Desert Boys Page 3

  “Plus,” he told Kush, “she’s got an ass almost as nice as Jackie’s, and Jackie’s ass has years on Roxanne’s.”

  There were certain moments when Karinger seemed to notice Watts’s attention. Sometimes, while Roxanne worked the lever to unfold her seat, Kush caught Karinger staring at Watts from behind the wheel, as if daring him to leave his eyes in the wrong place for even a second.

  Then there was the time The Police’s “Roxanne” came on the radio. Naturally, everyone looked to the girl in the passenger seat. When the chorus hit, the three boys sang along, laughing as they tried to reach that raspy high note. During the last chorus, Watts—caught up in the fun—put his hands on the shoulders in front of him, leaned in, and sang the girl’s name directly into her ear. They were stalled at a red light. Karinger turned and looked straight at Watts. Kush, meanwhile, homed in on the beautiful new dimple in Karinger’s locked jaw, which he’d never noticed before. For his part, Watts did the only three things he could: He removed his hands from the girl, leaned back in his seat, and looked to Kush for help. The light changed, but Karinger didn’t move. He just kept staring at Watts. In her softest voice, Roxanne told her brother to go. He didn’t move. A driver behind them honked his horn. It took another “go” from his sister before Karinger turned and put the accelerator, finally, to use.

  Kush was still thinking of that dimple when he took a seat in his favorite class, Intro to Literary Criticism. Dealing with “advanced” students as she was, Ms. DeGroff felt free to curse in her lectures, speak openly about sexuality in the books she assigned, and grade essays with the bluntness of a loved one. In other words, she treated her students as if they were already in college. Although a few hypersensitive kids had filed complaints over the years, none of them dealt Ms. DeGroff a real consequence. Most students, she’d found, preferred being treated like adults.

  So it was in this state of mind that Ms. DeGroff made what turned out to be—in Kush’s mind, at least—her famous remark. In the course of discussing “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” in response to a student who deemed the defiant Bartleby a “jerk,” Ms. DeGroff told the class that sometimes, the world could use more Bartlebys. “Soon,” she said, “some of you will be asked to fight this illegal war, for example.” And God, she went on, would she be proud of any of them who said to the administration, “I would prefer not to.”

  The aside took fewer than twenty seconds of the class. But as soon as Ms. DeGroff said it, Kush and the other students looked around at each other with despair. Ms. DeGroff must have known the trouble she’d just put herself in, because immediately upon saying it, she cleared her throat and changed the topic.

  One of the students must have passed the news on to his or her mother; a petition began. Facing the possibility of another visit from Peter Thorpe and his cameraman, the school’s principal suspended Ms. DeGroff.

  But her removal couldn’t erase from Kush’s mind the perceived lesson, the idea that pride, in certain cases, wasn’t reserved for those who went along with the plan. Kush started checking out certain books at the library and reading political articles on the internet. He attended an empty Sunday morning screening of Fahrenheit 9/11. He read as much Orwell as he could get his hands on, searching always for contemporary analogies. He began scoffing internally at the yellow ribbon-shaped magnets adorning every fender in town. Seeing Berkeley come up in so many of the articles, he started to dream of going to school there. He felt as though he’d been born in the wrong era, that he should have been alive in the 1960s and ’70s, and listened to nothing but sad music from that time—Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and Jackson Browne. For a kid who wanted to travel back in time, going to Berkeley for college seemed to be the best option. He had some time to apply. Until then, all he had were Karinger and Watts, so he expressed his opinions only in his personal journal, safe for the future, and kept his mouth shut around his friends.

  Which is why—even though he’d grown tired of the sport a while ago, he’d begun to see it as a fetishization of war—when Watts asked him for another game of paintball in the desert, Kush agreed. Again they rode their bikes, just the two of them. On the ride out they didn’t speak, and the only sounds came from the gravel squirming under their tires. As they approached their spot in the desert, Kush and Watts realized they’d already played their last game.

  All around them in the dirt were the chevron tracks of farm equipment. The trenches had been filled. The walls had been leveled. The plaid sofa, the mirror, the piles of tire shreds—all of it had been hauled off. In fact, the only evidence of its being the right place at all was the polychromatic paint freckling some of the Joshua trees. At the side of the road, a newly embedded realty sign swung in the wind.

  “Well,” said Watts, turning his bike about-face. “Paintball had to end sometime.”

  It was what had to be said, but Kush hated to hear it. He understood the end of paintball to be the evaporation of the final strings of glue holding him and his friends together. He said, “I have to get out of this place.”

  Without aiming his gun, he took a quick shot at the realty sign.

  * * *

  Lloyd asked me to swing by the bookstore, said he had a gift. When I arrived, he hugged me and told me to stay put. Then he trotted off to the back of the store, out of sight. When he returned, he was wheeling behind him a purple carry-on bag. “I’m taking you up on your offer,” he said, beaming.

  “I never offered to travel with you,” I said, honestly confused.

  Lloyd laughed. “No, stupid. It’s my novel. I printed out a copy for you.”

  “Oh,” I said, taking another look at the carry-on. “Oh my.”

  “Printing it cost me, like, forty-five dollars.” Of this he seemed proud.

  “Well, thanks,” I said, and took hold of the retractable handle. I wondered if he expected me to pay him back.

  “Don’t worry about line-edits,” he said as I was leaving. “Just give me your gut reaction on the big-picture level.”

  When I got home, I opened the bag and pried apart the manuscript to the last page, to see the page number—1423. I closed the manuscript, zipped the bag, and wheeled the luggage to the corner of my apartment, next to the DustBuster.

  Not too long ago, I would’ve left the damn thing in the corner and rolled my eyes every time I happened to look over at it. In college I’d been surrounded by rich, comfortable kids who called themselves writers, and the prospect of getting into a relationship with the most flamboyant member of that self-assured bunch would’ve made me puke. But now I looked at that purple carry-on luggage, imagined the box of pages inside, and felt something like admiration. Someone else might’ve seen a carry-on with torn fabric and muddy wheels. But I looked at that bag in the corner and saw a man’s secrets—his ideas, his grievances, his memories, and his fantasies. I looked at that bag and fell a little bit in love.

  * * *

  Because of that “substantial pay increase” Karinger kept referring to about the marines, he and Jackie finalized arrangements for a small wedding to be held at the Connolly farm in April of senior year. Kush and Watts shared the title of best men.

  Karinger’s mother helped with the preparations. In the lawn between the house and barn, she carried two fistfuls of poppies, which she’d picked in the fields northwest of town. “I know, I know—I’m a criminal,” she said, placing the orange state flowers here and there around the makeshift altar. The pine panels of the stable—the heads of two horses peering over—provided the backdrop.

  A bald priest with an old man’s sense of humor had come out to the barn. At one point, he turned to the horses behind him and said, “If you object, say neigh.” The children and the parents encouraged him; the wedding parties rolled their eyes.

  Beer and champagne were served to the adults—a label extended for the day to include the newlyweds—and soda and juice had been provided for the rest. Kush held a can of Coke at the serving table, and found himself in a conversation with
Linda Karinger and the priest. The bride and groom were off chatting with the father of the bride, along with the aunts and uncles. Children alternately chased each other in the grass and petted the noses of the horses. Kush couldn’t spot Watts.

  The priest asked if Kush aimed to join the marines, too.

  “Oh,” said Kush, thinking of the antiwar articles he could recite. “No, not me.”

  “This one is on his way to college,” said Linda lovingly.

  “A word of advice,” said the priest. “Universities are good for the mind, but don’t let them train you to neglect God.”

  Kush put down his Coke and said he had to use the restroom. Could they point him in the right direction?

  Kush admired the land and the horses, but the house itself was relatively small and unspectacular. Quickly he found the hallway to the left, following his directions. Counting one, two, three doors on the right, he grabbed the doorknob.

  “Occupied,” came a voice—the unmistakable, drowsy voice of his friend Watts.

  “It is I,” Kush said.

  Then came a moment of silence.

  “Might be in here for a while,” Watts said.

  “Take your time,” Kush said. “I don’t really have to use it. I’m just trying to get away from that priest for a bit.”

  Another pause. This one lasted longer than the first. Kush would have to be the one to break the silence this time. With his fingertips he drummed on the door. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Shit,” said Watts, as if he’d just made a decision. “You have to promise me something. You promise?”

  “What am I promising?”

  “You have to promise not to mention what you’re about to see. Ever.”

  “Did you have an accident?” Kush said, laughing.

  “Will you just promise?”

  “Sure,” Kush said. “I promise, I promise, I promise.”

  The door shot open, hitting Kush in the shoulder. Out rushed Roxanne Karinger, fixing her dress on her way down the hall. Watts stayed in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet in his suit, buckling his belt. “Promise me again.”

  * * *

  Two hundred pages into his novel, I recognized a story I’d told Lloyd at the bar. Three teenaged boys (minor characters all of them, recently added to the book) sit on the hood of a car, talking. They’re parked at the beach (not the desert), but the conversation is, more or less, one I’d had with Karinger and Watts almost six years earlier.

  The boy heading to the military tells the other two he doesn’t want to have a kid until after the wars are over. The boys have just graduated high school, and they’re still wearing their caps and gowns. Their thighs are pressed together on the car while they pass around a bottle of whiskey one of them has stolen from his parents’ liquor cabinet. The military kid doesn’t want to get killed—or worse—thus forcing his child to make up stories about him. He confesses that he himself has been making up stories about his own father—Willem—for years, namely that he saw combat. He hadn’t. In fact, Willem had been struck with testicular cancer, and remained Stateside for the entirety of Desert Storm. A few years later, Willem left his wife and kids, and was living, monotesticularly, someplace in Bakersfield.

  I called Lloyd and told him to cut the scene. I didn’t care if the novel never got published, if I was the only person in the world who’d make it to page 212 to see it. I wanted Karinger’s story—and his father’s—out of the book.

  “I’ll cut it, sure,” Lloyd said. “But, you know I didn’t mean to offend you. This is how the world works. People are just amalgamations of stories. When one person becomes close to another, all those combined stories merge and create new stories. It’s not appropriating so much as evolving. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Just, cut it. Please.”

  And he did. But seeing Karinger’s story in print—even though the pages were only in a Kinko’s box—made falling asleep impossible. I kept rereading Karinger’s fear, how he didn’t want his kid to grow up without a real story of his dad.

  I’d already told Jackie I’d be at the baptism. But I imagined holding that baby, knowing that in my arms I’d be carrying nothing short of the incarnation of my friend’s biggest fear.

  So I sent the following note:

  Dear Jackie,

  You know I’ve always been one dramatic motherfucker. I’m sorry. I just need you to tell me if Karinger would have wanted me there. Please, please be truthful.

  Thanks,

  Kush

  * * *

  Being the only married couple on campus brought the newlyweds some notoriety. At lunch, girls approached and asked Jackie to show off her ring. One, clearly a freshman, apologized for interrupting, but she had to know, swiping at her black bangs, what did it feel like to be in love?

  The new, shared living arrangement, combined with the newfound attention at school, made it difficult for Kush to spend any time alone with Karinger. Karinger didn’t even drive his friends to school anymore. Watts started driving his dad’s small pickup to school, and Kush started riding with him.

  Roxanne Karinger found her own carpool to join, but every now and then, in a moment of crisis, she’d jog up to the truck in the parking lot after school let out and ask Watts for a last-minute lift home. She’d sit between Watts and Kush, keeping her hands between her knees to take up as little room as possible. Kush dreaded these days for the awkward quiet she brought on. Thankfully, graduation was approaching, and the opportunities for this particular brand of discomfort were quickly fading.

  On a Friday morning early in May, Watts called Kush to let him know he’d woken up with something nasty—not really, but in case anyone asked—and he’d be staying home. Kush resolved to take his bike like the old days. When school let out, he worked at the lock on his bike near the parking lot. He was adjusting his helmet when he heard Roxanne’s voice call his name.

  “Where’s Watts?” she said.

  “Home sick.”

  “Homesick?”

  “Home, sick.”

  She made the descending hum of disappointment. “I was hoping he’d give me a ride home. My friend bailed on me.”

  “I can sympathize,” Kush said. “Here. Why don’t you take my bike? I’ll pick it up next week when your brother’s around.”

  “No, it’s all right. I’ll just walk.”

  Kush debated saying it, but did: “It’s a long walk. I’ll go with you.”

  Roxanne moved her hair from one shoulder to the other. Her brother had been training—lifting weights and running miles every morning—and had bulked up. Roxanne, with her hair pulled to one side, exposing the thin line of her clavicle, looked like a younger, long-lost version of him. “You don’t have to,” she said.

  “A long walk with a friend is better than a short bike ride alone,” he said.

  “You’re strange,” she said, not unkindly. She started walking. Kush, bike at his side, jogged a bit to catch up.

  Their dynamic changed now that they were alone, now that they were on foot instead of in a car. Talking was easier at this slower pace, in this open environment. Kush guided the bike next to him and thought about how little he knew of Roxanne, despite having watched her, basically, grow up. He told her so.

  “I’m a shy person, I guess,” she said. “I don’t know. I don’t like people who talk about themselves.”

  “Fair enough,” said Kush. “Let’s talk about other people.”

  “Ha,” she said.

  He wanted to ask about Watts, about whether or not their rendezvous at the wedding was a one-time thing. Instead he asked how she felt about Jackie Connolly.

  “Jackie is my sister now,” she said. “I love her.” After a pause: “I know you don’t.”

  Kush offered a self-conscious laugh. “What makes you say that?”

  “My brother knows you hate her. You told Watts you hate her. Something about throwing her red headband at her ass?”

  Kush felt his grip tighten around t
he bike handles. “I said ‘face,’ not ‘ass.’ Watts was the one talking about her ass. Damnit. He promised he wouldn’t tell.”

  “You should get to know her,” Roxanne said. “She’s actually pretty amazing. She’s teaching me to ride horses this summer.”

  “I’m not interested in getting to know Jackie better.”

  “Because you’re jealous of her?”

  Kush felt his throat and stomach compromise to meet halfway. “Jealous?”

  “Look,” Roxanne said. “I’ve known you since I was nine, Daley Kushner. Robert and Dan and Jackie can’t say that, can they? In some ways, I know you better than they do.”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Kush said. He could feel tears welling in his throat, and how he was holding them back, he couldn’t say.

  “Don’t worry,” Roxanne said. “I’d never tell anyone. Not even if you ratted on Watts and me. But you still shouldn’t. Because my brother would kill him. No joke.”

  Kush wanted to thank Roxanne, but doing so would prove she was right about him. Instead he said, “Why should I care if Karinger kills Watts?”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” she said, gently kicking the bike’s front tire. “You guys can get over a fight. What you can’t get over is a death.”

  And so Kush kept Watts and Roxanne’s secret, all the way through graduation. Karinger, Kush, and Watts donned caps and gowns, walked across a makeshift stage, and shook hands with administrators and teachers they would never see again. Their mothers aimed cameras at them from different angles. In most of the pictures, Jackie (Connolly) Karinger squatted in front of the three boys. Kush, an honor student, was the only one draped in gold. The others wore blue.

  Later that night, while most of their peers found their way to house parties across town, and while Jackie went home to the farm, the three boys ransacked their parents’ liquor cabinets and headed to the desert.

  The winds had eased up and the night air held on to the heat of the day, so the boys tore off their T-shirts and sat on the hood of the Mustang in nothing but shorts, flip-flops, and graduation caps. Karinger sat flanked by his friends. They passed between themselves a glass bottle of whiskey, which threw golden shapes of moonlight over their thighs. The desert appeared orange here and there in the headlights of the car.