He stopped and swiped his hand at me to grab me, but I slipped away from him. Casey stumbled and nearly fell down.
He said, “I’ll fucking kill you if you ever say anything to me again, kid.”
Then Casey slipped inside his room and shut the door.
When I got to my room, I actually began wishing that Chas would be in there.
I opened the door. At first, all I could see were the red numbers on our alarm clock. I bent forward and looked into the lower bunk. Chas was there, asleep. I actually breathed a relieved gasp at seeing him. I leaned over him, just to make sure he was really there.
“What the fuck are you doing, homo?” he said.
Yeah. Good night to you, too, Betch.
“I’m sorry. I was creeped out. It’s like nobody’s here, and it looks like someone trashed the girls’ floor, or something.”
I was shivering, mostly from the cold.
I took off my costume and slipped on some boxer shorts and a sweatshirt. I debated whether or not to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I grabbed my toothbrush and stuff, but I was still spooked about the way things felt out there.
“I don’t know what the fuck’s going on,” Chas said. “I’ve been trying to sleep for a while, and I don’t think Farrow or that bitch downstairs is even here, because about an hour ago there was all this running around and slamming shit around until I stuck my head out in the hall and told them to quiet the fuck down.”
I decided to skip the dental hygiene.
Something was definitely not right out there, and I wasn’t going to get caught up in it.
I climbed up in my bunk and lay there, trying to stay awake and see if I would hear that howling again.
But I fell asleep.
PART FOUR:
words
after midnight
JUST WORDS.
No more pictures. No charts or plays or poems.
Now it’s just about the words.
friday morning
THE CREEPIEST NIGHTS SEEM TO evaporate into nothing once the sun comes up and you can hear the sounds of guys out in the hallway talking crap to each other and play fighting while they get ready for school.
So I hardly gave another thought to how scared I had been when I came home from the dance; and I didn’t really even want to ask any of the other boys what had gone on in the dorm before I got back to O-Hall.
Routine has a way of making you feel like an idiot after you’ve gotten all worked up over things not being in their expected order. So I showered and got into my uniform, just like I’d do on any other morning.
We ran in Conditioning class.
JP still wasn’t talking to me, but I had a feeling that things were just okay, and nothing better than that, between us; and when Seanie and I spoke, I was careful to not be such a smart-ass and say things just to pick at JP again.
But Joey didn’t show up that day for Calculus.
I remembered how pissed off he seemed the night before, and since it was Friday and all, I just figured he was taking a day off and going home early. Still, I mostly hoped I’d be able to talk to him again before he left, so I could find out what he was so bugged about when I saw him outside the dance.
Then it really sank in that it was Friday.
It meant Annie and just about everyone else would be leaving for home too, and I wished I didn’t feel so goddamned scared and alone without my friends around.
When Megan saw me in class, she smiled and said, “I like how you dance, Ryan Dean. Pretty hot.”
I turned red.
“Sorry about that. We were kind of getting a little nasty, Megan.”
She laugh-whispered, “A little?”
“Hey, did you see Joey, or hear if he’s sick or something?”
“No. I saw Kevin this morning, though,” she said. “You should ask him.”
“Okay. And thanks for the dance, Megan. I had a lot of fun.”
She turned around and rubbed my forearm and winked at me.
Ugh.
She made me feel so weak.
lit class
I DIDN’T NORMALLY RUN INTO kevin at school, but I looked for him everywhere that day after Halloween.
Eventually, I just quit trying. I knew I’d see him at lunchtime, when he and the others left for their weekends at home.
Somehow, I’d managed to scrawl out my Nick-and-Bill-are-gay-for-each-other essay for Mr. Wellins, and he practically salivated when I handed it in to him at the start of Lit class.
What a moron.
What a criminal waste of a blue book, too.
I sat down.
Annie smiled, but JP didn’t even turn to look at me.
I wished he’d just get up and change seats and leave us both alone.
After all, I did what I could. I screwed up and got into a fight with a guy who was one of my best friends. And I knew JP was going to pout like this for the rest of the year—maybe the rest of high school entirely.
Then Mr. Wellins began talking about Halloween costumes, and how they were manifestations of suppressed sexuality, and he started blah-blah-blahing about every goddamned kid in the class and how he took notes on all of us at the dance last night, and Ryan Dean West was in touch with his atavistic and primal man-drives, and, oh—let’s go around the room and talk about our Hemingway essays.
So, yeah, Annie and I pretty much shut it all out, scooted our desks close together, held hands on my lap—score one for atavism!—and whispered and mouthed our own unobserved conversation. And all the while, I was praying that old pervert didn’t call on his favorite caveman to out poor Nick Adams and his friend.
“I had so much fun last night,” I said.
“So did I. You’re a great dancer.”
“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes and squeezed her fingers. “It’s going to be so boring here this weekend. Ask your mom and dad about Thanksgiving. I really want to go.”
“I know they’ll want you to come. It’ll be so great, Ryan Dean. It’s just a few weeks away.”
“It’ll seem like forever. I’m going to go crazy this weekend without you.”
She leaned closer and looked right into my eyes with that amazing look she had.
I know we would have kissed if we hadn’t been sitting right there in a classroom.
JP coughed and gave us a quick dirty look and scooted his desk farther away from Annie’s.
Good.
“Who are you going to the airport with?” I asked.
“Kevin’s driving. With one arm. And Megan and Joey.” She said, “Chas isn’t coming, so you won’t be totally lonely, Ryan Dean. Think of all the fun you two boys will have together.”
She laughed quietly.
Crap.
“Have you seen Joey today? He wasn’t in Calc or Econ.”
“He’ll meet us at lunchtime.”
“I’ll walk you out when you leave.”
“Okay.”
“Which brings us to young Mr. West,” Mr. Wellins announced, snapping Annie and me out of our midclass dream.
He went on, “Ryan Dean has a particularly interesting theory on sexual tension that is quietly hinted at, like an urgent whisper, by Hemingway in ‘The Three-Day Blow.’ ”
Ugh.
The class weakly attempted stifling their laughter.
All this crap, just to get into a stupid Halloween dance. And, by the way, what did he mean with that “young Mr. West” comment? I was so sick of that crap, and I even got it from perverted old professors.
“Please elucidate, Ryan Dean,” Mr. Wellins said.
“Oh. Please do, young Mr. West,” JP whispered mockingly from the other side of Annie’s desk, without turning to look at me.
Crap.
lunchtime
BY THE END OF CLASS, I started getting pretty depressed thinking about Annie going home for the weekend.
When I saw her at the start of lunch, carrying her suitcase out to the parking lot, I imagined myself throwing my body in front of
Kevin’s car, kicking and screaming, to stop her.
She waited at the gate for me, standing with Kevin and Megan. I couldn’t see Joey anywhere.
I grabbed the suitcase from her hand so I could carry it for her. I took Kevin’s from him, too.
He said, “Thanks, Ryan Dean.”
“Any of you seen Joey?”
The girls both looked at Kevin, who shook his head and said, “He didn’t come home last night. I was hoping maybe you’d know what happened.”
Kevin looked worried.
That’s when I got kind of scared.
“No one knows where he is,” Kevin said. “I went and checked at the office, too, because his car’s still here.”
I looked out at the lot.
Joey’s BMW was parked next to Kevin’s car, like it always was.
“What?” I said. I couldn’t believe it. “I saw him leaving the dance.”
“I didn’t see him all night,” Kevin said. “Once I started dancing, I never saw him after that. They called his parents. They think he ran away or something. He did it before, remember? The cops are going to come.”
I did remember the time Joey ran away from school for three days, but he didn’t have a car then. Why wouldn’t he just drive away this time?
We started walking out to Kevin’s car.
Kevin said, “He got into a fight or some shit with Casey and Nick. Some of the guys on the team got between them or there would have been a fucking riot at the dance. Nobody even noticed.”
“And you’re just going to leave anyway?” I said.
“What else can I do? Joey’s a big boy. He’s almost eighteen, Ryan Dean. He’s done this before, and I haven’t gone home in three weeks,” Kevin said. “Joey’ll be okay. He’s just pissed about something. Again. No big deal. The boys will cool off, and everything will be back to its old shitty, O-Hall self.”
“He looked pissed off last night,” I said.
“Nick and Casey got drunk,” Kevin said. “Shitfaced. They fucked the place up, and nobody knew anything about it. Those fuckers stayed up all night cleaning the mess up. Farrow and the old woman downstairs never knew shit about what those guys did while they were gone on their little Halloween binge.”
“Something’s not right,” I said.
“You worry too much, Winger.”
We loaded the suitcases into Kevin’s car, and I walked over to Annie’s door. I hugged her, and we kissed before she got in.
“I’m going to miss you,” I whispered. “I love you.”
She looked like she was about to cry, and in a weird way that made me feel really good.
I closed her door, and Kevin started the car.
He said, “Tell Joey to call my house when he shows up. He’ll be back today. I know Joey. Just watch.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, I’m going to check with the office again.”
“It’s going to be okay, Ryan Dean. I’ll see you on Sunday.”
I looked back at Annie and said, “Bye. See you, Kevin. Megan.”
And I stood there beside Joey’s car and watched them drive away.
friday afternoon
IT WASN’T OKAY.
The police came before the end of lunch. I was summoned to the headmaster’s office. I had to tell them about seeing Joey when he left the dance, and how he looked upset but he wouldn’t say why, and who the guys were from O-Hall that went along with us.
The officers listened.
They wrote it all down.
But I didn’t tell them everything. How could I tell them everything?
At first, the policeman who talked to me seemed kind of nice and concerned about Joey. And he knew about how Joey had run away before. He told me that if Joey didn’t show up, they were going to search the campus and the woods in the morning.
Then the officer who interviewed me asked if I knew Joey was gay. And when I told him yes, he asked flat out if I was gay, or if I knew if Joey had a “lover” or not, and that just pissed me off so bad, I wanted to cuss, but I didn’t.
I shut up.
I told him he should go talk to someone else.
Stupid fucking bastard.
o-hall that night
JOEY NEVER SHOWED UP.
Something was wrong, and I knew it. I could feel it jangling my nerves like the sound of the empty whiskey bottle I’d kicked when I walked the hallway in the dark the night before.
I got back to O-Hall at about four o’clock that afternoon.
The place was quiet and empty, which was typical for a Friday afternoon. Downstairs, everything had been cleaned up from the night before. But I was still sick from that lingering feeling you just can’t shake after waking up from a terrible nightmare—remembering the muddy shoeprints, the water on the floor, the shower running in the bathroom, and those weird sounds I’d heard coming from the woods.
But it wasn’t a dream. Kevin Cantrell knew that. He knew enough about O-Hall and the boys we lived with, though, so it was no big deal to Kevin.
I could not make it not a big deal.
I was stressed out and in a bad mood from everything that had happened; and I wished I didn’t feel so alone, that Annie could be there with me.
As I passed by the downstairs hall door, I decided to go for a run before dinner.
I froze when I saw Mrs. Singer watching me from the other side of the door. I wasn’t about to open it, but somehow, she didn’t scare me as much as she used to. I still wouldn’t look at her face, though.
I just watched the doorknob and listened to see if she was going to come out.
She didn’t.
I went up to my room and changed out of my clothes and into my running things.
I didn’t go all the way up to Buzzard’s Roost. It was getting too dark, and I had to turn back. But I stopped at Stonehenge and sat down for a while on that same fallen tree where I’d sat so many times with Annie Altman.
I missed her so much. Even though she’d only been gone for a few hours, it felt like I’d never see her again.
I walked the wishing circle.
That night, Chas and I watched television with Mr. Farrow. Awkward. It was like sitting in a sauna naked together. We were the only ones left in O-Hall, but we didn’t say anything to him, or to each other. I could tell Mr. Farrow was uncomfortable around me, though, and I probably would have thought it was funnier if I could only get rid of the creepy feeling that I hadn’t been able to shake since the day before.
So, later, when we were lying in bed, I was so frustrated and sick of the silence that I actually broke down and started talking to Chas Becker.
“So, did you break up with Megan, or was it the other way around?”
I heard Chas exhale and roll over.
He didn’t say anything for about a minute, and then, finally, “Why do you fucking care?”
“ ’Cause I can’t stand how quiet it’s been.”
“She broke up with me. So, go for it, little Pussboy.”
“I already told you about that, Chas,” I said. “I’m sorry. Me and Megan aren’t doing anything.” I folded my hands behind my head and sighed. “Did the cops come and talk to you?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you say?”
Chas grunted. “What could I say? That we drink booze and play poker and do crazy shit? That maybe Joey’s just doing some stupid consequence or something? I don’t know anything about Joey. He just ran away.”
“Yeah. I hope he’s okay. I hope he comes back.”
“I always thought you guys seemed a little gay for each other,” Chas said.
I wanted to say, ask your girlfriend how gay I am, Betch, but I’d had enough fighting for a while.
“You’re an . . .” But I stopped myself because I didn’t want to cuss at him. “That’s messed up, Chas. Can’t Joey have any friends without it being about that? Aren’t you his friend too?”
“Me?” Chas said. “I don’t have any fucking friends.”
Go figure. r />
At least he was smart enough to know that much.
Chas Becker really was a genius, when it came to knowing how pathetic he was.
seven in the morning
I WOKE UP AT SEVEN.
When I climbed down from the top bunk, Chas rolled over and said, “What the fuck? It’s Saturday, dipshit.”
I wanted to kick him in the head so bad.
“I know. I just don’t want to stay in bed.”
Chas rolled toward the wall and put the pillow over his face.
I pulled on my warm-ups and slipped my feet into my running shoes.
I went outside into a cold drizzle. It felt like it was going to snow, and the clouds hung down so low and white that I couldn’t even see the tops of the trees around me. It looked like there was a pillow over the face of the world.
I headed for the mess hall.
Weekends were kind of fend-for-yourself eating arrangements at Pine Mountain. There was always plenty of self-contained microwaveable stuff left in the coolers for the kids who stayed, but there was no real food at PM, and there were no people to serve it, either.
But before I got to eat my breakfast, I saw what looked like about a hundred police officers, park rangers, and school staff, all gathered around the front gates to the school.
Now they were really looking for Joey.
I went back to O-Hall.
Chas Becker was not pleased when I pulled the covers off his face and actually touched his bare arm, shaking him.
“Wake up, Chas.”
“You are a total fag, Pusswing. You do realize you are touching me. Right?”
“They’re doing a search for Joey. In the woods. Get your fucking ass out of bed, and let’s help look for our captain.”
I fought the urge to shut my eyes. I guessed it would hurt just as bad if Chas knocked my teeth in, whether I watched him do it or not.