The Art Of The Heart (4 page)

These sexually charged portraits of his
superhero were as close as Zac would come to knowing what sex was like. The touch of another human. He created his own masturbatory fantasies in black lead on white parchment. He would dream and draw and then dream within the drawing. His kisses were imaginary, and he feared that was all he would ever have.

In his eighteenth year his family shared Thanksgiving with the
McHenrys. Mr. McHenry had an unfortunate accident with some farm equipment and had lost his left hand. His family was struggling that year to stay above bad debts because of the hospital expenses. He was on the mend, but the two McHenry boys’ work had doubled because of the tragedy. The Westons had a good year and they decided to have the celebration at Cloverfield. They provided all the food and fixins and the McHenry girls would do the cooking. There would be two turkeys, two types of stuffing, ten pies: five apple, five pumpkin. There was enough cranberry sauce to feed the whole town of Sweetwater. On this day there would be no discussion of hardships, only the counting of blessings and the appreciation of friends.

Zac looked forward to the holiday because of the proximity it afforded him to his fair-haired hero. The night before, he lay soaking in the tub, fantasizing the pictures he would draw from memories of the next day
. Afterwards he stared in the mirror. His face had filled out some with age and the spray of freckles on his nose and cheeks had faded. His lashes had darkened around his two different colored eyes, but his brows were still pale, almost invisible. He was still thin, but taller. But masculine genes and farm work had added a bit here and there to his muscle structure. His thighs were slender but strong and he had a slight ass that suited his height. His nipples were the shade of pallid roses. The only real color he had was on his arms and neck from working in the sun. He pushed back his long hair and brushed his teeth while still gazing at his reflection. He wondered if he’d be attractive in anyone’s eyes. It saddened him to think he might go a lifetime and never be someone’s reverie. It was okay for right now, he told himself. Days were short and nights filled with dreams. He would manage. He’d made it eighteen years.

His finger traced the outline of his lips and tickled them. It made him wriggle his nose. Was that what a kiss felt like? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine it as he cupped his palm like a puppet and practiced the motion on the imaginary lips. It would be better feeling their breath and warmth and nearness. But more than that, it would be nice to know and feel that someone wanted him. That was a sense he could not pretend, or feel even in his imagination
. He had never even held another person’s hand other than his parents. That night he paused in the door of his bedroom before turning out his lamp; looking at his bed. He had a lifetime to look forward to seeing it empty before he crawled into it. But he could draw what he wanted to see…in the drawings it could be real and he would shed no tears for himself.

The day of Thanksgiving began early with the arrival of the McHenry family. The two mothers and four sisters began work in the kitchen. The smell of food cooking would be all through the house for the entire day. The five male members would be outside. The fathers were drinking iced tea and talking farm stuff. Mr. McHenry still waved his arms as he conversed, the wrapped stump of his missing hand moving like the appendage was still there. Rory and Dale were playing horseshoes on the lawn near the driveway. Zac sat by himself on the swing under the massive limb of an old oak, head bent, peering through his bangs at Rory. The day was a warm one for November, and while the two McHenry boys wore shorts and button down short sleeve shirts, Zac was still in long jeans. Near noon, the visiting boys were out of their shirts and playing touch football. No one had disturbed Zac the entire morning. It was easy to suppose that he preferred to be alone. He
’d made no effort himself to join them in conversation in any way at the breakfast table. He decided it would be a good opportunity to draw. He brought down his sketchbook and pencils to the swing.

The McHenry boys had paused to sip a cold bottle of soda. Dale sat on the porch in front of the open front door where the breeze was blowing strongest through the Weston home, carrying the tantalizing smell of their upcoming feast to the front lawn. Rory leaned against the house conversing with the two older men about the new tractors they
’d recently seen in a farm equipment magazine in the general store.

Zac swung slowly back and forth on the swing, head bent low and hunched over his sketchbook. He
’d just begun drawing Eros moving ghostlike into the room of a sleeping boy. One glance would allow anyone to recognize that it was his own room, his bed...and the boy was Zac himself. The figure was gliding downward upon him readying an arrow from his quiver in his bow. The picture would be detailed exactly, down to the cowboy print on his pajamas.

“
That’s really good there, Two-Tone,” the voice came from the side of the swing and surprised him. So intent was he on the sketch he hadn’t heard anyone approach. He didn’t have to look up to know it was Rory. His chest felt a swift stab of thrill and panic. His mouth went suddenly dry. He could see the tanned legs stretching downward out of the shorts, the feet in the worn red Converse basketball shoes standing inches from him. He could sense Rory bending close over his shoulder. A self-consciousness consumed him and his skin blazed with the burn of embarrassment.

“
May I?” Rory’s hand reached down close to him to get the sketchbook and lifted it from his lap. He knelt down next to Zac’s swing near his legs to study the picture. “This is pretty amazing!” he said as he flipped the page.

Zac felt himself growing horribly anxious and tongue-tied because of the attention to his drawings. The sketchbook was private and he was afraid his secret would reveal itself in its pages, but he could say or do nothing. He was stuck to the swing, brain frozen with fear. As near as he was to Rory and as compelled by desire to turn and stare at him, he was incapable of movement. His gaze remained fixed on his own feet.

“This looks just like the real comic book stuff in the magazines. I didn’t know you could do this. Have you shown this to anyone?” the older boy asked.

Without looking up, Zac shook his head. He was nervous, sweat trickled down his back.

“These wings on your super hero are just…just,” Rory paused. Out of the corner of his eye Zac could see his finger lightly touch the face of the longhaired Eros as his words drifted off. It was one of the more revealing pictures of the character. The loincloth provided little cover, leaving nothing to the imagination.

The page turned. Zac knew what series of pictures Rory was looking at. It was Rory at the square dance in their barn. It showed the line of girls watching him, awaiting their turn. He had made an old farm dance look like a fairy tale ballet.

“This looks like...” again Rory’s words trailed away into the air. He turned the page back and once more looked at the drawing. He flipped two more pages back. The one Zac had lovingly culled from his memory of Rory at sixteen lying on the tractor beside the road. The day, as a youngster, he’d sat on his lap in the cab of their truck. “How... how?” Rory’s tone held an odd mixture of both surprise and awe. “This is amazing, Two-Tone! How do you do this? It’s like you took a picture of it. This is crazy!”

Zac
’s heart was beating so hard, the edges of his vision had gone dark. His senses left him feeling disembodied. He wanted to reach down and grab the sketchbook away from Rory before he could see any more of it. Zac’s soul was bared on its pages and he wasn’t ready for someone to know the secrets that lay within.

R
ory shifted his position so the rays of sunlight through the tree branches fell on the pages of the sketchbook. Inadvertently, his leg grazed Zac’s. It was as if a jolt of electricity snapped through the racing current of his blood. He turned toward the older boy; their eyes locked. It was the very first time he remembered ever making eye contact with anyone. The light blue of Rory’s eyes was like a magnet on his own. The gaze between them contained a thousand unspoken sentiments. Rory appeared startled to see the younger boy’s face, and stared into the rich mismatched hues of his eyes.

Zac couldn
’t believe he was this close to his idol. His tongue seemed dry, stuck to the roof of his mouth. The twenty-one-year old youth’s face was exquisite. He could see the bare trace of whiskers along the strong line of chin. His ample lips were red as if cherry-stained, the bottom lip sensuously thicker than the top. A brown heart-shaped mole was at the corner of his mouth. Zac had never been near enough to notice it before. But it seemed so appropriate. He stored its exact location in his memory. His neck was long, sleek. In the afternoon sun his skin was the color of dark honey. Zac’s heart ached from being mere inches from such beauty. It was a tragedy he couldn’t kiss that mouth. All of his being wanted that contact more than he’d ever desired anything.

Finally, he tore his eyes away and looked down at his own feet again, hiding behind the veil of near-ginger. He was filled with dread. He needed Rory to hand the book back to him immediately.
To not be curious anymore. To not turn any more pages. It was the most important thing in the world to him that the next few seconds went the way wished. He didn’t have a suit of armor to protect himself from hurt, and he wasn’t strong enough to bear it without one. If he had a voice he would ask for the sketchbook back.

The sketches he
’d made on the next few as yet unseen pages were intimate and private. He’d done them for his personal use. They were for a lonely heart yearning to no longer be lonely. They had nothing to do with the storyline of Eros.

Time suspended itself in the November sunshine. The air around them grew hushed. Zac heard no bird or bee. What had been bright faded into
indistinction as he heard the slow rustle of a page being turned. He didn’t have to look to know what was on it. He visited those pages every night. They were his hero not as he had been seen, but as Zac had imagined him. They were the way the scenes would be if Rory had been the one whose kisses had been designed for his lips alone. He stared at the toes of his shoes, not knowing what to expect. Another page turned. Tears of terror welled in his eyes and were dammed there against his lower lids. The thumping in his chest was unbearable.

“
Rory, are you going to play or not?” Dale called out to his older brother from across the yard. His voice broke the trance. Zac looked up to see the younger McHenry holding a horseshoe in the air.

Pages ruffled backwards as Rory stood up next to him. His shadow blocked all the sunshine from shining on Zac.

“Here ya go,” the older boy said, handing the closed sketchbook back to him. He took it without raising his head. He didn’t want to see Rory’s expression. He was afraid to find hatred or anger or disgust marring the face he so admired. He didn’t want to have an image in his memory that would be impossible to forget. But nothing was said. And nothing happened. Rory walked away to play horseshoes and their families had a pleasant Thanksgiving together. Zac sat quietly in his chair at the dinner table speaking to no one, looking at no one–just as it would have been… even if his secret hadn’t been discovered.

For the remainder of the holidays and a couple of months into the next year, the sketchbook and the story of Eros, along with his dreams of love and longing got tucked away into the bottom drawer of the dresser in Zac’s room. Tucked alongside his shame.

Winter came, falling hard like a cold hammer all over the Midwest
. From early December until the end of February everything as far as the eye could see was buried under ice and snow. Roads were not passable, families relied on their stored goods from pantries and root cellars to make it through the season. Most wouldn’t see another soul outside the walls of their houses for weeks.

Zac reread every comic he had during this time. He strapped on his old ice skates and aimlessly figure-
eighted a frozen Bullfrog Pond for hours, lost in his thoughts. He mused about his future. How inescapable the farm felt, even though he could no longer picture himself as part of its future. He saw himself as an artist caught in a farm boy’s body. Whether inside or outside the doors of his home, there was no future. Just isolation. He could no longer imagine a life lived out in the middle of nowhere, friendless and unloved. Only in the world of his art did he find comfort; the ability to escape. He remembered what Rory had said about his work looking like real comics. Maybe his escape could be a literal one. Maybe his sketchbook could open a door to somewhere else…someplace real.

There were days in the frozen ice world of Missouri
’s heartland when the weight of his predicament was too much for him, and he cried. He’d soak in the claw foot bathtub in the evening, drowning out his sobs beneath the sound of running water. He didn’t know how much more his heart could take and the sorrow he felt spilled in torrents from his eyes. He cried with such force that every muscle seemed strained. His throat swelled, choking him with the pain. It was a wound for which there was no bandage; a wound that bled out all hope. He began to think that only a big city, no matter how terrifying, was large enough for a secret as huge as his to stay hidden. Maybe there were others there like him with the same secret. Maybe there were ways to find each other and not be alone. A boy could dream.

But Zac could no longer dream about Rory. That he
’d been discovered left him feeling even more insecure. He was certain his idol would never look at him, much less speak to him again. It was this loss of fantasy, his one escape that pushed him to the realization that he had to eventually depart Sweetwater. Even if it meant packing just a few meager belongings in a suitcase and hopping on a train to anywhere else.