DUST

“You want the yard mowed today?  This is the day I do it, and I’m here.”

He was looking at Briar, but Briar was looking back at me.  My call, I guessed.

“Well, maybe the back,” I said.  “There’s too much stuff laid out here in front.”

“OK,” said Travis, smiling.  “Just so you know, though, the whole job is fifteen bucks.  Just one yard is nine.  More than half.  Overhead.”

“Well,” I said, drawing it out, “I guess we don’t need it cut that badly.  It’ll wait till next week.”

Travis didn’t like that a bit, and his forehead wrinkled.  “Hey, I drove all the way up here.  Cut me some slack, why doncha?”

“Eight bucks,” I said, sounding stern.  Hey, the kid had to know who was boss here.

Travis thought about it, then said, “Eight fifty.  Cutting around the shower will take me longer.  But that price’s good only for today.  Otherwise, my prices are firm.”

I got up and walked over to him and stuck out my hand.  He looked at it, looked at me, then shook my hand and grinned.  We were young, and neither of us had done much hand shaking, but his hand felt nice in mine.

While he cut the backyard, and made an unholy racket doing it, Briar had me use the hand barbells with only three pounds on each and do some curls, then some exercises twisting my torso and holding the weights out to my sides.  “Tones your rib muscles along with some others,” he said.

Travis came back out and watched me when he was done mowing, then watched me do some more presses, lying on the bench.  When I was exhausted and stopped, he came over and looked down at me.  “When do I get paid?” he asked.

“Whenever you want.  Each time, monthly, bi-weekly, however you’d like it.  We’re, well, Briar’s an equal-opportunity payer.”

“OK, today’s fine.  I only take cash.  No credit.  You look kind of shady, to me.”

I laughed, and Briar said he’d get the money.  When he brought it out, it was a five and five ones.  Instead of paying Travis, he gave it to me.  I was going to pay him, but then had an idea.  I got up and said, “I need to check this out first.”

I walked into the backyard with Travis following.  It looked great.  He’d even managed to trim pretty closely around the new posts holding up the shower.  “Looks good,” I said.  “Good enough for a tip.”  I handed him nine dollars.  “See you next week, I guess.”

He took the money with a nod that I assumed was a thank you for the tip and shoved it in his pocket.  He took a breath and opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to say something, but instead looked down and turned to walk back to his tractor.

“What?” I said when his back was to me.

“Well, I just…”  He turned back around.  “I wondered… but… well, no, that’s OK.  See you next week.”

Travis was shy!  Maybe as shy as I was.  Well, I wasn’t really shy.  I just didn’t much know how to talk to other kids.  This kid wasn’t only cute, he was right here, and he was the only kid I’d met.

I wasn’t really lonely.  I mean, I had Briar, and I hadn’t really had any friends before, living at my old house, so I was used to that, but, here was a kid!  I liked his personality; he’d been pretty assertive when talking to Briar and to me when Briar was with me, but now, with just the two of us, he was acting all shy.  I wanted to figure this out.  And I didn’t want him just walking away.  So maybe I was lonely, a little bit.  Maybe.

“Travis?”

He stopped.  Then he slowly turned around to look at me.

“Travis, I don’t know anyone around here.  We’re fixing the place up a little, Briar and I, and then were going to live here.  Do you live nearby?”

“Yeah.  You know that field you’ve run across the past couple of mornings?  I live through those trees and down the hill just a short ways from there.”

“You’ve seen us run?”

“I, uh… I see everything that goes on around here.”

“I—”  And suddenly I knew.  I knew why he’d spoken about that shower in the backyard earlier when he hadn’t been back there yet to see it, and I knew what the animal had been I’d heard running away as I was drying off after my shower.

I grinned.   I probably should have been embarrassed or pissed off.  I wasn’t.  This kid had done exactly what I’d have done if I’d had his courage.  He watched what was happening all around his neighborhood.  We were new people, and he’d been watching us all along.  He’d spied on us, but, so what?  It wasn’t his fault I was naked while he was watching.  As I said, I’d have done the same thing.

He was watching me figure this all out, and I saw some recognition in his eyes.  “Uh,” he said, and I could see him getting ready to run.

“Travis,” I said, and my voice wasn’t a bit threatening.  “You were watching when I was showering, weren’t you?  I heard something, but I thought it was deer or maybe a bear.  It was you, wasn’t it?”

He hesitated, then asked, “Would you be mad?”

I grinned.  “No, I wouldn't be mad.  I’d just figure you’d owe me one.  You’ve seen me naked.  Sometime, I should get to see you!”

I was watching his eyes like he was watching mine.  What I saw I couldn’t begin to read.  But eventually he smiled, and said, “We could talk about it.”

Man, I liked his smile.

Travis stayed for lunch.  He was a month and a half younger than I was.  I liked him right from the start.

What he’d wanted to ask me when he’d hesitated in the backyard right after being paid was if he could join me in lifting weights.  He said he needed to get stronger.

When he told me that, sitting at the lunch table, I looked at Briar.  “Sure,” he said, speaking to Travis.  “But only if you have your dad or mom come meet Dustin and me, and they give permission.  It’s easy to get hurt lifting, and they have to know you’re doing it.”

“OK,” he said, but without a lot of enthusiasm.  I was going to ask about that but decided maybe he didn’t want to discuss it in front of Briar, and so I changed the subject.

Briar said if I wanted to take the rest of the afternoon off, it was OK with him; there was stuff he could do by himself, and I’d certainly earned a rest.  So that’s what we did.  We finished lunch, and Travis and I went outside.

The day was perfect: sunny with some big, fluffy-looking white clouds just to give the sky some definition.  The temperature was in the low 80s, and there were occasional light breezes to blow away our sweat. 

We just walked, heading down the driveway to the road.  He turned uphill when we got there, and I stayed with him.  We talked, getting acquainted.  He’d lived here all his life, so he knew the area, the people, the school, everything.  I asked him about his friends and what they did together.

“Video games and sports, mostly.  Pickup touch football, pickup softball, depends on how many kids are around.  There aren’t many kids our age, so mostly it’s with older kids or younger.  Having you here is good.”

“Uh, Travis, I don’t really do sports.”

He looked at me.  “Why not?”

“I’m not any good at them.  I’m not terribly well-coordinated, and I just haven’t had much practice.  When I’ve tried in gym at school, kids laughed at me.  I just don’t like any of it much.”

“Well,” he said, “if you want to, you could do what we do around here.  Nobody takes it seriously.  It’s just for fun.  Some kids are good, some aren’t.  We need as many players as we can get, usually, and so no one teases anyone.  We don’t want them deciding not to play.”

“I don’t know.”

I think he heard something in my voice, because he said, “It’s OK.  You don’t have to.”

“I might watch first.  I’m good at watching.”

He grinned.  “OK.  If you do that, I’m sure we’ll get you to play.  Next time there’s something going on, I’ll come get you.”

“So, you have a lot of friends, then?  Anyone you hang out with a lot?”  I hoped that didn’t sound like anything other than just a question.  I didn’t want him to know I’d never had friends and probably wouldn’t have him once he saw I sucked at both real games and most video games.  I wanted to know if he had a best friend, but it seemed awkward or intrusive to ask.

He didn’t answer right away.  We walked farther and came to the top of the hill.  There were flat fields on both sides of the road, and he said, “Come on, I want to show you something.”

I followed him across one field till we came to the end.  There was a fairly steep cliff there, and below I could see the city I’d lived in spread out in a panoramic view that was both unexpected and breathtaking.  I could see where my old house was, generally, but it was too far away to really see it.

There were several large rocks there, and Travis climbed up on one of the bigger ones and held out his hand.  I grabbed it and he pulled me up, then sat down.  I sat next to him and looked at the city, trying to make out where places I knew were.

“I need to tell you something, Dustin.”

I turned to him because his voice was different when he said that.  He was looking at the city, too, and not at me.

“What?”

“You asked about friends.  Yeah, I’ve got some, but no really close ones.  It’s because—”  He stopped abruptly and took a deep breath.  I could hear emotion in his voice when he continued.  “I’m gay, Dustin.  I used to have a best friend until I told him.  He told everyone else.  Most of the kids are OK with it.  Only a couple are assholes.  But after everyone knew, things changed.  I don’t get asked for sleepovers any more.  If a group is going to a movie, I’ll get invited, but everyone tries not to have to sit next to me or share their popcorn with me.  Things just aren’t the same.  And… I don’t have a best friend now.”

I was looking at him, but he wasn’t looking at me.  He was starting out over the city far below.  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.  “We just met.” 

He took another deep breath and opened his mouth.  “It’s because we just met.  Because I think we could be friends, and I don’t want you to find out I’m gay from someone else and change your mind about me.  I know what that’s like.  If you’re not going to be friends with me because I’m gay, I want to know now.”

He paused, then added, “And, I told you because I watched you taking that shower, and you’ll remember that.  So I just wanted everything out in the open.”

I didn’t know what to say.  Or think, really.  I found Travis incredibly attractive, and he was gay.  I knew I should tell him I was gay, too, but couldn’t.  I’d never told another kid, and if I was going to, I needed to think about it and plan it first.  Also, it crossed my mind and I wondered, if I told him, would he immediately think that meant we should start having sex and everything?  I wasn’t ready for that.  Even though I found him attractive, I hardly knew him.  I’d never done anything like that and wanted to get to know someone before I did.  It seemed safer and, and… and the way it should be, somehow.

I didn’t know anything about how this gay thing worked, how gay kids acted.  I was still very unsure of myself, very awkward with kids my age, and just blurting out to an almost-perfect stranger that I was gay just wasn’t something I could do.  I mean, think about it.  He’d already told everyone he was gay.  I didn’t know him.  Maybe he’d also tell everyone I was gay.

So I didn’t tell him.  Instead, I said, “Travis, I haven’t had many friends.  I told you I’m not much good at games, and I got teased and bullied at school a lot because I never stood up for myself and that meant other kids didn’t want to hang around me much.  I’d love to have a friend, someone I could hang with and talk to and have secrets with, even if you say you don’t like them, and all that sort of thing.  I like you.  I like your personality and everything else I’ve seen and if you’re gay, I don’t care.  It’s good, actually, because it means you’ll be paying more attention to me than any pretty girl that happens by.”

His face lit up.  “Really?  You don’t care?”

“Really.  And you know those sleepovers you were talking about?  I’ve never had one, but I’d like to.  So, maybe you and me, sometime?  I’d like that.”

We talked a lot longer.  Eventually, I had to get back.  Briar had said he wanted to run again at about five when the afternoon heat was waning but was still warm enough so we’d get up a good sweat.  Travis said he needed to go, too, because he had another couple of lawns to mow.

When we got back to the house and he was sitting on his tractor before turning it on and starting up the racket it made, I asked him about getting permission from his parents to lift weights with me.

“Uh, I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

He looked down, not meeting my eyes.  I reached out and touched his shoulder.  “You can tell me,” I said.  “That’s what friends do.  It’s something about your parents.  You can’t have worse ones than I did.”

“What do you mean?  You’re dad seems great.”

I shook my head.  “Briar’s not my dad.  He’s a friend who’s looking after me and teaching me things.  My dad’s not like that at all.  Briar rescued me from him.  Yours can’t possibly be as bad as mine was.”

Travis raised his eyes till they met mine.  “He’s not really bad.  He’s just drunk most of the time.  I don’t have a mom.”

“Well, have him call Briar then when he’s sober enough.”  I gave him Briar’s cell-phone number.  “I’d love it if you could train with me.  Let’s suffer together.”

He grinned.  “OK.  I’ll try.  I want to, too.”

That grin!  All day he’d been a strange mix of cocky, self-confident kid and then a shy and reticent kid-shaped question mark.  Now, that grin showed me again what the cocky kid looked like.  He’d told me a couple of secrets he’d probably been worrying about—his dad was a drunk and that he was gay—and he’d seen I wasn’t put off by either, and the way he looked when he left, he’d shed some worries along with his secrets.  I hoped so.  I really wanted him for a friend.

And not just because he was gay!