by Jim Grimsley
“I know. I was waiting.”
The statement pleases Roy. “You sure it’s okay?”
“I finished my homework while you were doing your chores.”
He has bathed and wears a white cotton shirt, buttoned to the collar. The cloud of his aftershave is vigorous. “Miss Burkette says you’re supposed to be good at English, even if you are younger than me.” He takes careful steps into the room, laying his books on the bed and rubbing his knuckles. “I hate to write stuff.”
“I like it okay.”
“I have to write about trains.” Roy’s brows knit to a sharp black line. He spreads open his notebook on the bed, and Nathan sits beside him on the sloping mattress. Miss Burkette has assigned his class to write a seven-paragraph essay on a preselected topic, “Railroads in the United States.” Roy has brought the volume “Q–R” of the World Book Encyclopedia with him, and he shows Nathan the sentences he has copied down from the article on “Railroad.”
Nathan studies the writing and asks questions about the facts for the essay. Under these circumstances it becomes simple to talk, and the conversation feels as easy as their quiet. They discuss the essay seriously, agreeing that Roy must narrow what he wants to say about railroads, weighing one topic against another. Roy selects steam engines as a starting point and soon he is writing words on paper under Nathan’s supervision. Roy seems vaguely surprised that the essay is actually getting written, and they work step by step through all the necessary decisions.
Mom brings iced tea for both of them, flushing when Roy thanks her, as if the acknowledgment is too much. She moves as if she would like to be invisible, same as she always moves, and yet she is clearly curious about Roy. When she retreats downstairs, they take the iced tea as a signal to rest. The evening is almost balmy. Nathan opens the window and takes long breaths. Roy stands, stretching. He sips tea and watches the half-finished page on the bed, thoughtful and quiet. “I guess I ought to be embarrassed, getting a kid like you to help me with my homework.”
Nathan answers, fervently, “I take English with the juniors. That’s just one year behind you. I’m not a kid.”
Roy appears confused by what he has said. He blushes a little and reconsiders. “I didn’t mean it bad. I mean you’re younger than me, that’s all.” His gentle expression kindles. He approaches closer, and his nearness brings a physical reaction to Nathan, a sudden heaviness, as if his body is sliding toward Roy’s. Roy goes on talking with calm ease. “I appreciate the help.”
“I like to do it.”
“You’re pretty smart, aren’t you? That’s what everybody says. I mean, I’m not dumb or anything. But you’re different.”
He offers no response. But Roy goes on smiling. “We could be buddies, Nathan. You think so?”
His throat is dry and he is suddenly terrified. “Yes. I’d like that.”
“You’ll like living out here. In the summertime it’s real peaceful. Nobody comes around.”
“Is it okay to walk in the woods?”
Roy laughs as if the answer is self-evident. “Yeah. I go out there all the time. There’s some great places, Indian mounds and camping places and a haunted house and stuff. I’ll show you.”
“I bet you have a lot of work to do in the summer. Because it’s a farm.”
“Yeah, but it’s all right. It’s all outdoor stuff and I like that. You ever live on a farm before?”
“No. We lived in towns before, mostly. But my dad wanted to live in the country this time.”
“Why did you move here? Nobody moves to Potter’s Lake.”
Nathan can feel himself reddening. “My dad got a job. At the Allis Chalmers place in Gibsonville.”
He is momentarily afraid that maybe Roy has heard some gossip. A breeze stirs Roy’s fine black hair. The lamplight traces one arched brow and outlines a lip, a curve of jaw, a shadowed cheek. He would be handsome if it were not for his nose. Maybe he is handsome anyway. He sees Nathan watching and likes being watched; he squares his shoulders and clenches his jaw. “You like this school stuff, don’t you?”
“I guess so. Most of the time.”
“I don’t see how anybody could like school.”
“Beats staying at home all the time,” Nathan says, and Roy laughs quietly. He leans toward Nathan. Nathan’s breath hovers between them both.
“So you stay at home too much, huh? We can fix that.”
They sit quietly in the aftermath of this implied promise. The sense of closeness between them survives the return to work. Roy finishes the paper and stays to copy it over. His handwriting is neat and square, an extension of his blunt hands. After he folds the paper neatly for safekeeping and places it inside his English book, he stays to talk about kids at school, about Randy who put jello mix in Miss Burkette’s thermos of ice water, and Burke who beat up a Marine five years older than him at Atlantic Beach last summer. He talks about what it was like in Potter’s Lake before integration and avows that the black kids are okay if you get to know them. He talks about baseball. He says he doesn’t want to go to college but his folks want him to. He talks more than he has talked in a long time, he says as much himself, with an air of slight surprise.
At last Nathan’s mother calls upstairs to remind them it’s about bedtime, and Roy stands. He tucks in his shirt and combs his hair at Nathan’s dresser. His bundle of books lies on the bed, and when he turns for it he passes close to Nathan, lingering long enough that Nathan notes the difference. He takes the books, and Nathan walks him to the head of the stairs. Roy descends into the murky lower floor and passes out the kitchen doorway.
Nathan waits at the bedroom window, quietly tucked into a fold of curtain. The rich yellow bar of Roy’s bedroom light spills across the hedge, and Roy’s shadow passes one way and then another, a long teasing interval, until finally Roy returns to his own window. He glows in the warm square of glass. At last he waves to Nathan and disappears.
Nathan remains at the window a little longer, breathless and numb, the memory of the evening wrapping him like a warm mantle.
Chapter Two
But the new ease has vanished by morning and Nathan wakes full of fear that Roy will dislike him today. Roy will discover that yesterday was an accident and should never have happened. Nathan dresses with deliberateness and eats his breakfast slowly. The night was cloudy but morning is clearing, he notes the changing sky through the kitchen windows. He heads for the bus when he hears the engine running. The grass, heavy with morning dew, whispers to his feet as he crosses the yard. Roy waits in the driver’s seat. He smiles when he sees Nathan, something shy in his expression. Nathan takes the seat behind him, and he hands back his books and asks Nathan to look after them. The books are warm and precious, placed in Nathan’s trust. Roy grinds the bus into gear and commences the long drive to high school.
At lunch Roy finds Nathan again, setting his tray next to Nathan’s, and announces that the essay, “Steam Engines in the U.S.A.,” went over pretty big with his teacher. There is a message of gratitude behind the words, and Nathan savors it. Later Randy and Burke join them, and they tell jokes and dig elbows into each other’s ribs. Nathan remains comfortable even in the presence of these other boys, and eats his lunch as he listens.
Randy strikes Nathan as curious at Nathan’s sudden presence in their group. But he seems willing to accept. Burke hardly seems aware of anything, except occasionally Roy.
After lunch they head outside to the smoking patio, where Roy and the others smoke cigarettes. Roy says he thinks Nathan ought to go hunting with him and his friends sometime; even if you don’t kill anything, hunting is fun, he says. Nathan studies Roy’s lips on the thin cigarette, the place where the tender lip touches the filter, the compression of Roy’s cheeks as he inhales. A bird wheels beyond his head in the clouds. The conversation continues the ease of the night before, and Nathan understands that Roy rarely talks so freely or on so many subjects. Roy declares he thinks it very practical to do your homework with somebody.
The company makes it easier. This reminds him of his algebra class, where the senior class is studying something about the values of X and Y. Nathan listens attentively. Roy asks if he knows about solving equations for the unknown, and Nathan answers, truthfully, no. Tonight, Roy says, he will teach Nathan about it, as a way of paying Nathan back for the help on the railroad essay.
During every class for the rest of the day, Roy inhabits Nathan’s mind, surrounded by whiteness and emptiness. It is perfect to think of Roy and nothing else, to dwell on Roy’s image and think nothing at all. Roy will teach Nathan algebra, and Nathan will study Roy’s shoulders and arms. The thought makes Nathan’s mere arithmetic seem tedious and small. He stares at the flaked paint and rust on the iron posts that support the canopy outside. The clock spitefully crawls. Mr. Ferrette scratches the blackboard with fevered chalk. He occupies a fraction of Nathan’s mind.
On the bus home Roy remains quiet, almost somber. Nathan sits behind him again but this time there is some change. Roy faces the bright world beyond the wind-shield. The very set of his shoulders denies any knowledge of Nathan. Nathan accepts the fact quietly. Fields wash by the windows, the motor roaring and groaning as Roy shifts gears with strong, sure motions. When he drives the bus to the back of the yard, under the pecan tree, he still stares straight ahead. A warning is evident in his quiet; Nathan presses for no attention. In the yard under the spreading pecan branches, Roy waits while Nathan gathers his books and hurries out of the bus, mumbling a good-bye that is barely returned. He does not ask whether Roy will come to his house tonight. Breathless, discomposed, he flies through the kitchen past Mom’s flowered skirts (in which she is still studying how to be invisible) through the cloud of Dad’s cigarettes (where he is already vanishing in the television’s blue aura). Nathan climbs the stairs to his room and closes the door behind him.
Supper comes and goes. Nathan finishes his homework at the desk, from which he can see the lighted square of Roy’s window. Now and then Roy’s shadow passes the bright frame. Nathan sits quietly over his books. He studies his math a while, hardly concentrating, until he hears footsteps on the stairs.
When the door opens Roy is holding his algebra book before him like a shield. He grips the cover, which features a series of black and purple triangles on a field of burnt sienna. Roy’s expression makes Nathan immediately cautious. “I told you I was coming over. Did you forget?”
“No.” Nathan stands.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Roy enters and cautiously sits on the bed. He sets out his books in a way that designates a place for Nathan beside him. The math book falls open. Soon Roy is writing in his firm hand on the notebook beside Nathan’s thigh. He denotes equations in letters and numbers, illuminating each in pencil as he describes their arcane meanings and functions. Roy speaks to Nathan as to a peer and not as to a younger boy. Algebra is simple. You learn to work from both sides of the equation, to find the answer implied by circumstance. He sets out problems that become increasingly clear, reading from the math book about the price of yellow and green ribbon in Mr. Sawyer’s department store, about the number of nickels in $1.97 if there are four quarters and six dimes. Finding a solution for the problem, as Roy explains it, requires a peculiar and inexorable logic. Enlightenment comes to Nathan at the same time that Roy’s presence begins to have its usual effect on him. The principles of algebra break over Nathan like day. What has not before been known—the undiscovered element in any circumstance—may be ferreted out, exposed to light. Nathan watches Roy’s hands on the pages, his brows knit together as he reads. There is an unknown here in this room. X and Y hang in the air between them.
Roy lets Nathan solve a word problem himself, leaning close to watch and explain. Again with his near-ness comes that field of magnetism that possesses Nathan. Roy watches calmly from his side of the equal sign. He has moved close now, his breath touches Nathan along the soft of the throat. No logic can explain such warmth. Roy sets down his pencil and Nathan touches the veins on the back of Roy’s hand. The contact shocks them both. Roy is quiet. Shy, like Nathan. But neither hand moves.
Roy leans close till his forehead brushes Nathan’s, dark hair tickling, his eyes downcast. The rhythms of their separate breathings merge into one river. No other sound intrudes as they lean against each other, skull to skull. Nathan feels the unknown rising in them both, its message plainer than either can fathom. Roy cups his warm hand against Nathan’s neck. Roy’s breathing deepens, reaches inside. Now both his hands are trembling.
Roy is starved for closeness. Nathan leans against him, since it seems it is warmth that he craves. But the effect is out of proportion; it is as if he has cracked Roy’s shell. Roy makes a sound as if he is taking his first breath. He pulls Nathan down to the mattress, unmindful of textbook and papers beneath. His weight is delicious and full. Their breathing changes together, and they press against each other, warmth exchanged for warmth, as Roy sighs into Nathan’s hair.
In the quiet wake of the moment, the sounds of the house clarify and isolate themselves. Mom washes dishes in the subterranean kitchen. Dad dozes through the weekly Hawaiian detective series in the living room. Out in the world the wind is blowing leaf against leaf, an insistent whispering with a scent of storm. “Does this make you feel funny?” Roy asks.
“No.”
“It makes me feel funny.”
“Well, maybe it makes me feel a little funny too. But I don’t care.”
“I don’t care either. I just wonder why.” He lies on the bed watching the ceiling. “Do you like me?”
“Yes.” Nathan can hardly lift his eyes from the soft chenille.
“Do you like me a lot?” There is something frightened in the question. Roy’s body has become rigid. It is as if he is denying the words as they emerge.
Nathan speaks suddenly, with violence, against Roy’s shoulder. “I like you a whole lot. I really do. And I want you to like me the same way.”
“I do,” he says. Saying so much has apparently surprised him; he stands from the bed adjusting his pants, asking if Nathan wants to walk outside away from the houses. In the dark. Nathan spares no breath for an answer but falls in beside him down the corridor, descending the back stairway to the kitchen, pausing while the shadow of Mom retreats into the dining room, the unknowable rooms beyond. At the back door Roy’s hand hovers over Nathan’s. Fresh air from the night spills over Nathan. Roy steps into the inky quiet and Nathan orbits him.
Mom’s dim voice calls out, “Where are you going, Nathan? Nathan?”
“Outside.” By then the night surrounds him.
Roy runs and Nathan follows, into the waist-high weeds behind the barn, into the flood of moonlight that pools within the pokeweed and broomstraw. Roy is laughing from deep inside his chest, and he runs ahead into the white, glowing world. Nathan follows at his slower pace. The twinned houses dwindle behind, and the shadow pines rise up toward the stars. Nearing the pond, they descend the slight embankment leading to the watery lip. Roy pauses at the edge, touching his sneaker to the waterline. He checks to make sure Nathan is following, then kneels with a sycamore branch, drawing a line in the pale muddy pond bottom. The moonlight records the motion perfectly, they can see everything. Clouds of mud rise in the water from the tip of the stick.
“I like this place at night.”
Nathan stops near Roy’s elbow. “It’s quiet.”
“There’s a cemetery over yonder.” Roy points with the stick. To a thickening of shadow.
He shivers. “A real one?”
“Yeah. With great big tombstones. There’s a lot of them, with angels and statues. They look pretty spooky at night.”
“Can we go there?”
“You sure you want to? Your mom might get mad if we stay out too long.”
“I want to.”
Willows, arrow arum, and cattails grow to the edge of the pond, and royal fern and honeysuckle overhang the glimmering water. Branches crack unde
rfoot, pine needles protesting. Roy’s passage is quieter than Nathan’s, his feet somehow lighter. He lifts aside limber branches with an easy hand, holding them over Nathan’s head. The path through the darkening trees is washed with light, and the substance of Roy moves through it dense and shadowed. Nathan hurries behind Roy, drawing audible breath after audible breath. The pond spreads a hush, the trees lift their branches, the stars and moon burn. Between is a blackness the eye fails to fathom.
The cemetery gate and iron fence form out of nothing, within a circle of trees at the top of a rise of land. Roy opens the iron gate and shows Nathan the rust stains on his palms. The two are silent as they move into the enclosure, overgrown with weeds. Tombstones, some toppled, and the leavings of wreaths impede their passage. The ground gives off a clotted, dank smell. Roy is breathless. He passes his hand along eroded marble in which letters are carved. Nathan studies the words but fails to read them, so Roy leans close and whispers, “This one says, Sarah Jane Kennicutt, Her Father’s Favorite Daughter. The Kennicutts used to own all this land, that’s what people say. There were two Kennicutt plantations, one right around here that burned down, and another one off in the woods.”
“Then why is it Poke’s Road?”
Roy shrugs. “Poke’s Road goes for a long ways. It must have been some Pokes on it, once upon a time.” He is leaning against Nathan. “I’ll take you to the end of that road one of these days. Way off in the woods where it’s overgrown and nobody can use it.”
Nathan nods, but is rendered speechless by touch. Roy grips Nathan’s arm and leads him to another grave over which looms a guardian obelisk. The shadow of the granite shaft passes across Roy’s face, and his expression is inscrutable. Something in Roy’s stance lays a field of silence around them both.