The Coalton neighborhood was alternating blocks of houses and trailers, as if in the old days people who arrived here couldn’t decide whether to stay or move on. Szabos stayed. Our family had been here for three generations now, four counting me and Darryl. Great-Grandpa Darryl was a gunslinger with Wild Bill Hickok, according to Dad. He’d told us all these stories when we were kids about how famous, or infamous, our relatives had been. It was b.s. We were plumbers.
I turned the corner on eighth and the Cadillac parked in our drive-way made me grind to a halt. Crap. Pastor Glenn from United Methodist. Why did he keep coming here? He had to park with his butt end in the street because Darryl’s auto carcasses were clogging the driveway. Darryl claimed that once he got them fixed up and running, he’d either sell them or race the cars himself on the circuit. Sure, Darryl. Big dreams. Darryl never finished anything he started. Most of his junk heaps had been propped up so long on cinder blocks there was bindweed choking the carburetors.
I eased open the back screen and tiptoed into the kitchen. Pastor Glenn was in the living room with Ma. Like always, he was reading the Bible and she was weeping. Sometimes he’d recite his Sunday sermon, since Ma was too fat to go to church. She’d sob through that too.
Ma’d always been heavy. She stayed indoors, in hiding. Which was fine with me. I didn’t need all the kids in school making fun of her. After Dad died Ma got worse about going out in public. Eating too. I bet she weighed close to five hundred pounds now. And she hadn’t left the house in a year. Not to go to church. Not to shop. Not to step outside for a breath of fresh air.
Unfortunately, the only way to my bedroom was past Ma and Pastor Glenn. He glanced up from his reading. “Hello, Mike.” He grinned. He had a gap between his two front teeth that made him look like a big kid.
“How’s it goin’?” I said.
“Every day is a blessing. Thank you for asking. We miss you at church.”
I forced a grim smile. “I’ll try to get there next week.” That was a lie, and he knew it. I’d stopped going to church after Dad died. Too many sad eyes. Too many prayers said for me and Ma and Darryl.
I took a shower. While I was soaping up, I could feel Pastor Glenn in the other room. It creeped me out. A memory seeped into my mind. The last time we all went to church. The Szabos, five of us, along with half the town. It was Camilia’s baptism. I was, what? Seven, eight? Ma had handed the baby to Pastor Glenn, then sat on a folding chair. She couldn’t stand too long, even then. I remember, she started bawling. Tears trickling out the sides of her eyes and streaming down her blotchy face. Dad had handed her a handkerchief and patted her shoulder. He wasn’t crying. He never cried. He was strong. He was holding my hand, smiling down on me.
Why was Ma crying? It was a happy occasion. Did she know then that Camilia was going to die?
What? That thought brought me up short. I blinked soap out of my eyes and rinsed off my face.
Camilia died the next day. Ma couldn’t have known. Not the way she reacted when it happened.
But how did Camilia die? As hard as I racked my brain, I couldn’t remember. It wasn’t violent, I don’t think. I’d remember that.
By the time I was done and dressed, Pastor Glenn had gone. Thank God. Ma was back in her room, doing whatever it was she did in there thirty-six hours a day. Consume pies by the box load, then ask the Lord’s forgiveness for gluttony. Darryl’d been up. He’d left the milk out to sour. I fixed myself a power shake and took my glass out back. On the porch stoop, I drank and tried not to think about stuff. About how it might’ve gone with Xanadu and Bailey.
When I got to the water tower at quarter to eleven, the ladder was already propped up against the side. I freaked. What if some dumb kid had climbed to the top and did a copycat? This town couldn’t take another death. They couldn’t afford it. Dad’s suicide had cost everyone, not only in terms of burial costs. I scaled the ladder as fast as I could.
The dumb kid turned out to be Jamie. He was greased from head to toe with baby oil. Somehow he’d managed to cart up a chaise lounge and cooler, in addition to his boom box and beach bag.
“What’s that?” I said, noting with disgust what he was wearing. Or wasn’t wearing.
“Like it?” He snapped the strap on his thong. “I bought these on eBay. One for each day of the week. Want to see where it says ‘Sunday’?”
I ignored him as I spread out my towel. The metal walkaround was already generating visible heat waves. I pulled my undershirt over my head. All I had to wear were my sports bra and boxers, since my swimming suit was way too small. I’d bulked up a little over the summer — okay, a lot. But it wasn’t worth buying a new suit. I hadn’t been to the town pool for two years, and might never go again. Dad and I had installed the pump and filtration system, and it was just another reminder.
“I thought you’d invite Xanadu,” Jamie said. He offered me the baby oil.
I pulled sunblock out of my pack instead. “Why would I do that?” I asked, squeezing a blob of cream into my hand and smearing my abs.
“Oh, I don’t know. You want to eat her?”
I just looked at him.
He grinned. “It’s so obvious, the way you look at her and go into heat.”
“Shut up.” Was it? Had she noticed? What if she had? I rubbed sun-block over my left shin. “You’d know about dogs in heat.”
“Yes, I would.” He panted.
“You don’t know squat.” I retrieved my shades from my pack and slipped them on. “Turn up the radio. I like this song.”
“Ooh, yeah, me too.”
Jamie sang and I hummed along to Faith Hill’s
Breathe
. I closed my eyes, picturing Xanadu in my mind. I wondered what she was doing at this very moment. Running naked through the corn. I chuckled to myself. It’s wheat. I should’ve invited her today. I could’ve spent the next three hours in rapt fascination as she swabbed her entire body with sun-block. Maybe I could’ve helped with those hard-to-reach spots.
But she wasn’t into tanning.
The song ended and the news came on. Jamie switched off the radio. “She is a babe.” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow. “What do you know about her?”
All I need to. “She’s staying out at the Davenports’. Faye and Le-land are her great-aunt and uncle.”
“Boring. Tell me something private and personal that she swore you to secrecy never to reveal.”
In his dreams. I recapped my sunblock and set the bottle beside me on the towel. Withdrawing an eight-pack of Capri Suns from my pack, I peeled the outer cellophane wrapper and handed a box to Jamie.
“Word of advice, Mike,” he said, sticking his straw through the foil on top. “Give it up. Unless you know something I don’t, she’s straight. You saw her with Bailey. She was all over him like maggots on meat. We shouldn’t hold that against her. She was obviously BTW.” He sipped noisily.
BTW — born that way. What did he mean, all over him?
I lay back and beckoned the sun. Heat me, give me life. Jamie was exaggerating.
A finger poked my arm and I flinched. “She’ll only break your heart,” Jamie said.
I twisted his finger, or tried to. It was slimy. “What are you, the voice of experience?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” He sighed. He resettled on his chaise and pulled his sunglasses down from atop his head.
He was referring to Beau. Last year and most of this one, that was all he talked about. Beau, Beau, Beau. I wanna blow Beau. Problem was, besides Beau being straight as a rail, he was too polite. Beau’d never tell Jamie to fuck off, like most of the guys had. “You know,” I said, “maybe if you didn’t act so queer, you’d have a chance with Beau.”
Jamie burst into laughter.
What? Was he laughing at me? That pissed me off. “Look, if you’re going to give advice, you should be able to take it.”
“Mike, Mike, Mike.” Jamie shook his head. Sliding his shades back over his spiky bleached hair, he said, “Beau was never a possibility. I knew that. You didn’t think I was serious about him, did you?” He batted his eyelashes at me. “Oh my God.” Jamie cupped a hand over his mouth. “You did.”
Jerk. I’d been so sympathetic too. So concerned when he moped around after school, crying about how he was never going to meet anyone, how he was doomed to become an old maid. An old fag is more like it.
“It’s a game,” Jamie said. “I play it all the time. Jamie’s fantasy dream date. Really, Mike. I thought you knew that.”
“It didn’t look like a game.” How can you manufacture tears?
“Okay, I admit, there was an element of hope.”
I knew it.
“But Mike,” he reached over and touched me again, “I have a rule with straights — and so should you. Look, but do not touch.”
I plucked his greasy fingers off my forearm. “Play by your own rules.”
“You still won’t admit it, will you?”
I acknowledged I was gay, okay? I just wasn’t like him.
“Anyway,” he stretched his arms over his head and wriggled his skinny butt down into his chaise. “Beau was yesterday’s cock tease. I’m in love with Shane now.”
Shane. Jamie’s imaginary boyfriend. This guy he’d supposedly met in an online chat room. Jamie’d been bringing up his name for the last month or so, but I’d tuned him out. Next month it’d be someone different.
“He called me last night. From Mississippi.”
“Who?”
Jamie turned his head. “Hello? Shane?”
I whipped around and frowned at him. “You’re kidding. You mean, like, on the phone?”
“No, from a hog-calling contest. ‘Hoo eee, Jam-eee.’ Yes, on the phone. From work.” Jamie crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “He’s everything I ever dreamed of. And more.”
“What did he say?”
“None of your business,” Jamie sniped. “It was a very private, very intimate conversation. Maybe if you ask me nice...”
This bothered me. Sitting up, I took off my shades and swung around to face Jamie. “You shouldn’t have given him your phone number. That scares me.”
“Yeah, it scares me too,” Jamie admitted. “I’ve never had anyone actually be interested in me. I have to wonder why.”
That wasn’t the problem. Jamie was attractive. He was a good guy. Anyone would be lucky to have him for a boyfriend. Although, I couldn’t imagine Jamie having a boyfriend. “You’re not planning on meeting him, are you?”
Jamie dropped his jaw. “Well, duh. Of course I am.”
“Jamie, you can’t!” My voice rose an octave. “Come on. You’ve heard the horror stories about meeting people on the Internet. All the perverts and child molesters. Get real.”
“What choice do I have? It’s not like we live in San Francisco. You want me to go to Wichita and hang out in the gay bars?”
“No,” I said. God, no.
“Then tell me, where are we going to meet people?”
Here, I thought. They’ll come here. She’s here.
Jamie’s head lolled back on the chaise and he closed his eyes. “I don’t want to be the oldest living virgin on Earth. Aside from you.”
I sneered, which he missed because he was totally out of touch with reality.
“He’s calling me again tonight.”
“Jamie —”
His voice softened as he added, “I like him, Mike. I really do. We have a lot of the same interests: music, movies, porn stars.”
I blew out an irritated breath and put my shades back on. The water tank behind us was reflecting heat like a solar panel. My skin sizzled. I needed to move. Take action. I scrambled to my feet. At the railing, I leaned over to catch a breeze and asked Jamie, “How old is he? Where’s he from? What’s his family do?”
“You sound like Geneviève. ‘James, sweetie, who is this Shane person? Where is he from, honey? How big is his dick?’” He imitated his mother perfectly, except for the last part.
“Well?” I said, turning and extending my arms along the crossbar. “Inquiring minds want to know.”
“Okay, Katie Couric. He’s from Alabama, and he’s got the sexiest southern drawl to prove it. He works in a gas station, but that’s just temp. He wants to become a filmmaker. He’s twenty-two —”
“Twenty-two!” My voice bounced off the water tank. “He’s too old for you.”
“No, Mother Superior, he is not. That’s only five years’ difference. Geneviève and Hakeem are twelve years apart and it works for them. They’re celebrating their twentieth anniversary this year.” Geneviève and Hakeem. Jamie’s parents.
Jamie scrunched up, hugging his knees. “He lives in a small town where there’s not much action. None, he says. He’s lonely, Mike. Like me. I’m so fucking lonely.” Jamie’s eyes bore into mine. “And so are you.”
I hustled to gather up my gear and shove it in my pack. My towel, sunscreen. “You’re a horndog,” I told him.
“And you’re not?”
I shouldered my pack and headed for the gate.
“You’re leaving already? It’s barely noon.”
Let him wallow in self pity. My life was fine, perfect. So what if I didn’t have a girlfriend? That was about to change.
As I stepped onto the top rung of the ladder, I glanced back to find Jamie staring at me. Excavating my soul. I had to admit, he knew me better than anyone. What was it we had between us? An indefinable connection, an understanding. A shared desperation. I don’t know. The gay thing.
He was right. I was lonely.
“Just be careful,” I said. “Please?”
Jamie nodded. “You too.”
There were five messages on the answering machine. The first was Nel, from the tavern. “Mike, call me as soon as you can. I have a disaster here and I need your help. Let’s see, it’s twelve-forty. Call me.”
What kind of disaster? I wondered.
The second message was from Xanadu. “Oh my God, help me!” she cried. “I’m stuck in a freaking time warp in Sublette, Kansas. Where the hell is Sublette? Isn’t that an apartment? You think Coalton’s small? Aunt Faye and Uncle Lee dragged me along on their weekly visit to his folks, who are old as Egyptian mummies. Right now Uncle Lee and his dad are in the parlor — yes, the parlor — comparing war injuries. God. Before that, they pulled out these shoe boxes full of old photos for me to see, like I know who Bella and Abel Cleveland are and all their twenty-five-hundred children and grandchildren. They’re probably all dead by now —”
Beep. The message timed out. A memory resurfaced. My grandparents. Grandma and Grandpa Szabo. Darryl and I used to go stay at their house in Leoti for two weeks every summer. I loved how we’d dump out Grandma Szabo’s hatbox full of black-and-white photos and pass them around. She’d tell us about the people; share the family secrets. She didn’t make up stories the way Dad did.