Dream Boy (6 page)

Wondering
about Roy's church, about all the life of Roy that Nathan has yet to fathom.
About the girlfriend, mentioned once and never forgotten.

Days
pass and they are together often. Roy's chores suddenly require Nathan's
presence, and Roy's homework begs Nathan's help. Some evenings they work at
Nathan's house and some at Roy's. In this way, one night, Nathan meets Roy's
parents, who are much older than Nathan's. The Connellys took a long time to
have children, Roy being the only one of four to live past birth. Sometimes he
visits his brothers and sisters in the cemetery near their church, he says. To
Nathan, who is also an only child, it is curious to think of Roy visiting siblings
in a cemetery. Roy's large, soft mother takes shots to control her blood sugar
and nerve pills to help her sleep. The boys do their homework in Roy's bedroom,
surrounded by Roy's baseball and hunting gear. But one night they work at the
kitchen table as Roy's mother slices apples in the adjacent living room. Roy's
father passes through on his way from the bam to the desk where he keeps the
farm's accounts. There is a feeling of ill health about the mother and a
taciturn, tough shell that protects the father, and they talk little. But there
is also a feeling of peace and safety.

At the
end of her apple peeling, Mrs. Connelly brings her white glass bowl into the
kitchen and washes the apples again. She asks the boys if they have studied
good, and they answer that they have. She asks Roy what he is learning in
school and he tells her about advanced algebra and auto mechanics. She listens
to the description of dismantled carburetors, fuel pumps, and polynomial
equations, shaking her head at the complexity. “His daddy knows all about
motors too, but I don't.” She offers Nathan a fresh slice of apple.
“And I never could do numbers. I don't think women have the minds for some
things. I know a lot of people think that's old-fashioned, but I think that's the
way God intended it.”

“My
mom doesn't know anything about motors either,” Nathan offers.

“See
there.” She nods her head at the profundity of it all. “What about
you, Nathan, what do you like in school?”

“I
like to read science fiction books.”

“You
mean about space travel and all like that. Lord, I don't think I would like to
have all that stuff in my head. I don't read too much, except the prayer
magazine we get. Guideposts. I like that magazine. It's really a Baptist
magazine, but I like it anyway. We're not Baptists, we're Holiness.”

“We
go to the Baptist church.”

“With
Preacher Roberts? I like him. I think he's handsome.”

“You
ought not to be talking about handsome men,” Roy says, “you know Dad
don't like it.”

“Your
daddy ain't studying who I talk about. And I do think he's handsome. Did you
always go to the Baptist church, Nathan?”

“No,
ma'am. My mom used to take me to the Holiness Church too. But my daddy didn't
like it because they play electric guitars.”

“No.
You don't mean it.”

Even
Roy is interested in that. “Electric guitars in the church?”

“One
time they had drums, too. You know, like in a band.”

“Lord
help me,” says Mrs. Connelly. “I don't know about that. We don't do
that in our church, we just have a piano.”

“We've
been Baptist since my daddy started going.” “Now I know you all moved
here from somewhere.” “Smithfield.”

“That's
right. Your daddy told me. You lived in Smithfield.”

“We
didn't live there long. We lived in Goldsboro before that. And Tims
Creek.”

“I
think Tims Creek is a nice little town.”

“Don't
you get tired of moving so much?” Roy asks.

Mrs.
Connelly is watching. Nathan has the feeling they have talked about this
before, and is therefore more guarded. “Sometimes. It's not so bad though.
We lived in Rose Hill for a long time, when I was little.”

Mother
and son look at each other. Nathan becomes afraid they've heard something, a
story about the reason Nathan's family moves from one place to the other.
Something about why they left Rose Hill. Dad likes to move, all right, but
never quite far enough.

The
conversation ends when Roy's father comes from his office looking for a glass
of tea. He waits pleasantly while Mrs. Connelly stirs her large body to put ice
in a glass. They talk about the fall weather, the clover Roy and he are
planting in the field next to the house, the abundance of fish in the pond. The
ease with which the Connellys keep company with each other almost makes Nathan
feel at home himself.

Later,
they carry their books to Roy's room, which is smaller than it seems from the
other side of the hedges, a narrow, angled space, mostly occupied by a bed and
Roy's desk. High on the wall are shelves for his baseball trophies, a sturdy
collection. Nathan examines each trophy scrupulously but makes no comment.
Nathan studies everything with the same attention to detail, including the view
to his own window. Roy leans beside him, then smiles. Finger to the lips, be
quiet.

They
study. Roy sits on his bed. In his own house he behaves less bravely and dares
less than in Nathan's, and Nathan knows better than to get too close. He
spreads his science textbook across his lap. He peers into the closet, through
the shadowed crack in the door. He studies the poster of a famous baseball
player. Roy murmurs aloud as he reads.

He and
Roy take long walks, over the whole farm, till Nathan understands the scope of
Roy's world. The sullen houses in the bare field become their landscape, and
they wander around the pond, memorize the graveyard, visit the Indian mound,
pick apples in the orchard, search out deer in the surrounding woods, hunt for
foxes and squirrels with Roy's 22gauge, or simply lie on beds of leaves with
their shirts open and their hands ripening on each other's bare skin. Nathan
learns that Roy will kiss but he will not kneel in front of Nathan as Nathan
will kneel in front of him. Nathan learns that he himself is somehow different
from Roy, governed by other laws.

Always
the admonition is the same. You can't say a thing about this to anybody else.
You can't do this with anybody else but me. Okay? Followed by the cloud of
guilt, the moment when Roy can no longer bring himself to look at Nathan or to
touch him. The guilt clouds him worse each time.

One
Friday afternoon, without warning, Roy asks Nathan, “Do you want to go
riding around tonight?”

They are
assembling their books on the school bus. ay has headed down the metal steps,
then pauses to ask I question. Turning almost casually.

Roy has
always seen his girlfriend on Fridays. Nathan never asked, but he knows.
“I need to ask my mom.” Roy shrugs.

Quickly,
lest the offer be withdrawn. Tm sure she’ll say it's okay"

Roy
shrugs again, but in a more friendly way. “Come with me while I ask.”
The request, unusual, reverberates. Roy considers, momentarily uncomfortable. A
slow change takes place as Nathan watches; a new thought occurs to Roy and a
smile spreads outward. “She'll like that, won't she?” he asks.

Crossing
the yard, they are aware of each other, as if either of them could contain, for
the moment, the consciousness of both. They are echoing in each other through
the mown grass, they are feeling the freshness of air on Roy's shoulders, the
brush of the rose bush against Nathan's sleeve; they are each feeling each.
Into the door they walk, and Nathan's mom is in the kitchen as always, dark
eyed, sitting at the table reading a novel by Emily Loring. She closes the book
with a dreamy sigh as the boys enter, and focuses on them with effort; and for
a moment Nathan feels a tremor of chill. She is hardly in this kitchen at all,
she has fled somewhere else, dreaming. But this blankness quickly passes. She
returns to the room from Emily Loring's world and adjusts her eyeglasses across
the bridge of her nose.

Nathan
is preparing his request and nearly has the words in perfect order when Roy
seizes the moment unexpectedly “Please, ma'am, I was hoping you might let
Nathan go out riding with me tonight.”

“Well
I knew you boys wanted something the way you busted in here like you did.”
Her expression is gentle and her focus on Nathan soft. “You want to go
riding, son?”

“Yes,
ma'am.”

“You
know your daddy don't like you to run around.”

Nathan
makes no response. But she smiles as if he has answered her with something
pleasant. Brittleness pervades her voice and manner, the sense that she may
suddenly say something more shrill. “Well, you never go anywhere except
church, I know that's the truth.” Brushing her face as if hair or insect
touches her. “Your dad and me have a church supper tonight.”

“I
don't need to go this time, do I?”

She
reflects. Glare on the glasses, momentary blindness. “I guess you don't.
Him and me in church is plenty for one night.”

“Thanks,
Mom.”

“You
make sure you behave like you ought to. Your daddy is real nervous lately. You
know how he is. I can't get him to lay down, he don't rest at night. He don't
need any trouble from you.”

This is
her way of talking, as if Dad were a being of delicate sensibility, to be
treasured and protected. But something else in her tone, some edge, awakens
memory in Nathan. It is as if she is issuing a warning. But he tries to refuse
the fear, he clings to his happiness, stubbornly, because he will spend the
Friday night with Roy, the hours entirely their own. Mom looks at Nathan with
the air of blindness returning. Roy stuffs his hands in his pockets as if
suddenly shy. “Thanks, ma'am. We won't be out too late. I'll bring him
back by eleven o'clock.” Giving Nathan a secret within the look they
traded. “Get ready and let's go. All right?”

“Yeah.”

The
screen door opens and wind rushes out. Suddenly Roy has vanished and Nathan
waits to catch his breath in the kitchen.

“He
sure seems like a nice boy” Mom adjusts her glasses and opens her book.
“He's got a good way of acting. Don't you think so?”

“Yes,
ma'am.”

“You
need any money?” “I got five dollars.”

“Well,
that's good.” She is white eyed again, facing the window. “I like
this house. I hope we don't have to move.”

“Me
too.” Feeling suddenly fearful. “Are we?”

“Oh
no. Oh no. We ought to be able to live here a long time. Your daddy likes his
job. He likes Allis Chalmers, you know he always talked about working for them.
I don't think he liked John Deere as much.” She presses a curved
fingernail into the jacket of the Emily Loring volume. “But he goes
through cycles. You know. And he's real nervous, like, lately. You know. Because
he's not making the sales.”

Nathan
knows. He is suddenly afraid. “He's not going to bother me, is he?”

But she
is away. She is wherever she goes. “He's just got some problems on his
mind. Don't worry”

He
finds himself watching the loosening flesh at her throat, the place where the
tendons stand out. A vein beats against the skin. She smiles without any
comprehension. That is all. The sense of warning has almost vanished. Except,
before she submerges into the yellowed pages, she murmurs, “Stay out of
his way tonight.” A chill touches Nathan along the spine. He watches his
mother and her lost, empty face. He goes upstairs. She hardly notices he has
gone.

He
stands at the window until he sees Roy's shadow. Then a little calm nests in
his stomach, and he can move.

Downstairs
he says goodbye in a whirl of air and runs through the grass to the car, where
Roy already waits.

But he
is still strangled by the last moments with his mother, and he cannot explain
to Roy why, for the first few moments, he has no voice at all. The car whips a
train of dust along the drive, Roy steering with his arm propped in the open
doorway. He glances at Nathan, who remains frozen in the sound of his mother's
voice. “What's wrong?”

Nathan
shakes his head.

“Tell
me.” The voice more emphatic, the arm no longer relaxed in the open frame.

Small
voiced. “I'm okay”

“You
glad we're going out, aren't you?”

Nathan
laughs, brushes the back of his hand against his eyes. He laughs again,
watching Roy. Who shoves him roughly away, a gesture of play “You're
crazy,” Roy says, and drives.

At the
end of the dirt road, Roy turns in the unaccustomed direction, the highway
toward Somersville. “Where are we going?”

“To
meet Burke and Randy at the railroad trestle.” He relaxes against the open
car window, driving one handed.

Nathan
faces him in the seat. Delight fills him, leaving no room for any other
feeling. Here is Roy, they are together in a car, it is a Friday night. This is
like people do.

No
mention of her, the unseen. No mention of where she is tonight.

The
drive lengthens and they talk, as freshly as if for the first time, more
animated than ever. The confinement of the car encourages them in freedom with
one another; and at the same time the privacy shelters them as neither forest
nor graveyard ever has. They are alone in a protected place.

Roy
talks about his father, about the farm, about his mom and her sicknesses, her
problems with her heart, her sugar, the circulation in her feet. He describes
his father's worry about her, and his worry about money to run the farm, and
his silence about everything. He describes a life of cleanness, a father who
wanted more sons, a mother who could bear only the one. He has aunts and uncles
spread over the whole county and beyond, he has more cousins than he can name.
He has lived on the farm all his life, and he thinks he could live there
forever. He could be a farmer, he could drive the tractor and plow the fields
till he's old and gray. Except he's pretty good at baseball and he might want
to do that instead, play baseball in the minor leagues. He has no illusions
about the major leagues, but the minors would be okay. When he talks about
those things his voice rings pure as a bell, his eyes shining. He has a future,
he can see it.