Boys of Life (6 page)

Carlos didn't exactly make it better. "You're new to all this. It'll take time." He laced the fingers of both his hands together. "We're strong, like this. We hold together. Utopia is what we are. And now sou come in from the outside. It's hard."

While he said that, Sammy was handing around blackberries he'd

dished into bowls. When everybody had a bowl, Carlo* held his up in

from of him. "It's been good/' he Mid. "A \:^oA ,\a\, and the\ can't

take it away from us. Whatevei happens tomorrow, we've U-^\ this."

Nobody lai 1 anything the) all just lifted then bowls up. I ike a salutt ( arlos, just .1 lalute to everything. It Impressed the hell

; me, u lent dulls down my ipine, and I thought about the waj (us fingers together, and taid that word I ''<•/"'' that'd ha \ >n foi the last several days |ust fc

hi then foi me, I remembei looking around at those

le and thinking, I've got to remembei tins And that's what I realized ( arlos had ba earlier, when he first sat down

remembei It til I thought about him 11 ind I thought to myself, so cleat It was like sayin

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our loud—those people trust each other totally, like people never Jo.

It was stunning for me to suddenly think that, because I'd never before

had any cause to think about trust except in ordinary ways, and now suddenly I was saying to myself, looking around at Carlos and Verbena

and those howls of blackberries—These are people who totally trust each other. I thought about Verbena sending out that spout o\ hre right

in front of everybody, which should have been gross and disgusting hut somehow wasn't. It was just something that could happen if you wanted it to, and it was okay, it was one more thing. You might think it's strange to say, but I was glad I'd seen that. It was something I wanted to remember. It was stuff like that that held them together, and I wanted that stuff.

It'd gotten completely dark. Even though I was feeling totally at ease, I also thought I should be getting hack home. It's like the way you wander into deep water. You're surprised you've gotten that tar, and you know you could probably go farther, but von don't want to trust your luck anymore. You want to turn hack with just what you have.

I touched Carlos on the arm to say I had to go. He looked at me like he was surprised I was still there. He'd let me see these things I'd seen, but I didn't know what he was trying to tell me with them. "I'll walk you a ways," he said.

I was scared. Some funny bone had gotten struck deep inside me, and I was ringing from the inside out. It just didn't seem likely, after this afternoon, we could go back to being the way we were. Thar C Carlos could just scoop me up out there in the dark and go down on me like he did before. Every step, as we walked out into the dark where my bike was—anything could happen. But Carlos seemed relaxed. He pur his hands in his pockets and sort o\ whistled a tune. We didn't have that much to say but that was okay.

It made me feel better, somehow, to know he was in some kind o( control. And it made me feel better to know he was connected to those people back there around the tire rh.it Seth had managed to make- roar up in a big flame with some leftover gasoline from the shoot. It n me feel better to know Carlos hadn't dropped in out of nowhere, which is the way it'd felt at first.

When we got to where my hike was, he stopped and said, "Well." But he didn't say anything else.

"Maybe I'll stop by tomorrow and see how things ig," I

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told him. "That was all pretty interesting today." I wanted to make it sound like I was in control too. Like I wasn't quivering.

He still didn't say anything, and I remember thinking it was like he was calculating something in his head. Finally he said, "We won't be here tomorrow, Tony. We're leaving."

"For good?" I said. "You didn't say anything about going tomorrow." I think it probably sounded like a whine.

"We finished up early," he said, the way you might just shrug somebody off. But then he grabbed my arm so hard it hurt. "Look, this is crazy," he told me. "I haven't slept in three days, I've been up all night. Writing, see? I've got this great idea, it's a magnificent idea for a movie. . . . And you should be in it. It's for you, Tony. I wrote it tor you, a script and everything. To star in."

It took me a second to get it.

"A movie for me to star in?" When I said it, it didn't sound ri^ht at all. But he suddenly seemed to believe in it.

"We'll start shooting in, I don't know, about two months. We can get some money, I know where we can get some money I'm pretty sure, and we can start shooting it and go from there. Two months. Start to finish. It'll be over before you know it."

He made it sound like an ordeal, but I sort of liked the idea of starring in a movie—even though I have to say it Freaked me our a little

too.

"That's what I have to offer," Ik- said. Then he sounded sad, au<\ ir kind of swept me off my feet. "That's all I have to offer," he told

me.

"But I don't net it. How are we going to make this movie when you're leaving?" I pointed out.

"You're leaving too. You're coming with us. The instant I saw I kiu-u you were perfect. I've been looking .1 long time foi the one n tor this movie, and you're It, rony. You're that person." "Wh.it kind ot movie?" I was suddenly suspicious. "I'm n

p< >rn film."

1 I And kind o( laughed. I have to admit •\\ thrilled eithei with the idea o( my movie careei fcx leup truck around In circles till I fell out on m\ rao to g fire "ut m\ butt 01 some stupid stunt like tl that

mu< h time thinl ut my mo\ le 1 areei up to

that

ip and lea^e," I '< »ld him.

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"No, I guess not," he said.

"Wow," I said. "I have to think. I mean, there's school and things.

I have to take care of my brother and little sisters."

"I guess so." He sounded disappointed, but not .is disappointed as I guess I wanted him to sound. I was going up and down on Ins movie idea like a seesaw.

"There's no mercy," Carlos said. He had this edge to his voice that took me off guard. To tell you the truth, it sort of scared me. "You stay in one place," he said, "you tall behind. You tall behind, you don't count anymore, you're not worth shit."

He sounded angry. Not at me: just angry. But I didn't know anything about what he was talking about. I said, "I don't know anything about any of this, and you're dropping it all on top of me pretty fast."

"You've got it," he said. "But then we just met, right? And I'm leaving tomorrow, right? So where does that Leave US?"

"What kind of movie?" I asked again, because he hadn't quite answered that the first time I asked him.

He laughed. "Not like any movie you've ever seen before. Not by a long shot."

Which after this afternoon, I could pretty much believe was true.

"It's not just movies," he said. "Think about it. It's other things »» too.

"Look," I told him, "I'm not a fag or anything, it thar's what you're thinking."

I think he must've been smiling. But it was dark, so I couldn't

"I don't think you're a fag," he told me. "I never said von were a fag."

He was right. Though I also had a hard-on from standing there talking with him. I expected him, any minute, to move in on me. But he just stood there with his hands in his pockets, not making am move at all, and I suddenly realized he wasn't going to. It this was my last chance, then I was losing it even while I was standing there waiting for it.

"We're pulling out about six," Carlos jaid. "Think about it. I want you to come, but I'm not going to say anything else."

It only he'd touch me, I thought—somehow all the rest would happen. But he just started to walk away.

"I'll think about it," I told him, though as soon as I said that, it felt like something that comes too late. Like he'd completely lost interest. I could see the tire going, <\nd shapes moving around the tire,

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and hear their voices, and it made me feel empty inside, like here was this door that had opened and I'd gotten a peek inside and now it was closing. I'd never get a chance at anything like it again.

But at the same time it was just too much to think about, and I sort of shut down. "See you around, Carlos," I said, feeling all hurt and angry inside. But I don't think he heard me. Or if he did, he pretended he didn't—which is probably what really happened, now that I think about it.

I must've stood there for a minute wondering what to do, thinking maybe Carlos would come back and give me a second chance. But he didn't. I could see him settle down around the fire with everybody else, and it was pretty clear he'd totally forgotten I was even alive.

So fuck you, I thought, and hopped on my bike and rode home in the dark—something I always liked to do, sliding along with only the whirr of the bicycle tires in my ears, this cool clean sound that's like nothing else. The country roads around Owen get pretty dark at night, but I knew them by heart. I'd spent a lot oi time pedaling them up and down trying to burn off all the things in me I didn't know what else to do with.

When I got home, I didn't go up to the trailer. 1 went down into the woods and found my stash of whisky Carlos had got tor me, and 1 took the bottle that was still about halt full and walked \v,iv down in the woods, completely out of sight o\ the lights from the trailer. I sal down—it was pitch black because there wasn't any moon or anything, there weren't even any stars. I took a long swig and telt how it spread

out in nn stomach. Home at last, 1 thought, settling down to welcome

the only feeling I was ever really comfortable with, thot warm feeling

hisky in my gut.

I remember sitting there absolutely quiet, hardU able to See CVCI1 the trunks oi the trees around me, jUSt able tO Sense they were there.

and the woods were quiet except for that cicada drone that once you

ii just don't hear anymore. Aftei a fern minutes my

heai 1 Itself way up I could pick up traffic 1 knew was miles

lack people were having on then from porches

m what we called Niggertown, even the sounds little tin> In

ng while they bun >wn Inside tree trunks.

It wasn't tin- fust time I'd s " In the woods like that, just listening In m\ head. But this time I had the stror feelii King out then in maybe li w about to

the whole w me boml h U)

D

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drop, and I was waiting tor that thing to. happen, which didn't happen yet but it was going to. Every second that wen! h\ ir was more likely to happen. Now, or now, or now. I don't know what I thought ir was going to be, or what it was supposed to mean it it did - I just thought now would be the perfect time.

But nothing happened. I just sat there and strained to hear the farthest-away sounds I could, and nothing happened. 1 took .mother swig of Carlos's whisky, and another, and I waited, and nothing.

Instead my brain was burning up with things I remembered from the day. That pickup truck going round in cireles, and the held where Netta and I dug up weeds, and Sammy's blackberries in a howl, and of course that long shooting flame coming out oi Verbena's big behind like a flamethrower. I looked down and realized 1 had the tinkers ot my two hands laced together.

I'd finished off the bottle, though it wasn't the whisky 1 was drunk on. It was all those pictures coming one after another in my brain, like in one of those action comics I'd always be reading in back of the classroom instead of paying attention. Pow! Crash! Zam! Piling up oik after another in each new frame till you couldn't tell who was beating up on who anymore. I'd hide the comic book down under my desk and take peeks at it all through class, and get a hard-on that I'd rub my arm against so nobody could tell what I was doing.

I stood up and tossed that empty whisky bottle as far as I could. It didn't shatter like I wanted it to, it just tell with a thud. It anything was happening in those woods, it was me.

Back at the trailer, my mom's car was gone. No surprise tor a Saturday night. Inside, everything was quiet. I guessed the two ^irls were asleep, but Ted should still be up. It was always ^ood to be with Ted—just to talk to him, because even though he was only fourteen he was sharp for a kid that age. He could put his finger on things. that I'd ever in a million years tell him about Carlos.

I started back toward the bedroom but then stopped. I miess my ears were still tuned to all th.it quiet outside, because with the bedroom dour closed the sound was so taint I'd probably just have barged in on it otherwise.

From the sound o\ it, Ted was drv humping the mattress. He must've been lyin^ on his stomach rubbing his dick against the sh. because he was really plowing away. The more I listened, the more I could hear. It made me want to laugh, but it also depressed the hell out of me. I stood there in the kitchen and listened to the noise my

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little brother was making, and now that I was paying attention I could feel the trailer shaking ever so little on its rickety foundations.

My little brother getting his rocks off. It was an odd thing. The bed just creaked away, a regular motion that sounded like plain hard work, and then I heard him groan, this really loud groan like he was totally cutting loose when he came, and that was it. I couldn't stand it anymore, couldn't stand the thought of all those days jerking off in Owen, days stretching out as far as I could see, one after the other and each one jerking off and jerking off. I bolted without letting Ted even know I was ever in that trailer.

I was totally calm, like I was watching everything from a distance—which is maybe a dumb thing to say but it's true. I remember thinking—it was very clear in my head—I'm not going to see anv oi this again: my mom's ashtray piled high with ashes, Ted's sneakers on the floor by the door, those stupid little colored-glass elephants inv mom kept on a shelf and that were always getting knocked of? and broken so most of them were missing a leg or a trunk. A door opening, and I walked through it and then it closed shut behind me.