Dream Boy (4 page)

Roy
says, "When we do this, you can't tell your parents.

“I
won't.”

“You
can't tell your friends either. This is a secret.”

“I
know.” Nathan feels some desperation he cannot name, like a slow sob.

“I'm
not your boyfriend.” Roy rests against Nathan as before, but they have
each become still. “I have a girlfriend. And I don't need to do this if I
don't want to.”

Nathan
receives the words all the way to the center of his bones. He watches Roy's
face, trying to see through to his mind. It is like the silence on the bus,
this moment. It is like Roy squaring his shoulders to the front of the bus.
They lie together for a long time. Nathan watches the pond with Roy's shivering
belly under his hand. Roy's large thigh stirs in the grass. The crickets drone.
Finally Roy says, in a tenderer tone, “We better get back.”

Nathan
stands and finds his clothes. Roy dresses close to him. The night has filled
with sounds. From the shadows overhead come calls of night birds, and from the
distant darkness echoes the yowling of a faraway cat, the singing of frogs, the
murmuring of wind in branches. One shrill thin cry shivers along Nathan's
spine, sounding almost human. A bobcat, Roy says.

In the
backyard, in the shadow of the barn, Roy braces Nathan, holding tight.
“Bring my books in the morning. I’m going on home.” No more parting
than that %'s shadow vanishes.

In the
kitchen, Nathan drinks sweet tea standing by e sink. The house is quiet except
for the drone of the Revision.

Then
Dad is in the room. “Is that you son?”

Nathan
sets the glass carefully, quietly, onto the sink. “Yes sir.”

The
sweetish smell of his Old Spice clouds the kitchen. He has come from the living
room. He is standing in shadow. “You been out for a walk.”

“Yes
sir.”

“Where
did you go?”

“Out
to the pond. There's a graveyard out there.” “Who did you go
with?” “Roy. Next door.” Very softly. “He's a nice
boy” Dad says.

He
comes forward into the light and Nathan backs away. He considers Nathan from
beside the refrigerator. Dad is wearing his white boxer shorts with the stained
front, his white tee shirt with the torn sleeve and cigarette burns. The
whiteness of his flesh, the softness, make Nathan look away. “There's a
Western on the TV You ought to come watch it with your dad.”

“No
sir.”

Dad
ponders this. He opens the door of the refrigerator. “All right. Then go
on to bed.”

Nathan
has been holding his breath. Released, he slips quietly upstairs, without
turning on the light. He waits at the window until he is calm. He listens to
make sure Dad goes back to the living room.

Across
the yard Roy's window is dark. So it remains.

In the
morning, a heavy mist has settled onto the yard, and Nathan can hardly see the
bus as he heads into the cloud zipping his jacket. His own books and Roy's are
crooked in his arm. The idling motor guides him to the haze of the yellow bus.
Roy straddles the driver's seat gazing out the window at the dismal morning. He
says nothing, closes the door and turns on the headlights.

The
rutted road tosses Nathan from side to side on the seat. The inside of the bus
is like the sky this morning, a silence condensing around every sleepy face.
Everyone says good morning to Roy pleasantly, distantly. No hello is returned
by Roy with any sign of hidden feeling. Nathan searches but finds no evidence
of a girlfriend in these faces. But this thought hardly brings any peace.
Nathan already knows Roy has a girlfriend at his church, and Roy goes out with
her all the time.

At
school Nathan leaves the bus with the first wave this time, letting Roy sit
like a boulder. His coldness seems oddly expected. But Nathan remembers lying
on their clothes in the cemetery, his hand on Roy's naked belly in the shadow
of the obelisk. Roy will treat Nathan as he pleases, and Nathan expects the
coldness. In the daylight Nathan will be invisible.

So at
lunchtime Nathan sits away from Roy and his friends, at a table by the southern
wall of windows, among the black kids. He drinks his milk and chews his
macaroni and cheese. His mind, as he eats, is a perfect wash, free of any stray
imagining. He avoids the smoking patio, after lunch, in favor of the lawn in
front of the school, sheltered by the brick sign announcing FORKESTER COUNTY
HIGH SCHOOL to the fields beyond. He sits in the shadow, hidden, and hums a
hymn from church about the peace that passes understanding.

A new
friend crosses the yard beyond, Hannah from Nathan's civics class. Hannah
visits briefly, asking if Nathan is ready for the test on the American
Constitution next week. Yes, Nathan answers. Hannah is pimpled and pleasant and
talks for a while, idle and mundane chatter, but while she is there, Roy
passes. His posture radiates anxiety, hands jammed into pants pockets,
shoulders rigid. He sees Nathan and stands watching. He scowls and shoves his
hands deeper.

Even
now, even from this distance, his body draws Nathan toward it, and Nathan
stands to join him; but suddenly Roy storms away, shoulders hunched, frowning.

The
afternoon chokes Nathan, sitting in hot, dark classrooms with windows no
teacher will open. He sits through advanced math with his Venus pencil poised,
paper glaring at him from the desktop. Mr. Ferrette crumbles chalk against the
chalkboard. When the final bell rings and everyone hurries toward the buses, Nathan
walks toward his own bus with a small fear inside.

Roy
straddles his vinyl saddle watching the accelerator pedal on the floor, books
loose in one arm. Others enter before Nathan does; he nods to them; Nathan is
too far away to read Roy's expression; but when Roy sees Nathan he turns,
making a production of settling his books into the basket beside the seat.
Momentum carries Nathan to the back of the bus, where he sits, quietly watching
the top of Roy's head in the rearview mirror.

The
drive home is tedious and tense at the same time, the bus a senseless rattling
contraption that sends up a cloud of stinking exhaust, vapid voices, and vacant
laughter. Nathan props his knees against the seat in front, glaring at the
ridged rubber mat that runs the length of the aisle. No matter where he looks,
he can feel Roy's sullen anger at the front of the bus. Roy scans the highway
with lips set in a line. Nathan clutches his books against his stomach,
remembering the softness of Roy's cheek, the taste of his mouth.

The bus
makes its usual stops, the bodies thinning among the seats. Soon there are only
a few voices between Nathan and Roy. Again soon, Nathan sits alone in the back
of the bus and Roy alone in front; Roy stares forward and Nathan stares
downward, each with equal stubbornness. Roy turns the bus down the dirt road
through the Kennicutt Woods. Nathan cannot help but watch the strong arms turn
the wide steering wheel, while Roy remains oblivious and shifts gears with
precise violence. But, past the first few curves of the road, he pulls the bus
to the side and stops.

Nathan
watches in surprise. Roy sags back against his seat, arms falling limp at his
side. His deep breathing is audible. “I got a question for you.”

Nathan
voice sounds timid, small in the empty bus. “What is it?”

“What
were you doing with that girl in the front of the school?”

Studying
the back of Roy's head for a clue. The mirror is empty. “Nothing. I was
just sitting there and she came up.”

“Oh
sure,” Roy says.

“She's
in my civics class. She was asking me about this test we got.”

“What's
her name?” “Hannah something.” “Do you like her?”
“She's all right.”

Roy's
voice trembles a little. “Do you like her the way you like me?”

The
question echoes into silence. “No.”

Roy
sits still. Nathan's heart pounds and calm is hard to find. Roy stands. He
stares at the rubber mat as he walks down the aisle. He is shaking as he kneels
beside Nathan's seat. “I don't know if I believe you or not.”

Dream
Boy “I'm telling the truth.”

“Touch
me,” Roy says, and Nathan embraces him. He leans against Nathan, who
caresses the thick hair at the nape of his neck. He opens his shirt slowly and
Nathan feels the strong upsurge of breath and desire, same as the night before;
only in the daylight the rich color of his flesh glows, blinding, and when
Nathan touches the curves and planes, the sudden rush of heat engulfs them
both.

For
Nathan it is a moment of poise, in which he must balance between what he knows
and what he should not know. The fact of Roy makes a difference. Here it is
easy to be held. Nathan's body has never felt so safe. They are touching each
other in intimate places with a feeling of perfection. Their breaths, as they
fumble and mingle, come faster; they cling and press until they finish. Nathan
holds his eyes closed, aware of Roy against him and glad of the clean curved
lines of Roy's body. Glad to lay his hands on Roy's firm shoulders and flat
waist. The trembling of a vein in Roy's neck draws Nathan's fingers. The clean
lines of Roy are a relief and Nathan focuses on that. Without reason, in
Nathan's inner seeing, the vision of Preacher John Roberts arises, telling
again how at the Last Supper John lay his head tenderly on Jesus' breast.
Nathan ends that way, with Roy's fingers in his hair. Roy asks, “Did you ever
do this before with anybody?”

Nathan
shakes his head, unable to speak. He has never liked it before. That much is
true.

“Do
you promise?” Roy asks, and the fear is plain on his face when Nathan
looks at him.

 “I
promise. I never did it with anybody.” Hoarse, almost inaudible. Feeling
hollow inside.

“Because
it's okay as long as it's just you and me.” Roy's face is suddenly very
sad. Nathan reaches for the face, pulls Roy close. Roy settles, sighing,
against Nathan's smaller shoulder. “I never did this much before. Not even
with a girl.”

Nathan
holds him as if he has diminished. Nathan becomes the shelter, the protection.
He touches Roy's chest with the tip of his tongue and Roy shudders; inside, his
heart is regularly bursting. Stillness settles over the bus. Roy sighs and
loops an arm around Nathan, keeping close to him through the aftermath, as the
sinking sun caresses them through the windows.

When
they can move again, Roy leads Nathan to the front of the bus, drives home down
the twisting road with the shadows of the trees passing across his shoulders.
He parks the bus in the usual spot in the yard and turns in the seat.
“Don't go in yet.”

“All
right. I won't.”

Roy
studies his own hands, gripping the steel frame of his seat, smooth nail
against smooth rivet. “I can't come to see you tonight. We have prayer
meeting.”

“At
church?”

He
nods. “Every Wednesday” He will not look up.

“Do
you like to go?”

“Yes.”

“I
have a lot of homework to do anyway I have a test. I told you.”

But Roy
has heard only his own thoughts. Lips parted, as if words are close, Roy
glances toward his house. He leans to Nathan, kisses him quickly. Pulling on
his shirt, he says he will see Nathan later and hurries away without a backward
glance.

The
night is long and Roy moves restlessly in Nathan's thoughts. Nathan studies
mathematics slowly, solving his tedious, non-algebraic problems with an
indolent air. Later he walks to the pond, though not as far as the abandoned
cemetery. He can see the distant outline of the tombstones against the black
backdrop of trees.

He has
gone to bed when Roy finally arrives at home again, driving his parents' car
into the yard, letting it idle a moment. Nathan leaps out of the blankets. He
stands back from the window to make sure Roy cannot see him. Roy steps out of
the car, illuminated by the yard light atop its creosote pole. His figure is
handsome in white shirt and tie, his face in shadow. Judging from his stance,
he might be watching Nathan's window. But still Nathan hangs back, listening to
the muted creakings of the house around him, the syncopated drip of water in
the downstairs bathroom. Wind rattles the upstairs windows in their frames. Roy
presently heads into the deeper gloom beneath trees, walking with his mother,
who moves slowly due to her size. Nathan hovers in the dark over them both.

Soon a
dim light burns in the bedroom above the hedge. As before, Roy's shadow slides
across the visible wall. Tonight he avoids the window, and Nathan watches his
shadow undress.

When
that room goes dark, Nathan stands dumbly before his own window, reluctant to
turn. When he returns to bed, a small fear seizes him. He replays in his head
every moment of Roy's arrival, his stepping out of the car, his standing in the
shadow, his undressing out of sight of the window. Nathan lies in bed and
examines each of these images over and over. Something in the sequence of
events frightens him.

Yet the
following day proves to be all Nathan could have wished. In the morning he sits
in the seat behind Roy again, and on the way to school Roy talks to him in an
almost intimate way. At lunch Roy sits with Nathan and afterward takes Nathan
to the smoking patio. No friend takes precedence over Nathan, and no girl
excites his attention.

Only
once, when Nathan asks about prayer meeting, does the little fear return. Roy
says the meeting was fine but refuses to look at him. All further questions
about Roy's church stick in Nathan's throat.

That
afternoon, when Roy parks the bus under the pecan trees, he tells Nathan to
hurry inside and change clothes, he wants them to go for a hike in the woods
while there's still light. To an Indian mound, he says, beyond the pond and the
cemetery. He grins and lets the bus motor die. The door hardly swings open
before Nathan dashes for his house.