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If you’d suggested to Dennis Reynolds a few weeks ago that he’d be spending his last night as a freshman in Dirtgrub’s dingy, smoke-filled basement, stoned out of his mind, watching wrestling on a fuzzy screen that looks like it predates color TV, head resting on a cushion in the lap of none other than Ronnie the Rat, he’d have kicked your ass.
OK, so maybe he wouldn’t have kicked your ass. Not literally.
But he’d have demanded you acknowledge that he was the king of the goddamn school, the Golden God, not some classless peasant who’d be caught dead spending time with the local dropkick drug dealer and his spider-eating sidekick.
He’d tell you that he had absolutely nothing in common with those losers. That he was only hanging out with them as a kind of social experiment, and not because Adriano hadn’t invited him (an innocent oversight, obviously) to the end-of-year party that he’d been picking the drugs up for in the first place.
Assure you that there was definitely no sense of comfort, of being able to drop his guard and be himself around these two that he hadn’t had since before he can remember - not at home, not at school, not anywhere, that made spending time with them feel good. That made him feel good about himself.
He'd remind you that he can do better - no, does do better, every day of his life - than the likes of them.
And yet.
Here he is, the first night of summer vacation already over in Dirtgrub’s dingy basement, watching wrestling on an ancient TV, Ronnie the Rat running one hand through his hair while the other sparks the joint dangling from his mouth.
Exactly when or how Dennis ended up like this - laying on the couch, looking up at the sharp jut of Ronnie’s chin, the underside of the attractive point of his long nose, so stoned he couldn’t sit up straight if he tried - he’s not sure, but he’s not complaining. When Ronnie’s other hand comes to rest squarely on his solar plexus, right underneath his ribcage, he feels like his body could melt into syrup and sink straight into the worn brown fabric of the sofa.
As for Ronnie, Dennis doesn’t know if he even realizes what he’s doing, if this even registers as weird for him. His eyelids are heavy and low, eyes glassy behind the fan of his long eyelashes. He wonders if being touched like this by another boy is normal, if how it makes him feel is normal. His other friends - his real friends, he reminds himself - they don’t touch like this. Ever. They barely even look him in the eye when they talk to him.
“Your hair’s so nice, bro,” says Ronnie, mumbling around the joint with his head tipped forward, earring glinting in the light from the TV as a thick tendril of smoke unfurls from between his lips. “It’s like…curly. Soft.”
“It’s stupid,” replies Dennis, voice muzzy from the smoke, eyes drifting closed as Ronnie twirls a stray lock of hair around his finger before letting it fall back against Dennis’ forehead. “It gets so frizzy in summer, you'll see - I gotta use this conditioner my mom gets imported from France just to keep it under control.”
“Rich boy,” teases Ronnie. “Bet you live in a big-ass rich boy house too, huh?” He takes another drag on the joint before holding it down for Dennis. As he wraps his mouth around the roach, he feels Ronnie’s calloused fingers brush against his lips.
“Bet you got a maid and a pool and a big TV to go with your fancy French hair products. Never gotta worry ‘bout a thing.” Stoned as he is, Dennis makes a mental note to never, never let Ronnie see what it’s like inside his house, behind the manicured yard and the big windows. Let him keep this mirage forever.
“Shut up. I worry. What’re you doing anyway, casing the joint? Gonna break in one night?” He snorts.
Ronnie frowns. “Don’t be an asshole. I’m just asking. Our lives seriously have nothing in common. I can’t even picture it, y’know.”
“It’s nothing special. Nothing to rush back to, anyway.”
“Oh sure , I’m sure it’s so hard living in some big mansion in a nice neighborhood,” Ronnie rolls his eyes and smiles. “Your parents aren’t gonna be freaking out that you’re not home yet, are they? I don’t wanna have the police on my stoop accusing me of kidnapping some nice rich lady’s son.”
Dennis laughs hollowly. His eyes flit to the TV screen as a guy gets his ass handed to him in the ring. “Honestly I doubt they even noticed I’m not there.”
Ronnie’s smile falters a little. There’s a loud, nasal snore from across the room.
“What’s his deal, anyway?”
“Who, Charlie?” he watches from below as Ronnie’s chin tilts towards the beanbag where his friend is sprawled, gurgling in his sleep. It’s still jarring for Dennis to remember the kid has an actual name.
“Yeah man, I mean the weed is one thing, but that kid’s on another level.” Dennis lifts his head from the cushion, taking in Charlie’s prostrate form, the paper bag of glue dangling wetly from his fingertips.
“Go easy on him, man, he’s had kind of a fucked up life. Sometimes it’s good for him to just…” he gestures towards the bag. “Y’know. Forget about shit for a while.”
Dennis frowns. “Doesn’t seem that fucked up, I mean…nice clean house, nice mom. She seems very…hands on. Involved.”
“She is,” Ronnie shrugs, face hardening. “Sometimes. Never really seems to be paying attention when it counts, though. Especially now she’s got the twins.”
There’s a distant ringing in Dennis’ ears, a sound he buries when he can. A school bell in the back of an empty library. Nobody at home asking about the marks on his neck. The sick wave of guilt that creeps from his stomach up his throat, that sometimes threatens to drown him alive. He works to steady his breathing and stuffs it down beyond the unnamable thing rotting inside him, down as far as it’ll go.
“You OK man?” Ronnie asks, and Dennis realizes he’s looking down at him, concern etched in the furrow between his eyes. “That last one hit a little hard?”
He doesn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t the joint, that since last year this just happens. He wonders if Charlie feels it too, if that’s what Ronnie’s getting at.
“Did Charlie…did he…”
Something dangerous flickers across Ronnie’s face, like he’s just realized how close he is to the edge of a betrayal of trust. Dennis wonders what it’s like to be cared about like that, for someone to worry about his feelings, to think about the things they say about him even when he’s not listening. For someone to even notice he’s there when he’s not putting on a show for them.
“I shouldn’t…forget about it, man. Doesn’t matter anymore anyway. Charlie’s got me, and I’ve got him, and that’s all that counts. We protect each other, y’know. But I bet you know what that’s like, all your popular friends.”
Dennis just nods, avoiding both the easy lie and the truth as he keeps breathing, bringing his body back down to Earth.
“What about your parents? What’re they like?” he asks, just to talk about something, anything else. He watches Ronnie's tiny bicep flex as he moves the hand in Dennis' hair, and suddenly he's self conscious - about his hair, his braces, about how skinny he is. Ronnie isn't exactly big either, but there's a coltish leanness to his build that makes Dennis feel like a twig by comparison. He closes his lips over the metal mess of his teeth.
“My parents? My parents are great!” Ronnie stops, like he’s not quite sure how to elaborate.
“They’re not gonna come kicking down my door looking for you are they?” Dennis laughs feebly.
Ronnie laughs too, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“The only reason my dad would be kicking down your door would be to rob you, honestly.”
Dennis is expecting him to laugh again, but instead he just feels Ronnie’s hands go still against his scalp and his sternum.
“Wait, seriously?”
Ronnie shrugs, eyes focussed on the dark stain on the wall above the TV. Hulk Hogan slams The Undertaker’s face into the mat as the crowd jeers.
“He’s in jail. He’s been there for uh…” he counts on his fingers, then counts again. “Like? Seven years? For dealing, mainly, but some B&E too.”
“Shit, man, I—”
“It’s fine,” Ronnie interrupts. “It’s like, I don’t know anything else, you know? But I’ve got Charlie, and I’ve got my mom…she’s not much of a talker but she’s…there. I guess.”
“Mine isn’t,” Dennis says. He turns his head to face the stain too, doesn’t know if he could keep talking if Ronnie looks directly at him. “She’s never home. Neither is my dad. He's on business and she's on...whatever she can get her hands on. Prescription, I mean, she's not a..."
Crackhead, he almost says, but Ronnie's mom could be for all he knows. Dennis has no idea what's taboo and what's not, what he can joke about. He's well trained in being careful what he says around other people, how to make them like him (or at least pretend to). Most people, anyway.
"I don’t…I don’t think they like it very much. Being together. Being a family.” Or me, he omits, unable to admit it even to the stain. “They fight a lot, when they’re together and then…they’re gone. And I’m…alone. A lot.”
“Damn, dude, I’m sorry,” says Ronnie quietly. “That sounds...you wanna stay here tonight?”
YES. He's never been asked to stay at someone's place before. The sting of his forgotten invite is still fresh in his mind.
“Should we ask Charlie’s mom if it’s OK?” He imagines his own mother’s reaction to finding one of his friends in their house without being asked, being screamed at through a slammed door, apologizing to her as she lies face-down in the gloom of her unmade bed.
“Nah,” Ronnie glances toward the basement ceiling. “Honestly, Charlie’s mom is always out by now. You know.”
“Yeah. Mine too. See,” Dennis adds, tentatively. “We do have shit in common. More than you think, probably. Not like those assholes, those ungrateful dickhead jerks I hang out with…like right now, without me they’re…they can’t even see …I’m the king , the goddamn king of those fools…those peons…. ” He trails off, feels his eyes flutter closed as Ronnie’s fingers begin to chase circles into his scalp again.
“You’re so weird.” Even though Dennis can hear the smile in his voice, the word pierces him.
“No, ‘m not,” he mumbles into Ronnie’s lap.
“Yeah you are,” says Ronnie. “I like it, though. You’re not how I thought you’d be, y’know, when you first rolled up.”
“Wha’ya mean?” Dennis feels him slipping closer to sleep as he melts into the touch of Ronnie’s hand in his hair.
“You’re not like those jerk-off cool-guy dickheads you hang out with. You’re like…a real person. Even if you’re a rich boy with a fancy house.”
Dennis smiles into the cushion. “Mmm. You too. I wanna see your house next time. You can introduce me to your mom.”
He doesn't know why he adds the last part - probably for the same reason he's imagining Charlie's mom greeting him in the morning, making breakfast. Being treated like a son rather than something disgusting that's been walked into the good rug in the living room.
A long moment passes. “OK. Maybe. If you want,” Ronnie whispers, toying with the lock of hair that falls against Dennis’ forehead again. “If you take me to see your pool.”
“Sure thing,” Dennis lies blissfully. They’ll never enter that goddamn house if he can help it.
“How had I never seen you around before last week?” The tip of Ronnie’s thumb brushes against his ear, and it’s all Dennis can do not to nuzzle into the pillow.
“Not paying attention, obviously. Everyone knows who I am.”
“I bet,” Ronnie laughs softly. “You doing much over summer vacation? You can come hang with me and Charlie anytime, you know.”
Dennis pauses. He could say his schedule is packed, that he’s got so much planned with his real friends, his popular friends, that he doesn’t need handouts from the likes of them. Who the hell does he think he is, anyway, presuming that Dennis would be happy to waste his precious summer vacation sitting in some basement and getting wasted and…and…
“I’d like that,” is what he says instead, and he means it.
When he wakes up it’s still dark, the TV off. He’s curled up on the couch, the cushion flat and uncomfortable without Ronnie’s legs beneath it. Someone’s draped a thin blanket over him.The dark room spins as he twists into a sitting position, his toes nudging Ronnie’s warm sleeping body on the floor in front of the couch.
Panic grips him as flashes of the previous night light up the center of his brain. What did he say last night, before he drifted to sleep? Who does he think he is, opening his goddamn mouth like that? Letting some guy run his fingers through his hair like he’s his goddamn pet? Was that weird? Did it get weird? Did he make it weird? Jesus Christ, he knows. He knows. Or does he? He can’t know. Nobody is allowed to know. Fuck fuck fuck.
Wordlessly gathering his things in the dark, he tiptoes across the room and up the stairs. He walks home barefoot in the early hours of Saturday morning, the pavement still warm against the soles of his feet. The house is quiet, empty; the closing of the front door of his house echoes against the marble tile of the foyer.
The next time he sees Ronnie he’s picking up again. Adriano and the boys are waiting at the corner, and he’s not allowed to disappoint them. They make sure he knows it. Knows his place. He won’t, he promises. He’ll be in there five minutes, he tells them. Ten tops.
He’ll keep his distance. He’ll keep control of himself. He promises himself that much, even if there hasn’t been an hour since that night in Charlie’s basement that he hasn't thought of the way calloused fingers feel against his scalp, brushing against his lips.
He knocks twice on the door, the peeling paint coming away with his knuckles in the humidity. He takes in the dirty, busted armchair, the TV set, the overflowing ashtray, the broken front window.
He knocks again, and hears someone calling “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming…” from inside the house.
The screen door is wrenched open and suddenly he’s face-to-face with Ronnie, who looks like he’s just woken up, pulling a sleeveless t-shirt over his head.
“Oh,” he blinks, eyebrows melting into a scowl. “It’s you. What do you want?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you here?” He spells out like Dennis is hard of hearing.
“I, uh…can I come in?”
Ronnie looks at him warily. “Why? You wanna come smoke my weed again and sneak out without even saying thank you?”
“I—” he flounders. I don’t care about the weed. I just need to know everything about you. I want to be around you without needing a reason. “I just…I just wanted to hang out…”
Ronnie manages to hold his stony expression for a few seconds longer before breaking into a grin.
“I’m just fucking with you man. Come on. Shoes off,” he calls over his shoulder as the screen door slams shut behind them. From what he can see of the state of the carpet Dennis doesn’t really see why, but he takes them off anyway.
He’ll be ten minutes, he tells himself as he walks into the dimly lit hallway.
Ten minutes. Twenty tops.
Six hours later he steps out into the empty street. Adriano and the boys are long gone, and his brain is dragging a second behind the movements of his body. He stretches, hands toward the sky, his neck cracking as his head lolls backward. The lavender evening stretches out before him, carried on the warm breeze. The summer feels like an empty street, endless. He feels free. He feels weightless and heavy at the same time. God he feels good.
“Hey man, wait!” calls Ronnie from the doorway, pulling on his shoes, a ragged pair of Converse. “I’m coming!”
“I’m waiting,” Dennis calls back. “I’m right here.”
Ronnie smiles as he walks toward him, into the evening light.