Flesh and Bone (7 page)

I sit and drink and my eyes close. I slump into the couch and time passes without a thought. I'm still there right before dawn, when Mom comes home. She stands in the door still wearing her coat, still holding her purse.

“What're you doing?” she asks.

“What?”

“Are you drunk?”

“I'm drunk.”

“Jesus.”

“I think I need to go to bed.”

“No shit.”

And that's it. Mom stares at me and I rise slowly, gracelessly.

“Do you love me?” I ask.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

My bed is a mess of twisted sheets and blankets spilled on the floor. The room is cold and the sun is rising into the windows. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't
know that there's anything I can do. I'll live until I die and then for a while I'll be a memory, after that I'll be nothing and only nothing lasts forever.

M
IDDAY AND THE
sun's out and we leave our coats in our lockers. We all stand in the first warm day of the year and smoke. A new boy joins us. His name is Zephyr. Black hair and a black beard. His skin's golden and his eyes green. He smokes Virginia Slims and stands outside the group. He doesn't belong with us, not yet, maybe never. Muscles bunch and stretch in his arms and his face is a perfect puzzle of cheek and jaw, nose and brow. He is, in plain words, fucking gorgeous.

“You can smoke with us,” Mina says.

“I don't want to intrude.” His voice is deep and thick with some kind of accent.

“Where you from?” Ed asks.

“Tennessee.”

He joins us and we talk about the day, the classes we've had and the trouble we've gotten into. The new boy listens and says nothing. I can't help but stare at him. I've never felt this way before. The perfect blend of desire and fear.

“What's your name?” I ask.

“Zephyr.”

We all introduce ourselves. We talk about what we're going to do with our summer. School will be out in just over a month, then we'll have eight weeks to do nothing. Some of us are going to work. Some of us are going to smoke too much and watch television. Mina's going home to Finland. We'll all miss her, but not as much as Renee will. Renee and Mina are like sisters.

“I'm looking for a job,” Zephyr says.

“Some of the farms are still hiring pickers,” Richie says.

“I'll look into it.”

The sun slides behind a cloud and Zephyr looks to the sky. I want to kiss the long muscles stretched out there. The thought of running my hand over that chest sends a shiver through me. I feel sick suddenly. I'm really turning into a queer. I thought Harold was the only one. I thought that what we did was just between us. It was just sex. Harold thinks he loves me, but I know better. Sex is sex. Love has nothing to do with it. But here I am, falling in love with Zephyr and we've only just met. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to handle this? I close my eyes, but even there, I see his pretty, pretty face. Nothing chases it away, not even when the bell rings and we all break up and go to our afternoon classes.

N
O ONE'S HOME,
only Bekah and me. Johnny Cash spills from the radio. Bekah's tits ride high on her ribs. The top of her head moves over the bowl of my hips. I try to concentrate on the sucking sensation of her mouth on my dick. One of her hands cups my balls. She strokes them and squeezes them and they tighten. My gut is electric and empty.

“Jesus.”

She takes one finger and traces the line from my scrotum to my ass and back again. Wild joy and wonder flood my spine. Bekah's mouth is soft and wet and warm. Soon it'll be over. Soon I'll shoot and Bekah will swallow me and we'll lie together in her room.

“What're you thinking about?” she asks.

She smells of soap and hay and a little of the horses she rides after school and on weekends.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Really?”

“I don't know.”

There are things I want to do with Bekah that I've never talked about. I have desires and wants that are too disgusting to think about. Her naked body is pale and warm. Her hair is blond and wild and loose around her face.

“Do you like doing that?” I ask.

“What?”

“Sucking dick.”

“I like it.”

“Does it do anything for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know.”

She kisses me.

“You ask too many questions,” she says.

I guess I do. I want to know things. I worry about doing things right and I want no one to worry about pleasing me unless they're pleasing themselves too.

I
FIND THE
edge of town where the river runs and the wetlands stretch out to the fields given over to sheep and cattle. Sometimes the river rises and the animals climb to higher ground near the highway. Today, they're spread out over the pasture like chess pieces moving randomly over a board in the unpredictable search for grass.

Ed and I sit on the edge of the road waiting for her father to come pick us up. I met Ed at the club downtown and she's here to take me to dinner. This is the first real date I've ever had, but her car dropped its transmission and now we sit here waiting for her dad.

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“Don't worry about it,” I say.

“You're awfully nice,” she says.

I look out at the mountains just now fading into the twilight. The trees are turning to a solid black mass. I don't know how nice I am, but it doesn't make sense for me to get too riled over a car breaking down.

“Is it too far for you to walk home?” she asks.

“A little.”

“We could call your mom,” she says.

“She's working.”

“What about your grandparents?”

“Jesus, no.”

“Alright.”

“Sorry,” I say. “They don't approve of girls.”

“They'd rather you date boys?”

“That would get me killed.”

“Really?”

“Things are pretty dangerous at my house.”

“I'm sorry.”

I shrug.

“It's how things work.”

“Have you ever made it with a boy?” she asks.

I stare out at the cattle in the field and the sheep dotting the hill behind them.

“Once or twice.”

“Did you like it?”

“It's just sex.”

“What's that mean?”

“It's just something I do. Sometimes.”

“How sad.”

“I know,” I say.

Out in the field, the cattle disappear into the shadows. I wish I could. I wish I could just fade away.

Ed's dad shows up and gets out of the car. He shines a light on us.

“What're you doing standing in the cold?” he asks.

“Waiting for you,” Ed says. “Talking.”

“It's the transmission?” he asks.

“I told you there was a problem.”

“Jesus.”

We drive through town. The night fragments under the streetlights. Shadows run black and sharp around the buildings. Ed's dad drives with the caution of someone trying not to draw attention.

“Have you been drinking?” Ed asks.

“Don't worry,” her dad says. “I'm fine.”

We lean against the cushions in the back and Ed runs her hand up my thigh. Her fingernails etch electric lines in the muscles there.

Ed's dad pulls into the driveway. The living room's lit, but I don't know if anyone's up still.

“Kiss him goodnight,” her dad says.

Ed slips her tongue into my mouth and gently cups my junk with one hand, a promise of what's to come the next time we're together. I get out and rush out of the rain. I stand on the porch and watch the car disappear into the mist. I can still feel Ed's hand on my groin. I can still feel her tongue darting past my lips. I don't know what to do with all the blood rushing to my dick. I need a shower. A
shower'll wash away the frustration. A shower will prepare me to lie in my lonely bed and dream of sex and fear. That's the way things happen. They come and set me up and leave me to figure what they mean. I never really figure it out so I sleep and wait for the answers to come to me and I hope they'll stay with me. I hope I'm more than just meat, more than a fuck buddy. Maybe someday, I'll fall in love. Maybe not, but it's a nice dream.

“T
HE
B
EATS ARE
insufferable,” Bekah says.

I don't know what she's talking about.

“They run on and on about sex and jazz and drugs,” she says. “They add nothing to conversation.”

She's off on a literary tangent. I listen to her because I love the sound of her voice. But it drives me nuts that she talks literature after sex. There has to be a thousand other things to say, but she always goes back to whatever writer she's reading right now. They seem more real than me, and they're not even here.

“Their work is juvenile,” she says. “And ill-conceived.”

I don't know who she's talking about. I've never read the Beats. I don't know who they are. It doesn't matter to me. I'm comfortable enough to let her do my reading for me.

“They led interesting lives,” she says. “But Kerouac and Cassidy let themselves die. Burroughs became a recluse and Ginsberg sold out. What about principles? What about integrity?”

I close my eyes and rub one finger over her naked thigh. Soon, maybe, she'll forget about poets and novelists. Soon, maybe, all she'll think about is me. If I can get her to say my name over and over again I win.

R
ISING SLOWLY OUT
of sleep, I open my eyes and I find that these are not my walls. The windows open onto a yard too small to be the yard outside my bedroom window at home. I turn and there's Ed. Naked. Sleeping on her side, one breast hanging out on the edge of the blanket.

I feel like shit. My head is packed with steel wool and glass. My eyes burn and I cannot blink. My mouth is a pit of soured cotton.

Rising slowly, I dress in the dim light. I have to get home. I have to let Mom know what happened. No details, but enough facts to hopefully get her off my back.

Out in the hallway leading to the living room, I run into Ed's father. We stop and stare at each other. There's no telling what's going to happen next. He just stands there and stares at me. I finally duck my head.

“I'll tell her you had to go,” he says and presses past.

This is strange. I don't know what to do. I call my mother.

“I'm fine,” I say. “There was a girl.”

“I was worried.”

“I'm fine.”

“Am I going to meet this girl?” she asks.

“I don't know.”

“We'll talk about it later.”

“Can you come get me?”

“What about your girlfriend?”

“She's sleeping.”

“That's no way to end a date,” she says.

“I'll call her later.”

“Damn right.”

Mom has strong feelings about these things. She has definite ideas about etiquette.

I go to the yard to wait for my ride. I stand behind a tree so Ed thinks I'm gone already, so her father won't see me abandoning his daughter. Some precautions are always necessary. Some days start with the knowledge that one bad decision can ruin everything.

H
ORSES SHUFFLE THEIR
feet in their stalls. The barn smells of shit and dust and hay. Leather saddles and bridles hang from large, steel hooks. Bekah lies naked in the loft. She and I are hiding from her dad who's been looking for her for a while now. Bekah doesn't want him to catch me here. Her dad doesn't like me, not since he found out that Bekah and I have been fucking. He has a tendency toward violence. I don't know if I could take him or not. Probably not. He's a big man with big hands and big arms. He's had years of practice fighting. I've never been in a real fight. I've always been able to talk my way out of them. He's not the kind of guy who'd listen to anything I'd have to say.

“He never comes up here,” Bekah says.

I just want to go. I knew this was a bad idea, but I let Bekah talk me into it. Her dad stomps around the barnyard before getting into his truck and tearing out of the driveway like he has someplace important to go.

I finish dressing.

“You leaving?” Bekah asks.

“I want to be gone when he gets back.”

“You should just stand up to him.”

“I can't.”

“Coward.”

“Maybe.”

She dresses and walks with me out to the street.

“You could come with me,” I say.

“You're mom doesn't like me.”

“She doesn't like us fucking,” I say. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“Do you think we could ever fall in love?”

“I don't know.”

“You love Zephyr.”

“I don't know.”

“I do.”

The walk through the woods is long. A little wind whispers around the trunks. Leaves are turning from summer green to autumn's red, yellow and brown. Soon the rain will come again and winter will span eight wet months.

I walk and cross a creek and smoke a cigarette, staying off the roads because there's no telling where Bekah's dad might be. The last bit of the walk is through the berry fields with their canes hanging into the rows, thorns catching on my sweater's sleeves.

Mom's waiting in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette and staring out the window. She looks at me when I come in.

“You had a visitor,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“He said you were fucking his daughter,” she says.

“Bekah's dad.”

“Are you?”

“Do you want me to answer that?”

She shakes her head. She sucks smoke into her lungs and stares at me.