Before and Afterlives (38 page)

The little old man stopped staring at the ceiling. He stared at the girl, his eyes warning signals to keep her distance, but he didn’t yell like he usually did. The girl nodded, then backed away from the window slowly. She didn’t want to r
uin his happiness.

8. Life in the Present Tense

Eliot and Roy are sitting in the rusted-out shell of a 1969 Corvette, once painted red, now rotted away to the browns of rust. The corvette rests in the back of a scrap metal junkyard on the edge of town, which Roy’s uncle owns. His uncle closes the place down every afternoon at five o’clock sharp. Now it’s nine o’clock at night, and the only light available comes from the moon, and from the orange glow on the che
rry of Roy’s cigarette.

Eliot is holding a fifth of Jim Beam whiskey in his right hand. The bottle is half empty. He lifts it to his lips and drinks. The whiskey slides down his throat, warm and bitter, and explodes in his stomach, heating his body, flushing his skin bright red. He and Roy started drinking over an hour ago, taking shots, daring each other to take another, then a
nother, until they were both good and drunk. It’s the first time for Eliot.

“We need to find something to do,” Roy says, exhaling a plume of smoke. “Jeez, this’d be better if we’d at least have a radio or something.”

“It’s all right,” Eliot says, trying to calm Roy down before he works himself up. He and Roy have been hanging out together relentlessly for the past few weeks. Here’s one thing Eliot’s discovered about Roy: He gets angry over little things fast. Things that aren’t really problems. Like not having music in the junkyard while they drink. Roy’s never satisfied with what’s available. His mind constantly seeks out what could make each moment better than it is, rather than focusing on the moment itself. Roy lives in the future imperfect, Eliot’s realized, while Eliot mainly lives in the present tense.

“I hate this town,” Roy says, taking the bottle from Eliot. He sips some of the whiskey, then takes a fast and hard gulp. “Ahh,” he hisses. He turns to Eliot and smiles, all teeth. His smile is almost perfect, except for one of his front teeth is pushed out a li
ttle further than the other, slightly crooked. But it suits him somehow, Eliot thinks.

“I don’t know,” Eliot shrugs. “I kind of like it here. It’s be
tter than being up on that stupid mountain with my parents. They’re enough to drive you up a wall.”

“Or to drink,” says Roy, lifting the bottle again, and they both laugh.

“Yeah,” Eliot says, smiling back at Roy. He leans back to rest his head against the seat and looks up through the rusted-out roof of the Corvette, where the stars pour through, reeling and circling above them, as though some invisible force is stirring them up. “It’s not like this in Boston,” Eliot says. “Most of the time you can’t even see the stars because of the city lights.”

“In Boston,” Roy mimics, his voice whiney and filled with a slight sneer. “All you talk about is Boston. You know, Bo
ston isn’t everything. It’s not the only place in the world.”

“I know,” Eliot says. “I was just trying to say exactly that. You know, how I can’t see the stars there like I can here?”

“Oh,” Roy says, and looks down into his lap.

Eliot pats him on the shoulder and tells him not to get all sad. “We’re having fun,” Eliot says. “Everything’s great.”

Roy agrees and then Eliot goes back to staring at the stars above them. The night air feels cold on his whiskey-warmed skin, and he closes his eyes for a moment to feel the slight breeze on his face. Then he suddenly feels hands cupping his cheeks, the skin rough and grainy, and when Eliot opens his eyes, Roy’s face floats before him, serious and intent. Roy leans in and they’re lips meet briefly. Something electric uncoils through Eliot’s body, like a live wire, dangerous and intense. He feels as if all the gaps and cracks in his being are stretching out to the horizon, filling up with light.

“Are you all right?” Roy asks, and Eliot realizes that he’s sha
king.

“Yes,” Eliot says, so softly and quietly that the word evap
orates before it can be heard. He nods instead and, before they kiss again, Roy brushes his thumb over Eliot’s cheek and says, “Don’t worry. We’re friends. It’s nothing to worry about, right?”

Eliot can’t help but begin worrying, though. He already knows some of the things that will come to pass because of this. He will contemplate suicide, he will contemplate mu
rder, he will hate himself for more reasons than usual—not just because he doesn’t want to be away from his family, but because he has turned out to be the sort of boy who kisses other boys, and who wants a son like that? Everything seems like a dream right now, though, so sudden, and maybe it is a dream, nothing more than that. Eliot is prepared to continue sleepwalking.

He nods to answer again, his voice no longer functioning properly. Then Roy presses close again, his breath thick with whiskey and smoke. His body above Eliot blocks out the light from the stars.

9. Sad Alone

In the woods at night, the girl danced to the songs of frogs throating, crickets chirring, wind snaking through leaves, the gurgle of the nearby creek. A happy marriage these sounds made, so the girl danced, surrounded by fireflies and moths.

She could still see the fire through the spaces between the trees, her family’s campsite near the cabin, so she was safe. She wasn’t doing anything wrong—she was following the rules—so the mother shouldn’t come running to pull her back to the fire to sit with her and the father. He was back again, but he didn’t seem to be there. No
t
reall
y
there, that is. He didn’t look at the girl during dinner, only stared into the fire before him, slouching. He didn’t open his mouth for any bubbles to come out.

Now that it was night, the little old man was back again. This had become a regular event. In the early evening, after dinner, the little old man would leave, promising to be back before su
nset at nine-thirty, or else he’d spend the night with his new friend. This time, though, the little old man had come back with his new friend riding along on a bike beside him, saying, “This is Roy. He’ll be spending the night.”

The girl missed the little old man when he was gone now, but she didn’t dwell on this too much. The little old man no longer glowered at her, no longer gripped her hand too tight like the mother did; he no longer looked angry all the time, so she fo
rgave his absence. He was happy, the girl realized, and in realizing the little old man’s happiness and the distance between them that went along with it, she realized her own happiness as well. She didn’t miss him enough to be sad about his absence, unlike the father, who made the mother sad when he was gone, who made everyone miss him in a way that made them want to cry or shout in his face.

This moth, the girl thought, stopping her dance for the m
oment. If she could find this moth, the moth that the father was looking for, perhaps he would come back and be happy, and make the mother happy, and then everyone could be happy together, instead of sad alone. She smiled, proud of her idea, and turned to the fireflies and moths that surrounded her to ask the question:

“Can anyone help me?”

To which the insects all responded at once, their voices a chorus, asking, “What can we do? Are you all right? What? What?”

So the girl began to speak.

10. Each in their Own Place

Dr. Carroll is sitting by the campfire, staring at his two booted feet. Eliot’s mother is saying, “This week it will happen. You can’t get down on yourself. It’s only been a month. You have the rest of the summer still. Don’t worry.”

Eliot’s mother is cooking barbecued beans in a pot over the campfire. The flames lick at the bottom of the pan. Dr. Ca
rroll shakes his head, looking distraught. There are new wrinkles in his forehead, and also around his mouth.

This has been a regular event over the past few weeks, El
iot’s father returning briefly for supplies and rest, looking depressed and slightly damaged, growing older-looking before Eliot’s eyes. Eliot feels bad for his father, but he’d also like to say, I told you so. That’s just too mean, though, he’s decided. The Old Eliot would have said that, the New Eliot won’t.

The New Eliot is a recent change he’s been experiencing, and it’s because of Roy. Roy’s changed him somehow wit
hout trying, and probably without even wanting to make Eliot into someone new in the first place. Eliot supposes this is what happens when you meet a person with whom you can truly communicate. The New Eliot will always try to be nice and not so world-weary. He will not say mean things to his parents or sister. He will love them and think about their needs, because his no longer seem so bad off.

Roy says, “Is it always like this?” He and Eliot are sitting on the swing in the cabin’s front porch. The swing’s chains squeal above their heads as they rock. This is Roy’s first visit to the place. El
iot’s tried to keep him away from his family, because even though he’s made the choice to be nice, he’s still embarrassed by them a little. Also, he’d rather have Roy to himself.

That’s another thing that’s come between them. It happened a couple of weeks back. Roy and Eliot had been hanging out t
ogether, getting into minor trouble. They’d spray-painted their names on an overpass; egged Roy’s neighbor’s car; toilet-papered the high school Roy attends; drank whiskey until they’ve puked. It’s been a crazy summer, the best Eliot can remember really, and he doesn’t want it to ever stop. Usually he goes to computer camp or just sits in front of the TV playing video games until school starts back up. Besides the vandalism and the drunken bouts, Eliot thinks he has fallen in love. Something like that. He and Roy have become like a couple, without using those words, without telling anyone else.

“My father’s like Sisyphus,” Eliot says, and Roy gives him this puzzled look.

“What did you say?”

“Sisyphus,” Eliot repeats. “He was this guy from myth who was doomed by the gods to roll a rock up a mountain, but it keeps rolling back down when he gets to the top, so he has to roll it up again, over and over. Camus says it’s the definition of the human condition, that myth. My mother teaches a class on it.”

“Oh.” Roy shakes his head. “Well, whatever.”

Tha
t
whateve
r
is another thing that’s come between them. Lately Roy says it whenever he doesn’t understand Eliot, and doesn’t care to try. It makes Eliot want to punch Roy right in the face. Eliot has taken to saying it as well, to see if it pisses off Roy as much, but whenever he says, “Whatever,” Roy doesn’t seem to give a damn. He just keeps on talking without noticing Eliot’s attempts to make him angry.

The fireflies have come out for the evening, glowing on and off in the night mist. Crickets chirp, rubbing their legs toget
her. An owl calls out its own name in the distance. Dawn is running between trees, her figure a silhouette briefly illuminated by the green glow of the fireflies, a shadow in the woods. Eliot still hasn’t introduced her to Roy, and Roy hasn’t asked why she acts so strangely, which makes Eliot think maybe he should explain before Roy says something mean about her, not understanding her condition. Dawn irritates Eliot, but he still doesn’t want other people saying nasty things about her.

“She’s autistic,” Eliot says all of a sudden, pre-empting Roy’s remarks. He pushes against the porch floorboards to make them swing faster, so Roy can’t get off this ride too quick.

Roy doesn’t seem shocked, though, or even interested in Dawn’s erratic behavior. And why should he be? Eliot thinks. Roy himself has told Eliot much weirder things about his family. He told Eliot that first day, over an ice cream at the gas station, that he lived with his grandparents because his mother was an alcoholic, and his father was who-knows-where. That his mother would fight anyone in town, even Roy when she was drunk. That his grandfather was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, that he had found the white robes and the pointy hood in his grandfather’s closet. That his grandmother used to sit him down at night before bed and read to him for a half an hour out of the Bible, and that afterwards she’d tell him he was born in sin, and should pray for forgiveness. It frightens Eliot a little, and makes him shiver, thinking of what it must be like to be Roy. He only hopes Roy’s secret-sharing doesn’t require an admission of his own private weirdnesses. He’s not ready for that.

“Let’s go inside,” Roy says, putting his feet down flat on the porch. The swing suddenly comes to a halt. Roy stands and Eliot follows him into the cabin, already knowing what’s going to ha
ppen. It’s a vice of Roy’s, fooling around in places where they might get caught.

We won’t get caught here, Eliot thinks. His parents are ou
tside by the heat of the fire, involved in their own problems. They won’t bother to come inside the cabin now. Roy leads Eliot to the pink-quilted cot and they lay down together, and begin to kiss.

Roy’s lips are larger than Eliot’s. Eliot feels like his lips aren’t big enough. They’re too thin and soft, like rose petals. Roy, he thinks, would probably like his lips bigger and rougher, chapped even. He can feel the cracks in Roy’s lips, can taste Roy’s cigarettes. Roy’s stubble scratches Eliot’s cheeks in this way that makes him crazy. Then Roy is pulling off Eliot’s shirt, kissing El
iot’s stomach, unbuttoning Eliot’s shorts. Eliot closes his eyes. He mouths the words
,
Someone is in love with me
.
He is in the habit of mouthing sentences silently when he wants what he is saying to be true.