Desert Places (Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite Series 1)

Since dawn, I’d been trying to read Machiavelli in my room. Hot and unable to concentrate on anything except how I might escape, I’d come outside looking for relief in a breeze. But even in the wind, sweat stung my eyes, moistening my skin and hair. Inside, I heard another jazz record—such an eerie sound track to this empty desert, the music so full, effecting thoughts of crowded New York City clubs and people crammed into compact spaces. Normally, I despise crowds and proximity, but now the claustrophobic confines of a raucous nightclub seemed comforting.

I sat on the steps for the better part of an hour, watching the desert turn scarlet beneath the sun. My mind blanked, and I became so engrossed in the perpetuation of mindlessness that I started when the front door squeaked open behind me. Orson’s boots clunked hollowly against the wood.

“Will you be hungry soon?” he asked. The rumble of his scratchy voice caused my stomach to flutter. I couldn’t accept that we were together again. His presence still horrified me.

“Yes.”

“I thought I’d grill a couple of steaks,” he said, and I could tell he was smiling, hoping I’d be impressed. I wondered if he were trying to make up for nearly killing me. As children, whenever we fought, he’d always try to win me back with gifts, flattery, or, as in this case, food. “You want a drink?”

God yes.

I turned around and looked up at him. “If you’ve got it, Jack Daniel’s would be nice.”

He walked back inside and returned with an unopened fifth of that blessed Tennessee whiskey. It was the best moment of my day, like a small piece of home, and my heart leapt. Cracking the black seal, I took a long swill, closing my eyes as the oaken fire burned down my throat. In that second, as the whiskey singed my empty stomach, I could’ve been on my deck, alone, getting shit-faced in the glory of a Carolina evening.

I offered the bottle to Orson, but he declined. He walked around the corner of the cabin and dragged a grill back with him. After lighting the charcoal, he walked inside and returned carrying a plate with two ridiculously thick red filets mignons, salted and peppered. As he stepped past me, he held the plate down and said, “Pour a little of that whiskey on the meat.”

I drenched them in sour mash, and Orson tossed the tenderloin rounds on the grill, where they flamed for a couple of seconds. He came and sat beside me, and as the fuzziness of the whiskey set in, we listened to the steaks sizzle and watched the sunset redden, like old friends.

When the steaks were cooked, we took our plates onto the front porch, where a flimsy table stood on one side. Orson lit two candles with a silver Zippo, and we consumed our dinner in silence. I couldn’t help thinking as I sat across from him, You aren’t that monster I saw on the desert last night. That is how I sit here without trembling or weeping, because somehow I know that cannot be you. You are just Orson. My brother. My blue-eyed twin. I see you as a boy, a sweet, innocuous boy. Not that thing on the desert. Not that demon.

As the last shallow sunbeams retreated below the purple horizon, an ominous feeling took hold of me. The presence of light had afforded me a sense of control, but now, in darkness, I felt defenseless again. For this reason, I hadn’t touched the whiskey after my initial buzz, fearing inebriation could be dangerous here. The silence at the table unnerved me, too. We’d been sitting for twenty minutes without a word, but I wasn’t going to speak. What would I say to him?

Orson had been staring into his plate, but now his eyes fixed on me. He cleared his throat.

“Andy,” he said. “You remember Mr. Hamby?”

I couldn’t suppress it. A smile found my lips for the first time in days.

“Want me to tell it like you never heard it before?” Orson asked.

When I nodded, he leaned forward in his chair, blithe, wide-eyed, a born storyteller.

“When we were kids, we’d go several times a year up into the countryside north of Winston-Salem to stay with Grandmom. Granddad was dead, and she liked the company. So how old were we when this happened? Nine maybe? We’ll say nine so…”

You feel like Orson, and I know, I hope it won’t last, but Christ, you feel like my brother in this moment.

“And Grandmom’s house was next to this apple orchard. Joe Hamby’s orchard. He was a widower, so he lived by himself. It was early autumn, and schools and church groups would come for the day to Hamby’s orchard to pick apples and pumpkins, and buy cider and take hayrides.

“Well, since this orchard backed right up against Grandmom’s property, we couldn’t resist sneaking over there. We’d steal apples, climb on his tractors, play in the mountains of hay he stored in his barns. But Hamby was a real bastard about trespassers, so we’d have to go at night. We’d wait till Grandmom went to sleep, and we’d sneak out of that creaky farmhouse.

“All right, so this one particular October night, we slip outside about nine o’clock and hop the fence into the orchard. I remember the moon’s very full, and it’s not cold yet, but the crickets and tree frogs are gone, so the night is very still and very quiet. It’s near the peak of harvest. Some of the apples have soured, but most are perfect, and we stroll through the orchard, eating these ripened sun-warmed beauties, just having a helluva time.

“Now Hamby owned a couple hundred acres, and on the farthest corner of his land, there was this pumpkin patch we’d heard about but never had the balls to go there. Well, this night was one of those nights when we felt invincible. So we reach the end of the orchard and see these big orange pumpkins in the moonlight. Remember, Hamby had won some blue ribbons for his pumpkins at the state fair. He grew these monstrous hundred-pound freaks of nature.

“We can see his house a ways up the tractor path, and all the lights are off, so we race each other into the pumpkin patch, our eyes peeled for one of those hundred-pounders. Finally, we collapse in the middle of the patch, laughing, out of breath.”

Orson smiled. I did, too. We knew what was coming. “Suddenly, just a few yards away, we hear this loud groan: ‘I LOVE my orange pu**y!’”

I guffawed, felt the whiskey burn my sinuses.

“Scared us shitless,” he said. “We turn and see Mr. Hamby draped over this huge pumpkin the size of one of those Galápagos Island sea turtles. He’s got his overalls down around his ankles, and boy he’s humping this thing in the moonlight. Just talking up a storm, smacking it like he’s smacking a bare ass, and stopping every now and then to take a swig from his jar of peach brandy.