Burro Hills Read online

  I spotted Connor under the big, gnarled oak that provided a welcomed canopy of shade. He leaned against the trunk, looking up at the sky, a small smile resting on his lips.

  I felt a tingling in my belly and tried to breathe, taking a seat next to him in the grass, stretching out my legs. He wore his favorite black board shorts, a fitted white tee hugging his chest.

  “Hey,” I said. I sat there cross-legged, pulling at blades of cool grass nervously. My stomach wouldn’t settle.

  He inhaled deeply. “You ever think about the atmosphere, all of those clouds, and all of it up past there? The stratosphere, the mesosphere, all the way up to the iotosphere and beyond into space…”

  “You mean the ionosphere?” I asked, uprooting another blade of grass.

  Connor finally turned to look at me. “Well, shit, look at the brains on you, Jack.” He laughed and tugged at my shirt, using it to pull himself up. I couldn’t help but stare, my gaze wandering down to his cheekbones, down the square of his jaw, to the bare skin of his collarbone barely visible…

  He pressed his lips to my ear. “Do you want to kiss me?”

  I shivered and nodded, unable to speak. Somewhere not so far away a little girl screamed and a mother started yelling, probably at her. I could almost feel the eyes of the other parents on us under this tree, some magnetic pull sparked by a protective urge to shield their young from anything unwanted lurking on the edge of the park.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. His lips grazed my throat and I gasped.

  It took some hidden strength of will to pull away from him. I turned away from his pressing stare, watched a mother push her daughter on the swings. The little girl kicked her pink shoes into the air and squealed with delight. “Higher, Mommy! Higher!”

  “I can’t,” I murmured at the ground. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “You had no trouble with it the other night,” he said, but the playfulness in his voice was strained.

  “It’s the park, all these people,” I said, fishing for some way out, some easy explanation. How could I explain it? How could I even begin? “I just…I can’t in front of them.”

  Connor laughed and I finally turned to look at him and his upturned grin. He pushed back his shaggy black hair. “Alright, man, come with me.”

  He stood up and thrust his hands in his pockets. I just sat there and looked up at him.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything. Scout’s honor. Just come with me.” He nodded in the other direction, away from the park. I stood and followed him.

  We walked for a while in silence, the air cooling to a breeze. We went down a neighborhood street filled with holes in the pavement, past boarded-up houses and a billboard advertising bail bonds. We met the main roadway and turned a sharp right, flanked by speeding cars trailed by heavy exhaust fumes and a shopping center, chain stores, and pizza shops huddled together in their cement enclave. No sounds but the rush of road noise. Connor finally turned and started heading down a steep sloped hill of overgrown wild grass, a small forest meeting it at the bottom.

  It was easier to just gun it down the hill, or so I thought it’d be. I tripped once but he grabbed my arm before I hit the ground. We finally made it to the trees. It was shady and cool in the forest, a little stream ahead that we jumped across.

  “Where the hell are you taking me?” I finally asked, breaking our unspoken pact of silence.

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me into a sunny clearing, a little grove encircled by forest, not a house or car or road in sight.

  “I like to come here when I need a second to myself,” he said, pulling me down next to him. “Some guys deal here at night, but until sunset we’re solid. It’s beautifully quiet, isn’t it?”

  And it was. All you could hear were the birds chirping in the treetops, the sounds of the freeway muffled to a distant, faint roar.

  Connor pulled out a pack of cigarettes, smacked them against his palm and offered me one. We sat there smoking, soaking up the sunshine.

  “So, talk to me, man.”

  I shrugged and stared at my sneakers. “What about?”

  “What are you so scared of?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He laid back in the grass and took a deep drag. “You know what I mean.” His voice was thick with smoke, sounding just like Mom’s after she’d filled her lungs and sinuses. “Of me. Of how you feel. It terrifies you.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. “I’m not scared, just…confused.”

  He frowned at me, eyebrows raised. “About what? That you like boys?”

  My face grew hot. “I’m not a fag or anything if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  He put his hands up in mock-surrender. “Hey, I didn’t call it that, you did. I don’t mind labels myself; I’m bisexual. But, whatever. I see the way you look at me, like the way chicks do when I’m out at the skate park with my shirt off and I’ve got sweat running down my back.”

  The image made me feel hot all over. “You look at me like that,” I said defensively.

  “Yes, I do. Because I like you.”

  I said nothing, and started yanking up fistfuls of grass and tossing them aside. My chest felt tight, like the way it did for years in church when the preacher started going on about sin and loose living, the bonds of marriage and all that horseshit. Parenthood, the way we were made, the way we were intended to be by His Holy Highness who lived up in the sky, take a left at the ionosphere. The way my father sat attentively during those sermons in that hot chapel that smelled like old lady’s perfume, his eyes glued to the preacher in reverence, fat mouth open slightly, breathing loud, hot and wet. And he forced me to come every single Sunday until I turned thirteen, when I would throw the biggest tantrums imaginable, screaming and stomping my feet until they gave up and left me at home.

  “Is it your friends? They don’t know shit, Jack,” Connor said. “They’re just as insecure as the rest of us.”

  In my mind, there was Mom in her Sunday dress from Walmart, that cheap piece of shit in puke yellow that smelled like mothballs, staring blankly at the floor.

  “You’re amazing, Jack. I know you don’t see it, but I do.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I said. “Girls say that shit to each other.” I pulled the cigarette from his mouth, took a drag, and stamped out the butt in the grass. It tasted like our kitchen.

  “Maybe girls have the right idea. We could learn a thing or two from them, you know.”

  I remembered being in my starched dress shirt tucked into the only slacks I owned. I kept my hands in my lap, wishing I could be anywhere but there as the preacher went on and on about how homosexuality desecrated the sanctity of marriage and would be the ruin of our society. My palms were sweaty, my throat felt itchy, and it was like everyone in the congregation knew my shameful secret.

  Fuck the shame.

  I kissed Connor hard, pushing him deep into the earth with my lips. He slid his hand under my shirt, up my back, opening his mouth to welcome my tongue.

  18.

  “Hey Connor.”

  We were standing by the lockers, just hanging out in between periods, when Skye Russo and her posse appeared behind us. All doe-eyed and glossy-lipped, Skye stood there lingering in front of Connor, her friends close behind, pretending to be oblivious but wearing knowing smiles.

  Connor turned away from me and smiled at her, leaning against the locker. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Um, we…”

  Her friend stepped in. “Skye wanted to invite you to our party this weekend. Her parents are out of town, and you know the drill.”

  “Lots of uh, refreshments and fun times,” Skye said with a waggle of her eyebrows, and her friend gave her a look. “Sorry. I mean there is, but…you should come.”

  “Yeah, okay. Give me your number,” Connor said. He reached for his phone but Skye grabbed his hand and pulled out a pen, writing it on his hand. Her friends laughed. “See you in psychology, Connor.”

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nbsp; He turned back to me. To whatever was on my face. “What?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing. Have fun at your party.”

  “You should come with me,” he said, inching dangerously close. “We can do…all kinds of things.”

  I took a step back. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Come with me,” I said, pulling him into the nearest bathroom. I pushed open all the stalls, checking for people.

  “We can’t do that…in front of people, Connor.”

  He frowned. “Do what?”

  “You know. You can’t act like that around me here.”

  “Oh right,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You’re scared someone will see—your friends, what they’ll think of you. God, fuck it, Jack, we should go to that party and go out in a blaze of glory! Just show up like it’s no big deal, I mean what are they gonna do if they—”

  “Connor,” I interrupted. “How long have you gone to this school?”

  He frowned. “Long enough to know that this place is royally fucked up.”

  “Yeah well, it is fucked up and it’s worse than you think. I just can’t do that, okay? Not here. Not right now.”

  He sighed and nodded. “I got you. I used to be like that too, before I stopped giving a shit about what other people think. But I get it. Trust me, I do.” He took my hand. His skin on mine was like flipping a switch on my mood. “You should come with me to the party.”

  “Why?” I said. “There’ll be plenty of hot girls like Skye there.”

  “I don’t care,” he said.

  “I thought you liked girls.”

  “I do.” He leaned in and kissed me. “But I like you more.”

  I felt myself smile.

  “Anyway, you have to come. They have a hot tub. Big fancy house. Or at least that’s what I heard Skye bragging about to her friends in Spanish.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No, I’m serious.” The bell rang. “I’ll see you at lunch, okay?” He kissed my cheek and left the bathroom just as a group of guys came in, startling me out of my daze.

  I spent the next period doing what I usually did after Connor kissed me in between classes: nothing. I couldn’t concentrate, could barely think. Buzzed and high, like I was full of helium.

  The rest of the week was clouded by him. He was what I saw when I closed my eyes, and it sent my stomach into knots, my chest full of fire. His voice, his laugh, the way he put his hands through his hair, it was mesmerizing. I watched the way he breathed, fascinated by each intake of air and each exhale, the way his stomach rose and fell. The way his face looked when he was relaxed.

  He was addictive in other ways too. He brought me some of the best weed I’d ever tried, better than the shit Toby’s family sold. We toked up that beautiful Thursday right after school let out. He brought a glass pipe decorated with peace signs and the most amazing stuff I’d ever inhaled.

  Things were going beautifully when Jess’s voice broke through my stoned half-consciousness.

  “Jack? What the fuck are you doing?”

  She stood there, arms folded, scowling at us like she was part of the security team. Bad students, no smoking on school grounds.

  Connor leaned back in the grass and started laughing hysterically. We both had the hoods of our sweatshirts pulled so tightly over our heads you could barely see our faces. I walked over cautiously, looking around for security. Half of me didn’t give a shit. It was such a great afternoon, the blue sky, the THC swimming through my blood, Connor’s elbow so close to mine it gave me goosebumps.

  “You guys want to get kicked out of school?” she hissed.

  “That’s why we’re in disguise,” Connor whispered, pulling the drawstrings tighter until I could barely see him.

  “Hey, Jess!” I said, waving the pipe around. I wanted her to let loose and relax, crawl inside the moment with me. “You gotta try this shit. I swear, you will not—hey!”

  She snatched it out of my hand before I could finish another sentence. “Are you serious? Go home and smoke this, dummy. Why are you sitting out here in the middle of the courtyard smoking up in broad daylight?”

  I was too stoned to form a coherent response, so I grabbed it out of her hands and sat back down on the soft grass. I took a long hit. “It’s cool, Jess. Everything’s cool. The grass is green and the sky is blue.”

  “Jack, please, I’m serious. Can you just walk me home?” She rubbed her bare arms like she was cold and it wasn’t so hot I was baking to a crisp inside my sweatshirt.

  “Seriously, dude,” Connor said, nudging him in the shoulder. “She’s serious, man. Like, seriously.” Then we were both cracking up all over again, two ridiculous cartoon character boys.

  “It’s not funny, Jack!” I heard the desperation in her voice, but somehow felt so far from it. “Can you just come over here for a second?”

  “Yeah, yeah, give me a minute,” I said. The pipe was full of sweet stuff. Just one more hit…

  “Jesus, forget it! You’re high as a blimp.” She turned and started to walk away. “I’ll leave you to your new best friend.”

  “Jess, wait! I didn’t mean it!”

  “You are such an asshole, man,” I heard Connor say, and again, in spite of the fact that I had just been a massive jerk to my best friend in the whole world, we broke into laughter. I watched her leave, arms folded tight across her body, head down, and felt a pang of sudden guilt, like the feeling I got as a kid when I’d snatched these balloons from a little girl on the playground and let them float away into the air, higher and higher, both of us faced with the sudden realization that they were gone forever and all we could do was watch them leave.

  19.

  “Did you know that a whale ejaculates like 100,000 gallons of sperm a day?” Max asked us.

  Toby laughed so hard you could see the yellowed molars in the back of his mouth. I stubbed my cigarette out in the grass.

  “Gross,” I said. It was lunch period and we were sitting in the green, far enough away from the courtyard they wouldn’t see us covertly smoking some nice hash Toby had scored for us that morning.

  “And get this,” Max continued, flipping through his phone. “Ducks have like, the largest penis in the world. They’re like fucking explosive springs. Look at this, man.”

  Toby grabbed his phone from him. “Jack, look at this, look! It’s like a fucking rape pole!”

  I moved my head away. “I don’t want to see that.”

  “Speaking of which,” Toby said. “We should go fishing tonight.”

  Max’s eyes lit up. “Yes! At Skye’s thing!”

  Toby groaned in appreciation at the mention of Skye. Gross. “Forget the fishing. We’ll go just to see what slutty ensemble Skye picks out tonight.”

  “I don’t know if I feel like it,” I said.

  He gave me a look. “You never fucking feel like it.”

  “Jack, are you kidding? It’ll be dope,” Max said. “We haven’t gone to a legit house party in forever.”

  I scoffed. “Forever” was barely more than a month to these losers. I looked longingly across the green out to the courtyard, wondering where Connor was. Lately I’d been feeling less and less connected to my boys, like they had shrunk into tiny gnats that wouldn’t stop biting at my skin.

  And as for “fishing,” well, that was Toby’s favorite evening activity, a game that involved picking up girls. It had its own set of rules, and like the sport, they weren’t always so nice. The idea was to nab the ugliest girl there, the so-called “fish,” and then compare them all at the end of the night after they were all too high or drunk—or both—to notice.

  It was Friday and expected that it’d be really warm tonight, so plenty of girls would be wearing tight, tiny outfits to Skye’s party. Toby and Max were still talking about the beached whales they’d find there when I stood up.

  “Where you going?” Max asked.

  “I’ll be back.”

  I knew Toby was watching me as I w
alked over to the courtyard, closer to the shade.

  I checked for security and lit a cigarette. From my spot beneath a beech tree, I could see all of the kids sitting and eating on the grass, laughing, talking, probably joking about the latest thing they saw or did online, some shit like that. I saw the nerdy kids huddled around in a circle playing that Magic card game—playing with intensity, the kinds of kids that Toby would laugh at. They noticed when he did that shit, but I never said anything to him.

  I scanned the red brick building of the school, the stucco walls and the ugly puke green doors, the ones I passed through every day. I wondered what it would be like to get lost in that sea of faces, really lost, like as a new kid without a past and without an identity…without any friends or baggage of any kind.

  “Hey man.”

  I turned and saw Max, smiling sheepishly at me. “Toby said to come see what you were doing. You okay?”

  I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m fine.”

  “I don’t know. You just seem…kind of distant lately. Like something’s bothering you.”

  I laughed dryly. “Thanks, but I really don’t need a therapist. I’m just chilling. Alright? I’ll meet you guys later.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Max said, turning once to look over at Toby. “You really should come to Skye Russo’s crib tonight. It’s gonna be sick, like mad chicks and drugs. We just talked about it and we’ve decided we’re meeting…here.”

  He pulled out a pen from his pocket and took my hand in his, turning my palm upwards. For a moment, I felt a cold dread go through my stomach, but it fell away as soon as he started writing down a time and an address.

  “In case your phone goes dead or something,” he grinned. “Or in case you forget.”

  There was Max’s sweet, unassuming smile. I opened my mouth to say something. There was something I wanted, needed to say to him, though what I couldn’t quite figure out.

  20.

  Toby and Asha Yardley were grinding to some shitty rap song.