Page 66 of A Fabulously Unfabulous Summer for Henry Milch

“Did she ever catch you with drugs? When you were a teenager?”

“Once. Yeah.”

“And she turned you in to the police?”

“No. I was fourteen, though. And it was just pot.”

I wondered what he was doing. It felt like he was throwing his own mother under a bus. I mean, he said she wouldn’t have killed Hessel, but it didn’t feel like he meant it. So, had she killed him? Or did he just want me to think she had?

“What do you guys do for fun around here?” I asked.

They looked at me like I just asked where they hid the human-skin wearing cannibals. Honestly, I’d wondered about that for a long time. Fun, I mean.

“What? It’s a pretty normal question.”

“We go tubing,” Carl offered. “That’s fun.”

“On the Beckett River.”

I flinched a little. The guy who’d tried to kill me was a Beckett. And so was the guy he’d killed. For that matter, so was I. Which didn’t mean I enjoyed hearing about more Becketts. Even geographical ones.

“It’s almost twenty miles long. You stick your butt into a giant tire tube, drop a six pack into the water, and float away. By the time you reach the end the six pack is gone.”

“How do you get back?”

“We leave cars at both ends.”

“You get a lot of DUIs?”

“Not yet.

“Or should I say: Tubing While Intoxicated.”

“Ha-ha.”

“When’s the next time you’re going?” I asked. I was not trying to invite myself along. Really. It was just the polite thing to ask.

“I probably won’t go this summer,” Opal said. “I got pretty scalded last year.”

“You need a coffee,” Carl said. “Let me get it.”

He didn’t ask for her order, so he must have known her regular. The moment he was gone, I asked her, “So, you weren’t clear before. Did you fuck him?”

“It’s not like that.”

I waited.

“We tried to do it once when we were seventeen, but it was a nonstarter.”

“You said he’s bi?” I asked, dubiously. I mean, her story didn’t strike me as very bi. Sure, she wasn’t Jennifer Aniston, but teenage boys were hardly picky. Believe me, I know. When I was thirteen, I had a deep and meaningful relationship with a standard-sized pillow. And no, I am not a pillow-sexual.

“Yes, he’s bi,” she whispered. “And keep your voice down. You don’t need to tell everyone in Wyandot County.”

I decided it was probably best to let her think what she wanted to think. And who knows, maybe she was right. My gaydar was set to Kinsey-6. Bi guys, curious guys—they just confused me.

“You guys have been friends since then?”

“Yes, we’re very close.”