I DON’T KNOW WHY I keep coming back here.
Geshig is a reservation town situated on a major highway about fifteen miles from Half Lake. The population sign reads 667, one digit from freaking out the superstitious and religious.
That’s a common thing in Geshig. There are five churches, after all, including an Ojibwe-Christian fusion chapel that started as a Masonic brotherhood. The whites, the reds, the boxes for “other,” and any remaining groups: all are superstitious here.
I drive in from Half Lake, where I live and work as a payroll clerk for a dental office. Sometimes I drive around town at one a.m. but during the daytime I shop at the local grocery store. I pay more money than if I were to just shop at the Walmart in Half Lake but I like the meat from here better. And if my money can help this little town’s economy, I guess that’s good.
When I come during the day, the parking lot is more than half filled with cars. Not all are local. I can tell just by looking at the paint jobs. If there’s no rust, or if it has a full grille on the front, or has never been broken into, then it probably doesn’t belong to Geshig. The closest reputable car dealership is thirty miles away, and on the high side of budgets that this town can’t support except for some of the only good-paying jobs with the reservation.
On the Friday when I cash my check at the grocery store and buy a few small bags of food, there is a woman and her daughter sitting on the sidewalk out front. It’s a hot day in early June but they don’t appear bothered by the heat. They have a cardboard box with five puppies and a bowl of water inside. Three are brown with white underbellies and legs. Two are black and gray. All are staring up and out of the box, yipping for attention. No more than two months old.
On the side of the box in thick black marker is the word Free.
“You want one?” the woman says. She’s a lithe Ojibwe woman with a bubbly olive face and long, swamp-tea hair. Her daughter is focused only on another pup, in her lap with a collar on. It’s brindled, but with a white underbelly and piercing blue eyes.
“Oh I don’t know . . .” I mumble, though I know instantly that I want one.
“Can’t argue with free,” she says. “You got a cigarette?”
“I don’t.” I walk away from them and then, without thinking, I turn back. “What kind do you smoke?”
“Marlboro Lights.”
“Okay.”
I buy a pack of cigarettes for the woman. “This for the brindle.”
She lets out a surprised, satisfied laugh. “Damn, deal, guy!” There was no hesitation.
I pick up the other brindle from the box and get a good look. Male. Not shy. He licks my face as soon as he can and doesn’t stop until I pull him away. The little girl is sad to see him go.
“I’m Marion. What’s your name?”
She has the same face as her mother, except with a wider smile, with big, bright teeth. “Ma’iinganikwezens! Mommy calls me Maya.”
Ma’iinganikwezens. Wolf Girl. I smile. “That’s a great name. And how about you?”
“Gerly.”
“Gertie?”
“Gerly. Short for Gertrude.” She blows her first puff of smoke to her right, as if that will protect her daughter’s lungs. “Pokegama. I know. White-lady name. I always hated it.”
The name seems familiar to me, but I don’t think I recognize her face. “I know how you feel. ‘Marion’ got made fun of a lot growing up. Also didn’t help that ‘Lafournier’ was easily made into ‘La-Four-Eyes.’”
Gerly shakes my hand. “Good luck with the pup. He’s a rezdog.”
I have a name picked out for the dog before I leave the city limits. Basil. Because the herb was on sale in the store, two for one, but I only needed one. Now I have the other.
THE LIGHT ON THE message screen pings. The profile is blank but in a small town that could mean many things. Discretion. Shame. Desperation. The need for relief in a failing marriage. This man on the other end doesn’t say much about what he wants. He won’t even send a face pic and he doesn’t want to see mine. I’m not closeted; I used to have my face showing but men wouldn’t reply when they saw my Indian skin.
After hearing a brief description of my body, the only thing he will agree to is meeting at a dark place in the middle of the night. To most men this is probably a red flag.
Basil is sleeping in his pen near my TV and has food and water. He’ll be okay for the next hour or two.
Right at the south end of Geshig, there is a rest area near a small park and a few acres of marshland. Until a few years ago, the park was an aging, dangerous structure filled with slivers, metal bars, and, according to some rumors, dried blood where children were either murdered or simply scraped their skin. Now it’s a plastic pastel paradise with padded corners and a soft mulch ground instead of the pebbles that were once the endless ammo for rock fights. But most kids still prefer the elementary school park because of how much bigger it is.
The parking lot is well lit from the streetlights, and the new playground catches enough of it to discourage post-curfew children or drug deals.
Far behind the rest area building, away from the light pollution and near the cattails is where I meet him. As soon as I see his silhouette approach from another far end of the area, I begin my typical bout of last-minute nervousness and convince myself that he is a murderer. He is coming here to strangle me and throw me into the marsh. My body will not rot and future generations will study my mud-mummified corpse during their wetlands section of general science. That will be my reward for anonymous sex.
He sits next to me in the grass. “Hi.” We sit there for a few moments before he reaches over to me. I expect his hand to land right at my groin, but instead he touches my stomach. His hand traces my sternum up to my shirt collar and then brushes over my neck and chin. For a long time, he touches the stubble on my face and says nothing. Then he moves back to my chest, lifting up my shirt and running each finger through the short tangles.
He removes my shirt and with both hands begins to squeeze my pecs, softly at first and then harder. I haven’t experienced this before. Is this how a woman feels?
His hands dig into my skin. I let out a squeal and he stops. “Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean to . . .”
Even in a quiet whisper in the night, I recognize his voice. I smile and bring his hands back to me. “Don’t worry. I liked it.”
He lets out a breath that sounds like a smile and begins grabbing me again. “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
“I wanna see you first.”
The outline of his head looks over to the parking lot before standing up. He caresses my hand and leads me toward the back of the rest area.
I see his face before he sees mine.
The moment Shannon recognizes who he’s been groping in the dark, he pulls his hand away and runs back to the shadows of the grass.
“I knew I shouldn’t have done this. I’m so fucking stupid!” His whispers are full of anger, almost enough to scare me. I follow him and repeat “Calm down” until he sits back on the grass and puts his head in his hands.
“Good to see you?” I pull my shirt back on and zip up my jeans.
“I shouldn’t be here . . .”
“But you are here.” I scoot closer a few inches. “Might as well make the best of it.”
“Sorry. I don’t think I can.”
I laugh. “How were you having a better time feeling up a guy you didn’t know?”
“You won’t get it.”
“I won’t ask you to keep going but you had a need. You’re here. I’m here. It’s up to you.”
“Do you have anything to drink? Whiskey? Beer?”
“At a rest area in the middle of the night? No, I don’t. I have weed in my car though.”
“No, I don’t smoke. Can we go back to your place?”
It’s a nice surprise to hear those words. Usually the men who meet in the dark would never want to have any contact outside of the shadows.
“If you want.”
He lets out a loud sigh and falls back on the grass. “Or maybe we could go for a walk first?”
“I guess it’s as good a time as any. Where to?”
Shannon Harstad was voted king at our junior prom. The theme was Fairy Tales and he danced with the queen, Leah Littlebear. I was working the concession stand, not actually part of the fun. Shannon’s own participation was reluctant. He was never the spotlight kind of person, not like the other popular boys.
Without looking at me much, Shannon leads me across the highway and onto the sidewalk off Fourth Street. Every time I try to catch up, his shoulders go tense and he walks faster.
“Have a place in mind?” I ask.
“Don’t know.”
“It’s past the curfew.”
“We’re adults.”
We walk past the Geshig Elementary School and just as we’re about to pass the park, he stops. His gaze is transfixed into the darkness of the wooden fences and metal slides.
“Here.”
At the edge of the fence we stand and look at each other’s silhouettes. I didn’t get a good look at him on the way here, even with the streetlights around, but I recognize the outline of his face. Even with age, he’s still the same Shannon Harstad that I grew up with all through school.
“So . . . you’re gay?” He turns from me and starts walking away from the fence. “Wait, I’m sorry.”
At first it seems he is angry but then he leads me toward another dark shape, about fifty yards from the park.
The merry-go-round.
He stops at the edge, but doesn’t turn it. “Do you remember this thing? No one liked it because of the dog thing.”
“I remember.”
Every child in the elementary school knew the story. A dog went under the merry-go-round to die and no one would play on it. There was one time, though, a guy dared me to. The same guy I’m now hooking up with in the dark.
“Do you know if that was true or not?”
“No clue . . .”
He turns to me and finally starts kissing me again. His hands grip my shoulders and he tries to lay me down on the merry-go-round.
“Um, bad idea,” I say, pulling away from his tongue.
“Why?”
I push the iron bars and a loud, rusty screech blasts into the night. “Too loud. And we’re way too close to a school. What if we get caught?”
He sighs and his lips brush mine just a little. “You’re right. I’ll take that drink now.”
His truck follows my car through Geshig and westward toward Half Lake.
The first chance I had to move out of Geshig and off the Languille Lake reservation, I took it. I moved to the Twin Cities for college. And then as a few years passed, and after a disastrous relationship or two, I found myself back in Half Lake, and spending a lot of time in my hometown. It pulls me back here like the door at the end of a dream that you don’t want to go through, but you can’t control your feet.
My house is just on the inside of the Half Lake city limits, close to the highway. It’s a small, pale cream house with a decent yard, and rent to own, so I’ll be here for the foreseeable future.
Inside, I grab a bottle of whiskey and bring it to Shannon. He sits on my couch and I sit across from him in a small armchair. I would sit next to him but it’s probably best to let him get a few drinks before we start again.
“I’m guessing you’re not out?”
The bottle is thrown back. Eyes wince. “Fuck no.”
“You’re twenty-seven, right?”
“Exactly,” he says with a bitter whiskey laugh. “I’m almost thirty. No wife. No kids. No fucking anything.”
He takes another drink and then stands up. “You’re hard.” He’s right. I had thought about being polite and hiding the bulge but I didn’t think it would matter since whatever else he was feeling his lust is what got him in this situation.
“I have patient boners.”
He walks over to me and grips it through my jeans. It’s not an uncomfortable grip, but it feels unsexual. “What if I squeezed really hard? Would you like that? Would you still wanna fuck?”
I have no response but a hope that he doesn’t deliver on that offer. I don’t want that. And I don’t know him, not anymore, probably not ever. I have no idea if saying the wrong thing will set him off and make this whole thing end badly. “Is that what you’d like to do?”
The grip relents a little and he traces the tip with his index finger. “Do you have a bed?”
“Of course I have a bed.”
His hand stops. “Never done it on a bed before.”
My first instinct is to laugh but instead, I stand up and lead him to my bedroom. The overhead light is off but there is a dull blue glow from the muted TV in the corner. Nearby in a pen is where Basil is sleeping. I sit at the edge of the bed and look up at Shannon. In the dusky light standing over me, he looks more imposing than ever. He has a round face and a shaved head, but his short beard looks thicker, bushier. The glare from the screen reflects in his glasses so I can’t see his eyes.
“So . . .”
Shannon wastes no time. I feel his hands grab my shoulders and push me down. His body, softer than in high school but no less powerful, covers me. The taste of the whiskey hits my tongue. He smells sweet, fruity, almost like a car air freshener or a candle. The smell is soft, but his body is urgent, wanting.
Urgency doesn’t equal grace, and it shows in the awkward, inexperienced way he positions my body and prepares to enter me. He avoids touching my ass with his hands, which does not make lubing an easy task for me with him on top. When the condom is on, he works himself inside slowly, asking over and over if I’m okay. As soon as I grab him by the hips and pull him in faster, his concern and gentleness are gone, and his body begins to take mine.
I lose myself in the fucking and when he finishes his last thrust, I’m not sure how much time has passed. He stays inside and on top of me for a few moments before pulling out and lying down next to me. We speak only with heavy breaths and light touches across our chests.
Though I enjoy myself during the entire encounter, I can’t help but feel that his excitement, his moans of pleasure, his climactic roar, were not really for me.
He sits at the edge of the bed and stares down. “Cute pup.”
“He’s a little shit.”
“Have you trained him?”
“Every day. But he chews things.”
“Then you’re not training him. He your only one?”
“Yeah . . . Gonna take off now?”
“Unless you want me to stay.”
I reach over and rub my hand across his side where his once-toned obliques have turned into soft, lightly haired love handles. “I want what you want. Plus, you drank half that bottle. Shouldn’t drive.”
“You have no clue how much I drink, do you?”
“Well, I do now.” My hand moves to his thigh. “Next time I’ll return the favor.”
Shannon turns back to me. The screen is behind him, so his face is a silhouette that I can’t read. But I think I saw a shadowed smile. “My phone alarm goes off at five a.m. And you’re little spoon.”
He wraps himself around me again and says no more.
IN THE MORNING, SHANNON doesn’t explain what had bothered him so much when he realized who he was kissing in the grass. He doesn’t say anything as he leaves, no forced small talk about meeting again, no awkward goodbye kiss. One moment I was sleeping against a warm, slick body, and then his alarm made him vanish into the still moist air.
I send him a message on the app that first connected us and thank him for his time. The light is no longer active.
Basil’s bed is empty. I step carefully into the living room hoping the little guy hasn’t pissed or shit on the floor. I find him in the kitchen eating, his bowl filled to the brim. It looks like a splash of milk is at the bottom of the brown pellets. Shannon must have done it before he left.
It’s a lazy Saturday and I pass time by training Basil with small chunks of off-brand hot dogs, failing over and over to get “lay down” to stick. My neighborhood is not the best for walking, so I drive back to Geshig. Basil loves car rides, so he can’t stop jumping from the front and back seats.
While walking him, I run into Gerly again. This time she isn’t smoking.
“Hey!” She kneels to pet him and he greets her just as enthusiastically as the last time they were together. “How’s the rezdog?”
“Learning. Slowly. Would you like to join us?”
“Uh, sure. I have some time. Wanna go to the Red Pine Diner?”
The diner is about as small-town stereotypical as you can think of, except instead of white housewives and truckers there are Indian mothers, on welfare or with full-time jobs. Either way, they are often the sole providers for their children. I know from experience with my mother.
Gerly orders for the both of us, insistent that I need to try the frybread/omelet combo. And she talks way more than I’m used to, almost like the pep rally girls back in high school. It turns out she is on the Geshig Elementary PTA, got her spot easily. She lives right in town. Runs a day care. Volunteers at many school events. Adored by the town mothers. If I was half as perfect for this town as she is, I would not still be here.
“So, is Maya’s father in the picture?”
“No.” She takes a small bite of frybread and eggs. “He died about twelve years ago.”
Some quick mental math almost makes me spit out my food. “Oh! Kayden?”
The realization stuns me, where I knew Gerly’s name from. Why hadn’t I remembered that? Kayden and Gertrude had a daughter. I knew that, but I never knew the girl’s name.
“Oh—I—wow, it’s been that long already.” Maya is only eleven and she’s spent her entire life with a murdered father. I have no idea what to say now.
“God, feels like yesterday sometimes,” Gerly says. “You remember all that?”
How could I not? For Geshig, it was a “where were you?” kind of moment. The town, for those few years, existed as pre–and post–Kayden Kelliher. I was thirteen, less than a month left of eighth grade, sitting in my room listening to Souvlaki and staring at the walls. I remember because that’s the only thing I did on school nights, listen to my mother’s stoner records.
Instead of saying that, I just purse my lips, nod, and look at my hands. Much to my relief I find some words. “My mom used to babysit him when he was a kid. She cried. Wouldn’t let me out of the house for months after.”
“Geshig used to be so ghetto. Not anymore. We don’t put up with that shit,” Gerly says. “We chased out all the savs like you to Half Lake.”
The fact that she is joking about this assures me that it’s okay to laugh. “Yeah, we have our fair share of shady people.”
She moves us effortlessly into another subject, not exactly an avoidance of the subject. Almost like boredom, as if her grieving for Kayden is completely behind her.
Her latest project is about the elementary school park that has fallen into disrepair.
“We finally got funding for a remodel.”
“Gonna tear it down and start over or just like repaint it?”
“It’s an iconic part of the town. Can’t just tear it down.”
Geshig’s elementary park is modeled after a log cabin. The perimeter is almost a perfect square and the structures are layered wood with plenty of opportunities for splinters. On each corner of the perimeter there is a small totem pole—tall to children—that faces one of the cardinal directions. The eagle faces north. The bear, south. Fish, west; wolf, east. There is no meaning to the icons.
“Lots of good memories there.”
“Lots of safety hazards.” Gerly laughs. “We’re gonna keep as much as we can. But for sure we’re gonna get rid of the merry-go-round and replace it with a maze.”
“Oh . . . That sounds fun.”
“Remember when all the older kids talked about the dead dog underneath it?”
I smile and dig at the eggs with my fork. “Yep.”
“I looked under it the other day. Guess what I saw?”
“Dirt?”
“Nothing but an empty 40-ounce.”
“Classy. No dog bones?”
“Not a trace. I bet they just made that shit up.”
“Maybe. All rumors have to start somewhere.” I break off a small piece of frybread and slip it to Basil. His puppy teeth can barely chew it.
IT TAKES A FEW weeks, but Shannon is finally online again and horny for me.
Or perhaps not me but a body he can explore. A guy who has no reservations about letting him touch every in and out, any way he wants. He nearly wears me out by the end of that session. He stays all night, leaves for work, and comes right back to my place in the afternoon. At first he claims it’s to see Basil but soon enough I’m on my stomach and back again and again.
I am not naive about men. I know this isn’t him growing attached to me. It’s some kind of reaction, but I’m not sure just what kind until he asks, “Promise not to tell anyone?” while lying on my chest.
“I promise.”
“I fuck around with my roommate.”
“Oh? How often?”
“Not like a lot but a few times every couple of months.”
It doesn’t dawn on me right away until I remember who he lives with.
“Tim? You sleep with Tim? Timothy Selkirk?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it good?”
“No.” He runs a hand down my stomach. Gentle, but I can’t help remembering what he tried to do when we first hooked up. “You’re better at it.”
“Crazy odds. That three of us turned out gay.”
Shannon’s chest slowly pulses against mine as he lets out a few bitter laughs. “No, you’re gay. Tim is straight. I date women. I just do this because . . . I don’t fuckin’ know, but I’m straight.”
Not too uncommon, hearing dudes who love dick say they’re straight. Mostly I believe them but after hearing this, I feel the need to press Shannon for more information.
“How did it start then? Someone had to have wanted it.”
“Yep,” Shannon says. “I did, but he kind of got the ball rolling.” He pulls away from me and then tells the story. A normal day. Shannon thought he was alone in the house, started masturbating, and then Tim walked in on him. Shannon figured it would just be a slightly uncomfortable but humorous situation that they’d move past.
“Wrong. Kind of. We didn’t laugh. We didn’t move past it. And it was very uncomfortable.”
Tim had walked right over to Shannon and grabbed his roommate’s erection. He stroked it. At first it was slow and just hard enough to feel great, but Shannon surmises that as soon as he showed the slightest bit of pleasure on his face, Tim changed.
“Roughest hand job ever. I couldn’t finish like that so . . . so he fucked me.”
There is silence between us then. Tim was the tallest kid in our high school. Football and wrestling champion. And known for his anger issues.
“You—you wanted it, right?” I ask.
Minutes pass. He has nothing else to say about his relationship with Tim, and I’m filled with questions I’m too scared to ask. Even though Shannon is pressed against me, I can’t stop thinking about what he’s told me. Maybe Shannon senses this by how mechanical the motion of my hand rubbing his shoulder has become.
He gets up to leave. This time he manages a goodbye kiss and promises to text “soon.”
I stare at my phone and wonder what soon means to a closeted former high school star.
EVEN A HIGHWAY CAN’T keep Geshig awake. I drive to the town at nearly three a.m., park my car at the grocery store, and watch a few cars pass by. Then I drive to the south end of town and park near the train tracks. Then I park outside the elementary school playground. From my window I can see the merry-go-round, doomed to be replaced, forgotten, just like the rumor.
I open the door and step into the black grass.
In high school, Shannon was the prom king. And Tim, he was the star quarterback. They were easily the most popular guys in our class, and as we neared the end, in the whole school.
I was there too, but I watched from the shadows in the crowd of the other, less talented children. From kindergarten onward, I tried to stay away from attention unless forced.
I stand in front of the merry-go-round and stare at the metal.
Shannon and I both lived on the same bus route. I never realized how much I watched him until he wasn’t there. In seventh grade his seat was empty in the afternoon for a full week.
“Joined football?” I asked him one morning. My voice barely escaped under the confines of the jacket hood that draped over my face.
“Yeah.” He sat up straight and grabbed on to the seat in front of him. “Took my dad years to convince my mom to let me. Now that I’m older she’s not stopping me.”
“Seems like it will hurt. That what she’s scared of?”
“Yeah and that’s why we play. We’re guys. We live to get hurt.”
“By time you get home it’s gonna be dark out.”
“We practice outside.”
“Do you think you’ll be good at it?”
“I hope so. The coaches begged me to join.”
“They asked me too. I don’t know why. Never said I wanted to.”
“We need all the dudes we can get. Even the skinny ones.”
He reached over and pinched my collarbone. Not painfully, but rough enough to jerk my reflexes and make me pull away. “Ow! Stop! I don’t know how to play. And I’m not strong.”
“If you came to hell week we woulda cured you of that right away.”
I shrug. “Maybe next year.”
That was a lie. It was a lie when I said it and it was a lie the next five years when I didn’t join any other groups. Shannon kept at it each season after, and by the time he hit junior year our football team won state. But for all that success, he was more like me when it came to attention. He wasn’t a glory hog or a showboater. He gladly let the more rowdy and wild guys on the team be the center of attention.
And me, through it all, I just watched him until the ride ended and I left Geshig. Still don’t really know why I came back or why I’m still here.
I grab the rusty bar of the merry-go-round and push as hard as I can. The screech of the rust cuts into my ears and the silent town. The bars circle faster and faster until the structure is spinning as fast as it can manage.
No one played on this when we were kids except me and Shannon. Must have been third or fourth grade. He dared me to do it. I sat on the cast-iron platform, held on to the rust-brown bars, and he pushed.
When he had it spinning fast enough, he jumped on across from me and held on tight. We tipped our heads back, laughed, and on the count of three we let go and tumbled into the grass. My eyes jerked back and forth, but I managed to crawl over to him. He was staring underneath the iron. We inched forward, closer, closer, until Shannon screamed and drove his finger into my chest. We got up and ran away laughing.
The memory is burned into my mind, and it still burns hot now. Warm lines run down my face and drip onto the cast iron. Shannon will never be with me the way I’d like, but he’d always be here with me, laughing, spinning.
When I hear the thumping, I stop pushing the bars and let the turning slow to a halt. There is a low whimpering that turns to panting. A train passes through the south side of town, its horn louder than a rusty playground could ever be, and a tawny mutt crawls out from underneath the metal.
In the dark I can’t tell what kind of dog it is. Part German shepherd, part pit bull, part wolf. Probably at least one part ghost.
“Hey, boy. You wanna play? You wanna go for a run? Let’s go for a run!”
The dog jumps into my arms and knocks me to the ground. He slobbers all over my face and then begins to circle me. He crouches, butt in the air, waiting for me. “Let’s go.”
I run with him all around the field, circling the merry-go-round, and eventually circling the park. He runs with a lopsided gait but he is faster than any dog I’ve ever seen. Two more times he tackles me to the ground and licks my face. He has newborn-puppy breath, like Basil.
My breath soon becomes labored puffs and when I stop to rest, the dog disappears into the darkness of the sleeping town.
He had no collar. No name. No owner. Just a rumor.
IN THE WEEKS SINCE I picked him up from the box marked Free, Basil has grown quickly. He sheds fur all over my house and still chews on errant objects when I’m not looking. He no longer sleeps in the pen on the floor. He is just big enough to jump onto my bed. Sometimes he kicks me in the face, either by accident or to wake me up for food or walks.
Hey . . . you wanna?
The message is from Shannon, this time a text message and not through an app.
It’s been weeks. That’s how you ask?
Yes.
Come over then.
He knocks on my door a half hour later and we walk right to my bed. I’m rock hard and ready to go when he kisses me, but he stops and begins to pet Basil.
“Hey you. How’s my buddy? You got so big!”
“So, how’s it going?” I ask as I wait.
“Okay. Tim might move out soon. Not sure if I’m going to find a new roommate or find another place.”
Before I can talk about his roommate again, he distracts me with his mouth.
I expect him to leave as soon as he’s had his fill but he stays. He suggests we go for a walk in the neighborhood with Basil. As we’re walking, I notice that he always tries to keep the dog between us and takes a step to the side if we get too close.
Basil doesn’t pay attention to us. He just leads us through the streets and doesn’t care where we end up.
“What have you been up to?” he asks.
Resurrecting dogs. “Nothing. Just work and stuff. You?”
“Same. It’s the busy season but come fall it’ll slow way down. What do you do again?”
“Payroll and accounting.”
“For a hospital, right?”
“Sort of. Dental office.”
“Right. How has that been?”
We have had this conversation before. Each time I tell him the small-talk details of my life he’s barely attentive. This time seems no different, but he looks at me more when I speak.
“The dentist office is okay. Tedious and boring but pays the bills.”
“Is it depressing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just seeing so many names and numbers,” Shannon says. “When I’m cleaning out a cabin at the resort and people leave their trash behind I guess I think about what kind of people they are and what they’re doing. Why they chose Nine Isle to stay at. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not the same.”
I kick a small rock in front of me and Basil’s ears perk up as he watches it. He sniffs at it when it stops rolling and then moves on.
“It’s not a big deal,” Shannon says. “Sometimes I just think too much.”
“I know the feeling. Hard to stop.”
“What do you think about too much?”
I stop walking and stare at Basil’s neck as he pants. “Just regrets, I guess.”
What I think about is my first boyfriend, Gordon. I think about the last day I went to his place. The last time we hooked up, and how I left feeling ashamed and dirty, and how I wished I would’ve stayed there overnight and maybe we’d still be together.
But Shannon keeps claiming he’s straight, and I don’t think he’d understand this, so I say nothing.
We make a loop around a few blocks and then go back to my house. I stop at the sidewalk and look up at him. He’s changed a lot since high school. The hint of a receding hairline makes him keep it all shaved except for on his chin, lips, and neck. He’s thicker, like most men get, but no less muscular. And his eyes are almost constantly bored unless he’s on top of me.
“Take care, bud.” He kneels and pets Basil on the head. “I’m gonna head back home now.”
He gives me a faint, dark smile in the evening light and hesitates. Is this a cue? I think so. I step forward, rise slightly on my toes, and lean in to kiss him. He loses the smile and takes a few quick breaths. My lips land. He lets it happen, tongue and all, for just a moment before breaking away and turning to leave. I look around as he gets in his truck and drives away.
It’s dusk. No one is watching, no one saw.
I bring Basil inside, sit down on my bed, and text Shannon: I’m sorry if that scared you.
I stare at the phone’s tiny screen and wait.
SOMETIME IN THE NIGHT, I lie awake and stare at Basil, but instead of my loving mutt I can only see that thing that crawled out from the darkness. It’s then that the memory comes back clear.
It was third or fourth grade. Shannon and I stood at the edge of the playground and stared at the metal in the distance.
“Let’s go play on it,” he said.
“What about the zombie dog?”
“That’s a lie the older kids made up.”
“It’s metal. What if we get hurt?”
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me with him. Hard enough to leave a bruise. “We’re boys. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”