King Geordi the Great

by Gene Gant

  I cocked my head to one side, scowling at the back of Jake’s noggin in utter disbelief. “Dude!”

  “What?” Jake’s gaze shifted in the rearview mirror to Toff, whose current expression would make a pretty good I’m-jealous-as-hell emoji. “Oh listen, Toff. You’ll be proud of the guy. Geordi turned me down right off, said he was seeing someone and didn’t want to hurt him. He didn’t let me get anywhere near kissing those nice boy-lips of his.”

  The words were meant to reassure Toff, and they probably would have done their job if Jake hadn’t winked over his shoulder at me. The wink was intended as an innocent gesture, conveying an unmistakable I-got-your-back message. I don’t think Jake had a clue how conspiratorial that seemed.

  But Toff sure did. His body stiffened beside me as he clamped his hand on my leg and dug his fingers in deep again. I thought he was going to leave his prints on my thigh bone. My eyes crossed and I went “Yeep!”

  Jess leaned toward Jake in a move that foreshadowed the start of a new conspiracy. In a half whisper she said, “Come on, Jakey. You got a taste of those Geordi lips, didn’t you? Sly guy like you can get anything off anybody, I’ll bet. I can tell you kissed Geordi.”

  “In another lifetime, maybe, but not this one,” Jake replied, his face all honest and a little sad. “If I had locked lips with him, maybe this feeling of wanting to kiss a guy would be gone. It’s all I can think about lately.”

  Toff eased his grip on my leg, and I felt his body relax next to me. Jess looked back at me and winked. I mouthed, “Thank you.”

  “You never kissed a guy before, Jake?” Toff asked in a voice running over with sympathy.

  “No. If you’d asked me eight months ago, I would’ve said I was plain old straight. Hell, if you’d asked me six weeks ago, I’d have said I was straight but curious about being with a guy. But now I’m like, all about wanting to be with a dude. I wonder if that means I’m turning gay.”

  “Are you still attracted to girls?” Jess asked.

  “Yeah, sure. I think you’re cute, Jess, by the way. I could definitely go for you.”

  “If you’re still into girls, ‘gay’ isn’t a word I’d apply to you.” She looked over her shoulder. “Toff, Geordi, either of you guys ever been attracted to girls?”

  “Nope,” I said.

  “Never,” said Toff.

  Jess looked at Jake. “See? That’s gay.”

  Jake chewed at his lip for a moment. “So I guess that makes me… confused?”

  “Why are you so set on labeling yourself? I’ve got a girlfriend now, but six months ago, I was into a guy named Taylor.”

  “Whatever happened to that guy, Jess?” asked Toff.

  “I dumped him,” Jess answered, looking annoyed at the interruption.

  “Why?” Toff asked just as Jess was about to say something to Jake.

  “He made a joke about ‘fags.’” She disgustedly painted air quotes with her fingers. “I told him I didn’t like jokes like that because my best friend is gay. He asked how I can be friends with a fag. I told him I’d rather be friends with a fag than a deadhead, and I dumped him.”

  “Wait a minute, Jess,” I said, the implication of what she’d just said finally sinking into my head. “You told Taylor I’m gay before I—”

  Jessica shot an impatient look over her shoulder. “Would you just chill, Geordi? I didn’t mention you by name to Taylor. Sheez.” She switched her attention to Jake once more. “The point I’m trying to make here is that I’m just like you, Jake. I’m attracted to boys and girls.”

  “You’re bi,” said Toff.

  “No, I’m me. And I’m still figuring myself out. Until I do figure myself out, how would I even know who I am? I’m not ready to pick a label yet. If I did, I think I’d just be limiting myself.”

  Toff looked confused. “I don’t get it. It’s like you think bi is something to be ashamed of.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m not ashamed of what I feel. I’m just trying to make sure I understand myself. And I don’t want anybody telling me who I am, not even you, Toff.”

  “Okay, you’re right, Jess. Sorry.”

  Jake was chewing on his lip, the sign of a guy thinking hard. I found myself feeling sorry for him again. “It’s gonna be okay, man,” I said, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “You’ll figure yourself out.”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  “So how does that work, Jake?” Toff asked. “Are you half attracted to girls and half attracted to guys?”

  Jess groaned and shook her head, muttering, “Oh my God,” under her breath.

  Jake seemed to consider the question, taking a few moments before he answered. “I’ve been attracted to more girls than I have guys. For a while, I was just crushing on this straight dude in my neighborhood. Once I realized what a nowhere situation that was, I got attracted to Geordi. And then I started, like, daydreaming about getting busy with a guy, any guy.”

  “That doesn’t sound ‘confused’ to me, man,” Toff pointed out. “Sounds more like you know exactly what you want. I’m no expert, and I’m definitely not trying to stick you with a label you’re not ready for. But seems to me you’re probably bi.”

  “Well, here’s one thing I definitely know about me,” Jake said. He flipped on his turn signal and guided the car toward a gas station looming ahead. “I gotta pee, and I’m thirsty. Pit stop, people!”

  “How’s the gas gauge looking?” asked Jess.

  “We’re down to a fourth of a tank,” Jake replied.

  Jess threw a look over her shoulder at Toff and me. “Come on, guys. We should at least pay for a fill-up.”

  Toff and I agreed. While Jake pulled up to the pumps, Jess, Toff, and I dug through our pockets.

  We came up with a grand total of $6.47, a paperclip, and a fuzzy little ball of lint.

  Jess groaned again, louder this time. “Oh my God! Seriously?”

  Jake grinned, taking it all in stride. “No prob, dudes and dudette. My dad gave me a credit card for emergencies. I’m officially declaring this an emergency.”

  DARKNESS HAD settled over the landscape, broken only by our headlights and the bright stars twinkling above. The moon was a yellow grin, barely visible through the trees on the horizon. We had the highway to ourselves. Only two vehicles had passed us in the past fifteen minutes, heading west, and the twin red eyes of their taillights had long since disappeared into the night.

  The four of us weren’t talking much. Our phones were off now, except for Toff’s. He kept his on in case his dad called. So far, all he’d gotten was a call from Jessica’s mom and two from my dad. They left voicemails wondering if Toff had seen either of us. Jake’s parents had been ringing his phone almost nonstop. The radio couldn’t pick up either a satellite signal or a local station, so the only music we had was the rush of tires over asphalt. We’d passed through the town of Selmer, Tennessee. Our destination was coming up.

  Toff moved closer, pressing his shoulder against me, seeking shelter.

  The headlights flashed over a green traffic sign. “There it is,” Jake said quietly. “Route 28Z.”

  Toff sat up, his neck straining as he looked around. There wasn’t much to see. No other car was in sight, nor were there any buildings, just sprawling, open plain. Route 28Z met the highway in a T, so there was only one direction Mr. Toffler could have gone. Jake slowed the car and turned south.

  I kept glancing at the dashboard, counting off miles. In roughly ten minutes, we covered three miles and the terrain never changed. Not a house, barn, shed, or even a fenced-in herd of sleeping cows came in sight. “Anybody have a clue what’s down this road?” I asked.

  “I checked when I was on MapQuest earlier,” Jessica said. “This leads to the north entrance of the Zitkala Forest Preserve. That’s where the Z comes from in 28Z.”

  “Maybe Dad came out here to fish,” said Toff, but I could tell he didn’t believe that himself.

  “I doubt it,” said Jess. “Th
e preserve’s been closed to the public for years now.”

  We rode on. Within minutes the dark of night deepened around us as trees closed in on either side of the road. We must have reached the fringes of the forest preserve. Aside from the sounds of the car, dead silence surrounded us.

  Jake cleared his throat. “Isn’t this usually the point in a horror movie where a zombie in a hockey mask jumps out, grabs one of the teenagers, drags him into the woods, and makes sushi out of him?”

  “Not helping, dude,” I said between my teeth. “Try the radio again. See if we can get some music or something.”

  Jake tried the controls on the steering wheel, flipping from satellite to FM to AM, rolling through various channels. The screen on the radio stubbornly displayed a “no signal” message. “I’ll just plug in my phone. We can listen to music that way.” Keeping one hand on the wheel, he coaxed his phone from his pocket and passed it to Jess. “Would you do the honors?”

  Jess thumbed the screen, which bathed her face in white light. “You don’t have a signal on your phone.” She got out her own cell phone. “Neither do I.”

  Toff and I checked our phones. “We can’t get signals either,” I announced.

  “Maybe we’re in an alternate dimension,” Jess suggested. “You know, like something out of a Stephen King story. Maybe we’re on the road to hell.”

  “Maybe you could shut the hell up,” I replied, again through my clenched teeth.

  “Jess, I think the dude is scared,” Jake said with a laugh.

  “Aww, are you afraid, La Forge?”

  “Yeah, Jess. I’m afraid I’m gonna choke you and Jake if you don’t zip your lips.”

  The three of us bantered back and forth that way for a while. It helped ease the tension a little, at least for me. Toff kept quiet. I could sense how jumpy he was. I squeezed his hand; it felt cold yet sweaty. “You okay?” I whispered.

  He nodded and then put his head on my shoulder, snuggling against me. I kissed his forehead. “Everything’s gonna be fine with your dad, man. You’ll see.” It didn’t feel strange or wrong to comfort and reassure him. I would have gladly given him anything he needed.

  The road narrowed to one lane in either direction. Shortly after that the asphalt gave way to gravel.

  “What’s that up ahead?” said Jessica.

  About five hundred feet or so away, the road ended. A closed and latched gate, bristling with thick metal locks, awaited us there. As Jess had said, a sign on the gate warned that the preserve was closed to the public.

  Jess pointed out the sign and then looked around at the rest of us. “What do we do now? Go back?”

  “Wait! Look.” Toff pointed anxiously.

  It was difficult to see anything at first. Then, as we got closer, the beams from the headlights fell on the edge of some bulky object partially hidden behind a tree off to one side of the road. Jake applied the brakes. As he pulled to a stop beside the object, I saw that it was a car.

  Mr. Toffler’s car.

  Chapter 12

  THE BROWN Camry looked ghostly, blending into the deep shadows beneath the trees. The driver’s window was down. Toff stuck his head in, looked around, then pulled out, turned, and yelled, “Dad!” into the forest. The anxious wail of his voice bounced off the trees, echoing eerily back at us. The echo faded, leaving us with the stark silence of the woods.

  I opened the driver’s door and peered into the cabin. Plastic bags, cardboard tags, and cash register receipts were scattered over the seat and floorboard of the front passenger side. In the back seat were scattered articles of clothing—a pair of jeans, a sneaker, a green camouflage baseball cap, the one I’d seen Mr. Toffler wearing since spring.

  “Hey, guys,” Jess said, her voice hushed with apprehension. “The trunk’s open.”

  I pulled out of the cabin and hurried after the others. We gathered round the back of the car. The lid of the trunk was up a few inches, exposing a swath of the blackness within. None of us moved for a moment, and I was sure the others were experiencing the same foreboding sense of I-don’t-want-to-see-what’s-in-here.

  Jess reached out and lifted the lid.

  I exhaled, a near-silent sigh of relief. The trunk was stuffed with luggage. A couple of the pieces were unzipped, clothes hanging out of one duffel bag while the other was nearly empty. Toff dug through the trunk and came up with a green, accordion-style portable file. He opened it and named off the contents as he leafed through them. “My parents’ marriage license… my mom’s death certificate… the deed to our house… living will… my birth certificate….”

  “Why would your dad bring important papers like that out here?” Jake asked.

  “And he just left them,” Jess added. “He didn’t even bother to make sure the trunk was locked.”

  “Dad!” Toff called out again, his voice louder and more plaintive.

  “I don’t like this,” Jess said. “We should call the police.”

  “How?” I asked. “None of our phones work out here.”

  “The last time I had a signal was when we were in Selmer,” Jake said. “We should head back that way.”

  “We can’t just leave,” Toff snapped. “We have to find my dad.”

  “How do we even begin to search?” asked Jess. “We don’t know which direction he went. If we go back to Selmer and call the police—”

  “I’m not leaving,” said Toff. “I’m not leaving until I find my dad.”

  Toff stuffed the file back in the trunk and slammed down the lid. He turned, scanning the woods with his eyes. He was dead serious about not leaving. I could see it in the way his face was set.

  “Jake, take Jess, drive back to Selmer, and get the police,” I said. “I’ll stay with Toff.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Jess looked ready to grab my shoulders and shake me. “We’re not leaving you guys out here roaming around in these woods.”

  “We’ll be okay,” I said, although I was feeling pretty skeptical about that.

  “Jess is right,” said Jake. “If we leave you, we’ll wind up with three missing people instead of one. How about this? What say we search the forest together as a group—no splitting up—to see if we can pick up a trail or something on Toff’s dad? We give it an hour, and if we don’t find anything, we drive out of here and call the cops.”

  “That’s dumb,” Jess said bluntly. “It’s dark as hell in those woods. How would we find our way back to the car? We’ll all wind up lost out there.”

  “My mom keeps an emergency kit in her trunk,” Jake said. “It has a flashlight, flares, a compass and a lot of other stuff. We won’t get lost.”

  Jessica put her hands on her hips. “And you guarantee that on your good looks?”

  Jake hesitated only a moment. “Well… no, I can’t guarantee anything. I’m not that good-looking.”

  Jessica scowled at him. I thought she was going to cuss him in Spanish and English, a two-for-the-price-of-one deal. Then her eyebrows went up in admiration. “Damn. You really are honest.”

  “Yep. Honest. Heroic. Hot. Handsome.” Jake, flashing a devastatingly winsome smile, winked at Jess. “And I’m modest too.”

  “HEY! HERE’S a trail.”

  Jake, Jess, and I hurried to where Toff stood waving us over. The four of us had been scouting around the north entrance of the forest preserve, looking for a clue as to the direction Mr. Toffler had taken. A trail through the woods certainly qualified. Toff knelt, studying the ground before him. “Let me have the flashlight,” he said.

  Jake handed him the light. Toff trained the beam on the ground. “Look!” Toff said. “Footprints. They’re my dad’s.”

  I let my eyes follow the yellow circle of light as Toff moved it along the narrow dirt trail, illuminating the set of prints he’d found. They were sort of big, and I suppose that made them masculine, but I didn’t get the connection Toff had made. “Man, what makes you think these are your dad’s prints? They could be anybody’s.”

&nbs
p; “No, Geordi. I know my dad’s work boots. The sole of his boots leaves prints just like these. And these prints are fresh. These have to be my dad’s.”

  There was another print on the trail, at the edge of the circle of illumination cast down by the flashlight. That print had been made by a sneaker, and it was older than the boot prints; pine needles and twigs had been scattered across it. But Toff was sure about the boot prints. I looked at Jess and Jake. Jake shrugged in a don’t-ask-me way. “Hey, it’s as good a direction as any,” Jess said.

  Toff took the lead with the light. Jake fell in close behind him. I let Jess go ahead and brought up the rear. The trail was narrow enough that we were forced to walk it single file. The trees were mostly pine, growing close together, and the darkness filling the gaps between was as thick and impenetrable as a curtain. Cricket love songs and the hoots of owls filled the air, but it was the absence of human sounds—car doors slamming, laughter, music, chatter—that made the night close in on us like a hungry thing. I felt small and afraid, like a little boy who’d lost his parents.

  “SO TOFF, why’d your dad do this?” Jake asked. “Why’d he come out here, in the middle of nowhere, to a forest nobody is supposed to come to?”

  Toff sighed. He sounded tired and sad. “I don’t know, Jake. I don’t know why my dad ever does any of the stuff he does. I don’t even know why he gets up in the morning. He’s never happy or sad. He never seems to enjoy anything….” He made a quick, dismissive brushing motion with his hand. “Sorry. I shouldn’t go off like that.”

  “It’s okay by me,” said Jake. “Sometimes you just have to get things off your chest.”

  Toff and Jake were walking close together. I thought they needed a little space, and Jess seemed to agree. We hung back about twenty or thirty feet, which was the maximum distance we could allow without losing the guiding illumination of the flashlight Toff carried. We hadn’t seen any boot prints in a while, probably because of all the brown pine needles scattered over the ground, and now were simply following the trail. The four of us were nearing the end of the hour we’d allotted ourselves for the search. We would have to turn back soon, whether we found anything or not.