I pick up Benjamin the next day. Before we leave I have to say hi to Oscar and Kelly. I haven’t seen them all summer. They tell me that I have to stay for dinner when we come home tomorrow, I tell them I will and we leave. Benjamin rolls the window down and closes his eyes as the wind whips his air.
“Alton’s paws still sore?” He asks.
“Yeah, and I don’t want him to try and follow us.”
“Are you taking me somewhere dangerous?” He asks in a mock-shocked voice.
I laugh but don’t answer him. I park in the wash where we get out and head through the canyon.
“I can’t believe there’s still water out here.” He says jumping over a pool.
I nod. “It’s crazy, there’s never water in our canyon. This one’s closer to the pond, though.” He nods. I help him climb a particularly gravelly slope. “You’ve gotten rusty.” I say, hauling him by his wrist.
“Tell me about it. Climbing trees is so much easier.”
I laugh. “Until you fall out.”
He snickers. “That hurt like a bitch.”
We get to the mine valley, this time I brought a backpack with some waters and a couple of flashlights. I immediately head towards the deep one I stopped at last time. “Leo, no! C’mon, we can’t go in there.” He says as I hand him a flashlight. The entrance of the cave is just tall enough so I don’t have to duck. I keep my head stooped anyways so I don’t get guano in my hair.
“It’s fine, I already went in here.”
“What the hell, Leo. You’ve got a death wish.” I laugh as we head in. We have to balance on boards laid over murky pools of water to avoid getting our feet wet. Where there’s no water the floor is rocky and uneven, but there’s no slope so it isn’t too bad. “Leo, this place is hella freaky.”
“Isn’t it? It’s awesome. I bet you don’t see this stuff in Tennessee.”
“In Tennessee, we don’t wander into condemned mineshafts.”
I laugh at him, quietly because the walls do look crumbly and fragile. “So, in Tennessee you’re all pansies.”
“Yep.” He chuckles but I can tell he’s really panicking. I turn around and he nearly bumps into me. We’re standing very close and neither of us steps back.
“If you really want to leave, we can.” I say.
He looks at me with wide eyes. “Let’s go a little further.” He says. I nod and turn around, he grabs the back of my shirt, not in a fist but with his fingers. Like he’s scared of losing me in what is ultimately a long hallway.
I hear something squeak and shine my flashlight at a tiny brown bat, it takes off further into the mine. “Cool.” Benjamin mumbles, never letting go of me. We continue on.
We come to a fork and find some 50 gallon drums, they look fairly new considering how old everything else looks. “What do you think is in them?” Benjamin asks, staying behind me.
“I don’t know.” I go up to them and jiggle one around it’s heavy, and whatever’s in it sloshes around. “I think it’s water.”
“Why would there be giant barrels of water down here?”
“Why would there be giant barrels of anything else?”
I look at the barrels closer and find “WATER” written in big yellow letters on the sides. “Maybe it’s some kind of bunker, like a fallout shelter or something.”
“Why would anybody stay in here?”
“Zombie apocalypse?” I say, smiling at him, he shoves my arm but smiles. “Do you want to head back?” I ask, he shakes his head no and we decide to go left.
When we come to a second fork, I joke, “Shall we split up?” and Benjamin decides it’s time to leave. We get out and explore a little more. We push some boulders into the sloping cave with water at the bottom and throw a few rocks into the hole by the other.
Eventually, we hike back to the truck, by the time we get there the sun is beginning to set. I drive to our spot before it gets too dark and we stare at the stars. Neither of us says anything until Benjamin complains about being cold and we get in the truck to sleep.
The sun wakes me up at is always does and I wake Benjamin up as I always do. “Jesus,” he says, “you really are ripped.”
I laugh and struggle to not look down at my arms. I still avoid looking at mirrors, I wonder if I’d like what I see now. “Thanks.”
“We should go swimming.” He says. Which sounds good to me. We don’t have bathing suits, but we’re both wearing thin enough clothes so it shouldn’t be a problem.
“I’m down.” I hop in the front seat and we drive as close as we can to the spring I like to swim in. The pond that isn’t too far away and you can drive right up to it, but it’s kind of gross and swimming in it makes me feel dirty. It’s muddy and mossy and there are frogs and tadpoles everywhere.
We get out of the truck and hike the rest of the way to the little pool, it stays cool enough when there’s water running through it but it’s mostly groundwater so it’s usually full year-round. It was only dried up last year because we didn’t get much snow. This year it’s still full.
I take my shoes and socks off when we get there and start to wade in, I look back and Benjamin is taking off his shirt, then his shorts, then his underwear. I don’t know how I feel about that. I’m definitely not stripping. “You can’t swim in your clothes.” Benjamin tells me as he walks into the water.
“Watch me.” I say, trying to avoid looking at him without making it obvious I'm avoiding it.
“C’mon, I’m naked. We’re both guys, nothing we haven’t seen before.” He runs and jumps into the water, laughing and doggy paddling, I know he can swim better than that. “I won’t look and you’re always the one telling me I need to live a little and stop being a pansy.” He turns around. I take a minute to think about it, he’s right. I just feel weird about being naked with another guy.
Especially a gay guy.
Not that I think he’s going to jump me or something. It just seems weird. Yet I find myself doing it anyway, shirt overhead, shorts, underwear at my ankles and on the ground, I wade into the water next to him. “I knew you’d come around.” He says smirking.
I splash him and duck underwater before he can get me back. I’ve started a war and we’re aggressively splashing and diving and dodging. When I hold him under water all hell breaks loose. We’re throwing sticks and rocks—pretty much trying to disarm and drown the other.
Benjamin gets out and flops onto the ground, I follow suit. We lay on our backs, side by side. In the burning sun, we dry quickly and, with our fair skin, we burn quickly. We lay there for around an hour and before getting up and realizing our bodies are red and painful all over. We put our clothes on very carefully.
“At least we won’t have any tan lines.” Benjamin laughs, I laugh too.
“Not trying to rock the redneck tank top tan line?” I ask.
We get in the truck and eat peanut butter and jellies before heading home. “This fucking sucks.” Benjamin says, trying to gently hold his shirt off his body, his face is bright red, but the back of his neck is still white since we never rolled over.
“It really does.” I say, trying to ignore the way it burns when I blink.
I drop him off at his house and go home to change. I tell Mom that I probably won’t be back until tomorrow.
“You go burned pretty bad.” Mom looks up from her book when I come out of my room.
“Yeah, we went swimming.”
“I tell you all the time to wear sunscreen.”
“I know, Mom. I just forgot it.”
She gives me a look before returning to her book. I roll my eyes and leave. I knock on Benjamin’s door, Oscar answers it. “Look at you!” He says. “I can’t believe you two didn’t think to bring sunscreen.”
“I just got this lecture.” I whine.
“I’m sure you did, you’re red as a firetruck.” He lets me in and Benjamin is sitting on the couch, shirtless, his arms and legs spread out to avoid anything touching any burned parts of his body. He looks like he’s covered in a layer of slime.
“What’s all over you?” I ask, sitting on the couch next to him, wincing as the skin on my stomach crinkles.
“Aloe Vera, really soothes the burn.” He nudges a bottle of green gel on the floor with his foot. “You can use some if you want. It feels great.”
“You’re a total wuss, have you never been sunburned before?”
“I have, but never like this.” He pauses. “Never on my dick, that shit hurts so bad, Leo. So fucking bad.”
I snicker. “It really does, I’ve never gotten a sunburn there either.” In the end, I take the aloe Vera and rub it all over the front of my body, it really does feel nice. Very cooling.
For dinner, Oscar makes teriyaki chicken, without store-bought sauce. It’s good but I feel like Mom’s is better. I guess I’ve just gotten used to it. He also made rice, steamed broccoli and put chopped green onions and sesame seeds on everything. He’s the kind of guy that lives by the rule “you eat with your eyes before your mouth”.
We play Scattergories and Kelly beats everybody by a mile. I’m second, though. That’s all that matters since Kelly is easily better than everybody else. Then Benjamin and I go to his room. I notice a lot of pictures of myself on his walls. It makes me bit uncomfortable. He’s also hung up a lot of the pictures from his summer in Tennessee.
I decide to get Betty and hold her for a little while. Benjamin watches me while I take her out and let her slither around my arms. “What?” I ask after a few minutes of him staring at me.
“Nothing.” He says. “I was just wondering if there are any girls you’re interested in?”
The question makes me uncomfortable which kind of makes me mad. I don’t know why. “Nope.” I say.
“Do you like girls?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty sure I do.” I don’t know why I added the last part, of course I like girls. I put Betty back and sit in his desk chair. I look at the pictures on the wall.
“Is something wrong?” He asks.
“Nope.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and I’m praying he won’t because I’m trying really hard to calm down. He doesn’t shut up, though. He keeps talking. “Have you ever thought that you might like guys.”
“No, Benjamin. I’m not gay.” It comes out harsh and I wish it didn’t. I don’t know why it did and it only pisses me off more.
“Don’t be mad, it was just a question.”
“Just shut up, Benjamin.” And he does, after a few minutes I decide I’m ready to leave. “I’m going to head out.”
Benjamin gets up. “Leo, don’t leave. I’m sorry, okay. I’ll stop asking questions.”
I look at him and I decide to believe him but we don’t say anything else and it feels awkward. “Have you gotten your schedule yet?” He asks.
“It’s been a while since I checked the mail so I don’t know. Have you?”
“Yeah, I got Mr. Stewart for pre-calc. Didn’t you hate that guy?”
I groan. “Mr. Stewart is the spawn of the devil, Benjamin. Seriously, don’t trust him.” He laughs. “Why are you taking pre-calc anyway, you only need three math credits to graduate.”
“I know, but a lot of colleges like it when you take extra stuff like that.”
“That’s true.” I say, but I don’t like to think about college, or the future in general. It stresses me out. I don’t see myself with much of a future. “I got some movies for my birthday.” I say, changing the subject and pulling them out of my backpack. “I thought you’d want to watch them with me.”
“Oh, awesome!” He says, taking the movies. There’s V for Vendetta, Spaceballs, UHF, and Revenge of the Nerds. “I’ve never seen any of these.”
“Me neither, I thought we’d watch them together.”
“Badass, let’s watch this one first.” He hold up UHF.
“You’re a Weird Al fan?”
“Who isn’t? I grew up on ‘Eat It’ and ‘The Rye or the Kaiser’.”
“Hell yeah, man.”
UHF is awesome so is V for Vendetta, which is what we watch next. Spaceballs is pretty terrible and not terrible in a good way. It turns out to just be a bad movie, the humor is just too low. Only people with an IQ below sixty could possibly enjoy it. Of course, as I’m thinking this, Kelly walks out and says, “Oh my god! You’re watching Spaceballs without me! I love this movie.”
We look at each other and roll our eyes. Revenge of the Nerds is hilarious. What made even funnier to me was watching Benjamin squirm during a scene with naked chicks running around their sorority house. When I look at them I don’t feel uncomfortable but I guess I’m not turned on either. It doesn’t do anything for me.
I’m not sure how I feel about that.
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