Dream Boy (5 page)

In the
kitchen his mother stands at the sink washing a cake pan and icing bowl. The
room shimmers with afternoon light, filtered through red checked curtains,
adding color to her face and hands. “I'm making a coconut cake. Do you
want a little piece of layer?”

“No,
ma'am. I'm not hungry”

“It's
still warm out of the oven, it would be good.”

“I'm
not hungry for cake right now.”

This
disappoints her a little, but she goes on smiling warmly. “Well, did you
have a good day at school?”

“Yes,
ma'am.”

“Well,
sit down and talk to me about it. What are you in such a hurry for?”

“Roy
wants me to change clothes and come out to the woods with him.”

She
studies her dishes and frowns. Her glistening hands move deliberately.
“What does he want you to go in the woods for?”

“To
see this Indian mound.”

“What
do you want with an Indian mound?”

“I
never saw one before.”

She
looks out the window. “There he is, too, waiting on you.”

“Can
I go? Is it all right?”

She
goes on watching Roy, her face filling with worry. “I guess you can. But I
don't want you to go too far.” “Yes, ma'am, I won't.”

“Remember,
he's bigger than you are. You don't have to do everything he does.”
“Yes, ma'am, I know.”

 She
dries her hands and kisses Nathan's forehead without looking at him. “Put
on your everyday clothes. I'll tell him you're coming.”

Nathan
rushes upstairs, furiously erasing his mother's sadness from his mind. 'When,
school clothes exchanged for everyday, he returns to the porch, she is fussing
with her plants, pinching a dead leaf off the ivory, wiping the leaves of a
snake plant with a cloth. She says to be careful in the woods, don't stay gone
too long. Nathan answers, yes ma'am, yes ma'am, and bursts into the yard. Roy
awaits beyond the hedge. The two boys run side by side through the apple orchard.

The
rhythm of running carries them a long way, beyond the meadow. They crash
through underbrush but make no other sound. Leaves strike the skin of Nathan's
arms, stinging and caressing. Roy leads him west of the pond and cemetery; he
lopes deeper into the woods, glancing back to make sure Nathan is keeping up.
Roy laughs at the glory of motion, a bright, incomprehensible sound that echoes
through the woodland. He leaps across a narrow stream where drooping ferns make
elegant green arches, and Nathan follows, light, running as if he will never
tire.

The
forest is something other than a neighbor now, it becomes a new world. As the
density of growth increases, the pace of their running slows. Soon it is easier
to walk than to run, and Nathan draws abreast of Roy. Roy gives a look that
instructs, that says he is pleased. The Indian mound is pretty close once they
cross the creek, he says.

The
land is rising. Nathan climbs past bent saplings and red leafed dogwood; Roy
has run up the hill a little faster than Nathan and pauses, breathless.

The
forest thins and light spills into the lower tiers of growth. Beyond a glade of
trees, on a flat of land, a long mound rises. Only green grass grows on the
mound, as if all other kinds of plants have been magically forbidden. Golden
sunlight tumbles along the gentle slope.

Roy
hangs his shirt from his belt loops. When Nathan does not follow suit of his
own volition, Roy reaches for his shirt buttons.

The
air, Roy's hands, light spilling down. Roy offers Nathan the shirt, tenderness
in his expression, then runs down the long slope. Nathan threads the sleeves
through the belt loops of his pants and follows. Roy vanishes momentarily, but
Nathan, heart pounding from the run, finds him. Roy is a strong silhouette
against the bright mound, walking toward it. Nathan overtakes him halfway up
the mound.

Nathan
draws near shyly and Roy refuses to turn. Roy's back muscles shift in a rhythm
that seems strong and good. The warm brown skin invites Nathan's hands, but he
refuses to reach. They are still climbing. A curious fact, Roy's breath labors
more than Nathan's. When on the crest of the mound Roy turns, his ribs are
beating open and closed like wings.

Nathan
lays his hand against the pounding in the cleft of Roy's chest

Roy
watches his hand, watches Nathan.

Their
two fleshes are bright together, the two boys, warm like the colors of the late
sky. The sun still has some descending to do, and they watch it and the clouds
for a while. Roy settles along the ground, spreading out his shirt, and Nathan
does the same. Soon they are layered against each other. Roy says the movement
of the treetops is like the ocean. Nathan knows nothing about the ocean; he
listens to the murmuring of Roy's insides, the ferocious heartbeat that shakes
through them both. Roy is murmuring in Nathan's ear, a hymn from church,
“There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.” Nathan
sings too, kissing Roy's soft throat, his collarbones, the underside of his
chin. He can smell Roy's body, he can taste it with the tip of his tongue. Roy
grips the back of Nathan's head as if afraid he will escape. He need not worry.
Nathan knows the nakedness Roy wants, and soon achieves it. Roy arches with his
body toward Nathan, a curve of yearning. He lies bare in the grass with a look
on his face as if Nathan is making him sing through every cell.

They he
still while the sun settles into the green bath of leaves. Roy says nothing but
Nathan can feel how his spirit darkens. The banded sky begins to drain of color
as they dress. Roy stands with his hands in his pockets. He calls,
“Nathan,” in a strangled voice and Nathan walks close; he brings
Nathan's ear to his mouth and says, “Please don't say anything about this
to anybody. Okay? Please.”

“I
won't.” For a moment, just a little, Nathan is afraid.

Roy has
frozen with one leg in his pants, the other not.

“Is
something wrong?”

“You
just can't say anything about it. That's all.” A bitter whiteness
sheathing his expression. “It's near dark. We better get home.”

But
even then they linger in the forest. At first Roy holds Nathan's hand but later
is ashamed or shy. Yet he refuses to hurry, walking slowly, never straying far.
He brags that he knows all the land around his father's farm, he could find his
way home in the pitch dark if he had to. Soon Nathan glimpses the cemetery
through the trees, and then the pond, and they are walking along the tangled
shore within sight of the backs of both houses. They slow their walking even
more, and each reaches for ways to manage nearness to the other without seeming
responsible for it. In back of the barn, Roy takes Nathan next to him, again
furiously, as if the act makes him angry. “You can't do this with anybody
but me. Do you hear what I'm telling you?”

Nathan's
heart suddenly batters at them both. “I don't want to do it with anybody
else.”

“Just
remember.” Red-faced, Roy is already rushing toward his house.

Nathan
wanders toward his own kitchen, hearing the sounds that indicate supper heading
to the table. Already he is calculating the turns of the cycle, that tonight he
will not see Roy, that tomorrow Roy will not say much on the bus. None of that
makes him afraid, exactly. Nathan has no words for what does make him afraid.
But he feels the chill of it as he descends into the house, where his mother
has prepared a meal carefully but will hardly look him in the eye, where his
father brings the Bible and a tumbler of whiskey to the dinner table, mumbling
verses under his breath as he takes his seat. In the submersion of home, Nathan
returns again and again to the image of Roy's body on the Indian mound, lost
and bewildered under the power of Nathan's mouth.

Their
guest for supper is Saint Paul, and the text is Romans, chapter one. Dad reads
neither aloud nor silently, he chants softly as if he is alone, the words a
stream of sound that barely rises above the gold edged pages of God's holy
word. Because that, when they knew Cod, they glorified him not as Cod, neither
were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart
was darkened.

The
whiskey sits at his right hand, the knife and fork at the left. Today it is
real whiskey bought from the local package store, not the clear moonshine of
weekends and holidays.

Mom,
restless, gives the appearance of hovering slightly above the seat of her
chair. Neither listening nor speaking, she chews her food in a mechanical
motion. As always at mealtime, she wears a frightened expression, glancing from
Dad to Nathan, then fixing her attention on her plate.

Dad
reads: Professing themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds,
and to four footed beasts, and creeping things.

Nathan
eats though he can hardly taste. When he sits at the supper table with Mom and
Dad, the twisting of his gut is unrelenting, and every soft spoken word from
the King James Bible reverberates.

They
are a family during certain mealtimes and during church. Each night, each
Sunday, they eat together, because they always have. The repetition echoes
darkly through the country of Nathan's memory, through all the dangerous
territories in which his thought may no longer move freely. Through all that he
has forgotten and locked away.

Once
there was a younger Dad, of firm flesh and clear skin, a Dad who could look
Nathan in the eye when they talked, who could drink his whiskey on the weekends
and stay sober through the week, who could play ball with Nathan in the yard.
Once there was a Dad without a soft belly hanging over his belt, without the
slackness of this one's jaw or the broken veins in his cheeks and nose, a Dad
whose eyes were not yellow ringed with red. Once there was a man who could kiss
Mom on the cheek with a clear heart, who could pick up Nathan in strong arms and
toss him toward the ceiling like a toy. That other Dad remains, somewhere; but
not here inside this pale body huddled over its gilt edged Bible. The spider
veins tracing Dad's cheeks and the yellow skin of Dad's hands are frightening
to Nathan. There is even the smell of rot that underlies his father's sweet
aftershave. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity;
whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors
of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, convent
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the
judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only
do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Nathan
can be safe if he keeps his eyes lowered, if he focuses on the plate of food
that he can never taste. He lets the holy utterances fall over him like the
lightness of a quiet rain, bows his head as if in reverence and listens,
without hearing. In his mind he is far away, in the woods with Roy, stepping
through golden sunlight.

Soon
the meal will end and Dad will retreat into the living room, where the
television will drone deep into the night. No one will expect Nathan to go
there. He holds his breath and waits, watching Mom's knotted hands as they
whiten on the handle of her fork. She closes her eyes, and for a moment it is
clear that she too feels pain from this last scrap of their togetherness.

If Dad
feels anything, he gives no evidence in voice or demeanor. He reads as if the
words will take him back to the Dad of yesterday or the heaven of tomorrow. He
eats. He sips whiskey. The daze of evening descends on him. When, one moment,
he glances up at Nathan, he hardly seems to see anything at all.

He
reads: Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of
their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves; who changed
the truth of God into a he, and worshipped and served the creature more than
the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

The
meal will end. Meals always do. Nathan will climb silently to his room again,
to the peace and safety that has so far remained intact in this new house.

Chapter
Five

In the morning
Nathan wakens with apprehension, dressing with self-conscious care and eating
breakfast slowly, almost as if he hopes Roy will leave without him. He is
afraid the wrong Roy will appear today, afraid he will find the silent, cold
one. But when he walks to the bus, Roy waits calmly. He says good morning
before Nathan reaches the door, speaking with an openness that puts Nathan on
guard. Nathan ascends while maintaining an invisible wall, longing to reach
through it and touch Roy but taking his seat with a circumspect air. He studies
the dewy yard beyond the bus window, the edge of the Kennicutt Woods.

As Roy
closes the door and wrestles with the gearshift, he partially turns in the
seat. “I almost came to see you last night.”

“I
wish you had.” Nearly too low to hear.

“Me
and my folks had to go to a business meeting at church.”

"You
go to church a lot, don't you?''

“My
parents got a lot of religion.” He has steered the bus onto the road,
entering the stretch of forest. Once the houses have vanished, he stops the bus
and stands. “Come here.”

To hold
him and be held by him is enough for Nathan. Roy says, “You better eat
lunch with me today if you know what's good for you.”

“I
will.” Into the cup of shoulder and neck. Lingering. Roy pulls him close,
sighs.

“We
have to go, I guess.”

After
that, the day is a fog, except for lunch when Nathan can find Roy and set
himself into his orbit. As before, Nathan finds a table alone and, when Roy
joins him, they talk before Randy and Burke arrive. Roy tells about his church,
the Bethel Church of God in Congregation, which meets in a pretty white
building on a nearby loop road. The preacher is a fat man with a bald spot on
top of his head and hair all around it, and he preaches sermons filled with the
hell of sinners and the damnation of souls. Pretty much everything you can do
is wrong, Roy says, especially if it's fun. The description of the preacher,
whose name is Rutherford Paschal, enlivens Roy as he gives it, and Nathan
shares the vision, remarking innocently that he would like to see this fat bald
preacher one Sunday. At this Roy's face closes shut, and Nathan understands
that he has said a wrong thing. Roy remains silent until he leads Nathan to the
smoking patio, where the sunlight, the calm of a cigarette and the voices of
friends restore him. Nathan relaxes, but studies Roy nevertheless.