Trailer Trash (15 page)

“So you’re gonna go in there, find the money Cody earned working after school, and based on that, you’re gonna say he’s a thief?”

“No.” Officer Bradford shook his head, holding up a hand to calm her down. “I’m not here to lay blame—”

“Bullshit. That’s exactly what you’re here to do.”

“Ma’am—”

“Enough. We’re done talking.” She pointed to the door. “You want to search any part of my house, you come back with a warrant. But we both know you ain’t gettin’ one based on the word of two drug dealers, so you can just turn around and go right back out the way you came.”

Nate’s dad scowled. He clearly didn’t like being told what to do, but he also didn’t have any other options. He left without saying another word, and Cody’s mom closed the door behind him, latching the dead bolt as if he might try to break in next.

“Mom,” Cody said, his heart still pounding, “I didn’t—”

“Of course you didn’t. If you were gonna resort to stealin’, I imagine you would’ve done it a long time ago, not waited till you had an actual job.”

“Maybe we should have let him search. I mean, he isn’t gonna find anything that belonged to Pete or Kathy in my room.”

“To hell with him.” She pulled a beer from the fridge and cracked it open. “I’m sick of them actin’ like you’re some kind of criminal when you ain’t done nothing wrong.”

She returned to the couch and her static-filled TV, and Cody took that as his cue to return to his homework.

Nate’s dad hadn’t come about what happened in the field. That was a relief. And Cody’s mom had stood up for him. That had been nice too. But he couldn’t help but think that if he hadn’t already ruined everything with Nate, the visit from the police would have put an end to their friendship anyway.

Nate’s entire week was miserable. His dad was starting to harass him about college. Nate had applications for several universities in the Chicago area stuffed into a folder in his desk drawer. Most of them needed to be sent in by the first of February, but he hadn't filled out a single one. He had a hard time picturing himself at any of them, and he couldn’t seem to focus enough to crank out the required paperwork and entrance essays.

He had a hard time focusing on anything but his disturbing sexual problems, really.

Cody continued to avoid him, and Nate did the same, taking refuge with the Grove residents. Homecoming was less than a month away. Back in Texas, his homecoming had been in early October, but at Walter Warren High School, it was held in late November, the weekend before Thanksgiving. The hallways and classrooms were abuzz over who was going with who, and who would be crowned king and queen. Flowers and balloons appeared daily as boys made their moves, inviting whichever girls they fancied. Nate sat still and silent in social studies while his so-called friends joked and laughed about what they’d wear and whether or not they’d be able to sneak in alcohol. He couldn’t bring himself to look over at Cody, but he didn’t miss the glares Logan threw his way every time they passed in the hallway.

“You know a kid named Cody?” his dad asked him on Tuesday night. “Is that who you were hanging around with at the end of the summer?”

Nate’s heart seemed to miss a beat. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. “Yeah. Why?”

“I don’t want you seeing that boy anymore.”

The phrase “seeing that boy” felt loaded with innuendo. Nate scrambled, wondering if his dad somehow knew what had happened. “Why?”

“You don’t need to be friends with kids like him, that’s all.”

Kids like him.
That phrase felt loaded as well.

“Don’t worry,” Nate said, feeling as if his heart might break. “Cody and I haven’t really been friends since school started, anyway.”

It was true enough that their friendship was over, but no matter how hard he tried, Nate couldn’t stop thinking about the things Cody had said, or about how good it had felt to let Cody touch him. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. He was supposed to think about girls when he masturbated, not boys. One evening, he locked himself in his bedroom and pulled out the
Playboy
magazine he’d stolen from a friend’s house back in Texas. He refused to let himself think about Cody as he did it. He focused on those beautiful women as he stroked, forcing himself to imagine it was one of them touching him.

It worked, more or less.

He felt better after his orgasm, although his hands shook as he slid the magazine back between the mattress and the box spring. He knew, in some deep corner of his mind, that he didn’t enjoy looking at it as much as some of his friends back home had.

Maybe it was too clean. Maybe the women were just too polished, or too refined. Maybe if he had one of those
other
magazines—the ones his friend Mike had told him about during a sleepover, his voice a hushed whisper as he described how those women looked between their legs—maybe then Nate would find them more exciting. He’d never seen that part of a girl before, not counting the cartoonish black-and-white drawing in his health textbook back in ninth grade. The most he’d seen was the triangle of hair up front. Maybe if he could see those secret folds of flesh, he’d react the way he was supposed to. Maybe seeing those ladies with their legs spread would make him as anxious and aroused as his friends.

He had to find out. He had to find a way to get one of those magazines. Or . . .

There was another possibility. One he was almost afraid to think about, but which couldn’t be denied.

Maybe he needed to see the real thing. He was almost eighteen now, after all. At least half of his friends back home had lost their virginity already, and he was pretty sure everybody from the Grove was more experienced than him. Losing his virginity here in Wyoming seemed a lot easier than it had in Texas.

He tried to picture it. Maybe in the backseat of his Mustang with Jennifer Parker or Christine Lucero. He tried to imagine kissing one of them, unbuttoning her jeans, sliding his hand inside to explore that warm place between her thighs. It was an exciting thought. He was relieved at the gentle twinge in his groin.
See?
he told himself triumphantly.
Women turn me on too!

He wondered how it would feel to spread their legs, to put the tip of his erection in that place—would he even know where to put it? Well, it couldn’t be too difficult to find the right spot, could it?—and push slowly inside.

It had to be wonderful. It had to be life-changing, given the way the boys in both Texas and Wyoming talked. It had to be far better than his hand, of that much he was sure. After all, that spot—that place, that secret little opening he’d never seen and could barely even imagine—had been designed, either by God or by biology or both, to wrap around a man’s penis. It had been created to give pleasure, and then to give life.

And Cody? Well, Cody didn’t have any of that, did he? Cody would look—

Nate stopped himself there. Cody was male, and that was all there was to it. Nate wouldn’t think about whether or not Cody’s penis looked any different than his own. After all, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t think about if Cody’s might be bigger or smaller or somehow shaped different. He wouldn’t think about how it might feel to wrap his fingers around it—

Nope. Not thinking about that at all.

It was better to think about girls. Better to contemplate his chances of finally losing his virginity.

Luck seemed to be with him, because the following Monday, a week after the embarrassing encounter with Cody in Jim’s cow pasture, Christine found him. They were between third and fourth period, and Nate was pulling his English book from his locker when she suddenly appeared next to him.

“Are you busy Friday night? My mom will be in Cheyenne for the weekend, so Larry and I are having some friends over. You wanna stop by?”

Did he? Not really. He and Larry Lucero hadn’t ever been friends, and things certainly hadn’t improved after Nate’s one trip to the bowling alley, but Christine’s invitation seemed like a sign.

This was exactly the kind of opportunity he’d been hoping for.

“I’d love to.”

She seemed to smile the rest of the week. She waved at him and giggled with her friends every time they passed in the halls, and Nate tried to convince himself he’d done the right thing. Christine was nice. She was friendly. She was pretty, he supposed, even if she wore a bit too much makeup and her teeth weren’t quite straight. She also wasn’t from Orange Grove, and that seemed important for no reason he could put into words.

And everybody knew she was easy.

This last thought gave him pause each time. He wanted to lose his virginity, yes, but he couldn’t stop hearing Cody’s words in his head.
“Show me a girl who can’t say no, I’ll show you a girl who’s spent too many birthdays staring out the window, waiting for her daddy to show.”

It wasn’t as if Nate intended to force himself on her. On the contrary, he was desperately hoping she’d be the one to make the first move, because he wasn’t sure he could. But even assuming she was willing, Nate worried he’d be taking advantage of her.

Maybe it was wrong. Maybe his plan was stupid. Maybe going to her house in hopes of having sex with her was the worst thing he’d ever done. It certainly gave him a dark, sinking feeling, like he was letting somebody down. It made him feel dirty in a way that was new. Masturbation, pornography, his secret thoughts about both women and Cody—none of those things made him feel as icky as the thought of trying to seduce Christine.

Well, sex or not, he’d already told her he’d be there. He wouldn’t back out of it now. And besides, maybe it would be fun. It’d be one Friday night he didn’t have to spend avoiding the Grove clique, or going along with them only to wish he hadn’t, or wishing he could spend it with Cody.

No. He wasn’t thinking about Cody.

That’s what he told himself all week, at any rate. But no matter how hard he tried not to think about Cody, he failed. Night after night as he lay in bed, he found his mind straying to that forbidden, shameful possibility. He was obsessed with the idea of kissing Cody again. Of touching him and being touched by him. Of seeing him come. On Friday morning, Nate gave in as he masturbated under the hot spray of his morning shower and let himself imagine Cody. He imagined it was Cody’s hand stroking him. He imagined Cody there, in the shower with him, and the result was undeniable. He was glad his dad had already left for work, because he was sure he’d cried out at the end. His knees feeling like rubber, his body shuddering over and over, his loins still aching.

Jesus, there something wrong with him.

He wondered who he could talk to. His family didn’t go to church, so there was no youth pastor or confession booth. There was no counselor at school he trusted. He sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up with his father.

His mother?

Maybe. He kept that possibility tucked away in the back of his mind. He only talked to his mother once a week—always on Wednesday evenings, always for exactly twenty minutes. His dad was usually on the other side of the room, trying his best to look like he wasn’t listening. But maybe Nate could ask his dad to leave the room. Maybe he could tell him how he needed to talk to his mom in private.

He hated the idea, but as lame as it was, it was still the best one he had.

Nate spent the rest of Friday morning contemplating lies he could tell Christine to get out of going to her house.
I’m sick. I’m grounded. I have too much homework.

But at the end of the day, when Christine stopped by his locker and said, “See you tonight?” Nate choked on the words, his heart pounding. His need to know if Christine could turn him on as much as Cody was suddenly stronger than his conscience.

“Yeah,” he said. “See you tonight.”

Christine lived near Cody, in the trailer park, but in the more respectable portion where tenants had actual lawns with grass, and wind chimes hanging on their front porches. By the time Nate arrived a little after eight, the party was already in full swing. Van Halen blasted from the stereo while at least a dozen teenagers milled about inside the cramped trailer.

Larry Lucero scowled at Nate, but Christine hugged him, and Jimmy handed him a red Solo cup full of beer. Nate drank it gratefully and let Christine take his hand and begin leading him through the party.