Dream Boy (10 page)

Nathan
runs water over his hands, dries them on a towel.

“It's
going to be cold out there tonight.”

He
steps to the door. From the smoky horizon comes Dad's voice, “Who is that
you're talking to?”

She
freezes, also like the hunted. The recliner creaks when Dad rises, and the
springs make a gasping sound when he stands. Nathan slips into darkness as the
first of Dad's lumbering footsteps resounds.

By the
time he reaches the shadows of Roy's side of the hedge, he can hear Dad's
weight across the drying grass and fallen leaves. Acorns crack. Dad searches
the yard abruptly, coughing his discomfort, never daring to call Nathan by
name. The brute search halts as suddenly as it began. The screen door slams and
Dad retreats.

Shivering.
The night air has a biting edge. Nathan creeps further, to the border of the
woods, not quite daring the graves as his shelter for the night. He retrieves
his quilts but returns to the edge of the forest behind the houses, hiding
himself in the underbrush. The houses remain clearly visible. The lights blaze
from every window, Roy's included; only Nathan's own bedroom window is dark. He
wraps himself in the quilts, as if in a cocoon.

The
least sound rouses him to awareness; he is in a state between drowsing and
wakefulness. He hears his parents drive to Sunday night service at church.
Roy's parents do the same, and Roy is probably with them. The houses are dark,
except for a dim blue bulb burning in Roy's kitchen, tracing the shoulder of
the refrigerator in the frame of the window.

He is
tempted to go inside, to sleep on a bed tonight, to take the chance. But he
remembers the voice in the hallway, the crash of his father tripping across the
twine trap and falling to the floor. He wraps the quilts tighter.

Both
families return. Roy's church service ends the sooner, no surprise. Nathan's
parents return late, when the waxing moon has risen. The house lights flicker
on, ripple through rooms. They are flush from Christ's victory, they will read
the Bible and pray in the living room. Mom will find no reason to change the
routine tonight.

The
night is cold again, and even two quilts are not enough to cut the wind. He
takes shelter near a tree but it is as if the wind pours around it to soak him.
He endures as long as he can. Later, maybe after midnight, when all the windows
have gone dark in both houses, he sneaks into the school bus and curls up on a
seat near the back.

For a
while the cold and the smell of the seat keep him awake. The mundane interior
takes on its own mystery in the half-light of the yard. But he has the quilts,
at least, and some warmth accumulates beneath them. He sleeps for stretches,
awaking and changing position, never quite comfortable, never quite warm. He
dreams tangles of images from the last few days, boys diving through the air, a
hand sliding along a wall, a voice in the hallway, a tangle of blankets in the
corner of the bedroom. Then he wakens to the stillness and silence of the
school bus.

Near
dawn he sits and stretches, following his longest sleep of the night. The hard
seat has given him a stiff neck and sore shoulder. He peers out the windows
warily.

Light
blazes across the yard, from the kitchens of each of the houses. The igniting
of the lights must have wakened him. Mom stirs in the kitchen. She will be
waiting for Nathan there, and Dad will still be sleeping.

So
Nathan, rising and stretching, careful to remove the quilts from the bus, slips
quietly across the yard and into his house again.

Mom
allows him inside, looking once, deeply, into his eyes. She moves with the
usual silence of morning, added to the other layers of her withdrawal. She is a
blankness to her son. She has hardly slept herself. She is thawing orange juice
into a plastic pitcher. He passes across her field of vision and creeps up the
stairs.

His
bedroom already seems a vacant, airy place. He chooses clean clothes. Washing
his face at the sink, brushing his teeth, he feels a moment of normalcy. One
more morning finds him getting ready for school. Except that his awareness is
heightened. Dressing quickly, he listens for familiar footsteps on the stairs.
He finds himself holding his breath, he hardly makes a sound.

So when
he hears the customary sound of the bus motor warming in the yard, he welcomes
the promise of escape.

He
descends carefully, listening. Dad's snores wash the house in waves. Mom offers
food and Nathan accepts a greasy slice of cheese toast on a folded paper towel.
He carries this arid his books into the yard, hearing, as a last low undertone,
Mom's whispered goodbye. Nathan crosses the yard and climbs into the school
bus, and Roy, gripping the steering wheel, sitting with a slouch, closes the
doors.

Nathan
hesitates, uncertain whether to claim his usual seat or whether to seek some
refuge further back; finally Roy says, “Sit down” and Nathan sits.
This action seals them even closer in spite of their inability to make the
slightest sound. They listen. The bus hides them.

Roy
drives away earlier than usual, then coasts slowly down the dirt road toward
Potter's Lake. Once free of sight of the houses, Nathan breathes easily. He
eats the bread and melted, now rubbery, cheese. The sense of peace fills him, as
much for Roy's presence as for the food. As long as they are silent, Roy and he
will be fine.

Still,
he is a little let down when Roy stops the bus and someone climbs aboard. But
the noise and commotion are like steps descending into the day. He sits with
his books in his lap, watching the back of Roy's head.

At the
high school, Nathan hurries off the bus with the mass of kids, barely daring to
nod goodbye. Roy concurrently makes a show of stacking his books.

For
lunch, Nathan seeks out a new corner and keeps his back to the general
congregation. He hardly dares wish that Roy would come, but, curiously, feels
no surprise when he looks up and Roy is there. Roy ambles uncertainly with his
tray before taking the facing seat. He glares at his plate like the first day.
The wordless hinterland rises between them.

But he
has come, whether they speak or not. The ritual of the cigarette also remains
true to the past, the indolence of lounging on the patio beneath the swirls of
smoke, Burke and Randy each handing Roy a free filter tip. They talk about
swimming at the railroad trestle Friday afternoon, they relive the fantastic
leaps of Burke and Roy. The memory of the day seems far away to Nathan. The
wind over the cornfield, over the flat countryside, washing the patio, consumes
him. The wind pours across the ground in rising waves. The flare of an acrid
match in cupped palms sends smoke along Roy's cheeks. Cigarettes bravely burn.

After
school, at the end of the ride home, Roy parks the orange bus in the yard,
under the sycamore, and Nathan feels the heaviness of home.

They
have been silent, the two boys, the whole afternoon ride. Safety can be found
in spaces without words, where they are close together. Nathan is acute to some
new change in Roy, some edge beyond his anger. The awareness has been building
through the day and returns in force. Roy slides his books under his arms. He
is delaying his departure. He affects to scan the floor with a critical eye.
“I don’t think I need to sweep.”

Nathan
dares no answer.

“There's
some paper. But I can pick that up.”

The
distilled thread of television reaches them from one or the other of the
houses. At the moment Roy and Nathan each seem alien to those clusters of
rooms. But still there is some mistrust in Roy, some hidden resistance. They
glance about. Nathan begins a step past the older boy. He can already feel the
ground beneath his feet.

“Maybe
you ought to come to my house tonight,” Roy says.

Nathan
hesitates, a split second. Too long to pretend he did not hear. “I don't think
I can.”

Because
Roy is watching, Nathan has no choice but to head into the kitchen. He can feel
Roy's eyes on his back the whole walk across the yard.

Mom
freezes at the sink. Nathan softly closes the door. He says hello. After a
moment she answers.

There
is stillness. There is the monotone buzz of the Frigidaire. There is Mom's
narrow back, the neat bow of her apron. There is the smell, antiseptic, of a
freshly cleaned house. There is the neat kitchen, which lays itself out neatly
in perpendiculars, squares, rectangles, diamonds. There is her voice, hardly
audible, saying his supper will be ready soon. There is, pervasive, her fear,
and its orbital chill permeates Nathan. There is also, suddenly, a past
surrounding them both, resonant with the memories Nathan normally resists, the
white spaces of time in which his Dad falls on him like snow. While Mother,
adjacent, allows.

Now
they cannot face each other, the mother and son. The rupture between them
blossoms. Nathan heads upstairs, changes his clothes for the night. He is
trembling for no reason.

He sits
down to early supper in the kitchen, long before Dad comes home. She sets a
plate before him, leaves the room. Her soft weight settles into a chair in the
living room, followed by the whisper of Bible pages sliding across one another.

After
supper he carries his plate to the sink. The sound alerts her to the end of his
meal, but she remains out of sight, in that room where Nathan rarely ventures.
For a moment, he wishes she would come and offer him something. Vague but
comforting. He wishes she would come but she remains there. He eases out the
back door into the night.

The
house recedes. One by one his connections are falling away.

Tonight
he does not even think about staying indoors. He carries his quilts out the
back door brazenly. He wanders along the pond and by sunset he arrives in the
Kennicutt graveyard with his coat and blankets. He sits at the base of the
obelisk, the place where Roy first brought him, in sight of the stone angel
with its chubby thighs. Listening to the wind, he warms himself under the
quilts.

Tonight
seems a little warmer than before. He sits quietly, the quilts heavy around his
shoulders. He is more tired than he realizes and dozes suddenly, a burst of
unconsciousness almost like an enchantment; and when he wakens, footsteps are
crashing through the leaves and a shadow crosses his face.

In a
panic, thinking Dad has found him, he rises, clutching the quilts. But the
hands that take his shoulders are Roy's. Roy emerges out of darkness, they are
facing each other. Uncomprehending, Roy. Looking Nathan up and down, astonished
and then afraid. “How long have you been sitting out here?”

The
decision to answer requires a moment of focus. “Since after supper.”

Tree
frogs are singing. The tenor of the birds has changed a little, the cries seem
harsher tonight. The occasional cricket resounds. A mild October has yet to
finish summer off. The two boys stand together in the sound of night. Warmth
spreads through Nathan, and he can feel Roy's body yielding toward him.

They
sit close on the blanket, without speaking. Their quiet draws them closer.

“You
were out here last night too, weren't you?”

The
memory is distant. “I got on the bus after a while.”

They
each reflect on the landscape. Roy asks no more questions. For a long time he
cannot bring himself to look at Nathan at all, but Nathan waits.

Dad has
been home a long time now. Nathan spots the dark shape of his car at its usual
mooring. The cloud of his presence hangs over the house. But the fact of Roy
makes the fact of Dad less fearsome, suddenly; Nathan contemplates the change
with grave curiosity. He leans against Roy, who allows him closer.

They
sit quietly for a long time. Finally Roy moves his mouth close to Nathan's ear.
“I got to go inside pretty soon. My parents will be wondering where I
am.”

“It's
okay. I'll be fine.”

“You
can't stay out here.”

“Yes,
I can.”

Hesitation.
Roy considers one question, refuses it, something helpless in his expression.
“You should come to my house.”

Nathan
shakes his head. “Your parents will send me home.”

Silence.
Roy is wondering whether to ask what's wrong, Nathan can tell. But he rejects
the notion, he is afraid to know. They stick to the practical.

“You
can sleep in the barn tonight, I'll show you a place.”

The
voices of everything, of crickets and frogs and birds, collide with the rasp of
wind through dry leaves in the trees overhead. Nathan trusts, and therefore
neglects to argue. Roy pulls him close, like a brother.

They
touch each other gently, without intent. Only once, when Nathan brushes his
lips against Roy's throat, is there something else. Roy takes a sudden breath
and grips Nathan's head with his hand. A moment of possession. And Nathan sees,
in a fleeting way, the irony that what pleases him with Roy terrifies him with
his father. He glimpses this, he has no words for the thought. The moment of
dread soon passes.

Roy
takes him to the barn through the back and shows him the mattress in the comer
behind bales of hay. They cover it with yellowed newspaper and Nathan curls up
in the quilts. Roy lingers a little while, till Nathan's eyes adjust to the
light in the drafty structure. Light from the yard pours through chinks in the
outer wall. An owl is hooting somewhere overhead. Roy leans over Nathan on the
mattress, hesitant. The moment begins intimately but ends awkwardly, Roy
decides against any touch, stands and wipes the back of his jeans. “You'll
be safe in here. Okay? I have to go.”

“Thanks.”
Studying the play of shadow on Roy's face. “Are you still mad at me?”

The
question surprises Roy. For a moment he seems overwhelmed, though the question
is very simple. “No, I'm not mad.”