by Ben Neihart
Despite the pinkish orange clouds at the fringes of the sky down near the vanishing line, giving a warm illusion to the way the night looked, it was actually getting stupid cold out; it hadn't been this chilly since one or two April deviations. Joe rubbed his palms down his thighs as if to smooth away the goose bumps and then, as he began to lower his butt to the grass for a sit, for a little bit longer of solitude before he faced his mom, he heard soft footsteps coming toward him. He looked into the dark hollow between the houses and saw first a white tank top, then bright green Filas, and then the rest of Al Theim, strutting even-shouldered toward him, head thrown back and smiling.
"Joe," Al whisper-called. "Little Joe Keith, where's your dang sheep? Let me take a peep. Cheep cheep cheep."
"Al," Joe whispered back happily, "what's your stupid ass sayin'?"
"Hey. "
"Hey."
Al broke into a crouching run, one bouncy strong stride after the next, and pitched himself into the grass beside Joe; as he fell, elbows first, he made a little private stupid face that Joe had always thought was one of the ten coolest things in New Orleans, all tonguey and curly eyed, shy. The usual Al Theim soapy smell wafted electrically across the space between them, and Joe tried to discreetly sniff in a liter. "What're you doing?" Al asked. "Where've you been?" He inched closer, digging his elbows into the grass, until he was right there, almost touching. "You don't even want to know how bored I was."
"I kind of can guess."
"Yeah, I saw you out my window and I had to come down. You know?"
"Well, who wouldn't? Joking.''
"So what'd you do?"
Joe nudged his shoulder—imperceptibly, he hoped— against Al's elbow and looked down the length of his nose at the guy's tight shoulder, on which a new little hump of muscle bulged. "I don't know what I did."
"Come on, give me like one little thrill."
"Man, I've had a long night," he said in a voice he knew was implausibly grown-up. He chuckled two short syllables in compensation. "It's cool to just hang here with someone normal."
"Dude," Al said somberly, "what?"
"Oh, damn, I don't know."
"What? What?!" He flopped his hand down on the part of Joe's arm where the biceps should have been and squeezed. "Tell me! Dude, you're skinny! What?"
"Shhh. I don't want my mom to hear me." He tried to bat Al's hand away. "I'm so late. I was down in the Quarter." He flopped back onto the wet grass, which immediately began to soak through his T-shirt.
Another tight squeeze, and Al whispered, "This late?"
"Yeah."
"Who with? Wyatt K.? Who?"
Joe squeezed his eyes shut and sucked his lips inside his mouth before blurting, "Can I tell you the truth without freaking you?"
"Am I gonna be grossed out? Don't say anything gooey or shit, okay?"
" 'Kay."
"Well am I gonna be grossed out?"
"You might." Joe laughed.
"Really!"
"Shhh."
"Okay."
"I met this cool dude who's from that orphanage trial on TV or whatever."
Al dropped his face into the grass, moaning theatrically, and then flipped onto his back without seeming to use his arms. Finally, after Al's silence lingered uncomfortably on and on, Joe whispered, "Hey, Al?"
"Did you, like, fuck?''
"Um, yeah?"
"Really." Al rolled onto his stomach and then his back again, so that there were now two spaces between him and Joe. "So that's the way it really is, huh. Like that?" His voice trailed off shyly on the last word.
"It really is."
"Wow."
"I guess."
With a sudden burst of energy, he elbow-crawled his way back, setting his face right beside Joe's. "You know I'm not that way," he whispered, "or not officially, anyway."
"Well I didn't sign a contract, dude."
Without even smiling, Al said, "Whoa," and hitched his chin on Joe's shoulder. "So if I'm lonely or whatever then maybe we can sort of unofficially do whatever."
Joe looked up at the sky for a second, but the stars made him dizzy. "No sir."
"I saw the way you looked at—"
"You need to get yourself in circulation. I know some cool girls. I can actually guarantee you that some girls I know would be totally into some buff nice guy like you."
"Who?" Al asked, his lips now brushing the side of Joe's cheek and the top of his chest holding Joe's shoulder to the grass. "What girls? You would introduce me?"
"I totally would."
"Tell me about them," Al's dreamy soft voice murmured right beside Joe's ear.
Sirens whistled in the distance, but the night was untroubled. Al Theim's head and shoulders rested comfortably heavy across Joe's belly, and Al's mouth blew raspy little snores. Joe himself was loose-faced, just barely awake. He was in a sort of warm, buzzy, worn-out, complacent temper. Actually, he wasn't even himself. There was an empty space where his insides had been—room for anyone, anything, to come fill him up. For minutes at a time he'd become the grass beneath his head, or the trees wiggling against the sky, or a car passing so slowly that its tires crackled for an eternity on the gravel. For a while he was even Al Theim, and sort of enjoyed the experience of resting his head on top of Joe Keith.
As the sirens grew closer, louder, he slowly opened his eyes and let his gaze rest on the front window of his house. He blinked deliberately, and thought he could see his mother through the front window. When he closed his eyes, he smiled.
He could see her. She was young, bony, a bit stooped over when she walked. She had wide plump lips the color of nipples, and pale green eyes. Her eyebrows were blunt little dashlike things, bleached and then penciled dark, and her long, perfectly straight hair was the color of cocoa powder, fresh from the tin. How old was she? She was twenty-eight, or thirty, or whatever, that age, and Joe wasn't even born. She hadn't even thought of him yet.
Lights flashed across the front of the house in a whorl of shadowy white and blue, and Joe brought himself swiftly and forcibly awake. He sat up, dumping Al onto the grass.
"What?" Al asked feebly. "What?"
Joe didn't answer. He tried to look past the reeling bursts of white siren light that were reflected in the windows and making movies on the aluminum siding. When he saw his mother kind of staggering down the sidewalk toward the driveway, he got a gallop in his heart and rose to his feet. He watched a cop put his arm around Mom's shoulders, and there were other cops in the driveway and going into the house and talking into their hand-helds. It looked like three dozen cops with flashes of light swirling across their backs. Four dozen. But that was too many, Joe knew. He was in a state of unclearness, and didn't trust his own eyes. He stood on weak legs in the grass. "Mom!" he called, watching her talk to first one cop and then the next. "Mom!" His voice was swallowed up in the sirens.
Why don't you look over here. Mom?
Why don't you come to me?
Why don't you hold me just one more time before you let me go?
The #1 New York Times Bestseller
THE RAPTURE
OF CANAAN
Sheri Reynolds
"Truly rapturous....Ms. Reynolds's poetic gifts are uncommonly powerful."
— The New York Times Book Review
"Folksy lyricism...a colorful supporting cast...a fresh story. As they say in church, Hallelujah."'
— The Los Angeles Titnes Book Review
A timely and revealing novel that explores the heart of a close-knit southern religious sect. The Rapture of Canaan tells the story of Ninah, a preacher's granddaughter who is learning that God's ways are even more mysterious than her family can understand...
BLESS ME, FATHER
A NOVEL
"WONDERFUL" —PETE HAMELL
"MESMERIZING." —LOS ANGELES TIMES
"THRILLING." —THE NEW YORKER
"GRITTY." —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This book made available by the Internet Archive.
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Table of Contents
HEY,
A Late-Summer
3:30 p.m.
5:15 p.m.
6:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m.
7:10 p.m.
7:50 p.m.
8:00 p.m.
8:45 p.m.
9:25 p.m.
10:15 p.m.
11:00p.m.
10:40 p.m.
11:30 p.m.
11:30 p.m.
12:45 a.m.
1:05 a.m.
1:10 a.m.
1:40 a.m.
1:45 a.m.