getting perspective
his face curled into a sneer, the teenager flexed his bicep and drew another cigarette from the softpack. his buddies kicked the dust with their boots and shoved each other, talking nervously without saying anything. challenge, bluff, retreat.
a whistle sounded long and low over the sleepy town. a couple of the boys peeled off the pack, made excuses, headed for home. the remaining four watched a sixth-grader take aim with his BB gun at something in the maple tree across the street.
another whistle sounded. the firehouse's evening ritual: 6pm and 6:01.
"let's go campin'," one of the boys suggested.
"fuck you, dwayne," another replied.
a woman old enough to be their mother came out onto the street where they stood, killing time in front of her hardware store.
"watch your mouth, todd," she said. "you boys better find something else to do." this was another evening ritual. yolanda would let them loiter for an hour or two at a stretch before she came out to shoo them away. sometimes she'd give them free sodas but usually she gave only sharp words that they had learned not to take personally.
"and martin, your mama called..." but before she could finish her sentence martin had turned and high-tailed it down the street towards home.
dwayne, todd and chris stood still for another minute or two, inviting yolanda's glare before they started to walk aimlessly down the street, looking for trouble.
"stupid bitch," they said, as they said everyday. todd's jaw clenched and unclenched; his hand pumped into a fist over and over again. he was a dropout, a year older than the other boys and a year closer to... what? chris imagined todd in ten years, angrier and deeper in the bottle than he was at 18.
dwayne threw his arm around chris' shoulder; they walked a step behind todd, who would have called them fags if he'd seen it. "hey. can you camp out tonight?" dwayne never wanted to go home. chris had known him his whole life and had never set foot inside his home. he'd only seen dwayne's mom maybe twice.
"uh, i don't know," chris stalled. he'd been hoping kris littleton, the girl next door, would climb through his window again tonight. but he wouldn't tell dwayne that. because dwayne would tell todd, and then chris would have to say something demeaning about her, about sex, about love. give up some tawdry detail to satisfy the boys that he wasn't vulnerable to her sweet voice or gentle fingers. prove that he was in control.
"awww, c'mon, fucker. i've got a six-pack--"
"holding out on me, fag?" todd interrupted.
"just saving it for tonight," dwayne responded. "let's go camping."
"what the hell," todd decided. "it's not like we've got something better to do." and with that, the decision was made for all of them. chris seethed, but couldn't tell if he was angry at todd or dwayne -- or himself, for not just saying he had to go home.
later, at the campfire, the beer gone, the boys passed around what was left of todd's dad's whiskey. dwayne was using his pocketknife to turn a stick into what he claimed was a bear, but what looked more like a melting snowman. chris could barely keep his eyes open and he poked halfheartedly at the fire.
just one more year in this town, he thought.
he got up, stretched, noticed todd was gone. their sleeping bags circled the fire too closely and would probably have even more holes in them tomorrow. he kicked at the bags and thought about kris, who might have been at his window at that very moment, tapping softly. he hated todd at tha tmoment more than he'd hated anyone.
chris heard a ripping snore from near the fire and saw that dwayne had passed out with his knife in his hand and his boot in the fire. he kicked dwayne's leg, which didn't wake him but kept him from burning, at least.
chris felt a drop on his face and realized that it was starting to rain. he walked out into the woods to take a piss. he found bright moonlight silvering the plants once he escaped the burning light thrown by the fire.
"jesus christ," someone whispered. "you scared me." it was todd, sitting barechested in the rain in a small clearning about a hundred yards from the campsite.
"what the hell are you doing?"
todd was silent. in the moonlight, chris saw todd's hair was wet and plastered against his skull.
"just thinking," he finally said.
chris sat down next to him. "about what?"
todd looked up at the moon, which lit up the front edge of the approaching thunderheads. soon it would be completely dark.
"full moon tonight," todd said.
"that's what you were thinking about?"
"sure," todd said. his words were slurred and softer than usual. "it's fucking beautiful."
"uh-huh," chris responded, surprised. he waited for the joke. when none came, he ventured: "you can practically see the man in the moon's face."
"that ain't no fucking man," todd shook his head violently. "that ain't no fucking man."
chris waited. he'd never seen todd so close to this edge. he was both scarier and more beautiful than he'd ever been. todd turned his face up to the moon. thin wisps of cloud were beginning to roll across it.
"can't hide it," todd said.
"what's that?"
"the moon." he pointed at the sky with the hand that held the whisky bottle. "it always comes out eventually."
he swigged from the bottle and dropped it on the ground. "that's all i got," he said, holding both arms wide to the sky. "fuckin' hope that everything's like that. like the sun, the moon, and the truth. fuckin' can't hide it forever."
"it's impossible," chris whispered.
"fuckin'-A," todd agreed. "it'll come out. it always will." gratitude swept todd's young face; a look chris had never seen. "that's what i'm counting on."
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