The Grand Ballast (16 page)

“
Hi,” Bode said
softly.

No response.

“
What's your name?” Bode
asked him.

The Boy didn’t
answer.

Bode tried not to focus on
the Boy’s nakedness. That scarred body, slick with sweat. Bode
didn’t want to think about sex, about bodies, about beauty—any of
it. After a while, the Boy looked away. Bode grew frustrated. He
was furious with himself for dragging the Boy into this mess, and
he wasn’t sure where to put that anger.

“
He’ll hurt you,” he said
cruelly, blowing a stream of smoke into the air. “Kilroy Ballast,
he’s a devil. You think I saved you? I didn’t at all.”

He’d made himself promise
not to turn to the Haze again, no matter what happened. He needed
his wits about him now. But he was fucking this up.

“
Ah, fuck,” he muttered. He
flicked ash toward the Boy. “Why don’t you talk? Gimme something to
think about?”

The Boy narrowed his eyes
slightly. Bode sucked on the cigarette; it almost fell from his
shaking hand. He breathed out another cloud of smoke, looking at
the wooden walls, the straw on the floor, then at his cigarette.
Wasn’t this just a disaster waiting to happen?

“
What’s your name?” he
asked again.

Nothing.

Bode reached into a paper
bag he’d brought with him. Took out a heel of bread and a packet of
peanut butter. Some apple slices. He set the food between himself
and the Boy. “You hungry?”

The Boy glanced at the
food. Shook his head.

“
You tryin’ to starve
yourself, or what?”

Silence.

He’d have been better off dead than here. If
you had any real guts, you’d free him. You’d go into one of these
towns, and you’d find the police, bring them back here. Show them
Kilroy’s got someone chained up…

It was no use. Plenty of cops loved the
X-shows. Plenty of them would know what had happened at the Hydra
Arena, and they were probably looking forward to the Boy of the
Water becoming part of the Grand Ballast. What was Bode supposed to
say to them? If he sought help from the authorities, Kilroy would
tell them what Bode had done to Driscoll.

If I could find a way for both of us to get
free…if I could get Kilroy’s keys and run…could I stay hidden? For
the rest of my life?

Bode saw Driscoll and the smoking wreck of
the car.

I’m the one who deserves to die.

“
I used to be a dancer,”
Bode said quietly. Saying it aloud didn’t hurt as much as he’d
expected.

He closed his eyes. Words entered his mind,
but he wasn’t sure whose they were.

Cradled to us are slips of things. Ideas and
promises that breathe beside us. And their heartbeats are ours to
protect.

He struggled until he came up with a fairly
detailed mental image of his first dance instructor, Ms. Rasmund.
She’d explained how a dance worked, back when Bode was too young to
fully understand what she’d meant.

First, you learned the story of the dance.
Then you learned the individual steps that told that story. But
then…oh, then, you learned the story of each moment. Not just the
story of the dance, not just the steps, but the story of the stage
you danced on and the weather outside and your own aching muscles.
The story of how the audience members reacted to one another, to
the performance, to the temperature of the theater. The story
changed each night, each second, because you weren’t the only one
to tell it. The people watching, they had to tell it back to
you.

He put his hands together.
Bent his index fingers, stuck his thumbs up, and separated his
pinkies from his other fingers, forming the head of a shadow dog on
the wall. Made it tip back and howl. Brought it close to the Boy’s
shadow and gave it a tongue that licked the outline of the Boy’s
shoulder. The Boy didn’t move, but he watched. Bode laughed
nervously and marched the dog across the wall until it disappeared
into the rest of the shadows. His smile faded.

“
Not that you care,” he
said, “but I used to have a dance instructor who said it wasn’t
enough to know what your own body was doing onstage; you had to
know your shadow too.” Bode abandoned the dog and made a rabbit.
Not a basic, two-finger set of bunny ears, but using two
hands—giving the rabbit a full body. “She’d show us these different
animals. Show us how to make them bigger or smaller.” He
demonstrated, letting the rabbit grow and then shrink. He pulled
his hands apart and rested them on his knees, staring at the wall.
“She’d make us dance with our shadows.”

The Boy continued to watch
the wall.

Bode sighed. “You’ve got to
be hungry.” He moved the food within the Boy’s limited reach. He
leaned forward. “I saw you. When you were in the water. I saw that
you were afraid.”

He was past expecting any
response from the Boy. He listened to the sounds of the others
outside. Had to be about time to get in the coffins. He didn’t want
to be here when Mr. Lein came looking for him. He’d already had it
out with Mr. Lein once today, because LJ’s illness had gotten worse
before the show. LJ had sweated off all his makeup before the
curtain rose, his skin hot as fire. He’d thrown up backstage. But
when Bode had tried to tell Mr. Lein LJ couldn’t go on, Lein had
threatened to tell Kilroy Bode was being difficult.

Bode couldn’t afford to be
difficult right now. Not if he wanted to protect the Boy of the
Water
and
LJ.

If I run, it has to be
with both of them. I can’t leave LJ here.

He didn’t know what to do.
He’d never been a hero in his fucking life. Even his rescue of the
Boy had been its own kind of death sentence.

“
I have to go.” Bode’s
throat was thick. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“
I am the light,” the Boy
said suddenly, startling Bode. His voice was low, monotone; his
eyes were blank. “I shine indiscriminately. It is not for me to
pick or to choose what to illuminate or what to cast into
darkness.”

Bode could hear Lein
outside, chasing the others into the coffin car. “What are you
talking about?”

The Boy’s gaze slid to
Bode’s. “In my family, there is no blood between us. There is only
light.”

“
Bode!” Lein shouted from
outside. “Where the fuck are you?”

“
In my home,” the Boy
whispered. “It does no good to love. There is no good at all, or
bad. There is only breath and motion. We live forever.”

Bode opened his mouth to
speak, but Lein burst into the car just then and grabbed Bode’s
arm, grumbling, “Get over here.” He hauled Bode to the
door.

“
We live forever,” the Boy
repeated, gaze never leaving Bode’s.

4.

DRISCOLL

Then.

“
Where are you off to?”
Bode asked as Kilroy prepared to go out one evening.

“
I have to meet a friend.”
Kilroy finished tucking in his white dress shirt.

A friend?
Kilroy rarely spent time with anyone but Bode. He
did occasionally get together with a group of would-be business
owners, but this seemed like a strange time of night for a
meeting.

“
Someone from the business
group?” Bode asked as Kilroy pulled on a gold-and-violet paisley
jacket with black velvet lapels.

Kilroy hesitated. Smiled
slightly. “A friend,” he repeated.

For hours, Bode tried to
read, tried to rehearse, as night fell outside. He thought about
calling Garland, calling Danielle, his mother,
anybody
.

But they all seemed so far
away.

He put on the radio and lay
on the couch, a blanket tucked tight around him.

So haaaapppyyyyy

That the nights I spent alone are faded,
gone

And anywhere I roam I’m holding on

To you, to you, to you and to our

Happiness, right now here at home

Scootle dootle doo doo doo da-doo

Every rain and every shine

Will bring me home to you

Doodle doo da doo doo doo da doo…

He switched the station and
listened to a man and a woman talk about cars. Their voices melded,
and Bode wished there was a party, a great golden party going on
all around him. He’d fall asleep to laughter and the hum of
conversation and the clack of high heels and the bright squeal of
someone who’d dropped food on a nice set of clothes. He’d sleep
with one arm hanging off the couch, his knuckles brushing the
floorboards, and his dreams would be full of the comforting sounds
of people having a good time.

At three a.m., his calls
remained unanswered. He thought about notifying the police, but
that was stupid. The police could barely be roused to investigate a
murder, let alone respond to a report of someone who had been gone
a few hours.

Bode never quite got to
sleep. He dozed fitfully, dreaming different scenarios in which
Kilroy came home.

Kilroy returned a little
after eight in the morning. He wore a yellow dress shirt with the
sleeves unbuttoned, and his black suit jacket was slung over one
arm.

His hair, normally straight
and curled under, was mashed to his head on one side, locks twisted
together.

Bode was sprawled on the
couch. He peeled back the afghan and rubbed his eyes. Kilroy wasn’t
even looking at him; he was looking out the window, absently
playing with his unbuttoned sleeves.

“
Where were you?” Bode
asked hoarsely.

Kilroy glanced at him. “Why
are you on the couch?”

Bode sat up. “I worried
about you all night.”

“
Bodeee.” Kilroy came
closer. “I thought you’d be at the theater.”

“
You know I’ve cut back at
the theater.”

“
I know. And it seems
dangerous, you not having a life outside of this.” He gestured
around the apartment.

“
I do have a life outside
of this,” Bode said angrily, swinging his legs off the cushion.
“But you need to tell me if you’re going to be out all
night.”

“
I didn’t know you’d
worry.”

“
Well, I did.”

Kilroy sat on the edge of
the couch. “I was at a party.” He sounded childishly excited. “Such
a party, Bode. I felt tremendously alive and inspired. I didn’t
sleep at all.”

Neither did I.

“
I spent hours talking to
someone extraordinary. His name is Driscoll, and he’s an artist.”
Kilroy launched into a detailed description of Driscoll and the
things Kilroy and Driscoll had talked about at the
party.

“
Okay,” Bode cut in
eventually, still irritated. His head was pounding. “Good. Glad you
had fun.”

“
Bode.” Kilroy’s voice was
reproachful. “You’d enjoy him. He’s an artist. Like
you.”

And Bode knew without any
further details, that he should hate Driscoll. So he did and it
felt good and he kept on.

***

In school, Bode had been taught by a woman
named Mx. Moreland, who had tangled, sticky-looking hair and a face
like a placid cow’s. She’d taught history. Only one or two students
had used the title “Mx.”—most had insisted on calling her “Ms.”

She’d told her students the
story of the world without ever asking them to
see
it. She wrote dates on her inner
arm, and at the start of each class she would flex her bicep, move
her mouth in absent circles for a moment, then read off the dates
and state what had happened on each. But she never tried to put it
all in context for them, or tell them what it meant.

Mx. Moreland was easily distracted; her gaze
would follow the trajectory of a spitball like it was a shooting
star, and little lines would appear around her eyes and in her
forehead, as though she were making her wish. She hated girls and
made fun of their answers to questions, but she spoke softly to
boys. She liked Bode especially.

School taught Bode nothing. But he ended up
learning history for the sake of dance. In order to master his
craft, he needed to become familiar with tradition. With human
nature. With the events that had shaped the world.

One day Mx. Moreland looked at him with her
placid face and scratched an arm covered in light hair. “You’re a
super student, Bode. You’re really just super, and I think you’ll
go far.”

“
Thanks,” Bode mumbled. But
he felt the truth of those words.
I will.
I’ll go far. So much farther than anyone knows.

What bothered Bode was that each year, in
history, they ran out of time before they got anywhere close to the
modern age. They always ended at some thinly remembered war in a
country no one could find on a map. And so Bode never learned what
he truly wanted to know. How had the world’s pervasive boredom come
about? How had people gone from fire and pyramids and ferocious
crusades, from civil rights and the merging of minds and machines
and an increasingly intimate knowledge of the universe—to a place
where everyone swam in their heads, the same laps back and
forth?