Far from Xanadu (28 page)
Click.
She spun around and moved back against him, leaning into him, his arms enfolding her. Thick arms, tanned. Pound for pound I was more buff than Bailey. I could work on my tan; it was early in the season. He’d gotten a head start with the calving.
Click.
I might’ve cut off his head.
He wedged his chin on top of Xanadu’s scalp. She tilted back her head and smiled up at him. She smiled. And kept on smiling.
A memory resurfaced. Déjà vu. Jamie and Shane. How they smiled at each other, shared smile. Intimate eyes. Me, taking their picture. Me, not in the picture.
A bolt from the blue knocked me back a step. “Mike.” Dad’s voice.
Dad, speaking to me. “Look, baby.”
Xanadu and Bailey filling the camera’s viewfinder.
“Can’t you see?” Dad said.
I could. I could see Xanadu kissing him, Bailey kissing her back. I could see what passed between them. The connection. The bond. The love. In that instant of clarity, I saw the truth. She loved him.
She loved him in a way she would never love me.
I handed the camera back, mumbled an excuse, fled, flew, escaped. The blur of grass under my feet, the ground moving, splitting, opening a chasm between us. Them. Her and me. The distance impassable, impossible. The longing, desperation, the broken coupling, the draining of my hopes.
I was gay. A dyke. A baby dyke. That’s how I felt, like a baby. A toddler taking her first steps and stumbling. Falling. Trying again. Succeeding. Grasping the power, the strength, the freedom to run, run, running off half-cocked, not watching where I was going or what I was doing. Not seeing the truth. Not aware of the danger. Like a wild child, forgotten, oblivious to the stairs. Running, falling, falling,
thud.
No one to catch me. No one to care. To pick me up, hold me, comfort me, rally me to try again. Keep going, baby. Anything is possible.
No, it isn’t, Dad. You’re a liar. “You’re a liar. A fucking liar.”
I hated him. I hated him for giving me hope.
I slammed through the back door.
“Who’s that?” Ma sounded startled.
My lungs hurt. My head hurt. Everything about me hurt.
“Who is it?” she demanded.
“It’s me,” I snarled. In a weaker voice, calmer voice, “It’s me.” Whoever I am. Whatever I am. I inhaled what strength and dignity I had left and headed to my room.
She was propped on the sofa, sitting, I guess, her rolls of fat spilling over two full cushions. Her TV tray had toppled front first and her Donettes were broken all over the floor. The picture on the TV screen crackled and buzzed.
I looked from the TV to her. She gazed off into space, her beady eyes black as death. On the floor by her feet lay the remote control.
I sauntered up to it. Bent over, picked it up. I held it out in my open hand between us. “Say please,” I said.
Her jaw clenched.
Say it, I screamed inside. Say please. Say Mike. Say help me. Say stay. Say anything to me.
Nothing. No reaction.
Slowly, I set the remote on the sofa cushion, too far for her to reach. “What is it with you?” The pressure busted free, spilling out in a rage. “Two years, Ma. It’s been two years! You haven’t said a word to me in all that time. Not one word.”
She blinked.
“Is it
worth
it?” My voice rose.
She shriveled in place.
“Dammit. Goddammit. All my life. What did I do? What did I do to make you hate me?”
No movement, no comprehension.
Dammit! I wheeled around and stormed for my room.
“Thief.”
“What?” I stopped.
“Thief,” she repeated.
I turned around. “What do you mean? I didn’t —”
“You’re stealing from me,” she stated flatly. Her eyes focused and fixed on my face. It felt like two ice picks boring through my pupils.
I couldn’t hold her gaze. “I’m not stealing. I just... I wanted some of his things.” My eyes raked the floor.
“You’re stealing.”
“No!” I glanced up. “I’m just borrowing.”
“You’re stealing him from me.”
Her narrowed eyes sliced me in half. She added, “You always did.”
She was crazy. I didn’t know what she was talking about.
Yes, I did. Maybe. “You can have it all back,” I said. “What do I care?” I yanked up the chain around my neck and threw it on the sofa. I charged to my room to get the stuff — the clothes, the lighter, the pictures, watch, everything I’d taken. I tore the suspenders off my body. She could have him. She could keep him, I thought. There’s nothing left now. He left me nothing of value.
I stomped back in and crossed the room. She shielded her face with her forearm, cowering, like I was going to hit her.
I wanted to. I wanted her to hurt the way she hurt me.
But she was Ma. My mother. I wouldn’t hurt her.
I piled the stuff beside her on the sofa. I placed the remote in her lap. Easy. Gently. “Here,” I said.
She was shaking. Protecting herself with her hunched up body. Irealized suddenly she was afraid of me. My own mother was afraid of me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my throat constricting. Sorry for whatever I did to you. Sorry for you. Sorry for me. As I backed out of the room, she snatched the remote and clutched it to her chest. She fumbled around for a channel. “Sorry,” I repeated. Sorry for being born.
I curled on my bed like a baby. No covers. My quilt was trashed. I thought about working out the pain with curls or crunches. A hundred crunches. A thousand. There weren’t enough crunches in the world.
It didn’t matter. There was no pain to work out anymore. No feeling at all. Only numbness.
I craved a beer. A quart of Old Milwaukee. Absolut. The hard stuff, yeah. Burn my brain. Rip me bad. Find a tower.
They’d be going to the hayride tonight. This would be the first year I missed. So what? She’d be there with him.
She’d changed me. Ever since she came into my life, every day of my life was different. Out of kilter, out of joint. My inner connections were compromised. They were leaking. Every junction, every elbow, every vee, wye, ess, they’d all pulled loose, pulled apart. As if they — I— had lost the glue that’d held everything together. My whole system was breaking down, and I didn’t know how to repair it. Or replace it. I’d been waiting so long.
Waiting. It was the waiting that was unbearable.
What was I waiting for? A miracle? That he’d come back and show me how to fix it? Fix me. That she’d love me. Heal me.
Xanadu.
I rolled over onto my back and stared at the water spots on my ceiling. A picture of Dad flashed into my mind. Him giving me a ponyback ride to bed. Neighing through the kitchen, the living room, the hallway. He’d buck me off onto my mattress, then lean down and touch his nose to mine. The sweet odor of booze on his breath, the cigarettes. The smell of Dad. The comfort, certainty. I’d wrap my arms around his neck and nuzzle into it; feel his stubble of whiskers against my cheek.
“Good night, baby,” he’d say. He’d hold my face between his strong hands and kiss my forehead.
“G’night, Daddy.”
We’d both whinny. And laugh. I never stole him, Ma. He was never mine to take. You can’t own a person. You can’t take her from someone she loves.
“Hey, chest hair.” Darryl pounded on my door. “You got company.”
I blinked back to the moment. Company? Who, Jamie? He’d come to rub it in about how delusional I was. He was right. I was so out of touch with reality, I lived in a fantasy dream world, worse than his.
The door swung open and Darryl stood aside. Xanadu rushed into my bedroom. “Oh God, Mike.” She flew across the room and flung herself on top of me. “He hates me.”
D
arryl lingered in the doorway, hanging onto the knob, eyes popping out of his head. He opened his mouth to say something, but I guess he changed his mind. He stepped back into the hall and shut the door.
Xanadu was bawling, really bawling. I struggled to sit up. She was weighted onto me, holding me down. Her head burrowed into my neck and her arm pinned my shoulder to the bed.
“What’s wrong?” I said quietly.
Her chest heaved.
A strand of hay stuck in her hair and I plucked it out. “Xanadu?”
She cried louder.
I stroked her head. “Tell me what’s wrong. What happened?”
She rolled away from me to lie flat on the mattress and swiped her nose with the back of her hand. “He hates me,” she said. “I told him about...,” she paused, her eyelashes slick with tears, “you know. Everything. He thinks I’m evil and horrid. He thinks I’m possessed, that I’m Satan.” A tear slid out the corner of her eye and down her cheek. “He got all mad; asked why I hadn’t told him before, why did I wait so long? Why did I do it? ‘Why did you
do
it?’ he says. Fuck, I don’t know why I
did
it.” Her voice rose. “I don’t know!” She covered her eyes with her forearm and sobbed. “I made a mistake.” She hic-cuped.
I didn’t know what to do. She was so close, her body generating heat, moisture. I propped on an elbow and rubbed her arm.
“He said he couldn’t handle it.” She sniffled. “He couldn’t handle being with me anymore.” Her voice broke and a flood of tears gushed from her eyes. She closed her fists, curled her wrists under her chin in the curve of her neck, and her whole body vibrated.
What could I say? I’m glad? I wasn’t glad. She loved him. He betrayed her. I despised him.
Tenderly, lovingly, I brushed back her hair.
“I thought I could trust him, you know?” She twisted her head to look at me. “The way I trust you. God, Mike.” She arched upward and disintegrated in my arms again.
I held her. Held her close. I felt her hurt, deep down and unrelenting. I wanted to do major damage to Bailey McCall. I could too. I could take him. One face-altering blow with my fist...
Xanadu murmured into my hair.
“What?” I drew back from her slightly.
She swallowed hard. “Can I stay here tonight? With you?”
My heart beat a pneumatic drill. “Sure.”
She rested her forehead on mine. “I better call Aunt Faye so she doesn’t send the fucking FBI out looking for me.” Xanadu rolled over to the edge of the bed.
While she punched numbers into her cell, I gathered all the Power-Bar wrappers and weights and dirty clothes off my mattress and kicked a bunch of crap into the closet. I’d missed a pair of Dad’s boxers and an undershirt. So what? I heard her say, “No, overnight with Mike. If you don’t believe me, here, you talk to her.” Xanadu shoved the phone at me.
I’d never used a cell phone. Where did you talk?
“Hello, Mike? Is that you?” Faye’s voice.
“Um, yeah.” I didn’t even see microphone holes. “I’m here,” I spoke into the numbers.
“Is Xanadu staying over there, or are you covering for her?”
I gulped. “No, ma’am. I’m not. I mean, she’s here. She’s kind of upset because she and Bailey.. .” I glanced at Xanadu, at her vacant expression, her eyes taking in my nudie posters on the wall. “Broke up,” I finished.
There was a long pause. “Where are
you
sleeping?” Faye said.
I eyed my bed.
She added quickly, “Never mind. All right. Tell Xanadu to be home by seven tomorrow morning in time to get ready for school.”
“Okay.” The phone buzzed in my hand.
Xanadu smiled at me. Her eyes softened. “Thank you,” she said.
She perched on the edge of the mattress and kicked off her shoes. Standing, she shimmied out of her leather pants. She lifted off her shirt. The skimpy bra was black. She slid in under the top sheet and fluffed my pillow. After a minute, her eyes found mine.
She lifted the sheet.
I hesitated. Dad’s face flashed, so clear and vivid. His voice: “Nothing’s ever going to hurt my baby. Not if I can help it.”
“Mike?”
I shimmied in.
She was so near I could feel her heart pounding, her lungs expanding and contracting. She ran a hand down the side of my face and said, “You’re the only one I can trust. The only one.”
I don’t know who kissed who first. Her soft lips on mine pressed deeper and harder, pressing, moving into me. She used her hands, her mouth. I let her. I helped her. I loved her.
When I woke, Xanadu was gone. The room was bathed in the warm glow of dawn. I could still feel her skin melded to mine, the heat of our bodies bonding us together. I heard her breathing, smelled the sweetness of her. I closed my eyes and drifted away.
She wasn’t at school on Monday. Bailey was there, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week. Good. Last night was the first time in two years I didn’t bolt awake at three AM from the nightmare. Falling, falling,
thud.
I thought about calling her at lunchtime. I got as far as the reception desk, then bailed. She was tired. Needed sleep. We hadn’t slept much either. I’d see her later today at the game. She’d come to my game, I was sure of that. She’d want to watch me play.
She’d want to be with me now.
The game was against Scott City. They were fourth in the standings, out of the running. Quarterfinals started Saturday, but I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Coalton Cougars were 15-4 this season, second only to Sharon Springs.
You could tell by the intensity of their warm-up, Scott City didn’t come to take batting practice. Last game of the season, they wanted to win. I respected that. It was going to be hard to keep my head in the game.
As I watched the stands fill, I limbered up with side stretches and knee bends. I didn’t want to work up a sweat. She was still on my skin. I didn’t want to wash her off.
Where was she?
The pep squad had squeezed into the middle section of bleachers. I still didn’t see her. I would though. She’d be here. She was my girl-friend now.
Girlfriend. Wow. I had a girlfriend.
Behind the backstop, Jamie caught my eye and rustled a pom-pom. I wanted to yell at him, “You were wrong. You were wrong about her. Wrong about me too. Wrong about everything. Anything is possible.”
One more scan of the bleachers.
“Mike, what are you doing?” Coach Kinneson called from the lean-to. “We’re ready to go.”
Everyone had finished warm-ups and returned from the field.
