Stray Fears Read online

  “I thought his eyes were hazel.”

  “God, you are really determined to piss me off tonight.”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense. I just don’t like being around him. I look at him, and I start thinking about Noah, and, I don’t know, I want to punch him in the face.”

  I rattled the ice in the tumbler again. “Mason, if you don’t like him, that’s fine. If you hate his guts, I don’t care. If you want to punch him in the middle of your support group, go right ahead, as long as I don’t have to bail your ass out. But you cannot lose your mind like you did today. Because at some point, we’re going to have to deal with another kid who resembles Noah, and I can’t have you going off the rails.”

  “I’m getting better.”

  When I couldn’t think of anything to say, I sipped the Sugarfield again.

  “I am,” Mason said, quiet and firm as he met my eyes.

  “So show me.”

  “Easy. Ask pretty boy out, and we’ll double.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “I’m serious. He’s cute. You’re into him. Ask him out.”

  “He’s got a boyfriend, dumbass. He picked Elien up.”

  “Yeah, I know he’s got a boyfriend. He’s also in an open relationship.”

  “What?”

  “An open relationship. He can date whoever he wants.”

  I shook my head.

  “So ask him out,” Mason said.

  “I still don’t think that’s a good idea. I managed to piss him off pretty good.”

  “You did? What happened?”

  I thought of the blue light like a firefly. I thought of Elien’s mouth twisting as he said, You cowardly little fucker.

  “Who knows? Just didn’t make a good impression, I guess.”

  Mason finished his beer, slapped a ten on the table, and stood. As he passed me, he put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Buddy, we’ve got to get you laid. Fast. Fuck, maybe I need to get laid too. These dreams I’ve been having, dreams about burning blue eyes and shit. Is that fucked up? Jesus.” He laughed, but it sounded off. “Just don’t answer that.”

  ELIEN (9)

  Zahra had her hands neatly folded in her lap. It was Tuesday again; I was back in the basement of DuPage First Methodist. The preschool kids must have been trying to level up their Halloween game. On the wall, they had hung masks made out of construction paper. Black cats, robots, soldiers, astronauts. One mask, off to the side, low on the wall where most people might have missed it, was just a black circle with two pale blue eyes. I dragged my gaze back to Zahra, feeling choked by the smell of rubber cement.

  “As I’m sure many of you already know,” Zahra said, “we lost one of our friends this week.”

  “He wasn’t my friend,” Tamika said.

  “Cowardly son of a bitch,” Willie said.

  Zahra waited a moment. Willie had the good grace to blush, sinking lower in his seat, but Tamika just stared off into space, thrusting her chin out.

  “Ray died by suicide—” Zahra began.

  David’s shrill laughter cut her off. He bent forward in his seat, wringing his hands. He was still wearing those heavy winter gloves, even though it was the hottest October on record. The laughter dragged on.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Tamika shouted.

  “Tamika,” Zahra said, “we’re here to support each other, and David—”

  “He’s laughing like a fucking lunatic and Ray’s dead. How the fuck is that supporting each other?”

  “Ok,” I said, “it’s just a reaction. He can’t help it.”

  But David was still laughing, and the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.

  “E, shut up,” Kenny said. “Keep your skinny gay ass quiet.”

  “You like my gay ass,” I told Kenny with a smile. I stood, touched David’s arm, and nodded toward the hall. David was laughing so hard he was crying now. He got out of the seat, and I nudged him away from the group.

  “Here he goes,” Mason said to no one in particular. “Elien, just sit down and let Zahra handle things.”

  “No,” Zahra said, “I appreciate how you’re showing support to David, Elien. Thank you.”

  Mason slouched lower in his chair. He was staring at me, and he was obviously furious.

  We made our way to the bathroom, and David waved me off when he stepped inside. It was a single-user facility, and I heard the bolt slide home after he shut the door. Water ran. I heard splashing. David was still laughing like he was on acid and had heard the best fucking joke in the world. I shivered in spite of myself.

  David had been in the restroom for maybe five minutes, the laughter dying down and bubbling back up from time to time, when Mason stepped into the hall. He shut the door behind him, looked at me once, and then stepped past me and rattled the handle on the bathroom door.

  “I need to pee.”

  “Get in line.”

  “Jesus, get off your fucking high horse.” Mason hammered on the door. “David, get the fuck out. I need to pee.”

  “Hey,” I said, planting a hand on Mason’s chest. “Leave him alone.”

  “Fuck off,” Mason said.

  “Go back in to the group,” I said. “When David’s feeling better, we’ll join you. Then you can pee.”

  Mason’s lip curled. He knocked my arm away and rattled the handle again.

  “Get out of here,” I said, sliding between Mason and the door.

  Grabbing me by the throat, Mason swung me around and slammed me against the wall. Like the rest of the basement, it was poured concrete with a thin layer of paint; my head rebounded and, I felt my legs go loose.

  Mason took shallow, frantic breaths. We were close enough that I could feel his exhalations on my cheek, see the flare of his nostrils, sense the tremors in his body.

  “This is it, huh?” I asked. “You get tired of having to be around a queer?”

  For another long moment, Mason clutched me. He was shaking harder now.

  “Why’s it such a big deal, Mase?” I smirked. “You’ve been looking at me a lot. Maybe you’re getting a little interested—is that it? Maybe you’ve been thinking dirty thoughts.” I nudged his knee with mine. “Get down right now, ask nice, and maybe I’ll let you suck me off in the bathroom when David’s out of there.”

  “Fuck you,” Mason mumbled.

  “One-time offer.”

  “Fuck you,” he said more forcefully, and then he slammed my head against the wall again. The world went slippery. His fingers tightened, and for an instant, I couldn’t breathe.

  Then the door opened, and Tamika stepped out into the hall.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she asked.

  Mason’s fingers loosened, and he stepped back.

  “Hey Tamika,” I said, leaning against the wall like it had been my idea all along. “Mase and I were just having a special moment.”

  Mason was taking huge gulps of air; sweat glistened on his forehead, fat drops of it, and he looked sick.

  “Isn’t that right, Mase? He asked me on a date. Isn’t that cute?”

  Tamika looked at him.

  Rocking from side to side, Mason looked like he might puke or fall over. Then he wiped his face and pushed past Tamika, mumbling something as he headed back into the room.

  “What the fuck was that?” Tamika asked me.

  “My next hookup.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I just grinned, and then David came out of the bathroom, still wringing his gloved hands. We went back into the room together.

  But when we sat down, when Zahra went through her spiel about Ray, when we moved into our regular material, when I gave my update—something off the cuff, a few details about throwing the can of La Croix and cleaning up the broken glass, just enough truth that the lies weren’t visible—through all of it, Mason stared at me, his mouth working soundlessly, his eyes fixed and glassy, a tic in his cheek f
lashing on and off, his body jerking from time to time as though he were starting awake from a nightmare.

  Something was really, really off about him. He’d been weird the last few weeks at group. He’d been weird when he and his partner had shown up at Ray’s. But today, he was acting crazy. At first, I tried to meet his gaze. He just stared through me, and every time, I looked away first. After that, I kept my gaze on the floor. I had one hand on my phone. Who were you supposed to call when a cop went psycho on your ass?

  As soon as Zahra ended the meeting, I shot out of my seat and went for the door, praying Muriel would already be waiting at the curb.

  Rapid footsteps followed, and I glanced back to see Mason jogging after me.

  “Hey,” he called. “Hold on!”

  When I got outside, the sunlight blinded me for a moment. I staggered down the steps, clutching the rail, hoping I wouldn’t fall. The door flew open behind me, crashing against the stop, and Mason tumbled out.

  “You fucking son of a bitch,” he shouted. “Stop right there.”

  I glanced back.

  He had a gun.

  DAG (10)

  Mary Ann had bailed again, so I was sitting at the curb outside DuPage First Methodist, waiting to pick up Mason. I didn’t feel like pretending with the Escort’s A/C, so I had the windows down; the October day was warm, with just a hint of a breeze off the lake. A really nice orca track had just started when I heard shouting. I looked in the rearview mirror.

  Elien was racing down the steps. Behind him, Mason was waving a gun and shouting.

  Throwing open the door, I jumped out of the car and sprinted to the sidewalk. The big, red-brick bulk of DuPage First Methodist framed Mason. He was still shouting, still waving the gun. I understood the words he was saying, repeated variations of “stop” “hold it” “freeze,” but the way he was saying them was off, like he was reading them from a page without any idea what they meant. His eyes were wide and rolling; a tic pulled at his cheek. Even in the church’s shadow, Mason’s blue eyes seemed to catch the light. I thought of a dead man in a Moulinbas apartment.

  “Mason,” I called. “Hey, buddy, what’s going on?”

  Mason swung the pistol to aim at Elien; when Elien glanced back the next time, he stumbled. His knee caught the brass support of the handrail, and he cried out and fell, rolling four steps until he came up against the next support. I kept my gaze fixed on Mason, only peripherally aware of Elien wiping a hand across his face, of something that might have been blood.

  “Hey, Mason. Hey!” I jogged at a diagonal up the stairs. “What’s going on? Put the gun down.”

  The muzzle dipped an inch.

  “Yeah, good. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  Mason pivoted. The pistol snapped up and toward me, and I froze, hands open and out. I had on a Tulane t-shirt and shorts. I might as well have been naked. Behind Mason, a black woman with short, buzzed hair emerged from the church door. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t make any noise. She slipped back inside the church. The blue in Mason’s eyes was brighter, like June sunlight on glass. Blue, blue, blue.

  “Hi,” I said. “Hey. It’s Dag. You know me, right?”

  “Yeah.” The word was sullen and distant.

  “Good, great. Because I was worried for a minute. I was kind of freaking out. You’ve got that gun, and you’re pointing it right at me, and I thought maybe you didn’t know who I was.”

  “I know.”

  “Mason, why don’t you put that down?”

  “He’s going to do it again. He’s going to shoot me. He’s been planning it. I’m not going to let him do that.”

  “He’s not going to do anything. That’s not Noah, ok? That’s Elien. He’s not planning anything. He’s not going to hurt you. He can’t hurt you. Look, he fell down. He’s on the ground. He can’t do anything to you.”

  Mason’s hand wavered; the gun dropped a few inches.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’m your friend. I’m your best friend, right? And we got through all that stuff with Noah together. You’re ok. Look how much better you are today. Just put the gun down, and we’ll talk about this. We’ll figure it out.”

  The gun slipped down a few more inches.

  “Yep, that’s right. Just let it go. Just drop it. Drop it, Mason. Drop it.”

  He said something I couldn’t hear over the roar of blood in my ears and the traffic whipping along the cross street. It was just a word. By the shape of his mouth, I thought maybe he said can’t.

  Then he spun toward Elien, who was lying motionless, and he screamed, “Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move.”

  I charged. Sprinting up the stairs, I bulled into Mason as he tried to pivot back toward me. He was too slow. I caught him just below the solar plexus with my shoulder, and the force of the charge carried both of us forward. He slammed into the church door; breath exploded from his lungs. I grabbed one arm, dragging him down, trying to force him onto his stomach. His other hand came around, and the butt of the pistol connected with the side of my head. The world got hazy; my grip on Mason’s wrist slipped.

  He tried to shove me off, but I grabbed him again, and we both went down. I landed on my back. Mason landed on top of me. I got both his wrists this time, forcing the hand with the gun off to one side. He squeezed off a shot. The clap deafened me, but I could feel my voice in my chest, could feel myself shouting at him to stop.

  Mason kneed me in the side, and I lost my hold. He brought the gun up, swinging in Elien’s direction. I didn’t know what had happened to Elien, didn’t know if he’d managed to find cover. I just saw the gun slicing through the air above me, moving toward the spot I had last seen the dark-haired kid. I grabbed Mason, and we rolled together. He came down beneath me, his head cracking against the stone. The shadow of DuPage First Methodist covered us, but his eyes were firefly bright. He brought the gun toward me now.

  I grabbed him again. I was using both hands, trying to force him to drop the pistol. He was bucking like a crazy man, stronger than I could believe, the gun inching closer and closer to me. Sweat made my grip slick—slick against his fingers, slick against the composite frame of the pistol. Mason was screaming at me, but I could barely hear him after the gunshot. The gun slipped closer. I grunted, one hand wrapped around Mason’s, the other twisting the barrel, forcing away.

  I still don’t know if Mason pulled the trigger, or if I somehow did it while I was trying to pull the gun loose.

  His body jerked once, and then he went still.

  A high-pitched whining filled my ears; something drifted in the air. Sunspots, I told myself. But the sun was behind DuPage First Methodist, and sunspots weren’t blue. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment; my center of gravity was off, like I was falling.

  When I opened them again, the sunspots were gone. I pulled off my t-shirt and wadded it up against the hole in Mason’s chest. Red stained the cotton, ran under my nails, slid between my fingers. Hot; cold, where it thinned and the air wicked away the heat.

  After that, his eyes were empty and dark.

  II

  And while the hunter is thus prostrated on the ground, it approaches and sticks a small thorn into his hand or foot, and by so doing bewitches the hunter and transmits to him the power of doing evil to others.

  - “Myths of the Louisiana Choctaw,” David I. Bushnell, Jr.

  ELIEN (1)

  In the week that followed, I ate, I watched TV with Richard, I made Sazeracs and chopped bell peppers and bagged them for Richard to take as a snack. Day-to-day stuff. Sure, little things were different. Richard asked me more often if I was all right. Richard insisted on doing the dishes. One night, Richard and I were watching Shark Tank, and I started hyperventilating and had to run outside to stand with the St. Augustine grass needling my bare feet. I met with Zahra—once in person, at her office in DuPage Behavioral, and then once over Skype, the night I ran out into the darkness. But mostly, day to day, it was normal in s
pite of everything that had happened.

  When I slept, though, I dreamed. Every night, the same dream: the hand around my neck, the hand over my mouth, the smell of fried catfish, the taste of grass, the dumbass whose name I’d forgotten, the dumbass from the club, deep inside me, pounding, pounding, pounding, until the world came apart. I was whimpering into his hand as I came down from the orgasm. He was still thrusting. The taste of grass in my mouth was stronger now. A soft thud punctuated his grunts as he came and went still, his chin against my back, his stubble rough against sensitive skin.

  And then, bathed in the light of the clock radio—firefly blue, when a part of my brain stubbornly insisted it should have been green—I lay still, the dumbass’s weight on top of me, and listened to a steady drip, drip, drip.

  In the dream, I already knew what was going to happen. In the dream, I already knew what I was going to find. I wanted to scream, but the dumbass still had a hand around my throat.

  Dreams never had the same logic of sequence and event, cause and effect. In real life, I had elbowed the dumbass in the ribs, and he’d pulled out and stripped off the condom. He’d tied it, swung it back and forth, and landed it in the trash can. In real life, the dumbass had been proud of his little post-coital display of hand-eye coordination. He’d wanted to tickle me. He’d run his hands over my collar bone. He’d asked about my neck, and I’d said I needed water; did he want a glass?

  In the dream, though, all of that got edited out. One moment I was lying under him, tasting grass in my mouth, smelling the fried catfish on his hand. The next moment I was already out of the room, stepping lightly through my parents’ living room, picking my way over the boards I knew squeaked.

  In real life, I had been worried about waking them.

  The drip drip drip came from the kitchen. That night, I had imagined a leaky pipe; I thought maybe Gard hadn’t turned off the tap all the way. In the dream, though, I knew.

  I found my mom first. She had fallen halfway out of a chair at the kitchen table. Blood pooled on the wooden seat of the chair, beaded at the lip, and dripped steadily onto the floor. The graying fringe of her hair touched the pool of blood on the boards. It reminded me of the bristles of a paintbrush.