Boy Erased (7 page)

Dear Pirate,

How are you? It's nice to meet you even if I don't know who you are. I'd like to know you, so please write back. Also, if you could, please send me treasure.

Your friend Garrard

We arrived back at our house, exhausted from a ten-hour car ride, to find a yellowed piece of notebook paper taped to the front door, a map of our yard with a giant X where the note claimed a pirate named Lonzo had buried his treasure. My mother feigned shock, pressing her fingertips to her cheeks and leaving ten red marks on her face after she dropped her arms. “This is wild,” she said. “This is just so wild.” My father helped me carry a shovel from the garage to the spot in the yard Lonzo had marked on his map. The X was spray-painted in silver on the grass. Together, we pressed our tennis shoes to each of the shovel's shoulders and dug into the hard-packed clay. Three feet deep, we found a box filled mostly with costume jewelry but also with real jewelry that I would later discover belonged to my grandmother, items for which she had no further use. She and my grandfather had arranged the whole thing on the night my mother called to tell them about the message in a bottle.

After we ran water from a garden hose over the box, I kept the jewelry in the bottom drawer of my desk. I would take the shiny gold pieces out of the box and place as many of them as I could on my neck and wrists and stand in front of the mirror. Twirling. I did this again and again until my father walked in on me one day and told me I needed to stop, that Lonzo would feel sad if he saw me mocking his treasure that way.

“I want to
live
with Lonzo,” I said. “I want to be a pirate.”

“You probably wouldn't like it,” my father said. “You'd have
to mop the deck all day. He'd turn you into one of his slaves. You'd get sick of the water.”

•   •   •

T
HE
COLD
FRON
T
from the night before brought severe wind gusts that sent sheets of water from my pressure washer over the tops of other cars, leaving water spots on their windshields, the drops fizzling and evaporating on contact with the roasting metal. I stepped out of the service garage, shielded my eyes, and stared at the long line of car windows I would now have to Windex. Behind me, one of my father's employees was pressing the button to a hydraulic lift, and Chloe's car was being lifted to the height of the man's shoulders so he could begin replacing the oil. I was to drive her car back to her house later that afternoon, leave my car at the dealership overnight, and carry out the plan.

Earlier that morning during Bible study, Brother Nielson had lingered in the showroom for a little longer than usual, holding himself upright with one hand on the side of the Mustang.

“I keep wondering,” he said, as I passed by carrying a handful of car keys, “if you're ever going to answer my question.” I couldn't tell if he was trying to test me or if he seriously wanted to know what I thought about the Middle East, to know that the next generation was secure in its fight against terrorism.

“Leave the boy alone,” Brother Hank said, sticking his head out of a nearby office.

“He's not old enough to care about politics. Girls are all he's got on the brain right now.”

“Girls, huh,” Brother Nielson said. “Nothing wrong with that.” He straightened his back as much as he could, wincing. “Just don't forget there are bigger things in this world.”

He stuck his hand out in front of my path, and I moved the keys to my other hand and clasped his in a firm handshake that grew firmer with each second until the grip was so severe I thought we might crack each other's knuckles. His eyes stared directly into mine, full of some secret knowledge. I felt almost as though he could detect the contamination I had passed into my palm earlier that morning before the sun rose, as though the condom I had purchased from the gas station carried a hidden scent or an oil undetectable except by the most righteous of men.

“We're living in the End Times,” he said to me. “Stay sharp.”

•   •   •

I
SET
the pressure washer down on the concrete, grabbed the Windex bottle and some paper towels, and walked onto the blacktop lot to tackle the line of water-spotted windshields. In the distance ahead I could see the pine trees on the hills begin to sway in the wind, and I was grateful for this, for the relief of the current as it swept past me, even though I knew it might increase the chances of sunburn, my SPF-40 lotion already washed away by the water, the tips of my fingers already pruned.

I was on my fifth or sixth windshield when the woman approached me.

“Excuse me?” she said, her smile blending into the glinting line of the windshield's sun glare. “Can you tell me something about this car? I'm looking to buy soon, and I really have no idea.”

I turned to face her. Her makeup was smeared along her dull-lidded eyes; she fidgeted with the black string of a purse draped haphazardly over one shoulder. The car in question was a standard Taurus, one among a long line of them. There seemed to be no reason for singling this one out. There seemed to be no reason for singling
me
out. I thought of something my father would say during Bible study: how every now and then God presented a moment of perfect opportunity. It was our job as Christians to seize that moment and lead one of His lost souls to salvation.

The woman's dented, hail-beaten Camry idled behind her, the driver's-side door left open. I thought of saying,
Ma'am, you look lost
. I thought of saying,
Ma'am, there is no neutral
. I thought of how happy it would make my father if I was able to tell him I'd ministered to my first customer. But I couldn't do it. Her question had been so direct, so real, that to dodge it felt like a betrayal.

“There's nothing wrong with a good Taurus,” I said. “Dependable. Fairly decent mileage. They hardly ever wear out on you if you take them in for tune-ups on time. But, you know, it's just a Taurus.”

She placed her hand on my forearm and smiled again. “You're so kind,” she said. “You didn't have to tell me the truth.”

I wanted to fall against her chest and feel her arms wrap around my shoulders. I wanted to toss the paper towels and the Windex bottle on the asphalt, slide into her car, and disappear into the hills, then, whenever she wasn't looking, toss the condom package out of the cracked window.

•   •   •

“T
HIS
IS
SO
WEIRD
,” Chloe said. “Where did they get these creepy sound effects?”

We watched as Janet Leigh stepped into the shower, her pale calf tensing. We knew what would happen next, but we held our breath. Though she didn't need it, Chloe had applied extra foundation to her face, removing the shallow pockmarks where acne had once scarred her. She wore her hair down. We had both dressed for the occasion. I wore a black button-down and a light jacket that I had waited to remove until I was in the doorway. Chloe wore a dress I'd never seen before. If her mother thought there was anything strange about our outfits, she never said so.

We sat on the couch in her basement in front of the blue light of the television. Occasionally, Brandon would sneak down the stairs and hide behind the couch, jumping out to scare us.

“You're too old for that,” Chloe said, after he had grabbed her arm just as the shower curtain parted. “Get a life.”

“You're the one who needs to get a life,” he said, tossing his head back in a remarkably accurate parody of his sister. “Watching scary movies on your big romantic date night.”

Brandon was dressed in his Sunday-morning blazer. He wore a bright pink rose in his lapel, one he must have stolen from a neighbor's garden. He liked to dress up like his favorite video-game characters. When we asked who he was today, he said, “I'm James Bond from
GoldenEye
,” and made a gun of his index finger and thumb. I was glad for his occasional interruptions, the way his sudden appearance caused Chloe to unconsciously scoot away from me.

Every movement on that couch was either a victory or a failure. Often both. I was on a different side of the war from one moment to the next.

Brandon removed a candy cigarette from his pocket and acted as though he were about to perch it delicately on the edge of his lips. Instead, he bit into it. “Don't forget you're rooming with me tonight,” he said, making a stabbing motion at me with what remained of the cigarette. “
Psycho II
. Bates strikes again
.
”

We watched the camera move in a gyre up from Leigh's gaping pupil, Hitchcock's shot held intentionally for one second too long, the fear excruciating in that second. Chloe scooted closer.

“It's still scary,” she said. “Even with the stupid sound effects.”

•   •   •

I
FIRST
LEARNED
about sex when I was Brandon's age, on a stormless night when my father wasn't snoring and I could be certain he was awake. I felt the house relax and settle into its hidden joints, and so I could walk through the dark living room without fear, running my fingers across the cool glass of the living-room table, fingering the sharp plastic jonquils in their china vases. I sat in my father's leather recliner and switched on the television. Since the living room shared the same satellite connection as my father's bedroom—but not my mother's—I could see what he was seeing in those sleepless hours after he had already exhausted his prayer. I watched the snow-fizzled channels settle into hints of a bare thigh, an open mouth closing over something long and hard, bright red lipstick shining through static. I heard the woman's low moaning—so scripted, so different from my father's spiritual moaning. But the display didn't last for more than a minute or two, the amount of time I imagine it took for my father to feel the weight of his guilt. Still, I would tell my mother of his transgression the next day, knowing even then that by airing his secret I might better hide my own darker secret.

“I'm sure it was by mistake,” she said, always the mediator. “Why would you spy on him like that?”

Then she forced a smile and said, “Let's make crème brûlée tonight. We'll get your grandmother's silver out and everything.”

•   •   •

I
HAD
BEEN
lying on a sleeping bag in the dark basement of Chloe's house for about an hour. I decided to sit up and listen for Brandon's steady breathing before I made my attempt up the stairs. I kept the condom package tucked into the elastic band of my pajama pants; the plastic scratched my skin, burning. I had no idea how I planned to do it. Sneak up to her room and announce my intentions? Stand in her doorway in the hopes that she made the first move?

“I'm
not
asleep, in case you're wondering,” Brandon said. I heard him throw his sheets to the ground beside his bed. “Your movie kept me awake.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I thought it might be fun. Theft, murder, cars sinking into tar pits.”

“You know?” he said, bare feet slapping the concrete floor as he came toward me. I made out the outline of his cowlicked hair, then his thin arms sticking out of his pajama top. “You're not like her other boyfriends. You're a lot nicer.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

He stood at the edge of my sleeping bag, his toes wiggling into the taffeta lining. “Can I ask you something?”

My eyes adjusting to the dark, I could see that his face was contorted, twin wrinkles running down the center of his forehead. I could hear footsteps coming from the spot on the ceiling directly below Chloe's bedroom floor.

“How do you get your character to level up to fifty?” He smiled an impish smile. Whatever he had planned to say was still unsaid.

He sat down on the edge of the sleeping bag. “Do you mind?” he said, holding the television remote close enough so I could see it. He switched on the television and crawled over to the PlayStation to press the power button. We settled into our gaming positions, hunching toward the screen. We were now standing in the chamber of a large Gothic castle lit by torchlight. Dark red carpet shot across the room from one door to the next, and guards in gold uniforms stood before every entryway.

Brandon's eyes glazed over. He licked his lips unconsciously. “This part is tricky. Those guards will come running if I move another inch.”

“Check your inventory first.”

The two of us riffled through potions and equipped stronger weapons. Brandon had obviously not kept track of his inventory. Using too many potions when he didn't have to. Tossing crossbows aside without first selling them in the market. Though I continued to think of Chloe in the bedroom above us, I tried to block her out. I had already crafted an alibi: How could I leave if her brother saw me?

After a few more hours of intense concentration, we both lay back on the sleeping bag.

Brandon propped himself up on his elbow, his palm cradling his chin. “You know what?” he said.

“I don't,” I said.

“I think he's probably gay,” he said, his voice suddenly breaking at the last syllable. He looked away. His breathing was shallow. It took several seconds for me to realize that he was talking about our avatar.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I really do,” he said. “
So
much hair gel.”

When he looked back at me, we both knew what we were.

We decided to keep playing until he reached the next level. By the time an orange sunrise worked its way through the blinds and shaped itself into slanted rectangles across the concrete, Chloe had already prepared breakfast by herself.

“Surprise,” she said, standing on the bottom step, refusing to touch the basement floor. She didn't sound at all surprised. She hadn't bothered to change out of her cotton gown. I tried to shut out her pain, kept my eyes on the wadded sleeping bag at my feet. “Breakfast is served.”