Black Heart on the Appalachian Trail

by T. J. Forrester

  Giuseppe stands fully erect, not an easy thing after moving so much dirt, and howls a mournful sound. Pike isn’t the only one who can up the ante. Tomorrow, if Giuseppe can work it into the conversation, he will ask to put his name on the title.

  * * *

  “Joining us for breakfast?” Pike says, and motions toward the dining room table. He’s in his brown robe, sash knotted below his belly button.

  Mudcaked and unclothed in the hallway, Giuseppe raises a foot and scrapes the adjacent ankle with his big toe. He likes mornings in the B&B, the way house and guests wake up together, neither in a rush to greet the day. A toilet flushes upstairs, and lazy footsteps sound on the ceiling. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

  “No trouble,” Pike says. “I’ll set another plate and—”

  “I just came in to get a few things, maybe a book and an umbrella.”

  “The umbrella is a good idea. The weatherman said it’s going to be a scorcher today. Much hotter than yesterday.”

  “I was thinking about reading a little Cheever.”

  “You can’t go wrong with Cheever,” Pike says.

  Giuseppe follows Pike to the kitchen and watches him flip batter that bubbles in the skillet on the stove. The pancake somersaults and lands dead center. For years Pike has performed this trick to entertain Giuseppe, who always reciprocated with an appropriately awed sound. Today he holds his tongue. Pike cuts him a glance and Giuseppe looks away.

  A frail boy pads into the kitchen, pecks Pike on the cheek, opens the refrigerator, and comes away with a carton of orange juice. The boy wears tattered shorts and shirt, bandanna tied in a scarf over yellow hair. He has a lean face, sores on his cheeks—most likely, Giuseppe thinks—the worst case of acne on a scarecrow he’s ever seen.

  “Say hello to Dobbs Amherst,” Pike says, “our new houseboy.”

  “I’m only staying for the summer.” Dobbs opens the carton and takes an enthusiastic swallow. Giuseppe extends his hand and the boy reciprocates. His handshake is limp and unimpressive, his expression impassive.

  “He just got word he’s been accepted at Dartmouth,” Pike says. “He won’t be able to finish his thru-hike so he’s stopping here to earn play money for his first semester.”

  Giuseppe presses his fingertip, a grubby spear point, against the boy’s chest. He pushes Dobbs against the wall, then walks outside to the black gash in the green garden, where he deposits himself with an abrupt sinking of the legs. He bakes in the heat, curses his cowardice.

  * * *

  Later that day, as the sun begins a downward slide, Dobbs comes out and hands Giuseppe an apple, gallon jug of ice water, umbrella, and a novel, Falconer, one of Cheever’s best.

  “Pike told me to bring you this stuff,” Dobbs says. “He said you enjoy a late lunch.”

  Giuseppe arranges the items on the dirt table, pops open the umbrella, and stands in its shadow. His shoulders cool, and, wanting to quench his thirst, he fumbles with the jug. The boy jumps in the hole, unscrews the lid, and climbs back out. Giuseppe drinks long and hard. Between guzzles he eats the apple to the core.

  “Compost,” Giuseppe says, and tosses the core over his shoulder.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind . . . you don’t know much about gardening, do you?”

  The boy tugs at the yellow wisps over his ears, and his voice grows defensive. “Least I don’t live in a hole in the ground.”

  “It’s quite comfortable, actually.” Giuseppe lies on his back and looks up at the boy, whose face looks vaguely familiar from this angle.

  “Do we know each other?” Giuseppe says.

  “I’m Dobbs. We met about four hours ago.”

  “No, I mean before. Have you come through here before?” It’s not unusual for thru-hikers to walk the Appalachian Trail multiple times. Giuseppe thinks they waste their lives isolated for such long periods but keeps his opinion to himself. He has no pedestal to mount while he sits in judgment. He is a house bitch, not exactly a respected station in life.

  “I might have come through here,” Dobbs says. “You never know about me. I get around.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “You don’t have to be an asshole. I never done anything to you.”

  “I never did anything to you. Pike won’t tolerate anything less than perfect grammar. He’s a stickler about it.”

  The boy clutches a wilted tomato plant and breaks off leaves one at a time. “You’ll like me when you get to know me. If you can get that fat dick up, I’ll give you the best blow job on the East Coast.”

  “Don’t you worry about what’s between my legs.” Giuseppe suddenly feels naked, an awareness that makes him reach for his clothes.

  “A man with a cock as pretty as that one should get some love once in a while. God knows that old man in there isn’t doing it for you.”

  “He’s confused.” Giuseppe steps into his underwear, tugs on the filthy cotton.

  “I grew up with an uncle like him; bastard had me sucking dick when I was nine. I wouldn’t even be a homo if it weren’t for him. I’d be eating pussy and squeezing boobs like a normal guy.”

  “Pike isn’t like your uncle.”

  “No?” Dobbs asks.

  “He’s a good man.”

  “Pike says you’re eccentric, he says one time he came home from a big case and found his entire bedroom set on the street. Said cars were honking and people were stealing pillows. He said to watch out for you because you’re unpredictable.”

  A car comes down the lane in front of the B&B, parks in the shaded lot out front. Giuseppe doesn’t need to look at the plates to know they are government issue. A man gets out and strides across the yard to the tents. The state police. They’ve been regular visitors ever since a Boy Scout went missing on the trail south of here. Giuseppe thinks they waste their time talking to these northbounders. If they had seen something, they would have already made it known.

  “What if?” Giuseppe says. . . . “What if I got up from this hole and went over to that officer and told him I know a little something about that Boy Scout? What if I told him you said you killed him and buried him under some rocks?”

  “Go ahead.”

  The boy’s nonchalant attitude surprises Giuseppe.

  “I’ll do it,” Giuseppe says.

  “You’ll look like a fool. I been hitchhiking from town to town. I got all the gear but I’m what they call a Yellow-Blazer. Screw walking those mountains, I’m taking the easy way north. When I finish my thru-hike, I’m going to find me a dancer in New York City and live the good life.”

  “I thought you were attending Dartmouth.”

  The scarecrow laughs and clears his throat. “Sounded good, didn’t it?”

  “You’re not worried about me telling Pike?”

  “You won’t tell him.”

  “I might,” Giuseppe says. “I might do even worse things.”

  “No,” Dobbs says. “You’re scared. I can see it in your eyes. You’re worried because you’ve been scamming that old man for a long time—”

  “He was young when we met.”

  “You know what I mean. You, me, we’re the same.”

  “We’re different,” Giuseppe says a little too sharply.

  * * *

  Giuseppe, underwear sagging at his crotch, corners Pike when he comes back from his daily co-op expedition. Pike insists that they look professional when interacting with the community and always wears designer clothes during town visits. Today he’s in a dress shirt and single-pleated pants. His sunglasses, most expensive Gucci on the market, have a reflective sheen. Pike hands Giuseppe a burlap sack filled with groceries, and he follows his lover onto the porch, through the front door, and past the reading room. Two long-time customers, Janice and Heather Brougham, sit on the sofa. Janice has a PhD and studies things like snail populations in Fiji. Heather is a year older than Janice and is a doctor up in Boston. They have on matching ball caps and claim the two of them haven’t stopped sm
iling since they voiced their vows two weeks ago up in Vermont. The smiles are a quarter inch away from turning smug and Giuseppe hates the women equally. Heather and Janice say hello, a cheesy duet, and Giuseppe nods in return. He follows his lover to the kitchen and plops the burlap sack on the counter.

  “I do wish you’d get cleaned up and put some clothes on,” Pike says. “Running around like a Neanderthal is bad for business.”

  “I’ll fill that hole in and take a shower when you tell me you’ve changed your mind about the bathroom.”

  “No can do,” Pike says. “Dobbs already painted it, a real pretty green.”

  “What?”

  “Turned out nice, if you ask me.”

  “Fuck you, Pike.”

  “Giuseppe—”

  “No, fuck you and that damn houseboy.”

  Pike lowers his voice. “I won’t have you talk like that, not here, where the guests can hear you.”

  “Fuck, fuck, and fuck.”

  “What do you want?” Pike says. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I want my share of the B&B. I want my share of the bank accounts and stock options. I want my share of everything.”

  “What’s mine is yours. It’s been that way ever since we met.” Pike gets a bowl of asparagus stalks out of the refrigerator, pushes the bowl toward Giuseppe.

  “Cut them into one-inch pieces,” Pike says. “I’m making yellow sour curry paste tonight.”

  “You need salmon with that.”

  “I have salmon.”

  Giuseppe washes his hands and his arms, dries with a dishtowel hanging from one of the doors. He concentrates on the asparagus, cuts each piece in identical lengths. Pike is a perfectionist when it comes to cooking, and Giuseppe knows he’ll hear about it if he doesn’t do things right.

  “Can you believe those two lesbos?” Giuseppe says. “They’ve been married for less than a month and Heather’s already putting on weight.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” Pike takes off his sunglasses and cuts pineapple into tiny cubes. The knife slices are precise and fast, almost too fast to see.

  “She’ll be a regular porker inside of three months.” Giuseppe makes an oinking sound, and they both laugh. Pike asks if Giuseppe’s seen the tamarind concentrate, and he says it’s in the fridge, on the second shelf behind the olive jar.

  “Thanks. Prep always goes easier when you’re around.”

  “Glad to help, but I’m not changing my mind. I want what’s coming to me and that’s final.”

  Pike turns away in search of a wok and Giuseppe uses the temporary distraction to head to the bathroom and check out the paint job. No drip marks on the floor, but the green walls clash with the blue bath towels, blue bath mat, and blue toilet cover. Giuseppe clucks his disapproval. Whoever said green is the new blue needs a visit to the optometrist. They’ll have to replace everything, no doubt a job left to Giuseppe. He goes back into the kitchen and Pike puts down his knife, crosses his arms. “We’re not going to run up to Vermont just to get married.”

  “I’m not talking about marriage.”

  “It amounts to the same thing.”

  “Depends on how you look at it,” Giuseppe says. “I could get my half and vanish.”

  “So you could.”

  “Which I would never do.”

  “No, I don’t believe you would,” Pike says.

  “We’ve been together this long, we might as well see it out.”

  “Might as well.”

  Dobbs comes in and looks at Pike, then at Giuseppe. The boy wears matching shirt and pants—Armani—a gift for Pike that Giuseppe purchased with his allowance two years earlier. Six inches too long, the pants bunch at the ankles.

  “Talking about me?” Dobbs says.

  “Leave us,” Pike says, and the boy retreats to the dining room. Giuseppe and Pike stare at each other, neither looks away until Pike blinks and uncrosses his arms. “Quid pro quo. You give, you get.”

  “I’ve been giving to you more than half of my—”

  “It will only take an hour of your time.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I want a threesome,” Pike says. “It’s a simple equation. You fulfill my fantasy and I’ll fulfill yours.”

  “You’d do that?” Giuseppe, facing the only lover he’s ever bedded, takes a step backward.

  “You’re my one and only, Love. I’ve been telling you that for years.”

  * * *

  The bedroom has a defunct fireplace, and on the mantel are framed photos of past vacations. Giuseppe’s favorite memories come from a cruise down to the Virgin Islands, where they spent their days in ports like Frederiksted and Christiansted, sampling local dishes. Pike preferred conch over white rice, although, in typical Pike fashion, he complained the seasoning wasn’t balanced. Giuseppe favored red snapper basted in garlic butter and washed everything down with rum. He remembers thinking rum was so cheap that if they lived in the islands he’d wake up every morning with a hangover. At night he left his small berth and walked up two decks to Pike’s suite, where he waited until the hall was clear before entering. Sex was brief but spectacular and afterward they cuddled on silk sheets and ate caviar and crackers.

  Giuseppe now grasps a photo and brings it close to his eyes, moves it away and Pike’s face comes into focus. He wears a beige T-shirt and white shorts, and his hair is tangled from the wind. Behind him, a rippled inlet reflects the sun. Giuseppe puts the photo back and walks over to the window. They were so young back then, each concealing his sexuality, a secret that wrapped around them like an invisible cocoon. Times have changed, and now the whole world seems different. They live in a town full of tolerant people. Pike and Giuseppe go where they want, when they want, and no one cares. Giuseppe misses the covert glance, the thrill of the secret rendezvous. When their relationship was new, Pike didn’t need another to feel complete, certainly not some acne-faced hustler trying to make a buck.

  Giuseppe parts the curtains, looks down at three tents in a rainbow triangle. Never Lost, Tazmanian Devil, and Red Bear have stayed overnight. His instinct tells him Never Lost and Tazmanian Devil are a couple, even though they don’t act like it in public. Red Bear is an Indian, and he has the shiniest black hair Giuseppe has ever seen. He’d like to get to know them better, especially Tazmanian Devil, who has this hunk of a jaw and curly brown hair, but hikers at the B&B are an ever-changing group, here today, gone tomorrow, and making friends with someone who will soon leave is a waste of time. Some days he wants to put on a backpack and follow them down the trail. North, south, the direction doesn’t matter, so long as it’s anywhere but here.

  Dobbs and Pike walk into the bedroom and nausea comes over Giuseppe, a light-headedness that threatens to topple him to the floor. Dobbs takes off his clothes and hops in bed. He has a tattoo of a snake on his chest; venom drips from pink fangs.

  “Come over here,” the boy says. “Let me make a man out of you.”

  Giuseppe kisses his lover roughly on the lips. Pike returns the kiss and in a scramble of creaky arms and legs, they join the boy. For the next hour, Giuseppe exists in a timeless fog, moans and whispered words too dispersed to comprehend. He dreams of the bottom line, thinks of the papers he will sign.

  * * *

  In the utility shed, Dobbs at his side, Giuseppe pours gas from a red can into the John Deere. The shed smells like grease and gas and dusty corners and is the only room on the property Pike never visits. Auto parts, left over from the previous owner, sit on yellowed newspapers with dates as far back as the 1960s. Jars and tin cans on the workbench hold random assortments of nails, screws, nuts and bolts, fasteners, assorted extension cords, and electrical sockets. The effect, so many things in so many places, reminds Giuseppe of controlled chaos, and he supposes the shed is fitting locale for the conversation he’s been having with the boy.

  “You should have asked for my ID before we hit the sack,” Dobbs says. He tilts a half-empty bottle of Chablis from the collection in the
cellar, swallows, and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Hell, I’m not but fourteen.”

  “What do you mean you’re ‘not but fourteen’?” Giuseppe asks. He entwines his fingers in the boy’s hair, yanks his head upwards. His breath, so close to Giuseppe’s face, smells like fermented bubble gum. Dobbs’s eyes are glassy, open but seeing nothing.

  “Let me go.”

  “What do you mean you’re ‘not but fourteen’?”

  “Fuck damn,” Dobbs says. “Be fifteen March.”

  “You little shit.” Giuseppe turns the boy loose and sets down the gas can.

  “I ain’t nobody’s fool. You homos fucked me in the ass and came in my mouth and made me do things no child should bear. That’s what I’ll tell the police next time they come to visit. I’ll tell them you raped me in the bedroom. I’ll describe both your dicks and that little mole on your balls and you’ll both get twenty years.”

  Cold creeps into Giuseppe’s bones. He spent the morning waiting for Pike to come back from the bank, hoping his lover, no, that’s not right, knowing his lover will honor his word. Pike has money, and plenty of it, which means Giuseppe will soon be rich. He can afford to buy off the boy.

  “I’ll give you a hundred dollars,” Giuseppe says. “You go away and never come back.”

  “Shit.”

  “Pike fired you first thing this morning.”

  The boy does a strange hopping dance, a wobbly skeleton in designer clothes. “He needs someone to take care of the house.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “Pow,” the boy says, and points his finger at Giuseppe’s chest. “Pow! Pow! Pow! Was your job, your wrinkled ass is packing up and leaving.”

  “I’ll give you fifty thousand.”

  The boy stumbles and grabs the workbench, knocks a jar to the floor. Shattered glass and screws scatter across concrete. He rights himself, brushes off his clothes. “Me and Pike will get married and I’ll fuck him to death. I will fuck your sugar daddy so hard he’ll be dead inside a year.”