Chapter Sixteen

All night Trevor felt his father's eyes watching him sleep, trying to infiltrate his dreams and claim them. Bobby's eyes were glazed like pale blue marbles, beginning to cloud over yet still touched with some last spark of awareness, some hellish half-life. Had Bobby been trapped in there, in that body, condemned to the slow secret dissolution of the grave? Or in the bathroom, in the peeling yellow paint and cracked porcelain, imprinted on the hot stale air, woven into the very fabric of time that had stopped there for him?

WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME? he wanted to shriek into that dead face. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? DID YOU THINK MY LIFE WOULD TURN OUT GOOD? OR COULD YOU SEE ALL THE PAIN, AND DID YOU WISH IT ON ME ANYWAY?

He held Zach and tried to lose himself in the warmth of solid living flesh, in the small sleeping sounds and shifts of the other body that already felt familiar next to his. But as he drifted in and out of uneasy sleep, Trevor saw again the form hanging from the shower curtain rod, the rope still turning in tiny aimless circles, stirred by some current or by the tiny movements of Bobby's cooling muscles and nerves.

He had only seen it for a few seconds, and even then it had seemed to shimmer, as if he were viewing it directly with his brain rather than using his eyes. Nonetheless, all the details he had blocked from that long-ago morning had been driven home again. The lividity of the hands and feet, the toes and fingertips ready to burst like purple-black grapes, slow drops of blood oozing out from under the nails. The stark map of veins across the chest and shoulders, clearly visible through the drained skin. The shrunken, defenseless-looking penis nearly hidden in his father's ginger mat of pubic hair.

Suddenly awake, his heart pounding painfully, Trevor clutched Zach tighter. Zach had not seen it. Zach was his talisman, his one thread to any possible life beyond this house. He hadn't questioned Trevor's reasons for being here, hadn't asked to leave even after his experience in the bathroom. He had obviously been terrified when Trevor opened the door. Yet here he was now. Was it because he considered the house some sort of extension of Trevor, and trusted that it would not hurt him?

If that was the case, Trevor reflected, then Zach had more faith in him than anyone else ever had.

Well, anyone since Bobby.

But how do I know it won't hurt you? he thought, pressing his face against the back of Zach's neck in the darkness, tasting salty skin against his lips, feeling velvety hair against his eyelids. How do I even know I won't hurt you? Your flesh feels so good in my mouth, between my fingers, sometimes I just want to keep pulling and tearing and chewing.

He fell back asleep remembering the flavor of Zach's blood on the back of his tongue, imagining Zach's skin splitting beneath his fingers, Zach's heart still beating in his gore-slicked hands.

Then suddenly sunlight was streaming through the dirty panes of the window, trickling into the corners of his eyes. His head ached slightly, felt somehow too heavy on his neck. Trevor arched his back and stretched, then rolled his head on the pillow to look over at Zach.

What he saw made him suck his breath in hard and squeeze his eyes shut tight. Zach was lying on his back, arms splayed out above his head, his face battered but serene, very pale. In the center of his chest, just above the arc of the ribs, was a ragged raw-edged crimson hole. Dark blood had bubbled out of it, streaking his stomach and face, drenching the sheet around him.

Trevor could not make himself look again. Being a true artist means never averting one's eyes, he remembered Crumb writing, though he was pretty sure the quote had originated elsewhere. But he couldn't open his eyes. Instead, he put out a shaky hand and felt his fingers bump up against Zach's shoulder. Slowly he ran his hand over the corrugated rise of the rib cage. The skin was damp, nearly wet, but whether the wetness was sweat or blood Trevor could not tell. He moved his fingers across Zach's chest, exploring it like a blind man, waiting for his fingers to sink into that raw red hole, into that soup of muscle and organ and splintered bone.

It didn't happen. Instead he felt Zach's heart beating strong and steady beneath his hand, Zach stirring and responding to his touch, Zach whole and alive. The relief that flooded through him was as hot as the imagined blood had been, but sweeter.

Zach woke with Trevor's hair drifting across his face, Trevor's warm wet mouth wrapped around his left nipple, Trevor's hand sliding along his thigh and over his hip, gently teasing his already half-erect dick. Thus, he did not immediately recall what had happened in the bathroom. When it did come to him it felt remote and unthreatening, like a half-remembered bad dream.

Trevor slid down and started sucking him, and the last of Zach's low-grade wine hangover dissolved like shreds of a caul and disappeared. Trevor's tongue made his skin ripple and his blood quicken. Trevor was no jaded lover like most of the others he'd had. They knew the same things Zach did: how to satisfy themselves, how to coax universal physiological reactions from whatever body wound up in bed with them. But Trevor was learning how to pleasure him, and Zach was figuring out what Trevor liked, and every time they woke up together they learned it all over again. It made so much difference.

So what changed your mind, Zachary? he heard Eddy's voice asking him, a little sad, a little reproachful. What made you realize you might not turn into a pumpkin if you had sex more than once with somebody you actually gave a damn about?

He didn't know. He could only look back with awe on his life of three days ago, his life that had not contained Trevor Black, and wonder how he had ever lived it. What had the world been to him without these feelings, without this insane, brilliant, beautiful boy? It was difficult to remember.

Now Trevor's hands were pulling at him, that deft tongue probing him relentlessly. As he grew surer of what he was doing, Trevor was proving to be a near-invasive lover, determined to put his fingers into every fold and hollow of Zach's body, to get every available inch of Zach's flesh into his mouth, to bathe in the juices of sex and perhaps drown in them. It was almost painful-but exquisitely so, like a cerulean wave crashing and foaming on a pure white shore, like the relief of the swollen vein as the junkie slides the needle in.

But suddenly Zach caught himself thinking of his image in the bathroom mirror before he had shattered it. The light of fever burning in the eyes, straight through to the brain. The emaciated face. Those lesions. He thought of all the fluids that had passed between him and Trevor, awash with whatever strange chemicals and subtle poisons lurked in their bodies.

Then he put the thought out of his head, as he always did such thoughts.

But this time it was harder.

In the afternoon they sat at the kitchen table together, Trevor drawing while Zach created a bank account in Raleigh just for the hell of it. Then they ventured downtown for dollar plates of eggs and grits at the diner, which served breakfast all day in keeping with the schedules of its clientele.

Afterward, Trevor was buzzed on brutally strong diner coffee, Zach on the healing energy of a meal he could keep down. They wandered up the street and stopped into Potter's Store to let the air-conditioning soothe their sweaty sex-soaked skin.

Zach stopped to play with an old adding machine, lost himself briefly in the sensual texture of keys beneath his fingertips, then looked up and realized he was alone. He found Trevor in the next aisle looking at something called the Sunbeam Hygienic Cordless Toothbrush. The box was decorated in four-pointed starbursts, the bright colors faded. On its side were the disembodied heads of a WASP family, Mom, Dad, Sis, and Junior, all with gleaming grins — hygienic ones, presumably. Where were those facile fifties faces now, Zach wondered, those vapid, innocent icons of post-war advertising, those manufactured American archetypes?

“Whatever happened to those guys? ” he asked aloud.

Trevor looked up from his intense scrutiny of the box art. His eyes were sharp and very clear. “The sixties came along and bashed their little heads in. ”

Zach was still turning that one over and over in his head as they left the store. Trevor hadn't had to think about it at all before he answered: his life had been a study in exactly what had happened to that kind of mythical family.

They continued down Firehouse Street into the rundown section of town, past papered-over windows, boarded-up doors, abandoned cars sagging on their springs. When they reached the Sacred Yew and heard drums and a bass beat coming from the club so early in the day, they stopped in to see what was up. It turned out to be a Gumbo sound check in full swing.

Terry Buckett was onstage with two other guys, a skinny kid with a bowl haircut and Lennon glasses playing bass and a devilish-looking bleached blond on guitar. The blond, Trevor observed, had a tattoo of Mr. Natural on his left biceps and looked as if he'd been born with a Stratocaster in his hands. He was handsome, too, with a sybaritic face and a lanky, muscular build. Trevor caught himself wondering if Zach had noticed. How stupid, he thought, but the thought didn't go away.

The song in progress sounded like a cross between the Cramps and some kind of old surf music. When it ended, Terry got up from behind the drums and crossed the stage to greet them. “I lost my voice! ” he said in a hoarse, dramatic whisper.

“Guess we're playing an instrumental set tonight, ” added the boy with the Lennon specs. “Me and Calvin cain't sing. ”

“Why don't you cancel the show? ” Zach asked.

Terry rolled his eyes ruefully. “Kinsey needs the money real bad. We do too. Trevor, Zach, this here is R. J. He's a nerd, but he's my oldest buddy. And this is Calvin. ”

R. J. said “Hey” and started tuning his bass. He didn't seem especially bothered at being called a nerd. Calvin looked right at Zach and his face split in a delighted, dazzling grin. He looked as if he would like to eat Zach up right there on the spot. “Howdy, ” he said. “You new in town? ”

Zach started to grin right back, but seemed to catch himself. He gave Calvin an uncomfortable half-smile. “Yeah, ” he said. “We both are. ”

“Well, let me know if you need anyone to show you the sights, hear? ” Calvin laid a slight emphasis on the you, which was obviously meant to be singular.

Trevor wanted to drag him off the stage and smash his head like a melon on the sticky floor. Surely he could see that the two of them were together. Could he also see how clueless Trevor was about sex? Could he read some nameless longing in Zach's eyes?

“Uh, thanks, but I think I've already seen the important ones. ” Zach turned to Trevor, put an arm around him. “Come on, ” he urged, “let's see what Kinsey's up to. ”

They walked toward the back of the club, but in Trevor's mind, Calvin had already suffered all the torments of a particularly cruel hell.

Onstage, Calvin watched them walk away, and Terry watched him watching. Those evil eyes devoured Zach from the top of his tangled hair to the soles of his hightop sneakers. He was just Calvin's type, Terry knew: skinny bones and deathsome pallor, but spiced up with a smartass twist to his lips. “You leave him alone, ” Terry warned.

“Who's that with him? ”

“Bobby McGee's kid. ”

Calvin's eyes widened. “Is the urge to kill hereditary? ”

“You never know. I wouldn't fuck with him. Goddamn, my throat hurts. ” Terry grimaced as he picked up his drumsticks. “You wanna run through 'Bad Reaction' again? ”

In the bar, Kinsey greeted Trevor and Zach, then went back to his ledger. Zach ducked behind the bar and helped himself to a National Bohemian and a Coke from the cooler. He tossed the Coke to Trevor, popped open the beer, and dropped three dollars on the bar.

Kinsey looked up at the sound of the drinks opening, glanced from the open beer to Zach's face. “How old are you? ” he asked.

“Uh, nineteen. Why? ”

“You can drink that because we're closed. But during club hours, you don't drink alcohol here. Understand? ”

“Huh? ” Zach's face registered utter shock. “Why? What did I do? ”

“Nothing. You're just too young. I don't know what the drinking age is where you come from, but here it's twenty-one. I could get shut down for serving you. ”

“But—”

“If you want to drink, you can bring in a flask. Don't flash it around, and don't tell anyone I said you could. Those are the rules. ”

“Rules? ”

“Don't they have rules in New York? ”

Zach looked helplessly at Trevor. He ought to say something, Trevor guessed. Zach was evidently so poleaxed by the concept of an enforced legal drinking age that his silver tongue had deserted him. But he never should have told that stupid New York story in the first place; he was about as much a native New Yorker as Trevor was a Hindu from Calcutta. And anyway, he had smiled back at that guitarist. Kinsey could keep him squirming.

But Kinsey relented. “You're in the heart of the Bible Belt, ” he told Zach. “Just be glad you didn't end up in one of the dry counties. ”

Zach shook his head in silent wonder. Kinsey finished adding a column of numbers, unfolded himself from his bar stool, and headed for the back door. Trevor and Zach were left alone in the bar.

“I bet you won't even buy for me, ” said Zach.

“You got that right. ”

“Shit. ”

The sound check was winding down. Zach went off to the rest room, and Terry and R. J. passed him on their way into the bar. They grabbed frosty bottles from the cooler and sprawled in a booth, looking as if they had done all this millions of times. “Where's Calvin? ” Trevor asked, unable to help himself.

Terry pointed down the street, then clutched his throat. “He went to the store to get cigarettes, ” R. J. translated.

Good, let him die of lung cancer. “Is he coming back? ”

Terry looked searchingly at Trevor, then beckoned him over. Trevor slid into the booth beside him, and Terry put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in close to whisper. A few days ago Trevor would have shrunk from the touch out of pure reflex, but now he was able to restrain himself.

“Calvin's all right, ” Terry said. “He thinks he has to flirt with every good-looking kid he sees, but he's all right. Don't let him bother you. ”

“He's not bothering me. ”

“Well, look, if you have to kick his ass, don't break any of his fingers. All the other decent guitarists are out of town. ”

R. J. snorted into his beer. Terry nodded serenely at Trevor. Kinsey came back in carrying a bushel basket of zucchini labeled FREE and set it on the bar. Trevor wondered whether anyone in this town maintained so much as a passing acquaintance with sanity. But he supposed that was the pot calling the kettle black.

Suddenly, from the rest room, they heard Zach's voice raised in song. Apparently he didn't know how flimsy the walls were, or didn't care. All four heads turned as his clear, strong tenor came soaring through the pipes and particleboard:

“OLD MAN RIVVERRRR... HE DON'T LIKE COTTON. . . TIRED O'LIVINNN', SCARED O'ROTTIN'. . . ”

Then they heard the toilet flush, and Zach came back into the bar, saw them all looking at him. “What? ”

“I didn't know you could sing, ” said Trevor.

Zach shrugged, trying and failing to hide his pleasure at being the center of attention. “Cajun blood. You're lucky I don't play the accordion. ”

Trevor winced, and Zach realized that he had just given away an important piece of his background in front of Terry, R. J., and Kinsey. He couldn't tell if the others had caught it, but Kinsey looked surprised, then vaguely pleased, as if Zach had only confirmed a suspicion he'd harbored all along.

Well, Kinsey hardly seemed likely to call the feds on him. Of course Clifford Stoll was an aging hippie too, and he had busted the Chaos Computer Club, a group of German hackers who weren't doing anything but breaking into mickey-mouse American systems and trying rather half-assedly to sell the information to the KGB.

Zach swallowed hard, decided to pretend his slip of the tongue had never happened, and slid into the booth next to R. J. His sneaker found Trevor's under the table and nudged up against it. “I can't really sing, ” he said airily. “I mean, I've never been in a band or anything. ”

“Would you like to? ” rasped Terry.

“Well-” He looked across the table at Trevor, who was drawing patterns in the moisture left by the beer bottles on the tabletop. “I don't know how long I'm going to be in town, ” he said, and Trevor looked up.

“How about just for tonight? ” R. J. asked. “Think you could learn a few songs that fast? ”

“Sure, if you wrote the words out for me and let me look at them for a few minutes. ”

“Just a few minutes? ”

“Well, then I could rehearse with you and really learn the songs. But I can memorize the words real fast. ”

“Cool. ” R. J. and Terry nodded at each other. “So you wanna do it? ”

“What kind of music is it mostly? ”

“It's Gumbo, ” said R. J. “A little of this, a little of that, and a whole lot of good. ”

“Uh-” Zach looked again at Trevor, who just shrugged and looked away with a small smile. Probably he thought the whole thing was pretty silly, maybe even stupid. Zach knew that fronting a locally popular rock band, even for a single night in a club way off the beaten track, might not be the smartest course of action for a wanted fugitive. But he couldn't help it: the idea of clutching a microphone, dressed all in black, getting to slink and snarl around the stage for an hour or two in front of his new lover and a big crowd of hipster freaks had already seduced him.

“Yeah, ” he said. “I want to do it. ”

The bar phone rang. Kinsey looked up from his account books to answer it, spoke for a moment, then put the receiver down on the bar. “Trevor? It's for you. ”

Trevor got up from the booth frowning. No one knew he was here. “Who is it? ” he asked, but Kinsey just shook his head. Trevor picked up the receiver. “Hello. ”

“Hi, Trevor? This is Steve Bissette from Taboo. ”

“Uh, hi. ” Taboo was his favorite comics anthology, the one he had meant to submit the Bird story to. Stephen Bissette, a very tasty writer and artist himself, was also its editor/publisher. Trevor had no idea how he could have gotten the Sacred Yew's phone number, or why he would have wanted it.

“Listen, thanks for sending me 'Incident in Birdland. ' I think it's a really twisted story and I like your artwork a lot. ”

“Thank you, ” Trevor said dazedly. He had never drawn a story called “Incident in Birdland, ” and to the best of his memory had never yet sent anything to Taboo. He'd thought of calling the Bird story “Incident in Jackson, ” but had discarded that name as too boring, and hadn't titled it at all before it got shredded.

“I really love the ending, where the zombie musicians crucify the sheriffs and burn 'em. I have to admit I didn't see that coming. ”

“Thanks, ” Trevor said again. He glanced over at the booth. Calvin had come back and was leaning against the table peeling the cellophane off his Marlboros with elaborate casualness, but Zach was looking at Trevor. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Anyway, ” said Bissette, “I'd like to buy the story. I just wanted to make sure I should still send your contract and check to this address. ”

“Could you read it back to me? ”

He heard papers rustling. “Rural Box 17, Violin Road. . . ”

“No. Send it care of the Sacred Yew. ” Trevor read the address off a past-due water bill on the bartop.

“Great. And listen, I'd like to see more of your work. But don't send your originals by surface mail next time, okay? It's not reliable. Send me copies or FedEx. Or fax 'em if you want. I can give you the number. ”

“That's okay. I'll send copies. ”

They said good-bye, and Trevor hung up feeling as if he'd just smoked two or three of Zach's joints all by himself: dizzy, slightly elated, and disoriented as hell.

He went back to the table and leaned over to speak in Zach's ear. “Can I talk to you for a minute? ”

They walked out through the silent gloom of the club, past the softly gleaming graffiti that said WE ARE NOT AFRAID. Trevor wished it were true. The sun was high in the sky overhead, but the sidewalk shimmered with the heat of the day. The sky was the color of bleached denim, heavy with unshed rain.

Trevor recounted the surreal conversation. Zach's eyes grew larger behind his glasses, and he leaned against the building shaking his head. “This just gets more and more fucked up. ”

“Did you see the pieces of the story after that morning? ”

“I thought you picked them up and threw them away. ”

“I thought you did. ”

They stared at each other, confusion and fear writ large on their faces. At last Zach said, “Are you sure you want to stay there? ”

“No. But I have to. ”

Zach nodded. Trevor watched him for a moment, then asked quietly, “Are you sure you want to? ”

“No. ”

“Are you going to leave? ”

“No. Not now. ” Zach took Trevor's hands between his own. “But, Trevor, you know I might have to leave. And if I do, I won't get much warning. ”

“I know. But I've got to stay, at least until I find out. . . ”

“What? ”

“The reason why I'm alive. ”

“Trev. . . ” Zach slid his hands up to Trevor's shoulders, put his arms around Trevor's neck. “What if there is no reason? What if he was just crazy? ”

“Then I have to know that. ”

They stood on the sidewalk embracing in the hot afternoon. Zach's body felt like a comforting old friend in Trevor's arms by now. His tension ebbed a little. “So are you going to sing with the band? ” he asked.

“Yeah. Terry's writing out some lyrics for me. You mind hanging out while I practice with them? ”

“I guess not. What do you think of Calvin? ”

“I don't know. I haven't said ten words to him. He's okay, I suppose. ”

“I hate him. ”

Zach looked up, surprised, and saw that Trevor meant it. “How come? ”

“Because of how he looked at you. ”

Zach laughed, then stopped when he saw Trevor's face. “Don't be stupid, ” he said. “I'm with you. Understand? I'm crazy about you, Trevor. You have zero competition. ”

“And because of how you looked at him. ”

“Goddammit! ” Zach grabbed handfuls of Trevor's T-shirt, pushed his face up close to Trevor's. “Your house attacked me last night. It locked me in the bathroom and made me watch myself dying in the mirror. I don't know what else it would have done if you hadn't come in. Now, if you were just a meaningless fuck to me, do you really think I'd still be here? ”

“I don't know! How should I know what you're going to do? ” Trevor seized Zach's wrists, pulled Zach's hands off his shirt. “I've never been in love with anyone before! Remember? ”

“Neither have I! ”

Their eyes locked and held. They stood gripping one another's arms, breathing hard, neither giving an inch.

This isn't just about having someone to wake up next to, Trevor realized. It's about trusting someone else not to hurt you, even if you're sure they will. It's about being trustworthy, and not leaving when it gets weird. Zach's eyes were very wide, intensely green, his face paler than ever. Even his lips had gone pale, but for the vivid streak of his healing scar. He looked mad as hell. He was so beautiful.

Trevor realized that he was no longer staring Zach down, but studying him, working to commit his face to memory. At the same time Zach's anger seemed to dissolve as quickly as it had come. A wide, goofy grin replaced it. “Hey! ”

“What? ”

“You sold a story to Taboo! That's great! ”

“Yeah, ” said Trevor. “But I wonder what name I sold it under. ”