Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders
Eric said, “Huh—?”
“They’re tearin’ it all up.” Shit shook his head, quick, like an animal dislodging an insect. “They shouldn’t be doin’ that.”
Eric frowned, and felt his own joy of a moment back become battered, beaten, betrayed with unspecific brutality. “What do you…?” He closed his mouth, realizing the person betrayed, in some way he could not know, was Morgan, because he could not see through to its center, that betrayal wholly dependant on all of Shit’s immaturity and ignorance, his cussed childishness. The words, hesitant, got out in spite of it. “Shit, they’re buildin’ a…”
“Look,” Shit said. “Look—they’re pushin’ all the big rocks back into the ocean—with bulldozers. There used to be them big boulders back there. And I’d come out here when I was a kid and climb up on them things and sit and look over the saplin’s—and they’re gone. All the trees and stuff. They made it all flat, now—it’s all dirt back down there to the sand. Like they’re gonna make it into a lawn or somethin’. And we was out there, where they’re getting all them little houses out of bags and boxes and stuff, half of ’em all the same. I went out to the graveyard—where we put Dynamite and Shad. And Uncle Tom—my dog, Tom. You know, they run the road right half way through that thing! You can’t even see what graves was under there—”
That hit Eric hard enough to make him exhale. “Is…Dynamite’s grave all right? And Tom’s…?”
“Yeah.” Shit pulled his slumping shoulders up. “But a lot of the old ones are gone—the old Indian ones. You know, the important ones. The ones Mr. Holota told me about, when I used to go out there with ’im when I was a kid. All his people. And the other people, who’re dead. That’s awful…”
“Oh, Shit…” Eric stepped forward. He put a hand on Shit’s shoulder, feeling the collarbone before the hard slope of the shoulder muscle under worn fabric. He slid his arm over Shit’s shoulder, while his other arm pulled the man forward. For a moment, he hesitated. He knew he must hug him. Shit wasn’t the sort who “needed his space” at such moments. He needed holding. If I’ve learned anything, Eric thought, I’ve learned that. Still, I always start to treat him as if he were me. Eric said, “That’s awful.” And gripped him—tight. Shit’s arms whipped around behind him, to hold him back. (Then I realize he ain’t me.) “That’s awful, Shit—I’m so sorry.”
Shit held him so hard, he shook. And after a moment, he whispered, “Come on. Let’s lie down, here. We gotta do it.”
“—here?”
“Yeah. We gotta do it now.”
“Okay. But you gonna get splinters in your ass. ’Cause I’m gonna stay on top.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
They did lay down. Eric felt the curve of the boards under his arm, his hip. His face was over Shit, so that he looked across Shit’s shoulder at the woods and forests, out through the rail post, the blue paint deeply faded but still visible. A few seconds later, from under his ear, Shit said, “There’s a blanket inside.”
“Then let’s get it,” Eric said. “Now that’s bein’ sensible.” And suddenly he was hit was a wave of warmth for Shit that was as powerful as music, as the sea.
“Okay. But just don’t let go of me.”
“Don’t worry. I ain’t lettin’ you get off from me.” Perhaps twenty minutes later, as they lay on a double thickness of blanket over the deck’s warped porch, while Shit panted in post orgasmic release, Eric said, “You feel a little better now?”
“Yeah. But we gotta do it again. And you gotta come, too, this time.”
Eric grinned. “I knew you was gonna say that—that’s why I held off before. Okay. You want it all over your crotch and your nuts?”
“Yeah. All over.”
“Then lie there, hold on, and let me get up your nose.”
“Come on. Just do it. I’ll take care of me.” And still later, when they slid lazily on the film their hugging and rubbing had left between them, Shit said, “That one felt real good. It still feels good…”
“Did you come again?” Eric asked. “You acted like it, but I wasn’t sure.”
“Yeah,” Shit said. “I did.” His arms tightened around Eric. “You know, it’s gonna be nice gettin’ back to the Opera, once they open it up again.”
“Oh, yeah. Now that you used me an’ abused me and finished talkin’ all sweet about fuckin’ together all week, you wanna get back where you can spread it around to some other people—what happened to wantin’ to fuck three times in a row?”
“Well, we just did it twice—or I did. I gotta do it one more time, before we get back. I mean, right now. I think there’s a pretty good chance of that, don’t you? The thing about the Opera,” Shit said, “is that the idea of you suckin’ off somebody else or fuckin’ somebody else or gettin’ fucked—’specially by some big black hunky motherfucker; or even gettin’ your dick sucked by some old toothless hobo hitch-hiker who’s been thumbin’ around and ends up there for the weekend—turns me on so much, I can’t hardly keep my dick in my pants two minutes, if I start thinkin’ about it. That’s all I ever jerk off to. I think about a lot of other guys—but I always think about ’em with you.”
“Well—” Eric grinned—“I guess that’s some kinda faithful.”
“I was the same way with my dad. And I guess, because of that, whenever you start tellin’ me about how you’re payin’ a little more attention to one of ’em than you usually do, I’m always makin’ up stories for myself about how it’s okay, ’cause now I got somethin’ new to jerk off over. You remember when you went off with that big heavy Asian feller for three days? That’s why I was so easy over it. Or when you were you disappeared for a whole weekend in the motel room at Turpens with them Spanish fellers? You know, don’t you? I stood outside yalls door and left at least three loads of cum on the damned doorknob, imaginin’ what yall was doin’ in there. But, see, I know, someday, I’m gonna be sorry, ’cause you’re gonna come out and tell me you finally met somebody else you wanna hang out with a little more than you wanna hang out with me—and we’re over with. And I’m gonna realize I’m the biggest fool along the whole Georgia coast—”
“Shit—” and the breeze rose outside the glassless window—“that’s not gonna happen. That’s kind of what I was tryin’ to say before. You’re too much of what I want—and what I always wanted. You look too much like I want a feller I live with to look like. You act too much like that feller. Your farts and your burps and your B.O. and your asshole when you ain’t wiped yourself too good, and—hell, your damned snot—taste and smell too much like what I wanted it to taste and smell like. So do your damned feet—when you wear shoes long enough to work up a stink. And you treat me too much like I want to be treated. Your piss and your tonsils and your asshole all taste too much like his were supposed to taste like. That’s ’cause you are…him. You, I mean. That’s all. You’re stuck with me, Shit. Like when you’d be walkin’ outside the cabin barefoot and step on some turd Dog-Dog left out by the deck in the Dump.” (When they’d gone to the Opera, Dog-Dog had returned to Sam Quasha and immediately impregnated all his female relatives.) “You know how you can’t get that stuff off your foot for so goddamn long? Well, I’m the piece of dog shit you stepped in.”
Suddenly, Shit rolled back over to face him, grabbed him, and hissed against Eric neck, his rough beard grinding Eric’s cheek, “Oh, you are one fuckin’ nasty white feller!”
And after a while, Eric said, “Hey—hey…hey, wake up, nigger.”
“Wha…?”
“Wake up. I wanna ask you somethin’.”
“What—?”
“I wanna know how you can go to sleep with somebody lyin’ full out on top of you, fuckin’ on you, back or belly, for dear life!”
Blinking, Shit began to grin. “It’s easy.” He reached up and closed his arms around Eric. “It relaxes me. I love it—a whole lot. It makes me think of my daddy fuckin’ on me when I was a kid. Maybe it’s the rockin’. It puts me to sleep. That’
s how.” With his grin relaxing, Shit closed his eyes again. “’Specially if it’s you.”
One way or the other, I guess we gonna be in bed with that man for the rest of our lives, Eric thought. But he didn’t say it.
*
Back at Jay’s and Mex’s that evening, Shit—of course—told Jay and Mex, loudly in the kitchen, the details of everything they’d done, including fucking all over the Holotas cabin’s porch. Hugh had started off in the room, but in the middle he’d smiled, got up, and excused himself.
Finally, Jay said, “Hey, you really like that place—that cabin out there?” At the table, Jay moved his hand on the yellow oilcloth, as if considering whether to pick up his Coors. “You guys want it? You can have it. Johnston says even if it ain’t him what gives us a hard time, the Opera can only stay open a few years, at best. Why don’t you come on out here on your time off and fix it up. Then you’ll have someplace to move to when you have to leave Runcible.”
“What about the rent?”
“If you take care of the place, Hugh ain’t gonna charge you no rent.”
“Then don’t let him tear it up around there no more,” Shit said. “That gets me all upset.”
Jay said, “I’d rather have you as my neighbors, a hundred yards through the woods, than anybody else. Hugh feels the same way. So does Kyle—I called him up and asked him. What you say?”
Eric and Shit looked at each other—while Mex brought over the skillet of pork chops and onions and red and green peppers from the stove. And Eric thought: He is the reason I sleep through the night, get up every day, in this energetic, beautiful, nascent city that has already started to kill him…
“Jay, you wouldn’t really mind—” Eric took up his knife and fork, as Mex passed on around the oilcloth covered table—“if Shit and me didn’t go and work on them new houses tomorrow, would ya’?”
Jay started to say something, but Shit interrupted. “Naw. Naw—I’ll go. I said I was gonna do it. So I’ll do it. I don’t care. And that Gus, she’s fun. Besides, that stuff is in’erestin’. We just gotta work on it together, you and me—in case there’s somethin’ somebody gotta read, or they wanna send me up real high or somethin’.”
“Sure,” Eric said. “You know you can trust me on that.”
*
The second night when they came in, Mex had finished up a skillet of sautéed chicken—it was on a platter in the middle of the yellow and white checked tablecloth—and, at the stove, was ladling out a bowl of peppers, leeks, and celery.
Shit grabbed a leg up from the platter, threw himself onto one of the chairs, and began to eat, chicken grease running down his fingers, then his forearms.
“Damn,” Jay said. “I’m glad I known you since you was a baby. Otherwise, boy, I’d tell you to get the fuck up and go wash your damned hands.”
“Man,” Shit said. “I’m fuckin’ hungry, and I’m fuckin’ tired. That’s all.”
Jay grunted.
Eric grinned—took two plates off the pile, slid one in front of Shit (in time to catch the chicken thigh that dropped off the leg Shit was biting into). Then he put a piece on the second plate and reached out with the big spoon to dig into the bowl of vegetables that Mex brought to the table.
“Hey, I’m gonna go to bed right after this,” Shit said. “It ain’t rude. It’s just tired. That’s all.”
“Fine by me,” Jay said, pulling the platter over in his own direction. “We still turn in pretty early, too. Hey, Mex, break out that orange juice and ginger ale we got for these guys, since they ain’t gonna have no beer.”
After eating, Shit went into the bathroom and washed his hands—and his face. When he came out, his beard and eyebrows were still wet.
That night, again they were in Shad’s old room. Light still came in through the tall windows, but Shit dropped his shirt, then his jeans in front of the high-backed wooden wheelchair in its corner.
Eric asked, “Hey, would you mind if I sat at the table here and read a for a little while in my book? I’ll be in bed soon.”
“Don’t mind a bit.” Shit walked around the bed’s foot to the steps beside it. It was still unmade since that morning. (Tomorrow, Eric thought, I could at least spread it up, before we get out of here.) “But I’m gonna jerk off, while you’re readin’.”
“Uh…yeah,” Eric said, going through the knapsack leaning against the table leg. “Sure…”
The light that came through the long curtains was sepia and gold. In the chair, he sat down and opened the book in front of him—
Desire is the very essence of man…that is…a striving by which man strives to persevere in his being. So a desire which arises from joy is aided or increased by the affect of joy itself…whereas one which arises from sadness is diminished or restrained by the affect of sadness.
—a rhythmic squeaking came from some slight looseness in the high bed behind him.
Frowning, Eric looked up. “Is that your way of tellin’ me that, really, you’d like to have sex?”
From the bed, Shit said, “Nope.” The squeaking continued. “It might have been, fifteen or so years back. Now it’s just my way of tellin’ you I’m beatin’ off.”
“Oh…” Eric looked back down at the book and read three more sentences. Then he read them again. Then he started them a third time; because they made about as much sense as if it were his very first minutes with the text. He looked up again. “Um…Hey, Shit? Would you mind—” Eric let the book close on the dark stained wood—“if I came up there and joined you?”
“Hey, that’d be pretty fuckin’ good,” Shit said. The squeaking went on.
Eric stood up. Chair legs scraped the floor. He stood for the count of three, four, five . . .
“If you’re comin’,” Shit said, “get the fuck on up here, please, and stick some fingers up my ass, and suck my goddam balls. Come on and bring them snakes and spiders and frogs and seahorses and creepy-crawly lizards and dragons you got all over you up here with me so I can kiss on ’em”—the squeaking got faster—“and roll around in ’em and get happy all over them dolphins and squids and skulls and barbed wire and leaves and twigs and seashells and galaxies and crap—”
Eric shrugged out of his shirt. Stepping over, as he put one hand up on the bed, he saw the red and orange and green and violet move as his triceps moved under them. “Yeah…!” Eric climbed, then vaulted.
Pumping, grinning, Shit caught him in one arm, and pulled him down. Both of them started laughing.
*
And the third night when they came in…
* * *
[72] WONDER DECADES HAVE their dark undersides—by now we’re in one, if you hadn’t noticed. Neither Eric nor Shit did. How often does the acknowledged arbiter of the spectacular Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald, begin his accounts of the twenties with the “horrific” events of 1919, when New York City’s mounted police trampled into the crowds of recently demobilized farm boys, gathered to hear the Madison Square orators?
As much as the nineteen sixties is love-ins and be-ins and rock-’n’- roll at the Fillmore, East and West, free music concerts and Woodstock and astronauts dancing on the moon, it is also a string of appalling political assassinations—Medgar Evers, President Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, the Kent State massacre of students by the National Guard, southern sit-ins and the three days of the Stonewall Riots through Greenwich Village. But whether Icarus soars in the sun or plummets into the sea, always some, in the words of the poet, were eating or opening a window or walking dully along—who didn’t particularly want it to happen.
The thirties is, of course, the decade that saw liberal women presidents in both the United States and the Federation of African Republics. It saw the World Passport become a common form of identification. (Holdouts in the US refused to acknowledge it for Americans, though if they wanted any international tourist business at all, they were pretty much forced to accept it.) It saw Europe, Africa, and most of
Western Asia adopt a single currency. It was the decade in which the Rhyman Hypothesis became the Rhyman Theorem—proved by a collaboration of Polish and Japanese mathematicians, which earned them that year’s Field Medal.
Incidents that produced six-day media coverage, with profusions of coffee-table photographic volumes and visual documentaries in later years, included the birth of Tommy and Tong, the first human twins on the burgeoning international station on Mars, with its population of 31 then 33. Also came the devastation of the North East Flood, which began with an unprecedented earthquake throughout New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and parts of Connecticut during flood rains, and a rising tide line that for three days precipitated a near-Katrina like situation in several coastal cities, including Baltimore and New York. As well, they included the glorious coverage of the passing of Pemptus, the fifth and most sizable asteroid in a three-year period to come within two-hundred thousand miles of the moon—the closest—which was observed and photographed by an international team of astronauts in a dozen rocketships launched for the purpose, who, supported by a consortium of seven countries, soared near and circled and swooped between it and the moon and the sun, taking those extraordinary photographs shown again and again all over the world—and which came close, at one of the fly-bys, to an actual landing and a walk on its iron and rubble pitted surface, though at the last minute it was canceled because of technical problems. The consortium was the beginning of the Yang-Kopffus Doppler project.
During the height of their command of world attention, for Eric and Shit and many residents of Diamond Harbor, as well as residents of similar little towns across the country, who’d never had their Robert Kyle (and a few others who did), none of these was more than a flicker on a widescreen television behind a bar where they had dropped in for a glass of club soda and lime with beer-drinking friends, a headline, a full-page color photo on a newspaper left on a café counter by one of the summer people—or even an overheard conversation among their visiting customers at the Opera. All of these iconic moments bypassed the center of Shit and Eric’s attention on that stretch of Georgia coast, until five, eight, twelve years later something that everyone else in the world seemed to know about made it—briefly—into their field of vision, like the left-over tar ball eighteen inches across that floated up on the beach in September of 2010 from the BP Gulf Coast oil “spill,” that had begun a few months before, and now sat on a pedestal in the shadowed corner of a bar in Hemmings, with an explanatory plaque beneath it.