Common Sons

by Ronald Donaghe

  Paul was so eager he was practically sitting in Tom’s lap, leaning forward, talking right into his face, filling the air around them with an oniony, sour-milk smell. His right arm lay over the metal bar behind the bus seat. Tom felt crowded. He groaned inwardly but kept smiling weakly. “Yeah. Great. Could you scoot over a little, Paul? It’s kinda hot, okay?”

  Paul moved an inch. “Did you know your father was going to do that today?”

  “What?” Tom was intrigued. He turned away from the window and shoved Paul farther away, then forced himself to fill up the space. Immediately he felt less put upon.

  “His sermon. Daddy says your father can get away with anything. And today he proved it, you know. The church members should have been insulted, but they weren’t. Not by your father. He’s got a real command of that church.”

  Tom was confused. “Why? What happened?”

  “You were there. Don’t you know?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I knew, would I?” Tom said, irritated.

  Paul only looked at him and shook his head. “What’s wrong with you, Brother? Your father deliberately.” Paul stopped. “Never mind. It was a great sermon and you slept through it, I guess.”

  “Okay. So I was daydreaming.”

  “Yes, Tom.” Paul seemed angry. “You know, you’ve got to live up to people’s expectations. You should hear the women cackle about you. They think you’re so beautiful, it’s almost irreverent. You’re a prince to them. You’ve got to keep their trust. It’s your duty.and you fall asleep in church!”

  Tom turned away, again, looked out the window at the beginning traces of greenery as the bus began climbing into the foothills. The mountains north of town had grown closer and now instead of pale, featureless violet blue, they were taking on rugged faces. He pulled the window open and traces of coolness spread over him, instantly drying his sweaty scalp, sweetening and cleansing the stuffy air of the bus. He shivered involuntarily. He looked around the bus and caught the eyes of some of the others, surprised that he didn’t know very many names. He turned back to Paul.

  “I’ve been here almost a year, you know? You’d think I would know everybody, but I don’t. Not really. There are people on this bus I don’t think I’ve even seen.”

  Paul leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “Yeah, well it’s no wonder. You’re so distant. You keep yourself aloof. You only hang around with the men’s fellowship on Sundays and hardly ever take the lead like you should. You know we’ve got all kinds of activities. All the elders’ sons, me included, more or less have to fill in the gaps you leave. We need you, Tom, but you’re just never available.”

  “Well, you know I hang around with Joel all the time. We’re pretty close.” He regretted saying that, and immediately felt like he had insulted Joel. After the way I treated him yesterday, he thought.

  “Yes…your friend. Joel Reece,” Paul hissed. “The heathen.”

  Anger rose in Tom’s chest and he glared at Paul. “Heathen? How the hell do you know what he’s like?”

  Paul looked shocked, then grinned slyly. “Your foul mouth is a good example, Brother. He’s a bad influence on you. Face it, Tom. He’s not a member of our church, or any other, for that matter. And so he’s a heathen.”

  “That’s stupid!” Tom said hotly. “Joel is my best friend. We’ve got a lot in common, and he’s taught me a lot about things.”

  Paul snickered. “He’s all brawn, Tom.” He tapped his forehead. “Too much sunshine on that farm of his.”

  “Joel and his father run more than a section of farmland, Paul. They do it by themselves, and they make a lot of money. He’s brawny because he has to be, but he knows business well enough to make it on his own right now. He would surprise you how smart he is.”

  Paul looked skeptical. “So he makes passing grades in ag. Big deal! Can he cite Bible verse from memory? Can he make A’s in English? Does he know anything outside of this little hick town?”

  “Do you?” Tom asked.

  “I’ve read about lots of places,” he sniffed. “Just because I haven’t been to Europe doesn’t mean I don’t know about it.” He grimaced and turned away, licking his lips.

  Tom settled back in the seat, suddenly with enough room to breathe. He closed his eyes and let the rhythm of the bus rock him into a short nap.

  * * *

  Tom was laughing along with the rest of the Full Gospel Fellowship that emerged from the bus when it parked beside a mammoth rock at the park. He imagined how Joel would react to the way the group was dressed—most of us, in our Sunday best and getting ready for a picnic!

  He looked around, smiling. The City of Rocks State Park dominated the top of a large rise of ground. From where he stood he could see down into the Mimbres Valley where the town of Common lay, utterly invisible in the haze of distance. It was almost forty miles away and yet, bright glints of sunlight cracked off moving vehicles down there, themselves invisible. To the west, the desert dominated and rolled into eternity. To the east and north, the mountains rose over them with small shadow-lit valleys between.

  It was early afternoon and seemed much cooler. The laughter and the singing blew thinly away in the wide spaces. Tom pulled off his jacket and stuffed it through a window of the bus. He remembered his tie and threw it in after the jacket, then looked around for Paul, thought better of it, and struck out by himself away from the crowd.

  He missed Joel; he would see so much more if Joel were here to point it out. Then he felt lost and confused. It wouldn’t be the same now, anyway, would it? Not after.

  He moved naturally to the “city,” composed of monstrous, freestanding boulders, wind-sculpted giants that rose over him like buildings. The caretakers of the park had even put up street signs with names like Mesquite Avenue, Rattlesnake Drive, and Pinon Trail, and in small open areas were all sorts of picnic tables, portable toilets, and here and there a drinking fountain. The city was large enough that he soon lost sight of the others and found himself alone. The wind sang though the rocks, changing tones over and over, like indistinct voices in other rooms. He came upon a small cave formed by two walls of rock that had fallen together. Inside, an adult could stand upright.

  He went inside and brushed off a place to sit down. “I wish you were here, Joel,” he said aloud. “I’m sorry.” Tears began forming under his lashes, and he forced himself to stop thinking.

  The cave had been visited by others who had scratched or painted their names and dates and messages on the walls. “Tina loves Louis,” he read. “Killer was here 10/29/59” claimed one. “I fucked Billy here,” said another. The floor was littered with plastic cups and broken glass; there was a sock and a wadded pair of Fruit of the Loom underwear; a piece of paper that once held writing was no longer readable; even the blue lines were mere ghosts.

  From inside, he had a view of other hills with smaller rock formations. Suburbs, he supposed, then laughed. This was a good place to explore sometime with Joel. Yeah. Tom…Listen to yourself! With Joel with Joel with Joel!

  He left the cave and walked aimlessly through the streets. Other campers occupied some of the remoter parts of the city; occasionally, the high, strained voices of children wafted to him on the air. Sometimes he rounded a rock and came upon other explorers, some of them able to climb to the tops of rocks, giving them clear views of the area. After about an hour he felt better than he had since waking up in the pickup with Joel. The knot in his stomach had loosened its grip. He began to feel hungry and decided to rejoin his group. But he had no idea which direction to walk.

  Ahead of him was a large stand of rocks; the tallest of them would provide a clear view of most of the city. He walked toward it, looking for a way to get on top. On one side the face was a sheer cliff. He made his way around it slowly because of the fissures and rocks in his path. The back side of the rock was curved and pocked with large holes and shelves. He began climbing and raising himself from foothold to foothold. Then, near the top, he pulled himself up and found himself
staring at the bare buttocks of a boy and the legs entwining them; the couple was oblivious to him at first, panting and sighing in rapid motions. But, when Tom tried to let himself down without being heard, the two sat up. Tom sank below the edge of the rock, hoping they hadn’t seen, but they crawled to the edge and peered over at him. Tom hung onto his footholds and stared up into the faces of two guys; he felt like a small desert creature clinging to the side and wished he could just skitter away.

  “Sorry,” he croaked.

  The two looked at each other and laughed. One of them licked his lips and grinned impishly. “Hey, man, it’s okay. Join us if you want!”

  Tom’s ears burned with embarrassment; his head rang, barely allowing him to think. He sagged on the side of the rock, feeling weak and nauseated. “Sorry,” he said again. Tearing his face away from the two guys, he allowed himself to drop the rest of the way to the ground.

  He found the road running along the edge of the City of Rocks and followed it until he came upon the bus and the others. They had hardly moved from the spot where the bus parked. He joined them silently. His heart was pounding. He was unable to erase the vision of the two guys staring at him over the edge of the rock. Young guys, maybe 15, Tom thought. Inviting him for sex as easily as they would offer him a drink of water, their faces clear and innocent; but it was their nakedness in the stark sunlight shimmering against a crystal blue sky that Tom could not dispel. His breath was short, and he wondered frantically if his face could reveal what he’d seen, the shock of it, the dreadful thirst—but the group had a fire going and were enjoying themselves. They seemed completely unaware that he’d even been gone. He helped himself to a hotdog and a warm Coke in a paper cup and sat on one of the rocks that ringed the campfire.

  * * *

  The afternoon faded into twilight, and the air grew cold. Tom retrieved his jacket from the bus and joined in the singing and praying that followed the meal. Afterwards, as night came on and the fire died down to glowing embers and the wind whipped orange sparks into the black sky around them, he and Paul and the others began packing up the supplies. In the darkness, he carried an ice chest full of sloshing water and ice cubes to the rear of the bus. He dumped the water from the chest, watching it soak rapidly into the sand. The rocks at his feet reflected silver light from somewhere and he looked up to see if the moon was out.

  Overhead the sky blazed with the silver brilliance of the stars, billions of them, it seemed, radiating enough light to form a white froth across the black velvet of space. “That’s the Milky Way!” he whispered in wonder, seeing it so brilliant for the first time in his life. He followed it across the sky until it faded into blackness where individual stars burned brighter than the rest, much closer, or so huge, the unfathomable distance could not extinguish them.

  “Lesser lights,” observed Paul in a flat, unemotional voice as he passed by, breaking the spell.

  Tom looked down at the ice chest forgotten in his hands and slid it into the storage area. He climbed aboard and took the same seat as before, accepting with the same resignation Paul’s company, and prepared for his endless prattle. How much more interesting Joel was. How much richer the feelings that he evoked than the thin worn out phrases from Genesis. Lesser lights, my hind foot, Tom thought. On the trip back he tried to recapture the awe that had filled him as he gazed at the sky, but his imagination had shrunk to the limits of the inside of the bus. He thought of the two guys on the rock, wondering how they felt, doing that. Where they lived. Did they live together? Were there more of them? Had he really seen any of it? I know what Joel would say, he thought, then dismissed it, feeling lonely. He listened to the soft, tired discussions going on, the occasional, airy beginnings of a song. He felt smothered by Paul’s contentment with all this rigmarole, Paul’s reduction of everything to biblical clichés, his comment about lesser lights. He felt trapped, being a preacher’s son. He’d no more wanted to waste a Sunday evening with these people than Joel would, but until his father gave the word, he could look forward to more of the same.

  The bus stopped at the church and Tom walked home. Although it wasn’t late, the lights were off in the house and only a pale, blue glow from his parents’ bedroom shone in the dark. He sat on the front porch and tried to see the Milky Way again, but the street lights blocked its fragile light. The sky was a black void where only a few stars twinkled dimly. Cars passing back and forth along Main Street sounded like faint rushes of wind; occasionally, the cracking growl of a motorcycle broke the night.

  Paul’s reminder of his duty to the church eventually settled in his thoughts like a bad smell. He tried to consider the idea without distaste, but Paul’s eager face full of tiny rodents’ teeth kept intruding. He let himself into the house and stood in the darkened living room, hearing the loud clicking of the grandfather clock. Standing by his father’s desk, he let his hand touch the dial face of the telephone, feeling the cold metal of the dial. He wanted to call Joel, but knew that his voice would disrupt the silence, would wake his father.

  He went to bed reluctantly. Joel would still be up. It would be easy to talk things out now. The guilt had shrunk to the size of a small fist in his stomach, and he allowed himself to recall Joel and himself together in the pickup after the dance, thinking also of the two guys at the park.

  CHAPTER 4

  Monday, May 31

  Tom woke up with an erection. He often did, but he never let himself acknowledge it or touch himself down there when his penis was in that state. He usually got up and showered immediately, from a habit developed over years of practice at ignoring his private flesh. Wet dreams were one thing, but to handle himself in the genitals other than to wash and urinate was definitely a sin. The Catholics called it self-abuse.

  Joel called it whacking off, jacking off, beating your meat, pounding your pole—anything but its real name. Tom called it masturbation this morning when he touched his erect penis. It jerked, and a thrill of intense feeling washed through his thighs. His hand shook with the excitement he felt, and just this once, he threw back the covers and pulled his pajama bottoms off.

  He ran his hands over his nakedness. His nipples were hard. In the pale purple-gray light of dawn his flesh looked smooth and hairless, like Joel’s, except for his legs, which were lightly covered with black hairs. He looked at his erection and he remembered Joel holding it, his hands on him in the dark, slow absorbing touches full of warmth and just the slightest scratchy feeling from the calluses on his palm and fingertips. He remember Joel’s hands the most. During these past few months in the maddening, unconscious way he had of allowing his hands to touch, Joel had made him feel weak. But this morning, he didn’t care. He lay back then, allowing himself the freedom to feel the delicious rushes through the shaft and his thighs and stomach, and seeing the splashes of semen, he dipped one finger into the mass of it on his abdomen and tasted it, surprised that it was merely a little salty, a little sweet.

  Shame and fear hit him then like the aftershock of a bomb. Now the cold unwelcome liquid began running off his stomach, threatening to stain the sheets. He looked around for something to clean himself with. He wiped one hand across his stomach, getting his fingers slick; they smelled faintly like yeast. He grabbed a box of tissue on his desk, jerking several tissues from it and cleaned himself.

  He showered a long time, allowing the hot water to wash him, allowing it also to wash the shame away. Scrubbing briskly, he soaped and washed his genitals; and for the first time he explored his private flesh with clean soapy hands, listening to his fin-gers…and for the second time in his life, he masturbated.

  Twice as much shame didn’t feel any worse he discovered as he dressed. He gathered up the wet tissues, made his bed. As usual, he had wakened early. The sun broke through his window, casting a yellow-pink glow over the room. He put on his socks and shoes and went to breakfast.

  His father and mother were sitting at the breakfast table. His father had finished eating and was sipping coffee from a chi
na cup and, when Tom sat down, his father set his cup down on the saucer. It clinked precisely.

  His mother got up and prepared a plate of eggs, toast, and bacon. She set it in front of Tom. “Good morning, dear.” She sat back down and poured her husband another cup, then folded her hands primly into her lap. She always sat straight with her shoulders barely resting on the back of her chair. She was wearing an ordinary house dress, but her prim manner, her flawless hairdo, her clean, sparse makeup suggested that she and her husband were going out, no doubt visiting members of the church.

  “Good morning, Mother…Father.”

  His father looked directly at him, his face stern, as usual, and allowed only the faintest smile to play about his mouth. It disappeared when he spoke. “Thomas, you enjoyed the outing?” It was not a question.

  “Yes, Father,” Tom said. He quickly bowed his head and mouthed the words of a quick prayer. He began eating as if he were at a formal banquet, with one hand resting in his lap.

  “And you’re no longer sick?”

  Tom swallowed a bite of egg, felt it crawl down his throat and stick somewhere in his chest. He drank orange juice, trying to force the lump down. He felt it slide reluctantly into place. He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I’m fine, thank you, Sir.”

  “I’m still waiting to hear about it. Saturday morning you were hysterical. Yesterday you seemed to be in a daze, yet you haven’t said anything, you haven’t asked me to counsel you, Son.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tom tried to relax, but his knees began shaking under the table. His hands shook very slightly under his father’s powerful gaze. He wanted to sit up and frankly tell him to mind his own business. “I’m okay.” He glanced toward his mother, but she deliberately concentrated on her husband’s face.

  “I’m waiting for a reasonable explanation.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Joel took me to a dance Friday night, but I’m the one who suggested it.”