All American Boy

by William J. Mann

  And Wally loved him for it.

  “Have you given any thought to what it will be like when he’s gone?”

  Wally lifts his eyes. He’s no longer in bed in Miss Aletha’s house. He’s in the hospital cafeteria, drinking coffee to stay awake, sitting opposite Cheri. Even here the lights are so bright that they make Wally nauseous. Eight floors up Ned is in his last days of PCP.

  “No,” he tells her. “I have not given any thought to that at all.”

  She takes his hands in hers. “Sweetie, I worry about you. You’re down to skin and bones yourself. The reality is that Ned isn’t coming home this time.”

  Wally pulls out of her grip and runs his hand through his hair. He watches as little flakes of skin drift down to land in his coffee. “He’s rallied before,” he manages to say.

  “Wally, he has AIDS.” Cheri reaches over to place her hand on top of his again. “He can only rally so many times.”

  How can she understand? Cheri’s never had a boyfriend who lasted longer than a few months, and he’s been with Ned for a decade! Ten whole goddamn years! He’s been with Ned since he was eighteen, a scared, confused little boy still shamed by his family, his teachers, his town for what had happened with Zandy. Ned saved him. Ned is his life. Ned is as much a part of Wally as his blood vessels, his muscle tissue, his brain.

  And she has the nerve to ask him if he’d given any thought to what it would be like when Ned was gone.

  He’ll never be able to think about that. Never.

  He can’t sleep. He throws aside his sheets and heads downstairs, where he sits at the kitchen table, eating the last slice of ginger cake with his hands. He hears a sound and looks up. Miss Aletha comes in, a kerchief around her head.

  “Did we wake you?” Wally asks, an eyebrow arched.

  She pours herself a glass of orange juice and sits down beside him. “I heard a few bedsprings.”

  “You wanted it to happen, didn’t you?”

  She shrugs. “I just wanted fate to take its course.”

  “I’m an old man, Missy.” He breaks off another piece of the cake. “An old man who couldn’t get it up.”

  “Oh.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He was just in it to get sex. I know how boys that age are. Their dicks rule them. I was the same way.”

  “Not really.”

  “No, I was. So I made sure he got off. I gave him what he wanted.”

  She’s just looking at him.

  “I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. I mean, he’s just a kid. It’s not like I have … feelings for him or anything. He’s a kid and I had sex with him. That’s all it was.”

  “Okay. That’s all it was.”

  “That’s all it was.”

  You’re great, Wally, you know that? You’re great.

  There’s more to being gay than just having sex, babe.

  Why does it sting so much? The boy’s attitude? The way he left, the way he hadn’t spent the night, sleeping beside him, his ear pressed up against Wally’s chest, listening to his heart? He can’t stop remembering how sweet Dee tasted, how fresh his hair smelled as they sat outside, looking up at the moon, the boy’s hand in his pocket.

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” Wally says.

  “Why not?”

  “Because … because now I feel like shit. Like I’m out of the game. A joke. An old man who can’t get an erection. Meanwhile, he’s sleeping like a baby up there, not giving the whole thing a second thought.”

  “So it’s all about you.” Miss Aletha leans back in her chair, cocking her head as she looks over at him. “All about your own perceptions. That’s always the way with you, Wally. Isn’t Donald entitled to his own set of emotions? He thinks it didn’t mean anything to you so he’s acting like it didn’t mean anything to him.”

  “Maybe it didn’t.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, Wally Day, any time a sixteen-year-old has sex, it means something.”

  “Oh, Missy, it doesn’t matter. I’m all sidetracked here.” He pushes the plate, bare except for crumbs, away from him. “Taking my mother to see goddamn Uncle Axel. Hauling bags of dirt around her yard. And today, I was on my way to see Zandy and I wussed out.”

  “You apparently had other things to tend to.”

  “I need to do what I came here for and then get the hell back to the city.”

  “Then do it. Why are you stalling?”

  Wally can’t answer.

  “Maybe you don’t want to leave Brown’s Mill. Maybe that’s it. If you do see Zandy, after all—finally see him, finally make your peace—then there’s nothing left to keep you here. Nothing left to keep you hung up on your past, nothing to bitch about, nothing to feel sorry for yourself about.”

  “I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” Wally says, annoyed. “I’m just pissed off at all the bullshit in my life.”

  She folds her arms across her chest and looks at him intently. “So would you like me to hand you a deck of cards so you can deal with it?”

  He sticks his tongue out at her.

  “Wally, it’s been almost seven years since Ned died.”

  “He was the love of my life!” Wally bangs his fist against the table, startling himself as much as her by the suddenness of his emotion. “I’m sorry,” he says, calming down a little, “but seven years isn’t long enough to make the pain go away.”

  “So how long is long enough? Nearly twenty years have passed since you left your mother’s home, with all those issues unresolved. And it’s been longer than that since what happened with Zandy. Is that how you’re going to live your life? Never dealing with anything, never putting anything to rest?”

  He stares at her, his lips tightening.

  Missy sighs. “I thought after the breakdown, after spending time at the institute, you’d come back with a better take on life. I thought you’d try to see things differently. But it’s always about you, Wally. Always about how cheated you’ve been, having parents who failed you and a lover who died on you. Life’s been so unfair to you. But what about everyone else? Do you ever stop to think about the other person’s experience, what it’s like for them?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re too busy wallowing in a puddle of self-pity. You retreat from life. You lose touch with friends. You let your career slide.” She stands suddenly, looking down at him, arms akimbo. “When I’ve spoken to you, when I’ve asked if you’ve met anyone new, the answer has always been the same. For seven years now you’ve chosen to live as a hermit. You act as if life has dealt you such a blow that you can never get up again. Well, people die, Wally! And people go on living!”

  He’s angry now himself. “You can’t understand,” he tells her.

  “Why not? I had a lover die on me, too. I had parents fail me, too. Jesus Christ, Wally! Ned loved you. Hell, Zandy loved you! You said that yourself! Zandy loved you and I loved you! God knows I’ve loved you! You’ve had all sorts of love to make up for where your parents failed you!”

  Wally just sits there, looking up at her.

  She sighs again. “Do you know what today is?”

  “No,” Wally says.

  “It’s the day Bertrand disappeared, eight years ago.”

  “Why do you always say he disappeared? Bertrand died, Missy.”

  “He disappeared.” She wraps her arms around herself. “He was here one day, gone the next. That’s how it went, for a whole generation of queens. They just faded away.”

  She reaches up, undoing the knot of her kerchief. She slips it off her head, exposing her baldness. Wally is startled. Miss Aletha rarely allows anyone a glimpse of herself without her wig.

  “When the sun comes up tomorrow morning,” she says, “I want life in this house. Do you hear me? I want laughter, happiness and the promise of youth. No more despondency, Wally. No more self-pity.”

  “Missy,” Wally says, “I’m sorry if I’ve come at a bad time …”

  “Eh? I can�
�t hear you, dear.”

  He raises his voice. “I’ll go back to the city tomorrow.”

  “I can’t hear you,” Miss Aletha says, heading out of the kitchen. “I’m a deaf old lady. If you’re going to talk to me, you’ll have to speak up.”

  Wally follows her. She’s being obstinate.

  “A whole generation,” Miss Aletha is saying, lighting a candle. She places it on a table and stands back to admire the flame. “They just disappeared. Here one day, gone the next. But we haven’t forgotten them. They didn’t live in vain.”

  She opens a drawer, withdraws a photograph of Bertrand. He’s wearing a tuxedo and top hat, and on his shoulder is perched a white dove. She sets the photo beside the flame and looks down at it.

  Wally comes up beside her. He places an arm around her waist.

  “No, we won’t forget them,” he tells her.

  They’re quiet, watching the candlelight flicker on the glass of Bertrand’s photograph.

  “You’re right,” Wally says. “Zandy loved me And I loved him. That’s what I need to tell him.”

  Miss Aletha makes a soft sound in her throat as way of reply.

  “That’s why I came back,” Wally whispers. “To tell him that I loved him.”

  They stand that way for a long time, just watching the flame.

  18

  SUSPICIOUS MINDS

  “I’ve come to say good-bye, Mother.”

  “Oh, Walter. So soon you’re leaving.”

  Regina looks up at her son. How tall he is. How good-looking. Such broad shoulders. His blond hair is starting to recede slightly at the edges of his forehead. It’s a face, a body, she doesn’t know, doesn’t remember. He’s been saying he’s Walter these last few days, but he could be a stranger, anyone really, someone just pretending to be her son. Walter, to her, isn’t nearly so tall. He has no unshaven whiskers on his cheeks. He’s just a boy, seven, maybe eight, in a baseball cap and Converse sneakers. This is who she sees standing in the doorway in front of her. A boy, not a man. But the expression on the face is the same: distant, fretting, eyes cast downward.

  “Please don’t make me go,” he’s saying. “Don’t make me go stay with Aunt Selma and Uncle Axel. Please don’t make me.”

  “Walter,” Regina says, “I wish you didn’t have to go”—but to whom does she speak? This man, here? Or the little boy in her mind?

  Walter sighs. “I have a couple things still to do, but I’m getting on the road by this afternoon. Now, Mother, remember to take the pills the doctor gave you. They’ll help your mind. You won’t be as anxious or forgetful.”

  “Yes, Luz made a chart for me—”

  Jorge suddenly appears in the doorway to the living room. Walter spots him and steps inside. He glares at the boy, who runs off, suddenly frightened.

  “The girl took off but she left her brother here?” Walter asks, outraged.

  “Yes. It’s fine, Walter. Jorge’s a good boy. Just like you were, Wal—”

  “Mother, you can’t take care of him on your own!”

  “Why can’t I?”

  He leans in close to her. “Mother, he’s retarded.”

  “He’s a good boy,” she insists.

  Regina feels strangely emphatic about the point. She can feel her chin lift, her shoulders stiffen.

  “Mother, you can’t—” But Walter’s voice trails off. “Fine. Okay, fine. Do what you want. Keep him here. It’s your problem. Yours and his sister’s. If she wants to waltz off with Kyle and leave you stuck with her retarded brother—”

  “She’s not off with Kyle,” Regina says, still feeling defiant. “She’ll be back. She said she was coming back.”

  Walter’s shaking his head. “I saw her yesterday, Mother. She was clearly going off with someone.”

  “And what makes you so sure it was Kyle?”

  Walter sighs.

  “Kyle is not with her,” Regina says. “Luz is a good girl. She’s free now of Kyle. I made sure of that.”

  Walter looks at her, his eyebrows lowered. “What do you mean you made sure of it?”

  “I just mean—” Regina put her hand to her forehead. “Oh, I don’t know what I mean. I get so confused.”

  “Well, I’ve had as much of this as I can take. I’m leaving now, Mother. I’m going to do what I came back to Brown’s Mill to do, and then I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  He turns to leave. That’s when they spot the police car pull into the driveway.

  “We’ll need the boy to make a statement and press charges,” Officer Garafolo told them.

  He had sat in her living room, right there on her couch, and his boots had tracked grime all across her gold shag carpet. He wore a blue uniform, tight around his bulging belly and overweight thighs, and Regina remembers how shiny his badge was. His boots, too: as shiny as Robert’s had been, before he left the navy and went to work at Schaefer’s Shoes.

  “Of course we’ll press charges,” Robert had replied, his lips thin and white. “The man’s a pervert. A danger to every child in Brown’s Mill.”

  Regina watched her husband closely. His face looked different than she’d ever seen it before. Pulled and pinched, white and tense. His fingers were clawed inward. He paced back and forth like a dog in a pen, looking over his shoulder constantly. He let his breath out in short tiny wheezes.

  Officer Garafolo nodded. “If you press charges against him, we can have his sorry ass thrown in jail, Captain Day. I promise you that.”

  “I want him put away,” Robert shrilled, and for a moment Regina didn’t know who he meant—the pervert or Walter—because his eyes had darted ferociously over at their son.

  Walter was sitting on a chair opposite the policeman. Unlike his father, he was completely still. He stared at the floor, his hands clasped and dropped between his legs. He looked so small, even though he was fifteen now.

  “May I make you some tea?” Regina asked Officer Garafolo.

  “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  Her husband glanced at her with annoyance, then turned his attention back to the policeman. “I want you to go over there now and get him. Get that pervert before he can molest any other children.”

  “I’d like the boy to come down to the station first and give his statement. Can he do that?”

  “Of course he can.”

  Walter didn’t stir.

  “Tell him you can, Wally!” Robert shouted.

  The boy’s eyes flickered up from the floor. He met his father’s gaze. “I can do it,” he said, and it was a voice Regina didn’t recognize.

  “Let’s go then,” Robert said.

  The policeman stood. Walter stood, too, though his eyes were back to the floor. He walked slowly behind his father and Officer Garafolo, passing his mother without saying a word. She reached out to touch his shoulder but pulled her hand back at the last moment. No one said anything else as they went through the door. Regina watched as the light came on as the police car backed out of the driveway, carrying her husband and her son.

  Then she got out the vacuum to clean up the dirt the policeman had left behind.

  “Mrs. Day?” Officer Garafolo is coming up the walk. “May I speak with you, please?”

  Walter looks from her to the policeman.

  “Of course,” Regina says, and hurries to let him in. Garafolo enters, and his eyes come to rest on Walter. They all stand awkwardly in the foyer. “You remember my son, Walter?” Regina asks.

  The policeman nods. “Sure. How you doin’?”

  “Is this about my cousin again?” Walter asks.

  The policeman nods. “Just following up.” He turns to Regina. “I understand a navy investigator was here?”

  Walter looks sharply at Regina. “You didn’t tell me about this, Mother.”

  “No, I—” Regina begins twiddling a button on her blouse. “He was a very nice young man. He said he was going to find Luz for me.”

  “Luz?” Garafolo asks. “You mean Luz Vargas, the girlfriend?
”

  “She was staying here,” Walter says. “But she’s taken off, leaving her brother behind.”

  “Interesting,” says Garafolo.

  “What have you found out about Kyle?” Walter asks impatiently.

  “Can we sit down?”

  “Of course,” Regina says. “May I make you some tea, Officer?”

  “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  She watches as he strides into the living room and settles down on the couch. No grime, no mud, this time. The shag carpet is long gone, replaced by a brown-sugar berber. The man from Grant’s who’d installed it told her that the nylon-olefin construction promised long-lasting stain resistance and exceptional durability. So far it’s held up very well, and it’s been, what? Twelve years? It’s outlasted Grant’s, in fact, which went out of business.

  Walter sits opposite the policeman. “Look,” he says, “you keep coming by here asking my mother about Kyle. What more can she tell you? She’s told you everything she knows.”

  “Well, I’ve got Uncle Sam asking lots of questions.” He looks over at Regina, who sits in the rocking chair. “This Lieutenant Bennett seems to think Kyle blew out of town to avoid being charged with assault.”

  “That sounds like Kyle,” Walter says.

  “Well,” Garafolo acknowledges, “he does have a record of assault right here in Brown’s Mill. And I’ve suspected all along that the girlfriend knows more than she’s saying.”

  “So go after her,” Wally says. “I saw her yesterday at CVS. She had suitcases in the backseat of Kyle’s car. She was clearly heading out of town.”

  “Do you know where she was going, Mrs. Day?”

  “To the city. She’s going to become a model.”

  “Isn’t it the navy’s job to find out what happened to one of their guys?” Walter stands suddenly, looking over at Officer Garafolo in a very strange way, as if he’s challenging him. Regina watches her son in fascination. He has exactly the same glint in his eye Robert would sometimes get, when he was angry and was going to show someone he meant business. “I mean,” Walter is saying, “it’s one of their boys who’s gone missing. Isn’t it up to them to find him?”