Flesh and Bone Page 12

  Cars begin to fill the streets. Lights flicker and go out in the houses. I watch the world wake around me and wonder what people are going to do with their lives.

  It’s time to go home, but I can’t make the walk. The miles stretch out between me and the house, miles of trees and ferns, of salmonberry brambles and fields of corn growing tall and green.

  There’s a phone at the Plaid Pantry across town. It’s a ways away, but closer than home. I’ll call Mom and she’ll come pick me up. She’ll be tired and frantic after finding me gone so long in the darkness. I walk and think about the sleep I’ve missed out on. I’m tired now and ready for bed. A homeless man sleeps on the corner of Oak and Pacific, his cart of boxes and clothes pulled tight against the brick wall blocking the wind from his back.

  I buy a pack of cigarettes at the store and make the call.

  “You okay?” Mom asks.

  “A little sad,” I say.

  “What do you have to be sad about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I wait for her and smoke. I smoke and wait and sit on the concrete with my feet in the parking lot. It’ll take her twenty minutes or so to get here. I think of all the things I can say to explain the night, but none of them matter. Mom can’t understand why I’d walk to town in the middle of the night, and nothing I say will make any sense.

  She arrives and stands over me, her face hard and wrinkled with stress.

  “What’re you? Crazy?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your grandma called me hours ago,” she says. “I had to take time off work.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ve been out all night looking for you,” she says.

  “I’m right here.”

  “Get in the car.”

  She goes into the store and buys a coffee. We drive out to the farm. Colors are coming out of the gray dawn light. I light a cigarette and close my eyes.

  “I thought you were dead,” Mom says.

  “Overreacting.”

  “I didn’t know what to think.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  And that’s all I am. I’m sorry. I’m sorry and sad and I need to sleep, but the sun is up now and my room will be too light. I wish I had something to knock me out. I’d give anything to go a few hours without thinking. I’d give anything to cut my head off and rest.

  Escape

  FOG RISES FROM the wetlands at the foot of the hill. It rolls into the streets, blunting the edges and corners of the buildings there. Lights grow haloes and burn like little fires. Up here though, everything’s clear. Stars spin blue and white in the night sky. There is no moon, no light here.

  “I have to get out of here,” John John says.

  “There’s nowhere to go.”

  “Thirty one days.”

  “Thirty one days?”

  “I’m out of here.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Army.”

  “Jesus”

  I can’t imagine the soldier’s life. I want to be free to do what I want when I want. Maybe John John’s used to it though. He’s lived his whole life with people laying down rules. He’s never known anything but order.

  “I’d be a good soldier,” he says. “I could kill people for a living.”

  He throws his cigarette into the grass. I stare at it dying there, the gasp of smoke rising into the air.

  “I’m dying here,” he says.

  “This is home,” I say.

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “I have no money.”

  “I’m so tired of this shit.”

  John John gets up and pisses against the tree.

  “You coming?” he asks.

  We walk down the hill into the fog. Something’s swallowed all the sounds. Wind churns the fog.

  “You want to get high?” John John asks. “I have some smack.”

  We walk and smoke the heroin and the world seems a little softer. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do. There’s a park down by the creek. I lie on the picnic table and watch the fog dance. The wind opens it for a minute and I can see the stars again.

  “Maybe I’ll be a pilot,” John John says. “Maybe I’ll jump into a plane and fly away from this shit.”

  I close my eyes and drift. Right now that’s all we have, dope’s temporary relief, the quiet world of the night wrapped in fog.

  Choice

  ELECTRIC MUSIC RATTLES the room. The rhythm, the pulse of it caressing the shoulder, massaging the chest, changing the way our hearts beat. People press together on the dance floor, hopping, swaying, hanging on each other. Sweat mixes. Muscles grind against bones. Black lights and strobes, lasers and colored spots play with the darkness. Cigarettes burn red and black.

  Zephyr and Ed and I share a table and flask of moonshine. I am uncomfortable. Too many people make me nervous. This room is all sex and sweat. I try to watch everyone at once. There are too many bodies here. Soon the lights will come up and we’ll go home. Right now, though, all I can do is watch. It’s too loud to talk.

  A girl in the corner takes her shirt off, her tits small and tight against her ribs. In the bathroom, people fuck. This is all foreplay. I prefer my sex private, but I can’t help but stare. I can’t help but feel the stir of excitement.

  Zephyr slides a hand into my crotch and I let him rub against my dick. I don’t know how to tell him that I’d rather he didn’t. He smiles and kisses my neck. Ed moves to the other side of me. Between the two of them, I am a toy. They rub and kiss. It seems like something they’ve planned.

  Come three in the morning, the music stops. People linger. Some of them gather their things and shuffle to the doors. The lights are still dim, but the lasers and strobes have stopped flashing.

  “You ready?” Zephyr asks.

  We walk to the street, drunk, smoky. My feet are too heavy to lift. Rain falls in these little hours. A wind makes it chilly. The sky is dull and folded with clouds.

  Zephyr aims the car toward home. The city is nothing but streamers of light. Soon the sun will rise and the day will wash away the memories of the night. Ed leans forward from the backseat and pulls my dick free. She strokes and Zephyr watches me squirm and buck. He laughs and lights a cigarette.

  “Your face,” he says.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” Ed says.

  There’s a road that takes us to the woods. There’s a wide spot in the road. Zephyr pulls into it and we get out, folding the seats down so there’s nothing between the back and the front. We all get naked. We kiss and fondle and jerk and rub. The rain beats on the windshield, runs down the glass. It’s uncomfortable, but we make it happen. Holes are filled. Tongues wrestle. There’s no light here. We explore our bodies through touch. Everything is smooth and hard and moist.

  We stop for a breath. We lie together, curved around each other, skin to skin. Light comes through the window. Someone taps the glass. We scramble for our clothes.

  “This is awkward,” the cop says.

  “Sorry,” Zephyr says.

  “Curfew,” the cop says.

  “Jesus.”

  “Get dressed.”

  The cop follows us home. The cop walks me from the car to the door. He stands on the porch until Mom comes, fresh from bed, irritated, crumbled and tired.

  “Your son was naked in the car with two of his friends,” the cop says.

  “I thought something was wrong,” Mom says.

  “It’s four in the morning,” the cop says.

  “But no one’s hurt, right?”

  “No one’s hurt.”

  “Okay.”

  Mom doesn’t even look at me when she goes back to bed. She shuffles away and closes the bedroom door.

  I stand on the porch and watch the cop escort Zephyr and Ed away. I light a cigarette and watch the sun turn the sky gray. Trees stand out dark and still. I should go to bed, but there’s so much to think about. Memories of flesh flash through my mind. Even in the light of day, there’s something dark a
bout the night’s activities. There’s something confusing. I don’t know what I want, or who. I don’t know how to choose. Maybe I don’t have to. Maybe Ed and Zephyr will figure it out so I won’t have to. No matter what, I’m going to have to figure out if it’s love or lust.

  Night Terrors

  I CANNOT SLEEP. I slept for an hour last night and maybe two the night before. I have nightmares and the nightmares make it hard to stay in bed. Bobby’s in bed with Mom. Grandma’s sleeping in her room. The sun is just up, bright and watery at the same time. Starlings jump into the sky, a black swarm of wings rising from the fields.

  I sit on the couch smoking a cigarette and watching the television spin short stories. My eyes feel as if they’ve been dipped in ground glass. My hands shake. I need to eat something, but I need to rest more.

  Thoughts of suicide invade me. I can see it happening. I can see the blood, the white flesh pulled apart. I smoke and watch the fire burning. I imagine there are faces in the ash, speaking to me of sadness and confusion.

  I curl up on the couch and close my eyes. For just a little while, it feels as if I’ve melted into the material covering the cushions. I’ve become water and the only thing I leave behind is a stain to remind people that I was here once. Darkness folds over me and for an instant I float. I forget that I’m tired and sick. I forget to worry about the world and the rain, the boys and the girls. I can forget about all of the things I’ve done and not done. But then someone comes and sits with me. I open my eyes and Bobby watches me climb from sleep to near complete awareness.

  “Hungry?” he asks.

  “Eggs.”

  “I’ll start the coffee.”

  Jesus, but I almost made it. I almost slept and now I have to be with people. I have to pretend that this where I want to be. I have to pretend that I care about what’s going on, even when all I care about is the thought of warm darkness, of time passing, of sleeping until I can sleep no more.

  Borders

  WE’RE ALL HERE in Richie’s basement, naked, stoned, playing cards. Beer cans lie on the floor all over. A bank of smoke stands at head height, bluish and acrid. Tammy and Ed kiss. They lost the hand. Zephyr slams the table with his hand and howls. Ed downs her beer and gets another. Guns N’ Roses screams on the radio.

  I have two aces, a jack, a queen and a deuce. It’s a worthless hand. My eyes are heavy and full of grit. My lungs are heavy with dope smoke and cigarettes. I cannot think in a straight line.

  “You in or out?” Ed asks. Her tits are small and perfect. Shadows gather between her ribs.

  “Out,” I say.

  My face is sore, my teeth fuzzy.

  “Full house,” Zephyr says.

  “Shit.”

  The music seems to soak right into my bones.

  “You ever suck dick?” Tammy asks.

  “What if I have?”

  “I’d say you’re a faggot,” she says.

  Zephyr turns colors. Blood rushes to his face.

  “Is there something wrong with that?” he asks.

  “It’s not natural,” Tammy says.

  “Fuck you,” Zephyr says.

  Tension builds. There’s going to be a fight. I can’t imagine fighting naked. There’s nothing to get a hold of.

  “I’ve never fucked a girl,” Zephyr says.

  “Virgin,” Richie says.

  “No.”

  Everyone stops talking.

  “You’re a faggot?” Richie asks.

  “A vicious one.”

  “Jesus,” Tammy says.

  “You’re not my type.”

  “I thought…” she says.

  “I wouldn’t fuck you with Richie’s dick.”

  Tammy and I watch everyone. I push back from the table and light a cigarette.

  “Why’s it okay for girls to fuck girls, but it’s gross when guys fuck guys?” Ed asks.

  “Girls don’t have dicks,” Richie says.

  “Whatever,” she says.

  I go to the bathroom and the floor seems to buckle under my feet. I piss and the shower there calls my name. I turn on the water and get in. Steam and heat fill the room. I’m standing there when Tammy comes in.

  “What’re you doing?” she asks.

  “Baptism.”

  “Fucking weirdo.”

  I sit in the tub and let the little stall spin around me. I float on the steam and rise through the little vent in the ceiling out to the sky. I sit there and let the world narrow to the stream of water falling on me.

  When the water turns cold, I get out, dripping and shivering. I go back to the table, but no one’s playing cards now. No one’s doing anything. We’re all naked and I’m wet and the night is winding down. Things could’ve been so much more exciting, but we were all too stoned to do much more than talk about what could’ve happened. Come morning, we’ll all wake up and try to remember the naked night, but it’ll only come in bits and patches and someone’ll say something about getting a video camera to record those moments when things should’ve turned out far more exciting than they did.

  Turning Away

  MOM CRIES. SHE cries little, silent tears. I don’t notice at first because she hides in her room with the door closed. When she comes out her face is puffy and red. She lights a cigarette and sits in the dining room with a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette. She says nothing and I come in to bum a smoke and there she is with tears in her eyes. She wipes them away and hands me her pack.

  “You okay?”

  She shakes her head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She stretches her hand out flat on the table. Her knuckles are swollen. She sips her coffee and I sit down to stare at her.

  “Bobby wants to get married,” she says.

  “Okay.”

  “He says it’s time to get serious,” she says.

  The room smells of burnt coffee and ash. Light from the window falls across the table, outlining the grain in the wood.

  “I thought you loved him,” I say.

  “I do.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “You,” she says. “He wants me to send you to your dad.”

  “Jesus.”

  I haven’t spoken with my dad since we left. He’s never called and I’ve never written. He’s a stranger. I can’t live with strangers.

  “I can’t do it,” she says. “You’re mine.”

  “I could stay here with Grandma.”

  I want to hit Bobby with something heavy and hard. What kind of man asks a woman to leave her kids? I don’t see Mom much, but she’s my mom, I know where to find her when I need her.

  We sit together in the dining room and smoke and the smoke breaks up and flows along the ceiling to the kitchen, the living room. I get Mom more coffee. I want a drink, maybe a joint. I want to forget that this ever came up.

  “It’s over,” Mom says.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t begin to tell you how sad I am.”

  “You should call him,” I say.

  “I can’t.”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  She stares at me, tears on her cheeks.

  “There’s nothing to figure out,” she says. “You’re mine and I’m yours.”

  “Okay.”

  “Fine,” she says. “Good.”

  It’s better now. Not good, but better. We sit together and I figure between the two of us, we have one whole life. I figure that we’ll hold each other up and stagger from crisis to crisis like a drunken whore. It won’t last long, but it’ll last a while and that’s all I can ask for, just a little more time, just a little space to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life.

  Bye Bye

  SITTING IN JOHN John’s room. Sitting on the bed, the mattress soft. Laundry lies all around the floor. Foil covers the window, making the room dim with the one lamp burning in the corner. The world is muted. Colors are dull. The walls seem detached from reality. Oxy makes everything distant, blunted.


  “I leave in two weeks,” John John says.

  He’s enlisted in the Army. He’s going to be a soldier.

  “I wish I could go with you.”

  “I’ll be back,” he says. “They give you leave after Basic.”

  I close my eyes and float on the liquid high.

  “Do you want to keep my car?” he asks. “Just ’til I get back.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  John John’s mom comes to the door, announcing dinner. Rising with the careful grace of the truly stoned, we go to the dining room.

  “It’s going to be hard without you,” she says.

  “Maybe you’ll fall in love,” John John says.

  “I don’t think so.”

  I push the beans around the plate. My hands are numb and I cannot feel my face. Food seems too chunky to eat. I can’t seem to believe it’s real, not some plastic model meant to be left in a window.

  “You won’t need to worry about me anymore,” John John says.

  “I’ll always worry.”

  After dinner, I light a cigarette and stand on the porch watching the sun drop into the mountains. Shadows stretch out from the corners and fatten into a solid darkness. Lights flare in the house. John John and his mom sit in front of the television.

  “I think I need to go home,” I say.

  “You okay?” John John asks.

  “Fine.”

  “Sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Promise?”

  “I just need to get home.”

  “Okay.”

  I walk along the road and every step is a marathon. My heart is ready to crack my ribs I drag my feet against the asphalt.

  Home now. Mom and Grandma sit on the porch watching the moths kill themselves against the light.

  “I thought you were staying the night at John John’s,” Mom says.

  “John John’s in the Army now.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s like he’s dead already.”