Rotters (40 page)

Moments later we were down a flight of stairs and in his room. Metal was everywhere—a Sabbath tour poster, a clipped magazine photo of Vorvolakas, an Agalloch LP cover on display—but displayed with unflagging neatness, the poster framed, the photo sharply scissored, the album cover tacked above the exact center of his bed. There was also a TV, an Xbox, a stereo, a record player, and a computer hooked to several external drives. It wasn’t until Foley opened his closet
that I saw the hundreds of burned CDs, all obsessively labeled and arranged alphabetically within steel towers. Foley paused and shrugged as if to say,
Yep, here it is, my room
, then grabbed his iPod and portable speakers and headed out the door.

He slapped a drawer on his way out. “Change into something and meet me in the laundry room across the hall.”

He had a band called Sig:ar:tyr wailing from the speakers when I walked barefoot into the laundry room wearing Hawaiian shorts and an old T-shirt advertising
CHRISTIAN YOUTH CAMP 2005
. Foley took the stinky wad of black clothes from my hands and held it for a few moments like he was weighing it. He tossed what was machine washable into the washer and dropped my coat into a large sink. My brimmed hat he set on a counter. He arranged before him an array of soaps and cleaners.

“You learn this shit when you have like four thousand little sisters,” he said. “Now get in the bath.”

Against the dryer:
tap tap tap
. “I’m sorry?”

He pointed upward. “One floor up. You’re gonna have to scrub that stink right out of you.”

The bathroom was crowded with women’s toiletries, so many pink, yellow, blue, and lavender containers that I found myself backing away until my knees struck the rim of the toilet. I fell onto the seat and tapped the porcelain until Foley showed up, sighed, ran the water, and picked out five or six products, repeating more than once which bottle was for which part—skin, hair, face, hands, body. I emerged a half hour later smelling like a rose garden and dressed again in Foley’s castoffs, and tiptoed downstairs, where Foley, his mother, and three of his sisters buzzed around the kitchen table munching on cookie bars.

Foley barked through the ruckus. “Momma. Hey, Momma! This is Joey.”

“Nice to meet you, Joey,” she said while trying to wipe chocolate from the face of a pugnacious five-year-old.

I felt paralyzed. Thankfully Foley kept things moving and soon I was dressed again in my own clothes, only now with every twitch I smelled flowers and fruit instead of sweat and putrescence. As I stepped out his front door, Foley handed me five burned CDs for the road: High Tide, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Minsk, Sleep, and Witchfinder General.

“Metal up, bitch,” he said.

Spring had overthrown Bloughton. The colors bewildered me. On the way home I banked to examine the extraterrestrial monstrosity of a sunflower and push the toe of my boot at an impenetrable berm of marigolds. Bees emerged and nipped at my fruity flavors. I let them escort me down the road. The BP’s sign read
GOOD LUCK SPRING FLINGERS
, while the McDonald’s shouted
SPRING RING 4-EVER TREASURE THE MEMORIES
. Hewn Oak at least provided respite from this farce. The bees traversing my exposed flesh felt not unlike Celeste’s sly tickles. I shook once. They flitted away.

Seconds after I entered the cabin, Harnett emerged from his room sleepy-eyed, his nose twitching. I made for the sink, hoping that a quick dousing would drown the cocoa butter and mango. But it was all over my coat, too, my shirt and pants, even my underwear. Somehow this pleasant odor was part of me.

Harnett wiped his nose with his fingers and leaned against the wall. He emitted a smell of his own, the metallic funk of cheap liquor. “Is it a girl?”

“What? No.” Desperate for something to do, I picked up the Root and the whetstone.

“Because you know the danger.”

“Harnett.” I felt twice as strong with my instrument beside me. “There’s no girl.”

He tried to cough up the mucus clogging his throat. He looked skinny and ill. I made for the front yard.

“Smell like a cadaver,” he muttered.

I whirled around. “What was that?”

He pulled his lips from his teeth like a cornered dog. “I said you smell like a cadaver.”

“No, I
did
. Now you’re the only one who smells like a corpse around here. You look like one, too, by the way.”

I had the door open when he muttered again.

“I said cadaver, not corpse.”

All I wanted was to leave. But it was not a day for letting anyone get the best of me. I cracked the Root against the floor. Harnett regarded me with despicable patience and spoke slowly. Even drunk and haggard, he was still the professor, still full of himself.

“A corpse is something in the dirt. A cadaver is something on a slab. By now you should know the difference. By now you should know what happens on that slab. The embalmer doesn’t just fill you with gunk. First he bathes you. He swabs out your orifices with disinfectant. He combs your hair. He applies cologne. He gives you one last shave. It’s the most careful shave you’ll ever get, kid, because any nicks, this time they won’t heal. And when you’re done, you smell like you smell right now. Like a cadaver.”

He would not talk down to me. Not ever again. The Root pendulated and knocked the front door wide in a single swift strike. I did not look back. “We both smell like dead men, then. Sounds about right to me.”

A
NNOYED BY THE MULTIPLYING
bouquets at the front of every classroom and hallway, the gifted corsages and boutonnieres clipped to every participant, and the hysterical schedule updates blaring from the PA, I was relieved when Foley faked sick the day of the Spring Fling so we could escape. I wanted nothing more to do with the event. Foley was more concerned with me. He said I had him worried. He said he didn’t want me flunking out. What was more, he said, I had a look about me that made people nervous.

So while Harnett slept off a bender, I swiped his truck and let Foley drive us a couple towns over, where no one could collar us for ditching. Once there, we weren’t sure what to do. Foley had brought a Frisbee, but my coordination was meant only for shovels. Around noon we walked a woodland trail, but I lost track of the conversation each time I saw an interesting root system. In the afternoon we tugged at chained bikes and flipped through magazine racks, but in both bicycle chrome and store mirrors I was drawn to my strange reflection: the pale blue blotch of my face, the squinting of someone unaccustomed to day. I nabbed a pair of chintzy shades and wore them out without paying.

On the way back home, Foley pulled off at Bloughton’s nearest neighbor, the slightly larger town where Bloughton residents went to do serious shopping or commemorate their anniversaries and proms with fancy dinners. It was also the location of the nearest movie theater. Foley parked and checked his watch.

“It’s only five,” he said. “We got time for a flick.”

I adjusted my shades. At least it would be dark.

I don’t remember the movie at all. All I remember is Foley’s elbow bumping against my own as he laughed at inappropriate spots. His laughter was loud and nervous; I didn’t attribute it to anything until much later, when considering what happened next.

The movie was over and we entered the hallway, blinking. Vaguely I sensed something awry; Foley was quiet and looked nauseated. I told him I needed to piss and he only mumbled. After I was done I found him hunched miserably on a vinyl bench at the end of a dead-end hall. It was his day, he was calling the shots, so I sat beside him, feeling beneath my boots the low-frequency rumble of the action movie behind the nearest closed door.

Stupidly I attributed the silence to the exhaustion of a long day.

“Celeste all ready for tonight’s thing?” he asked.

The question caught me by surprise. “I suppose,” I said, flexing my right hand, enjoying the pull of the leather, the bite of the buckles.

“You guys still getting along okay? I saw you two talking in the hallway.” His voice, enthusiastic all day, now trembled.

I shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad. Really. I am.”

“Okay.”

“I’m happy about whatever you do,” he said. “I just want to be part of it.”

“All right.”

“Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

“Are you really sure?”

“I guess.”

“Because I’m afraid when you flunk out I’ll never see you.”

“You will.”

“You’ll disappear like you did the last couple months.”

“No.”

“I’m afraid I’m running out of time.”

“Time?”

He sat up and slid his arm around my waist. Live flesh—I jerked away. He crumpled and shrank. I felt his arm retract and then his face was in his hands, his long hair sweeping forward to hide him.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

His hair danced about as he shook his head violently.

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“Didn’t know what?” His voice was muffled and teary.

“That you’re gay.” Quickly my mind caught up. I couldn’t believe I had never seen it. The fantasy trips, the CD gifts, the bath at his house—our entire friendship, when seen in hindsight, smacked of courtship.

He muttered a rehearsed line: “No one’s gay or straight anymore.”

“Okay,” I said. “Look, I don’t care. I really don’t care.”

“But I’ve ruined it,” he moaned. “I’ve ruined everything!”

I winced and looked up. Far in the distance a theater employee gathered spilled popcorn.

“You haven’t ruined anything.” There was more I wanted to say—that being gay might be seen as a crime against humanity inside the Congress of Freaks but was hardly reason for despair in the wider world—except I found myself strangely numb. In a way, Foley was as trapped as I was. We
both kept secrets that others, if they knew the truth, would exploit. I could hardly in good conscience suggest he hang a gay-pride flag from his locker.

Instead I recited a platitude. “Telling the truth is healthy.”

“It’s not! It was a huge mistake!”

A cold flash of nerve, a truth for a truth.

“I dig up graves,” I said. “I dig up graves and rob the bodies. That’s where I got these clothes, that’s why they smelled.”

“Stop it!” he cried. It was with a plummeting feeling that I realized he didn’t believe me and never would. Not all secrets were of equal weight.

The leather of his jacket squeaked with each sob. Digital explosions vibrated our bodies as in the adjacent theater the bad guys were vanquished. The soft chuckling of a corn popper folded its way through the darkened halls.

“Hold my hand?”

He blinked excessively. Loops of blond hair clung to wet cheeks. Five thin and tentative fingers, one of them crooked, quavered.

“Just for a second,” he pleaded. “Just once, just for a second.”

His pale hand swayed over the carpet’s faded paisley. Like one of the movies behind these walls, this moment might replay in his memory forever and, like it or not, what I did next would always be part of the plot. There was no reason to hesitate. This guy had guts, real guts, and it was the least I could do to show some guts in return.

I took his hand. His knuckles wiggled until they alternated with my own. For a moment the sight transfixed both of us—the silver buckles, the red leather, the brown wood, his white flesh. Then he closed his eyes and let his face drop into his free palm, his back shuddering.

Credit music blasted from an opened door. A gray-haired couple scuffled past us, positioning respective hats. Instinctively I wanted my hand back but I felt his grip tighten when I made the slightest pull. Doused with mysterious panic, I grimaced at each exiting moviegoer. Some of them didn’t look our way. Others did, taking quick note of the two high-school boys holding hands before averting their eyes. Laughter trilled from inside the theater and rose in volume as the laughers approached. Feet kicked open the swinging door; hands made slapping noises against the glass.

They were turning on phones and already bragging about how many messages they’d received during the movie. They were speaking in giggles. They were excited girls with yawning boyfriends and vice versa. Some of them were towing what looked like parents. There were even a few beleaguered grandparents limping in pursuit. The strange thing was that I recognized them. They were from Bloughton High, which was confusing until I remembered what a certain budding thespian had told me as she had stretched the limits of her silver leotard:
We practice all the way up until the day of the Fling and then we all go out to a movie together a few hours before it starts. You know, to relax. It’s like a tradition
.

I could not move, not even when they emerged. Rhino came first, trailing by the hand a fragile-looking redhead popping lozenges into her mouth—most likely a singer concerned about her voice. Woody was next, flicking popcorn bits from his shirt. The redhead was the first to see us, and she clawed at Rhino’s simian arm. When Rhino saw, he reached over and shoved Woody. Celeste was smacking hand sanitizer when she felt Woody’s nudge, and she was able to return the small green bottle to her purse without taking her eyes off us. The sanitizer went in, her plaid pink BlackBerry came out.

The details were easy to improvise. See, one of the homos was crying because they’d just watched a sobby romance. And see, they were sitting there in the dark because where else can two fags make out? Foley was unaware of being watched until the flashes made him lift his face. It was Celeste, her smart, open-toed, special-day shoes planted directly in front of us, snapping picture after picture—
flash, flash, flash, flash
. Her eyes gleamed.
Flash, flash
. She looked hungry.
Flash, flash, flash
. As if documenting this tawdry vignette from Mere Reality would excuse her from it forever.

She winked at me over the phone and it was like the drop of a guillotine. Panic severed as easily as fingers. A tingling calm settled through my bones, allowing me to see with a clarity usually relegated to specifying. Woody and Rhino: their gestures flew only at Foley. Celeste: her camera flashed solely in his direction. The noses of the Incorruptibles were trained to detect fear, and in my metamorphosis to the Son I had lost that musk. A new target, therefore, had been chosen.