Like a dream forming and dissolving, familiar objects loomed up out of the darkness of the Flats. KT asked Whiskey to slow the truck so he could look out for way-markers.
Take a right at the rusted stop sign that sat bereft of any road.
Left at the stand of dead brown cactus.
Straight past the burned-out Chevy sedan, a Texas flag bolted over its back window frame. “They’ve moved it since last time,” KT said blandly as the Chevy slipped past them. The other boys, Jamal included, were too anxious to say a word.
Earlier, Jamal had become convinced that KT was leading them nowhere, that he planned to drive them until Whiskey’s truck ran out of gas and then abandon them in the wilderness. Jamal had pulled his phone from his pocket to text Officer Clark, who was following them in her own truck—Jamal had been certain to get her number before heading out—but had discovered he had no service. He’d opened the compass on his phone and felt his throat tighten. He’d watched the compass’s red needle spin wildly, hunting in vain for north.
“He should never have brought me there,” KT said in the front passenger seat. “He should have known I couldn’t handle that place.”
Whiskey tightened his pale knuckles on the wheel and said, “Couldn’t handle what, bro?”
“I heard they had party favors. I heard everyone who went out there got special treatment in town. He kept saying, D kept saying, it ain’t meant for boys like you but I said, shit, I’m open-minded, ain’t I? I like to let loose, don’t I?” KT shuddered. “I didn’t know what that place would do to me. I didn’t know what letting go would do to me.”
T-Bay, seated beside Jamal in the back, twisted and twisted his fingers in his lap.
“I wasn’t made for it, he was right. But shit, maybe only them Old Boys is made for it. Pretty soon I was Mr. Boone’s favorite. In his special trailer. I was the one always had to teach him his lessons. Some nights he wanted the paddle, some nights he wanted the whip, some nights—” KT stared at his right hand for a long time. He said, “Coach is easier, he just sucks you off, but Mr. Boone, he needs his lessons, oh yes, sir. Did you know someone can make you hate yourself even when you’re the one putting their dick in a cage? It’s fucking funny. I’d have never believed it. Go right. I said right.”
“Dear Jesus,” T-Bay said. They had reached an old wooden roadhouse, the road it had once serviced long since dissolved by time. A sign painted in wobbly white letters reading BURGERS GRITS NO COLOREDS hung on what remained of its door. The building’s windows had long since been busted out and boarded over. A lone gas pump sat in the dirt, its nozzle bobbing at its side like a busted arm.
“Oh, but Dylan, was he ever popular. All the boys wanted a piece of Dylan. And when the Old Boys’ Hand showed up in town again, fuck me running, you should have seen those two lovebirds strutting around the Bright Lands like they was celebrities, Dylan always touching his hair and Mr. Deputy following him like a fucking dog. They was fucking shameless! ‘Let’s go camping out west, sweetheart, let’s go fishing.’ Never a thought paid to your buddy KT, huh, Dylan? Your Bison buddy who didn’t have no college recruiters to come get him out of here? Who had a girl who wanted you to make her money, money, always more money so you can run away together? I was the one locked in Mr. Boone’s special trailer every fucking Friday night because if KT don’t show up you can bet Boone and his fucking deputies would take your mom away come Monday morning. You didn’t have Garrett and Jason hounding you to sell your product together, didn’t have a friend up in Dallas with an idea how you could make some coin off other sirs doing the special things that Mr. Boone taught you, did you, D? I just got so tired, Reynolds. I got so tired.”
KT turned back to stare at Jamal. Jamal had forgotten how to breathe.
“I remembered what they done to Joel Whitley with those dirty pictures and I thought, hell, maybe Dylan could get him some rough treatment for once in his life. I just wanted D to know what it was like for one goddamn night. To know what it felt like to have your brothers look at you like you was the scum of the earth, to be so ashamed you would cut yourself open to stop it. Is that so wrong?” KT’s mouth had twisted into a pout. “How was I supposed to know the deputy would see my ad once I put Dylan’s face on it? How was I supposed to know he’d drag Dylan into the special trailer? It was Dylan’s fault. Last year, back when I threatened to tell people about the pictures I found on his phone if he wouldn’t take me, he should have known I was bluffing. He should have warned me it wasn’t just a party.”
Something new had appeared on the horizon.
No, not quite new. Jamal had seen it all week.
A pale dome of light, quivering wrong against the night.
T-Bay said, “What the fuck is that?”
“The best years of my life.” KT sobbed like he’d choked on a nail.