Flesh and Bone Read online

  Literature

  “I’M READING NABOKOV,” Bekah says. “It’s disturbing.

  We lie naked on her bed. Her parents are out at a movie. Her thighs are thick and pale, warm to the touch and shiny with sweat. I close my eyes and light a cigarette.

  “Who wants to fuck old men?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  It’s hard to lie here, naked and moist, without thinking of Harold. I fuck and I think of Harold. I eat and I think of Harold. Harold is the last and first thought of the day. Am I in love? I don’t want to be in love. Not with Harold.

  “Old men shouldn’t want sex,” she says. “Their lives are over.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed and reach for my clothes. Bekah’s parents will be home soon.

  “I have to go,” I say.

  She stares at me. Light plays in her liquid eyes.

  “You could stay for supper,” she says.

  “Not with your folks here,” I say. “It’s too late.”

  She rolls onto her back. Her breasts slide into the hollows of her armpits, flat and spread out over her chest.

  “They like you,” she says.

  “No one likes me.”

  “I like you.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “What’s there to know?”

  She runs a finger down my spine. Shivers spread through my ribs, my shoulders.

  “I have secrets,” I say.

  “Tell me.”

  “They wouldn’t be secrets then, would they?”

  “You’re a dick.”

  Out in the living room, I stare through the window at the rain, the wind pushing it sideways into the trees. I call Grandma for a ride. Bekah comes and stands with me, wearing a robe. Her arms reach around my waist and her hands rub my belly a little. I like the feel of her there. I like the way she can talk to me, the way she doesn’t look at me like meat. I am more than a simple fuck for her. I’m a friend. I’m a person. I close my eyes and wait. If she knew the truth about me, if she knew what kind of person I am, she’d turn away. I’d never see her again. We’d never fuck. We’d never talk about poetry or literature again. No, I have secrets and they’ll stay secrets. No one loves a faggot. Not in this world.

  Awkward Introductions

  PICTURES HANG LIKE the ghosts of old friends on the living room walls. The couch is silk and there are bookshelves around the fireplace filled with books and more pictures and knick knacks, things brought here from all over the world. Bekah and I sit on the hearth, no fire behind us, nowhere to go, no way of getting out.

  “So you’re it,” her father says. His name is Heath and he’s a teacher. Her mother is across the room, staring at us. Bekah looks at them like there’s nothing to be afraid of. She doesn’t understand the lengths parents will go to protect their young. She has no children to drive to wild limits. This could easily end badly for all of us. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to get hurt either. No one told me that someday I’d have to face parents like this. No one told me that fathers and mothers would want to know who’s fucking their daughter.

  “You don’t look like much,” Heath says.

  “Dad.”

  Bekah tries to protect me, but this is it. This is where I prove that I’m a man, or a boy playing grown up in the dark.

  “I’m not sure what you’re looking for,” I say.

  “We’re looking for responsibility,” her mother says.

  “You found the condoms,” I say.

  No one moves. The air is so thick it could tear wide open if someone moves too quickly. We all breathe and wait. Silence may be good, or it may be the rest before the wind topples the house.

  “You’re too young,” Heath says.

  “Obviously not.”

  “Don’t be flip.”

  “Just pointing out the facts.”

  “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

  “True,” I say. “But we’ve made an adult decision and acted with caution and respect for one another.”

  “Respect?” her mother says.

  “I would do nothing to hurt your daughter.”

  “Really?” Bekah’s mother asks. “Is this a permanent thing then?”

  “No,” I say. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m getting into anything I’m not prepared for. I like Bekah and maybe someday I’ll love her, but right now there’s nothing to indicate the relationship going either way.

  “At least you’re honest,” Heath says.

  “I don’t want any misunderstandings.”

  “Good,” he says.

  “I intend to keep seeing Bekah for as long as she’s willing to see me,” I say.

  “Is that a fact?”

  “It is.”

  “What would you do if I were to kick your ass?” Heath asks.

  “Dad.”

  “I’d fight,” I say. “And I’d do everything in my power to put you in the hospital.”

  “Cocky,” he says.

  “Just letting you know where I stand.”

  “You don’t love her,” Bekah’s mother says.

  “Not yet,” I say. “But I might. I think I’m on the road to it.”

  Heath nods. Bekah’s mother sits back in her chair. The muscles of my neck and back let go a little and I can breathe again.

  “You’re careful,” Heath says.

  “I want you to stay away from her,” Bekah’s mother says.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Heath says. “But if you come into my house without my permission again, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you’re either in jail or dead.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “This isn’t over,” her mother says.

  “I think it is,” Heath says.

  And that’s how it goes. I don’t know if I have their blessing or not, but I know the rules now.

  The Inevitability of the Ocean

  SAND SEEPS INTO my shoes. I stand and watch the waves eat the beach. Drift wood and kelp line the high tide mark. John John rushes the surf. He runs out into the water and back again, throwing foam into the wind.

  “I could live here forever,” he says.

  “Nothing to do.”

  “I’d build a fire every day,” he says. “I’d fish. I’d eat seafood.”

  “Too much wind.”

  “It’s pure,” he says. “Nothing between you and the world. Nothing but a few inches of wood and insulation.”

  “Harold’ll be here soon.”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence now. Silence and wind and sand. Foam on the beach, white and green and thick. I stare out at a ship crossing in the deep water.

  “I need to get out of here,” I say.

  “I’m thinking of enlisting,” John John says.

  “You’re too young.”

  “Mom’ll sign off.”

  Seagulls call from the sky, from the rocks out in the ocean.

  “It’ll get me out of here,” he says.

  “There’s nowhere to go.”

  “Anywhere,” he says. “Anything.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Anything,” he says. “Anything’s better than this.”

  “No shit.”

  Harold comes, his truck rattling, Hank Williams rolling out of the radio.

  “It’s time,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  We walk to the truck.

  “It’s your turn in the middle,” he says.

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll keep the window open,” he says. “Just in case.”

  I slide into the truck and Harold pats my knee. Even through the denim I shiver. His hands are colder than any ocean wind. It racks up my thigh and bunches in the small of my back.

  “What did you guys do?” Harold asks.

  “Nothing much,” I say.

  “We should go fishing,” Harold says.

  The thought of being trapped on a boat with Harold frightens me. There would be nowh
ere to go, no escape. I can’t imagine it. I just want to go home.

  “Are you hungry?” Harold asks.

  I want to shower and I lie down. John John lights a cigarette.

  “We need to get home,” John John says.

  Harold grunts and guides the truck on the highway. Soon the mountains are rising over us. Snow hides in the darkness back in the woods. No one says anything for a long while. The radio is our only connection to the world.

  “Are you coming to dinner?” Harold asks me.

  “Mom wants me to eat with her,” I say.

  “Your mom?”

  “It’s her day off,” I say.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” he says.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Come over when you’re ready,” he says.

  I know what he means and I wonder if the day will ever come when I’ll be ready.

  Coming Clean

  THE DOORS OPEN into the dining room and the dining room smells of grease and meat. The windows are streaked with rainbows from the grill’s smoke. People sit at their tables eating and talking, laughing and one woman in the corner looking sad and out of place.

  Bekah orders us a couple of burgers with fries. She orders us drinks and we find a table close to the door because it’s the only empty one.

  “Does your mom know about us?” she asks.

  “Us?”

  “You and me,” she says. “The sex.”

  “I haven’t said anything.”

  “She should know.”

  “Why?”

  “My folks know,” she says

  “Because your dad walked in on us.”

  “Don’t you think it’s fair?”

  “What’s the point of pissing everyone off?” I ask.

  “You think she’d be pissed?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “There are just some things you don’t share with your folks.”

  “I don’t like being the slut,” she says.

  “You’re not the slut.”

  “My mom called me a slut.”

  “Your mom’s a bitch.”

  The food comes. The conversation turns away from sex. We eat. Outside, sunlight plays on the windows of the shops around us. People cast shadows like fishermen casting nets into a brown river, hoping to catch something worth keeping.

  “Would it bother you if I said I loved you?” she asks.

  “Only if you meant it.”

  Mortality

  BEER BOTTLES LINE up like the corpses of soldiers on the table next to the ashtray and the plate with the crusts from a sandwich left on it. The ceiling fan pushes the air around like a bully shoving a fat kid.

  “They say I’m dying,” Harold says.

  “Dying?”

  “Liver cancer.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I have a few months left,” he says.

  “Really?”

  “This is serious shit,” he says.

  I don’t know what to say

  “I want you to remember me,” he says.

  There’s no doubt I’ll remember him, forever. This kind of thing doesn’t just go away. This kind of thing leaves a mark that doesn’t fade.

  Different Than What People Think We Are

  NAKED IN MY room. Bekah drove out to bring me a book by Amelia Gray, a book of notes and short chapters. I’ve never read Amelia Gray.

  Sunlight glows in the curtains over the windows, making the room warm and golden and we lie on my bed, naked and sweaty. She presses her tits against my arm, slowly drawing circles on my back with her fingernail. I close my eyes and imagine that I’m asleep and this is a dream that will replay over and over all night until I can’t take it anymore and wake.

  “Do you ever wonder that you’re different than people think you are?” I ask.

  “I don’t know what that means,” she says.

  “I’m not the person you imagine me to be.”

  She kisses my shoulder and rolls over, off the bed. She dresses one piece at a time, her underwear, then her jeans, her bra, then her shirt. Her body becomes more and more secret with each article.

  “Who do I imagine you to be?” she asks.

  “I don’t know, but it’s not who I am.”

  She runs her fingers through her hair and finds her shoes. I admire the slope of her neck into her shoulders, the flash of belly between the hem of her shirt and her jeans.

  “I imagine you’re a nice guy,” she says. “I imagine I like spending time with you.”

  “What would you say if I told you that you’re not the only one?”

  “I’d have to think about whether we would keep on fucking,” she says.

  “You’d be pissed.”

  “And hurt,” she says. “Am I the only one?”

  “We’re not in love.”

  “Jesus.”

  “You’re one of my favorites,” I say.

  “That makes me feel better.”

  Sarcasm isn’t really good from her. It makes her seem petty, but then I’ve been fucking around while she thought we were building something. There’s no excuse for that except, maybe, that I didn’t know. But the truth is, I did know. Women seldom just fuck. I should’ve been paying attention.

  “I have to go,” she says. “Don’t call me.”

  I watch her drive away. I watch her turn onto the road leading to the highway and I wonder what possessed me to tell her about the others. Bekah is a traditional kind of girl. She likes being the center of attention. She likes knowing that she is the focus of all my energies. I never told her that I loved her. I never told her I’d be true. Still, she expected more from me and now I’ve ruined it. I’ve caused her pain that she didn’t need to feel.

  “Is your girlfriend gone?” Grandma asks.

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” I say.

  “I heard the bed,” she says.

  “It was just sex.”

  “Nothing’s just sex,” she says. “Girls don’t give it up for nothing.”

  My face is pale and long in the window. Grandma stands in the background staring at me.

  “You need to fix it,” she says.

  “How do I do that?” I ask.

  “You make her believe in you again,” she says. “You make her the center of your world.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s the problem with you boys,” she says. “You forget that we women need to feel important. Once you get what you want, you walk away like it was no more significant than a handshake.”

  Grandma retreats to the kitchen. The window here fogs with my breath. I’m sorry I hurt Bekah, but I didn’t want to lie to her either. I try to think of some way to make it up to her but nothing comes to mind. Maybe it’s better if she has nothing to do with me. Pain is the only gift I have. God knows, I’d leave too if it were possible. I’d abandon the shallow, narrow part of myself and live a life that means something, a life with a little value. If it were possible, I’d tear out the rotten parts and leave them in the ditch and live a life I could be proud of.

  Wild Thoughts

  GRASS LIES IN the pasture, long, like a carpet along the creek where the water runs over the bank in the winter and spring. Trees grow along the bank here with their leaves held up to the sky like the hands of children at a parade, reaching for the candy thrown from the floats. I walk and think and listen to the wind making music in the brambles.

  Wild thoughts pillage my mind. I think of all the times I should’ve said something clever, but stayed silent and all of the times when I should’ve stayed silent but said something stupid. My tongue tastes of ash and cramps turn my belly. I walk and listen to the creek running over the stones in its bed. If I were to die right now, no one would mourn me. They’d shake their heads and say things like: “I saw this coming,” and “It’s no surprise.”

  Sparrows and starlings fill the sky with their wings. Ravens tear at the carcass of a ’possum back beneath the trees. It would be easy to lie down here and simply stop my heart.
I have a knife with a sharp blade that would let the blood flow from long furrows in my wrists or push through the skin and muscle of my middle and open the liver and stomach to the air. I walk and imagine myself half covered with leaves, waiting for the final darkness.

  I light a cigarette and swallow the acrid smoke. I drink the last of the six pack I brought with me. I am not drunk, but I am not sober either.

  How do you go on when there is nothing real in the world? My life is filled with people and they cannot touch me. They cannot do more than throw words at me and their words mean little or nothing, just pebbles of sound and some kind of meaning, but nothing I can understand. I do not speak their language. I cannot tolerate the way their eyes focus on me. They want me to be with them. They want me to become part of their lives. I don’t know how. Even when we fuck or hug we’re separate. Something invisible and intangible stands between us.

  Somewhere someone sounds the horn of their car. I stop and turn toward the house. I can’t stand the loneliness anymore. Each step is a marathon, each breath heavy and wet. My lungs burn and the muscles in my thighs feel watery. Soon, I’ll just lie down and if I’m lucky, I’ll sleep.

  Shelter

  ED RUNS AWAY from home. She comes to my door with a bag of clothes and a fat, bloody lip. She looks more pissed than hurt, but the blood worries me.

  “I need a few days,” she says. “My dad says I have to stop seeing you.”

  “Me?”

  “Us.”

  I take her to my room and we sit on the bed. I want to touch her face, but it looks too sore.

  “I have to talk to my mom,” I say.

  “I thought you did what you wanted.”

  “I do, but this isn’t my house. I just live here.”

  Mom and Grandma sit in the dining room drinking coffee.

  “Just a few days,” I say.

  “Where will she sleep?” Mom says.

  “I can sleep on the floor.”

  “There’s the couch,” she says.

  “The floor is better.”

  “No sex?”

  “I don’t know.”