Dream Boy (12 page)

So Roy
sets out walking east and everyone follows. The sun hangs high enough that the
forest is full of light; and the peaceful afternoon expands. For Nathan it is
as if he has walked out of Friday into some ceaseless stillness, a timelessness
of superior quality. The shadow of Dad vanishes. They march through bright
colored splendors, high leafy vaults, waves of vine and frond. The red and
silver maples have turned colors, but the oaks and pines are still retaining
their green. The images of the other boys shimmer against the fervid backdrop.
Burke's bronze arms slide among the leaves, his dense body careens through the
dusk, heavier than its surroundings; Randy's rounder figure follows in Burke's
wake, his golden hair sometimes disappearing behind Burke's back. Nathan
occasionally turns back to study the two, but mostly watches Roy's smooth gait,
the movement of his shoulders beneath the backpack, the gloss of dusk in his
jet hair. Nathan trails him like a lesser moon.

It is a
kind of church, requiring reverence. This revelation comes to Nathan as he is
gazing from side to side, guarding the delight and freedom of the moment as if
they must be protected carefully in order to preserve them. He refuses to allow
happiness to show in his expression, cultivating the careful indifference of
Roy, the swagger of his hips, the practiced ease through and under branches.
They are swimming through golden light, traveling through a green and gold
leafed choir.

Down a
drastic slope of hillside strewn with uprooted trees flows a creek through a
dark cut of land, the creek swathed in Joey and cinnamon fern, overhung with
shreds of Spanish moss. Along the flow of creek Roy leads them, where the moss
is lush and the ground soft for walking. Nathan is careful of his silence here,
where fallen branches threaten to break with a snap, where dry leaves crackle
like bones. He has lost any sense of time, they might have walked for leagues.
Only birdcalls and the caucusing of insects can be heard. Sunset threatens
before they halt for the night, and Roy has really pushed them too far, as if
to put distance between them and the farm. They scramble to set up camp before
dark.

Roy
builds a cook fire, digging a shallow pit and ringing it with stones. The fire
bums like a golden shrub. A thin thread of smoke wraps round and round itself
and climbs. Warmth creeps up Nathan's arm. Roy grins. “You look
happy”

Nathan
nods in a small motion. “I like the fire.”

“Me
too.”

Burke
and Randy have set their own tent near a shower of red maple, a splayed branch
like an overhanging mist; they move awkwardly with bent elbows, scowling as
they unpack for the evening. The dark creek flows past, and blood colored
leaves corkscrew slowly toward the sea.

The
woods are nearly dark but for the circle of the fire. When preparations for
supper bring Randy within the perimeter, in the dregs of daylight Nathan
searches out a path to the creek and stands at the edge, his reflection
shimmering in the glassy surface. The songs of night birds have begun, added to
the throb of crickets, the pulsing of tree frogs, the nearly human sobbing of a
wildcat. Soon smells of frying bacon travel from the campfire, where Randy and
Roy have begun cooking, a scene like alchemy, the two figures lost in swirling
smoke and spark showers. As if he feels Nathan's watching like a touch, Roy
raises his head directly to Nathan across the glade. Their shared smile is a
secret only they can see. The space between them has grown strong, suddenly. A
room in which they are always walking.

The
supper of small talk passes, bacon wrapped in white bread, water from the
creek, cheese. Nathan washes the dishes afterward, kneeling by the creek bed.
Neither stars nor moon can be seen tonight; dark clouds are rolling overhead.
The pitch of insect and frog song rises, then the wind picks up the note and
out sings everything. Gusts whip the campfire and towers of sparks rise briefly
over the heads of the boys. They are listening to the forest, no one is
speaking. Smoke from the fire flies toward the murky branches, vanishing within
the tangles. Tonight the world is wide and has a clean, sharp smell; the
feeling of open space overwhelms Nathan and he flares his nostrils at the
change of air, the taste of lightning. Roy stands with his hands in his pockets
and his head thrown back, drinking the world through closed lids. He is
breathing with a strong, steady beat. “I'm glad we came out here,” he
says, to no one in particular, and Burke grunts at him and Randy echoes his
words.

Burke
pulls out a little bottle and passes it around. Roy sips from it, and so does
Randy. Nathan sniffs the whiskey and passes it back to Burke, who sneers.
“Don't want none for yourself?”

“No.”

“What's
the matter?” “Nothing's the matter.”

Burke
swallows, then caps the bottle. He stares at Roy, at Roy's face in the fire.
“You want some more?” “Not right now.”

Burke
shrugs. “Just say when, podner.” “It's been a lot of people
killed out in these woods.” Roy smiles at Nathan, across the fire.       

“Don't
start this shit, Roy.” Randy takes the bottle from Burke.

Burke
laughs.

“I
mean it. It was two men killed out here this summer, wad'n it?” Roy nods
to Burke. “That's right. Two of them.”

“Them
two suckers from Blue Springs. They found one of them hanging upside down with
his nuts cut off. You 'member, Burke?”

“You're
full of shit,” Randy says, “there wad'n anything cut off of
them.”

“That's
not what the deputy sheriff told my dad. They found one of them men hanging
upside down, and his nuts had been sliced off at the root, and his eyes popped
open from hanging upside down like that, and he bled to death. They still don't
know who done it.”

“And
they never found his nuts, neither,” Burke hooted, laughing.

“Nope,
they never did.”

“You
two sonofabitches better shut this shit up.”

The
gale of laughter at Randy's expense precedes silence, and the bottle goes round
again. Roy drinks. “There was one man who was killed out here one time,
they chopped his head up with a hatchet, so bad you couldn't even tell who he
was, and my dad used to see him sometimes in our back fields, still walking
around like he was looking for something. He would come right to the edge of
the woods and look out, and that was all he would do. Then he would go back and
look somewheres else.”

 Randy
refuses to respond. Arms crossed, he stares upward into the shadows of
branches.

“You
know a lot of stories like that,” Burke says.

Roy
takes this as praise, pleased with himself. “What do you say, Randy? You
want to hear some more ghost stories?”

“Suit
yourself.” Tightlipped.

“Tell
that one about the bloody red hand,” Burke says, “that's the one I
like, you know, with the mansion, and the knocking at the window, and
all.”

Roy
sips from the flask again, and stirs up the fire. Leaning back on his arms, he
studies the fire and recites his story, about the man in Somersville who killed
his girlfriend's husband and chopped off his hand, only to be pursued
thereafter for the remainder of his days by a Bloody Red Hand, which could
enter through the window of even the most secure chamber, after knocking on the
window three times first, and then entering and creeping across the windowsill
and strangling its victims with bloody red fingers. Killing the killer's most
precious relations one at a time before finding the killer himself at last.
“And the police have that whole story right down in their files in
Somersville, only if you ask them about it, they act like it never
happened.”

He
tells the story of the Devil's Stamping Ground, a place in the woods where the
Devil comes to dance, you can see his hoof prints baked into the ground, and if
you sleep too close to the circle, you're never seen again.

Then he
told the story about the time a driver stopped to pick up a hitchhiker near
Goldsboro, and she told him who she was and said she was on her way back home
from a dance when her boyfriend had car trouble. And her name was Sweet Sue and
she seemed a little dazed, like something had happened to her, like maybe her
date really dumped her on the side of the road, and so the driver took her
home, to this address she gave him in Goldsboro. And when the driver parked the
car and went around to help her out, she wasn't there. So he went and knocked
on the door of the house, and he told the story of what had happened to this
old woman who came to the door, wrapped up in her housecoat. And she told him
that she once had a daughter named Sue, and she died in a car accident twenty
years ago, on the night of her high school prom. And now and then somebody like
the driver would stop at their door and tell the story of how Sue was still
trying to get somebody to bring her home, after all that time. “And I know
that's a true story for a fact, because my Uncle Heben lived next door to them
people, and he was there sometimes when people would try to bring their daughter
home.”

In the
end, Randy listens like the others, and they pass the bottle back and forth
while Roy tells every ghost story he knows. Till the wind redoubles, and Nathan
glimpses the movement beyond the highest branches, the roiling of cloud bottoms
across heaven.

“Listen
to that,” Randy says.

“Storm
coming up.” Roy points to the south. “Wind changed right after
supper. Did you feel it?”

“You
mean it's going to rain?” Randy asks. “Yep.”

Burke
says, “Fuck.”

“My
tent is dry, and I got it on high ground for the night. I don't know about
you.”

Burke
glares at Roy for a moment. Then, silent, he lurches up from the ground and
slouches off to check.

A
moment later his deep voice booms for Randy, and they move their tent to a
better vantage. Roy and Nathan follow to help.

The
coursing air is a continual singing now, and the hollow sound sends a chill
through Nathan. They move the tent quickly and Nathan soon finds himself at the
creek again, staring into the darkness and listening. The keen fresh scent of
the storm sweeps over the forest, over the boys and their small tents. The
tattered fire is blowing in the rocks, bravely sustaining.

From
behind, Roy says, “I hope you see something in that creek, you stare at it
enough.” His tone is joking, but there is a serious shade.

“I
was listening to the storm come up, I wasn't really looking at anything.”

Momentary
nearness allows the heat of his shoulder to cross to Nathan's. They watch each
other sidewise, they inhale. Wind drowns out thought and speech at once. A
crashing. “Listen to that. Wild.”

“It
sounds like somebody's voice,” Nathan says. “I can almost hear
words.”      

They
watch each other. Roy smiles. He almost reaches, almost embraces. But at the
last moment his face clouds and the smile softens.

A drop
of rain crashes against Nathan's forehead, another on his shoulder, and around
them leaves are shuddering with the impact. Roy is watching Nathan fervently.
“You aren't scared out here, are you?”

“No.”

But Roy
goes on watching, and Nathan blushes.

Voices
summon them from the campfire. Burke and Randy are waiting, Roy and Nathan
return, as the fall of rain builds to steady percussion. “Listen to that
wind,” Burke says. “It sounds like some girl crying her eyes
out.”

“It
sounds like your girlfriend crying because she has to stay home tonight,”
Randy says.

The
phrase pleases Burke visibly. “Hey Roy, what's Evelyn doing tonight? Is
she sitting home? Or did she find somebody else to take her out?”

Roy
studies his hands, attempting to control his expression. “She's home with
her parents where she belongs.”

“You
sure about that?”

“Ain't
none of your business what I'm sure about.” Brow darkening, he watches
Burke with a warning expression. Scattering rain has begun to flatten his dark
curls.

Burke
grins and gives Nathan a wink. “I guess I heard that.”

“This
rain sucks,” Randy says, eyeing the upper tiers of forest, where the air
is filling with a gray wash. His voice disperses the sudden tension. “I
sure wanted to sit around this fire for a while.”

“Well
you can sit around some wet rocks if you want to, but that ain't going to be a
fire but another minute or two.” Roy eyes the hissing of water drops in
the bright embers. “I'm about ready to crawl in that tent. I'll see you
guys in the morning.”

Signaling
Nathan with a glance, Roy heads to his tent. Randy has turned to do the same,
leaving Burke alone in the clearing, rain plastering his shirt to his skin; he
watches the fire with strange ferocity. Nathan follows Roy but turns at the
last moment, as if summoned to do so. Burke is staring at Roy, his outline
blurred by rain. From a pocket Burke pulls the narrow bottle a last time,
uncaps it, drinks, licks his lips and pockets the bottle again. Still watching
Roy. Nathan hurries forward.

Roy
waits at the edge of the thicket, with rain scattering on the low underbrush
and draining through the carpet of pine needles. Vague light encases him in a
kind of cloud. He welcomes Nathan onto the high ground, into the trees; the
rain swells in the air and both boys are wet when they crawl into the tent. Nathan
can feel Roy breathing. They kneel, side by side, in the canvas darkness, with
the mansion of dusk and rain collapsing around them.

They
dry themselves with towels. Roy lies along his sleeping blanket, resting his
head in the crook of his arm. Nathan hovers, they wait. Roy reaches for Nathan,
pulls him down.

The
scattering of rain becomes a rhythm, and their breathings merge with the easy
syncopated sound. Nathan closes his eyes, pretends the tent is a cave, pretends
they are in a time a thousand years ago, or farther, they have traveled into
prehistory, they are alone in the world. Roy's face is like a light in the
darkness, luminous from within like flowers at dusk, and when he exhales he
voices the slightest note of music. His moist breath runs down the nape of
Nathan's neck, curling along the delicate spine. Peace runs through Nathan like
currents of water, his body throbs with safety, and they seem so joined in that
moment that Nathan can feel the pulse of happiness in Roy as well.