A Troublesome Boy (12 page)

“What was it like?”

“Short and sweet,” said Cooper. “I came in about two seconds.” He laughed. “Which was a good thing, because right after I came out, her mother came in. Caught us right there on the sofa with our asses hanging out. That was it for that foster home.” He laughed. Then he looked at me. “So I'm not a total homo.”

We had our meals together. Sometimes he even came to the gym and played pickup with the other kids who'd been stranded at St. Iggy's over the holidays.

But bed time was pretty weird. There were just three of us in the junior dorm: Cooper and Zits and me. Prince still showed up at shower time, which was even creepier since he couldn't pretend he wasn't staring.

Same routine at night: the door opening, those creepy shoes creaking and squeaking on the linoleum, the swishing of the robes, the flashlight beaming this way and that until he got to Cooper's bed. Same tap-tap. Same “Come with me.”

I didn't want to think about what Prince was doing to Cooper. All I knew was it had to be gross, whatever it was. And it was wrecking Cooper.

And then, wouldn't you know it, Prince picked me again.

I swung my feet out from under the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbed my eyes and ran my hands through my hair. I turned and looked at Cooper's empty bed, the sheet and blanket tossed back.

Where the hell had he got to? I got up and walked barefoot down the length of the dorm, out the door and down the stairs. I was thinking about what Cooper had said.

Don't let him start with you, Teddy.
My heart was hammering away.

Prince had left his door open. Same weird flickering light from all the candles.

“Come in, Teddy. Close the door.” He was sitting at the same end of the couch. “Sit down.” He patted the cushion beside him. I sat at the far end. “How are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“Are you still angry?”

“Angry?”

“About being sent here?”

“You could say.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“Not especially.”

“Talking often helps. Timothy finds that it does.”

“What are you talking about?” Cooper was a mess. Whatever Prince was doing to him was totally fucking him up.

“What has he told you?”

“He doesn't have to tell me anything. All I have to do is look at him, listen to him.”

“We're working things through. Exploring his feelings. He's very angry. Very confused. He's had a very rough life. I'm trying to help him get to the bottom of his feelings of anger and bitterness. Help him to move on, be a happier person. That's all I'm doing.”

He reached over and gripped my thigh, a little higher than the last time. Gave me a little squeeze.

“Touch is very important, particularly for those who do not feel loved, who do not feel appreciated.” I put my hand on his, tried to move it. There was no moving that hand. Sweet Jeezus. A few seconds later, he let go.

We just sat there for a while. One minute my mind was racing, thinking about making a run for the door. The next minute it was like I was looking at myself sitting on the couch. Like I was there, and not really there.

I was looking past Prince at the flames of the candles flickering away on top of the bookshelf. I looked around the room. There was a bed against one wall and a bureau against the wall at the foot of the bed. There was a door on the far side of the bed opening onto the bathroom. In front of the couch there was a coffee table and against the wall just inside the door there was a desk and another bookshelf.

The windows were closed. The place felt suffocating, like the heat was turned way up.

“Would you like pop?”

“Sure.”

Prince leaned forward, pulled open a drawer to get out a couple of coasters. Left the drawer open. He stood up and went into the bathroom.

In the drawer there were a bunch of black-and-white photographs. Photographs of boys. Naked boys, naked boys together. Naked boys doing things to each other that I had never imagined.

Prince came back from the bathroom carrying two glasses. He nudged the drawer shut with his knee, set the glasses on the coaster, sat down.

He was looking right at me. Weird little smile.

I picked up the glass he'd set in front of me. I lifted it up like I was going to take a sip, just to sniff it. See if he put something in it. Couldn't smell anything.

Prince smiled. “It's just pop. Sorry I don't have any ice.”

I took a sip. Tasted fine. Took another sip, then put the glass on the table.

“Would you like to talk?”

“About?”

“Whatever you'd like. Your anger, perhaps. Your unhappiness.”

“Not especially.”

He was really spooking me out. I didn't know where to look. I picked up the glass, took another sip. Looked past Prince at the picture of Jesus he had on the wall. But it was the other pictures I couldn't get out of my mind.

“Has Timothy talked to you about what's been troubling him?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We talk quite a bit.” I couldn't believe what I was saying. Prince was all ears now. He leaned forward. Put his hand back on my thigh.

“What did he tell you?”

He was rubbing his thumb on my thigh. I looked down at his hand, was thinking I should get his hand off my leg, but wound up just looking at it.

“Does he talk much about his life?”

“Huh?”

I was looking down at his hand, thinking how much it looked like a big hairy spider making its way toward my crotch.

“Does he ever talk to you about me, say what he thinks of me?”

I looked up at him. “He thinks the same thing as all the rest of us.”

“What's that?”

“That you're a bastard.” I couldn't believe what I just said.

Prince laughed.

“Well,” he said. “You're not one to mince your words. You and Timothy have that in common.” He moved his hand up my thigh. The spider was on the move. Another squeeze. “Does he ever talk about his experience in sex?”

I took another sip of my drink, went to put it down on the coaster, but had a tough time seeing exactly where the coaster was. I squinted my eyes. Moved the glass toward the table. Prince took it from me, put it down.

“What?”

“I wondered if you and Cooper ever talked about sex. About the things you did before you came here. You know.”

Next thing I know, he's got his hand on my crotch. Big warm spider massaging my balls. Big smile. “You know, giving the big boy a workout?” Gave me a squeeze.

I stood up, moved back from the couch. I was sweating like a madman. It came over me all of a sudden.

“I'm not feeling too good. I think maybe I should get back to the dorm.”

“Of course,” he said. He stood up, came over and put his arm around my waist, walked me to the door, opened it. Slid his hand inside my pajamas, gave me a little rub on the ass. “You must come back. We can talk. I think we can be friends. Like Timothy and I. We have become great friends.”

“Sure,” I said. I headed for the stairs. It wasn't a straight line. I could feel his eyes drilling into my back. I just made it up the stairs and through the dorm and into the john. Lights out.

Next thing I knew I was on the floor in one of the stalls, covered in barf.

“Fuck, Clemson.” Klemski's little round hedgehog face was right above me. “You okay?”

—

“WHERE THE FUCK
were you last night?”

Cooper was shoving the eggs around on his plate.

“Basement. Rozey's room.”

“Ask me where I was.”

I told him everything I could remember, up until I puked and passed out.

“That's all? Copped a feel?”

I nodded.

He shook his head. “Jesus, Teddy. You can't be going down there. That's the way it started with me. The very same. You can't be going down there anymore. You can't let him start on you.” He looked right at me. “Promise? Promise me?”

I nodded.

“Say it.”

“I promise.”

—

ON CHRISTMAS MORNING
,
Cooper and I were awake before the wake-up call. We made it through the morning routines, had a little breakfast, then pulled on our coats and got out of there as fast as we could.

Rozey was waiting, exhaust like a little cloud at the back of his old Ford. Cooper opened the door.

“Merry Christmas, boys.” Rozey was wearing one of those Santa Claus hats, red with white trimming, a long tail with a fuzzy white ball at the end.

“Great hat,” said Cooper. “So does that make you Santa?”

“We'll see.”

Twenty minutes later, Rozey pulled into his driveway, idled up the hill and parked behind the house. He had the turkey in the oven. He opened the oven door so we could have a look.

“Smells great, Rozey,” I said.

“How about setting the table? I've just got to get a couple of things ready.”

Cooper and I set the table. Rozey had some special Christmas napkins. We put them under the forks, set out the knives, the plates, salt and pepper shakers. It only took us about three minutes. We could hear Rozey rustling around in the living room.

“All right, boys, come on in.”

Rozey was standing in front of the tree.

“Jeezus,” said Cooper. There were a few presents underneath and three stockings hanging from nails beneath the living-room window. On each of them Rozey had pinned a bit of cardboard with our names on them.

“What are you waiting for, boys?”

Santa had filled our stockings with gum and red-and-white striped mints, three packs of cigarettes and two pairs of socks each, a deck of cards, nail clippers, combs, ballpoint pens. Everything wrapped except for the orange down in the toe of each stocking.

“Santa must have been up all night,” said Cooper. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor with all his stuff in front of him, wrapping paper in shreds everywhere.

I pointed at Rozey's stocking. “Wonder what he brought you, Rozey?”

“Well, let's see.”

Rozey took his stocking down and sat with us on the floor. He started pulling little packages out of his stocking, held them to his ear and shook them, squeezed them.

“Hm? Wonder what this is?” He ripped off the paper. “Shaving cream! Just what I needed.”

We all laughed.

Five minutes later we were all bundled up at the top of the hill. Rozey was holding his old toboggan by the rope.

“Hop on, boys.”

Cooper and I must have gone up and down that hill forty times over the next couple of hours. We could hardly make it up to the top after our last run.

“I don't know about you guys, but I'm cooked,” said Cooper. His cheeks were red from the cold and the snow. “If I go down there one more time I'll have to have a nap at the bottom.”

“Well, then,” said Rozey, “you boys ever been ice fishin'?”

“No,” said Cooper. “But I've seen people doing it out on the bay back home. Looked like they were freezin' their asses off.”

“I'll take you out and you'll be so hot you'll have to take your coats off.”

“Bullshit, Rozey.”

What he didn't mention was he'd built an ice-fishing shack on the ice in the cut, thirty or forty feet off the end of the dock. He had a little woodstove. We weren't there fifteen minutes when we took off our coats.

“No fair,” said Cooper. “You never told us you had a hut.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon peeled down to our shirts, comfy as bugs in a bed, watching the tips of the poles we had lying around the hole in the ice. We had three lawn chairs and, in the middle, an upturned crate like the one in the boiler room. Every now and then we had to stop and haul in a fish. Rozey took them off the hook and dropped them back into the hole.

“No fish dinner tonight, boys.”

We played cribbage, one hand after another. Cooper was winning like mad. He had a whole pile of change on his side of the board.

We played maybe half an hour when Cooper turned to Rozey.

“Can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure.”

“How come you never had any kids?”

Rozey looked at Cooper, then down at his cards.

“Well,” he said. “First, you have to have a wife, which I never did.”

“How come?”

“It's like a fishing story,” said Rozey. “About the one who got away.” He laughed. Not much of a laugh.

We played another hand. Rozey stood up.

“I bet that old bird is just dying to get out of the oven and on the table. What do you say?”

“I say let's haul ass,” said Cooper.

We pulled on our coats and headed for Rozey's house. It was dark as The Dungeon and the wind was whipping down the hill and into our faces.

“Jeezus,” said Cooper. “How brutal is this?”

“It'll make the house feel all that much warmer,” said Rozey, and we made for the lights winking in the windows at the top of the hill.

“This should be a little bit better than anything you'd get at St. Iggy's.” The table was cluttered with plates and bowls: stuffing, sweet potatoes, mixed vegetables, cranberry sauce, the works. Rozey stood up to do the carving.

“What part do you boys like?” Cooper wanted a drumstick. I wanted white meat. Rozey had the other drumstick. We all loaded up with stuffing.

“This is the best Christmas dinner I've ever had,” said Cooper. He hadn't even taken a bite.

“Well, dig in, boys.”

The food tasted even better than it looked. We were all silent for a few minutes, eating away.

Then Cooper said, “You always have a Christmas dinner like this?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Rozey. “Me and my dad would spend Christmas morning in the kitchen getting everything ready. Then we'd go out looking for strays.”

“Strays?” said Cooper.

“Old bachelors, widows.”