The Boy in the Tunnel

by Gardner Linn

40.

“Is it hard to walk in those?” Renee’s boots were knee-high, shiny leather or a reasonable facsimile, with five-inch stiletto heels. There was something ungainly yet sexy about the way she moved in them.

“At first,” she said, “but you get used to it.”

The Kangaroo was about 400 yards from 1134-B Dogwood Terrace, around the curving western end of Ambassador Road. Owen Bean and Renee walked on the shoulder of the road, her heels aerating the soft dirt. The sound of the party, which had carried down Dogwood to its intersection with Ambassador, was behind them now. There were no cars on the road, no sounds save their footsteps on quiet earth.

“Come on,” said Renee. “The ground’s too soft.” She took Owen Bean by the wrist, and his arm tensed up, his instinctive reaction to any contact. Renee pulled him onto the road, her heels clacking on the asphalt, echoing slightly off the face of the hill around which the road curved. She led him to the center of the road, onto the double yellow lines. “Stay there.”

“What the hell is going on?” Owen Bean had been in situations like this before—he seemed hopelessly attracted to the crazy girls, the ones with manic gleams in their eyes. The ones who wanted to put him in harm’s way.

“Just stay there.” Renee retreated back to the shoulder. She aimed her camera at Owen Bean.

“Seriously, what are you doing?” He couldn’t help it—he wanted to prove to these girls that he was unafraid, that he was willing to be as stupid as they assumed he was. You were supposed to be stupid while you were still too young to die, was his philosophy, even if he didn’t fully subscribe to it.

“Just wait a second, all right?” Renee had the camera trained on him, he could feel it—he had a sixth sense for knowing when a lens was pointed at him, a subtle straightening of his posture, a tension in his back like the tension in his arm when Renee grabbed his wrist.

The low roar of a car became audible a few hundred yards down the road.

“Hey Renee, what’s going on?” O.B. said. “There’s a car coming.”

“Just hold still.”

Owen Bean would never be SecEx, he knew, for the same reason he was an excellent Viscount: he readily submitted to any authority that would claim him as a subject. If someone was willing to tell him what to do, then more often than not, he was willing to do it. He recognized this as a defect in his personality, but regarded it as one might a mole on one’s shoulder. He’d have it looked at one day. For now it wasn’t doing any harm.

The headlights of the car rounded the curve, illuminating a constantly progressing patch of the woods lining the road. “Renee,” O.B. said.

“I’ll tell you when to move.” Her voice was sure and commanding, the kind of voice that normally put O.B. at ease, let him know that someone was in charge, someone had a handle on the situation. But Renee’s voice gave O.B. no such feeling. Though superficially Renee resembled the many confident crazy girls he had know, there was something about that purring androgynous voice, like an oboe playing through broken, dusty speakers, that gave him pause. A sign flashed in his mind, saying: Caution. There is real danger here.

She is trying to convince herself as much as you.

Owen Bean could see the car now, maybe ten seconds away from him. The headlights hadn’t yet reached him, their nearest edge just touching the road to his right. Renee shifted slightly, a leaf crackling under her knee. “Hold still.” The light crept toward him. Eight seconds now. The light reached his right arm. Seven seconds. Impossible to tell if the driver could see him. The driver was probably some drunk kid, probably taking Ambassador home from a party because he figured there wouldn’t be anybody else on it—nobody to hit, nobody to pull him over. A free ride.

Five seconds. The light was full on O.B. now. Light was all he could see. His world was light, light not rushing at him but pulling him toward it. Light was all he could taste, all he could feel.

Four seconds. A click to his left. “Move!” shouted Renee. But now maybe he didn’t want to move. Maybe she didn’t really want him to move. Impossible to tell. There was no authority here.

This is no time for rebellion.

Two seconds.

Owen Bean dove for the side of the road and rolled to a stop next to a developing Polaroid.

***************

“How do I look? My name’s Heather, by the way. There’s always a Heather.”

Shawn took in the whole costume: the tight black pants, the tight red top over Wonderbra-ed breasts, the blonde wig, the caked-on makeup. His underwear tightened. There was nothing he could do. He was hardwired to be attracted to this, no matter how much the culture disgusted him.

“Good. Yeah,” he said. “What about me?”

“What’s your name?”

“Dash.”

“Dash?”

“Tyler?”

“I like Dash. Like Rush, but lighter on your feet.”

Shawn pulled his khaki UNWG baseball cap out of the dryer. After some pocketknife-assisted alteration and three trips through the dryer, the edge of the bill was frayed enough. He tucked his hair, which he’d been growing for the past month in anticipation of this night, under the hat.

“You’d fit right in at KA, Dash.”

“You too, Heather. At like Phi Mu, I mean.”

“Phi Moo?”

“That’s not what I meant.” Shawn couldn’t stop glancing at Sarah’s chest. They’d been going out for six weeks, and he was definitely attracted to her, but this was something else altogether. He didn’t know what it meant, that dressing up as a cartoon of a white girl made her sexier to him.

You poor sweet white boys. The whole race thing is like the Hall of the Brahmans in Ninja Gaiden—you can never get past it.

“Sure it isn’t. You think I’ve got a big ass, I know it.” Sarah turned and stood on her toes, showing off her cotton and spandex-encased, not-big-at-all ass to Shawn. She grinned suggestively over her shoulder.

Shawn had no idea how to react to any of that.

****************

Dave found the Baroness outside, behind the house, smoking a cigarette on the little concrete porch next to the recycling bins. Her glasses were on the porch, and without them she looked younger, softer, frightened even. There were gray smudges on her cheeks, evidence of teary mascara that she had tried to wipe away. She hadn’t seen Dave yet, peeking around the corner of the house; he was unsure of his attraction to her now that the façade had dropped and he could see the real person beneath the Baroness fantasy. He wished she would put the glasses back on.

Caveman Theatre was about to start up again. Dave would have to go back inside soon. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to talk to the girl or not. He didn’t even know her name.

The Baroness took a final drag of her cigarette and stubbed it out on the porch. She picked up a pack of Camels and checked it—empty. She balled up the empty pack and tossed it into one of the recycling bins, and as she did, she spotted Dave. “What are you doing?” she said.

Dave stepped out from behind the corner of the house, into the range of the dim floodlight on the back porch. “Yeah, I was just...you have any cigarettes?”

“All out. You lost your mustache.”

Dave felt his upper lip, still sticky with spirit gum residue. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m Dave, by the way.”

“Audrey.” Audrey picked up the glasses and unfolded the temples.

“Wait,” said Dave. “Don’t put those on.”

“Why not?”

Dave had no idea why not. He did want her to put the glasses back on, but he felt it was wrong somehow—he shouldn’t be attracted to the Baroness. He should be attracted to Audrey. He couldn’t be a child forever, couldn’t let the detritus of childhood define who he was as a man. One’s desires should not be for cartoons. You’ll end up like those gray-skinned men Dave used to see at comic-book shows, back when he was still into baseball cards, hunched over a table, almost whispering as they asked the Wonder Woman artist to sketch her topless. We might be the first generation, Dave thought, for whom fantasy is more real than reality, whose collective memory is readily available on tape and disc. We are surrounded by that which we should have outgrown. How was he to stand against this tide.

“I just...you have such nice eyes.” Stronger than he intended. Too formal, almost. Audrey reflexively lowered her eyes. Dave took another step into the light. Audrey let the glasses dangle, holding them by one temple.

“Dave!” said Avery from the kitchen. “Dave! Where the fuck are you?”

© 2006 Gardner Linn