Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

  After his three-month probation with the Chamber of Commerce had ended and he’d gone on salary, they sent Eric a plastic card in care of Dynamite’s cabin, with the fliers and other junk the postman left in their mail tube on its stick by their steps, while they were all out hauling. The card had a colored picture of the orange water pump, the barn, and part of the cornfield and a kale field at Dump Produce.

  Dynamite kept a card for Shit. “It’s right here in the very back of my wallet, under all the others. Now, if anything ever happens to me, first thing you do is get that card out and take it. Long as you got money in your account, you can get it out of any bank in the country. You just gotta remember your number, like I told you when we got it.”

  “Yeah,” Shit said. “It’s my birthday.”

  “That’s right. So don’t forget it, Shit.” In front of the forsythia bushes beside the Credit Union, Dynamite frowned. “But you ain’t supposed to say that it front of nobody else.”

  “Why?” Shit asked. “It’s just Eric.” Shit always had a disbelieving look when, one out of five visits to the bank, Dynamite would tell him this. (It was like one of Mike’s repeated tags.)

  “Well, yeah. I guess that’s okay.” Dynamite pushed his wallet into the back pocket of his overalls. “I guess.” They started walking toward the pickup.

  As he’d done in Atlanta and at Barbara’s out among the pines both, in the Dump Eric took over most of the cabin’s cooking. It was nothing new, though doing it all the time for the first months was hard. (Half of one of the other rooms got cleaned out, a chair and a table put in it, and given to Eric—I mean, if you ever wanted to sit and beat off by yourself.

  (Oh…Eric said. Does my doin’ it in the bedroom bother you?

  (No more than mine bothers you, Dynamite said. Or in the kitchen or the bathroom—or out on the porch, for that matter.

  (I like you doin’ it. And…hell, when one of you walks in on me, and just sits down next to me and sticks a couple of fingers up my ass till I finish, it even helps, sometimes.

  (See—Shit grinned—I told you.

  (Yeah, Dynamite said. But havin’ a little more space ain’t gonna hurt none of us.)

  Father and son liked Eric’s food; so they helped, cutting, frying, stewing. It wasn’t boring.

  Eric didn’t complain.

  Though a lot of times they had the same sausage and lentil stew or chicken and summer squash casserole and a lot of pork chops, greens, cabbage and cornbread three and four days in row.

  Since it was an improvement, they didn’t complain, either.

  Thanks to Eric, Shit now knew what all the words on all the road signs said within thirty miles of Diamond Harbor—and could at least print his nickname (he’d grin and say, I just wanted to learn it ’cause it was nasty; the Sharpie letters on the pickup tailgate had been a failed attempt by Dynamite to teach the same thing); as well as Eric’s; and Dynamite’s.

  “Which,” Dynamite had said, grinning at the two with uncontainable pride, “I guess is enough for dumb fucks like us, right? Now Shit can get a real license.” And this time, he did.

  For three hours, a number of the Coffee & Egg customers noticed Barbara was more than a little thoughtful as she worked.

  And when Jay and Mex came in the next day—since it was slow that morning—she actually sat down with the boatmen through a mug of coffee, all around. “I mean…really, what do you two think of him being over there, in the Dump, in all that mess they got stashed in that cabin? I mean, you know the kinds of things everybody’s always saying go on over there…I don’t pay that any mind, really. But still…”

  “Well—” Jay leaned back holding his mug, while Mex leaned forward over his, as if waiting for a verdict—“Eric’s seems happy out there. When I drop in, all I ever seen is three guys sittin around drinkin’ coffee—’bout the same as they do here. And they like havin’ ’im. How much could be going on?

  “After all, their bed’s in the same room Dynamite sleeps in, ain’t it?”

  * * *

  [31] AS MUCH TIME as Eric had spent around the Dump, much of that had been in Shit and Dynamite’s bed. Living with them, however, produced a few changes—in Eric’s picture of the place and of their place in that picture.

  In the first week after the official move, Shit and Eric were walking through the Dump’s grassy hillocks, below the bluff. “What’s nice about livin’ here,” Shit was saying, “is if you wanna fuck someone, all you gotta do is walk in through any front door and fuck ’em—if they ain’t too busy or sumpin’.” Shit had said it many times, only there’d never been any reason or opportunity for a test.

  This time, however, Eric said, “You know, you been sayin’ that since I got here. But I ain’t never seen you do it. I mean, between me, your dad, Turpens, and the Opera, I know damned well you like fuckin’ more’n just about anything. So how come you never…you know, take advantage of it?”

  “How do you know I ain’t?”

  “Probably ’cause you’re too busy fuckin’ me and your dad.”

  Shit looked at Eric and stopped walking. “Hey—you don’t believe me?” Shit put one hand between his legs and gripped himself, enough so his cock showed its shape through the worn cloth. They were a pair of his dad’s old jeans that had replaced the corduroys that had practically fallen off him. Eric had sewn back the three belt loops that, at top or bottom, had broken. A length of clothesline they’d found beside the road held Shit’s pants up.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.” Eric laughed. “I said I never seen you.”

  “I’ll show you,” Shit announced. “Pick a house—we’ll pick a house. Then we’ll walk in and fuck whatever nigger lives there—”

  “—if they’re not too busy,” Eric said.

  “Yeah.” Then he frowned. “You makin’ fun of me?”

  “Naw!” Eric insisted. (For a moment he believed he wasn’t.) “That’s what you told me. What house you wanna pick?”

  Shit looked around. “That one.” He glanced at Eric. “What about that one?”

  Eric looked across the rolling sand and grasses that were the Dump. “Okay.” He shrugged. “Sure.” He felt uncertain; if this was Shit’s exaggeration, how it would fall apart? For one thing, he didn’t want it to, and he suspected there was less chance of that if Shit made the selection.

  “Come on.” Shit strode forward up the dirt road.

  The back right leg of his jeans had a nine-inch rip, so that each step Shit took, Eric could see the worn heel and the safety-pinned back of Shit’s low-topped sneaker. That day, again Shit was sockless.

  (Eric had learned that, while lack was a huge axis of poverty, habit played its part.)

  Looking back over his shoulder, Shit called again, “Come on, now! You don’t think I’m gonna do it?”

  “Sure I do.” Eric sprinted after Shit, who hadn’t slowed. “I’m comin’. Wait, now—”

  Up the slope, the porch had orange steps. The railing and the posts supporting it were brown. The front wall was yellow. Because they were approaching at an angle, they could see that the side wall, which was mostly what you saw further down the bluff, was gray-blue. From the porch roof hung wind chimes, a string of shells, some feathers on a braid of red and green twine. Beside the steps was a profusion of greenery, which Eric recognized as tomato vines—though they were yet without fruit.

  Shit started up the steps. Eric took a breath and went up behind him. Above them, as if it was a doorbell, the wind chimes tinkled in the mild November. The plants were higher than the steps.

  “Are you gonna knock?” Eric asked, as, after they crossed the porch, Shit reached for the doorknob.

  “Naw.” Shit closed his hand around it. “I’m gonna walk inside—and fuck.” He twisted the knob and pushed in the door.

  Eric peered forward over Shit’s shoulder.

  Shit stepped inside.

  In the living room, a gray television screen—off—stood in the far corner. Drapes hung at t
he window—dark blue drapes, down to the lighter blue carpet. Behind them, translucent white curtains covered the glass. Sitting in a large armchair, someone looked up from a magazine—and smiled quizzically.

  While Eric crowded in behind him, Shit hunched up his shoulders and began to shift from one sneaker to the other. “Um…Mama Grace, I was just walkin’ by—with Eric, here, and, um…”

  In the chair, in a flowered robe, the slender black man uncrossed his legs, looked up, smiled, waited.

  “…well, you know, I couldn’t help rememberin’ that time I was so horny that I went into that ol’ outhouse you got in the back and I sat down on the seat and got my pants down and started…you remember, pullin’ on myself and—what’d you say, how when you got out in the yard, you heard me gruntin’ and huffin’, in there? So you opened the door to see who it was, and you was just as nice about it—”

  “Morgan—!” the man said, in surprised protest.

  Shit looked aside at Eric. “Yeah, Mama was real nice. He didn’t get mad or nothin’. He reached down and felt around on my thing, and smiled and all, then got his jeans down around his knees, turned himself around, and sat right down on it.”

  “Now, Morgan—!”

  “Yes, you did.” Shit nodded. “He was all greased up, too—already. Go on—” He reached for Eric’s hand—Eric started a little—and pulled it back to his groin. “Take my dick out and show it to Mama. Eric and me fuck around all the time. And ’cause I was so horny, I thought if we come on in here, you’d let me stick my dick up your asshole. ’Cause that would sure make me feel good, and I bet it would make you feel good, too—Mama.”

  “Morgan,” Mama Grace said, “hold on, will you…?” Mama Grace breathed in. “That’s…very sweet of you—I suppose. But …well, I don’t know if this is the most convenient time.”

  “It’s convenient for me,” Shit said questioningly. “It don’t look like you’re doin’ much of anything right now, neither. It wouldn’t take long. Fact, it looks to me like it’s convenient as hell!”

  “I mean,” Mama said from his chair, “well…the truth is, I was…expectin’ someone in…um, about…oh, it doesn’t matter. Look. Actually, I’m very flattered. But—”

  “Who you got comin’?”

  Eric saw Mama Grace take another breath and waited for him to say it was none of their business.

  Under Eric’s hand, Shit’s dick inside his jeans was hardening.

  Gulls mewed and cawed outside the cabin.

  “Well, in just about forty minutes I’m expecting Wally—a gentleman who drives a truck locally—to stop by and…have a cup of tea with me, probably, before we get on to other things—”

  “Aw, fuck,” Shit said. “I ain’t gonna take no forty minutes. I can make it last fifteen or twenty, if you really want. But I can get outta here in ten, too. Come on, Eric, take my big ol’ dick outta there so Mama can remember what a real nigger looks like. Wally—shit! He’s probably some penny-peckered white boy, ain’t he? I got a nice one—you said how nice it was, yourself, when I come in here the last time. Go on, Eric. I told you, Mama keeps hisself all greased up—”

  “All right, then, Morgan.” With what sounded like total frustration, Mama leaned forward, hands on his knees, then pushed himself upright. “Go on, fuck me—and get out of here! Jesus, you boys are so…” Turning, he pulled up the back of his flowered robe.

  Shit grinned at Eric.

  With one hand, Eric held the waist of Shit’s jeans, knuckles against Shit’s belly. With the other, he pulled at the tab on Shit’s fly—it stuck at first, then—when he yanked it—came loose.

  “Damn,” Shit said, looking down. “It’s all hard and big, ain’t it?”

  “Wally is actually a very respectable colored gentleman, on all fronts. And…” Suddenly Mama Grace let out a breath. “Oh, never mind!” Leaning forward to support himself with one hand on the chair’s heavy arm, Mama glanced back over a shoulder. “Go on, Morgan—if you’re gonna do it, do it. You have the strangest sense of timing. Come on. Get it in there.”

  Almost dragging Eric with him, Shit moved forward, grasped Mama’s hips, as, in his fist, Eric tried to set the head of Shit’s cock between Mama’s brown buttocks. Shit made a sound something like, “Ennnn…!” and went forward.

  “Morgan!” Mama said, “Oh, Christ…!”

  Eric started to step back but, leaning forward, Shit encircled Mama’s waist with one arm and hooked Eric’s neck with the other, to pull him over. Already he’d begun bucking. Pulling Eric down further, he planted his mouth over Eric’s and pushed out his tongue.

  “Jesus Christ…” Mama said. “What, you want me to take on the two of you? Come on! You can’t both do it at the same—” He drew in a breath at Shit’s advance. “I don’t think…”

  Chuckling, Shit said, “Why not?” With one hand he had let go and with the other went back to feeling around Eric’s groin.

  Eric had grown hard—pretty much because of Shit. But hard was hard. Now he felt Mama’s hand, bonier, longer, reaching back to grip him through denim. Mama began to push back to Shit’s thrusting.

  Over the next minute-and-a-half, with only Shit’s “Oh, fuck…Oh, fuck…Oh, fuck…” a repeated whisper, Shit’s tempo increased. His breathing became faster and shallower. Shit’s rough hand was down there, too, feeling between Eric’s legs. “Oh, here it come…” He gripped Eric’s cock. “The nigger gonna shoot, now. The nigger gonna shoot. It’s comin’, now. It’s comin’…” and he went in. And stayed. And went out. And went in again. And stayed again. “Oh…ffffffffuck!” He gasped, gasped again, staggered, then stood. “Okay, go on. You do it now. Put that hard dick of yours up his black ass—go on!”

  “Damn…” Eric whispered.

  Somehow he did, with Shit gripping and gasping and guiding.

  Shit still had one arm around the wrinkled silk over Mama’s shoulder.

  Eric had one arm along Shit’s.

  With his other hand, he held Shit’s cock, still hard.

  “No offense back there. But are you two getting’ off on each other, or are you fuckin’ me?”

  Eric felt embarrassment surge, enough to make his cock retreat half an inch within Mama’s rectum.

  But Shit’s drawl was all grin. “’Bout half an’ half, seems to me. I mean, all three of us is friends, ain’t we?”

  “Fine,” Mama Grace said. “That’s fine. A lady has to take what he can get. I don’t know your friend’s name. But, if you say so, Morgan—”

  “Nigger, shoot that big white load up this black bitch’s hole. Go on, now.” Easily, Shit started humping Eric’s fist. “Don’t all them little shit balls rubbin’ up against your dick feel good? They sure felt good to me. I musta squirted so much cum all over that damned crap, it should be oozin’ down your leg by now, Mama.”

  It did feel good.

  Mama Grace said, “For a boy who don’t read or write, Morgan is so verbal.”

  “And you love it, too, you fuckin’ nigger slut.” Shit chuckled and tightened his grip around both Eric and Mama.

  Within a minute, Eric shot.

  Shit still was wrapped around both of them.

  “Man,” Shit said. “That some sweet stuff, ain’t it?”

  Eric panted. “Un-huh…”

  Shit bent down and kissed Mama’s rouged cheek.

  Mama said, “Now, will you two get on out of here?” Pushing back from the chair and standing, he seemed to shake them off. “This ain’t the time to get all lovey-dovey now. Wally’s gonna be here in a minute.”

  Shit stepped back three steps; Eric stepped back one.

  Then, outside, a grumble swept by, cut by a horn’s hoot.

  “Jesus Christ…” Stepping to the side (suddenly chilly, Eric’s cock sagged in air), Mama’s flowered robe slid down over his buttocks. He circled the room, robe rippling its blooms behind Mama’s dark legs—

  —and for the first time Eric noticed the shelves around the upper walls, on which wer
e ranged a dozen ceramic doves, taking off from ceramic branches, standing on the edge of ceramic nests, swooping, preening, wings spread or pulled in.

  At the window beside the door, Mama Grace pushed back a curtain and peered. “I swear, if Wally comes in while you’re here and even raises his eyebrow about our regular four o’clock appointment, I will personally pull both your peckers loose and tie them round your necks! Oh—” Mama Grace touched his throat, still looking after the retreating truck. “Thank God! Wally’s truck is deep rose. That one’s green, so it’s not him…yet!” He glanced back from the window, then frowned. “Will you put your damned dicks away and get the hell out of here!”

  “Hey, I thought that was pretty good.”

  “Actually—” Mama Grace looked back again, drew in a breath, and stood up straight. Then he smiled—“it was lovely. Just what a lady needs to start off what I hope will be a busy afternoon and evening. Jesus—” He set his rather sharp features into a quizzical expression, while he pulled his robe further around—“Don’t you boys have any friends your own age?”

  “Huh?” Shit said, the quizzical expression shifting to his own face. “Whiteboy, I guess.”

  “I mean,” Mama Grace said, “someone who isn’t retarded, deranged, and depraved. One or the other is all right. But the three together aren’t a good combination.”

  “Most of the time,” Eric said, “he’s busy with Black Bull, anyway.”

  “Probably,” Mama Grace said, “that’s to your advantage,” while Shit frowned at him, the joke having apparently not quite registered. “Have you boys met Lurrie? That’s Ezra Potts’ nephew, who’s staying with him for a few months. He just got here two days ago. Now, other than that very odd hat he insists on wearing, he looks like a nice, normal, ordinary, young gay man. Whyn’t you make friends with someone like him? He’s down here for the winter.”

  “What kinda hat?” Shit asked.

  Eric asked, “How old is he?”

  “I think his uncle said he was seventeen.”

  “Oh…” Eric looked at Shit.

  “I guess he’s a little younger than you two. His parents wanted him to spend some time around normal, ordinary gay men. Where they think they’re gonna find that in the Dump, I haven’t really figured out yet—”