Boys of Life (4 page)

Pretty soon I was taking so many shots ot Mom's whisky th.it I had to figure our how to net some on my own. There was only so much doctoring it up with water that I could get away with. Which leads to Wallace.

I can't really remember how I met him—it seems like he was always around, and we always sort of knew each other even though he was tour or five years older than me. I never re.illy thought about it at the time, but now I think probably he and my mom had something going tor a while. But then it must've stopped, and they staved friendly afterward. That was more or less the way my mom was with her men-after my dad left, she didn't get too emotionally involved. I think she was out for a good time and that was all.

I liked Wallace because he was funny and smart, unlike most ot the people I knew. We went hunting a tew rimes, and 1 remember he rook me to a turkey shoot once where he won a turkev that he ga> my mom on the condition she invite him over to Thanksgiving, which she did. After the meal Wallace and I went on a little walk in the woods behind the trailer, and he brought our this pint ot bourbon and we sat on a log and drank it and talked about uirls and what a dead place Owen was, and how he had these big plans about m Detroit, where he had a cousin. With the bourbon and all, we got to talking about various things about ourselves—1 don't know what

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into me, but I up and told him about the dreams I was having, and how I needed to get whisky so I could sleep.

He sort of laughed and said, "Yeah, sure; we all know how it is." But then he went on to say, if I could pay him he could get stuff for me, no problem.

The only problem was, I didn't have any money because I wasn't working, and they wouldn't hire at the lumberyard till you were sixteen. So Wallace said he'd think about some way I could pay him, and in the meantime he'd get me stuff from the liquor store.

About a month went by, and he'd brought me about four bottles of Canadian Club and hadn't asked for a dime, and I thought, This is great, I've got it made. But I also sort of wondered what was up—though of course I didn't say anything. Then one night he came over. It was late Saturday night, and he stood there banging on the trailer door. He was pretty drunk. In fact he was blasted—you could tell just by smelling his breath and how bright his eyes were. He leaned against the door like he was bracing himself and looked in at the living room. "Your mom here?" he said.

I told him, no, she was out with this guy Bruce she'd met. "Fig-he said. "Then let's you and me go somewhere too."

"I can't go anywhere," I told him. "I'm watching the kids." Which in fact I was.

"So are they asleep or what?"

"They're asleep," I admitted.

Ik- grabbed my arm. "Come get in the truck. We won't be all night. They'll be just fine."

ire, okay," I told him, because after all it was Saturday night and the kids'd be fine just lying there asleep. Plus, 1 thought, it he's so

drunk there's probably inure where that came from. I was ruiiiui

little low on m\ current bottle, so I thought n might be a good idea to as liquor tonight instead oi mine. And who knew.' Maybe I hei bottle oi somethii I he truck ride was pretty severe. Wallace was having i little trou ble holding it to )ust one lane, .111.1 we kept swerving onto the shoul but fortunately hi apartment was only about five minutes from he was already completely drunk, as soon as • ment he poured both of us two I 1 s o(

I hen he put the Allman Broth rt oi daru ing around the room I'd nevei

I mi that D 24

BOYSOFLIFE □

the guy was a little too serious, but now he was being pretty silly.

Definitely he was somewhere else, though 1 was drinking fast to trv to catch up. This is great, I thought, I'll pass out when 1 get home and won't have to worry.

"So it's time tor you to pay," Wallace told me. He was still dancing around, not looking ar me ar all.

"What do you mean, pay?" 1 said. He knew I didn't have am cash.

"Like I said, pay. We agreed, right? I was going to thmk about how I was going to get paid."

"Yeah, you were going to think about it."

"Well, I've done thought about it." He was still dancing, and as he was dancing he slipped his T-shirt off over his head

"I don't get it," I said.

"Come on over here," he told me. Then, when I didn't immediately move, he danced over to where I was and put his hands on my shoulders.

"You're a great pal," he told me.

"You're a great pal too," I said hack, still thinking he was just being drunk.

But he wasn't—and, well, one thing led to another and pretty soon it was clear how I was going to pay.

"Go on," he said, "it's not going to kill you. Lots oi people done it before this."

I wasn't too thrilled, but I wasn't freaked out either. I guess 1 was pretty drunk. I did some quick calculating and figured out if was probably either do this or no more whisky. What the hell, I thought—he's right, it won't kill me. We were in his bedroom by then. He was lying with his hands behind his head and his halt-hard dick flopping across his belly. Well, I remember thinking, here noes nothing. So I went down on it.

"No teeth," he said.

I tried again, and I must've done better because he started in ing and moving his hips around. I didn't gel any thrills from it— basically it just made my jaw ache. I don't even remember now it I had a hard-on or anything. I went up and down on it tor a while, and then when I got bored with that 1 St Cperimenting with ho* ^\cv\^ in

my throat I could make it i^). I couldn't get .ill th.it tar down on it without gagging— so I went back to doing what I could handle. Pum soon he said, "I'm going to come," so I pulled ori because at the time

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the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go swallowing a hunch of come. Taking his dick between my two palms I jerked him off the rest of the way. He came in a big white puddle right on his belly. I'd never seen another guy's come before, and it was sort of interesting. I remember I rubbed it around his belly with my fingers and then lifted my fingers to my nose and smelled. More out of curiosity than anything else.

When I looked up at him he was completely passed out. I poured myself another big glass of bourbon and sat in the living room and watched a little bit of White Christmas with Bing Crosby, which was the late movie on TV that night. When I looked in the bedroom again, he was still passed out, only now he was snoring. 1 left him like that on top of the covers, sort of half on and halt off the bed, and 1 walked back home feeling pretty drunk but okay.

He never mentioned what happened, and I sure wasn't going to, but he kept the whisky coming, and I guess probably tour more times we did the same thing, always more or less exactly the same, with him being drunk and me sucking him till he was about to come and then jerking him off the rest oi the way. We neither of us ever said anything about what we did, and after about six months Wallace up and moved to Detroit. I never saw him again after that.

Now that I've told the truth about Wallace, something else comes back to me. I'd totally forgotten about it till just now, but about a yeai before the stuff with Wallace, nn mom and I were driving back trom

Paducah, and 1 had to piss. We stopped ai a rest stop on the interstate,

and I went into the toilet. At the next urinal, there was this older man.

1 though! it was ndd he wasn't pissing he was just standing there holding his dick hut 1 didn't really think anything about It. So 1 went md pissed and when I was through, before I could stick myself back m tuv pants, he reached over and put his hand around m\ dick.

I was sh.u Iced as hell, but also hard In no time. 1 just stood there,

I couldVi'i move a muscle. He jerked me of! and himself at the same

I I came almost instantly. 1 was back In m\ pants and scooted

OUf l 4 'hi ■ \\.\A nun

taut I was "in oi there it was some thin ust something that had happened to me and

that I didn't think about it on the car ride home ot myth I nevet thou n nil just now, when thinking about

.,11 ti Id like that.

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They come to a stop in the grove of trees. Everything's happening with no sound, like in some silent movie. The leader of the group holds up his hand to tell the others they should halt here. The kid lies down because he can't go any farther, and his father, who's the leader, kneels down beside him and takes out a handkerchief. He dips it in this can of gasoline that's there beside him. He cradles the kid in his arms, and I can see now how his skin is melting off in these horrible pools of flesh. The father very gently takes the handkerchief with the gasoline on it and smothers the kid, and that's the end of the movie—only the people who're filming it don't know yet that it's not a movie, that there really is this terrible disease in the air that's making people's skin melt off.

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"Not really," he said, "but I had to get your attention somehow. I'm so happy to see you."

"Yeah, well," I told him. "I could say the same. So you're still in town," I said.

It was weird to see him again. He was still wearing that black shirt of his buttoned to the collar.

"We're making a movie," he said. "I told you that."

"Yeah, you're making a movie where?" I said. I hadn't seen any evidence of anybody making a movie. I figured it was just this thint: he'd told me to try and make himself interesting. But he sounded disappointed.

"I thought for sure you were going to come out and see us."

It was honestly something I hadn't even thought about. I'd figured—whoever he was, he was long gone from Owen.

"So where is this movie?" I asked him.

It turned out it was about a mile past Tatum's Landing, where we'd gone that night.

"Throw your bike in the back of the van and come on out—I'm going there right this instant."

It was the last thing I wanted to do right then. "I can't," 1 lied. "I got to run some errands."

"Well tomorrow, then. Tomorrow afternoon. I'll be looking fol

you.

off.

"We'll see," I told him.

"Gotta go," he said, and honked his horn again, and then he was

I itood there breathing his fumes, straddling my bike. 1 remember

myself out lend, , 'Jeesh, M like that was noing to solve m^\

thin^- I never talk OUt loud to myself

Bur my heart was beating fast and I had this prickly sweat. I was really happ\ • ' wanted to shunt something right there, 1 wanted to < lap ins I ! high-five It. h also made me feel queas) right down to

the I

Without another thought I started peddling fast as I could In the it ofl in

I thought it I just peddle and don't think, everything'll be okay.

It made m\ I. I peddli a ithoul letting Up hut I liked

th.it I hi • i\ tin must les started to hum

is past the turnofl fi« I an In no time I hen

,i little use. and then the m.id dipped down, and siiddenh uh.it I

B O Y S O F L I F E □

was this: an old dilapidated shack sitting in the middle of a held, and in front o( that shack there were about twenty black plastic buckets

with tall weeds growing out of them. Somebody *d lighted those weeds on fire, and they were flaming away. This huge black woman in an

apron and a bright purple kerchief was hanging Out of the cab of an

old pickup truck, driving it around and around those burning weeds in a circle. She was whooping it up, shaking her hst .ir those weeds. Then all of a sudden she tell right out of the truck on her face and the truck kept going on without her, sort of in a circle hut sort of n old

man who'd been Standing on the sidelines, where the earner.is were, scrambled up to make sure she was okay, while another guy tool running after the truck to jump in the cab and put the brake on.

I hadn't known what to expect, exactly, hut it definitely wasn't this. Carlos seemed happy to see me. He turned his hack on everything that was happening in front of the shack and walked over to where I'd gotten off my bicycle. He put his arms around me; then he stuck his tongue in my mouth. I was panting like crazy from the ride. It made me squeamish, him hugging me in broad daylight like that, and kissing me, but I could tell nobody was watching because they were all still running around trying to put out the tires in the buckets.

"I knew you'd come," Carlos said. "You're .1 godsend. See th.it shovel? Take those buckets out in the field, dump out the burned-up weeds, then dig and pot me about twenty more. And bring them back over here, okay? Netta'll help you."

He pointed to this wild-looking woman who came up to where we were standing. She had a bug-eyed look, and frizzy black hair she kept running her fingers through. She was wearing this tight hlaek dress that followed the shape ot her body.

"Well finally," she said. "Let's get this thing done right." She went over and started pulling the burnt weed-Stalks out ot the buckets. I didn't say anything—I was too surprised, and C'arlos was suddenly involved in a very intense conversation with this big bearded guy with a movie camera. I followed Nctta down to the held where we dug up the tall brown weeds th.it were growing there and potted them in the buckets

"You wait," she kept muttering under her breath. "You'll find out." I couldn't tell if she was talking to me, but I sort ot thought she

wasn't. I sort of thought she must be talking to the weeds she was pulling up with her bare hands. She kept wiping her race with tl

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hands, and her hair, and she left dirt smudges across her cheeks and her forehead, and little bits of weed in her hair.

"Slash and burn," she said. "When in doubt." And she pulled up another stalk of weed and plugged it down in a bucket.