reminding him of when the Holdens and the Trouts would team up to
rake the valley behind their homes, making piles of leaves that were then
set alight in a controlled burn.
Victor seemed content with their silence, the sound of children’s
voices babbling from elsewhere in the neighborhood as they continued to
beg for candy.
Jace wondered, for a moment, if something was wrong with him. He
had known Victor for a handful of hours, and in that miniscule amount of
time, Jace had decided he liked him. More than that, in fact. Surely love
didn’t come this quickly, but something was definitely there. He wanted
to stare at Victor, had trouble keeping his eyes averted. He wanted Victor
to talk nonstop just so he could listen, no matter what he had to say. And
Jace wanted to touch him, to finally see what another guy’s body felt
like. He wanted to smell his skin, taste his lips, anything he could get
away with. Did he fall easily? Or was he living up to the promiscuous
gay stereotype?
“What about this house?” Victor said, stopping and pointing up a
walkway.
“Huh?” Jace looked in the pointed direction, seeing a small home
that was a little rundown. The porch light was on and a jack o’ lantern sat
on a step, inviting trick-or-treaters. “Don’t we have enough candy?”
“No, I mean, if you were out driving around at night, what story
would this house tell you?”
“Oh!” Jace looked at the house anew. It definitely needed
maintenance. A fresh lick of paint and maybe some groundskeeping. No
man in the house, or not enough money. Or both. “It belongs to an old
widow. She’s on welfare, and everyone thinks she’s poor, but that’s not
the truth.”
“No?”
“Nope. The thing is, she’s addicted to jewelry. Like hardcore. She
can’t get enough of it. When her first husband died of a heart attack, she
cashed in his life insurance policy and went wild, buying all the gold and
jewels she ever wanted. When the money ran out, well, she had to find
herself another husband, didn’t she?”
“I see. A black widow.”
“Yup. Three men have given their lives to feed her insatiable
appetite for precious minerals. Her home is just as rundown inside,
unless you see the cellar, which looks like a dragon’s horde.”
Victor snorted. “How does such an old lady lure in so many
unwitting victims?”
“She’s got great legs,” Jace said with certainty. “I mean phenomenal!
Guys propose just to get their hands on them.”
Victor shook his head ruefully. “I think I’ll pass.”
They snacked on candy all the rest of the way back. At the gas
station, Jace tossed the mutilated meat arm into the dumpster. Victor
pretended they were burying an old friend, making them each say parting
words before they unceremoniously slammed shut the dumpster lid.
Once Jace had Victor in the passenger seat of his car, they headed to a
fast food joint on the edge of town.
“Inside or…?”
“Let’s eat outside.”
Jace pulled up to the drive-thru window, picked up some burgers and
fries, then parked the car. He imagined they would eat right where they
were, but Victor got out and went around to the trunk, sitting there. Jace
joined him. With their backs to the neon cathedral of grease, they were
facing an empty field. A faded plastic sign advertised that the land was
for sale.
“Man, that smells good,” Victor said as Jace passed him a
cheeseburger wrapped in paper. “First real meal I’ve had all day.”
“Why’s that?”
Victor shrugged. “Just haven’t been home much of late.”
“Oh.” Jace took a bite and chewed in silence. If Victor didn’t have
school or a job, what could he do besides be at home? Unless he had a
good reason for avoiding it. Jace pictured a stern man like the one Victor
had mouthed off to earlier, a man who threw empty beer bottles at Victor
anytime he messed up. “Do you not like being there?”
“At home?” Victor sounded surprised at first, but laughed when he
read Jace’s face. “It’s not like that. I’m not abused. It’s just me and my
mom, and I try not to be such a burden to her. I don’t expect her to
support or take care of me.”
“So what do you do?” Jace said. The more Victor talked, the less he
felt he understood him.
Victor shrugged and worked on his food. Jace let him eat, puzzling
over it all. Did Victor just wander the streets, stealing when he needed
something? He snuck a few peeks and found Victor staring straight
ahead at the field as if he saw something there. When he was finished
eating, Victor nodded in that direction.
“Things like that just kill me,” he said. “Forget your black widow
and her sexified legs. What seduces me is wondering what’s over there.
If I get up and just start walking now, where will I end up?”
“It’s an empty field,” Jace said.
“Yeah, but those dark trees on the edge. What’s in there?”
“More trees? Bugs?”
Victor shook his head and hopped off the car. “Come on. I’ll show
you.”
They walked across the field together, the soil damp beneath their
feet, the plants they trod on yellow and wilting. A strange transition
occurred as they left the artificial lights of Warrensburg. The trees were a
dark curtain, a barrier they could pass through. Jace wanted to stop and
consider their options, but Victor walked right in. All Jace could do was
follow.
The world beyond was one of shadows. He followed the sound of
Victor’s passage more than his outline, which he could barely see, and
almost bumped into him when Victor came to a stop.
“Right here,” he said, as if they had reached a specific destination.
“Sit down on the ground with me.”
Jace worried about his jeans getting wet but did what he was told.
Victor didn’t instruct him further, except when Jace tried to ask a
question.
“Just listen. Take it all in. Look around you.”
The first couple of minutes, Jace struggled with his confusion. Then
he started looking and listening. His eyes adjusted now, the world around
him remained dark, but there was contrast. The trees were solid, their
branches like dark veins against a sky heavy with clouds. The trees
groaned in the breeze, their wooden fingers clutching and clattering
against each other. The ground beneath them was gray, sometimes
reflecting dim light where leaves cupped water. Occasionally Jace heard
small movements, little creatures that began their day when the sun went
down.
Victor sat across from him, the details of his features lost in
shadows. “No one ever comes here,” he said, his voice barely louder than
a whisper. “Hundreds of people pulled into that parking lot or went
through the drive-thru today, but hardly any of them looked at this field,
and none of them got out of their cars and walked into these trees.
They’re like ants, running along the same path every day, driving the
same roads, eating the same foods, watching the same shows. Why?”
“I don’t know.” Jace swallowed. He couldn’t see Victor’s eyes, but
he could imagine them looking right through him, as they always seemed
to, and seeing one of those boring ants.
“I like your stories,” Victor said. “The way you can imagine all these
interesting lives people have. I see the opposite. I look around and I see
them sleepwalking, doing what they do because that’s all they’ve ever
done. It’s like we hypnotize ourselves into perceiving only a fraction of
the world around us.”
“What can you do?” Jace asked. “I get what you’re saying, but we
can’t all return to the trees. What would we eat? How would we
survive?”
“I don’t know.” Victor sighed. “Maybe I’m just full of shit, but I
want to try. I don’t want to be part of the system or fall into line. That
feeling I had all those years ago when I got lost trick-or-treating, it’s
right here. These woods, this weird little world, it comforts me. I used to
think I wanted to live outside of it all, creeping along the edges of the
real world, but look behind you.”
Jace glanced over his shoulder. Through the trees, he could see a hint
of the orange parking lot lights, a sliver of the florescent tubes
illuminating people as they sat there and shoved food into their mouths.
And it seemed so distant, so absurd and small. Now he understood.
“This is the real world,” Jace said. “All that’s just what we created
for ourselves.”
“Exactly!” Victor sounded proud. “I knew you’d get it.”
But Jace didn’t, not entirely. Philosophically, Victor’s ideas were
appealing, but from a practical standpoint Jace still didn’t see how it
would work. “Where do you sleep at night?”
“I have a tent. Sometimes I crash with friends. Mostly I camp out
somewhere. When it rains it gets trickier. There used to be this old train
car, but that’s gone now.” Victor sounded frustrated. “I know I’m still
living off the system. None of those things would exist if it wasn’t for
capitalism. I don’t have all the answers, but I won’t figure out anything if
I don’t try. That’s what I want to do. It’s not a job, I’m not making any
money, but this weird experiment is what I want to do with my life. We
can be anything. Not just a lawyer or a burger-flipper. Be a freaking
cowboy if you want, you know? Steal yourself a horse and take off into
the wilderness.” Victor chuckled. “What do you want to be?”
Your boyfriend. The thought came so quickly it almost reached his
tongue, but Jace hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said. “I need to think about
it.”
“That’s fine too. We can be nothing, we can be everything.
Sometimes we’re both in a matter of minutes.”
Jace smiled, but part of him felt sad. “Are you homeless?”
“No,” Victor said. “Everything I told you about my mom is true.
She’s always there for me, and I’m always there for her. That’s how it is.
That’s my home, if I need it. But I don’t want to need it.”
Jace thought about this, tried to imagine all of his structures falling
away. Without school, his job, or his family around, he would be left
with the barest essence of his self. Who would that person be? Could he
do it? Could he give it all up, run away into the woods with Victor?
Maybe that would distort who he was, influencing him just like school
and his job did. Maybe a person had to be alone to discover who they
really were. If so, Jace wasn’t interested, because he didn’t want this to
end. He wanted to sit out here with Victor forever. Or at least keep
seeing him every day.
“I don’t suppose you have a phone in that tent of yours,” he said.
“Huh?”
Jace licked his lips, glad for the darkness that hid him. “I like you. I
mean, I like hanging out with you.”
“Are you asking me for my digits?” Victor’s voice held an edge of
amusement.
“Well, yeah.” Jace cleared his throat. “What if I want to shower you
with free burgers and cigarettes and can’t find you? I’m not always at the
gas station, you know.”
The trees swayed above them for a moment.
“Tell me where you live,” Victor said. “It’ll give me somewhere else
to find you.”
“We’re sort of on the edge of town,” Jace said. “It would be a long
walk.”
“You’d be surprised where these legs have taken me.”
“Oh. In that case, it’s probably best if I show you how to get there.”
As they left the line of trees, the fast food restaurant—cars swarming
around it like bees on a hive—almost appeared threatening. Victor was
right. The life they lived was so far divorced from nature as to be almost
absurd. It was understandable why he’d want to disappear into the dark.
He just hoped Victor didn’t disappear completely, or if he did, that he
would take Jace with him.
Chapter Five
Jace’s family lived on the southwest edge of town, which in
Warrensburg wasn’t any great distance. Biking into town was possible,
he and his sister having done so often enough before they learned to
drive. A walk seemed too far, especially in this weather. Jace couldn’t
remember a single Halloween when it hadn’t rained, and this year was no
exception. The sluggish clouds had finally let loose, the slow drizzle
becoming a steady downpour. Victor wouldn’t be walking home in this.
Jace would drive him back into town. Better yet, he had another idea.
“Nice,” Victor said as they cruised past a small lake circled by trees.
“The yard of my house runs right down to that lake.”
“You guys rich?”
“No.” Jace laughed. “It’s not our yard. It just sort of feels that way.
There’s a valley that a bunch of houses are built along. Anyone can go
out back and walk down to the lake. It’s small, but you can fish, and
there are some woods you can hike through.”
They pulled into the subdivision, which was only four or five blocks
linked together. His father always joked that some developer had built
their neighborhood as an escape from the fast-paced life of downtown
Warrensburg.
“This is it,” Jace said, pulling into the driveway. “Uh, what do you
think about crashing here tonight? I could drive you back into town
tomorrow when I go to school.”
“Think your parents will mind?”
“Hopefully they won’t notice.”
Victor leaned forward, considering the house through the windshield.
“Sure. Why not?”
Jace shut off the engine, got out of the car, and led the way inside.
The house was dark and quiet. He thought they would make it to his
room undetected, but the hall light turned on just as they were at the
door. For an older woman, Serena sure had good hearing!
“You look even scarier with the makeup running,” she said before
noticing Victor. “Who’s this?”
Jace made the introductions. Victor seemed comfortable enough,
offering his hand and smiling. “Is it okay if he stays over?”
“It’s a school night,” his mother said. “I thought you were out with
Greg?”
“No. He had plans with his girlfriend.” Jace put on his best “please
please please!” face. “We’ll go straight to bed. I’ll be up even later if I
have to drive him back into town.”
His mother looked reluctant, but in the end she nodded. “Wash that
makeup off your face and then straight to bed!”
This made Jace feel eight years old, but he was too happy to
