No one gets why I love Walcott as much as I do. (Except Tommy, of course, who’d never admit, even under torture, that he feels the same way.) To be honest, I’m not even sure myself. My job is just a job, and the people who live here are no different than people everywhere, and there are thousands of small towns up and down the coast that are cheaper or prettier or less infested with tourists, where I could presumably be just as happy. It’s not challenging, it’s not cultural, and it’s certainly not the center of anything that matters.
But Walcott has everything I need or want. I know every square inch of my cottage and my land, and every weed and rock on the path to the beach. I love waking once a week to the “whoosh” of a hot air balloon venting over my roof (sightseers pay Kelly Green fifty dollars per person to take them up for an hour in his balloon, and every Saturday he floats them over my property on his way to the coast), and I love listening to a local pack of coyotes when they come out at night from an abandoned corncrib on the property abutting mine and call to each other across my field, the pups yipping like excited second-graders on a field trip. I love the woods around my house, where I cut down dead trees every October and November and chop them up for firewood, and I love the clean, straight roads that run along the ocean for miles, where (on the rare mornings when I can get my fat ass out of bed to do it) I ride my bike in the quiet before dawn.
But most of all I love the nights. The stillness, the stars, and the slow rise and fall of the moon: these are all I know of God. In this place, in that darkness, nothing of who I am or what I’ve done matters, and all the demons in my head, cowed in the presence of something sacred, temporarily shut their rabid, carping little mouths, and let me rest. I can’t imagine finding that kind of peace anywhere else, even though you’d think I’d be more comfortable far away from here, like Tommy, in an anonymous city where there isn’t a bad memory hiding under every rock and behind every tree, waiting to ambush me every time I go for a walk or stop to take a leak.
But what can I say? This is my home. Walcott may be loaded with pitfalls, but after all these years I’ve finally learned where it’s safe to step. And I’m not about to risk moving someplace where I don’t know the terrain, or what those who hunt me look like.
Everybody’s still in bed when I get up in the morning. Tommy is sleeping on his stomach on the hide-a-bed in the living room with one arm hanging off the mattress, and Philip is curled up on his side next to him. The sheet is down by their feet and they’re both naked, the dark tan on their torsos and limbs contrasting starkly with the whiteness of their asses. I try not to stare at the only part of Philip that’s awake. They were at it half the night—not being in the least bit quiet about it—and he’s apparently ready for more.
I tiptoe past them and when I step into the kitchen I listen for noises from Kyle and Camille in the guest room, but they’re not awake yet, either. I take a long time showering and shaving, and by the time I head back upstairs to get dressed, Tommy is sitting up in bed, blinking at the sun.
“Hey,” he whispers. “What time is it?” Philip stirs next to him.
“About seven thirty,” I whisper back. “I just put on some coffee.”
“Seven thirty? Why are you up so early?”
“I teach, remember?”
“I thought you didn’t have to be there until nine.”
“I don’t. I just like to have time to wake up.”
He yawns and nods. “Same old Nathan.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I think it’s cool you take your job so seriously.”
He doesn’t have a clue how little I care about my job. I watch him put his hand on Philip’s hip and run his brown fingers over the pale skin. Philip rolls over on his back, still mostly asleep but awake enough to give Tommy better access.
I shake my head. “Same old Tommy.”
He grins. “Take your time getting dressed, will you?”
One of Dad’s favorite jokes was “Know what AIDS means? Adios Infected Dick Sucker.”
Har har har. What a knee-slapper. He had dozens of similar, venomous one-liners; antigay comments flew out his mouth like pissed-off bees, and most of them were said when he was sure his sons could hear him.
I’m sure he knew we were gay, and no doubt that’s one of the main reasons he treated us the way he did, but Tommy and I never spoke of it with him. It’s not that we thought he’d disown us or not love us anymore—that’s a given, and we could have handled that and not cared much at all. But the God’s honest truth is we were afraid he’d kill us if we ever had the balls to actually say the words out loud. We were absolutely sure he’d cut off our heads—and our dicks—with Grandpa’s old World War II bayonet he kept in his bedroom. He could live with suspicion, but not with truth.
Anyway, the first time I got a blow job, Dad was in the next room, reading the newspaper. I was fourteen, and it was after school, and he thought I was reading in Tommy’s and my room. I remember lying on my bed with my legs open, the blond head of another boy bobbing up and down between my thighs, and I knew if Dad caught us he’d tear us apart. But as you can probably imagine, by that time I didn’t much care.
It all started innocently enough. The other boy and I were sitting on the bed together, talking about what had happened at school that day, and I happened to mention seeing Lee Koslowski’s dick in the showers after gym class. (Koslowski’s dick was a local legend. I swear to God it was at least eight inches long, flaccid.) He noticed me getting hard talking about it, but when I got embarrassed and tried to cross my legs to cover it up he wouldn’t let me. He put a hand on each knee and pushed my legs flat, and he stared at the bulge in my crotch for a while before finally reaching up to touch it. I remember my mouth going dry and my heart pounding; I remember his fingers opening my belt and unzipping my pants; I remember shifting my hips so he could pull my shorts down past my knees.
He played with my penis for a while, pulling at it experimentally and laughing at the expressions on my face, then he said, “I saw a picture in a magazine of a girl doing this to a guy,” and he opened his mouth, wet his lips and went to work. I remember my hands in his hair, and how he surfaced for air every once in a while, and how he whispered, “Better be quiet, Nathan,” when I started to whimper right before I came. I remember convulsing on the bed, and the sound of him swallowing several times, and the smell of my semen and sweat in the room. I remember staring up at the ceiling, knowing I should feel guilty about what had just happened, but feeling so fucking good I couldn’t quite manage anything remotely resembling guilt.
So I waited until my heart slowed, then I told Tommy to lie on his back for his turn.
Simon comes in late to class with a bad case of bed-hair and red, swollen eyes. Vernette asks him what rock he climbed out from under and he shows her his middle finger before plopping down in his seat. The rest of the class laughs and looks at me expectantly. Why do kids like to see other kids get in trouble?
Vernette gets impatient when I don’t say anything. “Did you see that, Mr. Bishop? Simon just flipped me off.”
I sigh. “Don’t flip off Vernette, Simon.”
He stares at his desk, ignoring me.
Vernette glares at the back of his head. “I want an apology.” She plays with a dangling earring and starts chewing her gum faster. “I want an apology right now.”
The other kids watch avidly, heads swiveling back and forth as if they’re trying to keep up with a tennis match. I fight the urge to sigh again. “Apologize to her, Simon, so we can get back to work.”
He slowly lifts his head and turns to face her. “I’m sorry you’re such a bitch, Vernette.”
Vernette slams her book shut. “What is your problem? Why are you being such a faggot?”