Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

  Across the table he could smell the yogurt’s fruit.

  “You remember how grandma’s coffee was.”

  “Well, I wasn’t drinking it, I guess, back then.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want any?”

  “Not right now,” Eric said. “Maybe I’ll get a cup down at the Lighthouse.”

  “Now, see,” Barbara said, “to me that stuff Clem makes tastes like dishwater.” She lifted the spoon, put it into her mouth, then pulled it out slowly. “Honey, can I talk to you about something serious?”

  “Sure.” Eric shrugged. “I guess so. What?”

  “You’ve worked pretty much all summer. Serena says the high school over in Hemmings opens in two, three weeks—we can still drive there and register you. You only have another year. Then you’ll have your diploma. I’d really like to see you do that, Eric.”

  Eric looked at the table and took three long breaths. “I don’t wanna go to school no more.” He closed his hands around the side of the chair seat. “I wanna work. I’m seventeen. If I really need one later, I can get a GED.” It hit Eric that he had not called his father since that first time, the day he’d gotten his phone out at Hemmings. Somehow, Dynamite’s injunction on using the things had carried over to everybody else. Occasionally Barbara phoned him, but that had been the only time it got used.

  “Well,” Barbara said, “you’d be able to work at a much better job, if you had one—a high school degree. You’re…very smart. I bet you could even go to college.”

  “And get a job. In an office—with a suit and tie?”

  “We talked about this before, I know. But do you really want to be a garbage man all your life?”

  “Why not?” Eric pushed his hands in, on the chair’s edges. “That’s what Dynamite does. He didn’t go to high school. Neither did Morgan. And I don’t wanna have to get in no more fights, just ’cause I’m the new kid. I did that in Texas; I did it in Hugantown; I did it in Atlanta. Hey, you remember? I’m gay—okay? That’s rough on a guy in a new school.”

  “Well, do you have to tell everyone?”

  “Come on, Barb. People find out. You know how that works.”

  “What about Dynamite—and his nephew. You didn’t tell them, did you?”

  “Of course I did.” He moved side-to-side, backing onto the chair. “Yeah.”

  After moments she said, “You didn’t tell me you told them. And they’re okay with it?”

  “Un-huh.”

  “Looking at them, that’s not the first thing I’d think.”

  “They joke about it sometimes—but…that’s all. And that was only for the first couple of weeks. They think it’s funny—and they’re glad I like to cook.” He wondered how much he would someday tell her…But no, not (he decided) about them both.

  “Maybe, honey—” Barbara took another spoonful of yogurt—“they don’t really know what gay means.”

  “Of course they know.” Momentarily, Eric hesitated. Then he dared, “That’s what they joke about. They live over in the Dump, where everybody’s gay—a year and a half ago, even before you came here, they told me, they had another guy who used to help them out, from over there. He was gay, too. One of the black guys—so they’re used to it.” This was close to the truth. They’d stopped working with Hal, Dynamite had explained, because though he’d fallen in bed with them twice in the first three weeks, after that he’d stopped putting out at all. Nor—Shit said—did he work very hard.

  (If he had, Dynamite had added, they would have kept him on, nookie or no; Shit had humphed. But this way, with you, Shit explained, it sure is a lot better!)

  “Well, yes, Serena said something about that.” Barbara frowned. Then she repeated, “Of course, Serena says a lot of funny things about —well, everybody. Unless you want to be a crazy person, though, in a town like this you’ve got to learn how to ignore four-fifths of what you hear. I don’t pay it much mind. People have been saying funny things about me all my life, and—”

  “Yeah,” Eric said. “That’s ’cause your boyfriends are always black guys.”

  “Not all of them,” Barbara said. “But, yes—a lot of them. Most of them. So I am used to people talking.” She took in a breath, then leaned forward. “Are you sure you know exactly what gay means, sweetheart—?”

  “Of course I do,” Eric said, “Come on, Barbara. Look—you know, I’m not a virgin.” Barbara ate another spoonful of yogurt, staring at the container, and when she didn’t say anything, Eric went on, “You stopped going to school when you were fourteen. I’m the same age now as you were when you had me. I’m not that different from you.”

  “That,” Barbara said, “is a frightening thought. I remember how much I didn’t know about sex—or anything else—when you came along.”

  “Look. I don’t wanna get in no more fights in school. I don’t like that, Barb. Hey, I really like Dynamite and Shit. They’re fun to work with. And ’cause I didn’t go to high school in Hemmings before, over there they’ll probably make me go for two years, until I get out, anyway.”

  “Honey, it wouldn’t be that bad—”

  “Besides. I been down here four months, now. Right—? Almost five. How much money have you had to give me since I been living here? Yeah, you gave me my shoes. Which was great. But I haven’t asked you for anything, have I? And every week—except that one time there—I bring a big bag of groceries from the Produce Farm for us.”

  “Yes, you certainly have. And you even asked me what we needed, before you did it.” She sat back. “Now, you know I bought some things for you, even though you didn’t ask. And God knows, I’m not holding them against you. I was very surprised—and very proud of you. But…well, it isn’t the money—”

  “The week I didn’t was ’cause I wanted to buy some stuff for Dynamite—he been letting me eat over there with them so much.”

  “Yes, I know—”

  “So I don’t even know if we could afford for me to go to school. Hey, I really like taking care of myself. I really, really, really don’t wanna go to school no more. I got a job. And I wanna keep it. You stopped going to school when you were fourteen. Mike stopped when he was thirteen. I went for two years longer than you and three years longer than him—”

  “Honey, I know I stopped—and so did your dad. But that’s why I know it wasn’t such a good idea. And your dad went back to the trade college when he was a grown up, remember?”

  “Well, I can, too, if I need to.”

  “Look, sweetheart. I don’t want to have an argument—”

  “Then let me do what I want. I’m not making problems for you. I’m trying to be a help—a real help.”

  “And you are—”

  “Hey, it’s not something crazy. Leavin’ school, people do that. You and my dad did it. And it’s what I want to do. If I keep the job for three months, and Dynamite says I’m really working hard, then the Chamber of Commerce’ll put me on the payroll, like Shit. ’Cause Dynamite’s supposed to have two helpers anyway—and it won’t just be minimum wage. That’s why he’s giving me a chance. If I do go to school, we’ll just be scufflin’, you and me, and not able to do nothin’ for the next two years. It’d be better for me—and it’d be better for you, too.”

  Barbara sucked her teeth, ate another spoonful of yogurt, and looked at the table. Finally, she said, “It’s your day off. What are you going to do with it?”

  “Just hang around. Go over to Dynamite’s, maybe. He says I can practice drivin’ the truck in the Dump. And I’m teaching Morgan to read the truck’s GPS system. Soon, he’ll be able to get his real driver’s license. We’ll hang out—and talk and stuff. You know, Morgan ain’t stupid like people say he is. He just…can’t read.”

  “Can Mr. Haskell?” Barbara asked warily.

  “He reads, some—the newspaper. He reads my comics…”

  Barbara shook her head. “I’d just like to see you do something more with your time off than sitting around over on the other side of town,
watching television all day.”

  “They don’t even got a television, Barb. I only watch that when I’m here—’cause you got yours on all the time.” Confirming the observation, from the bed room a trumpet fanfare ended and the six-thirty morning anchor’s voice began to review traffic conditions along the coast. “That’s half the reason I go over there—to get away from it. I’ll drive you down to the Harbor, leave you the car, then walk around, or come home, or…or somethin’.”

  “You’re going over there today. And I know you’ll be there tomorrow, too. Are you sure they want to see so much of you?”

  “Yeah. He asked me to come. So I could help Shit…I mean Morgan.”

  The table legs were paired aluminum tubes, which, below the corners, separated into small forks. Two nights ago, Eric had pushed his socks into the fork by his own place.

  “They get up at four. On their days off, like today, they’re up by six.”

  “Well, then…” Barbara sighed. “But I keep expecting Mr. Haskell—Dynamite—to drop into the Coffee & Egg and tell me that ’cause you’re hangin’ around there all the time, you’re being…well, a pain in the ass!”

  Eric pulled the socks loose (one fell to the floor), lifted an ankle onto the thigh of his jeans and tugged the dark tube up over toe knuckles, ligaments, veins. “I don’t think he’s gonna say that. I try to be as helpful over there as I am here. And if he does, I promise, I’ll stop going over there so much. I don’t wanna fuck up my—”

  “Eric—!”

  “—mess up my job. I like it too much. If they didn’t want me around, I’d figure it out.” Eric’s foot thudded to the floor. He leaned forward to swipe up the sock that had fallen. His other foot came up, and he tugged on the second.

  “Sweetheart, those are your socks—!”

  “Yeah…?” Eric moved both feet over the floor.

  “Don’t put those there, sweetheart. Keep them out on the porch with your other stuff.”

  “I thought it would be easier, ’cause my shoes—” Eric pointed at the high topped work shoes beside the door, standing below the jackets and coats hanging on the hooks—“are over there.”

  “But things have to have a place.”

  “I thought that was a good place. For socks, I mean. I’d only worn ’em twice.” Pushing back his chair, he stood up, went to the refrigerator, opened the pale orange door, and got out a rumpled plastic wrapper in which was half a whole wheat loaf. He set it on the counter and looked at the toaster. Then he went back to the refrigerator and, from the side door, got the green plastic margarine dish. “You want a piece of toast, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sweetheart,” Barbara said. “But I was going to have that down at work.”

  “I’ll make it for you,” Eric said. “One for me, too.” He put two slices into the bright, stainless cube, then pushed the handle. The slices wobbled into the slots. As he looked down, horizontal threads and reflector plates inside turned orange, glowing against the bread.

  Reaching up, Eric opened a cabinet door, took down two saucers, then opened a drawer, removed a kitchen knife from the wood-walled knife compartment, and put it up on the counter beside the margarine. He turned to lean back against the counter edge. “Barbara—you know what I wanna do, more than anything?” The counter’s rim creased his butt. “I mean, what I wanna be?”

  “What?” She smiled at him.

  “I wanna be a good person.”

  “Honey, you are a good person.”

  “No, I mean a really good person, who helps other people. Like Jay and Dynamite and Serena and the guys in the Dump help me…even you and Mike—”

  Barbara smiled began to question. “Even me and Mike…?”

  “Well, you know—you guys are my parents. But I wanna be a person who does things to make other people feel better—have an easier time—like get their fuckin’ garbage out of the way and off to the Bottom.” For a moment, Eric frowned. “You know, every time I see Ron, I always come away feelin’ really bad, ’cause he wants me to feel like a loser. I ain’t a loser. I have a lot more fun workin’ with Dynamite and Morgan, probably, than Ron does at his desk, workin’ on his business. It’s just a different kind of fun—that’s all. But it’s like he can’t feel like a winner, unless he’s got people he can look at and think they’re losers. I don’t wanna do that to anybody—to Shit, or to Dynamite, or to you, or even to Ron. Every time I finish collecting the day’s garbage, I feel like I won—like everybody around here has won because of me and…Morgan and Dynamite. I like workin’ the route. I like to do it, ’cause it’s useful.”

  “Getting ‘fuckin’ garbage?” Barbara asked. “You know you don’t have to use language like—” But she smiled.

  “Oh, come on. You know what I mean.”

  Barbara sighed. And smiled again. “Yes—I do. And it’s true. It is useful. But you can take this ‘being-good’ thing a little too seriously. You don’t have to go and give Morgan half your socks, for example.”

  “He didn’t have any. Barb, he used to go to school over in Hemmings—not the high school. He never went to high school at all. Dynamite did. He said he went there for about a year, and they weren’t too nice when he was there, either. But when Morgan was in the regular school, he told me, kids would beat him up there ’cause he couldn’t read. They would tell him he was stupid—then they’d beat him up. Dynamite had to take him out—of school. You know, when he was tellin’ me about that, I almost started cryin’. But I didn’t—’cause I didn’t want to look like a crybaby. If you want to help people, you have to be strong—strong enough to hear what happened to them.”

  “So you’re going to grow up and be—” Barbara shrugged—“Spider- man or something—and save the world?”

  “No!” (Behind Eric, the toaster’s timer growled a moment before the spring snapped.) “I don’t mean anything like that! I don’t mean nothin’ religious, either. I just wanna be a good person—do stuff that don’t hurt anybody. Do stuff that helps them. Dynamite’s a good person. That’s why he takes care of Morgan—and why he collects the garbage. Why he…lets me work with ’em.” Eric turned back to the counter, took out the toast, put both slices on one saucer, then cut off a pad of margarine from the stick in the dish and began spreading it on the toast. “Last week we were by Ron’s house—in Runcible, I mean—gettin’ his garbage. I looked up and seen him in his upstairs window, watchin’ us. It was just getting’ light. He was in his bathrobe, and was lookin’ down. I waved, laughed—he didn’t even smile. Just turned away. I didn’t let it bother me, but it was weird.” Beneath the knife, the margarine thinned, turned translucent, then liquid, to run into dells and indentations, even reflecting the trailer ceiling’s florescent lights, still on, despite the outside sun. He cut them corner-to-corner, moved two wedges to the other saucer, and took both to the table.

  Eric went to the door, stuck a foot in one work shoe, then a foot in the other, while Barbara said, “Thanks, sweetheart. I’m not used to this Queen-of-Sheba treatment.” Eric returned to the table, laces flopping, their plastic ends clicking on the linoleum. Because she hadn’t mentioned it, he knew she was probably bothered by his story about Ron. Odd to know things like that about people you knew well.

  “You should be.” Eric sat, picked up a triangle of toast, and took a bite that left crumbs on his both sides of his mouth. “I hope you are, someday.” Then he added. “I really didn’t let it bother me, about Ron. But it was a little funny.”

  Barbara sighed—“You know—” and picked up her own toast, bit it, then put it down—“I’m always saying it. But you really have grown up a lot. I don’t think I was ready for it. I mean—” She reached over, and, with a foreknuckle wiped one corner of his mouth—he flinched a little, then realized what she was doing, so leaned forward again—and she brushed crumbs off the other corner—“you’re always going to be my wonderful apple dumpling—”

  “Barb, come on.” He sat back and rubbed his mouth with the heel of his own h
and. Then he picked up both pieces from his own saucer and bit them together. He’d washed his hands before, but they were still kind of gray—lined at the knuckles and the rims of his nails.

  “My very strong and very handsome and very good and very helpful apple dumpling.” Sitting back up, she reached down to lift her yellow pocketbook from where it had been sitting by her chair. Opening it, she took out her purse, removed her car keys, and slid them across the table toward Eric. “You’re wonderful, Eric. I’m serious. I really think you are. And, yes, you can drive me down to work this morning.”

  He grinned. “Thanks.”

  Two minutes later, as Barbara started to reach for hers, Eric got up and swiped away the toast saucers. “I got ’em.” He put them over in the sink and turned toward the door.

  Barbara put the spoon, clinking, in after them, while Eric said, “Come on—let’s go. Wait.” Eric stopped, frowning. “Wait—what did I do with the car keys?”

  Without looking, Barbara said, “Try your shirt pocket, honey.”

  Eric raised his hands from his hips to slap his chest. “Oh…yeah. I put ’em there so I wouldn’t forget ’em.”

  “And as a personal favor to your mom, do you think you could wash your hands off between the time to put your socks on and the time you make the toast?” At the door, Barbara glanced back. “And tie your shoes.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna tie ’em.” From where he’d dropped to one knee, Eric heard a breeze move through the pine branches.

  *

  Ahead of him, Barbara stepped outside. After he drove down to Front Street, for the rest of the day Eric walked around and looked around and waited at the dock for Jay and Mex to get in with the scow, then sat in the Lighthouse Coffee & Egg, then walked around the town some more. Finally, he went home, masturbated (that alone, Eric thought, is the only reason I can live in this place…), then made some potato salad from the second of two recipes on page forty-five of the first volume of that old two-volume paperback cookbook Barb had—and put some pork chops out to thaw on a plate on the counter for dinner.