Tyler Buckspan Page 5

  I didn't, but said I did anyway.

  We talked about Boston's upcoming game on Saturday, against Chicago. When I told Eric we didn't have a TV at my home, that I'd listen to the game on the radio, he looked at me like I lived in Paraguay.

  "Come to my house," he said. "We'll watch it together."

  Okay, Tyler, finesse this…

  Shoving my hands into my hip pockets, I looked at my shoes and let out my breath.

  "I'd love to," I said, "but I can't."

  Eric asked why.

  "I won't have transportation. My mom works Saturdays, and she'll take our car to Daytona Beach. My grandma doesn't drive."

  Eric kept his gaze low while he stubbed the hallway concrete with his sneaker toe.

  "Spend the night at my house Friday," he said. "You can ride the bus home with me."

  I closed my eyelids.

  Yeah, that's perfect.

  Now, on the bus, Eric and I shared a seat. Our hips, knees, and elbows touched. Eric sat next to the open window. Air rushing into the bus fluttered his sandy hair; the breeze blew his bangs into his blue-green eyes. I kept glancing at the fuzz on his upper lip, wondering how would it feel if I kissed him? Up close, his eyes had a glittery appearance. His voice had the rasp of a guy in his mid-teens; it sometimes cracked into falsetto when he spoke, and the freckles on his nose gave his face a boyish look. But the bulge in his crotch wasn't childlike at all.

  Eric's home was two-storied, with a screened front porch and a live oak shading the yard. He produced a house key from beneath a flowerpot on the porch. "My folks run a dry cleaning business," he said. "They won't be home 'til six."

  Eric's bedroom looked exactly as it had in my vision -- the one I'd experienced weeks before: double bed, Red Sox pennant, desk, and chair, jute rug. A triangular "Yield" sign Eric had stolen from a road shoulder hung on a wall. Afternoon sunlight entered through a pair of double-hung windows. Eric kept his baseball card collection in a shoebox. After he brought out the box, he motioned me to sit beside him on his bed. Again, our hips and knees and shoulders touched. My pulse quickened while Eric chattered away and his breath swept my forearm. Each time he handed me a card, our wrists or fingers made contact, and my belly fluttered.

  I smelled Eric's hair and skin; their scents made my pulse quicken.

  We looked at cards for half an hour or so. Then Eric placed the shoebox on his nightstand. He flopped onto his back, next to me on the mattress. After folding his arms behind his head, he stared at the ceiling and moistened his lips. His feet rested on the jute rug. The hem of Eric's T-shirt had lifted, and now I stared at his belly button and the waistband of his underwear.

  Tyler, I think this may be an invitation...

  I followed Eric's lead, lying beside him and staring at the ceiling, close enough so our hips and shoulders touched. We lay there in silence a minute or so, our chests rising and falling. Then I moved my hand, so my knuckles met Eric's hipbone.

  Eric turned his face toward mine. After swallowing, he pointed to my zipper.

  "Have you ever measured yourself when you're stiff?"

  I looked into Eric's eyes. "Not in a while. How about you?"

  "It's been a few months."

  My pulse pounded in my temples, and my voice cracked when I spoke.

  "Got a ruler?" I asked.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I rarely entered my grandma's bedroom, as nothing in there interested me. But on a rainy afternoon in May, my writing pen went dry while I worked on a book report for Mrs. Calhoun. ("William Golding's book, Lord of the Flies, is an allegorical novel discussing how any culture created by man is doomed to failure.") Grandma's rolltop desk, crafted from golden oak, was a massive thing with dozens of cubbyholes. She kept a fistful of ballpoint pens in the pencil drawer, bound together with a rubber band, and now I helped myself to one.

  Outside, lightning flickered and a thunderclap shook the house.

  My gaze traveled about the room. Grandma's sleigh bed could have slept four adults. The Oriental rug was worn to its weft in places. A photographic portrait of my grandfather, in his WWI uniform, hung above a highboy dresser with a marble top. I stepped before Grandma's full-length dressing mirror, and then I studied my reflection. I'd grown another two inches since Christmas, and now the cuffs of my jeans rode above my ankles. I was five-foot-ten, my shoulders had broadened, and my biceps and chest muscles bulged beneath my T-shirt.

  Not bad, Buckspan.

  I stepped to a bookcase as tall as me; it held scores of books: treatises on the spiritual world, biographies, romance novels, and, of course, Grandma's diaries, dozens of volumes in varying sizes, some paperbacked, others bound in leather, all with dates inscribed on their spines, the earliest being 1907.

  I opened a dusty volume from the years 1917 and 1918, admiring Grandma's precise penmanship; it slanted a bit to the right:

  Received a letter from Elmer today. His unit is entrenched in Flanders. He suffers from dysentery and a gum disorder the soldiers call "trench mouth." He says the food is terrible, the weather worse. How he misses Florida's tropical climate.

  I closed the book and returned it to its rightful place, shaking my head. Someday would I own this bookcase? Would the flimsy notebooks I'd used to record events of my days someday occupy these shelves? And what would become of Grandma's collection when she passed away?

  ***

  Spring water beaded on Eric Rupp's shoulders. The drops looked like gemstones, reflecting sunlight. I stood behind Eric, waist-deep in the spring, my arms wrapped about his chest, my hips pressed to his buttocks. We had just made love on a bedsheet; it lay crumpled on the shore. June's heat had made our sex a sweaty, sticky affair, but now the spring cooled our flesh.

  I listened to water drip, to Eric's soft breathing. My chin rested against the back of his neck, and I buried the tip of my nose in his damp hair.

  Since my first visit to Eric's home, we had made love any number of places: his house, my grandma's, the spring, and even the backseat of the Chevrolet, one afternoon when a thunderstorm raged. I'd never felt so close to someone; I had touched every part of Eric's body. His dad owned a tent and sleeping bags. On weekends, we'd often camp by the spring's edge. We had constructed a fire pit, girding its walls with chunks of lime rock, and thereafter we always burned pine limbs during our evenings there, listening to sap crackle and hiss, watching sparks rise into the night sky.

  "Will it always be like this?" Eric asked me one evening.

  We lay side by side in his tent. The mildewed smell of the canvas made my nose crinkle. Beyond the tent flaps, a campfire smoldered. I lay on my back with my gaze fixed on the canvas overhead.

  "I hope so," I said.

  Shifting his weight, Eric asked me, "Are you and I queers?"

  I cleared my throat. "I suppose," I said.

  Eric turned toward me; he crooked an elbow and propped his head against his hand. "Does it scare you, being... different?"

  "A little. We'll have to be careful, always."

  After draping his arm across my belly, Eric laid his cheek against my sternum. "I think I'm in love with you, Tyler. Is that okay?"

  My windpipe flexed, and then my eyes watered.

  Holy crap.

  "Of course it is," I whispered.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The second week of June arrived, and school let out for summer. In a month, I'd turn sixteen; I could qualify for a driver's license. With Mom's permission, Devin drove me to the DMV office in Deland, where I earned a learner's permit, and thereafter Devin gave me lessons whenever time permitted.

  But Devin had little free time.

  Since opening his practice in Rev. Patterson's home, he'd been deluged with business. People came from as far away as Vermont and Arizona for sittings, and police detectives frequently contacted Devin about their cold cases. Even the wife of Florida's governor bought an hour of Devin's time.

  "She wanted to speak with her mother, who'd passed six years ago," Devin
told my mom and me, after the sitting.

  When I asked Devin how much he charged his clients, he said, "That's a 'none-ya,' Ty."

  "A what?"

  "It's none of your business."

  But Devin, I figured, must be earning substantial sums from sittings he conducted at Grace Patterson's home. He'd bought himself a new wardrobe from the best department store in Orlando: a dozen collared dress shirts, several neckties, expensive slacks, and two wool business suits: one gray, the other dark blue with pinstripes. He bought a half dozen pairs of leather shoes, some lace-ups, others slip-ons, one pair two-toned. He acquired a camel's hair sports jacket with oval patches on the elbows.

  Devin purchased clothes for Jesse too. On Saturday nights, they'd both dress up like dandies. They styled their hair just so, with Brylcreem. Then they took the Chevy to Daytona Beach or St. Augustine, while I sat in my bedroom and sulked, feeling jealous of Jesse and the attention Devin gave him.

  Devin bought me things as well: a new backboard and basketball goal, a silver identification bracelet with my initials monogrammed on the plate, and a gleaming English racer bicycle with caliper brakes and skinny tires. Devin slipped me cash from time to time, as well -- five or ten dollars a pop. Sometimes, Eric and I would ride the bus to Daytona Beach, and I'd pay for dinner and a movie. In the darkness of the theater, Eric would hold my hand when we felt sure no one could see.

  As much as I cared for Eric, and as good as our sex was, I was still crazy in love with Devin. At the dinner table, I couldn't keep my eyes off him. He'd found a good barber in Deland who styled Devin's hair just like the TV star Ed Burns on the series 77 Sunset Strip. With his fancy new clothes and recent notoriety, Devin appealed more than ever to me.

  We still played basketball, Devin and I. Not as much as before, but two or three times per week, we'd go at it.

  "You're getting better," he told me one evening, when we played one-on-one and he barely beat me. "You should try out for your school's team this fall."

  Devin paid for installation of an extension phone in his bedroom. Evenings, it rang frequently. If I were in my room, I'd often hear Devin converse behind his closed door, with whom I didn't know. But one night, when I lifted the downstairs receiver to call Eric, Devin already occupied the line.

  "I can't," he said. "I already have plans."

  "With whom?" a woman said.

  "A friend is all. Don't be jealous."

  "I am jealous. Tell your friend you're canceling. Spend Saturday night with me instead."

  "I can't, I--"

  "You can't or you won't?"

  "Honey, don't get mad."

  I crinkled my forehead while returning the receiver to its hook.

  Who was Devin talking to?

  ***

  On a weekday in July, just before my birthday, I joined my mom when she drove to work. I brought a towel and bathing trunks, a book to read as well, and I spent the day at the beach. I swam in the ocean and walked along the shore, daydreaming about Devin and about Eric Rupp too.

  Eric's family vacationed in North Carolina at the time.

  I thought of trying out for my high school's basketball team next season, as Devin had suggested. Could I make the cut? Basketball was a big deal at our school; the players were like celebrities. But so many guys at our school were bigger and faster than me. Was I kidding myself, thinking I might one day wear a uniform?

  While I walked, I savored the roll of the waves and the smacking sound they made when they broke on the sand. The air smelled briny and fresh. Flocks of birds stood here and there: laughing gulls, sandwich terns, and herring gulls. They scattered at my approach, skipping on their spindly legs and crying at my intrusion. I found a piece of driftwood -- a crooked thing as long as my leg, and skinny as broom handle -- and then I carried it like a staff, poking the sand as I strode along and pondered my circumstances.

  I still loved Devin; I fantasized about him in my bed at night, sometimes touching myself. But I knew he belonged to Jesse. For over nine months, they'd been boyfriends, and I didn't see how that would change. I'd never kiss Devin's lips or feel him inside me, I figured. I'd never fall asleep in Devin's arms, would I?

  And what of Eric? At least twice a week, we made love, and the sex was awfully good. By now, each of us knew what the other liked. Our sessions often lasted ninety minutes or more; they were sensual and sweaty, but still...

  Eric wasn't the brightest of boys. Aside from Sporting News and Street & Smith's Baseball Annual, he read only what was required of him at school. His grades were average, his interests limited to baseball, TV, and sex.

  A touring company from New York performed the musical West Side Story at a Daytona Beach auditorium, and I bought tickets for Eric and me. On a Friday night, we took a bus to the east coast and attended the show. I enjoyed myself thoroughly – I especially liked the choreography -- but Eric fell asleep before the first act ended.

  I liked my studies at school. My grades were excellent, and I planned to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, after graduating from high school. How would Eric fit into that picture? If we lived in separate towns, would our relationship wither and die like a houseplant someone had failed to water?

  I thought about my mom. In recent months, she'd been cranky and constantly complaining about her work. She was tired at the end of the day, she said. She detested women who patronized her shop and their endless gossip.

  "I'm sick of smelling perm chemicals and nail polish. I'm tired of listening to hair dryers hum."

  Evenings, she'd soak her feet in a shallow pan filled with Epsom salt solution. The pan would vibrate after she plugged it into a wall socket, and she'd sit there with her eyes closed, her lips pursed.

  Mom and my grandma often quarreled over nonsense: house cleaning duties, what we'd eat for dinner, or which programs we listened to on the radio. They were like two scissor blades, constantly scraping against each other. More than once, I heard them squabble over Devin's continued presence in Grandma's house.

  "He earns a good living now," Grandma said. "Why can't he find a place of his own?"

  "He needs a stable home," Mom said. "And look how Tyler's blossomed since Devin came to town."

  Now, in Daytona, as 5:00 p.m. drew near, my nose and cheeks burned. The bottoms of my feet hurt from walking on hot sand. I showered at a bathing pavilion, changed into my street clothes. Then I strolled toward Mom's shop. Heat shimmered off the sidewalk and asphalt roadbed. I passed few people; the weather was just too hot for most folks.

  After turning a corner, I saw my mom conversing with a red-haired, slender woman in a waitress uniform, someone I didn't recognize. They stood beneath a canvas awning; it shaded the beauty parlor's plate-glass window. Both smoked cigarettes. When Mom noticed my approach, she dropped her butt to the sidewalk, and then ground it out with her shoe toe.

  Mom said something to her companion, while both women looked in my direction. Then, before I came within earshot, the red-haired woman climbed into a battered Ford Comet with an Ormond Beach tag on its front bumper. She drove off, with her tailpipe spewing smoke.

  "Who was that?" I asked Mom.

  She shrugged.

  "Just a customer," she said.

  ***

  On July 22, 1964 -- my sixteenth birthday -- my mother took the day off. She drove me to Deland, to the DMV office, where I took my road test in her Dodge Dart. A uniformed officer, a taciturn fellow with a beer gut and a bald spot, sat in the passenger seat, watching me adjust mirrors.

  "Whenever you're ready," he said, "start the engine, shift into reverse, and back out of the space."

  Thirty minutes later, after my flawless parallel parking performance, a woman took my photo and I left the DMV, license in hand, a grin on my face. My mom kissed my cheek. She bought us cheeseburgers, fries, and soft drinks at a fast food place. Then, after we ate, she let me drive us back to Cassadaga. Clutching the steering wheel, I grinned as we flew past palmetto-and-pine forests. Suddenly,
I felt much older, and more mature.

  I wasn't a boy anymore, was I?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  At my grandmother's dinner table, in mid-August, Devin looked at me, then my mom and Grandma. He told us, "I married Grace Patterson yesterday, at the courthouse in Deland."

  I dropped my fork while blood drained from my head. My jaw quivered, and my hands shook.

  Devin was married? How could it be? And what could be worse? He may as well have told us he'd been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

  My mother beamed at Devin. "Honey, that's wonderful news. I hope you'll be happy."

  Grandma clutched her pearls and glared at Devin. "How old is Grace, early forties?"

  Devin nodded.

  Grandma looked at me, then my mom.

  "It's crazy," she said.

  Looking back at Devin, Grandma told him, "She's old enough to be your mother."

  Devin rearranged himself in his chair. He told Grandma, "Age isn't important; not when you're truly in love."

  Mom placed her hand on Devin's forearm.

  "Where will you live, at Rev. Patterson's?"

  Devin nodded.

  Mom said, "From the outside, it looks lovely. I can't wait to see the interior."

  Devin said, "We'll have everyone for supper, real soon."

  My voice cracked when I spoke.

  "Devin?"

  He looked at me with his eyebrows arched.

  "Have you told Jesse?"

  ***

  Hours after Devin's announcement, I lay in my darkened bedroom, staring at the ceiling while tears spilled from the corners of my eyes. For a year, Devin had dwelt in our home; he'd been my confidant, buddy, lust object, and teacher. Now, he would leave me for Grace Patterson? It didn't make sense. Why was life so unfair?

  A knock sounded at my door.

  "Ty, may I come in?"

  Devin sat on the edge of my bed, wearing briefs and nothing else. I smelled his skin, and I thought of the first day he'd come to Cassadaga. The memory made my heart ache. How would I endure Devin's departure?