Reverend Rob Dollar preached on the television. Dressed in an Italian suit, gold cuff links, a Rolex on his wrist, diamond studded earrings in both lobes, he was holding a revival somewhere in Africa.
Each time he paused in his sermon titled Jesus is Lord Over Your Finances, the crowd of Africans, most wearing rags too big for their thin, emaciated bodies, took to their feet and cheered raucously.
Someone’s holding up a cue card off camera, Leonard thought, signaling them to applaud. I’d bet not a one speaks English.
“I’m sorry,” Victor said. “I can’t go. Honestly, Leonard, you shouldn’t go, either.”
“You can just wait in the car.”
Victor, naked, extracted himself from Leonard’s embrace and moved to the window.
“Someone will see you,” Leonard said, “and we’ll get kicked out of this motel. This isn’t Chicago. You need to remember that.”
“You mean I’ll get kicked out, don’t you? I’ve been here alone all night. I don’t know where you’ve been.”
“You know I’ve been with my family.”
Victor drew the curtains open wider. Sunlight flooded the room. Leonard covered himself with a sheet.
“Victor, would you please close the curtain? Come back to bed. Please! If someone sees you, you might get arrested.”
“If only I’d be so lucky.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Guess! You asked—no, you begged me to come here and meet your family. Now I’m here you keep me hidden in this room while you’re off doing… whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Don’t be silly. If you’re insinuating I’m cheating, you’re wrong, dead wrong. There’s been a tragedy in my family. My mother needs me right now.”
“I need you, too.”
Victor could be such a… a bitch at times. “Right now my mother really needs me. It’s not fair you ask me to choose between you and my family during a crisis.”
“It’s fair you ask me to go track a psycho in the jungle?”
Leonard got up, hurried to the window and snatched the curtains closed. “He’s not a psycho, he just has emotional problems. I asked you because I thought you might want to get out for a minute.”
“Gosh, I’m so sorry. I misunderstood. All these years I didn’t know searching the jungle for a psycho was a source of entertainment. Pardon my ignorance.”
“The sarcasm not helping here. Southeastern Arkansas is not a jungle.”
Victor turned, face red. “I’m not someone you picked up off the street. Why didn’t you ask before we got into bed?”
“Please! Just forget it. I regret I asked you.”
Victor grabbed his pants from the floor and put them on, forgetting his underwear. “Maybe I should go back to Chicago.” He pulled the zipper so hard Leonard was surprised it didn’t rip off. “Back to my mother.”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Okay, to be honest, I asked you to go because I’m afraid to go alone. I can see how you think I was using you. Wasn’t my intention. Honest.” Victor ignored him, put on a white Oxford shirt and buttoned it up. “If I’d known you’d throw a hissy fit, I most definitely would not have asked you.”
Victor stopped and stared at him. “It’s the money, isn’t it?”
“What money?”
“You know what money.”
“Don’t be childish.”
“Childish! I’m childish? The five years we’ve been together you’ve rarely mentioned the boondocks and your family. Now, suddenly, your family can’t continue life without you.”
Leonard tried to embrace him, but Victor pulled away. “My not calling you last night, isn’t that the real issue here? I apologize.”
“Why haven’t we discussed the money?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. The money, Leonard! The money you’re inheriting from your father. Why haven’t we talked about it?”
Leonard sat down in the chair. “What’s there to talk about?”
“How much we’re going to invest, how much we’re going to spend?”
Leonard stared at a cockroach navigating its way through the green shag carpet, then looked him in the eye.
“Victor…” He cleared his throat. “Victor, my dear, you’ve mistaken the possessive pronoun here. My father! My father, not your father, worked to get this money. If I choose to give you some of it, well, you know, that’s on me. You can’t speak in terms of we because we don’t share the same father. For you to think otherwise is demonstrably…” He searched in vain for a strong adjective. “…childish!”
Victor stared at him a long moment, mouth agape. Without a word he stepped into his loafers… and walked out.
An hour later, Leonard parked his car in Count Pulaski State Park. He studied the map his mother had drawn for him and wondered if she’d been out here herself.
Three trails led into the woods dense with oak, pine, poplar, spruce and dogwood trees. Leonard got out of the car and entered through Maumelle Trail, as his mother had instructed.
A canopy of branches blocked direct sunlight on the four-foot wide rocky rut someone foolishly labeled a trail. A slight breeze tingled the leaves, though did very little to reduce the humidity. Two squirrels chased each other from tree to tree. A turtle labored in the opposite direction.
Leonard didn’t notice any of this; his thoughts were on Victor. Is he gone forever?
He wished he’d phrased his words differently. Certainly he intended to share the money with Victor, but he didn’t need Victor or anyone else telling him what to do with his money. The trail inclined, and Leonard stopped to catch his breath. A crow cawed and he remembered his purpose for coming here.
To deliver a message to a psycho with a crossbow.
He pushed onward. At the end of the trail he came to a clearing. The temperature a tad cooler here. Amber knee-high grass bowed to the wind.
Two identical cabins constructed of hewed logs stood side by side in the middle of the clearing. A felled oak tree, obviously struck by lightning, split one of the cabins in half. Several buzzards circled below a clear blue sky.
“Shane?” Leonard shouted. His mother had said the boy wouldn’t shoot a relative, but Leonard wasn’t convinced. “Shane? It’s me, your uncle, a blood relative!” No response. “Kinfolk!”
Leonard stepped toward the intact cabin, wondering if the boy had him sighted in crosshairs, waiting for the perfect moment.
Wekeeeeee! Wekeeeeee!
Leonard whirled, looking for the origin of the sound. “What the hell was that? Shane?”
What the hell am I doing out here?
Well, one, sweating profusely, despite the cooler temperature. And two, needing only another strange noise to prompt a mad dash back to his car.
“Shane?”
He’d give it a few more minutes and then go home and tell his mother the boy couldn’t be found—and he wouldn’t come back.
“Shane?”
Nearing the cabin door, three boards nailed in a Z to eight two-by-fours, he caught whiff of an atrocious odor. Rotten meat? Or something dying? What if the boy lay inside hurt, moments from death? Would explain the buzzards hovering above. He knocked lightly on the door.
“Shane?” He pushed the door open. “Shane?” Silence.
He stuck his head inside. There was a wooden bed frame absent a mattress at the far wall, a worn-out orange-colored couch near the door, and a large stone fireplace to the left. A fey odor tickled his nostrils. No windows, no back door.
What a waste of time. He should’ve gone to the nearest bus stop and intercepted Victor, and told him he was sorry, told him—
Wekeeeeee! Wekeeeeeee!
The noise sounded directly behind him. He spun around and saw the arrow. Nothing but the arrow. Aimed at his chest. “Sh-sh-sh-shane!”
“What you want?” Shane asked.
Leonard stared into the boy’s dirty freckled face, slowly raised both hands and wondered why Shane was squinting, for they were standing in the shade of the cabin.
“I want you to stop aiming that thing at me. I’m your uncle, remember? Uncle Leonard? Your mother’s brother?”
Shane in desperate need of a haircut: light-brown hair extremely long, a super afro, speckled with green bits, grass or leaves. Besides that and the dirt on his face, he was handsome. A young Harry Belafonte: sculpted features, freckles, bushy eyebrows above hazel-colored eyes.
“Yeah,” the boy said, tilting his head.
“Shane, remember when you were little and I took you and Paul to the fair in Little Rock? You remember?” The boy shook his head. “You gotta remember. You and I rode the Ferris wheel, it stopped while we were at top, I threw up. It doesn’t matter. Shane, it’s not polite to point an arrow at your uncle.”
The boy responded by raising the crossbow, aiming it at Leonard’s head.
Shielding his face with his hands: “Hey! Hey! Hey! Stop it! You might put my eye out!”
“It’ll do more than that.”
“Stop playing, Shane! Stop it! Dammit, I’m your uncle!”
“Why you kill my dog?”
“What! I didn’t kill your dog!”
Shane shook his head to rid a fly from his face. “Yeah, you did. You killed him and you killed pa-pa.”
I’m dead, Leonard thought. He’s going to kill me with a crossbow… I’ll be left out here to rot… Flies… Buzzards…
“Shane, I didn’t. I swear I didn’t do it! I didn’t arrive in time. What makes you think I did it?”
“’Cause you’re unnatural.”
“What?”
“You like bootie instead of women.”
“What! Who told you that?”
“Pa-pa.”
“He shouldn’t have told you that. Not a nice thing to say.”
“Is it true?”
Leonard’s mind raced. If he admitted being gay, Shane might misconstrue it as an admission of guilt and shoot him.
“No, it’s not true.”
“Liar!” Shane snapped.
In his entire life, thirty-three years, Leonard had never heard an African American use the word liar. Not important now, he thought, closing his eyes. Only two things were significant now: pain and decomposition.
“Open your eyes!” Shane demanded.
“Huh?” Leonard said, opening one eye… There wasn’t an arrow protruding from his forehead.
“Look,” pointing the arrow at Leonard’s leg. “You peed yourself.”
Leonard looked… his blue jeans sported a wet spot down to his shoes.
Shane laughed, a high-pitch giggle. “You scared, ain’t ya?”
“No! No, I’m not. This is usually the time of day I wet myself. An arrow aimed at my head has nothing to do with it.”
Shane laughed again, as though the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Leonard feigned a chuckle, noticing Shane was shirtless, shoeless, wearing only black dress slacks.
Maybe, Leonard thought, just maybe. “Knock, knock?”
Shane frowned. “I’m not no damn kid! I’m seventeen-years-old. Be eighteen in two months. Don’t talk to me like I’m a kid.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Shane. Just a joke. You like jokes, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t. I want to know… you know what I’m talking about?”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“You know? What’s it like to be with a… you know?”
“Shane, listen to me, I didn’t kill your dog.” He dropped his hands. “If you want to shoot your uncle, then shoot your uncle. I’m not going to discuss my personal life with a minor.” He stepped off the porch. “I came out here because my mother, your grandmother, told me to give you a message.” He started walking and fought the urge to look back. “She’s worried about you and wants you to know you can come home and bring the dog with you.”
Nearing the entrance to the trail: “She’s really concerned about you being out here by your—”
Twaanng!… the sound of a rubber band snapping, only louder… Shiiiiiiip!… something whipped past his right ear… Thud!… an arrow struck a tree only a few feet ahead of him.
“Why you stupid, simple-minded bastard!” Leonard said. He turned and charged… He would kick his ass… he would beat the shit out of him, teach him not to shoot arrows at his uncle… He stopped in his tracks… The boy had another arrow already locked and loaded in the crossbow…
That’s not a toy!
The tip of the arrow pointed at him looked like three rectangular razor blades melded to a needlepoint. The shaft made of some kind of metal, aluminum or steel.
A wire looped through two small wheels on either side of the crossbow and crisscrossed to an X in the middle. All rested on a green camouflaged rifle stock. No, this was not a toy.
“Call me stupid again,” Shane said. “Say it again, I dare you.”
Leonard gulped.
“Always,” Shane said. “Always come down to me stupid, crazy, simple. ’Cause I’m not too smart makes you better than me?”
Leonard didn’t respond.
“Why I live out here. Nobody calls me stupid out here.” Pause. “Until you came.”
Leonard swallowed, and then found his voice. “Damn, Shane, you shot an arrow at me! Scared the shit out of me. I didn’t mean what I said—you scared me.”
Shane lowered the crossbow and let it slip from his fingers. It fell to the porch floor with a soft thud.
Another lump formed in Leonard’s throat, this one coated with guilt. “Hey… look… I didn’t mean… I’m sorry, okay? Okay, Shane?”
Shane started crying, tears leaving dirty streaks down his face.
“Shane, I apologize. You know, when I was your age people called me bad names, made me cry.”
“Yeah,” Shane sniffed. “Names like what?”
“Sissy, homo, weirdo—silly stuff.”
Shane stopped crying. “What you do?”
Leonard stepped closer. “Nothing, really. Mostly cried a lot and tried to avoid them. Shane, some people fear anything they know may very well exist in them. So they call people bad names.”
“Then what’s your excuse?”
Leonard almost laughed. “I don’t have one. I, of all people, should know better.”
“Did Pa-pa call you names?”
“He was the main one.”
“He called me names, too.”
“He did?” Leonard was shocked. He’d thought his father had gotten past that nonsense.
“Yup, he sure did. Ignoramus. Nut case. Airhead. Schizzy was his favorite. I looked for it in the dictionary, couldn’t find it. When he really got mad at me, he’d say, ‘Shane,’” raising his voice, sounding remarkably similar to Leonard’s father, “if brains were tissue, you wouldn’t have enough to wipe a mosquito’s ass.’”
“Mother, your grandmother, treated you nice, didn’t she?”
“Oh, she’s the best. She treats me better than my real mother.”
“She’s worried about you, Shane. She doesn’t like the idea of you out here alone.”
Shane shrugged. “I’m all right.”
“Let’s head back home. I had some hot food Mother cooked for you. I left it at the motel. Come on, we’ll get her to scrape up a good home-cooked meal. Mmmm-uh, I can smell her cooking now.” He started walking away.
“I’m not going back.”
“Shane, what happens when the scouts come back? They’ll run you off, call the police.”
Shane gestured at the damaged cabin. “The scouts don’t come up here no more since the tree fell. I’m not going back.”
“Shane, surely you’d like a good meal and a hot… a hot cup of coffee.” He’d almost slipped and said hot bath.
Shane shook his head.
Leonard looked up and saw more buzzards circling above. “Shane… Shane, you can’t stay here. Come home with me.”
“I’m not going. I’m waiting for Kenny G to become one with nature. For some reason it’s taking a lot longer than usual.”
Leonard had a bad feeling what that entailed. “Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me?”
Shane answered by picking up the crossbow.
“Guess you are,” backing up. “Before I go back to Chicago, I’ll try to get back up here and see you.” By plane. “You take care of yourself. See ya.”
“Tell Grandma I…” He stopped… and waved.
“Sure,” backing his way to the trail. “I’ll tell her. I sure will.”