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    Salvation Boys
    Salvation Boys
    Salvation Boys
    Ebook247 pages3 hours

    Salvation Boys

    By Kyler Doss

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    About this ebook

    The high school boys in these stories get very involved with the boys they meet - and come up against the problem of love. But the problem is never love itself - 1) how do you meet; 2) if there's a dance; 3) the rumors that wash over the landscape. From the West Coast of the USA to an American school overseas, it all adds up to four dramas for these main characters: Neil, Alan, Micah, and Tim.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKyler Doss
    Release dateApr 27, 2022
    ISBN9781938181283
    Salvation Boys
    Author

    Kyler Doss

    Kyler Doss has got a pocketful of chocolate milk receipts from the bus depots he has gone through. His note on the reverse side of one of the receipts: Arizona rules. A graduate of the University of Arizona, Kyler writes fiction that is set in a lot of places - the coming-of-age stories boys in love would recognize on any map you can google or unfold.

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      Book preview

      Salvation Boys - Kyler Doss

      Neil Intense

      Chapter 1

      -

      THE RESTAURANT sits on the two-lane highway outside of town, across the road from a restaurant that sells hot dogs. I don't really like working at Larry's because Josephine, the manager, is such a lousy version of a human being, but I do it for the kid who told me his name was Larry.

      I did ask some people at school if they knew of a Larry almost my height and with hair that was a light color, which I shouldn't have said because it sounded suspicious. Like his hair color would mean something to me. I don't know, maybe it does.

      Anyway, they wanted to know why I wanted to find him. I didn't want to tell them that, so I stopped asking around for a while. But I did say it out loud when I would visit the pond and imagine those conversations.

      Because I don't see how I can live without him. Yeah, I kind of surprised myself with that. On paper, I'm not supposed to be anything like the lonesome boy I have turned into.

      In some of the real conversations about finding the kid who said his name was Larry, I would tell people that we were assigned to work on some school project together and all I knew was what the assistant principal told me about Larry's appearance. Then they wanted to know about the project and I made up something about a school safety committee, which may or may not exist. It was a lame cover story. Finally I let the whole thing drop and I only got one or two follow-up questions on how things were coming along with the safety committee. Great, I told them.

      Josephine tells me she has a job for me to do tonight, something she wants me and Geoffrey to take care of, I don't know what. Geoffrey also works at the cafe but he's been here longer than me. The word came down from the owner that this was something he wanted done, and that was all I needed to hear. It puts me in the frame of mind that whatever it is, I am doing it for the kid I got out of the pond. I will do anything in his name even if it's really somebody else's name.

      -

      I CARRY a gallon of blue paint, no lid, across the road.

      Geoffrey carries the other gallon, also blue. What about the white line? he says, because he wants to slop paint on it like a child.

      There's no horsing around, I say.

      To me, this is serious business. I'm doing it for the kid that I cannot seem to find. It's a sign of his role in my life. I'm not saying this will bring him around, I'm just saying I have to do something, like I have to go through with this. Nothing else has worked and school is almost over.

      You don't really cross the road that much in the daytime, what with the highway traffic, but at night it doesn't seem that wide and you just walk across in a matter of seconds even when you're carrying paint, which is kind of heavy.

      We don't walk very smoothly, way off balance like we are. Our shoes scuff the hard dirt, then we reach the concrete that fronts the entrance to Sylvia's Hot Dogs, the place on the other side of the road from Larry's. The moon and stars that light us up also make Geoffrey look lost.

      Neil? he says.

      I walk closer to the glass panes, which are angled. A good 20 feet above us, they lean toward the road. The letters, red with yellow trim, are only shades of gray right now. The blue paint I hurl across the lower ones is only another shade of gray.

      Geoffrey also misses most of the letters but gets a lot of glass. He jumps back. We'll find out later how much of the paint we got on ourselves. I slap his shoulder.

      Let's go, I say.

      A car is coming from the east, high beams on. I can see now how much of the paint Geoffrey took. He looks like the canvas for a bad work of art, bucket in hand. I can only hope the driver is paying attention to the road.

      He saw us, Geoffrey says.

      No, he didn't.

      This is what Josephine wanted, an attack on the rival cafe. We got some paint on their front window and maybe we got some of the letters, too. I am not sure if it was a success or not.

      Me and Geoffrey cross over the highway and stash the buckets in the shed out back of our own cafe. That's what Josephine told us to do when we were done.

      I'm glad it's over with and now we're walking away from the shed, away from all this proof of how dumb we are. It's dark when we finally get well to the north of the highway, lost in the desert scrub, but we have walked it a million times before.

      Geoffrey takes out his flashlight. He saw us, he says. I know he did.

      What if he did?

      He could squeal on us.

      You have to know how to talk to Geoffrey. Are you gonna get a new battery for that thing?

      We walk in silence. You can see better if you aren't yakking all the time. I'm not thinking that much about what we did because everything just feels like I'm going through the motions.

      Geoffrey finally stops trying to shake the last rays out of the flashlight. How come we done that? he says.

      Larry said so.

      Really?

      Geoffrey knows I'm lying and so do I. Alright, I say, Josephine said so.

      But she got it from Larry, right?

      Yeah, of course.

      I live about a mile north of the highway. Always did ever since I was born. Geoffrey, he wasn't born here but he started kindergarten here.

      I don't wanna get in trouble, he says.

      He's the same age as me. Every day, we ride the big yellow bus that takes us to high school, where the school year is still going because of the snow last winter.

      You're not gonna get in trouble, I say. Then I think about the blue footprints that probably go straight to that shed. What size shoe do you wear?

      She said do it, right?

      Josephine would throw us under the bus, that's for sure. She would never admit to telling us to do it. Besides, I did it for my own reasons, not hers.

      If a car was coming out of the east, then they would most likely stop at Larry's for burgers. The cars coming out of the west would find it easier just to pull in at Sylvia's for hot dogs but Josephine wants them to cross the center line, a left turn that's either legal or illegal. I'm not sure which. Anyway, that was the idea behind our crime.

      Me and Geoffrey work at Larry's Burgers Deluxe for minimum wage. Josephine is the boss. I've never seen Larry. Nobody has ever seen Larry.

      Rumor has it he wears a white suit, a white shirt, and a white tie. I don't know if that's true or not. Sometimes I change it in my head and he's wearing all yellow, including yellow shoes.

      What? I say, because I remember that Geoffrey asked me something or other.

      It's gonna be alright, he says, isn't it?

      If you call 30 years of hard time alright.

      Geoffrey squeaks like a mouse. Neil, you're scaring me.

      Don't wear those shoes to school.

      Geoffrey is pretty gullible but there I was throwing blue paint on their windows mainly because Josephine said so. Come to think of it, me and Geoffrey were off the clock. We aren't even getting paid for our crime.

      The only one who stands to gain is the owner, if he exists. I'm doing 30 years of hard time in the state prison so he can sell a few hamburgers. It hardly seems right.

      These are not the planted fields before us now. Out here, we're only growing tumbleweeds and things like that. Speaking of which, one of them rolls across our path.

      You finish your homework? I say.

      Not yet.

      Me neither.

      I'm supposed to write a paper about something exciting that happened to me. All I can think of is throwing blue paint on a restaurant window for the great cause of trying to mess up their business. Like an idiot, that's probably what I'm going to write because nothing else comes to mind.

      What's your paper gonna be? Geoffrey says. He's in the same class.

      Okay, whatever you do, I say, don't write about this.

      What do you take me for?

      Because I'm gonna write it.

      I can sort of see him looking at me, no matter how dark it is. If I know Geoffrey, he is squinting like a bright morning has caught him without sunglasses.

      He taps my shoulder. Do you think that's a good idea? he says.

      No, I think it's an incredibly stupid idea.

      Geoffrey never questions what I do. He should but he doesn't.

      Nine and a half, he says.

      I know what he means. That's kind of how our conversations go.

      I wear a 10 and a half, I say.

      I think Geoffrey is looking down at his shoes. He almost stumbles when we enter the riverbed, which is as dry as it can get.

      I won't write about it, he says.

      Good.

      You can tell he wants to know if I really intend to do it. It would be easy because it's fresh in my mind. Besides, I have to get something on paper by morning.

      Distant Horizons Trailer Park comes up after we clear the riverbed. This is where I go right and Geoffrey goes left.

      See you in the morning, he says. He gives me a wave but this is not how Geoffrey says goodnight.

      I know him better than that. What? I say.

      I'm scared.

      You did it for Larry.

      But I never met Larry.

      I look at the Milky Way because I figure that's what movie stars would do. Nobody ever met Larry, I say.

      That's what he wanted to hear. He lowers that wave from the night sky and his face is easier to see now.

      I'll write about that time, he says, when you almost drowned in Shepherd's Pond.

      That ain't true.

      I can't write about what we done tonight, he says.

      I have only told him a little bit about last November, which is what he's talking about. He thinks I was alone.

      Yeah, I say, write about the pond.

      Shepherd's Pond takes many forms, depending on the season. I can't believe we're still in school in July but I guess it's only the 1st of the month. They're giving us the Fourth off.

      The lights are on when I get home. We've got a real nice double-wide. The air-conditioning runs all night long.

      Somebody made me a sandwich, either my mother or my father. They both make them good. I'll be able to figure it out once I take off the wrapper.

      I don't have any brothers or sisters. It would be fun to have them, I imagine, but I don't. Geoffrey has two older sisters who graduated from our high school. In fact, they have long since left this place. I think one of them got married and I think the other is a hairstylist or something.

      I've got my Reuben sandwich about halfway gone by the time my essay is half written. If only the assignment turns out as good as the sandwich. My father is the one who made the sandwich because the Reuben is his specialty.

      I'm writing my exciting thing that happened to me like it's this big deal. In it, Larry the restaurant owner is this larger-than-life figure. I mean, it's pretty true when you think about it. None of us have ever seen him. And Josephine talks about him like he's some kind of I don't know what.

      The way the paper ends up, it's not as stupid as you thought it was gonna be. I didn't give up me and Geoffrey. There's this kingdom by the sea that I write about and we are throwing hot oil down from the ramparts in order to save the life of the secret prince, the one no one ever sees. We turn back the assault and we receive word from the prince that our efforts have been appreciated.

      If the teacher asks if this really happened to me, I'm gonna say, Yeah, before I moved here. Everybody knows I never moved here but the teacher is pretty nice to me. I think she'll let it slide.

      I'm kind of anxious to read Geoffrey's, too. I meet him in the morning at the place where the bus picks us up. He's got his wraparound sunglasses on because the sun is already blaring at us like a saxophone. This is not a place of easy climate, like that kingdom by the sea is.

      Geoffrey is flapping his paper around. What did you write? he says.

      Hot oil and ramparts.

      I don't think he knows what I mean but I can't see his eyes squint.

      Do you want to see what I did? he says.

      Give it to me.

      Yeah, I want to see it. I hand him my own paper and go to work on this thing he has come up with about Shepherd's Pond.

      Chapter 2

      -

      SHEPHERD'S POND, when it has water in it, is no more than neck deep. Of course, when we were kids I guess it was over our head. But this story Geoffrey's telling about how he heroically swam out there and repeatedly dove to rescue me, that didn't happen.

      Still, I hope he gets a good grade. Very good, I say.

      Do you remember?

      Yeah, I do.

      He points at a line in my paper. Did they do this?

      I look to see what he's pointing at. Yeah, I say, they even used molten lead.

      Give me a break.

      I've got things on my mind, plus I am keeping an eye out for the bus. One thing on my mind is who is gonna be at the fireworks. They are having them at Shepherd's Pond like always. Basically, everybody goes. I wonder if that kid will be there, the one who calls himself Larry.

      The show is put on every year by Ted's Hardware. I know it isn't that good compared to some of the other ones you hear about on TV but everybody likes it. I'm looking forward to it.

      The other thing I'm worried about is getting caught for the paint. I can almost hear myself confessing that I did it because of the kid. Like I want the world to know that. It's as if I want them to know who is important to me.

      The bus pulls off to the side of the road to pick us up. I always let Geoffrey go first. When he climbs up there, I get a look at his shoes covered in blue paint.

      Oh man, I say.

      I should have known better than to let Geoffrey select his own shoes for the morning. I'm talking to myself because he's busy saying hello to the driver.

      Frank has been driving us since we were little kids and he's got nicknames for us. When I climb in, he salutes me. How's by you, Stretch?

      Morning, Frank.

      I hustle Geoffrey into a seat near the front and put him next to the window, which is where I normally sit.

      He gives me a look right through his glasses. But you like the window, he says.

      Sit down.

      He does. I don't mind.

      We get settled in and I'm pretty sure nobody is any the wiser. I'll just try and act as normal as possible.

      Take off your shoes, I say.

      What for? He looks at them.

      I told you not to wear them.

      We are getting ample road noise, not to mention someone's music, to cover our conversation. Geoffrey figures out what he should have figured out before he left the house.

      Oops, he says.

      I'll put them in my backpack.

      What will I wear?

      I think about that for a minute. Are your gym shoes at school?

      These are my gym shoes.

      The scenery is going by. Maybe you can't really call it that but I know every mile by heart. It's flat and dry. There are some planted fields, plus a lot of worthless brush. Say what you want but it's home.

      We're coming to the next stop, I say.

      Geoffrey takes off his glasses. I know.

      Get off and run home.

      The other kids are shuffling on and Geoffrey is trying to pick his way through them against the flow. Frank is sure to notice.

      Hey there, Slim, we're a long ways from our destination.

      I forgot my lunch, Geoffrey says, a line he came up with on his own, though he almost always forgets his lunch.

      Well, buy it at school.

      I ain't got no money.

      I can float you a fiver.

      I'm there, too. Run, Geoffrey.

      He's gone out the door and Frank gives me a look, arms over the wheel. My money's good, he says.

      Do you know that kid once pulled me out of Shepherd's Pond?

      Frank gestures big with the palms of his hands facing the roof of the bus. Then you buy him lunch.

      Let's not embarrass him, Frank.

      He works the clutch and puts us in first gear. I start back toward my seat, everybody watching me as I do but nothing much on their faces. Those blue shoes could not be allowed to go walking around the halls of our school.

      My secret is not for anyone to know. What I did at the hot dog place, I did for Larry. That's what I keep telling myself. And of course I mean the kid. He's got to be out there somewhere. I tell myself that he knows what I did for him last night. Also, I admit that I'm a fool.

      Now I realize I've got Geoffrey's paper and he's got mine. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Just turn it in for him, I guess, and be happy if I don't have to do 30 years in prison.

      Chuck is sitting across the aisle from me. I could pay for his lunch, he says.

      It wasn't that.

      He leans against the window because no one is sitting with him. I understand, he says.

      The thing is, he probably does. I mean, he's a nice guy. I just hope he doesn't really understand.

      You finish your paper? I say.

      I told about the time I won the blue ribbon at the fair.

      Chuck is pretty proud of himself and he has a right to be. That pumpkin weighed several hundred pounds. I can't remember exactly.

      I remember that, I say.

      What did you write?

      It was about a castle and a siege, I say, but Geoffrey's got it in his backpack.

      Chuck dresses really nice. He's got a white shirt neatly pressed, an American flag pin on the collar.

      Wasn't it supposed to be about something real? he says.

      "If it wasn't for that molten lead, the kingdom would

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