by Alan E. Rose
But Foster kept staring into the flames, and they kept staring at him.
Peter gazed at the small boy in the photograph and again felt the creepiness he had experienced that time. No doubt about it, Foster took the prize that evening. But he was serious: he thought he had seen a kid hanging by a rope from the ceiling beam. Peter shuddered. It was the same uneasiness he felt back in his bedroom when helping his mother move. Something about the cabin. And the priest.
“Wanna get together later?”
The phone rang and he jumped, slamming him back into the present. He picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“How are you doing?” Megan.
“Okay.” It was good to hear her voice. “How about you?”
“Me, too.”
“Good.”
There was a pause between them.
“Are you still seeing Lucia?” she asked.
“Yes, I’ve seen her twice now. I’m going back again tomorrow.”
“I hope you’re not doing this just for me.”
“No,” he said quickly. “No, I think I’m doing it for me.”
“I’m glad.”
“And how are you?”
He heard her sigh. “Missing you.”
“I miss you, too.”
He wanted to ask her to get together for dinner, but he didn’t. If she had suggested it, he’d be out the door that minute. But she didn’t, so neither did he. There was another lull in their conversation.
“I’m learning some things about myself,” he said, “stuff that I’d forgotten.”
“Is it helpful?”
“I don’t know yet. But I think it might be.”
“Good. I hope that it’s helpful,” she said, starting to wrap up the call.
He decided that if she said, “I love you,” he would, too; say it quickly and without hesitation. But she didn’t, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t say it without the prompting, for it would have sounded phony, and Megan—no dummy—would have heard the phoniness. The funny thing, he realized after he hung up, was that he would have meant it, and he wished that she would have said it so he could have.
After her call, he felt listless and lonely and closed the book lying open before him. He wasn’t in the mood for reading tonight and decided to turn in early. As he prepared to switch off the desk lamp, he looked back to the photo one last time, gazing at his younger self—this happy kid with the horns sticking out of his head and the priest’s hand resting on his shoulder. He searched the boy’s smiling face for some clue, for some memory that he, Peter the adult, had lost. “What happened to you?” he asked the boy.
And, as if in response to his question, he suddenly saw something he hadn’t noticed before. He leaned in closer, took the desk lamp and tilted it toward the photo, then edged closer still. There was something on his other shoulder. A shadow? He dug out a magnifying glass from his desk drawer and peered through it, moving the glass in and out several times until—There! Yes, the shadow. They were fingers. Billy’s hand was resting on his other shoulder.
Peter shivered again and put down the magnifying glass. He sat there, staring at the picture. What’s the big deal, he asked himself, and tried to brush away the sense of foreboding. But from somewhere deep inside him there came the message: No, this is a big deal. Something creepy about Father Scott’s hand resting on one of his shoulders, and Billy’s hand on the other. It bore the certainty of intuition: This means something.
*
Peter went to bed but was restless, wandering up and down the hallways of his mind, slipping in and out of consciousness.
“I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault. But I don’t think you can love…anyone.” Megan.
His mother was bringing him a cup of herbal tea. “I’m sorry, Peter, but there are few greater pains for a mother than to see her child unhappy with the life she’s given him.”
“It’s who I am.”
“It’s who you became.”
He tossed and turned in bed as the minutes slowly inched around the clock.
“I was in therapy for two years before I realized that it wasn’t me. It’s you.”
Lucia was asking, “And Billy felt the same way?”
“What way?”
He stared at the ceiling, tracing the streetlamp’s shadows on its surface. Something about the cabin.
“Me ’n Peter were in there the other night…”
Out of the darkness, Billy’s face floated up before him, disembodied, like a grinning balloon. Sounds of heavy breathing, and whispering; hands touching, and being touched in the darkness.
“Did you see the boy hanging from the ceiling?” said Foster.
He heard screams coming from the cabin, but it wasn’t the wind.
Peter groaned in his semi-sleep and turned over. Something was wrong. He felt the dream curdling at its edges, beginning to slide into a nightmare.
He was kneeling naked on the floor, looking around. Shadows darted in the moonlight. The walls were slowly coming in, the darkness rubbing against him, the sound of his breathing magnified in its stillness. Then he heard them. Footsteps outside. They were coming for him. He huddled there on the floor, his eyes on the door. The footsteps were coming up the porch. The padlock was being undone, its raspy metallic sound grating on the night; the door creaked open and a light hit him in the face. He shielded his eyes with his arm and looked down. In the flashlight’s glare, he saw the crucifix swaying from his neck, its silver flashing in the harsh light. Then he saw the blood. Someone was crying—
Peter jerked awake. He was sweating and gasping for breath, as if someone had been choking him. He lay in the dark, gulping air, fighting the panicky feelings, and gathered the blankets around him, curling into a ball. But it was not he, the adult, who was frightened, he realized; rather, this was a remembered fear, a fear he had once known as a child. He continued to lie there, Peter the adult trying to calm Peter the child. It would have been nice to have Megan lying next to him, to curl up against her and feel the physical reassurance of her warm body. A shade of resentment slipped in, helping to blunt the raw panic, so he decided to dwell on the resentment to take his mind off the nightmare. Yes, he was feeling abandoned, not only by Megan but by his other wives as well. He wished he had a dog. A dog would gladly jump up on the bed and lie next to him. He would be able to stroke him and feel his living, breathing, comforting presence. There was a lot to be said for getting a dog. They’re devoted, undemanding, and far less expensive than a wife. A dog would not ask for a divorce, or complain that you’re emotionally cold, or that you don’t let him “in.”
The panic was slowly dissipating as Peter continued playing out his fantasy of having a dog. His breathing now back to normal, he resolved that if Megan didn’t come back, he’d go down to the Humane Society and find a true friend, one who was unstintingly loyal, uncomplaining, and didn’t shed much.
*
The images and fear from the nightmare had stayed with him, and at his therapy session the next day, Peter was still agitated and unnerved by it.
“I think something happened to me at that summer camp, and I think it involved Billy.” And he told Lucia what he could remember of the dream.
She listened attentively as he unwound his memories.
“When I was home recently, my mother said I was having a bad dream and that I cried out several times during the night. I don’t remember it, but I think it might relate to the nightmare I had last night.”
“In the dream you were in a cabin?”
“Yes. Yes, I think so.”
“At the camp?”
“Yes. It was an old cabin, no longer used. Something terrible was supposed to have happened in it many years before.”
“Do you know what?”
“Apparently, a boy died there. It was said to be haunted by his ghost.” Peter’s palms were sweaty and he wiped them on his pants. “And then I remembered that’s where Billy and I would get together.”
“Get together?”
He turned embarrassed. “When we had sex. That’s what we’d call it—getting together. It was a kind of code, like, ‘Do you want to get together after dinner?’ The first time it happened, it was almost accidental, soon after that swimming incident. We were wrestling, and it sort of turned into innocent sex play. But after the second or third time, it was harder to pretend that it was accidental. Or innocent.”
“I see.”
“And it wasn’t just once or twice like I first thought. I remember that it happened a number of times over those two weeks. It seemed like Billy was always wanting to…get together.”
“How about you?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn’t. I think it depended on how horny I was feeling at the time. But he wanted to almost every day.”
“Billy sounds like a lusty little fellow. What did he want to do?”
“You know, hand jobs.” He stopped himself. “I know—you don’t know. Do you think Billy was gay?”
“I don’t really like the notion that people are straight or gay. It’s too simplistic. It’s like having crayons labeled ‘green’ and ‘red’ and ‘blue’ when the world is composed of multi-hues and shades. At different times in our lives, in different circumstances, I think that we can be sexually attracted to different people, regardless of their age or gender or race.”
Peter nodded. “I brought this.” He withdrew the camp photo from his briefcase and handed it to her. “This is our group picture from that summer.”
She studied it. “Handsome priest.”
“That’s Father Scott. He was the director of the camp that summer.”
“Ah, and there’s you. The little prince, as I would have expected. You were a beautiful boy.”
“Yes, I know,” he said hurriedly, “but look”―and he pointed as she held the photo in her hands—“that’s Billy.”
“With the horns to your head?”
“Yeah, he was always clowning around. But look here. You can see his hand is on my shoulder, and Father Scott’s hand is on my other shoulder.”
She peered closer and then nodded, saying slowly, “Okay. So what does that mean to you?”
Peter sat back down in his chair, suddenly feeling like he had come to the end of his clues. “I don’t know, but it seems important.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But it’s important to you.”
“Yes. I can’t explain it. But I feel it. That it means something—like it’s on the tip of the tongue of my mind, but I can’t recall it.”
He was restless and agitated. “It’s like once when I was a small boy staying at my grandparents’ house. I found a key in my grandmother’s sewing basket, and I became fascinated by it. I wanted to know what it went to. Grandma said she couldn’t remember, so I spent the afternoon going through her house, trying every door, every box and cabinet and chest that had a lock.” He tapped the photo in her hand. “This, too, feels like the key.”
“The key to what?”
He looked up at her. “To why I am like I am. I think my mother was right. The change, it started here.”
She turned back to the picture. “In this dream last night, were you and Billy having sex?”
“I—I don’t remember.”
“But Billy was there with you. In the cabin?”
“Yes. At first. Then I seemed to be alone.”
“You said that you were scared. Do you know what scared you?”
“No. That’s where the dream got creepy. I think someone was coming for me, and I was frightened. And then there was a flashlight shining in my eyes. And I saw the blood.”
“Whose blood?”
“I don’t know. You see? It’s like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together.”
She returned to the photo. “Tell me about Father Scott.”
Peter took a deep breath. “He was the director of our camp that year and also the assistant pastor in our parish.”
“Did you like him?”
“Everyone liked Father Scott. He was cool. More like a big brother than a parent or a priest to us. He was in charge of the youth program and helped old Father Benedict, who was grizzled, crotchety, and strict—more our idea of a priest.”
“He was a handsome man.”
“Yes. I remember my aunt once saying to my mom that he was too handsome for his own good. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I sort of guessed what she meant.”
“How did Father Scott feel toward you?”
“Like I said, he was kind of an older brother. All the kids liked him.”
Still studying the photo, she asked, “And how did he feel toward Billy?”
Peter thought for a moment. “I think Billy was Father Scott’s favorite. I remember he spent a lot of time with him. Probably because Billy was poor, or because of his clubfoot.”
“Or because Billy was cute?”
Peter stopped and looked at her. “I don’t think Father Scott was like that.”
“Don’t you think Billy was cute?” She handed the photo back to him.
Billy wasn’t what one would call handsome—not like Peter with his classic good looks—but there was a puckish quality to him that was attractive.
“Yeah, I suppose. But I didn’t see him that way back then. I mean, when you’re thirteen, you don’t really think of your buddy as cute. He’s just your buddy.”
“You say Father Scott spent a lot of time with Billy. What did they do together?”
“Everything. They’d go walking in the forest, just the two of them. He would take Billy into town when they went for supplies. Billy would help Father Scott with the mass. I even remember him washing Billy’s back in the showers.”
She raised her eyebrows. “He showered with the boys?”
“Everyone showered together. The camp had common lavatories and a group shower room.”
“And what, a thirteen-year-old can’t wash himself?”
“No, we did it for each other. It wasn’t that strange back then, soaping each other’s backs. We didn’t think anything of it.”
She clucked her tongue. “Ah, innocence.”
“I do remember the look that Billy gave me that time when Father Scott was washing his back.”
“What kind of look?”
“I don’t know. Kind of a smirk. Like maybe it was slightly queer.”
“And how did you feel about all this time they spent together?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t think I thought anything at the time.”
He watched them walking off into the forest together, Father Scott’s arm around Billy’s slender shoulder as he clomped along the path, seesawing back and forth with his clubfoot, and Peter felt something that he couldn’t put into words at the time. Now he could.
“I guess maybe I was envious.”
“Envious?”
“Well, jealous. I was Father Scott’s favorite back in our parish. He always chose me to assist him at mass.”
“Jealous of Father Scott’s friendship with Billy, or of Billy’s friendship with Father Scott?”
He thought. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure that I understood what I was feeling at the time.”
“Can you recall Father Scott ever being inappropriate with you?”
Early morning, before the others were up. He undressed and was walking to the shower room just as Father Scott emerged from it, naked and glistening wet.
“Oh, good morning, Peter.”
“‘Morning, Father.” He quickly averted his eyes, but the quick, furtive glance was like a snapshot—of the priest’s muscular body; of the wet patterns of hair on his chest, his legs, and arms, like seaweed strewn on the beach; of his genitals.
Father Scott grabbed his towel and began drying himself. “Would you help me set up the volleyball net after breakfast?”
He felt the priest’s eyes on his naked body. “Yes, Father.” And he hurriedly went to a faucet. When all of them were showering together, he never felt like
this, but now, with just the two of them there, he was feeling uneasy and embarrassed.
He turned back to Lucia. “No, never. I know what you’re suggesting, but if anything did happen like that, I’d remember it, wouldn’t I?”
Instead of answering him, she asked, “What was it like to say good-bye to your buddy, your best friend at camp?”
But Peter couldn’t recall saying good-bye to Billy.
“I mean, having shared that level of intimacy, I’d think you’d feel something when departing camp—even if it was simply that you wouldn’t have someone to ‘get together’ with any longer.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t remember. I don’t think I felt anything. But then, that’s the whole point why I’m here, isn’t it? That I don’t have feelings like other people?”
“Your mother said that you came back changed. More serious and quiet. I wonder if you were missing your friend.”
“Possibly. I don’t know.”
“Did you stay in touch with Billy after the camp? Write letters? Phone calls?”
“No.”
“Never visited each other? You only lived a couple of hours away.”
“No, never. It was just a summer friendship. It was fun, but it was over. I really haven’t thought of him these past thirty years, until I found that photo last week.”
“How about Father Scott?”
“Him neither. I stopped going to mass about that time.”
She looked up. “Oh? Why?”
“I think I outgrew religion. It just seemed to me so much superstition. You know St. Paul’s statement? ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.’ I guess I put away my faith.”
“Too bad for Paul,” she murmured.
“So what do you think about all this?”
She sat back in her chair. “This is what I’ve heard, Peter: You were an affectionate, open, and happy child who had many close friends when you were younger, and then you went off to camp and came back—according to your mother—a changed boy. Very serious, very private, no longer open, and today you can’t name one close friend—male or female. Yes, I think something happened to you at that camp.”