The Grand Ballast (25 page)

Just keep
driving.

As he rolled up to the next
stoplight, he fiddled with the stereo volume. Glanced up and
noticed that the license plate on the silver car in front of him
read THS MMNT.

He frowned.

The silver car he’d seen
parked in the garage at Driscoll’s party.

Bode followed the car to
the next light. Pulled up beside it this time. The driver looked
male. Bony face, short hair.

Had to be
Driscoll.

The light turned green, and
the silver car pulled in front of Bode again.

Driscoll.
Bode kept repeating the name to himself over and
over. A stupid name—sounded like a brand of faux butter, like
something you’d put on your toast when you were trying to lose
weight.

Driscoll Driscoll
Driscoll.

Instead of taking the turn
toward his parents’ house, he trailed the silver car through two
more lights, and then out onto a one-way county road. They
accelerated. Bode drifted into the left lane; Driscoll stayed in
the right. Bode refused to pull ahead, instead keeping his front
bumper even with the silver car’s back bumper. To his left rose a
massive rock face, imposing in the darkness. The highway was
deserted, winding into the night.

There were moments when he
wasn’t himself, when
self
was a ridiculous invention. There were only
forces colliding like spells in the sky, howling through anything
that got in their way, and that was why people killed or fucked,
that was why trees got caged in lightning, why clouds gashed open
and hurled rain.

They were approaching a
curve. On one side of Bode, the rock face; on the other, Driscoll.
And beyond that, a guardrail and then a cliff. The guardrail’s
yellow reflectors glinted in the beams of their
headlights.

He pulled alongside the
silver car as they entered the curve. He glanced to his right, but
the other driver was just a shadow. Bode gripped the wheel, holding
it to the left, a drop of sweat slipping down his temple. He opened
his mouth in a silent cry, the way he did sometimes when Kilroy’s
cock moved so deep in him his nerves lashed back against the
grotesque pleasure of it.

He let himself drift just a
little too far to the right. There was a slight scraping sound as
the cars met. Startled, he lost his grip on the wheel. His car
knocked into Driscoll’s. A clip, nothing more. But at this speed,
and on the curved road, the other car veered and fell
behind.

Bode regained control of
the wheel, his heart pounding. In the mirror, he saw the silver car
roar up beside him again. They were both going well over
eighty.

Fuck you. Get
back.

He nudged his car to the
right again. But instead of trying to avoid him, Driscoll jerked
left. There was a horrible grating noise as the cars collided, and
suddenly the silver car careened to the right, bashing the
guardrail with the corner of its nose. It continued to skid along
the rail through the end of the curve. Bode watched in the rearview
mirror, terrified the car would go over the cliff. Instead, it
squealed across the road again, this time plowing over the shoulder
and striking the rock face with a terrific crash, coming to a rest
there in a shower of glass.

Bode slowed but kept
driving. His fear came in jolts—every few seconds he was struck
with an exuberant hope that everything would right itself. The
silver car would get back on the road and keep moving, or Bode
would find himself back at home, with the whole evening to live
over again.

He slowed further. Parked
on the shoulder just beyond the curve. The driver hadn’t gotten out
of the silver car yet. He dialed the emergency line. When the
operator asked whether there were any injuries or deaths, he grew
hysterical. “I don’t know. I don’t
know
; just get out here!” He didn’t
even know what part of the highway he was on, and shouted again
when the operator tried to ask if he could see a mile
marker.

After he hung up, he tried
to make himself get out of the car and go check on the other
driver. But he was shaking too badly.

Open the door.

Open the door.

If you’ve done something,
if you’ve hurt someone, you can at least be man enough to face
it.

He inhaled sharply and
threw the door open. Ran across the road into the glare of the
other car’s smashed headlights and knocked on the window. The
driver was slumped forward, face buried in the airbag, glass
flashing on his skin.

“
Are you okay?” Bode
yelled. “Please! Are you okay?”

He tried to open the door,
but it was locked. He sank to his knees beside the car and stayed
there, numb and unmoving, until the police strobes flashed over
him.

“
Sir, are you okay?” A hand
clasped his shoulder.

He wouldn’t open his
eyes.

“
Sir?”

A gasp, a sob, like he’d
surfaced.

Flashing lights. Two police
cars. An ambulance.

An officer helped him to
his feet.

THE HAZE

“
Bode.”

Bode stirred. Forced his eyes open.

“
Bode.” The world swam into
focus. He was on the train, in Kilroy’s car. Lying on the
bed.

“
Get up, please.” Kilroy
was pulling on his red tailcoat. “You won’t be performing
tonight.”

For a second Bode thought
he was at the Little Comet. That it was time to go onstage for a
solo. A solitary waltz. The room spun.
Why
won’t they let me perform?

And Danielle—she had one eye outlined in
black. Her parents were in the audience.

He let things blur again, and a streak of
white moved across his vision. He felt queasy.

No, he couldn’t perform. Not like this.

He tried to move his mouth, but pain seared
from his jaw all the way to his scalp. His eyelids fluttered.

Strobes, and an officer was leading him
away. Bode tried to explain that he had to go onstage, but his
mouth wouldn’t move; his lips snagged on thorns. The officer had a
hand on his back and kept urging him away, down a dark road, away
from the headlights.

Focus.

His eyelids seemed held up by threads that
would snap in an instant and send him back into darkness, into
memory.

You’re in Kilroy’s car.

There’s a show tonight. Not a dance—a
massacre.

A mutt-fest of fucks and blows.

Kilroy opened the desk drawer. Pulled out a
stapled sheaf of papers and shut the drawer. But not before Bode
saw a glint of metal and pearl inside. The pistol.

“
Up.” Kilroy stepped over
to the bed. Took Bode by the arm and put him on his feet. “Go. I’m
tired of listening to you snore. I have to be in the ring in an
hour.”

“
C’n I’v…uhhh sigrttt?” he
slurred, swaying precariously.

“
Pardon?” Kilroy said
brusquely.

Bode tried to mime smoking. “C’n I’v a
ci-ga-rette? Please?”

Kilroy took out his tin and offered Bode a
cigarette. Bode took the one in the middle.

“
C’n I ge’ uhh
lighhh?”

“
Nice try.” Kilroy steered
him to the door. Bode assumed Kilroy or Lein would escort him to
his coffin and shut him in, but Kilroy simply pushed him out and
shut the door behind him.

There had to be a catch, and as Bode
stumbled away from the car, he understood what it was. Every time
he tried to focus, his thoughts flipped like pages of a book, and
he ended up somewhere different than where he’d started. He was as
trapped as he would have been if he’d been chained.

He stopped to stare at the yard around the
train, at the many paths to freedom. His knees buckled suddenly.
Bile flooded his throat, and he threw up on the cool grass.

I won’t make it. If I try to run, I won’t
make it. Not like this.

He had to concentrate. Bring himself
back.

Valen.

The Boy of the Water’s name is Valen.

And I promised I’d get him out.

He focused on Kilroy’s car.

Get. The. Gun.

He hobbled around to the other side of the
train. Stopped to throw up again. Kilroy had given him…how many
pills? Six? Seven? He staggered on, looking up at the window of
Kilroy’s car.

Wait till he’s gone. Sneak
in.
The window was too high up. There was
nothing to climb.

Need the gun. Get the gun.

The Haze seized him again and pulled him
under. He disappeared quickly and soundlessly, like drowning in a
fog. The distant trees blurred and the grass was a cartoonishly
uniform green, and nothing mattered except doing what he’d been
trained to do.

Get on your knees. Open your mouth. Enjoy
the dance.

No. No, that was wrong.

He knelt in the grass. Coughed up clear,
thick liquid. Dampness seeped through the knees of his pants.

His hand throbbed. He closed his eyes.

Imagined music and the fire of Kilroy’s
voice. Singeing the delicate skin that stretched over the bones of
Bode’s spine. Turning the tip of each vertebra black like the
thorns of the ring stick.

Valen.

He opened his eyes and looked down at his
swollen hand. Curled and uncurled his fingers, making the pain new
again. He moved his mouth, forming silent words, feeling the thorns
lodged in his lips. If he could keep the pain here, at the
forefront, he might not lose himself.

Without fully understanding what he was
doing, he crawled to the equipment car. That door was unlocked.

It was darker now inside.
One of the wall lamps had been put out. Bode closed the door behind
him and shuffled on his hands and knees through the shadows to the
cattle stall. His thoughts riffled again, but he knew he was
supposed to be here.

He squeezed clumsily
between the rails of the gate, gritting his teeth. Straw poked the
welts on his hand, and he kept crawling until he was close enough
to smell sweat.

Valen was curled on his
side. Asleep?

Bode watched him. His
thoughts rode wisps of smoke up into the air and dissolved. His
mouth didn’t want to move. Each time he tried, pain cluttered his
muscles. He pushed forward again.

Valen jerked to life
suddenly, his unchained arm coming up—to protect himself or to
fight, Bode wasn’t sure.

“’
Ssss me…” Bode
slurred.

Valen sat up as Bode
crawled into the straw beside him. “What’s wrong?” he asked
gruffly.

Bode held out his hand. The
lamplight caught the swelling around the punctures, made the wounds
look deeper than they probably were.

Valen stared. Glanced up
and caught sight of Bode’s face, and Bode saw the horror in his
expression.

The lamp flickered. Bode
and Garland were dancing across the stage. A delightful, easy
dance, and the crowd was laughing. A tomato hit Bode in the chest
and red dripped down his skin. Dust whirled around him, and
somewhere Kilroy stood, addressing the
Laaaadies and gentlemen…

Valen reached out slowly,
chain dragging through the straw. Bode tried to pull away, but
ended up falling still, trembling in the shackles of some quiet
magic. He let Valen take his wrist and turn his palm upward.
Flinched as Valen ran his thumb lightly over a line of oozing bumps
on Bode’s skin.

Valen brought Bode’s palm
to his lips and kissed it. Anger flared in Bode over and over,
useless but unbanishable. It died each time Bode thought he might
be able to make a fire from it. Valen released his hand and took
his chin instead. His grip was gentle. A tear fell from the corner
of Bode’s eye, spilling over Valen’s thumb as Valen plucked a thorn
from Bode’s upper lip. Bode closed his eyes.

“
Shh.” The sound was so
soft, Bode wasn’t sure Valen had meant to make it. When he opened
his eyes, Valen was staring at his swollen mouth. Bode drew a deep,
shuddering breath, and Valen grimaced.

Valen quickly picked two
more thorns out and rubbed them from his fingers onto the straw.
Blood trickled over Bode’s upper lip and into his mouth.

The next thorn wouldn’t
come out. Valen gave brisk tugs, but he couldn’t dislodge it, and
the pain grew until Bode jerked away and slammed back against the
car wall.

Valen calmly held out his
hands. Bode shook his head.

But Valen leaned toward him
once more. Pressed a light kiss to a spot on his lip where he’d
already removed a thorn. Bode shut his eyes once more,
concentrating on the feel of that almost-kiss. Valen pulled again
on the stubborn thorn and managed to wiggle it out.

Valen moved his thumb
lightly over the rest of the damage. Bode sighed. All the bad
things his body had learned about touch—that it was sudden, that it
hurt, that it was about control—drained away. He wanted to kiss
Valen. Wanted to touch him. To be touched.

But then he remembered, and
he pulled away again, panic flooding him.

“
T…” He struggled to get
the words out. “Tonight. They’re gonna…make
you…p’rform.”

Valen didn’t
react.

“
I won’t le’ thmm,” Bode
insisted. “I promised you… I promised…”