And that was what scared me the most, wasn't it? The fact that, maybe there wasn't a self to find.

The thought of that overwhelmed me to sleep.

Another short sleep, another vivid dream.

Some dreams are seen from my eyes. Some dreams are seen from some place far above. This was one of those dreams. Below me was a dark forest but the trees were jaggedly cut sheets of metal with corrugated iron trunks. The trees were tall, huge, the forest floor littered with cans and bolts and shredded tarpaper. The parents were down there. Not the vibrant parents of the last dream. These parents were the rundown gutter version of those people. The father wore a stained white t-shirt stretched over an enormous gut. Blackened jeans truncated at the tops of his thighs. His shiny new legs were now thickly rusted iron springs. He bounced heavily around the forest floor. The mother drank her gin out of a pitcher, sloshing the brownish-tinged liquid down her chin. Even from my vantage point, I could tell she had had another stroke, something in the way she carried herself. She wore no wig at all, strands of gray-black hair pasted down to her filthy scalp. They both scurried around, kicking the stuff on the ground away, occasionally bending down to move something with their hands. They were looking for something.

"Wallace," the Racecar called.

"Wallace," the mother strumbled. "Where's Wallace?"

"Wally!"

They got moving faster and faster. I felt dizzy and sick, saddened at their downtrodden appearance and hopeless search. A terrible screeching filled the dream, the sound of one of those giant iron trees slowly loosing itself, pulling its bolts up out of the forest floor, and heading straight for the parents. I looked away, up at the moon, filled with Maria Thiklet's face.

"Wallace!"

Then I woke up. The room was dark and at first I didn't know where I was. Once I remembered, I figured Maria must have slipped in and turned off the light.

The room was dark but the house wasn't still and whatever complacency I'd felt before was gone. I heard Maria sobbing. Then I heard Boo, the beloved husband.

"What the h.e.l.l you doin bringin a f.u.c.kin freak in mah house?"

I was immediately gripped by fear. It was like hearing him talk, from the accent to the tone of the things that actually came out of his mouth, proved my a.s.sumptions true. Here was a grownup Bucky Swarth, swelled up to hideous adult proportions. A giant c.o.c.kwrinkle.

"What was I supposed to do, just leave him laying there?"

"Somebody woulda come and picked eem up. Why'd you gotta go and make it our problem?"

"He's not a problem. It's good to do things like this."

"You think you know what's good? He's in there layin in his own stink. You know what he smells like? Smells like death. What he done to get himself here? You ever thoughta that? You don't know what's good. Whatcha oughta do is be waitin here for me with yer legs open when I get home. That's what'd be good."

"You'd be so drunk you couldn't get it up." The hatred in her voice surprised even me and I didn't even know her.

There was a struggle after that. I heard thumping. And then silence.

The rest of the night I lay there, hating G.o.d, hating the parents and myself and everything. Of all the places for that rope, that force to bring me, why did it have to be here? I'd get out. I'd wait until the Thiklets were asleep. I'd find my shoes and I'd get the h.e.l.l out. Probably go back home. Maybe I would go ahead and turn myself in. I'd only been away two nights and I already had the feeling there wasn't going to be anything better further down the line. I'd just get more and more beaten down as the world clawed at my soul.

I just kept thinking thoughts like that, lying there stiff as a board as my fever or whatever the f.u.c.k it was broke me into a cold sweat. The thoughts went around and around, creating that other emotion besides the exuberance and the melancholy sadness, the red panic. I'd felt the red panic at school a few times, had out and out fled on one of those occasions, but never like this. The worst thing about the red panic was that it only created the feelings and no solutions, no way out. The only way out, I figured, was the red crawlies. My body was so rigid I felt like it was cutting into the bed. Before I knew it, it was dawn and then, I don't know how, but I drifted back to sleep. A cool, calm, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Twenty-two.

Building a Secret Place I woke up to a knocking on the door. It was Maria.

"Wallace. I cooked us breakfast."

"Thanks," I called.

I jumped out of bed and something pinched my hipbone. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the lighter Drifter Ken had given me. I yanked the comforter off the dresser and threw it on the bed. I put the lighter on the dresser. Turning around, I set about making up the bed. I'd never done this before. Of course, ever since I'd been of bed making age I hadn't really had a bed to make. I'm sure I did a horrible job, but I tried. It didn't look nearly as good as it had before I'd slept on it. The comforter was all wrinkled- looking, sad and pathetic, the Mr. Lawrence of comforters. It didn't seem nearly large enough to fit the bed. I gave it a quick smoothing with my hand and went downstairs.

Sunlight filled the entire house and I felt good. I'd tell Maria I was leaving after breakfast and then I'd do it. Maybe I'd wander around Farmertown a little and look at all of the old buildings. Then I guessed I'd go back home to Walnut and see if the house was still there. I still didn't know if I'd go in or not, but I'd at least go by.

Maria had cooked bacon and eggs and toast for breakfast. That food mingled with the smell of coffee and all of it seemed really comforting. Maria was already sitting down. She looked up at me. "Help yourself," she said.

If she looked tired yesterday, she looked outright beaten down today. As we ate, there was none of the chatter that accompanied the dinner last night. When we were finished she asked, "How are you feeling?"

"Good. Actually, really good."

"Good." She smiled.

I thought it would be easy to tell her I wanted to leave. I thought it would be even easier to do the actual leaving but as I looked at her, sadly smiling over her half-eaten breakfast and mug of coffee, something inside of me didn't really want to go. Rather, there was something inside of me that told me I should stay.

"Where did you put my shoes?" I asked, staring down at my plate.

"They're in the living room. Are you leaving?"

"I think so."

"You should stick around. Boo said he really wanted to meet you."

"I think I'm gonna go back home."

"Look, stick around for dinner and one of us'll drive you home tonight. Where are you from?"

"Milltown."

"That's not an easy walk."

"It's not that bad."

"I'm making roast beef. It'll be really good. Besides, I could kind of use the company."

"Okay," I mumbled. Maybe I was just flattered that someone wanted my company.

"Staying?" she asked.

I nodded my head.

"Great," she said.

Her beaten down quality lifted and there now seemed something more genuine about her. She might be more entertaining today.

We got up from the table and sc.r.a.ped our plates over the trash. I helped her with the dishes. After the dishes, I followed her around the house, listening to her talk about just about everything as I stood by, completely useless. Once the living room was completely restored to a condition very similar to what it was already in, she flopped down on the couch.

"The best thing about cleaning the house is sitting down afterwards," she said with an exasperated sigh.

"I guess," I said. But I didn't sit down. I think I was still waiting to leave. I never really liked sitting down on couches anyway. I would gladly sleep, but it was rare for me to just sit down on a couch and not do anything at all.

"You like music?"

"Some of it, I guess."

Maria got back up off the couch and went over by the television, where the stereo system was. She bent down and flipped through a small record collection. The afternoon sunlight came in through the gla.s.s sliding door at the back of the house. Last night it hadn't seemed like the house was capable of being this bright. I watched Maria put the record on the player and drop the needle down.

A familiar music filled the room.

"Bobby DeHaven," she said.

"I know. He's my favorite."

"It's pretty good stuff. You like to dance?"

This was an interesting question. I didn't really know if I liked to dance or if, upon hearing Bobby DeHaven, I was simply filled with an overwhelming urge to dance. Nevertheless, dancing made me happy, so I said, "Yes." I knew my particular style of dancing was somewhat embarra.s.sing and probably painful to watch, but I figured I'd be gone soon anyway, so what did it matter?

f.u.c.k it. Right? And to think, it wasn't that long ago I'd actually entertained thoughts about being a backup dancer for Bobby DeHaven. Why had that not seemed insane at the time? It certainly struck me as ludicrous now.

She started dancing first, swishing her hips around, her long khaki skirt billowing out from her legs. She opened her arms, beckoning for me to join her. I moved in, tentatively at first, not sure how to really dance while conjoined with someone else. Her arms encircled me and she dragged me into her laughing warmth. How could I not feel happy? Pressed up against her body, I felt ecstatic. The firmness of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s sunk into my stomach. We turned around and around in circles, feverishly matching the music. She kept pulling me into her as we drifted toward the couch. I think she meant to pull me down with her, but I stayed upright, letting her crash there on the couch by herself. I burst into my one-man routine-the one I worked on in my room by myself. I hadn't danced like that in some time and figured I might be rusty. But it was just the opposite, as though the break had done me some good. My movements were quick and precise. The weight of the horns on my head added some excitement, as though they threatened to throw me off balance. I must have gone like that for some time, throwing myself all around the living room, Maria unabashedly laughing. Before I knew it, the side was over and I was standing over by the sliding doors.

"Why don't you turn the side over and come take a rest."

I flipped the record over. The second side contained DeHaven's slow, syrupy love ballads and f.u.c.kness like that. The kind of s.h.i.t people write to get girls to think they're sensitive types. I went and sat down on the couch, way over on the other side.

Maria turned sideways on the couch, so that she was facing me, tucking her feet up under her legs.

"That certainly was unique," she said. "Where'd you learn to dance like that?"

"On my own."

Looking at Maria, curled up there on the couch, made me think of her completely differently than I had the night before. Maybe it was just the dancing, but it kind of felt like we'd created some secret world between just the two of us. She had danced with me, something I didn't think anybody else would ever do. And I had helped her with the dishes and cleaning the house, which I would say n.o.body else ever helped her do. And I also thought I knew something else that I doubted anyone else did.

Suddenly, I realized what that peculiar look on her face was last night. She hated Boo Thiklet. Probably with a great unabiding pa.s.sion. I'd only heard him talk for a few minutes and I hated him.

"n.o.body ever dances with me," she said.

"Me either," I said right back.

"It felt kind of good."

"It sure did."

"It's nice to have company. Someone to talk to. Boo won't even let me keep a pet so I just wander around here most days talking to myself like a crazy woman." She laughed, a light breathy thing. "I guess we're all a little crazy sometimes, huh?"

"I guess."

A sudden wave of self-consciousness swept over me. It coincided directly with the fact that, at that moment, I found Maria Thiklet incredibly attractive. And it wasn't a trashy kind of attractiveness that blobby Mary Lou Dover exuded at school. It wasn't even the attractiveness I'd found in her when I first came to on the couch. It was something else. It was the way she did things. Or maybe it was the way she acted. She seemed innocently imprisoned in her house with her husband as the captor and yet she brought me in from outside and hadn't even mentioned my G.o.dd.a.m.n horns. And my self-consciousness didn't have anything to do with the way I looked. I just started thinking about how I should act and, top priority, how I smelled. I remembered Boo Thiklet saying I smelled like death last night. That was probably while I was in there wrestling with my fever. Sometimes, if you just let it go, stink will die down a little. But when you sweat, like after dancing for a half an hour, it'll break that stink open so it's a degree worse than it was before. Sitting on the couch, I was incredibly aware of my stink.

"I stink," I told Maria. "Can I go take a shower?"

"You're more than welcome. I have to go out and pick up sticks. That storm yesterday really did it. Blew all kinds of branches from the tree. Boo'll complain if he comes home and finds a bunch of sticks laying all over his yard. Especially when it's something he specifically asked me to do. Were you out in that storm yesterday?"

"Only a little."

"Go ahead and shower up."

I crept upstairs to the bathroom and stripped down. I ran the shower nearly scalding hot. The f.u.c.kness is melting away, I told myself. It was like removing a layer of soulgrime I'd acc.u.mulated over the past few days. Why was I interested in that? It wasn't just my stink, which had never bothered me before, it was everything else I'd done, too. And I was doing it because, for that moment when I looked at Maria and felt that sense of creating a secret place I'd wanted to forget every bad thing I'd ever done, every bad impulse I'd ever had. But then again there was something else in Maria's eyes that worried me a little bit. There was the honesty, yes, but there was something about that honesty that made me think maybe the secret place was only going to be her place. f.u.c.k it, I thought. I was sixteen. I'd pretty much go any place she wanted me to.

The water steamed all over my body, reddening my skin, and I really did have a feeling the major f.u.c.kness was almost over. The f.u.c.kness would never leave completely, I knew, but it would be entirely possible to put off the next bout of major f.u.c.kness for a number of years. Spending the day with Maria would be nice. Then I'd go home. Then I'd go home. Then I'd go home, I kept telling myself.

I grabbed a fluffy, deep blue towel and dried off. I put my dirty clothes back on. Well, I guess they were Boo's clothes with my dirt. They only slightly smelled like death. When I got downstairs, Maria still hadn't come back inside. I opened the sliding doors and stepped outside. Maria was bent over, hurriedly snapping up small twigs and placing them in the growing bundle supported by her left arm. I watched her move with industrious speed and put the bundle of twigs into a black trashbag. She was so immersed in her work she didn't even notice me. She went back around to the front of the house. I went back inside and stood absently in the middle of the living room, only vaguely aware of pulling my right ear with my hand.

When Maria came in she looked upset, like she'd been crying.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm just fine. Just a lot of stuff I gotta do before Boo gets home. I tell you, he doesn't have to lift a finger around here, that's for sure. Not a G.o.dd.a.m.n finger. Did you make your bed this morning?"

"I tried. But I don't think I did a very good job."

"Hey," she said, "why don't you give that ear a rest and come upstairs with me."

I followed her up the stairs much closer than I had last night. I got close enough to smell her natural shampoo and soap smell, the airy breath of outside clinging to her.

Without thinking, when we reached the top of the stairs, I blurted, "You smell nice."

"Thanks," she said. "It's White Rain and Dove."

"Nice," I said.

I followed her into the guestroom and watched as she, with a few tugs and jerks, made the bed look better than I could have given an hour. I found myself staring at her and I felt kind of guilty because I could feel Mr. Lawrence hardening. Her skirt clung to her b.u.t.tocks and I noticed the blue veins running through her feet. When she finished, she gave a cursory but expert glance around the room. She spotted the green lighter on the dresser, picked it up and asked, "This yours?"

"Yeah," I said.

"You smoke?"

"No."

"You're not a pothead are you?"

"No."

"Good. That stuff'll make you stupid."