No Names, page 6
OCTOBER 1974, MIKE
Down by the river there’s a keg, some weed, a bonfire. The usual Friday night. Maybe fifty of us, the ones who didn’t go to the football game. Me and Pete because we got kicked off the team for pretty much doing what we’re doing right now. A cute girl I don’t really know named Debbie is looking up into my face, like one of those smiley-face buttons. She sticks her hands into the front pockets of my jeans because she’s cold, she says with a laugh. But I’m wishing I was with this girl Lisa I see through the gyrating flames. I’ve never talked with her but saw her plenty at Mass when we were kids and I was an altar boy and watched everyone come and go from the pews, and we’ve exchanged glances in the halls at school ever since she came to public after Immaculate Conception closed. A guy I don’t know has his arm around her. In the bright dome of firelight everyone seems happier than me. Louder too—shouting, laughing—too loud for my mood. I move downwind into the smoke and sparks because I don’t want to join in the yakety-yak and the goofing, and also so Debbie won’t want to come be with me. She does anyway, coughing from the smoke, asking why I’m always so quiet, even though we’ve only just met so it could hardly be always. She giggles as she asks this, but the giggle’s fake, nervous. I make her nervous. She seems like a nice enough girl, though. I can tell she’s thinking I’m either a bad boy who’s a nice guy or else a nice guy who’s a bad boy.
Pete and I have the bad half of this rep because we smoke cigarettes and pot, and skip school, but mostly because one time we beat the shit out of (as Pete proudly puts it) a couple of rich jocks, soccer players. We call anyone who has more money than us rich, and what kind of losers except rich kids play soccer? People think we jumped them for kicks, but that’s not true. It started last summer. It was hot as hades, and houses in the Flats don’t have AC, so we were going for a swim in Deep Lake to cool off. We went to a weedy scrap of shore between the Yacht & Country Club and the rich people’s so-called cottages, which are bigger than our houses. We’d always thought of that beach as a kind of no-man’s-land. That day, the cops showed up and kicked us out for trespassing. This had never happened before. It was for sure those two soccer guys who called the cops on us. We could see them sitting over by their club’s swimming pool, swilling bottled beer—most likely on their parents’ tab—watching as the cops showed up to kick us out. We didn’t actually see one of them go to the phone, but they were laughing like crazy, like it was the most hilarious thing ever. Some prank. Next time we saw them was maybe a month later, after school started, in the parking lot by the football field, and they were about to get into this sweet Triumph Spitfire done in that classic British Racing Green. They grinned when they saw us, showing off their straightened teeth. That’s all it took. I led the attack and, I swear, it was directly to their faces. Pete reminded them in not-too-polite terms of the shitty thing they’d done. He took the one guy, I took the other. They acted all girly, screaming, trying to run away. Gave up fast. We pummeled them on the blacktop for only a few seconds. Bloody noses, nothing more. No big deal. Didn’t matter, though. News spread like wildfire and got more and more tabloid with every telling.
So, this Debbie asks where I live, and when I say the Flats, she says, “Wow!” like I’d said Outer Mongolia or something. “Wow!” she repeats, then tells me, “From the highway at night it looks like a fairyland, or an outer-space castle—or something!—what with like millions of lights twinkling on all those towers.”
“It’s a refinery,” I tell her. She looks hurt. Girls like her, rich ones from the Heights, would hold their noses at the chemical smell of the Flats, that is if they ever walked through. But I suppose I wouldn’t know what the Heights smells like, either. Hallein is that way, divided. Us from the Flats almost never see any of the landmarks and areas the rich people and the tourists see. Likewise, the Flats is invisible to the rest of the city. That’s why Pete and I call it Invisible City, after the cool title of a book that recently came out, Invisible Cities. Neither of us has read it, but Mrs. Homer talked about it in English class one day, and we dig what she digs. Besides, the name fits. Hallein, the biggest city between here and there, between somewhere and nowhere, might as well be invisible.
The moon comes on big and bold and bright. I’ve lost track of Pete. Some of the kids have paired off and are disappearing into the shadows. I toss my cigarette down in the sand and tell Debbie I’ve got to take a leak. I don’t really have to, not after only two beers, but I want some space. And I don’t want to go make out. I wander off into the sumac thicket, letting her hands get cold, I suppose.
After going only about a hundred yards into the thicket, I turn a sharp bend in the thread of a trail and suddenly there’s a couple right there on the ground in front of me, naked. I think it’s Pete—his backside—but it’s hard to tell under the crisscrossing of shadows made by the bare sumac branches. It is Pete. He’s on top of the girl. I can’t see who she is. They’re really going at it. I stop dead in my tracks in the deep sand. I’ve never even seen a picture or a movie or anything of anyone having sex, let alone right in front of me, in real life, let alone someone I know. It’s real life, sure, but it feels like I’m making it up. Pete’s ass flashes like a deer’s and the girl’s splayed under him, gasping every time he pumps. Her hair’s spread over her face and across the sand, like waterweeds; her eyes are blotted out by the silver light. I still can’t make out who it is. One of those rich girls, I think. Maybe called Jill or Kim? Her blouse is pulled up, jeans pulled down. What seems totally bizarre, though, is that it’s cold out and Pete’s buck naked. Not just his jeans pulled down, like her, but clothes flung every which way, some in the sand, some in the sumac branches. Maybe the scene’s hotter than I’m making it sound, but also maybe not. She shifts her eyes to me, or past me.
I’m getting hard and feeling sick all at the same time. I stand there, stock-still, yet somehow Pete senses me and turns his head around. He flashes those black-diamond eyes of his at me while continuing to drill away. He then gives me a weird kind of grin. I can tell I’m supposed to give a thumbs-up, so I do. Like an idiot, I do. He turns back to this girl and at the same time reaches behind for my hand. He takes hold of it. I pull away, but he pulls harder and places my hand on her breast. Now I don’t pull away. I should but I don’t. Her eyes, suddenly legible, meet mine with what I read as scorn. Now I do pull my limp hand away, but he takes hold of it again, guiding it downward. Gutless creep that I am, I let him. “Grab hold, grab hold,” he whispers. As if I know what I’m doing, I fix my palm and fingers around the base of his cock. It’s slick and sticky at the same time as it moves in and out of her. Christ, what am doing? For maybe three breaths I hold my hand there before freaking out and jerking it away. He looks at me again, seductive this time, and I get the idea I’m supposed to join in, like take a turn or something. I shake my head slightly, murmur a feeble no, and step back. Something like a laugh, a very short laugh or maybe a yelp, comes from the girl. I turn away, wishing I hadn’t let him do any of what he did to me, wishing I hadn’t done any of that to her.
I’m pretty dazed as I head farther on through the sumac maze. I still don’t really have to take a leak but should try anyway so I can at least tell myself I haven’t lied to Debbie. When I whip it out, though, I’m too hard to get a stream going. So I wander around like my dad does when he tells my mom he’s going out to get some air. I think about things, and I suppose Dad does too. I wish I knew what he was thinking at those times, and I also wish he knew what I was thinking right now. I’m thinking about how confused I am about girls and everything. I’m thinking about how what just happened probably bonded me to Pete forever and maybe also fractured that bond forever.
Here I am, wandering among the sumac—branches velvety as new buckhorns—when out of nowhere Debbie appears. Like she’s hunted me down. Stands right in front of me, blocking the only way forward. She moves in closer, so we’re practically chest to chest, then, quick as a gunslinger, gets her hand down the front of my jeans. She starts kissing me like crazy with her beer-mouth, sucking the breath right out of me. She pulls me down onto the damp sand, and even though I’m not wanting to, I’m kissing her back. We’re Frenching and she lets her breasts out of her blouse and wriggles herself free from her jeans. Next thing I know, she’s forcing my hand between her legs. I’m still hard and have a condom in my wallet but do not want to screw her. Definitely not.
I can’t help but think about Pete and that other girl so close by.
Debbie flips me onto my back, and I kind of go with it. That is, until she’s straddling me, at which point I freeze up. She pulls on my dick and starts working it into her. I whisper-yell, “No way,” and try squirming out from under her. She succeeds at pinning me down only because there’s no way I’m going to treat a girl rough. So I don’t do anything at all. That is, until she starts riding my dick. I get mad—no, not mad, more like upset, confused by her determination—and then—I can’t help it—I push her off me—like wham—and she goes flying across the small clearing, landing on her back in the sand about a body’s length away. I can’t believe I just did that to a girl. I jump to my feet, tugging my jeans up. I don’t know why, but I say, “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” and stalk back to the bonfire.
I want to be out of here now, I want to be alone, I want to not have to wait for Pete, but he drove.
When Debbie returns to the circle a minute or so after me, she’s all bouncy and chipper. Saving face with a party face, I suppose. She picks her plastic cup up from a log, goes to the keg. All loud and sassy, she asks one of the guys to pour her one. Like she needs another. She’s chatting him up, even as she starts moving in my direction. I’m embarrassed. Also scared, scared that even though I was barely inside of her and didn’t come inside her—or come at all—maybe somehow some leaked out.
About five minutes later a couple I don’t know wanders out of the thicket. A little while after that, more people—some together, some alone—appear, as if there’d been a secret signal. They head toward the fire, Pete among them, alone. He’s forgotten to fasten a couple of buttons on his 501s. I either don’t see or don’t recognize the girl he was with among those returning.
By now, Debbie’s back next to me and I’m ignoring her, which doesn’t stop her from nuzzling into my denim shoulder. She murmurs something I can’t quite make out. I think she wants me to say that I’ll take her home. Not going to happen. She’s a girl from the Heights, I’m a guy from the Flats. By some bump of fate, our totally opposite cliques have overlapped here tonight. Not sure why these rich girls weren’t at the game.
Soon after Debbie and some other girls leave, everyone else starts drifting away. Except for me and Pete, the other guys trail after the girls.
“Following tail,” Pete remarks, his voice lazy.
Right now, though, I’m feeling too weirded out about what happened in the sumacs with me and Pete, with Pete and that girl, with me and Debbie, to care about who’s following who or what. It’s going on midnight. Pete and I throw a couple hunks of driftwood onto the dying fire and sit down on one of the big logs. We take in both the warmth from the blaze and the cold of the sky above. This makes me feel a little better. I’m hoping there’s enough history between me and Pete that we’ll make it through this.
Nightjars—shadowy, spooky—soar all around, nabbing insects in midair. Pete and I track the sparks from the fire as they push through the smoke and eventually mingle with the stars.
“Whoa, my Mike!” Pete shouts after one humongous spark rises spectacularly. “That one’s never gonna die!” He starts throwing rock after rock into the flames. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he asks, “Are you happy?” like it’s a normal question.
I pull one of the last Marlboros from the pack in my shirt pocket before answering, “Yeah, sure.” I light up. “I’m happy.”
But he doesn’t let things go at that, doesn’t ever let me get away with anything. “But what does that mean, camerado divine?” He reaches over and punches me lightly on the chest. “What does it mean to be happy? What, my comrade in arms, is happiness?”
Somehow, his words are making what happened with the girls start to drift away up into the sky. I take a few quick puffs and shrug. It’s involuntary, I swear. He of course won’t accept that as an answer, either. He snatches the cigarette right out of my mouth, takes a good long drag, then starts lecturing: “Socrates was the first guy to say happiness is obtainable through human effort and not a gift from the gods. So, anustrious anus-brain, you should make the effort to at least think about what happiness might be.” He hands the cigarette back.
Though this is the Pete I like, inside I’m squirming.
“So?” he asks.
Didn’t realize he meant for me to think about it right now. I take a few more nervous drags before responding, “I suppose being out here thinking about the stars and outer space and life is happiness. And answering dumb questions.” I smile but don’t tell him what I’m really thinking: Being here with you is happiness, because otherwise I’d be hurtling through the universe totally alone.
“But wouldn’t you rather be out here solo contemplating all of this?” It’s like he’s read my mind.
Then I do tell him, I tell him what I’ve been thinking. I don’t look at him as the words stutter out but can feel him smiling.
After one of those long, easy silences we have lots of, I look over. With a slow wink he asks, “So, did you and that babe get it on?”
I hope the wink’s ironic but am not so sure it isn’t just plain sleazy. Until then, I’d been happily on my way to forgetting all that happened in the sumacs. One of the rocks he’s been chucking into the flames explodes. I shield my eyes, then shake my head and tell a lie. “Didn’t have a rubber on me.” I’m too ashamed to tell what really happened.
“Didn’t have one either, but there was no stopping us. When it was time, I pulled out, shot my load in the sand.”
There’s something in his bragging that’s forced. By the way he glances away I can tell he knows I know this. He also knows I was there witnessing what was going on, so he adds, “Chicks are just plain weird. It’s a whole lot easier hanging out with you.”
For some reason those words kind of help. They shouldn’t, but they do. Truth is, we both want some imaginary girlfriend that doesn’t exist, someone like his mom, though obviously we don’t say that.
At the edge of the river, a pair of small amber lights appears.
“Hey, a fox!” Pete shouts quietly, as only he can. The fox is standing flank-deep in the current, staring at us. The fire illuminates Pete’s face gold. His eyes glitter fierce. The fox turns and trots down along the bank, away from us. Then, almost as if his voice is coming out of the silent dark all around, Pete asks, “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
I pause before answering, wondering what kind of trap he’s setting for me. “Um, never given it much thought.” That seems like a safe thing to say, and true. It’s strange because I’m wishing I had a better answer, wishing maybe I had at least wondered even a little about reincarnation before.
He looks all dreamlike before speaking again. “That fox makes me think of this kid I swam with back in Cali. Keith Hernandez.” He sneezes into his fist. “Swam a wicked butterfly. Also had this perfect memory, so he functioned as our nonstop jukebox between reps. One day after practice Keith hopped out of the pool singing Stevie Wonder—“My Cherie Amour”—and went running across the lawn toward where he’d laid his towel down.” Pete took a long pause and stared at me. “Next thing you know, Keith’s rolling around in the dry grass like a mad dog, howling. We all looked over. I was in the shallow end, leaning against the side of the pool, still catching my breath after the series of sprints he’d just smoked me on. There was a fucking snake stuck to his foot. A rattler had bit him on the bottom of the foot and was hanging there by its fangs. Keith and the snake were whipping around like they were caught up in a tornado. I jumped out of the pool, sprinted over, yanked the snake out of his foot, and tossed the motherfucker over the fence. By that time, Coach was there. He swept Keith, who was a big boy, up into his arms, like he was made of foam rubber, ran him to his truck, and rushed him to the hospital.” Now Pete turns his stare downward into the sand between his feet. “A couple hours later, Keith was dead.” He stares into the night, eyes on fire like a demon’s.
“Jesus,” is all I can say. What is it with Pete and snakes? Some rocks go pop-pop-pop, sending burning shrapnel everywhere. We duck for cover.
“Crazy as it sounds,” he continues, “I swear Keith’s spirit lives on in that fox.” His voice is calm, certain. “Not because he was clever like a fox, or foxy like a girl, or looked like a fox, or anything like that. And not because I think about him all that much anymore. Keith was just there, in that fox. I mean, it would be cool if we all migrated into some other being.” He gestures to what I guess is supposed to be our voices and thoughts—or possibly our very beings?—floating in the dark space around us. In any case, things that are hard to gesture toward.
“Yeah,” I say kind of lamely, “it’d be nice.”
“Well, the Greeks—or at least some of them—believed in reincarnation, only they called it ‘the transmigration of souls.’” He snatches the cigarette from my mouth again, takes a sloppy suck, nodding as he exhales. “The religion around Orpheus, the poet guy, and Pythagoras, the geometry guy. Anyway, supposedly Orpheus’s soul entered the soul of a swan after he died.”
At this moment, Pete looks fierce and noble, like a warrior from the ancient times he loves so much. He hands the moist cigarette back to me.
