Trailer Trash (29 page)

“Don’t worry. If I have to trust you, the least you can do is trust me.”

It seemed turnabout was fair play, but it didn’t make Nate feel any better.

School started again after New Year’s, and Nate and Cody fell into an easy routine. Nate drove Cody to school every morning, and nearly every moment that wasn’t taken by school, the Tomahawk, or sleep, they spent together. They went to Nate’s if his dad was working, although even then, they were very careful about what they did there. Nate was too paranoid about his father catching them. If Cody’s mother was gone, they went to Cody’s. Sometimes, if the weather wasn’t bad, they found a back road and Nate let Cody drive his Mustang. Cody had a license, even though he never drove his mother’s car, but he’d never driven a stick, and teaching him how to operate the clutch kept them occupied for a few weeks.

But like any teenagers, they lived for the weekends. Friday and Saturday nights, Cyndi was always gone, and they had several hours after Cody’s shift ended but before Nate had to be home for curfew, and they spent most of those hours sequestered in Cody’s room.

Nate finally understood all the hype about sex.

They never engaged in actual, penetrative sex. Neither of them seemed inclined to venture there just yet. Besides, there were plenty of ways to make each other feel good using only their hands and their mouths.

Nate thought he’d become used to Warren, but being so close to Cody brought some of the uglier parts of small-town life home. The train schedule seemed sporadic, but when it came through Warren, it shook Cody’s entire trailer. Police showed up at Kathy and Pete’s place so often that Nate realized it was a miracle he’d managed to keep his friendship with Cody hidden from his dad for as long as he had. It was only a matter of time before his dad responded to a domestic disturbance call and saw Nate’s truck parked out front. Toward the end of January, Vera knocked on Cody’s door and asked if he’d seen Ted.

“I usually see him go past the gas station on the way to the liquor store,” she said. “But I ain’t seen him for three days, and I can hear that dog of his barking to go out from my bedroom.”

Cody’s cheeks paled, his eyes sliding to the most distant trailer in the lot. “I haven’t seen him.”

Twenty minutes later, Nate’s dad and another police officer arrived and pounded on the front door of Ted’s trailer. Eventually, they busted in, and then the ambulance arrived, but without lights or a siren. The dog was loaded into the back of a police car. A bit of careful questioning with his dad at dinnertime confirmed that the occupant had been found dead inside, apparently having drunk himself to death sometime earlier that week, and the dog had been taken to the shelter in Rock Springs. Nate stupidly hoped the poor thing didn’t get put down, but he had no way of knowing its fate. Meanwhile, two pregnant girls at Walter Warren High School—one senior and one sophomore—dropped out, more families moved away, and Nate heard Brian bragging in English about the coke he’d managed to score from a friend of his father.

The sooner he and Cody got out of Warren, the better. It was something they talked about often. Whether sequestered in Cody’s room because his mom was home, or cuddling on the couch while she was away, Nate and Cody spent hours talking about what might happen after graduation. Nate knew Cody was studiously saving every penny he could, but Nate also knew that wasn’t adding up nearly as fast as Cody would have liked. Although they never talked about it, Nate suspected Cody was paying a fair share of the bills. He’d cut down to only two or three cigarettes a day, simply because he could no longer stand to part with several dollars a week to support his habit.

They were in agreement that there must be places in the world where homosexuality didn’t seem like such a crime. They’d both heard jokes about San Francisco their whole lives, but huddled together on Cody’s couch, with the lights low and the curtains all drawn tight so nobody could see them from outside, they talked in hushed tones about where else they might go.

They talked about AIDS.

It was impossible not to. It was mentioned every night in the news. It was on multiple magazine covers. Nate bought each one, not only because he wanted to make sure they knew as much as possible about the disease, but because he hoped he’d find little nuggets of info buried in the articles. In places that weren’t Warren, Wyoming, whole communities of men and women in same-sex relationships lived their lives as if it were the most normal thing in the world, and Nate longed to know where those places were.

“You gotta stop buying these, man,” Cody said one afternoon when Nate brought him a
U.S. News & World Report
with
AIDS
in bright-red letters across the cover. Cody sat on his couch, eyeing the magazine on the coffee table as if it were a venomous snake that might strike at any time.

“We’ll bury it in the bottom of the trash after we read it,” Nate said, tossing his jacket aside and sitting down next to him.

“That’s not what I mean. Eventually, somebody’s gonna notice that you buy every magazine about fags and AIDS. Somebody’s gonna put it together.”

“I make sure I go to different cashiers every time, and if they ask, I tell them it’s for a school report.” Nate reached out and took Cody’s hand. “And we’re not ‘fags.’ Don’t say it that way. That’s like using the n-word. We’re gay, that’s all. Or homosexual, if you like that better. But don’t use their words against us.”

Cody only shrugged, and Nate tried not to be frustrated. It wasn’t that Cody actually thought they were doing anything wrong, but after hearing the word so many times, he’d somehow grown used to it. It was almost as if by refusing to let something as small as a word bother him, he might prove he was stronger than the town thought. At the very least, he could prove that he was above the rumors.

Nate understood, on some level, but he couldn’t quite subscribe to the same mind-set, no matter how hard he tried. He grew hyperaware of every time the word “fag” was used at school.

It was a lot.

And more and more often, it was directed at him.

The stack of college applications in Nate’s desk drawer remained blank. There wasn’t much he could do about school until he knew where they were going. Maybe he’d be stuck at a community college instead of a university, but he was okay with that. When his dad asked, Nate flat-out lied and told him he’d applied.

He’d have to deal with the truth eventually, but he wanted to have more answers first.

On February fourth, Liberace died. Nate was sure most of the people at school had never even listened to his music, but suddenly, Nate felt the stares of the other students more often. He saw them ducking their heads to whisper as he and Cody passed. A few days later, somebody scrawled the word “fag” across his locker door with a thick, black marker.

“We need to cool it,” Cody told him that afternoon as Nate drove him to the Tomahawk after school.

It was one of those days where the sun was shining and the sky was bluer than it had ever been in Texas, but the steady wind was cold enough to numb any exposed flesh. Nate kept one hand on the steering wheel and held the stiff fingers of his other hand in front of the car’s vent, waiting for the heat to come up to temperature. “Cool what?”

“This. Us. Always being together.”

“What, we’re supposed to stop being friends just because they don’t like it?”

Cody sighed, leaning his head against the passenger window, rubbing the fingers of his right hand together and bouncing his knee in a way that told Nate he was dying for a cigarette but trying to fight it. “We’re more than that, aren’t we?”

“You know we are. Why? Is this your way of breaking up with me?”

Cody’s head jerked Nate’s direction. “Breaking up? You make it sound like we’re going steady or something.”

Nate shrugged and gave up on the heat in order to use both hands on the wheel as they turned onto Main Street. “I don’t know. You have another name for what we’ve been doing?”

Cody almost smiled, turning away to look out the window. “Guess I just hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“So if you’re not breaking up with me, then what? What’re you worried about?”

Cody pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, but didn’t move to shake one loose. “Look, I’m not saying we should actually stop seeing each other. I’m just saying, we stop letting
them
see it, that’s all.”

“As far as they know, we drive to and from school together, and we sit next to each other in social studies. That’s it. We’re not doing anything wrong.”

Cody didn’t argue. He gave up and lit a cigarette instead.

Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday. It was also the day of the high school girl-ask-boy dance, and the day before Nate’s birthday. He spent the entire week leading up to the dance trying to avoid any girl who might ask him. Luckily, that list seemed to have decreased significantly since fall. Only Stacy Miller approached him, and Nate lied and said he was grounded for the weekend.

He didn’t tell Cody about his birthday, either, only because he knew Cody would feel bad about not getting him a gift. Besides, what Nate wanted most couldn’t be bought in a store.

Saturday evening, Nate told his dad he was going to the dance with Stacy. Then, he picked up Cody from his shift at the Tomahawk as usual. Cody’s mom was gone for the night. Nate knew Cody would want to shower as soon as he got home. Sometimes, Nate showered with him, but tonight, he had other plans.

Once he could hear the shower running, he got to work. He started by pushing the furniture out of the way, as well as he could on his own. The couch would have to stay, but the coffee table and chair were easy enough to move. He had a bag full of candles he’d bought earlier that day. He set them up around the room, lit them all, then turned out the lights.

The effect wasn’t quite as romantic as he’d hoped in Cody’s dingy trailer, but it’d have to do.

The tape player he’d given Cody was already in the living room, and Nate was pleased to find the tape he’d made in it. He spent a while rewinding and fast-forwarding, trying to decide exactly which song to start with.

Which song should be playing when they danced together for the very first time?

Maybe it was silly. He had a feeling Cody would think so, at any rate. But after staring at Cody across the dance floor at homecoming, and seeing the buzz of excitement in the school leading up to the dance, Nate had found himself feeling uncharacteristically angry. He wanted to put on a dress shirt and pick Cody up at his house, like any other date. He wanted to walk into the school gym hand in hand, to stand in line for pictures, and—more than anything—to take Cody onto the dance floor when a slow song came on.

Of course, none of that was possible. Not here in Warren, Wyoming, at any rate. So Nate decided to settle for the next best thing.

“I knew you were up to something,” Cody said when he finally emerged, scrubbing a towel over his still-wet hair. He’d put on jeans, socks, and a clean T-shirt, but no shoes. “You were acting kind of goofy.”

Nate hit Play on the tape deck. He’d ended up on Madonna’s “Crazy for You,” more because he’d run out of time than because he’d actually chosen it. He held his hand out to Cody, his cheeks beginning to burn.

“Can I have this dance?”

Cody froze, the towel held to the side of his head, his eyes wide. “You’re kidding, right?”

At least he’d accurately anticipated Cody’s reaction. “It’s Valentine’s Day, and we can’t go to the dance.” He smiled. “Oh. And did I mention that tomorrow’s my birthday?”

“Shit.”

“And I know you didn’t buy me anything, and that’s fine. But I really want this. Please.”

Cody shook his head, grinning, and tossed the towel aside. “Not afraid to play dirty, are you?” Still, he hesitated, staring at Nate’s outstretched hand. “Never really done this before.”

“I know.”

Cody sighed. “This is stupid, Nate.” But he took Nate’s hand. He let Nate pull him close.

It was a pretty well-established fact that when dancing, boys put their arms around the girl’s waist, and girls put their arms around the guy’s neck. Nate had unwittingly taken the “guy” role. He wondered if he should have mentioned that first, maybe asked Cody his preference, but if Cody noticed or cared, he chose not to mention it. He simply put his arms around Nate’s neck.