. I wish I could open up to Brandon the way he just opened up to me, but it’s not fair for me to weigh him down with everything. It kind of makes me miss the Psych Center again. At least I knew I could be honest there. It wasn’t exactly trust, but that’s probably too much to ask.
The last person I truly trusted was Kelsey. No matter what, we were completely honest with each other. No judgment. Not when she admitted she enjoyed hurting someone who wronged her, like the checkout girl who made a smart-ass comment about the amount of snack food she was buying. Not when I admitted I enjoyed it sometimes, too. Because every time I hurt someone, I pretended it was his blood splattered across me.
You only get that kind of understanding from someone who has shared your experiences.
I’ll never have a bond with anyone else the way I did with Kelsey, but that doesn’t mean I can’t listen. Keep my mouth shut and be Brandon’s ears. I want him to have someone he can talk to, even if I can’t.
I swallow hard and stare out the window. This time we’re driving north, the sun beating down on Brandon’s side of the car, all the shadows over on mine like they never really left.
640
I lean back on Traitor’s springy couch and toss up a green stress ball I found during one of my trips to the river with Brandon. The ball bounces off the ceiling, and a shower of that gross popcorn stuff rains down, sprinkling the couch and floor like dandruff. Sweeping and mopping is on my list of weekend chores anyway, so I throw the ball again.
“Nate, are you listening?” asks the social worker. She’s perched on Traitor’s scuffed leather chair.
The ball arcs to the ceiling. Thunk.
She raises her voice. “I hear you’re making friends.”
Traitor snorts. He’s at his normal post in the kitchen doorway, like he’s ready to intervene if I suddenly attack the social worker.
“Tell me about them,” the social worker says.
The ball drops into my hand. I roll it between my palms, feeling its pitted surface where a dog, or something, took several bites out of the foam. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Your uncle said you’ve been fishing almost every day for the last few weeks.”
I scowl at Traitor. What’d he do? Go run to her as soon as he met Brandon?
“This will be easier if you talk to me, Nate.” The social worker balances her tablet computer on the chair arm and leans forward. “Tell me about Brandon.”
I throw the ball. “He’s nice to me. I’m nice to him.”
The social worker picks the tablet back up and types something. She looks smug. I’d love to smack her in the forehead with the stress ball, but I hit the ceiling again instead.
Traitor grumbles something under his breath. I ignore him and throw the ball harder.
The social worker looks up from her computer. “What do you and your friend talk about?”
More ceiling breaks off and tumbles to the floor. I’m not telling this lady shit.
“Nate?” The social worker crosses her legs and bobs her foot like the red and white floaters Brandon uses to fish.
“Not much.” I bounce the ball again and again and again. I’ve already worn a circle on the ceiling.
The social worker plasters a fake smile across her face. She’s showing her teeth, but the corners angle down, like she had a stroke. Her patience must be wearing thin. This lady is never going to last as my caseworker.
I almost jerk that damn tablet out of her hands and type the shit that’s missing from my file. If she knew all the things I’ve done, she’d hightail it out of here so fast, all we’d see is a cartoon puf
f left behind.
Hell, just a snippet would make her head for the hills. Like the Jewish kid we attacked outside a synagogue in Louisville. And I barely touched him—that was all the Connor brothers, with me doing just enough to keep them from tattling.
All I’d have to do is write how his feeble hand latched onto my pants leg as I half-heartedly kicked him, or the pleading look in his eyes right before Jacob Connor bashed his face in.
Even Ms. Erica had a hard time reading that story.
The social worker shifts her tablet again, moving it out of reach. “Tell me something you do talk about.”
I catch the ball and glare at her. “Why? You think I filled him in on my plot to burn down the town?”
She blinks several times. The pretend smile is all downturned corners now. Traitor looks like he’s about to snap at me, but doesn’t. He deepens his frown until he resembles a ventriloquist dummy.
A ventriloquist came to the Pysch Center once as a “treat.” As soon as that wooden puppet started “talking,” I faked a flashback so I could get out of there. Wonder if that would work now?
“We talk about fish,” I say. “And school, and he asks about where I’m from.”
Traitor and the social worker both take sharp breaths. “You haven’t told him anything about your past, have you?” the social worker asks.
Traitor pushes off the door frame and steps closer to us. “He better not have. Or I’ll—”
“I haven’t,” I snap. “But I can’t keep this secret forever.” Lately, the words have been burning inside me. My time in woods, letting out the beast, has made me crave a greater release and hearing Brandon spill his secret makes holding mine in seem like an even bigger sin.
The social worker’s eyes widen. “Nate, you can’t. You—”
“Over my dead body,” Traitor growls. “I’ve built too much in this community for you to—”
“What if he tells someone?” the social worker cuts in. “It’s too much of a risk. You could be found! If The Fort learned where you are—”
