I was high that night. That’s my excuse. But what sixteen-year old wouldn’t want to stand bare-chested in the front seat of a speeding Buick Electra Convertible with a rattlesnake watermelon in his hands?

The car was grooving through a bubble of light that pulled us down the long black stretch of back road through that hot August night. Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” blared out of the dashboard. All I cared about was the next road sign. This was target practice and I was loaded.

Aaron’s fat and older brother, Peter, came up with this one. A watermelon field. His convertible. Mailboxes. Signs. Wanna go?

We snuck up on the field with the lights off, and parked on the edge under the dark and moonless night sky. We filled the trunk and half of the backseat with dusty melons. Dogs at the farmhouse started barking when I slammed the trunk, and we high-tailed it out of there. The back of the car rode low and heavy with melons, bouncing on the springs. We blew a fat joint to celebrate.

By midnight, Aaron had taken out two mailboxes to Peter’s one. I had only smashed a rosebush. Despite the weed, I was feeling bad about the bush. It’s the way I was raised; guilt wrapped everything. What if I got caught? What would your father say? What would the neighbors say?

Smashing someone’s mailbox wasn’t a nice thing to do.

On the other hand it was adrenaline-rushing fun.

I was sleeping over at Aaron’s while their mother was out getting drunk with her boyfriend. She’d probably be gone for a couple of days so we were free to roam all night if we wanted. When she was there she let Aaron make his own choices, like when to study or go to bed, and he was happy to see her when she came home. Not like my mom who was constantly prying into my life, telling me right from wrong and what to do and when. I envied Aaron's freedom to live his life the way he wanted, even if he was lonely.

The car floated over a low spot in the road and I lost my footing and fell against the headrest. The melon went low and split apart on the post, missing the sign completely.

“Here, Steven,” Aaron said from the backseat, handing me the next bomb. “Try again.”

I cradled the cold missile against my chest and reached for the top of the windshield thinking that I’d rather eat the thing and get rid of the cotton-mouth that comes with smoking too much dope. That’s when Aaron stood in the backseat and leaned into me.

“I’ll hold you up,” he said, placing a hand between my shoulder blades and another on my hip. The world slowed. He was there for encouragement. And, like those ghostly tactile images when you’re stoned, his touch stayed with me long after he let go.

I can still feel his hands there sometimes, even thirty years later. Those hands weren’t there to prop me up. There was a kind of urgency in his stealthily kneading fingers, his hot palms, the minor readjustments in placement. Did his fingers just happen to slip under my waistband and onto my butt by accident?

“Steven! What was wrong with that?” Peter yelled, as the sign flew by.

“Oh, man,” I said. “I spaced. Sorry.”

“There’s another chance coming up. Get ready.”

As I tossed the melon, Peter swerved to the wrong side of the road. He swore there had been something there. I fell toward the door, cutting my hand on the sharp edge of the windshield frame, and then slipped again when he swerved back.

I lost my grip, falling backwards over the seat onto the pile of jostling watermelons. Aaron had also fallen backwards, his butt landed on the convertible-top. I heard his head hit the trunk lid and realized my best friend was going over.

I caught him by the front of his cut-offs, digging my knees into the watermelons and holding on until Peter realized he should stop. Peter slammed on the brakes. Aaron had gotten quite a thrill from tossing watermelons; I could feel it on my wrist. He smiled at me and pushed my hand away.

“Thanks,” he said.

Blood from my hand had stained his shorts and streaked his stomach. We had crushed a couple of melons in the process and there was blood and watermelon juice everywhere. It was a riot.

Peter was pissed about his car so we unloaded the melons into the woods and went home to wash it. At two in the morning in his driveway, Peter gave us some ultimatum about being “spotless by the time I have to go to work or I'll sit on you,” and then he went off to his room to pass out for a few hours before his shift at the Sunoco station.

We finished the car and kept at each other with the hose and sponges until Mr. Sorenson, Aaron’s neighbor, yelled at us from his bedroom window to shut up for chrissakes. We were soaked and went up to Aaron’s room.

His room had everything I’d ever wanted. He had black light posters taped to the walls and a lava lamp like everyone else, but piles of his clothes sprawled all over the floor. He never had to clean his room or make his bed. The rumpled sheets and quilt looked comfortable, like a nest. It was a guy's paradise.

Aaron was smaller than me, lightly built with long, graceful hands. He had a sleek face and brown hair. We were in the same grade, but didn’t hang with the same people. He was more of a loner, not the athletic sort, while I played JV lacrosse.

He went to get some of his brother’s clothes for me. I stood there dripping water on the carpet and a pile of inside-out jeans and underwear that I toed with my bare foot, idly looking for skid marks or something. Aaron caught me, but he didn’t say anything, just handed me his brother’s enormous Fruit-Of-The-Looms and cut-offs, and then opened his dresser drawer.

Aaron had soft looking skin with two large moles, one in the middle of his back and one on his right butt cheek. I’d never seen that one before. Aaron never showered after gym and I’d never seen him naked, much less his sausage and eggs. But I’d felt it when I saved his life there in the backseat. I felt along my wrist.

He caught me staring in his mirror.

“Peter left a six-pack in the fridge,” he said.

“Right on,” I said, shucking my pants and slipping into Peter’s shorts as fast as I could.

We drank beer on the back porch, looking at stars and listening to the scratch of katydids while lightning bugs blinked out over the shaggy lawn. I finished my first beer and got off the rusted lounge chair to grab another. Peter’s shorts slipped everywhere and I had to hold them up for fear of them dropping around my ankles. Aaron thought this was hysterical.

“The moon’s out tonight, big and bright,” he chanted.

I ignored him, and peeled a Bud off the plastic ring. “You want another one?”

“Not yet.”

As soon as I got comfortable in the chair, Aaron chugged his beer.

“Sure, I’ll have another,” he said.

“Get it yourself.”

“You offered.”

I did the dance for him all over again.

“The moon’s out tonight, big and bright.” Aaron laughed.

That’s what he wanted so I gave it to him, dropped them, and wiggled in his face before handing him the beer.

It was hysterical.

I woke up hot and sweating in a sexy dream that I couldn’t remember but desperately wanted to get back to. Peter’s underwear had slipped off my butt, but my hard-on had caught the elastic band in front. Aaron had snuggled up against my back and his arm lay draped around me. I started breathing again and he moved slightly. I knew immediately where his hand was, could feel him leaning hard against me. I knew enough not to give away that I was awake. Not to scare him off.

His fingers brushed the skin below my belly button, moving slowly under the waistband like the pointer on a Ouija board looking for the right letter. Behind me I felt him press against my rump. I shifted, trying to feel how big he was, and he took that opportunity to slip his hand around me.

It seemed like we stayed that way for hours, unsure about the next move. Then his fingers loosened and floated around, a gentle exploration. At times I lost where his hand was and almost fell back asleep. He'd pulse against me and I pulsed back, our secret code.

His breath was full of beer, and his cheek was hot and smooth on my neck. I couldn’t stand it anymore so I ground against him and he moved his hand on me, the blood pounding and pounding. I forgot that I was asleep, forgot that I was awake, and the room shook and danced as he pulled me tight against him, slippery in the dark. We were shaking, the whole room moved, and we exploded together into a thousand dreams.

The soufflé of time collapsed around us. I dozed. Aaron kissed my back and rolled away, leaving me cold without his warm embrace.

We awoke to hangovers and an empty house. My own clothes were dry and I slipped into them easily, as easily as we slipped into a normal morning. We raided the refrigerator while reviewing the highlights of the night and how pissed Peter had been. We laughed about Mr. Sorensen yelling at two in the morning.

It never once occurred to me that Aaron could have fallen in love.

Aaron and I went camping that winter, hiking deep into the national park in mid-week after New Year’s. We reached the empty lean-to shelter just as it started to snow and built a fire in front of the opening. We lay our sleeping bags side-by-side on the platform and opened our mess kits.

“It’s going to get really cold,” I said, hopeful.

He looked out at the falling snow, at the fire. “Yeah. Cold sleeping.” He shivered.

I said, “Maybe we should zip our sleeping bags together for warmth?”

Aaron studied my face. “I guess so,” he said, shrugging his shoulders like it was all the same to him.

“Where’s that whiskey?”

Aaron had stolen a bottle from his mom, and we passed it back and forth. I buried foil-wrapped potatoes in the coals and fried the steaks I had brought. Sparks and ashes floated up from the crackling fire, only to come back down with the snow.

We were full. Full of whiskey, full of food, and full of life. The lean-to was ours, not another person for miles. The curtain of snow and the fire held us close, away from the world.

Then he went and ruined everything.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“Yeah? About what?”

“That we are who we are. You have to pay attention to what makes you happy, you know?”

“Sure,” I said. “Have another sip. Get happy.” Things always went well when we drank together. I was looking forward to a little snuggle and faked a yawn. I held out the bottle, but he waved it away.

“I’ve been places lately.” He looked to the fire.

“What are you talking about?” I took a swig, the whiskey burned.

“Did you know that you can go down to Battery Park and guys will come up and play with you? Like blow jobs? Other stuff?”

I had never seen him so alone before. He was on a stage that had somehow pulled away from me, and I was now in the audience looking down on him, wondering what he would do next. Wondering if he would say what no one wanted to hear. But he had forgotten his lines, and there was no one there to coach him. Or me.

“If you want to do something,” he said, his voice trailing off. The fire crackled and hissed. Light flickered against his brave and beautiful face.

The snow made a hushing sound all its own. Millions of flakes sifting through bare branches, hitting pine needles, landing on crisp oak leaves out there in the dark world beyond our bubble of light. The fire had heated the lean-to, making it uncomfortably warm. Aaron pulled off his sweater.

“Like, experiment a little? Try stuff?” he said, but his voice was weak, delicate. His brown eyes were wet on me.

“Fuck you.” I pulled my legs up and embraced my knees.

How could I tell him?

“Just fuck yourself,” I said.

He’d had sex with dirty men, filthy old men. Molesters. Awful, filthy men in trench coats. The diseased, horrible people everyone scared us with. They weren't like us. We could never be like them.

I asked him, “How could you do that? That’s horrible.”

Aaron had touched me. More than once. And I'd touched him. Probably after.

“What made you think you could even ask me to do that with you?” I could never be a fag. I was going to be someone.

I shouted at him, “What are you turning into?”

I could never be a fag. I didn’t want anyone to hate me.

He stared. Whatever there was between us had been frightened away, forever. What was he trying to do to me?

And the silence. His awful silence.

“Aaron?” No answer. “I don’t want you to tell anyone we went camping together,” I said. “I’ll say I went alone.”

He nodded.

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” I said.

I took a swallow of the whiskey and set the bottle at the edge of the platform where the firelight licked at its shoulders. It would get warm there, but I didn’t care. I stuffed my spare clothes into an undershirt for a pillow, and zipped myself into my bag, facing away.

I didn’t undress.

He sat behind me for a long time. I heard him sniffle a couple of times, and then he dragged his sleeping bag away.

I desperately wanted him to hold me, to make it all right again. If I fell asleep, maybe he would come back. But deep down, I knew he would never sleep again.

He would only dream.

 

© 2005 R.R. Angell - Contributor's Bio