The Vanishing Half(41)

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FROM THE BEGINNING, Reese Carter had thought about the end.

Like when he’d first arrived in Los Angeles—homeless, shorn like a baby lamb, already imagining himself leaving a city that would certainly destroy him. Or when he first saw Jude Winston at a Halloween party, a party that he’d only attended because a boy he spotted for at the gym invited him and he thought, hell, why not. She was standing alone, fidgeting with her skirt, dark as anything he’d ever seen and pretty enough that he felt like a heavy hand was pinning him to that couch. Leave it alone, Reese. Easy now. He already knew how that would end, how she would leave him once she reached for his lap and only felt him pushing away.

In the beginning, he never thought about staying in Los Angeles. He’d only wanted to put as many miles between himself and El Dorado as possible. He would’ve kept going into the ocean, if he could. For weeks, he’d spent his nights touching men in dark alleys, sometimes using his mouth, which he hated, although those men were kinder after, more grateful. They pet his head and called him a pretty boy. He carried his father’s hunting knife as protection, and sometimes, glancing up at those heads thrown back against the wall, he imagined slicing their bobbing throats. Instead, he pocketed their crumpled bills and searched for shelter, sleeping on park benches or beneath freeway overpasses, which reminded him, strangely, of camping with his father. Sitting on a hollowed log, watching his daddy slice open a rabbit with a knife he told Reese to never touch. A knife handed down from his own father, a knife he would have passed on to his son, if he’d had one, which was why, when Reese left, he took it.

He met men to touch at nightclubs and bars, men who grabbed his hand as he passed through the crowds, men who foisted drinks toward him and begged him to dance. He never went to the same club twice, always terrified that someone might notice his smooth neck or small hands or the rolled-up sock in his underpants. Once, an angry white man in Westwood discovered his secret and gave him a black eye. He quickly learned the rules. To be honest about the past meant that he would be considered a liar. The only safety was in hiding.

The night he met Barry, he was dizzy with hunger, sipping on a whiskey soda and almost desperate enough to follow him home. But he’d never been with a man outside of the alleys; he felt safer there in the darkness. So he told Barry no, which was why he was surprised when, later that night, Barry grabbed his arm and asked if he wanted dinner. Reese shook himself free, startled.

“I fucking said no—”

“I know what you said,” Barry told him. “I’m asking if you want food. You look hungry. There’s a spot right there.”

He was pointing to a late-night diner a block away. The neon sign washed the concrete in purple and blue light. Barry ordered pecan pie, and Reese ate two cheeseburgers and a basket of fries so quickly that he almost choked. He would have to pay for the meal somehow, or maybe not, he thought, feeling the knife in his pocket. Barry watched him, trailing his fork through the whipped cream.

“How old are you?” he said.

Reese wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then, feeling uncivilized, reached for the napkin dispenser.

“Eighteen,” he said, although he wouldn’t be for two more months.

“Lord.” Barry laughed. “You a baby, you know that? I got students as old as you.”

He was a teacher, he said, which was maybe why he’d decided to be kind. In another life, Reese might have been one of his students, not some boy he picked up in a nightclub. But Reese never finished high school, which he didn’t regret at first, not until he fell in love with a smart girl. School seemed like just another way she would eventually leave him behind.

“So where’d you come from?” Barry said. “Seems like everybody in this city’s from somewhere else.”

“Arkansas.”

“Long way, cowboy. What you doin all the way out here?”

He shrugged, dipping his fries into a puddle of ketchup. “Startin over.”

“You got people out here?”

Reese shook his head. Barry lit a cigarette. His fingers were lovely and long.

“You need people,” he said. “Too big a city to be out here by yourself. You need a place to stay? Oh, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want nobody who don’t want me. I’m asking if you need a place to sleep. What, you too good for my couch?”

Reese didn’t know why he said yes. Maybe he was just sick of sleeping in abandoned buildings, stamping his feet to keep away the rats. Maybe he saw something in Barry that he trusted, or maybe he felt the knife banging against his thigh and knew that, if he had to, he could. Either way, he followed Barry home. When they stepped inside, he paused, glancing around at the wigs lining the countertops. Barry stiffened.

“It’s just a thing I do sometimes,” he said, but he touched a wig gingerly, looking so vulnerable that Reese turned away.

“I’m not what you think I am,” Reese said.

“You’re a transsexual,” Barry said. “I know exactly what you are.”

Reese had never heard the word before—he hadn’t even known that there was a word to describe him. He must have looked surprised because Barry laughed.

“I know plenty boys like you,” he said. He took a step closer, eyeing him. “Of course, they all got better haircuts. You do this yourself?”