Trailer Trash

by Marie Sexton

  Nate took a deep breath. “I’ll see you at lunch, right?”

  Cody shoved his hands deep into his pockets and stared at the toes of his shoes. After the trip to Rock Springs for clothes, he was down to his last five dollars, and he wasn’t about to spend it on a school lunch. He’d scarfed down a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. That and a smoke at lunch would have to tide him over until after school. But no way in hell was he telling Nate any of that.

  “Right,” he lied.

  “Okay. Here goes nothing.”

  And just like that, Cody was alone.

  Not like it was the first time or anything, but it felt a bit lonelier than it ever had before.

  Nate found the line for seniors with last names starting with letters A through C and took his spot at the end, right behind Brian.

  “Hey!” Brian said, as if they were long-lost friends and not two guys who’d barely spoken as they’d passed a joint around a campfire. “Nathan, right?”

  “I go by Nate.”

  “Where’ve you been, man? Nobody’s seen you around at all.”

  Nate glanced over at Cody, still waiting in line for his own schedule. He had his arms crossed protectively over his chest and his head down. “At home.”

  “Well hey, don’t worry about being the new kid. I got your back, you know?”

  Somehow, that didn’t make Nate feel any better. “Thanks.”

  They collected their schedules and locker assignments, and Brian stepped close to compare them. They were almost a perfect match.

  “Come on. I’ll show you where the lockers are before first period starts.”

  Nate looked around for Cody. It took him a few seconds, but he finally spotted him against the far wall. Cody was chewing his lip, staring at his own slip of paper. Nate wondered how many classes they’d have together, or if their lockers were at least close.

  Brian caught the direction of his gaze and laughed, throwing his arm over Nate’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about him. I don’t know how you got stuck giving that loser a ride, but he’ll leave you alone now that he knows you’re one of us.”

  Nate had a feeling that was more true than even Brian knew. Cody looked up right then, his eyes meeting Nate’s for only a fraction of a second. One brief moment, with Nate trying to say, Don’t leave me.

  He had a feeling what Cody was saying was Good-bye.

  Nate hardly saw Cody the rest of the day. The passing periods were too crazy, with Nate trying to find his way around a brand-new school while Brian and Jennifer introduced him to the rest of their Orange Grove friends. He’d already met Brad, Michelle, and the other Jennifer, but there were nearly a dozen more, across all four grades, all of them in designer jeans and Members Only jackets. By lunchtime, Nate wished his mom had never bought his. He hid it in his locker and looked for Cody.

  But Cody was nowhere to be seen. It pissed Nate off a bit. Cody could lay the blame on the Grove and the cliques all he wanted, but the way Nate saw it, Cody was the one abandoning him, not the other way around. It wasn’t until social studies, the very last class of the day, that he saw Cody again. Nate had been placed in the advance classes for every subject, and it seemed Cody hadn’t, but social studies was one of the few classes that wasn’t broken into levels. It was also one of the few classes where they were able to choose their own seats. Nate was sitting behind Brian, with Jennifer on his right and another of their Grove friends to his left. His heart skipped a beat when Cody walked in. He found himself smiling, willing Cody to catch his eye.

  Cody scanned the desks quickly, his eyes wary. He stopped on Nate, pursing his lips. Nate waved, trying to beckon Cody to come over. The seat behind Nate was still empty, and he wanted nothing more than to have Cody there, at his back.

  “What are you doing?” Jennifer whispered, pulling his hand down. “We don’t want him by us!”

  Nate was about to protest, but it was too late. Cody had already chosen a desk on the far side, near the back of the room, right by the door. He stared resolutely at the desk in front of him, refusing to look Nate’s way. Once class ended, he was out the door again before Nate could even gather his things.

  Nate cursed under his breath, although whether he was cursing himself or his new Grove friends or Cody, he didn’t know. He assumed he’d give Cody a ride home, and he waited at the car for fifteen minutes. Cody never appeared, and Nate finally admitted to himself that Cody’d chosen to walk rather than ride with him.

  Wednesday was much the same. Nate went to the gas station at seven thirty to pick Cody up, but Cody wasn’t there. Nate waited a few minutes, fuming. He wanted to go to Cody’s house. To confront him. To tell him he was being a fool. If Cody’d just lighten up and trust him, he could make things work. He could bridge that gap between Cody and the preps. But he had no idea where Cody lived. He didn’t even know his phone number. It was a shocking realization. He felt like they’d been friends over the summer, but the truth was, unless Cody was at the gas station or in Jim’s field, Nate had no way of finding him.

  He’d talk to Cody after social studies. He’d be ready as soon as the bell rang, and he’d run if he had to. He’d force Cody to ride home with him. Cody wanted to shut him out, to pretend they’d never sat across from each other at McDonald’s, dipping fries into their chocolate shakes. He wanted to pretend like they hadn’t talked about their moms and what it felt like to have only one parent around. It felt like Cody’d locked himself away in some secret room, but Nate intended to beat down the door. He’d tear the walls down with his own hands if that’s what he had to do.

  That’s what he told himself, at any rate. But when the last bell rang, Jennifer was flirting with him, and Brian was talking about the bonfire they were having on Friday after school, and Michelle was talking about the new Dead Milkmen album and how Nate just had to hear it.

  And, in the end, he didn’t even notice when Cody ducked out the door.

  Cody had known from the beginning that he’d lose Nate once school started, but knowing didn’t make it any easier.

  It wasn’t as if Nate ignored him completely. It was true he made no effort to talk to Cody in social studies, but on the rare occasions when they passed each other in the hall, Nate still said hi, or at least raised his hand in greeting. But Cody felt the hostility of the Grove residents in Nate’s company. He heard their snickers as they passed. Once, he heard Brian say, “Why do you still talk to that loser?” And so Cody changed his habits. He learned when and where he was most likely to see Nate, and he altered his course through the school in order to avoid him.

  Even he couldn’t have said whether completely avoiding Nate made things better or worse.

  To his surprise, Logan turned out to be his savior.

  Logan’s little sister, Shelley, was a sophomore, and she was Orange Grove all the way. Logan, though, was the exception to every rule, partly because he was so big nobody dared mess with him, partly because he was the quarterback and the star of the football team. He had plenty of family in Wyoming, but his parents had moved to Warren three years earlier to open a steakhouse. Having come from California garnered him a certain amount of credibility, and a fair share of leeway. He was the only kid in school who could pick and choose who to hang out with from day to day. Logan spent a lot of his time at the bowling alley, but he was in the advanced classes in English, math, and science, and he played football. He smoked, which should have made him in ineligible for football, but it wasn’t like the coach was going to bench his best player. He was in 4-H, but drove a shiny black Camaro. Those things alone made him hard to pin down, but he refused to conform to clique standards when it came to clothing, too. Most days, he wore 501s and a denim jacket, which would have pegged him a burnout, but he wore them with pastel polo shirts, tailored sweaters, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat.

  Nobody else in the school could have made that work, but he did.

  Logan had always been friendly toward Cody. Not like they ever hung out or exchanged phone num
bers, but Logan had never avoided him like the others, and he’d certainly never called him names.

  Not to his face, at any rate.

  Still, Cody was surprised on Friday when Logan not only sat next to him in social studies, but leaned across the aisle to talk to him.

  “Hey, man. I’ve been trying to pin you down in the smoking section all week, but you’re never there when I am.”

  Logan had been looking for him? “I only go out at lunch.” He’d been trying to cut down on how much he smoked, mostly because he was a buck twenty away from being flat broke.

  “Listen. You know the Tomahawk Saloon?”

  Sure, he knew it. Not that he’d ever eaten there. The Tomahawk was what passed for fine dining in Warren. “Yeah. Your family owns it, right?”

  “My dad owns it. My Uncle Frank manages it. Anyway, I’ve been washing dishes there part-time since last spring.”

  The room was getting loud as more students came in and claimed their desks. Jimmy Riordan and Larry Lucero sat behind them and did their best not to look interested in whatever it was Logan had to say to the class freak.

  “Okay,” Cody said, wondering what this had to do with him.

  Logan glanced at Jimmy and Larry, then leaned closer to Cody, practically blocking the aisle with his bulk. He lowered his voice. “Well, our other dishwasher got canned last week, so they’re looking for help, and I told Frank about you.”

  Cody’s heart leaped. “You did? Why?” After all, there were plenty of other people in Warren looking for work.

  “I thought you might like to earn a bit of cash, that’s all. It’s just washing dishes, and it’s only minimum wage. But otherwise, it’s just gonna go to some dick-weed like Larry back there, or some addict like Pete Jessup who’ll only show up half the time and be high the other half. And frankly, I figured you could use it more.”

  It was said without pity. Without judgment. Just a fact. It might have felt insulting if Cody hadn’t been so surprised. “Would he really hire me?”

  “You bet. I told him we’d painted houses together last summer, how you were the only one who showed up on time every day. The hours kind of suck but—”

  “Okay, people!” Mrs. Simmons said as the bell rang. “Enough chatter. Let’s talk about last night’s homework. How many of you did the reading?”

  “Think about it,” Logan whispered before straightening back up into his own seat.

  Cody sat there, stunned. It was true he’d had a house-painting job with Logan the summer before their junior year, but it’d only been a couple of weekends, and they’d barely spoken to each other during that time. Cody was surprised Logan even remembered. He was even more surprised that Logan would stick his neck out for him. Part-time at minimum wage wouldn’t be much, but it’d be a hell of a lot better than nothing. He might even be able to get a new coat before the snow started to fly.

  He spent the rest of the class dreaming about that first paycheck.

  Washing dishes was more enjoyable than Cody had expected. Sure, the water was gross and his hands ended up looking like prunes, but he was sequestered in a back corner, alone more often than not, which suited him just fine. Frank didn’t mind if he took smoke breaks, as long as he was all caught up, and best of all, the waitresses occasionally gave Cody dinner—a steak returned for being overcooked, or a baked potato that wasn’t supposed to be loaded but was. Cody was amazed at how many perfectly good dinners came back to the kitchen untouched, and unless somebody wanted them, they went into the trash.

  He’d never eaten so well in his life.

  The downside was that being alone, up to his elbows in soapy water, he had way too much time to think about Nate. He remembered afternoons spent playing cards. He dreamed up a hundred new trips together to Rock Springs or Casper. He often imagined Nate and his father out in the dining room, perusing the menu, not even bothering to check the prices before they ordered. He wondered if Nate ever thought about him.

  It was stupid, but it was hard to stop daydreaming about having his one and only friend back.

  Well.

  One of his two friends, as it turned out.

  Cody and Logan mostly worked opposite shifts, but every once in a while, they’d overlap. Saturday nights especially were often busy enough to warrant both of them, and Logan liked to talk. He talked about football and how his parents hoped he’d get a scholarship. He talked about the trip to Orlando he’d taken with his family that summer, and about the trip to Mexico they’d take after Christmas. He talked about school. About the Grove residents and their weird obsession with what name brands were selling in cities where shopping malls actually existed. He talked about the trailer-park kids at the bowling alley, and the cowboys who were in 4-H with him, and the girls . . .

  Good lord, he liked to talk about girls. He especially liked to talk about Jamie Simpson, the daughter of a cattle rancher who lived a few miles north of Warren. Cody mostly knew her as the girl who’d beaten Larry Lucero’s ass on the playground back in fifth grade, but she’d made more of a name for herself in the last couple of years by taking first place two years running in both bareback bronc riding and breakaway roping at the rodeo, beating all the boys from Warren in the process.

  Yeah. Logan talked about her a lot.

  It wasn’t that he was a gossip. It was more like he was a sponge, soaking up information all day long, and when he found himself in the back corner of the kitchen with Cody, he had to wring it all out. His mouth just started running, never really bad-mouthing anybody. Just stating the facts, as he saw them. He asked a lot of questions too, and Cody answered, hesitantly at first, but growing more confident as the weeks passed. Logan never passed judgment. He never laughed at Cody. He never seemed surprised or shocked by the things Cody said, and Cody found himself revealing more of himself than he normally did. He talked about his dad, and about not having a winter coat, and about his summer.

  He talked about Nate.

  He hadn’t quite realized he was doing it until one night when Logan said, “Sounds like you guys were thick as thieves before school started.”

  Thick as thieves. Seemed like a damn stupid saying, but it made Cody realize how often Nate’s name had fallen off his tongue. And once he realized it, he couldn’t stop realizing it. Sometimes it felt like every third word out of his mouth was Nate’s name, and he began to hate himself a bit more with each one.

  He didn’t hate Nate, though. Somehow, he couldn’t ever manage that.

  “Did you hear about Jerry Smith?” Logan asked one Saturday in mid-October. The wind was howling outside, and everybody was predicting the first snow of the year, but in the back of the kitchen, it was warm and steamy and comfortable. Cody was washing while Logan put away what was already clean. Some of the shelving was pretty high, and at just over six feet tall, Logan had a lot of reach on Cody, who was closer to five seven.

  “Who?”

  “Jerry Smith. He used to play for the Redskins. Retired with the most touchdowns by a tight end in NFL history.”

  “No. What about him?”

  “He died of AIDS on Wednesday.”

  Cody went cold, suddenly afraid to look at Logan, feeling uncomfortable with him for the first time in weeks. “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “Nothing. Just making conversation.”

  And it was true, he didn’t sound disgusted or accusatory. Still, it made Cody nervous. He tried to keep his voice steady as he said, “Seems like more and more people are dying of it every day.”

  “Does it worry you?”

  “Why would it?” But he knew he sounded too defensive.

  Logan sighed. “Look, man. I know what they say about you.”

  Cody’s heart tripped into high gear. “Who?”

  Logan shrugged, putting a stack of big silver mixing bowls back on a shelf. “Everybody.”

  “What exactly do they say?” Even though he already knew the answer to that question.

  “That you’re gay and you have t
he hots for Nate Bradford.”

  Well, he thought he knew, at any rate, but he’d only been half right. He stopped in the middle of scrubbing a frying pan, his heart pounding, his stomach doing strange, fluttery things. The part about him being gay wasn’t a surprise, but he hadn’t expected Nate to be dragged into it, especially since they hadn’t even spoken since the beginning of school.

  Logan was sorting through the clean silverware, separating forks, knives, and spoons into separate bins, but glancing Cody’s way every few seconds, waiting for an answer. It took a couple of tries to make himself speak. “You trying to ask me if it’s true?”

  “No. I’m trying to tell you, I don’t really care either way. I mean, I don’t see how you could look at a dude and actually want to see him naked, let alone kiss him. Or, you know . . . do other things with him.” He cleared his throat, and Cody ducked his head, hoping his too-long hair hid the burn of his cheeks. “But the thing is, there aren’t exactly a lot of babes in Warren, Wyoming, and I figure the less competition I have for Jamie, the better.”

  “Oh.” Cody didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never imagined anybody in Warren, Wyoming, might be so blasé about his darkest secret. He’d also never fully considered his feelings for Nate. Sure, he liked him. Sure, he missed him like crazy. And yes, his heart ached a little bit every time he thought about him. He could remember the exact cadence of Nate’s laugh, and the way he tilted his head when Cody gave him a hard time, and the exact curve of his lips when he smiled. But never once in their time together had Cody seriously considered kissing Nate, or even trying to hold his hand, mostly because he figured that’d send Nate running for the hills.

  Or for Orange Grove, at any rate.

  But Logan’s question brought him up short. His stomach continued to feel too wiggly and too light and altogether too uncomfortable, but in a way that was kind of exciting. He imagined how it might feel to kiss Nate, and smiled at the sudden tingle in his groin.

  Did he really have a crush on Nate?