Dream Boy

by Jim Grimsley

  Now both Roy’s hands touch both Nathan’s arms. He watches Nathan with a new quiet. It is hard for Nathan to be conscious of anything but the touch of those hands on his arms, the texture of tough skin and strong fingers. Nathan makes one sound, throaty and startled, like an animal giving a single warning. Roy exerts the slightest pressure.

  His body is full of curves beneath the clothes. Nathan leans against him, as Roy slightly smiles. He kneels in the grass and brings Nathan down with him. The two are trembling and huddle together in the dark of the grave. The sweetness of the moment lingers. The salty smell of Roy’s body rises out of the shirt that he unbuttons and slides over his shoulders. Moonlight glitters on the slight sweat of his chest. A calm deliberateness engulfs him. Nathan eases the worn jeans down Roy’s thighs. Air pours against Nathan’s skin as Roy strips away his cotton tee shirt. Nathan shivers with the chill.

  Roy embraces the slighter boy and their warmth multiplies, their bodies shuddering and yet clinging each to the other, dressed only in white underwear in the shadow of the granite marker. The warmth makes chromosomes sing. Roy says, “Now we’re buddies,” with a tone of deep relief in his voice, and Nathan mouths the words soundlessly, watching the North Star over the pond. He wonders what a buddy is and whether he is the only one Roy has. He is farther from home than he has ever been. Roy cradles him as if he will never let go. “Bats fly around here sometimes. You can hear them making that squeak noise.”

  “Do you hear any now?”

  “No. I don’t hear anything except you. But this is the place for bats, ain’t it?” Roy surveys the surrounding tombstones as if they are his estate. He talks about them quietly as Nathan rests against him. “This thing is called an obelisk,” he explains, and Nathan pretends to learn this as a new fact. “It’s something people in the old times would put on a grave. This grave belongs to Frederick Kennicutt. He was kin to my great-grandaddy.”

  Nathan knows nothing about his own great-grandaddy. He simply watches Roy mouth the words. “Come on.”

  They uncoil and creep quietly through the tombstones in their undershorts. Along a rise of land they climb, to a place where the black pond is visible below. Up there is a statue of a plump baby wearing a robe, with stubby marble wings sprouting from its shoulders. Roy stands large and shapely beside the angel-baby, Roy more radiant than the stone in the same fall of thin moon-and-starlight. The sight of Roy encumbers Nathan so that even his gaze feels heavy; Roy is like an immense gravity and he is pulling Nathan toward him without any effort. Again Roy yields to Nathan’s hands, gives way to touch. Nathan bends his knees and Roy rests on the ground beside him, above him. Nathan is breathing into the hollow of Roy’s collarbone and Roy is laughing softly, reasonless.

  Roy brushes his mouth against Nathan’s and Nathan is surprised. Roy’s taste is sweetish, life rising out of his throat, hot as if from deep furnaces. He holds Nathan’s delicate skull in his hand. Nathan resists nothing. He lies down on their clothes in the weeds beneath the marble child, and Roy lies down along him. Roy is content to be still like that for a long time, sometimes watching Nathan and sometimes not, his open hand on Nathan’s face. Their legs tangle in the weeds. Nathan can see the distended fabric of Roy’s shorts, but he does not touch the place directly and Roy abstains from asking. They lie together, heat fields enfolded, kissing awkwardly now and then.

  Roy says, “When we do this, you can’t tell your parents.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You can’t tell your friends either. This is a secret.”

  “I know.” Nathan feels some desperation he cannot name, like a slow sob.

  “I’m not your boyfriend.” Roy rests against Nathan as before, but they have each become still. “I have a girl-friend. And I don’t need to do this if I don’t want to.”

  Nathan receives the words all the way to the center of his bones. He watches Roy’s face, trying to see through to his mind. It is like the silence on the bus, this moment. It is like Roy squaring his shoulders to the front of the bus. They lie together for a long time. Nathan watches the pond with Roy’s shivering belly under his hand. Roy’s large thigh stirs in the grass. The crickets drone. Finally Roy says, in a tenderer tone, “We better get back.”

  Nathan stands and finds his clothes. Roy dresses close to him. The night has filled with sounds. From the shadows overhead come calls of night birds, and from the distant darkness echoes the yowling of a faraway cat, the singing of frogs, the murmuring of wind in branches. One shrill thin cry shivers along Nathan’s spine, sounding almost human. A bobcat, Roy says.

  In the backyard, in the shadow of the barn, Roy embraces Nathan, holding tight. “Bring my books in the morning. I’m going on home.” No more parting than that. Roy’s shadow vanishes.

  In the kitchen, Nathan drinks sweet tea standing by the sink. The house is quiet except for the drone of the television.

  Then Dad is in the room.

  “Is that you son?”

  Nathan sets the glass carefully, quietly, onto the sink. “Yes sir.”

  The sweetish smell of his Old Spice clouds the kitchen. He has come from the living room. He is standing in shadow. “You been out for a walk.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Out to the pond. There’s a graveyard out there.”

  “Who did you go with?”

  “Roy. Next door.” Very softly.

  “He’s a nice boy,” Dad says.

  He comes forward into the light and Nathan backs away. He considers Nathan from beside the refrigerator. Dad is wearing his white boxer shorts with the stained front, his white tee shirt with the torn sleeve and cigarette burns. The whiteness of his flesh, the softness, make Nathan look away. “There’s a Western on the TV. You ought to come watch it with your dad.”

  “No sir.”

  Dad ponders this. He opens the door of the refrigerator. “All right. Then go on to bed.”

  Nathan has been holding his breath. Released, he slips quietly upstairs, without turning on the light. He waits at the window until he is calm. He listens to make sure Dad goes back to the living room.

  Across the yard Roy’s window is dark. So it remains.

  Chapter Three

  In the morning, a heavy mist has settled onto the yard, and Nathan can hardly see the bus as he heads into the cloud zipping his jacket. His own books and Roy’s are crooked in his arm. The idling motor guides him to the haze of the yellow bus. Roy straddles the driver’s seat gazing out the window at the dismal morning. He says nothing, closes the door and turns on the headlights.

  The rutted road tosses Nathan from side to side on the seat. The inside of the bus is like the sky this morning, a silence condensing around every sleepy face. Everyone says good morning to Roy pleasantly, distantly. No hello is returned by Roy with any sign of hidden feeling. Nathan searches but finds no evidence of a girlfriend in these faces. But this thought hardly brings any peace. Nathan already knows Roy has a girlfriend at his church, and Roy goes out with her all the time.

  At school Nathan leaves the bus with the first wave this time, letting Roy sit like a boulder. His coldness seems oddly expected. But Nathan remembers lying on their clothes in the cemetery, his hand on Roy’s naked belly in the shadow of the obelisk. Roy will treat Nathan as he pleases, and Nathan expects the coldness. In the daylight Nathan will be invisible.

  So at lunchtime Nathan sits away from Roy and his friends, at a table by the southern wall of windows, among the black kids. He drinks his milk and chews his macaroni and cheese. His mind, as he eats, is a perfect wash, free of any stray imagining. He avoids the smoking patio, after lunch, in favor of the lawn in front of the school, sheltered by the brick sign announcing FORRESTER COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL to the fields beyond. He sits in the shadow, hidden, and hums a hymn from church about the peace that passes understanding.

  A new friend crosses the yard beyond, Hannah from Nathan’s civics class. Hannah visits briefly, asking if Nathan is r
eady for the test on the American Constitution next week. Yes, Nathan answers. Hannah is pimpled and pleasant and talks for a while, idle and mundane chatter, but while she is there, Roy passes. His posture radiates anxiety, hands jammed into pants pockets, shoulders rigid. He sees Nathan and stands watching. He scowls and shoves his hands deeper.

  Even now, even from this distance, his body draws Nathan toward it, and Nathan stands to join him; but suddenly Roy storms away, shoulders hunched, frowning.

  The afternoon chokes Nathan, sitting in hot, dark classrooms with windows no teacher will open. He sits through advanced math with his Venus pencil poised, paper glaring at him from the desktop. Mr. Ferrette crumbles chalk against the chalkboard. When the final bell rings and everyone hurries toward the buses, Nathan walks toward his own bus with a small fear inside.

  Roy straddles his vinyl saddle watching the accelerator pedal on the floor, books loose in one arm. Others enter before Nathan does; he nods to them; Nathan is too far away to read Roy’s expression; but when Roy sees Nathan he turns, making a production of settling his books into the basket beside the seat. Momentum carries Nathan to the back of the bus, where he sits, quietly watching the top of Roy’s head in the rearview mirror.

  The drive home is tedious and tense at the same time, the bus a senseless rattling contraption that sends up a cloud of stinking exhaust, vapid voices, and vacant laughter. Nathan props his knees against the seat in front, glaring at the ridged rubber mat that runs the length of the aisle. No matter where he looks, he can feel Roy’s sullen anger at the front of the bus. Roy scans the highway with lips set in a line. Nathan clutches his books against his stomach, remembering the softness of Roy’s cheek, the taste of his mouth.

  The bus makes its usual stops, the bodies thinning among the seats. Soon there are only a few voices between Nathan and Roy. Again soon, Nathan sits alone in the back of the bus and Roy alone in front; Roy stares forward and Nathan stares downward, each with equal stubbornness. Roy turns the bus down the dirt road through the Kennicutt Woods. Nathan cannot help but watch the strong arms turn the wide steering wheel, while Roy remains oblivious and shifts gears with precise violence. But, past the first few curves of the road, he pulls the bus to the side and stops.

  Nathan watches in surprise. Roy sags back against his seat, arms falling limp at his side. His deep breathing is audible. “I got a question for you.”

  Nathan voice sounds timid, small in the empty bus. “What is it?”

  “What were you doing with that girl in the front of the school?”

  Studying the back of Roy’s head for a clue. The mirror is empty. “Nothing. I was just sitting there and she came up.”

  “Oh sure,” Roy says.

  “She’s in my civics class. She was asking me about this test we got.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Hannah something.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “She’s all right.”

  Roy’s voice trembles a little. “Do you like her the way you like me?”

  The question echoes into silence.

  “No.”

  Roy sits still. Nathan’s heart pounds and calm is hard to find. Roy stands. He stares at the rubber mat as he walks down the aisle. He is shaking as he kneels beside Nathan’s seat. “I don’t know if I believe you or not.”

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  “Touch me,” Roy says, and Nathan embraces him. He leans against Nathan, who caresses the thick hair at the nape of his neck. He opens his shirt slowly and Nathan feels the strong upsurge of breath and desire, same as the night before; only in the daylight the rich color of his flesh glows, blinding, and when Nathan touches the curves and planes, the sudden rush of heat engulfs them both.

  For Nathan it is a moment of poise, in which he must balance between what he knows and what he should not know. The fact of Roy makes a difference. Here it is easy to be held. Nathan’s body has never felt so safe. They are touching each other in intimate places with a feeling of perfection. Their breaths, as they fumble and mingle, come faster; they cling and press until they finish. Nathan holds his eyes closed, aware of Roy against him and glad of the clean curved lines of Roy’s body. Glad to lay his hands on Roy’s firm shoulders and flat waist. The trembling of a vein in Roy’s neck draws Nathan’s fingers. The clean lines of Roy are a relief and Nathan focuses on that. Without reason, in Nathan’s inner seeing, the vision of Preacher John Roberts arises, telling again how at the Last Supper John lay his head tenderly on Jesus’ breast. Nathan ends that way, with Roy’s fingers in his hair. Roy asks, “Did you ever do this before with anybody?”

  Nathan shakes his head, unable to speak. He has never liked it before. That much is true.

  “Do you promise?” Roy asks, and the fear is plain on his face when Nathan looks at him.

  “I promise. I never did it with anybody.” Hoarse, almost inaudible. Feeling hollow inside.

  “Because it’s okay as long as it’s just you and me.” Roy’s face is suddenly very sad. Nathan reaches for the face, pulls Roy close. Roy settles, sighing, against Nathan’s smaller shoulder. “I never did this much before. Not even with a girl.”

  Nathan holds him as if he has diminished. Nathan becomes the shelter, the protection. He touches Roy’s chest with the tip of his tongue and Roy shudders; inside, his heart is regularly bursting. Stillness settles over the bus. Roy sighs and loops an arm around Nathan, keeping close to him through the aftermath, as the sinking sun caresses them through the windows.

  When they can move again, Roy leads Nathan to the front of the bus, drives home down the twisting road with the shadows of the trees passing across his shoulders. He parks the bus in the usual spot in the yard and turns in the seat. “Don’t go in yet.”

  “All right. I won’t.”

  Roy studies his own hands, gripping the steel frame of his seat, smooth nail against smooth rivet. “I can’t come to see you tonight. We have prayer meeting.”

  “At church?”

  He nods. “Every Wednesday.” He will not look up.

  “Do you like to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a lot of homework to do anyway. I have a test. I told you.”

  But Roy has heard only his own thoughts. Lips parted, as if words are close, Roy glances toward his house. He leans to Nathan, kisses him quickly. Pulling on his shirt, he says he will see Nathan later and hurries away without a backward glance.

  The night is long and Roy moves restlessly in Nathan’s thoughts. Nathan studies mathematics slowly, solving his tedious, nonalgebraic problems with an indolent air. Later he walks to the pond, though not as far as the abandoned cemetery. He can see the distant outline of the tombstones against the black backdrop of trees.

  He has gone to bed when Roy finally arrives at home again, driving his parents’ car into the yard, letting it idle a moment. Nathan leaps out of the blankets. He stands back from the window to make sure Roy cannot see him. Roy steps out of the car, illuminated by the yard light atop its creosote pole. His figure is handsome in white shirt and tie, his face in shadow. Judging from his stance, he might be watching Nathan’s window. But still Nathan hangs back, listening to the muted creakings of the house around him, the syncopated drip of water in the downstairs bathroom. Wind rattles the upstairs windows in their frames. Roy presently heads into the deeper gloom beneath trees, walking with his mother, who moves slowly due to her size. Nathan hovers in the dark over them both.

  Soon a dim light burns in the bedroom above the hedge. As before, Roy’s shadow slides across the visible wall. Tonight he avoids the window, and Nathan watches his shadow undress.

  When that room goes dark, Nathan stands dumbly before his own window, reluctant to turn. When he returns to bed, a small fear seizes him. He replays in his head every moment of Roy’s arrival, his stepping out of the car, his standing in the shadow, his undressing out of sight of the window. Nathan lies in bed and examines each of these images over and over. Something
in the sequence of events frightens him.

  Yet the following day proves to be all Nathan could have wished. In the morning he sits in the seat behind Roy again, and on the way to school Roy talks to him in an almost intimate way. At lunch Roy sits with Nathan and afterward takes Nathan to the smoking patio. No friend takes precedence over Nathan, and no girl excites his attention.

  Only once, when Nathan asks about prayer meeting, does the little fear return. Roy says the meeting was fine but refuses to look at him. All further questions about Roy’s church stick in Nathan’s throat.

  That afternoon, when Roy parks the bus under the pecan trees, he tells Nathan to hurry inside and change clothes, he wants them to go for a hike in the woods while there’s still light. To an Indian mound, he says, beyond the pond and the cemetery. He grins and lets the bus motor die. The door hardly swings open before Nathan dashes for his house.

  In the kitchen his mother stands at the sink washing a cake pan and icing bowl. The room shimmers with afternoon light, filtered through red-checked curtains, adding color to her face and hands. “I’m making a coconut cake. Do you want a little piece of layer?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m not hungry.”

  “It’s still warm out of the oven, it would be good.”

  “I’m not hungry for cake right now.”

  This disappoints her a little, but she goes on smiling warmly. “Well, did you have a good day at school?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, sit down and talk to me about it. What are you in such a hurry for?”

  “Roy wants me to change clothes and come out to the woods with him.”

  She studies her dishes and frowns. Her glistening hands move deliberately. “What does he want you to go in the woods for?”

  “To see this Indian mound.”

  “What do you want with an Indian mound?”

  “I never saw one before.”