Dream Boy (13 page)

When
Roy finally stirs, it is to release a fuller sound, a long, easy, expanding
sigh.

“Thank
you for bringing me out here,” Nathan says.

He is
uneasy and silent for a moment, as the rain throbs along the canvas and the
wind continues its strong insistence, its pleading through the leaves. “I
used to go camping with my dad when I was little. We don't do much stuff like
that anymore.”

“My
dad and I never did stuff like this.” The sentence breaks a little. Roy
draws him closer.

“I
don't like your dad much.” In the tent Roy's face is hard to read. But
there is a stillness to his voice. “He came out to the barn yesterday. To
talk to me.” Shy suddenly. From distance. “He talked about you, some.
He said he noticed we were getting to be good friends. He said he was glad you
were getting out of the house these days. He said you were too quiet, you stay
alone too much, you live in your head. He said you make up things that never
happened.” Silence, rain. “I think he figured out I knew where you
were sleeping.”

Roy is
searching, that is clear. There is a question he wants to ask. Nathan becomes
very still, his gaze fixed on a point of the tent. Shivering. The moment, the
question, fade. Roy draws him closer. After a while, Nathan says, “I don't
want to go back.”

Rain.
The fact of rain. In his mind Nathan can see the swollen creek rushing by in
darkness. He and Roy He still. Nathan unbuttons Roy's shirt to find his body.
Roy breathes from deep inside. At first he simply allows the touch, holding
Nathan as if he is fragile. But Nathan touches insistently, and the need in him
wells up through his hands.

It is
awkward, even funny, to undress him and make love to him in the tent. Roy's
body has become a customary object, even the tastes are familiar. In the tent,
in the dark, Nathan makes him laugh and cry out loud, a power of nighttime, and
the look on Roy's face at the end is like food, Nathan hovers over him.

The
rain washes, the white sound cleanses, the woodland expands.

Later
Roy asks, “Do you mind when I don't do the same thing back to you?”

“No,
I don't mind.” But at that moment he begins to wonder if he does.

The
earth makes a softer bed than Nathan expected. They lie against each other,
loosely threaded together, and soon Roy's breath changes, deepens. Nathan lies
awake a little longer, his body's rhythm gradually slowing to match Roy's. A
dark heaviness overtakes him at last, and his thinking washes away in the sound
of rain. In his dreams he and Roy are buying horses, beautiful dark coated
animals, and riding across gardens of goldenrod, yartow chicory, and ironweed,
with a view of mountains blue veiled in the distance.

When he
wakens, a soft darkness fills the interior of the tent, different from the hard
shadow of night. Somewhere there is an eastern sky and it has begun to lighten.
Roy's face is nested in Nathan's hair, the slackness of his mouth wetting
Nathan's throat. The smell of his breath, of his skin, pervades Nathan; odd,
how sweet it is, to smell this boy from so close. They are bound together by
the weight of Roy's leg across Nathan's thighs, by Roy's arm across Nathan's
chest. They are, they have been, all night, one flesh. Joining them further is
the heaviness of Roy's erection in his white shorts, which he presses against
Nathan's thigh. Its presence has become almost another kind of protection.

Roy
murmurs and stirs. The long leg stretches, flexes, pulls Nathan closer. The one
sleeping bag in which they have wrapped themselves falls away. Nathan admires
the detail of the boy that he can now see, the fine, dark hair along the legs,
the line of arms and shoulders. For a moment another image intrudes into his
peace, a memory of older, whiter, fallen flesh, of grizzled hair and oily skin,
of a sour smell and the feeling of suffocation. But the edge of memory comes
without panic this time, and Nathan, as he has learned to do, focuses on the
next breath, the cool of the morning in which his heart is currently beating.
The memory dissolves. He closes the door and locks it. Nothing more will
escape.

Outside,
Randy sings a country music love song while banging the frying pan on a rock.

After a
few moments, Roy groans and stretches. He kisses Nathan sweetly, murmurs a good
morning. Randy's song continues, and Roy sings with him, in a clear voice,
lighter than Nathan would have expected.

Again
from outside comes Burke's booming baritone calling all lazy good-for-nothings
to climb out of their sleeping bags.

Dressing
is a clumsy process in the tent, but Nathan is too shy to carry his clothes
outdoors as Roy does. Nathan buttons his shirt, zips his pants. Outside the
woodland shimmers with clear light and shaggy, vaulted green, branches hung
with jagged banners of sweet autumn clematis. The air smells of bee balm,
vaguely like mint and medicine, and carries the freshness of the morning after
a storm. Even the creek now moves less brackishly and some daylight penetrates
a lining of moss and mud. Nathan walks along the creek bank, kneels and touches
the chilly water.

Burke
and Randy have made breakfast already, the bacon less burned than for supper.
Roy has brought instant coffee, and Nathan drinks it from Roy's tin cup, which
becomes almost too hot to touch. The closeness in which they have rested
through the night continues to surround them during the breakfast, a peace that
fills the space between them, almost visible. There is a softness in Roy's eyes
when he watches Nathan, and for Nathan the feeling is perfected in some way;
Roy anchors him in the present, strips away shadows of the past Like breathing,
in and out. Nathan basks in the beating of his own heart, in the descending
calls of birds, in the fresh shadows of leaves on the backs of his hands. Life
becomes a cool gentleness, a process of listening, a caressing presence. In the
world that exists only through Roy.

Maybe
the feeling is so palpable that even Randy and Burke are aware of it.
Especially Burke. He sits across from Nathan at the campfire and watches with
lowered eyes.

They
strike camp quickly. Roy dismantles and packs the tent, and the memories of the
night before are stowed away as quickly. Nathan helps Randy with the cooking
equipment while Burke splashes water on the fire and buries the ashes.

Roy
stands with his pack set over his shoulders, waiting.

Breezes
lift the lower branches in the glade, stir the yellowing fronds of ferns, the
wisteria, the blue hearts, moss, and tangles of honeysuckle, and sun strikes
everything, and scents rise like waves of heat.

Without
a word, Roy ascertains that all is ready and sets out walking. Taking a deep
breath, Nathan follows.

Their
path follows the creek through several turns to a place where a long, narrow
island almost bisects it. Stones form a natural ford to the island. Roy warns
Nathan to be careful on the slick backs; he himself steps nimbly to the mossy
shore and picks a path to the other side. He moves with certainty, as if the
landmarks here are well known to him. Nathan admires his graceful lancing
through the underbrush. Nathan pauses in a stand of tall green ferns. Roy has
already crossed to the opposite shore and waits in the grass beyond. “You
can jump,” Roy calls, “it's pretty narrow”

Nathan
takes a running start at a slant and flies over the dark water. Roy catches him
by the elbow. There is intimacy in the moment, in the way Roy touches Nathan.
"Now we go this way, Roy says, and when Nathan turns, there is Burke,
watching.

They
leave the course of the creek, and tall pines open the roof of the forest to
light and sky. Walking becomes easy, one has only to be mindful of cones and
dry branches. The cool morning lends quickness to their steps. In the airy
vaults Randy sings again, a hymn from the Broadman Hymnal, Up from the grave he
arose, with a mighty triumph o'er his foes, and there is something clear in his
voice, not echoing but rather expanding and dissolving into the trees. Roy,
ahead, moves without weight. Burke, sometimes behind Nathan and sometimes
beside him, scowls at the earth, tramping on pine cones and fallen leaves.

They
move through a darker, denser part of the woods, where oak and maple claim
territory from the pines and where the underbrush becomes more compact, a mass
of vine, leaf, and wild blossom. The ground rises in rolling slopes, and the
footing is sometimes treacherous, over dewy growth or thick moss. The forest is
all engulfing, a vast canopy and airy castle of trees, splendid, unimaginable.
Nathan's heart pounds. The dim lit terrain rolls by, more alien with each step.
Dead trees twist toward the sky, hung with garlands of sweet autumn clematis
studded with seed heads gossamer as spider's egg sacs. The stillness affects
all the boys, and Randy stops his singing. Roy continues to lead, his back
sliding deftly through corridors of branches. Burke, meanwhile, walks closer to
Nathan than before, and sometimes Nathan can almost feel his breath on his
neck.

The
path Roy promised soon appears. In fact it is not a path at all but the
remnants of Poke's Road, an extension long forgotten, that once bisected the
Kennicutt Woods. Honeysuckle has filled the ditch on one side and the other is
overgrown with cattail and fern. Its course can be followed, although the
roadbed has been retaken by the growth of grass and wild roses, thorn studded
arid heavy. They pick their way carefully forward, swinging the branches aside
with arcs of their arms. Above, the glimmering sky lightens beyond the laces of
leaves, shadows shifting like a kaleidoscope.

They
walk forward. Nathan's heart is pounding, and something like awe is rising in
him, at the fact of the road and its destination but also at the eerie familiarity.
Something prickles in the image, as if he already knows the place. The fall of
light along a patch of broken fence strikes him as something he has seen
before, there at the place where Roy is standing.

Further
on, like a golden curtain, poplars stand in an airy thicket. Sunlight pours
straight through the tender trunks.

Soon
the road parallels another running stream. The boys follow them both till late
morning, when Roy halts the march. The heat has begun to thicken under the
broad shade.

“We
ought to rest for a while,” Roy says, stripping off his backpack and
sprawling on the ground, “there's a ways further to go.”

Randy
lounges beside Roy while Burke ranges along the creek bank, where a bed of fern
brushes his jeans. He runs his hands through his hair and scratches his chest.
He paces up and down the clearing. When he turns, he is behind Roy and Randy,
watching Nathan.

“It's
hot as hell,” Burke says.

“Sure
is.”

Randy
hums, There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.

Burke
scratches his chest under the shirt, then unbuttons the shirt and takes it off.
His eyes are blank and flat, as if made of glass. But he still watches Nathan.
He stands behind Roy and Randy, who do not see him.

His
body is strong. He is bigger than he looks in the shirt. He has dense, square,
ungraceful muscles, and a dark patch of hair in the cleft of his chest. His
arms are thick and brawny, and he stretches them upward in the sunlight. His
expression never changes. Nathan, embarrassed, looks away, then quickly back again.
Burke is still watching, stretching his arms, shaking them, then finally
turning away himself, kneeling at the side of the creek and splashing his face
with water.

Nathan's
heart suddenly pounds, and he takes a seat near Roy, though not as near Roy as he
might have.

Burke
stands with the sun falling over his bare shoulders.

Randy
says, "This place is a little spooky?

“People
don't come down here too much.” Roy chews a blade of grass. “My Uncle
Heben brought me out here, when I was little.”

“Where?”
Burke asked, idly twisting his forearms.

“There's
an old farm at the end. With a big house. Nobody lives there anymore.”

Something
about the simple description causes them all to peer down the road. The promise
of an abandoned house. “How far?” Nathan asks.

Their
eyes do meet. The softness of Roy surrounds Nathan. “We still got a good
ways to walk.”

Burke
bends over the pack he has been carrying on his shoulders, and when he
straightens he is holding the clear flat bottle, half full of whiskey. He curls
the bottle to his mouth.

The
prickle in Nathan's scalp makes him stand, suddenly, walking to another part of
the clearing. Roy watches, puzzled.

Burke
says, “I like a drink of liquor. You want one, Randy?”

“Not
yet.”

“Roy?”

“Nope.”

Burke
laughs. “Fine. More for me I guess.” And curls his arm again.

Nathan
turns to Roy, who is standing. Roy says, “It's time to walk,” and
slings his pack over his shoulders. Nathan follows him to the remains of the
road, as Randy scrambles to his feet.

Burke,
eyeing Nathan, screws the top on the bottle, shoving it into his pocket He
clears his throat. He has tied the shirt around his waist. There is something
about the display of his body, the arrogance of it, that troubles Nathan.

Burke,
ambling forward, drapes an arm around Randy's shoulder. His bulk engulfs even
Randy's pale plumpness. “You should have a drink, old buddy”

“Later.”

Burke
winks at Roy. “I'm ready, Cap'n Roy” Roy frowns.

“Wish
I was in the land of cotton,” Burke sings.

Then
they are all walking again, forward through the high grass along the bed of the
old road, with the creek beside them and the wind in the old trees. The walk
stretches through the rest of the morning and into early afternoon. At times
Poke's Road nearly disappears, so overgrown has it become. They walk forward in
a hot October, with Roy leading in his white tee shirt, and Burke close by him,
displaying his broad bare shoulders, like a challenge.