smiling, Bible in hand.
His sister hated the concrete cross on the canyon wall above Marshal. She offered it displays of her finger. The cross was like a hand flipping off the world, Lila said. She wanted it covered over with a glowing neon whiskey bottle. “Jack Daniels would pay for the advertising,” she said.
His stomach twisted, and in his mind, his fists rained down on his brother’s head.
At Paradise Café, he hovered at the little windows in front. Martin, looking away from Lyle and grinning, shared a table beneath the espresso machine with Devon and Monique. He seemed trapped behind the wide smile. When Lyle moved a hand and caught Martin’s eye, he gathered his book and sketch pad into his bag and laughed out to the sidewalk. “Let’s walk,” Martin said to him, still grinning, his voice strained. They went up the short road toward the station where passengers were stepping into a silver, high-windowed train.
Devon’s shoes came slapping the pavement behind them. “I know you and Monique tried to sleep together, but you couldn’t do it.”
Martin laughed, staggering to one side at the accusation. Then he skipped up to the platform, smiling stiffly, and hurried along the windows of the train, Lyle in his wake. Devon followed at a jog, while Monique walked slowly at a distance on the platform.
“You couldn’t get it up,” Devon said. “Like five different times.”
At the far edge of the platform Martin stopped and turned, and the three boys faced each other.
“Maybe I wasn’t interested,” Martin said.
“Not interested in that perfect body?”
Martin’s grin was now a mere exposure of teeth. Lyle didn’t want to look at him.
“Go look at North District! I shot out every light!”
“Now you have something to brag about.”
Monique approached. “Jesus, you guys—big drama.” She raised her hood in the drizzle. Behind her, a conductor helped an old man onto the train, watching them.
“So that sexy, beautiful girl didn’t appeal to you. I don’t think so. You’re impotent, and I’m telling everybody. You forced me too.”
“Would you let up on him?” Monique said.
“I can’t stand up for myself?” said Devon. “The whole school thinks I have herpes now. He spread it all over town.”
“That doesn’t mean turning around and laughing at a person for …”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Go look at North District!” Martin said again. “I do the things I talk about. I jump trains and make art and fuck girls, lots of them. Traditional girls. They’re the only kind I—”
“You were always too scared to jump on the train,” Devon said. “All last summer.”
“Martin, I’m sorry,” Monique said. “I only told Devon after you made up that stupid story. But we won’t say anything, as long as you tell people you made it up.”
“I didn’t make it up. A girl told me she got herpes off him.”
“Who?” Devon whispered hotly.
“I’m keeping it a secret whose life you wrecked. Believe it or not, she doesn’t want everybody to know she has herpes. And I’m not surprised you feel the same way. Has Monique been tested yet? Have you?”
“There’s no need to,” Devon said.
“He refuses to get tested. Interesting. All he has to do is show people a negative test. But he won’t do it. I wonder why.”
“I don’t have anything,” Devon said.
“This girl I know, she seems to think you do. Well, you two will figure out how to work around those little flare-ups.”
“There’s no girl,” Devon said.
“Oh? Lyle met her.”
Monique veered her eyes at Lyle. He nodded that it was true.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Devon told Monique. “Hey, don’t look like that. He’s lying.”
“Is he lying?” she asked Lyle.
“Well, I did meet the girl,” he said. “She was pretty upset. She thinks her whole life is ruined, and she’s in love with him. So …”
“Don’t believe them.”
“We’re getting tested,” Monique said.
“Okay. If you want to.”
“Don’t worry, Devonian,” Martin said. “I want you to take a deep breath and rest easy. Your overreaction to my telling the truth is totally understandable. But people with herpes can lead normal, happy lives—especially when both people have the disease.”
Martin hopped off the platform and strode along the strip of gravel running between the tracks and a chain-link fence. Lyle caught up to him. Beyond the lights of the station, Martin curled his fingers into the chain-link and rattled it before plodding ahead. He called over his shoulder, “Don’t follow me!” Then, “Call me tomorrow.” Instead of turning at a break in the fence at the next street, he continued down the tracks, his shape fading in the rain.
Lyle felt bad for him. Devon was enough of a scum to tell everybody. A guy like that was dangerous.
He left the station and walked along an empty department store building. There was nothing but dust on display in the windows. The spotlight beam flashed again in the sky, then vanished and appeared, seeming to speed up with the approach of midnight. He was pointed toward the apartment, but he still had plenty of wildness in him to throw at the night. He’d find a phone and call Rosa to see if she was home yet.
Between the Hilton and the high glass wall of the performing arts center, Rosa glided down the walkway on her bike in the fine rain. He stood near the hotel’s side entrance, beneath an awning. The umbrella she held, elongated and transparent, was shaped like a candle snuffer or a champagne glass, and only kept the rain off of her head. Riding up to Lyle, she lifted the umbrella and held it to one side. Her plastic raincoat swam with light and her face was small nestled in all that hair. She locked her bike at the rack in front of him.
“I took my little sister’s umbrella by accident. This thing has ducks in the plastic. You can tell I’m very cool—I’m all style. Sorry it took so long. My mom came upstairs when you called and I had to wait for her to go to bed. I told her it was Shanta. Why are we meeting here?”
He stepped out to the rain and tipped his head back, and she did the same. A red mist dragged across a corner of the Hilton roof.
“We could go up there,” he said. “On top.”
“On the roof? Why?”
“I don’t know, stand in the clouds.”
Inside, they took the elevator up to the bar on the top floor and were turned away. They went back to the eleventh floor and walked down the hallway and out to a balcony off the stairwell. Three spotlights moving on the low clouds, looping in separate circles and then rushing at each other and colliding, seemed to celebrate their arrival. This balcony was high enough. Downtown was busy with people out walking in noisy groups. They were awkward and silent for a minute.
“I’ve been seeing one of those spotlights all night,” Lyle said.
The girl was quiet.
“Have you ever heard of the backward language?” he said. “My sister and I used to speak it, but I’m not sure if she invented it or not. She filled part of a notebook with backward words.”
“Does it sound like a record playing backwards?”
“Not weird-sounding like that. Here, say, ‘Eramthgin