The Orchid Eater (6 page)

“What’s
going on?” Randy said. “Who is this?”

“This is my
little brother Lupe. He’s come for a visit.” Lupe stared at Randy.

“He couldn’t
wait till we got home?” Randy said. “He had to break the fucking window and
jimmy the door?”

“Cool it,”
Sal said. “This was unexpected. For all he knew, I might have been out of town
for a week.”

Randy shook
his head and went toward the back of the house. “Wait’ll you see this,” he
called. “Sal has a brother.”

“Who’s he
talking to?” Lupe said.

“My
friends,” said Sal. He could see that Lupe was disappointed they wouldn’t be
alone; Randy’s appearance had jarred him. To be fair, he’d have to set aside
some time to spend alone with his brother—send the boys out for a while so they
could talk in private.

Meanwhile,
he was curious to see how Lupe would react to the gang.

Marilyn was
the first into the room, fingers toying with his long platinum locks. When he
saw Lupe, he let his hands fall.

“This is
Lupe,” Sal said.

"
Loopie?”
said
Marilyn, gaping. “Is that a nickname? You’re not loopie, are you? Nuts, I mean?
If you are it doesn’t matter, not to me. I’m a little loopie myself. Just ask
my parents. They’re always trying to have me put away.”

Marilyn
extended his hand while he chattered but Lupe only stared at the long red
nails. Marilyn pursed his lips, offended, and drew back his hand.

“I
don’t
bite,” he said. “Do you?”

Lupe pushed
up from the couch, his smooth face contorted with disgust. The other boys were
trickling into the room.

“Who are
they?” he said.

Sal put a
hand on Lupe’s chest, calming him gently but forcibly. “Lupe, man, I haven’t
seen you in five years. Wherever you went, that was your business, your life.
But I have my life, too, okay? These are my friends and students, and they work
for me. I expect you to treat them with respect.”

Marilyn
shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me, Sal. I get it all the time.”

The other
boys, picking up on Lupe’s hostility, were treating him to their own brand of
it. Randy and Douglas put their arms around each other and engaged in a
flaunting kiss.

Well, Sal
thought, so let them. He had meant what he said.

Lupe scowled
and looked away from the boys.

“This is who
I am, Lupe. If it bothers you . . .”

“I know what
you are, Sal,” he said.

Sal had to
remind himself that Lupe had been through hell. His childhood had ended with a
violent initiation into adulthood, of a sort. The boy had almost died. Sal, as
he had so often before, regretted that he hadn’t been there to protect Lupe.

Yet Lupe now
looked steady and strong, sure of himself, nurtured by an inner source of
strength.

“Okay,
Lupe,” Sal said, trying not to let a bittersweet compassion turn saccharine in
his mouth. “These are my friends. Boys, this is my brother. I hope you can all
get along. If you want to stay here, Lupe, you’re welcome to.”

“I don’t
want to put you out,” Lupe said mockingly.

“It’s no
bother.” He turned to the boys. “Is it?”

“Hell no,”
said Randy, with a smug grin. “He can take my bed, Sal. I’ll sleep with you.”

If the
comment was supposed to get a rise out of Lupe, Randy must have been
disappointed. Lupe only nodded then sank back down in the couch.

“I won’t be
staying long,” he said.

“Stay as
long as you like,” said Marilyn. “There’s always room for one more in Sal’s
house. Your brother is one of the nicest guys in Bohemia Bay.”

Lupe smiled.
“You mean he has a reputation?”

“In certain
circles.”

Sal sat down
next to Lupe and put a hand on his shoulder. “I try to keep a low profile.
Business being what it is.”

“You’re
dealing,” Lupe said, without surprise. “How else could you afford to live in a
place like this?”

Sal
shrugged. “It got me here, true enough. But that’s only money. What matters to
me is my other work. You don’t see me wasting the money, you know, on a bunch
of luxuries. I support my causes—gay rights, shelters for runaways. You’d be
surprised at the number of kids who end up here. I teach tai chi, to bring mind
and body into harmony, get things in balance. I’ve got a good life, Lupe. I’ve
got friends. What about you?”

Lupe
shrugged. “You know me, Sal. Nothing ever changes.”

Sal hoped it
didn’t sound like he was trying to impress Lupe with his success and make all
Lupe’s accomplishments seem trivial. In the past, you could never be sure how
Lupe would take things. Even the plainest statement of fact seemed to go banging
around in his head, ending up twisted beyond recognition.

Maybe all
that had changed now. Maybe.

Sal’s
students crouched down on the floor or dropped into chairs, watching Lupe—some
openly, some covertly.

“God,”
Marilyn said, “I would die for your complexion. I’m allergic to hormone creams.
Do you shave?”

Sal tensed
up, waiting for one of Lupe’s surges of rage, of violent temper. But apparently
Lupe had mellowed enough to answer the question with a weary smile.

“Naw,” he
said. “I don’t have to.”

“Really? How
come?”

Lupe plucked
the last two walnuts from the fruit bowl and cupped them in his palm.

“’Cause
these here, see, are like the only nuts I got.”

5

A green bomb
dropped through leafy shade, barely missing Mike’s head. He stooped to pick it
up and toss it in his bag. In the branches above, Edgar clambered about like a
monkey, reaching for another ripe avocado.

Mike and
Scott had two bags full of fruit, some of it warm from the highest branches,
some of it cool as the shade. They had crawled through a hole under a barbed
wire fence near the roadside, then crept downhill under a continuous canopy of
avocado trees. Mike had never seen so many in one place. Edgar scurried up one
tree after another, plucking the rough-skinned bulbs and tossing them down.

Mike kept
glancing down the hill, but the trees were so thick he couldn’t see much more
than a white flicker of the farmhouse.

“Keep your
voices down,” Edgar whispered from above.

“Why?” Scott
said loudly.

At that
instant, just down the hill, dogs began to howl.

“Oh, Jesus,”
Mike said, snatching up his bag, stuffing a spare avocado in the pocket of his
coat.

Edgar leaped
from the tree, landing with an
“Oof!”
directly in front of Mike. He got up limping. Scott was already
halfway up the hill to the fence with one full bag under his arm. Behind them,
fallen leaves crackled and branches snapped, but the dogs were silent, devoting
their energies to the chase.

Seconds
later, Mike shoved his bag under the fence and crawled after it. Scott was
waiting. They grabbed Edgar’s hands and yanked him to freedom on the bare
hillside, above the trees. They ran up Shoreview Road, gasping for breath. The
dogs were barking again, but getting no closer.

Mike and
Scott glared at Edgar.

“I swear to
God, there weren’t any dogs last time,” Edgar said. “Anyway, we got enough to
last us. Two full bags? That’s plenty.”

“I don’t
even like avocados,” Mike reminded them.

They started
up the road, slowly catching their breath. It was a steep climb. Mike slung his
jacket over his shoulder though Scott, perversely, kept his on.

“The avocado
was the original fruit of knowledge,” Scott said eventually.

“Oh yeah?”
said Edgar. “Says who?”

“You think
they had apple trees in the Middle East?”

“You mean
Eve gave Adam an avocado?” said Edgar with a sour expression, still limping.

Scott nodded
with a look of unimpeachable authority. “She would have, if Adam or Eve had
ever existed, which they didn’t.”

“Don’t ever
tell that to Hawk.”

“You can’t
argue with Scott,” Mike said. “He knows everything.”

“You can’t
argue with Hawk either. He’ll just blow your head off.”

“The Bible’s
nothing but symbols and metaphors, with a lot of old history mixed in,” Scott
said. “I’m sure Hawk knows that. Look at his Fightin’ Jesus stories.”

“Still . . .
you can never tell with Hawk. I wouldn’t tempt him.”

“Not even
with an avocado?” Scott said.

The road
wound up and up. When it leveled off, Mike was grateful, thinking they had
reached the peak. Then Edgar led them up another three steep blocks. The last
time he’d come up here, by car, he’d been reading in the backseat and hadn’t
paid attention to the road. By the time they surmounted the next rise, the sun
was sinking behind them. He looked back at the ocean, far below. Ahead, the
road went on for another quarter mile, rising more gradually. There were fewer
houses to be seen, and only sparse chaparral vegetation. He saw a broad gorge
with a row of houses lined up along the far end.

“One of
those is our new place.”

“Which one?”

“I’m not
sure. It’s kind of hard to tell them apart.”

They did
look alike, stacked tall and thin on the canyon’s steep wall. Their
westward-facing sliding glass doors glared bright orange with the setting sun.
Below them, the canyon was a darkening lake of shadow. As the boys walked along
the edge, Mike looked down into it, thinking of all the hiding places and forts
he could build down there, if he were still young enough to care about that
sort of thing. His brother might enjoy it, although Ryan was mainly interested
in sports these days. Better than forts, though—it was a place he could go with
a girl, when he met one. Down there under the bushes, naked on a blanket, he
wouldn’t care if he got dirty or if bugs climbed all over him. It would all be
worth it when she wrapped her legs around him.

When they
finally reached the houses, they turned and walked along the row. At the fifth
one, Mike stopped. “This is it.”

There wasn’t
much to see except an empty carport identical to every other on the block. That
was about all he’d seen of the place. A black Cadillac was parked in the
carport next door. Mike walked across the oil-stained cement and over a redwood
porch linking the carport to the front door. He slid the key into the lock.

Inside, it
smelled like a house that had been lived in till yesterday. Odors of butter and
garlic, faint and fading even now, slipped past him as he stepped inside, like
the last ghosts of the prior residents. Scott and Edgar followed him in. As
they got a good look at the place, all three of them let out exclamations.

Mike’s
mother had mentioned that the walls were painted, but he had never imagined
anything like this. One of the two men who’d lived here before, Roddy, was an
interior decorator, and he had partitioned the top floor into three areas. The
walls were midnight blue. A square of gold carpet lay in a small dining area,
divided from the kitchen by a wooden counter. Beyond the kitchen was a big
living room, with sliding glass doors opening onto a balcony at the far end.
Stairs ran down into the house, colored stripes running with them, zigzagging
past one landing and ending at a second two floors below.

“Wow,” said Edgar,
shutting the door. Scott stepped onto the square of yellow carpeting and stared
at the wall opposite the kitchen. It was one solid mirror.

“Get out of
there, Scott! Jesus, your feet are dirty!”

Scott gave
him a look he usually reserved for morons. Mike found himself wondering if he
could actually live in a house like this. It was like a place in a magazine. He
was afraid to put his own feet down.

They took
the stairs to the second level, which held two bedrooms. The biggest opened
onto another balcony. Three huge overlapping colored circles decorated the main
wall. The color scheme continued into a private bathroom.

“This has
got to be Mom and Jack’s room,” Mike said.

He backed
into the hall and saw Edgar opening a door next to the stairs.

“Look at this!”
he said.

Scott and
Mike followed him into the room—stopped in awe when they saw where they were.

They had
walked into a fairy tale. A full, silvery indoor moon hung in a luminous blue
sky, above rolling hills layered in shades of green, seeming to go on for
miles. The landscape covered every wall, except where a large walk-in closet
opened under the stairs. The design continued right on into a second bathroom,
which had a second entrance leading back into the hall.

“Unbelievable,”
Scott said.

“This is my
room,” Mike said, determined that it would be. He had never dreamed that such a
room could exist. It was like something out of the Narnia books: a plain wooden
door opening onto a secret world.

“You are one
lucky dude,” Edgar said. “Lucky, lucky, lucky.”

Mike
couldn’t possibly disagree.

The rest of
the house was an anticlimax. They followed the colored stripes down the stairs
to the third level, a large white room with mirrored tiles on opposite walls,
so you could stand between them and see your image reflected to infinity. It
was too bright for Mike, who preferred dark woods and cool shade, but for Ryan,
who could spend all day on the beach without getting burned, it seemed fine. He
began instantly thinking of it as Ryan’s room. It had a balcony of its own,
like the master bedroom. A private back door opened onto a mossy patio full of
ferns and dichondra, like a cool cave tucked beneath the house.

A flight of
spiral stairs penetrated the floor of Ryan’s room, leading down to a tiny,
wood-paneled room that smelled of new carpeting. Sliding glass doors opened
directly onto the edge of the wild brush canyon. A slender young eucalyptus
tree swayed beyond the glass.

“TV room,”
Edgar said.

“Library,”
said Scott.

“Who cares?
As long as I get the moon room.”

They hiked
back up to the second level. They had dropped their bags of avocados on the
landing. It was getting dark—especially in the house—and as they entered Mike’s
room, he could almost believe he was stepping outside. He couldn’t imagine
what it would be like to live in this room, to wake and sleep in such beauty
every day. It would be like inhabiting a painting. He could only imagine that
his own artwork would soar when he worked here. It would inspire him every day.
And imagine . . . if a girl ever saw it? She would have to love this room. They
would lie on the floor under that fat white moon, among the green hills, and do
everything imaginable.

Edgar said,
“Let’s stash a bag of avocados here for later, in case we sleep over.”

Suddenly
Mike wasn’t sure he wanted them here at all. He felt protective of the room, as
if it were already his private territory. He wondered if he would have to
battle Ryan for possession.

“But there’s
no furniture or anything,” he said.

“I’ve got
sleeping bags and blankets at my place,” said Edgar.

“I don’t
know. You heard my mom . . .”

“How’s she
gonna know? I mean, you can stay at my place if you want, but just look at
this. . . .”

“I’ll think
about it.” Mike stashed his bag of avocados in the big closet, which went far
back under the stairs. He felt he was marking the room as his own. With extreme
reluctance, he went out into the hall and shut the door on the nightscape.

It was dusk
now, the houses around them gray as the sky, most of the windows dark.

Edgar lived
less than a block away, up Shoreview Road. Mrs. Goncourt wasn’t home, so they
fixed sandwiches and went down to Edgar’s room. He had a sliding glass door of
his own, facing on the dark, weedy expanse of cactus and brush behind his
house. While they were eating, someone rapped on the glass. Mike looked up to
see two faces grinning in from the night, two guys carrying skateboards. “Hey!”
he said, sliding open the door. “You guys are just in time.”

“For what?”
said the first kid in, a skinny blond named Kurtis Tyre. Kurtis was another
student from the Alt-School. Mike had never spoken to him, though occasionally
he’d held his schoolbooks tight to his chest when Kurtis passed, in case the
kid tried to knock them out of his arms.

“We’re
figuring out what to do tonight,” Edgar said. “Hey, it’s Mad-Dog!”

Mad-Dog
Murphy, Kurtis Tyre’s inseparable companion, nodded a greeting and slid the
glass shut behind him. He was dark-haired and gap-toothed, with a crazed look
exaggerated by the way his eyes wandered off in different directions. Kurtis
propped his skateboard against the wall; Mad-Dog dropped his on the floor and
sat down on it, rolling back and forth in great agitation.

“You talked
to Hawk lately?” Kurtis asked, ignoring Mike and Scott.

“Saw him at
Saturday Sermon,” Edgar said. “Where were you?”

“Avoiding
him, man. Craig warned me he’s coming down on us for scratching ‘S.S.’ on dirty
cars. Says the cops are bugging him about it.”

“What’s
wrong with ‘S.S.’?” Edgar said.

Scott
chuckled deeply and everyone turned to look at him. “It’s a Nazi emblem,” he
said. “For the
Schutzstaffel,
the Black Shirts.”

“Really? I
thought it stood for Silver Skaters,” Edgar said.

“It does,”
Kurtis said, irritably. “What’s he doing here anyway?

“Scott’s
cool,” Edgar said. “Hawk likes him.”

“You another
Jesus freak, Gillette?”