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

“I can’t believe you remember his name.”

“I can’t believe you don’t.”

“Why would I?”

Orson swallowed, eyes asquint. “He raped me, Andy.”

Thunder vibrated the glass. I stared into the half-empty bottle of wine between my legs. My fingers wrapped around the cool neck. I lifted the cabernet to my lips and let it run down my throat.

“That didn’t happen,” I said. “I can look at you and—”

“And I can look at your face right now and see that you know it did.”

“You’re lying.”

“Then why do you have a funny feeling in your guts? Like something you haven’t touched in years is waking up in the lining of your stomach.”

I took another jammy sip and set the bottle between my feet.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “See if—”

“No. I’m giving you this so I can sleep. I’m not gonna sit here and listen to—”

“Do you have a cigarette burn on the end of your dick?”

It felt as though ants were traversing the back of my neck.

“Me, too,” he said.

“That didn’t happen. I remember now. It was a story you made up after those kids found him.”

“Andy.”

I didn’t want to know, but I did. I sensed it had always been there, tucked away in an alley of my memory, where I could walk by and know that something awful lurked there, without ever wandering down the corridor to behold it with clarity.

“It happened late one afternoon during a thunderstorm,” he said. “In a drainage tunnel that ran beneath the interstate. The water was only a couple inches deep and the tunnel was high enough for a man to walk upright in. We played there all the time.

“We’d been exploring the woods since lunch, when a line of storms blew in. To escape the squall, we ran down to the creek and followed it up to the tunnel. Thought we’d be safe from lightning under the concrete, but we were standing in running water.”

I see you in the dank tunnel darkness.

“I was telling you,” he continued, “that Mom was gonna whip our asses for staying out in the storm.”

I turned away from Orson and set the syringe on the floorboard. Night was full-blown, and darkness pervaded the car, so Orson was imperceptible beside me. I only saw his words, scarcely audible over the moan of the storm, as they dragged me into that alley.

Our laughter reverberates through the tunnel. Orson splashes me with water, and I splash it back onto his skinny prepubescent legs. We stand at the mouth of the tunnel, where the runoff drops two feet into a waist-deep muddy pool that we think is filled with snakes.

Two hundred feet away, at the opposite end of the tunnel, we hear the noise of careless footsteps in shallow water. Orson and I turn and see that the dot of light at the other end is blocked now by a moving figure.

“Who is it?” Orson whispers.

“I don’t know.”

Through the darkness, I detect the microscopic glow of a cigarette.

“Come on,” he whines. “Let’s go. We’re gonna get in trouble.”

Thunder shakes the concrete, and I step across the dirty current and stand by my brother.

He tells me he’s afraid. I am, too. It begins to hail, chunks of ice the size of Ping-Pong balls pelting the forest floor and flopping fatly into the orange pool. More scared of the storm than the approaching footsteps, we wait, apprehensive. The tobacco cherry waxes, and we soon catch the first waft of smoke.

The man who emerges from the shadow is stocky and bald, older than our father, with an undomesticated gray beard and forearms thick as four-by-fours. He wears filthy army fatigues, and though hardly taller, he outweighs us by a hundred pounds. Staggering right up between us, he looks us up and down in a utilitarian fashion, which does not unnerve me like it should. I still don’t know about some things.

“I been watching you all afternoon,” he says. “Never had twins.” I’m not sure what he means. He has a northern accent, and a deep voice that rumbles when he speaks, like a growling animal. His breath is rancid, smoky, and sated with alcohol. “Eenie, meanie, minie, moe. Catch a tiger by her toe. If she hollers, let her go. Eenie, meanie, minie, moe.” He points a thick grease-stained index finger into Orson’s chest. I’m getting ready to ask what he’s doing, when a fist I never see coming catches me clean across the jaw.

I come to consciousness with the side of my face in the water, my vision blurred, and Orson moaning.

“Keep crying like that, boy,” the man says, winded. “That’s nice. Real nice.”

My sight clears, but I don’t understand why Orson is on his knees in the water, with the man draped over him, his enormous villous legs pressed up against the back of Orson’s hairless thighs. His olive pants and underwear pulled down around his black boots, the man hugs him tightly as they rock back and forth.

“Hot damn,” the man whispers. “Oh, good God.” Orson screeches. He sounds like our cocker spaniel puppy, and still I don’t understand.

The man and Orson look at me at the same instant and see that I’m conscious and curious. Orson shakes his head and sobs harder. I cry, too.

“Boy,” the man says to me, his face slick with sweat. “Don’t you move. I’ll twist your brother’s little neck off and roll it like a bowling ball.”

So I lie there with my face in the water, watching the man moan. He closes his eyes and starts hugging Orson faster and faster. As he comes, he bites Orson’s shoulder through a blue T-shirt, and my brother howls.

The man looks so happy. “Ah! Ahh! Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahhhhhh!”

Willard pulls out and Orson collapses into the water. There’s blood all over my brother’s ass. It runs down the backs of his legs. He lies in the water, half-naked, too stunned to cry or even pull up his pants. Willard takes a cigarette from his breast pocket and lights it.

“You’re a sweet piece,” he says, reaching down toward my brother, who’s still curled up in the water. Orson screams.

I sit up against the concrete wall. It’s no longer hailing, and Willard stumbles through the water toward me, his pants still down around his ankles. I’ve never seen a man’s erection before, and though beginning to fade, it’s ungodly huge. He stops in front of me.

“I can’t love you like I did him,” he says, dragging on the cigarette. “Ever sucked on a dick?” I shake my head, and he steps into me. My jaw is swollen, but I forget the pain when I smell him. He holds himself in his hand and brushes it against my cheek.