Chapter 2

“Mr. Currey?”

The redhead took a step back, and turned, looked at Henry again and then disappeared into the main store.

Henry closed his eyes as he inhaled, exhaled. He smelled the new guy: mint-scented soap, Tea Tree Tingle Shampoo, Old Spice shaving cream and deodorant, desire—the sharp, acrid smell of fear.

Smells, scents, odors. Henry had been thirteen when he had first started to smell the emotions of those around him. At first, it had been just the slightest scents, as if carried by a breeze from far away. It had taken him a long while before he could match scent to emotion. At times he had felt almost overwhelmed in a tangle of sensory input; the worst had been when one of his foster parents had taken him to a revival meeting, and it was so bad, he had run screaming from the church. They had called Social Services to come get him that afternoon.

The doctor said nothing was wrong with the boy, except maybe stress, and being overly sensitive. Henry’s next foster parents were more understanding and let him wear a bandana over his mouth and nose, until he sorted through the scents, the feelings, and how to tune them out, learned how to not-smell. Thankfully, they didn’t take him to any church revival meetings.

Now Henry could smell when he wanted to, or not-smell. Fear was sharp, pungent, layered. Anger, burning and dark, hot, sometimes cold. Cold anger was the worst. Desire, sweet, strong. Only recently had Henry developed the ability to detect the distinctive scents of more subtle emotions—despair, melancholy, and anxiety.

* * * *

James George Currey

For one intense, intense moment, Jamey couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move. He was consumed with desire. That guy in the Garden Center: dark, dark black hair, thick, streaked with silver. Medium build, medium height. Pointed ears, tufted with black hair. When Jamey closed his eyes and then looked again the ears were completely normal, no points, no extra hair. He heard the manager call his name, her voice sounding distant and far away, and he turned to leave and follow her, but he stopped in the doorway to look back. The desire was still there. The second time it was even harder to turn away and follow after her, but he did; he had to.

Jamey needed this job. The money his mother had given him after his father had kicked him out of the house, spewing Bible verses as he threw stuff in his car—what Jamey called his “maternal severance package”—was about to run out, and although neither his friend Charley nor Charley’s roommate had said anything, Jamey was pretty sure the offer to sleep on the couch wasn’t good indefinitely.

“That’s—I always forget his name. Harvey. Horace, Harry. Henry. Henry Thorn,” Carlene said. “You’ll meet everybody after training. Anyhow, this way, kitchen cabinets, special orders…”

Jamey decided not to mention that he’d seen pointed ears on this Henry Thorn. He had always seen things that no one else did as long as he could remember. His mother had told him stories about baby Jamey telling her he was seeing moving lights in the trees, and how he’d cried because no one would believe him. Everybody had laughed and told him they were fireflies or car lights—no, no, they were as big as my hand—so Jamey decided that some of the things he saw were secrets because nobody else ever saw them. Or would admit it; he wondered now about his grandfather and his mother’s brother—and sometimes his mother. The green man and the green lady in the woods, the silver lady in the lake and the goat-footed horned man: all secrets. Optical illusions and an overactive imagination, his mother said.

He had never told anyone about flying. It had been September, he had been six and the teacher had sent him to the lower playground, out of sight of the school, to fetch left-behind equipment. Jamey stood for a moment at the top of the green hill, looking down at the empty playground. He had started running and running and the wind had caught him or he had caught the wind and for one supreme minute, he was airborne. It had happened only twice more that fall, on the lower playground, the last time in a swirl of leaves.

Nor had he ever told anyone about the other, older memory of walking through a wall. He had been at the back door and then he found himself outside in the backyard. His mother had spanked him and yelled at him for lying.

Jamey wondered if his mother still told baby Jamey stories. He hadn’t seen or heard from anyone in his family since the end of summer school, other than the seemingly endless anti-gay tracts his mother kept mailing him: the weird little cartoons, like Doom Town, Sin City, and The Gay Blade, and endless photocopies of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and the rest. It had been hard at first to throw them into the recycling bin. He had been too scared to try going home to Fredericksburg. He had called his little sister and brother but his dad had caught them, and blocked the phone number. Charley had then offered to let Jamey use his cell phone but Jamey had been afraid to touch it. Using a pay phone now seemed like a luxury. If he didn’t get this job…Pay attention to what this woman is saying, Jamey. Pay attention,he told himself.