Desert Boys (3 page)

“I don't know,” said Watts. “I bet you still have it.”

“Tell me about the baby,” I said. “Tell me about your godson.”

But then my phone pinged, and I saw the name—
LLOYD BOOKSTORE
—on the screen. I told Watts I'd call him back in a few minutes, but I ended up talking with Lloyd for a long time, an hour and a half, and meeting up with him that night at a bar, and by the time I got home, Watts may or may not have been at work or asleep, and I didn't want to bother him either way, so I turned off my phone and went to bed.

*   *   *

For the boys, there had never been in their midst a girlfriend
—
a young woman with the power to transform the priorities of a young man fundamentally—until Jackie Connolly pressed her cornsilk lips against the forehead and cheek and mouth of their friend Karinger. This was their junior year: the rattle of 2003, as Karinger would say, the fangs of 2004.

That Karinger, the only one with a girlfriend, was also the only one of the three who had a car seemed to the others not to be a coincidence. Earlier that year, Linda Karinger had purchased for her son (and, she specified, for her daughter to inherit) a royal blue 1988 Ford Mustang. If it weren't for the daily rides to and from school—not to mention the joyrides on the weekends—Kush and Watts might have resented Karinger for his “sick ride,” as they, without irony, called it. As it was, Karinger's successes felt entirely like theirs to share.

Until, of course, along came Jackie Connolly.

She was beautiful in the way people call the desert beautiful, which is to say that although some people actually believed it, most of the time it was said in response to someone else's denigration of it.

Her blond hair, invariably tied back with a red headband, was as thick as the tails of the horses she tended to on her parents' farm in Quartz Hill. Regularly she came to school smelling like an old haystack. Although she was thin in the face, arms, legs, and chest, her hips spread against her like the San Gabriel Mountains. They'd had a class together here and there since freshman year, and Kush had met her during a brief stint with the Future Farmers club. But it wasn't until Karinger, Jackie Connolly, and Watts all had junior English together that she became Karinger's girlfriend and therefore part of the group. The schedule had it so the end of that particular class meant the beginning of lunch. Kush, enrolled separately in Intro to Literary Criticism, had to cross the width of campus to meet up with the other three, who, by the time he arrived, had invariably begun eating already.

Maybe all young people in love think about their relationship in the future tense, but Karinger and Jackie Connolly
vocalized
their future. Earlier in the year, the launch of the new war in Iraq promised Karinger at least some action, and he and Jackie constantly hypothesized on their capacity to be a military couple, to have a military family. They even talked unabashedly about money. Getting married before shipping out meant higher pay for Karinger, and possible wedding arrangements were tossed around in the lighthearted, creepy tone of the clinically deranged. They were proud to kiss in public—never raunchily, mouths always closed—and held hands any time they were in reach of each other. Nobody but Kush seemed to mind.

Because she shared the class with Karinger and Watts, Jackie Connolly seemed to think of Watts as Karinger's best friend, not Kush. (In Kush's mind, their friendship was an equilateral triangle—a generous thought, since Watts was the newer addition to the group.) Kush would watch Jackie laugh after Watts made a joke, and she'd go on and on until she snorted and—in some particularly egregious cases—cried. Meanwhile, after Kush told a joke of similar quality, she'd offer only a bit of flattery, this eyes-averted chuckle and smile. He found himself simultaneously jealous and contemptuous of this girl—this pallid, manure-shoveling girl.

Once, on a violently windy Saturday afternoon in November, Karinger backed out of plans to head to the paintball field, citing Jackie as his reason. Instead of riding in the smooth royal blue Mustang the way they'd envisioned, Kush and Watts pedaled their bikes side by side like children, struggling to push forward into the gusts. At one point, Kush confided in Watts his secret hatred of Jackie Connolly.

He said, with effort: “Don't tell Karinger, but I want to rip that red headband out of her hair and throw it at her stupid face.”

Watts, who was in better shape and full of breath, said, “Why would I tell Karinger that?”

It occurred to Kush that maybe Watts
was
the better friend. They didn't say another word on the subject until Watts brought it up again a few minutes later.

“You got to admit, though,” he said. “She's got an amazing ass.”

They pedaled their undersize bikes like bears at the circus, and the wind carried their laughter.

*   *   *

Lloyd paid the eight dollars for the pitcher of beer between us, so I felt obligated to answer his question—“What've you been up to?”—honestly. I told him I'd done nothing for two days but read and think about an old friend named Karinger.

“What kind of name is that?”

“A last name,” I said.

“What's his first name?”

“Does it matter?”

“It'll bug me.”

“It was Robert,” I said.

“‘Was'?” Lloyd asked. When I didn't say anything, he ordered a second pitcher.

I told Lloyd about the invitation to the baptism and about the last time I was in the Antelope Valley—the previous Christmas. I'd taken my mother's car to drive by Karinger's house. He was a month dead, but I hadn't heard.

Even as the sun was setting, I could see Karinger's house had been repainted a kind of pastel green. The small town I grew up in had become a relatively large suburban city—empty stretches of desert had mostly been replaced by fast-food restaurants and shopping centers. But it was the paint on Karinger's house that seemed to me like the greatest change. Every other detail—the motion-sensor light fixture on the garage and the royal blue Mustang in the driveway—had remained the same. The perfect sameness of the house had been ruined by an ugly coat of pastel paint. Pulling up closer, I noticed another change: the Mustang's license plate frame had been replaced with a pink camouflage one labeled
USMC GIRL.
Karinger's mother had kept to the deal—this was Roxanne's car now.

I kept telling Lloyd the story: I drove in the direction of our old paintball field, far enough out of town to be left undeveloped for now. The dark was setting in, and no streetlamps lined the road. I was the only driver in sight, so I took my time. I flashed my high beams at the desert shrubs, searching for the old paint, which must have come off by now in the rain and wind. When I reached what I remembered to be the right place, I pulled the car to the side of the road and felt the sand settle underneath the tires. I left the engine going and kept the headlights on, but got out of the car. A realty sign I'd once shot at still hung there, though nothing had been purchased or built. That far out, the wind came at me in sprints. The chains of the realty sign clamored, and in the east, stars began to show themselves. Across my stomach, I held my arms to stay warm. A scratching noise came over the sound of the engine; a wide and squat tumbleweed had nested under the front fender. “Shit,” I said, getting low to clear it.

Lloyd, born and raised in San Francisco, couldn't believe I came from a place with tumbleweeds. “In California?” he said. “The next thing you'll tell me is you've got a cowboy hat in the closet.”

“No,” I said dramatically, “just skeletons.”

“Hey,” he said, “Wasn't that the original title for
Brokeback Mountain
?
Skeletons in Spurs: My Closeted Life on the Range.
”

We laughed. Somehow I was having fun talking to him about the same material I'd been agonizing over on my own. The bar lights weren't dim, and I wasn't very drunk. The difference had to be Lloyd. I found myself looking for details in his face and throat, the few curls of hair reaching out from the collar of his
PUNS ARE FUNS
shirt. He was a dork. I hated his green goatee. I liked him.

“I've had a crush on you for years,” Lloyd told me once we'd gone back to my apartment. He spoke a lot during sex. Once he'd fallen asleep, I made my way out of bed and to the computer, where I typed the following email:

Dear Jackie,

First: Sorry this has taken so long.

Second: Congratulations on your baby—Watts told me when you first got pregnant, but I haven't had the chance to congratulate you directly. You always struck me as someone who would be a great mother. Maybe it was how I always imagined you taking care of those horses—I don't know, I just felt that way.

Third: Last time I was home, I drove by Karinger's place. This was the day after Christmas. I knew he wasn't home. I just found myself sitting in my mom's car out front, staring at his old Mustang in the driveway. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I guess it's just to show that the timing of your email was uncanny. I've been thinking about the old days a lot lately—about the guys, about our last few days together. I always sort of hoped things would return to normal after we all grew up a bit.

That being said, I will try my best to make it. April 18 at Sacred Heart, 1:00, right? This is the church by the old library? Suddenly I'm really excited to see you again, and everyone. I can't wait to be back home.

Daley (Kush) Kushner

*   *   *

Every morning when they were picked up for school, and every afternoon when they met in the parking lot to go home, Kush and Watts slid into the backseat of the Mustang. They didn't do it to treat Karinger like a cabdriver; the passenger seat was already taken. Roxanne Karinger, suddenly thirteen and a high school student herself, sat quietly in the front, hugging the unmistakable freshman mark that is an overstuffed backpack. She rarely spoke, and when she did, she had a soft voice that was overwhelmed by the engine or else the tires and shocks doing their work. For this reason, Karinger, Kush, and Watts hardly noticed her.

Or, at least, that's what Watts told Karinger. Watts told Kush the truth.

The truth: Watts looked forward every morning to that switch—the car pulling up outside his house, the perfect royal blue door opening, the girl stepping out to let him in. He'd sit directly behind her. Through the space between the headrest and the seat, he'd stare at her white-blond hair and watch the tiny, wild strands of it dance above her head. Later, when the weather turned warm, her sundresses and shorts and tank tops augmented the impact she had on him. But even in those cold mornings of the school year's middle section, when she'd have on a baggy sweatshirt, maybe, and a pair of dark jeans tucked into boots, just the simple motions involved in her transition from a seated position to a standing one were enough. To young Watts, they seemed to be a characterization of sex itself.

“Plus,” he told Kush, “she's got an ass almost as nice as Jackie's, and Jackie's ass has
years
on Roxanne's.”

There were certain moments when Karinger seemed to notice Watts's attention. Sometimes, while Roxanne worked the lever to unfold her seat, Kush caught Karinger staring at Watts from behind the wheel, as if daring him to leave his eyes in the wrong place for even a second.

Then there was the time The Police's “Roxanne” came on the radio. Naturally, everyone looked to the girl in the passenger seat. When the chorus hit, the three boys sang along, laughing as they tried to reach that raspy high note. During the last chorus, Watts—caught up in the fun—put his hands on the shoulders in front of him, leaned in, and sang the girl's name directly into her ear. They were stalled at a red light. Karinger turned and looked straight at Watts. Kush, meanwhile, homed in on the beautiful new dimple in Karinger's locked jaw, which he'd never noticed before. For his part, Watts did the only three things he could: He removed his hands from the girl, leaned back in his seat, and looked to Kush for help. The light changed, but Karinger didn't move. He just kept staring at Watts. In her softest voice, Roxanne told her brother to go. He didn't move. A driver behind them honked his horn. It took another “go” from his sister before Karinger turned and put the accelerator, finally, to use.

Kush was still thinking of that dimple when he took a seat in his favorite class, Intro to Literary Criticism. Dealing with “advanced” students as she was, Ms. DeGroff felt free to curse in her lectures, speak openly about sexuality in the books she assigned, and grade essays with the bluntness of a loved one. In other words, she treated her students as if they were already in college. Although a few hypersensitive kids had filed complaints over the years, none of them dealt Ms. DeGroff a real consequence. Most students, she'd found,
preferred
being treated like adults.

So it was in this state of mind that Ms. DeGroff made what turned out to be—in Kush's mind, at least—her famous remark. In the course of discussing “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” in response to a student who deemed the defiant Bartleby a “jerk,” Ms. DeGroff told the class that sometimes, the world could use more Bartlebys. “Soon,” she said, “some of you will be asked to fight this illegal war, for example.” And God, she went on, would she be proud of any of them who said to the administration, “I would prefer not to.”

The aside took fewer than twenty seconds of the class. But as soon as Ms. DeGroff said it, Kush and the other students looked around at each other with despair. Ms. DeGroff must have known the trouble she'd just put herself in, because immediately upon saying it, she cleared her throat and changed the topic.