The Elephant of Surprise (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 4) (12 page)

It looked like a small bus. I think it had once been painted red with yellow trim, but the colors had long since faded. Now it was mostly the color of the forest—the green vines that covered it, that held it upright like the fingers of a giant hand.

"What is it?" I said.

"An abandoned streetcar. From the 1940s, I think."

Once he said that, I immediately saw it—the driver's seat at either end, the rusted rail wheels mostly buried in the ground. And it seemed Wade was right about no one else knowing it was here: it wasn't covered with graffiti like the culvert had been. Most of the windows were even still intact.

But how was that possible? How could it have been here all these years and no one except Wade had discovered it? Did it mean that there was a little patch of woods right here in the middle of the city that, because of some quirk of geography, no one except Wade had seen in almost eighty years? Or
had
other people come here—a few of them, over the years—but they'd somehow also seen the beauty of this little clearing, and they'd left it alone? I wasn't sure which was more unlikely.

That's when I realized: it wasn't just people who were surprising me lately. The city was too. It was just like Wade had said—there were hidden things all around me, but I'd never really taken the time to notice. All it took was a willingness to wander a few dozen yards from the road most traveled—even the road most traveled only by freegans.

Wade walked up to the doors. They were open, and he stepped inside. I half expected the whole thing to collapse, but it had already sunk as far into the earth as it was going to. It didn't budge.

I followed Wade inside. The streetcar was solid against the ground, but I hadn't noticed from the outside how lop-sided it was, how it listed to one side. Even so, the roof and windows were more or less intact, so except for the area right by the door, the interior was surprisingly well-preserved. Even the wooden seats, covered with some kind of thick varnish, weren't decaying at all. I expected the inside to smell musty, but it didn't. It was just like the rest of the forest, like something fresh and alive.

It felt like stepping into another world, like going back in time. The white light fixtures along the ceiling were all intact, like they might flicker to life at any moment. Advertising panels had once lined the roof, but the ink on most of the cardboard had long since faded. I could make out two vague words: "unspoken passion."

"There used to be a whole network of streetcars," Wade said. "Even in a city as small as ours. You could get anywhere you wanted—even all the way out to Randall Lake—and you didn't need a car. But in the 1940s, the tire and car companies bought the streetcar companies and put them out of business. They did the same thing all over the country. People didn't know. Everyone in America thinks they're so free, thinks they can do whatever they want—that they have all these choices. But they don't have any idea how manipulated they are. How corporations force them to do exactly what they want and then convince them that was really what they wanted all along."

"I didn't know that," I said. Like with Min, being with Wade reminded me just how little I really knew.

Wade walked to the far end of the car, then fiddled with one of the brass poles that hung above the seats—hand-rails for those who had been forced to stand. He didn't say anything for a second. Then he said, quietly, "It's hard."

"What is?" I said.

"Feeling so different from everyone else."

I froze, both excited and scared. Was Wade finally telling me his own unspoken passion? But I was determined not to jump to any conclusions. So I said, "Well, at least you have the other freegans."

He shrugged. "Sometimes I'm not even sure I fit in with them."

"Yeah?" I said, the excitement and fear rising in equal proportions.

"What does it mean that I even feel different from people who are different? You know? I don't even fit in with the freaks."

I snorted. "I know exactly what you mean. They have their own haircuts, their own fashion. But I don't care about any of that. I don't even think that's that different, you know? I think that's more about rebellion. Which is fine, I guess. But so often it just seems like a big, pointless 'fuck you' directed out at the world. It's still letting other people define you. It's not about you defining yourself."

Wade turned around to face me, both of us standing at opposite ends of the streetcar. He was in the middle of the aisle, leaning to one side along with the car. But I was in the aisle leaning to one side too, so he and the rest of the streetcar seemed normal. It was the world outside the car that was askew.

"That's it exactly," Wade said. "I knew you'd understand."

I
did
understand! I totally understood! Assuming he was also talking about being gay. Which he was, right? I mean, this was more than just the feeling he didn't quite fit in around the other freegans—it had to be. A straight guy didn't bring another guy to his cool, secret street-car-in-the-woods, right? He was gay and into me. Validate my reality here! (I keep asking you to, but you never do.)

"So," I said. "I'm curious."

"Hmm?"

"You said you were thinking about leaving town. Moving to the big city. Are you still thinking that?"

He picked at the wainscoting. "I don't know," he said, almost a whisper. "Maybe. Maybe not."

Now what did
that
mean? The only reason he would have changed his plans was because of me, right? I was his unspoken passion, right? There was no other possible way to interpret all this!

So why was he still hesitating?

Suddenly, I knew: Wade hadn't come out yet. He hadn't spoken his unspoken passion to anyone else, maybe not even himself. This was all new to him. I was scared he might reject me, but he was scared of something far more terrifying: saying the words "I'm gay" out loud for the very first time. That's why he kept showing me things he'd never shown anyone before—his belongings, this streetcar. He was working his way up to showing me a secret part of himself. Why hadn't I realized all this before?

"Wade," I said. "I need to tell you something."

He didn't say anything, just looked over at me. We were still both on opposite ends of the streetcar.

For a second, I just shuffled my feet. How did you come out and just ask someone if they were gay? Unspoken passions were unspoken for a reason.

"I like you," I said at last. "As more than a friend."

Wade didn't say anything, just stared down at the floorboards.

"And," I said, "I think you like me too, but I'm still not sure."

He didn't look up. No floorboards anywhere in the whole world had ever been as interesting as the ones Wade was looking at now.

"So I wanted to ask," I said. "Do you?"

But all this fighting against the outside world was suddenly too much for him. He grabbed onto one of the brass beams for support.

Wade looked up at last. "Yes," he said evenly. "I like you. As more than a friend."

I grinned. Wade's unspoken passions had been spoken at last. There really was a reason for all those clean t-shirts. My reality had been validated.

So what did I do now? I had a feeling Wade had never kissed a guy before: it was something about how hesitant he was. So did he want me to kiss him now?

I took a step toward him. It seemed like the floor shifted despite the streetcar being set so firmly in the mud. Or maybe it was just my foot sliding on the angled floor.

Wade started walking toward me—his feet slipped a little too—but we met pretty much in the middle.

"Can I kiss you?" I said. As soon as I said this, I remembered this was almost exactly what Kevin had said to me almost a year earlier, at the same park where I'd later caught him hooking up with a guy. I'd been so nervous back then, but I wasn't nervous now. On the contrary, it felt exciting to be the experienced one for a change, to be the one in charge, especially since Wade was two years older than me.

"Yeah," he breathed. "You can."

So I did. His lips were firmer than Kevin's or Otto's. I slipped my tongue into his mouth. He still smelled like salt and pine—no blackberry now—but he tasted sweeter than that, like honey, with a touch of something bitter, like coffee.

Boy, had my reality been validated!

Underneath the kiss, I felt him smile. It's a great feeling, kissing a smile.

"What?" I said.

"It's just not what I thought it would feel like." So I'd been right: he'd never been with a guy before.

"Is that good?" I said.

Just inches from my face, he nodded. "It's good."

Then we kissed again, and I was hugging him. His body was different from Kevin's and Otto's too—thicker. He hugged me back—tentatively, awkwardly.

"Your skin," I said. "It's not really black. It's like chestnut reflected in copper. I see all kinds of different colors—black and brown and yellow and orange."

He blushed exactly the way I'd blushed when Kevin had complimented my hair and my eyes that night in the park. I hadn't even known that black people could blush, but now I knew they did. It was just really, really subtle, like the faintest glimmer of a red dawn.

I smiled and kissed him again. A weed had broken through the concrete of my heart. (Yes, I know that's over-the-top. Go with it.)

"I know this is new to you," I said. "We can take it slow." He nodded, and we took a seat in that streetcar. Because of the slope, I found myself sliding toward him, my hip pushing against his. "Can I ask you a personal question?" I said.

"It'd be stupid of me to say no now."

"Is this part of the reason why you became a freegan?" I specifically didn't say "gay," because I didn't know for sure what Wade was. Maybe he was bisexual. Or "questioning."

He leaned back in the seat. This window was completely covered with vines on the outside—I couldn’t see out.

"No," he said. "But I think it's a little
like
being a freegan. Wanting something, but not being quite sure what it is. Not being able to put it into words. And then finally experiencing it and realizing what it was you were missing all along."

I nodded.

And yet, something was different from that night when I'd been with Kevin. Wade was still hesitating. With Kevin, I'd been nervous, but I hadn't hesitated.

"What is it?" I asked.

He sat forward in his seat, elbows on the top of the seat in front of us—closed, protected. "Truthfully, this
is
all pretty new to me. It's going to take some time to process. Is that okay?"

"Are you kidding?" I said. "Of course it's okay! Hey, I need to process it too." The truth is there were all kinds of different ways of being gay or bisexual. I'd been putting it into words long before I'd even met Kevin, at least to myself. But maybe not every guy did. It didn't feel like Wade had.

"But Russel?" he said. "You need to know something."

"Okay."

"One of these days, I am leaving to go to the city. Not right away, not if anything happens between us. But eventually. I have to. I
want
to. I want to get away from my family. But I also want to make a difference."

On one hand, this disappointed me. On the other hand, it was exactly the kind of thing that attracted me to Wade in the first place.

"But…" he said.

But?

"There's no reason why you couldn't come with me."

Was Wade serious? Was he really asking me if I wanted to join the freegans? But I could see in his deep brown eyes that he was.

There actually
was
a reason I couldn't go with Wade, a good one: I was only seventeen years old. If I left now, I'd be "running away from home" and the whole fricking world would end. But I wouldn’t be seventeen years old forever. In less than a year, I'd be an adult.

Could I see myself joining the freegans then? My parents' heads would explode. Going to Europe for a year before college was one thing, but becoming a freegan? Then again, I thought about all the interesting things I'd seen and experienced since I'd met Wade—things right here in the town I'd thought was so incredibly boring before. What would it be like to live this way all the time?

"Maybe," I said to Wade. "At least for a little while." Even as I said this, I remembered how Wade had only meant to join the freegans for a few months and had ended up staying for a year and a half.

That said, I'd said I wanted adventure.

Boy, had I found it.

*   *   *

When I got home that night, I knew I'd never be able to sleep, not as excited as I was. Part of me wanted to call or IM Min or Gunnar to tell them what had happened, but I'd been keeping Wade a secret from them for so long now that another part of me wanted to go on doing it.

So as usual, I IMed Otto instead.

OttoManEmpire: So what happened? I want DETAILS!

So I gave him details—all about the walk in the woods and the hidden streetcar. But I'm going to tell you what I told Otto: nothing did "happen," except for a bit more kissing. I wanted to respect Wade's choice on that. Besides—hey!—what makes you think that I'm such a slut that I'm willing to drop my pants at the first sign of someone being interested in me? I wanted to move slowly too.