Guilt

The cravings kept the boy awake. His active imagination was penetrated by his loneliness; his fantasies were infused with his loss. The light was out. Except for the occasional passing car, there was silence, stillness. His foster brothers were asleep on the other side of the room. They were invisible in the inky blackness. Milo couldn't even hear them breathing. He didn't care.

Each night when he lay sleepless, Milo recalled the time before, when his family was his family and not the random arrangement in which he had now been placed. First the memories were incidental, small moments from his early childhood that atrophied in his brain: comforting recollections that, as exhibits of the impossible past, paralyzed him. They--no matter by which circuitous path--inevitably invoked the night of the murder and the morning he had been taken away.

The murder? Did the boy believe the history they had told him, that his mother and father were both dead? When it is unthinkable that somebody--the object of one's affection--has been erased permanently from this world, the idea that such a person (or persons) was murdered leaves one reeling. To allow himself to accept the recent rumors that his father had killed his mother before taking his own life...this was impossible. Lying in this strange bed--his fifth night here--the boy, in his reverie, stumbled out of a family camping trip (his little sister giggling as she reeled in her first fish) back again to the events of last Saturday.

His parents had, in the past, been very hesitant to allow him to spend the night at other houses. Their objections were rehearsed and so familiar that he had given up on even asking for the better part of two years. But, now in middle school, Milo had made a new friend, Alex, who had wasted no time in extending a sleepover invitation. Milo liked this new kid and, having sat on the invitation for two full days (waiting for the right time), he blurted out the request in the midst of his family, stuck in traffic, on the way back from a special Lenten service at the church.

"Please, please, please." Milo had his seat belt off and was leaning forward between his parents in the front seat. "Can I please spend the night at Alex's house.

Milo had anticipated a silence, an awkward, flabbergasted silence that would, in the end, insist that he retract the question. Instead, without so much as looking over at his wife for consultation, without looking over at his son, Milo's father had responded to his question quickly, without even taking a breath. "Sure you can." (no pause) "Sit back in that seat."

His mother interrogated him later. She demanded the address, the phone number. Humiliation upon humiliation, she actually called Alex's parents with a list of questions that Milo thought were either invasive or absurd. "Do you allow pornography in your home?" she had asked, "Playboy is pornography. Do you have any pets that could be dangerous for a stranger in your home?" Milo sat on one of the stools lined up along the kitchenette, and--eating a bowl of Captain Crunch--tried to listen and make sense of the one-sided conversation, timing his bites of cereal so that he could continue to eavesdrop.

After that inquisition led to his mother's tentative approval of the plan, Milo called Alex immediately to tell him; he already knew, having spent the previous phone call listening to the whole bizarre dialogue. There was something impish in Alex that unnerved Milo, but it was also the thing that intrigued him. As Alex mocked his mother's thorough questioning, Milo blushed a little on her behalf. But he was so happy to have won a little taste of freedom that his mind couldn't focus on anything except the excitement, the anticipation of Saturday night.

For the next 48 hours, Milo was extra conscientious, working hard so as not to give his father (or mother) reason to renege on the contract. He did his chores without being reminded. He moved noiselessly through the rooms. He refused to play (or fight) with Lily. He was concerned that almost anything could result in a reversal: uttering some word that his mother did not approve of, or his father having one too many beers.

And Saturday arrived. Milo nervously waited for the inevitable, "No." But when Alex called him in the late afternoon to check in, Milo asked his mother if he could join Alex's family for dinner.

"How are you getting there?" She asked. And after he hesitated, she clarified her position, "Can your friend's mother pick you up? I am a bit busy."

Milo asked his friend, and nodded in reply to her question.

"Good," she said and returned her attention to the television. She was aimlessly flipping through channels, settling here and there like a fly.

Milo's mother was not a pretty woman. She was overweight with brittle black hair that was always unkempt. Lying in this foreign bed remembering her, Milo admitted the monster she was but fixed his attention on her green eyes. Framed by her tousled black hair, her ruddy red complexion, her eyes were piercing, jade arrowheads that conveyed both love and disappointment, frustration and apathy. Milo wondered why he remembered their good-bye that day so clearly.

"I'm going," Milo had been waiting for the car.

"Have fun," she said without looking up. But Milo looked back at her through the sliding glass door. She looked up and locked him in the sites of her eyes, "And don't get into any trouble." Milo nodded and, backpack over his shoulder, scurried down the drive-way to the waiting SUV.

Reflecting on that moment made the boy wonder why for the life of him he couldn't recall the last exchange he had with his father. To be honest, Milo could not remember seeing his father all of Saturday. This was impossible, but Milo could not place him; neither at the breakfast table nor in the garage tinkering on his apple green, 1977 Camaro. It began to seem like the last time he had seen his father alive his father was passed out in the recliner the night before, passed out and snoring when Milo, in his pajamas, had turned off the television to go to bed. "Hey, hey," his father had slurred, "Leave that on. I'm watching that." Milo clicked the power back on and handed his father the remote. His eyes were already closed again by the time Milo left the room.

"My mom and my dad are dead." The weight and permanence of the phrase lay heavy on him in the darkened room.

A week ago he had lain in another darkened room and worried what his parents would think if they knew what he had done. Lying next to the sleeping body of his friend Alex, Milo felt embarrassed, absurdly self-conscious, unnerved. Of course, Milo had masturbated before but he reflexively denied it when Alex asked. Alex showed him a hand towel from under his older brother's pillow, it was encrusted with dry, yellowish stains. "That's his cum rag," Alex had explained, and Milo, titillated inside but uncertain what to say, had only laughed.

Later, Alex shared with Milo a dozen or more pages from Penthouse. They were folded and worn, some of the photographs losing their erotic impact in the creases and tears. Milo had seen a few pictures of naked women once when visiting his teenage cousins but these photos were different: a man and a woman together, their gestures hinting at actual sex. Used to privation in his own clandestine forays into masturbation, Milo was, nevertheless, distressed to experience these sensations in the proximity of another person, especially his new friend.

The situation was diffused by Alex's mother calling the boys from upstairs. Like a mom in the movies, she had made the boys popcorn and root beer floats. Alex's father joined them later playing video games. Milo envied Alex. He compared his friend's parents with his own. He felt the claustrophobia of his own house begin to loosen, as if it was all going away...

That night, popcorn bowl emptied and tired of video games, the boys went to Alex's bedroom, stripped down to their briefs and climbed into the full-sized bed. Milo had brought pajamas but, when his host slid between the worn NFL sheets, he followed his lead.

"The light!" Alex directed, and Milo pulled the sheets back quickly and, self-consciously, walked over to the switch. Almost simultaneously, a second or two behind, Alex clicked the switch on the lamp on the bed stand. As if the floor had turned to lava, Milo darted back to the bed to dive under the covers.

"What are you doing?" Milo stopped abruptly at his side of bed. Before him, Alex was laying with the covers pushed down to his waist. His bare chest bounced the white light back into Milo's eyes, and his right hand had landed under the elastic band.

"Beat off with me buddy." Alex's hand stopped moving but remained hidden from view. Milo was frozen. Someone in his head was telling him to leave, but that was impossible. Under the stretchy, white cotton of his white briefs, he was hardening. Seduced by the idea, Milo was experiencing an involuntary reaction. "You like the idea," Alex observed. Nervously, Milo got back in the bed. "Get closer to me," Alex instructed, "Let's press them together. Come here, closer."

When Alex's mother woke him up, Milo was confused. The room was still dark. There was urgency in her voice, a panic that startled him, that came into him like adrenaline and caffeine. As his eyes adjusted, Milo could make out two figures burning in the bright light of the hall. He was naked. He didn't notice. He scrambled into his clothes. As he pulled on his shoes, he looked over at Alex. He was still asleep.

"Hurry up, son," a masculine voice came out of the black outline of one of the officers.

"Do you have everything?" the red velvet of her maternal concern penetrated him.

The bright light of the hallway overwhelmed him. "What's happening?"

Another night, another bed, and Milo was impatient with the darkness. He still needed to know what had happened; he needed to understand. The silence was filling with superstition. He was choking on the fumes of his own ugly guilt.