Normally, Dad would say, “Ask your mother” in these situations. But since Mom was AWOL, he just shrugged. “Be back before it gets dark,” he said. “And don’t mess up your suit. Your mother will raise holy hell if you do.”
I hurried back to Troy. We didn’t say a word, just clomped through the snow toward the street. My suit pants were soon completely drenched below my knees, and my feet were freezing in my shoes. Troy’s house was about a block away. We remained mum the whole time. I looked up at the house when we got to the front. It was made of red brick, with a two-car garage attached. It was a lot bigger than my own house. At the end of the driveway, its head and arm sticking out of the snow, was one of those ceramic black guys holding a lantern. I recognized the Jaguar parked in front of the garage. I hoped Troy wasn’t going to suggest we go for a ride.
I felt weird walking into his house. Somewhere inside here, his mother had blown her brains out. This was a day all about death, it seemed.
It was Saturday, so Troy’s father was seated in the living room, in his La-Z-Boy, his feet up. Mr. Kitchens was wearing black socks, no shoes. He was a large man, with a white shirt stretched across a very round belly, with an indentation that revealed his belly button. He didn’t look like a rich man stretched out in that chair. He looked kind of sloppy, in fact. There was a half-eaten sandwich on the table next to the chair, and a glass of milk. He was watching television. Some kind of cop movie, I thought, with a really loud, squealing car chase. He looked over at us as we came in.
“We’re just gonna go upstairs and listen to tapes,” Troy said.
Mr. Kitchens nodded and went back to watching TV. We climbed the stairs to Troy’s room.
I’d never been to Troy’s house before. His room was pretty cool. There were posters covering practically every inch of every wall. Patti Smith. Blondie. Troy had turned me on to punk music, giving me tapes at school. His bed was unmade. Against the far wall was a big blue beanbag chair. On the top of his dresser sat a glow-in-the-dark skull, and next to it, a plastic model of a red Corvette.
“I want a Corvette when I get old enough to drive,” I said, picking up the model and examining it.
“My dad’s gonna get me one.” Troy was standing in front of a massive stereo system with enormous speakers. I put the Corvette down and joined him.
“Very cool,” I said, indicating the stereo.
“Wait’ll you hear it,” he promised me. He took off his glasses and began rummaging through a box of eight-tracks. “What do you want me to play?”
“I dunno. Whatever.”
“This is really brilliant.” He popped a tape into the stereo. “It’s from England. All the really cool music comes from England.”
A series of discordant notes screeched out of the speakers. “Who is it?” I asked.
“Ian Dury and the Blockheads.” He got into the beat and began singing along. “Hit me, hit me, hit me with your rhythm stick!”
I sat down on the edge of his bed. As I moved his pillow, I revealed a box of Cheez-Its, tipped on its side and spilling crumbs onto the sheet. Troy sat beside me and thrust his hand down into the box, withdrawing a handful of the crackers and bringing them to his mouth.
“Hit me slowly, hit me quick,” he sang as he chewed. “Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!”
“This is cool,” I said. I wasn’t entirely sure it was, but it was definitely different. And I liked English stuff. I loved Doctor Who and Monty Python, after all, which I watched on public television. And I kind of liked the Sex Pistols, too, even though I’d never bought any of their albums, because Mom would’ve had a bird.
“Want some?” Troy asked, handing me the Cheez-Its.
“Thanks,” I said, reaching in for some of those cheesy little squares myself. With my other hand, I unhooked my tie and stuffed it down into my jacket pocket.
Troy was reaching under his mattress. He pulled out a wad of Saran Wrap and began unfolding it.
“Wanta smoke?” he asked.
I figured it was pot. I had no idea where he got the stuff. I’d thought the fact that the cops had caught him and let him go would’ve scared him straight—as they said on TV. But apparently not. I didn’t answer right away, just watched him remove the funny little white cigarette from the plastic. He dug down into his pocket and produced a lighter.
“Want to?” he asked again.
“Okay,” I said.
He lit up and inhaled deep. The tip of the cigarette pulsed a deep orange as he sucked in, then faded as he handed it over to me. He kept the smoke in his mouth, his cheeks puffed out. I accepted the cigarette and put it between my lips.
Troy let the smoke out over his shoulder in a long, languid kind of way. “Come on,” he said to me. “Take a good long hit.”
“I’ve never smoked before,” I admitted.
He made a face. “Duh. That’s obvious. Give me the joint.”
I presumed joint meant cigarette. I handed it back to him.
“Watch me.” He replaced the joint between his lips and sucked in. He handed it back to me after exhaling. “Like that. Suck it in deep.”
I gave it my best shot. Breathing inward, I got a mouth full of smoke. It burned my throat. Instantly, I began hacking and gagging. Troy laughed.
“Try again,” he said.
I took another hit. This time I felt the smoke go down. I held it inside me as long as I could, just as Troy had done, then let it out.
“See?” Troy said. “It’s easy.”
“When do I feel something?”
“Soon.”
We sat there in silence, passing the joint back and forth, listening to that strange, up-and-down music. I felt nothing. Troy was rocking his head back and forth, singing. I felt as if I was slipping off the bed, but when I checked, I wasn’t.
After a few minutes, Troy pushed himself backward on his bed to lean against his wall. I moved back and sat beside him. Our shoulders were touching.
“Aren’t you afraid your dad will come in? Or smell the smoke?”
He shook his head. “He never comes upstairs. Hasn’t since my mother.”
I inhaled again, passing the joint back to him. “Where did she do it?” I asked after letting out the smoke.
“Right behind us,” he said, taking another hit. “Right behind this wall.”
It creeped me out, but I said nothing. I was feeling light and airy, as if I was moving forward, even kind of floating forward, but in fact I was perfectly still. I put my head back against the wall to steady myself. The joint was pretty small by now, and I could hardly hold it to my lips.
“I’ll get my roach clip if you want,” Troy said.
“What’s that?”
He took the stub back from me and managed one last hit. “Never mind,” he said and rubbed the joint out between his fingers, wincing a little. I imagined that must have hurt, but I was suddenly too lazy to make a comment. I just closed my eyes.
For a long time we sat that way. I noticed the sun in the sky had moved lower. Shadows crept into the room. All the while, the music got weirder. I wasn’t sure if the band was just weird or if the pot was doing something to my hearing. But I liked how I felt. It was definitely cool. I felt kind of floaty and happy and safe. That was it. I felt safe. Really safe. Safer than I had since Becky had disappeared.
There was a weight on my thigh. I looked down. It took a couple of seconds to register, but I saw that Troy’s hand was resting on my leg. I didn’t say anything. Neither did I move.
Another span of time elapsed. A minute? Two? Twenty?
“Actually,” Troy said at last, kind of startling me, “let’s not waste this.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. He got up, knocking the box of Cheez-Its to the floor, spilling them everywhere. He pulled open his top drawer, felt around inside, found something, then returned and sat next to me on the bed. In his hand was a little clip, into which he stuck the tiny stub of the joint.
“Roaches,” I said, the explanation of the t
erm dawning on me. I felt proud of myself. “Little joints are called roaches.”
Troy nodded, snapping his lighter back to life. “There’s probably just one hit left on this, so we’re gonna do something really cool. It really gives you an amazing high.”
I said nothing, just listened.
“I’m gonna take a hit and hold it in. Then you’re gonna open your mouth, and I’m gonna exhale into you.”
“Okay.” My heart was suddenly racing. “What do I have to do?”
“Like I said. Just open your mouth.”
“Okay.”
He took the hit. I watched his eyes kind of glass over. They were a strange color, kind of gray, kind of green. They turned to look at me.
I opened my mouth.
Troy’s breath smelled like Cheez-Its. I felt his lips touch mine, then the sudden infusion of hot, tangy smoke. I breathed in, surprised that I didn’t start to cough. Troy didn’t remove his lips. We stayed like that, open mouth to open mouth, for several seconds. Then he pulled away, resting his head back against the wall. I did the same.
“Cool, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
Again, time passed. I didn’t know how long. The room was getting darker.
Something was about to happen. I just didn’t know what. Maybe it was the pot, but everything was heightened. My breathing. My heartbeat. Still, I was calm. Extremely calm. I was expectant but not nervous.
“Can you make milk yet?” Troy asked me finally.
I didn’t understand. I just looked at him.
“You know. From your prick.” He reached down and grabbed the crotch of his parachute pants. “Make the white milk come out.”
“I thought only girls made milk.”
“No. Boys can, too. Wanta try?”
I said nothing.
“Come on,” he said, unzipping his fly.
A bush of red pubic hair appeared. I barely had any hair down there myself, so I was fascinated. And a bit repulsed, too. Troy took his penis, small and pink and fat, in his hands.
“Come on, try,” he insisted.
“I don’t know…”
“Come on.” He reached over and grabbed at my suit pants. “Pull down your zipper.”
I obeyed.
“Yeah,” he said and reached inside my pants. He pulled out my tiny penis. “You’re still a baby.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly.
“I’ve done this before,” he said. “Lots of times. Last summer at camp.”
“Done what?”
He didn’t reply. He just bent down and put his mouth on my penis. His tongue felt hot, almost scalding. I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do. I made a little sound in my throat. What he was doing with his tongue felt good. Very good. Almost like those dreams I sometimes had, where I’d wake up and my heart would be pounding and my pajama bottoms would be all sticky and moist. Somehow I knew I couldn’t ever let Mom see them that way, so I’d bury them deep under my sweaters in my closet. Troy’s tongue felt even better than those dreams. I had never known anything like this. It was new. It was sharp. That was the best word to describe it. It was so sharp, it felt like a knife was being stuck into my groin, but instead of being painful, it felt good.
Really good.
“Oh,” I moaned.
I felt the warm liquid fill up Troy’s mouth. He kept on going, sucking it all down. I had no idea what had just happened. My heart was in my ears.
Troy pulled off my penis and sat back up.
“Now you do me,” he said.
My heart was still pounding. I couldn’t move.
“Come on.”
All at once I stood up. “I gotta go,” I said.
Troy just looked at me.
“It’s getting dark,” I added. “I gotta go.”
I bolted out of his room and down the stairs, not waiting for Troy to respond, zipping up as I ran along. Mr. Kitchens was still plopped in front of the TV set, but now he was sound asleep and snoring. The car chase was still screeching along.
I’d have to walk home. I figured it was not really that much farther than walking home from school, and I did that all the time. Except then I was wearing boots and a winter coat. Now, with the sun setting, it was getting very cold, and my thin polyester suit didn’t do much to protect me. My shoes and socks were still damp from the walk over. But there was no other option. I just trudged down the road.
I didn’t know what to think. Except that Troy was a homosexual. That much seemed clear. Only a homosexual would do what he’d done.
But I’d liked it. Liked it a lot. Even if, at the moment, I was feeling a combination of both euphoria and nausea. Part of the muzziness was likely the pot. Part of it was something else entirely.
I thought of Chipper, of how disgusted he’d be. How much he’d hate me if he knew what had happened up in Troy’s room. With a mounting sadness, I realized that what I’d done with Troy made me different, very different, from Chipper. I thought of Chipper’s underwear, the ones I held at night when I slept. I felt ashamed.
I pushed on, walking through snowbanks, grateful when I discovered a stretch of sidewalk that had been shoveled. I was starting to shiver. The wind was whipping up the flaps of my suit jacket. My cheeks and hands were getting hard and numb. The sun had nearly set now, the sky a cold slate gray. I got a little lost at one point, not really sure if I should have gone left instead of right on Burnside Avenue; the buildings here didn’t seem familiar. But then I recognized a yellow house on the corner and knew I was going the right way. Home was only a few more blocks.
It was then that I heard the motorcycle behind me. It was so loud, it sounded like an airplane coming in for a landing. It zipped past me, rattling to a halt at the stop sign at the end of the block. The driver was a big guy in black leather. And holding on to him, clinging to him so she wouldn’t fall off, was my mother, still in her church dress.
I stopped in my tracks. As I watched, Mom got off the bike. The driver revved his engine, and Mom leaned in to say something to him. Then he roared off.
My mind was overloading. With everything that had just happened, I couldn’t quite process this new information—my mother riding on the back of a motorcycle with some guy I didn’t know.
She turned and saw me.
“Danny!”
I wanted to run. That was my first instinct. I wanted to run away from her. Run away from my own mother. But instead, slowly, I began walking toward her. Her eyes were wide, and I grew anxious. I was worried that she’d yell at me for being outside without an overcoat, for mucking up my suit with snow and mud. But that would have meant she was the old mom, and not the woman she had become. As I neared her, I saw it wasn’t anger that energized her eyes. Instead, she glowed with excitement. Her skin was flushed red with adrenaline.
“Oh, Danny!” she exclaimed, grabbing me by the shoulders with her big hands. Our eyes were level. For the first time, I realized I was now as tall as my mother. When had that happened? “Our prayers have been answered!” she cried.
“Mom, why were you on a motorcycle?”
“That man,” she said, near tears, “is an angel. An angel sent by God to bring Becky home to us.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Danny, that was Warren! Do you remember Warren? He called months ago and said he’d seen Becky with a man on Cape Cod.”
“Yeah, I remember….”
“That was him! He called again this morning! I told him I had to go to the funeral, but I’d meet with him afterward. He came to the church, anyway, because he thought if we left right then, we could maybe catch up with Becky!”
My eyes widened. “Did you? Did you find Becky?”
“No,” Mom said, and she tried to cover her disappointment. “But we spoke with several people who told me they’d seen her, too.”
“Are you going to call Detective Guthrie?”
“No.” Mom’s eyes hardened. “Listen to me, Danny. I need your help
in this. We can’t call the cops. Out of the question.”
“Why?”
“Because if the bikers get a clue that we’re on to them, they’ll split. They’ll take Becky and split.”
“Split?”
“Yeah, you know. Leave town. Every biker I spoke with today told me the same thing. They said I should do this on my own. That I mustn’t involve the cops.”
“But—”
“Danny, listen to me!” Mom’s eyes were wild. Her hands were still on my shoulders, and they gripped me so hard, it hurt. “I need your help! You’ve got to help me with this!”
“Okay,” I said in a small voice.
“Your father can’t know, either.” She looked at me sternly. “You know why, don’t you, Danny? I think you do.”
I thought of my father, stinking of cologne, his eyes bloodshot and distant. I thought of how he went to work in the morning in a daze and sometimes didn’t come home until late at night. “Yeah,” I said. “I think I know why.”
“Good. So it’s got to be just me and you, Danny. You understand that?” She had started to cry. “Will you help me, Danny? Will you help me find Becky?”
“Yes,” I said.
She pulled me into her, hugging me tight, pressing me into those big, cushiony breasts of hers. For one second, I closed my eyes and felt her warmth. I wondered if now, with her arms around me, she’d notice how wet my suit was and wonder why I was out in the cold without a coat.
She broke the embrace to look me straight in the eyes.
“Danny,” she said, her voice firm, “we will both need to be brave if we do this. Do you feel brave?”
“Yes.”
But I was lying.
“Oh, Danny,” Mom said, “I’ll love you forever if you find Becky for me.”
Then, with her arm around my waist, we walked back to our house.
PALM SPRINGS
For a week, I’d been unable to sleep. I’d get into bed and then lie there for hours, wide awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to Frank snore, playing out erotic scenarios involving Kelly in my mind. I’d imagine taking him on a trip—to Mexico or the Caribbean—conjuring up images of the two of us strolling along a beach, moonlit of course, hand in hand, heart to heart. A thousand times I relived those moments when I kissed him, tasting his lips, breathing the fragrance of his hair. Against the linen of my pillowcase, I’d rub my cheek, imagining it to be Kelly.
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