Chapter 5

“You heard her, right?” he asked.

How could he not? CJ nodded, and Richard

kissed him just behind his ear. His lover’s lips were damp along

his flushed skin. “Okay,” Richard whispered. Another kiss, and he

added, “Love you.”

On his way to the bus stop, CJ hunches his

shoulders and glares at the large windows of the apartment office

as he passes. He should get on the board just for spite but he

knows someone’s watching him and he doesn’t want to get Richard

into trouble. It’s his name on the lease, after all, not CJ’s. He

only moved in shortly after they started dating.

At the stop, he sets the skateboard down and

steps onto it. He’s out of the apartments, they can’t say anything

now. Looking up and down the street, he shuffles a bit on the

board, just enough to move it an inch or two in either direction.

The cars zoom past, the faces through the windshields blank and

unseeing. A police car slows as it drives by, the cop inside

staring hard at CJ. Keep driving,CJ prays. He has to meet

Richard for lunch—he can’t afford a shakedown right now. The last

time he got stopped was at the mall in a bulky Army coat with his

board under his arm. The way the policemen approached, he could’ve

been on America’s Most Wantedor something. Wasn’t this sort

of crap supposed to stop when he grew up? I’m doing nothing

wrong, just keep on going.

CJ thinks Mr. NYPD Blue willstop,

just ease out of the flow of traffic and pull up along the curb,

roll down his passenger side window, lean over the seats and call

out, “Hey kid.” But the light is green and he keeps moving, thank

God. And right behind him comes the bus, its brakes wheezing to a

stop. CJ jumps off the skateboard and steps on the back to flip it

up to him while he digs in his pocket for change. The bus driver

gives him a look that he’s all too familiar with, one he’s learned

to ignore. It’s his short hair, spiked and dyed an unnatural shade

of burgundy that’s too dark against his pale skin. It’s his layers

of clothes, flannel shirt and baggy pants. It’s the chain that

hangs from a belt loop on the front of his pants to his wallet

crammed into his back pocket. But mostly it’s the board. People see

it and suddenly he’s not human anymore.

“Hello,” he says. He doesn’t expect a

response and surprise, doesn’t get one. He’s used to it by now. His

quarters plink off the other change in the fare box with a hollow,

metallic sound.

There are only two other people on the bus,

old women who huddle together in the seat right behind the driver.

They watch him pass with wide, distrustful eyes, their painted lips

wrinkled into tight frowns. CJ smiles at them anyway and takes a

seat in the back. His skateboard goes on the floor, his feet

planted firmly on it to keep it from getting away from him. Hands

crammed into the pockets of his jacket, he buries himself in his

hood and stares out the window.

The bus pulls away from the curb slowly, as

if it’d rather have left him to wait for the next one

* * * *

At 12:23 the bus pulls to a stop in front of

the Chester Meadows shopping center. The only “meadow” anywhere

near the place is the empty stretch of land beside the parking lot,

overgrown with weeds that come to CJ’s knees. Among the straggly

grass, mounds of yellow dirt stick up like tiny islands and thick

tread marks crisscross the field where some of the older kids go

dirt biking after dark. From his seat on the bus, CJ can see the

concrete pipe like the mouth of a cave in the shade of Harrison’s

grocery, but no one’s riding over the cracked surface. Maybe he’s

early. He hopes to get in some good moves on his board before

Richard shows up.

Retrieving his skateboard, he heads to the

front of the bus. As he starts down the steps, though, people are

already pushing on and he stands back to let them pass. The first

onboard is a young woman about Richard’s age, late twenties, with a

baby in her hands—she glares at CJ and clutches the baby closer as

if afraid he’s going to snatch it from her. What the hell would he

do with it? The man in a suit behind her turns his back to CJ as he

digs into his wallet for his bus pass, like he doesn’t want anyone

to see what else he might have in there. Then a couple of girls

from the college climb on amid giggles, their gazes like

butterflies fluttering around CJ and never quite landing on him,

never really seeinghim.