The Boy Who Understood
by Biff Spork
Chapter 2
Prairie Oysters and A Forest God
River Jameson was determined that he was not going to be gay, but he worried about it. It was Sunday morning, and he lay in bed feeling himself while he mentally thumbed through images of boys he had seen in the school shower room the previous week. He tried to understand why he couldn't help looking at their bodies. He didn't want to look; he had to look. He shook his head.
One of those boys in particular, David McAdam, stirred his memory. There was no reason he should seem so attractive. His black hair and green eyes made him stand out, but he wasn't pretty like a girl — a scatter of freckles across his cheeks seemed like a badge of boyhood. Yet River had overheard him once talking about being vegan. That was gay, definitely, and stupid. It didn't make any sense. Real boys ate meat and dreamed about doing things to girls. It was all part of the same package, part of being a man.
River couldn't understand what compelled him to look at David, why that boy was so interesting. It was like he went into a trance when he stole glances at David changing in the locker room. Other times, it was like he entered a time warp where everything slowed down as his gaze flicked from place to place on David's body. He thought if he could find a bad part, like a bent toe or a hairy mole, some little ugliness, he would be free, but he never found anything that wasn't perfect, and if he looked for more than two seconds, his body began to betray his interest. He had to turn away then and dress quickly, before anyone noticed his bulging underwear.
He shook his head hard and reached under the mattress to retrieve a stained copy of Hustler magazine. He opened it to its most revealing female nude and glared at the photo while he stroked himself. After he had cleaned up, he went downstairs to the kitchen. Since it was Sunday morning, he could have stayed in bed, but he was awake and felt restless.
The kitchen was empty. River's two eldest brothers, twins Ricky and Nicky, wouldn't be down until noon at the earliest, and it would be best to stay out of their way then. They were always hung over on Sunday mornings. His other brother, Aaron, had still been fast asleep when River left their shared bedroom. Their father was already over at the pig shed supervising the hired help. Weekends meant nothing to him or the thousands of pigs he was raising for slaughter. River laid a half dozen strips of bacon in a frying pan and drank a glass of orange juice while they sizzled.
On the previous evening, his father had been angry about Aaron's speeding ticket. Aaron's story about a flock of birds attacking him irritated him even more. "You mean to tell me you got a speeding ticket because you were afraid of some goddam little birds?"
"There was hundreds of them," protested Aaron, "dive-bombing me!" Peck marks on his face bore witness to the truth of his tale.
"You think money grows on trees? The bank's already leaning on me, and now I'm supposed to dig up another five hundred bucks to pay that fine because you felt like driving too fast." As he marched out of the room, he grunted, "What a pile of shit!" He left them unsure whether he was referring to the bird story, or Aaron, or everything in general. He had soured since the death of his wife three years earlier.
River pushed the bacon aside and scrambled two eggs. He scraped it all onto a plate and added squirts of ketchup and slices of buttered toast. He washed that down with a glass of cold milk, burped with satisfaction, loaded his dishes into the dishwasher, and decided to ride over to Derek's place. Derek usually had something happening, and if not, there was always Jeremy, Derek's younger brother. He might be hanging around. He might need to be tickled.
As River pedaled his bike past the lane that led to the pig shed, he heard the squealing of piglets that told him his father and the hired hands, Evan and Willie, were still castrating. They'd be at it for a couple more days. River felt his testes tighten up in his crotch at the thought of what the piglets were experiencing. He could have earned some pocket money by helping, but it made him feel bad to do it.
He remembered the process. Grab a piglet by the hind legs, hold it upside down between your knees, and slice the nut-sack twice. Then pull one nut out, cut the white cord first, then pull it out a bit further, give it a few twists, cut the blood vessel and toss the testicle into the bucket. Do the other nut and then drop the piglet and grab another.
It was hard work, but he didn't mind the labor. He was big for a fifteen-year-old and strong. What haunted his memory was the screaming. Tail-docking wasn't so bad. The piglets only shrieked a few times when he snipped their tails, but when he castrated them, they seemed to understand they'd lost something important, and their screams were filled with rage and sorrow. His father had advised him to kick the piglets after he'd cut them. He said, "They don't make so much noise if you give them a good boot when you put them down."
River knew they'd be having deep-fried pig testicles for supper that night. His father called them 'prairie oysters.' He stood up on the pedals, increased his speed, and took a deep breath. The summer morning air was sweet with the scent of lilacs his mother had planted along the driveway. He was thankful that the breeze was not coming from the big, square lagoon that held the waste products from the pig shed.
"You be careful up there," said Pete, as David got onto his bike. The deputy had recalled Aaron Jameson's tale a couple of times since he'd heard it. He wanted to dismiss it as no more than an unusual natural event, but it had left him uneasy. It might have been natural, but there was something disturbing about it. If the story was true, those birds were acting strangely. If it wasn't true, then what really did happen? And here was his ornery son heading up that mountain again. "Skedaddle outta there if you see anything weird," Pete added.
"Okay," said David, as he pedaled away from the garage
"You got your phone?" called Pete to the boy's back.
David raised one hand in a thumbs up gesture as he rode away.
Pete continued working on his current Sunday morning household project. He was replacing worn steps at the front entrance of the house. He could have used a hand with this. David often worked with Doreen when she was cooking or cleaning, and if Pete asked the boy for help with household chores, David always assisted without complaining, but Pete wished he didn't have to ask.
After an hour's pedaling along the highway and another hour's climb up the logging road, David locked his bike to a tree in the forest. He hoped he would see the mysterious boy again, but this time he wouldn't let his fear make him run away. If the boy was there, he planned to walk right up and introduce himself. He made his way to the stream where he had undressed the previous day. Because he felt unsure about what he might encounter, he decided not to remove his clothes. David worried that the mystery boy might not be alone, and he felt shy. He followed the stream until he found a place where he could cross by jumping from rock to rock. On the far side, he walked in the direction of the glade.
The anticipation of meeting the forest boy had excited David, but walking among the ancient trees calmed him. He stopped and leaned against the trunk of a giant maple. He felt good there, though it wasn't as intimate an experience as the previous day. This day, he had no sense of being watched. He tensed up when he crept to his juneberry bush hiding place.
The clearing was empty. David examined the ground where the boy had lain, but there was no sign that anyone had ever been there. He sat down, disappointed that the boy was gone without a trace. In the bright sunshine, fuzzy, black and yellow bumblebees buzzed over clumps of small, pink flowers. A finger-long skink slithered out from behind a boulder.
David smiled at the bumblebees. Their chubby, striped bodies and stubby wings helicoptered from flower to flower, and he remembered an article he'd read about a scientist who had proved that bumblebees could not fly. The relationship between their body-size and their wing-size made it impossible.
David tried to open his mind to see if he could recapture the strange feeling from the day before. He tried to sense if anyone was aware of him, or watching him. There was nothing. Aside from the snaky skink and the bumblebees bouncing around in the sunlight, he felt alone.
He stood up, careful not to disturb the little skink, and made a slow circuit of the glade. He looked for clues that might lead him to the boy or confirm that the boy had been there and hadn't been a product of his imagination. He found nothing unusual, so he shouldered his backpack and decided to extend his search beyond the clearing.
On a rocky ridge high above the valley, David sat to eat the lunch he'd packed. Much of the park lay spread out before him. He looked in vain for a curl of smoke from a campfire or a bit of color outside the range of normal forest hues. There was no hint of any other person.
He enjoyed the avocado sandwiches he'd made, but when he was about to open the vegan energy bar he'd brought for dessert, he stopped, then returned the bar to his pack along with an apple and an orange.
An hour later, David was back at the grassy open space where he'd seen the boy. He gathered some loose rocks and small boulders. From these, he built a cairn where the boy had been playing with the fawn. He piled the stones up until he had a waist-high structure. On the flat rock that crowned his creation, he laid the vegan energy bar, the orange, and the apple.
"Offerings to the forest god," he said aloud, and chuckled.
When he left the clearing, he looked back at the cairn he'd made. A starling perched there examining the bar and the fruit. He looked up at David and cocked his head.
"You tell him I'll be back," called David to the starling. "I'll come again next weekend."
The bird continued to eye him. Then he threw his head back and warbled a phrase of such purity and sweetness that David caught his breath. "Wow," he gasped, as the starling flew up and disappeared among the trees.
Derek's mother was busy in the laundry room. "The boys ain't up yet," she rasped. She was a heavy smoker. "It's noon! Go get them up if you can."
River ran upstairs to the boys' bedroom. Derek's bed was empty, and the sound of the shower indicated his location. The boy-shaped lump in Jeremy's bed told him that the younger boy was still drowsing. He sat down on the side of the bed and said, "Your mom told me to get you guys up, so…" With that, he reached under the bedclothes until his hand touched warm flesh. Great, the kid wasn't wearing a pajama top. River ran his fingers over the boy's ribs while he wriggled and groaned.
"River, you get outta here and leave me alone or…" Jeremy murmured in a husky, freshly-awakened voice.
"Or what?" said River. Jeremy was younger and smaller, and posed no challenge.
River reached further under the duvet and felt Jeremy's stomach under his fingertips. God, the kid was so satiny smooth and warm. Nothing in his experience was as smooth as Jeremy's skin. River had no control over his fingers' hunger to touch Jeremy's skin. The boy wriggled away, but River's hand followed. "Time to get up, sleepyhead!" crowed River.
Jeremy pulled himself away and rolled over, leaving River's hand resting on his bottom. River always enjoyed looking at Jeremy's bum and ached to skate his hand over it. In his eyes, it was perfect, the ideal bum, but he knew it wasn't ticklish, and if his hand lingered there, it would be suspicious. He dug both hands into the ultimate tickle spots, Jeremy's tender underarms. Jeremy shouted and squealed. His head appeared for a moment, and he giggled and grinned before disappearing again under the duvet.
"Hey faggots," said Derek, as he emerged from the bathroom. "River, stop molesting my brother, and I'll tell you what we're gonna be doing today."
"Yeah, faggot," said Jeremy from where he was cocooned. "Stop feeling me up and frig off with my douche-bag brother!"
"You know you love it," said River, running his hands over the boy's ribs again. He ducked to avoid the fist that barely missed his head. Then he turned to Derek as his friend pulled a pair of boxers up over dark, curly pubes. River had a fleeting thought. Maybe the fact that he didn't have any pubes yet, not a single hair, was why he wasn't attracted to girls. Maybe when he got hairy, he'd stop noticing boys. He pulled his attention back into the room when he felt Jeremy's hand rest against his back.
"What's up?" he said to Derek.
Jeremy kneed him in the back. River got off the bed and walked over to the window.
"Today," said Derek, "we're taking the first step toward losing our virginity."
"No," said River. "I'm not gonna let you rape one of our pigs."
Jeremy exploded with laughter under his duvet. "Nobody but River gets to rape his pigs!"
Derek ignored them. He said, "I have an appointment to mow the lawns and trim the hedges at the Kelman house."
"April and Aurora Kelman?" River said.
"Yes! The hot Kelman sisters will soon be slobbering over our muscular, male bodies. We can get to know them while we work. I'm giving you the chance to come with me, as my assistant. They have big lawns, front and back, and there's lots of hedge."
For one micro-second, River imagined climbing under the duvet with Jeremy instead. The thought flashed into existence like a strobe light, then disappeared into the void. "Great!" he said, with enthusiasm borrowed from his micro-fantasy.
"As soon as I have some breakfast, we'll go," said Derek.
Jeremy erupted from his bed. "Can I come too?" he begged, while hugging Derek around the waist.
River drank in Jeremy's beauty, trying not to stare openly, and pretending he hadn't any particular interest in the boy dancing around.
"No, no, no," said Derek, manhandling his brother into a hug. "You can't come, little bro."
"Maybe we could get some work out of him," suggested River, hoping they might bring Jeremy along with them. The kid was shameless.
"No," said Derek, in a tone that said it was not a matter for discussion. He looked into his brother's face while he replied to River. "He's way too cute. If we bring him along, the girls are gonna spend all their time fussing over him. They won't even notice us."
"C'mon, Derry," pleaded Jeremy. "I won't be cute."
"You can't help it," said Derek. "It's a curse, I know, but you'll have to learn to live with it. Put some clothes on, and I'll make enough breakfast for you too. Then, while River and I mow, and trim, and dazzle the Kelmans, you can go jerk off with some of your little friends." He released Jeremy and said to River, "I'm gonna let April fall in love with me. While I do that, you can run interference with her nosy sister. Keep Aurora busy, and you might get something out of it."
On Thursday morning, Deputy McAdam again forgot his spy thriller in his desk drawer. When he parked behind the billboard to trap speeders, his mind turned once more to the enigma that was his son.
It wasn't only the food. There was all that other vegan foolishness. A few months after David had stopped eating meat, Pete had noticed something when he was loading the thrift box into their SUV to take to the charity store in the mall. The thrift box often held something the boy had outgrown. Every time Doreen marked David's height on the kitchen door-frame, it seemed he was an inch taller, but this charity box was full of David's clothing, as if he'd emptied his closet. There were a couple of belts, two pairs of shoes, his wool suit, and the backpack he used to carry his schoolbooks. Underneath the pack was a sweater Pete's mother had knitted as a Christmas gift for her grandson. She had knitted it a size too big, so he could wear it for a year or two before he outgrew it.
Pete pulled the sweater out of the box to see if there was a tear, or a stain, or something wrong with it. It was in perfect condition and plenty big enough for the boy. His mother knitted like a pro, as good as a machine. It was a great sweater.
He had felt himself tilting toward anger. When Doreen joined him in the SUV, he asked her, "Why is the thrift box full of David's stuff that isn't even worn out? That new suit fits him okay, and the Christmas sweater my mom knitted for him hasn't got anything wrong with it."
"It's wool," she said. "He won't wear or use anything that comes from an animal."
"Well, why not? We don't have to kill the sheep to get the wool."
"That's what I told him," said Doreen. "He said the wool belongs to the sheep; somebody stole it from the sheep. When the sheep is not growing good wool anymore, it's sent to the slaughterhouse. He looked it up, online, and showed it to me. You know, Pete, he's smart and he's tough, same as his dad."
"Oh, for Christ's sake!" groaned Pete. "And what about that backpack? It's got years of use left in it."
"Leather straps," said Doreen. "Same with the shoes and the belts. All his shoes were leather, and his runners used some kind of glue made from animals. All he's got right now are some plastic flip-flops. We ordered some vegan shoes online. They should be here next week."
"Vegan shoes!" grumbled Pete. "Well, I suppose that means we can eat them when we run out of money buying all this crap."
"Yeah," said Doreen. "They're made out of mushroom leather. Fried up with a little nut butter, I'm sure they'd be quite tasty." She poked him in the ribs as she spoke, and their laughter defused the situation.
"Do you want fries with that?" choked Pete, and that set them off again.
"But look," said Pete, when he had caught his breath, "we can't throw that sweater away. He has to wear it when my mom comes to visit us, or he has to explain to her why she can't use wool for anything she makes for him. It's his decision, so he's the one who has to explain it to her. You know it'll hurt her feelings."
"Maybe," said Doreen. "But you know, as far as she's concerned, he can do no wrong. He's the only grandson she's got and, in her eyes, he's half-way between JFK and Mahatma Gandhi."
"In your eyes, too, I think," said Pete.
"You don't need to be jealous, dummy. But yeah, I love him totally," she said. "He's a good kid, and though he's got some funny ideas, they all come out of that goodness that's inside him. We're lucky, Pete. He's smart and he's kind. And you know, my dear husband, I have a terrible feeling he's right about this animal thing. It's cruel, the way we treat animals. We don't like to think about it, but it's not good."
"Humph!"
"Animals are going extinct, and we've messed up the climate. People need to think about that. David worries about things like that and tries to decide what's right. And then he follows through."
Pete had grunted and pulled out of the driveway. At least that exchange hadn't ended in a fight. He was glad that he and Doreen still loved each other, though it was twenty years since they married. That was something to be proud of.
When the vegan shoes had arrived, and the boy was wearing them, Pete had said, "Hey, they look the same as normal shoes. What's the point? Nobody'll know you're wearing vegan shoes."
David said, "Yeah, but I don't wear vegan shoes for other people."
Derek was a year older than River, so they didn't see much of each other in school. River hung out at lunch and between classes with Jude Bedford. The two boys rode the same school bus. Like River, Jude lived on a factory farm outside of town. Bedford Poultry, his family's farm, produced chickens instead of pigs, but there was no real difference. A similar sense of humor drew the boys together, so they usually sat at the same table in the cafeteria.
At lunch on Thursday, Jude pointed to a nearby table and said, "There's that McAdam kid. You know he's a vegan? Little Mr. Prissy-pants won't touch chicken, or fish, or beef."
"Or bacon!" said River. "Fucking ridiculous! My brother Nicky says, 'If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them outta meat?'"
Jude said, "That's good. I've got to remember that." He leaned over the table. "He's queer, too!"
River said, "You think McAdam's queer? How come?"
"Well, he's vegan. That's a good start. And if he hangs out with anybody, it'll be a bunch of girls, like he's one of the girls. It's not just him and one girl, like he's tryin' to fuck her. It's always a couple of girls, like they're pals or something. And then, just look at him. He's so fuckin' pretty!"
River looked over at David as he dug his spoon into an avocado. David still had the smooth skin of a ten-year-old, and he seemed to glow with health. "Yeah," said River. "You're right. He's way too pretty for a boy." River glanced at Jude's face. Pimples and blackheads vied for space on his greasy forehead.
"He's stuck-up too," said Jude. "Like, if you say something to him, he answers, but that's all. It doesn't go anywhere. It's like he thinks he's too good to talk to us farm boys. Someone needs to bring him down a few notches."
"Yeah," said River.
"I got an idea," whispered Jude.
River bent his head near Jude's and listened as he laid out a plan to help David develop some humility.
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